(One)

One day at a time.

Must we?

(Still)

As I sink and dance my way to the bottom of the sea, I still want to write for you. I still want to write for you.

I still want to write your happy ending.

(Interrupted)

Men without chests are more likely interrupt a girl in mid-sentence, which is dangerous. You may miss something important if you don't let her finish.

It's hard, I know. Listening to women speak is annoying. I would much rather hear a man speak on a significant topic, too. But if you don't listen when a woman speaks, you're going to miss something.

Not at first, not really. It may take a while for you to realize that your words have become hollow and vitrified. And it may take you a while to realize that you hear nothing but the echo of your own voice. But when you do, oh sweet one, my sweet boyo, when you do, I weep for the pain you will feel on that day. The howling emptiness, the depth of shame, the anger at yourself, at her, at everything. It's hell. I've been there before; I know what it's like down there. You're going to feel it. You're going to feel so desperate that you will reach out - not for the bottle, or the quick-fix girl, or the meaningless work you drown yourself in - you will reach out to other human beings and ask them for help. You will let them see you in all your shame and glory, and you will let them touch you. And I don't know if I will be there. I don't know if I'll want to. I hate your fucking guts, which is confusing, because I also love you, too, and want to spend my lifeblood for your good, to care for you with the strength and agility of at least eleven metaphorical tigers.

Oh God, I don't understand anything anymore. I thought I had something going, but he interrupted me again, and now I've lost my train of thought.

{Fear}

You see, fear has to do with punishment.


I told you it wasn't that complicated.

[Year]

This was the day I knew.

This is the day I rue.

Not so much because things have changed so much as because they haven't. They say that the length of time it takes to break a curse is a year and a day.

I wonder what will happen tomorrow.

Arachne

“Nor could Arachne take such punishment:
She'd rather hang herself than bow her head.”

Becoming an arachnid is not a choice: becoming an arachnid is something that happens to you. You become an arachnid whenever the truth of who you are puts you in direct conflict with someone with power over you.

In later renditions of the myth about the girl from Colophon, Ovid, I think, tried to embroider some sort of moralizing nonsense about how Arachne depicted disrespectful and naughty scenes of various gods' infidelity and that this somehow justified her treatment at the hands of Pallas Athene. That's bullshit. Arachne did not merit punishment because she was rude. Arachne was punished because she was very good. But I would believe that Arachne wove those kinds of stories into her tapestry: I get pissed off too when I feel trapped in a lose-lose situation. If she won, she failed: her true self was unacceptable. If she failed, she failed: she didn't show her true self at all. And I bet Athena didn't give her the option to bow out of the competition. I mean, what choice did she have at that point? She had said she was a better weaver than Athena.

Because she was a better weaver than Athena.

I suppose that's boastful, but it's also true. Likewise, we become arachnids the first time we say something true, and we're punished for it. We may not even remember the first time this happened, though we may. As we grow, we learn that living in this world requires making compromises with others in order to survive. We also learn that if we don't play by the rules of the game, we will be punished; and that, conversely, if we play by the rules of the game, then we will be rewarded. These are two different lessons, but we often think they're the same thing. Conformity and compromise are actually distinct, but for some reason have become practically blurred. And yes, there's a conspiracy behind the mechanism that makes this so.

To be an arachnid is to reject conformity and embrace compromise. It is not only to participate in an evolving, contentious dialectic with the received truths of the world that deny our own, but also to maintain harmony and achieve balance with them. Arachne is a weaver still, though more microscopically, and her loom can no longer be destroyed: she is now her own loom and can set up shop anywhere three-dimensional. Likewise, there is no longer a need to fall on our swords or cut off the ears of messengers. We can say what we need to say and move on. If we hit a wall, we can walk around it or walk away from it, though limping.

"So you shall live to swing, to live now and forever,
Even to the last hanging creature of your kind."

[Revenge]

Revenge is the end of understanding.
Understanding is the end of revenge.

The sky continues not to fall,
and maybe God speaks after all.

Also, Arachne.