On living with melancholy

They called it “potential” the way that your flesh and bones collapsed inwards when you saw the eyes of another person, and knew what dwelled there.

The way you couldn’t let go of the woman’s voice in the grocery store and how it caught when she said hello, like it was a lie,

the way you knew that all he wanted was to be the father that his father could not be,

that it meant the world to him to have his little boy call him “Daddy,” and mean it.

Oh. They applauded you. They encouraged you. They told you it was a gift, that you should embrace it, that your “perspective” was precious and it should be cherished

and you knew, even then,

that it would be a battle to stay alive knowing the things you knew, that you would struggle to make yourself survive the oppressive beauty in this world,

because it would haunt your chest like a thousand ghosts,
and it would haunt your lungs, and your breath and the way you couldn’t help but breathe in all of it at the same time—and that sometimes you would gasp for air and there would be nothing left to breathe.

And you would beg, and you would fall on your knees and they would be scraped and chafed, and you would ask to not feel the water with the tips of your fingers when you dragged them through the riverbeds and over the stones.

You would beg to not notice the ways people displayed their vulnerabilities because you knew,
that it would make your heart beat faster then it should,

and you would see stars at inopportune times, and
the music with words and melodies you could relate to would take you somewhere you shouldn’t go-

And you would be tired. You would be exhausted in recognition of how much there was to do, how much you would not be able to get done,

and you don’t know if it is clinical
if it is spiritual or just the way you are comprised, the puzzle pieces you were given in a velvet bag to
keep putting together

day in and day out,

and you know you can be powerful.

And you know you should be powerful.

That there is nothing stronger than the look and the promise you made to a face in a far away country,
and you know if you don’t honor it the purpose of your life may be compromised

and if you live with melancholy

you kiss your love and you feel her, you see her.
and the mountains make your body light,
but you are constantly overwhelmed with the depth of your privilege

the way you were only concerned about how your body moved and the way it took up space in a room when you wanted to press yourself against the wall and just be invisible, and the way your hair swayed, just so. The softness in the curls against your cheek.

the realization of the privilege in the type of insecurities you indulged in,

and then,

knowing that there are the children in rooms who beg for space, who only want to sit on dusty floors and spread themselves out and be present, and

their awareness of the kinds of depravity humanity has waiting for the ones cast away.

and
you know what it is to
be ashamed of your sadnesses because how could you deserve them when you have only had
soft cotton wrapping your body, and the food that you turned down because you didn’t like the shape it made your body into, and

you never,
considered who would eat—your sister (whom you love) or your son.

You never,
had to choose between walking through a desert with or without your youngest

and you never had to have your body be a weapon for men who were wielding feminity as a thing to break and beat over husbands and brothers as an act of war against an entire country-

sometimes you want to not get up out of your bed, and then you are ashamed because feel the softness beneath your head, how dare you,

when you have feathers cradling you.

and you want to not think of these things
because the beautiful things are there too, and you know
that in order to not collapse and writhe on the floor and to not
turn feverish, and let the infection of what the world is doing to those who are yours (do not be fooled, God damn it, they are you and yours)

you try
to control it so that when you smile at someone dear
and when you say hello,
it is not a lie.

You know you do not get to rest for a few years, perhaps.
Panic. how many years? how many hearts? how many days must I whisper
“Someday I will try harder--
and someday, I will do better. “

I didn't realize that my words were capable of making someone else feel
the same sad things in the way I felt them.

I need to watch this.

Sometimes, on a whim, I want to stop living. Not in a bad way. Not in a violent, or depressed, or sad way.

Just sometimes. I would be okay not waking up. Sometimes I think I could lock myself in the car with a sweater over the exhaust in a secluded park, and listen to music, and just sleep. But I don't.

I won't.

I know how selfish that action would be, and there are people I love and have responsibility to. As long as those people are here, I will be too. There are things that I am wildly excited about.

It is not constant. I don't cry myself to sleep. I don't wake up sad. I so enjoy being alive, most of the time.

But sometimes my heart is full and it is at capacity and I just want to not feel so much all of the time. Sometimes I feel numb in response to being so, so filled.

Sometimes I am tired and exhausted, and I expressed this for myself after a hard conversation with someone I love. And someone else (I love) found this and her heart looked broken, and I knew I had done that to her-- and I actually had a panic attack seeing how hurt she looked, how scared. Knowing I caused this.

It is a bad habit, being surprised when I affect people. It is scary to know that people care about me because I'm not really sure why they do. Pleasant surprise, but surprise none-the-less.

inhale, and particles of dust smash against the roof of your mouth and make their way coating your throat.

Breathe.
it sounds like such
an easy
command

if you commanded what your body was supposed to do
and

I am open to commanding you, and will
push your soul against the side of a wall
and hold you there while your body confines you to the pressure of stone and brick.
and you feel my hand tighten against your wrist and your
body will be pinned by what my body is

And I will hold open your mouth, and put my thumb on your lips. I will brush my finger over the smooth of your cheek, and pour you fine wines
and whiskeys
and rums

 And you will plead with me.
Please, please make me stop feeling.

(No). Firmly.
No, this isn't a request I will do for you.

And there you will be-- trapped between my eyes seeing you and you will not be able to turn away.

You will
not have anywhere to run because you asked to relinquish control,
and
now I have it,
and
it is mine to do with what I will.

Your body, and the curve of your breast up into your chest,
cannot believe you have made yourself vulnerable to the likes of me.

Inhale.
I press my hand, sweet, against those lips. Breathe me in. You wanted this. You will breathe until you gasp with the lightness in your chest that lifts you out of your body, and you
see us there,
 drunk on the wines and the fumes of what I am doing to you by making you,
be seen
by me.

I know that you were born in a room with hay instead of cotton blankets, and you envy with your tongue the way that I had silk and gold for the same reasons you had dust and debris

and even then, at 4 days, I should have known better than to let the pale softness of my skin sink into what you could have shared with me. I knew that

it could not possibly be an adequate design to have you waiting for so long
for me
to
remember that we had almost the same beginnings and
the truth is glaring.

There is the tingling breathless feeling of wanting and being
taken by surprise that this is even a thing you can do any longer.

The way your heart lightens and moves upwards and through the top of your chest and up pounding in your chest.

And you are nauseous but excited, and happy, and waiting waiting waiting until your bodies both can't stand it anymore.

Rock

If you can get to the top without
all of the breathing stopping,
and maybe one day you will be able to stop things like
gasping
for breath every time someone is separated from you.

If you can let the flesh of your knee sting when the rock cuts it as you wedge yourself into smaller and smaller places, and hope that whatever stones are above you don't come falling on your head
or on your arm
or on your pride.

There is always a way up, and you clamor up the fingertips attached to your fingers,
willing them to keep you stable and somehow hold all of the weight of a body.

And don't look down, because it is far,
and sometimes it is better to not know how far you will fall.

Sometimes it is better, to pretend that the distance is not capable of imposing splinters and cracks in the bones that will travel through like a bolt of lightening

across your body and through it.

The impact of your body on itself, the weight of it crushing you and you realizing that you have been turned against by it, as it impales itself on a log at the bottom of the pit.

Maybe sometimes we only look up and then
we cannot see the brush and pebbles,
the way there is nothing but emptiness to catch whatever fall you allow yourself.

(based upon the distance).

I can't get over the unsettling feeling that everything is an illusion.

bags hats gum comfort slippers this bed.

Your hand cascades up and down your throatline, and I feel your presence across the room and the statelines become irrelevant.

I feel you bubble like a liquid inside and outside of what I can consume.

Eyes burn when I close them, and the redish black shapes dance underneath my eyelids (street lights)

lamps

Air on this part of my skin teases me, and the thought of you makes me lighter until I gasp,
I need something to keep me on the floor.

I don't like being high above the city.

How many times have I told you, to give me music that has only a few notes and doesn't

erupt my thoughts with your thoughts,

you consume me, playing at carefree flutters of lightness but I've read your words through the language and tongues of others with the same bodies stuck in a life made for smiling.

I know you are on display for epochs and stripping down so the shadows cast light on your body, sway. "See? I have shadows." You need them to be observed.

The wood is smooth from the times you have spun around it to the music that they make you perform to.

I know the
ways you drown.

Yet, you beg me to lay with you in the sun, pretending the problem is the way the sun caresses your shoulder blades, lashing out and pinning your breastbone to the ground. "I am on the ground." We convince each other. Touch.

I can't stop watching you dance, and the other patrons have returned to flea-infested investments and the angry wails of tired wives with tired mouths. It is time to go, but you pull the chair up to the sun, and touch the same smooth surface, winding your body, casting shadows and begging me to suffer synesthesia. You perform, and the sounds that you have composed fill the room and I find myself drifting up over us, not able to hear your composition without my skin and flesh shaking in anticipation and confusion. You pin me to my own body but I cannot stay put, I am not able, you have filled every shiver with music, and my body never had a chance.

Twisting the knife

Twisting the knife, they say. We all nod, understanding. Obviously. We have had had knives twisted in our own guts, and so therefore ultimately can relate to this apparently quite common human experience.

You had almost gotten used to the way the blade brushes up uncomfortably against spleens and gall bladders and then the pancreas. The sputter of blood that erupts from your lungs and then your stomach, the rancid bitter taste of bile eating away at your gums feels like a neighbor that always seems to watch just a little too closely.

Eroding. The blade, sitting there, rusting and melding into the slender rib bones constructed of cement and rusting away, rusting away and thickening the protection that made up the things that supported and housed your organs.

You lived for such a long time, you thought to yourself. How does one live so long with such an injury? You have lived such awhile, and the shards have broken off of the blade and invaded your bloodstream. It hurts, and you cannot move without the sharpness biting into you, stabbing muscles and tendons, lodging themselves into veins and ultimately in the small fine tissues of your lungs. You've become accustomed to watching the way you breathe in and out and hoping this time blood doesn't drown you as you breathe; hoping this time the shards won't pierce an organ you thought was safe. Always you spit up the blood, and taste the metal, and your eyes turn red. Always, you wipe it away with the back of your hand and the underside of your favorite chair is now stained from wiping away the evidence of your body's breaking.

So long, you have formed a thick ropy scar tissue around and around the blade. Spongy and thick, it secures the blade in place, and only makes tears when you try to move. But if you do not move, and you stay completely still, the blade cannot do extra damage and is almost cordial in its attack. "I am still attacking you, you know" it mocks. But politely. With a handshake, and a head nod.

Twisting the blade is damaging the damaged, ripping the scars out in chunks, forcing raw beaten flesh to yet again reconstruct itself. New pain, bursting dying cells and gushing of liquified putrid skin and muscles, tendons splayed and shredded. Broken bone bits and snapped ribs, and a new wave of rusted metal shards rushing through the body. Agony is understated, and your heart faithfully beats wondering if it is assassinating itself, and you see little point in such savagery.

“I’m afraid that sometimes you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.” – Dr. Seuss

Things they don't tell you about breaking your heart:

It is breaking my heart.

There is not a day that goes by where some part of me is not deeply saddened knowing life will end.

I think this is part of why change is so hard for me-- it is not only, "Look this new scary exciting thing!"-- but also a true and final ending to a way relationships are constructed.

I don't know why seeing this as a circus,
makes me sad,

but I know that gathering everyone in one room is not something I can have.

Watching our time literally drip away,

while we've paused and tried to freeze the cadaver in case someday,

someone learns how to revive a heart.

Love in the time of
you and me;

for one of the only instances
I know my mind is slowing, and I am only thinking of your smell and the way your skin is always so soft.

I am only feeling your body and none of the weighings and racings of all the days
I am present and here and very much with you.

You make me stop leaping forward and forward again, and for this I am grateful.
My mind admonishes me for pausing but
with you in this room

It is satisfied that you are what time waits for and I can
breathe and I can
sleep and I can just be here.

If I were somebody else

Maybe we could have

traveled to the far-away places together

and

every time they said this was once in a lifetime, we would smile at each other

A corner sad smile

knowing they might be right but we would make them wrong because we chose it.

Knowing that we must be so lucky, because

in the parallel path

of a life with a different bend

maybe some other us wanted what we had,

but the things they promised would never get in the way, somehow did.

Maybe we would meander and explore and relish in waters that were clear

and went on for miles. And we could just be.

And it would not be so hard to keep all the pieces together because we already would know the broken and fractured and vulnerable places, and there would be nothing left to be afraid of.

Maybe we would be spontaneous, and we would have been young for longer than we deserved to be.

You would have sparked me with ideas and convictions and I would be in awe of how you were so aware of who you were and who you should be and could be.

How this world should and could be. And you would burn with passion and vision and I would be inspired.

I could see it. How this could go. If I chose radical action and if you chose me.

We could live this life fast and with purpose and we could

be revolutionary.

Maybe eventually, we could have even grown old. And it would not hurt so much to let go of the possibilities any more, because we took every opportunity. Every risk. Every one. And we would read and write and remember not one part or piece, but all of it, and we would have two memories of one life, and we would not be afraid of losing it to the age because it would be ours and nothing or no one could take it from us.

And I think we could have been happy then.

Faced with the most strangest of decisions (that in which I cannot control eg my heart)

I used to be the kind of person who fought within the boundaries of that which I thought I needed to fight in. This was the box, the framework and I then would learn everything there was about that framework. How to fit it all in that framework. I would bend and break bones to fit in the coffin. It never occurred to me that there was no box.

It is terrifying to discover that a rigid and concrete box that you built a life inside of may not even exist. Or at least in the way you thought it did. How do you begin to restructure an entire life and all of its pathologies? All of which you deemed ‘right’ or ‘wrong’?

When the bomb goes off, when the nuclear reactions designed in the depths of some lab, by some scientist who thought he was ‘discovering’ and ‘creating’ becomes a weapon to be used against some oh so evil, but faceless and nameless enemy (Let’s be honest. There is always a name.)

How does it feel to have nothing to ground you? Is it preferable to thinking there was a shelter and being ill prepared when you are shaken?

Black and white is so much easier. When everything can be categorized and placed in this one or that one, you never have to deal with being uncomfortable.. There is never the option of cognitive dissonance. You never have to worry about readjusting your moral schema, because the base of what is Right and what is Wrong never falters. It is very easy to know exactly who you and where your confidence lies if you never have to consider that there may be shades of grey (Let’s be honest. Isn’t it all grey?)

I am worried about certain things, that perhaps are too old for me. I am saddened that these people I hold so extremely dear may not be living a parallel life to me any longer. I am saddened, and I hurt. I always thought that this/you/would be there. For example.

And I haven’t taken time to ‘process’ largely because I am not sure what that means. Process what? What is there to feel after all?

I dreamed of this, of you, being here or back or at least looking at me again.

And now, here you are. Alive, and wanting me. Alive and real, and I remember and know your features.

I remember what or who you are/were to me.

Here it is. Honesty. I loved you, my dear I loved you beyond what has ever been in my heart for a boy or even a man. I loved the way you smiled, your laugh, I loved the confidence that you built up over yourself even when you could not feel this. I loved that you had aspirations, that you wanted to learn but more than that, you wanted to do. I loved that you loved me. That you recognized me as a fellow traveler, that your heart wanted to go in the same direction as my heart. I loved that you promised me that you would be constant. That you would love me forever. That you would be in the nursing home with me one day. That there would be prizes for the bingo because even older people deserved surprise and hope.  My dear you crushed me and devastated everything I am. I would collapse on the floor in absolute agony,  breaking and shattered and confused. I was deeply hurt and I loved you, and I loved you, and I loved you.

And I knew, then, one day while sobbing on the floor, wondering vaguely of the neighbors and what they must think (what kind of person is this? who do you think I am?) that this must end. One way or another this cannot go on like this. It must end because I cannot survive this. I will not survive this. Do you hear me? If I do not let this great and dreadful love go, I could not live. This love and I were not compatible, this aching draining abscess of a heart would kill me if I let it.

Ah and you.

You.

Seeing you now and hearing you now is like an echo of an echo and I know I should love you. I know that you should mean everything to me, that seeing your face and hearing your voice should cause my whole being to erupt and explode with something. Anything.

Ah but is it too late? You see I had to let it go. I had to let you go. I had to accept and commit to feel nothing because it would have killed me darling, it almost killed me, it ripped me and was ripping me at every moment I let your name cross my lips or your mind cross my mind.

Now. You are here. I remember this pain and I remember this love but I feel like I am looking at a stranger,

and I have reverberating pains like the aftershocks of an earthquake or the body’s memory of a heart-attack.

What do I do with this?

Say it.

That may sound repeated and old, like a sock. You know the one. The one you wad up and throw in the corner of your closet. The one that has a hole in it, right between your toes.

I have to say, I don't care any more. I really don't.

I'm telling you, you've heard me. I don't know what I want.

Why does this feel like a weakness, when it is just honest?

But I don't care that you know what you are to me.
Maybe this is a weakness too, if everything is just a game.

I could play, but I already laid out my cards.


I just know that the times I have imploded and been rendered loveless for months and years was when I remained silent. I made a promise once, to never let what I feel thicken and suffocate me from the inside out by being ashamed of it, or by thinking that feelings were 'wrong' in some way. That they made you broken and weak, in need of fixing.

Even if I intended silence (that caustic, corrupting thing) I already have failed at this.

Say it.

I don't know what it means. I don't know what I want.
But: You are beautiful. I love you. And I'm leaving.


If I were the kind of person I should be, I would let this go now.
But ah, if I am most alive when I say yes to the most dire of risks,

how could I ever look away from this?

We have to be content with the missed paths.

The times you have connected with this one or that one, and you know

that circumstance and selfishness steers you from intimacy.

You cannot mourn the ways in which you could have known the preciousness that is the complexity and story and life-arcs of these people

who amaze you with their existence, and the ways in which they have both chosen and been created selves.

The squelching of the
spiritual portion of what is a human;

is more than the necrosis of a small body part,
or the headaches that angels sacrificing your pleasure for
some heavenly vision can bring.

It is the starvation of a soul in its entirety (for what is a soul if not spiritual?)

I will take trying and failing to a half life, with safe half loves, any day.

Half of halves, portions and chunks of this or that heart.

A tearing off of you, a piece ripped from that one or this one.

So when I leave, there is a dull ache of one who has lost
a limb, a scab. When you leave, I miss one portion of my body.

No.

When I leave, I want you to feel the missing. When you leave, I want to feel with every every bit I have.

Take it all, so when you have left there is a deep gut-wrenching emptiness-- because I risked what having this means. You risked this (being oh so known by me).

Anything else but this is mocking what your heart has been made capable of.

I choose nothing if not this.

Here is the deal.

Even if I am angry, or defensive, or if you hit just a little too close to home---

I won't react.

-- I will not abuse the way I know people and use it as a shield, or wield it back against you.

I won't manipulate you.

I won't take something from you that you unintentionally gave me, unless you want me to have it.

I will keep secret from you the things I know about who you are, because you have the right to discover them and not be confronted with them from me.

You are quite welcome.

Miles to go until I sleep

I think it can be hard to maintain the intensity of conviction that a life-changing experience has on you. Or several. It starts to fade or seem far away.

We get bogged down by the details. I have student loans, and I don’t want to be homeless. I like exposed brick, I enjoy sushi, I like clean air. It is … nice… being around people who don’t have to think so hard to function, and it is refreshing just to be sometimes. People who don’t know what’s going on in my head. I can pretend for a second or so that this is what I want, and could maybe be satisfied. I want to make sure my parents are comfortable when they are older, I want to make sure I don’t die in a nursing home alone where they have been cited for elder abuse, and have taken away all the photographs away. It is nice sometimes to just be without considering everything so much, and focus on these ‘normalcies.’ This tempts me, but only slightly. When I get tired. And I do get tired. I get exhausted with the implications of evil in this world, the cruelty that this humanity is capable of. The cruelty that I am capable of.

It would be nice to be a participant, instead of being this observer. Which I have been accused of. Which I probably in all honesty am, and in all honesty know in my heart of hearts I am not able to undo. I feel like an imposter, watching all the people living their lives so easily. Sometimes I am jealous of that ease.

But I made a promise. Several.

I remember a particular turning point when a close relationship to me was shocked that I would ever consider going back to Uganda, and I realized that for him this was the equivalent of disaster tourism. For me it was the realization that this wasn’t ‘the developing world’ or ‘the third world’—it was simply the world.

How can you ever live knowing what you know and choose to do nothing? I ask this in earnest. What kind of cruelty would that be? Am I even capable of this?

I fiercely, fiercely fought to maintain my convictions, and it scares me to see them waning in other areas of my life. I am losing them, and it saddens me, and I mourn them.

But in this—it is a conviction of my life, and it has not changed, and will not really ever change. It can just seem far away when I am here, and consider what I have yet to do. There really is not enough time, and I am already saddened by the end of my life, because I know that no matter what I do, it will never have been adequate.

There is a scene in Schindler’s list where the only possession that Schindler kept was his wedding ring, and he breaks down weeping. “This could have saved … one more.”

Now I am no savior. But I damn well know I don’t want to have anything I love enough to hold on to as more valuable than the life of someone I could have affected had I not been selfish. Because I know myself, and I know that it is much much easier for me to make myself not fall in love (with a person, life-style, place) than it is to stop loving someone or thing. Whatever ‘this’ is—it could not possibly be more important or valuable than a human life—and I believe that with everything I am.

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.