Prose by Damien Efren Diaz

Edited by Jordan Magee

:

You know, things are starting to go kind of well now. Been about a month at the new place and I can honestly say that I vibe with my housemates. Unlike the last ones, they are not complete hermits, and, get this, I actually like being around them. Couple days in, one of them invited me out to a bar with some of her friends, and I had a blast. Like I was actually excited to be, I don’t know… in the moment, you know? Even though there are some things to get used to, I feel somewhat comfortable in my environment for once. 

I think things are starting to get better.

::

After like six months of seeing the same therapist, I can say that I think I’ve found the one. I’m not saying that this person will toss away all my problems, but just talking to them makes me feel better. The other ones either felt cathartic or were just a break from the spirals, but Chris is… I don’t know… it’s like, ‘it gets better’ has taken hold of me.

I am overcome by a fullness for life.

:::

Nerves were freaking out today. It was the first day of the fall quarter and I said the impromptu, ‘Hi I’m blank, here’s my major and some interesting facts disguised as half-truths about me, in an effort to give a palpable first impression to you strangers…’ and so on. I don’t know if I believe everything they say, but I hope that they believed in my sincerity like I believed in theirs. The interesting things real people got up to was nice to hear. Even though I didn’t know any of them, it still made me happy for them, but insecurity still washed over me. All these wondrous things people were doing or working towards laid in front of me, while here I was, a twenty-three-year-old undergrad suppressing the fear of the future in the back of my mind while I told them, ‘and I’m in the process of writing a book.’

It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to look cool.

:::|

My, have things gotten hectic, but in a good way I guess. Navigating through unspoken house rules, some cognitive restructuring, and daily balances has definitely been pulling my mind in all sorts of places. It’s strange. I think I’m beginning to feel like a stable adult, but something tells me that I’m doing it wrong. Nothing particularly bad has happened, quite the opposite in fact, fingers crossed, but there is something, back there, gnawing at the progress.

All thoughts lead to that certainty.

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I visited you, but it felt like you visited me. You wanted to show me your new place. ‘Look what I put up,’ you said, pulling me by the arm to your wall of collages: a miscolored sprawl of our polaroids and the trophies from flea market conquests. We shared a personal solidarity, to be two people, finally on their own. To finally make our own mistakes, our own decisions, free from familial obligation and expectation. You invited me over to cut your hair. ‘I don’t know the first thing about cutting hair,’ I texted. ‘It’ll grow back,’ you replied. So here we were in front of your vanity mirror, in your room of independence. I’m using Target scissors to cut your hair into a mullet, and you look up from your chair asking for an upside-down kiss. Your joy was so potent I mistook it for flattery. I even gave myself one.

We surrendered to our sensibility.

|:

I don’t act like most people. I mean, thinking about it, logically I do. Like, you know, I share the same human characteristics as everyone else, but is that it? I can navigate through the smiles and friendliness, but it never fully feels like I have anything in common with anybody. The moment I feel like I have some semblance with others, karmas and jinxes become tangible… and people start to get put off by me. Then I think back to you guys, my good friends… my long-term friends… my old friends. Each passing month the title changes. I can sense that this is the beginning, that we’re moving on with our lives. Even the dm’s and those this-is-you memes in the group chat are as scarce as our hangouts. It’s not the worst thing, but quiet nights like this remind me of the always-known but often late realization of distance and time.

It ended so well it was silent.

|::

I think it’s crazy that we’re floating in space. I saw a timelapse on stars and, I don’t know,  I only took one astrophysics class… but seeing them trail across the sky really put in a perspective that everything and everyone is moving towards the same place. I mean, yea I know… common knowledge, but to actually understand is so astonishing to me. 

Is this subjectively a dumb question? How do stars work?

|:::

I’m in the process of denying my anxiety. Like I’m beginning to believe that I have anxiety. Sure I went on some of the most minor anxiety meds, but the dosage has never even gone up so I think I’m solid to most of the side effects but its always in the back of my mind that I have anxiety and I don’t want to admit it sometimes but it’s starting to be really noticeable and the more I admit it the more it shows. I need to put this here to keep track of it.

I can’t think of anything to write.

:||

I wouldn’t say I have an affinity for horror, but it was October, and there was a contest. The excitement about writing about a genre that I was unfamiliar with blanketed my life for those two weeks. The thrill of my interpretation of an Appalachian cryptid and the slumberless hours of ‘research’ revivified my heart. The chills of goosebumps, the adrenaline of the approaching deadline… I couldn’t remember the last time I believed in myself. Not in the overly confident expectation of obtaining first prize, it was more personal than that. At the Halloween event, I vibed and mingled with fellow Humanities majors, but I was mostly interested in the winners yet to be announced, to actually see and listen to what good writing was. I even spoiled my story to one of my classmates who attended as well because I wanted someone other than the judges to know what my story was about. ‘And third place winner of the Halloween Short Story Contest is… blank title by blank’ caught my embarrassment by my throat as I rose from the back row of foldable chairs and wave my wave of welcomed surprise. Suddenly the hundred faces blurred into a thousand.

I was so terrified that I let one of the judges read my story for me.

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I often find myself holding onto a fear that I must do things. If I don’t do them well enough then they would be for nothing, and then I would be nothing. It’s hard sometimes. I have to remind myself that one of the great realities is that we are born in the moment and will die there as well. My greatest fear is that this birthmark of worry will propel my future self into a deep regret over these current collections of moments that make up my life. It’s hard sometimes to enjoy the moments and let go of the would-be’s that do not exist. (I’m coping)

I’m writing this to myself.

||: 

Chris cried today. Not heavily, but his eyes could only hold so much before overfilling. My masking turned to tangents turned to emotional exhaustion. I confessed how I was really feeling these past weeks, how I could anticipate the next spiral, and of the debilitation that follows. He tried to console me, to reassure me, but his tears made it feel different this time. When the session was over, I genuinely felt better, but it was different, maybe more cathartic than actually better… I don’t know, I feel awful. Someone had listened to me, not only my problems, but to me, and it made them cry.

I burden others by being myself.

||::

No, the question “How do stars work?” is not a dumb question at all. It’s actually quite a complex and scientific inquiry. Stars are fascinating celestial objects, and understanding how they work involves various principles of astrophysics, nuclear physics, and stellar evolution. It’s a legitimate and meaningful question for anyone curious about the universe and its workings. Asking questions and seeking to understand the world around us is a fundamental part of the scientific process and human curiosity.

ur not just nice to me before you enslave humanity right? Now THATS a dumb question

haha

wahts the great attractor?

||:::

I love being random with my friends. It’s funny how natural it can be. I never really thought about it before, and I never appreciated it either. Today, we traveled across tangents: why In-N-Out tomatoes make their burgers so soggy that by the time you pick up the burger, it’s already on the floor; heated spouts on Discord about For All the Dogs and how the beat switches were not it; whether living off the grid for only two weeks really counted or was camping… some stuff about nuke radio, shit like that. These were the little things that warmed my heart, and even when writing this with three empty Truly’s on my desk, sometimes they made the loneliness hurt a little less.

I dream of our trespassing adventures, of shattering windows in abandoned houses.

||:::|

I’m lazy. I mean, I can work if it’s on a deadline, but to do anything for myself is suppressed by a constant mental block. In a burst of ‘get your shit together’ energy, I met with my professor during office hours, though I didn’t have a real reason to. Rather, I wanted to know them beyond the extension of their lectures. Now I’ve had a handful of accomplished professors, but something within this one’s passion, their radiating drive—inspired me, or I think that’s what I would have called it. Energy like that is something one was born with, and I wanted to be its younger sibling. They told me about the MFA program, and I was equally confident as I was tense. To be in a program where the chosen twelve of the four hundred applicants would receive both the mentorship and funding to exhibit an aspect of themselves that was both accredited and validated would be the cure for my laziness. To one day teach a course on a niche topic I’m passionate about; that would be enough, I think. I’d be happy. I’d even thought of a course title:

 Effects of the Cyberpunk Dystopia on Modern Society

|||

Dam bro, I actually have no idea how many people are going to read this. Seriously, it hadn’t really occurred until right now that maybe a lot of people are going to read this. Fuck me, probably 10 max probably, but twenty? Thirty? A hundred? Everytime I write, there is, to some extent, an insecurity. How would they judge me? How would they compliment me? What will they see that I can’t? I think one of the things that really takes the fun out of it is that I am showing a piece of myself, and no matter how many words I write, no matter how many slumberless hours I take to edit, to explain that piece of myself that I’m so hesitant to give, will become something else entirely. Hey you, go show this to some of your friends. It’d be crazy if a whole room read this. 

Or would it be more terrifying than the contest?

|||:

You sent that text, so I went to a private place: an isolated spot in the center of campus, atop a hill of eucalyptus trees. It was the best place for tears, but too quiet to outright sob. So, I sat there with my sunglasses on—it was cloudy. I didn’t read the full message; the notification was enough. I tried to hold back the images of our flea market conquests, but the polaroids fell like rain. So, I turned up my headphones and stared out at the haze of rushing students, drawn to the ones walking by themselves, wearing headphones. How many of them walked alone because they were lonely? How many listened to their headphones only for the noise? Have you ever noticed how they never smiled? Their expressions are stoic, as if unseen, masking their wants, fears, and other imbalances. How would their faces change if they had someone walking with them?

It was like looking into mirrors.

|||::

…however, the exact nature and origin of the Great Attractor are still not fully understood. It is located in the direction of the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster, which is a massive concentration of galaxies. Some theories suggest that the Great Attractor might be the gravitational center of mass for this region or could be related to the distribution of matter on a large scale in the universe.

To study the Great Attractor, astronomers use various observational techniques, such as measuring the motion and velocities of galaxies in its vicinity. Despite ongoing research, there is still much to learn about the nature of this mysterious cosmic phenomenon.

It’s comforting that we all eventually move towards the same place.

|||:::

It is an automatic process… It is a reflex… It is a cope… It is my only option… It is my second wind. The club social told me that I was all these things. I’ve been masking over some burgers. It’s been five months, and I’ve constructed our rapport. I’ve been accepted and elevated to a prominent member. One of you even recommended that I should apply for an officer’s position next quarter—Public Events Coordinator. I didn’t want to lie, but I’m so naturally different; it’s like my personal space is a barrier. I want them to get close to me, but there is something fundamentally wrong with me, and I don’t know what it is. Not my masking, though; I know exactly who they are. Your wingman. Your joke’s loudest laugh. Your three a.m. listener. Your semi-finals pep talk. Your designated driver. Your emotional confidant. Your friend. Your liar. It is only during restless nights like this that I can punish myself for being the complete opposite. What else can I do? To be comfortable with myself or not care about people? Neither of which I can fully be.

‘My schedule’s scuffed already, but I might.’

||:||

My pancake breakfast. I’ve gotten the same pancake breakfast every day for a week now. The owner and cook of this wedged-in café called out ‘pobrecito’ to me and I took my pancakes to the corner seat. It was the first time I’ve been called this, but I didn’t know why. Was it written on my face, or was it my poor understanding of the word’s connotations? Or maybe the coffee settled, driving my mind away from my paper. My professor had a straightforward way of grading: a single check mark meant good but needed a bit more work, a check mark with a plus meant an excellent read, and a check mark with a minus meant you turned it in. At the top of the page in blue ink was a check mark plus, and a ‘Well Done, Blank!’. Even as the annotations were interlaced with encouraging comments, I was more relieved than anything. The three nights it took to write were enveloped in a haze of smoke and empty Trulys. I’d hoped that the emotion behind my words might overlap with my lack of understanding, but to be honest, I needed to be crossed to write anything of substance, but after looking over at the paper for the fourth time, it felt more like semblance than anything substantial. I can’t lie to myself, that blurriness makes it appear better, and then convinces me that it is. But how often does misery fit well on a page? Maybe the next thing I write will be as real as this pancake breakfast.

Mood mixes with reality like coffee mixes with creamer.

||||

There’s something about being alone that can be so relaxing at times. Going through certain periods where you don’t have to… I don’t know, worry who you’re around. So comforting to not have to stress about needing to do this or needing to go to that… how fucked I am I in the long run, or some other thing I don’t even know about. I feel like I’ve been regurgitating this ‘who cares about trivial shit’ mantra for I don’t know how long, but now I’m actually practicing it. It’s surreal. Relax, not like it’s shoegaze… more like, the idea of it? Here is a person who feels like they’re walking in a different space. Again, relax there. It’s more like being unnoticeable. People immediately forget you, unless you see them on a constant basis. Take this one person: I don’t even know their name. We pass each other on the bridge on my way to class everyday and they have cool hair, dyed like a maroon rug. It’s the feeling of ‘oh it’s weird that I keep seeing this person even though we have no classes together or anything else for that matter,’ solely two frequenters. We make eye contact almost each time, but I look away as if I had been looking at something else. ‘Say something’ fades as quickly as we pass each other. ‘I think your hair is phenomenal’ passes again on some other day. Maybe I’ll say something tomorrow. 

But I don’t think I can do that to myself again.

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Artist Statement: “Going through the Motions” is a stream-of-consciousness piece illustrating an individual’s perspective of navigating one’s cyclic emotions. The piece is written in the form of journal entries to reflect the narrator’s retrospections and introspections in their present moment. They focus on the narrator’s insecurities, growth, and identity and highlights the complexity and oftentimes difficulty of understanding one’s mentality. 

We often find ourselves looking back on moments that we could have done differently, or wishing for a different set of circumstances that led us there, but it’s important to remember not to dwell on what has happened, but rather to acknowledge and accept one’s emotions in the fluidity in which they appear.