turn the ugly into something beautiful
In October 2015, Bottlecap Press released Part One of “I’m AntiSocial Coffee Never Lies”. Two month’s later Part Two followed along with all the questions of what led me to pen such a strange poetic narrative. So I’ve stopped to reflect on the things that had to happen for this book to be written and here it is. The manic process, my nervous breakdowns, and the fires of my own uncertainty that forged the ugly into something beautiful.
At the age of 22 I had only just recently moved out to live the adult life with my boyfriend who I only had just recently began dating and to be completely honest, I was confused about everything. We had thrust ourselves into the unfamiliar in a child-like hope to live more authentically. We had filled our nights with Kerouac and coffee cups full of cheap wine. We would sit on the mattress on the floor of our studio apartment and watch our hometown friends play guitars and we would smoke hookahs, positive and content in our choice of lifestyle. Eventually we would all fall asleep and do it all over again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
This went on for months: travelling, drinking, not sleeping, spending every cent we had. But I had no writing to show for it. I couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. I had followed the steps that my literary heroes: Patti Smith, Kerouac, Hemingway, Rimbaud had laid out for me.
But I was an empty vessel and detached.
At that point in time I had loved writing, but I was pursuing a college degree in education to be safe and to frankly avoid an uncomfortable conversation with my parents. I didn’t know how to let them know that their dream for me was not mine. I didn’t know how to say that I didn’t want financial security or predictability in life, so I didn’t. I forced myself to do both.
That combined with our rubber-burning lifestyle led to me having to find a job as well. Months searching craigslist and a small stint at a pharmaceuticals company led to me answering a “want ad” for a privatized workout company that contracted out to Chicago public schools so that they wouldn’t have to pay a livable wage to an actual qualified teacher. Given my chosen degree in life it seemed to fit and the hours were right.
But it didn’t fit, and where I was an empty vessel before, I was now just a nameless mass working for the mere privilege to exist. No writing happened from that point on. Nothing contrived or recycled. Nothing. And the job was awful. It was the first time that I had truly realized that I might not even be capable of working a 9–5 job and taking orders. I had supervisors that resented me. Teachers enforcing the bureaucracy at every turn.
One hot September day we had the kids run laps. I hated watching them do this, knowing the exhaustion that they felt, the limited water available to them, and the complete absence of air conditioning in the building. I objected, but was overruled. So in solidarity I threw on my shorts and ran with them.
After running laps for three periods with three different classes of children, one of the kids asked me about my tattoo, a small black hammer and sickle on my right ankle. Upon explaining what it was, my supervisor immediately threatened my job and I was told not to indoctrinate the children anymore (I had simply explained that it was a symbol of socialism and then I explained what socialism was).
Days later during a free period 8th graders came up to me discussing a paper they had on Christopher Columbus. I was disciplined yet again. It had not occurred to me that kids entering high school the following year were not allowed to be told about his genocidal past. Only that in 1492 he had sailed the ocean blue.
This went on for months. I began to have panic attacks. I lost weight. I went through depression. I became paranoid and unaware of how I was supposed to act or who I was even supposed to be. This was the 9–5 life for me
–until the day I quit.
Suddenly everything was beautiful again. I was inspired and excited. No longer weighed down.Within a 24 hour period my boyfriend and I immediately began to reassess what our lives would be. We made plans to leave the city and start simply. I finally committed to leaving school and work for good and to devote myself wholly to my writing. It was scary but exciting. At 23 I was finally going to go for it and I would no longer submit myself to something that I didn’t believe in. Years earlier I had begun dabbling in poetry and even wrote a chapbook documenting my travels and observations, but I needed to start anew.
So my boyfriend and I decided we would get coffee and discuss what my next step would be. I brought a book I was reading at the time and sat down while he ordered us coffee. During this, some pseudo-yuppie in a suit enacted something somewhere between sexual harassment and a microagression against me. And with that “I’m AntiSocial Coffee Never Lies” was born. It was bourn out of my frustration and agitation with a society that did not seem to want or understand me. A society that would smother children’s natural curiosity, punish honesty, look down on individuality, and mock a girl at coffee shop who is just there to read.
My only thought is that I should have done it sooner. I shouldn’t have wasted my time on the trying to fit in, or do what society wanted, or be the writer that I thought I was supposed to be. Every writer’s process is their own and they should aim not to fit into a category but to be honest.
I’m AntiSocial Coffee Never Lies (Pts 1/2) is available now at Bottlecap Press.
