"And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for"

"Life was different in my cage." said Little Yellow Bird.
"Life is still different." said Elephant.
"Yes, Elephant. But my heart feels as though it might burst"
said Little Yellow Bird.
"That's love, I think." said Elephant.
"What is love?" asked Little Yellow Bird.
"I'm not sure, exactly, Little Yellow Bird." Elephant said.
"But I think it might be everything."

In a few short hours this year will be a distant and pleasant memory.
In a few short hours, everything will be the same.

Looking back to the winding path that led me here,
I can finally say goodbye.
If I squint my eyes hard enough and focus long enough,
I can see blurred distortions of burdens and sadness,
with flecks of emotional martyrdom,
All of which are fading into yesterday.

Some people find God.
I didn’t find God.
You wouldn’t believe what I found, even if I told you.
What I found is beyond imagination and secrets.
I hid it deep underneath my bed, next to dust and old magazines.

I traveled alone and took off my clothes.
Slept in a strange bed.
Rode on subways to sidewalks until my feet gave way.
I flew to where everything claims to be bigger.
I drove to where the wind gave the city its name.
But even in places where people travel in herds it
was impossible to feel anything other than isolated.
I guess it started in New York.
I suppose I can attribute this life to that day in New York.

Heartbreak paid a visit and outstayed its welcome.
I had lost all value.
The weakness of my own heart confounded me and the
Carelessness of hearts belonging to others shattered me.
I wrote a love letter and fell into routine of endless cigarettes
And making lists of things I wanted to do but would never make an effort to.
It was at the peak of this cyclical, seemingly never ending pattern
of self loathing and deprecation that a promise was made to me.
We met by chance.

In the same way that a row of domino's can only fall if one falters,
that is how we came to be.
The inter connectivity of countless ostensibly
trivial occurrences somehow conceived this.
Had my domino's remained still,
who knows what might have happened.

After years and years of emulating that storybook duckling,
I, with great hesitance, shed my garish feathers for ones of white
As I found myself surrounded by flashbulbs.
It took a while, but I now can accept that
people see me differently than I see myself.
There are moments when we are unified
in our perceptions, but very rarely does that occur.
I know who I am, I know who I see. But I nod my head and say
“Thank you” like I am supposed to.
White feathers are harder to maintain.

I mended some patches, and burned a few holes.
Losing touch, gaining insight, growing up.

The little brick house under the sky where birds and
planes collide within reach is still there.
It’s still occupied by the people who
insist that the door is always open.
My room is undisturbed, although it
seems to be used to store spare chairs.
My visits never last more than an hour.
They point out what food is where and
what cupboards hide what dishes.
They say “Make yourself at home.”

I wake up everyday above an octopus.
I never wake up alone.
Morning beams and street lamp shadows fill the room.
Sometimes I can’t come to terms with the fact that others came before me.
The bed holds moments I will never know.
Memories I will never understand.
I am constantly reminded of how easy it is to be replaced.
It was just a t-shirt. But I’m just not there yet.
Regardless, that aforementioned promise stands true.
And within that promise, our love is constantly evolving.
We're happy.

Christmas trees, planted and sewn in perfect, linear rows.
Lovers calling out, darting in and out of branches.
Ice cream and cow kisses.
People singing in the street.
Drunken lucidity.
Driving away; driving away and burying deep.
Weighing the cost.

China.
Apparently I changed.
I let myself get taken away and I was reduced to childlike excitement.
We tried to move forward, but we can’t seem to escape it.
It was nice to think about. It was oddly comforting to feel like it was a possibility.
China’s red enough, anyway.
It’s for the best.

We walked blindly into a church somewhere far from home.
Wind blown and tattered, we found a scrap of salvation.
Little girls ringing bells, fire burning blue.
A disjointed version of Silent Night by a girl no older than seven
Accompanied me down the aisle while I imagined a candle lit life.
Hymnals, empty pews, illuminated idols, shadows belonging to storybook angels.
The roses were still in bloom.
I asked them why they were still alive
and how they managed to survive.
I’m still waiting for a reply.

The twelfth month was unlike any other of
my previous twelfth month experiences.
My family grew twice its normal size.
I was never alone, nor did I ever once feel alone.
I was able to give.
This year was silver, not green,
despite the newness of this abounding flood of warmth.

Some days don’t go as we plan.
Sometimes buildings are lost and the city is a tundra.
Sometimes we get turned around and miss our turns.
Sometimes we don’t want to leave the house
And sometimes we don’t want to go home.
We can’t foresee what will come tomorrow.
We can only foresee that the love we have will continue
To be our saving grace…even when things don’t go as planned.

At this moment, I am watching the sky turn from blue to gray,
snowflakes swirling about in disjointed dance.
I am warmed by all that I learned and all that I felt.
My heart has finally reached its capacity.
Overwhelmed with possibility, this is what I’ve waited for.

A few short hours ago, this year became a distant and pleasant memory.
One that will remain to be a dream; distant and pleasant.




photo by Dan Lippitt

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)

"Simple little beauty-
heaven in your breath.
The simplest of pleasures-
the world at it's best."

Sitting in the chair that refused to stay still,
I watched them gather around garment bags.
Unzipping each one with my eyes before they
could reach the zipper pull, I could see it all unravel;
it all came together. Their backs turned to me,
I thought it safe to let out an inaudible gasp,
and an accidental tear.

The thought of having my face and name in
glossy printed pages is something I could never
believe to be obtainable.

Flashbulbs and rose petals at my feet.
Roughly four months ago this all started.
There's no use in stopping now.

While at work, a girl I went to college with stopped to chat.
We exchanged the usual questions.
When asked about what it is I've been up to,
I told her that I've been working and modeling, etc,etc.

"But what happened to your dream of being a writer?"
"Oh, right. That."
"Did you change your mind?"
"No, no. Not at all. I'm just a little preoccupied, I guess."
"Oh."

After we said goodbye, I stood paralyzed.
Since I can remember I've told everyone that
I'm going to be a writer someday.
And here I am, making excuses, finding reasons
to put off the one thing I've always wanted.
I think after a minor adjustment of priorities,
writing and I will fall in love again.
Not to say I ever fell out of love,
I just need to reignite the flame, is all.

Not knowing what would happen
or what would resurface, I was scared
to accept the open line of communication
that was offered to me.
But I trusted myself.
I felt empowered by my ability to say no
and I felt awakened by realizing that
what I want and what I deserve are one in the same.
It turned out to be painful in ways I did not expect.
I anticipated doubt, but felt nothing but indifference.

A Mexican dinner. I avoided eye contact. It felt new again.
I shied away from the lens and he got angry.
I threw myself against the booth seat, confessing
my discomfort with the conversation at hand,
hiding from his suggestion; the one where the focus was separation
because there's something from keeping me from
letting him in.

I will never understand why I hide my face
or why I disappear time to time.
All I am adept to understand is that
I want to be free. No walls, no guards.
Free.

Each night it seems as though I say something wrong.
We turn our backs to one another. We go to bed alone.
In the middle of our uneasy sleep cycle, we mutely forgive
whatever caused us to grow distant.
I am awakened every night by dream
induced kisses upon my back.

All I am capable of doing is apologizing.
I feel safest when the words "I'm sorry" fall
from my mouth, usually breaking into a million pieces
upon impact. Each time, I silently pick up each
tiny, invisible shard and swallow them
so I can prepare to avert my
glance until the words decide to spill out again.

It astounds me that someone can call me beautiful
and tell me they love me every single day.
It astounds me even more so that I can say I love you
and it is reciprocated in every way imaginable.

If someone were to ask me what my favorite moment is,
I have prepared an honest answer.
It is when a glint or two of early morning sun cascades
through the space between the blinds; specks of dust
glimmering in dance, light weaving in and out of heavy
eyelashes, casting prismatic rainbows in my eyes.
Those moments, which are reoccurring, are the singular
moments where my world stops, holds its breath and
threatens to resume to a time where everything seems possible.

The house has temporarily returned to my preferred state
of unoccupied. I will walk room to room, pretending that each one
belongs to me. I will tend to the garden as if I planted each seed.
I will make the noise that will surely shake the frames from the walls.
It will be me who decides to let the sun in.



(photo: christianog.com)

"We're reeling through an endless fall.
We are the ever-living ghost of what once was.
No one is ever gonna
love you more than I do."

Involuntarily bound to this house surrounded by rain and uneasy thoughts,

I broke down. The rain is collecting and my heart is flooding.
If I don't start to swim, I fear everything I've ever known will quickly
become sunken treasure at the bottom of this impossible sea.

Hopeless on the freeway, hazard lights ablaze.
Smoke billowing from underneath the hood, neon fluids escaping,
creating pulsing, narrow, neon rivers beneath my feet.
The action of having to pull over while cars sped past me
best simplified and metaphorically summarized my life.
Something has to change. I can't keep flashing my lights
hoping for someone to help me. Something has to change.

Having come face to face with them before, I thought
I had finally built an immunity to being haunted by
likely and unexpected ghosts. But seeing that I've been in ill health
as of late, I am just as susceptible to old feelings as I was before.
My body just fights them in a new way.
We're happy for one another; the ghost and I.
We waltzed through a memory or two.
I filled in some long overdue gaps.
My "What if?" questions finally received answers.
I bit my virtual tongue as to avoid rehashing
what I've worked so hard to bury.
It doesn't matter, though.
I'm better now.
Ghosts come and go
but what I have is here to stay.

The drunken conversation I brought to the foreground
was one of sympathy and compassion.
We cried. I felt invasive, but I had to tell him
and I had to know all there was to know.
Rain hesitated while all my words preceded question marks;
his answers proceeding silent pauses.
I held my chest as if to take my heart from its resting place,
giving it to him without precaution.
Barelegged, I sat on my knees by his side, convincing him that it was okay.
How a girl so beautiful, yet so completely tragic;
how such a tragically beautiful girl can love and be loved
so entirely and yet never see the love in herself.
She did everything to suppress the light within her,
while only one saw it bright enough to let it shine.
I realized how lucky I am to have the same one in my life;
with the same willingness to make me see my own light,
even on impossible and dark Tuesday nights.
Although we were slightly inebriated, I felt like we learned from things
we thought we would never even discuss.

I am convinced that my body is incapable of properly processing pleasure.
It's much too accustomed to various forms of pain to
understand that pleasure is something I'm worthy of.

It's been one month.
Most would say that one month is merely a speck of time.
Although that is true, it has felt like a lifetime.
What the future holds for this one month old, I am not sure.
All I know is that we've come a long way.

He fell asleep between my legs.
Searching for my soul is a truly tiresome juncture.

I love breakfast.

"Oh, my talking bird
Though you know so few words
They're on infinite repeat
Like your brain can't keep up with your beak"

Flocks of planes intercepting the smoke trails they
carelessly left behind, interfering with the paths of the
black birds; playfully weaving in and out of
the mountainous sky. As I watched the slow,
intimate battle between steel, feathers and clouds,
all I could process was my hunger to fly amongst them.
I may not have wings, and I may not be designed to
brave the wind or the rain, but I promise you that I can fly.
And I promise that once I am given the chance, this cage
will be nothing but a mangled mess of wire, far, far behind me.

Sooner than I thought, I find myself in this empty house once again.
This time, less satisfying.
I am doing my best to interrupt the quiet with
screaming and singing, but somehow the quiet always wins.
I can hear it even now; over my attempts to be in tune and on key,
over the music I insist on making louder and louder, over the
interminable beating of my imprudent heart.
Usually a comfort, the noiseless space between these four walls
is quickly leaving me yearning for voices; ones that are willing
to guide me to where discord and content collide.

I've said these silly words to people less deserving.
No matter how much I open my mouth, no matter
how hard I try to expel these three, single syllable words
my throat closes up and my mouth sews itself shut.
I'm trying to defend myself. I'm not trying to protect myself.

As if money and I were not the finest of bedfellows prior to today,
I received a letter stating that I owe roughly $1,200 to
the state of Michigan. I'm not sure how I'm going to sweet talk
my way out of this mess. I'm always talking my way
out of the things I've done wrong.

I found a dead bee on the sidewalk.
I wonder what she did to deserve such an unforgiving death.
I've probably done worse and have been punished
with a lesser consequence.

When he tells me that everything is going to be okay,
I believe him. Not because he is particularly convincing,
but because he always tells the truth;
something I am rarely accustomed to hearing...
or feeling, for that matter.

While folding piles of mistreated, poorly constructed tshirts,
counting the minutes on my broken watches, black lines
from hangers lining my wrists, pop music pulsing in my ear,
children angrily tugging on the legs of their mothers,
I realized how unimportant most things are.
Life is so much bigger than this little world
I've regretfully created for myself.
I'm making it a goal to find the bigger things.
I want to feel it all.

My imaginary wings are growing weak.

"You shouldn't think what
you're feeling
They don't tell you what
you know you should want"

Once in a blue moon (or on certain occasions, a six pack of the former)
something happens, whether you're ready or not.
Stumbling through familiarity, tasting of cigarettes,
I said yes or some misinterpreted form thereof.
My twin bed, once accustomed to a solitary occupant, held two;
squeaking with each shift and each swift, inelegant movement.

I'm not sure it was supposed to happen this way.
A damp bedroom, the only sound filling the air was
the incessant crying of my disgruntled cat.
Before I could bite my tongue, it happened.
And what I had held on to for so long flew out of my open window,
which provided very little relief to the unbearable heat.

It followed a day of on and off conversations about painful,
yet good intentions;unrealistic decisions. I was forced to
revisit romantic defeatism.Flashbacks and flash forwards
threatened to erase the moments where I remember being happy.
Part of me wanted to walk away and forget the whole thing.
But instead, I apologized for something that was
most likely no fault of mine and came to terms with the fact
that perhaps they've been right all along.
After hearing those words fall so carelessly
and so rehearsed from his mouth my heart raced at a panicked pace.
It seems as though I'm always the one forced to patch up holes
and mend the patches.
My heart returned to
normal; we returned to us.

The remaining evidence of my charm is a temporary,
milky white stain on my unwashed sheets.
People are looking at me differently
and I fear some people will think me to be a different person all together.
I'm no different, but I'm certainly not the same.

I have to find the energy to wash this long overdue
transgression from my body.
It doesn't matter much.
There's no closing Pandora's box.
There's no going back.

I purchased two used, malfunctioning watches,
both without batteries.
I have no intention of making them tell time,
but I'll wear them anyway.
If anyone should ask for the time,
I will simply tell them that it's infinite
and that there's no going back.

My quiet little house will soon be washed away with sound.
A different set of keys will soon hang from the door;
footsteps other than mine ascending and descending.
I can no longer pretend it belongs to me; the quiet or the house.

"Don't question why she
needs to be so free.
She'll tell you its the
only way to be"

Escaping the clutches of strip malls and deafening black and white noise,
we found a patch of earth to call our own.
Following 37 to 69. Breakfast in heaping amounts.
A little green tent and stubborn, unforgiving fires.
We traveled up river in a silly, little boat;
the sun swallowing the current.
The bottoms of my feet, blackened with dirt.
Mysterious bruises gracing every inch.
Lying on the edge/laying on the edge, underneath
the endless sky of burning dust, making choices without reason.
Shedding my clothes by the sea, running and jumping
spreading my arms like makeshift wings.

I had forgotten how many stars are in the sky.
I was lucky enough to see them all. I lost count.

It hit me while sitting Indian style on a basement floor,
listening to folk music, tapping my fingers steadily on a beer can,
clicking the shutter and shaking the lens.
Nestled into my human back rest, I thought to myself,
"I could be happy here."

There we were, reciting those three words in character.
But I had no idea I would be saying them off stage, when the curtain fell.
I'm not ready to say them or hear them, but I'm feeling them.
It's a tough distinction to make.

The morning after will never be as much fun again.
Jumping on the bed, clothes and blankets strewn upon the floor,
inquisitive stares and shielded eyes.
"You two are perfect for each other" she said.
And in that moment, topless, Pat Benatar playing in the foreground,
he with a yo-yo in one hand, a beer in the other, I had to agree.

Within the past few days some of the worst possible things one person

can say to another person have been said to me.
Within the past few days some of the most loving things one person
can say to another person have been said to me.
I am completely raw. I am completely guarded.
Who am I to believe?

Seeing my face and my body plastered in newspaper print, scattered about
the town is truly a surreal feeling. And I realize calling something surreal
is often times considered cliche, but it's the only word that can skim the surface
of how it makes me feel. The fact the so many people are proud
of me and support me is truly overwhelming.
I don't see how I am in any way deserving of such love.

The thing I hate the most is all I have to offer. Or so it seems.
It scares me to think that once people look past
my porcelain shell, they will be devastated to find nothing but emptiness.

I wonder what people thought of it.
I wonder if people I knew back then,
saw it and thought about how they used to know me.
I wonder if they wish they still knew me.
I miss everyone that vanished.

I wrote some letters.
When a conflict arises, my spoken words often fail me,
usually because of my relentless and biting tongue.
So, I write a letter. I feel safe within the lined margins.
She needs time.
I told her I will do anything to repair the damage I have done.
I don't think she'll let me back in. But I won't let her give up on me.

Synchronicity is my most recent fascination.
The world isn't nearly as big as I thought.
The more people I meet, the more people I realize I've always known.

I've come to realize, despite my past and my present problems, that I may
easily be one of the luckiest people ever to live. I say this only because
I am completely undeserving of the things I have and the people that love me.
But at least I understand that I've done nothing to deserve this life.
I promise that I am going to put forth exhausting efforts to earn this happiness.
I want to work for it. I want to fight against what I've come to expect.
I need this struggle, or I will surely disappear.

For the first time in months, I am completely alone.
The house is still, with no promise of visitors.
The sound of the fan whirring, cats claws tapping against wood floor
and the delicate noises of my empty stomach
are orchestrating a symphony of restless distress.
This life is a stranger.

"All's quiet as she takes her aim.
But the weapons have changed"

A dead dear. A dead deer. A misguided branch. A neglected notebook.
Sore throats.Panic attacks. Sun kissed kisses. Mean spirited jokes.
Coming and going. Soft spoken doubts.

I'm slowly becoming more extremist in my disapproval of most things. I've been silently ranting to myself about obese children and abused farm animals and starving nations and outsourcing employment and prideful gluttony and exploited headlines and over commercialism and pointless consumerism. I am in no way saying I am not guilty of committing the very offenses I have decided to revolt against. But I'm starting to see the wrong in the world and no longer want to be a part of it.

Having been actively avoiding that restaurant for months, I was finally forced to face the three way door and the familiar patch of leather bench. After making a stealthy exit, I stopped for a moment. I stood with eyes closed and labored breath. I briefly revisited that day which eventually led to a downward spiral of self-doubt and confusion. I tried to feel something other than relief, but could not. Without giving it too much thought I skipped away like a child, eagerly anticipating the open arms of the one I have yet to scare away.

I received yellow flowers.
This prevented me from choosing what would surly
be an emotionally self-destructive evening.
I opted against the possibility of being faced with an impossible feeling.

In regards the the previously mentioned yellow flowers,
I still can't believe they are mine.
I've been given flowers twice that I can remember. Perhaps three times.
Once by my parents to congratulate my success in my ballet recital.
And once by my Grandmother for braving a terrifying surgery.
Pulled out from behind his back,
I thought about crying, but decided against it.
Instead I stained my nose and cheeks with pollen.

My hate for wearing shoes is growing
and my love of being barefoot is overwhelming.

I'm under a thousand microscopes.
Each magnification a prettier distortion of the last.
Please, don't pull away. There won't be anything beautiful left to see.

My expectations for happiness are no longer tangible.

While trapped in traffic, I realized that I was at a complete stop beside an exit I once thought I would grow to love. One that I thought my car would drive to without me telling it to. I hesitated. I hate that I hesitated. I don't want to be that type of person. I blame the heat and my overall frustration with life in general for allowing my mind to wander and exit. Right, left, left. Despite my ill fated attempts, I still remember the way. I praise the heavens everyday that my car fights temptation and instead directs me to where I feel safe. Where I am safe, I should say.

I am a firm believer in second chances
and find myself thankful for those given to me.

A psychiatrist approached me while on my cigarette break and gave me his card. He was half hitting on me, half concerned for my well being. According to him, I looked like a girl with problems.
I can't say I blame him for thinking that.
He's right, for the most part.

"I'd offer my soul
if I thought it might help at all.
and I'd follow you down that road
If I thought it might help at all"

I always expel a gasp of pain before I get hurt.
And I'll make a barely audible noise even
if the pain was not that great.
I'm always getting hurt, or so it seems.
Bruises and cuts, scrapes and dings.
My body is tarnished with lavish displays of accidents.

I pricked my finger. Blood surfaced. She brought to me a band aid and peroxide. With tenderness and sincerity, she gently dabbed my finger with a cotton ball. The next day, she made food for me. She's always telling me to take care of myself. She's always reminding me to breathe, a seemingly easy and natural task to most, but for someone like me, it's detrimental to have constant and loving reminders. Most of the time I feel unworthy of her, but she knows that I would give her the world if I were capable of doing so.

My bed has become a perfect place to store
the things I no longer have the time to sort through.
My car seems to know only one destination.

Their support is waning and their doubts
are growing at an exponential rate.
I can't prove to them that my
choices are in fact good ones, but
I can't be bothered with what
people want me to be.

It seems to make most people happy.
But I'm afraid I'm just not wired that way.

There is a slight chance
that there will be room for error.
It has very little to do with loyalty or faithfulness,
but the truth of the matter is keeping
my head and my heart in sync
is something I've never been able to do.
But I'm learning.

I can't wait until the bridge is rebuilt.

I went back to save the bird but it was too late.

I am the richest kind of poor.

"We once belonged to a bird
We cast a shadow on this world"

In addition to my poorly constructed inner clock I mentioned previously, I have come to learn and accept that I was born with an inaccurate inner compass rose. Even when I am following the most intricate and seemingly exact directions I always manage to take a wrong turn. And instead of realizing my mistake, I continue to follow the wrong turn with an aching sense of hope that I am in fact traveling in the right direction. The frustration that ensues when I realize that I have to turn around and start over is overwhelming and at times deafening. I eagerly await the day where I reach my destination without needing a map. I eagerly await the day where my destination is clear.

While resting on what has become a familiar and loving shoulder, it hit me and I started to cry. I can't face another let down. I can't let myself down because I know what will end up happening. I will become a bore. My elusive, illustrious, visionary personality will evaporate into more of the same and this will fade before I'm ready. There is no proof, however, that this is the direction this venture is taking, but I know that I am almost entirely incapable of keeping the attention of someone I am learning to care very deeply about for more than five minutes. I don't see how I'm worthy of such patience. I am a troublesome juncture. I am an elaborate ruse.

I will never let the simple act of having the car door opened for me become an unappreciated part of our routine. Nor will I allow myself to wander too far.

I am officially now a part of the industry.An over sized black book and a signed contract with misleading agreements. It became real and I am someone new.

There's something I want to know before I can keep going.
Okay. I lied. I need to know everything.

Would you mind leading the way? Knowing me, I'll just end up lost.

"When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire."

There's something wonderful about
being cold during the summer months.
There's something wonderful about
knowing it will rain tomorrow.

I have a stray kitten in my bed.
I named him Rhubarb. I think I have fleas now, but I don't care. I want to keep him, but I know that I can't. He fell asleep on my face. I forgot how beautiful it is to feel so enraptured by something as simple as a sandpaper kiss. It is a remarkable feeling to love and be loved by something so small and unassuming, so quickly. It reminded me of being a child which reminded me that perhaps I'm growing up too fast.

When I said I have one kitten, I meant I have two.
It is a new feeling for me. It is nice to feel special.
Although this kitten and I have failed to define our relationship,
I am quite content with whatever it is we have.
That isn't to say I don't have my reservations.
That isn't to say I'm not being cautious.
But, regardless of what happens or doesn't happen
I'm happy as of right now. That's gotta count for something!

Patching holes is a good feeling. I fear if I spring another, I will eventually become a living, breathing void. I want to avoid becoming my own black hole.

I'm losing sight of what it is I've wanted to do my entire life. All thanks to pesky flashbulbs and filtered dreams. Of course they aren't entirely to blame. I think I may be too ambitious and too unfocused. Regardless of the source of error, I've let things get in the way and now there are words I have to learn all over again. Definitions and all.

There was a moment. I was standing in the broken dusk, white feathers swirling beneath my feet, my hands blackened by soot. I spread my arms, as I often do, and it was then that
I silently revolted against everything.

I have yet to meet someone who understands it. All I need is a 10 inch by 10 inch patch of ground to call my own. Enough room to lift a leg, sway my hips and cautiously toss my hair side to side. The satisfaction that comes with reaching that burst of cool air that awaits patiently above the crowd. The way the smoke dances around faces, making everyone beautiful. Pulsating drum beats in sync with stubborn heartbeats. It is the only time in my life where I feel unified and safe and free. Last night was no exception. Actually, it may have set a precedent for what happiness, true and unbridled happiness, should feel like.

I am a lucky girl. My life is abundant in smiles and snorts and is filled to the brim with amazing people. This, however, makes my weak moments so much worse. I go from appreciating the ground I walk on, to cursing the world and all of its inhabitants. My weaknesses tend to prevail but I'm working on it.

It is truly a strange comfort to see someone you haven't seen in a long time and there is still a thread of familiarity. I like that very much.

My horoscope said something about freeing myself.
Freedom in what capacity, I am unsure.
But I would be a fool to not consider it.