Blazeface

I would do anything for you.
Steal the moon, walk for days
Lose my friends and lose my ways
and we will see it through.
I would do anything for you,
you know that's true.

I will risk my life time and time again,
I will walk into the fire and not burn.
Peculiar, but the fire knows a friend
I'll smile and exhale and not return.
I would do anything for you,
you know that's true.

But you're not you.
You're not true.
And I am not in love anymore.
Therein, I think, the fatal flaw.
You're not you.
You're not true.
And through a fire I'd walk through
if you weren't new.

2012 Wrap-Up

Hoo, boy.

I honestly don't know how I'm going to do this post. I was thinking about compartmentalizing the year. That seems like a good way to do it, so perhaps we'll give that a go.

Relationships! They're a thing. I broke up with Pat, the first person I've ever been in love with and truly made a go of it. We've had long stretches of time where we don't talk to one another, and then we fall back into one another's lives and mess everything up, and it repeats ad nauseum. I can't bring myself to stop, though, because I still love him. That's no secret. I'm still in love with him and I'll probably subject myself to a lot of asshole-ish behaviour because of that, but that's been the running theme of this year so I'm okay with it.

God, this post is really boring already. Come on Jason, slog through it, it matters to future you.

Still on the subject of relationships, I'm in several at the moment. I've come to terms with the fact that you can feel love for a human being and not want to put it in them, and I've come to terms with the fact that not putting it in somebody immediately does not mean that you cannot love them. That's two big things for me out of this year - redefining love and what it means to me. I've embraced poly ideals and ideas, and I've started to work out what works for me in the field of romance and romantic needs, and I'm starting to have those needs met. Not bad for a twenty year old, really, especially considering that I'm such a mess a lot of the time. Anyway, to Ruth, Ollie, Isabelle, Sally, Tim, and Sav (though obviously Sav's in a slightly different catagory), you have my love, my gratitude and my deepest respect for this year. Ditto Jen and Brans, for very different reasons (you know why I need you).

Theatrical things! I was a tech person for Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth, and I really enjoyed that. Met a lot of really cool first years, did some neat things with Dog's Breakfast with Ollie, and then I was the Fool in Wyrd Sisters, further cementing my love of the Monash Shakespeare Company. I'm the Treasurer of that company at the moment but I don't know if that's going to last because I don't think my mental health is suitable to that job - it's a lot of very difficult work and the theatrical world is a difficult one, especially when balancing multiple projects. On that note, this year with the help of many dear friends I launched Melbourne Masquerade, my theatre and role-playing organization, and in a few weeks that company is about to undergo some heavy administrative changes. I'm really nervous about them, but I created an awesome thing and I'm going to see that it goes places, so I'm feeling very passionate about our little theatrical baby. Theatre is something that I intend of doing less of next year. It drains me more than I would care to admit, and I think my priorities are shifting slightly.

What can I say about Vampire that isn't already ingrained irrevocably into my soul and into the words of this blog? This year I was part of building (a very important part of building) a creative world that I proceeded to immerse myself in. It wasn't perfect, far from it, but it was beautiful and amazing and educational and very fucking fun, and although there are hundreds of things I would do differently were I to have the chance again, those six months were one of the best things in my life and I'll never forget them. Special shout-out to Jacobson, Alfie, and Bacchus. You did your best, lads, and I understand.

I'm not going to do a whole paragraph, but I'm going to take a sentence or two to acknowledge that I am completely indebted to Savannah for everything that she has done and will do, just as I know she is bound to me for the same. I love you more than words can describe, dear, and this year in Melbourne with you has been something to remember.

Family matters! My mother abandoned me and cut off all support because I suspect she's off her medication, so that's something. I am no longer welcome to call the family that raised me, and I've had to come up with ways to contact my siblings that circumvent my mother as apparently the very mention of me sends her into a rage. I will never forgive the woman for abandoning me during a crucial time in my life, mental illness or no, and as far as I am concerned, her behaviour coupled with my father's behaviour over the years means that I have no family. I spent Christmas with Ollie's parents and it was wonderful beyond words, and showed me just how fucked my family dynamic is. Having said that my dad came around unexpectedly (from Canberra no less) to see me yesterday before the year ended, and he left behind nearly two hundred dollars and a big bag of...fun stuff, so my feelings towards him are a little bit more complex and conflicted. I'm very proud of my brother for dealing with what I consider to be an extremely difficult set of circumstances, and I'm very proud of my sisters for beginning that hellish road to adulthood this year. I love them all, but it's just too toxic for me there.

On that note, toxic things! I had a HIV scare this year, which wasn't great. I ran out of money, decided to try unofficial escort work and got sexually assaulted, which is worse. I self-harmed once or twice, I still have incredible difficulty sleeping, my social anxiety is growing and the anti-depressants I have been prescribed do very little to stabilize me. I'm self-medicating like nobody's business and I can't really remember the last time I was sober for a noticeable stretch of time. I write these words sober, but I'm going to change that as soon as I'm finished this post. In some ways that may make me weak. I think I have a perception of myself as a weak person who can be goaded into doing great things. I'm okay with that. It beats the blind arrogance of previous years. I passed uni with distinction and I have no fear that I will be able to survive whatever is thrown my way. Happiness is out of reach for the moment, but a narcotic haze isn't, and I'm staying safe until I can battle these demons.

I haven't given many specifics in this post, and for that I apologize. I'm sure Future Me would love to see specific events recorded, like memorable evenings on the balcony, or drunken unexpected kissing with a close friend, or dancing in a club where nobody knows your name. But I'm not going to be able to give myself specifics, because I'm in a frenetic mindset. I'm young - I'm so, so young. I'm twenty years of age and I have a tiny bit of disposable income to spend on fun things. I live in Melbourne, I have a roommate that loves me and a social circle that is varied and ever-shifting. I gotta look foward to my third year of uni (!) and perhaps a little bit of self-destruction and rebirth, because I don't have to be the strongest or the smartest or the best, I just have to be alive and hale and hearty, and I will be those things.

My name is Jason Drake, and here and now I am alive. Happy New Year to you all, and I hope that 2013 brings you joy.

New Year's Resolutions
Karate
Dance
Therapy
Role-playing
Love

.

This was written for me by Glittercunt from tumblr. 

To start a poem so many times, because your muse is ever changing. To start a thought and stop mid way, because your heart is ever mending. To look forward at the darkness and yet still see light. To shoot yourself down but still feel comfortable. To wring your lovers neck and then kiss an enemy goodnight. To do, and to do nothing all at once. And it's only been a moment.

Eld.

tell me a story
a perilous story
of creatures from on high
winding streets without names
faces and places i don't understand

it isn't a real danger
we're far too elusive
either the enemy is in our heads
or we are untouchable
if the former, nothing can be done
and if the latter,
we strike with glad hearts.

the sound of rain
is something to seek
but for now we gather
around your fire
and i insist

tell me a story
or i'll wander out
into the storm.

first

the first I write
with an empty belly
gnawing with the most delicate care
at my innards
never too much, never too much
just enough to make me feel alive
and eventually cause me
to double over
and unfurl.

we double and unfurl
and nobody will know
if we unfurl renewed
or if, like ghastly shades
of our former selves
we'll shuffle back into line
and are gnawed again.

i would not wish that fate upon you.
my nose is full of water and salt
and the stillness of the night air
chokes
but i do not thirst
i will not thirst
and elsewhere i know
neither do you

at our very cores, we are slaked.

Healing

Up here in the still night air
and the cool
Solitude, yes, that's the rule -
I can open my third eye
if I dare
to try.

Hello there, the steady lights
of concrete jungle mocking me.
Hello again the moonless nights
the absent sun I'll never see.
Hello, hello;
you turn about
and then you nod and go below
towards the chamber where we sleep
because you know.

I take a breath for habit's sake
and then I clasp my body close.
Risk's a thirst - and hard to slake
the heady scent of fear
the foes are drawing near
and I am unprotected.

I will meet ire with love.
I will meet spite with grace.
And when they flay the flesh
from my undefended face
my third eye will be fresh
and it will see the sun
and I might leave this place
if death comes from above.

We should all be so lucky, really.

take

taking pills
watching Skins
and everything is just lovely,
really lovely.

it's quiet here
buried in the sound
and i'm doing alright, yeah,
i'm feelin' fine.

be careful
not to touch me
i don't want to feel
like you're here

Stumble

Why don't you
stumble
for a little while?

One foot goes in front of the other.
Nothing else matters.
One foot goes in front of the other.
Left, right?

Why don't you
crawl
for a little while?

Everything's hazy.
In this place
we're all part ash
so don't fear the things that burn.

Jericho

Hello.
My name is Jericho.
Children have it all, you know?
They reach out and they
just get to take it.
So I took it
after somebody took me.

I'm hungry.
I'm hungry all the time.
No matter how much I eat
how many I eat
I'm hungry.

I want to drown my hunger.
I'll take that.
I want to cook my brain into growing
Fire my blood into flowing
I want to be a real boy.

Hello.
My name is Jericho.
I'm fifty and a half years old.
Would you like to fuck me?
Tear open the skin on my neck
and latch on?
Leave me a shattered wreck.
I might come out of it alive.

There's an angel in the street
and he won't stop screaming.
Slap-happy
isn't here, but won't stop screaming
none of them will stop
and I just want to drown my hunger.

Hello.

I hope we're friends.

Ramblings

Giggle,
snort,
cavort.

I'm a little lost, but that's alright, isn't it? Something I've noticed that's pretty universal to humankind is this penchant to walk everywhere as if they know where they're going. The stride varies but there's always this sense of purpose that I find kind of baffling, this vibe of right, when I get there I'm going to do this, and when that's done that frees up the time to do this other thing, and I have it all figured out and when we don't have that drive behind us we fake it.

Nobody just ambles around and smiles at the world and takes their time with things unless they're drunk or high, so why not be drunk and high? Is that drive to stride around the place really so essential? It gets a lot done, sure...
Sure. No, I accept that.

But you're not going to find yourself miles from home arm in arm with a stranger like that, are you? You're not going to see the walls close in and close off your breathing, you're not going to hear the clouds sing, you're not going to smell something so sweet and so pure that it reduces you to your knees, you're not going to shout out loud for the hell of it, your body pushed to a limit, your mind reeling in a thousand different directions. Follow the programming and you'll receive the programmed reward. What if I were programmed wrong? Or subverted somehow? What if everybody was? This is probably circular stoner logic, and the messed up thing is I'm not even high.

Giggle,
snort,
cavort.

I really like those three words. We all just want to be happy. For me, for now, happiness is rolled up and smoked. It's nights where I don't have to dream about the times other people's programming made them do things they didn't want to do. It's nights where I don't have to think about where my programming is taking me. It's nights where I can look at the stars and realize that I'm completely lost, and the wonderful thing about being lost, right, the really wonderful thing is that nobody can fucking find you when you're lost.

It'd be nice to not be found and to find something there. That'd belong to me and it wouldn't be tainted by anything.

Giggle,
snort,
cavort.

I should probably sleep.

Dirt

You speak of flame and fire
and similar motifs
quite a lot.
I don't know if you'd noticed.

I mean, I find that odd.
An obsession, perhaps.
You've immersed yourself
in a melodious stream
and fire just seems to match it
torrential
is that what it is?

It's strange.
You're chemical.
Inhale, exhale
squirreled up small
as you swing one leg up in front of the other.

Surcease.
You're barring the way.
Immovable - except on your axis.
As you turn, the world unlocks
and you sprawl in the dirt.

You speak of flame and fire
and similar motifs
quite a lot
with a mouth full of dirt.

staggering

Stagger,

Stagger,

Stagger.

On and on and on.

The ants are picking pieces away.

On and on and on.

The ants are picking pieces away.

You're standing in the way of control.

You're standing in the way of your soul.

You're a pyramid of flesh

You're the building blocks of life

and you're stacked to the sun

that will burn you to death.

So spark up.

It dwells in the fibrous membranes

in the acid taste on your tongue

in the smog and sweat in your hair

in the air that you breathe

and the laughter that bubbles

up from the hellish crucible.

So spark up.

Stagger,

Stagger,

Stagger.

Ever onward, ever onward.

The ants are picking pieces away.

On and on and on.

You're burning out in the heat,

but you stack the building blocks of life higher

and higher

and higher

as kindling

and you burn upon your pyre.

Farewell Alexisonfire

I want to go to heaven.

There's something that I need to write about while the feelings are still fresh from it. I'm pretty delirious from pain and illness and general dazed-confused-Jason behavior, but I'm still going to do my best to set this down in words, so bear with me. Also, I'm aware I haven't done real-life posting in forever, but I have an end-of-year wrap up post planned for the end of December to sum up all of the things that I've done if I can possibly do that, so look forward to that.

Two days ago I went to hospital for bacterial tonsillitis  my throat nearly closed over and then I went to the MUST wrap party, which was nice. I danced with Jen and Jamila and Savannah and I didn't collapse and die despite the morphine, which was good - and then yesterday I had the farewell gig for Alexisonfire.

There is nothing but anger burning inside of me.

How to describe the feeling of going to that gig? At the time it was all so crisp, so pure, so vibrant and so right, you know? Like, there was every conceivable obstacle to me being there. I ran out of money, I didn't get a ticket until very late, I'd been in fucking hospital, I'd had everything thrown at me to prevent my attending, and yet there was no possible way that I would not be there. And yet...there was something subtly wrong about being there. Lining up with the alt-rocker twenty-somethings with their angry expressions and their band t-shirts, smoking cigarettes in the line and listening to people talking about other bands they like - it all felt kind of jarring, like I wasn't a part of that world anymore. I am - was - a faded disciple, returning to the temple that I had forsaken so many years ago. My relationship with the music had changed, but I was there to honor what it had done for me, what I owed it. The gig was a sad one for me, but also one that I had to attend. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing.

Your god is a two-door elevator.

And my relationship with the music has changed, that much I do know. When I was a kid of twelve, Alexisonfire was the first band I ever discovered for myself - just one track that found its way onto my stepsister's Itunes by mistake. She ignored it, but I stumbled upon it one night and I was instantly hooked. It spoke to me in a way that music has never spoken to me before or since - with a language of primal rage and eloquent destruction that is so ridiculously seductive to my personality that I was hopelessly enamored. In those early, formative years, I do not think I go too far to say that it kept me alive more than once, huddled in my caravan, hiding from my stepfather, shaking and cursing and muttering around a single speaker, a headphone, humming under my breath when I had to brave the house, singing at the top of my lungs out in the bush when it all got too much for me...

Oh, these hard-faced boys and soft-legged girls...

I got older and my relationship with the sound changed. They released a new album, which I loved and adored, but it wasn't the same. Actually, my relationship with the music during the later years reminds me a lot of my relationship with Isabelle - they make me feel alive, and they remind me of what it is like to feel overwhelmingly angry and powerful, and those two are remarkably similar things and yet still distinct. It also reminds me of Tim Newport for some reason - maybe because the band is Canadian and they started my infatuation with that kind of thing (by which I mean Canadian boys). Anyway, now I'm rambling.

Poor little tin man, still swinging his axe!

So I went to the gig. I was sick. I was miserable. I could barely stand. I passed out in the mosh. And yet it was absolutely, 100% the right thing to do. I acknowledged what the band had done for me, and what they do for me. I gave myself over to the crucible of their music yet again. The set that they played was actually kind of mediocre. The opening band was frankly terrible. Despite that, I made the right call. I felt the beast stir - weakly, oh so weakly, as a beast will grow when you stop feeding it everything that you have, but still it stirred - and I felt powerful in that moment, even as my body collapsed around me and the only band ever played their final song.

Wait up for me...

Strife.

So I slept all day today.

I got so high the other night and was up until 5am roleplaying with Ryan, and that was great and fun and social and normal. Then I woke up this morning, by which I mean four in the afternoon, and I called Centrelink, and then I swallowed my pride and called my parents. Got abused, left in limbo and told they’d get back to me. Get back to me - as if making sure their child has enough to eat is the secondary consideration next to the name that he called me the other week, you know what he’s like, controlling little bastard. So they’re letting me stew, and look at my bank account, and sweat. They know about the new medication. They know why I need it. They just don’t care.

Dad stepped up to the plate, of all people. Finally agreed to send me a hundred bucks. It’s something.

I feel like a ghost in my own house. The weather was unseasonably cold and windy, and the cat has been hiding under the bed. Nobody else has come in and out all day aside from Sav - a breath of life for a small instant - and then she left again and I was alone. I keep walking the track between bathroom and bedroom, and the same fucking song keeps playing because I can’t bring myself to change it, and I feel like a ghost.

I think the meds might be starting to work though, so there’s that. It might be too soon, it might be a placebo effect, but I feel numb, and that’s something I’m thankful for regardless of the source.

The sun will come out tomorrow and I will fix things.

feasting

feasting
on your wasted moments
you know i gave

feasting
on your atrophy
you wither

feasting
made of dust
crumble to dust

gleaming bone-white
pearly-strong

feasting
on your wasted moments
you didn't try

feasting
on your breath
your bone, your blood
your extinguished seconds

gleaming bone-white
pearly-strong
don't look at me

Lightning

Lightning lances down and thunder rumbles.
He betrays nothing
as the sound breaks around him
and the flash blinds him
and the smoke from his cigarette pours into his lungs
insidious
the chemical symbols for iron and sulfur 
and his body crackles
with the elemental energy
heart hammers
I have labored all day over these hellish flames
the beast is afraid
but the boy is awed
and the body is in check
and everything bubbles
tick tick tick tick.