If you're still free, start running away

Life for two.
Two plates, two servings. Two loads of laundry, two dryer sheets.
Two pillows for two heavy minds on one bed in the middle of one room in one house
underneath a solitary, shining streetlamp.

I never really played house when I was a child. Partially because playing house by myself proved itself to be too difficult for my lonely, only child imagination. Now, at 21, I find myself playing house almost everyday. In this life the food is edible and eaten from dishes not made of plastic. Appliances are plugged into walls surging with electricity provided by hungry pocketbooks. In this life there are consequences for being right and for being wrong about things that are no longer pretend. In this life time exists beyond the confines of recess.

The bruised sky obliged a disheveled flock of birds squawking boundlessly at the thought of escape. Feeling despondent within the barely noticeable breeze, I reconfirmed that I have settled for what I have been given. I’ve lost the will to fight for more. Not out of depression or sadness (both of which are usually responsible for such indifference.) This stems from pure contentment. This stems from feeling safe. Instead of letting myself remain immobilized by comfort, I know that I should trek forward in search of that place where happiness grows in grandiose amounts, so that I can ensure that these feelings will be a part of me for a while longer.

I shouldn’t say anything. Listening to commentary from people who are untouched and uninvolved is unhealthy. It’s puzzling to know that people only want the best for me; it’s what I want, too. The pieces don’t fit because what’s best to them and what’s best to me are not the same. It’s not a matter of who’s right. It’s a matter of what’s right for me within the paradox of “us” within the microcosm of life, love and trial and error.

It was bound to come to an end. I have been replaced by December.
And sooner than I would like, I will be at the bottom of some pile, somewhere.
At least I was at the top once. At least I’ll be able to look back.

Duct taping my window shut, he avoided eye contact.
I stood by, a bag of clothes in tow, admiring this seemingly inconsequential act.
"I wish you would come back home." His eyes were tired and damp.
"I...I wish I could, but I can't. I've been home before."
"It's just...I miss you so much. You're my world."
"I miss you, too. You know how much I love you, right?"
"I love you, more than anything."
We hugged. I drove away.
This isn't a choice that I've made, it is a choice I've been given,
thanks to my necessary and exhausting evolution.
Part of me wants to reclaim my territory
but if I were to stay I know that I would never go.
And I just know that I couldn't live with myself if I
knowingly locked my own cage.

The last Thursday of every November has always been the same.
I don’t have a significant memory from any of these Thursdays from my past.
Needless to say, approaching the holidays this time around is going to be different.
Because this time, I am different. The list of things I am thankful for reads too long
and if written on a scroll, it would surely wrap around the circumference
of the universe more than once. Within a years time, my life has become a
cornucopia full of all those things you wish for and never expect to receive.
Of course I am cursed with minor infractions of perfection,
all of which I am learning to paint as blessings.

There has been a lot of conversation swirling around infinity.
More specifically the permanence of all that is infinite
embedded on our skin.
This is a scary commitment.
I've seen the marks of others left upon familiar skin
only to become a faithful flood of all those things
you do your best to forget.
I'm not giving out expiration dates.
As far as I can see, there's no end in sight.
I just chose to tread carefully
because I know that if the end comes
I won't find a love like this.
People lie. People cheat. People manipulate.
I won't recover...
even if infinity says otherwise.

(photo by: christianog.com)

“I never promised you a rose garden”

“You weren’t listening. I was talking.
And then I traced your fingers and said ‘gobble, gobble."

We went without jackets and we moved forward without intent. Squeezing through fences, tossing handfuls of autumns leftovers above our heads, posing as flesh colored statues. The crimson ivy climbing its way up the library walls housed flocks of playful sparrows, darting in and out of tangled vines and occasionally hiding behind the leaves. Eyes behind the lens, face to the sun; We were chained to ourselves and sheltered from what the day was supposed to be.

I don’t mean to. Paradoxically, I do it almost entirely on purpose. Often times I speak cinematically. It’s as though I collect and unknowingly rehearse lines in my head, all of which are organically grown from my seeds of thought. I then take these impulsively crafted lines and use them in such a way that unsuspecting strangers and non strangers alike would assume that a film crew were near by, recording my every breath. Most of the time I simply enjoy the way certain things sound when said in a certain way. There is no script.

I don’t know my place. Sometimes my words precede my sense of rationality and the sounds of “we” and “our” evade my mouth. But, to my defense, it’s very misleading to hear the same sounds from a different voice only to reiterate that I, in fact, do not live there. People express confusion when told of my current living situation. They usually all ask the same questions with the same baffled look on their face. I am constantly running back and forth between two houses both of which I am incapable of calling home. No matter where it is I chose to sleep, or where my belongings currently reside, I feel like an intruder. Everything I know has great potential to become impermenant. Perhaps it isn’t a matter of having a place to call home as much as it is to feel at home. I am thankful, however, that I have several beds that are forever inviting my dreams to rest.

A beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, teetering on sturdy heels, I tossed my head back to release a plum of smoke. That’s when I caught them. A group of girls all of which I could only remember first names and whether or not we shared a class together in high school. They stared. They pointed. They tossed their heads back out of mockery to let out muted laughs; the music was too loud. An oversized branch of girls extending from the gossiping tree of origin, walked past, spitting my name far enough for me to hear it. And in an instant I resorted to my high school defenses. I cowered. And then I entered phase two (which I attribute to my alcohol use); I began to huddle amongst those I could trust and I shot disapproving glances in every direction, curse words flying. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that perhaps I overreacted. It took me a cigarette and a quiet, solitary moment for me to feel sorry for those girls; Those girls who managed to have some sort of power over me in school and who will be 35 years old, going to the same bars, dressing the same way, drinking the same beer with the same crowd. I smiled at the thought of this because I don’t even have to try to avoid becoming them. Becoming them isn’t in this plan.

The weather was unusually beautiful for November and in this rare moment of seasonal sunshine and warmth, I found myself feeling completely unbarred and free. Steering the wheel with my legs, I drove over a cement hill, eyes closed. Spreading my arms, the autumn breeze lifted me to a place where all of the mismatched, mislaid pieces fit together. This may be considered unsafe verging on reckless but it was in some way life affirming. Half way through my decent, I peeled my eyes half open. But only because I wanted to see if I was going to survive this glimpse of clarity. To my surprise and delight, I did. My hands returned to their respective places upon the wheel and I regained control of the road before me. My newly found freedom has given me the strength to take on anything and everything, because I know that I have the control to do whatever I please. Overwhelming? Yes, it may appear to be so. Nevertheless, I much rather be overwhelmed with possibility that to be riddled with oppression.

We are innocently wired this way, but we are far from alone. It’s the instant where things show great promise of working out and going well that we habitually throw our progress to the wind, leaving us without words, without reason. It’s in my easily threatened nature to remain tight mouthed and walk away than to confront our wrongdoings and our missteps. If I don’t find a way to rewrite this character flaw, I might be granted my unconscious, unwanted wish. The life that has been treating me so preciously over the past few months could easily be taken from me. We would be foolish to not want to work towards patching holes and opening our mouths so that only the real truth can come out, all of the time.

It isn’t that I’m not listening, I simply can’t hear you. I strain my ears to meet your voice but no matter the volume, I only hear muted whispers. Sometimes I forfeit and I say what I’m expected to say depending on your facial expressions and body language. This is valid for everyone I verbally encounter. I’m frustrated by my own disregard. I now appreciate the quiet side of life.

Here I am, writing. Headphones muffing my ears providing a soundtrack to the poorly fused sentences in my head, rocking back and forth, side to side. I am, right now, a composer. Notes are evolving into scales and scales are developing into sentences and sentences are developing into paragraphs. This may not be music and I may not be a musician, but this fluidity of thought pressing itself against the tips of my fingers, spilling onto notebook pages and computer screens is the only time that I feel as though I am a creator. Very rarely do I feel worthy of having something to say and even less often do I feel as though I have the right words to speak with. Every once and a while it is crucial to remove yourself from your little white room; the one up the stairs, with two windows. Every once and a while the only push you need are the unassuming words of a stranger, convincing you that today, this day, is a beautiful one. That’s all it took, for me anyway. How can you be expected to inspired enough to create something from nothing when you can’t see the music?

I am confident that I want nothing more than to be in love forever.

"I never promised you a rose garden. I never promised you perfect justice . . .

and I never promised you peace of happiness. My help is so that you can

be free to fight for all of those things. The only reality I offer is challenge,

and being well is being free to accept it or not at whatever level you are capable.

I never promise lies, and the rose-garden world of perfection is a lie . . . and a bore, too!"
-Joanne Greenberg From “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”

photo by christianog.com

The time changed

and the clocks hesitated.

You fell from a secret

and I whispered in the dark.

These thoughts belong to Wednesday.

A moment I had been waiting for; shrouded in rain and disbelief. The magazine shelves extended for what seemed to be miles, upon miles against the west end of the bookstore. My heels scraping against the floor, I paced slowly, scanning every glossy cover. Titles and painted faces swirling about, I eventually captured a glimpse of what I had been anticipating for two solid months. Holding it in my hands, my knees began to shake which made standing nearly impossible. So I sat. I turned each page as if they were made of some material that would dissolve if I didn’t handle them with care. Sooner than I expected, she appeared. Seven pages of someone I don’t fully recognize. After processing every element of the page, I ran my finger over her. I looked unlike anyone I had ever seen before. As discomforting as it may seem to see yourself in a new way, there is something to be said for feeling the way I did.

Contrary to what one might think, it’s relatively difficult to breathe inside a greenhouse. The air reflecting back and forth from paw print covered panes was stifling and at times, oppressing. Regardless of my struggle to breathe smooth and effortless breaths, I felt completely new as I marched the aisles of green, dodging branches and leaves, chasing the tail of a cat through potted plants.

As you get older, wedding dresses evolve into an emotional trigger. A team of people lifted the bottom of the gown from the ground as she sauntered within the confines of flashbulbs and the sunlight that fell through the glass ceiling. This was all pretend, but her smile was much too convincing. In a moment of weakness (of which there were many) I managed to slip a $75,000 ring on my left hand. I held my hand in front of me as I imagine many girls with wedding rings must hold their hand. To ease the jealousy that flooded my mind, I wandered off in search of the cat, who I often found curled inside a flower pot.

It was more than just quitting. I’ve given up on many things, without thought or care. This was bigger than my default gesture of throwing my hands in the air, shrugging my shoulders, sighing a regretful “Oh well.” He pushed me to move on, which is exactly what I did. Over a year of my life, clocking in, clocking out, hanging on a thread of hope that things would change. I would have stayed there forever if it weren’t for him. I would have continued to make excuses. I realize that it is, for the most part, natural to dislike your job. And I realize that I have no warrant to complain. But there comes a time where you have to accept your self worth and do everything in your power to find what it is you deserve. This isn’t to say that I am in any way worthy of anything more than this, but I now know that I am worth far beyond $7.83 an hour. Once I leave I don’t think I’ll go back.

Three months is merely a speck of dust. Yet, if you’ve learned to open your eyes, that same speck of dust can become an entire glistening universe upon entering the right moment; the right sliver of light. Within this dust we’ve created a life. A life where things don’t go as planned; where things aren’t always what they seem. But at the end of the day, in our secluded, dust filled universe, this life has meaning. I feel whole. That’s love, I think.

The record player is spinning some discarded record downstairs, someone is whistling, another someone is drawing muscles and bones at the kitchen table. And here I am, sprawled across an unmade bed, writing, eagerly waiting for another someone to climb the stairs only to fall somewhere into my arms. To most, this may seem mundane. But to me, in this moment, it is exactly where I want to be.

Purple flowers are something to behold.

Teenage school girls, in plaid skirts and white button up shirts are much too distracting so early in the morning.

These thoughts belong to Thursday.

Waking up before the sun, arriving home after dark, retaining enough energy to
desire nothing more than sleep is not only exhausting but slightly disappointing.

The things you think will make things easier often only complicates things more.
By sacrificing your happiness to avoid inconveniencing someone you love, paradoxically inconveniences the relationship because one of you is unhappy, while the other one is frustrated by your martyrdom.
This is just something I’ve learned to recognize in hopes of fixing this repetitive habit .


These thoughts belong to Friday.

It’s best to end a week full of troubled and confounded feelings with a bloody Mary.
It’ is truly the only way to forget everything and start over.

Exhaustion has become enjoyable.

I forgot to enjoy the fall.

These thoughts belong to Saturday.

It was nice to be back, even if it was only temporary.
I was laughing again. Making ridiculous jokes, smiling and singing.
I don’t know where I went or why I left but it’s exciting to feel like the best version of myself again.

Mauling a forgotten teddy bear, trimming and pinning ears, piles of white stuffing on the floor,
pipe cleaner whiskers;He became a wolf.
Fake eyelashes, dirt colored blush, a red coat turned cape; I became a story book character.

Alcohol makes people needy.
People who are unable to drink become passive aggressive.

Sitting on the steps, face to face, he was drunk.
Confessing all the things I've wanted to hear
since I was old enough to know that love was
of the magical variety. His words, almost song like in nature,
were certainly nice to hear. Whether or not they
helped reaffirm my feelings, I do not know or care
because really I knew it all along.


The wolf got sick; red took care of it.

I'm not sure what prompted me to cut all ties, but I did.
I have found mothers in so many people far more worthy of the title than she.
I find no value in the fact that she gave birth to me.
Giving birth doesn't make you a mother.
And being born doesn't mean you have a mother, either.


This thought belongs to today.

This was the first day that life was real.

"Me, I'm fresh on your pages
Secret thinker sometimes listening aloud.
Someone like you should not be allowed to start
any fires"

I don't remember making a wish. I doubt I even made the attempt to construct a wish silently in my head. Instead, I dug my face into the warmth of the flames and thought of how my life is almost all figured out, even though it's not. This isn't the world I imagined creating. But considering the aforesaid detail, gravity is pushing and pulling me, aligning the elements of my little, disconnected world in a dizzying array of change. Having said that, I have yet to figure out where it is I should go from here.

My key ring is one key heavier and my clothes have found a new set of dresser drawers. These measures were, of course, intended to make everything easier. I am just now beginning to realize that this has the potential to over complicate even the simplest of things. I'm living between two houses. I've become a gypsy, even though I long for some sort of permanence.

We were seated on the brim of a shopping mall fountain. I wanted to dream, he wanted reality. A car ride full of I'm sorry" and "I don't know." He pulled up to the house, dropping me off to gather my suitcase (a relic of my gypsy lifestyle.) My stomach fell and the urge to vomit was the only thing I could make sense of. I slammed the door and he drove off. I stood on the steps, new key in hand, watching tail lights disappear down the tree lined street. There was an instant where I believed that it was the end. We met an hour later on familiar ground and ate a forgiving lunch. This was just a taste of what would come a few days later...and a few days after that.

Lying alone in the old bed, in the new house, I found myself alone and restlessly unmotivated. Feeling this way has been a persistent visitor the past few weeks. No matter when I am able to fall asleep or when I wake up, my body insists that I need more rest. Be it the shift in the weather or the shifting tide within, I don't enjoy this feeling of fatigue. I reap no satisfaction from this uninvited lethargy. By the time he came home, I hadn't accomplished anything. Not a single typewritten sentence, not a centimeter of progress. I saw nothing wrong with this, seeing that my body's desire to move at a sloth like pace overruled my fading inspiration. And then it came. I remember every word that was said, but even more than that I remember sitting on the edge of the bed, holding my stomach, actively instructing my body to keep breathing. "There's no future for us." Never in my life could I compare that aching, ruinous sensation of disappointment to anything I've ever felt before. It's hard to recover from.

My personality is a hazard, or so I am convinced. When I was a child, while my parents were screaming obscenities, hitting one another, my defense mechanism was simple. I would duck into the safest corner, cover my ears with my hands and yell "I don't wanna hear it!" I would close my eyes as tight as I knew how, repeating those five words over and over, hoping desperately that when I opened my eyes it would be over; they they would respect my plea. But it never ended. My strategy never once worked, or promised to fix anything. This is where I am now. It was midnight. "I think you should leave." So, I left without leaving. I sat in my car for an hour, perhaps longer. I can't explain the disappointment of hearing a screen door open and shut, only to realize that the sound came from the neighbors front porch. I thought about sleeping in my car, but a friend convinced me not to. On the drive home my car stalled while going 85mph. I'm not sure how that pertains to the story, but I feel like it might have been a sign or something.

You can't define love. Or at least I find it to be unfair to try and simplify something so vast. Yes, this is an overused, overstressed literary cliche, but it's currently 2am on a Thursday morning and I don't much care about cliches. I don't know what it is, but I know that it is this. This feeling that, over the past four months, has made me laugh and brought me to my knees; confused me, comforted me, pushed me away and held me close. This indescribable notion of feeling completely safe within the embrace of only one person, is all I really know. The definition of love is almost entirely useless.

This happens to us sometimes.

It was a horrifying message. Her voice, shaking and breaking, told me of her loss. I arrived on her grandmothers doorstep an hour later, white lilies in tow. I held her as close as I knew how. Two days later I found myself in a black dress, a wad of damp tissue in my hand, kneeling beside her as visitors poured prayers over the casket. She took to the podium, her sister at her side. They did their best to speak, but tears prevailed. The room began to clear, leaving only immediate family in its wake. She was reduced to a childlike understanding of death as people began to clear away the flowers. " I don't want them to take him away. I just want him to wake up." I have a lot of words to describe an endless list of feelings, but no matter how deep I search I cannot begin to express what it is to watch someone you've spent your
entire life loving, suffer from such an immense loss. I wanted nothing more than to bring him back. I want to fix her.

If all is quiet, I can hear the trains as I go to sleep. Even if they are merely freight trains, I am, at my core, a romantic. As silly as it may seem, it is such a simple pleasure to hear the train noises just before I am about to dream. No matter where it is I went or where it is I want to go, I can rely on the train to take me there.

I'm older, now. I am different, now.
"It's getting better all the time"

"Once I wanted to be the greatest"

They pitched a series of crisp, white tents

in the center of where most of the caged animals call home.
We were untamed. We were without cages.
We were trusted by the ringleaders to put ourselves
on display for the cameras and for those who

dare enter our fearless tent.
Behind the stage we were place and displaced,
dressed and undressed,poked and prodded.
They painted my face in a spectrum of disguise,
eyes magnified, lips bursting with color.
People pulling, tugging and curling each

and every hair into a sculpted coif.
In the moments where I was free to roam the grounds,

I attempted to catch a glimpse of myself.

But in every shiny surface I passed,
I never once saw a reflection of someone I recognized.
It is a truly lonely feeling.

Before being pushed into the spotlight, we were instructed to place
one foot in front of the other, to hold our chins up and to move in
ways unnatural for most. We were, after all, freaks.

There was a moment, a fraction of a moment where I thought
to turn on my stilts and run. There was so much room for error
and vast room for judgment. Both of which I have never properly
prepared myself for. But there is yet another fraction of a moment
following the aforementioned fraction of doubt where I felt
as though the world was at my feet, mouths aghast, eyes wide open.

A forceful voice harshly instructing me to go

and a gentle push are all I remember before entering the spotlight.
I was blinded and all that surrounded me became shrouded in shadow.
My mind turned off.

I had to remind myself that underneath the tightrope
there is always a net to brace the possibility of my fall.

Although I never lost my footing, there were countless

opportunities for me to slip into character, never to return to

the girl with the unpainted face, who walks without grace

and smiles without rehearsal.

Two days of playing a role; It's easy to forget who you are.

I tried. I really, truly tried to sleep soundly.
After waking up in a room that has quickly become
unfamiliar, with feelings that have since grown distant
I came to realize that even though everything I own
is under the roof I've always known,

I trustfully consider a new place to be my home.

It is that space where I am embraced,
my head resting on the rise and fall of steady breathing
with one ear planted firmly over a restless beating heart
all while I am convinced by that singular voice
that I am beautiful; I am loved.

As my birthday quickly approaches,
I find myself no longer faced with the aching
dissatisfaction that usually comes with this
annual celebration. I am no longer burdened
with knowing that the holes within me remain unfilled.
Everything was a blur until now.
Everything I ever attempted to wish for upon
the flames of birthday candles, I now have.
And for that, I am not only thankful but
certain that everything is getting better all the time.

"We're not the same, dear, as we used to be.
The seasons have changed and so have we."

"You're not the same."
"What do you mean? I am exactly the same."
"No. No, you're not. You're completely different."
"How so?"
"I can't describe it, really. You're just a different person."
"A different person all together?"
"No, no. You still curtsy and you still swear like a sailor.
But everything else is different."
"I feel exactly the same."
"Do you?"
"Well, now I don't know."

Within the past 48 hours, summer has peacefully bowed out,

leaving a torrential storm of newly painted leaves and
the promise of an autumn breeze in her quiet path of departure.
This time was different.
I was sad to see her go; she left without waking me.
It was just before midnight.
The only sign of her stealthy exit
was a gray and humid kiss upon my cheek.
This time will be different.

He was on the phone, settled into the arms of an orange chair,
speaking of times and dates that have yet to reveal themselves.
Lying on my stomach, sprawled across his bed wearing only
my undergarments, I began to scrawl mismatched words,
molding them into aimless sentences.
We were separate; engaged within ourselves,
tending to the delicate nature of our separate lives.
We were unified in our comfort.
This is what it feels like to be whole.
This is what life could be like.
We are trying to change;
Digging through the premature rubble, almost nightly,
hoping to find the fragments of what
we were before things threatened to crumble.
That singular moment of wholeness
reconfirmed how it is I want to feel.

Just recently have I become aware of
how little I should trust people.
I am blatantly disobeying the way I've
always known by biting my tongue and holding back.
To be quite honest, I've become rather smug.
Saying nice things with a smirk and a contrived glint in my eye.
In my quest in trying with all my might
to avoid becoming like them, the best parts of myself
seem to melt away, leaving only the ugliest parts of human nature.
This, of course, is a harsh assessment of my current
character, but it in no way desensitizes my fear
in replicating anyone but myself.

I am thoroughly convinced that everything we have (or don't have),

everyone we know (or have yet to meet) and everything we are
(or will become), can be attributed to a solitary, inconsequential
ten minute moment. And, of course, each moment can be traced
back to another moment, so much so that I will gladly argue
that we can all go back to the very beginning, if we so chose.
I am currently engulfed in dark, silence bounding through my mind,
turning the pages, eagerly searching for where this moment began.

Summer had just bloomed, exploiting every color in bursts of sunshine. I sat perched on a lawn chair, a blushing technicolor drink in one hand, the other holding a pink parasol over my head, my legs crossed and glistening from a fresh coat of sunscreen; it was during this rare moment of self assurance that he sat next to me.

That's how this moment was born.




(photo by: christianog.com)

"The longer you think,
the less you know what
to do"

It's such a horrible way to be faced with a realization,
but it seems to be relatively standard when it comes to love.
It isn't until you're threatened with losing someone,
that you can properly understand how much you love them.

I responded to each "Why?" with "I don't know",
digging my face so far into my palms that my self induced
darkness has become a comfort.
He stormed off, I grabbed my keys.
I prefaced these actions by confessing my tendency
to wave my white flag without reason.
Our distance grew and grew
until the space became immeasurable
and our silence allowed us to start again.

I am lucky enough to have pinpointed this very moment
and I now know what I want to keep.


We both wore black tights. We were the only ones.
Even from across the room, I could see that each of our
breaths were labored and our chests
rose and fell in a synchronous pattern.
We were momentarily unified by all the things we did not know.
Her voice was more delicate and sincere than I had imagined it to be;
her posture and demeanor, however, were accurate depictions
of the fiction I had created.
This encounter fueled countless conversations
of doubt and insecurity. But he and I survived.
It seems like we are always escaping inevitability
by a frayed thread of misunderstanding.

Emergency rooms, despite their population,
can make you think about the things you
told yourself you would never think about.
Although I was not a patient, I convinced myself
that I was in fact dying. I have no real evidence
as to why this might be even close to truth.
I can't feel safe in a place where reflections don't exist.

My entire life my inadequacies have been adequate.
It is the most painful, yet loving feeling to be pushed
beyond what has always been expected of me
by someone who loves me more than I do.

While driving home at 4am, staggering under the posted speed limit, I hummed in a desperate attempt to stay awake. With equal desperation, I tried to leave an emotionally challenging 24 hours behind me, forcing it to fade into the ever growing dusk of a new day. While approaching a familiar intersection, I saw movement to my left. As I stopped the car and paused my humming, 3 deer darted through my headlights. They bounded with a dreamlike inelegance across a stretch of road usually bustling with traffic, now desolate, to an forgiving patch of land behind a strip mall. Even after they had left my field of vision, I couldn't bring myself to release my foot from the break. I couldn't help but see hidden parts of myself through this one, seemingly insignificant encounter. Certainly my fears could not measure up against those that must surely belong to the deer. But like my four legged refugees, I startle easily, overcoming each struggle with a swift dash far from its origin. I eventually trekked forward, rhythmic yawns replaced my out of tune humming, my eyes blurred with exhaustion and by some miracle, my car found the way home.

Down the street resides a tree that sets itself on fire long before the others.

Every year I rely on this tree to reintroduce me to
each color in the pallet of the harvest.
The leaves turn to flames and make their annual descent to the ground,
while all the other trees remain stubborn and green.
Once the tree strips itself naked, the other trees eventually fall suit.
I admire this tree and its willingness to set precedent for change.
Every day, while driving underneath this brave and fearless Oak,
I am tempted to shed my leaves, baring all that I have in hopes
that everything will fall into place. This, of course, is just a temptation;
One that I force to the back of my mind as I admire Autumns fallen embers.

Summer knows nothing of permanence.



(photo: christianog.com)