Wednesday

A Game of Chance

I gave it all I had and you took it.
My exposed nerves: presented, but without
Expectations. That was the hardest part.
Deep breath; inhale, release and lay out cards.

This moment was for me a small triumph;
The grand gesture of being who I am
And maintaining belief that I could live
Through one heartbeat and trust the next would come.

The cards fell where my instincts knew they would;
But I discovered that my mind had grown.
And clarity does not come from without,
But when I risk a step toward myself.

Sunday

a small wish

In the midst of a pleasant conversation, it occurred to me that
Things were devolving into a battle of wits.
As a proponent of disarmament, I became quiet.
Stopping to listen, I was not ashamed.
My aim is not to impress, or even to be remarkable.
It is simply to be.
And to allow you to be who you are
In my presence.

Andy


Everything seems crude in comparison to you.

You don't require pageantry

Or

Tasteless sprays of flowers.

No color is quite right

And in your jeans and t-shirt,

You make the rest of us look vulgar.

Language is suddenly insufficient

Compared to your quiet dignity,

And words take on new meaning

As I discover that I'd never payed much attention before now.

Not enough attention, perhaps.

Understated,

Confident and secure in your identity,

You were placid and reassuring.

Nothing is the same without you.

Thursday

Enough

Exhausted,

I made a choice to simply stop.

I was making things

Harder than they needed to be,

And it was

Time

to

Stop.

Now I just breathe in and

Listen.

I listen without thinking of

Anything

Except what is being said.

I exist

In the present moment and

Fully give

of

Myself.

Surprisingly,
this is not exhausting
at all.

It is enough, and

I am

Fulfilled.

Tuesday

The Camera Doesn't Lie

A picture from the past

So deceiving.

Smiling wide, no hint of doubt or confusion.

Looking back, there can be no regrets; she couldn't have known, and there was no warning.

Well, almost.

But to see this picture today

She smiles differently:

Smiles with perspective, with confidence gained in an interim

of hopelessness and uncertainty.

The picture today is much clearer.

Wednesday

Robin

My grief for you is twofold.
There is the part of me that lies awake at 4am
Unable to stop the thoughts that rush through my head.
Memories like unreliable narrators lead only to
that which is bleak.
Your life cut short.
So much energy, created only to be destroyed.
It was as if you simply burned out like a star:
too much, too quickly.
That kind of energy simply cannot last.
I see shadows of your face in the tree outside my window,
And I fear for your beautiful soul.
But then there is the sad smile
That quickly spreads over my face
When I remember how you laughed;
The sound of your voice, always with a smile buried somewhere in it.
That ninja suit you mail ordered when you were twelve,
Those stupid Hawaiian print shorts,
And your collection of Star Wars action figures.
Sometimes, we would drive around with the music up loud
Singing together,
And when I stopped paying attention, you would cut the volume off
So it would just be my voice.
It used to make me laugh. I still do;
But now I think you helped me to find my voice.
Watching you live with so much passion
Has inspired me to live more fully,
To be more like you. So full of life in my mind.
That is what I cannot reconcile.
Your name, your voice, everything about you
Is synonymous with life. Bursting at the
Seams,
Overflowing into more than I can hold.
When I lie awake at
4am
Thinking about how you lived more in 28 years than most people do in
80,
I am torn between grief and joy.
I wonder if you really existed,
Someone so kind,
Genuine and
Amazing.
I feel lucky to have known you
Even though it means lying awake at
4am.

Saturday

For W.S.

Standing on a bridge in Venice,
I was overcome with a sense of loneliness
And the belief that, without someone to share it with,
Beauty is meaningless torture.

Now, as I read the words on these pages,
Crafted by a mind so gifted, yet so alone,
I am reminded of this sensation.
Your life a solitary walk among
Falling leaves
And choirs of Seraphim;
An appreciation of mere air
Capable of making my heart stop.

It occurs to me that beauty often exists in solitude;
That it is, in fact, born from it.
But without the reader
To drop tears of shared wonder and appreciation on these pages,
That beauty still means nothing.
It would merely survive in a vacuum of nothingness
As if it never existed at all.

So I remain alone
On that bridge,
My chest bursting with awe and wonder,
Confined in utter impotence.

Sunday

the witness

Witnessing intimate moments
I am reminded that such small gestures feed the souls of humanity

Like so many wretched mouths
With palms upturned and eyes that plead
For a glimpse of what is in this seemingly stark room.

Washing your lover's back gently
As he lies, confined in sickness,
These four walls contain the only truth that matters
And my own heart is healed for having witnessed this.

Tuesday

the optimist

optimism is extremely disarming.
instead of choosing to worry and to seek negativity,
the optimist's path is more noble.

he sees hope where others see only shadows
and finds beauty all around him,
especially where others see none.

i connected with him when we both admitted that there should be no guilty pleasures:
if you like unicorns, you should wear a shirt with a unicorn on it, and hang unicorn posters
on your wall, and apologize to no one.

he tells me that i am beautiful because of my scars, not despite them.
and admonished me gently for covering my mouth when i smiled
because he loves my crooked teeth.

he loves what others label "faults"
because those are the qualities that make us who we are;
therefore, we should embrace them.

i even saw the optimist laugh when i thought there would be no more humor in his world.
he danced while baking cupcakes in his kitchen, causing the room to fill with light
and my own sadness transformed into laughter.

he believes that the only moment we have is right now
so we might as well say "i love you" to the people we love
and stop being so afraid.

the optimist wants us to reach out from our loneliness because
there is nothing to lose
except our isolation.

Saturday

Anxiety

I’ve never lived anywhere cool

Like Chicago,

New York,

Or a loft in San Francisco.

I wasn’t raised in Philly

Or brought up on the wrong side of the tracks in Detroit.

I’ve never been to Iceland,

Or Art School,

Or even to a decent rave.

I don’t knit my own scarves or crochet bikinis.

I don’t know how to solder,

Or construct corrugated cardboard coffee tables.


And when I flip through the pages of trendy magazines,

I feel anxious.

Apprehensive.

Less than adequate.


I wonder if I’ll ever live the kind of life I see in glossy print:

Urban Retro,

Shabby Chic,

Feminist Marxist.

If I could tolerate the bands they write about,

Or even find that cool hoodie

With the graphics of cassette tapes

In nineties-neon colors on a white background.


And this anxiety wells up inside me

When I think about how short life is,

And how I can never fill this void with

Super cute handmade monster sock toys,

Or kitschy stencils of birds and cherry blossoms.


Until I realize that I could bring back cool

In the form of Midwestern girls

Who are comfortable being themselves,

And wearing clothes they buy off racks,

And listening to bands people have actually heard of

And simply not giving a fuck.


Tuesday

the net

if i designed a love from my own list
of features i adore, and all the traits
that reel me in until i can't resist
you would have caught me with your shameless bait.

and i, proverbial fish caught on dry land,
left stunned by your combination of wit
and kindness, only flail under your hand
while you admire my queer scales and sit.

so here i writhe and twist under your spell
caught in this net between heaven and hell.

Sunday

compromised

there are no compromises with you.
i do not cringe at the sound of your laugh:
genuine, deep and throaty.
instead it makes my soul leap with pure joy.
the small creases around your eyes are
emblazoned on my memory
along with your perfectly straight smile.
i don't find find the belts you wear overtly bourgeois,
and your taste in music,
drinks,
and writing instruments
only endears you to me more.
and i realize that even if
this cannot last,
you have taught me that
people like you really do exist,
and that i need not compromise myself
anymore.

fiction for busy people

Without knowing it, she stepped out of her front door as herself for the very last time. Unchanged, unmoderated, unadulterated for the majority of her adult life, she could not return to the threshold of that reality again. Looking back on it now, the she - she was to become would have caught the nuance of a leaf falling from the sky onto her head at the exact moment her key turned in the lock of her car door, the only moment of the day she spent in utter silence. Before starting the car, she stared at a scrap of paper, an index card torn diagonally to replicate an inverted triangle, writing covering every millimeter of it with blue scrawl scribbled by a furious hand. Sighing, she turned the key, forcing the engine to obey her command and turn over.

In the near-silent hum of a white room, he arose to a calm and quiet mind. Bare walls reflected his resolve in all its grim starkness, and the room's transient air stood perfectly still. He stood gracefully, his feet planted solidly on the floor immediately upon waking, the world beneath him rotating around his feet with all the determination of refined subtlety; superior centrifugal force asserting itself in such a way that only someone quiet enough to hear it might feel his breath catch momentarily. Looking at the man through a window, a neighbor might have chuckled to witness the time when, each morning without fail, the man paced his flat with the onus of adulthood on his shoulders. He lived a quiet life, good and productive, but today would be different. He felt it in the air but could not quite identify it. Today he would wonder if the path he had carved out so carefully for himself really mattered much at all. A neat list positioned on the corner of the counter top reminded him of all the day would require of him and for a sharp, passing instant he felt the weight of it all; the endless patience and the simple calm he alone could bring into any room he entered, the decisions affecting those in his care made with a stoic, rational mind. Normally, he took pride in his responsibilities, gladly shouldering burdens too overwhelming for most with the peaceful assurance that he made a difference in this world. He stopped feeling this peacefulness briefly, though, and it was replaced with a sensation he would feel again when he first saw her: the serenity of his halcyon existence disrupted ever so gently, not altogether inharmonious or unpleasant, but enough to signal him that the solitude he treasured as precious could no longer fulfill him.

The rain fell then, soft and cool and carried by the summer wind so faintly that only someone who lived in the region long enough could detect it; the way the still, stagnant air began a slow movement so benign that only the faint smell of honeysuckle arose from a blanket of red-clay earth into an invisible wisp directly into the nostrils of passersby too consumed in their own lives to care much. That's the thing about small towns: despite a real sadness behind everyone's eyes, well-mannered people prefer to dwell within the guise of white cotton dresses and madras shorts endearing only to those with the specifically acquired taste and clutch their umbrellas in harried resentment through the unbearable weight of specifically southern summertime air as the rain slowly beats down harder, its force insistent. Years later, it was this insistence they both remembered most clearly.

The man and the woman had both felt this, each running through the rain into different doors on opposite sides of town, but neither had been too concerned with what such an insistent pounding could indicate. It was rhythmic, though - there was no denying that - and they were, in fact, the only two people in the town to notice it that summer morning; she, briefly disarmed by the rhythm's melodic thump-thump on her bare forehead, reminding her of a low rolling tympani or the soft, unsettling meter of a trochee, so much so that she was glad she had, once again, forgotten her umbrella; he, surprised by the laconic measure of the rhythm, its gentle thumping alluring precisely because he had never stopped to notice the sound of rain before. For the first time in his life he lowered his sensible, black umbrella and felt the soft rain on his face.

Eventually, she was confronted with silence at the most inopportune time. At her desk in the space she considered sacred, surrounded by the objects she loved, her music abruptly and inexplicably stopped. At first she didn’t notice; she continued writing, absorbed in thought and the indescribable joy of the motion of her hand flowing fluidly across the page, but when she paused for thought, the quietness was astonishing. Suddenly, she realized that for one very brief moment, her thoughts were completely still: no words ran through her mind, no rhythm tapped out from the back of her consciousness through her leg and down to her foot (which could generally be found drumming out a soft beat at any time of day)… no nothing. Initially, this was disquieting to her when she became aware of it; the small, silent space became sharply suffocating, the books on their neat shelves creating a wall around her, the page in front of her filled with carefully meted out words that honestly amounted to nothing. This absurd nothingness consumed her and she felt that sinking feeling again, the esthesia of water rushing around her as she gasped for oxygen that simply did not exist. She felt very small and very alone until she realized that for that fleeting moment, her mind had been absolutely blank. Bewildered, she immediately felt a weight lifting from her shoulders, a lightness she had never known. Her mind had been clear, silent; the sensation was ethereal, albeit brief, and for that instant there had been nothing but her and her nothingness which, for once, was not disconcerting. She would not know this sensation again until she saw him for the first time. Of course, her thoughts began spinning at once, messy synapses connecting at random to string seemingly unrelated thoughts together, and her moment of cerebral liberation passed more quickly than it had come.

He, on the other hand, had become quite adept at compartmentalizing things, and it was this skill he credited for surviving his humdrum daily routine. Recently, he had become aware that his existence was passionless; without something to really live for, his days blurred together into wake, work, home, repeat. Frustrated by this thought while driving home from work, he swiftly jerked the steering wheel and pulled his car into a parking spot in front of a small cafĂ© in an attempt to thwart the monotony of entering his own front door. Pausing only to flex his fingers and shake off the apprehension building within himself, he exited the car and walked toward the door of the building. It was then that she exited, her own fingers flexed around a stack of cold, white papers piled haphazardly at skewed angles that contrasted against her soft hands; it was these hands that initially caught him off guard, the way they wrapped around the preposterous pile of precariously perched papers with an awkward confidence, but in the quick moment it took for him to look from her hands up her arms and into her eyes, the morning’s sensation returned and he was taken completely aback both by her surprised look and by his own immediate need to reach out to her from his solitude. His breath stopped and his heart raced as his thoughts reached a crescendo, all white noise and scrambled static, his neatly arranged plans swimming through his skull like so much nonsense. She, startled by the encounter, merely broke into a wide smile and laughed nervously. The flood of hurried thoughts she had become accustomed to was silenced as she looked into his eyes and again that calm, weightless sensation permeated her every cell as she experienced the exhilaration of thinking nothing but feeling everything with absolute clarity. Without warning, one warm wind swept softly then, and the scent of honeysuckle filled the air as two blank pages fluttered slowly to the ground, landing at their feet while the couple stood facing each other, their small solitudes colliding in one harmonious moment.

Tuesday

the cynic

there really is no way of knowing now
if what you say is real, sincere or true,
but i will listen and abstain somehow
from judgment or concern for your virtue.

at times i think this game is more than we
can possibly conceive of or deny --
a mirror held up between he and she
content to fake a smile; doubt, cold and wry.

you sit across from me and try to draw
me in with wit and wisdom and your charm;
your timing flawless, practiced -- never raw
my guard prevents your attempts to disarm.

yet i participate because i must
for without this there's nothing left but trust

Monday

la lingua

drifting in and out of consciousness, i fight sleep and think about the wide, purple doorway you stood in, all black silhouette and lean arms. my breathing is regular, but my mind feels like static and white-noise, so i try to appease it by thinking of words i like: anaphora; synesthesia; incandescent; phosphorus. i am suddenly aware of my tongue, stubborn and flat in my mouth, and i imagine rolling the words around, sounds flowing like water from the space between the back of my teeth and the tip of my tongue, a stark contrast to the sheets now twisted around my feet and ankles. language makes the thoughts spill forth now, no longer restrained by the chore of clock-watching: the wanderer journeying across the sea in search of a lord; the melodic sound of arcane words escaping gracefully from your small, pink lips; soft, round hips wrapped in black fabric that hugs a world of cold shadows and hot, sweet sweat you've never revealed to anyone. and i wonder if people look at you and realize that what stands before them is energy in its purest form - potential that has culminated into a ravishing brilliance, a mind that lies unassuming behind your green eyes. your laugh crosses my mind and i smile, content to just relax and let sleep come, grateful that i have the privilege of knowing you.