Thursday

09292011


i live life
inside the blur
of perfect geometry

Tuesday

09272011

it’s been too long a time
since we walked these woods together
you said
and i thought
more than long and longer than time
and the trees reached out for us
remembering our presence
from that other time
back before time
pleading with us
do it once again
sleep in our shade
and wink at the sky
through the brown-green
dapple of our leaves
so we slept
my head on your stomach
your fingers in my hair
the smell of life and earth and heaven
kissing our skin so tenderly
and you said
look at the color of the sky
is it real, or is it touched by magic?
and i said
it’s real
and you said
when was the last time we did this?
and i said
last spring
and
why don’t we do this more often?
you said
and i thought
because if we did
the magic would flee

Monday

09262011

another unsent letter


Dear O.,

I’ve something to confess. I caught myself reading something I shouldn’t have been reading. I caught myself reading your journal. I came into your classroom to cover for you, just for a few moments. I came in to watch your students while you ran down the hall. And my fingers couldn’t help but touch the open pages sitting on your desk, so white and naked, colored by the outpour of your thoughts.

And I read something that made me stop. I read this: This is my dream job. And this one sentence, among all others, was written with such flair! It was written with pride, and joy, and fullness of spirit. And my first thought was: I wish I could make that statement and mean it. But my second thought was: I soon will.

Following this was a sense of urgency, as if I had to do something immediately, right now. Something to remedy that first feeling—an antidote to the dissatisfaction. And that was when it registered in my head that, scary as it may be, and time-consuming as it may be, I have already made the right decision to pursue my true desire, so that I might also have my dream job.

I am leaving this place in a few days. I will be gone from this hall… these halls… forever. I will leave these halls for other halls, where someone will be standing at the door to welcome me, rather than the other way around. And believe me, I will never look back!

But… before I go, I just have to say… I apologize for desecrating your privacy. But, this is something you must understand. This desecration of your thoughts was an impetus for mine. Not that that was ever a good enough reason for me to read what was so profoundly yours. But then, you left the open pages, like a blossoming rose, right beneath my fingertips. And what could my fingers do but touch, and brush, and caress? Do you know what I mean? You probably never will. And you will probably never forgive me. But I will thank you forever. Because your joy was my momentary misery, before it turned itself upon its head and reminded me of my joy, as well.

Yours,
N.

Saturday

09242011

outside the gates
that wall off this garden, you.

but, look—
i’ve still got my smile.

this is the smile
i once thought you bestowed.

and
now,

when i glimpse
my own reflection,

i recognize
its grace.

Tuesday

09202011

once
long ago
when i was a child
i watched through a half-closed door
a woman shed her shimmering hair
like she was shedding her skin

she sheared it off
one lock after the other
and tossed it with lyrical abandon
while her daughter
a girl with conservative curls
pled with her to stop stop stop!

but there was no stopping her
and poor child
unable to bear much more
switched her gaze to the wall
stared at her reflection
in an age-spotted mirror
and wept ever so bitterly
while her mother cackled grotesquely

my ears will never forget that sound
my eyes are branded forever
with the little girl’s tears
so black with longing
so choked with desire
so rabid with regret

but, today
as i remember this
so many years later
i ask myself
(because i must)
the meaning of
this memory

i ask myself
why this?
why now?
while fearing instinctively
that i will never understand

Monday

09192011




tonight...
while driving home
i hummed to “la notte”
and counted the stars.

oh, mystical divinity
too sacred for words!



Saturday

09172011

this morning
i do not force myself

instead
i listen to my body
as it expresses itself

i sit by myself
in green grass
beneath living tree
mist kissing skin
and flesh
and soul

and i allow my body
to speak
to confess
to complain

i allow it its agonies
i allow it its revelries

this is a solitude
i must embrace
as long, as winding
as it may be

i do

because

there are
no elegant shortcuts

Thursday

09152011

and what if
he never returns?
she said.

and if he does,
i said,
what will you do then?

Tuesday

09132011

tonight
thinking thoughts of writing
something about something
or something about nothing
i tell myself to pause
set my pen down with intention
close the journal upon my words
and decide quite staunchly

i will read the words of someone else

some nights
there is more nurture
more tenderness
more warmth
more care
in the thoughts born
inside the churning
of another’s marrow

Saturday

09102011

if tonight
you offered me
the moon on a string of gold
and told me it was mine to keep
would i believe you?

should i?

Wednesday

09072011

another unsent letter


Dear M.,

I see you after… how many years? I make it a point to look at your face. I look. I understand one thing: You are the incarnation of Desperation. You are the discarded lover gone mad. You are lonely. Alone. Feeding on long-lost memories. Holding my name between your parched lips. Murmuring it secretly, so it sounds like the squealing sands of a violent desert storm.

You can’t erase my absence. You can’t erase my presence.

It is not because you hate me that you wish to make me suffer; it is because you love me.

Right?

But, no. This is not love. This is Obsession. Consumption. Insanity.

I want to say, You are pathetic. I do not want to make the effort.

I recall how you loved listening to your own voice. I recall how no other voice but yours mattered. Now, there is no voice inside your throat. Your desperation has petrified all timbre.

I recall how you gazed at your own reflection, so lost in self-love. Was what others lavished on you not enough? But for you, nothing was ever enough. Yours was always the need for more.

I recall… it doesn’t matter.

As I close my eyes over these memories, a persistent question saturates my vision: What is a word for who YOU are?

I have no words. Or, rather. I have no energy to seek the words. Or perhaps… I have no desire to expend the energy.

One blink, and you are black tar inside my eyelids.

I discarded you, so long ago. And what I discard, I never recover.

Sincerely,
N.

Monday

09052011

tell me about the cinderella complex
you said
and you flipped over on your side
one arm between us
the other around the backside of my heart
your face up close to mine
so we were
nose against nose
lips against lips
teeth against teeth

and i had no breath
as i said to myself
it is me with you
it is my secret desire

something i can never tell
but a truth i know so well

it is the destruction of my fabricated self
the degradation of my false modesty

but i did not tell you this
nor did you wait for my response

instead, you said
you have such delicate ankles
such fragile bones
and how clenched you were!
how in battle with yourself!

and solid gold probed divided rose flesh

oh, to be impaled
so exquisitely!

so… inside!

and outside…
only the sound of crickets

Thursday

09012011

there is a broken being out there
(who i can hardly call a man),
messed up and insecure,
who invents brothers,
who invents sisters,
who invents sons,
who invents daughters,
who invents lovers,
(and what they do to him,
and what he does to them),
who invents the entirety of his life
(and its nuances, in tow)
and who invents praise to himself,
while inventing, also, those who deliver it.

and all of this
for something that belongs to him
no more than he belongs to himself.

in a world filled with imagination,
there is always room for more,

yet,
one must ever keep one’s finger steady
on what’s real and what’s not.

and so…

i wrote it in a story before,
and i will say it here, once more:
“if you tell the same lie enough times, even you start to believe it.”

and here is where solitude begins.

and in the kingdom of solitude, madness reigns.