sitting at home, i crave a home like never before.
tranistion leaves me walking exposed and unsettled and hidden until i find some covering.

cover my head and give me a home.

there she waits.

There are many doors. Each door is different. The first is painted red, the colour of a barn. The next is yellow, the colour of a mustard. The third door is unfinished oak. There is a spot worn away by many years of banging. The handle is loose from so much prying. Beyond that door, the thickest and least inviting, there is a warm breeze. It is almost as if the guest enters the beach. The following door is a Dutch door; the top half is always open. Beyond that, there a screen, and then just a stone gate that leads to a garden. In the garden there is a swing and an oak tree standing tall. Rose vines trace the gate. In the garden there sits a woman on a rocking chair. Her hair is gold and her eyes hold secret sorrows. She appears worn out and ready, both at the same time.

Each door requires a different skeleton key. This makes it difficult. She likes to watch them try to search inside her words. Her words always give a clue to the next entrance. She never inteded to have so many riddles, it only just happened this way. if happened after gate was first built. Riddles make games among friends. They increase in difficulty as the door increase in width. The red door is almost immovable. Sometimes, from loneliness, she calls out the answer to the first riddle. Too many thick doors cancel the sound.

There she waits.

she

she especially liked closing her eyes when she rode her bicycle, and opening them while she curled into fetal position under water tumbling in circles. she pictured her pores opening into an infinite number of holes, ready to absorb the world. she liked being the only one in a field of flowers. she liked imagining, and she liked listening to the same song on repeat, hoping to strike the initial chord of sorrow that told her as a human being she was meant to find something.

but, she found it difficult to look them in the eyes. there were thousands at this point. she thought it lonely to look at so many people and still be just one person. she found it difficult to always be searching.

she felt the loneliness in her bones, and so, naturally, she wanted to follow it. maybe its source would be its end. the loneliness was so familiar it was almost a comfort. it made her want the desert. it made her want the ocean.

i want to learn to write truth.

"do not tell me words are useless when written language has been the most poignant and timelessly powerful form of communication know to man." (unknown)

"You see I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe in it." (hemingway)

"I really believe the addict-the sex or the drug addict-is closer to the deepest truth than the mere moralist. I think the addict is looking for the very best thing in some of the very worst places. He's looking for heaven; he's looking for a transcendence of self-consciousness and moral responsibility; he's looking for the state of mind that the saints in heaven have and the mystics have for brief moments on earth." (kreeft)

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” (hemingway)

i am fragile and frantic and wanting some covering for my unprotected head.

i don't think new york needs to be so lonely.

but these days, my bones grind against themselves

and leave me like dust.

i need the pacific, and its oil to my joints,

and its peace to my self.

I'm a lefty

it's a little bit like being judged for my penmanship when i'm only allowed to use my right hand. everything feels awkward and uneasy in front of a crowd of faces i adore, and want to impress.

i don't like putting out so many words and winding up so naked. i don't like pouring so much self into molds and letting be dissected so sterilely.

what's worse, i am needy and afraid.

I still imagine he believes in me though his voice is gone.
Memories of confidence and the west coast keep driving me to prove why I am still good.
What will happen when I am done?
Will the accolades sound like his approval?
What will happen when I present 50 pages of reasons and 50 pages of distractions and he is still gone?
When he wanted nothing to do with it from the beginning-
No more or less impressed than ever before.

There are so many books filled with so many words!

Flowing and covering me and spilling again and again.

The words are alive, too! The best part: my words are becoming their words.

How exciting, this new world.

I've been living inside the walls of my head,
They are wallpapered with flowers: green, ivory, and brown.
My days are decorated with lines from a book.
I'm lost inside murals of poetry and romance.

I like this room. I am preparing cribs for children and learning stories to tell them. I have kisses budding and so much love.

Its quiet and alone, but I have so much love for the future.

the expansive west

i feel it,

as i'm walking home past the midnight hour

into the morning

weaving through the city

quiet and near tears

after i watched the almost-love pack up

and leave the show,

seeing so many buildings

and so little else,

i feel it.

the way of grace

I have to constantly remember that the way of grace is different than the way of the world; it is different than my way.

Quietly, I am willing to shoulder the burdens of my failure and retreat until I've fixed them.

Persistently, grace gathers me unto himself, telling me we'll fix it together, we'll fix it together.

Against all instrinct, fulfilling all hope.

what i love about jesus are his scars.

in living, i have found that the most beautiful thing is to be known.

i have seen girls' hearts break over ernest eyes that seek to know.

(but to the hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet,

bad love is better than no love.)

what i love about jesus are his eyes and his scars.

i have eyes and scars, too.

(he is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,

he and i, were are born of the same human blood, he sees my tears.)

i am sick from bitter bread and bad love.

i have scars from pretend knows.

(who, made himself nothing...and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself,

he did not think it too much to die like i am dying, so that i may stop dying.)

(by his wounds, we are healed,

he knows me, he knows me, he loves me.)

he does not give bitter bread,

he does not give bad love.

life and its burdens

i loved you because you heard me.

the hidden notes that strike below words

and into meanings-

life and its burdens felt light resting on four shoulders.

(and i, i think, heard you too.

except when the distance turned to echos of what we wanted the other to say.)

now i am afraid to speak again,

for fear that if you hear me,

i might never stop

to see that you put all of the weight back on me.

Le Ballon Rouge

i just saw a red balloon float float above the skyline outside of my window.

I LOVE HOPE.

even the smallest little pictures of children's hearts give me hope, hope, hope.

is it too much to say that we ache for life? all of our muscles are just so thirsty.

goodbye.

i miss you.
i miss you and today i thought of all the ways that i could have avoided this happening.


one by one i recounted every i love you that i felt in every step, my feet and hands waiting for your feet and hands to be there too. there is so much expectancy in love. in expecting you, i grew in i love yous.


my mouth, stunned and silent at the weight of words, held off. i remember how heavy my tongue felt in those last days before, even heavier after. before, i was ripe with so much promise. after, caught in an empty nothing. death always happens this way. one day something is alive, the next, it is not.


i am back to i miss you. there is no friend to take your place, because each place is so unique. what i have been missing is not the absence of just someone, but of you. there is no one else in the world like you, and now you are gone. this truth though simple makes me ache.


looking forward i see that it must be done. though i will always miss out on all that you are and though i may think back to you and be so proud to know that you are human- wonderful, glorious and terrible- i must go now. i do not like standing here in the empty road waiting for your return. i do not like missing out on living, waiting for your life.


absence is death of the worst kind. it teases and taunts; you are not dead, but you have died in me. you are not gone but you have disappeared. you still breathe, but i can not hear it anymore.


all of my anthems remain true, but i will let them go to remain and hang in summer space.


as long as it is summer, i love you.
now that it is autumn, i loved you.


i have to go away now. i must find new roads. i must embrace them now.
goodbye.

everything, please just come to life.

it's october!

everything, please just come to life, in the midst of death, and let these arms gather, gather, gather herbs for you from the garden and build you a meal that will you make you feel at home. we can have a fire and we can have some tea and we can read a poem and we can have eyes that smile, even in the midst of death.

everything, please just gather in a home so warm with laughter and i am not running away, i am just finding respite by the ocean. i will know as much as there is to know about the land, and wouldn't it be great to be a midwife? and honey, we will have children just because we can't handle how much love we have.

he will find me because my eyes, like a lighthouse, are sending search signals calling lost ships home.

it's weak to admit that i am needy and i am tired of being alone, but i am weak and i do so much better in love. i've never proved anything by my independence except that i am a wall. i don't like walls, and my defenses are drained from weeping, and here it is:

i am waiting for him to find me.

so damn beautiful.

currently, the most beautiful time of day is catching glimpses of everything he brought to life still living. i am still living! did you hear it? i still love, i still laugh. those secret hidden things that he said, 'this is you', and i saw me, they are still me and in me and they haven't left with him. just because he saw threads in a tapestry doesn't mean they're pulled out. that makes me feel so damn beautiful.

it's still possible to grow a garden, and it's still possible to be by the ocean, and it's still possible to have a family and have a home.

i can still bake bread.

in fact, someone left a bread maker in my apartment just to prove it.

i hear the ocean

even riding down the river,

i hear the ocean calling me back

sea salt sprays across my eyes,

and i know.

it's going to be home, one day.

and everything simple is just okay right now.

i want a home and a love and so many gardens.

i want.

i want to run into fields and i want the grass to sway on my skin because i just need something soft.

i remember i went to yosemite and we spent the morning in a field and i could have stayed there forever with the sun so warm on my face, and mountains protecting us on all sides.

i want thunderstorms, it is the season, because i feel one brewing in me and i just need something to break.

i remember walking home one night and watching lightning flash against the empire. i need to get it out. my clouds are weighing heavy beneath my eyes and beneath my chest.

remember when we used to pray and wretched tears would fall down our faces and we felt the weight of living? sometimes the relief hurt just as much, for a little while.

i'm like you, darling girl, i miss it too. i miss sweet eternal love.

i don't so much know how we got here or where home went. i feel more like tumbleweed roaming through the desert,

waiting for some rain.

waiting for some tears.

waiting for some love.

i am still

it seems like the broken thing in me has settled comfortably at the bottom of my rib cage. it lies there undisturbed and sometimes i forget that its there.

and then, something shakes me or moves me or i just get up to fast, and what i thought was healed stabs me all over again.

not healed, just covered over with more recent whirlwind worries.

i am still broken from something that doesn't matter, except to me it matters a great great deal.

glory, glory

I don't want to attribute things to G-D that aren't him. I don't want G-D to be so small, that I have to accredit him to such little things.

Really, I just want a bigger G-D. A bigger understanding of YWHY. Did he overcome death? If so, let him be so powerful here, now. Let him be himself, glory, glory.

i find that i smoke mostly when i need to be filled.

holy spirit,

or nicotine.

just give me something.

just give me something.

oh god, thank you.

somethings are just so beautiful.

it's the people who need that move me-

threads in a tapestry,

tattered and torn and woven together.

oh god, we needed you,

and you were there in our hands and feet

and in our weeping.

you covered us in our weeping.

you sat with us, in our friends, in our weeping

and piles of mess.

oh god, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

i wouldn't ever want to be without such beautiful people.

The Wild Rose.

i don't have a lot of words lately, so i read a lot of poems.

"The Wild Rose" Wendell Berry

Sometimes hidden from me

in daily custom and in trust,

so that I live by you unaware

as by the beating of my heart,

suddenly you flare in my sight,

a wild rose blooming at the edge

of thicket, grace and light

where yesterday was only a shade,

and once more I am blessed, choosing

again what I chose before.

even if i die that way.

i can't change you or mold you into

someone ideal, or someone who doesn't hurt

me.

i cannot do anything to stop the loud

clappings of thunder in your tender heart

still shaking.

nor, can i force you to come back

to your senses or at least back to

me.

in all of this love, i run a risk.

there might be loss, violent untruths scattering

me.

but i can sit in the shit with you,

forgive you,

and wait with open arms for you,

even if i die that way.

mountains leveled.

this summer, my trip to the mountains,

took me rather to the sea.

and there, my thoughts tossed

and turned in me like

waves and undertow.

what proves itself perfect

in companion and form

may still escape

in the tide.

i, like the sand,

am smoothed and tossed

and rearranged.

dents, over time, disappear.

castles collapse,

the mountains level.

was a day, was a day.

today was a day, was a day.

and i confessed to a friend that used to hurt me that i hurt stronger and deeper than i've ever told. i feel the effect of the fall in every little pain that's ever struck me. it's just me, it's just me.

and sometimes, things are so beautiful that i just want to die and i just want to live forever and i guess i just want eternity, now. i just crave life like i know i was made for.

what a day, what a day in the days of freedom when you are you and no one else.

and why be strong when really you are weak?

i'm weak and i miss and i hurt and i love and i love and i love and i sometimes can't stop and WHY STOP?

just bleed me dry and bring me to redemption. it's all i want, anyway, it's all i want.

WHY SO MUCH PEACE?
WHY SO MUCH CALM?

I'm loved, that's why. I'm resisting all the terror and in the center of it, I'm still loved. I can still sit on my daddy's lap in the middle of the subway and I'm still the beloved glory girl.

I woke up from pleasant dreams of faces that used to haunt me.

Oh, what a difference being loved makes.

i forgive, i forgive, i forgive.

mostly i feel really weak. and i write in run-on sentences to say something that isn't worth much reading.

but also i feel strong. i think maybe this is how a little boy feels the first time he sees his own blood spill.

pain and courage.

this is the stuff that pours out when i'm ripped open.

and, i'm discovering in the midst of tearing wretchedness, the ability to still love myself. the ability to say i'm going to be okay, i'm going to be okay, i'm going to be okay.

today, i walked down the street and touched my heart and said, i forgive, i forgive, i forgive.

So why not? Let's forgive everyone everywhere everything all the time.

descant, descant

there is a soft hum of sorrow in my ears, descant, descant,

adding to the melodic noise of the day.

it is almost all i hear.

bike ride.

today i did it!

i road my bike down down to union and bought some more books, always more books, but this time with the confidence that i can cry like a little one in front of my professor and he will tell me i am brave (!) and i will get through this too, and pray for me? he even prayed for me because he's my brother,friend, he told me so.

so i bought my books but wasn't done with my spinning feet, and my head has been spinning so much lately, and my heart is always hurting and i just want to get that spinning out, and so i did it!

i rode, rode, rode down second with the traffic and then!

then i kept riding over the manhattan bridge, and did you know that the manhattan bridge is most beautiful at sunset? and so i looked right and i saw the brooklyn bridge and i saw her lady liberty and i saw the sun setting and i thought it is good here.

i am going to be okay here. i am free, and i am young, and even though i miss my dear dear (love)friend, i will be okay. i am happy here. i am happy here? i am happy here.

what changed? maybe it was going away that made coming back so good, so easy. maybe it was san francisco. maybe it was falling in love, maybe it was seeing myself as good, maybe it was the Lord's sweet release late one night in the new hampshire hills- no more obligation. no more pressure. (he loves me, his love never fails, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me.) - live free or die.

and now i'm home, and i have a home, even if its just for eight more months. and i am not looking to fall in love again, but only be okay with knowing myself and my friends and oops i ate meat today, but no more meats and red lipstick come october and a lot of smiling and no more clothing.

i ache, but i am still me! i can still do it! i can still be me!

i have fallen in love.

"A little later in San Francisco there was more french.

After all everybody, that is, everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. The second one is romantic, it is separate from themselves, it is not real but it is really there."

-gertrude stein

september 1st.

september 1st.

it's almost fall.

death, give birth to life.

was it just freedom that i needed?

was it just freedom that i needed?

lying down on the beach there were stars and airplanes and trains and the moon, just above us.

we talked stories of old lovers. our lives make sense to each other, we're both trying to pick up the pieces. we're both trying to move on from something we didn't think we'd ever move from, but maybe to.

i am aware, so aware of the ripping feeling between my ribs.

flesh torn away from flesh.

i do not claim that i will never love another.

but love ran deep in me, and now it is draining out.

i walk about tired, anemic,

fettered to dead dreams.

dandelion clock

noah asked me today, after hearing the story, if this means we're back to the old kate.

she never shared her heart; she was a stone.

laughing, we threw back our beers to familiar bitterness.

but, no. not the old kate. it's more like a dandelion clock, that was blown by a child. something was asked to grow and then it died.

the gust scattered seeds of hope all across this tried terrain. they burrow now, but its still only autumn.

there will be another Spring.

Name

I've developed a fear of you. Or, rather, when I read your name my heart seizes in my chest. Its a wonder how something so comforting,

a name that identified

a man

who brought laughter, love, peace, can so quickly about-face.

It lies in the power, I suppose, of humanity.

For good,

For evil.

And because I believe in man, peace, love, laughter, names, I will also trust time.

I believe it will heal me.

Though I may never know you again, though I may never trust your eyes earnest appeal, I believe time will bring back the sweet tone out of which I used to recite your name:

the first lines in a poem I began to memorize.

In my own poem, there will be a stanza about you:

"He inspired out of her her own self.

He came when she was fading and led her into light,

He brought her back to life.

He asked her to love again."

She succeeded, and love abounded in the summer of the same name.

The autumn after brought fire and fury.

But, love abounded.

Its not been put to death yet.

hester prynne.

tomorrow, i go back.

theoretically, it should all be the same.

i am the same, theoretically.

it is the decrescendo of my hallelujah.

hallelujah, hallelujah,

it is the coming down from sweet summer heaven.

i am not the same, i touched something of heaven,

love, sweet sweet love.

there is nothing else worth fighting for.

i am so tired, so beat down from restless nights feeling your phantom arms wrapped around me and did you know what that would do? did you know that would make it harder after you left, so gently, and went home to her? did you know that my fingers perform the secret handshake we made walking down the street? they are lonely for their partner.

did you tell her? did you tell her?

touching back to earth makes me remember grit and gravel, and i will not beg, but i will wonder who can touch so tender and claim nothing but a sudden, faithful other love.

i know no one with a heart not divided.

tomorrow, i go back.

there are hurricanes in me, thunder roars and lightning rages and so so many tears.

nothing is the same.

i walk a quiet, condemned, reserved hester prynne.

there's no need to fight the injustice of my heart, just to shed my skin.

soon, i will forget you. heaven's glory love will fade.

the second loss will be a relief.

it would be a relief to have duller nerves.

tomorrow, i go back.

i crave the walking down the street, anonymous and hidden.

you will always know my face,

but i am not the same.

what? glimpses of freedom?

the clouds break and the storm lifts and the night does not despair the day.

hope?

hope.

some roots still linger in new england.

Yesterday, sitting on the steps in Union Square, I think I began to forgive New York.

If nothing else, I could acknowlege its beauty - always a first step toward love for me.

And, now, as I drive north, further into New England, I reflect more on beauty, history, the past. It's rich, it's a part of me.

Increasingly I hope for simple things: obedience, purity, forgiveness. I hope to learn to forgive, move on, move forward.

I anticipate honesty and honest wrestling. I anticipate victory within my soul; to live so free, I am not even bound to freedom.

These hopes come out of a quiet written prayer, YWHY, I am willing to take you seriously.

Angry, fist clenched, I beg him (yeshua) to please give me something to hold on to.
Wanting, naturally, to replace pain with some sort of stoic religious resolve.

Instead of a promise that I can hold up and compare the old to the new he, so consistent with his grace and mercy, says, "its okay to hurt. Let yourself hurt. You're allowed to hurt."

Fists released, heart soften.

sleeeeeeeep.

it seems that lately, the only way to sleep is to get the words out,

they're still churning and living is like wading in waters that want to rip

tide and pull me under.

they are just words, no matter.

it's just, it's just,

i desire to be finished with such delicate ways of speaking in whispers. so often, there is more silence than truth in my speech. rather, allow me to be forthright.

i stay away at night, angry, hurting.

yes, i am angry and i am hurting.

(irreconcilable differences craving reconciliation, craving to give a cracksmack in the face)

(ohhhh, it's been hard on me, it's only feeling, but.)

these are just rambles from a child in a certain broken state of being.

goodnight.

Wendell Berry - The Country of Marriage

I've been reading, and rereading this...

1.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams

of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs,

of birds opening around you as you walk.

You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

2.

This comes after silence. Was it something I said

that bound me to you, some mere promise

or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?

A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood

still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,

like the earth’s empowering brew rising

in root and branch, the words of a dream of you

I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer

who feels the solace of his native land

under his feet again and moving in his blood.

I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped

my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss

that lay before me, but only the level ground.

3.

Sometimes our life reminds me

of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing

and in that opening a house,

an orchard and garden,

comfortable shades, and flowers

red and yellow in the sun, a pattern

made in the light for the light to return to.

The forest is mostly dark, its ways

to be made anew day after day, the dark

richer than the light and more blessed,

provided we stay brave

enough to keep on going in.

4.

How many times have I come to you out of my head

with joy, if ever a man was,

for to approach you I have given up the light

and all directions. I come to you

lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes

into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend

slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace

in you, when I arrive at last.

5.

Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange

of my love and work for yours, so much for so much

of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are—

that puts it in the dark. We are more together

than we know, how else could we keep on discovering

we are more together than we thought?

You are the known way leading always to the unknown,

and you are the known place to which the unknown is always

leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,

I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing

not belittled by my saying that I possess it.

Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing

a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only

accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light

enough to live, and then accepts the dark,

passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I

have fallen time and again from the great strength

of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

6.

What I am learning to give you is my death

to set you free of me, and me from myself

into the dark and the new light. Like the water

of a deep stream, love is always too much. We

did not make it. Though we drink till we burst

we cannot have it all, or want it all.

In its abundance it survives our thirst.

In the evening we come down to the shore

to drink our fill, and sleep, while it

flows through the regions of the dark.

It does not hold us, except we keep returning

to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,

willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

7.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,

containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.

I give you the life I have let live for love of you:

a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,

the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life

that we have planted in this ground, as I

have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all

beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself

again and again, and satisfy—and this poem,

no more mine than any man’s who has loved a woman.

one thousands threads

so much longing.

as if there are one thousand tiny threads attached to my heart.

pulling, pulling, pulling me.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, hurts.

cutting ties

I feel a lot like a teenager-
Silly, melodramatic, and full of lofty dreams that were never real.

I feel resentful of reality -brought down to a level I prefered never to acknowledge.

There was so much destined to fail, I guess. And, so much I hoped would survive.

To properly pay respect to reality, I am cutting ties with dreams. Acknowledging truth, and walking on alone, lonely, facing the burden of life.

tumbleweed

i'm a tumbleweed,

a tumbleweed lonely for roots.

home

Sometimes I feel the world of sorrow

encroaching on my heart.

A steady beat

(drums, drums)

on bruises set long ago.

Taking away, slowly,

Life, life abundant.

I'll recover, I think

I should like to recover.

Strange, how home is always

at its most beautiful,

no matter when.

Stone walls and wood

and brick

and trees!

There are oak trees here

to sit under and

an ocean full of algae.

Strange, how home will

always be most beautiful.

Yet, it is fading away

and I may never again feel

at home,

at this home.

I'm left wondering

where home is.

Ready to belong

to my own.

Instead of belonging,

I'm letting go of so many

things that once were

Mine.

no more me!

get out.

everything in me wants to say get out, get out, get out.

empty me to a dull grey drudge, no more recollection of laughter, or feeling perfection, nor the forgetting of myself.

(forgetting myself for days was the most beautiful way to fill my mind.)

i am full, now, of thoughts of myself. aware, of bruises at every move and word and thought and phantom memory of ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, you near.

ohh, get it out.

i have silly goals like having long hair and being graceful and, oh yeah, love eternal.

no more fear, no more fear, no more fear.

now, blood

ohhhhh, it hurts more at night.

like ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing, zap! just after lights turn out,

churning, churning,

angry fighting cries - not this way!

:lonely.

it's like, it's like, a piece of me was carved out and in it's hollow hole were stuffed stones and pebbles, and, oh! the only thing to do with a heart of stone is to cut through it.

now, blood.

missing

I miss you from deep inside of my veins.
I miss you, as if, your absence is my own absence.
I knew it was love when you introduced me to more of myself, just in your wonderful self.
I only knew I missed you when, for the first time in a long time, I felt not myself (unbalanced, off-kilter); yourself made it easier to be myself.

A buttress, of flesh and blood.

tear down, rebuild, repair.

harlem.

this morning,
this afternoon rather,
i sip on coffee the same way that i always sip on coffee.
this morning, though,
i sit perched in harlem overlooking broadway and 137th
and there's a baby here.

last night, i drove into manhattan from queens,
looking at the skyline,
it was shining and greeting me.
millions of people, greeting me.

and in my bed that night, on the sixth floor in harlem,
lying next to my best friend.
and i wept loud,
drawn out,
bitter tears -
lonelier that i'd been in a long time.

I feel like saying to myself,
"You got yourself into this mess, let's see you get out of it."

True, I am a mess.

I churn with an honest fear- your face is so familiar, but I don't know your soul. No, I don't know your soul.

Just two more sleeps before the truth is revealed. Rest now, while you still can.

I see a lot of death here in the Tenderloin.
Things falling apart.
But then again, I can see a lot of life in these streets.

There is still so much hope left in us.

new york

what i hate about new york

is the constant pushing on all sides;

the pressure to be glamourous all the time.

to live up to it,

all the time.

and here's what i want to say to you, new york,

before i venture back onto your sidewalks

glittering in the sunlight:

i don't want it.

in fact, i want the opposite.

i want to be dirty,

i want to live in the dirt.

i want to be covered in the unpleasant reality of human beings

who just want hope,

(but still do what they do to get by).

new york,

i like walking by the piles of shit that my here neighbors leave behind.

because, some burdens are really just too heavy to keep.

new york, i would rather have my fingernails peel

than my fingers lined with gold.

obstinately, i protest.

there is more, new york, than composing my perfect life in my perfect studio and working working working to keep it clean.

and so i will work to keep my eyes and my heart open.

i will read novels that remind me of all the feelings that i (so often) like to forget.

life is tragic.

new york, i will not gloss over sorrow.

but, i will ask for tears to come, and i will buy used to clothes as to not enslave children,

nor myself.

yes, i will work to keep myself free.

and my glamor will be in my pursuit of Beauty, not of things.

i am tired of having so many things.

i want to for free or for cheap, and laugh and feel love well up inside of me.

and then,

then i want to fly.

At the pier,
I looked and saw the bridge across the bay,
The port,
Coit tower,
And a lighthouse illuminate the sunset through the fog.

I will miss you San Francisco.
You've done me so much good.

the moon.

i miss you, in this hour.

it is stronger than other hours.

as though, like the tide pulled by the moon,

i'm drawn in to you,

wanting you to draw in, too.

I wonder if, one day,
We'll call divorce
unmarried.

"I am getting unmarried,"
one friend says to another.

Undo, redo.

No start, no end.

Loss of meaning,
Linear bends to circular.
round & round.

I wouldn't like it.

letting love drain out of me

Last week he cried & cried.
I drew him in close to my belly & my breast and sleep over took him.

Love over took me.

This week, after he finished his bottle, he picked himself up, and nestled his head in my shoulder. Asleep, fast & purring.

And I cried, letting love drain out of me.

The fog

The fog rolled over the Sunset today.
I found its origin in the Presidio.
I'm back there again,
Rocking a baby back to sleep.
Its lonlier than last week.

In loneliness, I'm thankful for San Francisco's fog,
I looked to the ocean but couldn't see it.
We all get lost sometimes,
Even the Pacific.
There was something solemn in looking out and not seeing what I sought.

There is mystery and there is sorrow.

And I hoped not to be seen for a little while.
I like being shrouded in fog,
Sheilded,
Hidden.

Especially tonight,

Especially tonight.

polk street

today i was walking down polk street which used to be lined with male prostitutes, but i've never seen one. they prostituted themselves because they were young and needed money for heroine. sex sells and heroine is expensive.

i was on my way to wildflower. i go there to make art and sometimes talk to heroine addicts. today, someone bought a book i made. the money will go to replace opium plants with pomegranate trees. that felt good. hope feels so good.

but, on my way to wildflower, i saw the saddest thing of all. three teenagers were talking, smoking, laughing. one crouched down on the sidewalk, tied up her arm, and pulled out her needle.

heroine. the most violent of all drugs.

i thought of robert frost. i have been one acquainted with the night. i wondered if his heart hurt sometimes, just from watching life fall apart into death.

because, sometimes mine does.

cool, finally cool

I know this comes from somewhere-
memories drift from cloud to cloud,
descending on us all, like rain.
soon we'll all have the same experiences,
perhaps a universal existence.

but, anyway,
if I could live as a child again
this is what I imagine I would do:

whenever it was hot,
like living in the Valley hot,
I would occasionally find a concrete wall,
lift up my shirt,
and press my stomach upon the cool,
letting the solid grey
permeate across my skin.

cool, finally cool.

and now that I'm old, and will always
consider somethings a little too late,
I know how to weep like I'm old.
in short, dramatic, gasps,
with only a few tears.
and the hot flows down my face.
shame, maybe, or impassioned anger
over promises broken.

(just like a child knows that
she was born with something wrong
and someone needs to come and fix it)

and I lift my shirt up and press my stomach against
the grey.

cool, finally cool.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

the way of Him doesn't make sense to me,

love until it hurts, then love some more,

until i step into his swirling presence,

glory, glory,

he loves me.

he loves me.

the wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side.

he loves me.

he loves me.

and in the swirling hurt of other loves,

i sit and rest.

surprised at my own calm between frightened

gasps for air.

(i need air, i need air.)

i sit and rest,

surprised at his steady hand on my shoulders,

surprised by joy, even.

i know that i need him like i know that i'm hungry or thirsty.

or, more accurately, i know that i love him because when i'm

near him i can breathe.

even when my hopes are full of heartbreak,

when he's near, i can breathe.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

love until it hurts, then love some more.

Tonight this is what I notice about San Francisco:
The presidio's forest, sweet pine, standing glory over the ocean.
Summer air, summer children playing in the sandlot garden.
Innocence, healing.
A child, too small to know the past horrors, falling asleep in my arms.
Rocking.
Tender is the night,
I love this life.

I like the way love feels.

folk music. america, america.

connecticut to california.

silence, breathing,

ooos, ahhs,

love.

i'm in love.

i'm in love.

a garden in my heart

i am building a garden in my heart for you.

it will grow with thyme,

basil and parsley.

flowers will greet you at the gate.

your love is growing a garden in my heart
for you,

to welcome you 

home.

i hope you will make a home in my heart.

and sit with me on the porch to watch life exploding.

a dance.

There are no pictures to prove the story we tell.

No evidence of her in an orange dress and him in his suit, dancing.

Awkawardly tripping, laughing.

No one thought to capture the night's innocence or passion.

Yet, it's my favorite story to tell. I can still feel his fingers tracing mine, his kisses on my eyelashes.

His earnest goodbye.

No way to prove that, even then,

they knew it was love.

But believe me, it was love.

shifting shadows

i stand, steady underneath

the shifting shadows

of day break

and noonday

and dusk before the night,

waiting for dawn.

i stand steady underneath.

waiting for a crash 

of reality

and 

i want to feel it all.

the future and its questions.

even if this all falls apart, i don't think i could ever hate you,

resent you, or speak poorly of you.

even if it stings.  even if i never want it to fall apart.

your kindness is too great to deserve anything but fondness

and abundant gratitude.

"He admires [her], but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons."

as it is now, i admire you for your kindness,

 

and you already have my gratitude.

i would like to learn to let you love me.

and see if i can love you too, abundant, without reasons 

and beyond compare.

fireworks, fireworks.

i speak in we's and ours,

if only for imaginations sake.

but i won't bind you to me, 

unless there

in a secret meeting,

you draw me unto you

to stay.

i'd stay.

i don't do well with unknowing

distances and timelines

or anxious hearts flowing 

to and fro -

you and i.

i do much better with 

the simple confidence

of a red string tied around my finger,

a simple promise.

we. ours.

but i will make no promise,

tie no strings.

aside from a quiet yes

to answer to your questions of affection.

i speak of love, as if we've been inside that cavern together before.

i only know your eyes, earnest and gentle, and yearning for an explosion of life.

fireworks, fireworks,

i love the view.

thursday afternoon.

it's easy to ask a lot of questions in this city.

constant pleas for truth and love

lying on my floor.

it's easy to be devastated in this city.

constant beggars for coins and change.

please, don't smoke crack outside of our window,

excuse me, excuse me.

we're all dirty here.  

my heart wanders here searching for some rest.  a place to grow its roots. 

fighting anxious thoughts and nervous ticks. 

countdowns. 

growing in frequency are the occasions are of laughter.

what i really love is the swirling peace in worship mingling around my eyelashes and into my heart confirming love, love, love.  mystery in the secret desires crying, jesus, jesus, jesus. spirit smells holy and sweet and draws me to come, come, come bask in the delight of a father and a beloved and a spirit who love me eternal, love me strong, love me to peace and silent campaigns of salvation.  

I did one of the most frightening things I can imagine today.

I painted.

san francisco summer time.

it's been a long time since the feeling

has fallen on my fingertips to

write, write, write.

like the city's fog,

thoughts are muddled in a mixture

of truth and lies.

i spend my days strolling 

down broadway asking the 

price of sex and love.

in my own mind, too,

wondering what the difference is,

and if i can be pure and loved.

or if the johns i see and meet

are everyman.

and if someone will prove that not every woman is a whore.

Leave room for mystery. Plea. Hope. But your whole self into it. Embrace it.

and then it hits you. you're free, in love, and doing exactly what you wanted.

more than anything (i think) i want my company to be sweet like a simple breeze.  unhindering, freeing.

like a swing in summer.

love may kill me.

but, then again,

it also may resurrect me.

i left a piece of me with you when we parted.

i'll come back and get it once more.

this is a promise from the very yearnings of my heart-strings.

Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.

reflections from the year.

i keep lighting a bush on fire 

and watching it burn.

i keep waiting for G-D to speak,

i keep waiting for him in fire,

in light,

in his bush-

my own bush i found beyond the way.

life, more than ever hurts. 

the residual scars from taking the hit,

from false love, from lust,

or wondering if love will cease,

and when it doesn't, 

when it keeps coming back,

wondering if i'm allowed to let him in.

it's almost enough that he makes me feel, 

it's almost enough to forget

dreams that i had.

there are barriers surrounding me,

walls of unforgiveness,

hidden piles of tears unspilt; dammed.

what's left of my heart is an abandoned altar.

tired.

dirty beyond cleansing.

mud caked and petrified, over me,

a cast, a mummy.

it isn't so much that i feel sinful, as much as i don't feel.

so, my plea is for forgiveness, atonement, a pure heart.

my plea is to be seen - wary,

and taken into the bath house, washed and cleansed.

fragrant oils over scars, 

tender kisses,

to be allowed to stop.

i went to a bath house once,

ashamed i covered and hid

my parts with arms too thin.

this time, i'm not afraid of my faults if you aren't. 

it would be good to take some layers off

and be me for a while.

east river,

peace river.

mother's day

mom's away for mother's day this year.

i'd like to write her a note,
written with my right hand
quivering
and say,
"go-
be a little girl and let balloons take you away.
go fly to paris while there's still time"

Sunday Tea

You make me breathe easy.
And, since this city has been
Especially foggy lately,
I am grateful

For you
Give me something to dream about.
Lately I've been feeling
The absense of arms
Mingling in waves serene.

There are promises
I won't make or whisper.
But find with me something good.
I believe it's waiting for us. I believe you'll adore him when you two meet.

I don't believe I've ever felt so calm than when I'm at Sunday tea.
Or so ready to dive into the Pacific sea.

"I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."
-Is. 49:15-16

"The people stood far off while Moses drew nearer to the thick darkness, where God was."
-Ex. 20:21

papa

i still want the mountains,
and i still need you near.

my heart, faint from winter, needs to go home.

home, the eternal place i've never been. one day, your glory rinse & sun drops will clean my muddied face.
(papa, i know you're so much more, but i want your lap (like a lake) to finally feel some peace).

papa, i know he's not yours yet, but i imagine he loves like you. i think if you two met, you'd beam like summerjune.

she walks with the sway of a woman in love.
she knows her stagger,
she knows her skill.

awakening

hummingbirds inside my chest,
is it springtime?
new beginnings
awaken truth in me.

the truth, the truth
we tell it for freedom,
we tell it for love.

silent anthems run across my mind.

Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone, Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone.

hummingbirds, hummingbirds,
the flowers will bloom.

i love you because you love me,
and your loving me makes me love you,
it draws love out of me.
in return, i love you, and
ask you to keep loving me.
so love, let us never
stop loving one another,
how will i know to love again
without you loving me?

maybe one day i can love
you enough for you to love me
like i love you.

for you

Quietness (rumi)

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.

Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.
Walk out like somebody suddenly born into color.

Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side.

Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.

Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

heavy questions

it's in quiet moments of deliberation
that i feel the steady pressure
of love.
it is easier to fall than to stay.
passion is better left unkept,
unexamined,
unwilling to say hello in the morning.
and so i ask myself heavy questions
in heavy silence
feeling heavy pressure.

if i love you, do i even like you?

and what difference does it make
if i fell in love with you,
if i don't like you,
or can't converse with you.
do you make me laugh?

it's all more than i can take.

passion is all i've ever known.
i don't know if i can give anything
constant,
when i myself am made of inconsistent
colours and whims.

bedtime stories.

"Pan, who and what art thou?" he cried huskily.

"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg."

a thousand cattle

my father loves all his sons.
he owns a thousand cattle on a hill.
he leaves the ninety-nine to find the one.
my father loves all his sons.

echos

while
i concede
that our generation
will be remembered by our pictures.

i wish,
(even in my eyelashes)
to be remembered by
my eyes,
my touch,
my words.

the transcendentals

bless me with your kisses
and let differences
dissipate in a
simple
sacred love affair.
find with me what
is good and true and beautiful.
i believe your eyes
are leading the way
to grass stains
and finger paints
and white linen dancing in sunshine,
in the rhythm of the wind.
two could become three,
another trinity
to weave in and through
the good and true and beautiful.

prayers until thursday

remember me,
even in my leaving,
remember that i whispered,
i never want to leave,
and,
if you please,
don't let me.

i have not the long arm, strong and mighty to save.
nor have i the right hand to hold me in.

"you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes."

in searching, i found him
and, wrapped in love around my wrist,
i can not let him go.

it isn't so much that i am basking in his love now,
but his picture,
in my locket,
in my heart,
reminds me of what i get to come home to.

"you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes."

"if i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that i was made for another world."

savior, king, beloved.

I want to be home.
I don't care where home is right now-
Just, get me there.

Headed home.
Still without peace,
Searching for mountains,
But knowing that
I love a King.

Panic waves & saddness.
Fear, walls closing me in.
I might fail. I might lose the war.
Need YHWH whispers close.

Infidelity is the most painful ripping apart.
Broken hands unglued.
Hands and hearts connect
But distance matters once not twice.
Hands untouching, hearts still feeling.
Distance matters only once.
Infidelity is the greatest distance.
I can't touch your hands, but I still want your heart.

i love a king

Your presence rescues me from wars, genocides, and suicides.
Internal, external.
Your trinity encompasses and includes enveloping chords, love songs.
You bring peace like a river,
Prince of peace,
I love you.

Tenderly I whisper under my breath,
In your ear,
I love you.

You wear red and white,
Stand tall and royal
King of kings
King of the jews,
My king.
I stand adopted, grafted into your royal preisthood
You bestow glory, honor.

I love you in your purity,
I love your blood bleeding for me,
Bleeding love. Bleeding wine.

I love you.

what hurts in love, is not love, but knowing that two loves conflict.
and, in gaining one, i may lose the other,
the greatest love of all.

stuck

trapped in concrete.
whispering
"don't make me go back there"

i need anywhere but here. i need sea breeze and open fields. i need out.

Let's Go.

Please, take me to Tennessee, Georgia. Please, take me to the sweet southern peach,peace, grass sway in light breeze until lightning lights us a cooking-fire. Carry me up the blueridgemountains and bathe me in the shenandoah. Take me deeper to the lighter sunshine blessings in dying august.

The change of pace would be good for us, sister-soul. Orange juice and some horse-trot hay laying.

Please, take me to Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia.

LET'S GO! LET'S GO!
get me out of here - a city with walls, all walls, walled in and walled out.

get me out of here and let me breathe in mountain air and valley waves of rolling grass. wait for thunder. wait under it rattles our bone and we feel it.

G-Ddamnit I want to feel it, toss me under, get me out of here. trapped, trapped.

this city is for suits that are stiff, trying to prove we're more than human. i'm just barely.

get me to earth, rich, real, raw.

this family, we battle

I've got brothers who love me. They think I'm the flower-special glory girl.
I think they're knights, clad in honour and well-fragranced laughter.

GROW UP

GROW UP.
Admit what you are.
Words are just talk-speak.
Give me stature.
No coaxing, waiting, sympathizing, spoon feeding poopoo, poor you unbelieving in yourself for no love when love is offering herself to have and hold. Can't hold what you don't tame, tame yourself, unleash yourself.

GROW UP.

I want to sink to the bottom of the atlantic and open my lungs to new breaths.
I want to live anew,
I want a home in the bottom of the ocean where I can open my eyes to new depths.

I'm not trying to fall in love.
Somedays, these things just happen.
I remain unconvinced that I'll ever see his eyes again.

a woman?

What does it mean to be a woman?
Give me something simple-
I'm beginning to feel confined, trapped,
Unsteady at best.

psalm 143:6

there's a sorrow in me,
in the deepest chords.
i've been soaking in the
tears of weeping friends
heavy on my shoulders.
my skin is damp and chilled,
weary,
dripping heavy off me.
sadness is contagious.
love is contagious.

humanity revealed
itself heavy this year.
our best, and worst this year.
it's all true.
we're all here.

i feel you calling me closer,
in the deeper chords of me.

I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.

spring?

fell in love for the pain of it all
by following cherry trees
beginning to blossom.
this is a city without horizons.
come, and we'll make it a home.

i miss things i can't touch.

satisfied

Sunday nights, we
Would eat popcorn, plain,
Apple slices & chedder cheese
All spread out on the
Table over our cloth
Napkins, no paper,
No plates.
Sometimes we laughed,
Always surprised to be Satisfied.

cement

you ask for me
& i, in turn,
comply
until
imaginary lines
cement
into permanent
prisons
that i never
saw
as real
until i was
caught.

april showers

april came at us
with a reign of tears.
victory marching trampling over us,
tilling the ground,
crushing, grinding
our bone.
ashes to ashes,
dust to dust.
Spring is here,
rising over us.

It seems to me that falling in love with the impossible is my inevitable plight. April's here, reigning over us. I'm bending, but I won't break. I'm not moving on whims, no matter how strong.

1,000 i love you's, for 1 single disdain.

living water.

forgiveness is the most beautiful thing i've ever seen.
and mercy that heals moves me to wells.
to tears.

bathseba.
rahab.
mary.
me.

dealing with the inevitable, dealing with the worst

death brings us to our knees,
it is incomprehensible,
the stench pervasive.

we try to hide under blankets
but our toes betray
what we have to give away.

it rots away at the living,
haunting us in fear
and finding us in
at our most honest:
we're dying.

it's incomprehensible.

i need sleep and a new potted plant.
horticulture is the best way to rest.

G-D, II

even in your mystery,
show yourself.

G-D

why do you love me?

--you're the only thing that lets me breathe.

a plea-

come out from hiding and let yourself be known.
the shame is only terrible in darkness.
light, find me,
find us.
make us clean.

death, not life

my cat is dying.
death is never pretty, no matter how unattached you are to it.
today she urinated all over herself, and now spreads the stench wherever she goes.
it isn't pleasant.
death, though the end of life, would be a relief.
the end of something awful,
something ugly,
a dying life.

reflections from lunch

i don't like rules
i mostly just like love.
oh, let the safety of your touch envelop and hold me as i venture into new discoveries about
me and you.
an art
to examine and wonder about.
oh, let your peace protect as i, for the first time, undress from protection.

"your naked skin suits you,
it frames your eyes, brings out your hair.
your naked skin fits like it was made for you."

unfettered.

there was always so much to be afraid of,
but i don't mind being alone any longer.
at least i know that in living alone,
i am still living.

more.

giving away the acceptable in search of her soul.

after three years, she kindly gave back everything he offered.
bare brick lofts, promenades, diamonds in a skyline.
and slipping out of her ill-fitting uniform, discovered the colour of her flesh.
slipping into the atlantic, she discovered her laughter.

but,

love is freedom.

Love asked me to be patient,
So I'm here,
Waiting for you
To come home
And come back to me.
Come back to me.
I'm waiting for you,
As patiently as love allows.

I feel your stare.
Is that scary?
We are so utterly lonely.

"That's the biggest thing in life, you gotta get rid of the fear."

rise to greet us

intricate strings entangle or enfold.
let mystery sing you a lullaby.
let life wake you gently with kisses,
steady on the forehead
one for each minute,
one for each moment.
we were only hiding
to know that we were missed,
to see love rise to greet us
in our return.

love

it is careful.
a delicate, precise
placement of flowers,
arranging a bouquet.
setting a glass down with care.
keen eyesight knowing where
lines and angles
meet perpendicular.
it is slower
than traffic
and busy small talk.
than the drag
putting out the final light.
it is mixing cobalt with ash
to make the sea
and its breeze
brushing past
every noticed hair.

i'm slower than the rest to say hello. but i have not fallen behind.
i have been waiting for you this entire time.

daylight savings time

i'm about to say something very simple, and i don't mind so much being simple as long as it's not confused with being simple-minded.

i just changed my light bulbs.
i had had a headache all day,
and then, frustrated with darkness,
i unscrewed the fixture and replaced the bulbs.

sudden illumination.

i hardly need to say that my headache is gone and i am much happier.

daylight savings is my favorite day out of the year.
the sunset over the river,
a glass of sangria,
a steady zephyr:
all finally available after work.

i love light.

i won the war.

i walked outside
and smelled something familiar.
it was the same mixture in the air
of earth and water and warmth
as on the night you told me you were coming.

i used to walk up and down the hudson,
looking at her liberty,
waving a light along side of her,
just to let you know you were almost there,
in case you were growing tired.
i used to call out on the docks,
on nights like these,
when you told me you were coming,
"i am waiting for you,
i will never tire of waiting."

you never came.
the voyage was rough
and treacherous.
the seas weren't calm,
they did not part for you,
or carve a path for you in their crests.
they put up blockades and told you that
even if you won this battle,
you would still loose the war.

not one aquatinted with loosing,
you about-faced.
the sea welcomed you back
into familiar navigation.
you no longer had use for bravery
or even a compass,
but you were proud.
your final letter was full of your pride.

falling out of love was more wretched
than falling in.
consistent with gravity,
i fought a loosing battle,
climbed myself out of the hole,
resisted against the pulling force.
it was wretched to upheave my heart from
the soil;
my roots had grown deep.

i walked outside
and smelled something familiar.
it was the same mixture in the air
of earth and water and warmth,
the secret smell of daffodils announcing
that they are just beneath the surface.
they are ready to chime their bells.

and i stood to greet them.
scarred and wounded,
having won the war.

cotton

i want to say that you are like cotton.

like cotton balls flying through the air, with the breeze,
always with the breeze.

i want to say that you are like cotton,
not because you stuff or suffocate,
but rather,
because if i could collect you,
i mean really collect all the pieces of you that i catch in my day,
i'd throw them in a big vat,
or bed frame.

bit by bit i'd collect and pile pieces of you
until it was full:
full & overflowing with pieces of cotton
plucked from out of the breeze.

and then i'd lay in it.

and be surrounded by as much of you as I could possibly hold at one time.

and you,
being soft and Comfort,
would hold me too.

bookstore

i tend to lust-

it started with
little things,
a flower
or pocket of knowledge,
and grew into stories,
a love song wriiten for-
it should have been-
me.
by now,
it's expansive.
i think about it
in the poetry section
of my local bookstore as i
let words wash over me
like water from a fountain
over my tongue
without ever swallowing.
caught in a sea of surplus
exposing your intimate scribbles
for my sensations
i remain
thirsty
not wanting to leave
but still fleeing into my own
canvas,
into fiction.

-colours flush

i solemnly promise to never stop fighting for life.

brilliant colours.

loud, crashing brilliant colours
spill over me
running in thoughts and freedom
brilliance. brilliance.
(i'm blind to it)
take me at sunrise
twirled into twirls
cymbals crash and reign over me
the breeze runs through me,
permeable.
my skin is only
loosely binding.
a temporary contract.
spill it out.
spring is coming
& we will sink into the
sweet earth
sweet each other; one another.
loud, crashing brilliant colours
spill over me.
(i'm blind to it)
washed up on shore
at sunrise.
dance me pink
golden, orange
in casablanca and agidir
malaga, marseille.
dance me in silk.
loud, crashing brilliant colours
spill over me.

(i'm blind to it)

I'd like to be found

Back to the wall,
Up against it.

Bulldoze.
Just go ahead and knock it all down.
Disembody the pieces of my heart,
Tear at it,
Stripped,
Naked.

What will you find?
Sex, lies, anxiety, hopelessness.
You'll find nothing better than another, the worst.
You may find something that looks honest:
It's just that I've been lying.

Bulldoze,
Knock it down,
Disembody,
Tear,
Strip,
Naked.

Do it.
Get to me.

dress me

dress me in surprise,
babies,
sunshine coloured daffodils.

dress me in the honour
that i found
in your spine.

dress me coloured beautiful,
or something more than,
but not quite,
red.

i don't pretend it's always poetry.

you find me at the most inconvenient times.
and you're finding me
is my finding
that i'm uncomfortable
about you.

{a neighbor who
asks
for a favor
a little too often
to keep my space
my own space.}

that's what i say, anyway.

what i really mean,
when i'm honest,
is that i
avert my eyes
because your stare
scares me.

does the pleasure ever stop? do i trust falling?
do i want to be known? will i be exposed?

i have built beautiful walls around myself
that i would like to continue
to show you.

have you read this?
oh, it's lovely.
it speaks of me,
you should read it
rather than speak to me.

have you seen this painting?
oh it's me.
you should look at it
rather than looking at me.

and there you have me.
a reflection
of things that i've found
to reflect me.
a house of mirrors.
trickery.

hosanna.

I cannot be excited about you
in the way of balloons
or simple smiles
because you are not just that -
& if you only came for my elation
I would be elated.
Rather you died
& it still feels like a death
& I can't be excited
about participating in it.
(or, rather, i am already dead)

but i will drink this
bittersweet cup of
mulled wine
and participate with you:
a death.
a birth.
a mourning
that bursts forth
into dawn
into life.
and in the wretched dying
i feel alive
being made alive.
and you are life
and death,
life in death.

so from here on out i apologize
for all of my skepticism and snide remarks,
but you are uncomfortable.
and i do not know why so many
talk so cheaply of you.
and i cannot
promise
that i will ever stop holding my breath when you walk
into the room--
could you be?

i don't even get you.
but you are more than four laws
to be laid
you are a death
in a life.
you were slain and yet you were
not.

i do not mean to talk so cheaply of you.
hosanna,
please save.
emanuel,
jeshua,
find me.
please find me.

who are you?
i ask myself most days
& wonder why i
gave you my word.
(who am i to you?)
i don't know you
& i remain
unconvinced
that most people are in love at all,
let alone with you.
there are scores of rings
strung on womens' fingers.
i apologize for my skepticism,
but i cannot imagine
why.

family.

when asked in five years what i learned in college, i will answer family.
the smell of incense, a sanctuary, a sister who knows me, who celebrates me.
i will answer stories, pages and pages of poetry and prose that turn my heart from stone to flesh.
brothers. yes more brothers.
and a family - who i pour out and pour into.

i have never cared about politics and only pretend to study philosophy.

i study people.
these people who have become so wrapped up in my stories; their names embody lives, real and raw.
and together we meet our maker. we melt in his fire. consumed by his love.

and to think, if i had followed my plans i would still be east, far beyond her lady liberty.

but duty summoned and family followed and i am here rich in love.
i am in love.
i am in love.

belong.

i don't want to go backwards.
i remain uninterested in
retracing steps to reunite.

i am, however, concerned with belonging in your eternal arms, home, and the gold ribbon that has been wrapped around the tree outside all my window all winter. i'm interested in what sustains.

the long way.

paris, i'll get to you the long way.
i'll build up stories for you of the
long roads
that lead me to you.
i'll plaster walls all over
the world
that remind me of your love and how it draws me
to your iron rods
pointing to heaven.

a tower of babel,
a beacon of hope.

or, i won't.
maybe you will stop calling,
your voice may become less
and less.
it may fade like a love that
cannot wait any longer.

even then i will carry your picture in my pocket
and hold the memory of your love that taught me
to be faithful.

i may visit you five years from now
and we'll catch up on our kids names
and reminisce over how long we laughed
into every night.

i will hold you fondly in the corner of my eyes
as they smile.
paris, when i smile, i smile for you.
it will be nice to see you again,
if ever i shall find you again.

going home, three a.m.

at three a.m.
on the long ride back from
one home to another,
i begin to peer.
i stare at the icons head on,
wonder if i can take them down.

the wind blows gently,
and i wonder,
if it could ever be safe
to lay down
in sixth avenue
and look up and sink in.

i wonder what new york
could teach me in the dark
when it is lonely and looking
for someone to listen.

i'm willing to listen.

i want to lay down,
in the middle of sixth avenue
and look up and sink in.
i want to lay down,
and just be honest for a change.
bare and before you.
submitting
and safe.

petite fille, ballon bleu

i only wear blue when the sun beats down on my little hairs and little hands. i only wear blue when i want to fly or run deep. the air today, burst in me and threw me. i only wear blue when i want it to rain on my head and when i need to drink from the fountain.

reminder

You remind me of my loneliness,
You come with the air of allure,
Drawing me,
Beckoning me.
Your presence pulls at my
Abdomen,
Seizing me.
You remind me of the time's passing,
The weight of waiting:
Desperate.
Even the mere brush of your hand
Across my tender spine,
Exposed,
Sends me,
Throws me
Into the deep pools of your eyes.
Knowing,
The depth of knowledge.
You remind me of my loneliness,
In your comings
And as soon as you’re going
I am gone.

i am an list of unfinished books; i am impatient hunger.

three years, one week.

Is it because the air is changing?
That can't be it, I'm still wrapped up to cover from the biting cold.
A week ago marked three years ago.
Going home, going east.
I didn't understand, walking through the highlands, that I was seeking your Glory.
I was simply seeking.
Three years and one week ago today.
Now I long to go back,
To go home.

moving

moving feels all together like falling in love.
i leave this town with little more
than the stress of cold water
lapping at my feet.
i spent my autumn looking back,
at the lady shining in the river,
welcoming us to come in,
or telling us to go back.
i look back beyond her,
and strain my eyes to see if i can
see the highlands in the distance,
and know what it means to
walk home.

that was all apart of my youth, and i am not young anymore.

moving feels like a last chance at love
before disappointment seeps in
to where hope lived
in fantasies and magic dust.
i will change course,
about face from east to west
into another ocean
whose waves are stronger
and full of allure that crashes over
my best posture.
i will bow under it,
aware of all its grace.

take cover

i recognize it:
the slow burning layers in the air,
the lingering pedestrians gathering supplies,
the stillness.
take cover, take cover.
those of us who have been here long enough
only need to step outside,
to know that it's the wrong way.
take cover, take cover.

at some point as i lie
beneath my covers,
the flakes will burry
our ashes & disaster.
letting us forget, for an hour or two,
that we're black & marred,
shamed into taking cover.

good

good winter, good riddance,
good-bye.

like arrows,

hearts like arrows point
and pierce.
there isn't time to mend
what's been broken.
there are only hearts,
tattered and torn,
towing what our
jagged edges caught
along the way.

i maintain a simple prayer
in the midst of blubbering
and running away:
be near.

going west

I miss the ocean,
Frozen,
I miss the sunrise,
Hope unties all my jugements comprised.

my hands

I do not know what could be, or even should be.
I vaguely see what is.
Shadows reveal empty spaces,
Faith left undone,
Hope unrealized.
People are left to meet
Expectations.
To be one is to be the lonely one.
I do not understand life, its windings and sorrows.
I know the weight of pain stacked on my shoulders.
I know the ease of a hand along all my graces.
I drink your blood as
Atonement,
Salve,
In my wine glass.
My stagnent blood ferments
Inside caverns.
I breathe,
Hoping to reconcile
The right and the left hand,
The two who have never met.
Dependant on their individual responses,
The two shall become one.
In a handshake,
A melding,
A synthesis.

the morning.

lately, i've only been waking up with a start.
my whole body jolts with energy,
muscles seize.
i gasp.
its as if i am too far gone, and the force is the only way to get me back.

Jared

He is saponaceous, unctuous with no follow-through. He slips by sputtering scores of apologies after I raise my eyebrow once, convincing me of his reform. Only, as soon as I relax my face he resumes his disobedience. It is as if my facial expressions act as a traffic light directing him. I would like to have my eyebrows permanently raised: botox for a nanny, stoplights for his living. Like a traffic cop, I pace the hallway, catching him playing with matches, cursing on the phone, bingeing from his stash of candy. I am the nark. I spend the vacation pacing.

He is soft. I often wonder if there are bones underneath his layers of fat, three inches deep all around. His anger may be his only support. Barging through the door one day, he yells on repeat, “Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus!” He still doesn’t have it memorized, even after the loud minute. The rest of us just stare silently, waiting for the episode to pass. “He’s a bad kid” his sister remarks phlegmatically without looking up. When he leaves we resume where we left off in The Great Gatsby.

Concluding the chapter, I go to check on him. He is slipping like always. This time, it is on his chair as he sways back and forth trying to maintain a forty-five degree angle with the ground. He falls instead. I sigh. The whole scenario tips his mother, who has stationed herself in the room, over the edge. “Jared!” she yells, “you are nothing but a failure!” Other loud vulgarities erupt from inside of her. Jared, still lying in the position he fell in, has been reduced to exactly what she accuses. He doesn’t bother getting up.

Jared has a science test the next day. He does not do well in science. In fact, there aren’t many areas in which he excels. I can list them: sautéing zucchini, playing video games, catching a cab, and doing algebra in his head. Despite the meager list, I argue that he is the smartest of the three children. His mind, when engaged is sharp and intelligent. Engagement is the problem. There are several problems.

Jared’s dad is gone. He moved out of the house about six years ago, as soon as the divorce was announced. He only moved three blocks away, but the distance between them hasn’t stopped growing. I wonder if one day they’ll be completely estranged. Something split apart inside of Jared that year. He did his best to let everyone know how he felt. In school he was violent; he stabbed a girl with a pencil. At home, he was miserable; he walked around threatening to kill himself. His mother got him help, but the laws of physics remain: what is severed can never be fused back together. I wasn’t there then, but I live with the effects. I see the shards of anger come out of the very place where his heart is broken. I’d like to remove them all for him, healing him instantly.

Instead, I watch the scene unfold a little longer, lingering in the doorframe trying to dodge the shots from each loaded artillery. Mother and son get their ammunition from the same source of pain. They have both failed one another and themselves. Only a few hours ago, I found Jared hastily gleaning all the answers to a study guide from an anonymous online source. I asked him if he knew any of them himself. “No”, he retorted as if it were obvious. This is not the first time that he has approached a science test claiming he knows nothing. I reminded him of this pattern. I said, “It must end”. Apparently, my voice was bent with annoyance, and his mother caught wind of it. She rushed in, demanding to know what he did, and the war between them took over.

His mom finally leaves, feeling she proved her point sufficiently. Jared pulls out some candy from his stash defiantly and for the next hour we review Archimedes’ principle, “an immersed body is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces”. He recites the acronym SCUBA with confidence. He seems to get it, after all. It’s late when I tuck him into bed, nervous. His happiness for the next weekend is contingent upon his success. “Goodnight”, I whisper, “good luck, tomorrow”. Jared nods, half asleep, and calls “I love you” as I leave the room, loud enough so only I can hear it. “I love you too Jared”, I think to myself, knowing he already knows.

Cannot

I CAN NOT TAKE MYSELF OUT OF THIS.
i cannot remove any part of me from this existence.
i cannot stop nerves from burning, leaving scars, shriveling.
I could say I want alive,
But this is it.
i have it. we all do.
Alive is real life. the throwing up out my window, hoping it doesn't fall on someone's head, wishing to forget inside of the murmurs of sleep, until the next punctual rape, until six a.m.

hurt

People hurt.
Within themselves, people hurt.
But that isn't all.
People hurt others,
They spread it.
Sometimes with malice,
A vandal destroying your craft.
Oftentimes, people hurt without intention.
I do not know if it is worth the distinction, but the moot point is made.
I hate the latter.
I despise it in the very places where I hurt, unintentionally.
I suppose I hate the former as well, but it doesn't sneak up on me, disguised in smiles and laughter.
That's the problem with the latter.
It hurts you in the very places you expose,
In trust,
In love & cheer.
Anyway, people hurt.
And I am one of them.

the hope.

my hope, in saying all of this, is that love wins. not in some grandiose crusade, but in the my very own hidden, intimate corners where the bile of hatred stains like mildew in the cracks of a bathtub. the game of catch ends, a victor is decided, and i may go home safe in his hands.

in-between.

i'm convinced that human experience lies somewhere in-between what ought, and ought not be.

"here is my bright standing young man", a mother proudly presents, "and here, are his inconsolable failures:
intelligent, genteel, faithful, bellicose, a liar, scum.
i love him."
the juggernaut of irreconcilable differences knocks me over; it flattens me.
i am suddenly two dimensional, a irregular oval, laid bare for all to see.
it's too much. the surprise surprises me every time.
he is, in fact, both wonderful and evil, practically simultaneously.

the mystery begins my love affair with human nature:
that i can look at another and see both wretchedness and beauty. that i can know the tug-of-war (and it is a war) inside of my heart, which is also beautifully wretched. or wretchedly beautiful. or both.
that the most eternal capacity in all of our being is the very thing that allows us to be torn apart.
that the same surprising game of catch, throwing me from love to hate to love, can bring me to equilibrium.
to forgiveness.
to a third dimension.

competing forces

i hate it.
competing forces
trying for king.
the yelling,
the fear.
i see it in him too.
i watch it get the best of him,
take over,
take him down.
it beats him and
the bruises, ripe and swollen,
send the rest of us a message:
we're next.

i know, i can hear them search for me.
and i go to sleep feeling the weight of war.
i know the regret of choice,
of love,
missing what was all together never mine,
needing what was never meant for me.

caught.

caught.
the glare on the window pane
bursts
surprised lemon lyrics-
dance.
behind the window pane
is a man in his library,
frozen,
caught in the contagious
meandering &
wandering eyes.
pupils follow the
drifting beat,
pulse pounds angry
and drives it home.
drive it home.
caught.