paxislandsystem

By Zane

I take in hot ash to stand up
To sit down, to transfer off the toilet
Smoke creates a shroud in the space between my eyelids
All because I ate too fast

My life before, buried in soot in the past
Black ceiling, black memory, black comedy in this vindication
Blank walls in which you cannot stick thumbtacks
All because I hate too fast

My life before, buried in soot in the past
Uprooted by bonds formed from righteous indignation
My love, my hobbies, my passion and then my body collapsed
A soul trapped in a tomb of rubble and ash
Pushing against forces of stagnation

by carolynn, arden, zane, treeline

if I ever recover, I don't ever want to forget this experience. Right now, I've pushed myself so much and it's probably not helping that I'm typing this, but I have important things to
leave myself for later.

I am hearing my roommate practice the flute outside my room. Normally I'm unable to stand when people aren't good at music and I've always been so critical of myself for that,
but right now all I can think to myself is "It's so beautiful that she's learning"

the fact that we as a species are capable of creation is so wonderful and every second I'm deprived of it, the crippling angst of not being able to partake in art safely is replaced
by being thankful that I ever got to do it at all. Sometimes I'm so far away from accepting this disability, and on other days I'm grateful to feel the full spectrum of emotions when I can.

This world is so fucking hard on people like us. This is the kind of shit they hate to see.

I grew up not knowing what unconditional love was and oftentimes I still can't wrap my head around it because my brain so desperately wants to associate love with constant positivity,
and not dedication and hardship.

we live in a society that encourages us to be disconnected from our bodies. That's the one thing from MAST that stuck with me. We're encouraged to constantly collect more possessions,
to experience as many positive feelings as possible through all possible channels and senses. Societally, not that I claim to have coined this concept, we have forgotten how to be human
via the oversaturation of the human experience.

I've always felt the urge to look outward for connection and keep finding new people and art and that's why even though I've done everything I set out to do in the bay (play shows, have sex,
do drugs, make friends, make music, learn lessons, not in order of priority), I still haven't fully learned to settle with it. I never really consult myself because I'm afraid of my own
emotions.

I really want to talk to my roommate about Buddhism. Her worldview, based on what I know about it from her and other Buddhists I have talked to, seems to be really compatible with my current
needs at the moment. I think Luciferianism served to help me feel secure in my beliefs about the world as I knew it, but right now I am confronted with an entirely new world that will mostly
have to be spent experiencing what little is safe to experience in my energy envelope, instead of ruthlessly pushing forward and creating output.

We feel that maybe we defaulted to the usual habits of growing up in a christian society with that religious framework, and we often feel in our body and our past actions the urge to
run from old problems and make new ones elsewhere instead of fostering a long-term belonging. We were very self conscious of our role in gentrification when we moved to the bay,
but now we're able to accept our part in it and the colonial way we have been going about managing our problems on land that never belonged to us.