Lines

I spent most of this year with pen to paper. I emptied my soul into notebook after notebook and there, deep in the marrow of my words, I found my voice. I learned to listen, to speak up, to sing, to declare - and to stop asking.

As I began creating my new website and blog (coming soon!), I reread everything I wrote. Some of it is so bleak and lost that it seems as though it was written by a stranger - but then, I suppose, in a way it was...

I made the journey. I am a new me, with a new future, and new lines to write - and I'm leaving these ones far behind.

January

Oh hell.

There is a distinct difference between merely surviving and really living.

 

February

I began finding my self again the same way I sent her off, in bits and pieces, stashed away in cardboard boxes. A half-written poem, an old beloved sweater, a forgotten photo I had cherished and taken off the wall. And suddenly, there she was, all sass and stubbornness and confidence, a chatty, dancing, jeans-and-t-shirt wearing me.

I remember the hope that steadied us for so long, and I try to rediscover a little piece of it every day. Somehow I know therein lies my salvation.

 

March

I can build anything I want there - a sandcastle, a temple, a cocoon, a bed.

But the life - that colorful, heartfelt, dauntless kind of living - lies in the chances, the messes, the mistakes. Looking back, I regret very few things I did, and countless more I didn't do.

April

"The tic wakes me up", she said.

May

My ribs rattle a tune,
an echo of unrest.

Words
         hang
                in the space
between us,

July

 

She had grown tired of the routine.

And there, among her pale thin ribs, were tiny bits of things breaking through the surface of the dirt: little scraps of colored cloth and silky feathers and streaks of paint, the faintest etchings of poems, the teeniest wildflowers.

How could she possibly have thought she was alone in the house with all these wild things tangled about her ribs?

August

"See?" he said. "We already are part of each other. We made our marks long ago." He gestured to the patterns. "You have always been part of me."

September

 

If there is a loose string, I am compelled to pull it.

And somewhere in the silence, he lost me.

 

October

I wade through the debris and silence and loss, and, eventually, inevitably, find myself back in a sea of living, breathing love. I always make my way back. 

So this is the lesson: I was broken down so I could rebuild myself, discard the fragments of old lives and loves and bind myself together lighter and braver than before. I lost my way so I could discover I was on the wrong path. My heart was broken again and again so I could learn to mend it on my own. 

November

I am soaring, ever higher and farther, until the debris is out of sight. For once, the others can sweep and tidy and hold the walls together...

All this time I was searching for roots when what I really needed was wings...

a strange sweet

duet of winged spirits and

fine feathers all aflutter

Bird Song

There is a small wind-up bird

that perches inside my chest

She totters between my ribs,

back and forth and back again

And when she's wound she trills a

soft sing-song in my ear, and

I move to the rhythm of

her serenade, a strange sweet

 

duet of winged spirits and

fine feathers all aflutter

Lost and Found

I used to wear a thin silver ring printed with the words "may your wildest dreams come true". It was sort of a good luck charm, and sort of a reminder to hold onto the hope that I would eventually get to where I wanted to be. I wore it every day, absentmindedly using my thumb to twirl it around my finger.

A few weeks after I moved into this house, still raw and reeling post-breakup, I inadvertently dropped the ring down the bathroom drain. There I was, in a state of emotional, financial and physical devastation, and I had just dropped my lucky charm into the depths of a decrepit plumbing system - what a perfectly poignant illustration of my anguish. It seemed such a fitting mishap that I never tried to retrieve the ring. 

Fifteen months later, my circumstances have changed very little. I am still living here, working an underpaid job, far from a new love and the life I want. But I am profoundly different. I have taken back control and rebuilt myself, cell by cell. I have rediscovered my confidence, my balance, my idealism. And I have learned how to dream again.

There is a place on the horizon where this life intersects with the threshold of my dreams. It will take some time until I can cross over, but I realize now that I can cover the distance and arrive - surefooted, curious, ready to create and explore and savor a little piece of the beyond.  

I had thought about replacing my old ring now that I am dreaming and living and thriving again... But instead I have my eye on another ring by the same artist, possibly a year-end gift to myself. It says "learning to fly".

Trifle

I long

for the days when

I was full

with a superfluous,

scarlet love

 

when I believed

in forever

the way only the

young and

unbroken do

 

daring to disregard

the passing of time,

daring to flaunt

 love like a

shiny, new jewel

 

the taste of audacity

on my tongue, savoring

the delicious excess

of finding

epiphany in another

Hemispheres

I am climbing into the great blue unknown, my wings let loose, the earth far below. I can see higher and farther than I ever imagined. I can see possibility.

Without a cage, a tether, a burden, I am free to be anyone I choose, free to be a truer version of me, free to be selfish and happy and spontaneous. 

Far beneath my feet, scattered atop the earth, are the remnants of what was. A short time ago, I would have descended and swept the soil and ash into tidy piles, rebuilt the fallen frameworks. But these wings hold me steady, graceful; they draw me higher.

I am soaring, ever higher and farther, until the debris is out of sight. For once, the others can sweep and tidy and hold the walls together...  

The crux of this life is that it is my own and I can choose how to live it. What I have been given by circumstances, instructed to do by my elders, tempted into by weakness, beguiled into by lovers, I need not carry with me. I need only do myself justice, so that in the moments when I am alone in this great blue space, far from the noise and distraction and constant tugging of others, I am happy, proud, fulfilled.

And so I choose to fly. Into a precious dream, a full life, a lighter sense of self.

All this time I was searching for roots when what I really needed was wings...

The Dreamer

It was a warm July evening, the California sky painted in bright pinks and oranges - the perfect backdrop for a dinner on the beach. He arrived with a tall ease, all blue eyes and boyish smile. We ate, we drank, we talked. He was curious but not scrutinizing, passionate but not naive, sweet but not a pushover. And all blue eyes...

"I'm awkward," he said, apologetically, in the midst of kissing me. Though he certainly didn't seem awkward; he kissed me so slowly, so patiently, like time had paused just for the two of us. Anything but awkward.

And then he was gone. Time ticked again, the earth spun again, my heart found a steady beat again. Occasionally, I see something that echoes the blue of his eyes and I wonder about him, just for a moment, before carrying on...

Blank Canvas

Possibility. The word dances on my tongue, fresh and sweet. Before me lies a new, clear canvas, an expanse of anything.

I am free to stop dreaming and start chasing.

I can write. I can travel. I can leave this life, build a new one. I can shed these dry, papery skins of old selves and loves and wounds and uncover a whole new me.

I am a whole new me.

I will not take much with me into the future; just a few dreams, a few mentors and an abundance of enthusiasm. Light hands will make it easier to reach out, reach higher, pick myself up, capture a fairytale.


...I cannot seem to find the right words for a closing line. Maybe because I am so preoccupied with beginnings. How extraordinary.

Negative Space

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.” - Tom Stoppard


I get it now. Finally, this past year makes sense.

I lost so much more than I could have possibly imagined - love, pride, confidence, security, direction, friendship. It felt like the ground buckled under me and every time I tried to stand up again, my world shook violently; I have been terrified I would never find a foothold. But here it is.

The thing about loss is that when the dust settles and the fires burn out, there is just... space. Room to stop, get my bearings and see far into the distance. Room to stretch my arms and legs to the limit and reach toward something. Room to turn around and walk away. Room to just be.

The void, the solitude - they're really possibility. Without walls or strings or weights, I am free to rediscover myself, create a new life, fill up this newfound space with anything I choose. Or preserve it, leave it blissfully still and quiet for as long as I like... It's mine.

So this is the lesson: I was broken down so I could rebuild myself, discard the fragments of old lives and loves and bind myself together lighter and braver than before. I lost my way so I could discover I was on the wrong path. My heart was broken again and again so I could learn to mend it on my own.   

And now, it starts.

REM Cycle

My dreams have been invaded. The ghosts of solitude come stomping through night after night, toppling the tiny sanctuary walls I have been so painstakingly constructing, leaving me exposed, disheveled. Leaving me, for once, silent.

There is nothing mysterious about my dreams; maybe they are too overtly symbolic to inspire any bittersweet romanticism or wonderment...

I repeatedly have a dream in which I arrive at his house to borrow something - a bowl of sugar, I think. After he greets me at the door, I follow him up a towering flight of stairs for what seems like hours. When I reach the top, dazed, clutching a white, empty bowl, he is nowhere in sight. And so I stand there and wait again.

This needs no dissection. I arrive at his house and ask him to give me something I don't have, then climb endlessly behind him, then lose sight of him, then wait longer. I'm actually disappointed in my subconscious for not coming up with anything more creative.

A few nights ago I had a new dream. I open a tattered, white door and enter what is apparently his house. I walk through countless empty rooms, all impeccably clean, trimmed in white walls and wood grain, bright with sunlight. I hear him in the distance but never see him. I finally reach a small closet that is brimming with my clothes, then begin to empty them out.

Again, no enigmatic undertones.

What is noteworthy is that these dreams aren't really about him; instead, they seem to be centered around the walking. It's like they stall in the middle and I become caught in perpetual movement, step after step after step - a constant, monotonous walk. It really feels like I walk for hours.

What am I supposed to learn from this? Am I bound to keep walking toward an end I can't see, toward someone who isn't there? Am I trapped in the solitude of these empty houses?

Can I turn and run?

Somnus in Absentia

In the trenches of insomnia there is a place between wake and sleep, where the world around me seems like some sort of slow-playing movie that never reaches the end of its reel. Conversations and actions become removed; I hear my voice, register the movement of my body, yet they don't quite feel like my own.

Day 1 is long and tedious. By Day 3, a fog of delirium has settled over my every thought. It is then that the daily pleasures of living begin to lose their appeal. A hot shower, a palatable glass of wine, a flirtatious smile in my direction - and all I can think about is sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.

I spend countless hours lying in bed, determined to only need to close my eyes should sleep so graciously arrive. I read. I watch television. I turn the light off and marinate in the darkness. I turn the light back on. I read. I watch television. I check Facebook. No, this definitely won't help. I sign out of Facebook.

And I repeat. And repeat. And soon I realize morning is almost here, even without having to open my eyes. The crickets go silent, the air cools ever so slightly, and then the countdown begins. Now I know my time is limited. If I can sleep for just a few hours, I will feel so much better. I just need to lie here... still and silent... like I already am, already have been... for hours. Damn.

Soon dawn arrives, light gradually filling my room, and I sit up. Arising is unremarkable without the punctuation of sleep, without my alarm's glaring announcement of a new morning; the day blends into night, which blends into day, and again and again.

And in this crevice, I wait.

A New Kind of Love Affair

Wait a minute.

What am I doing? How have I so quickly forgotten the uncoupling of all these sorrows, the lightness of spirit I felt without them? So easily they find their way back, scurry up my arm, rattle my ribs...

Deep breath.

The past year's avalanche of rage and tears and epiphanies unearthed the seeds of the beautiful parts of me. Bravery. Energy. Curiosity. Grace.

I discovered I am the best version of myself when I am being me - sentimental, chatty, slightly unsophisticated me - not when I am focused on wondering which parts of me were the ones he let go of, fled, discarded. And wondering if I should also run from them, run from myself. No more.

Instead, I'm going to run toward something. Run toward the dream I thought was out of reach. Run toward the tiny, seductive, illogical chance that I can still build something extraordinary from a legacy of ruins. Run toward this renewing, evolving self and not toward him. Any him.

Chasing down my own dream is a love affair in itself. And that's the one I really want to fall for this time. If there is ever another love of my life, I hope it will just be me...

Subtraction

I write about him less and less. Not because I think about him less, but because I think about him more. It scares me, saddens me; I don't want to love him forever, don't want to live in a state of missing. 

The blackness settles each night and fragmented dreams crawl in my window with the cool air. They pull me in and out of sleep, disrupt the stillness of my tiny cocoon. They pull and pull, tirelessly, until I begin again: I wade through the debris and silence and loss, and, eventually, inevitably, find myself back in a sea of living, breathing love. I always make my way back.  

Only he's not there.

How ordinary.

Gray Area

What came after is not an ending and not a beginning. Just a dull buzz, like the distant static that plays in your ears even after the television has been shut off. A succession of diluted notes echoing the sharp rise and fall of something much greater.

I love, but no longer out loud, no longer up close. Without a vessel to hold my affections, I write whimsies instead of confessions.

I dance, but the fervent momentum of my youth has wound down. This body I used to have unwavering faith in has been broken, rebuilt, broken again. My passion is brittle.

I reside in the almost, the in-between. Relishing freedom but undecided whether it is an opportunity or a chasm. And braver than I've ever been but suspended in this space where dreams and practicalities fail to intersect. A kaleidoscope of lives hover before me, yet I can't bring myself to reach out and grasp one with any sense of surety. How can I choose a life when I have failed to commit to a self?


"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree...

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home... and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor... and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America...

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

- Excerpts from "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

In Suspension

My love is a whisper
My dream, a roar

Flung from a gilded cage, my soul
darts and flits, avoiding pause
Avoiding

          ... Stillness. Love. Him.

Avoiding another ending.

If I land, I may
                       lose my wings
                       shade this audacity
                       absorb

the weight of yet another
heavy, static love

In motion
I am illuminated, I am light.
It is only me.

          ... Apart. Lonely. Free.

Rhetoric

Words. We incessantly nitpick them. We assess the tone, the timing, the inflection in efforts to understand each other, convinced that the substance of our intentions is disguised among the syllables. We adhere to a phrase we can't decipher, rolling it over our tongues again and again. The answers must be in there.

Maybe this why I am so haunted by all he did not say, perpetually grasping to fill in the gaps of all I still fail to understand about him, about the decline of a love that once seemed so tender: instead of a single garish flaw to dissect, there are a multitude to consider, discard, consider again, agonize over... The guesswork is exhausting.

Did I imagine it all?  Or interpret trifles as something more? Did I make the mistake of my life and build a passion out of a repartee?

I asked. I asked him as our words waned, as our touches withdrew. I asked him at the end, when the silence had become a canyon. He remained silent.

And somewhere in the silence, he lost me.

The fatigue of second-guessing myself finally conquered my ardent romanticism. The ever increasing silence only made sense when I retreated into the hollow of a shell, built a wall to keep out the sound of anything but my own footsteps.

Occasionally, a brick falls. And in the sharp stillness that follows I hear the old, familiar refrain: I love you, I love you, I love you. But it has been so long now, so long since he has said the words - and the voice begins to sound more like my own. Am I still talking?

Dressed Up and Dreaming

I never understood all the fuss about weddings. I never considered what we would wear or how we would decorate or even the flavor of cake. When I thought about weddings, I thought about him smiling at me, a smile that would easily eclipse any tuxedo. And kissing each other. And the thrill of knowing he loved me that much.

I guess I wasn't concerned with the wedding; I wanted what came after. I wanted him to be my roots, my home, the thing that steadied me. I wanted to be the best part of his day, to fill those little in-between moments with the stuff of love: a heart drawn on a post-it note, a kiss as we passed in the hallway, a glass of wine brought to him as he typed...

I would have married him wearing a t-shirt, with no ado whatsoever, and happily gone home to build this life I wanted for us so very much.

But we never built that life. He didn't want it. Or he didn't want me. (I don't know; I didn't ask.) And after the dream dissipated, I began to feel contempt toward the idea of marriage. It seemed such a flighty notion, to build a tangible temple upon nothing but love - love, such an erratic, fickle, whimsical thing. Such a nebulous foundation. It was bound to crumble.

A week ago, I saw this gown.

   

And it tugged at the girlish reveries of romance I thought I had finally left behind. It wasn't so much the gown as what it represented: a steadfast love, one with enough faith and courage to build a temple, build a life and walk into the future together. Loving each other that much. Proof that sometimes taking the leap and investing all that love and hope and intimacy is so completely worth it, that sometimes the temple will last.

I want to be all dressed up in love again. It may be layers of the lightest tulle, like this gown, or it may be the soft cotton of an old favorite t-shirt. The fabric won't matter as long as it fits, as long as the seams are sewn well enough to last, as long as we can build a temple upon it.

Perfectionist

If there is a loose string, I am compelled to pull it. I cannot leave it there, let it go, admire the beauty of the many other perfect knots. I will keep coming back to that one stray piece again and again, itching for a way to weave it into the pattern; I will examine, smooth, braid, tuck. I will turn over the fabric, then turn it back again, then repeat. And, inevitably, my fiddling will be the true reason for its unraveling. The end will fray or the length will weaken... And then it will come undone.

Like an old, worn sweater. Like the edges of a hand-me-down rug. Like a disregarded love.

Intangible

When she was still barely a girl, just on the verge of being a woman, she met a boy and quickly fell in love. She spent hours admiring the nape of his neck, his carefree laugh, his distinctive way of moving through a crowd to reach her - the unique traits that only lovers really know.

After a while, she began plucking out little pieces of her soul and gently presenting them to him. He hadn't asked her to; she wasn't sure why she started. She didn't even notice she was doing it until it had been going on for quite some time. She guessed she just loved him so much that it seemed natural to make an offering, to give herself over to the momentum of it all. Besides, they would be together forever, so she could retrieve the pieces any time she needed them. She might as well share.

He did not keep hold of the pieces very well. Some were dropped, others lost among his pockets, a few seemingly discarded. He had always been a little absentminded...

When his arms were full, she thought she might like a little piece of his in return, just a tiny one to keep in her pocket, turn over in her hand when she missed him. A token. She waited patiently, certain that he would press one into her palm... but he didn't. She waited, waited, waited longer. Finally she asked him for a piece, just a tiny one, to hold close to her during his nights away. But he shook his head.

He must be confused, she thought. He must not understand that their souls were already fitted together like a puzzle. And so she asked again. And still he shook his head.

She sighed. She pointed to all the pieces she had given him - brimming from his pockets, stashed in his drawers, messily piled in the corners of the room - and then, hesitantly, she held out her upturned palm.

He stood very still for the longest time, so still she could hear the tick of the clock. Then he shook his head. "These are my pieces. If I give them to you, what will I have?"

"I gave you mine... You will have mine," she said."And I will have yours."

"Why should we give away our pieces?" he asked.

She thought for a moment. She wasn't sure. It had just seemed natural. "I guess... I guess to... to be part of each other," she fumbled.

He smiled. It was the smile a teacher gives a student who speaks too quickly, who has already learned the answer to the question but fails to realize it.

"Give me your hand," he said. She placed her hand in his and he pulled it to his chest, ran it along the outline of his rib. And she felt the most intricate patterns there, thin vines wound around and over and through. She caressed another rib, and another, and there, on each one, the same elaborate design. How had she never noticed them before?

"See?" he said. "We already are part of each other. We made our marks long ago." He gestured to the patterns. "You have always been part of me."

Shapes

Love.

Like thin, bony fingers
clenched around my chest,
like exhaling the
                         very     
                                last
                                      drop     of air.

Like the heat of the sun on my cheek,
bare toes scrunching in the grass...
like the weightlessness of a Saturday.

Like laughter,
tumbling out so carefree,
filling the world with
the songs of my heart
                                  la la la la...

Like the last glance back
at the dullest pair of eyes,
like looking in a mirror
while the reflection
fades away.

Like my head on the curve
of his shoulder,
the familiar arc of a form
I know as well as my own.

Like an abyss of darkness,
hands outstretched before me,
seeking the path already
etched upon my palms.

Seedlings

Once there was a boy who left a girl. On a sunny afternoon, he packed his things, kissed her forehead one last time and firmly handed her a tiny flashlight. "Use this," he said. And then he walked down the front path, away, to a new home. Without her.

The girl stood in the doorway for a long time, gazing down the empty path until blackness finally settled over the yard. After some time, she shut the door and, clutching the flashlight to her chest, retreated into the silent house. She wandered from room to room, eying empty spaces on walls, opening a vacant drawer, leaning down to sniff an old burned-out candle. She turned the flashlight over in her hand, wondering what she could use it for. How odd. How inadequate. At long last, she curled into her favorite chair, flashlight against her chest, and fell asleep.

The next day, she woke early. She lie still for a long time, listening to the silence. Finally, she rose, determined to make some noise so she didn't hear it any longer. She opened one of the vacant drawers - his drawer - gently lay the flashlight inside, and shut the drawer. Then she washed dishes, she swept, she dusted - oh, but dusting was too quiet... She pulled her books off the shelves, her treasures, because her books had always taken away the silence. She reorganized them, refiled them on the shelves. She stood before them, pondering which to read. Surely a new selection - a dramatic tale of adventure, perhaps - would make that lingering silence dissipate. But she just couldn't choose.

She repeated this process for many days after, busying herself with chores through the morning and afternoon. In the evenings, she retrieved the flashlight from the drawer - his drawer - and held it while she slept. And so the time went by like this.

One day, some weeks later, she woke and decided she didn't want to do chores. She didn't want to stand before her bookshelves. She had grown tired of the routine. She fetched her favorite hat from the closet, opened the front door and inhaled the sweet morning air. Lovely. And then she decided what she really wanted was to take a walk.

And so she walked down the front path, into the park, into the meadows. She walked for hours, occasionally pausing to pick a flower, slip a smooth pebble into her pocket, watch a bird flit from branch to branch. She came across a tiny stream and sat for a long while, soaking her feet in the cold, bubbly water and running her fingers along the grass. When the sun began to set, she stood up, collected her flowers and pebbles, and walked home. Such a fine day it was.

She put the flowers in a bright orange vase and placed it on the table. She wanted to keep the pebbles in a safe place, so she opened a drawer to put them away - and realized it was his drawer, the one with the flashlight. She set the pebbles inside then picked up the flashlight. Why had he given her this? She already had plenty of lights and candles... What was she to do with it?

She clicked the flashlight on, shined it over the empty spaces on the walls, the bookshelves, the new flowers. Hmmm... She opened the closet and shined it inside. She opened another drawer and shined it inside, then another and another. She moved her wrist about, watched the light dance across the ceiling. She clicked the flashlight off. Okay, this was silly; of course he hadn't given her the flashlight to shine around the house...

And then - she knew. She thought about how when he looked at her his eyes felt like sunlight. And how he had such a knack for finding strange ways to fix broken things around the house. And how he had handed her the flashlight with such purpose. And she just knew. She clicked the flashlight on again, slowly turned it toward her and shined it into her chest. And there, among her pale thin ribs, were tiny bits of things breaking through the surface of the dirt: little scraps of colored cloth and silky feathers and streaks of paint, the faintest etchings of poems, the teeniest wildflowers. And if she stood very still, she could hear a soft, lilting music.

A tear fell but she did not wipe her eye. She held the flashlight, gazing at the beautiful wild things growing inside her. Had he known it was all still there, waiting for the right moment to begin to bloom again? 

She stood that way for some time and when she had listened to the music long enough, breathed in the scent of the flowers, colored her eyes with bright yellows and greens and blues, she clicked off the flashlight. How could she possibly have thought she was alone in the house with all these wild things tangled about her ribs? She opened the drawer, set the flashlight next to the smooth pebbles and carefully shut it.

In the following days, she added other keepsakes - a poem, a bracelet made of dandelions, a photograph of the stream. And always, at the end of the day, when the blackness had settled, she clicked the flashlight on for a moment and shined it toward her, then gently set it back inside the drawer. 


"he taught me to run high on my toes. I will always remember his words: run proud & remember you are alive." - Brian Andreas

Ornaments

Words
          hang
                  in the space
between us,

shiny, unfinished sonnets.

Sometimes I ponder
plucking one out of the air,
gently placing it in your palm...


Instead

we sidestep, maneuver, shift our weight.

We pass small talk back and forth,
scraps of a conversation that was,
idle equities to fill the time.


Nothing between us has ever been small.

The Artist

He seemed to be made up of

bits of paper and color and cloth

arranged in a constellation...

more a soul than a man.

He ran my palm along his cheek,
the heat almost startling me –

a tactile proof of his existence,

a
    pause
               in space and time.

He left a trail of lights behind him,

a goodbye hanging in the air.

His laughter echoes in my ears,

a song, a poem, a punctuation,

a masterpiece of night.

Love, Unraveled

A tiny golden bird
flutters inside my chest.

My ribs rattle a tune,
an echo of unrest.

The cool fingertip breeze
trails my ivory breast

and beneath - sticky lies,
collected in a nest.

Love Like a Temple

Once there were a boy and girl who lived in a temple with tall, golden walls. They each had soft, scarlet lips. They stayed inside the temple and spoke words of love and caressed one another with touches as light as the breeze. They occasionally gazed out the temple windows at the round, gleaming moon - and then just went on as before. No one kept time; they were too busy loving to bother with numbers and schedules and rotations and other such nonsense.

One day the girl went into the attic. Everything inside was covered in a fine film of dust except a tiny white clock in the corner. She ran her hand along its face and felt how smooth it was. Lovely. She carried it out of the attic, into the hall, stood high on her tippytoes and hung it on the wall. Satisfied, she wandered off to find the boy and go back to loving. She soon forgot about the clock.

Some time passed and one twilight the girl awoke to a tic-tic-tic. She nuzzled into the boy's ear. 'Don't you hear that?' she asked. And then fell asleep again. They slept soundly for the rest of the night.

More time passed and again she awoke in the twilight. Tic-tic-tic-tic. She lie in the bed for a while and listened. Silence. Silence. And then, tic-tic-tic-tic. Silence. Tic-tic-tic-tic. Eventually she fell asleep.

Soon after she was wandering down the hall and saw tiny flakes of gold flitting to the ground. She went and found a broom and swept them away. Then she asked the boy 'Did you see the gold is flaking off the walls?'

'Nonsense,' said the boy. 'Gold cannot just flake away.'

Again, time passed. And again, she awoke in the night to a tic-tic-tic-tic. The next day she found more gold flaking off the wall. She fetched the boy and led him into the hall, tugging at the ends of his fingers, gently, the way lovers do. 'Do you see?,' she asked. 'Do you see the gold?'

'Oh,' said the boy. 'Oh.' He paused. 'Well, it's only the wall. It's only the gold. This is still our temple and we still love here.'

'You're right', said the girl. 'At least we have our temple. At least we have love.'

The days and nights passed. The round, gleaming moon appeared, then disappeared, again and again. The boy and girl loved. And sometimes little flakes of gold flitted to the ground and the girl swept them away. She did not care for the flaking, or for the sweeping, but she swept and went on with loving.

One dark twilight, the girl awoke with a start. Tic-tic-tic-tic. Silence. Tic-tic-tic-tic. She leaned over the boy. 'Do you hear it, the tic? Listen.'

He rolled onto his back, lie in the dark for a moment gazing at the round, gleaming moon. 'I hear it. But what shall we do? It's just a tic.'

'The tic wakes me up', she said. 'I don't like the tic.' He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, and they soon fell asleep.

On the darkest twilight of the year, the girl awoke again. The bed shook ever so slightly, echoing the tic-tic-tic-tic. She glanced toward the window, but there was no moon. She lie very still, found the boy's fingertips in the blackness. She listened to the sound of her own breathing, focused on the slow inhale and exhale. But there it was. Tic-tic-tic-tic. And again. Tic-tic-tic-tic. Growing louder and louder. Tic-tic-tic-tic.

She finally rose from the bed and felt her way outside the bedroom, down the hall. At first it was very black but the hall grew lighter and lighter as she approached the clock. As she neared, she saw it had grown as big as the moon, a bright light looming high on the wall. With each tic-tic-tic-tic, the moon-clock shook. And with each shake, little flakes of gold flitted down to the floor.

Tic-tic-tic-tic. Shake-shake-shake-shake. Flit-flit-flit-flit.

She stood up high on her tippytoes and reached for the moon-clock, stretched her fingertips until she just brushed it. And with a flick, she hit it. She thought it would fall to the floor with a clatter, possibly break, but then, that wouldn't be so bad, would it? She could put it back in the attic. And sleep. And love. And not have to sweep any more gold.

But the moon-clock did not fall. There was no clatter. Silence, for a moment. And then... Tic-tic-tic-tic. Shake-shake-shake-shake. Flit-flit-flit-flit.

She tried again, but could not reach. And again. And again. Her lip trembled, the first time such a thing had happened inside the temple. She bit her lip, rose onto her tippytoes again, stretched farther than she had ever stretched. And then - she felt two browned hands slip around her waist and gently lift her. She pulled hard on the moon-clock and a stream of nuggets broke loose from the golden wall, falling all around them. They toppled over.

She pulled herself up to a sitting position, smoothed the hair from her face and looked up. And there was the boy, sitting in a pile of gold rubble, bits of the wall crumbling behind him. Holding a tiny, broken clock. And grinning that grin of his.

She smiled, stood up, dusted the gold flakes off her nightgown and said 'I'll sweep in the morning.' And then she padded down the dark hall back to bed. He followed soon after.

The End

Outside the Box

My entire life is packaged into a neat 10' x 12' box, a tiny room stuffed with books, photographs, pointe shoes, a glass heart, my favorite sweatshirt. Is this all I have done? Why do my memories seem so few, so small, enclosed in these four walls? 

I realize that the footprints of my life, moments of joy and failure, laughter and grief, do not accumulate in stuff, that I carry them within me - and yet I still feel more and more lately that I should have lived larger, fuller, braver, that I let so many moments pass me by. I have always had this prissy tendency to be small and safe and tidy (my ballet teachers will emphatically agree). But the life - that colorful, heartfelt, dauntless kind of living - lies in the chances, the messes, the mistakes. Looking back, I regret very few things I did, and countless more I didn't do. 

I wish I had danced my heart out at that audition, I wish I had kissed that boy, I wish I had bought that plane ticket and ran off to Europe alone, I wish I had walked away, I wish I had come home...

And now: I want to take leaps, make scenes, love with abandon, act on impulse - much, much more than I have so far. I want to fill this room with Italian artwork, tattered love letters, sand-filled seashells, concert t-shirts, stamped passports. I want to get carried away. I'm sure I will leave messes and mistakes in my wake, but they'll be all tangled up with surprises and road trips and sunsets and kisses - they'll be so worth it.  
 

"Men who never get carried away should be." - Malcolm Forbes

Burning Soul

... and suddenly, in the still, quiet moments, I feel it: a tiny orange flame, slowly burning off the last of the ruins. Soon there will be just an empty space, waiting to be filled again. An expanse of possibility, a place to stretch my limbs, to feel free and light and uncaged. A place to reach into a reverie. A place to pull him back to me. I can build anything I want there - a sandcastle, a temple, a cocoon, a bed. I will paper the walls with bliss, bits of music and laughter and poems and wine, and paint the ceiling with stars, and live an eternal dream...

Worshipping Bacchus

I am convinced the answers to all my worries lie in the bottom of this bottle of merlot. I am sprawled on my bedroom carpet next to the heater, two glasses into the bottle, and I already feel much more content about the meaning of it all. I've made solid progress. Really, I swear. I've already had some truly insightful observations, like:

- I'm much less hungry when I drink wine. Who needs dinner? I could save a fortune on    groceries.
- Wow, I need to vacuum. My hair really does get everywhere.
- Still. Hate. My. Thighs.
- Still love him, still love him, still love him...

See, who knows what could be revealed if I keep drinking? A sip here, a swish there, and then... wisdom, nestled right in there among the flavors of oak and tobacco and plum - little keys to make sense of love and life and fleeting happiness, swirling right onto my tongue.

If only it was a malbec, I could uncover the secrets of the entire universe...

Ebb

I close my eyes
and see only
yours,
brown and deep, and
more beautiful
when they rest on
me.

I open my
lips and feel just
air,
a cool nothing
where the soft warmth
of your tongue should
be...

And so I take
my sad, weary
heart
and bury it
deep within, where
you no longer
see.

What Remains

Sometimes in my sleep I find myself back there again, his eager kisses on my lips, ocean air chilling my skin, thunder of waves ringing in my ears. The dizzy euphoria of new love - how quickly the heart fills!

And how slowly that love recedes. Or maybe it never fully does so...

I haven't once asked myself if it was worth it, to love so intensely only to find myself grieving its loss. I have no doubt that it was worth every moment, every tear shed since. It has been six months since we walked away, and the sad memories have already become hazy. The ache of loss steadfastly remains, taking up residence in a corner of my soul, but the sting has dulled, the resentment exhaled with each deep breath.

What I remember so vividly - even now - is the feeling of being wrapped up in love: joy and comfort, stillness and passion, all fused into one. Oh, this is what all those love songs and poems are talking about! I get it now.

I remember the hope that steadied us for so long, and I try to rediscover a little piece of it every day. Somehow I know therein lies my salvation. I hope I find myself willing to take that leap again. I hope I remain ever the romantic. I hope I never regret loving, because that's when I am truly, wholly living. I hope, I hope, I hope.

I Am

“Today I had a conversation with my true self. She asked me why I had abandoned her, why I had ignored all her constant advice. And then she reminded me of all the things I had forgotten. And never once did she say, “I told you so.” – Monique Duval

I’ve spent a lot of time looking in the mirror lately: do I know who I am anymore? I lost little pieces of my self along the way to this place I’m at now. Actually, lost is the wrong word. Gave. I gave them away, willingly, hastily, in efforts to sustain this love, this life, I saw slipping away. And so I tried to be someone I wasn’t – a little more sophisticated, a little more domestic, a little more whatever-it-was-I-thought-he-was-looking-for – and in the process I gradually stopped being me. And so it is no wonder that we failed to connect any longer. It's difficult to nurture an intimate relationship when one of the participants is essentially missing... It's more difficult to crawl out of the wreckage, find a sturdy foothold, with such a diluted sense of self.

I began finding my self again the same way I sent her off, in bits and pieces, stashed away in cardboard boxes. A half-written poem, an old beloved sweater, a forgotten photo I had cherished and taken off the wall. And suddenly, there she was, all sass and stubbornness and confidence, a chatty, dancing, jeans-and-t-shirt wearing me.

We are becoming one and the same again, growing more sturdy every day. It's refreshing to feel like myself, invigorating just to be comfortable in my own skin again. And I have learned not to give her away, not to sacrifice the person who will always know me best, speak up for me loudest, hold on fiercely to my dreams and passions.

I am a dancer, a writer, a philosopher, a lover - eternally flawed and fallible, but always, for better or worse, me.

Aerial View

Live        verb \ˈliv\

intransitive verb

   8: to have a life rich in experience

transitive verb

   3: to exhibit vigor, gusto, or enthusiasm in

   4a: to experience firsthand

     b: to be thoroughly absorbed by or involved with

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I’ve spent most of my life in preparation for something, constantly anticipating, expecting, planning. My mother raised me to be a worrier, which, I suppose, is a fairly typical byproduct of growing up with a terminally ill parent. Our daily lives were a schedule of pills to take, appointments to keep and emergencies to evade – and, when the emergencies were not evaded, last-minute stays at various relatives’ or friends’ homes, more hospital visits and even more pills. By the age of eight, I had learned to always carry a packed bag, a list of phone numbers, a book and snacks with me. This kind of setting certainly does not encourage spontaneity or frivolity, even for a small child; it’s difficult to relax and be happy when death and turmoil are part and parcel of the daily conversation. 

While I learned some useful life skills from the controlled chaos of living alongside a terminal illness (upside: I’m definitely the girl you want to have with you in a crisis situation), the predisposition toward being ever-so-tightly wound has taken half a lifetime to overcome. I spent most of my twenties as an intense perfectionist, allowing no room for error in myself or others, the consequence of which was an undertone of disappointment that gradually infiltrated the folia of my life. I kept loved ones on a short leash, held grudges, built emotional walls, picked myself apart when even I couldn’t meet my ridiculously high standards. And it resulted in a very low rate of return for a whole hell of a lot of work. 

In the past few years, I have gradually learned to set down the worry (gently tucked into the corner, within arm’s reach lest I feel the impulse to lunge for it in a moment of panic) and to get on with this whole process of living. And as I’ve become more intent on doing so, I’ve discovered that far more of us don’t reside in a natural state of “let’s roll with it”. Enjoying ourselves and embracing what life throws at us is apparently a learned skill. Who knew?  To avoid shades of hypocrisy, I won’t dole out advice on this- but I will say that the best memories of my life have been those moments in which I have let go, let up on myself and just let it all happen. The snippets of pure bliss that stay with me – dancing under spotlights, ziplining down a mountain on Maui, playing in a freezing cold ocean, those kisses that can change your whole world – these are what I try to cling to now. Not the stability, the predictability, the plan, but the promise of those moments of joy and abandon somewhere off in the distance. They will always be fleeting, inevitably followed by some level of sadness or strife, but I know now, with full faith, that the journey through the tempestuous times will always be punctuated by the arrival of something new, surprising, soothing – something worth waiting for.

There is a distinct difference between merely surviving and really living.