Pocket Lint

Offense and Offering

2011-02-08T19:00:00.002-05:00

I am the eye plucked out. I nested

your affections on my lips and sent

them rising away. My tongue, a

millstone about my neck,

burns with coals now and

my words are ashes falling

in gray, dull sorrow

on the bruised and heavy knee.

I wash myself in the wool

you set out for me, and empty

my belly but for the bitter

bite of your unheard reply.

I would you were God to hear

my prayer and forgive me now.

Sweet Dreams

2011-01-29T18:37:00.003-05:00

A strong contralto voice wavered out of the speakers with a slight reverb over the drum-line, pulled in an anguish he recognized for the first time. They had danced to this song three and a half years before on the orange gym floor of the community church, poorly disguised with plastic Roman columns, fake ivy, and tulle to look like their idea of an up-scale hotel, when in reality it only looked cheap. She in her discount dress and he in a navy second-hand suit. The only luxury between them were the mother-of-pearl cufflinks she insisted on buying him with the money she saved wearing her sister's shoes and not wearing a veil. They couldn't even afford real rings, but she surprised him with the gift, because she so desperately wanted him to have something nice. Back then, this song was an indication, and announcement, a promise, that they were each other's dream and they didn't need physical or material things.

A year ago, they danced to this song again, on the chipped and bubbling linoleum, the breakfast bar that served as their only table littered with glossy grad school look-books, bank statements, and loan applications. Her cheeks had more color then, her bones more flesh, her eyes more hope. She laughed then, and they talked of the dream at the other end, when hew would have rows of cufflinks and new suits, and he would buy her a real wedding ring.

Her cheeks were sallow now, her bones wer razors cutting through her skin, and her under-eyes licked with blue, unable to see the end. As he listened to the impassioned voice wail, the irony of it pierced him--sweet dreams weren't made of this.

Hoodie Days

2011-01-21T22:42:00.003-05:00

Thursday was meant to be a "hoodie day." In high school, I allowed myself one day of the week, just one day, to look like a bum. I called this day "hoodie day." It was usually reserved for a day when I felt crummy, when I couldn't brush the bitter taste of teen angst or socio-political rage out of my mouth or simply didn't feel like making an effort because everyone needs a day off. On this day, instead of wearing a nice top, I wore a hoodie sweatshirt, usually my favorite Lucky Brand in faded black, with roses on the sleeves and "Live in Love" embroidered on the chest. No matter how hot it was, if it was a hoodie day, I was wearing the sweatshirt. The hoodie was a self-admission that it's okay to feel crummy; I didn't have to be perfect or put together all the time.

Thursday was meant to be a hoodie day. The night before, taking my pre-bed shower, I hunched my shoulders to protect lungs seizing from being forced to hold in angry sobs, though I had still cried. My arms dangled beside me, missing the soap, barely able to lather, from clutching my books to me--the books I used to protect my heart when I was upset. When I was a sophomore in high school, I once heard a senior girl say she liked to hold her scriptures when she felt scared, not necessarily read them, but hold them. Ever since then, when I was uncomfortable, upset, or scared, I did the same--I wrapped my arms around them, pressed them to my chest like a bulletproof vest. Now my arms were tired, my biceps twitching as water dripped off them. I washed my hair, knowing I wouldn't dry it, but would go to bed with it wet, pressed up against my pillow. It would probably look terrible, like it usually does if I leave it to its own whim.

I got into bed, making a quick phone call to my father, and looking up "Resurrection" in my Bible, because it felt like the right thing to do, the right thing to fall asleep with on my mind. I closed the canopy on my bed, because I've grown to think it keeps me safe and I can't sleep without it closed. Though my arms were tired, I clutched my scriptures to my chest like a child clutches to a teddy bear at night.

I skipped my swim class in the morning, even though I desperately need to do well in that class to graduate. I heard my roommates rummaging around to leave, but didn't notice them open the door to check if I was awake and ready to go to class. My back must have been turned to the door.

When I finally got up, I felt better than I had the night before, but I still wanted to wear a sweater, and I wanted to stay in my pajamas, reading in bed all day. Thursday was meant to be a hoodie day, but it can't be.

Thursday is my favorite day of the week, and as my favorite day of the week, I want to make it extra special, so I have a rule. Every Thursday, I dress up in a skirt and heels and wear makeup. Now, each of these three things, separate, on any given day, is not unusual. To find all of them in one day is uncommon. Thursdays are special, and I want them to stay special, so I adhere strictly to this rule, having only missed one Thursday since I started this practice.

So, when I got up Thursday morning, even though I felt like a hoodie, I reached for a cardigan to match my skirt. I wore my favorite navy-blue corduroy skirt with my favorite gray tights and my essential black patent leather pumps with a slub-knit shirt in my beloved gray. I wore the navy cardigan, with the pearl buttons I put on myself, because I thought the original ones were boring. Through no effort of my own, my bed-dried hair looked better than it does when I style it, Taylor Swift wavy, something that has never happened before. I spritzed it with a little hairspray to hold down any fly-aways. Then I got out two clips--a set of small satin bows in navy, and set them in my hair to reveal the pearl earrings that matched the buttons on the cardigan. In a word, I looked adorable. I put on my 1960s-style wool coat and ruffled blue suede gloves, and headed out the door.

It wasn't a perfect day, but it felt that way. The previous day's distress still hung about in my lungs, but I felt lighter, more hopeful, like flowers were blooming where they didn't belong--like in the crevices of rocks. It felt like the way I feel when I'm walking home late at night, and I come across a bunny. It felt like the way I feel when I make a sudden discovery.

And the best part? Realizing it was Thursday. This might sound stupid, but on Thursday, I treat myself to one of my life's simplest pleasures: a steamed soymilk from my favorite coffee shop. I used to get one every day for breakfast, but then I started losing too much weight and spending too much money. So now I only get them on Thursdays for lunch. When I realized it was the day I got my steamed soy, I actually clapped my hands.

As far as days go, it was pretty good, and it started because I didn't wear a hoodie. I know I don't need to have it together all the time. I didn't make it through the day without my eyes swelling with tears, but not a one hit my cheek. It was a good day because I was determined to make it one. I was faking it, and it became true.

When I went to bed, I wanted to cry, but I didn't.

Giraffes

2010-10-27T22:11:00.001-04:00

The second of my memories with Mcartny.

I love the zoo, though it breaks my heart to see the animals in their concrete habitats. I ache with the beauty of these powerful animals in their long-suffering under hot suns, and I love them. Their spirits we don’t understand.

Today I am at the zoo with my aunts and cousins. Mcartny is five. And sassy. And impatient. She does not want to stand overly long to see the animals. They fascinate her long enough for her to know they have stripes or spots. Long enough to know they swing from trees and trumpet from their trunks. Then she moves on.

When we get to the giraffes, we do not want to leave. We stare at the mother and her baby in a way that would embarrass us if they were human. We admire the variance in the colors of their coats. I say “Did you know their horns are actually made of hair?” We watch to see the subtle shifts of the muscles in their thick necks. The curve of their backs. Their lashes—so long. The proportion of torsos to legs. Their bubblegum tongues. Their eyes are brown—slow and peaceful.

Mcartny pushes her mother to move on, pulling and pouting. Her mother says, “Hold on. I want to stay and watch the giraffes. I just can’t get over how beautiful they are.”

Mcartny commands, “Well get over it.”

My laugh is only stifled by the sad implications of her statement and the longing for the day when, like giraffes and the other animals her brown eyes will be slow and peaceful, beautiful in long-suffering, stopping to admire the giraffes.

Jars of Honey

2010-10-01T00:39:00.003-04:00

I close at the night,

petals folding inward

on a picked-over heart--

the exhausted nectar

I refuse to share

anymore from my lips,

you drank with a thought-kiss.

The dark and fragile petals protect me from

Your honey for my pain.

Crown Burger

2010-09-20T14:35:00.000-04:00

We’re at Crown Burger again—my older brother and I. Our little brother is with us. We just got out of being stuck in traffic for hours, and I’m late for work. Despite being tired from sitting in a car for so long, we are all in a good mood, laughing, teasing, joking. My brothers are trying to see who can insult the other one best. They have just used their favorites: “butt-sniffer” and “If I had a dog with a face like yours, I’d shave its butt and make it walk backwards.”—both of which they have stolen from the film Sandlot. No matter how crude they get, they think they are hilarious. As usual, my little brother cannot stop laughing. He struggles to stand up or walk straight as we walk into the restaurant. As we are eating, my manager calls me to find out where I am, and I tell her I am almost there. I shush my brothers quiet with a hand and wide eyes. Hopefully, my manager thinks the background noise of order numbers over a P.A. and music are only from a car radio. Still, my brothers are laughing. Today, I am not the sister who goes away and returns to interrupt their lives every summer. Right now, we are laughing, laughing, laughing—so tired, we are silly.

Bourbon Lake

2010-09-11T22:17:00.002-04:00

My father and I have gone camping. Us two. Together we drive away from the suburbs. Sometimes talking. Sometimes silent. We hike the same trail we hike every year, careful not to catch our fishing poles on branches or bend them on rocks. They are all colors, the rocks: gray, red, dun. They are like the dead with their secrets. Never talking, always silent. Geologists say their lines are a history book in stone. But I know these rocks aren’t telling. They sleep, silent bellies of the mountain rising from the dirt. We climb over them, their cool roughness presses against our hands. I feel them breathing; we keep quiet with them.

The mountain levels and lifts the stream, her finger, to her lips and beckons us to a nearby pond. The little pond bubbles beneath the sky and mountain, her fish untouched for months by passing fisherman looking for the larger lake. Ripples mean the fish are hungry. Again and again we see them risk open air for a fly.

Raising my right arm into the sky, I swish my pole back and forward—watching, hearing the line slide through the air, I pull the yellow cord greedily with my left hand. Amidst a spectrum of green from the deep color of the spindly pines to the just-a-touch green of the grasses reaching past my ankles, I perfect my technique, looking for the perfect “s” shape of the line to swim through the sky before it hits the water.

Secretly, I do not wish to catch any fish. Or if I do, I secretly wish they will get away before I can bring them into shore. I do not like to touch their seizing, panicked bodies. Do not like their eyes on me in confusion, asking why, their gills—how they shudder in the terror of not being able to pull oxygen from the air. I am afraid to touch them.

A few do not get away and I must call out to my father, across the pond, to come remove them from my hook while I hide my eyes.

Reunion Over Good-Byes

2010-08-23T01:03:00.004-04:00

Today, I learn why my brother will sometimes say to me “Ciao, Juan” pronounced "zh-whan"-- one syllable.

Years ago we were friends—me sitting in his room, talking to him, he driving me to school every morning.

Four years away, we are like those friends again. He has taken me to his favorite restaurant/fast-food joint—the one where, man of simple tastes, he says he wants to have his wedding reception. Crown Burger, it is called. He brought me here to say good-bye, before I leave and it is as if we are not friends again.

Tired for reasons I don’t remember, I say to him “Tell me a story” over my veggie burger and onion rings with fry sauce.

“What kind of a story?”

“A mission story.”

These years are the lost years—the years we became not friends. Those years we “grew apart”—literally growing up 5,000 miles from each other. Today, I ask him to tell me about those years.

Though he does not know it, my brother is an excellent story-teller, and soon I am encapsulated by different air—warm and sprinkled with salt. The booth where we sit flickers like a lightbulb and becomes a cobbled, Portuguese street, the urbane adjacent to the antique. Even his words are laced with the promise of a distant countryside and culture I never knew.

He tells me stories of Juan, the man who acted like a boy, who always hung around. The man whose father left him on a street corner, whose brain he used as a pincushion for drugs. My brother saw him so often saying goodbye to Juan became a reflex. Now, when he says good-bye to me in Portuguese, he cannot help but say “Ciao, Juan.” Though Juan’s story is sad, we are laughing because he is funny for reasons I do not remember.

We are just laughing, and the booth comes back. Now we are two friends laughing in a booth, so hard I fear fry sauce will come out my nose like peach snot. Right now, those lost years don’t matter anymore. We are two siblings, friends, laughing over stories and peach-colored snot.

The Angels are Melting

2010-08-12T17:13:00.003-04:00

The first of my memories with Mcartny.

This is Mcartny’s second winter. Walking, still a little wobbly, she says to me “Play? Snow?” This is before prepositions. All words are new. A master of intonation, she only needs to use a few. Her question becomes a chant. Her baby-fat cheeks ask “Play? Snow?” on repeat. We gather sweaters and socks. Put on coats, boots, gloves. In the backyard we make a snowman. I teach her how to make snow angels. The backyard becomes a choir of them. A cherubic children’s choir in the snow. Sniffles from a cold nose drive us in. We step between our winged imprints to not disturb their song.

Memories for the Afterlife

2010-08-07T12:02:00.009-04:00

For my both my honors and my senior theses, I spend what is probably an unhealthy amount of time thinking about death.

I'm also incredibly lazy and think watching films about death can be considered "research."

When I first heard of the Japanese film Afterlife, I was a little hesitant, unsure of what I could expect--thanks in part to the website WTF Japan, Seriously?!. There are some things about the Eastern cultures that Western minds don't quite understand, hence this website. I didn't want to watch a film that turned out to be just one giant WTF. However, the premise sounded interesting:

Over the span of a week, twenty-two souls arrive at a way station (which looks like an old junior high school) between life and death, where they are asked to choose just one memory to take into the afterlife. (Synopsis c.o. fandango.com becaused the imdb one was lame.)

I knew that I was at least interested in the idea of a liminal space--the way station--between life and death, a common theme in A LOT death scenes depicted in both literature and film , so I decided to give it a shot.

I was not disappointed. First of all, the film was visually beautiful. Obviously, a lot of attention was paid to the parallels between color palette and plot/theme. The simplicity of the sets and shots imbued a sense of humanity into this film where everyone is literally dead. The acting was subtle and restrained--the kind of restrained that bursts emotion and secrets. And even though the acting gave some secrets away, there were still at least two plot twists I wasn't expecting. And the more I thought about the premise of this film, the more I began to rethink my thesis. Of all the things I have read and watched, I think that this has perhaps had the most influence on my thesis's actual plot.

Besides the influence on my work, for weeks, I've been thinking about the premise of the film as it applies to my own life. If I could only choose one memory from this life to relive for eternity, what one would I choose? I came up with a "short list" of memories before finally choosing one. I don't personally believe that I'll only be able to have one memory in the afterlife, but if I'm wrong, at least I'll be prepared.

The list of memories included:

Three with my cousin Mcartny

One with my mother

One with my father

Two with my brothers

and one from W&L.

While making the list, true to form, I decided to use the memories as a writing exercise--recreating them in words chez my latest Sam Shepard read Day Out of Days because the style is a stretch for me, and I want my writing muscles to all be well-toned.

I understand it's a bit of a tease to talk about these things without sharing them. Most importantly, I think they prove an important point--one the movie also highlighted--The most poignant memories don't come from life's big events, but from cross-sections of everyday moments, exposing the cells wherein our existence hangs in suspension.

Therefore, I present my latest series: Memories for the Afterlife.

Memory with my Mother

I’m in grade school, and my mother is driving me into town in our green Isuzu Rodeo. At the stop sign in front of the capitol building, my stomach drops in anticipation. We turn right onto a downhill lane protected by a web of tree branches. The sun shifts past breaks in the leaves—lace reflecting off the asphalt. We cry out “Wheeeee” the whole way down, like we’re on a roller coaster.

Thoughts While Reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in English 362: American Romanticism (9-12)

2010-07-27T13:34:00.001-04:00

Closer yet I approach you;

What thoughts you did not have of me, I had of you—I looked out prematurely;

I considered you before you were formed in this belly.

Who could have known what should move me?

Who knows if I’m enjoying this?

Who knows what I am doing right now, while I know what of you?

It is not us both alone;

Not a few classes, or summers, or generations;

It is that each will come and go according to its whims,

From the unidentified center of it all, and in synecdoche:

Everything signifies, the smallest things, and the largest things;

An inexorable fog encircles all, and encircles the Soul for a time.

Now I am curious what sight could ever be more stately and admirable to me than my white-columned university,

My river and my woods, and my scallop-edg’d mountain-hills,

The finches fluttering their bodies, the black-board in the morning, and the walnut lecturn;

Curious what Gods can exceed these who stand before me, and with voices I respect question me boldly and loudly on a poem as I straighten in my seat;

Curious what is so slight that—undetected—it connects me to those beings who surround me,

Which binds me into you as you read, and pours my feeling into you.

We understand then, do we not?

What I knew, there sitting and reading, do you not know?

What this reading could teach—if you were willing to read through experience and Whitman’s wisdom, is taught, is it not?

What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is it not?

Breathe on, bodies! Breathe with the body-tide, and learn with the tried-tide!

Stand tall, spiraled and scallop-edg’d mountains!

Delightful dews of the dawn! Dampen my ankles with your light, and the men and women generations after me;

Cross from building to building, countless crowds of students!

Stand fast, white columns of the institution!—stand fast, bricked buildings of Lexington!

Throb, tired and curious scholar-brain! throw out questions and answers!

Suspend from here forward, eternal grasp of possibility!

Survey, moon-rimmed but eager eyes, in the classroom, or the street, or party!

Sound out, voices of academics! loudly and energetically question me on my understanding!

Live, old life! Study that part that looks back on the learner!

Play the part, the part of consequential or trivial, as we decide!

Consider, you who peruse this, and Whitman together, whether we are not now looking upon you;

Fly-on, morning birds. fly backwards, or carve ripples in the clouds with your wings;

Seize even November, you hills. and earnestly hold it, till skyward eyes embrace and share it with you;

Radiate, cold morning light, from my waking face, or anyone’s face, in the reflecting windows;

Come on, newly-wakened students. Do not just pass by the blackboard, the walnut lectern.

Bustle away, you books of all disciplines. material or experiential;

Light dormant chimneys, you sun! Cast your flicker of marigold! Cast white and mellow blue over the tops of trees;

Appearances, now and hereafter, indicate what you are;

You inexorable fog, continue to encircle the soul;

In my body for me, and your body for you, be resting our sweetest liquors,

Thrive, classrooms! bring your students, bring your lectures, ample and scholarly musings;

Expand, being that which none else is perhaps more intangible;

Keep your places, objects than which none other is more steadfast.

12.

We descend upon you and all things—we capture you all;

We realize the soul only through you, you constant tangibles;

Through you color, form, presence, transcendency, identity;

Through you every picture, likeness, and all the indications and resolutions of ourselves.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful tutors! you neophytes!

We receive you with open minds at last, and are keen henceforward;

Not you anymore shall be a mystery to us, or resign yourselves from us;

We use you, and do not ignore you in us—we plant you permanently within us;

We measure you not—we love you—there is perfection in you;

You are a four-year eternity;

Consequential or trivial, you form these parts of our soul.

Thoughts While Reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in English 362: American Romanticism (5-8)

2010-07-21T15:38:00.003-04:00

What is it, then, between us?

What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

I too lived—Lexington, of ample hills, was mine;

I too walk’d the paths of this university, and strolled in the woods around it;

I too felt the uncertain sharp questionings stir within me,

In the day, among throngs of students, sometimes they overcame me,

In my walks to classes, or as I study in my carrel, they overcame me.

I too had been struck from the day forever held in motion;

I too had receiv’d a self by my Body;

That I was, I felt in my body—and what I would be I knew I would be of my body.

It is not upon you alone the frantic deadline falls,

The deadlines have fallen—too soon—upon me also;

The best I had done seem’d to me unfinished and doubtful;

My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality mediocre? Would not professors dock me?

You alone do not know what it is to be afraid;

I am she who knew what it is to be afraid;

I too danced in time to uncertainty,

Stress’d, blanch’d, worried, cheated, envied, frustrat’d,

Had spite, anger, menacing, vain wishes I dared not think,

Was disgusted, selfish, desolate, suspicious, shy, dissatisfied, powerless,

The hyena, the doe, the sloth, not lacking in me,

The brooding expression, the sharp word, the sinful wish, not lacking,

Objections, disappointments, failings, eagerness, sympathy, none of these lacking.

But I was studently, naïve and proud!

I was question’d on a poem I didn’t understand by the menacing voice of an aging academic as he saw me cowering as I was sitting,

Felt the eyes of others’ on my neck as I answered, or the indifference of their attention on me as I sputtered,

Saw many I knew in their seats, or outside, or in the hall, yet to whom I’d never spoken,

Lived the same life with the rest, the same old studying, sleeping, eating,

Act’d the part that still looks back on that learner,

The same common role, the role we make our own, as consequential as we like,

Or as trivial as we like, or both consequential and trivial.

Thoughts While Reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" in English 362: American Romanticism (1-4)

2010-07-20T14:30:00.006-04:00

Body-tide surround me! I step in time with you;

Trees in the east! Sun there near and hour high! I step in time with you also.

Herds of young students accoutered in the usual fashions! how strange you seem to me!

In the wood desks, the ten and ten and five that sit, beginning class, are more foreign to me than you might suppose;

And you that cross through this door years away are less to me, and less in my contemplations, than others right now.

The unidentifiable substance of me from somewhere, in all seconds and hours of day;

The modest, cut, well-planned design--myself a piece, but everyone also a part of the design;

The countenance of the past and whisper of the future;

The acheivements hung like string-lights beyond my line of sight but luminous--on the clean

chalkboard, and the paper notebooks open to a fresh page;

The bodies "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" with me, taking me away;

The ones who follow me, these words between me and them;

The certainty of these words--the sight, the sound, the meaning of them.

Others will sit in these chairs, and cross through that door;

Others will write upon that blackboard;

Others will open their notebooks to fresh pages, ready to be filled with someone else's thoughts;

Others will read this poem attentively or no;

Twenty years away, others will teach them as they read, the sun almost an hour high;

Fifty years away, or perhaps even a hundred years away, others will teach them,

Will enjoy the morning, will enjoy the body-tide, the reading of the poem confusing the now-

still body-tide.

It means nothing, this room, this hour--place means nothing;

I am here, you students of a graduating class, and all your class after;

I read myself into your lecture, and return again and again as I read--with you.

Just as you looked when you looked out the window onto grass and brick, so I felt;

Just as you were one of a class, I was one of a clas;

Just as you were waking in the too-early morning, so was I waking,

Just as you filled your notebooks with things you did not think or say, so I filled mine with comments equally unthought;

Just as you read these free-verse words about humanity's shared flow and ebb, I read.

I too, and numerous times came to campus, the sun less than an hour high;

I watched the finch tottering in the trees, say them flapping and hopping, fitting his wings through branches and over still-dewy soil,

I saw their umber colors and their flashes of color shimmer in the morning sun,

I saw them rousing about, gradually opening with us the day.

I saw the reflection of the room in the cool window,

my image faint against the background of the glass, but bright,

looked at the hovering film of sun sheening there and turning a pale scene in the clear mirror,

look'd at the dark bricks and trees beyond to the north and northwest,

look'd on the fog as the rising heat dispelled it to only dew,

look'd toward the box room to notice the arriving students,

Saw them waking up, saw those who sat near me,

Saw their gray slate of the board--saw bodies anchored to chairs,

The students at writing in their notebooks, or listening with varied attentiveness,

The indigo-cupped eyes, the linear motions of pens in hand, the metal coils binding paper,

The shift and shuffle of uncomfortable seats, the students in their desk-houses,

The white dust left by chalk, the quick scribble to catch axioms of knowledge,

The bustle of pages turning, the surrendered open of bindings,

The distant scallop-edg'd hills through the window, the open books, the militant ink and matte,

The stretch of desks in rows of cherry-varnish shimmer, the painted cinderblock lining of exterior walls,

In the room the lighted group, the long scholar-rows flanked on each side by another--the b blackboard, the walnut lectern,

On a neighboring hall, the sun lights dormant chimneys burning high and full into the morning,

Casting its flicker of marigold, contrasted with lively white and mellow blue light, over the tops of trees, and down into the clefts of hills.

These, and all else, were the same to me as they are to you;

I project myself a moment to tell you--also I return.

I loved well these halls;

I loved well the stately and abiding columns;

The professors and students I saw were all near to me;

Others the same--others who think back on me, because I thought forward to them;

(The time will come, though I stop here this morning and night.)

Pulled Apart by Daisies

2010-07-16T13:42:00.002-04:00

How dulcet and downy these pure white blooms,

and bright with honeysuckle heart.

Halos in a meadow verdant

on a casual afternoon.

With their button eyes, they bewitch--invite--

to guard our unwary repose,

hamocked in a grassy nimbus,

while plucking their petals alate.

But to icy fingers their petals transform,

and with cold fervor into "nots"

our peachy love-flesh is torn--

an unrequited holocaust.

You say with harsh finality:

We were pulled apart by daisies.

When Poems Procreate

2010-06-11T13:30:00.003-04:00

I love it when my poems get procreative.

While I loved a lot of things about my May 13th poem, I liked it in pieces. There were some lines I loved too much to discard. Instead of "murdering my darlings," I gave them their own poems.

The first grew out of a revision exercise where I began by writing the poem backwards. It's a revision technique I particularly like, because it opens my work up to a lot of new meanings. I call this one "Worry Habit."

I used to know
what unquiet thoughts
would make you
put down the guitar,
loved in calloused hands,
and make you pick at your nails
instead of the soothing strings,
unable to distract you,
even now.

The next is "Missed Communication"

When words neglect emotion
you speak in notes
plucked with frenzied fingers
saying better and faster than your mouth can move.

Against the guitar your torso lies still
and says nothing of what is in your head
but the song you play
again, again, again.

You sing in strings with a vibrato
I do not understand
and a tone I cannot touch.

You beg me to hear your tune,
and I do,
I just wish these were words I knew.

The final poem I titled "Homeless."

You are the place I once called "home,"
the scent of May and
a southern sun on the back porch,
the tree outside my window
whose branches hum me to sleep.

I felt it in my body
lying still
to experience the senses of awake
and lying there
I fall asleep.

You are still "home,"
but now you are twenty-four-hundred miles away
and I walk through you in memories
smelling of dreams
where the scent of May has dissolved,
and the sun never sets behind the house and,
cut down, the trees don't sing.

I remember what it was like
to feel you,
but memories are too insubstantial
to touch and be touched.

Unicorn Meat

2010-05-23T15:22:00.002-04:00

Somewhere a virgin is traumatized.

We used her as bait for our feast-hunt,

and shot the unicorn who pillowed

his head in her chaste lap.

A fine meal for our fete,

we lusted after the innocent,

tender flesh in our mouths,

and sucked the juice from the

insides of our cheeks.

We fattened our lungs with its mystical spice,

clinging to our ribs.

We ate the sweet body

for forgiveness from our sins,

the manna taste of immortality,

divinity on our breath--

the immaculate animal bringing us

closer to heaven.

A bloodied skirt banners our thirst for unicorn meat.

Post-scripted Poems

2010-05-21T01:27:00.002-04:00

Not usually a procrastinator, I'm making my way through endless stacks of peer's poems--poems from my spring term "Poetic Forms" course, poems I should have decorated with my comments long ago, because I have so much authority on the subject. The poems are due for return to the poets tomorrow, and I have roughly 60 poems to go. For each poet, I've made a neat, stapled pack of all their poems to give back. In only a four week class, I don't know any of them very well. I know some by their consistent vernacular or voice, the font they habitually use--Julie always uses Calibri, at which, as a Cambria girl, I detest to look. I've spoken to Chris once or twice. He game me a ride home once when it rained, even though I clearly had an umbrella and there wasn't much more than a desultory drizzle. Beyond that, I don't know these people well enough to give them anymore than a smile or an awakward and forcedly-enthusiastic "Hey" when we pass one another on campus, so I don't know why I'm bothering to spend an hour giving each person feedback on their poems, but I am. I want them to do well on their final, and somehow I think my comments will help them make good revisions (I later learn that for most, they don't).

I slash and underline and emoticon (yep!) my way through their poems, struggling to find anything constructive to write on some of them because they are so obscure or unclear. As I critique Antoinette's (yes, that is her real name) poems, I feel compelled to comment on her talent for word choice (as if the professor hasn't done that enough already). Really, I secretly don't like this girl because people mistake her random smattering of words as "fresh language". My language would probably be just as fresh if I picked words out of my biology textbook too.

Regardless of where she gets her material, it still works for her, and I feel like I should tell her.

After going through all her poems, I write a small postscript on the front page of the packet, which I begin with a generic line that says something like, "I've really enjoyed having this class with you" as if I'm fourteen and writing in the yearbook of a classmate with whom I've only pretended to be friends all year.

When I finish with Antoinette's I decide I need to do that for everyone, because I don't want anyone to feel left out. Simultaneously, I gag, reminded that this is exactly the type of thing that gets me labels like "sweet" and "adorable"--both labels I hate. More than this, I know that I am acting exactly the way people outside of Utah think people inside of Utah act--nice, because, well, we do.

Except I don't feel like a nice person. As I write each postscript, I can think of a lot of other things I'd rather be writing than a compliment. Though I desperately want to write to Julie, "I hate the font you use. It makes me feel an irrational and unwarranted anger that overshadows the warm reception your careful diction and musical style deserve." Instead I write, "I enjoyed working on the Pablo Neruda presentation with you. You have great insight." I want to tell Chris, "Your feet are HUGE and knobby" because they are and I somehow think something constructive will come out of pointing that out, but I can't think of what that would be, so instead, I thank him again for the ride home. Though I'd like to tell Michael I think he's a tool for imitating e.e. cummings and Robert Hunter, I comment instead about how his work is "adventurous, ambitious, and admirable." It's all these things, but it's also annoying. And for the one kid I just want to tell "You suck," I say "You have a distinctive style!"

It sounds cheesy and lame to say that I actually care about these people and want them to feel good about themselves, but I do. There are a lot of things about these people that really annoy me and make me never want to see them again, but I know that pointing out how much they annoy me isn't going to do any good just because I am likely to never see them again. Plus, a lot of the things that really annoyed me weren't things anyone could change (like Chris's feet). I don't want these people to leave this class and feel like some girl in the class hated them and only had bad things to think about them. I don't want them to be self-conscious or think they were terrible poets.

In the end, I remember the goal I set for myself a year ago: to leave things better than I find them. It's a goal at odds with my personality at times, because I do enjoy being blunt with comments like "You're an example of a self-tanner fail." Sometimes, it's necessary to dish out a little tough love, but this situation isn't one of them.

I didn't get to spend a lot of time with these people due to the structure and length of the course, but as someone who greatly appreciates the art of poetry, I want my peers to have positive associations with their experience with poetry. I knew that even if I don't have any tender feelings for my peers, I did have tender feelings for where each of us were in our progression as poets and for the pieces we wrote (some of which were really bad, including my own work). I know that often times when students don't like a particular subject, it's not because they don't like the material, but because they had a bad experience they associate with it. In this situation, I do not want to become that bad experience.

So I hand back all those lovingly-commented, postscripted packets. I don't feel like a better person, but at least I acted like one.

Dear Muse

2010-05-16T23:05:00.002-04:00

It's dark in here, without you--
I'm stuck banging around the walls
of my creative corridors,
bashing in windows with the hope
of letting in a little light,
only cutting my hand--which bleeds ink
all over the floor of this asylum.
I crash into furniture uncerimoniously
set in the center of a room--there is no
place to sit or sleep it off, and there's certainly
no glass of warm milk on this nightstand.

I try to feel for a way out, tottering against corners
that don't exist, imagining handles that never come,
reaching above my head for trap-doors that never
existed, or a piece of rope leading to an attic I know isn't there.

The floor-boards mock me
with their cackles and sniggering creaks,
and the clock tsk-tsks away with it's pendulous head
in taunting sympathy. I think "help me" but nothing
breaks his beat. Soon I am full of sounds who
would make a song, but there are too many notes
I can't make out.

I support myself against a wall and wait for morning,
remembering how you control the sun,
and thought you'd take a walk to get some fresh air--
without telling me when to expect you back.

I'm left whimpering into the darkness,
on legs that are too tired,
trying to keep open eyes that are too sleepy,
wishing wishing there were a lightswitch.

2010-05-13T23:00:00.003-04:00

Your hands tanned from daily runs,

soft from reading books but for

calloused tips you use for guitar picks,

notes and time signatures in your knuckles;

you sing in strings

with a vibrato I barely understand.

You're exotic as the place I used to call

"home"--twenty-four hundred miles away,

once familiar, changing while I'm not there

even if I resist.

You set down the guitar and dig at your nails

--the anxious habit I recognize--

I want to reach across and still your hands

and ask, "What's wrong?"

I used to know the answer to this.

Far

2010-05-11T17:09:00.002-04:00

I have lived too long in the city,

breathing exhaust haze,

seeing cement,

to feel

meaning

in the forest

or smell the floral spray

of unaffected life in the country.

Personal Pronouns

2010-04-17T15:56:00.003-04:00

For my memoir class, I was asked to write a reflective piece about how I felt about the memoir writing process and which challenges I faced. The hardest thing for me was using "pronouns" so bluntly, when I was used to hiding them in poetry. I wrote a prosimetrum piece about how I dealt with this. This is the poem I included in the piece.

The elementary teacher banishes “I” from the essay

At an early age—my thoughts are not

Welcome there. Here, in first prose,

Personal reflection has no home.

New writers equal indoctrinated fear of

Deadly sins in “you” “me” “we” “us” “I.”

Kill the reader.

Death to the author

Before

she is born.

I search for room to beat my wings,

A butterfly trapped between two hands,

Twitching in the darkness. Where will this

Transient lay her head? What country

Will open its doors to this refugee—

Exiled from the essay?

The one who calls herself “poem.”

Here “I” will hide.

I will hide under a 12-point font

Serif canopy, and branches will obscure

And shadow “my” face.

Though “I” am here, the character

Does not have to be me.

Here, the personal pronoun is free.

My head rests in the refuge of her floating,

Phantasmagoric form—I am and breathe and do

In sonnets and villanelles, blank verse and free.

Now you see, but do not know me.

I tell out of order myself in poetry’s syntax—

emotion jumbled.

I conceal love in assonance—

internal rhyme unfurl this heart of mine.

I speak pain in grinding words tortuous—

banging, audible discord.

I cut my memoires where I will with en—

jambment, how I see it.

These are my stories, this is my life:

Elegized, versified, meterized.

You think you know the denizen here—

that these pronouns

“speak to you.”

I only know these voices

And those who live here,

For I am not the only one.

There are real people here, beneath these lines

they quiver—life shudder beneath the page

they are safe here too, even from themselves.

I have brought them.

Others hide with me in this greenworld,

New pronouns under the canopy. They are

“he” and “it” and “she” and “they.”

I hide them in ink and metaphor, obscure words.

They will not be found.

They do not know themselves behind simile and symbol,

Allegory and synecdoche.

I put all my feelings about them into

Paradox and irony, understatement or hyperbole.

I will write my reflection in meter and tone,

Burning fire into the page with devotion or despair.

Do you see the paper rise and fall with their breath?

Of course not. You do not know them.

I hide them well,

Until “I” return(s) to the essay.

Neighboring “memoir” pulls me back to prose.

She extracts these pronouns from their caches

Like grapes in a wine press--she twists.

I must be a different kind of honest.

This prose exposes my bones to the world.

My life is before you, you can see it pulsing blue

Beneath my skin—blue and scared,

Scared to let you know it.

Scared to let you know these pronouns

Who must see themselves for who they are

In me.

I cannot hide them from myself

Or from the world.

And so I navigate this new land,

Frank in words, but not so frank

That they will sting.

My poetry was sharply honest, but

Not so honest that anyone knew.

Now the world can see my heart beating

And see itself pump through

My valves and veins.

And I must be careful

Oh so careful

Not to bleed on the world

With these personal pronouns.

Bugs

2010-04-01T01:09:00.002-04:00

I feel bad the conversation always seems to focus on me--what I do, how I feel, what I think. He probes me with questions and walks me through my thoughts. He interprets the things I say and pauses while I look for answers. He knows me because we are "foils" of one another, he says.

I feel bad the conversation always seems to focus on me.

Or does it?

"Stand in the mulch," he tells me. "I am you, and you are him. Look up at me. Do you have a foundation?"

"No."

"You can't pull a man out of the sand."

He does not tell just me this. He tells himself this. He does not just walk me through my problems. They are the objective manifestations of his own. My life is the movie that speaks to him. His advice gives him time to think.

And makes me feel small, so small. It is harsh. Because he knows. And I need to be humbled. He can only tell me, because he's been here before.

We sit on the front step and watch bugs wiggle their vulnerable bodies along the concrete walk--a city of activity we could crush with our feet at any moment.

I cannot stop looking at all the bugs.

"You need to pray."

"I do."

"No. Water your pillow."

Love of an Orchestra

2010-03-01T23:35:00.007-05:00

I would be rather ungrateful if I didn't give notice to one of this blog's greatest influences, and the band who, for many months now, has influenced my writing more than any other artist.

This is from their second album--the one I heard first. It has some of the loveliest instrumentals and lyrics of any album I own, and never fails to make me feel sublime and content. The discovery of this album led me to their debut "Peaceful the World Lays Me Down." While I think "First Days" is their better album, the influence of "Peaceful" on my work can't be ignored.

Because this band is so influential, I like to keep up on what they're doing, more so than other artists in my iTunes. So today, I went to last.fm to check their page. I had "Noah and the Wha..." typed into the search when I saw their album cover in the bottom right-hand corner. They are last.fm's Artist of the Week, this week; and I whole-heartedly support the recognition. So, I'm including some links so you can get acquainted with this band I love so much.

Website: (Obviously, this links you to everything associated with NatW)

http://www.noahandthewhale.com/

NatW actually made "First Days of Spring" to go along with a film they made. It's quite beautiful and features the entire album with almost no dialogue. View it here.

I also encourage you to spend some time on their blog, which is much more entertaining than a lot of other band websites. It's a receptacle for the band's ideas and whimsies and a joy to read. You can really get a sense of who these guys are. Enjoy it here.

Finally, this website combines NatW with a concept I love the "Take Away Show" or "Concert à emporter." It's really quite ingenious. Bands/artists are invited to come and perform in random places. In the streets, in a bar, an elevator, the metro, anywhere. And they film the whole session. They do almost no editing. It's a collection of raw and spontaneous and beautiful music moments. I encourage you to experience the many artists who have participated in this project, not just NatW. I personally suggest Andrew Bird, whose Take Away Show is particularly magical. But, as Noah is the focus of this post, I direct you here.

Noah is an active band involved in many activities and projects that really showcase their talent. While I don't have the time or space to direct you to all of their projects, I hope I've wetted your appetite. Enjoy!

P.S. In case you're looking for some pretentious but well-researched and thought-out indie musical inspiration, I direct you to the place that first directed me to Noah. TLOBF.COM

Breaking

2010-02-17T00:05:00.001-05:00

Broken things make beautiful mosaics

These colors you hate--in my hands I will

make them a new shape. Their cutting edges

do not fit perfectly, but I fill the gaps between them

and with a little pressing they will hold their place.

I reset and recast your shattered pieces,

broken things to tend.

I was unyielding and you broke me down

You snapped them with tender hands,

nothing smashing. You positioned my colors next

to yours, so complimentary; and patted them

in place--gentle setting.

You reformed and repositioned my fragmented pieces,

broken things you bend.

We are shards no glue can mend.

The mortar fuses us together

in floating patterns we could never

make alone, forming pictures from

old stones. We make scenes immortal.

Yes, broken things make beautiful mosaics.

Late Nights Part II

2010-02-02T01:51:00.004-05:00

I debated the transfer for months. When I went home for the holiday break, I almost didn't come back for the next semester. Learning how bad things were over the phone was nothing compared to having to see it. When I came home, the Christmas tree wasn't up. The house was in shambles--like a gypsy camp. My father and brothers were eating fast food every night, while my mother ate only ice cream because there was no other food in the house. We all got a handful of cash for Christmas that year, because Mom couldn't get out of bed to shop and Dad was too tired trying to keep up with everything else. As a little girl, I'd developed a thick skin when something like this happened, but my brothers never had. As I watched them struggle in their public lives because of their home life, I couldn't even fathom leaving at the end of break to start winter semester, let alone going back next year.

I explained this all to my friend, and with a tone that told me he both did and didn't want to know he asked "So are you going to be here next year?"

"Yes," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere." I think it was the first time I'd said it out loud. At least, it was the first time it felt real, the first time the decision settled with me right.

That was when he asked me how it had all started--my mother's illnesses. Our friendship was a pretty young one. We were steadily attempting to make up for it as quickly as we could with long conversations about every subject we fancied. I'd asked him questions like "What's your favorite dinosaur" and "What's your favorite childhood memory?" So many questions I'd asked him, and he'd been so good to answer. When our friendship got stronger, I stopped asking questions. I wanted him to share things because he wanted to tell me and trusted me, not because I'd asked. I'm not the same way. I hide much and give up little. There are some things I'll only share if you ask. And he asked me this one thing, and I couldn't tell him. It was a secret and it hurt.

We decided to head back from our hike, and our conversation became light again. We were good at that. We never let a heavy conversation turn into an awkward moment. We chatted in our usual fashion, not forcing a subject but freeing it to the leisurely wanderings of whim. I felt particularly light-hearted as I walked back, prancing from stone to stone when we came to the rockier parts of the trail; and mirroring my mood in a dainty step and a bob of my shoulders.

For the first time in months, I was finally starting to feel okay about my decision to stay. I knew that back home, Mom was doing better--not great, but good. I knew that my family would be okay. I knew that I loved being here and that there was a purpose to my position. I also knew that no one had ever asked me that question about my mom before. No one had ever cared enough to ask, and because of that, he deserved to know.

"I think I'm ready to tell you about what happened to my mom now." And I did. I didn't cry. I didn't get upset. I didn't let the years of pain and disappointment and burden tell me I had to be sad about this. In that moment, it wasn't a secret that left scars. It was a fact. Simple and honest. I said it as if I were reciting a grocery list or remarking on the weather--not as if I was just giving up the family secret so hush-hush we pretended it didn't exist.

I haven't told anyone since then, and I don't plan on it. I didn't get over it that day. I still get upset when I think about it. I still blame it for most of my problems. But at that moment, it didn't matter. At that time and place, it wasn't a secret anymore. Sure, it still hurts like hellfire; but at least I know that in some place and time, it doesn't exist that way. I may only carry that with me as a memory, intangible and flighty, but since then I've recreated and reincarnated it. As I relive it, the purpose of things becomes more clear, and I've just begun to connect the coincidences and understand their functions as parts towards a whole. And that's all I'm really getting at--being whole.

Late Night Part I

2010-02-01T23:58:00.008-05:00

This is what a memoir writing class will do to you:

" If you don't mind my asking, what happened...? To your mom? How did it all start?" It startled me how carefully he asked it. He wasn't asking to pry, or out of curiosity. He asked because he genuinely cared. I sighed and looked out over the cliff where we were sitting at the murky river bobbing below us.

"I don't know that I can tell you. It's not that I don't trust you, because I do. I've just never told anyone before, and I don't know that I could tell you without crying. I wouldn't want to make this situation awkward for you." But the thing was, I don't think we'd ever felt awkward around one another, and that was how we'd gotten on this subject. All my fronts came down when I was around him. I was so completely comfortable, there was almost nothing he couldn't get out of me if he really wanted to.

I thought back onto how we'd even gotten onto this subject. A series of questions had led me to tell him about my preparations to transfer earlier in the year. He'd asked me about something he'd read that I'd written, a series I titled "Stay," about my back-and-forth struggles to decide whether to remain at school or go home and finish my education there.

"Earlier this year, I found out that my mother was really sick. My parents had been lying to me about how things were at home. My mother's always been really sick, ya know? She's had anything and everything: ulcers, bad kidneys, complications due to insomnia, sinus problems, sleep apnea..." I kept listing things off, all the things I could remember from 16 years worth illnesses piled in a decaying heap one on top of the other. She didn't have diseases or cancer, she just had a lot of everything else.

"Growing up, I took care of myself a lot, because she couldn't. I had to do a lot of things children should never be burdened with. But we seemed to hold it together okay. We got through. We functioned. Not well, but we functioned."

I looked out over the cliff at the blue mountains rising opposite us. Their tree-poked lines sloping through the gray-clouded sky. I couldn't get over how beautiful and perfect this day was. I could have missed this day, I thought. It wasn't until I actually thought that I would be transferring that I truly began to appreciate where I was. It wasn't until I thought I would be forced to leave that I didn't want to. I'd complained plenty of times that the mountains weren't like mountains at all--that they were like large hills, instead. I'd complained about the climate and the humidity. I hated that I could never see the sky because my location in the hills and all the trees were always obstructing my view. I didn't like that I couldn't see stars.

And then one day, sometime in October, I realized that I may have to leave. It was during a phone conversation with my father that I found out. All phone conversations with my family are about the same. We talk about how church is going, how school is going, and what latest illness has Mom bedridden. So, when Dad had been telling me about Mom being ill, I didn't think it was anything different from what we'd experienced before. Except on this particular day, Dad let it slip that this time, it was different. It think I've subconsciously blocked out how this came about and what exactly was said. All I remember is that I felt my parents had lied to me. I felt they had played down the seriousness of my mother's current condition, because before this conversation, I wasn't concerned. Now, I was scared. And angry. I was angry at myself and my family. I thought How could they not tell me? and I was angry with myself for abandoning my family. They needed me. Dad was trying to do it on his own. Neither of my brothers could or would help; and here I was, leaving them to fend for themselves.

That's when I started making preparations to transfer. I'd go live at home and attend school at the nearest university. I'd go back to my old job and take care of Mom. It would almost be like high school all over again.

I could hear the relief in my father's voice when I told him I'd filled out the transfer application, but I still struggled with the decision. Something told me to stay, but guilt made me want to leave. As I sat next to my friend on the mountain, I realized that I hadn't wanted to leave because of that very moment and what it meant to me--all the things it signified. When I thought about transferring, I suddenly didn't want to leave the landscape about which I'd previously complained, the landscape I was now witnessing. And I didn't want to leave the friendships I'd formed, especially the one with the person sitting next to me.

Invitation to a Feast

2010-01-18T21:34:00.003-05:00

I set the table for you.

Plates, forks, spoons, and

knives laid out for your

feast.

I drew fresh water from the well

and walked with the pail digging

into my hip, where it left a bruise.

At my table, your mouth will never be dry.

I harvested the wheat I ground to make

the bread, and I put my whole body into it,

that it would rise inside you, perpetually full.

Your stomach need never ache again.

I shook down my orchard and

picked my vines bare. I filled my baskets

until my arms buckled from exhaustion

and my back protested it's bend.

There is enough to take with you

and fill your cellars through scores of

summers.

Come find your fulfillment at my feast

and you will need no new love all your life;

the milk and honey of my assurance will be

always on your lips, faith and hope will fill

your belly and you will carry the satisfaction

of peace with you wherever you go

should you come to my feast.

Master Deceiver

2009-12-12T19:53:00.002-05:00

Silence is a master deceiver. It signifies nothing,

yet conceals more meaning than words that fill its space--

words, like bubbles, so delicate and evanescent

that to speak them would destroy;

words, like lost ships sailing an uncertain course

trying for a destination, yet failing to come close;

words, like arrows in the bows of young men,

unknowingly sent forth in the wrong direction;

words, like leaves falling softy where they land

yet never taking place in their original home again

words, like kisses sweetly shared--

the love between a pair;

words, words that I cannot say,

because there's silence there;

words I cannot wish away

the ones that must be heard;

words I so desire to speak

they must not be inferred;

words whose silence leaves me weak

unspokenly beat against my heart;

words, these words that pain me so--

I fear that we must part.

Wild Grapes

2009-12-12T10:28:00.003-05:00

What I wouldn't do for you--

Tender, sweet young vines of promise,

I blistered my hands under a burning sun when I built

your fences.

I exhausted every muscle when I constructed the watch tower

to keep my eyes on your delicate fruit

and I gave up the peace of the night to keep you safe

I broke my back and bruised my knees when I dug the soil

at your base

It pained my heart when I made the wine press

even though I knew you were made to be crushed between two stones

so you could become what I'd planted you to be.

I cared more for you. . .

Yet you synthesized the sun for your spoil,

and took ravages from the soil;

favoring foul waters you

spurned the sweet fountain

despite everything I did for you...

and I didn't know, couldn't know...

until I tasted your sour, wild grapes,

whose harsh acid I still taste on my tongue,

whose bitter flavor still makes me cry, and

whose smooth, firm skin still deceives my eye

I loved you,

but can do nothing with wild grapes.

How to Write like Paige

2009-12-05T19:35:00.004-05:00

I know you all want to emulate me, so I've taken an inventory of my style and come up with the following:

1. Use "as if" a lot and "seemed" a lot.

2. Metaphors, similies, and personification most often involving nature are a must.

3. Insert one biblical and/or Mormon reference

4. Make the Mormon references so obscure and specific, that one would need the author's explanation to understand them (Hint: "Dairy Queen" is about Mormon culture, specific to the South Davis County area).

5. Insert one word everyone will have to look up. But only one.

6. Poetry is all about you, but none of the prose is.

7. Make references to pop culture, most often in the title of a piece.

8. Make this pop culture reference obscure in case you don't want anyone to know what's going on.

9. You must have equal parts shallow to balance out deep--but not necessarily within a piece.

10. You're only sincere once.

11. Take heavily from personal experience.

12. Fall in love with and understand your male characters better than your female ones.

13. Complexly present the simple.

Part 2

2009-11-28T19:01:00.004-05:00

The scented smoke curls tugged her fingertips and pulled her with child-like enthusiasm into her memories.

She was eleven again. Her hair was long and fine and a free-of-chemical-color-additions mousy brown. She wore it in a lazy ponytail, whisps of hair coming out at the crown and catching her eyelashes. She sat curled up in a rocking chair on the porch, her white-and-blue polka-dot dress contrasting her earthy tanned skin, rough from too many days in noon-high summer sun. She pulled her spindly brown legs up to her chest and curled her arms around her shins, resting her head on her arm while situating her dress around her to preserve her modesty. She sat very still and watched and listened for the earth to move around her.

She felt small and unnoticed in her chair on the giant, covered wrap-around porch. If it weren't for her nut-brown skin and blue polka-dots, she would have faded into the white railings and posts and clapboard surrounding her. She felt like just another of the many potted plants and ornamental trees scattered along the porch: sedentary, expectant, accesory. This was her unexpected hiding place. She could sit here all day, in full view, and escape the notice of the many people coming and going--their heavy footsteps echoing across the boards of the porch as they continually ascended and descended the steps all day long, their hats in hand--their movements and their business muffled and distorted through the windows and lace curtains that separated them. She knew the ladies would politely ask "Where is Mary Elizabeth?" without wanting any real answer. The men would awkwardly shuffle their feet, unaware she existed.

She liked the porch. It kept her from being savage. Her shy, almost feral antisocial tendencies kept her in trees all day. The porch made her civil.

She looked out across the sprawling lawn and old, heavy trees dutifully extending their arms without wavering. She squinted as the sun commenced its descent, its frappant rose-colored light escaping past the baldachin to hit the wall of windows behind her, bathing her in a glittering reflection--John's sea of glass mingled with fire. She watched calmly while the sun paved everything in amber, cloaking the trees and the clouds and the lawn in a warm glow of kisses. She breathed the fearsome kingdom as the peepers began their greetings.

He came with the peepers. She'd hear the latch on the door and his slow, heavy feet on the porch planks. She imagined his finely-polished brown shoes like her skin against the sterile white. He came and stood beside the open chair next to her, enjoying the peepers. He would reach into his light-colored jacket and remove his pipe and tin, pinching a small amount of tobacco and setting it in the bowl, before returning the tin again. He'd strike a match and flick it away. One puff... two--one to greet the night and another to bid farewell. He'd sit down in the rocking chair, unhooking the button from his jacket so he could sit comfortably. Together they would watch the sun give her last caresses through the trees before winking away.

Wary

2009-11-19T10:40:00.002-05:00

I know now why I am wary of you,

why I'm careful about what I say and do:

It's because I'm afraid to leave pieces of

myself with someone else--

pieces, like old photographs, they stuff in a box

and put on a shelf.

I'm afraid of having no part of you

to carry with me when we're gone;

or that I may have too much with me,

that the missing may be long.

I'm afraid I may get used to seeing you

at the same times every day,

so much that I cannot move on

when you've gone away.

I've put my heart too much in you--

I've stitched yours in with mine.

I fear the parting hole won't heal--

no needle and thread with time.

So I try to cut my ties with you

before they're strongly made;

I'll pretend it never happened,

force the memories to fade.

I try and want and cannot do

--that I'm still wary is true--

but it is because I find I care too much for you.

Weeping Without

2009-11-15T21:59:00.005-05:00

I know how those widows go without--

why they do not weep for their beloveds

or grieve overly long,

why when the shock of a new silence leaves

their lives they find a new peace in days without sound--

they go without because they know

the going will not be long;

and yet I weep because I know you are already gone

and will be forever.

I am already without you though I do not want to be so.

Somehow the pearls of Peter's gate will not shine,

if I must pass through without you.

Nor will angelic choirs sing so sweetly as your own voice

softly saying my name with more praise than

any alleluia chorus.

The ennui of saintly wisdom would envelope me,

only because it would seem less wise than your own words--

with succinct sentences edifying the heart better

than any of their tomes--

you explicate "love" and "faith" and "hope" with

greater understanding than their own authors.

I think only weeds would grow in an Eden without you--

or else the petals of all those paradisiacal flowers would

wither and brown in the drought of your presence, the sun

not rising if you will not help it.

Though I'd inhabit marbled palaces, they would

be only mud and pitch in your absence.

Even God's glory is dim without your light.

This is not the peace and rest the preacher told me.

The widows do not weep because they are not always without.

I weep because I am already without you for always.

Mon Cher Aza or Zilia Renamed: II

2009-11-08T16:33:00.001-05:00

She remembered when he found out she’d be going away to college—his response, though wordless, said more than anything they’d ever said to one another. They’d been sitting in the only class they ever had together for all of high school. Unusually for that day, he sat in front of her. As the students all went around and said where they were going to school, what they were doing with their lives after graduation, she remembered his reaction when the teacher got to here. She’d held off telling him personally, waiting for the right moment; but she never got up the courage, and then it was her turn and she had to say it, with him sitting right there.

She saw his back tense and then relax with defeat when she said it. And then he was still with the shock of it. He didn’t turn to look at her the rest of class. They didn’t joke or make cynical comments to one another. They didn’t try to make the other break out laughing at inappropriate times, casually fall asleep on the other one’s desk. Today was not a day to play with his unnaturally moldable hair, which she often did until he looked like he’d been in a bad fight—a fight he’d won, at least. His body language asked her why she’d chosen to go away. It asked why she hadn’t told him before, why she hadn’t consulted him before making this decision like he’d wanted to do with her. And she knew she was right because he said as much to her later—on the night when she went home a cried, confused at what she’d done.

Here under the tree, she felt his arm around her and she knew he remembered too. This gesture forgave her.

Together they walked on—the trees lights distilling drops of forgiveness and healing, whispering promises for a future of many similar walks together. She settled into his side with a sigh as they turned a corner. She saw their figures looking back at her in the reflecting pool—strangely distorted by the floating orbs of light that crossed the surface. They stared at one another in the reflection and her throat caught and fear seized in her stomach. “Ella…,” he began, concerned.

She pulled away, still looking at his reflection only. “In one of my classes,” she began, “we read about a Peruvian woman taken from her home during the 18^th century. She went to live in France and her betrothed—separated from her—lived in Spain. She remained faithful to him, writing him letters and standing constant in the faith they shared. When she found him again the languages and cultures they adopted separated them. They were too different.” She always did this, saying but not saying what she meant. She only did it with him, because he understood.

“Are you sure,” he asked, his voice failing a little.

“I’m sorry. I’ve made my decision. I don’t understand it, but I’ve made it just the same.”

“I guess I just thought, even after three years…”

“I’m not coming back here when I’m done.”

“And I’m not leaving again.”

“I got sick of missing you too soon. I had to find my way without you.”

“I never did.”

“You will now. I’ll help you”

Mon Cher Aza or Zilia Renamed: I

2009-11-08T01:58:00.005-05:00

It seemed like High School all over again. She ran out the door as soon as he pulled into the drive, so he didn’t have to talk to her father or brothers. She sailed over the front porch step and landed with a bounce on the fresh snow. She got to the car just as he stepped out and shut the door behind him. Standing there, shoulders set at an angle with his back to the car, he looked down at her. For several moments they stood, inches from one another, not saying anything—just staring—taking each other in for the first time in what seemed like too long. Finally, he broke into the first honest smile he’d had in a long time. “Well,” he said, “Are we gonna go or not?” She shook out of the moment and skipped to the other side of the car, but he got there before her and opened the door—“Since you wouldn’t let me come up the porch properly,” he explained.

It’d been over three years since they’d been for a drive like this; yet it seemed as natural as if they did it every day. Off into the darkness, cocooned in the stillness of fresh snow and the silence of a night when people opted to remain in their houses, they drove. And talked. They talked like they were trying to find their voices again after having been mute for three years. She recited all about college while he diligently asked about her classes—requesting details of every semester, every class, wanting to know about professors and papers. He asked her about parties and her friends. What had happened to the roommate with whom she hadn’t gotten along sophomore year? Had they reconciled—yes, yes, she’d answered, they’d slowly reconciled; they were civil now, at least. What was the East like, he’d asked her. He’d only ever been to New York and not liked it. What was the town like where she lived? She chattered on about everything as if they owned time. She asked him about his life on the West coast. What was it like working there? What sort of people did he encounter? She prompted him to tell her stories about his adventures. He could tell stories so well, he’d carve out of her emotions she hadn’t even known existed. With him around, she never wanted for entertainment. She understood entire paragraphs from his tone and inflection, such that she could always get out of his stories so much more meaning than anyone else could—though they felt it. It was as if he painted a landscape with his pitch and she was the only one who could see how all the colors fit together.

They talked until they felt hoarse, opting to miss their dinner reservation because eating took too much time away from talking. Instead they drove down streets they never knew existed though they both grew up in this town. They continued until the lake extinguished the sun and darkness closed them in. Soon they sat in silence, quietly watching the headlights illuminate their next steps.

“I can’t drive around like this forever, you know,” he said.

“Yeah yeah, well, I’m not the one who planned this.”

He laughed. “Very true. Alright, I know what we’ll do.”

He wound his way with purpose through suburban streets until they got onto the freeway. “Where’re we going?”

“You can’t wait ten minutes to find out?”

She started to clear her throat to lecture him about how she loathed surprises, but he cut her off, “I know, you always want to know what’s going on—but I’m not going to tell you. I’m sure you can guess. We don’t keep things from one another very well.”

They parked downtown away from the office buildings. As she reached for her door-handle he chastised “HEY!” and she immediately put her hands in a fist in her lap, trying to look demure. As he opened her door he sheepishly took her hand and said, “ I didn’t want you getting out onto the ice by yourself. What if you fell?”

He kept her hand firmly in his as they walked past the houses pressed up against the life of the city. “Mm, I like that one,” she pointed to a brick house with a pitched roof and a sloping yard. “It’s small,” he commented.

“I like small.”

“It’s old.”

“I’ll bet it has beautiful hardwood-floors. Besides, it’s not about how a house looks, but how it feels. You think those houses you see in home-shows with their great rooms and home-theaters feel like home?”

He squeezed her hand, “You’re right. I agree.”

They walked until they got to the heart of downtown, where there were so many Christmas lights you had to look up to remind yourself it wasn’t the middle of the day. They walked around, observing the Nativity scenes from different countries and commenting on the lights. As they walked past one of the fountains, he looked at her and frowned. “What?”

“Your ears are bright red.”

“Yes, did you know it’s winter? I hear it gets cold this time of year.”

“I just wasn’t thinking about you being cold. I’m sorry. We should go back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I have a hood.” She reached behind her head with her free hand to try and get it, but only looked silly, flailing her arm in many failed attempts. He laughed and took both his hands and situated the fur-trimmed hood around her head, which made him laugh harder.

“Stop. Why are you laughing?”

“Because you look… you just look… so…”

“So what?”

“You’re just this little pixie of a thing in a huge down coat and fur-lined boots and this little head peeking out underneath your furry hood. You look like an Eskimo.”

“That’s incredibly racist of you. I’m horribly affronted.”

He chuckled and grabbed her hand again, walking away, “Come on.” Yet she continued to stand there. “No. How do you know I’m not really upset? You just made fun of me. And the Eskimos!”

“How do I know,” he repeated, looking back at her—defiance detailing her features, “How do I ever know anything about you? How do you know anything about me? It’s not like I’m just reading a book. It’s like reading a book I wrote. I know all the rhetorical devices, all the particulars of the diction, all the secrets of punctuation. It’s always been that way. Even when our only mode of contact was letters I could understand even what you weren’t saying by your penmanship. Vocal inflection isn’t any different.”

“That’s annoying. I don’t want you to know everything.”

“That’s why you’re the same way about me. It makes us even.” She took it as an acceptable answer and walked on with him, closer than they’d been before.

They stopped under a giant chestnut tree covered in warm orange lights. They looked above them at the web of spindly arms forming a glowing canopy beyond their heads. Looking up at the infinity of lights, she thought about what he’d said, about her being able to understand him the same way. It was true, she thought. She thought of all the sorts of animals that communicated using only sound-radar, and how they were almost the same way. Even then, when they didn’t say anything or when she couldn’t hear his voice, she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Part I

2009-11-01T21:11:00.006-05:00

She'd grown accustomed to the sights and sounds and smells of the alleyway leading to her apartment--so much so that she thought nothing of them as she found that narrow opening between the two buildings--the kind so slim you'd need someone to point it out before you'd know it was there. The smell of the bakery mixing with the coffee shop below, the familiar grating of gravel beneath her feet, the clanging of pans from the restaurant next-door--all filled her with a familiarity akin to neglect. Only when she'd been gone for a few days and come back did she notice them, as if their absence had somehow made them more pronounced. The acclimatization with the scene left her listless, languid matched with the lull and ease of her day, always the same.

Today walking through the alley, she passed the open door of the coffee shop's very back room, the one only regulars knew existed. Through the darkness of the back room, silent tendrils of smoke whispered out to her, tugging her clothes and pushing the small of her back towards the open door. Instantly her throat burned and her eyes misted with Pavlovian memory. Years along, she'd never forgotten that smell--the way muscles remember how to form words or preserve posture. Standing shaded against the brick wall her breath drew heavy and reluctant as her conscious memory joined her hidden one.

She'd never liked a man with a propensity for a pipe. Then again, she'd never known too many men who had such a one. When she did, however, the vehemency with which she abhorred burned her like a hell within her heart. She supposed it still did; but she couldn't walk away from the smell of the pipe seducing her through the open door, settling itself in the crevices of her gray-matter, masochistically burning her esophagus.

It was a finer tobacco--this she discerned and this she preferred. It wasn't the cheap cherry-infused sort that smelled of cough syrup and latex, it contained none of the false sweetness of vanilla bean, or the foppishness of rosehip. No, this tobacco was finer than that--this tobacco carried a story in it's smoke, like the aromas caught in the droplets of a fog; it's history so deep, one could have divined the fates of nations down to dates in its ashes. Every puff was a paragraph from its story--the steel that broke the soil, the man who planted the seed, the hand that plucked its leaves--each puff another tale to sustain a princess hoping tonight wouldn't be her last in this Arabian court. It reminisced about its old friend the bowl and gave praises to the bend while delighting fondly in its schoolmate the stem.

Yet that is not why she stopped, tethered to the product of disintegration's chaos. She did not stop because of the song it sang of itself, but because of the song it played within her--note by note, slowly now. Its fingers dusted off books hiding in the shelves of her bones. It found old photographs in the trunk of her attic mind. It unearthed old letters stuffed away in the pockets of her heart. The dark, woodsy, rich scent held out its arm like the perfect gentleman it was and gave her a dashing, gentle smile before proposing a saunter by the lake, its ripples forming new memory-scenes across its surface.

Promises

2009-10-25T19:33:00.002-04:00

The grasses bend their golden heads under

the dusty-hot sun, aching burden of

catatonic stillness, joints sticky shafts

creaking in the quiet.

Somewhere a sound stirs that

is not tempest or fire but a restless

excitement for the forthcoming--a

palpable ambient electricity.

Slowly at first, the grasses raise their heads

and dance--their rustlings assuring

whisperings--a comforting caress

rippling to every horizon of the soul.

2,4,2,8

2009-10-25T01:32:00.004-04:00

2,4,2,8 in B major

remind me that I left you,

remind me that it's been 782 days since

I saw you,

remind me that I wanted so much to

save you--

but only ended up hurting you,

remind me that we've sat 782 days

on something we haven't been able to say

but with our intonations,

remind me that I lacked faith in the measure

with which you could love me,

remind me that no matter the fervency with which I ache

to feel your arms again I think I might break if I do,

remind me that I could have seen you,

remind me that I chose not to or that you

promised me a beautiful life but I planned another one

without you

and forgot to tell you

or that I looked ahead and saw what I could have with you

or that I weighed my options and chose--again--

to be away from you

that I've tried again, again, and again to erase memories--

like our future--of you

and yet they still come through

with

2,4,2,8 in B major

Hugs

2009-10-18T23:18:00.003-04:00

Why do I get the impression this is what goes through some people's heads when they ask me for a hug?

Apt? I think so.

The Eyebrows Have It

2009-10-15T21:19:00.004-04:00

I'd been suspicious of it for awhile, but didn't want to admit it to myself due to it's sheer oddity; yet I can't deny it any longer.

You know those get-to-know-you surveys you get at church and sometimes in class *cough* seminary *cough*? Or those get-to-know-you games you play on the first day of camp or during freshman orientation? People always want to get to know me with the question: What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? (You mean, besides the fact that they're the opposite sex, right?) People randomly ask me this even when they aren't trying to know me, as in--after they've known me for a long time--as if this is going to give them some new insight into my life.

Everyone always tells me my answer is a cop-out. I guess it sort of is. I have heretofore answered this thusly: There are certain features that I like, and if the individual has them, that is what I notice first.

Well, last night while shamelessly watching 27 Dresses with my friend James Marsden showed me what a lie that answer is. There is, in fact, one feature that I notice first about the opposite sex:

Eyebrows.

I should have known. My first crush had--and still has--strong eyebrows. Part of the reason I am not attracted to blonds? They rarely have good eyebrows. Now, those who don't have strong, well-sculpted eyebrows need not worry. The eyebrows' contribution to the overall character of the face as well as expression are both considered during the evaluation process.

And I subsequently realized something. All those people who thought they could blow the door wide open on the Paige-psyche with that question were kinda right. You see I soon derived a direct connection between my preference and personality--that is, my appreciation for boldness and expression.

My appreciation for a bold pair of eyebrows mirrors my appreciation bold art, people, actions, music, literature, etc, etc.

I hate impressionist painting (about the only French-produced thing I can't stand) because it lacks a boldness and conviction. There's no heart in that moment, no passion. Likewise, the angle of an eyebrow puts the passion I'd look for in an individual in every statement.

Really strong, dark eyebrows always attract my attention. I usually don't like them at first--considering them to be unattractive. Yet something about their brashness always wins me over. Similarly, I often find brash people to be quite distasteful--only to have them become my favorites. There is something unabashed about everything they do and say--I appreciate their unapologetic actions. I like people who aren't afraid to strongly be themselves, even when I'm not, and nothing is more impressive than confidence. Confidence is appealing--even on complete punks, who are usually the confident ones. Just as bold eyebrows always attract my attention, so will a bold move on the part of one of these individuals. In fact, I've been known turn down date invitations and instead feign ignorance because the invitation lacked the boldness of being straight-forward.

One might also form a link between the eyebrows and my taste in music and literature. When the eyebrows aren't strong, it helps when they are put to good use--properly expressive or contributing to the character of a face. The music and lit doesn't have to be mind-blowingly strong. You don't have to be the best instrumentalist or the strongest creative talent. I just want it to be well-done. I want it to have something distinctive and interesting. I want to be able to identify a group or an author after hearing or reading a portion of their work because there is something about it that is tainted with them. It might be the use of metaphor or the particular grit of a singer's voice. I want expression in everything I hear and read--a message, a tone, a feeling manifest by diction or instrumentals.

There are a lot of other qualities that I notice: certain hair-and-eye-color combinations, body-type, even bone-structure. There are also other qualities that I like about everyone and everything in my life; yet, the eyebrows have it.

I guess that question actually has some validity for getting to know a person; because yes, I did just analyze myself based on what I notice first about the opposite sex. I'll never discredit that question again.

Hope

2009-10-11T21:22:00.003-04:00

One curled foot: first step on a cold wooden floor--
a startled intake of breath,
silver-dollar eyes frightened and pleading,
arms reaching out--
searching--
just beyond your fingers.

Plodding on wishfully-winged heels I
totter, tiny toes carrying future
ages.

Hesitantly lifting the
next step from the ground,
I search for something solid;
my foot comes down.

Again, step again. Foot comes down.
Relief and triumph become
color in my cheeks, lights in my eyes.

Steadier now, confident now
I plant my whole foot down;
shooting tiny roots of promise
beneath the ground;
I wave my arms spiritedly--exultant
at the footing I've found.

Yet no matter where, or how firm,
or how many steps may land...
I hope you'll be there to hold my hand.

Close

2009-10-05T13:33:00.005-04:00

Doors. Boxes. Deals. Cabinets. Bottles. Stores.

Petals. Minds.

Windows. Trunks. Accounts. Pantry. Gates. Street.

Past. Eyes.

Screens. Laptops. Highways. Faucets. Bags. Houses.

Future. Mouth.

Drawers. Books. Bidding. Fridges. Bags. Arenas.

Opportunities. Hands.

Garage. Pianos. Captions. Microwaves. Lids. Meetings.

Letters. Arms.

Curtains. Suitcase. Restaurant. Oven. Milk Carton. Investigation.

Conversations. Arteries, valves, veins and ventricles.

Too much, too close.

Dairy Queen

2009-10-04T17:55:00.002-04:00

It's not a holiday weekend here, like at the Dairy Queen.

I'm not having a girls' night with

my friends while we wait for the

men, doing their duty as always. We

let them go in the Spirit of the weekend.

I didn't iron your dress-shirt for you before you left

because you didn't wear one.

I didn't watch you shave in the mirror

to give yourself that all-important clean-cut

look after a lazy day.

Nor did I smile to myself at the pride

left in the scent of your shaving lotion.

You didn't leave with your grandfather and brothers

but went out with different boys to "live it up"

instead of sitting still...still...still.

I didn't sigh to myself that yes, here was Heaven

a little sooner, watching you

walk down the path and look back.

I'll never see you at the Dairy Queen on a Saturday night,

just like the others in your white shirt and suit--

tie and tacks and pinstripes and expressions the only

outward feature that distinguishes you

from the other like-purposed men.

Doute

2009-09-26T19:57:00.003-04:00

Like a snake it whispers behind

my ear and coils itself

around my spine--

it constricts around my rib-

cage and squeezes my heart.

This ground forming waves beneath me:

my boat capsizes into the

winter flurries that obstruct my view

of a true north I'll never

find.

The pendulum

swings from ear to ear

and upsets lady justice

with her scales.

The clock's second hand is

a hostage

holding resolve for ransom

while action and conviction

deliberate over sums.

It explains away those

certain thoughts

with a hissing caress

I tick away with

my shoulder

until the ticking touches me

and it becomes itself.

Halo

2009-09-21T21:02:00.003-04:00

Yes, it's true you have a light

that's burned into my soul. It is

small and dim, but I see it there

when you are not looking.

On the days when I dare myself to touch it

I reach out, and I'm glad I did.

In that brief moment, our two lights join,

embracing one another

they leave behind the bands

that hold themselves to us and

reach out their once-feeble arms

to touch across cities, countries, continents--

emboldened by the spirit they find there...

but my light withdraws in fear and shame

when it can see no halo beneath your

collar.

Crosses in the Sky

2009-09-14T21:22:00.003-04:00

The weeks are waning, the long night is growing dim,

somewhere we set down our pens and seal the last stamp

before blessing the hands that carry our thoughts

one final time.

Again, our tails form crosses in the sky

and we leave behind imprints of ourselves

to join the moments that will never be born--

so ghosts that were may plan for the ones

that never will be--the dreams of distant days

before I was me.

Comfort yourself

that something of the air I breathed

will breath in you;

something of the scenes I saw,

you'll see;

something of the ground I walked

will know your feet--

and it would seem as if you were me.

We step into new waters,

with unpredictable tides

tumulted by winds and floods.

I give you no words now,

but premonitions of what I may be

and the assurance that--whatever

our crosses--

you may always be a part of me.

Team Mascots

2009-09-01T20:10:00.002-04:00

This is the kind of stuff I'm going to miss when I'm away:

Today, my little brother came home with his first pair of shoes for cross country (from our favorite running shoe supplier DeBoer's!) and his uniform. I'm excessively excited. In my enthusiasm, I asked my brother how practice was going. He said that there was a group of fast runners, medium-paced runners, and slow runners and he was in the medium-paced. I was fairly impressed (seeing as how he rebuffed my offers to go running with me all summer and sat on the couch instead). Then he said, "But all the slow runners are girls."

To which I replied, "So you're a slow man."

"Yes, but I'm not the slowest."

"Are you the slowest man?"

"No, the team mascot is slower."

Biggest laugh of the day, and I'd even watched two episodes of The Office, so that's saying something.

Lessons from Hello Kitty

2009-09-01T00:19:00.003-04:00

I spent the weekend with my awesome friends at the not-nearly-as-awesome BYU. Saturday morning, Ashley made me toast with an imprint of Hello Kitty's face in the Hello Kitty toaster. I loved it; not because I love Hello Kitty, but because I derived a certain satisfaction out of eating her face. As Cat said, "I approve of violent eating tendencies."

Letters: Dear W&L French Program,

2009-08-24T17:27:00.003-04:00

Can I tell you how much I love you right now? I mean, really, truly love you. Not only do I NOT have to write a thesis for you, but I only have three classes left. So technically, that's three French classes I have to take over six semesters (well, if we were really getting technical it's four semesters and two terms.) If I really felt like it, I could graduate with you as my only major this year--even though we both know that won't happen. Now I only have to do a research project, which, let's face it, I've already done several times with relative success. The only thing I have to worry about now is whether to do a project on French Banlieues or the puzzling and somewhat disturbing trend of women going in the convents in French literature. I love one less stress. xoxoxo

Widow's Mite

2009-08-24T00:36:00.003-04:00

The day is a singular, pure, bright white: the kind that contains every color-- blues and pinks and yellows--with it's mid-summer evening warmth. It emanates from a central sun, ignoring constraints of time and space--mortal things finite minds cannot overcome. Like a pair of welcoming arms it reaches out and around and pulls you in a safe embrace. It is filled with the beauty, power, and hope of a sunrise; and the stillness, strength, and comfort of a sunset. It's splendor attracts the awe of every face: captured eyes, open mouths, stilled breath.

Their single file forms a string of brightly colored beads coiling their way like an eternal rosary through gentle hands of light, each bead taking it's turn for prayer. The never-ending line inches forward in an attempt to arrive at the source of beauty and light whose gravity has them hooked.

Some come in ermine with their golden staffs, precious rings and shining shoes. Others have their castles, crystal windows glistening between ruby bricks set with agarwood doors. They all beam their store-bought smiles with undeniable pride, lofting their trophies to the sky for others to see.

They lay their trophies at his feet their sense of self-satisfaction swelling in their overly puffed chests; with each one he blinks and nods and waves them on.

I come with my dirt-and-sweat-streaked face in a pair of ripped-and-torn thrift-store jeans, my eyes already too care-worn. I open my grubby, calloused hands and lay my barely beating heart at his feet. He stops and smiles and opens his arms to wave me in.

You Should Be an English Major

2009-08-13T13:34:00.005-04:00

You should be an English major--

the way you read between my lines

and do a close-read of my life;
or a biochemist, the way you slap
me between sheets of glass
and make me your specimen.

I can't hide anything from you.

You're like a forensic scientist,
telling where I've been and what
I've done with a single cell;
or an archaeologist--
the way you dig through my dirt
to discover how I lived.

You shape my entire story.

You could be a psychologist--
the way you sift my brain through
a sieve to analyze me.
You are God, the way you know
and created me. I worship at your feet;

but what I really need is a
heart surgeon
to stitch up the shards
you left when you were
done
with me.

2009-08-09T21:34:00.005-04:00

"Did you..." she began, hesitantly, "Did you know right away... that ... that you were dead?"

He chewed the corner of his bottom lip thoughtfully. "No," he answered slowly, "No. I did not know right away." She watched him as he reminisced quietly, his already faint eyes becoming glassy as he looked past her shoulder at a memory to which she did not have access.

Uncomfortably and uncertain that he would hear her over his reflection, she spoke timidly. "When, when did you know?" It seemed like a safe enough question, not too invasive, althogh she didn't so much want to know when; instead, she burned to know how, but the word seared through her like a ribbon of fire when she thought about it.

In reality, he didn't seem dead, not really. After all, she'd had enough conversations with him to know that he could carry on a conversation as well as anyone with a brain and a skeleton. He had human habits, she'd noticed--like biting his lip. He had human qualities: he was sometimes impatient, but not unkind when he was--instead he mostly sounded annoyed. In fact, he had seemed perfectly human to her the first time she'd ever encountered him, not at all like she'd imagined someone who was dead. Besides his habit of fading, rather than walking in and out of her presence, he looked perfectly human; human enough to touch, to go about daily life as any living being and not raise alarm, human enough that his chest still rose and fell with the slight suggestion of a steady breath. How had he known he was dead, then? Had he seen his own body? The thought made her tense. How had he died? For all their conversations, she'd never inquired--she'd never asked what she now considered vital questions.

As if he could discern her thoughts he suddenly jerked to change his attention. "When," he repeated, a crease forming between his brows--another all-too-human quality--"for some it only takes a few minutes before they know. For others, it could take hours." She couldn't imagine going hours and not knowing you were dead. It seemed impossible to her. "It takes a certain kind, a rare kind, to go that long."

"So, when you do know...," she began tentatively, as the ribbon shot through her again, that acute indication that perhaps she didn't want to and shouldn't know.

"How do you know," his finished for her, his eyebrows raising inquiringly? She nodded, swallowing hard. It wasn't like she was expecting him to tell her that he knew because of some terrible, catastrophic event or realization. It wasn't like she was really afraid of what he would say. Though she felt pulled by some invisible thread that yearned for her to know, the ribbon that twisted its way through her rib cage told her that something within her resisted his answer.

He seemed to contemplate how best to explain to her, angling his head slightly. When he arrived at an answer, he nodded once and regarded her gently. "You do not know you are dead until you try to do something that requires a body and discover that you cannot."

She looked at him for several moments, confused at what this meant. She thought of all the things it took for humans to talk: vocal cords, the muscles of the face, mouth and tongue, and so many other things that were necessary that she probably didn't know about. He spoke to her just fine, she thought. He could walk, although he was entirely able to float as well. It seemed to her that he had it backwards. He could do things without his body that he couldn't do with it. What could he possibly mean, you didn't know you were dead until you tried to do something that required a body?

Silently, and without looking her in the eyes, he crossed over to where she stood. He slowly reached out his hand as she watched, breathlessly, and gently put his hand over hers. She wondered for a moment why he let it hover there, without actually making contact. Then she realized that he was touching her, and yet she felt nothing. He moved his hand away as she finally understood.

Letters: Dear Blog,

2009-08-09T21:33:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry you are so devoid of my virtual ink. I have, as of late, abandoned your pixels for the paper of my journal. I just needed a more private relationship. While I am sorry for your sake, that I've concluded three series, know that new and exciting things wait for you.

Someone to Frost my Cake

2009-08-06T11:56:00.002-04:00

I love baking. A lot. Yesterday, I baked a cake for a family

party. All was coming out roses until it came time to frost.

I'm not gonna lie: I've never frosted my own cake before.

Decorating I can do, but putting down the frosting canvas

is not my specialty. As I frosted the cake, it fell apart on me.

It turned out fine in the end, but it wasn't nearly as pretty

as the cakes my friend always frosts for me. As I lamented

her absence, I really wished I had her there to frost my cake.

I gather the cocoa, the sugar, the flour;

I pour in the water and oil.

Mixing, mixing, turning, and whisking--

the batter splatters the counter, the bowl

and my hair.

The smooth satin mixture tumbles into the mold,

then I shut the oven door.

Heat and rising, wait and harmonizing.

The clock dings done, cooling commences,

the filling and frosting await.

Assembly begins, the filling goes in, the layers

form their spire--the cake goes up, to scrape the

sky as it goes higher and higher.

As soon as I step back to admire

it buckles and frowns--under the frosting

the facade topples

down.

I didn't have the perfect hand,

to frost my cake and it still stand.

At the baking and assembling I'm well adept,

but I always fail at this important step;

so next time I venture out to bake,

I'll bring a friend to

frost my cake.

Stay: Leaving

2009-07-30T08:55:00.002-04:00

I remember the pigments a different way--

bejeweled and gilded tones--

standing with cocked heads and clasped hands.

I see the fuzzy edges of the original

viewed darkly through despair

and forming shadows that were never there:

misunderstood representations

for which there was no

interpretation--

seen now through the clear-cut

kaleidoscope of hope and hindsight bias

the pictures of possibilities change into

unpredictable patterns.

New expressions form under different light;

scenes and stories not yet explored

darken the past and illumine emotions.

The brush strokes are the same... I just see more of them now.

Silencing Archimedes--in prose

2009-06-11T17:53:00.012-04:00

I look up from closing the cover on a dusty book, listening for the sound of stirring wings. I hear silence instead. Even my own breath is too shallow to make a sound. My finger makes a comet's tail in the distinct gray film that coats the table. It is the only mark I will leave here, and like every comet's tail, it will fade.

Books sit many days untouched, the curtains smell musky, boards creak uncomfortable under my feet, not used to strangers. I walk to his perch, left without its occupant since Nimue. In the dark room, there is little not to see. I imagine his head pressed next to his side and his yellow eyes shining as they circumspect me.

I open the curtains to let in the light, destroying the images of the darkness. Clouds of dust erupt from the curtains in plumes and dance in the sunlight before settling on lamps and furniture. The new sun creates shadows where before there were none. I appreciate the dark corners with their mysteries and welcome the clarity of open spaces. I take them both together.

I examine the perch sympathetically and smile sadly. It's occupant is obsolete. I hang up his wings and walk away.

Silencing Archimedes--in poetry

2009-06-11T17:42:00.002-04:00

He comes and folds his wings on purple days

before the clouds can break above the mind

when hazy meadows hover after eyes

and heavy clouds hang in the heart and head.

Inquest in his searching eyes, swiv'ling skull

is wisdom's guise--doubt, cynicism and

pride prompts present'ment and unrest. He chides

with spiked tongue and talons, disturbs the fog.

But the Sun comes, cutting clouds, dispelling

doubt and expelling all unease. Now new light

colors meadows in the dawn; and diff'rent

birds sing down my sanguine mornings.

I do not hear the night bird's sound anymore.

I hang up his wings to the perpetual day.

Letters, Dear Depeche Mode

2009-06-10T03:42:00.003-04:00

Letters:

So, I think a lot about internal dialogues--my own and that of others--and lately my internal dialogue has consisted of letters, and I don't mean the alphabet kind. While going throughout my day, I'll often think something like "Dear Raisins, I love you for being so delicious, easy to carry, and child-friendly. I heart you. Sincerely, Paige" These letters have never before met paper, and, with a very few exceptions, have never been said out-loud. I feel that I should change this; therefore, I present, probably more for my own amusement rather than yours, a new series: Letters.

Dear Depeche Mode,

SotU is, as expected, utterly brilliant. It is, admittedly, rather similar to "Angel", but no matter, it was there that I first found and fell in love with you. You are, undoubtedly, the gods of my hallowed electronic rock--even the Pet Shop Boys can't compete with you globally, which makes "Sounds of the Universe" so apt a name. It was your industrial sound and skill with the synthesizer that emblazoned you on my arms. Furthermore, with your lyrics, we are of one heart and one mind. I cannot praise you enough. xoxox

Paige

P.S. Love for influencing my beloved band The Killers.

Memoir Part I: First Words

2009-05-26T01:23:00.007-04:00

I think our first words reflect our personality. My brother's first words? "Thank you." Mine? "Uh-oh." My brother has been polite ever since, while I have been getting into trouble. In fact, my earliest memories are of making mischief, disregarding parental authority, and suffering the consequences of disobedience. This is the story of my earliest vivid memory.

As a child, I enjoyed watching my father mow the back lawn. As a prefiguration of my future spectator skills, rather than actively participating in the lawn-cutting process, I would watch from my bedroom window. From two stories above, I watched the entire thing from my own box-suite. I climbed onto the stool I used to climb into bed at night and pressed my tiny nose against the greasy window-screen. My three-year-old perspective made Dad seem so far away as he guided the reliable John Deere mower in straight rows. He would call up to me from below and scold me for leaning against the window screen. As much as it was his habit to mow the lawn, it was mine not to listen to his scoldings.

More often than I did not obey my father, I did not listen to my mother. To my father, I was difficult and stubborn. To my mother I was a tiny titan of terror. One of my first terrorist acts in fact, was to run about the house screaming because I refused to wear a crisp, white blouse and tartan skirt to church, not because I did not like either; but because I found my mother's pleadings and sighs of frustration amusing.

This, however, does not explain my first words. I came so frequently to hear "Uh-oh" because that is what my parents would say before they reprimanded me for my mischief. If the consequences were sift, they were equally as frequent. Apparently, I would have presented a problem to Pavlov's entire procedure. Instead of learning from the consequences of my actions, I merely regarded them as a price to pay to do what I wanted. I would gladly sit in time-out if it meant I could draw on the walls. Thus, in time, I came to utter "Uh-oh" as my first words in recognition of my wrong-doing and in anticipation of my sentencing.

Short-listed

2009-05-15T00:28:00.004-04:00

A sharp flurry of wings startles me and I hastily create a cage above my head with my arms, cowering.

"What are you doing?"

"Please don't hurt me."

"Oh no. I'm not going to resort to violence this time."

"You're not?"

"No. I'm too disgusted. How could you let this happen?"

"Well, gee, Archimedes. I seem to be asking myself the same thing" I respond acidly. My attitude quickly changes, and I bite my lip, looking up at him, "Should I be worried about this?"

Shaking his head he answers, "I don't know. I just don't know."

"Should I just go with it and see where it goes from here?"

"Do you think that's wise?"

I give him my hopefully-maybe smile, "Maaaaaayyybeeeeee???"

"I'm thinking no. However, I think you need to prepare yourself in case it isn't."

"Good point. Okay." After a pause, "Are you worried?"

"Yes. That's a pretty short list to make."

One inch of track

2009-05-11T17:31:00.002-04:00

It's a gentle pull of a string, barely a twitch of the muscles holding a thread between the thumb and forefinger. The ripple starts out slow, a subtle quiver over still-quieter waters. It travels across continents with their restless young rivers and their ancient lakes. The miniscule vibrations of many individual fibers cleaving together travel their way down a series of synapses. It shivers and quivers where a seed falls, where new ground breaks under the plow, where footsteps travel there and back again.

As it circumnavigates its pattern, its dither begins to quake. It's cloth becomes taut. The sinews bind and lock. They are sealed.

Stay: Hanging Day

2009-05-05T23:04:00.002-04:00

I walk into the "Stay" gallery and he's putting away his brushes and pigments. "I see you've hung the one from last time."

"It fits, doesn't it?"

"Yes!"

"How do you like my new one?"

I walk over to where it's dry on the easel, waiting to be hung. It has all my favorite colors. I could have painted it myself.

"May I help you hang it?"

"Certainly."

Analysis

2009-05-05T21:58:00.003-04:00

I just sit and look at him, elbow on armrest, temple resting against a relaxed fist. He clicks his beak at me, "You look exhausted." I don't even try to reply, falling asleep in my seat. He blinks. I'm not too tired to suppress a faint smile. "It's been awhile...," he says.

"Yeah."

"You're completely gone."

"No, not yet."

"Then may I direct you to the first page, third paragraph?" I dig through my bag until I find it, my rarely used notebook, and flip through it's pages to find the faint words. There it is, the fourth sentence, the one I couldn't believe when I heard it the first time or when I read it the million times after.

"It seemed so impossible then."

"Paragraph six now--anything stand out?"

"Same thing as usual."

"Keep going."

"Oh, I get it. The last sentence of paragraph six corresponds with paragraph three sentence four?"

"In this case, yes."

I keep reading, but paragraph eight stings. "If only sentence four didn't come without the others. Why is it so hard to find sentences four and two at once? Sentence four was the hardest to fulfill and now I've found it, but I'm missing two. Three just out-right frightens me."

"That doesn't mean paragraphs three and six are connected to eight. There's some very distinct diction there." At once I wish there wasn't. "No you don't. Hold off on paragraph eight for awhile. Don't forget it, but don't worry about it either. There's plenty of time for that paragraph."

"You're right. As for the others..."

"O ye of little faith."

"Yeah, yeah. Rub it in."

"Thanks, I think I will."

Fireflies

2009-05-03T23:39:00.003-04:00

It's darker than a normal night, the blooming clouds cover the stars and let down their sparkling tresses--soft whispers of rain that accumulate slowly on new, broad leaves and fall in great heavy drops onto green grasses and weeds reaching their arms to the branches above; the mists pack the dusty earth, and I walk through an active fog. The trees surrounding me form unfamiliar shadows in varying degrees of dark. Fingers of light from a lone lamp grope their way through zealous leaves and trace the rings of ripples in the river under the rain. The yellow light is a faux-friend--a scant substitute for the milk-light of the moon.

I make my way under and across bridges. I walk on damp trails and mud splatters my calves and wet weeds slap my feet. I pick through the darkness only by the feel of the cut earth under my steps. Only the sound of the river rushing against rocks or lazily lapping its calm banks accompany me.

The mist and the fog subside and I raise my face to look for the sky between the canopy; but I see no white lights above me--only the fleeting, flickering lights blinking beneath the leaves. They are ephemeral and esoteric, but they are bright--glowing orbs of miniscule lights. On this night, it is the yellow, blinking lights of fireflies that break the dense darkness

Entertainer of the Year

2009-05-02T23:04:00.000-04:00

You know what bothers me? When I'm really into a musical artist and I really admire their work and then I go onto YouTube or I google them only to find out they are ugly/boring/performance challenged.

Don't take this the wrong way, it in no way diminishes the quality of their music; but I ask, no I beg, you: Where have all the entertainers gone? Where are the men and women so staggeringly cool that we'd bid for their snot on eBay Scarlett Johannsonn style? Where are the performers who can get the adrenaline and hormones of their fans to pump to the beat of their bass-line? Where are the entertainers so suave they need groupies for their super-fabulous groupies? In short, where are the musical artists who aren't just talented musicians/lyricists/collaborators, but icons, idols capable of inducing an iconoclasm so cataclysmic they put a love-'em-or-hate-'em, Roman-Catholic vs. Greek-Orthodox like rift in the music world that no producer with more power than the Pope could fix? The ones who put a pretty face on the music without being a Disney-marketed robot?

I want someone whose beads of sweat from the stage will make me shiver rather than shrink, someone for whom I climb over a railing on pain of security-guard brutality just to touch, someone for whom I'd fight through barbaric crowds just so they could sign the forehead of my first-born. I want an entertainer worthy of exhausting my voice with slick lyrics at a concert, who'll keep my on my feet until they bleed and I lose all feeling in my toes, a performer worthy of the superficial blue light of my cell-phone at the end of a swaying arm--the modern day cigarette-lighter encore. I don't want someone with a Zac Efron eyebrow-grazing hair-flip who can pound a few notes on his Casio in his garage for a few cheap pennies while teeny-boppers tap their toes.

No.

I want a front-man who can turn sleek tricks into a microphone while his seductively subtle buddies back him up on bass, drums, and a guitar; someone so sleek you can't resist turning him into a pin-up.

While all this may come across as a little shallow, I assure you, all his appeal isn't in his looks--oh no--it's his talent, his stage-presence, his off-stage charisma, that make him so approachable, so almost-attainable, so desireable. Any likely candidates, you ask? I have a few.

Adam Levine of Maroon 5

*Sharp intake of breath* Please excuse me while I think lusty thoughts...

No one does five o'clock shadow the way Adam does. There's something about the stubble and low brow that always makes him look freshly ravaged or about to be, which means anyone with hormones can't help getting caught in his gravity. He has the sort of persona that at once pulls you in and repels you, making you want him that much more; and of the men on this list, his eyes are by and far the most seductively suggestive. He's the kind of mysterious that's impossibe to touch: you know there's something dark and--let's face it--probably dirty, going on underneath that perfectly gelled head. While he is admitedly not a superior musician, he uses that to his advantage. He doesn't just use the guitar as an instrument, he uses it as a prop Furthermore, he knows the secret every white guy who can't dance should know: bounce. If you can't dance, bend one knee, put a little movement in the opposite hip, give a slight swagger to the shoulders and BOUNCE. You will be irresistible. In summation, he is like the samba of performers: full of enraged passion. Anyone who owns the power stance like that is a top performer.

Unfortunately for Adam, he has Megan-Mullaly syndrome. When performing, you'll never meet anyone more entertaining. In real life, he's not much of an icon. I wouldn't stalk him. True, he has the type of charismatic and quick wit that makes you giggle. Too bad that translates to adorable rather than attractive. My little brother is adorable. Puppies are adorable. Men after whom you secretly (or openly) lust are not adorable. Men you want to date are not adorable. I know famous people actually are real people--even if their reality is a little skewed. Regardless, I want a true idol on-stage and off. Poor Adam is just too cute.

The verdict. 3.5/5 for great on-stage presence, but a poor off-stage performance (the same as "I Am Sascha Fierce!" Beyoncé-ouch).

This next one might surprise you (no, not you, Cat). Rivers Cuomo. That's right, I said it. The dweeb from next-door, the one who grew up and went to Harvard and then started a band? The one you thought would be living in his mother's basement forever? Yep. Even though "Make Believe" was the dud, that's when Rivers stopped being the dorky guy from next-door who played in his garage when he wasn't designing video games and became the quirky guy you met at the poetry-jam: intelligent, still shy, but comfortable enough to be confident. Sure "Say It Ain't So" immortalized them on Rock Band, but something about Beverly Hills made him so much more attractive.

He's a shy performer, no doubt, but the kind that keeps you clinging to his every breath and head-bob, which he does better than anyone else (it's that inner rocker simmering somewhere up top). Unlike Levine, Cuomo is actually competent with a guitar and the juxtaposition of emaciated white guy with the instrument that wields so much pop-culture power and has so much appeal gives Cuomo that extra bit of edge. Combine that with his West Coast, Chuck Taylor and indie mismatched style and you have a performer who's awkward and humble but still curiously captivating (like the guy at church who looks like a twelve year old, but you'd still date him anyway). Chances are, a conversation with Rivers would probably cover everything from Comparative Lit to Cheez Wiz, and it would be the most interesting conversation you would ever have.

So, because he is so improved as a performer while still maintaining his down-to-earth personality, Rivers gets a 4.0/5.

It's inevitable that I include the next performer. He is, after all, more or less the epitome of everything I've ever wanted in a human being of the opposite gender. I could exhaust you with details, but I won't. Simply put, he's an edgy Mormon--two words you all most never find together. The Killers front-man Brandon Flowers is truly a man for the masses.

In his Brightside days his boyish, dandy good-looks caught the eye of many a female (a quite a lot of males, if we're being frank here). With the release of the Ode to Depeche Mode Sam's Town (if you don't believe me, check Violator, those of you who criticized Sam's for being too "American") Flowers gave up the razor for some scruff. He also became the only man I've ever seen who can pull off the porno/mexi-stach without looking like a pedophile (sorry Rivers, it's true). Plus, anyone who looks as if he's been outfitted by Jared Gold will alwways have those same sleek lines. Now that he's blurring the lines between existentially exploring what it means to be Human (if I hear one more criticism of that lyric!) Flowers has started shaving again (sometimes) and has sprouted feathers from his shoulders à la glam rock. Flowers evokes memories of the music world's other Mormon-paradox: Arthur Kane of the New York Dolls, only with a much better haircut. As Brandon puts it perfectly, "I don't know why more people don't wear sequins." His ability to reinvent himself and look good EVERY time is a rare find. He could dress in a burlap sack and not shower for a week and still be as slick, tempting, and alluring as ever. Yes, I said it, he could make homeless hot.

But all this eye-candy (or cocaine, or lsd in his case, I can't decide which) isn't going to do much if your only stage -trick is shuffling your feet. Fortunately for Flowers, this is not the case. Instead, he is utterly fascinating--Chris Martin from Coldplay fascinating. Hypnotic even. You keep watching him just waiting to see what he'll do next, and he never disappoints. He's not a Justin-Timberlake-Sexy-Back smooth mover. Oh no. You'll never find this guy in New York night club. Brandon's style exudes a much older and much more musical-history educated style, where his only influence isn't Michael Jackson (ahem, JT). It's down-to-earth, organic, unassuming and indifferent. It matches his gravelly, warm-velvet, passionate voice. He is, therefore, as much a captivating figure to hear as watch.

He's similarly talented. Let's not overlook the lyrical brilliance of "Mr. Brightside" and the rest of one of the best debut albums ever (I'm only slightly biased). Despite grammar debates surrounding Day and Age's first single "Human," I still maintain the lyrical superiority of their third album. Whereas many bands tank or miss the mark with their third (often experimental) album, The Killers managed to to produce an intensely beautiful record--and for an album soaked in synth-o-pop, that's hard to do. But... this is about Brandon. The point is, that even beneath all that synthesizer, his soulful lyrics and voice make you stop just short of idol-worship.

And he's entirely unavailable. He has a lovely family to whom he is incredibly devoted. He must, therefore, be observed from afar, which only adds to his allure. There's something about a man who is both intellectually and physically untouchable that makes you want to erect a shrine to him à la a young Truffaut to Balzac in Les Quatres Cent Coups: candles, photos, a little plagiarism... and from then on he's your principal creative inspiration. Score 4.4/5

This next artist has yet to drop his album as of the writing of this post, but I'm anxious, anxious, anxiously anticipating it. So far, he's been playing hole-in-the-wall venues while making some very important connections--which means Gary Go is still pure, and has everything going for him. I have very strong feelings for this man, who got me through an entire exam week during which I lived and breathed the science building. When you've spent that much adrenaline/emotion-filled time with someone, you're bound to make a connection.

I love this man for several reasons. First of all, he's the physical amalgamation of everyone on this list. He has the sleekness of Levine, the intellectual geek of Cuomo, and the edge and surprising intelligence of Flowers; and yet he's refreshingly unique. For one, he's the only person on this list who plays the keyboard, which means as a performer his dynamic is entirely different. He doesn't have the attitude or the swagger of a guitarist but rather an unpretentious, I'm-lost-in-my-own-world energy. It's comfortable and down-to-earth. Off-stage, listening to him is like having a conversation with your childhood friend: totally natural.

Since I'm struggling to coherently characterize the brilliancy of this man for you, we're going to have to me rather methodical about this from here on out.

Look: Honestly, his look is what inspired this entire post. My initial reaction to the first three seconds of his his video? "Please be the lead singer and not a hired actor. You're so good looking. Please tell me you're talented and interesting too." Confirmed. As soon as he opened his mouth to sing, I knew I was sunk. The thick indie glasses get me every time. Every. Time. The subtle faux-hawk? I approve. the cheeky smile? I'm a fan. He dresses incredibly well too. He's usually in well-tailored suit or sweater combo that accentuates how trim he is (and how could he not be with the running he does in his video?) and shows he's indie-inspired without reverting to girl-tight jeans. And trim he is indeed. Sparing his near-Steven-Tyler sized mouth, he's fairly perfect. Perfect enough that I sincerely question his sexuality. If it weren't for this bloke's personality, I'd be convinced that he swings the opposite way.

Personality: This is the one time, the ONE time when "cute" actually makes a guy attractive in a non-younger-sibling kind of way. That's because his cute factor is underlined by how laid back and at ease he always is. Yeah, there's the coquettish cocking of the brow and a little serious brooding, but in truth, he's just a fun-loving guy. Take for example, his cover of Lady GaGa's "Just Dance": In a session with Britain's "The Sun" he introduces himself as "Gary Gaga" at about 1:45 into the cover he starts singing "This is the point where someone in the song does a rap, but I'm not a rapper. No! So I'm not gonna try to rap 'cause it would be really bad; but I can sing like a rapper like this: like a rapper, but I'm really not I'm just singin' really fast. Oh yeah, not a rapper but I try my best." The thing about it, is that he doesn't miss a beat. It's total improvisation. I can't improve well enough to think and speak at the same time let alone play the keyboard and keep a beat while coming up with something to say. Furthermore, the "Introducing" video on his website absolutely increases my faculties (yes, Ashley, yes it does!). It's fascinating and different. ("They told me about how Paul McCartney was really dead and there was clues to it in the art work.") He's the type of person whose could talk about his brushing his teeth and make it sound like a legendary adventure. Moreover, there is the subtle semblance of the slick air possessed by Levine and Flowers. (I admit it, I love watching his eyebrows while he's singing.)

Singer/songwriter quality: His style is absolutely different from that of anyone else on this list, partially because of his personality, partially because he's the only Brit (which absolutely makes a difference in my opinion, I don't care how British-influenced The Killers are, they're stil from Vegas,) and partially because he's so green. His lyrics don't match the brilliance of Flowers, they are initially a little trite because of their inspirational nature. However, it is just for that reason that he gets a gold star. In a time of "Love-in-this-Club" and despondent lyrics, he's really rather refreshing. I actually do appreciate being able to bust my lungs to something that wouldn't make the adults around me (or me for that matter) blush. He sings the other half of my internal dialogue--that is, the half that isn't thought in sarcasm with raised eyebrows at how stupid the world is: you know, my nice side. The lyrics and melodies are the tracks for the commute, or standing in line for lunch at your favorite coffee shop for lunch, or enjoying that perfect Saturday afternoon with the family. They aren't party anthems, epic punk protests, or boy-band ballads. They aren't folk, or acoustic, or your typical singer/songwriter either. There's something definitely different about him but certainly undefinable.

Gary Go's album hasn't even dropped yet, and most people have never heard of him. I expect this to change however when he kicks off touring with Take That! on what promises to be a pretty legendary summer tour of Europe. He'll pick up some indispensable PR performing for over a million people. If he can catch the attention of such an iconic band, he'll be sure to catch the attention of their many fans and then some. Now if only I could get him to cross the pond...

I had to take off something for the fact that he has yet to release an full-length album and head his own tour, but for all his potential he gets a final score of 4.7/5

Samson

2009-04-29T19:28:00.002-04:00

Barren, I cried.

In faith I waited

Abstaining from the fruit of the vine.

For you--

You who I consecrated to the Lord.

You went into Canaan, looking to join yourself to my

Misery.

My pleadings you ignored,

Recklessly riddling away the life I gave you.

To my shame and yours

You planted the wrong seeds,

You plucked the wrong flower, and

You pulled the wrong petals.

You have now only the strength

Enough to die.

In your revenge

You are not mine.

If you can't stand on your feet...

2009-04-28T16:03:00.004-04:00

"Hahaha," he laughs rhythmically.

"What?"

"Sucker."

"Oh no. Not. This isn't what you think it is."

"Sure, uh-huh."

"Really. I promise."

As usual, he doesn't believe me. I just roll my eyes and keep walking.

"I know that look--that grin betrays you."

"So what if it does. I'd rather the whole world know it." My response surprises him, I know. In a sense, I like to think I've known all along, that I'm not surprised; in reality, no calculations or planning on my part, nothing I could have wanted or imagined in my overly active imagination could even touch on how sublime this is.

For the first, and maybe the last time, he has a soft expression. I think he's even cracking a smile. That doesn't stop him from reminding me of my responsibilities, "I think you owe someone something."

"You don't get anything. This was all me." His expression instantly hardens.

"No," he screeches, hitting me over the head. "No!"

"Ow! It was just a form of speech. I didn't mean it literally. Do you have to be so violent?"

"With you? Yes."

"Well, it wasn't necessary this time. I'm learning my lesson. I know better than that."

"Therefore..."

"I know what I need to do," I say quietly. Hitting my knees, I look up slyly. "Hey, how do you bow your head?"

He scowls at me, gives a screech and flies away.

So...

2009-04-26T22:54:00.003-04:00

"Hey."

"It's been a while."

"Uh-huh."

"How you been?"

"Fine."

"Looks like you figured things out."

"Um, yeah. Yeah. I think so. "

"Good for you."

"Thanks."

"This is awkward."

"Have you noticed how things just seem to be awkward all the time and how that's what people say?'

"Yes."

"Yeah..."

"So... you're cool now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Can we still have these conversations?"

"Who are you?"

"Oh yeah. I'm supposed to be cynical and sarcastic; but I can't make fun of you, so it defeats the purpose."

"Yeah, I know I'm good."

"You should come up with another problem so I can rib you about it."

"Nah. I'd rather not."

Stay: Gallery Again

2009-04-23T05:05:00.004-04:00

I walk up to him, biting my bottom lip the way I do when I'm trying to suppress a laugh. He's sitting in the "Stay" room, easel set up in the middle of the room holding a large canvas. He focuses so intently on his work that he doesn't notice me come in to stand beside him. I barely touch his elbow, and he jumps a little. He looks up at me, beaming when he recognizes me. He starts cleaning his brush on a pure white cloth.

"What do you think," he asks, nodding his head towards the painting.

"I like it," I reply, attempting stoicism when really I'm fit to burst. A single eyebrow tells me he doesn't believe me. "Well, it's not finished yet," I try to cover.

"Exactly. It's not finished."

I realize now as he's cleaning his brush, staining the once-soft white cloth with pigment, the part I play in making sure those pigments meet canvas again. He gets up and walks away, leaving me with the unfinished work. It's larger than the others and even though it's not finished; it's an instant favorite. It's different from the others, markedly so. Yet, the style is the same. The strokes were all applied with the same hand. The colors in their infancy will contain the characteristics of their precursors. I look at it, displayed on the starkly-simple light wood easel in the center of the room, away from the lights that illuminate its siblings. Even in the shaky shadows, it still outshines the others.

Looking at the collection around me, I want to curl up in a corner and set up house. I love this collection more than all the others, even the ones I should love more, the ones anyone would guess I did love more; but this one is my secret. I never want it to end. There's no reason it should continue, but secretly I always want a working easel in this room. In it's simplicity and quiet, unassuming beauty, it's all I've ever wanted but thought I could never have.

Reluctantly I remember that all rooms have walls that must connect and end.

Stay: Gallery

2009-04-20T18:09:00.003-04:00

I've learned to keep my hands behind my back in galleries. You could press your nose to the piece of work and not get in trouble, but once one of your fingers escapes, the guards descend on you like vulture. For once, I'm glad I have to keep my hands locked behind me. I don't want to touch a thing.

It's a large gallery, with lots of rooms and corridors with labels like "Childhood" or "Recurring Themes." Some corridors never end, while some rooms are unfinished: blank spaces on bone-gray walls, spot-lights waiting to illuminate colors--at once I shudder to think that these rooms are unfinished, thinking that someone has already exhausted their subject-matter. Some rooms are entirely empty. In one another painting is being hung. In another I observe the artist applying new strokes of color to his work, a part of the process.

I go through each room slowly, examining each piece. I disagree with some: the colors are wrong, they are too graphic or too honest; they stab me the wrong way in the gut, or the chest, or the throat. They mix the sublime and the grotesque. A few make me walk away.

Not this one, though. This one makes me smile, faintly yes, so you couldn't tell unless you knew me. It's a smile reflective of the painting that evoked it: small, inconspicuous, but filled with light and meaning and emotion. The colors are simple but poignant. The scene is casual and quotidian. The characters appear so common at first sight they could have been cut from a catalog. It is, in almost every way, an insignificant piece; but I stop and stare for awhile anyway.

A man strolls up next to me, but rather than looking at the painting that so transfixes me, he turns his gaze on me. "What do you think?"

"It's perfect. Who's the artist?"

"I am. I did all the paintings in this room."

I suddenly wake up to look around and recognize the series.

"It starts over there," he points.

I walk to where he indicated, "I can't believe it all started here." I walk around, shaking my head, looking at each one. They form a story, these seemingly insignificant snapshots.

"Is it over," I ask when I reach the last in the series.

"I'm not sure," he responds, "for this stage at least, for this collection. I think we might repeat some of these scenes though. What do you think?"

"I hope we do, " I answer quietly.

"You sound like you doubt it."

"I do."

"Well don't. I want to keep painting."

"And I want you to have reason to."

I start to walk away, but turn just before I clear the door, "What's it called, this collection?"

"Stay."

Moonlight Serenade

2009-04-14T22:40:00.002-04:00

It's a slow day turned to night

when the moon slips through waves

of clouds, tempests drowning stars--

the sky is dark and you are playing a fiddle.

We listen to birds settle their wings on branches

and bury their beaks in their feathers

to keep themselves warm.

We peek at each other through our fingers

and look for lights through the trees

just now getting new leaves.

We lie in open fields and watch

dew form on the blades of grass

undisturbed by our breath.

Somewhere in the dark,

lying on our backs,

our hands touch--

the sky is dark and you are playing a fiddle.

An Open Letter to MLA

2009-04-09T12:49:00.005-04:00

Start time: I'll bet you're expecting it by now. Song: Aren't you curious? Mood: Guess

Dear Citations,

I hate you. Period. Because you require me to use so many periods.

In the triumph of reaching the finish, you beckon me with a bony finger "Come hither, you're not quite finished yet."

You ruin the euphoria of every moment, even the climactic declaration of word count or that epic moment when space expands and trees continue to be cut down so I can make you look more "professional," by which you mean "easier for my professor to bleed between the lines."

In all frankness, thanks to google books, you are no longer of any use to me. I can type in virtually and line of text and find exactly what I need. So, let's save a tree and skip the "Works Cited" page. If I wanna know, I'll google it.

You should be more environmentally friendly. Everybody's doing it. You're behind the times, MLA. Old news, I say.

To be completely honest, I've been spurning you for years, making up my own version. Classier, sleeker, easier, lazier. As you can tell by my use of punctuation in this letter, I don't like to follow the rules. I am a non-conformist.

Want to know something else? When I was spurning you for all those years, "doing my own thing" I was also having a torrid affair with APA. I admit it. He was ineffective and impossible in the long run, but initially... initially he was so easy. We had a good run. I was forced to come back to you. Everyone told me you were good for me, but I just didn't see it. Now here I am unable to avoid you.

So, MLA, if this is the way it is going to be, it'll be a bittersweet relationship. I need you, no doubt; but I don't have to like you.

Regret ably yours

End time: Not relevant. Song: Same one to which I've been listening for hours. Mood: ?

Take that English Paper!

2009-04-09T07:09:00.005-04:00

Start time: 7h14 am Song: Where Foxes Hide Mood:Deranged

They came together for the joust. The lady doing a Joan in men's armor,
bracing herself for a knight of fierce battles.
One on horse of dapple gray, she prepared for the reversal of day.
The other, and Englishman of white and night astride his steed of starry light
ran at her with all his might.

And so she followed forth and fierce, that with her strength her weapon might
pierce. And yet he unhinged her from her horse, derailing from her intended course.
Yet she was not to be dismayed, she would not allow for any such
delays. She picked herself back up again and mounted her horse with renewed zen.

They took their places back in line, impatiently they counted time.
Then she threw her sword from where did hide and riding on stuck it in his side.
Yes, it was a cheap blow; but indeed you now know the determination she did show.
For when all was said and done, she: the victor. Yes, she'd won.

End time: 7h24 Song: "Where Foxes Hide" (still) Mood: Tired and deranged

Again

2009-04-09T01:23:00.002-04:00

Start time: 2h59 am
Song "Batman" by Stefano Barone
Mood: Mischevious and a little bit ironic

My lungs are a lightbulb--glowing, glowing--brighter, brighter.
My fingers are laughing at the state of things--so tired they've become deranged.
I am water droplets of peace and excitement coming down in torrents.
There is no sun I do not see today. The end will come with healing in its hands
and exhale to the morning.

A thin, crooked smile belies my thoughts.
Dark and ironic, I'll never tell them outloud.
Instead I shrug my feathered shoulders and
glance away.

I will not speak today, I say.
I'll say my words with a sly flick of the brow,
a gesture you can't see. It's subtle.
That is the way with me.
And so I wrap you in my silence, tapping my toe
to your discomfort and desire to know.

End time: 3h06 am
Song: finished
Mood: Wouldn't you like to know.

Frenzied Free-write

2009-04-08T18:02:00.004-04:00

Start time 6:05 pm. Song: Trouble With Dreams by Eels. Mood: Anxious

A dusty, desolate road stretches out its long spine before me, daring me to trace it's vertebrae. I put one foot in front of the other, walking the line that forbids me pass. My steps are slow and unsteady. The sun is unkind today. It sears my skin with stripes that draw blood. I walk as if I am bound, and my hands are not free to catch me when I fall.

I gather my courage and look ahead at the road swallowed by the horizon to the point I've been trying to reach in vain. I don't know when I'll reach it, but I look on anyway. I implore the sun and make him mine. I even ask for a little water from his stores, the ones he keeps up there.

Instead, he sends me a well, promising and cool. He bids me drink deeply, store some up for the journey before me. He loosens my feet and tacks wings to my shoulder-blades. They are small but sufficient. Their names are "doubt not" and "fear not".

End time: 6:14 pm. Song: Climbing to the Moon [Jon Brion Remix] by Eels Mood: Still anxious.

Caution

2009-04-01T01:28:00.003-04:00

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow."

"This might hurt a little, but it's necessary. It would hurt a whole lot more later if we didn't do this now."

"Can't you just do it quick, like a band-aid?"

"You know that never works, it just stings afterwards."

"So you're going to do it slowly?"

"It may be the only way."

"Then it will just hurt in increments."

"Good."

I pull away.

"Whoa, whoa. We are not putting a band-aid over this and calling it good. You are going to hate life later. I can't pick up those pieces. You have to be smart about this."

"I will be."

"You're not being smart now."

"Because I'm confused."

"..."

"You're making your point. Nothing has happened yet. The likelihood of this going any further is pretty low."

"Not from where I'm sitting, and I have great night vision."

"Speaking of night, I should go to bed."

"You should, but that doesn't mean you'll be getting off that easily."

"I know. What's the lesson for today? Just say it already."

"Caution."

This Is Just to Say

2009-03-30T20:04:00.002-04:00

I have regrets

already for

hurting us both

before anything has

begun.

Forgive me.

It pierces my

soul to

pierce yours.

Assuming

2009-03-26T01:45:00.002-04:00

"This is a little strange."

"What is?"

"This art imitating life imitating art imitating life imitating art..."

"I get it."

"I'm not sure how I feel about this."

"You should just start writing the life you want and maybe it will happen the way you want."

"Hmm, maybe; but I don't know if what I want is really what's best for me."

"Look at you."

"I wouldn't mind if it happened though."

"You'd better watch yourself."

"That's what you're for."

"So what, are you just assuming I'm going to keep you straight?"

"Pretty much. Yeah."

"Maybe you shouldn't assume so much."

Patience

2009-03-24T23:51:00.003-04:00

"Archimedes? I'm calling you for real this time."

"Your timing is most inconvenient, I was about to go out for the night, since you commanded my attention last night."

"Please?"

He can't turn away from the despair in my pleading.

"Okay. Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"

"Am I really that tired that I'm thinking in French?"

"Apparently, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to hold this conversation in another language."

"I agree."

Sincere for once, he snuggles into his feathers and focuses his gaze on me, "You wish you'd never had that conversation, don't you?"

"It was helpful in the beginning, but then it started to take a bad turn. She just didn't understand."

"But you did learn something, didn't you? "

"Yes, I learned that I still have trust issues? He promised me and I didn't trust."

"That was even deeper than what I was going for. Good girl."

"I learned that I don't have to change, that I can be myself."

"You just wish you could be yourself with the right sort of people."

I can only sigh, and look away.

"Enter trust and faith. You should try keeping them in your pocket, or wearing them on your wrist. Then we might be able to get over these conversations."

"I just wish..."

"You wish what?"

"I feel like there are two halves of myself, equally important but there isn't a person for both of them. It's one or the other. I have to give up one for the other."

"And you don't want to give up either?"

"No, but there is only one I would absolutely never give up, but I can't imagine He would ask me to give up the other half for one."

"He hasn't. Remember?"

"Yes. But I worry that if I give up one, I'll repeat history and hurt someone. I refuse to hurt someone the way I've watched others be hurt."

"You would rather be alone than hurt someone else?"

"Absolutely. I won't do that. I respect him too much."

"Who?"

For a second, I don't recognize that he'd asked me a question, "You know."

"No I don't."

"You just want to hear me say it."

"I'll spare you. This is what I'm hearing from you: You don't want to give up your other half and risk hurting someone else the way others you love have been hurt. Even if you do have a perfect option, you love and respect too much to put anyone at risk. You're scared of what might happen. So instead, you're going to spend the rest of your life wandering the world trying to find alternate methods of fulfilling your divine talent of caregiving. You'll never be complete if you keep two halves and you'll never be complete if you don't."

His hearing is so good, he heard the things I didn't even say. Still, I can only look away.

He flies to my shoulder and gently grips my skin, "I'm going to add to the usual prescription."

"Which is?"

"Trust..."

"Oh yeah. What are we adding?"

"Patience."

Trusting

2009-03-24T00:23:00.003-04:00

"Back again so soon?"

"I still maintain that you come to me, not the other way around."

"You just keep tellin' yourself that. Maybe one of these days it will come true."

"Did you just apostrophize a word?"

"No"

"Yes you did. You need to get out of the city, or at least spend your free time in better company. Let's not contribute to the degradation of the English language."

"It's dialect. It's why you just had to change the spelling of 'degradation' from 'degredation'." He suddenly beats his wings in frustration. "Don't change the subject. I'm here on business."

I groan. Being around Archimedes seems to elicit this sort of response. "Okay, what are discussing today."

"Your latest."

"My latest what? Meal? Adventure? Mistake?"

"Mistake? Is that what it is?"

"I didn't say that."

"So, tell me about this dream you had."

"Oh, my latest dream?"

"Or something like that."

"I don't get it."

"I want to you to tell me about your dream."

"No, I get that. I don't get my dream."

"Neither do I. Maybe you should ask Him about it."

"If you don't get it, why did you bring it up?"

"Do you really have to ask that after our last conversation?"

As much as these conversations make me want to poke my eyes out with pencils, they work. I get it, "You were just reminding me."

"You're getting good at this."

"Yeah, well..."

"Go on, you can say it." He puffs out his chest, tawny feathers disturbed.

"Say what?"

"If you don't know, then I'm not going to tell you."

"Well that's mature."

"What I mean is: If you don't know, you're not as good as I thought."

"You mean you wanted me to say what a great teacher you are?"

"There you go."

"You know you're just a figment of my imagination."

"Shhh... don't say it."

"Just because I don't say it doesn't mean it isn't true."

He starts bobbing his head, getting a better grasp on his branch.

"Getting restless," I ask.

"Fancy a stroll?"

"No."

"You don't mince words do you?"

"Right to the point. You still haven't told me why you're here."

"You tell me."

I give him a stare somewhere between annoyed and intensely bored. This is getting old fast, I think.

"This time it's different."

"From the last time? How so?"

"I'm more the person I am when I'm with myself."

"The person you never show anyone?"

"Yep. It's not like I thought it would be."

"How did you think it would be?"

"Like certain dark things..."

"Ohhh...You're learning all sorts of new things aren't you?"

"It's like someone poured me full of stars and new galaxies being born."

"..."

"Oh my..."

"Do you realize what you just said?"

"Yes."

"Keep going."

"It's like one long sunrise, where the whole earth is waking up continually within me to a beautiful new day. It's soft and sweet and vulnerable. Have you ever been on the beach and found a starfish and poked it to watch it curl up?"

"I generally stay away from the beach."

"It's like that."

"That's a really awkward analogy, don't you think?"

"I didn't say this would inspire any sort of brilliancy on my part. That's what happens when you're filled with champagne."

He looks at me as if to say, Really?

"Ugh, not literally, you know that. What I mean is that I feel like someone filled me with fizzy water and pop-rocks and put springs on my feet and jumping beans in my stomach."

"You're disgusting."

"Hey!!"

"Where's your rhapsodizing?"

I take a deep breath, "Let's start from the beginning."

"Good idea."

"It's like someone poured me full of brightly burning, luminescent stars that shoot off their silver shine; and that whole galaxies with their fiery, vivid hues are being born inside of me. It's like a Chinese New Year celebration of fireworks dancing and twirling in some haphazardly choreographed finale. It's like being set out on the ocean with nothing to carry you but the waves and not even caring. It's like clay that's been hard and brittle for so long becoming soft again, ready to be reshaped. It's like finding yourself on the edge of a parapet, ready to jump, trusting that someone will be at the bottom to catch you."

"Trusting, eh?"

"We'll leave that for another day."

Floating Intellect: Becket--the Internal Dialogue

2009-03-20T16:59:00.009-04:00

People buzzed around him, bees with low zees for whispers; the chronic, monotonous noise swarmed his ear, with singular words breaking free of the white noise, a radio coming in and out of tune--he jumped away from these words with a mental gesture akin to a paranoid tick. He tried with increased effort to focus on his doodle, an ink-homage to Escher: simple, dark black lines arranged complexly, so that nothing ever seemed to begin or end, a labyrinth in lines. Someone laughed, but he swatted it away without raising an eyebrow. He looked up from his sketch momentarily: desks cherry, carpet blue, chalkboard slate. His nostrils flared once, detecting vestiges of a former chalk-cloud in the air, pomegranates--someone was wearing a little too much perfume today--the perpetual smell of new paint, even though this building hadn't been repainted in years. His curiosity was a fugacious flaneur, and he bowed his head once again over the masterpiece on the 8 1/2 x 11 canvas, pale veins pulsing underneath cuts of black.

Before his stylus touched the illumination, a wildfire rushed in through the door--a drastically fantastic natural disaster so searing it made him sweat, streaked his face with dirt, and flushed his cheeks. The bees donned heavy fire-proof reflective clothing and moved in on her as she sat down one seat in front and one row to the left of him. She turned around in her seat while the bees poured water on her chocolate-brown curls until she steamed.

"What did you think of the sonnets," she inquired of one of the bees.

"What d'ya mean 'What did I think'? They're Shakespeare. I liked them."

"How magniloquent of you. I mean, what did you think of the ones she assigned?"

"Oh, they're all the same, aren't they? Genius."

She cocked an eyebrow, and he could see a fire still scorching vacation homes and national forests and park-service stations in her eyes.

The pig-tailed girl turned to him, licking a popsicle, "Don't you agree, Becket?"

He heard his name as if underwater, but fire was flicking on her tongue.

" But Sonnet 116? As if we hadn't read and heard it into nimiety thanks to Sense and Sensibility. If he's such a genius, why don't we ever hear about the all the other sonnets?"

"That one is my favorite!"

He suddenly felt a heat wave as she turned towards him, freezing his spine into one long icicle. This time, the capsized ships remained motionless above the tempest; but her honeycomb lips twitched amusedly, swathed in nectar. The bees started buzzing again, but no one was speaking.

Bemusedly, "Is it really, or have you just never read anything else?"

The girl twisted her pig-tails around her finger, "What about, um, the...the 'my mistress' eyes...'?"

"Sonnet 130. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun? The one where he rhapsodizes about how unattractive his mistress is? All he's saying is 'You're ugly, but I love you anyway!'"

Suddenly, doves start flying from his mouth, "I think what he means is that she can't compare to any of those things--the sun, coral, and snow. She can't compare to angels or goddesses. He loves her when such comparisons fail, regardless that such comparisons fail because she is not beautiful. He loves her despite, even because of, her imperfections."

He feared the acerbic honey of her words, but the incisive dagger of her sarcasm stabbed his gut, "On whose side are you, Becket?"

In defense, he threw himself to the pavement and licked the dirt off her feet with an iron tongue, "If you're so familiar with Shakespeare then, which is your favorite?"

She flared with the new fan of oxygen, confidently, with shoulders to rival the Winged Nike, "Sonnet 65," she said with soft, milky words.

He raised one eyebrow with shocking skill, a reflex he couldn't help suppressing.

"Ooo," the girl chewed on her popsicle stick, cheeks sticky-pink, "which one is that?"

Her back the arch of a waning moon, her eyes sparklers in the hands of children on the Fourth of July--small vivid sparks of joy and excitement--the fire now a glowing hearth around which he could have raised a family, soft and warm. Lips of cream, breath of cinnamon and nutmeg, chocolate words--she recited:

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sand mortality o'er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out

Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

O, none, unless this miracle have might,

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

In her taffeta-and-silk gown, pearls in her hair, signet ring in hand, the velvety curtain descended on her bowed head. The crowd applauded, shouting for an encore, but she took no bows; she made no curtain-call. She turned around in her seat, dress and all.

Yet the crowd wanted more, they wanted closure. "What does it mean," they inquired.

She doesn't give interviews, the night is late, and she wants to go home; but they love her, they cry. They want to know more. Make-up gone, hair devoid of pearls, now soft curls, she comes out in her robe, "It's about the ravages of time on love and life and how the author attempts to overcome mortality with his immortal writings. For this poet, disturbed by the deeds of Time, the written word was the only thing that could resist and even defeat time. " Then she closed her prayer book, rose from her knees, and left the cathedral with reverence.

Praise

2009-03-19T17:22:00.004-04:00

I gasp, jumping back a little and then shaking my head, "Do you ever knock?"

"Uh, no hands?"

"Well, you're going to have to start announcing yourself somehow. I'm starting to get a little paranoid."

"I think you know when I'm coming."

"Perhaps, but I never know why," I say with a stiff jaw.

"Careful, you don't want to hurt yourself."

If he wasn't right, I would clench my teeth; but he is, so I slowly relax the muscles next to my ears and take a deep breath.

"Why are you here? If you're looking to gloat, it won't be necessary."

"What? You don't want me to say, 'I told you so'?"

"If I concede that you were right, will you leave me alone?"

He starts laughing, beak open wide, wings flapping.

"That's not why you're here," I start to ask timidly, but it becomes indicative before I can add the inflection.

"No," he says in between chuckles.

I look quizzically at him, confused.

"Not exactly."

"He loves you, you know. He just wants you to trust Him."

"I know He does."

"Remember the time when you had no plan? And you just kept walking, putting one foot into the dark before He could put another lamp at your feet? Remember how scary it was to trust someone that completely?"

"It wasn't scary, because I did trust Him. It felt good to know that someone who knew better was in control."

"..."

"Oh, so that's why you're here?"

Ever the stoic cynic, he tries to suppress a smile, "You've got it."

Humbled, I reply, "Thanks for reminding me between Sundays."

"He's taken pretty good care of you, don't you think?"

"Yes. I wish I knew why."

"Is that the only word you know? 'Why'?"

"How did I know your new attitude wasn't going to last?"

"No, no. It's not 'how,' it's 'why'?"

I purse my lips, roll my eyes, and walk away.

Floating Intellect: Becket

2009-03-13T18:08:00.011-04:00

Becket was the first of my four "Floating Intellect" characters, but also the most difficult to write. When I originally put this piece to paper several months ago, I was unhappy with it: I didn't--and still don't--think it captured his internal dialogue. It is, in fact, more of a character sketch. However, I recently came back to this and couldn't help smile at how true a sketch it is. I took nothing away from the original, any editing included additions.

No matter how many times he saw her, it was like seeing her for the first time. The eyes always got him first: deep, clear, sea-green fringed by long, straight, dark lashes against even-toned olive skin. Aside from their apparent aesthetic beauty, her eyes contained a certain liveliness like the first days of spring after a harsh winter; an expressiveness reflective of the passionate undertones she gave every pursuit, action, or thought. He saw the world obscurely, stepping outside of and removing himself from everything in his observations. The world always seemed a little distorted, like he was looking at it through a glass bottle, or a fog had rolled in and made it hazy, or forever gray as the result of eternally-overcast skies; and then she walked into the frame with her eyes, clear and bright.

She looked sharp against the fuzzy world, a sketch in pen right in the center of a watercolor. If his world looked overcast, it wasn't due to clouds, but because she carried the sun within her--a lamp in his unclear landscape; a Jacques-Louis David or a Leutze, rich colors, clean lines, and clear scenes to his Dali or Escher, surreal and distorted into a labyrinth for the mind. Where everything felt to him like a hazy dream, she stood out in crisp reality, a vision within a vision. Her eyes always stood out the most, beacons of life and clarity, he felt himself powerless against the gravity of them, caught in the orbit of their atmosphere. When she entered a room, even if he did not face her, he could feel the direction of her gaze like one feels the world suddenly get lighter when the sun breaks through for the first time on a cloudy day.

So many times he wished her gaze might be directed at him. So many times he imagined her eyes alive with feeling at the sight of him. So many times he had imagined looking with passion and adoration and longing into her eyes and having those same emotions returned with equal fire. He imagined the conversations--long, intellectualized, philosophical--they would share; deigning--no, daring--to daydream about his thoughts embodying themselves and stepping down the steps of his fantasies outside the walls of his mind to walk back into his life in her form and figure.

That was it, the apex of his existence: the idea of having her--the only thing, person, place in this world who actually existed to him--to exist with him, to make life real for him, to finally be realized with all his senses and not just fabricated in his mind. For now, however, she existed only in his writings and sketchings. He lived flesh, bone, and blood in his internal sphere surrounded by a miasmic atmosphere of no substance, no clarity, no shape--punctuated only by her presence as equally flesh, blood, and bone as his own. If only he could conflate their two spheres, like two bubbles or clouds, morphing into one another to create their own world...

But he was only a Pygmalion without at Aphrodite, his apotheosis in front of him with no way to melt away the stone.

Running. Away.

2009-03-12T14:50:00.009-04:00

"Hello again."

I roll my eyes, "What are you doing here?"

"This isn't my fault you know. You called me here."

"I did not."

If he had eyebrows, he would have raised them right then as he blinked at me. Instead he puffed his feathers at the neck, "You have to be joking."

"I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't know this was going to happen."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"Same thing I always do."

He cracks his neck as if he's about to beat me into a pulp, but he doesn't. "It's a fine day for running. "

"...Yes... lovely."

"You have your mother's feet."

I suddenly see where this is going, "And her weak knees, that aren't much good for running."

"You've never been one to avoid the impact."

"No, I just avoid other things."

"You have your great-grandmother's nose, and you're as tall as she was, aren't you?"

"One inch taller."

"Do you ever feel like, maybe--just maybe--you're more like them than you think?"

"I know I am."

"Want to go for a walk?"

I look suspiciously at him.

"You walk, I mean. I'll just come along and commentate."

Suddenly, I'm crossing a different street: its four lanes are reminiscent of a time when they made it wide enough to turn around a wagon and full team of horses in one easy u-turn. I know it only too well. Very few people know that this street is named after my family--we've lived on this road for seven generations.

I cross the broad street to smaller one. "Remember when you came home from a walk and your mother was standing out in the yard, your pink Easter dress all finished?"

"Yes, I remember, and the four o'clocks climbing up the white clap-board siding to poke their heads in through the windows."

"Do you remember your room with the plush pink carpet tucked away in the basement?"

I nod fondly, "The window faced east."

"Your window still faces east."

"Always."

Now the road is a shepherd's hook on which someone stepped, it's much more narrow--two lanes instead of four--we walk up the drive to the front porch to sit in the rocking chairs.

"Remember watching thunder and lightning storms from this porch?"

"I like watching the trees battle the wind, electrified by the lightning, drooping from the heavy rain."

"Remember the time you and Little slept outside in a tent in the summer?"

"Mmmhmm."

"And racing across the yard to get the mail?"

"He was faster, with his spindly legs, he always got there first; but I'm stronger, so I just pushed him out of the way."

Now we are walking across a parking lot, rows and rows of yellow lines interrupted by superfluous speed dips. I purse my lips.

"Now this might sting a little."

"Yeah, yeah, let's get it over with."

We go to the little parking lot first, next to a small, sacred building.

"Remember..."

"Yes, yes, yes. How could I ever forget?"

"Remember sitting here in the spring, totally lazy, studying bio and history?"

"Yep."

"Remember that rainy day when you made fun of the other team's cheerleaders in their rain ponchos?"

"We lost that game."

The roads are much more narrow now, barely two lanes, and certainly not a safe two lanes.

"You could leave here now and it would only be a dream, like you'd never been here. You'd go back to other roads. Except you can't keep from running."

"..."

"Where will you go this time?"

"Somewhere where it's always overcast. Where the sky isn't blue, but gray. Somewhere where I can wear long sleeves all the time and hide behind them."

"You don't think your reasoning is a little flawed? That maybe 2400 miles is enough?"

"Or too much."

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"Remember that house on the river? Or the one on the coast?"

"Now you're just going backwards."

"By going forwards?"

"Why do I feel like we've had this conversation before?"

"Because we have."

"Isn't this where you say 'You worry about the future too much'?"

"Not this time. This time, you don't trust enough."

Stay: Where or Starlight

2009-03-08T01:07:00.005-05:00

I've heard this tune before, in another time and place

and yet tonight I hear a different song. No one has

sung it before. It comes to me unexpectedly, but I know

it instantly when the bass-line starts, like the repetition of

a dream long hidden by the veil of morning.

It is not the dream that comes to me in my waking

hours, the dream so clear I could write it again and again, the dream

so certain it is scary.

Yet here is a question mark of a revelation, crawling

from the black hole of stays and and wheres and reasons to leave.

This precocious point of punctuation settles itself on my shoulder,

a firm hand of approval looking forward into an unknown future.

Où et Quand?

2009-02-28T23:20:00.003-05:00

Je ne te chercherai encore,

Je ne te rechercherai toujours,

Tu pour qui les photos sont brulés

Tu pour qui j'alunirais, amaigrirais, et

me dimunirais.

À cause de toi, je ne peut même parler

ni avec confiance, ni avec langue de ma naissance.

À cause de toi, if faut que je me toujours cache

aux tes yeux qui me font trembler, aux tes emotions

qui sont toujours nues.

Je ne dois marcher ce chemin, malgré que c'est doux,

je ne veut pas me tuer ou de toi m'embéguiner comme

des amours qui sont complètement fous.

Je ne dois passer mes jours avec un coeur qui est

lourd, qui est plein de desespoir, me faisant une femme

sans aucune ardeur, volant de moi mon valeur, et l'abilité

d'être un prosateur.

Je ne te cherche encore.

Translation: It has come to my attention that this post is pretentious (I mean, I am a French major). Bear in mind that I wrote it when I was supposed to be writing a French paper. I have difficulty switching from French to English and since I was already thinking in French and listening to French, it seemed like the natural thing to do. In turn, it actually turned out to be the perfect language for the poem and it's connotation, so I'm sad not everyone can enjoy it the way it's meant to be; therefore, for those who don't read French, here is the very literal translation. (For the curious, the title "Où et Quand" refers to the movie Amélie. Look it up.)

I will not search for you again,

I will not always seek you out,

You for whom the photos are burned

You for whom I would land on the moon, make thin, and

deprive myself.

Because of you, I can not even speak

with confidence, nor with the language of my birth.

Because of you, it is necessary for me to always hide myself

from your eyes which make me tremble, from your emotions

which are always naked.

I must not walk this path, despite how sweet it is,

I do not want to kill myself or infatuate myself with you like

those loves who are completely crazy.

I must not spend my days with a heart which is

heavy, which is full of despair, making me a woman

without any ardor, stealing from me my worth/strength, and the ability

to be a writer of prose.

I do not still search for you.

Exhibit F

2009-02-27T21:51:00.001-05:00

What's wrong with me, I keep thinking. They keep telling me I should be angry, affronted, incensed by these things, but I'm not. I don't feel attacked--even though I'm told I should be-- by your rhetoric or your accusations just as stereotypical as the stereotypes of which you accuse me of ascribing to you. You complain that no one can understand what you've experienced, everyone is ignorant to your plight, and this is how you justify your anger--how you justify feeling angry at me for not feeling angry. I bear it all with a strong back, not mentioning that no, actually, you're not the only one. Actually, I've been there too and SURPRISE!!! I'm still there. Despite having walked sixteen-hundred miles in your shoes, I still can't understand your anger. I can't look into the past and hate for the things that happened, I can't even look at present occurrences and feel such rage. Am really so impervious and apathetic? I'm just beginning to think I'm defective and then WHAM!!!!!! one word fills me with hot, flowing, volcanic rage: function.

Function?!!? Wtfunction!??! "Function"?? Excuse me? I don't see the "function" in that. Would you be so kind as to enlighten me? After all, condescending is what you do best, and since I'm so ignorant... Oh good, you will? Present your case, I'm listening. But know that your prior history is against you.

The Defense presents exhibit A: "Social Connectedness"

Proscecution: Connectedness? What makes anyone think they need this to connect? Believe me, I've been doing it for years. It takes class and gasp! maturity to do it, but it works. I foster "connectedness" by actually caring about people and lives. It's not where you are, but what you do where you are.

Defense: ..

I don't even let him finish his ellipsis.

Maybe I should draw you a picture; I'll try not to make it too complicated, I know you're not an art critic.

Ya know all those little threads that connect us to others and hold us together, the ones whose fibers you assert are made of this thing? It didn't fashion my fibers, it cut them. These fibers supported my cradle, but it cut them and sent it crashing. These fibers made the foundation of my home, but it came at it like a jackhammer. It cut the legs off my dinner table, it even took the silverware. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were discussing connections, no? Tell me sir, what connections mean most to you in your life? ... Yes, indeed, I agree. What if I told you it robbed me and and every other person I know of those same relationships, of those socialities? What if I told you that I'm too scared to form those relationships for my future because of it? It is the elephant in the room, the bridge-breaker, the dearly beloved disgruntler that keeps me from getting too connected in those connections you yourself consider most important. I say "no" to it because if I don't I know I can't say "yes." ... Oh, I can connect, just not where it counts. I have to wait for eternity if I ever expect it to.

Exhibit B: Reciprocity

Prosecution: Ever heard of a pot-luck? Same concept, fewer consequences. I've even got a great recipe for you:

3 cups 20 questions

1 cup sugary-sweet small talk

3 tablespoons mutual interests and

a pinch of respect (a little goes a long way)

Let simmer until pleasant to the taste. Add a shared personal experience for increased flavor, if desired. Enjoy!

It really is a rather delicious dish, it can even be nutritious. In my experience, it has given me food poisoning, the kind that leaves you hanging over the toilet for hours. It has never done anything but take things away from me. Reciprocity? Psh.

Exhibit C: Acting like an adult

Prosecution: I know all about acting like an adult, I've been doing it since I was three. I had to act like I was thirty, it took my childhood, after all. It made me have to act like an adult because the real adults in my life couldn't. So the next time you feel like you want to act like an adult, remember that it will only infantilize you. Have you ever lamented your child growing up too fast? Maybe if you would stop acting like a child, you wouldn't turn around and find an adult you don't know.

Exhibit D: It's fun!

Closing Remarks: Yes, I'm closing now, because I can tell your arguments are getting weaker. When I say, "I don't want to see my friends at their worst," I really mean this:

I care about you as a human being, as a friend, a colleague, a fellow scholar, a member of a community. I respect you. A wise man once said if you dwell on a person's weak points you will be able to see nothing else, but if you focus on his strengths, those strengths will grow brighter and brighter until there is no weakness. I want you to be so bright in my eyes, that the sun gets swallowed in your light.

I mean this too:

I don't want to see others make weapons into a recreation. I don't want people to play with guns. Atom bombs are not toys, you don't share them with friends in the spirit of reciprocity, you don't connect with people over them, and they aren't going to make you a man. There is nothing fun about shadows so heavy they make me stoop. There is nothing fun about my pain. What I really mean when I say, I don't want to watch my friends act like dumb circus animals is that I rather not watch someone mock my pain.

...

[I'd like to skip exhibit E and go on to exhibit F: Function.]

A not-so-emo poem: Sublime Sunday

2009-02-23T18:29:00.000-05:00

Aside: An awful lot of my posts have been given to melancholy,

making it seem as if my life/thoughts are nothing more than a dark,

dismal hole of emo-like self-pity. Therefore, I present some more

light-hearted fare as an offering of thanks for my bountiful

blessings.

It's an ambrosial Sunday, the sun
sparkles through frosted windows. It's
a heavenly day for a rapture, a hallelujah chorus and
the Second Coming.

I've reconciled with the wind, an orb of nectar light
sits suspended in my throat and pours
honey in words-- sticky and sweet with a smile.

Crocuses coo their heads from the ground,
captures of a coquettish spring. Inextinguishable
clouds design a dismal day, but I won't be brought low today.

I find peace in the pendulous purity of what it means to
breath, expanding my ribs with solitude though
surrounded. There is no cacophony. Top to toe I am
harmony.

Leviticus

2009-02-21T18:08:00.000-05:00

From God to the sons of Levi,
to Me. I think now I see,
how I've been sowing my vineyard with
Wildflowers and corn, uncovering my
Nakedness, and yours. I make
Sin offerings to idols who talk back, whoring
myself out, a widow returning dishonored to my
father's house, only bringing one turtle
dove.

I wait for the priest in his purple, blue, and
green to sprinkle a little blood here
and there for me. I overflow his table with
my Meat but curl up my big toe, putting one foot in
Canaan and looking back to Egypt; never keeping
Sundry Laws: I can't count to seven. I have no holy
convocation.

It is due season and the rain has
not come, my field yields no fruit. Terror
and burning consume my Eyes and Heart.
Heaven is iron, Earth is brass.

Enough

2009-02-18T19:31:00.000-05:00

She started from a dream: In the minutes before her alarm rang, her internal clock ticked her toes, her legs, her torso, her arms, her heart and her head awake. In this tick, tick, ticking awake state that indecisively fluttered between consciousness and unconsciousness, she couldn't tell if the scene she saw was only the inside of her eyelids, which of her thoughts originated in dreams or reality, whether or not... It had to be real, that wasn't a thing she could imagine or create out of air, such a thing had to come from something more corporeal--or someone. She inhaled deeply again and, smiling with excitement, opened her eyes; but he wasn't there--he wasn't standing next to her to wake her up, or give her one of his famous hugs, or just watching her sleep because they were both content with the silence they found in one another. He wasn't there. It was gone: the scent of him was gone.

She sat up in bed and crossed her legs, placing her elbows on her knees and putting her forehead in her hand. Her body, so quiet only moments before, wrenched into impassioned, uncontrollable sobs--fiery tears she hoped would purge her from the inside-- a drop of remorse, a drop of longing, a drop of anguish: she could have swum in the ocean of her misery, she could equally have drowned in it. Her abdomen began to scream its complaint, followed by her throat, hollow and rasping. She fell onto her side, letting her head hit the pillow hard. She hugged her knees into her chest and held so tight to her opposite elbows that her fingernails left markings there. Her bones screamed the paroxysm her voice failed to evince. Her arms gave out, muscles twitching in protestation. She unfolded in a mess of limbs falling gracelessly limp, like a paralytic bird falling from the sky. She barely had enough strength to think how she could have imagined it. Too much.

She wanted to crawl back beneath her covers and hide herself from life, from reality. She grasped at an evanescent dream that had taunted her. It slid like smoke through the fingers of her consciousness, becoming more scattered the more she reached, fruitlessly. She tried to go back to sleep, hoping a REM cycle would coax it out of its corner; but the sun reached out her arm-like rays and cradled her, rocking away her grief, singing the hopeful songs of dawn, promising the day didn’t have to start this way.

She sat up on the inhale straight, tall, strong, feet planted firmly on the floor, ready to meet the memories that escaped her sleep and followed her into her waking hours while she searched for it.

It wasn’t like the Old Spice or Axe that a lot of guys, including her brother, wore because their girlfriends or sisters picked it up from a drugstore for them. It was never so strong, either. She shuddered to remember the suffocating breath of air inundated with the too-liberally-applied spray in junior high halls, outside the men’s locker room, with her dance partner. She didn’t associate the scent for which she searched with any of these things. It wasn’t the Jean Paul Gaultier donned by rich boys with tacky taste and their Hispanic wife-beater-and-bling-wearing counterparts. Nor was it the “eau de gay” sold at Abercrombie and Hollister, spritzed by nancy boys and prep wannabes who idolized the models with their pouts made to look pensive, succeeding only in looking confused and daft, probably because they didn’t know where they’d left their shirts. It wasn’t like the “I’ve-just-stepped-off-my-yacht” salt-breeze sported by her former math tutor that she found so irresistible she kept going to sessions even though she taught him more than he taught her. It wasn’t any of these things. She knew what it wasn’t, but beyond that… Tears traced her cheeks again.

She couldn’t remember the scent, but she remembered what it meant. It meant a shower to remove the sweat and grease and a change of clothes to impress her father. It meant a firm handshake, hands placed coolly in pockets, a relaxed and easy posture. It meant being the only person to make her cry of happiness and sorrow, the only person whom she ever hugged without reservation, the only person of whom her father had approvingly said, “Those are the types of guys you need to be bringing home.” It meant having to say good-bye twice. It meant the worst day of her life, followed by a hundred beautiful Mondays.

She walked to her closet to get dressed. It was the first thing she saw when she opened the wardrobe: the shirt she’d worn the last time she saw him, the last time she’d hugged him. Over a year and many washes later it no longer smelled like him, but she held it close to her nose all the same. Almost. She could almost feel being close to him, resisting the urge to put her head on his shoulder, resisting the desire to watch him leave through the window, and failing miserably to see him wave good-bye.

She didn’t remember the way he smelled, but she didn’t have to remember. These memories were enough. Knowing he was there for her, still, in the way she needed most, was enough. It was enough, what he had given and continued to give her. It was enough to know it would work out in the end, for both of them, but not necessarily with each other. Where they were right now was enough. It was no longer too much.

Stay: Either way

2009-02-16T23:53:00.000-05:00

I had to lay it bare today,
Own up to the things I say,
Accepting the long delay
Marked by words in black and gray,
My own I can't betray, decay, or go astray;
So leave behind this wrong essay--
this damnation I follow everyday:
From this I must turn away,
keep persistent tide at bay,
words in secret dossier;
If and only if, I pray,
I must and if I should obey
There is no h-i-m in "stay,"
I'll follow you, either way.

Snow Cones

2009-02-13T03:20:00.000-05:00

Remember when we used to buy

snow cones for thirty cents outside the

theater and then steal away in your car to

cruise the boulevard? You listened for hours.

Remember when we'd sit in the park that summer,

sitting on the swings, digging our feet into dark sand,

a sunset barely visible through the trees, the hill

sloping away into a yawning lake?

I went there myself once, you know,

staying until it was too dark to see,

until I didn't feel safe by myself, without you.

I told you everything that summer

in a letter I never sent.

Sympathies

2009-02-12T16:44:00.000-05:00

My greatest sympathies to the

Night, who must come after the

Day, and whose dark cloak gives her

Ill name, while her mallumined corridors

Harbor a heterogeneous heaven, but not

Unkind;

Whose sounds signal sleep, the dreams we all

Need-- yet whose shadows chaperon nightmares,

Steadfast steward to unrest, companion, friend;

Caretaker of the care-worn, playing

Host to deeds of Hate, unhappily.

My greatest sympathies to the Night, by whose

watch we are healed, whose defamation breeds our

Noblesse, who does bear the cross before man's new

Breath, who turns our ingratitude to light--

Yes, my greatest sympathies to the Night.

Stay: Who?

2009-02-11T23:58:00.001-05:00

I dilly-dally my way behind houses and across lawns, the smack-smack of my flip-flops against the pavement providing the processional in time to an acoustic crooner. The melody is slightly flat. The harmony is a discord.

The sun is kind today. It kisses the crook behind my elbow, the corner between my neck and shoulder. I shouldn't trust the sun, this temperamental tempter, dressing me in spring. But I don't care today. Let the sun seduce me. I've other temptations to worry about.

Between dull chords and the chitting of birds an owl sends waves of worry through me with his question: "Who? Who?"

Silently, "I don't know."

"Who? Who?"

The chords mold into bricks, the birds are swallowed in the soil. I only know a dormant tree playing host to this mocking interrogator.

"You should know better."

"I do-"

"You don't act like it."

His swiveling eyes search me. He shakes his head.

"You don't believe it."

"I don't know what I believe."

"...Or what you want."

"Yes, yes, so you know."

"And you don't."

The tree looked dead, but I knew it wasn't. I believed it wasn't. I knew when the sun decided to stay, it would kiss the tree's fingertips into beautiful buds of pagan green.

"Hmm... pagan... eh?"

"Don't you dare."

"I'm just sayin'. ..."

I take a moment to solidify my bones and the blood forming inside of them. When I know, I feel it in my bones. I need them strong if I intend to stay alive.

"It's different when we get beyond all that flesh and muscle isn't it?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Are you sure this isn't just the natural man breaking away your bones?"

"..."

No, I don't know. This is entirely new to me. I suddenly feel cold--from the inside.

"Chilly? Isn't it?"

"Shut up you warm-blooded freak of an animal!"

"You shouldn't call yourself names like that."

"Who? Why!? More importantly: How!!??!!"

"Now you're getting somewhere."

Suddenly, I see a small kitchen crowded with bare feet and squeals of laughter. We're dancing.

Then the picture goes blank.

"Now you're just going backwards."

"By going forwards?"

"You worry about the future too much."

I know there's no guarantee. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but the kitchen isn't much. The red front-door. The garage.

"Ah, the garage. Too bad it's what came out of that thing that's gotten you into this mess."

"No, I got myself into this mess."

I'd rather not talk about it. The tree gets lost behind hedges and a house, the door in a fence beckons me with it's hinges. I don't know who, but that's not a door I want to walk through.

Stay: Reason to Leave

2009-02-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

Just when I think I've made up my mind, you come knocking around my door sheepishly with that sly grin, as if you know I'm going to take to your trap. You flaunt another impossibility in front of my face, forcing the corners of my lips to my eyes as I press my lips together in another attempt to keep control of these runaway feelings.

I try to convince myself that it's a platonic smile, but I don't present a very good case and the jury's still out.

I rest my chin in my hand and sigh. For a moment you've made me forget; you're a smooth competitor. Then I remember, you're two sides of the same ocean. Too much.

I wonder if I can ever enter that water again-- the saying "You can never step in the same river twice," I think of it now. The river may not be the same, but I wonder, will the waters be just as lovely? Will they cool and clean and caress me the way they did? Or will they lap up on different shores I've never seen? Will they get lost in the ocean forever, home to bright fishes, covering coral reefs who hide their treasures, glistening under a sun too far west?

Your words chip and chisel at my granite heart. They give me reason to leave.

Stay: Finish

2009-02-06T02:18:00.000-05:00

She sat across from him, trying to not stare too intently into his eyes, trying not to pick through the shockingly blue strands of his iris to the space just behind his pupil, to his brain with it's soul-filled fissures. If she hadn't glanced away, she would have kept walking there--in the waves of his eyes--until it would have been embarrassing for both of them.

Question after question, so carefully prepared to pinpoint what she thought she'd accidentally seen. It both scared her and brought her relief, the thought that here was someone who felt the same way she felt. Here was someone who hid the same way she did. She'd seen it in her walkings and felt it in the notes of his voice.

She respected him, and that is why she asked and listened. She respected his thoughts and his choices, his opinions and tastes. She saw and honored that light like divinity within him. Knowing he had it when perhaps even he didn't, was the reason for all her questions. She wanted him to feel his own effulgence--how he was so signal that someone actually cared. She just wanted him to monologue about his life--from the dead past to the present, but every question answered she knew she wasn't getting past his cornea.

So she worked at gaining his trust, asking him ridiculous questions to try and break his shell. She wanted him to c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e, just like that, spelling everything out. She didn't care if he were forward with his thoughts, she would listen. She would listen like they had taught her in elementary school, giving him her "undivided attention." Undivided. When he spoke, the world could cave in on itself and she would still be listening. Her eyes would sparkle with the wonder of his words, the way they did when she felt pure intelligence and peace running into her, because his words were interesting.

"Don't you see?!!? I care about you. I know. I KNOW!!!! I know how you feel and I want you to trust me enough recognize that I care about that feeling in you. Trust me."

His long lashes shaded and hid his eyes, like a veil over his soul.

"Don't blink. Please. Don't shut that curtain on me."

He didn't want to reveal everything to her. He didn't want to be called out. He didn't want to be forward. For her, this was the most forward she'd ever been in her shy life. She risked it. When she lied down, she opened her palms up and outward by her side instead of covering her heart. She didn't cover her heart anymore--she couldn't cover it if she wanted to be receptive. No, she left her hands open, waiting for him to put his hand in hers. She didn't cover her heart, waiting to allow it to feel with him.

But he only showed her his eyelids. He blinked. He wouldn't finish.

She didn't want someone to hurt with her, but rather for her to heal their hurt. She wouldn't erase any memories--no, that's not healing--instead, they'd go together and take the memory somewhere else to keep it safe. They'd hide it, but not from each other.

If only he would finish.

She respected him. She cared about him. She couldn't be any more forward without being intrusive. She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't ask him to lay bear his whole soul for her. He'd already done it for someone else. So she didn't finish.

Stay: Truth hurts

2009-02-05T19:56:00.001-05:00

Truth? You want the truth?

True, it would be hypocritical of me to tout honesty and not be honest myself.

Okay, I'll tell you the truth: If I left with nothing but this slim memory of him, it would have been worth it. If he were the only connection I ever made, it would be worth it.

Yes, that is why I'd stay. For him.

Because he's human even when he tries not to be. Because beneath it all, he's... tactile. He has substance you can feel.

That is the real truth.

Okay, okay. I concede It's not the real real truth.

Well, I haven't said it because it hurts. And that's the real real truth.

That we both hurt the same way.

Yes, for that I'd stay.

Stay: WHY?!!?

2009-02-05T17:32:00.001-05:00

She'd done it, she'd shot herself in the foot. Countless, through countless conversations she'd played it cool--perfect for once, for the first time in her life, actually.

And then she pointed the gun down.

She should have stopped then. She could have stopped; it wouldn't have been abnormal.

She could have walked away with the gun pointed towards the ground.

Awkward?? Maybe. The better choice??

Absolutely.

Instead? Instead she stood there, and smiling all the while, she pulled the trigger.

Limping, she walked away hitting her head against her own embarrassment. She'd been doing so well. Maybe he hadn't noticed. Maybe he didn't see the blood or hear the shot.

Not likely.

Stay

2009-02-03T23:10:00.000-05:00

She wanted to be real with him. Honest. No bull. None of this superficiality.

None of this chit-chat because that's what social norm requires.

She knew he was deeper than he let on--by the way he spoke. He used the same voice she used when she was speaking to someone she didn't know yet, someone she didn't trust, someone who didn't care that her favorite color was gray or that she did weird things like yoga and meditating and feeling energy between her hands.

His was a careful voice, too nervous to be calculated. Insecure. Uncertain. Guarded--that's the word--Guarded. Just like hers, because she did weird things.

The truth is though, she'd stay for that voice. She second-guessed God for that voice. Not because of what it was, but because of what it could be. Not because of what it had said, but because of what it would say.

She just wanted him to trust her. She wanted him to use his real voice, the internal dialogue she knew he had. More than anything.

Because they had the same voice.

Where, or Knowing, or Commemorating One Year--I Do Not Know

2009-01-24T11:53:00.000-05:00

I walk through hills of dead and dormant grass--
Mud and sand--knowing these are
Not your hills
Nor these clouds your sky--
This breeze your
Wind.

I am not where you are.

So I'll sit on a mossy bench made of wood

At the base of a tree
And watch the blue mountains
Stand firm in the wind.
While I commune with God about the
Things I do not know.

But you are where you are and
This you know--what I do not.

This is not your place-- that I know--if it is
Mine... what I do not.
These hills, this sun, the seasons, night:
To whom do they belong?
Whose heart within the valley lies? If it is not yours
Nor mine?

The rivers, trees, distance of land and seas-- separating
You from me: my
Own choosing.
Only I do not know if the choosing either is me.

I do not know, but you know you are where you are.