Diplomacy: an inner/personal battle

BRUCE WIEST

part 1: THE SHIT TALKER TALKS:
(the processor, naught.)

“COMPROMISER EVEN-KEELER LOUDMOUTH REGRETTER ENVY BITCH RELAY RACER SYSTEMS MAKER TERRITORY PISSER KEEPER HOLDER OWNER RELATIVIST MASCULINIST INDIVIDUALIST TERRITORY TREADER RUNNING FOR EVERYTHING I CAN GET FROM EVERYTHING YOU LITTLE FUCKER.1 GIVING COMPULSIVELY. GIVING HOW GIVING SHOULD. ACTING HOW ACTING SHOULD. SCOLDING. HOLDING UP A MASCULINIST ETHICAL SYSTEM THAT REQUIRES FINE LINES, RIGHTS WRONGS, AND CONSTANT ORDERING. TRAMPLING ETHICAL SYSTEM THEN RUNNING BACK TO REBUILD, TRAMPLING THEN REBUILDING. OMMITTED RELATIVISM AS SISSY SWAYBACK. TELLING MYSELF I’M A VICTIM OF NOT GETTING THE FANTASY THAT YOU TOOK FROM ME (BUT COULDN’T HAVE TAKEN FROM ME). KNOWING I’M NEGLECTING THE REALITY I DECIDED ON YESTERDAY. CREATING VICTIM DEN FOR MYSELF. NOT KNOWING WHEN TO RISE AGAINST AND FIX THE GOOD AND WHEN TO LEAVE AND LET LEAVE. I DO MEAN LEAVE. LUSTING CHANGE HATING CHANGE.TO BLAME YOU FOR NOT GIVING ME WHAT YOU NEVER HAD TO GIVE ME. FOR BEING SPOILED BABY OVER AND OVER. FOR FIGHTING FOR IDEALS AND DISMISSING THE EXPERIENCE BEFORE ME. FOR CREATING A FANTASY THAT I CANNOT LIVE WITH. DOUBLE BINDING MY MASCULINE FEMININE. SLICE THE BODY THE MIND THINKS IT WILL RETHINK. BODY IS A HAMBURGER. SHAPE ME SHIFT ME SHAME ME LIFT ME. I TOOK IT OFF. MASOCHISTIC MASS SASS SHITFACT YOU ARE SHITFACTORY FACTFACTORY MASS PRODUCE BLASPHEMY. MY SEXIST BLOOD HATES YOUR QUIET VOICE. MY FEAR HATES YOUR FEAR. MY SHAME SLOUCHES AGAINST YOUR BEAUTY. MY HABIT OF UNDERSTANDING MYSELF IN TERMS OF YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU. MY OTHERING OF MYSELF. MY DUTIFUL HABIT WHERE I ESTABLISH YOUR RIGHTNESS AND WRONGNESS IN MY MIND AND THEN CROSS IT OUT. THEN DO IT AGAIN. THEN CROSS IT OUT AGAIN.”

1 An unplanned portion of autoerotic s/m dialogue; myself to myself (for
Luce Irigiray)

part 4: SOME KIND OF DIPLOMACY.
UN-MENDED BATTLES IN PROGRESS.

while someone (but not only one) in lebanon is seized with stress because bombs and gunfire have been going off for days

my dog walks jerkily from the right to the left diving forward headfirst to flee the leash for safety because fireworks above bombard-showering blasts in irregular, casual timing dragging celebration out like a body on a rope it is 27 july on the cover of the new york times condoleezza rice looks almost emotional she has a stiff arm raised, bent at the elbow so that her hand’s backside lays stiffly against her forehead. a bastard sign for distress exhausted by the resolution to keep bombing?
i think for the first time that maybe she has a capacity for not-machine, maybe a small peep hole to emotion i think, if she broke down

her masculinity would land in a dull, fucking heavythud. a sound with no reverberation. i sit in one of two too-large upholstered chairs placed at each side of my stove so that the fabrics catch anything that splatters—greese splat, fish sauce splat, crotch splat, all splat—plus the dirty slick from underside my shoes if i step-ladder up on its arm to pull bottled cooking things down

my mother calls just 5 minutes after returning the dog home from the firework terror where she (dog) fled to the backest end of my apartment which burrows, front to back, away from sunlight and manages 20ft 2in of darkness out of 34ft 4in of narrow stretch

seconds on the phone with my mother and i’m wedged out of my newly contrived joy and pity no one except myself, for the feeling of excrutiating pain

at hearing my mother describe another scenario of her regret which often results from her (self-described) counter-intuitive error and stands as her explanation for her current bad situation she’s sure she would have prevented if she’d just acted on some sharply important first-impulse.

the very moments before she’s described this, I was light on my feet like the pavement was made of meringue and the air was buoyant or something

I was feeling especially good because I’d contrived joy very deliberately countering my own rage that came before the phone call, before the good feeling, before the dog was returned to safe zone. for the first 5 minutes of walking the dog

all i wanted was to yank the fucking leash so hard i could scare or shame my dog out of fear because I was burning in anger from just wanting my dog to stop fearing the fucking danger-less fireworks to stop shaking, yanking my arm forward, failing to shit when it was time for shitting—

her phone call fell just minutes after i’d managed to interrupt my volleying match with myself where i hated my dog then hated myself for hating my dog then shamed myself for all the things i could think of that i thought caused me to hate my dog until i managed to contrive the joy that i’m telling you, was thick and light all at the same time and seized up all the angermob, and that I’m telling you, talking to her wedged at

so the joy came because I constructed a bridge of words, hinged together like lover elbows I repeated to myself: I will not succumb to the gravity of gloom, I will not succumb to the gravity of gloom…

I get sick of needing these phrasings, sing song latches that pull me out of regular rages that I keep silent and private more often than not. and this may be the best way of dealing with a rage that falls alongside Lebanon bombings and Iraqi bombings and heat wave deaths, but nears these events only in time, and in no other ways. but maybe it isn’t. the conversation with my mother edges me near the dog rage feeling then thoughts of object-relations freudian cum chodorow theoretical explanations of my anger anger me more and I am put again in need of a diplomatic bridge, a sturdy span between my battles and joy I ended the conversation with my mother quickly, something like spitting on a candle flame. I leave a crack open for compassion to slip in and settle amongst my irritability with her. and I think of the meringue feeling.

part 3:
INNER DIPLOMACY
I AM MY OWN AUDIENCE &
I AM MY OWN PERFORMER

Q: How do i tear holes in the blanket?
(there can be no tears in the blanket, stupid)
A: (applause)
Q: how to applaud the current situation?
Q: how to applaud a matter of
accident?
Q: how to applaud the lovely?
Q: how does applause become violent?
Q: how does approval become violent?
Q: which is more violent? alienation or solicited
approval? A: (applause)
Q: who is more violent? the resigned
subordinate succumbing violence or the aggressor violenting? Q: is the first even
violence? A: (applause)
Q: how do you liquefy rightness? A: how do you welcome scared? A: (applause)
Q: how do I puncture lunatic? Q: how do i
deflate flattery? A: how do i succumb to
plunder?

part 22:
THE MOTIVATIONAL
SPEAKER ADDRESSES THE
GLUTTON:

10 Reasons Not To Date A Trickster:
10 Reasons to Love a Trickster Quickly:
1 there can never be enough of you for a
trickster to consume
2 you will become tragically defined, trapped between boundaries you didn’t know you’d formed; boundaries the trickster will tap dance across. you will think it feels good because a blowjob feels good, even in prison.
3 trickster plus a trickster equals...
4 I told you so fuckface

part 5: P.S. INSTRUCTIONS FOR AN INTENTION 

what do I have to say?
the other one isn’t better
the better bit the best
the best begins too many beginnings.
water my solitude
and put your dirty rag
under the over
then splendor-tie me
to the backs of my enemy.