If you want in, drop me a line and I'll add you.

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman's boot,
with a white belly.

If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.

And you know
what a smile means,
don't you?

*

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.

*

It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don't know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.

*

Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don't we?

Slowly

*

the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.

*

You don't want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it's the same old story - - -
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

*

And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.

*

And probably,
if they don't waste time
looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

- Mary Oliver

"The Moon represents those unknown forces and cycles that are out of control. While aware of its presence, you are unable to comprehend the influence the Moon has on your life. While this is a time of mystery and uncertainty, it is also a time of great imagination and creativity. You must be prepared to venture into the unknown and follow uncharted paths."

I have an iPod again. With my entire music collection on it. :D

And this morning everything was beautiful in the cold November light. The whole world danced in the wind. It made me feel like I went back in time. My spirit went down deep last night and resurfaced on the trail of a dream. The car I took to work this morning drove by Sin-E, dark and desolate and tucked away from the rest of the world. The sun blinded me.

And any loneliness doesn't matter, because memory lives inside me.

I want a white ink tattoo.





Every life lesson I learn I carve into my skin.

I didn't register to vote this year. I know, I know. New York is a Democratic state anyway, and if I'd voted, I would have voted Democrat, so that is how I've justified my laziness to myself.

I can't believe four years have passed. I remember the election in 2004 like it was yesterday. I voted at an elementary school in a slightly sketchy part of New Brunswick. It was the day before I chopped off all my long hair and got the bob I hated for three months afterward. It was still kind of seasonal out and I wore my boyfriend's sweater. While the polls were coming in, I sat in the living room of my on-campus apartment and watched in horror while working on a group project for my stupid class about ethics in science. I was still fumbling around in the dark, but I knew change was coming.

I wonder what change is coming now.

I am waitin' 'til I don't know when
'Cause I'm sure it's gonna happen then
Time keeps creepin' through the neighborhood
Killing old folks, wakin' up babies
Just like we knew it would

All the neighbors are startin' up a fire
Burning all the old folks, the witches, and the liars
My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids
But my heart keeps watchin'
Through the skin of my eyelids

They say a watched pot won't ever boil
Well, I closed my eyes and nothin' changed
Just some water getting hotter in the flames

It's not a lover I want no more
And it's not heaven I'm pining for
But there's some spirit I used to know
That's been drowned out by the radio

They say a watched pot won't ever boil
You can't raise a baby on motor oil
Just like a seed down in the soil
You gotta give it time

- The Arcade Fire

And when I fell the wind
scattered stars at my feet, swept forth like dust
on the breath of a long-lost ghost
who plucked at my pain and spun me melodies
of every color, every dream
woven hard like a quilt.
The years have marked themselves as deep lines
on the face and slight timbre in the voice;
they do not forgive us.

- 5/9/08

The height of my productivity, second to last day of work.



Taken with my camera phone, edited with FotoFlexer.com.

Do you glow in the evenings still,
you who laid your hands upon me like the wind
and swayed with the grass
in a tangled holy web, you who have forgotten, forsaken --
do you feel these strings?
Do you catch fireflies with your eyes and string words together
long into the night, do insects flock to your saccharin tongue?
Do you break like the water rippling over rocks?
And when the sun finally rises, do you burn?
(I still do.)

- 5/1/08

They whisper words into my ears
One speaks of truth and one speaks of my fears
My disabilities don't get in my way
I look to the future and live day to day

Three doors to go through
I only want the one that leads to you
They say there's three doors to go through
I only want the only that leads to you
Because only one leads to you

And who's to blame, I could assume
The loneliness of my white room
I saw the circles inside the squares
And yet it can be so hard to be aware

Three doors to go through
I only want the one that leads to you
They say there's three doors to go through
I only want the one that leads to you
Because only one leads to you

This is your only chance at immortality
I'll give you strength but I cannot give you the keys

Three doors to go through
I only want the one that leads to you
They say there's three doors to go through
I only want the one that leads to you
Because only one leads to you

- VAST

The artsy photo.



The straight shot.

Where are you?
I cannot feel your memory
but only a sad sense of relief, a sigh
like air escaping from a mattress.
Unknowing I have severed the line to you
and flung you overboard like an anchor
to be forgotten and buried in the sea.
It is a fitting death for your ghost
who lingered in every speckled eye.
The dream is over.
I will reclaim the card that is mine
and burn you away until I am pure.
Three years ago I was clay in your hands,
but I am stone now and there is
no more blood on our sheets.
I left you behind a thousand times
and treaded back like a dog.
Now I own my own heart again,
and I have no master but love.

- 3/17/08

moon-eyed adj.

1. Having the eyes wide-open, as in infatuation, wonder, or grief.
2. Able to see well at night.
3. Moonblind.
4. A state of euphoric intoxication with a person and/or substance, usually characterized by large dilated pupils.*

*Personal addition.

This was bound to come out at some point or another.

I crawled out from the pain of yesterday
I crawled to you and
I said all the things that you said to say
Have I said enough

Do you like it, yeah
Do you like it, yeah

I know why you're playin' these dirty games
They're killing me and
I know how you love to watch me beg
Well here I am

Do you like it, yeah
Do you like it, yeah
Do you like it, yeah

I don't wanna be a puppet for you
Don't wanna bite the hand that's feeding
I don't wanna be a sucker for you, oh yes you
I hate myself for begging
I hate myself for staying
I hate myself for listening to
You

It's too little too late
Well I can't escape
So beggin' you please
I changed all the things that you told me to change
I'm on my knees

Do you like it, yeah
Do you like it, yeah
Do you like it, yeah

I don't wanna be a puppet for you
Don't wanna bite the hand that's feeding
I don't wanna be a sucker for you, ah yes you
I hate myself for begging
I hate myself for staying
I hate myself for listening to you

I just wanna get out
Stuck inside of this
Waiting for something else
Waiting to exist
Can you offer me help
Help from what I missed

Do you like it, yeah
Do you like it, yeah
Do you like it, yeah

I don't wanna be a puppet for you
Don't wanna bite the hand that's feeding
I don't wanna be a sucker for you, ah yes you
I hate myself for begging
I hate myself for staying
I hate myself for listening to you

- Our Lady Peace

This song evokes one clear memory: May 2005 and the day we spent indoors, in your little basement room with the walls of white painted concrete. We had been on the phone all night, and I jumped in my car and went to you. I would have driven twelve hours to see you without question. You filled me with light the way stained glass is illuminated by the sun. That spring I glowed with every color, and that day I memorized every glorious detail of your long, tan frame. You were like the ocean washing over me. In you I lost every sense of time and self and surrendered to eternity, recognizing I was yours even before I met you.

You are gone now, and all I have are memories and feelings like phantom limbs that act up from time to time. That's fine. Love in all its various incarnations will always find me. But at this moment in time, with someone who has definitely struck a nerve I haven't felt since you, I find myself craving the wild abandon you inspired. I want so desperately for another soul to open my heart. God knows the potential is there... the only question is, will anyone ever recover the key you swallowed?

(Yeah, I know. Jess, get over it.)

A little reminder,
this band that encircles my wrist,
of the words that sit at the tip of my tongue like breath waiting,
of the heat that emanates from your body as you sleep,
of the moments you touch me as the sun is rising,
beckoning me to bed with needles as soft as kisses.
Oh love, your visage is pure --
a flash of silver and eyes, that wry smile as you lean in --
a hundred meteor showers wouldn't do it justice.
I long to be recompleted; make me a maze, make me a woman,
make me yours over and over
with the sky a violet blossom
and every part of me picked clean on your sheets.
Let me shed every fickle scar and I'll throw down my swords.
Let me be born once more
and I'll redefine every dream you ever had,
living for the night and my mother the moon
who will never burn your wings.
Together we will rewrite myths
with Daedalus's son not falling but flying upward
and scattering into a thousand stars.

- 3/6/08

"I haven't met anyone who's made me happy like you in a really long time," he says.

I look at him but his eyes are elsewhere, and I look away too. "Are you just saying that to make me feel better?" I mumble without thinking.

"What?"

I sigh, wishing I had kept my mouth shut, and respond slowly. "I said, 'Are you just saying that to make me feel better?'"

"Better? Better than what?"

Laughter comes that is my own but sounds strange and foreign in my throat. "I... don't know."

-------------------------------------------------------------

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
- Pablo Neruda