Aimee Herman's Blog, page 23

Your Reflection: A Coda

first published by great weather for MEDIA

 

You have a difficult time committing to your reflection.

On a Friday, you notice the posture of your neck and you want to file a restraining order against the skin which has begun to rebel in a grilled-cheese-melting-out-of-the-bread sort of way.

Eight months ago, you gave away your full-length mirror to the woman around the corner who said it had “been awhile since she had taken notice of her bottom parts.” Now, sometimes you miss knowing the exact pattern of your cellulite behind your thighs.

You wish your hair was shorter. Straighter, yet more queer. You imagine it darker. Lighter. Streaked like the young ones do. When you walk, before all the passing windows remind you otherwise, you imagine yourself more boyish, younger, less crumpled. 

You are eighteen, when you fall in love for what you think is the first time and decide to add another hole to your body. You pierce your eyebrow to match hers. She wears thick rings, several at a time. You are still figuring out the blur of your identity, so you do the same. Your skin is not strong enough to handle the weight, so the skin flap covering the jewelry gets thinner and thinner. Then, one day after a fight with her or yourself (who remembers), you rip the rings out. You don’t remember blood; you barely remember her now.

You often forget to clip your toenails. You have a difficult time remembering your body that far down.

If this were a movie, your love match would look at all your scars and ask for the stories. While Arcade Fire played in the background. Or Devotchka. Or Boy George. You’d point and lift and reveal as though this were a moment of foreplay. As though your scars are sexy. As though each pale slur is a love letter or romantic elegy.

Your teeth remind you of your adolescent rebellion. You wish you had an addiction to floss, and not to late night jelly beans. You told a lover once that you used to wear braces. They were convinced you meant on your legs.

“What do you mean you’re an atheist? Clearly you’re a Jew. I mean, your nose.” This was spoken by a co-worker. Or lover. It might have been a student. Or a cashier at the corner bodega. You never let anyone touch it. For years, you feared it was unstable and could collapse at any time. I mean, the drugs. I mean, the smells of trauma you collected in there. 

The truth is, you like your nipples, even though they are over-dramatic and highly caffeinated. You just wish they lived on top of a mole hill, rather than a mountain.

You can’t really remember much about the state of your vagina. (See stanza three). You feel the hair, when you’re in the mood to touch yourself. You know it’s appropriately sized. You know about its unconfirmed mood and anxiety disorder. You still don’t know how to approach it.

You are eleven. Or twelve. Maybe ten. Your orthodontist, who had a fetish for onions and rubber, yells at your small lips. “I need you to open wider,” he growls. You tell him you are making the largest circle you can and that if he is insistent on mouth-shaming, he should speak to your mother who gave them to you.

A magazine tells you that those who are most symmetrical are considered beautiful. All you can think of are butterflies. You learn from several lovers that your breasts are not the same. And that one thigh seems fatter than the other. And your hair grows longer on one side. And even your nostrils are not proportionate. You want to know why balance is so desired. Even uniforms have flaws. You grow tired trying to figure out ways to even yourself out.

On a Saturday, you are laying naked against a woman who asks you what your favorite body part on yourself is. You remain silent for what feels like three and a half days, but she is patient. She alphabetizes her list and you start to panic that you cannot even think of a bone on your body you don’t feel infuriated toward. Finally, you say, “my back” because you’ve forgotten what it looks like. Because your mirror is too tall to even see it. Because you’ve stopped turning around. She smiles, pleased that you had decided on something. Some part of you which you could call beautiful or at least preferred.

Your internet is down, so there is nothing left to do but count all the moles on your body. You give them names like Pre-cancerous and Harold. You connect them, creating shapes on your flesh. Your forearm looks like a heart monitor, rising and falling. Your thighs have flat-lined. You find three-quarters of the alphabet on your face. Some people call them beauty marks, but they just look like potholes to you. Punctuation marks. Reminders of how little you protect yourself.

It is evening and the air is roasted dark. You know it’s still there, but you cannot see it. You lay on your hands, so you cannot feel around. You can hear the nearby hissing of your mirror, two rooms away. You feel words on your tongue, keeping you up. You try to swallow them, but they are dry and thick. Gristle. When you sleep, you dream of symmetry. Of calendars. Of paved roads. Here, in the night, is when you get to leave your reflection behind. Here, is when you are everything else and nothing, before you become what you always were in the morning, when the sun wakes.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, gender, meant to wake up feeling, meditation on body, reflection

dear richard brautigan……(a performance)

Sometimes we pick up a book at the exact moment when those words were truly meant to be read.

Last summer, the inspirational oil painter in Seattle called Lindsay, reminded me of a writer called Richard Brautigan. I asked Lindsay to recommend one of his books to me and after reading that (The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966), I couldn’t stop myself from reading more of his prose and poetry.

Since then, I have been writing letters. To Richard. On pieces of paper, receipts, blank pages in books I happen to be reading, in my notebook, on benches, on the palm of my hand when there is nothing else and I don’t want to forget my words to him.

These letters are sometimes inspired by his words, but often they are just a one-way conversation about what I may be thinking at the time: death, loss, love, poverty, gender dislocation, an old crosley radio, a stolen meditation pillow and the moon.

On Tuesday, March 29, I will present some of these letters alongside the brilliantly marvelous singer/songwriter/magical wonder called Rivky.

WHERE? Dixon Place located at 161 Chrystie St./ NYC

WHEN?  6:30-8pm 

DEAR RICHARD BRAUTIGAN
featuring:
Aimee Herman & Rivky





ABOUT THIS SHOW

Dear Richard Brautigan is an epistolary musical adventure to the Beat writer from one poet to another on how to remain; how to be human amidst the traumas of war; gender dislocation; shattered love & expired lives.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Aimee Herman is a genderqueer writer, performance poet & teacher with two full length books of poems.

Rivky Gee cherishes her Yiddish roots & is seen performing for those on the periphery & in the underground Hassidic culture. Rivky’s work fuses together the new &the old world in the way that only NYC allows, in its effortless & electrifying contrapositions.

Filed under: SHOWS | video, WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", dear richard brautigan, Dixon Place, nyc free poetry, nyc poetry and music, poetry and music, Richard Brautigan, rivky

night in the naked city reading TONIGHT!!!

What is it like to date in new york city? Tonight, I grab my ukelele and some memories and tell you about it. Alongside some incredible poets and writers, celebrating what it is to be a writer in new york city!

Come to Cornelia Street Cafe located at 29 Cornelia Street /NYC at 6pm on March 25th.

$9 entrance (includes a beverage)

FEATURING:

Eric Alter

Peter Carlaftes

Steve Dalachinsky

Thomas Fucaloro

Aimee Herman

Matthew Hupert

Jane Lecroy

Puma Perl

Angelo Verga

George Wallace

 

Friday,  Mar 25 – 6:00PM 

NIGHT IN THE NAKED CITY 4: WISDOM WEARS NO CLOTHES

Eric Alter;  Peter Carlaftes; Steve Dalachnsky;  Thomas Fucaloro;  Aimee Herman; Matthew Hupert;  Jane Lecroy;  Puma Perl;  and George Wallace




4 is the number of the Emperor4 is the number of Wisdom

Hear wisdom & wit

from Poets of the Empire State



Filed under: SHOWS | video, WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Cornelia Street Cafe, meant to wake up feeling, music and poetry, Night in the Naked City, night in the naked city 4, nyc lit readings, nyc readings, nyc writers, ukelele and poetry

an invitation for tea (a singular ceremony)

My mentor muse in Seattle mailed me a box, full of breaths. Full of meditative motivations.

This box sits on top of my record player/tape player/cd player/radio. This box watches me watch a television program or movie. This box watches as I read a sliced open section of the NY Times. This box watches me kiss my mate. This box watches as I cry without tears, wondering where I am going and why I feel as though my wheels have been removed.

My mentor muse in Seattle writes to me about Murata Jukō and the ritual of serving, drinking, and sharing tea.

I place loose tea leaves in  french press, and drown with hot water. I watch the swirl of coconut green tea branches lift up and then swirl like leaves in a storm. Then, I wait until its color grows rusty.

My friend who I used to share a home with gave me a fancy tea cup with saucer for my birthday. It reminds me of something too dainty and delicate for my rough, scarred skin. For almost a month, it sat unused on a shelf. I greeted this cup and saucer everyday, wanting to be the kind of person that could drink out of such a refined object.

I place fingers around porcelain. I am just far too big and clumsy to clutch the handle. After tea is poured in, I bring cup to my mouth and gulp (because once again, I am just not the kind of person to sip or move with a slow ease). After gulp came swallow.

What I want is for this tea to purify me. (Are there enough tea leaves in the world to do such a thing?)

What I want is for this tea to remind me of the necessity of waiting. Being slow. Taking the time to acknowledge all of the flavors slapped against my tongue: nutty. tart. coconut. slight hint of coffee from all the days before this moment.

I want to meditate. I want to leave all the ghosts that scream me awake, to vacate my soul for the day. Or the afternoon. Or how about until I finish this swallow? I want to empty my pockets of things which ring and vibrate. I want to walk into rooms where other people’s pockets are empty too.

Next time, I will invite another to gulp tea with me. Or sip, if they are the kind of person who does such a thing. Because the point of all this is to remember how to remain. Or if not remember, learn how to.

How to sip sometimes. To taste. To be alive. In silence. With all the flavors of a moment sitting like a meditative monk on your tongue.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", finding oneself, meant to wake up feeling, meditation, seattle muse, stillness, tea ceremony

BIG WORDS reading Tonight!!!

I’m excited to read a new story exploring this month’s theme: shadenfreude at BIG WORDS, Etc reading series.

Learn about the interestingly globular Nyman Riffling and what happens on his first date with the glamourous Renita Goils!

This month is full of other excellent readers, which you will just have to see for yourself!

WHERE? 61 Local, located at 61 Bergen Street in Brooklyn

WHEN? 6pm on Tuesday, March 22nd

Filed under: OPEN MIC SERIES, WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Big Words Etc, brooklyn lit, Brooklyn reading series, meant to wake up feeling, shadenfreude

sharps: notes from a dormant cutter

previously published by great weather for MEDIA

 

I spent much of my teen years in a romantic entanglement with sharp objects. I hoarded staples–stretched away out of magazines, paper clips, safety clips, razor blades. I practiced various forms of mutiny on my skin. I felt in control, even though the only thing I was in was a dark cavern of sadness. 

When I was sixteen, I met a girl called J with short, yellow hair like bristles of wheat and criss-crosses of sorrow all over her face. She’d scratch her cheeks and forehead with her fingernails, trying to invisible her pretty away. We met at mental hospital number three and although we both starting ‘dating’ two crazy dudes also in the psych ward (mine, a hallucinogenic boy who took too much acid and couldn’t trip his way out), I was really just in love with her.

At seventeen, in the back of math class, I took stretched out paper clip to the palms of my hands, because I was desperate to feel anything but numb. I counted the shapes my blood made, dripping out of my skin like morse code.

I loved my blood because it reminded me I had something alive inside of me. These sharps were like cat-calls to my skin: Hey, baby….follow me home. How about I show you a really good time?

There were days, weeks, even months, I tried walking away from sharps, from the bellows of scars which had begun to howl off my skin. But any addict knows wanting to stop and actually quitting are two very different movements.

One may reference the state of my forearms, where sharps and I dated on-and-off for fifteen years. We had a tryst two years ago, but the whole time I was thinking about someone else. Someone I hadn’t quite met yet.

They diagnosed me: cutter. Called me manic depressive, though I never reached those highs. My mom locked up the knives and suddenly sharps and I were like Romeo & Juliet, sneakily searching for ways to tangle in the night. I became very good at picking locks.

Razor blades were my mistress, disrupting relationships. We made love in numerous positions, invited in other toxins called pills and cocaine and called it an orgy. It was thrilling, but I was dying.

Now, it seems New Yorkers are hoarding box cutters, altering people’s faces and (false) sense of safety.

I will always be a cutter, just like I’ll always be a drug addict. But I’m not active. These tendencies are dormant and though I’m hopeful that they’ll remain asleep inside me, I work hard to keep away from the taunt and flirt of their haunt. I never thought I’d be frightened of something I was once so in love with. But I am. Immensely.

Sometimes, I envision it. Sitting, sandwiched between two other commuters, on the 4 train back to Brooklyn, with chalk dust on my fingertips and pant legs. Some human brandishing a box cutter, corroded in anger. Why are so many of us so angry these days? Some take it out on others with knives, just like I used to do on myself.

In this imagining, I can feel the unzip of my flesh, parting, making room for the rush of my blood. The panic. The true pain.

I asked my creative writing students to channel Baudelaire and Virginia Woolf in “A Street Haunting” and become flaneurs. Their experiment was to go to The Strand for a pencil. But if they never made it there, it didn’t matter. The emphasis was on wandering. Getting lost. Viewing life not from the glare of a cell phone, but from the unencumbered gaze of their eyes. Most of them had never been to this epic book shop before, so I was excited for their adventure.

At the end of class, a student came up to me and said, “I don’t think I can do this assignment.” I asked why. They explained that due to the slashings, their dad didn’t permit any trips outside of school and work.

On the train ride home, I traveled with fear curdling my veins. I became hyper-aware of the humans around me, particularly jumpy each time someone dipped their hands into their pockets.

I broke up with panic years ago; I’d rather not revisit its sensations of terror. I don’t want these slashings to stop me from existing. From traveling underground with strangers. From being a flaneur. I spent far too long trying to carve my way out of this world. I will not allow someone else to try to do the same.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", cutter, depression, gender, meant to wake up feeling, self-harm, survival

anniversary of breathing

Did I ever tell you of that memory, seeing “F” beside my name and thinking it stood for Friday. Thinking: this must have been the day I was born. To be defined by a day of the week, rather than smudged genitalia. Wouldn’t that have been something.

* * * *

(conversation between two)

I thought about labeling myself as a couch. Slipping that into my gender marker. 

Why?

Well, I’ve been sat on. My springs are loose. I’ve had overnight guests drape themselves all over me. Notice all these stains. Crumbs of lost meals. 

I guess that sounds like you.

Right? I had a partner call me wishbone once. Maybe I’ll just refer to myself as bone scraps.

* * * *

Today could be referred to as some sort of anniversary:

The day I ripped open my mom’s body.

Or the moment I breathed in the fumes of new jersey for the very first time.

& an accumulation of stretch marks and toiletries.

Or reminder of all the friends I’ve lost track of.

Just another reason to eat cake.

* * * *

An ode to me:

Everyday, before coffee
& kiss-climb limbs against my other,
I
inventory my parts to make sure they still remain:
all my teeth, or the ones which matter
gather up bouquet of knots left behind
on pillow case
feel around for leftover meals
clinging to my cheek
swallow all the yesterdays that
have a difficult time being left

today,
i try not to batter my hips with
too much judgmental
too much writer's block
too much emphasis on the
black hole of bank account

today,
i eat cake
because i am supposed to
because i want to
because i can call myself a couch
or a loaf of bread
or i can call myself door number three
and even if no one else notices,
i see the evolution of breaths
on my soul


Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", gender, meant to wake up feeling, queer, queer body

what it is to be a loser

Last month, I got the incredible opportunity to perform in the Phillip Giambri’s excellently curated show, “The Loser Project”. Below is a video from the performance at Cornelia Street Cafe in NYC.

Filed under: SHOWS | video, WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Cornelia Street Cafe, gender, meant to wake up feeling, music and poetry, Phillip Giambri, queer, The Ancient Mariner, The Loser's Project, ukelele and poetry, what it is to be a girl

the heroic body

originally published by great weather for MEDIA

 

When I was twenty-six, I gave my body away. But also at nineteen. And maybe twelve. Details are unimportant and have already been documented through ripped skin and hollowed tongue, so instead, I’ll make a mix tape of the trauma:

Do I Move You?—Nina Simone
Another Lonely Day—Ben Harper
Colorblind—Counting Crows
La valse d’Amelie—Yann Tiersen
Burning Bridges—Chris Purkea
Cleaning Apartment—Clint Mansell
Change of Address—Marina Marina
Fjogur Piano—Sigur Ros
February—Gregory Alan Isakov
The Rip–Portishead
Dumb—Nirvana
I Bleed-Pixies
Son’s Gonna Rise—Citizen Cope
That Moon Song—Gregory Alan Isakov
Wake Up—Arcade Fire
Home Again—Michael Kiwanuka
Red Dust—James Vincent McMorrow
The Winner Is—Devotchka
Remember Me as a Time of Day—Explosions in the Sky
Breathe Me–Sia

&

I’ll alphabetically list colors that could create a collage bright enough to illustrate it:

alabaster
bloodied knee from fist fight
cysts
denim
exercise on a body after thirty-six years of sporadic movement
forgotten grapes left in backpack from a camping trip, found six months later
guitar string—the unplucked one
how can one really describe purple
illiterate notebooks, smudged from the rain/ someone left the windows open so now all that is left to read is / mold
january sky on a friday four hours before snowstorm
krystal meth [sic]
left wrist after the breakdown
marzipan
nest of loons
orgasm (the kind that means something)
pie crust—overbaked
quetzal
radish
something similar to yellow, but more like rubberband
the inside of her kiss
umbilical chord left unsnipped until first birthday
very sour cherries
what suburban new jersey looks like when you are high
x-girlfriend’s mole
your biggest secret
zest from pomelo

or

perhaps it is even more accurately documented in this transcript which traveled from public bathroom floor to underneath chuck taylors to my hands, raw from —-

X: It meant nothing.

Y: Only if nothing means the carpal tunnel syndrome of wounds.

X: Pardon?

Y: The numb. Knowing there is something there, waking up. Trying to yawn out of skin, but—

X: It can’t.

Y: Nothing means nothing anymore. Everything is found. Known. Cut-up into an argument.

X: But. But it can go away.

Y: Only if away means a permanent disconnection of hypnotized raw. The uncooked symbolism of everything that has been taken.

X: Or given—

Y: Yes…away.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, body trauma, gender, great weather for media, meant to wake up feeling, poetry and music, queer body, trauma

tonight!!! queer art organics!!

Come to Dixon Place at 161 Chrystie Street in NYC for some magnificent poetry and storytelling.

7-8:30pm FREE!!!!

(starts promptly at 7:30pm)

Queer Art Organics: 

poetry, spoken word, storytelling, comedy, performance art…..

 

With the incredible features:

Drae Campbell
Lenair Xavier
Skye Cabrera

Filed under: "self diagnosed lactose intolerance" Tagged: "aimee herman", Dixon Place, Dixon Place queer events, Drae Campbell, Lenair Xavier, Queer Art ORganics, Skye Cabrera