The birth of Jillian Warsaw

(Jillian Warsaw is a character who appears in many of my short stories)



Ocean Eyed Voltage

You look into my eyes
Jagged bolts pierce the bruised flesh of my heart
Reflecting from yr soul mirrors electric
And I feel the rush of fresh fire blood through its valves
Its beat now arrhythmic pounding a furious S.O.S
I stand paralyzed
My nerve endings pulse hot red
But every striated muscle is an ineffectual slab of concrete
Magnificent orbs of sky ice
Injecting my essence my very being
It ripples through my consciousness
And explodes an intoxicating Molotov cocktail of emotions
Who are you ?
And what do you want with my soul? luminary angel!
O God!
The fucking charge!
Like a cold and fat tongue lapping the frayed surfaces of midnight lightning!
You shatter my resolve
And weave my confusion into a beautifully destructive fugue
You conjured me


I wrote the poem Ocean Eyed Voltage after I had first laid eyes on the woman who would later become my first girlfriend. At the time I didn't even know I was gay. It was 1998 and I was 22 years old, very young inexperienced and naïve. The woman I desired was 6 years older. In retrospect both of us were at a period of our lives when we couldn't supply what the other person needed. I was still in the closet only peeking out to go to the bar and relish in a whole new world that had been opened up to me. She needed a more stable and secure environment with less partying-she also needed to get the hell away from her ex girlfriend. I fell very hard and very fast for her. To me she was the only woman who existed. Her eyes were like sapphires and my God her lips'�

She made me feel like I had never felt before about anyone. And the fact that it was my first same sex relationship made it that much more intense. She was the one to introduce me to my true self. She penetrated my mind, body, and soul. No matter where we went, or what we did-I always had my blinders on'�again to me she was the only woman who existed. Eight insane months later she dumped me (we would also hook up off and on for additional 4 months). That exchange would later be documented in the poem Room 13. I was devastated I didn't understand back then what I was going through much less what she was going through. I had this idealized view of love. I felt that love would indeed conquer all.

Room 13
1.
Retro Insanity
Selective Memory
Faintly remembering the icy hot pain
Blue eyes cutting into my soul
Promising Heaven
My raw heart pulsing
With unrequited love for you
O my little lovely
The rusted spikes of longing
Have fastened me to the hollow cross
Of our love
You gaze up at me
Yr ravaged savior
And the thorny crown of co-dependence
You've placed on my head
You remember me?

2.
Yr middle name means "Lord's Grace."

3.
Retro Insanity
Selective Memory
Yr thick sweet lips
Cinnamon fire
In the winter blue cold
Moist clouds of frost
Filling the dead air between us
You said "This isn't the end"

4.
One night you made me a poet.

5.
What is this hold
You have over me?
I gave you my life
-Emotional Suicide-
But still yr voice
Is sugar to my palate

6.
You said I could have anyone
I said "why not you?"

7.
Tempestuous delicious girl
Hear my voice in yr head
And think of me kindly
I'm not the one who got away
I have never truly left.
You said you needed time
I said "all in all yr just another brick in the wall."

8.
You watched me
Dangle from the abyss of reason
Bloody fingers clutching blindly
At the dry cracked surface
And you stomped down
One last time.
You said you were "no good for me"
I said "love conquers all."
(Mother should I build the wall?)

9.
One night you made me a cynic.

10.
Masochism is a bittersweet flavor.
Forever is a relative term.

11.
The ripe green fields
Of innocence
Are mined.


12.
You said I should "never change."
I said "nice girls finish last."

13.
One night you made me a monster.


I could physically feel my heart being crushed like an over ripe fruit. A sucker punch to the gut all of those cliché's rolled into one horrific onslaught of pain. At that time in my pre-therapy years, the only thing that made sense to me was to toughen up. I am not going to ever let anyone hurt me again...

etc...blah blah...etc. You know the drill.

I became jaded, a cynic. True love really didn't exist. There were no happy endings, there was no fairy tale, because my first lover was my princess charming and she was MIA.

My demise had a soundtrack, the entire album by the Cranberries-Forever Yellow Skies, and that song by Bryan Adams-Heaven..that was "our song" It took years before I could even hear that shit again. And wouldn't you know it, years later some chick slapped a techno beat on it and it played at the clubs every time I went out.

Anyway, the day we broke up I had a ritual. I put on all black clothing and said this is mourning the death of the old Anetra. The good girlfriend, the naïve one, there is no such thing as forever'� I will reinvent myself in the name of self preservation.

That day a scar was born the anti-Valentine...
Jillian Warsaw

I decided to embody her into a character with a name years later. But at that time that was how I myself approached relationships.

The idea of "emotional self-preservation'� is something the character Warsaw would muse upon later in Animus Underground. Pretty much all of the things that Warsaw (not to mention the other characters) says is actual dialogue. Things that were said or things that would be said from a particular character should the situation present itself. My friends and I are notorious for saying outlandish things.

It was then I vowed to be the predator and not the prey. This would prove to be very unfortunate for my next girlfriend whom I met a year later. (sorry)
My next girlfriend had to live with the ghost of my first for almost half of our relationship. She also had to live with the resulting monster that was the ghosts ex. I guess even for a few years into my new relationship. I still wanted my ex to come back and sweep me off my feet and the fairy tale would come true, but I finally realized that wouldn't be the case either.

Thankfully Warsaw is only a character now and not my persona. It's funny to write her and remember how fucked up I was.

I come from the Kerouac school of writing-Write what you know. So my life plays a huge role in my art. Fact and fiction weave together to become the fabric that is my work.

Jillian Warsaw is pretty much the daughter of my first love and myself. She was born out of the flaming ruins of our relationship. I never got a baby shower'�For those interested...I really like Pier 1.

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