Sacrificing Safety: Epilog: Sacrificing Sanity

Sacrificing Safety

Epilog: Sacrificing Sanity

Aeon Sage

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Sacrificing Safety

Epilog: Sacrificing Sanity

Copyright © 2013 by Aeon Sage.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-8691-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8693-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8692-1 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907969

iUniverse rev. date: 05/15/2013

Contents

Italian Soda For Breakfast

Mi Mundo Pequeño Para Ti

Sex, Drugs And The Ridiculous Rules We Make For Ourselves

Problems Of Conformity

Choosin’ The Best Lab Mouse For A House Pet

Bumper Stickers And The Holidays

Tasty

A+     

Deep Set

Stepping Into Their Shoes

Tear

Title?

Some Ideas That I Made Up In My Head Along The Way

Mismatched

An Intention’s Extension

Tacos And A Paper Tablecloth

The Fresh Mango Milkshake

A Midnight Stroll

Love Letters

Now Open 24/7

Twice Around The Block

Cryptogamies

Degrees

Bitch; A Verb; A Noun; A Pack Of Cigarettes To Share With A Friend

Fake Love

Sweat. Showered. Saved.

Invited To Violate

It’s Not The End. It May Never Be.

My Favorite F Word: Forgive

Dinosaurs

Insects And History

Family Vacations

Companion Stars

Triggers

In The Mean Time

Reel Tv

Occupy

Dirty Dishes

Clouds 9

Quetzalcoatl’s Big Strong Woman

The Interior Light

Addicted To A Smaller Stick

The Last Throb

Cuntfrontation

To Do List

For Two Whole Hours In Just One Day

Purpose

I Wish It Was As Simple As Blaming It All On The Celexa

Items

7 Steps

Bibliography

dedicated to my mother

who told me that i should write

to my sister

who gave me my first journal

and to my father

who shouldn’t read this book

because he wishes that i wouldn’t tell him

everything

ITALIAN SODA FOR

BREAKFAST

Into the frothy mix i plunge.

Its bubbles scratch past my tongue.

Its thick milk leaves a film on the roof of my mouth.

Pink fluffy cloud of sweet,

more sweet than the lemonade down south,

more sweet than a sugar beet,

the cherry syrup swirls and drips.

i slurp it up with my straw.

Then i beg my mom,

Can i have another?

MI MUNDO pequeño PARA TI

i began writing my forward half way through the writing of this book (if it can be called a book). That way i could remember my focus.

i hope that the following structured words (which i will refer to as a book) will be a psychedelic journey through how i have perceived my life.

i have refrained from using any proper names because perhaps some of it pertains to You. Perhaps one of my characters will remind You of someone You know, and You can put their name in place of the descriptive nickname that i’ve given.

Why do i wait to begin writing? Because my flashes of inspiration are infatuated and ephemeral. When i write, it is usually only a sentence or two. i have many journals, all of which i know by heart. When i feel inspired by something, i’ll turn to a page in one of my journals where i’ve written about that current topic of inspiration. Then i’ll insert my new sentences of stimuli, which are screaming inside of my brain.

Putting this book together has been a matter of juggling all of my journal entries back into order. Into an order of my life, not necessarily chronological, but into the best order for it to make sense to me. In doing so, i’ve noticed how many spaces need to be filled. This has taken some time and creativity. And i have just as long of a road ahead of me. i also have a collection of complete poems. This book includes segments of these poems inserted to where i believe they fit best to turn this creation into a story.

What a drug writing is! i love the euphoric high when i’m sure that i’m writing something that no one else has expressed so perfectly yet. The way it takes me back in time so severely that i can smell something i’ve only smelled one other time, 8 years ago. And this isn’t always a good thing. i get lost in the way writing makes me feel sometimes like i’m mentally ill, because my words aren’t fitting together, like they’re part of a jigsaw puzzle that i’m struggling to complete.

What i go through. i just want 1 person to know. Just like i’m sure a lot of other 1 persons just want 1 person to know. So i’m going to keep trying until i can be that just 1 person for someone. And with this book, i invite You to read about some of what i’ve gone through.

It’s important that everyone writes. Not for documentation, but for medication. Writing helps me to creep out of the sage and to turn to a new page of my life. My advice is simply this: write it down, it’ll sound cool.

My thoughts, i love all of them. Exactly how i think them. Exactly how i put them into words, onto paper. And exactly how they offend whom-the-fuck-ever. But sometimes i like the pages to be folded. Thoughts, pasts and mistakes hidden.

i’ve been told i can manipulate and intrigue minds, excite bodies and monopolize designs. Let’s hope that i do that for You as You read my words.

Please understand that, at times, this book will not make complete sense. i’m trying to design it into a surreal manuscript of a girl’s life, turning into a woman, trying to turn into a professional: a professional writer, a professional care-giver, a professional wife, a professional woman. And sometimes the transformations do not make sense.

Writing is not a skill that someone can teach. i wish that there were a computer program that i could attach to my brain so that it could record my thoughts. Because i think too fast to write it all down. i read somewhere that thoughts travel to the brain at a speed of 224 miles per hour. Maybe i wrote it down wrong, but that sounds too slow to me. What about to You?

Please excuse any changes in tense. But i do not feel that life is parallel. i feel it is more circular than parallel, moving backward from present to past, then jumping forward to future and in the meantime traveling everywhere in between. Such as with the aboriginal english term, Dreaming, referring to the mythic time that is the base of aboriginal culture, i feel that there is no such thing as linear order. All that is is now. Aborigines are not really concerned with time. Time, culture and nature are viewed as cyclical and changeless. Everything that was will come again. And as the wheel of my life turns, i notice this concept of cyclical time to be true for myself, a half Italian girl growing up in the predominantly Mormon state of Utah, while being raised by an atheist father and an agnostic mother.

i read somewhere that one of the main factors differentiating humans from other animals is the awareness of self. As You read this book You will notice that my awareness of self fluctuates from confidence to insecurity. This is an exemplification of the ebbs and flows of my mind’s neuropathways. And although i may lack consistency, i hope to make my story rhyme and cry and laugh and get disgusted and get exhausted and get relieved all at the same time.

i’m a person. A real one. A real & flesh & blood & freak-out & imperfect & obsessive & competitive & half Italian & boring & unqualified & lame & tuna fish & full of shit person. That is how i validate myself. Growing up half Italian has presented, for me, many attempts at trying to make focacia, and just fucking the focacia up every time i try. i represent just a modicum of all that i have been exposed. Many of these modicums are here in just that, particle form, to attempt to create me as a whole. The individual as a whole is what i fall in love with. Not with just characteristics, be it brown hair or blue hair, not with any particular skin tone, leg shape or toe nail length, not with certain idealisms, priorities or preferences. But all of it put together in each person equals a different whole sum than how it sums up in a different person. And the sums are what i fall in love with. And i am going to attempt to give You my bits and pieces, Mi mundo pequeño para Ti. And i invite You to sum it up how You want.

SEX, DRUGS AND THE

RIDICULOUS RULES WE

MAKE FOR OURSELVES

When i was 10 years old i decided i was going to be perfect. i constructed a perfect being: good posture, no nose picking, no farting in public, no wrinkles in the clothes, no stains on the front of the t-shirt, a sweet and steady and methodical voice while saying the perfect response to any question, while never asking questions myself.

I do not intend this as a book of advice. It is simply my story. And, please, take note that my story does not always go so well.

When i was 13 years old i decided to make some rules: never to fake-bake, never to smoke or drink alcohol or do drugs, never to drink soft drinks with phosphoric acid, and never to get pregnant.

When i was 16 years old i decided to plan on marrying my high school sweetheart right when we graduated, which seemed like the perfect plan, especially in the state of Utah.

When i was 19 years old… . i learned better.

My high school sweetheart gave me herpes simplex one. My college dorm neighbor gave me all the info on how to consciously obtain an eating disorder. Running naked through sprinklers gave me the giggles. A bong rip gave my arms the floaties. And nobody gave me an orgasm.

PROBLEMS OF

CONFORMITY

He told me i had kitty cat eyes. i lost my virginity wearing his mother’s dress, brown polyester with little fluorescent pink and yellow flowers. It was after church. And after losing my virginity, he went out into the TV room and fell asleep. It lasted 30 seconds. Did it really take that much out of him? Of course, we had been going out for 6 years. And we had waited all that time to have sex. i didn’t want to get pregnant. i was afraid to ask my mom to help me get on the pill. He and i didn’t put our two heads together and think to buy a box of condoms, and our school didn’t pass them out in health class. And Utah boys aren’t allowed to jerk off. They get called into their bishop’s office specifically to talk about how wrong it is.

So, during those 6 years, we found another way to get him off.

i felt dirty. as shit. it could have smelled of shit. the air. it’s not that he made me. i hope that’s not the point. i allowed him. sometimes i invited it. i hope that’s not the point.

i willingly allowed him to violate me in every way, shape, form. Anal sex, fingering and eating me, even while i was bleeding. Anything. As long as i bled every month. Fresh blood swept down, my exchange for new life. We violate our loved ones. We allow our loved ones to violate. i have been invitingly violated. It’s part of love.

i read somewhere that a hippopotamus will sometimes emit an oily red fluid from its gray flesh, making it look like it is sweating blood. Everyday after i showered, i’d rub cotton swabs drenched in rubbing alcohol over my entire body, every inch of skin, even down there. It stung. But i learned how to clean myself until i bled of cleanness. Like a hippopotamus sweating blood.

i was so confused and disgusted with myself. i developed a nasty habit. Digging my fingernails into my scalp. Creating little scabs on the skin of my head. Hidden under my hair. And i’d pick these wounds open. If my lips were chapped i’d tear the dead skin off. Creating little scabs on my lips. And i’d pick these wounds open. i needed this as a way to release my internal humiliation. This still wasn’t enough.

So i joined the track team and ran as fast as i could everyday to let my mind run away from the mistakes that i let myself make with him. i ran so much that i stopped bleeding. i lost my monthly reassurance of who i was.

i once asked my mother if she knew who she was. She said she was still searching. And that made me feel better. But not completely.

Who am i? Am i pretty? Am i strong? Am i smart? Physically? Mentally? Am i admirable?

Am i Mormon? It’s a frequently asked question where i come from. There are 2 categories: Yes or no. Mormon or non mormon. Majority or minority. Good or bad. Pure or dirty. Mormonism is the cosmogony and cosmology with which i grew up. Utah is circumscribed by an organized derangement of rules. Follow them and you are among the celestial. No hot beverages, but cocoa is ok, but iced tea is not. Because no caffeine, but if you need a healthy vice, choose mountain dew to be addicted to. And obviously drugs and cigarettes and alcohol are out of the question.

i got punched in the stomach by one of my girlfriends when i was 9 years old. i had just taken The Lord’s name in vain. Before that sinful moment she had asked, Will you need to wear your new glasses all of the time? i thought i’d only need to wear them for reading. So i answered her with, No. Thank God. And she punched me in the stomach. i didn’t understand what i had said wrong. i mean, i was thanking him. Through influencing experiences such as this, i have become an iconoclastic figure to the vast world which surrounds me.

However overflowing i was with deference, every time i accompanied a friend to church i always felt guilty, not worthy of being there. i could not bring myself to venerate the traditions of the parents of my friends.

Thank God for my family, a social cultural model, expecting and rewarding behaviors that outsiders might view as abnormal. i’d come home from church and they’d help me make fun of what was taught, making fun of the majority.

My father is an atheist, biologist, environmentalist, realist, and not the healthiest individual. Maybe growing up with an atheist as a father would leave a lot of room for a free mind. But i lack a lot of knowledge on the subject of religion. Plus, all fathers have opinions: Find something you love to do and focus on succeeding in that field. It’s simple. He did it just fine. His offspring should be able to do the same. "Human beings are populating planet earth too quickly and earth’s