Lit students 8 (your words are never your own)

In my land of compromise I lust over the antique and detest my self-referential politics.

You've read so many novels that you can easily exclaim "another one of those!" and feel pride in the ability to recognize banalities

yet banalities are what you live in and- possibly, with a tint of guilt- for.

disguise is about words

words are sounds.

*I say 'lit" because it looks like "tit" and I put both in my mouth

The safe distance of a language I cannot commandeer can turn the intelligible into something intelligent and back.

ambitious friend quote 1

"before you leave we need to get drunk with a bunch of strangers, just to stop taking ourselves too seriously"

To be seen is through disguise

There is an old Christmas picture of me pretending to be an angel.
I have no wings, no halo. There is a tiny notebook on top of my head; the notebook is connected to a red thread so that you can hang it around your neck. I hold it with both my hands, arms extended.

There is no way you can see I'm an angel.

six is my lucky number

1. To be seen is not about appearance in particular. It is rather a mode of existence. People like me have to find the way to be seen on their own. Our lives undocumented; our passions footnotes. I had to invent myself, but not in a way that you can write it down in your cv and get job offers. I studied lit so now I have the license to say I'm a fountain of blood while hiding a yawn; my work, if you like, is to trace the undocumented passions of others between the lines. For the documented ones, there are other people out there who can do the job better than me.

2. There is no compensation for the time I've spent to invent myself. This is part of the game.

3. I do not own "myself". All anxiety, success and passion - an amalgamation of what has been and will be projected on me: parental fears, intergenerational conflict, national past, hidden pleasure- unspoken or not, they're part of me.

I recollect lives I've never lived. This leads to:

4. Myself as several people. Assuming disguises runs in the family. I had my first lessons in the kitchen, doing the dishes, listening to poems being recited in a low chant; I was terrified and delighted upon seeing what wearing a mask can do to a familiar presence. Stories were told- not to please but to play. I learned from an early age that no story is real but can be equally or even more enjoyable. Stories involving guilt mark a long trace behind me which I cannot ignore.

5. There is no way to be seen fully.

CONFESS.

WHO ARE YOU, TRULY?

That will mean closure. You are not dead yet.

6. This condition (let's call it an interspace of passion) is not unique. This is why one can form allegiances. This is why one can communicate. I'm thankful for that.

to be seen is to make pramcat

The need for communication is strong again- my ambitious friend made another blog to shelter her reviews; with an innovative form, too. "What am I doing?" I thought. I dream of tattoos on my hands with references to writing but I don't write anymore. I've always been interested (and invested) to the private. I move past the thresshold of what is deemed acceptable to share. With friends, I overshare. People who care about me are anxious to tell me to preserve a public image, to keep myself safe.

I want to be exposed. I want to be seen. Myself and all the others within me deserve a space of expression. 

"Pramcat" is not a word. It's an incomplete anagram me and a friend came up with while chatting furiously online. It can mean "thing" or "things" in our idiolect. There are several kinds of things that can stand for pramcat but they're in a place in my mind I have not explored fully yet.