The Pictures On the Wall

I like them there. I do not often like to see things in front of me, that throw reminders at me. But the pictures I put on the walls to see, out of choice or obligation, are the links in my chain and they keep me tethered down, lest I should fly off like a balloon and forget my places.

I say places, there never really was just one to call my place. There are so many people and pictures and houses and memories, and feelings I ought to feel for all of them; but mostly I do not, and I kind of like it that way. I am ungrateful and often I am unhappy. I have a lot of faces and I jump into every open arm and rock myself to sleep with anyone who'll have me, provided they promise me everything will be alright. And what's funny is that I HATE alrights.

I haven't written any poems in a while; although yesterday would have been perfect for it. I threw up terribly next to a bus stop in York, under the most perfect night-sky I have seen in a while. The clouds folded themselves over the moon like a protective blanket; as if it was his night off but he couldn't quite give up the responsibility and kept peeking through them to see if they were doing everything right. The guarding the dark. If I were the moon I would also loathe to abandon my post.

So, being up in the Yorkshire countryside, visiting "family"; breaking damns and making myself angry; losing at trivial pursuit; being reminded of being 15. That is one of my places. I have at least 4 pictures on my wall that make that place.
There is Switzerland, and there is also here. There are a lot of people who are very important and they live in these places and make them. I change what I want from them all the time, and I change what I want from myself. What I want to want. Second-order volitions make me a wanton; the strongest of them make me go with the options that will make me want to be what I want to be at that moment. It keeps changing.

I am a rainy day girl. I am someone who often just doesn't care. I am someone who is so deeply selfish but who would pack up all of my house of cards, move it on just to save something. I am one awful contradiction.

Why do we put pictures up? Why is the camera one of the greatest things ever invented? It is, but I want to know why. We get many moments and people and places, I am not alone in struggling to put all of that in order. But I think cameras make us greedy, they make us lazy. They make us able to keep our lives on a wall and lock it in a frame; make us exhibit everything we've already had and the people we've known and places we've been.

As if that's enough for a life. As is next time we change our minds about everything and everyone, and about us we'll really rip them down, learn our lesson and start again with our collection. As if our photo album of feelings is really ours for the collecting.