I feel the exact note of what you were dreaming.
What else do you want, what else could you imagine?

Captivate me. You have me, now what will you do?

"This is fragile" you whisper. Now, stop, acting like this is delicate.
You want me to breathe you in and out, now. Are you afraid? Shouldn't you be?

If I had to describe a greatest fear: Thieving Ghosts

The ghosts of this city are gnawing at my bones,
wretched creatures, spiteful and passionless.

They weave their hands, translucent and cold, through my hair, tugging and pulling me towards the ground.

I protest, because I do not like the way the pieces of gum are sticking to my shoes, and imagine it would be less than pleasant to have my hair (dammit, I should have cut it, I always want to cut it)

stuck in the gum.

They laugh at me. I dislike being laughed at. I feel a rumbling nauseousness in the pit of my stomach, aching for them to embrace me, aching for them to simply let me be.

The ghosts taunt me with records, carefully penned, of people who once were loves of mine but have ceased being anything but cruel remnants. "See the evidence!" they gloat.

And I do. I see it. I see the memorabilia, stacked in a corner, dust (insect shells, broken jagged grasshoppers and butterfly wings, dried maple leaves and candle wax)

slick over the top.

Now I feel nothing, and instead of merely stealing my past and disabling me, holding me down to the ground, these ghosts.... ah. They make void my present by weaponizing my future.

They are crafty, wiley things, devoid of kindness.

"See how you feel nothing now?" they taunt. "Nothing for that which you 'loved' with everything, everything?"

"For that which you say you love now--
--You. Will. Feel. Nothing."

As I pen and read the present declarations of feelings, emotions, love and other such things, these ghosts steal from me what is mine in the present by revealing the emptiness and only distant fond affection for what was once

ever so dear.

I am not sure what this means.

I am tempted to do what I do with information I don't want to deal with, and push it in the very very far corners of mind.

I should attempt to understand this, but I am not sure if the implications are even realistic, I am not sure if this an exception, and I am not sure if the factors construing who I am would even bother addressing this.

Happiness is ....

... adventure and passion and inspiration.

Therefore, she lived happily ever after.

The word 'freedom'

More and more,

I recognize that bodies are inconsequential.

You, and your body, are lovely.

But more than this-- your mind captivates me with its complexities--

the way it betrays you, or you betray it.


I am always thinking, how can you let me know these things about you? Or more accurately, how do you give me the privilege of knowing you? The intricate far-away things that reside in the mysteries of you. The ones that are hidden behind clusters of veins and capillaries. Behind the bronchial tubes and even further than the depths that your lungs have capacity to inhale. Further still.

Count. One. Two.

How long can you hold it in?

Mysterious. I never could know and feel all of what you have.

More than this, I do not know how to give back in the same way other than choosing apt times to reveal factoids of this thing or that thing that I was or am or feel.

But always with great care and intention. Always with an intentional gauge on what I am revealing, what it could mean, and what you could do with the information.

Will you weaponize it?
Will you stop loving me, and turn who I am into something that could hurt me?
Will you stop loving me and simply let this investment of heart and time become something that sets behind your heart instead of in it? Calcified into a structure resembling a body?

But you, have nothing but trust in what you reveal. Such abandon and honesty and disregard for the possibilities of pain.

I have a lot to apologize for, I feel. Or people to apologize for.

How much of the hatred that is rampant is mine to be responsible for?

I am embarrassed at the ease in which we celebrate the death of a stranger, laws that limit freedoms of people we know nothing about, the way we tout 'love' when it is only a thing we seem to be masquerading-- with strings and costs and dollar bills attached on the other side of the thin mask.

More than this, withdrawing and setting boundaries and painting layers and layers of lines on top of lines-- I feel coerced into apologizing for this.

Today I am excited for the future.

I am so blessed, and I am so aware of it.

I have so many people I love, and I have people that amaze me surrounding me, yet I am not trapped in any way.

I am happy, and open, and free to follow those dreams of mine literally to the ends of the earth.

Not a bad place to sit at 24.

October 2

I cannot sleep again. It is 4:08 am, and I have class at from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm tomorrow.

It is undeniable, this time of year is on my mind.

I have come a very long way from last year. I have learned some things. I have packed memories away. Losing Rachael is something I will never completely recover from. Losing her, and not knowing why, is even more difficult.

I loved her as much as I have ever really loved anyone.

She taught me some things, and maybe not lovely things, but important none-the-less. Of course they go against all my tendencies of fostering relationships that are real, but it is realistic to at least consider:

• There is no one who you can put all your self in without risking losing too much if they ever decide to leave.
  
• Anyone can leave/be taken at any time.
• Can you still be whole after they do?

I am not ever going to write about this again.

Love, and War, and I *

Sometimes we

understand that one cannot be

without the others.

I stepped out alone with just Love

and was constantly looking over my shoulder

waiting for War to come looking for us.

so then I became merely afraid, and realized this wouldn't do,

so joined up with War, hoping this would bring peace.

But all War and I ever did was wait, hoping that just being together,

Love would appear.

But whenever War was around, all we talked about was Love coming someday,

but Love never arrived.

so I tried leaving Love and War to their own antics, and wandered about alone,

with nothing to fight for, nothing to fear, nothing to hope for, nothing warring or loving in me.

Ah, but this was impossible,

what is left, then,

without the tearings of these?

*Shameless title adapted from Avett Brothers

micro vs. macro

people sleep on the streets, he said. “It’s not very hygienic.”

maybe if the dirt or steps, broken marble or broken concrete

or whole brick

was scrubbed with bleach

and her hair was cleaned, and she smelled like mangoes and jasmine

and her clothes wrapped more neatly around the thin of her waist

maybe

if the dirt was swept vigorously away (always so gentle, our attempts to sweep you away)

our attentions would drift from bones and flesh and

the hair matted neatly to the side of your face--

and we would realize there is more broken here.

If every human life is created and designed, each person is a short story or chapter in who the person of God is.

Who you are to me, is God choosing to be vulnerable.


I am not affected by the criticism of my mind, my body, my choices. I haven't really had my feelings hurt for awhile (back to that odd observational tendency).


But when you said all you want is another day like the day you felt wanted, it broke my heart.



I cannot tell you how much you deserve, and how little you settle for.

You, who are infinitely precious, you who have been robbed of what should have always been yours--

You, who are a chapter written by the God I love,


How little you want, and how little you accept, and how much more you deserve.

Cost benefit analysis pt II

I have a peculiar numb feeling, which I am unaccustomed to.

Observational, almost. The anthropologists would be proud.

I have taken up smoking clove cigarettes on my rooftop, with my nerdy headphones and loud music (unhappy cilia everywhere). Very un-me. Cancer. Public Health. Not something that can continue too long unfortunately. The neighbors must think I am odd and deeply hypocritical.

But I like them. I like the sweet spicy smell.

I like the air, and swirling, and light, and the way the light mixes with the smoke-- and the way the smoke burns my lungs, and the way it swirls again and disappears into the sky as I breathe it out slowly and deliberately.

This numb feeling-- odd. I don't mind it. Watching my skin get cold, or my body get hungry. Watching my mind get tired, bored. Watching my lungs breathing.

There is the temptation to remain exactly this way. Feeling numb? This could be powerful. There is some freedom to this that I have not ever had.


I have always known I am all or nothing, and have not much experimented with this other extreme.

I believe in deep joy, peace, happiness-- but you have to decide what you want and there are consequences to indecisiveness; and there are consequences to passion. I have to decide if it is worth it (of course I know the answer, I would hope).

(knowing isn't the same as deciding).

cost-benefit analysis.

My dreams (the real ones, not the metaphorical ones)

are filled with horrifying things.

I explain this, when I mean just to keep mouth shut and listen.

Instead, I start explaining how I am awake and aware and it is terrifying to know you are only dreaming, and that there is a whole world you can control when you sleep.

You smile and nod and I know I should really stop (it is a bit strange after all).

But I cannot stop. Dream after dream recorded in my head like vivid and terrible memories;
-- I know -- you must be thinking: This one's a little strange.

Except, you like me more for this. And I like you less because--who likes such strange people?

The night used to be a friendly place,
and the faster that we drove along whatever road we decided to take,
the faster my mind raced, and I was only happy that you were driving
(I get lost).

The air stayed fresh and we were anything but suffocated.
and I rolled the window down, and you turned the music up,
and we decided if this would never end, we could be happy, maybe.

So I held my breath and turned blue, and you swerved because you thought maybe I would hold my breath too long--
-- (it's a biological reflex to keep breathing I said)

but you never believed me.

Today it rained, and I heard the sounds on my rooftop, and I was content.
I heard your song,
and I held my breath,
and I was happy, maybe.

(I get lost).

There is a way you glow,
wrapped in sheets (entwined in them).

Pale and thin, the skin is delicately translucent,
like you are about to break out of whatever shell it is you are confined to.

Collective memory tells us we too will be old, --but time, there is so much time (you always say to me).

I hate to disenchant you with this: ah, my dear, there is not.

Don't let this shock you, I see it even now. The beginnings in your eyes, it is harder now to ignore. Why do you always look so tired?

Why are you always watching me? It is hard sometimes to know the difference between what is me and what is this empty dying thing. Where does it end, and I begin? What are you looking at after all?

This empty, dying thing is beautiful (you always say to me) but,
I know it is only a failing thing,

and I am only more and more aware of the confines of what a body has to offer, however brilliant.

When the window is open, and there are noises from this or that town, I hope that I will at least remember this--

and I hope that you will remain unafraid.

New life philosophy

Going with the flow aka whatever aka chillaxin' aka meh aka brush it off and just float along for a bit > Taking everything/everyone/every-choice so seriously.

Can't be too bad for awhile, right?

It is a privilege to use 'love' so often in poetry

It is easy to see how one could become wrapped up in being delighted.

Oh I love this, possibility of leisure in the beautiful things.

That certain distance about the ones I love remembering ones they loved.
Loving (words: love; loved). Such prevalence and privilege;

The possibility of taking it, cocooning a lifespan in it.

Ah, and you, Kindness. You delight me. And I desperately want you to surround me.
Because when you are evident, there is a lightness to me, and there is a Me that could live surrounded with your consequences.

And this me is an artist. She is an author. She is married to a good man, with kind children.

These children: They love to learn. They share their lunches with the sad ones. They play music that makes everyone listen.

This me, she grows old, and does not notice, because time is on her side. She paints until the day she dies painlessly, delighted, few lines on her face, gripping the hand of someone who loves her, proceeded by many she loves.

But this me-- she chooses not to invite the stranger into her home.

She never
spun that stranger around.

She never
swept away his mask and begged him to let her take some of the darkness away.

The one walking away from her.
The tired one, matted in blood, hungry.
The one with the torn boots and a damaged heart.

"Do not forget me," he cries desperately.
"You promised.'

Cruelty is

It is hard to imagine
why if something is alive and bursting, sizzling, seething

more alive than all the living things have ever been,
leaking all the sounds that you could not have created

out of your own heart and mind;

if you can look out, bare,
and find you are looking in.

The way it is when I am not I.

why,

if you can taste the salt and the slight sweetness on the tip of your lips,
and your body is buzzing and reeling from the constant realization that this is good:



You would turn to the colorless, the tasteless.

So this secret you take with you,


and even if you choose the colorless, the tasteless

You, advocate of choice.


Dearest friend,
You have taken this from me.

Things about Iowa that make me happy:

My family is there.
I can walk around as much as I want at night and feel safe.
The air that I can breathe and breathe some more.
Simplicity, sky, stars, sitting on my grandparents deck and just enjoying their company.

Ah but always always always the question: is it enough?

Being a woman sucks aveces.

It might be fairly naive, but I suppose I didn't realize that as a woman alone, living and working among the people I want to, I am constantly and will always be in danger. I have taken dangerous risks in the past while traveling, but I am much more aware of it here-- mostly perhaps because there is no real choice in those risks-- it is implicit in my neighborhood.

I dislike the mistrust I have developed. However, it gets old, always being so careful. It is in fact, something I despise. How am I supposed to live spontaneously when I am always thinking about what time it will be dark, when I am blatantly followed in broad daylight, when people grab my arm in the street? There is no subtlty in the things people say to me. When they say rapes are under-reported, how can I be surprised with the policemen leer and say 'Come home with me, I will take care of you'? I cannot imagine living this way, not trusting anyone! I am also not surprised at the law-suits being brought forth from past Peace Corps volunteers that were assaulted and treated as if what happened to them was their fault-- a glass of wine, walking in the dark, trusting a stranger, not always always having someone to walk home with.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been in situations where I had to make a choice, and neither choice was a good one. Accept the ride home with the strange but nice guy also waiting for the buses that have stopped running after a concert or get stuck in rioting at midnight in a bad part of town? Take the bus all the way to the city I wasn't planning on going to because there was a 2 hour traffic jam and it is dark all of a sudden, or get off the bus in the middle of no-where and flag down a random stranger on a motorcycle? Get off the only guagua going home on a Sunday, or hope the guy waving a gun in the next seat doesn't turn around and force me off the guagua? Pay 7 bucks to wave down a taxi, or walk six blocks with a group of guys following me and hope they're just trying to go home too?

I make extreme gambles every day here, and I am very very aware of it. I am also aware of how selfish it would be to get hurt because I was stupid.

But obviously-- again, naive to think that 1) being a foreigner and 2) being a woman would be a winning combination of anonymity. However, it is slightly discouraging and sobering, because it has implications for what I want to do with my life versus what will keep me alive long enough to actually live it.

maybe some days,
you fret as the dreams drip from your subconscious
and onto your wrists
in the form of permanent brown script,
vertically inscribed in a language you haven't really learned;
but tumbles from your tongue.

they ask you to explain,
and you glance in panic at the pearls twisted twice around your wrist.

you stretch on the beach, until you forget the demands.

"Who wears pearls at the beach, and where does it come from, and what does it mean?" they say

you chip at the polish on your nails, more confused.

"Me, and nowhere, and why does it have to mean anything?"

Mountains By Jarabacoa

The chubby baby is covered in pox. "Have they been sick in the past 12 months?" I ask. It seems like only a formality, as the young mother reaches for her four year old, and yanks up the dirty red shirt. His dark skin is speckled with oozing wounds.

"They are always sick," you say. "We are always sick."

"How old is the mother of this house?" I ask. 29, you say. Your husband is still in Haiti, you say.

You look at your older sons, and they are combing their hair into corn-rows. The oldest looks away when you say this.

"How many children?"

"Six."

I look around, and there are three boys, and two babies. The girl in font of you is holding your youngest, and he is crying. You look to us for permission, and we nod. You put him on your right breast.

"Two are still in Haiti," you say.

The girl holding your baby watches me, and smiles politely. 12, 13 years old.

My French is poor, but your 4-year-old covered in pox gives me a weak smile-- ça va?

I am not outraged.
If these were me, wouldn't I maintain outrage?

We are always sick but,
"They are always sick," I say.

A lover who failed

crosses the street, decidedly alone or unalone

depending on the time of day or unday.

He touches the soft hair of pretty girls, blue eyes and brown eyes and eyes that have decidedly shut.

He whisks them along with stories, and champagne, and an arm to lean on when they tire of simply

walking alone.

The lines around his eyes give him away when he looks down, out of the stench

the whole world of fruity smoky perfume and names he has stopped caring to remember, as he glances at his worn leather watch,

every once in awhile considering the time.

First church service after Katrina

One time,

I drove all night and into the next day,

with a car full of strangers.

there were fish on the ground,

and skeletons of houses and creatures,

plastered on roads and balanced on the tops of tops.

If stories are enough to cripple me,

I expected devastation of more than buildings.

to my great surprise,

I found music.

ah, and see they knew of what they sang.

'You give and take away. You give and take away. Still my heart will choose to say,

Blessed be the name of the Lord.'

Sometimes after so much time surrounded with the all the bleak things
you pretend the sun is meant to make you, aware-alive.

(enjoy)
joy
knowing that you know
and I know
who is hurting now
and you curl
your finger around
my thumb.
and in this,
I know you will
stand in the streets
and protect the cities
I somehow grew fond of;

Maybe you will play your old guitar,
and sing of ways we could
learn how to be
human again.

The first song is just for practice,
and your voice cracks a little,
you smile shyly
at the boys holding machetes
and the girls with baskets and babies.

You hum a bit at first,
and the men with guns and chains,
sway in uncertainty.

Then you throw back your head and
cry unabashedly
of the way we have given up pieces of us
and along the way lost more than we had.

My cities stand still; at least agreeing to listen.

Perhaps this is as close to joy as we could be,
today.

Thank you, I whisper; these are mine.

The boiling inside was met with dullings.
Just press it away
and describe a memory of a memory for posterity.

Surround it with gentle voices and gentle polite applause,
and turn this truth of what is happening now
into something sanitized and manageable
justifiable.

you vs. yourself

Always this choice,
you or me.
Ah and, is this
really freedom?

When I know you
are everything precious
and made,
and worth all there is,
or will ever be?

Where is the choice in this,
don't frighten me
with wasting so much.

Maybe they looked and did not understand this,
and 25 years went by,
so you looked in the mirror and met yourself with a blank stare

Face. Eyes. Hair. Lips. A sum of some
parts that make worth.

Darling do not make the mistake of the broken-hearted.

You walk into the flurries.
Every morning it's dark,
and every time you
glimpse at the sky, you see it
again.

The way that it is always
so thick. You drown it out
or drown it in,
as long as the day is done;

Sigh, trip, and fall into the next one
wasting your moments planning your moments
Until something ignites you,
and the greys of your day
burn like the desperate shout for someone to only
walk by and touch their skin.

What do you expect, burying all the burning things?
Don't they deserve to wail that you have forgotten?

You feel, or have felt, the numbing pressure.
The unspeakable things, the things too dark to pull out of the collapsed
corners of your heart.

You know that the pretty words, the pat answers and cliches will never be enough to mend these things. That there are wounds that need more than truth,
losses that need more than condolences and empty assurances of future goodness.

Yet through this you say, "I choose to believe. I choose to serve, and I will remain faithful."

And when my eyes and my heart are closing, because I just don't understand what Love looks like anymore, and is the Love I have been shown only a lie,
or the rumblings of chance
you take me by the arm and spin me around slowly.

"Don't forget, it is all Love, after all."

When people talk about beauty-- full lips and long hair and slender and big eyes... this is what I think of. When God talks about beauty, he notes that a 'gentle and quiet spirit' is worth much.
But my spirit is voracious and stubborn and curious and bursting and roaring for everything at once. It is upset and devastated, and loudly questions everything. In this case, trying to be beautiful in this way would be lying.

sometimes
they (we) them
ache.

for nameless stencils of the collapsed
and
a deliberate wandering from the cold eyes.
Here you are, and
I recognize what this could (should) be.
But somehow the alternate world and series of choices (lack of choosing)
has steered you towards tape and chalk and
a different way.
Sometimes, usually Wednesdays around four, when you are tired and your mind is not as guarded as it should (could) be,
You think of bones and muscle and tissue and spirit.
And the tracings ache over what they can’t offer.

I feel the way your mind wonders
what if and maybe, and should I let one love go for another?

adventure

somehow

after awhile,

I mistake for weariness

and

the staying

the building of life

the intertwining of witnesses

I mistake for complacency

Recognition

Do you ever have that feeling, where you recognize someone else's soul with them.
A slight, 'we have been together once' or 'we will be together soon.'
That the same dangerous thoughts crossed your minds, once or at the same time,
and the same yearnings for God to be as He promised, for the world to simply just be without destroying itself in war and the deep pains of bitter men.
The recognition of trying, straining so to not let the dark things overtake the joy.
To remember that the joy is not worthy of guilt,
that we should not be lonely because we are not alone.

sometimes the words are splintered and make more sense when they are said out loud-- trickle, hurricane, and a sweeping of the curtains

so this is difficult to admit, or say out loud, but it may be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,
the wire twists and here the wings form out of cast iron, how will they hold in the blistering air?

Tacks and nails, and the sharp edges of violets billow uncannily in the oceans.
so you say this is nonsense, but who are you to really know? there is sense,

look carefully,

maybe you will see it in the pauses

or lilts of this day

I too, always wanted the security of constructed sentences and phrases, but maybe there is something more.

faulting and stepping, the eyes flicker quickly in tune to the sounds of the grand experiment, nobody told you that you were a part of.

Have you met the other pieces of you, wandering the roads in the quiet glowings of the far off foreign lands that you should really be calling home?

Maybe you are nothing but the place everything seeks.

On surrender

When these words are promised into the night
whispered at a point of anguish or desperation
given freely as praise
are they fully recognized by the giver?
Does the giver know, exactly, the promise they make?

What, exactly, is being surrendered?

My life. Yes, this is easy.
My soul. Slightly more difficult, but achievable.
My mind. Attempting, daily.

But, my love, my individuality, my passion....?

Or harder yet, the lives of the other, the family, the dear ones, the ones I love that I do not even know. Am I willing to surrender them as well, without even a pause to breathe, to consider the implication?

I remember once,
the astounding sensation that my body was completely made to allow my soul joy.

Everything, designed, to make this self, whatever it is really (electricity? neurons? a painting somewhere in a museum? a slave? a color that hasn't been invented yet? a collection of memories? a history?) experience.

A machine, brilliantly engineered. So this God, has made this incredibly strong, complicated machine. That grows and moves and feels.

Strong enough to be broken, yet unknowingly fix itself. To be soft enough to experience pleasure, the lightness of touch. A mind which can make words on a page ideas and dreams and action.

Every sense, every thing that was made, designed to be breathed in and experienced.

Every sense, every flutter of heart or eyelash.

And when this soul feels so much, it literally produces a physical result. Hearts stopping at the end of the same 89 years, if they have been wound together by this whole life. Tears of joy or anger or sadness.

Please excuse me watching the slight side smile at the corner of your mouth, while you sip your tea. I find it wonderful, that this flavor is your favorite. That you can have a favorite.

That you have been given the simplest of choices, and find joy here. I can't help but wonder what you really look like.

(a painting somewhere? a color that hasn't been invented yet?)

make sure your eyes
don't succumb
to the dulling
over time,
the way that there was incessant light and aliveness

make sure the hard years and the happy years
don't take over your eyes
make sure you still have slight smiles,
and the let the corners edge upwards

make sure you let whatever is hopeful in you
continue beyond the harshness

find the passion in you and hang on to it
for it is dear and you are precious;

and this is constant

It comes down to this
of everything
all the lovers
and all the sweet smiles;
every doorway, every building
every window sill;
there are always
always
bars.

Each city-town
town-country
Country-world

Has the breezings of warmth
and the possibilities
of
the unending.

“You
could
be
loved
here.”

You fail to take
into account
bars are made
of more than iron
and steel.

It is about more than just (the me)
I am telling you this so you can understand

that (the me) is not the only factor, variable
in this
equation

(and who are you to speak of such things?)

So maybe you finally got this place, and you gave everything to be there.
Maybe now, you are alive and flushed and have chosen joy;
(yes chose, chosen, choose)

Maybe now, your body is your own, and you can let your eyes glaze over every inch
without the shameful things going through your mind; without shame.

Maybe now, when you speak you hold your head high, and when you listen you nod carefully and wait for the wisdom to sink further in.

Maybe now, your spirit is in high spirits, and says "Darling, I am so glad you have decided to let us be at peace", while nestling in the crevices of your body.

but, (the me), may not be the only factor.

So even if (the me) is healthy, even then I cannot ensure that (the us) is happy,

because there is always, always

(the you).

when I watch
the way you don't even realize;
exactly who you are and what it could mean.

there is beauty in this.

Oct 2

It is easier
to write someone off as having been
unkind
or hateful
the type of person whom
wouldn't grimace at the bruises
they inflict.

Instead,
I love you.

Despite the way
you knowingly let
my heart break.

As you throw another fist
I brace myself, holding my breath
waiting for the pain to explode again.
I know that the flesh is already tender
and I know that the small capillaries
may not be able to withstand this, any more.

I know. I should pack my bags.
I should, stuff my memories and photos
letters and pleas for love,
in a ragged cardboard box.

Instead,
I let the fist pummel me again. Expectantly,
because after-all, I can see it coming.

I could turn away, I could fight back.
But I am too tired, and too torn apart.

So I am here, writhing on the floor,
sobs racking my body, flinching in anticipation.

And if I could pretend that these memories meant nothing
to me,
than maybe I could gather the strength to stop whispering
'Ah, but you promised. Why would you do this to me? But ah, after all. I love you still'
and instead
whisper
'No one can see forever, joy will return but not this joy.'

And let the bruises heal.

Instead,
I let the pain continue because I cannot see how I do not deserve it. I must, in someway, to
be hurt this way.

It is amazing, how quickly we can move.

Oh I was there, once, and now all of a sudden I am here-- make it count, make it count.

Who thinks so much?
It is exhausting. Really. It can't
be normal.
Because if it were,
there would be a whole world
scribbling in forgotten languages or languages
the rest of us
are not smart enough (or wise? enough.) to
have learned.

All this pitter pattering in the back of the skull
the neurons must get tired sometime and sleep?
Or perhaps they live violently and brilliantly and just burst until they die
and that is why the thoughts never stop.

LIVEDIELIVEDIELIVEDIELIVEDIELIVEDIELIVEDIE

if you combine it (as neurons have a tendency to do, when they are bored, and need something to tame whatever madness it is that is called their purpose)

it merely becomes 'I LIVED' after awhile, given creative manipulation, perhaps some squinting.
At every deathbead this is the obvious conclusion, for however long.

And this, is quite remarkable, if you take the time to notice.

I think that,
when the music plays just right,
and the eyes catch at just that certain time,
and you sigh and I sigh with the same thought
or at least
the same breeze and glimpse of shadows bubbling over the lights
drinking fruity sangria,
and deciding which Havana poster we like best,

(we especially like the crumpled edges and the darkness seeping into the paper)

I think that,
when I notice your eyes sparkle sideways,
and you notice me noticing;

when you recognize a feeling, ebbing thru the sarcasm and the frustration,
when you see a desire to live a life that is intentional,
that is not for money or to fund the dying at the end, but is for the living now! Presently! not always
(always, always)
jumping into the future like the tails of us and the beginnings of us are on fire
enflamed in panic
and wanting so desperately to live that we forget

(the living now! Presently!)
is now.
is this.

I think that this,
makes all the tumbling and discomfort and
uprooting of roots, and other such comforts

at least intrigue.

Plot we say! And now,
and least,
there


is


beginnings to endings/(ENDINGS to beginnings?)!

mmm, whom gets to decide?

In the noise, the quiet of all the sound,

I notice the small things that happen quickly and with great force.

The thousands of choices, all witnessed now in this moment. The rhythm of the way your hands sway back and forth. The tan line that gently caresses your finger, a thick band of color missing. This is new.

You eating alone in a corner, glancing self-consciously around as you, pausing with your fork in your hand, stabbing at the pieces of your salad, reaching across the aisle to clean the glasses of a child. You take a bite, and pause wistfully. People look confused, everywhere. Lost, looking, searching for something. What could this be?

Purpose. It is one of those words that people throw out, without considering. What does it really mean to discover purpose?

Is it a way to get through each day, a reminder that cascades of pain and joy are more than just the random and rapid firing of neurons?

Choices, the sports that we play, the way we present ourselves to the world, the tone we choose to use to talk to that loved one, or one who isn’t loved anymore.

Above all, recognize that these are precious, worthy, of respect. It is easy to say, yes?

There are those that grasp for kindness, who have known nothing but the explosiveness of life, the bitter let-downs of what love was supposed to be. So now this crazy idea, are people put in your life for a reason? Do you have an obligation to love people? To at least put forth every good faith? To take the opportunities that seem like curses at the time? I never considered that it wasn’t you, but maybe it was her.

I don’t believe in coincidences.

I hope that this game, whatever it is, ends in victories for every party involved. I hope that this is something that you hope for, strive for, and in the end the winnings are split into things that you never expected to win.

Surprise.

Take the fireworks and split them into each individual ember, watch it thrive and live and flare into sparks. Taste the colors with your eyes, feel the warmth and be a part of the moment as it happens. Remember this as it is happening, click. Take a photograph.

The edges sharpen and then soften. The sound cracks in the air mili-seconds after you hear it. You have your hand, a little sweaty perhaps, safely cradled in your love’s hand. He strokes it gently, feeling the same thing at the same moment that you do. The sparkles and sizzle, the frothing billowing edges, the sticky air, the way the embers are dying in their beauty. The living and dying and the way that these things seem inextricably linked. And as you savor this moment, you don’t let this simple thing ruin you. You guard your soul and your soul’s happiness with vigor. “Baby, just breathe,” you whisper.

This now is yours, and no one can take it from you.

This war was fought in whispers.

She whispered something, conspiring to make her unlikely enemy fall.

One hand cupped, around the faceless face next to her, gently

like it might have been a kiss; under different circumstances.

And more than all the guns or knives

this whisperwar

destroyed more than could be rebuilt

bricks and mortar

would not salvage reputations or mend the trusts

the shadow of doubt cast

like a dove flitting across a white cloud--

was it really there?

A possibility is now permanent in all these minds.

Truth or truths or lies; the brilliant opponent has now made everyone

Lose/ The Lost.

I think I know a little bit about the way I am.

I was painfully shy, in middle school through high school. I would not let people take my photograph. Extreme perfectionist tendencies (every three weeks I wrote a 20 page book report, 10 point font, single spaced. Seventh grade.) Relatively smart, introspective. I was taught something, and I believed it to be truth. I looked for reasons to enforce it, and it made my perspective black and white.

Ah, see, then. I went to Uganda. I was pummeled by the sheer vastness of what it meant to be alive. I had a few of those moments where I felt like I was living and walking separate from my body.

I had my heart broken, became guarded.

I needed a way to explode, but wasn't sure how to while still living in this framework.

So I left at midnight in the middle of the week with a group of people volunteering at Katrina.

This was followed by working at Beloit, where I became angry and so hurt at what was allowed to happen in our world. The abuse, the destruction of innocence.

Particularly this one child's story simmered in me. He had a brother, he was smart, artistic, wildly funny. He and his brother had been locked in a basement and were thrown food every once in awhile. This happened for months.

He and I, we understood each other. He set fires when he could, climbed the roof, ran away. But I respected him, and he knew it.

One time he climbed the roof and I climbed up after him. I was clearly afraid he would push the ladder down, and he was carrying a large piece of board. He leaned over as I was climbing up the ladder. "Don't let her fall," he said.

When I got to the top I asked him to give me the board.

He looked at me quizzically. "Are you going to hit me with it?"

"No," I said. "No. I'm not going to hit you with it. Why don't you show me why you like it up here?"

And he did. He liked the curving of glass where you could see down. He liked the openness.

He set a room on fire two weeks later and was taken away and medicated. Hospitalized.



Then Chile, the disappeared. Then India, the burned women.

It's not that I don't love God, or don't want to. It is just that I can't trust him anymore, and it breaks my heart.

What things do you give up?

Dreams or the things that could really be?

The things you do for yourself, and

the things you do for us;

do you let, the shiny hopes settle down in the back

of the jewelry box,

sighing, quite softly;

You either know, or you don't.

I know. Should I wait on this? What could be lost(time).

what things bring you to life?

why do we always have the knowing and the naming,

but when it comes to forever,

we are so quick to gives these up; even if we know what we lose

each time

we compromise

the things

that make us alight with

the glow of knowing/ being known.

when you go,

I have not been as prepared

as I should have been.

and all along

I thought the walls

were carefully

(oh so carefully)

put in place.

So now I delicately select

the eye color

that I think this moment should have.

I shape the face on the mannequin.

I push and pull the clay, my hands covered

in

the making.

I wield the tools to gouge the smile, sad and slightly

bent,

maybe upside down.

and now that I have made and created and breathed life into this.

I order the walls to come up and fill the spaces where the clay insisted on

such things as breathing.

and all along, I wanted walls to weigh down

and protect against the things that fly.

and all along all I have ever loved is the idea of wings.

sway,

conflict.

who wins in this petty war,

there are stars, and hearts.

who will win the great wars,

if these modest bickerings end in such great endings.

what will be left of

whatever worlds

we decide are worth

keeping whole.

but perhaps it is in the

grenades and incinerations

that we shape a new

destructed place.

perhaps this destruction is what is needed to

be

renewed.

So the years pass,

so slowly but with the small molasses movement

deceptive

and you don't even realize

that you are wanted.

With (out) in

So is what you do counted,

when your mind is rebelling.

Let me feel. Let me feel. Your body screams, twisting in the pain of withdrawal.

Let me be.

but you take it, this weak weak heart,

and

make it beat in an unfamiliar way, unnaturally. Be this, you say, shaking it angrily, surprised and betrayed when it,

shakily,

refuses,

weakly trying to return to its joy.

If I had to guess I would say that it is fighting in its way.

You are angry that it has decided to

not pay attention to your worrisome

whisps of control.

Of the sea.

I live in a landlocked state. With houses that look the same, and roads that are laid out perfectly in a grid

by someone who hoped we would not get lost.

The shopping malls, with stores selling pretty things, conveniently at every corner.

The gas stations, selling candy and soda-pop and things to help the journey in the cars go well, to go faster.

So faster we drive, on the perfect roads.

Our lives, quite eloquently and effectively sanitized of the miraculous.

What of these dreamworlds, at night? They show us in pictures, and perhaps on the news, of the sea.

But we are landlocked, you see. How do we know such things are real?

The strength of waves, crushing down, over and over, onto a sand-filled beach. Creatures we really do not believe exist, shimmering in the waves. The sun sparkling on the shore, tiny tide-pools a whole world to be explored.

And here, we can see the sky. We look up casually, at the changing ceiling of our lives. But how could it possibly go on past this? We know, they tell us, of far off planets and galaxies, with swirlings and hopings and no endings, colors beyond what anyone could ever put on a canvas.

But we are landlocked you see. To these bodies. Trapped, in a world sanitized of the miraculous, while it

is, to our great surprise,

already.

This is my season. If you can own a season.

Red wagons with smiling children, vegetable gardens full of things I cannot exactly pronounce. The slight mist that settles in the hair, and makes your hair dewey with expectations and when you look around, the world sparkles slightly, holding its breath.

Music and art in the streets that make you take that breath in once more, and gasp at the beauty there. Water flowing over songs, and portraits of people you have never met but that you inexplicably love more than anything you have ever owned. Will ever own.

The exhaustion of this, the bubbling inside of you that threatens to become more important than any plan, the excitement of recognizing the living; the vitality of every place you look.

The power in your words and expressions, the way you can take someone who is fragile and make them whole with a single action. The winter struggling to become something more beautiful.

And all the words, all the feelings, all the prayer, all the insecurities and hope emanating, at the same time, from all the hundreds of thousands of souls. The quick smiles and quick laughs and the individual struggles of what it means to be human, the tracks of life struggling to become something

more beautiful.

This is where the winter and cold surrender the pain of change, and this is me now.

Surrendering the confidants, the carefully laid out plans, and learning to savor this moment now, to take it all in because this is fleeting and worthy of my hope.

So this is it,

the first part,

The part that is exciting.

When there is a new soul to see,

to meet, to inspect with sparkling Curiosity.

Well, hello there. Where have you been, I have missed you,

I think.

I have been sitting here, sipping away at all the pleasures this life

incites, waiting for you to join me.

So here you are. You laugh at my jokes, and you have deep secrets,

and there is nothing more I could ask for than this.

Welcome to the table, we have been waiting for you. There are feasts to be had and countries to explore, colors to create and games to be played.

And we have already won.

I am bound to the hopes of this generation
we want change
am I wasting your time, the way hair bursts into colors,
and you think about
the chains that silently prevent you from moving [your world?].
the warm liquid underneath your tongue and surrounding your soul,
tries desperately to keep you sated with comfort
with the small joys [bribes?] that await you if you succumb to contentedness
if you let the lullabies of the modern sirens lull you into believing
that there is nothing wrong with embracing
the privilege [earned?] your birth extends to you
place and time and color and language
are you really willing to let this be what
will be the separateness?

Haiti

If you have been paying attention at all, you will see that Haiti has been devastated by an earth-quake. It probably sounds selfish to mention the state of my heart at this moment, an overly-privileged luxury. Yet I must tell you, I have seemed to lock this away in some bottom part of me.

You see, the implications are too grand. Every piece of good that has been done/ will ever be done in my professional life is erased so many times over by this one world event. The magnitude of the death and destruction is so overwhelming because it is simply too big to be healed. 100,000 deaths have been estimated.

I find myself changing the channel. 'What Not to Wear' or 'Scrubs.' I cannot watch this, because there is absolutely NOTHING that I can do. Awareness? Yes, I am a proponent. Stop Genocide in Africa. Feed The Starving. AIDS Awareness. Yet, quite hypocritically and shamefully, I whine about four ankle surgeries in six months. "How could this happen to me?" I angrily muse, while sitting at home completely cared for.

In an even darker place, there is a little voice doubting being cared for by a God who lets schools collapse on top of children in a country barely recovering from past natural disasters. Will He really care for me if not even these are cared for?

100,000 people. There is nothing, nothing I can do or will ever do that could begin to salvage this kind of wound in a people, a gouging in the flesh of our world.

So I change the channel. I put down my newspaper. I find myself deliberately locking away that portion of my heart, like amputating dead flesh that would kill the body if allowed to continue in the raw. Because with something so devastating raw and exposed, how can anything else matter, ever, compared to this one event?

I have never been good at compartmentalizing, how can I give myself permission to enjoy the aroma of coffee or the thought of Arizona-- when the people are suffering now? Nothing could be significant again, and I do not believe this is right.

100,000 people. Every person you have every known, your entire town, everyone you have ever met and loved and everyone each of them has known and loved. All of their potential, their children, their grandchildren. The meals they would make at holidays, the words and symphonies they could have created, their choices and learning and potential to cure disease, the poetry and art we have lost. The kind words of 100,000 people that would have been spoken. The future of an entire people, and the carving and missing in the lives of the survivors of their dear ones.

We should mourn for the loss of these.

Choices

Sometimes, I feel like I am training myself out of what I want to be. There is this vague idea in the back of my head of a ‘dream,’ and so forth, but reality then hits, and it hits hard: what if the dream, when realized, becomes a nightmare?

A doctor or a writer. These have been my converging dreams ever since I can remember. Since my sister was diagnosed with cancer at the age of two, since I was diagnosed with a rare disease at the same age—I have been fascinated with the power of physicians. The secret knowledge they seemed to possess, the magical powers of healing. I envied them their minds, their ability to be called upon in emergencies and know how to act.

A quote by the author of A House on Mango Street details the young child’s awe at her friend’s face being stitched back together after being split open, and notes that ‘this is what one person can do for another.’ This idea still intrigues me, interests me to no end.

Yet, here I am. Two courses away from being able to attend medical school! Yet, despite the allure of the career—constant learning, a tangible skill set desperately in need, fulfilling that ever-so-apparent potential: I am not sure if it the life I want. The career yes, the perfect job. The life…

Perhaps I remain too much of a romantic. I still want to travel the world. Cook in Paris, and drink wine in Italy. Live in London perhaps, drift down the Nile once again. The taste for adventure has not left me, the desire for newness and excitement and dancing! A career in medicine will not give me this. I am desperately afraid that whatever in me yearns for art and magic and a life filled with surprises will be squelched by a job that requires everything.

I am torn between the lives—perfect job, perfect family-life, or perfect life? Medicine will give me one, marriage will give me another, but maybe it will always be writing that gives me the third. Which to choose?

Black and White (Makes Grey)

I am so angry.

This confession takes me by complete surprise, because generally I am not. But I will be discussing God or people or the wrongs in the world, and I find myself fighting back tears spontaneously. Because, you see, there is so much injustice, and you see, if anyone decided to step back and not fight,

if anyone had the means of stopping the murders, the rapes, the hunger, the genocides, the destruction of spirit and religion and culture, the deaths of children and the pride of men, if anyone could watch eight to ten people cram into houses with no food, no medication, no access to education, if anyone could have complete power to change this, who would not? 

What kind of God would not? There is so much that needs to be interceded, so much suffering. "suffering" do we even know this word? The physical, spiritual implications of the inhumane beating that a birthplace could assign? The hundreds of ignored people, sleeping on packed dirt, and rationing the last pieces of bread to family members. The burning, the drowning, the homeless, the starving-- who is watching these? 

What is the reason? "Sin"? I feel set up. Because, you see-- here we are. Born human. (And, really what is it to be human? To mess up, to discover, to apologize, to learn and try again and live!) Born 'sinful'. Do I really think the crime matches the punishment? I don't think so.

Yet, I see the beauty as well, so I know that God-- whoever he is, this God that I claim to love and whom claims to love me, has the propensity for mercy. That he is good. 

But what I don't quite understand is how I am supposed to see myself as 'evil' for simply being the way I was created and born to be-- human. Imperfect. 

What I don't understand is how to claim the immovable love of God when so many are waiting to be loved.

Grey (Anecdote to Bitterness)

so it has come to this.

remember this. you cannot take all the sadness away.

you are not strong enough.

no matter how strong you are (and I believe, you are, ever so strong)

so now, as a writer, I am supposed to write the words to tell you this, to show you really.

so when you, future reader, see this and feel the odd combination of guilt and hope that comes with wanting to fix the broken things: you cannot.

this is not something I am telling you to discourage, but to free you. Be happy. Remove as much pain as you can from this world, from those who are hurting, but don't be so overwhelmed that their sadnesses melt into you and you are consumed by it.

Be happy. Add joy in every way you can, paint and shout and be deliriously happy. Take care of your soul, don't let it shrivel in anger, don't let it become bitter with all the pain you see. Because all those hurting need you to stay hopeful, to cling to whatever is idealistic if they will have hope of change.

Don't let anger turn into bitterness. It sounds so easy, I know. How does one go about keeping their soul from bitterness? 

add as much joy as you can, take away as much sadness as you can. And hopefully, in the end, someone somewhere will have lived a little more, with a little more dignity.

the ships are burning

and somehow along the way

you couldn't be saved

how must that be

seeing the flames from so far away

and knowing that there would be nothing

left of this life 

the ships are burning but there is no turning back now,

how gracious you were.

little by little by bit

this humming grows swelters 

wanting to be fed, demanding

a response.

so when the wise have been questioned

by the idealistic

on how to live well, on how to conquer a good life

they begin to sing softly

under their breath,

their heartsongs

in response.

confused the students of the wise stumble away

angered at the perceived silence and unconvinced.

They scowl and feed the growing buzzings and hummings

meeting its demands for knowledge and wealth

and filling their faces and voices with the expressions and words

that the hummings require.

They live like this for awhile, tossing late at night, turning, and tossing

and wondering if tomorrow they will have enough left to devote to 

satiating the hunger.

Then the idealistic, after time, if fortunate, become wise. 

They realize nothing can satisfy, nothing can fulfill or cover the emptiness that loudly demands to be filled.

and instead they begin to fight.

They let the other sounds, the ones so easily ignored and overwhelmed by the distractors

slowly come forth

their time is now filled with observation and joy, the quietness of integrity and truth in living,

and this, as is only learned by experience, is what they do when asked by the idealistic how to live well.

they smile softly, and sing their heartsongs, the only ones that can quiet all of the noise that tries to take over. nothing can conquer life, but the heartsongs,

these are the life. 

Mr. Summertime Love

well, hello mr. summertime love

why don't you take me 

to a dance

and toast the cicada songs and firefly rumblings

the burst of heat against cool skin, the smacking of sweaty skin

and the shavings of cut grass flipped sideways and forward

mr. summertime,

show me the embers of freedom celebrations

wayward diamond fire beams sizzling in the heat

quiet men you adore more for their silence

children in braids and shimmery eyes entranced 

with the displays of firecolors in the July sky

afternoon lunches with cool breezes and sweepings of hair

against our cheeks, secrets and joys and laughings and 

the slippings of love that so easily are given

a quick squeeze on the shoulder, a lingering hand.

mr. summertime love,

love these; with me.

somehow, once maybe, or more

I decided,

that all the cities and experiences and exotic tastings

of exotic lives

do not match the warmth and filling and completion of

laughing at our own nonsense here.

our clothes smell of burnt charcoal and soggy marshmallows,

small nats and nighttime creatures dart in and around and on top of the skin of my arms--

we pull the blanket closer

there is laughter and banter and the subtle sighs of late night stars, content with their bedtime whisperings of our joys. 

we do not know, that this: 

the bantering, the marshmallows, the stories of volcanoes and stars, 

the thick and thin flames quietly bursting from the ground, flickers and reds, blues, oranges--

these:

are our great joys.

I see you with your old skin

the way your hand should be leathery but

is soft and downy like the feathers lining a nest

the way your eyes are satin, and shift between remembered youth 

and the dullness of remembered aging

This is my apology, for never knowing you as young.

For not remembering with you your childhood, your sister, your dearest friends.

Your time has not been forgotten.

irrelevance is

not participating in the 

small details surrounding you

not delighting in seemingly insignificant accomplishments

not delighting in yourself any longer.

Tomorrow is the last day.

I have been missing India greatly. I feel like my heart is split in two, three, tens. These people I adore with all myself, I feel like I have to shove it to the back of me in order to survive emotionally. But I deeply care about these people. 

recognition of needing

the pressing of warmth and emptiness 

the familiar slow burst of yearnings

the anticipation of continuation without 

a great joy.

leave,

and unexpectedly

there is tearing 

the left behind is 

too apparent.

you are me.

we were,

goodbye, dear friend.

please be us soon.

When the Rich are Dying and Buy Organs From Nowhere

putting the perpetrators of 

greed,

ease of life, and ease of infliction

-- put the pain in the arms of the other.

no eyes, no mourning breaths, no pleading.

a simple transaction to save the wealthy

the inconvenience of a guilty conscience.

How You are Responsible

it becomes harder to ignore the ugliness and

tepid yearnings

when the nameless are Named 

so they want the luxuries you have dangled.

the vacant words become their lifelines.

maybe there are the unloveable who spend their moments wishing for tenderness.

i keep remembering the thoughts of me, wishing for future.

instead of loving and wishing for this.

i am homesick for the tangling.

promises

the sounds lull and twist

and here is the part where the drifting souls

collide haphazardly with the smatterings of hope

the cries in the night and the small, quiet sobs

of those abandoned by the broken hearts.

they never wanted to alarm you with their 

slow sadnesses, but they envelop you without

permission or apology

citing the loveliness of your words and the

bold claims you made in your naivety.

at the funeral of wisdom and choice

you sang a eulogy of forgiveness and 

hope; without consideration of consequence.

you became the advocate of the invisible

but would not stop to wonder if you could deliver.

I think that the fact that

you make me laugh out loud

and I understand the nuances of 

your joys and sorrows--

should be enough.

Crippled Sometimes

Are you crippled by the shadows of 

skeletons and bones, creeping and whispering in 

the crevices of you[rs.]

The lullings and hopings that you

cannot give up

The faces and voices of the dreams you promised

never to let fade.

The devastation of the leaving and the windings of roads that have no ends or beginnings, but that you cannot bring yourself to diverge from.

The temptation of letting the hurting suffer in isolated silence,

containing and cauterizing wounds that someone else made,

Yet knowing this will never be enough to silence the whisperings 

that your joy is imminently entwined with the removal or addition of some kind of joy

[perverse games? ingenuine flauntings?]

banking

how do you justify the spending of a life
the spending of the time, energy, and concern
the amount of emotion allocated per person
per room

You say that no one
can see the way your eyes light up the night.
But I am looking
and I see
that you have more than just
a way to be alive--

Come with me
see the things
you have promised to see.

No other way is worth it, can't you see that this is made for you?

Instead you rip angel wings into fine down
sifting through the remains and making them into a pillow
for your weariness.

How can you already be weary?

Be joyful, choose it.

Free.

I get jealous of writers. Perhaps more aptly, their characters, their shameless (if not flawless) display of combinations of letters and words. I walk into bookstores and mock them slightly, turning up my nose at the raised print on the covers, the way the books smell so new when you flip through them-- all of the possible adventures that begin and end within 50000 words. I pretend like this may not be what I have always yearned for-- an absolute adventure, to any ends, with no confines. I like adventure, I like change-- my roommate told me I foster it, crave it (much like the unfortunate caffeine addiction I seem to have developed.) Maybe it is not so much the adventure that I love as it is the possibility, unrestrained, that at any moment (barring financial restraints) I am absolutely FREE.

I like this.

stop it. stop all the burning. it is inconsiderate to casually burst into flames when there are so many frozen in complacency.
don't you understand the inconvenience of this?
you have robbed them of their ease, their contentedness. Thievery. Your skin is flushed, and your heart is flushed, and you are making the comfortable people discontent.

so who has the responsibility
to tame the reflections that get away
were you the one to hold and break the mirror
maybe you dropped it into a casual song
without regard for the listeners.
Listen.
Don't bother chasing the mirror images, crossing left and right and
sweeping to the side of your face.
Don't bother looking. Stop examining.
let them run.

Soundtrack of the Moment

Jose Gonzalez-- Heartbeats

Wyclef Jean-- Sweetest Girl

Jimmy Eat World-- Let it Happen

Coldplay-- The Scientist

Damien Rice- Rootless Tree

escuchame, por favor
eres mi sonida, mi sonrisa
te quireo, te extrano
nadie en el mundo me conoces lo mismo
cuando voy, vas
cuando vas, voy
donde eres
mi alma esta perdida, porque estas perdidas
no se cuando regresaras, o si regresaras a mi.

quien eres?
o, una pregunta mas mejor, quien soy?

What do you want??

You know what I want?

All of these things, possibilities they call it, opportunity, 'potential' --- Grad school, the things I could do with my life,

They talk about it like they have stock, investment, time that gradually becomes worth more the more I live. They talk about passion like it is something that is expendable, something that runs out. Hurry.

No.

I want people to be safe, before they get hurt. I want women and children to not be afraid of those who are supposed to love them, and I want innocent people not to suffer for the corruption of others who were hurt somehow. I want the corrupt prosecuted, I want them (even them) to be treated as human, I want everyone else to understand that you can't deny them (even them) this, or else bits of your own humanity begins to be revoked.

I want to jump out of a plane and land somewhere I may never be again, learn languages just so I can tell women with sad eyes that their children are beautiful, ask them to teach me how with out knowing what I will be taught, and I want to never ever 'get it out of my system', I don't want to find a husband because that is just kind of what you do around twenty--- why not marry some man when I am 82, and spend the rest of our lives listening to the wonderful stories, imagining the beautiful places and never giving them up? Why not love when you find the person, not when the timeline tells you to?

I want to cry and laugh and be completely honest, feel what hurts (pain is there for a reason)
I want to scream at you when I am angry, call you out on your falsities, have you call me out on mine. I want to live according to no formula, I want to use my mind to consider, my soul to consider.

I want to be absurd, happy, content--- acknowledging the pain of this world, the way that the people are hurting, but not let it consume me

SO they ask me, constantly, always, What do you want?? What are you going to do?? What is your one year, two year, five year life plan?

It can be hard to explain.

How
does
the
shards
of whatever
is left
come
together
and equal

the damp palms
the heart not resting
the mind not sleeping
the twisting in
my belly

the fight with my features
to stay as they should,

the music not salving
the words, the touch not satisfying


the disappearances
of intangible ties.

how do you stay whole, with the emptinesses

so glaringly apparent?

leaving is not difficult.

leaving ideas, dreams, people-- especially if there is something or someone to leave for, someplace to journey to.
the man leaves his wife for his mistress, the woman her old comfortable job for something new and more. there is that promise of excitement, of novelty, intrigue-- that tiny whisper that says you are not happy enough -- a different kind of greed.
two weeks, months, years, decades later you become nostalgic, or fight off the nostalgia self-assuredly-- citing the shiny new people, accomplishments, places and experiences as trophies. you did the right thing by giving up that mundane little place, relationship, that small town.
it took so little to be happy then, you muse, and there is a tickle in the back of your thoughts, like a small feather, and you wonder-- maybe I was happier then, in that small town
'all the world's a stage' but
maybe
if the script was never written
and the actors were all drunk before they could get into costume

I could be happy with just the stage alone.

memory

i have been careless with my life.
not necessarily unappreciative of it, but merely careless. Finding pleasure in unnecessary risks, naively embracing the possibility of death without considering the possibility of injury, or the emotional consequences of those who I have somehow been loved by.

recognizing this, this previous carelessness and the mistakes of others, i have a perpetual need to remember and recall the beautiful moments. much like a photographer might miss the actual event by focusing his attentions on capturing it, squinting into a tiny screen while the world flees around him--- i am constantly focused on remembering what i should be feeling rather than simply feeling it.

isn't the loveliest part of memory they way that it surprises you by recording without you knowing it? shouldn't this be pleasure enough?

costs (unintentional?)

feel.

every bit and piece of the way your skin feels when the cold rain hits it,

the way the heat and sun sashays around the crevices and fine lines in your face

(faces?)

damages cannot be paid for losing this.

remember.

every bit and piece you chose to gave away.

the way the hands and arm around your waist sashayed you,

(yours?)

damages cannot be paid for losing this.

not enough

does everyone get the pressure
deep in their chests, or away from them somehow
when the combination of thoughts of someone missing are combined
with the right pressures and imagery and fear
of something loss
like the air or the feeling, the pure feeling, grows and expands
and nothing will relieve the way you are to me

momentarily

wait it out, breathe. hope to make a wall keeping this at bay
but hope to God you never will.

i am afraid of
what is missing.

flavor

So, I like the dimensions of music
it gives extra flavor to the words that aesthetics cannot.

you give this as well.

sdrow:words

sdrow tsuj era sdrow eht os : so the words are just words

egap eht no sgnikram tsuj : just markings on the page
,eseht evlos yeht lliw woh: how will they solve these,
eseht: these
?erom hcum os deen taht eseht: these that need so much more?

nothing but mirrors of what is real:
still don't know?

leaving

here goes the hour
who was looking for it, was it lost?
all of a sudden it was gone, and no one knew to look

so are you, I have noticed.
look away for a moment,
and the moments add together
all of them
and quickly disappear.

kiss me, quickly, before this is gone.
before I censor you to me.

The Peddler

this is how we discuss

the war and the dying and the

children crossing borders in a desert

quietly, in a warm room, hushed voices

we sit here, holding our lattes, sipping

flinching as our tongues are singed with

chocolate and milk, cursing our misfortunes,

and feeling our soft bellies tighten with the pain.

how do we solve the problems of this world?

we decide that we are qualified for such things

we know how to satiate the screams, evidently.

dressed in corduroy and cotton, cashmere and denim

leather shoes, diamond rings, hair that is long and conditioned with

oils of the dying animals (cows and beasts, monsters and similar such creatures.)

then we tell them to believe, they do, and we cite our own God’s victory,

when it was us selling our souls.

(have we been bought?)

The peddler sells trinkets, saved souls and peace, on a golden chain, with charms.

Cows and beasts, monsters and similar such creatures.

(what was the price? did we ask?)

But he won’t stop the screams (is he responsible for the crime?) and he won’t sell us much but the leather shoes and diamond rings.

crazy words

what if one day those who have cradled the same experiences cease to be

a holder of your days anymore

remind me that

there are those who won’t destroy

thank you for

your unintentional kindnesses

art and music

are not forced to be emotionless in their call for change

they do not appeal logically, with reason and planned out rules

they appeal by revealing pieces of who we are and who we may have forgotten

we recognize ourselves in the cascades of sound and color,

we are reminded that the way the world is isn’t necessarily how it should be

appeal to them, with your colors and pianos and voices

remind me that

there are those who won’t destroy.

Where is the inspiration?

Register the

The glass of red wine, swirling (opposite and together)

The warmth flowing from you to it

The curve of the glass, cool in your hand

The biting in the back of your throat

The settling of the fog on your skin

dampening

You can’t think of

These leaving things.

Don’t remember so intently,

It shouldn’t be so intentional.

Shiver slightly

The lights distorted

In water-coated twilight

Silk and glass poems and prose

Shredding nonsense

Ebony, slip quietly

Foolish fools talk of nothing

To cover up the hidden triggers

Imaginary weapons that

Wound more than ordinary guns and knives.

You try and keep the ones that sing or scream

Under careful observation.

You don’t want to think that maybe

They have a better grasp

(It shouldn’t be so intentional.)

self-inflicted darkness.

I am feeling quiet.
It is 5:17 am, and I am attempting to reset my sleep schedule by staying awake through the day, and going to bed at a good hour Friday evening. I need to be able to not stay up so late.

It is always dark, you see.

Crazy

Restless restless restless. I like it when the little crazy things become known about a day.
Examples:
I wanted to steal a polar bear.
I cut my finger while trying to make a flashlight out of an Altoid box.
I took photos of ice and light today.
I have to ration my socks to the feet that need them the most.
My room is shrinking.
I only like living alone sometimes.
My car has been starting since my dad came and fixed it.
I went sledding with trash can lids, and was the happiest I have been all day.
My sister sent me a mooning elf and I think she meant 'I love you.'

Some Things Look Pure But Are Not

Me.

School ending.

I am not as motivated as I used to be.
As much as I complain about school, I like the feeling that someone is caring about the state of my mind-- about what and how I am learning.
Perhaps it is merely that I am not as obsessed over this. I am not sure where to go from here-- I am going to be a senior next year-- and you cannot go to school forever. I will probably go to graduate school, or disappear to London. Which has been a mild dream for awhile.
I would like the luxury of this--- painting perhaps and writing light stanzas here and there, living in a shabby flat, and drinking shabby wine, and being utterly unaccountable for anything. Perhaps utterly happy.
I do not like it when people start making your life into a time-line. It is my life, and I prefer not to have a map detailing when and what I should be doing with it.

Mostly, I want to be surprised.

Some Things Look Pure But Are Not

Snow.

Decisions

I have decided I enjoy this journaling to the nothingness.
Perhaps I will find in these tepid fingers a few words
to manipulate and coax, wield and petition politely.

I have no sense of how they come or when they decide to go,
but I wanted to let you know,
they will be here for awhile.

Joy

I was having a conversation with my mother recently, and she commented on my writing, noting that none of it was joyful. I was unsettled with this comment. In reading through my past poems and short stories, I understood the confusion. I used emotionally evocative wording, and uncomfortable subject matter. However, what I found to be useful as a comparison (against to a black sheet of paper, the white looks whiter) she found to be simply sad.

My mind drifts, as I go to my grandparents. It has been an odd week.

I am tired. Of starting over. Of being afraid to let people invest in me, being afraid of relationships that will give me something to miss, to mourn. I am tired of not having definite answers, of having too many damn feelings welling up, constantly, of injustice and suffering and the lack of faith rampant in this country. Rampant in myself. I have been bemoaning the ripping of my heart, left in various places in the hands of friends who can do with it what they will. I try to ration it carefully, how many pieces, after all, do you have?

Should I really entrust so much?

I have lost dear, dear people-- to time, to death, to space, to fear.

I am almost at the point of welcoming a monotone, an easing, just let me feel nothing! It would be easier. That same lack would be almost a relief. But not quite.

That, would be a lie. Unfortunately.

Because, I genuinely want to know people. I genuinely want to know this God whom I serve and fear and do not understand and love. And His world. I believe that this world is full of adventure and heartache and is the most brilliant place. Everything, is amazing, really. So in losing the tiredness, losing the fear, in becoming an emotionless creature-- I would lose this also. The way thoughts burst like electricity and light and something palpable across faces of those you know, or are trying to. The dance of making an unknown face someone who means something to you, who becomes precious unexpectedly. The surprise, of the depth in the light of their faces, glimpsing realness there. Pride in knowing that these people will be and are living, always and eternally, and thinking, and feeling-- every second of every day they have. Not always perfectly, in fact-- but simply with integrity and honesty. Striving to be worthy of their purpose, to be men and women who are worthy of the image they were created in.

I don't want to know what it is like to have nothing left to look forward to, a sort of completion, a resignation of having lived a good life. Of being satisfied with dying, because, really, haven't I lived? No more cities to explore, no more hearts to know and love, no more wishes and dreams and secrets to share.

My grandpa is a good man. So as I listen to him speak with no sadness in his voice, it hits me. This is what he is saying, I realize, as I listen to the stories and ask questions about love and life and dreams.... Why does it feel like he is saying goodbye? Why is he done dreaming, and talking of life like it is done? Resigned to leave his home, the truth in his friendships, the hope of newness and wishes?

I have been praying for just this, I realize. Wishing so desperately not to be so invested in living, really living.

And it is this sentiment perhaps, that has me after talking to my grandpa for forty-five minutes, a man whom I adore with all my heart, pulling off the side of the gravel road and sobbing so uncontrollably. How dare I pray for a lack, when I have been so filled?

If you memorize the textures of things, with your eyes instead of with your hands, the textures of walls and lights that make shadows on these walls, then you will understand. You will understand how the emotions and the twitches in peoples' eyes have textures too. The quick and quiet flinch of pain that briefly precedes the smile that is supposed to be there. The light that leaves the peoples' eyes, the darkness that swirls around the thin skin underneath those eyes. You will understand the texture of the sighs, and recognize the lilting music and the notes that raise just a little bit off in the voices, like a piano that needs tuning.

And then there is the joy, or the excitement, or the passion, or all of these things. When people cannot get the words out fast enough, or they stumble and let out too many, and stop and catch themselves. Like they have accidentally revealed too much, too soon, and want to take back all of the things that they have given away.

All of the people, everyone, have surprises in their movements and answers, and not necessariliy the answers themselves but the way in which they respond to the questions. The way in which they crinkle their eyes, or look away, or mask themselves with monotony.

This is the way in which I love people, knowing these things.

As He Thinks

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.... Proverbs 23:7

May you live every day of your life.

Doesn't scare you, the power entrusted to you? That my thoughts will make me who I am. You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind- the fruit is a reflection of the tree that bears it. Power is frightening- I never understood why we should fear the Lord until I began to fear my own mind- which is merely a fragment of God's awesome ability.

the darkness rains shadows that sting and bite
tiny rocks pelted at baby skin
a little voice cries pitifully somewhere in the darkness
outside your window
you want to run, dodging the shadows, to save the voice
the little voice crying
but you cannot outrun darkness so you sit inside
quietly by the fire
watching the warmth glitter
listening to the wailing, the crying
you sit safe, convincing yourself you can do nothing
nothing but listen
the umbrella sits idle
by your rubber boots
and yellow rain-jacket

the voice begins to scream.

Table four or Table eight??? :)

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

What do you love, what do you desire of all the world?

“Try table four.” Rob, my fellow host of the night, said this delicately, almost as if he were trying to convince me to try a dessert I didn’t think I would like. As if I were about to try a flaming pudding, or strawberries with brown sugar and sour cream. “Try table four.” As if he was pretty convinced I would like it, but not one-hundred percent sure. Because, that table just might not work out, and I might have to put the couple somewhere more pleasing. A table that tasted a bit differently, more acceptable to their tender palette that distinguished harsh lighting and chair comfort level. The couple squirmed uncomfortably in their fancy attire as I glanced back at Rob. The woman shifted and sighed loudly as her black leather boots with the tiny tear squeaked in discontent on the slick wood floor. The thoughts ran through her mind and leaked across onto her face, coating it in concern. Sticky, sappy concern- the kind that covered up real problems by busying one’s self with problems that didn’t exist. The woman busied her mind. Did this girl really know what she was doing, or was she simply looking around thinking about the ways in which people speak? Her eyes were sharp, harsh, like streaks of blue paint haphazardly brushed onto an old canvas.

I led the couple to table four, where the light was muted gently by a red lampshade. The woman sat down, eagerly picking up a menu. Her eyes shattered the words on the menu quickly- ravaging them and tearing them apart with her mind. Was it her birthday? Did he forget again, this meal a last minute attempt to pull together ‘love?’ Was he busy all day talking with his young secretary- a girl with a dress just a bit too short, and teeth just a bit too white? The woman looked at her husband expectantly, silently asking him, begging him to sit down. The gentleman squinted, and watched the soft light dance across his wife’s eyes. The lighting transformed the woman, and suddenly she was no longer the tired woman who entered the restaurant, but an echo of something that used to be very beautiful. The softness of the light made her skin glow, and her manufactured blush was matched by her own blood, flowing softly underneath the skin on her cheeks. Echo.

“Eck hem,” the man muttered discontentedly.

“Can I help you sir?” He shifted weight onto first his right foot and then his left.

“Do you think we could have a table with better lighting please?”

The woman’s face twitched for an instant, the right side of her face sliding down, those blue eyes freezing to black, before it quickly was composed again. Perfect smile. Same world, deprived of art. Same eyes, deprived of light.

“Of course. Right away sir.”

I let out a breath of something not unlike relief, as I quickly led them to table eight. “Try table four?” No. No, I don’t think it worked- it would have been too easy. Too much like a fairy tale. Table eight would have to do.

*

More than anything else in the world, I don’t want to ever sit at table eight. More than anything else, I want to be someone who will sit with her in the shaded light, and finish the canvas. Paint her the rest of the portrait. Turn the sharp, harsh streaks of blue paint on the old canvas into something to be cherished. More than anything, I want to turn the world into a place full of artists- people who will look at things just slightly differently, just a bit ‘off kilter’- and each of these different from one another. A place where people are willing to look at the dramatic difference that light can make, and how blue is such a broken color in the dark, an exploited one in bright light, and a beautiful one at table four.

When asked by all these artists that I want to create exactly what it is I want, I respond slowly. Carefully. I taste the words on my tongue, turning them over like candy in my mouth. The consonants are spicy and the vowels are sweet, both melt into each other. Flaming pudding. Strawberries, brown sugar, and sour cream. I breathe through my nose, and open my mouth, letting the words cascade, dribbling down my chin, speaking. “I ask that you let me help define the world somehow. Let me help you live and realize that you are living. Let me become a writer, a dreamer, one of those who is mumbled at as I walk down the street, thinking only of the next way I can show my readers how I see the world. How I can make emotion tangible, and make everything more real than it already is.” The artists stare at me, and make wondrous things, shaping and fashioning things to love. I smile and move my pen across paper, watching them and write about them loving. This is my greatest desire, and this is what I will choose to do forever.

how many days had she spent

sitting on her bed and trying to figure out

why her heart could not rest

why her mind was so full of life

how many years did she spend

listening to music that made her recognize that

there were more like her in this world

how many tears had she spent

on people or ideas of people

sitting in her room trying

to capture them perfectly with

just the right sentence

the perfect simile

how long did she spend wishing she could

do something more to give dimension to those she

spent all of her time

loving or

imagining she did