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.