I thought I would feel like ‘enough’ when I finished my album, but then I finished it and it wasn’t good enough. I was proud of myself that I did it at all, and that I fought the good fight, but the quality and expression couldn’t measure up to what I heard in my head. The next one will be closer, I told myself. And this is the cycle with all of my work that I will continue for the rest of my life. The day my work is enough is the day I’ll stop working and then I will lay down like Yoda on his death bed, smile, and merge with the cosmos.
My life has been full of difficulties. I’ve had the kind of life where I lost everything through no fault of my own, fought for my life and survived, was driven to the bottom of the darkest parts of my psyche, got a taste of what it feels like to live for many years with absolutely nothing to lose and thus no fear, no shame and no sense of regret until I started building myself back up again. When asked about my personal difficulties, I could easily write a novel.
To sum it up, I was musically gifted at an extremely young age, basically a child prodigy, writing full songs by age 8 and selling songs to directors for shows by age 11. At that young age I wrote my first 400 page science fiction novel as well. I was performing, piano and vocals by age 13, and on my way to a Broadway career at 16 when I was afflicted with an illness that made me unable to walk, so confused I didn’t know who I was, couldn’t move, in so much pain I couldn’t swallow food, lost most of my hair, and lost my voice. I emerged after a while – about six months of immobility and another few years of intermittent disability. Many of my IQ points never recovered and I lost my voice forever; I now speak in a whisper. On top of that, my first boyfriend who was my hero during all of this, devoured my virginity and my innocence and ultimately broke my heart.
My entire life was spent working my hardest at school and music, only to have it all taken away. With my voice I lost my identity and sense of purpose. With my boyfriend I lost my faith in love. I started living life as a symbol of myself. I could no longer do music, and expressed myself through very intense photography in college.. nudes of myself covered in blood.
My outfits were extreme; what was left of my ruined scraggly hair that fell out from illness was dyed bright pink, and I was a vampire, sucking the innocent blood from beautiful men who loved me, hungry and thirsty for even a momentary taste of something pure, someone else looking at me with love, another artist looking at the world with wonder, another musician playing his heart out. I was on my knees for such childlike wonder and aimed to devour it as though I could recover but a modicum of my own dreams. Once I had sucked him dry and become the main focus of his attention I would toss him out and aim to devour the next innocent.
My creative outpour was extreme – I slept once every other night or every three nights, had no real schedule, though I always made it to class and aced everything – and constantly created; had no real friends, just outpoured photo after photo, and other projects, which were hung all around the school. Within months I was in charge of the photo department but was sneaking in through a window I propped open after hours, to blast Marilyn Manson and NIN and have all four enlargers to myself so I could super-impose dead cats over my naked body and exploit my losses and my rage. I had to take copious amounts of LSD and force myself to play piano in order to cry; the rest of the time I was angry, lusty, hungry, empty. My masochism was directed mostly at my body – I would starve myself and eat nothing but vegetables for weeks – not because I thought I was fat, but simply because I wanted to prove I had enough control to do it. Everything was about control, control, control.
I would work out alot, barely sleep, barely eat, make my body into a perfect sculpture and a symbol of my own pain, deprivation, loss and suffering. I took a lot of self portraits. I conducted experiments on myself, taking LSD and trapping myself in various scenarios (like on a mountain with nothing but a notebook, in my room but not allowed to use anything for expression except a keyboard that was being recorded)… to ‘see what would come out.’ My body was a vessel for self-expression and I had to force it to cater to my whims. My sex life included violence so extreme that I’d be full of cuts and blood and could not even shower because the water hurt my scratched up skin too much. I had an alternate name, Anäeia, which I called myself only in my photos, and it was my ‘vampire name.’ Short for “Annihilate.” Everyone knew me as a legend, because of the power of my work, but I hardly spent time with anybody, and prowled around the campus late at night with my giant headphones, my pink hair and long trench-coat making love to the wind. Anyone I spent real time with was either an artistic collaborator, a mind-game opponent, or ‘prey.’
I came out of that by spiraling even lower, into cycling through downers and opium and other things..until finally I hit rock bottom and drank half a bottle of acid. I saw the underside of hell and worse. Luckily I blacked out for about 8 hours of that trip. When I woke up, it took some time for me to have any idea who I was, and I had to build myself back up from scratch. My best friend & nemesis helped me by challenging me to do logic games and arts.. pushing me hard so I could remember who I was, and not just continue living as a shell of myself. After that, I cleaned up. No more drugs and wild sex and escapades. I wrote two complete novels and parts of others. Ultimately I became very focused on writing a fantasy novel and slowly started writing songs again, singing through my whisper. Somehow during all of this I managed to graduate from a great college with straight As.
After college I worked for a few years then moved to the city to front my own band, singing through my very undependable whisper, and building a healthy lifestyle around the aim of sustaining as much vocal capability as I possibly could. I wrote all the songs, arranged, auditioned the band members, played keyboard and sang, managed, promoted, did websites, ultimately produced the album. I also managed an apartment where roommates came and went, and invested lots of money into building rooms in the loft so my rent could be lower & I could focus on music. My life became full responsibility, living my dreams, chasing my childhood dreams at full force, and no interest in men or drugs.
Now my health has betrayed me again, and I was forced to move back upstate because my chronic illness did not take well to the city. My whispery singing voice evaded me again and my band fell apart through no fault of my own. But I am contentedly and calmly writing my book in a gorgeous location upstate, taking long walks, exercising, single, solitary and independent, and completely in love with life. None of my friends are local, and I am happy spending most of my day on my home planet in my novel.
As long as I feel like a human, an animal, and a symbol at once, I feel alive. I am being true to myself. Every shower is so carnal it’s spiritual; every motion connects my body with the cosmos; I am true to my instincts. I embrace my tumultuous emotions; they are fuel for my work and my purpose. My body is my canvas, my clothes are my paintbrush. Everything I own, wear, and do is an expression of self. I am a vessel through which music, art, stories and messages emerge.
This is always the case, regardless of my state of health. But just being me isn’t enough. I need to stand for something, to express something; my battle against the odds, my rise from the ashes. Even my dedication to expression in and of itself is something to stand for. Having something to express, a passion and a purpose which means something to me, gives me a sense that I am living rather than surviving. But regardless of the shape or meaning of my expression, strength comes from only one source: integrity. As long as I have my integrity I’m living; without it I am surviving. The loss of integrity is the only loss that is truly devastating. As long as my expression, my purpose, my existence, my friendships, and my choices are connected to my sense of integrity, I am whole. To me, integrity is, simply, being true to myself. The world can take my assets… my health, my work, my money, my hair, my friends… but if it wants to take my passion and integrity, it will have to kill me.
Soul-shaking, earth-shattering passion is something that grabs hold of you. It’s not something you can look for. When it grabs hold of you, there’s nothing in the world that isn’t worth doing to make it work. It’s no longer about pride, dignity, power, influence, control. All it is, is life. It comes along with the natural impetus to be more selfless; to be a better, bigger person. To grow beyond the capacity we thought ourselves capable.
No matter how unrealistic, illogical, nonsensical and impractical desire may be, a feeling like that is what living is about. It’s the difference between living and surviving. It’s worth hurting for, fighting for, yearning for, suffering for. The roller coaster ride of desire and obsessions is painful and can make a person want to shut down and regain control for the sake of sanity. But that would be surviving, not living. I will do everything in my power to embrace the dreams and challenges that bring me to life. Desire is insanity. Or perhaps it’s the least insane instinct of all.
Power is having the strength to overcome adversity. Building up influence, building skills, saving money to be autonomous; these can help inner strength to build through self-esteem that results from hard work and effort. But true power is within yourself. When all else falls apart for reasons beyond your control, power is having the strength to stand strong, stay true to yourself, hold on to your integrity, and triumph.
Power is resisting the urge to betray your integrity, become vengeful, angry, hostile and self-destructive, when life fucks you over. Power is keeping your eye on your goals and moving forward no matter what else happens. Power is trusting yourself. If you have your integrity, you will always have power.
Power is rising above the trials in your life to keep the dreams of your childhood in sight, even when the world has stripped you of everything else. No matter how out of reach your dreams may seem, there is always a path back to them, and that path is inside of you. As long as you remember how to find your dreams, you will have power.
Inner strength and fidelity to self is mastery of life. As long as you have that, you are an unstoppable force. You don’t have to scramble to ‘get power’ because you already have it, and nobody can take it away from you.
Style, to me, isn’t about flowery language, ‘the moves,’ and presentation. It’s about being true to yourself. Anyone who expresses something honest is bound to touch on something universal. Great art will not reveal the artist, but rather, will serve as a mirror to reveal the spectator to herself. The same goes for clothing, conversation, loving, or any action or expression. Animalism, humanism, and a unique voice exist inside every individual. If someone taps into her true self and explores her own potential, then her honest expression and communication will naturally have its own style, and her very existence may become a symbol in the eyes of others; as she may symbolize their own potential.
What some people might call ‘style’ I would call integrity. Integrity involves honesty as well as commitment. If a person is dedicated to her craft, she can express herself more honestly in the moment. For instance, if a musician puts in her “10,000 hours” practicing, then the minute she is moved to express her deep emotions, she can go to the piano, close her eyes, press the ‘record’ button and let the song write itself through her. If she rehearses a lot, then when she’s on stage, she can let herself go and trust the music to pour through her limbs as a numinous force that moves her on its own. If someone does something with such ease that her body is a vessel through which honesty is expressed, then she probably put a lot of time into honing that skill. In this manner, style develops from within.
Wrapping something up in an attempt at ‘style’ impedes communication. A lot of music, art, conversation, loving, or day to day expression is caked in makeup, bullshit and selling-points that mask the raw humanity that could otherwise be expressed. The most beautiful outfit looks dull on a person who doesn’t breathe its colors, and an eloquent political speech is made of dust if the politician has no past actions to back up his words. People use skimpy attempts at ‘style’ to compensate for a lack of hard work and self-awareness. This is the trap of ‘aiming for style’ that people fall into, rather than simply being. If someone is brave enough to define and pursue her passion and purpose, and puts blood, sweat and tears into her life and work, then even if she is a garbage woman she will automatically collect that garbage with style. But ironically, she who is concerned with style is unlikely to have much style at all.
Cats have more style than dogs because they aim to please no one.
I don’t use charm. Charm uses me. When I’m really into someone, I can’t stop my heart from throbbing and my cheeks from flushing. I’m suddenly self conscious in ways I never was before. I feel exposed. I’m stumbling all over myself and can’t think. All I want to do is crawl into his arms, or have wild animal sex, or know everything about him but I feel rude asking, so I putter around trying to think of something acceptable to say, and barely end up speaking at all. Some people find that helplessness adorable (like a wet mouse?), some find it oddly fascinating (like a bald peacock). If I manage to avoid conversing, I stare like a hungry tigress with my eye fixed upon the prey, studying his every nuance, seeking his tender and vulnerable spots, thirsting to pounce. The less words are involved, the more likely I am to seduce, because my body language and hunger speaks for itself, and yet makes no demands.
The rest of the time I’m comfortable in my own skin and don’t think to chase or please anyone; however I am genuinely compassionate and interested in listening to what someone has to say… if I’m not, I won’t talk to them beyond being cordial. So my honest interest in them, along with my openness and natural vigor, can seem anything from charming to clumsy. I need to practice if I am to learn how to wield my charm rather than let my curiosity, ardor, and moods wield me.
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.” -The Alchemist
I’ve always believed the best type of songs are written for one person, and the best performance is a conversation with one person. Even if the one person is not in the audience, or the song was originally written for someone else, I can’t help but imagine one person as I am singing. I drop to my knees on stage, I break into tears; I succumb to the music completely. Normally I cannot dance but on stage, the music moves me and my hips press against the keyboard, my body becomes fluid. I am always singing to one person in my mind, even if he is fictional.
When I want someone with all my heart, I become a vessel through which stories and songs emerge. I do this anyway, as a lifestyle, but when I’m turned on, in love, truly moved by another person, I don’t even need food anymore. All I can eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is my desire, my longing, the inspiration he gives me with his beauty, his mind, his words, his spirit. My art and writing and music has potential to send him a message; it is communication, and I imagine him reading it, hearing it, seeing it, knowing me. If it’s a new piece, the song is a conversation with him; it’s made of his essence; he is breathing into my keys, through my hands, singing through my voice. He is more than a goal or a chase; he is a force in the universe that I have locked in with. The trees have a pulse and the grass has veins. The clouds are made of diamonds that tumble around each other like lovers wrapping their limbs together. The wind has a taste and my feet have wings. Everything is alive. I cannot help but sing, write, create. Art and music is the same as breathing. There aren’t enough hours in a day to breathe in the smell of nature, pour out the musics and arts and words that run through my veins, dream of his touch and explore his mind. I’m changing, I’m growing, I’m expanding. At the same time I’m boiling down to one simple truth.
I love sex and I want it real. Since sex is communication between two people, I don’t go in with expectations. I let the dynamic develop on its own. I yearn to devour every corner of my lover’s mind, heart, and body, and for him to devour mine, until there is nothing left of us but sweat, nails, and thrusts, and we don’t know who is who anymore. The specific style can vary, depending on the dynamic between us.
During sex, I explore the dreams of my lover. I derive immense pleasure from sharing his fantasies, becoming part of them, taking them on as my own. I hunger to immerse myself in his deepest yearnings, and discover the most human, naked parts of his psyche as they play out in the bedroom. At best, I would be a vessel through which his passions emerge.
As for my own fantasies, I want no toys, BDSM rules, or roles. I yearn to fight for dominance, but be overpowered by raw strength; to succumb to the force of lust, limbs, and bare limbs. When I am completely overpowered, I feel truly vulnerable.. and there is nothing more invigorating.
I yearn to lose control, to forget all notions of power, to unravel myself in the throes of catharsis. But in order to do so, I need to know my lover is fully present, and would protect me at all costs. If he is half-hearted, I cannot trust him enough to lose myself entirely. At least a small part of me would remain on guard.
His hair is covering his sunglasses which are covering his eyes. He appears to be nursing a cigarette and a jack & coke but if we watch carefully he is replacing each repeatedly. His movements are so fluid we barely notice the cigarettes moving from pack to hand to mouth to ashtray. It just seems to rest in his mouth perpetually.
The conversation is pivoting and everyone at the table shifts position. Ruby remains still. Under his hair and sunglasses we can glean that he is not looking at anybody. He is not reacting. Everybody wonders whether he’s paying attention. We have all heard him recite a conversation word for word years after it occurred when we thought he wasn’t paying attention or was asleep. But we just don’t trust it. We have known from past experience that behind those dark glasses Ruby is present. Ruby is here, now. But he isn’t participating. For all of his silence his presence screams. He is thinking through a projector but his thoughts are made of emotions. There are no words.
There is some joking going on. Everyone cackles. Ruby doesn’t budge. Then a clever line. Under his hair Ruby’s lips dissolve into a grin. He is listening after all.
Realizing the reaction he has displayed, Ruby adjusts his position. He spreads his knees wide into a masculine territorial stance, claiming control, abandoning his previous distance and epicine posture.
He lights his next cigarette with enough deliberation to be noticed. Clearly he communicates angst. What did we say wrong? Is it that we managed to squeeze a grin out of him, or having too much fun while he is displeased? Ruby is not a man of many words but he is a man of many needs. His defense – what some refer to as his attitude – is “I don’t need anyone” “I don’t need anything.” And that stirs the silence.
But he is constantly filling needs. Smoking, drinking. Remaining still only to make a statement through the very shifting of his legs. Ruby doesn’t care. Ruby cares. Ruby doesn’t care. Ruby cares. Ruby is only at peace when he is doing something with his hands.
After the position shift he looks around the room. With his head still & hair down it’s hard to see his eyes shifting but I know he’s looking for something. I deliver. I can’t suggest a guitar. I can’t hand it to him. He will resist. “I don’t need this.” “I don’t need anything.” But his cigarettes are almost gone and his tension is almost cold. I know he needs it, and I know how to deliver it to him. I glance at the guitar on the wall behind him, subtly. Then I look away. Ruby doesn’t need to check for it. Now that I’ve looked in its direction, he remembers what is there, what he saw when he first walked in. He has everything memorized. With his back turned he knows what kind of guitar it is, what color, what type of strings, possibly what year it was made, and which rockstars have been most known for using that kind of guitar. He wants it, but he doesn’t want to make any requests. But the rest is up to him.
I resume conversation. I don’t trust Ruby to know what he needs but once he figures that out I can trust he will find a way to get it.
As we talk, he casually fakes oblivion, and unassumingly stands up, stretches, focuses on the guitar. His fingers are aching for it and my nerves are preparing. He might just noodle and practice scales. He might plug in and rip our hearts out. One never knows. But my heart is of no concern to me. If Ruby is satisfied momentarily – I will be at peace. I will have the chance to let my emotions wander. My emotions, my thoughts, my body language, will be in tune with the music but it will not be slavery. I will volunteer myself to the will of the music before it begins and as it moves me, controls and enslaves me, I will know that it’s a choice I made. I may feel I lack the power to unmake that choice at any time. I could leave the room, but that might hurt Ruby, confuse him. And I would never want to cause him any unnecessary confusion. But I know I have made the choice to let the music take me.
The only thing that enslaves me, erodes my will to refuse, captures me with force I can’t resist and never had the choice to resist, is Ruby’s body. His hair. His jeans. His lips. These enslave me, but the music allows me to abandon the idea of resistance. It offers a purpose, a focus for my vulnerability. A motion that everyone in the room shares. Ruby’s body has many women in a fix but at that moment, I was the only one in the room and it enslaved me, and I had to bear the brunt of its power alone.
Tell me something so I can release myself from this LIMBO.
Pervert me or cleanse me.
Erosia has locked the gates and will never let us back in
but you carry on as though one day everyone will be judged at the gates of Erosia
you uphold a standard of behaviour for everyone as though someone else’s manner will be absorbed into you and poison you or detract from your quest to make it back to a place that cast you out.
Erosia cast you out, Ruby.
Erosia cast you out because of what you did and who you were
And who you are.
You have not changed since Erosia cast you out except to pile on the traits that Erosia rejected
You do all the things Erosia cast you out for and you do them twice as hard, with vengeance and defiance
As though one day Erosia will see how well it worked for you and welcome you back in with all your bad behavior, your mistakes and your flaws.
But it doesn’t work that way Ruby.
Erosia will always be there for those who can love. In Erosia every day is Valentine’s Day. You are Ruby Valentine, you were like a prince there. You were more loved than anyone there.
Every day was your day to be loved and to love. But you could not love and you could not accept love so Erosia cast you out. The love of the people of Erosia had to go to someone or something that could give it back, that could appreciate it, that could grow with it and help it grow.
Love is not a commodity to vie for, or an accomplishment to praise yourself for, or a reward to collect and display on a shelf among other rewards, other items you have collected in the past. Love is not territory to conquer and love is not a conquest to keep you motivated. Maybe you think love was Love in Erosia, and out here in Dystopia, love is twisted. Love lost its meaning, or disintegrated. Love is corrupt and therefore you pursue it in the manner of seeking instant gratification, symbols of love, collections suggesting having been loved, conquests demonstrating your ability to win love… but it is not love you are displaying, earning and it is not love you are gaining. It is this thing we see all over Dystopia, this ideal nobody can reach. Those few of us who attain it are welcome in Erosia, but outside the gates of Erosia there are only seekers, conquerers, faithless objectifiers. But the problem is we all give in to it.
Don’t give in to it Ruby.
You don’t have to give in to it.
I am out here in Dystopia because I found myself unable to love in Erosia when you were not there to be loved. I found myself unable to accept love from other people like I did from you. Obviously I thought I could love and be loved but I was wrong.
Erosia cast me out because in my mind I embodied the idea, the concept of love, in your image. You, Ruby Valentine, were the figure, the external force, the bearer of all that I could understand of love. Without you I was unable to feel that within myself or to extract or share it with other people. But I realize now that perhaps I did not love you either. I wanted you to be the best you could be; I put your needs and desires before my own. I called this Love because it felt bigger and greater than I was. But the kind of love people feel in Erosia is even beyond that. It does not entail feeling rejected and disappointed by a loved one’s shortcomings.
Ruby – neither of us belong in Erosia. I used to believe that if we were together we would make it back to Erosia. We would heal and forgive one another and overcome everything. But now I wonder. If I loved you I might cry only for the emotion that stirs within me when we hug like I used to. I might cry because your guitar solo tears at the gut of my piano melody. Like I so often did in Erosia. But now I am crying because you are not here. You are not here because you don’t care about me enough to find ways to see me. You didn’t even see me for more than a few minutes when I came to see you. You walked away. I am crying because you don’t love me anymore. Because you are not the Ruby I remember or fell in love with, and I wonder if you ever were. I wonder if I fell in love with the best parts of myself that were magnified in your music and reflected in your image. I wonder if you – Ruby Valentine – were like a God to me. Music was the God that we both shared, and for so long we shared our music and brought one another’s – and the collective whole – of music to the divine levels that could be shared by our elevated consciousness and an entire elevated audience; the people of Erosia. But now it is not music I am lacking. Music pours forth from me but all of the music is inspired or driven by the lack of you, your love, your smile, your guitar solo. I have to pluck out the solos myself over a recorded track. You are not there with me. The music and lyrics beg for you Ruby.
And the force that runs through my body as the music spills out of my fingers is only divine because it fills the space that you left. I am filling that space in myself but I am crying because I wish it felt whole. I wish there were not a space fo fill; a riff needing a guitar solo, a picture needing another musician. I pick myself apart wondering why I need you. How I lost you. What I did wrong. Why you are not excited and yearning to see me like you used to. Why you treat me and your other friends like we are undeserving of your affection. You used to display affection towards all of your admirers and lovers. Now there is a standard no one can meet, and by pushing everyone away, you stay alone and you fail to meet that standard yourself.
But I am doing the same thing.
I am pushing everybody else away because they can’t measure up to you. Ruby Valentine. I push you away because you can’t measure up to my memory of you. I am at fault here and I expect you to fix it. I cry because you won’t change, but I am doing the same thing. That is why I cannot see you anymore. I can’t see you. I want to see you and be next to you or even watch you from afar – more than anything. But I seek you out and I see something else, something other than the Ruby I remember, and I feel disappointed. I can keep focusing on how you don’t measure up to the memory or no one else measures up to you, or I can remove myself and try to find out why I feel unsatisfied. I refuse to do what you are doing; to try to get back to Erosia when the only way to get back is to love where you are, and who you are, whatever and wherever that may be. But I am doing that anyway by trying to love you, or wishing you loved me. I am trying to regain something that I lost, or something that extracted me and rejected me. And I can’t anymore. I need to be here. In Dystopia. I can’t help wishing you were with me, but I know it’s an empty and self destructive wish because I feel the most distance between us when you are right next to me.
I want to see you more than I want anything in this world, and I know where to look for you, but it’s ‘fata morgana,’ a hopeless quest, because I never feel that you were fully there.
Please understand Ruby – I once loved you but now you have become a path, a symbol, a lost truth to obtain, a goal, a failure. I don’t want to objectify you anymore and I am going to try to stay away from you until I can fill that space myself and need you less.
My past letters have focused on you and us, but this letter is all about me, so I really don’t need to send it to you. It will not benefit you in any way. I just had to write it. This is where it ends. There may be more letters and feelings but I am redirecting them at myself rather than you, and that is why I address them to Ruby, not you.
