Miscommunicae

~Bad Poetry~Pen Brush Sword~Thoughts and Dreams

Nov. 16

Written By Tiler 'Ti' Bradshaw

The main reason I ended up making Bad Poetry was to help pull myself together from a a relationship that ended when I was seriously not ready for it to do so. It hit me pretty hard and in a lasting way that I was continuously surprised and alarmed by. So it's only natural that a certain proportion of the material I produced might carry the stench of a sad person wishing for some kind of miraculous expression of love to appear out of the aether, or otherwise satisfy my thoughts with some cleverly couched negative energy manifested as self-reproach and a jaded and disgusted outlook on the whole endeavor of seeking friends and lovers.

The scene pictured is a tragedy.

On the note of self-reproach, I thought of myself as egregiously naïve for allowing myself to feel so defenseless to a person's rejection, especially after several seasons of "yes." A sudden "no, forever," felt like an atomic rocket-propelled dagger to the chest. The issue with Miscommunicae is a matter of feeling primarily that I thought I knew a person, but am suddenly made to recognize that I perhaps never saw the face of this person to whom I said things like "I love you," not knowing what that implied or meant to she, nor I myself having any sense of scale for the weight of my emotions at that time and how short a distance those sentiments and the hand that wields them was prepared to cover.

The natural reaction to feeling like I was somehow betrayed by this pretty creature is to look at myself and chastise the me of moments ago for seeing a face where a mask truly may have been. That's the initial turn, but what makes it a terrible spiral of toxicity and true foolhardiness is the mode of reaction I took to my own immolating anger. I decided for a long time that the proper reaction is to make an enigmatic cipher of myself. Suddenly I'm stuck thinking that all relationships are like this: two parties facing each other intent on performing some grand act of solidarity, but never understanding one another. Perpetually knotted and contorted with suspicion and a low current of derision while trying to hold things together in a bid for seeming capable of a grand success.

Of course, some poor sad souls do operate this way, seeking to keep up appearances for some observer who may exist at any distance from the Planck scale to Strangers on the street. This is a toxic and destructive relationship. People who are not in accordance are like magnets with similar poles pointed at one another, they continue to push together what must drive itself apart.

I made Miscommunicae because I did not understand how to appreciate a lover. I had felt betrayal when there was in fact a mere exhaustion of trying to bridge a gulf to me, and I was never receptive to it. I did not notice for a long time that I was not looking at an array of masks meant to deceive, but the face of a truly disappointed person, who perhaps merely lost hope with me. For a time, Miscommunicae was my most honest examination on the nature of relationships, that each member must ultimately settle on the thought that one can never know another mind and heart. Knowing this, people should never enter into relationships without being fully clad in the thickest armor, their defenses honed to a keen understanding of the machinations that can lead to your lover-opponent striking a deathly, crippling blow to you with not the slightest warning. As for people who can't protect themselves from the beautiful agent of chaos they so wish to hold in their arms? They must play strategically, and never set foot in such an arena, lest the swords and spears and tigers rip you to shreds as I thought had happened to me. It was the most honest and sincere thought I carried in my skull for ages. The only way to survive your own love is to deflect with a myriad masks, then nothing can hurt you. Nothing can even reach you. It makes perfect sense and you can live it out and witness it in reality.

But it is not true. It only makes you fragile. It occludes you from the world and the damage it does to you can be fatal. Even draped in knowledge and wisdom and perspective and experience on the matter, the dreadful outlook of a million facades, a wall of masks can write itself on your neurons with a fulminous pen and make a fugue state from even the sight of a golden arrow, whilst you eat every lead arrow you can find, for it satisfies our tragic sense of comedy.

But it is not true.