21 November 2009

double exposure on jade's birthday / narcissus as himself

this is under the manhattan bridge. that skyline belongs to manhattan, or to you, depending on how hopeful and optimistic you are when you gaze at it from across the way...have you ever seen the original Scarface? the city he gazes at through the window was modest. much more modest than reality, even...odd when someone chooses to present a fictionalized account of something and hasn't already gone off running with an extravagant version of it...anyhoozles, the people present at jade's birthday are of the utmost. they are seriously communal / proud, positive, popular types...and sitting on the grass in hoodie, i'd never heard so many Q trains rain over head and i thought every plane that droned over brooklyn had her on it, bound for...well, bound, and forever... it was july and kind of warm. a one-layer-day. at the time of the potluck and socializing and celebrating, i was thinking of the willyburg bridge and why he had ridden east instead of north, towards me...i was actually caught up with the idea of showing off my newest friend to people i had come to admire; something i never feel to do. my version of all that was, basically, an extravagant version of reality...trying to make the pieces fit so that when i looked at the skyline it glowed and i could swell and i could feel like, see, sometimes life is like the movies, and i am its protagonista! patience is a virtue...but ok, borjita, i see you-let's move baby...turns out photos can be mini movies, too...the skyline can be my backdrop (here / here)...the city still a canvas...the characters are players, unfortunately, but also friends and loved ones and bosses and run-ins...the seasons are chapters...and then, i am left with: the meta gaze...in general, me examining myself in some way just bougie enough to make me despise how much time i have for this luxurious thing we call introspection...and i save this expressionlessness for only myself because i know i can handle it and sometimes i try to make as blank a face as i can in the mirror to try to see who i REALLY am and i stare at myself silently in what i think is a 'deep' way but i end up scaring myself and KNOWING that i can never see myself as the world sees me...as evidenced every time you stand next to a friend in front of the mirror -- something is off, you think--"...that's not what he looked like, when i was looking at him..." and he turns to you like narcissus, cutting through the air with his jaw line, while he postures in the reflection of those rose-colored-glasses of yours...and he treats your face like a mirror until you finally verbalize that he doesn't need a mirror anymore: just eye contact...and then abruptly: FIN!...(se acabó la peli)...you sit there through the credits, cursing its reticence to give you exactly the type of fiction you go to the movies to see.

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