on wanting

and that’s the thing right cause, and people can attest to this, i have been and have tried to be what i thought a hopeful person is because i thought well right like how could you be happy if you don’t have hope and i knew the whole camus thing where he’s like he who has hope for the human condition is a fool but i was like k shut up camus literally who asked you like what am i supposed to do not have hope are you actually dumb what the fuck but the thing is now i'm here and it’s i’m and right thank you madam merriam webster and yeah i’m not sure exactly when it happened but i don’t think i’m a hopeful person anymore not to brag!!!! but just you know based on this definition of hope i don’t think that i align myself with that word the way i used to cause even if i wanted to i don’t really make choices with the expectation that what i want to happen will happen i let go of the idea that that plastic bottle i recycled will actually make it to the recycling plant and the idea that the petition i signed will actually be looked at by anyone with any ability to do what i want them to do and the idea that my singular veganism will have the impact that i want it to have and the idea that and the idea that and the idea that but that’s like fine!!!!! like i’m not going to stop signing petitions or recycling or being veg- well actually i’m vegetarian now so i kind of already stopp- well that was more so because i was really sad and vegan cheese is crazy like the UN needs to launch an investigation into what is happening with vegan cheese i mean they’re not stopping they just keep making monstrosities but anyway i’m still going to do things even

though i have not felt Hope in a while cause losing hope is kind of fine????? let me explain let me explain let me explain let me explain you don’t need hope. and i’m not gonna get into all the things about all the things but amongst the things is that white guy’s idea that hope is kinda a burden like he kind of popped off expectation is a burden!!! (also i gotta say this white man is not the first and only person to posit this i just have personal beef with him that’s why i keep bringing him up) but when you let go of it, the idea that what you want to happen will happen, you release yourself of disappointment like kind of (i mean i don’t really fully believe that because i didn’t expect trump to lose but i was still disappointed when he won or maybe it’s a different word or feeling that i felt) but you know i like the idea that hope is something that you do and you don’t need to wait till you feel Hope to do the thing because you’ll probably just wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and THAT’s waiting for godot right like waiting for the guy who will come to give you purpose, waiting for the reason to finally get up and leave, waiting for meaning, waiting for purpose and meaning and purpose and meaning but godot never comes cause he’s a bitch!!!!

and i’m not saying “don’t have hope!” i’m saying that if you don’t have it, that’s like fine kind of! well it’s not fine it sucks how sucking sucky it is to live in systems in which we can’t expect Good or Just things cause it’s not even about wanting Good things at this point it’s about wanting to um i don’t know be alive???? have rights maybe???? for others and ourselves?? to have a future??? but this is me telling you that perhaps you don’t need hope to do things. don’t rid yourself of hope if you have it and it helps you but if it doesn’t help you… know that you can still be a part of making things better without it. and sometimes hope just hurts. and i have found a lot of hope in my hopelessness. but. i still want.

a hey. promise me. you'll never die. b i'll be around. a till i’m gone? b till you're gone. a and even after? b and even after. and i mean wanting just sucks.

so true fammo if no one got me i know miss merriam webster got me so yeah i’m wanting in the desire sense in the sense that i desire and crave and want. i want so much. that’s not me saying that i want a lot of things. what i mean is the amount with which i want is massive. but also. i want a lot of things. i want so much so much. the shape of want is a toilsome tessellation. a fragment of “no” that repeats. and it’s making me miserable of course it’s making me miserable wanting is miserable here’s a graph with numbers rooted in nothing real to show it:

and absence and absence and absence and swallowing absence and absence lodging in my airways and burgeoning upwards into my infertile mouth and me insufflating octane. exsuffalting octane. dizzy in the undertow of wanting not to want. and like i have since let go of hope which is to say i have let go of expecting what i want but i still have wants and i want to not want them because i want to not suffer right cause i’m fairly certain that it’s my wants that are bumming me out and ruining everything??????(NOT CLICKBAIT!!!!) INT. UNIVERSITY BLACKBOX. DAY WILMA (60) sits at a table with her stage manager JUDY (22).JOSH (23) and OTHER JOSH (22) hold their scripts and read as estragon and vladimir. WILMA is wearing a cardigan she has to be wearing a cardigan. JUDY is typing the entire time. JOSH you’re sure it was here? OTHER JOSH what? JOSH he said by the tree. do you see any others?

WILMA hold. okay so josh… what-... can-... do-. tell me, what is it that you want? JOSH um… well like. i think estragon is kind of like- so when i was reading it i kind of cause-, it’s like estragon is- between the two of them he tries to go but obviously he never goes or if he does he comes back so i think like he wants to stay but doesn’t want to stay and i think he wants to be with his friend cause he doesn’t want his friend to be alone but at the same time he wants to go so i think it’s like a combination of all- WILMA stop. i’m hearing a lot of words//and i want one thing. what is his one want? JOSH right right right. JOSH … well cause i feel like he wants to go but he wants to stay at the same time. so he wants multiple things. WILMA yes josh but in this scene, in this moment, what does he want? JOSH uh… to go- i think he wants to go? OTHER JOSH well it’s kind of confusing because he just said he wants to go but then he asks if they’re in the right place and he continues to stay and talk- WILMA thank you other josh i’ll get to you in a second but josh, you think he wants to go?

JOSH uh yeah. yeah i think- WILMA k. i’m not seeing that. JOSH … WILMA i’m not seeing you want to go. JOSH … well i just feel like he doesn’t even know what he wants. so like. how am i supposed to play his wants if the character doesn’t even know what they want? WILMA characters always know what they want. you can’t have a scene- characters know what they want josh and actors need to know what their character’s want. JOSH okay. i thi- WILMA and yes characters can have multiple wants but you can only play one want at a time. JOSH okay alright then uh… i don’t know i think he doesn’t actually want to leave because he doesn’t leave so i think he wants to stay. WILMA no. JOSH … w-

WILMA your character’s wants have to be in conflict. you can’t want to stay if vladimir also wants to stay. JOSH okthenithinkhewantstogo. WILMA okay so josh, i’m not seeing it. and i want and i want and i want so what is it i want???? well. everything i stopped hoping for. HANNAH comes out from the audience, onto the stage. she stares out blankly. she takes her award. she looks at her award. then back out at the audience for an amount of time. RANDO speech bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! more applause. HANNAH stares blankly.

big silence. HANNAH … … … and you know it’s that fuzzy space between love and addiction because i thought the loving would make i thought maybe love was a distraction i’ve always thought that i thought it was something to fill the time before we die and maybe it would make To Die less scary but it does the opposite and i was scared of what meth would do to my teeth so i started loving and then that was too cumbersome so i watched tv instead and i’m not so much addicted to the drug more so the feeling of not being here because at night i actually practice i imagine the worst case scenario that we stop breathing and then it's dark and we’re conscious of it and then all we’re really left with is our thoughts the ones we tried to suffocate when we lived but then but then but then night goes somewhere else to terrorize somewhere else and then it’s stupid day and i’m moved by the mystique of morning and i wonder how we would if we would and the lavender i thought i killed -with my inability to ever love anything the right way- the hummingbird comes again and pollinates my lavender and in that moment i realize God is a hummingbird and i drag myself to the ocean where seafoam buzzes -or maybe it pops- brightly and delicately and i don’t know how the sand got there-maybe it traveled or maybe some rocks kissed too hard- and the sun beams or shines or threatens my epidermis that skin that will always be tan and confused about it and everything else but i love without knowing i love without seeing the infinite brackets the beach branches into and i hike and i stop wondering why people hike why they put their body through it for a view because i get to the top and see it the natural chiaroscuro of the world and get it that we have to put ourselves through discomfort to see the world from a different angle and i accept it that i’m a frankenstein of past living -actually Frankenstein was the name of the guy who created the monster, the monster’s actual name is the Narcissism of Small Differences- and i have the nervous system of my mother and the anger of glass shattered who even remembers when at this point and kissing you has never been a distraction and it’s brave to tongue cause we know this will all go away not in the doomsday way but in the way all things do but about doomsday i just wanted to say that there’s a defunct strip mine in Boone County, Virginia and despite the noise despite the coal and the heat and despite the rubble i don’t know who but from darkness they said “let there be lavender” and now the purple petals pray as they're pollinated for they’ve been saved and i don’t know every flower in the garden of eden but i know the florals most holy are the sunflowers my mom planted in our backyard every summer before my brain was stolen before my brain was stolen life tasted like peaches now it tastes like plastic but i don’t want to live in screens anymore and i don’t want to nurture these tumors anymore because i’m starting to feel what i felt when i felt and i want those days back the days when my worst fear

was the hairbrush, and i never had to know what time it was and also did you know? if you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk and also did you know? a glass of milk produces 0.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide and what if what if what if my kids never have a rootbeer float or smell geosmin (that’s what makes the rain smell the way the rain smells) or get their palms black with dirt on those days the ones before they know what OCD is and that they have it and those days the ones before they’ve laid down lilies at the altar of eyes and i’m sorry i've been so distracted too distracted to notice my favorite lake dried up when did that happen in the time it took me to switch from youtube to facebook? she waits for an answer. she doesn’t get one. but you know maybe we can do it you know maybe we can love and we can still be loved maybe we can be Boone County where the soil is scripture where sweetness persists in spite of the toxicity. no one claps. … HANNAH and i’d like to thank my high school bio teacher have a good night everyone. she runs off stage. END OF PLAY

i’ve been thinking about Freedom From Want lately. it’s the third in a series of four oil paintings by Norman Rockwell. the Four Freedoms series was published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943, and included titles like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, and Freedom From Fear. said freedoms are in reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union Address: “In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms…The Third is freedom from want-- which , translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-- everywhere in the world.” we largely accept that freedom from want means having your basic needs taken care of right. having food and security and a home and clothing and safety can traffic in joy, peace, fulfillment because of course you can like living when you’re not starving. the phrase "freedom from want” keeps banging around in my head because i feel like i could breathe better maybe if i didn’t want! i have all of my basic needs met but what i want more than anything is for this to continue. our lives our existence our planet our humanity our us!!!! in one definition of want, i’m surely free

from it because i have a home and security and family and and and and. but does freedom from want really exist no because you want your freedom from want to continue. for that way of being to remain. and i want so much to continue. and it’s killing me. i want children to keep playing and dogs to keep barking and dads to keep emailing facebook links and arms to keep hugging and wind to keep blowing and water to keep flowing and trees to keep singing and mouths to keep kissing and voices to keep talking and lungs to keep breathing and eyes to keep seeing and fingers to keep typing and writers to keep writing and days to keep passing and clothes to keep drying and fruit to keep growing and lips to keep smiling and ears to keep listening and friendships to keep blossoming and teachers to keep lecturing and moms to keep holding and fools to keep trying and birds to keep flying and otters to keep floating and when i say i want more i mean i want an eternal encore and i want freedom from want for all the children dogs dads arms winds waters trees mouths voices lungs eyes fingers writers days clothes fruits lips ears friendships teachers moms fools birds otters and everything else that’s taken or given a breath (and i mean breath broadly here) on this earthy earthy earth. i can hardly stand going to natural history museums because my want is so big i want it to keep going i want it all to not have been for not my throat physically aches when i read of all that life that came before us because i want so much for it all to keep going i don't even need to be here for it i just can’t bear the idea that it could all go away so like 10 people can be egregiously wealthy and i want to be satisfied with the fact that nothing lasts forever that there is beauty in ephemerality that there is value in a thing beyond its continuance but also like fuck that????????? The World isn’t a relationship. The World isn’t a happening. The World is not a stage play. The World is The World!! and something worth Not Being Okay About The Fact That It Could Just End over!!! so maybe i’d feel better if i didn’t want life to keep lifing but maybe life isn’t about feeling good. maybe it’s not worth feeling good if it means we stop wanting better. i’ve stopped hoping that the world will get better. that expectation is

gone. but i’ve never stopped wanting it. if i didn’t want it, i wouldn’t be trying to stomach vegan cheese (UN- seriously get on this NOW) i can accept that i won’t get everything i want. but i can’t and won’t accept that the entirety of everything can cease to be in the name of greed. the crushing weight of wanting sucks!!!!!!! but like they crush cans up right like aluminum cans they crush the fuck out of them and melt them and they can be used again and again and again and that’s us we can be crushed and continue even if we’re not the way we were before and we miss the way we were before we can still generate and sustain and there’s a part of us that will always live that will always remain no matter how crushed we are we can continue despite our own crushing. i love so many people. and i want all of them to feel Good all of the time. but. not too good. don’t feel too good cause i want you to want alright i want you to wa