Agent Lain's Thoughts...

A Confession for the Masses...

i have a confession to make...i love drama. those who know me well will attest to this. those who don't know, don't know what they're getting into. run while you can. please. ilove to be in love, but ilove to hate just as much. ilove to feel the extremes. frantic love, vigorous sorrow, terrible hatred and seemingly irreversible annoyance.

i believe in vulnerability. i believe in risks, failures, disappointments. someone told me i was an artist because of it. terribly passionate. unbelievably irrational most of the time. i'm the one with many dreams. i never stepped into a situations without seeing the infinite web of options...possibilities to come.

there's where my theory on fate and free will arise. everyone has a predestined web. an intricate lacework upon which our lives are based. every choice sends us blasting down another path...sends us teetering on the edge of madness, but we have no idea. well, most of us anyway.

everything from deciding between coffee and tea in the morning to paying in bills or change for your morning paper. who knows? if you had worn your new black sweater today instead of your white turtleneck, which you decided on last minute because it was too cold to wear the black sweater, the bus might have mistook you for a shadow and hit you head on. congratulations. you just escaped death...once again. it happens every minutes of everyday, ya know.
you should really stop taking the bus so early in the morning. the sun's not even out yet. your probability of being hit by a bus in the dark is much higher than that of when the sun's beaming down. your chances of being side-swiped might be the same, but, dare i say it, it's your own goddamn fault.

so, like a computer game eons ahead of its time, you walk one way instead of the other; you talk to him and not her; your ending changes. on your death bed you'll be quietly looking back on your life. me? on my death bed i'll be cursing myself. "i knew it. if i had only chosen the hot apple cider without whipped cream that day, i could have completely avoided lying here in agony with a tumor the size of a softball in my head.

october 4, 2001. 9:48pm. she ordered a hot caramel apple cider at starbucks, which led her to this tumor...or was it the medium rare steak i had on may 29, 2015 at 6:23pm at dinner with my brother. we hadn't seen each other in 6 months! of course i ordered it medium rare. that's the only way i eat steak. maybe i should have ordered the pasta. no, it must have been because my shower was 22 minutes on january 19, 2031 instead of the usual 17 minutes. oh well. it's over and done. now you're on your death bed.

do you regret anything? do you regret not having taken that extra minutes back in 2001 to kiss your lover again when you were watching the sunrise on the beach? how about not asking that girl to marry you? not running away with him when he asked you to. not running after her when she left crying. not listening to your mother. not giving your father a piece of your mind. not telling someone they were the most suffocatingly beautiful thing you've ever seen. not putting more faith in your siblings. cutting ties with your best friend from highschool. allowing yourself to float away from your soulmate.

on your death bed, you're alone. enjoy all this drama while it lasts. not so you can tell someone about it, but simply so you can hold it in your heart and lock it away as one less regret.

i am willing to be hurt. i am willing to hurt others, though i'm not particularly fond of it. as humans we strive on relations. being alone at times is good. getting to know yourself is good. realizing what surrounds you is good...but don't lock yourself away. let yourself feel everything. amplify.

so, now that you know that your life is already set out, a myriad of capillaries, what will you decide to do? what will you eat today? what will you wear tomorrow? who will you speak to in a month when you're waiting on line to get on the bus?...the loud, obnoxious girl with the chip on her shoulder or the beautiful girl standing and staring at the reflection of buses passing by.

jump in blindly. you may find something there. what's the use in living safely?...and we wonder why idols of danger enrapture us. if james bond drove a conservative sports sedan; wore sneakers; didn't drink; didn't jump out of planes, cars, trains and the like; considered boxer briefs a little risque; didn't talk to suspicious men and beautiful bombshells, do you think he would have that rebel mistique? no.

he'd be an L.L. bean model or, if he really lucked out, a nieman marcus model. he would spend his weekends watching t.v., playing with his dog and going to the movies with his equally boring girlfriend.
i'm not telling people to go out and kill people. no, not even if you do it with style. i'm simply telling you to experience life. no one does that anymore. don't try to find yourself. that comes in time. it's all excruciatingly relative. you in the scheme of things.

you are a puny nothing on this dinner plate called earth...or the universe...or everything. i don't know what the order was. all i know is those are the only things on the menu. maybe, if you're lucky, you may grow to become a mightly piece of vegetable. however, if you think you'll ever get to the status of main piece of meat, you're brain dead...or a log. take your pick.

excuse me for being cynical, love, but those childhood slogans like "you can be whatever you want to be" are wrong. superficial. materialistic. exterior-concious. as you claw your way along this way or that, what you want to find is something i can't put a name on. you're looking for something to fill you up. you want to overflow and continue to overflow.

how do i go about saying this gently. you're really blind if that's what you think will happen. you will never overflow at a constant rate. every tap will run dry at one point or another. do you get it yet? do you understand why i'm telling you to be irrational from time to time?

a passing moment of pure emotion is worth the struggle. people say they can't be that way. everyone can be that way. the question is, will you have a head full of regrets or a heart full of bittersweet, pungent, overbearing memories when you shake death's hand?

i don't support melodrama. i don't support unnecessary loudness. i don't support counselors. i don't support cole slaw. i don't support self-help groups. i don't support plastic-nosed, bleach-haired, tucked, tweaked, eccentric fashionistas. don't get me wrong. i support style. there is, however, more style in the individual who throws their clothes on, pulls their hair up and rushes out of the house. the key, to show a little bit of yourself. expose a little bit of your mind. your opinion. allow vulnerability.

i don't make many phone calls anymore and i like my short walks from the bus stop to my house. especially now...the leaves are turning. even in the dark, the leaves are bright. i'm stagnant. you see, i love walking alone, but all the time, i can't help but wish i was feeling something intense and blissfullly mindless...then, there it is. just like that, i look up. i feel waves. surges of inexplicable awe. i'm relative...in the scheme of things. i'm the microbe here. the sky, in bright blue blocks behind endless expanses of black telephone wire, cutting in like piano wire around my neck, barely letting out a whimper.

in the scheme of things...the scheme of things...things. not to sound cheesey in the slightest...i'm being honest when i say that these "things" billow life. they waft energy. they are all around you. no matter how much you say you are completely alone, these things are there to trip you up. to make you think. to lose yourself.

so, everything around us has the ability to engulf us. what are you doing sitting there? go. laugh. cry. collapse. confuse. give yourself away. live. i'm waiting to hear the excuses. i'm waiting to hear the "but's" and "what about's". cheap ways to get out of putting yourself out on a limb. coward. so many people are. so many people live their lives through other people's dramas. now, isn't that a little pathetic? why won't you just try?

do what you have to. just make sure you fall in. make your own drama. have your ever wondered how an emotional crescendo felt like? a decrescendo? put yourself in the position.

A Revelation for the Masses...

it makes no sense to me. twenty years of my life have passed me by. i always considered myself issue-free, the anti-problematic girl. the girl who wished she could bitch to her friends, but really never saw anything to bitch about.
tonite was different. every problem and every issue flooded my mind. left me less than chipper. emotionless, cold, tired and irritated. i have no right to complain. there are people out there with far more horrible problems. dysfunctionalities. who am i to say anything?

who am i to numb myself to my anxious nature and spill it to a friend? who am i to cry? let everyone else is the world cry and be released first. i don't remember how to cry anymore. i have nothing left to give myself, but my whole being awaits to give itself to everyone around me. a failure and disappointment when i can't divide my time to people evenly.

"i can't have coffee tonite. how about tomorrow night after classes?" - i'll me exhausted, but i'll listen. i'll guide you along. don't worry. don't panic. let's laugh together. you can watch me smoke lots of cigarettes.

he told me i was a servant to everyone. him, with his red-hair, paradoxically soft eyes and sense of self, told me to go find myself. i don't know who i am. a chameleon, changing with the season, the people, the outfit, the cigarette brand, the purpose. i want to make people see themselves for split seconds. i want to make them smile. he's right...and i sacrifice myself to mankind.

cry on my shoulder when you feel like your world is tumbling down. even if your problems aren't real. even if you're schizophrenic, i'll still be here to listen to you. nod when you need me to. order another coffee if you need one. make you feel important, because you are, you know. everyone is important.

where do i go from here? he says, "you're burning yourself out." but isn't it worth it? isn't lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of self-importance and lack of love for yourself worth it? i don't have time to love myself. i'm too busy loving everyone else. i'm too busy allocating my concern.

i don't want pity. i don't want someone to hold me and try to comfort me. in that gesture alone, i am lost. i am foreign to that kind of caring, especially if it's genuine. i don't want to need you. i want you to need me. i'm here for you, whoever you are...

i don't cry anymore because it sickens me. it sickens me to know that i am vulnerable to self-examination between sobs and choking. it sickens me that i cannot function when i cry. that i lay there, unmoved, and can only think. don't think. just act.

how many times have i put on that performance? cry for them so they feel loved. cry for them so they can cry too. cry. pretend to cry because you must have emotions somewhere. maybe one day you'll cry for real. maybe one day you won't have to force it to make someone else happy...but isn't that my purpose?

i'm losing it. i'm losing my ability to care. i'm losing the ability to love anyone. i've spread it too thin. i don't feel butterflies anymore. no fluttering. no falling.

is it wrong to want to be an asshole all the time now? is it wrong that i can't take this kind of crap anymore? you come out of a zoning fit. someone is touching you on the shoulder. someone is brushing your hair away from your face and all you feel is a domino of goosebumps. someone needs your attention. someone needs you to listen to them.

generally speaking, you accept the challenge. you try your hardest to help, but tonite is different. tonite you blow them off. tonite i blow you off. i don't want you to stare at me anymore. i don't want you to search my soul, because it's not there tonite.

your poetry doesn't do anything for me anymore. you aren't my savior, so get over it. you're not my hero. no one is. but i'm yours. i'm here to help you. can you believe that? and you say to me, "well, even heroes need to cry. go on and cry."

i can't do that for you. i can't even do that for myself. what makes you think i can do that for?

your hero is lonely tonite. i'm always lonely. sitting on this stage, realizing that the world is bustling around you and no one is stopping by. that, my love, is lonliness. did i mention that i love you?

how did i get these bruises on my fingers? phantom wounds pop up everytime i take a shower. soapy water runs down my back. some creeps over my shoulders, down my arms. my fingers sting and i can feel it and that is a comfort to me. this faint pain is real.

it's not like the fake smile i'll give you or the mounds of unnecessary sympathy. it's not the pity your asking for or the joke i crack to make you forget for that minute of tear-jerking laughter. beautiful reality is something we feel. gorgeous pain and sorrow.

reality is my asian eyes. dark brown. almost black. it's the second i wake up. eyes like pinholes. hair flat in one spot, sticking up in another. my mismatched pajamas and matching toothbrush. reality is me crying for a good reason in a diner booth with people watching.

how do you comfort a hero? how do you comfort the savior? i'm sure you know the savior knows all the techniques. why do you think the hero gets no satisfaction out of you trying? i already know where you're going with this. just stop and let me be.

your hero isn't heroic. your savior won't save you. i am not a beautiful creature. i yell when you piss me off, but not always. you know, half the time it's my fault or so i've been lead to believe.

it was when you touched my cheek. you though i was sleeping, but i wasn't. i guess you weren't busy proving yourself to me. the rain fell, the thunder boomed and i felt like i was in a drama series. that was when i felt loved. that was when i really felt needed, but not because you needed me. simply because you loved me.

then you said, "you gave so much and never asked for anything back." my love, you feel. you thought i was a giver. you thought i did everything out of the goodness of my own heart. it turns out you just read me the wrong way. i hoped tonite would be different, but it wasn't.

A Self-Observation for the Masses...

"sex is a strange thing," she thought to herself. sex, the word forbidden so many pears before...something that came along post-marriage. but no, not anymore. she was only twenty, but had several partners whom she discussed freely with her less than close aquaintances. they weren't even friends. sex, making love, fucking...whatever you wanted to call it.

she had a crazy notion at one point in her life that, somehow, having someone love you, even for a second of climax or a honeymoon hour post-coitus could replace her own self-love. she learned later that that wasn't the case.

her lovers came and went, but while the relationship was there, her attachments would grow complex. she was passionately jealous, terribly in awe of her partner and self-loathing. "you're so different," they would say. "so beautiful." it would feed her less than existent ego.

the tall dirty-blonde, 50's heartthrob; the shorter, stocky military boy; the lustful professor; the shy, assholic computer geek; the conservative jewish businessman who hated his wife and loved his kid. there were more. one of them once said, "you're too young to have this many stories." maybe. nah.

someone had once said that life was a series of falling in and out of love with people. so true. she knew she loved butterflies. she loved the feeling of falling for someone...having them need her...the feeling of breathlessness, teetering on the edge before diving in.

every man tasted different. they all went about her using different techniques. some were slow burning, grew on her like a cancer, and ate away at her sanity. she enjoyed brief bouts of the bizarre and surreal. she would spend nights in his room, staring at the long shadows on the cieling. listening to his music and steadying her head on his chest...listening to his heart beat...slowing down after he let out a long, dreamy sigh. "i love you, peach," he'd say.

"i love you too." and she did. she never lied about that...well, not back then. if that's what she felt between his sigh and her yawn, that's what she said. he, in particular, had won her over, but she was still naive. a glutton for punishment. in turn with her emotions, but not brave enough to voice them.

men pissed her off. she had met too many inconsiderate bastards, dealt with too many egotistical assholes, but always came back. such a fool. no, not a fool...just straight.

she admired the human form, both male and female, but males did it for her.

there was something about men...their animalistic tendencies that, when left alone in a room, were rarely held back. they way they could muster up the strength to hurl her on a bed when, during the everyday, they hardly had the strength to carry a shopping bag. it was cute to her that, when it public, things were shaved down to holding hands, hands on shoulders and glances of longing.

the door closes and suddenly you believe, somehow, you had fallen off the earth for years, fell out of the space-time continuum, and they wanted to make up for the billions of minutes they hadn't seen you.

she usually felt rather masculine in her ways. people always thought she had it all together. she was successful academically and her career was blooming. her mask of social mastery, glittering knowledge and strong, solid drive shown clear. a pillar of admiration...but when she fell into his arms, became the center of his lust and passion, the goddess he worshipped and feared, that was when she could let go. that was when she could cry, laugh, scream...relax.

occasionally, she played the bombshell, the gamine, the mystic being or the raging bitch who had better things to do, usually she played herself. nowadays, though, she wasn't sure who she was. she didn't know where she was going. men are drugs. men ease the pain.

they lay in awe. she lay waiting, hoping that she could see herself in their eyes. find herself in their desperate souls...to no avail. those hours began filling with doubt. dissatisfaction plagued the moments she had to herself. what had she become? this couldn't be normal.

millions of guy friends and two girlfriends. a hardful of female acquaintances. her brother told her, "you're not really a girl."

she wasn't. maybe. that's why she hardly hung out with girls, she gathered. they would only be something to show her how she wasn't feminine. pink eyeshadow doesn't make you anymore feminine than buying tampons...and some men have to buy tampons for their wives and girlfriends.

her girlfriends would bitch about boyfriends mistreating them, clothes they wanted, which celebrities were beautiful and what hair removal method worked best. she didn't have an interest. she'd nod, laugh when necessary and sip her less than frozen frappuccino. she found that the time she spent with her girlfriends could have been used to pluck her eyebrows or do her nails...feminizing rather than masculinizing herself by comparing herself to these girls...full-blown females. if they were chimps, they'd be pregnant, picking berries and gettin' laid. she would be castrating the burly leader chimp. go figure.

maybe she was an escape for these men. a being that could channel a man's feminine side. she's seen too many men cry; sob...go fetal, for christ's sake. she's cradled them, stroked their hair. alas, the mother-lover-confessor. the feminizer. so, where was she to go? the warrior she-chimp.

If you want to read more of Agent Lain's Thoughts...