Asuka Langley Sohryu

I woke up so full of anger - just for one day. Such a strange day.

I hated the world, I hated the people around me, I hated you, I hated me. I hated everything.

I couldn't stand the silly games people play, That i followed through with, that i on occassion initiated myself.

I hated the taste of retribution & power in my mouth - in my words. It felt no different to guilt or defeat. I hated those things too.

I resented being the show-pony, the little doll-puppet. Some cutsy boy, some sexy fuck. I didnt want to be an angel! I cant stand being your dirty little boy!

I held contempt towards those who told me my feelings werent true, that they had to be false. And i hated doubting my heart, the heart should never be in doubt.

Damn all those who betrayed me. Who srugged me of who took me for little more than a grain of salt.

I abhored all the evils of the world. The capitalist system. I resented the socialists for their faliures.

I felt exhausted by all this anger & resentment. But i persisted. I needed to feel this. For this moment atleast.

Spit in the face of those who love me. Bleed for those who envy me. Belittle those who need me. Silence to those who speak to me. Spite myself.

I hate the fact that i cry - i'm ment to be the strong one! The fearless puppet - always ready to jump into action. I hate having to help everyone. Always.

I hated everything.

Applaud death as the just punishment to life.

I hated it all so much.

I felt like Asuka in her hopeless attempts to fight the Angel of Birds. I can hear her screaming in my head, saying the same thing now she did then. Shroulded in the light of the angels, teeth clenched & body contorted. 'I'd rather die than admit defeat now!' I hated being so powerless to things around me, and yet I persist. I persist. Persist i must.

It all ended when Greg broke the tension. For the next few hours i unraveled in the bar with adrian, paul, sam, sai & frank. They draw me into conversation as if to draw out the venom. I didnt cry - though i thought i would. I didnt scream, too exhausted for such things. I just sat & talked. Dazed but alive. Between the different boys, rocking back & forth. Craddled by their conversations.

Such a strange day, i wont forget it for a while, i shouldnt, but nor should i repeat it.

we're not the same

It seems that my life is a palindrome at the moment. Everything is different, but everything is the same. Endless movements forward only push me backwards. At times the past seems the only way into the future. Each event that exists in the present brings about a sense of de javu. A feeling of familiarity toward the forigen. It is a palindrome - what is said in reverse paradoxically repeats what is said forwards.

Friends & aquaitances, past & future lovers, unprofound objects & sacred images all seem to repeat within me. They speak in a different tounge, but say the same thing. You become me. I become you. The well known become the forigen. The forigen becomes intimate. Any consistency of identity is lost and yet distinction persists. Forwards & Backwards lose their meanings. Forwards is backwards, backwards is forwards. Closseness becomes distance and distance becomes love.

Someone once said to me that we we're not the same. I smiled. 'I know' was the only reply i could give. Are any two people the same? Certianly not. Are any two people realy different? No, not really. We are all palindromes. A palindrome is the space where what is 'different' & what is 'the same' is both constructed & collapses. All people are palindromes to each other. It is only our beliefs that bring us 'closer to' or 'further from' each other.

Review: Ministry of Pain

I love Dubravka Ugresic. She is an author. A 'croatian' political exile. An unashamed Yugonostagic. Her writing really resonates with me. She acts as a window to the 'croatian' culture & history that i myself have become distanced from. She posseses a reflective nature, seeing well beyond the situaltion at hand. But perhaps most compelling is her willingness to believe in both the posibility of a better world & the tarnished nature of the subject.

The book is first & foremost about the experience of being a refugee. It is of the aftermath of war. Memory & Identity. It covers work she has previously written about in essays, but this she does so with fiction. Through the lectures held by Tanya to her slavic refugee students at a university in Amstedam. All have excaped the war in 'former yugoslavia'. Yet can even these lucky ones truly avoid the scars of the war?

The book starts off slow, emotionless. Shell shocked. Yet as as the plot advances so does emerge little bits of sadness. And then pain. And soon enough all the other elements of anger & absurdity that come with war emerge. Things transform. Pearl earings become the mirror to the soul. Shopping bags become time bombs. Comfort objects begin to cut. Memory is a lethal shrapnel for those who have escaped.

For Ugresic, who believes that 'language is just dialect with the backing of an army' it is important for her to be critical of notions of right & wrong. Of what is proper & improper. She is wary of creating her own army. Of erecting her own proper language, at the cost of dialectical [sic] play. She avoids the certianty that is to war. Her work, wirten in short chapters, with a story that turns in on itself, always reflecting, & without complete resolve, captures a land of dialects. A world of typos, mistakes & character flaws that make sense only in the moment.

A deep statement on memory, war, nation & identity. Perhaps not her best work & it can be dry, with little humor, but still full of insight & personal truth.