Winter of our Discontent

Afire

2007-02-15T22:58:00.000-05:00

Centered, staring, watching you
Wondering if you read past my eyes

Lost in sensation i'll never share

Watching you walk, smile, laugh
Knowing this feeling all too well

Traveling in circles while you're right there

Destiny testing me, all questions and answers
There was darkness that no one saw

Afire with life, now i'm ready to play
Take your chances, come dance if you dare

Our Deepest Fear

2006-11-14T14:48:00.000-05:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
-Marianne Williamson

Waiting...

2006-10-27T10:46:00.000-04:00

Photographic Memory

2006-09-20T04:02:00.000-04:00

Always at the strangest times, that is when my life decides to nudge me. That is when destiny, randomness or all of the other demi-gods that rule my life decide to toy with me, make me feel, make me think, make me remember.

I remember a photo, in particular, from high school. Standing outside the front doors of the school on a cool autumn day. We were going to a theater rehearsal. We were young and foolish and innocent beyond our own comprehension at the time.

Now, that photograph is at the beginning of a slideshow behind my weary eyes. I never had a photographic memory, but I always seem to remember the photographs.

Completely Tidal

2006-08-31T09:38:00.000-04:00

The world and it's motions do not move because of us. We are lucky to catch the waves of the world, go with the flow and not be fighting, swimming the wrong direction, hoping to get somewhere with all our efforts.

So goes the happiness, the sadness, the ups and downs of our lives. It is not that we should control those ups and downs. There is no set of controls to adjust where our lives are. We can only ride the wave, staying faithful and true to ourselves and keeping a vigilant lookout for happiness.

I take the happiness, when it comes, for granted sometimes. As a defense mechanism, I discount it because I'm afraid to accept it. Better to not have it than to lose it? I believe in happiness that comes in those small doses, easy to accept and uplifting. Those doses that get me through mydays.

When joy or happiness or comfort rolls in like some tidal wave crashing against the shore of normal existence, I want to find shelter from it's effects. I think I might drown from the immensity of it all. I feel guilty too, in the midst of my fear of happiness. I feel guilty that I cannot give that happiness to those around me. I feel fear that they hate me for my epiphanies. I want to share somehow, even knowing it's not possible.

Standing in front of her, completely tidal, drowning in those misty blue eyes, I am content and confused. I am afloat and falling. I am asleep and dreaming and awake and wrapped in the proximity of her touch. Stretched over a chasm of the unexpected, my doubts slip and fall, unable to drag me down with them.

Magnetic Poem

2006-08-11T20:11:00.000-04:00

storm goddess
shadow the still sea
moan deliriously
together with diamonds
crushing moon mother
like white winter beauty

Losing Everything

2006-08-09T15:12:00.000-04:00

What do I have to lose except for everything? What do I have to worry about except falling with no parachute into some situation I have no control over? When did I start caring whether it was dangerous or irresponsible or just plain fucking crazy? I could look in the mirror right now, even just into some reflective surface and see myself and wonder who the hell I am to be so prudent, so responsible, so cautious and paranoid.

Losing everything is the risk that I take every day, with every decision to live my life the way I want to, to be the person I want to be, not who they want me to be. Everything could vanish so easily. Nothing makes things vanish faster than ignoring them, letting them be stagnant because I am too cautious to take the chance.

This is dangerous.
This could end in a flaming heap of heartache and drama.
This could fall apart around us before we can stop it.
This...is living.

Perception Of Time

2006-08-06T22:26:00.000-04:00

Crossing my body with powerful lines
I have no deception, perception of time
Or of space and pain that has found in me physical
Translated, unstated and gone

Bright lights or midnights all crowded in circles
Spinning, not winning, no battles to lose
Still I am left with no highway to travel
My way is harder with no one to share

A memory vanished without explanation
A space in that place where my heart should have been
I have no deception, perception of time
I have fallen, I'm falling
And I'm just fine

Dancing Like Wall Shadows

2006-07-25T00:56:00.000-04:00

I remember the late nights with only myself, so long ago. I remember the discovery and analysis from dark, gentle conversations with demons that belonged to me, and I to them. I remember my eyes flickering in my drowsiness, dancing like wall shadows across my eyes, trying to force me to sleep. I sit here in the dark, a candle burning. So easy to recall those nights, when reminders surround me.

Nighttime feels safe. Turning to look at myself, in this mirror of sudden recall, I see the same person. A person lost but always following some course that has no explanation other than it feels right. In some twisted simple way everything works out in my head. It all makes sense when there is nothing to see but inside.

I wonder where the path is going now. I am scared that this same person I am so capable of being will not be prepared for the road ahead and where it may lead. I am not running. Something must be keeping those anchors that keep me here from breaking.

Still I am not concerned or worried or sad about what it may be that lets me stay. I have never wound up somewhere, met someone, loved someone that I could argue my luck. So, like dark self-analysis, I smile at memories of tomorrow.

A Thousand Reasons

2006-07-12T14:48:00.000-04:00

There are reasons for those things in life that we do not understand. There is a reason for time and for feelings we don't care for and for events that we despise. There is reason for pain and for hate and for waking up that next day. There is reason for hiding and for deciding to re-emerge into the light, even if your eyes are squinting from the brightness.

There are a thousand reasons why I call you friend and why I will always keep a wonder in the back of my mind, even in the back of my soul. A small what-if that only serves to enhance the complex simplicity of our relationship. There is a reason why you are called Beauty. Sometimes beauty is all anyone needs.

Some Sort Of Starlight

2006-06-09T08:34:00.000-04:00

It was cloudy last night. Though, in my romantic youth, I often heard a friend of mine say that there were always stars, we just didn't always see them. In that youth, that notion made so much sense to me. To be able to look up at the clouds and still wish on some star as if they were shining brightly. Now, the notion seems heartfelt and somehow more ridiculous than in the past.

Still I found some sort of starlight last night. In the eyes of a woman that does not know she has it there. In the breath and movement of her body under gentle, night lighting. Some exterior design serves to mask that inner light like blanket covered hippies at a Dead concert. Still it escapes, tendrils of it shining through without warning.

In moments, at times, I felt I was lying on my back playing the stargazer. That some myriad of images was etching itself across my bloodshot eyes. Images I would never remove. Memories that will haunt me as often as they cause me to smile. Memories of some sort of hidden starlight, a glimpse of something i will not have.

Reminder

2006-05-29T00:02:00.000-04:00

It's midnight. I guess that means it's Memorial Day. I haven't slept yet. The city is making it's music outside, not bothering me, just intriguing me. Cocktail is on the television. Tom Cruise before the scientology, Brian Brown with a career. I am reminded of the philosophy of it all.

I think back on today and smile. The smell of the grass, the sky in some sort of over-saturated brilliant blue. No matter how dirty the water in that river is, it looked beautiful in the glinting sun. Six years and she has the same effect. She makes me remember how many realities there really are in the world. She makes me remember how beautiful life is, how beautiful she is. She underplays it but it still shows, like the glinting sun.

I think back on today, with my eyes almost too heavy to keep open, and I remember walking and the sites and the sounds and the smell of her, all suntan lotion and lovely. It felt surreal, like the feeling I get from the city.

I am always falling in love with her. I am always falling in love with this city. The place that holds some sort unexplainable beauty for me. The subway ride, no matter how short, reminded me that I should be here. Seeing her walking toward me down the street floored me and I fought to stay standing.

It always feels so directed at her. When I really consider this emotion, this feeling that runs so deep through me when I think of her I know it has so much more meaning than that. It is a reminder, like this city, that life is worth living for so many reasons. That life isn't just for touching, but for diving into and wrapping around you. She reminds me that I am capable of being alive because I can see how alive she is.

Cars are blaring their horns in the city outside, and down the hall, a beautiful woman is fast asleep. I hope she knows the effect she has had on me these six years. So many times, in the midst of turmoil and hard times, she has been a reminder.

A Family Affair

2006-05-21T17:04:00.000-04:00

All in all, I survived the weekend. I'm certainly not complaining. Staying in what I'm sure is a multi-million dollar house overlooking a harbor in Rockport, MA certainly isn't anything to complain about. There are ten of us for the weekend and we've been fighting with the weather since Friday and only amongst ourselves a little bit.

As much as I'm thrilled to be on vacation, to be away from work, I am missing a lot of things about home. Even in the sunstreaming morning hours, walking up and down Bearskin Neck I was thinking about home. I was thinking about the radio show Tuesday night and some of the people I've not seen for a while. I was thinking about people I want to see more than I have in the past.

It took us a little too long to get here. Thanks to a closed Mass. Pike. So what should have been a 2.5 hour trip took us right around 6. It rained, it poured, I'm surprised we didn't see locusts at one point. I was not pleased with our map by the end of the day.

We had amazing food, amazing drink, and some good ol' fashioned family gathering fun. Complete with cranky people and the complications of mobilizing 10 people in multiple cars to all go to one place. It worked out just fine, all in all.

So congratulations to my grandparents. 60 years is a long time. It's even longer to be married. We made it through a weekend together. And those smiles are worth a 12 hour drive.

Incidents And Accidents

2006-05-13T02:28:00.000-04:00

For the second time in ten years, I saw you. Crossing the room to your table and catching your eye was a mystical moment behind my calm smile. As soon as you were in my sight i knew it had been too long since i'd seen you.

Then the questions started forming in my mind. As the evening passed, though, they didn't stay in order in some list. I guess the melted into a single thought that i resist attempting to explain or describe. Though you wouldn't look me in the eyes, I know you could feel me looking into yours.

I found myself wishing. I caught myself in the act of hoping for ridiculous hopes and pointless futures. I dressed up my life in a suit and hoped that appearances could be everything. And damn you for smiling, for breathing, for your energy, so addictive.

Not that it matters. Not that the universe even blinks in response to my thoughts, my feelings. I am a fleeting moment, an afterthought in the twinkle of a star. Still, in times when I can be your bodyguard again, I am suddenly elevated from afterthought. I am given the keys to some city and the power to adjust life. I a moment that could go on forever.

Thank you from the depths, the fathoms of my being. There was no accident in our meeting again. Coincidence only exists because we don't comprehend the reasons. I will not take this one for granted.

Daze

2006-05-03T16:08:00.000-04:00

No one's around to see this
painted on my wall
I can feel my heartbeat
But it doesn't matter at all
All the things I need are here
inside and buried so deep
But without your eyes to help me
my worthless hands won't sleep

You've gotta be crazy
To think I knew
And sitting here in a smoky daze
I know it won't be you
that saves me

Pictures worth a thousand,
pictures, letters, words
But the bottle says i'm hopeless
this just isn't in my world
I need so much to show you
You need so much to see
Breaking chains makes mountains
That melt into my sea

A sorry sight in black and white
how can it grab a color
Without my rosy glasses on
it's amazing I saw some other
Endless summers taking chances
wasting time on hopeless dances
Wasting time on desperate feelings
let the devil do the dealing

Always Thinking Of You

2006-04-25T12:46:00.000-04:00

"There is the watchman of the fire
That warms up my heart's desire.
There is the keeper of the lights
In my life's darkest nights."
---Sonja Nic Rafferty

Quite A View

2006-04-22T11:44:00.000-04:00

It's not very often that I get to say that I can see the ocean from the house. Today, though, I can. It's only April and I'm on vacation. It won't be for long enough, but it is definitely something I needed. Just over the tree line outside the house, there is an ocean ready to take away my worries for a little while. The ferry ride over here, to my favorite place, was more therapeutic than usual. Maybe it was her presence, so sparkling and full of life no matter the circumstance.

Now, in the warmth of the sun streaming through the sky lights, I am content to write with my favorite radio station humming in the background. They seem to know what to play and when, like they're making sure my life has a good soundtrack every time i'm here. So as Jacob Dylan starts crooning through the house, all I can do is smile at the perfection of it all.

I made comment the other day that I would love to live here. I don't know if I could live here full time. I would worry that this place would lose the magic. That somehow, some of how I feel is because I am not here all the time. I would certainly like the freedom and finances to be able to come here when I feel like it. It is a goal i've had. It is, perhaps, a goal i will always have. I will fight for it to become some sort of reality, but I also know how far that reality is from my current situation.

Here I have no one to answer to about my problems. I have no one to reconcile with, no one to worry about pleasing but myself. In the kitchen making breakfast for seven people and somehow it's meditative. I cannot share or explain in, proper amounts of accuracy,
the sheer beauty of this place to me. To both my eyes and somehow to my soul, scattered and torn and still content on this island.

I guess that's why I come here. Here is where I feel the most complete. I mean, after all, it is quite a view.

Coming Around Again

2006-04-19T00:30:00.000-04:00

The sunlight is hours away right now and still I look forward to it. I look forward to it because it means beginning again. I need this beginning. I have had so many false starts in the recent past. Places I thought were beginnings that did not turn out as I'd hoped. Life has certainly been throwing the curve balls lately.

Still, I see summer coming around again. I see Martha's Vineyard sunsets and warm rains. I can imagine the feeling of sweating in New England heat. I laugh now at the comments to come about how "I hope it gets cooler tomorrow."

Now is the time for embracing those things we've lost track of. Now is the time for rekindling and remembering. Now is the time to brush off winter's half-dazed hibernation and grab our lives firmly at the scruff of the neck and take control. Now is the time to get the tears out, the screams out, the sighs out like spring cleaning.

I want to see my own reinvention through internal eyes. I want to weep at beauty not at pain. I want to be strong enough to do the hardest thing in our lives. I will fight to be myself. Even when I am scared of who I may be, I want to embrace all I can be, not let it go wasted into oblivion.

The sunlight is hours away and the moonlight comforts me. The cool breeze rolling over my window sill is urging me to crawl under the remaining blankets and fall asleep with the night air all around me. So I will say my wishes and drift off with a smile on my face tonight. Because tonight I know that nothing was forgotten. Tonight, in my dreams, i'll be dancing.

Juggling re-Act

2006-04-11T15:34:00.000-04:00

Round, strong, never moving
Relationships worth it, stronger, deeper
Tossed together, never easy
Adding more, we're all ok
All we have is time to love
The final ball will never come
You'll never be shakey with us to support you
Together we can handle it all
You've never dropped us, just let us bounce
Pick us up we'll always be here
We'll learn together
We'll fail together
We'll love together
And when it's too hard
And all you want to do is run...

...run to us.

Letter Six - December 23, 1903

2006-04-04T13:36:00.000-04:00

...But when you notice that it is vast, you should be happy; for what (you should ask yourself) would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along, the most unworthy. . . . But perhaps these are the very hours during which solitude grows; for its growing is painful as the growing of boys and sad as the beginning of spring. But that must not confuse you. What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours - that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child, when the grown-ups walked around involved with matters that seemed large and important because they looked so busy and because you didn't understand a thing about what they were doing.

---Rainer Marie Rilke

Forgotten

2006-04-04T01:52:00.000-04:00

At these moments in my life I am the most open to the possibility that my mind can achieve. I read the stress in your words, the stress in your voice. I felt you seeing reality in those words. It stung me. To think you saw so little of reality in days past. Days I remember so well. Days you seem to have all but forgotten.

I said things to you that I have said to so few people. I will never dance there again. The waterfall will end and I will not be there to see it. I gave you something that you don't realize you have. I loved you and trusted you and married you in dreams at night. I saw our children in your eyes and our future in your smile.

Still, it feels like a dream. There are vivid memories of your lips on mine, of your body against me. There are so many woven, beautifully tangled threads that make up this scattered quilt of memory. Somehow though, for you it is forgotten. Or, maybe even hidden, pushed into a corner of existence you will not touch as the future threatens to sweep control out from under your feet.

In all those things, though, what I gave you was myself. Completely. I was yours for the taking, the destroying, the loving and the hating. I never had malice, I never had anger. I forgave you for everything you would ever do the moment I met you.

I loved you.
No.
I love you.

To a depth even shadows dare dwell. A place where endless is not enough to explain the amount I have cared for you. A place where I can truly express the joy and utter despair of my life with you, my life because of you.

In that place I hope one thing. A single thought stretching in a hundred and sixteen directions with one purpose. Hoping, praying, wishing that you have not forgotten.

In Truth

2006-04-01T00:32:00.000-05:00

Only moments ago i was crying into my pillow. Crying because I hadn't said it to you, but whispered it afterward like some high school romance. I know I could. I also know I would have cried it to you and not just said it, calmly, softly, gently, as I meant it. So I'm sorry for speaking of truth to you and then not telling you the simplest truth I have.

I know you understand. Even now that we are separate I know I'll never truly be alone. It's almost unfair to say i'm lonely to you. I hope you know I do not mean to degrade your presence in the very depths of who I am and who I've become because of you.

I don't think I could have ever said enough to explain the feeling. Still you knew it was there. You know it still is. I will never find understanding like yours again. So, in my darker times, I lament losing you, lament the decisions i've made, we've made. And I cry and sob like a child and somehow smile through a constant rain of tears.

In truth, I said I loved you after I hung up the phone.

For The Beauty And The Pain

2006-03-25T11:24:00.000-05:00

"Almost Home"

How many miles
Did we travel down that road
Searching all the while
For a place to call our own
So young and hypnotized
By the stars in our eyes
How could we have ever known
Almost home
We were almost home

How many times
Can you go on tempting fate
'Til it sends you a sign
You can't anticipate
Now the lesson is learned
Our love has turned
From a jewel into a stone
Almost home
We were almost home

Love never lasts
Like an old photograph
Where the colors slowly fade to shades of grey

Love is the place
Where you go when day is done
Love is in the face
Of the old and young
Love knows nothing of the wheel
Of aluminum and steel
Traveling down that gravel road
Almost home
We were almost home

---Mark Erelli

Missing Perfection

2006-03-23T00:16:00.000-05:00

The realization just hit me. It was a few moments ago and I got a picture in my email. A picture of someone I have already seen. A picture of someone who I already knew was beautiful. And my breath wouldn't return, my heart wouldn't beat for what felt like an eternity because of the sudden tide.

I was swept out onto the river again. I was sitting, eyes closed, with the heat of the fire dancing on my face. I was watching a bridge rise up out of the horizon and wishing it was hours away. I was falling in love with a memory and a picture of a girl I had already seen.

I had already seen her. I had already fallen for her so long ago. Still it was there so suddenly again, an emotion that reappeared without warning. Somehow the moment lasted an eternity with that picture in front of me. If the world were more cruel, the phone would have rung at that instant and it would have been her and the truth would have burst from my lips unbidden. Still the only sound in my room is the whirring and humming of my computer. No ringing phone and barely breath escaping my lips.

I keep missing perfection. I find it and let it slip, fall away from me like those little plastic toys that you just can't hold onto. I knew she was there. I had known about the feelings for so long. Suddenly they had surged again. Suddenly my soul danced and laughed, happy that such emotion still existed for me.

I keep missing perfection, and now every day I will be missing her.

Vernal Equinox

2006-03-20T21:38:00.000-05:00

The first day of spring and the cold was biting at my ankles like some five year old day care nightmare. I have managed a winter of quiet hibernation mixed with bursts of energy. I have heard, listened to musicians inspiring me with their passion, their aura. I have made new friendships, rekindled old ones, and perhaps lost touch with some. I am making amends and making peace and making a mess all at the same time. I am writing. Music, lyrics, words, poems, prose, anything. I am creating so I don't feel so naked in the harshness of this time of year.

So I stand in the cold of this night and look up at the stars and pay my respects to the Goddess of the Dawn. I tell Eostre how happy I am to have seen her today. I tell her my impatience, I shiver in the cold and hope she sees how thankful I am that she is here. Because, though I may complain and wish for Beltaine, I know that she heralds the warmth, the fire of life, the sun. So that, when Midsummer is finally upon us, I will not complain of the heat, but languish in it.

Chance and Circumstance

2006-03-17T00:16:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to explain something in this that I'm not sure I know how to. I'm trying to tell you what the look meant. What paragraphs were sitting there behind my eyes, looking in yours. Explaining something so subtle, beautiful, perfect is a challenge I wasn't expecting. Somehow eclectic and Destiny have gone into business with each other.

As it always has been, I have trouble finding where to begin when it comes to you. When it comes to the way you've made me feel in the past. To the way you still do. It's like trying to explain a sunset. I'm sure some scientist could tell me why, but in the end, the words become meaningless because the depth is so much unspoken.

Seeing you brought out so much of the best of me. It reminded me, as I've been reminded recently, how little my emotions change year to year. The strongest of those never fade, as they haven't with you. I said that you still sparkled, as you always had. Maybe that explanation seems enough, but it doesn't begin to scratch the surface.

I believe that we are free to choose, to make our own decisions about how our lives proceed. Somewhere in those decisions though, a little guidance always seems to occur at the right times. If I were religious enough, I suppose I'd call it God. I tend to label it Destiny. That little nudge that hurts sometimes but always gets us where we should be going.

We met last night and something about the world clicked for me. Maybe it's too subtle to concern myself, but something is different now, better. I could blame simple chance or random circumstance. In the end, though, I know it is you. You in my life again. I hope I can make amends for the mistakes I made when I was younger. I hope you understand the depth that one single moment with you has affected me.

Indian Summer

2006-03-14T23:35:00.000-05:00

I don't think i've ever gotten over anyone i've ever been in love with. I think i'll always be getting over all of them. I was reminiscing tonight, on the drive home, about a love lost. I felt my body react, my heart react before I understood why. I was over her, in my mind. My heart, though, had other agendas. It reminded me, slapped me across the face with those pliable, yet somehow immovable emotions that I had experienced so many months ago. And I felt myself fall in love again. Maybe this time, because of a memory so vivid. A memory of soft words and gentle touch mixed together with roaring, dangerous, careless passion. A flame so large that it soon burned low,even as I tended to it.

Then, when that memory drifted from me, I saw the effect it had. Like indian summer, it had, in the midst of the cold, in the midst of the bleak, reminded me of the warmth. Of the sun. So turning inward with new found warmth I saw them. I saw the people I had given parts of my heart, parts of the essence of myself to. I smiled at the end of an insane day. I smiled to think that I had loved so completely. I glowed with hope that someone experience even half of the perfection i've had in my life. Even through the worst times, the darkest times, I have been blessed with light. Even as my indian summer faded, I was comforted with glimpses of something I rarely see. My own personal heaven, hidden there beneath all of my hells.

Deep Freeze

2006-02-27T17:39:00.000-05:00

It's cold. I think, if you went back through the history of this blog you would find me complaining about the weather a number of times. I was born with the blood of a mediterranean. My father has that problem too. I'm quite sure I inherited that trait from him. The cruelest part of that trick was being born in New England.

The dramas in my life now are not my own. I exist as a being that does not suffer the burdens of personal romance. I only suffer from other people's lives now. I only suffer from caring what happens to them, and trying to help without becoming more of a problem than a solution.

I desire romance and someone to share it with. Yet, at the same time, i am willing to wait, willing to be picky about what I want. I should be drowning in my own self pity, and instead I am enjoying my singularity. I am enjoying the idea that I will not settle for a relationship just because I do not have one. There are things I need that I will wait for.

I am not a substitute. I want the real deal. I want to find someone that wants me for exactly who I am. I want to find someone that isn't trying to make me "fill in" as their boyfriend. I've done that enough in my life. You get all of me, or none of me. Maybe that's a little harsh, but if you're taking it that way, you don't know me very well. I'm a lover and a fighter. I'm a romantic, a bit of a sap. I am not the typical. I don't want the typical. I want the exceptional. And I will wait.

It's cold. I've been existing in some sort of deep freeze. I'm burning somewhere inside but I'm controlling the temperature. I need to be in control of all of this. One day I'll burst into flame. Until then, all I feel is cold.

Inspired By Me!

2006-02-09T13:37:00.000-05:00

I'm flattered. I received an email, recently, from someone with a poem in it that they wrote because of "Heal Me". I love it and so I'm posting it here...

So many thoughts I shouldn't be thinking...
So many things I really want to do...
of flirting
of kissing
of hugging
of loving
of sex
of romance
of all thing things I want so desperately to do with you.

You're right there in front of me, so close I can taste you.
Yet it seems, at times, as if we're worlds apart.
How unfair it is that I should not have you!

Looking in your eyes I can see the passion,
the words you want to say, but don't.

In your sweet embrace I long to stay,
to feel the warmth of your touch, the heat of your body.

Your light touch makes me tingle from head to toe,
Your lips against mine lights a fire inside me.

So much I want, that I should not have...
So many thoughts I shouldn't be thinking...

Heal Me

2006-01-28T23:08:00.000-05:00

Heal me with thoughts I shouldn't be thinking. Heal me with glances that only we understand, with some hidden subtext. I can feel some gentle pulse when we communicate. Every moment that I think on you is like some sort of suspended animation. What seems like hours in thought is really seconds.

The complicated parts of all of this have not even begun to appear. Still I welcome the challenge for the rewards it will produce someday. I have so many reasons, 116 and then some. I have so many ideas and hopes and thoughts and wishes to share.

So heal me every time a passing thought comes crashing my way. I'll do my best to return the favor.

Blood On My Lips

2006-01-24T00:37:00.000-05:00

Some sort of sick twisted love
And I hate that i'm so callous to it's causes
to it's undeniable reasons that leave me stranded
caught without a paddle or rope
No love and no hope
No chance of surviving or thriving on your stale inflection
And in my reflection is you
trapped in this prison
cell made for escape like this blood
on my lips and that sway that you make
when you walk with your hips
in wide circulation like soft meditiation from all of your fears
While my tears make a waterfall over my face
falling to ground in silence ungolden
And blazoned with streaks from showers above
I still hope for
Some sort of sick twisted love

Spin

2006-01-21T22:45:00.000-05:00

The road I've walked is unique. The time i've spent in love and hate has been my traveling companion. It comforts me, excite me, destroy me. It is my dearest companion. Still, sometimes it fails to enlighten, or even to sadden. In those times, love and hate will leave the world to work it's mysticism. Will leave Destiny to show me the way or set up the road block. Those are the times I'm most uncomfortable. When I have no control over life, pulling me in the direction I have no choice but to go.

It's that way, too, when I meet new people. Possibilities abound in my mind. A universe of notions and questions wells up inside me, begging to be freed. To be given permission to speak. I am prone to caution in those moments when perfection overwhelms. From the first lock of an eye, or a shared smile, and new universes spin into existence, just as other ones die in quiet endings.

This charmed existence I lead is one i will never regret, even when the pain is overwhelming. The road I've walked is a beautiful stretch of wishes and dreams both granted and denied. The road I've walked is filled with the beauty of amazing people. Those people that made me whole and broke me in half and changed my life in the smallest and largest ways.

Sometimes I can almost hear the Moirai chatter in the distance, like gentle rolling summer thunder. Always spinning, measuring, cutting...

Once Upon A Time Girl

2006-01-17T14:19:00.000-05:00

You are my once upon a time girl
Always there at the end of my story
Like some long forgotten bedtime ritual
That, after, left me with heavy eyes

Now kissed with complexity
Eyes closed in a mockery of rest
I only see your face in false memory
Where such boundaries have no end

Like some long forgotten bedtime ritual
Once upon a time

A Quick Quote

2006-01-04T16:13:00.000-05:00

...So When I tell you that I love you
Don't test my love
Accept my love, don't test my love
Cause maybe I don't love you all that much

---Dan Bern "Jerusalem"

Before

2006-01-04T15:12:00.000-05:00

Before I was, I was nothing
That was yesterday
Today I am, and tomorrow lingers

Before I was, I was nothing
Everything lost, nothing was sacred
Someday I'll be better than tomorrow

Before I was, I was nothing
That was yesterday
That was before you

A Hint Of Jasmine

2005-12-20T12:50:00.000-05:00

Another orbit has come around my way again. Tears welled up as I read her first contact with me in what feels like an eternity. Now she is back. Close. She needed to talk and, whether she knows it or not, I needed her. The timing was perfect, and the conversation was beautiful. Her voice has never really left the forefront of my thoughts since i've known her. With it there, only a few hours from me now, my thoughts do a little jig at the idea of getting to see her.

It's nice to know she still thought of me, even as her life moved into extraordinary. I made wishes for her. For her safe journey, for her health, for her to find love, friendship, companionship. As she told me of her time in Greece, her good times, her bad times. I felt like we were leading the same life a few times in the past months. Maybe even having our hearts broken at the same times. Maybe, in some small way, it was Destiny's way of letting us know that we're never alone in the worst of our emotions.

I'm thrilled to see her, thrilled to talk to her, thrilled to know she is close enough to drive to, even for just an evening, even for just a moment. I thought i felt something in the air last week. Something that changed, a new scent. Now I know what it was I was sensing. A hint of jasmine.

Redux

2005-12-11T23:14:00.000-05:00

Nothing has changed
Her voice, still returning
Sending chills, bumping across bruises

The way she stands, emblazoned across my memory
The way she kissed, still a fantasy
Her voice, still returning

Nothing has changed
I fade across shadow lakes
Recalling the way she kissed, still a fantasy

The parade outside is never forgiving
While penance in my world isn't necessary
Nothing has changed

Remember that returning isn't easy
Being apart was like a lesson
Now i see the way she stands, emblazoned across my memory
Redux

4ever continued...

2005-12-08T13:13:00.000-05:00

Why more now? Everything i've said has fallen on jaded ears. Everything I've done has been seen with clouded eyes. There was never a lie, there was never a motive, there was only this. So I respond now, with words, because they are what I have. I respond now hoping that you will take them for what they are and know that I would never lie about something so important, something so huge that galaxies cry at the sheer force of this feeling. Ignore it, deny it, and still it is true.

I love you unconditionally. I love you without ever needing it to be returned. I would die for you. I forgave you for everything you may ever do that hurts the minute that I fell in love with you. It will never change, never stop, never grow quiet or lessen in it's intensity. It is yours to have. It is yours to keep. I will spend the rest of my life, if need be, trying to show you that what I have, what I feel is not love in words, it is love in action, in thought, in perfection. The only perfection i've ever experienced in life is love. So few times have I loved so perfectly. You were one, you are one. I told you the first time we ever talked of such things. I recited it to you more than once while we were there in perfection. I will always return to there. Always hope to remind you. This love is true and beautiful and undying and will not change.

I believe in you. I believe in this love, even if other love seems so petty and useless. I will always be there with accepting arms. I cannot tell you enough that you are beautiful. I cannot tell you enough that you are loved, by this lost soul.

Maybe you don't believe me. I will always hope for the chance to prove it.

4ever

2005-12-01T12:01:00.000-05:00

I'm overtired. It happens when you don't sleep. Not sleeping is symptom of coffee too late in the evening. Not sleeping is a symptom of that one state of mind that exists inside me that is not calm, or zen or happy. That part of me that is still unsure of everything. There are so many things I need to say. More importantly, there are so many things I wanted to ask, wanted to know. Instead, that part of me is in oblivion with no ending, no understanding.

So this is a list then. A list of things I need to say. I could ask why a million times and it wouldn't be enough. I could sit here and go through every moment, every second and come up with everything and it wouldn't be enough.

Why did you say you loved me?
Why did you come looking for me if you were just going to walk away?
Why did you just stop, with no explanation?
You wanted honesty and respect and I gave you nothing but that. Why, from me, was it not enough?
Why did you not believe those words I said to you?
You danced with me and sang with me.
I was never mad, only confused.
I was never angry or spiteful, never lashed out or was disrespectful.
I believe in you, in all that you are.
I called and tried to communicate and all I received was silence. Why so silent?
Don't you know that I love you more than anything? That nothing you could do would change that? That all of the world could tell me to forget you and I never will?
Don't you know that those words are not fluff or cheese though they may sound like it? That they are the most serious statements of the truest feelings?
Can you see how beautiful you are?
Can you see how much I hurt?
Do you know that all I wanted was to talk?
All I ever wanted was you to be happy.
All I ever hoped for was your love and your honesty and your respect.
Do you think that you are so imperfect?

You are beautiful and strong and one of the most amazing people i've ever met. I would never have said those words, never have held you or kissed you like I did if that was not true. In the dream that was the beginning of our relationship, all I could see was happiness ahead. Where did the road turn so swiftly? Sometimes these words all sound the same, hoping that maybe you read them and take them to heart, the way that I mean them.

I never wanted to move on. I only wanted to wait. I only wanted to see you again, in beauty as you always were. So you've slipped and I am helpless to find you. Someday maybe you'll find me. I'll be waiting with arms wide, a smile on my face and nothing but the love I have for you, will always have for you, in my eyes.

No rest and no sleep and always hoping that you are happy. Always.

Faded

2005-11-27T23:43:00.000-05:00

The day outside was bleak. I did not want to wake up, to climb out of my bed into the warmth that wasn't there. I didn't want to face a day that had so very little in it to distract me from my constant thoughts as of late.

Today filled itself. I got a christmas tree with my cousin and her boyfriend for her place (now my place as well.) We decorated, went grocery shopping, made dinner, just had a generally homebody/new england type Sunday. I was faded from the week and still I spent the day with part of me distracted.

Saturday was Garden State. It was grab some food from the pizza place and play with OnDemand and find Garden State and eat greasy food, smoke a little pot and watch. It was the day that I broke down and cried because of a movie like i've never done. I cried like a child. Then i fell back to sleep and went out later in the evening to wash away the faded thoughts.

I could do that for every day of this long weekend. I'll sum it up instead. For every action i did, for every function, meal, family member I spoke to, beer i drank, there was a small portion of me that was silent, brooding and on fire with anger and love and withdrawal.

And now it's faded because I am not sober. I haven't slept well lately. Why would tonight be any different.

Eden

2005-11-22T09:31:00.000-05:00

All I want is the world
And everything for me
You can rattle off your talk
All that matters is what I see
If you break me down
Selfish desire is all you blame
Cause desperate times
Call for desperate measures
And I am not ashamed
Oh it took me a long time to come to this
And I have chosen my path
I am only for me
All my dreams are so closed
If I open them to you
You can count them all as lies
You can believe me or you can believe the truth
But I could let you in
Put your feelings on the shelf
There's only room cause it helps myself
Oh I could let you in
But it's to no avail
I only listen cause it helps myself
Oh it took me a long time to come to this
And I have chosen my path
I am only for me
I took a cane from a blind man
And I've tasted the fruit in the garden of Eden
When I walk out of here
I know I'll stand clear
But the taste in my mouth still remains
Still remains
Oh it took me a long time
I am only for me

===Guster

Seeing Double

2005-11-18T07:43:00.000-05:00

I went with LegalQueer last night to see her favorite and, possibly, my favorite girl guitarist. Melissa was on fire last night. We went to the Iron Horse for five-thirty and managed to get great seats. We were staying for both shows (the 7pm and the 10pm) and had hoped to not have "lousy" seats. We snacked and talked and waited. The show started and Melissa was playing the flugelhorn for the first song of her opening act's set. It was amazing. I could use amazing in the post quite a bit but i'll try not to.

The opening act, Natalia Zuckerman was phenomenal and worth checking out. I bought one of her CDs. She was an interesting mix of blues, a little alt country, dashed with some good NYC flavor. She definitely held her own next to Melissa's unstoppable bursts of guitar energy when they played together. That is no small feat. She's in my CD player as i'm writing this.

Melissa took the stage both time and was just pure energy. If you could measure this woman's aura in front of a crowd it would bury the needle on every instrument. Even before she opens her mouth to sing, her guitar is screaming at you, "PAY ATTENTION, IT'S GONNA BE A HELL OF A RIDE!!". That's what it is every time. Every song and I can't tear my eyes away. My entire self just wants to be right there at that moment. She played songs i'd never heard. It didn't matter. The sound in the Iron Horse is perfect and the words echoed clearly over her guitar, whether it was roaring or yearning. I could go on for hours about her variations, her rhythm, her movements, and the overall beauty that is Melissa Ferrick on stage.

The one moment that is in front of my memory took place during the second show. After some of the more upbeat selections in the second set, the mood shifted in a moment and Melissa began to play Anything, Anywhere. And it was all I could do to not cry. I had heard the song before, but I have never had such a place for it in my mind, in my heart. Thank you, LegalQueer for showing me the wonder of her music, and thank you Melissa...for this...

I want you
To know me
To need me
Smile when I call your name

I want you
To never
Look at
Anyone else this way

So strange
This something
We have between us
And it's not fair
If you've never
Loved this way

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me

I want you
To know that
I will always have you
No matter if never
Physically in my arms again
This love
Is like
Mercury
Splitting off
Endlessly
Every time I try
To nail it down

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me

Too bad
The best love hurts so much
But it's so good yes
The best love hurts so much

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me
Sing it right back
Sing it right back
Sing it right back
Back to me
Anything ... Anywhere

Poetic License

2005-11-16T20:43:00.000-05:00

I'm sick. Physically not feeling well. I'm not quite on my deathbed but i'm ill enough to have stayed home every night since Sunday of this week. That's a big deal. I did venture out for coffee briefly the other night and it was great, but other than that i've been sitting here. I've been alternately depressed, happy, content, cold, warm, stuffy, coughing, teary-eyed, lamenting, reminiscing, longing, smiling, laughing, missing...

I'm not feeling in the least bit poetic at this moment. I'm feeling though. I'm feeling lots of things. I don't think they are things I can talk about here. I don't usually curb my thoughts here. But then, my thoughts are usually all decorated like some elegant dining room with way too much silverware and ridiculous chandeliers.

And now that i've written and erased and written and erased about ten things, I'm lost. I can't do this right now. Sorry for the tease, those of you that are reading this. Without some poetic license, sometimes it's just easier to say it straight.

I'm depressed, not feeling well and wishing on stars that I haven't seen for days. I guess you'd call this the "down" part of the cycle huh?

A Sanctuary Safe And Strong

2005-11-15T10:42:00.000-05:00

I think we all have to be alone. I was reading MissRachelle's latest post and she mentioned getting away to her "spot". I know what she means. I've always had a couple of places to go. I've always needed somewhere to run, regardless of the weather or the time or the season or the circumstances. I have a place I can escape everyone. Everyone except myself. Usually, that's why I'm going. I'm going because I need some time with just me. Maybe it's to think, maybe it's to feel, or maybe it's just to be without the need to explain.

I went there just the other day in fact. It was late, I was tired and still I needed to get away from the rest of life. I needed to sort things out. By the time I left, life was still there, my problems were still there, but i felt just a little bit more ready to deal with them. And the song that kept running through my head as I drove home was by a man that has gotten me through quite a bit of my life with his words...and sometimes he just hit the nail on the head.

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I’ve held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It’s just as well for all I’ve seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you’re the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That’s if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you’re the only one who knows

===Billy Joel

Presence And Absence

2005-11-14T15:43:00.000-05:00

At once I feel alone and somehow comforted. Without this presence I've grown so accustomed to I have some emptiness inside that is both unexplainable and explained. I am balancing, like a good Libra, between those things that I need to do and those that I wish for. I'm waiting and constantly convincing myself that I should. That I need to wait, to fight, to make this thing worthwhile. What if that is not my choice to make?

I wake up and hope, I drift to sleep making wishes. I exist, in some sense, between the times I sleep, as a functional body. I move and work and laugh and watch myself from some third person view. I am going through the motions of life so life doesn't forget I'm here. All the while, distracted and meditative.

Such presence. Such overbearing power in the memories and the dreams I've had. Yet absence, like some wasted city block, stretches out in front of me. I have no control over it. I have no recourse from it. It is part of me, even the functional me. Behind every laugh i miss her lips. Behind every smile i see her face. Behind every conversation I am listening to her speaking. Some simultaneous presence and absence, drawing and quartering me into useless sections.

Wondering what will make me whole again.

Who Needs Words

2005-11-10T06:49:00.000-05:00

No Music For Dancing

2005-11-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

I hate not knowing. The complete rage it causes is so deep seated it often scares my logical side. I need to know where I stand. I need to know what I am expected to do. It doesn't matter the context. In my job, in my life, in my relationships. I need to know where I belong in all of those things. Some of them I can discover on my own. Those that I cannot find on my own, where that knowing is dependent on another, are those that I fear the most.

I need to know. Maybe it's the control freak inside of me, clawing at the surface of my laid back facade. I need to understand because I don't want to fuck it up. I've never discriminated between those things that would hurt if I knew them and those that would not. I don't care if it's going to hurt. I'd rather hurt than not know, I'd rather be broken and know why then shattered and wondering. It's the person I am.

I'm disappointed in myself. I am weak and easily destroyed. I played, for so long, the game of being strong and confident. When the realization hits me that I am far from that it takes away a little of my identity. I need to know myself more than anything. When I discover something that I did not know, it infuriates me and I have to understand, I need to know what it is that makes that part of me tick the way it does. I need to count it's beats, understand it's rhythm so I can have some semblance of understanding.

Unanswered prayers, unanswered hopes and dreams. Life is made of them. The glass, it seems, is half empty for me right at the moment. Perhaps because of where I am, what I'm experiencing right now. Perhaps because of these new revelations about myself, about others. Perhaps because i'm growing again. Still my questions are unanswered, still I sit here broken with no hope of resolve. I am not dark now though, as I have been. Only dealing, learning, going through this with my head held as high as I can make it. I am here because of my choices, and I am strong enough to deal with them. It does not make anything easier. The one question I do know the answer to is what drives me.

I will make it through this.

River

2005-11-07T15:44:00.000-05:00

I am a creature of the water. Neither of my astrological signs (I'm a cusp) would ever say that about me though. Still, I am. It was hard to get up today. It was hard to face the world again after this weekend, after these past days. I'm functioning but not well. I am alive. That much I am thankful for. Still, I am weighed down with so much. I remain functional out of necessity. Crawling into my bed and sleeping the world away just isn't an option any more.

Today, at lunch, I wasn't sure what I was going to eat. I'm on a limited budget this week and wasn't exactly hungry anyway. So I drove to the water. The river actually. Getting to the river took me past the center of town. Past memories. Dancing on that big round stone. Sitting at the fountain, laughing as it shut off right in front of us. Walking down along the train tracks, content to just be with each other.

Today I drove to the water, looking for some sort of comfort. Comfort from the turmoil. Comfort for my bruised heart. I didn't think I would find it. Then, Destiny seems to like throwing curve balls at me. I shed a tear for the first time in a week today. To my astonishment, it was not a tear of sadness. I am sad, depressed, and generally in a bad state. Still, the tears I shed were joyful tears.

I ran through the memories so fast in my head, and they were all so vivid. All the amazing moments, the perfection that I could remember. The shared looks, the shared emotion, the simple touch of a hand, the caress of lips. I watched the movie in my mind play through the past six weeks and smiled.

All I have now is what I keep within myself. I have hope that Destiny has a plan. I have memories that I would never trade. I have a direction, some purpose.

I wanted to share it all. I don't know if I will be allowed to. I have all of these things and I am still broken. Am I taking them for granted? Or does she stand there, blazing in my mind and overpowering all those other things. I want this to be "us" again. I want to make memories for the future. I would forgive and forgive and forgive for the chance.

And the logical side of me is screaming. But then, he usually is. I can't make sense of it, because it's a feeling. No matter what I want for myself, I want her to be happy more than anything.

And the water kept rushing past.

1000 Words

2005-11-07T00:07:00.000-05:00

A picture is worth a thousand words. So then, the picture of you I have on my desktop is thousands of words long. Then there are the words across the top of the picture. Words I see every time i look at my computer screen, every time i close a window or open my laptop...

"Thinking of you"

That is what I'm doing right now. Worrying and hoping and loving you. No matter how many words are said or not said, you will be on my mind, in my heart, and that picture will never change.

Namesake

2005-11-03T22:25:00.000-05:00

I have written about mountains and lakes and islands. I have written about faces and hands and eyes. I have written about travels and journeys and adventures. I have made up stories and had stories make me up. I have played games of chance with the devil as often as I've made my peace with God. I have sinned more times than I can count. I have loved deeper than can be explained. I have ridden on the backs of dragons in my dreams while reality delivered blow after blow. I have put my faith in things that should never be trusted and I have fallen so far I often remember how it feels, even when the light is bright on my face.

Darkness is a haven. There is no evil in the darkness that comforts me. In all absence of light the truest nature of the world is there. Without light to change things, the darkness is honesty. Without the image all we have is the emotion, the feeling, the gut reaction that guides.

I am discontent now. I can feel the chill seeping in. I can feel the difficulty this winter brings. I hope with wishes and dreams that this winter passes without so much of what I fear. I am surrounded by the amazing. I am surrounded and in love. I should be content with these new found comforts, as mundane as some are and as special as she is.

Tonight I am not sad, or angry. I am not sinking into some depression or being dragged down. I am just quiet. Thoughtful. Thinking of her, thinking of this, thinking of tomorrow. Thinking about yesterday. Remembering those moments i've memorized. Those parts of me that life changed and I changed.

I have written about dancing and singing. I have written about loving and hating. I have written with music pulsing through me and I have written in silence. I have sacrificed, I have suffered, I have wept. I have been given great gifts and taught great lessons and been loved by those who would accept me for who I am.

I can feel the winter quietly making it's way here, hiding behind beautiful days. I can feel the discontent in myself, the changes I can feel coming and I hope will be beautiful.

I have lived and wished to die. Tonight, hunched over and writing, I have a different wish. A wish to live for the present and cherish the past and fear the stunning beauty that I pray will be the future.

"Now is the winter of our discontent..."

Constantly

2005-11-03T08:01:00.000-05:00

Last night was strange. It was a Wednesday but I didn't have class. I was planning on attending anyway, but came to find it would have been strange for me to just "show up". I decided I didn't want to risk the important things (and important people) by being there. So, instead, I went to see The Constant Gardener with Kizzle.

The movie was amazing and brought up a very poignant thought in my mind. Aside from it's messages and it's story line and all of it's amazing camera work, the movie made me remember that THESE are the kinds of movies I truly love. Movies that make you think, that evolve and don't stand stagnant on the screen, same old characters, same old ideas. These movies, most of which start off as limited release, seem to be catching hold of me recently. I hope to catch more of them.

Then after the movie it was driving home. My lovely one called while I was in the car and I couldn't hear her very well. We talked for a moment and when we got off the phone I was quiet. I had been thinking about her all night, and hearing her voice quieted me in such a deep way. My soul was still for a moment with the thoughts of her now reeling in the forefront of my mind. Even when other things in the world are happening, even when I am living and she is living and even if we are apart, she is there. And when my mind is on other things, it is my soul that is lost in memories of her...

...constantly.

Not Going Anywhere

2005-10-27T22:51:00.000-04:00

Now that the world isn't ending, it's love that I'm sending to you.
It isn't the love of a hero, that's why I fear it won't do.

---Chad Kroeger "Hero"

A Letter To Myself

2005-10-26T00:12:00.000-04:00

I am writing this to myself as a reminder. I am writing this to myself so that when the world is falling apart around me, when the avalanches of life are tumbling ever closer, I will have this to remember. Nothing was ever guaranteed to be simple, or easy, or without it's problems. My life, the one that surrounds me with amazing people, is the only one I have. I have struggled, and fallen, and struggled and fallen and I still fight to live. Even when I wonder why, I fight. I say that I'm a lover, not a fighter to people. Then sometimes I remember how much I've fought to love.

I am writing this to myself for when I want to give up. For when my trust in the people I love fails. I am flawed and always feel unworthy. I am always atoning for the sins of my past. I am always living with those sins, and they are a constant reminder of who I was, and who I will never be again. When they come to haunt me, to judge me, I fight for my sanity. I fight knowing that there are people there to fight with me if I need them, even though the battle is my own.

I love deeper than oceans. I love with my soul. I am blessed with a life that did not give up on me and I have a promise to keep. I will not give up on my life, even when I drown in the past, in the mistakes I make, in the mistakes I will make. I will not give up on life, and I will never give up on the people that I love. Love like a bright neon sign blinking to the universe.

I am writing this to myself to remember the small things that sometimes sit in shadows of bigger, more "important" parts of life. Those small things that make me, made me and continue to sculpt the person I am...I remember...

Standing on the beach, wearing my suit, and her in a dress ready for dinner
Standing on stage, in darkness, alone with my thoughts before a show and feeling the touch of beauty from all around me.
Singing to my grandparents on their 50th wedding anniversary
The first time I told someone I loved them and they weren't my family.
The first time I saw someone die.
Dancing without music, under stars, in the center of town.
Breaking my foot during a volleyball practice.
Standing on the beach head of the Saco river, talking to the moon.
Holding her hand on the drive home that New Years, and my soul was at peace.
Holding her hand on the drive out that New Years, and realizing what was missing.
Sleeping next to the people I love.
Making slightly intoxicated love in the back of my Jeep.
Listening to music I wrote being played by other people.
Riding my bicycle down Worthy Street, feeling the wind, feeling alive.
Loving and laughing and crying and yelling, all at the same person, and still they never left.

I remember that memories are precious and they have shaped me and that every moment, every thought, every action I've made, has helped make three words more powerful than all the hardest moments in my life...

I love you.

This is a letter to myself so that others can see who I am. A note to them. Some of them will read it and nod, or smile, or shake their heads at my sheer cheese. I look forward to the reactions, the comments, the moments shared. Any moment with the people i love is a moment I cherish.

This is a letter to myself, so that you, the one that I'm fighting for now, can see. I am not weak or ready to give up. I am not just going to run even if you hurt me. I want you to trust me, believe in me, understand me and be honest with me. I want to do the same for you. This effort is ours to make together, whether slowly or quickly down the road, we are traveling together. I want this road to be long, but for now, today is today and tomorrow is the future. No matter how this road twists and turns, and even if it comes time, someday, to take our own paths apart, know that the weight of my soul has been measured by your kiss. I know , that I could live without you, but I choose to fight for this love. I hope you'll fight for it too.

Just Wait

2005-10-20T10:46:00.000-04:00

If ever you are feeling like you're tired
And all your uphill struggles leave you headed downhill
If you realize your wildest dreams can hurt you
And your appetite for pain has drinken its fill

I ask of you a very simple question
Did you think for one minute that you are alone
And is your suffering a privilege you share only
Or did you think that everybody else feels completely at home

Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come

If you think I've given up on you you're crazy
And if you think I don't love you well then you're just wrong
In time you just might take to feeling better
Time is the beauty of the road being long

I know that now you feel no consolation
But maybe if I told you and informed you out loud
I say this without fear of hesitation
I can honestly tell you that you make me proud

Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come
Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come

If anything I might have just said has helped you
If anything I might have just said helped you just carry on
Your rise uphill may no longer seem a struggle
And your appetite for pain may all but be gone

I hope for you and cannot stop at hoping
Until that smile has once again returned to your face
There's no such thing as a failure who keeps trying
Coasting to the bottom is the only disgrace

Just wait
Just wait
Just wait
And it will come

---John Popper

The Soul Of Jack London

2005-10-17T21:14:00.000-04:00

I remember Jack London. I remember the amazing short stories he wrote. Of all of them, one sticks out in my mind today. "To Build A Fire." I made a correlation in my mind this morning that didn't quite seem to fit until i thought about it some more. I connected my current life, this piece of my existence to that story.

In the book, a man desperately needs to build a fire in the freezing cold Arctic. If he doesn't build the fire he will perish. It's an extreme story about extreme conditions. When the connection was forming in my head it wasn't that extreme, but it fit the bill.

That's how I feel right now. I feel like I'm building a fire. It's going extremely well as far as I can tell, a small, but extremely hot flame is burning. I want it to grow, to be a roaring bonfire. It needs attention and care and fuel to keep it burning. The fuel I have, and I hope I have enough. The attention, I can give and the care is overflowing.

The problem with fire is always the same. You must pay it attention and feed it what it needs to burn. Don't give it too much fuel or it will burn fast and hard and then die quickly. Fan it, give the embers the oxygen they need to get hotter, but don't fan too much or you will eventually just blow it out.

So here I am, in my life, trying to fan this fire and not put it out. I want it burning brightly. I want it to shine through the night. Fanning it too much, giving it too much attention may smother it though, and that would not do. So i'll make sure, i'll try very hard to give it the right amount of care and let it burn as it's supposed to.

This fire that lives in my heart, in her heart, started so quickly. Now we must keep it alive. It is what I'm living for, and without it, I will freeze in this arctic winter. Let it burn forever, because we've only just begun to feel the magnificent heat.
Let the soul of Jack London be witness, that to build this fire I will do anything.

Past And Future

2005-10-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of something new, there is always the need to deal with those things that have happened to us in the past. Dealing with previous relationships is the hardest. When those from our past don't deal with the situation well, it's difficult to see the brightness of the present, clouded by a shadow from the past.

In some cases, I understand. In the beginning of this relationship I am dealing with a few pieces of my life that are important, that have history, that aren't necessarily obligated to be thrilled that I am in a new relationship. All I can hope for is that we stay open and honest. All I can hope for is that they remember, that they always remember that I love them.

Sometimes, though, we're not so lucky. Yes, I've needed to deal with history that is important to me. Because it's important to me. Because they are important to me. Sometimes, people react before they think. They say things, harsh things, and things they may regret later.

My beautiful woman has been dealing with this recently. In the midst of happiness, she has been brought down. Because of history, and because she's trying to deal with it correctly. I've been blessed with the people in my life, even if it was hard, even when I made mistakes, they stayed willing to give me a chance, to love them and show that I do.

The challenge isn't being happy. We are happy. She, as she has said to me, is happy. The challenge is not letting the sadness that comes with hard history, with the feelings of those around us, take over the happiness.

I hope she can. I hope she remembers how much "us" means to me. I hope through this she knows I'm here for her. She can always come running, always call, always ask whenever she needs it. Sometime I'm going to need her shoulder, her comfort. To know that she cries over these things tears me apart. The beauty of the idea. Crying because she does care. Yet, crying all the same.

Helpless is my word for last night. It's my word for today. I just wanted to hold her. I wanted to take it away and I couldn't. She's a strong soul. She will survive, even without me here to comfort her. It still rips me apart. Because now, I am here. I want to be her strength when she needs it. I hope she knows she can ask.

Above all else, we are together. We have only just begun, and even the hardest things are temporary. While the love we share is eternal. Haunted by a past of our own making, and still the future is bright and beautiful.

7 AM

2005-10-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

I got back in the car at 7AM. She was safe. Tired, and she'll probably have a hang over, but she was safe. I didn't sleep because I didn't know if she was. I'm paying for it now, but it was worth the worry. She'll always be worth the worry. I got in the car and the cd I had made for her was in the stereo. It was in between tracks. When the next track started I smiled, tears in my already puffy eyes. I smiled because of all the realizations of a sleepless night. I smiled because she was there, in her bed, asleep and beautiful. I smiled because, as usual, Destiny was letting me know it was all ok now.

"The Blowers Daughter"
And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
---Damien Rice

Something Missing

2005-10-12T00:11:00.000-04:00

Something is missing tonight, as I sit here in bed. It is her. We've seen each other almost every day. We're learning so much so fast. It's been a roller coaster of emotions and confessions and life stories. We've shared so much in just such a short amount of time.

Tonight she had to help a friend. We had planned to get together. She called to ask if I would mind. I smiled, thinking of my own friends and how much they mean to me. Of course I didn't mind. Those people we love sometimes need us. Tonight, someone needed her. I told her to go, If i got the chance to see her later on, I would...

...It is later on now and I won't see her tonight. I'm missing her. I'm sitting here wondering what I should do with myself and getting lost in thoughts of the past three weeks. The time that seems to have flown.

She has been there. She is there. In my mind, so much a part of everything I do, or think, or say now. I've never imagined losing myself to someone and being okay with it. Now i'm drowning in her eyes even when they are miles away. I'm lost inside thoughts of her lips and her arms around me, her eyes, her breasts against me, her hands on me. I'm lost and happy, longing for her and content in the mirages I keep creating in my mind.

Something is missing.

The sound of her voice.

Raining

2005-10-09T13:16:00.000-04:00

It was raining as we got out of the car and ran to the door of the hotel room, our bags across our shoulders. She laughed and made comment that she was going to melt. I smiled and let us into the fresh smelling room. It was the beginning of an amazingly perfect day, evening and morning that was this morning.

We had spent a few minutes at my house, before we left for the hotel, looking at old photos of me when I was a child. She laughed and told me how cute I was. I made sure that she would show me pictures of her someday. Then we made the drive, in the rain, the windows of the car foggy with our breath. We were smiling, holding hands in the car.

Once we were in the room, we inspected. It wasn't large, though the bed was king sized. It wasn't beautiful, it was perfect. It meant just us. It meant so many things in my mind, in my heart, that I shivered, whether from cold or from my mind i'm unsure. I lay on the bed, jokingly "testing" it for it's comfort level. We didn't leave the room or the bed right away, even though we were both hungry. We were hungrier for each other.

Then out into the rain, to dinner. I carried her across a river that had formed where part of the sidewalk had been. She laughed the entire time. We both looked like we had taken another shower when we entered the restaurant. We waited for a seat talking about traveling.

Dinner was divine. Whether it was the company or the meal or the atmosphere or the sound of rain beating against the windows, I was content. Sitting across from her, lost in her gaze one moment, examining her beautiful features the next, always trying to remember to eat, to chew, to swallow.

The rest of the evening was a beautiful blur of wine and conversation and laughter and love and passion and fun. It was an evening that I have never experienced. The rain poured out of the sky, even as we climbed into the shower together and she washed my hair and we kissed under the hot water. It was raining outside, and it was raining inside and our lips drank of each other as much as they drank of the wine.

Then pillow talk, and sleep and waking up in early morning to roll over and watch her, laying there, fitfully resting beside me. She doesn't sleep well in strange places. Neither do I. Still, in her fitfullness she was beautiful. And then I woke her with kisses and soft words and we showered and had breakfast and drove home in a daze. A daze of perfection. I'm still there, with her face in my mind and smiling uncontrollably.

And even now, I know in my soul, that we've only just begun.

No Need For Daylight

2005-10-07T02:06:00.000-04:00

During the day is easy. The day was, and is, a time when things are there, visible, easy. Daylight is honest. It shows you things with no hidden meaning, just exactly what you see. It takes away the difficulty of truly seeing, believing, by always illuminating, regardless of what it is.

That is why i love the dark. All the best things in my life have happened at night. At night, when it takes ourselves being honest, being our own source of light. When it's harder and more worth it. When seeing isn't necessary for believing any more. I have faith in the darkness to always make me work for those things that are important to me. Then in morning, I'll let the sunlight in and remember how beautiful the world can be with daylight, even after the beauty of the night.

A Warm Winter

2005-10-03T00:34:00.000-04:00

In the beginning of any relationship, I suppose there is infatuation. An overbearing "love" of someone, because they are new and different and have stories to tell and history to share and viewpoints and ideas. I suppose people will call it the honeymoon phase, and people will be disgusted and roll their eyes. But what if, in this sick, cynical world, there is a love that is so impossible to describe, to express, that even every word, or action or kiss couldn't bring to light it's completeness.

That is how i'm feeling tonight. I'm feeling cheesy and sappy and ridiculous. To me, now, those words mean good things. They mean that I've found someone that takes me for my cheese, all of it. Someone I can see a future with. I am happy, happier than i've been in a while. And if you're rolling your eyes, just wait...

Though I need to interrupt myself and say something to at least one person that will read this. To the other woman I was priveleged enough to spend 8 wonderful years with. I want you to know how much you mean to me and will mean to me and always meant to me. How much love I have for you inside. It's part of why this new relationship is so good. Because you gave me so much, helped me be so much of who I am. I love you more than you'll ever understand for that. Even though things didn't wind up perfect, I know we shared so much perfection, so much beauty and so much love in our time together that we shook mountains.

This year will be a winter of warmth. Whether fires burn in fireplaces, or on the back deck with snow piled around, or just inside my soul, the winter will not touch me. The cold will have to wait.

The honesty and the beauty and the connection and the sheer destiny of it all. It rocks me to my core, trying to search out words to describe it. I've felt this, i know this, but not this way. This time, with it's subtle changes, has me lost for words, lost for thoughts, and just feeling my way through.

There is no too fast, or too slow or too easy or too hard now. There is only this. There is only a deep love, something I hope never fades, never leaves, never decides it's had enough and seeks out a more worthy man for such a wonderful gift. And still, as it slips into "late" I am hunting for words I cannot find. I could write poems and songs and stories for an eternity and not touch on this feeling that I thought I understood.

Maybe it is true. Maybe all the past, all the love I've been lucky enough to have. To have been so blessed with those women that have been so wonderful to me through my flaws. Maybe they were getting me ready. Maybe even this is getting me ready for something else...but right now it feels like the only thing.

I feel guilty for being happy. I feel guilty telling people, telling those whom i've cared about so much in the past. But then I hope that somewhere inside them they are happy for me, just as I am happy for their happinesses. I love them with a never-ending love from the depths of my soul. I would die for them, because they taught me to be love, they taught me how to be loved.

In the end of this i'll say that I want to read this again someday and I hope it still makes sense, I hope it still rings true. I hope and I hope and I dream and I wish and I even pray. That I am worthy of the people in my life that care about me as they do. I hope I can give them even a fraction of that in return.

And to you, who I will try to keep warm this winter, remember...We've only just begun.

Here With Me

2005-09-30T09:21:00.000-04:00

"Here With Me"

All this time I’ve been sitting here, trying to think of the words I could say
The chords I could play
And instead all these thoughts of you, flying around, keep getting in the way
Of these words I could say

All this history gathered here, stacked up like building blocks, are all I could see
Somehow you found me
Like lovers in Marquez books, waiting for all the looks you keep giving
Life seems worth living

‘Cause I keep thinking that maybe this might be the last time
I’ll ever try to write a love song
‘Cause I keep seeing that maybe this might be the best time
Of my life, now that you’re here with me

In darkness, your lips on mine, keep stopping the hands of time, my heart beats so fast
This feeling will last
In morning your sleeping there beside me and beautiful, I’ll love you today
More than yesterday

Quiet Entrance

2005-09-27T15:01:00.000-04:00

I walked outside today and immediately felt a familiar sense. I smelled a familiar smell. It was Autumn making it's quiet entrance. Sometimes it bangs in loudly, rattling the dishes and stirring the baby from it's sleeping. This year, it's entrance has been quiet, softly stepping through the house, trying not to let us know it's here. Still I felt that sense today, of summer's inevitable end.

Then, as I arrived at work, a series of thoughts brought me back from my day dreams of my new relationship. Thoughts about my life now, and it's complexity and it's transition. I want things to be smooth, to flow as they should so nothing bumps more than it has or has to. I don't know that it will work that way, or easily.

So I thought i'd take a moment here to mourn the passing of my favorite season. The season of outsides and life and movement and sunshine. As we enter autumn and then winter and into those places where we need to shed our own light because the light of the world is dim for the moment. In this place where the sandals are packed and the beach ball is deflated, I languish in thoughts of next summer.

Beginning

2005-09-26T17:57:00.000-04:00

We've only just begun. It's what I keep telling her. It's what I've been saying to her as we begin this, dare I say, relationship. The look in her eyes is matched, only, by my own. I keep thinking. That's the problem, really, is that my brain is on overdrive with all the new experiences in my life hitting me all at once. I am cheesy. She loves it. I am a geek. She loves it. I am writing about her here, now, not because it's safe, but because I want to express it. I want to say I'm Happy! for once in my life and not have to explain the boundaries of the statement. To just sit in the garden of that emotion and let the warmth of the sun blast against my face. Just happy. Just beginning.

Like New Orleans

2005-09-20T14:01:00.000-04:00

"That note you hold, narrowing and rising, shakes
Like New Orleans reflected on the water
And in all ears appropriate falsehood wakes..."
From "For Sidney Bechet" by Philip Larkin

That Gold Statue

2005-09-19T13:12:00.000-04:00

I was pleased with some of the Emmy winners last night. I was especially pleased with Lost capturing the "Best Dramatic Series" Emmy. I am not usually one to watch those awards shows but found myself with dear friends and watching, and not minding like I thought I would.

The best part, the most depressing part of the evening was the tribute to the late great Peter Jennings. It was heart wrenching to see old footage of all three of the great newscasters of our time (Jennings, Rather and Brokaw). The clincher was really seeing Brokaw and Rather, both retired now, on stage talking about their time as newscasters and about their colleague Jennings. I did shed a tear. A tear for the future of news in this country. A tear for the country.

It was a drive home lost in thought last night. No smiles and no frowns, just thinking. The moon was very bright. I'll blame her for my introspective state last evening, after all the events of the day. Not peaceful but thoughtful, and hopefully, like the Emmy's, all the tension will disappear once the decisions have been announced. But then, I need to make all my decisions first. This could take a while. ;)

Television Wins

2005-09-17T01:49:00.000-04:00

Tonight the television wins. As I sat there watching the most recent episode of Weeds, and as the ending started and as the ending ended and I was crying. Just as she was. Why I wonder, why I laugh. As if I didn't know. Happy moments caught forever keep fading away on me. And I told you I wouldn't go here, that the darkness would not ensue. But then, this is my place to be. So I will be. So I am.

I'm still not well, I'm still shaken not stirred and random and tired. I'm checking the clock over and over to see if I'm still awake. A friend told me I seemed less "dark" than I have been. Am I? Am I hiding it? I think it's been pre-empted by the rest of my survival. My own personal reality show with an 11 mile hike in the beginning. No Jeff Probst for me, and no magicians assistants to help me up when I fall.

And the number of times I could use the pronoun "she" to describe what is going on in this brain, this mind, this heart, this soul, this darkness that is me, sickens all those things to their core.

And on the flip side I'm brighter. Because my darkness is comfortable. I accept that he is with me, by my side. We are content to coexist, and he allows me some sunshine. Even if only for moments so brief I can barely feel them lashing against my face. I wish for more than accidental slumbering touches. Still I get none of what I want. What I need alludes me even as the spider sits there, waiting for me to finish eating like some nursery rhyme.

The television wins because it can. I cannot argue, it does not hear. Like having an opinion. Scream from the top of the buildings, hang signs from skyscrapers and still only those that care will notice. The rest just go about their ever important lives. Lemmings to their little boxes.

The sleep will win because it has to. I need it like I need peace. My body manages to find sleep eventually. Maybe, someday, it will find peace too.

WaterFire

2005-09-16T14:28:00.000-04:00

My apologies to the guys and girls I saw at WaterFire 2005 this year. The "Wall People" as I've been referring to them, agreed to let me photograph them as they jumped off the walls near the center of the WaterFire festival. I promised to put them in the gallery. It's taken me this long to get around to actually getting them developed. So, hopefully they're checking, here they are right in this post for you. Thanks for making the day even more interesting than it had been.

Four Walls

2005-08-30T23:14:00.000-04:00

I have been sick. I have been lying in my room with a fever attacking me from the inside out for almost three days now. Sometimes I feel like i'm going stir crazy. These four walls I'm surrounded by are heartless, helpless friends that do little more than block out the rest of the house. Thank goodness for mothers and the internet. I've had time to think and that's never a good thing. Tonight i'm thinking about Libra.

It's been a while since I wrote about her. To tell the truth, I've been avoiding it. She's moved to California and I miss her uncontrollably. It's times like these that I remember that. Normally I'll push it down into those depths that allow us to feel and not have to face those feelings. Tonight, it's right at the surface and my mind is reeling.

How is she? I'm not sure, as it's been a few weeks since we've spoken. I find myself praying that she is okay. I find myself wishing on stars that were already used on wishes. I find myself sitting here, typing this and hoping she might read it, knowing there is not much chance of that.

Anyone who bothers to come back to this place and read my ramblings from day to day should know that I'm a lover, not a fighter. They are too, most likely, or just curious what the lovers are thinking.

Tonight i'm missing Libra. Tonight, in the midst of a fever and aches and pains and through the soft coolness of the cloth on my head, her smile and those damn beautiful eyes haunt me silently.

It took Shakespeare 115 times trying but at 116 he finally prophesied for me correctly.

Orbit

2005-08-15T23:32:00.000-04:00

I am a planet. I have swirling, different, beautiful planets around me. I laugh with them and cry with them. Our concentric orbits fit so beautifully sometimes I can't tell who is orbiting who. They are my reasons for living. They are my reasons for sitting here spinning, always trying to defy my own gravity and fly out into the night black universe.

Should I name them all I would be here forever. Some orbit closer than others at times, but they are all there. Those planets that have pulled me with such force, making me different while i am sitting here spinning.

Sometimes we've collided. We've left great craters on each other. Still, only the surface is broken, the terrain marked with past indiscretions. The core remains unscathed and boiling with a need to have them close. Sometimes I am mundane, simple, just a man with a job and a life to survive.

Sometimes I'm a planet.

Mr. Happy Go Lucky

2005-08-11T16:20:00.000-04:00

This absence had a purpose. I felt like writing here had turned into an outlet for only one set of my emotions. That was never it's intention. I realized that I had labeled this place for the dark and the desolate sides of myself. While I love exploring that place that is so much a part of me, I think that my presence here was overly dismal.

I'm not resolving to all of a sudden be happy-go-lucky on this website. I'm resolving to remember that the good things in my life deserve a place in the moon as well.

The sun brightens my day...
The moon brightens my soul.

Annabel Lee

2005-07-31T02:16:00.000-04:00

It was many and many a year ago,
         In a kingdom by the sea,
   That a maiden there lived whom you may know
         By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
   And this maiden she lived with no other thought
         Than to love and be loved by me.

   I was a child and she was a child,
         In this kingdom by the sea;
   But we loved with a love that was more than love-
         I and my Annabel Lee;
   With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
         Coveted her and me.

   And this was the reason that, long ago,
         In this kingdom by the sea,
   A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
         My beautiful Annabel Lee;
   So that her highborn kinsman came
         And bore her away from me,
   To shut her up in a sepulchre
         In this kingdom by the sea.

   The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
         Went envying her and me-
   Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
         In this kingdom by the sea)
   That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
         Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

   But our love it was stronger by far than the love
         Of those who were older than we-
         Of many far wiser than we-
   And neither the angels in heaven above,
         Nor the demons down under the sea,
   Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
         Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

   For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
         Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
   And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
         Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
   And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
   Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
         In the sepulchre there by the sea,
         In her tomb by the sounding sea.

===Edgar Allan Poe

Change Again

2005-07-11T13:29:00.000-04:00

Why can't it ever stay the way it is? Why does it need to change? With every change it feels wrong. It feels like dealing with things all over again. It feels like drifting apart and coming together. I can't seem to solidify anything now.

This is a sudden outburst, I'm sure you assume. This is the way the day went, cruising along and then suddenly off a cliff of realizations. Of changes, subtle and frustrating. Maybe I knew the cliff was there anyway. Maybe I drive off of them because there is nowhere else to go. The road always leads here. I never think to stop and ask for directions away from the cliff. I just drive off.

Now where do I go? Circles don't seem to work for me. I love groups of personalities, and somehow can't seem to coexist with an entire set. Some fall out of the car, others just decide they're done. Some keep riding, not really paying any attention to where we're going, who is driving. Nothing matters because something else has filled them with curiosity. So I drive the car, full to overflowing and completely empty, perfectly alone..

It's like waiting and moving. Always waiting for the moment to change again. Always waiting for the perfect, knowing the perfect was never there, and never will be. Struggles that seemed so worth it, conversations and shared emotions that seemed so crucial all disappear. Changing again into pointless, unrecorded history.

This is the end of another piece. For me. For them. For us. For the circles and the squares and the directions that have made up my life. I'm looking back on those directions I came from and all I can see is beauty and happiness. If turning around was even an option, I might try. But then I'd never see the future. No matter how bleak, existing for tomorrow is all I have left.

Story - Fiberglass Figurine Part 2

2005-07-08T01:04:00.000-04:00

I died when I was 24. I was living in the city, working, being twenty-something. I had poker games with the guys and one night stands. I made enough money to party. I loved coke and crystal meth almost as much as I loved sex. I worked for a guy named Alex. Alex worked for another guy who worked for someone else. Somewhere in the mix, at the top, was a mob boss or something. I didn't care. I picked things up. I dropped things off. I made a lot of money. I snorted it, smoked it, fucked it away and my life was good.

I did the one thing you shouldn't do in the city. The one thing you shouldn't do when working for the "family". I pissed off someone important by accidentally telling them to go to hell and shooting them in the chest. Whoops.

I was hopped up that night. I remember it so vividly. I was dropping off a package to someone in the hills outside of town. At the time I had no idea who he was. I only knew that he was important to someone. He was well protected, well funded. He had a two-hundred-fifty dollar hair cut and a ten thousand dollar suit. No one knew his real name. Everyone called him Bobby.

When i got to the house, that night, I was escorted to a parlor. I had been instructed to deliver the package directly to Bobby. So I waited there, the heavy package in my lap, my eyes darting across the room in subtle paranoia. I could feel my high waning and longed to get up and grab my stash from the car. Instead, I ran the back of my hand across my nose, sniffing, trying to ease the urge.

When Bobby appeared he was all business. He took the package, handed me my package and I started to leave. He stopped me and asked if I wanted to see what I had brought him. I said no, it wasn't necessary but he wouldn't listen. He ripped open the padded protection and pulled the object from it's interior. It was silver plated. He showed me the engraving. The etching on the side burned itself into my memory. Adelaide.

I left. I drove straight home, doing lines in the car. When I got home, all I could do was lay there, the world around me still buzzing with intensity. Something about the entire evening felt wrong. The gun, the guy, the whole deal felt messy. I had done a lot of drop offs and nothing had ever felt so sketchy, drugs or not.

Next day, I called my connect. I asked about the job, knowing I wasn't going to get any answers. I was right, so I decided to find out myself. It felt wrong. I needed to know. I decided to head back to his house. The house in the middle of nowhere. I stopped, first, to pick up a daily dose of my favorite cocktail. My supplier worked a newspaper stand in the city. The swap was always the same, and easy after so many times. Today, though, it had to be different. Today I happened to see the paper. I saw the headline. I saw the name. I ran, without my cocktail, without my money. I ran because the words were there, behind my eyes.

Teenager Found In Local Motel
Adelaide Stevenson, daughter of local DA, was found yesterday, apparently murdered in the Lakeview motel...

I drove without seeing. The car could feel my urgency and flew down the road. When I arrived at the house, I buzzed at the gate and said I had a package for Bobby. They let me in. I walked into the parlor and he was sitting there waiting.

He stood up and leveled the gun at me. The silver plating was unmistakable. I tried to ask him why. The words wouldn't come. I realized i couldn't do anything. I didn't have a gun. I was high, angry and completely useless. I growled under my breath in frustration at having not thought this through. Bobby cocked his head to one side, looking like a curious dog. Then he lowered the gun and told me to leave. He turned to go and I lunged at him.

I managed to knock the gun from his hand before he had a chance to react. When he did react I realized what a mistake I had made. This man was not just rich and well protected. He was a killer. We rolled on the floor, he made contact over and over until i was only defending, my arms crossed in defense. When he had the opportunity, faster than i could see, he pulled a knife from the small of his back and jammed it into my chest.

He stood up, over my now immobile body, panting there on the floor. He started walking away. He yelled out to someone to go clean up the parlor. I had, in those few seconds, gotten my hands on the pistol, and gotten to my knees. Using the arm further from the knife blade still sticking out of my chest, I called out his name in a hoarse voice.

When he turned around I told him to go to hell, and shot him in the chest.

His boys came running. Some attended to Bobby. Others came to me. They picked me up, leaving the knife in my chest. I could feel myself fading as the carried me. Bobby told them to dump me. I passed out.

When I woke up, I was in a trunk. The road bounced beneath me. I tried to move my arm to pull the knife, still in my chest, out. My hands were tied. I tried to scream. I was gagged. All I could do was stare into the blackness, praying to a god I didn't believe in anyway. Until the finally opened the trunk and threw me off the bridge. I passed out before I hit the water.

I died. Not too many people can say that in the past tense. I say it all the time. The last thought I had before hitting the water and sinking to my death was of Adelaide, a girl I never knew. When I woke up I was washed up on the shore below the bridge, still tied, knife still sticking out of my chest.

I was breathing. I managed to get my hands undone, tearing the skin of my wrists in the process. Once my struggle got me free, I lay there on my back, looking up at the few stars visible through the smog. It dawned on me that I should be dead. I reached over and grabbed the hilt of the knife in my chest and pulled it out. It slid out with a soft sucking sound. It didn't hurt. I lay there, in shock, and could feel the tissue knitting itself back together. What the hell was going on? I still don't know. It's been a year. The knife left a scar. Every wound, except that one, heals perfectly.

I can't die. I don't know why yet. I haven't bothered to figure it out. After that night, I left the city and traveled on foot for months. I couldn't wrap my head around it. All I knew was I couldn't die. After a year of trying to find answers and coming up with nothing. After a year of wandering, searching for something, I returned to the beginning.

I took a cab to the front gate of Bobby's place. I buzzed. I told them I had a package for Bobby. They let me in. He saw me and his eyes almost cracked from the strain of his face. He laughed and said he was impressed that we'd both survived. He told me how foolish it was to have come back. Then he sent the boys after me.

This time he shot me in the head. No mistakes, I can imagine he was thinking. Then they drove me to a junkyard outside the city and threw me out like the garbage. When I woke up, or whatever it is, I made my way back to the hotel i had been in. I changed and called a taxi.

Finally, we have arrived. I get out and pay the man. I walk up to the front gate with the gun in my hand. I buzz at the gate. When the voice comes from inside I look into the camera...

Tell Bobby I have a package for him.

Story - Fiberglass Figurine Part 1

2005-07-07T15:25:00.000-04:00

Tonight, I feel like a fiberglass figurine. I feel ready to burn in the blood red moon hanging over my head. This tension has me wound up tight. I need a cigarette and a good fuck. Unfortunately, I can't smoke in the cab and the only chance for any action is miles away.

I told the driver where I was going and he gave me a strange look. I didn't bother to try and explain, I only reassured him that the address was correct. He grumbled something under his voice, tapped the meter and as the red LED numbers lit up his face to match the moon, we pulled onto the street.

It's 20 minutes to my destination and all I have to do is think. I can feel the cold metal of the gun nestled beneath the shirt. I can feel my pulse beneath the metal. It's always a strange reminder. Sometimes, like now, it feels unnatural. Living feels wrong for a few days every time. Then it goes away. Then I feel whole again. Until next time.

They had tied me to a chair. They had pistol whipped me until I bled from gashes on my head and my face. They had broken my nose so many times it had looked like a crushed coke can glued to the middle of what was left of my face. Bobby had stood in the corner and chuckled the entire time. I knew it was him. I could smell his cheap, convenience store cologne.

When his underlings were done playing, Bobby told me why. He told me about her, and the silver plated gun with "Adelaide" engraved on the side. He told me how he'd raped her. How he had danced around the room, naked with the gun in his hands. The gun he'd had made to kill her. Then he explained killing her. It was more like an execution, bent over, whimpering into the cheap carpets of the motel room. When he was done with his explanation he pulled out the pistol. The silver glinted under the bare light bulbs above his head. Through the eye that was still open, I could see the engraving. Adelaide.

Through the broken parts of what had been my mouth, I managed to tell him that I was going to kill him. He just laughed. Then he shot me in the head.

That was three hours ago. I can rub my head and still feel the skin working it's way back to normal. My nose is crooked, but it'll be fine. I'll only have one scar for the rest of this existence people call a life. While the car speeds down the last few miles to the house, I rub my finger along it's path on my chest. The last scar my body ever let me have.

To Be Continued...

Scenic

2005-07-07T15:22:00.000-04:00

Over the next few posts I will be writing some vignettes. Short stories, actually more like short scenes that I've been mulling around in my head. I will title them with "Story -" first so no one takes anything in them as my own personal thoughts, only those creative thoughts of character or overall omniscient points of view.

This Moment

2005-07-06T10:21:00.000-04:00

I feel like a fiberglass figurine

Torch Fire

2005-07-03T11:50:00.000-04:00

What is it about my life that seems so clandestine? There are times when I am frightened of the significance of such random and beautiful events. One occurred just yesterday.

I went to the beach to meet up with my cousin and some of her friends in the early afternoon. It was a hot, slightly hazy day and the beach was crowded. Bodies laid out to catch the UV as it made it's way lazily through the atmosphere to their skin. Bathing suits in all sizes and shapes and colors. I sat with my cousin's friend and people watched, trying to take it all in, like those people and their suntan lotion.

Then we returned to the family's cottage and enjoyed the afternoon, barbecue and pina coladas. It was wonderful to do nothing, have no definite course of action except to relax and enjoy the weather, the company and the day.

Later in the evening, after food and showers all around, we lit some fireworks. Some were legal, some not so legal, but they were all beautiful. It struck me how destruction can be so beautiful.

Then, it was time for going out. Time for relaxation of a different mind set. Time to mingle and move and flow with the people. We returned to the beach from earlier in the day, deciding to go to one of the bars along the beach front. We chose the one with barely anyone there. On the patio, people lounged, sipping their cocktails and their beers. In the back, where the dance floor was, a barrage of electronic pulsation was beating itself across the room. When we got there, few people were on the floor. One or two lonely souls were trying.

We decided, as a group, to play some pool. Since we didn't want to jump out on the dance floor and the patio seemed to have a clique/group system we didn't understand. As we began our game of pool a group of people came in and glided across the dance floor, joining some others who had already occupied a pool table behind us.

I took a shot, missed and turned for a second before returning to the opposite end of the table to give up my warped pool cue to the other team. She was standing there. The yellow of her shirt was like a sunbeam compared to the rich darkness in her hair. She caught my eye and smiled, a big, beautiful, girlish smile. Then my memory clicked. This was my favorite barista from the coffee bar. This was the girl i had spent so many summers on stage with.

I laughed and shook my head at the randomness. She gave me a hug and we played the "catch up quick, we're out at the bar with other people" game. She had moved, she had found someone good for her. She was enjoying her work. She was dancing and learning to spin techno. She was happy. It glistened in her eye when she said it.

We parted company to our groups. I laughed and relayed who she was to the people I was with, as I'm sure she did the same. We continued our game and I saw her, a few times, on the dance floor. She was moving in the swirling, strobing lights like a post-modern ballerina, at once hitting the beats with her body and flowing through them on her toes. She was beautiful.

At some point, my group decided they were leaving to try the "other" bar. They wanted to see if there were more people, better "atmosphere". I could have stayed where I was all night. I consented, though, and said I needed to say goodbye. So I waited for her to appear again, as she was not on the dance floor. When she did appear, I caught her eye and made an "i'm leaving though I don't want to" gesture. She came over and gave me a hug. I told her how amazing it was to see her.

She looked at me, those eyes so sincere, and said to me, "I'm happy, happy to see you and happy with my life. I was just telling my friends how you had been there when I was the other me and how, all those summers, you had helped me become who I am now. Thank you."

I was dumbstruck on the inside. On the outside, I smiled and told her how beautiful she was when she danced. She smiled and we said our final goodbyes and parted. I followed my friends out and we made out way to the "other" bar. This place was crowded. It had a large patio. I wound up in the corner of the patio, near the beach. There were torches burning all around the patio, maybe for bugs, mostly for atmosphere.

My group was mostly scattered, some looking for men, others looking for booze, some just wandering. I stood there, looking out at the water, and my mind was reeling. Such simple words and such perfect timing. I closed my eyes and listened to the water hitting the beach over the din of the crowd behind me. The torch fires danced in front of my closed eyelids. Danced like she had, into my life again. In that small moment, I burned a little brighter.

Hand Me A Gun

2005-07-02T11:15:00.000-04:00

I wrote poetry and such a lot when I was younger. It wasn't all good. In fact, most of it was horrendous. Sometimes, I stumble upon something I really enjoy. This is one of them. It's rhymic and rhythmic and not perfect, but it expresses a sentiment I still love to play with.

"Hand Me A Gun"
Run and hide
Shoot the bride
Dance the dance
Ride the ride

Find the village
Count the crows
Ride disaster
Lava flows

Watch the sun
Come up and down
Fight the villain
Let it down

Mass Confusion
Full Illusion
Let the image
Let you go

Tinted windows
Looming shadows
Stilletto heels
Reels and reels

Make it, take it
Blow it up
That's the way
It's done

And when the next one
Makes a run
Life's a movie
Where's my gun

---JonShado circa 1998

50 Things...

2005-06-28T14:24:00.000-04:00

Over at Passion The Fuz did a list of 50 things about herself. I found it incredibly enlightening even though I think I know her pretty well. Sometimes, some of the mundane things about ourselves are the things we overlook in conversation. Sometimes they're not as mundane as we think. In the spirit of the Fuz I'll start the way she did and go from there.

1. My birthday is October 19th, 1978. I was not born in the 80s.
2. I used to have a Thriller jacket that my dad bought for me when I was in Kindergarten.
3. I was in love with Alyssa Milano when I was a teenager.
4. I have two tattoos. On my left ankle is the symbol for Libra (my primary birth sign) and on my other ankle is Scorpio (since i'm on the cusp). I'm planning my next one as we speak.
5. I fell in love for the first time when I was in 6th grade. Her name was Jennie.
6. I kissed a girl for the first time when I was in 6th grade. It was Jennie.
7. I told someone I wanted to marry them when I was 14.
8. My mother signed me up for a junior theater summer program when I was ten years old. It changed my life and made me some of who I am today.
9. I am always at my most peaceful when standing on a dark, empty stage.
10. I know how to sing. I'm not the greatest singer ever, but I can hold a tune and like my voice.
11. I play the guitar. I'm a non-complex, for the enjoyment player.
12. I have an extremely eclectic taste in music. From Folk to Funk, Metal to Mahler.
13. I believe in Destiny.
14. I believe in God.
15. I believe that wishing on a star is prayer for the non-religious.
16. I have a big heart.
17. I have a big stomach.
18. I have no type, no attraction to the same thing all the time.
19. I wear size 11 shoes.
20. I wear clothes to be comfortable, then to look good.
21. I believe in chivalry.
22. I am a video editor.
23. My favorite movie is the Princess Bride, though sometimes my favorite movie is Jaws.
24. I love Martha's Vineyard.
25. I own a bright yellow Jeep Wrangler TJ Sport.
26. I've only ever cried in my car twice. Both times were because of the same person.
27. I'm sappy.
28. I only look sweet and innocent.
29. I don't really have any phobias. I'm afraid of some things, but not like a phobia.
30. I can still do a damn good cartwheel and a headstand and a handstand.
31. I can talk like Donald Duck.
32. My favorite thing, from childhood, to eat is a triple decker pb&j.
33. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that ever learned to drive correctly.
34. I'm struggling with thinking of these things to write.
35. I've been using the internet since Netscape was in version 1.0 and we used Winsock to connect through a SLIP connection at St. Joseph's College and thought 14.4 Baud modems were lightning fast.
36. I've been writing poetry since I was 12.
37. I'm obsessive about learning things.
38. I once wrote a list of rules to live by and one of them was to learn the sign language alphabet, because you never know when you're going to need it.
39. I can hear individual instruments in a song by concentrating on them.
40. I am obsessed with photography at present.
41. I've never been in a car accident that I caused. (crosses fingers)
42. seven times six is forty-two
43. I have both boxers and briefs, depending on my mood and the mood of my...you know?
44. I meditate whenever I can, often right before I go to sleep.
45. Most of my close friends are female.
46. I've never made out at the drive-in.
47. I can like Pineapple Salsa by Paul Newman.
48. I think this was harder than I expected.
49. I like pizza with bacon on it.
50. I just took 10 minutes trying to think of something to end this with.

Not Ready Yet

2005-06-27T12:22:00.000-04:00

We were driving home from a day of music. There was something with us as we drove. Lyza Jane and Lolee were writing a story together, each taking a line, trying to make some sense from one paragraph to the next. I didn't know how it was coming out. When Lolee finally read it, I was in awe. This is their story...

6/25/05
This one time, I was taking a walk on the beach. It
was quiet, the waves crept silently onto shore. as I
walked, the fog got thicker until I could no longer
see my toes. suddenly there was a noise. I turned to
look, but all I saw was a wall of white. the fog,
misty, moving with the breeze that was coming off the
water. the smell of salt in my nose - as I nervously
licked my lips, tasting the sea. my eyes darted left
and right, my head turning from one side to another,
trying to discern which direction the noise had come
from. I felt something move across my feet - I
jumped, my heartbeat heavy in my chest. slowly I
reached down, groping in the darkness of the fog for
an answer. with another breeze a long tangled seaweed
grabbed my fingers. I laughed out loud - how
vulnerable and easily shaken I was in that place.
never was I afraid of mysterious noises or darkness in
my own home, but in the natural world, I’ve never been
able to find complete stillness, peace. I’ve always
regretted that fact. it seems so unnatural.

but each of us finds our own balance. mixing fear
with calm. all of us must confront our fears in our
own way - this was mine. always afraid of the
unknown, I had decided this evening it was time. time
to walk the beach by myself, with myself. needing to
meet the demon of my dreams head on - I could think of
no better way.

it had come to a head earlier in the week. when I had
looked upon the stars while sitting on my deck that
night. scotch in my left hand, the ice keeping my
drink cool, hearing the sweat from the glass drip drip
onto the deck. thick hot air, no breeze from the
water, the smoke from the cigarette in my right hand
lingered in the air with each exhale. I made my deal
with God that night. and tonight I was fulfilling my
end of the bargain.

a smile illuminated my face. I could feel the corners
of my mouth reaching those stars, my breath
circulating with the salty air. confidence carried my
legs toward the water. my pace quickened until water
kissed my toes. I crouched down, bringing water to my
face. it felt nice in the thick night air. I took a
step forward, and then another, then another.
suddenly I was waist deep - the sea enveloped my legs,
my torso, my fingertips. my body swayed, I danced
beneath the distant moonlight. adrenaline rushed
through my veins. freedom - yes - yes - this is
freedom. wait -

the strong undertow pulled my under, forcefully into
it's grasp - the water - I can't - breath - wait -

I’m not ready yet.
----
lyza jane & lolee

Goodbye

2005-06-26T14:19:00.000-04:00

Emotions and Mogu Pillows

2005-06-21T12:23:00.000-04:00

Late night and I'm driving home. I listen to this CD a lot. Tonight, though, I didn't skip around. I just let it play, window open, my hair a mess. It struck me. I listened to it 3 times before I got out of the car. The Fuz will understand.

I want you
To know me
To need me
Smile when I call your name

I want you
To never
Look at
Anyone else this way

So strange
This something
We have between us
And it's not fair
If you've never
Loved this way

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me

I want you
To know that
I will always have you
No matter if never
Physically in my arms again
This love
Is like
Mercury
Splitting off
Endlessly
Every time I try
To nail it down

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me

Too bad
The best love hurts so much
But it's so good yes
The best love hurts so much

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me

Anything, anywhere
I would give everything I own away
Always I will sing
Picturing you singing right back to me
Sing it right back
Sing it right back
Sing it right back
Back to me
Anything ... Anywhere

---Melissa Ferrick "Anything, Anywhere"

Silence, Like Fine Wine

2005-06-15T13:18:00.000-04:00

I guess I talk too much. I mean, I know I'm going to get yelled at about this post. I know that the people that read it are going to roll their eyes, groan and chock it up to another "me-being-me" moment. Also, since this is me "talking" about talking too much, it's fitting for the jibes to be " You even talk too much about talking too much."

I have some interesting relationships with my friends lately. I feel like I've done well to adapt to the dynamic of the various people that are willing to spend time with me. There are those that are simple, just time spent in any capacity is good time and taken as such. There are those that are complex, an effort to maintain relations with but well worth it and never less important because of the effort. There are those that are harsh. That friendship exists behind a wall of harsh comments and jibes, which I myself partake in quite naturally, being as extroverted as I am. There are the challenging ones, the ones that call me out on being who I am, make me realize things about myself.

I think the problem with me, internally, lately, has been one of combinations. For instance, the harsh/challenging friends actually hurt sometimes without realizing it. I would never make it a point because I know it's my own thing. I know most of this post is, in fact, no need to point that out. So sometimes, when the jabs come, in combination with the challenging, in succession, from more than one person, then yeah, it hurts. Maybe, though, it's supposed to hurt a little. Perhaps examining the actual reasons for the comment, jab, challenge will help me in the long run. In the short run, though, I go "ugh" internally.

Like I said, I dish it out too. I expect the sarcasm, the jabs, the constant banter with those challenging or harsh or even complex personalities I cherish in my life. It keeps me on my toes. It keeps me feeling alive. In that context, though, boundaries get crossed. I know i've done it myself. I can almost see it sometimes, when I step too far with a jab or push one comment over the edge of "banter" and into the realm of "ouch". It's a hard game to play, a hard line to walk. So there is nothing in me that says "They're mean, I hate them" when someone steps over a boundary. They probably didn't know they did, and since they are so close to me, and since I know the boundary myself, it shouldn't be an issue.

Sometimes, though, it gets to be. One thing I dislike about the world in general is double standards. I have a whole set of my own. I hate them and am always angry when I see one come to light. So, that means, I also don't like it when they come to light from other people. That's what I feel like sometimes about this whole "you talk too much" business.

I'm loud, boisterous. Don't expect me to be that way and then, when you're "done" just expect it to shut off. Especially not in social situations. I'm just who I am.

I guess the moral of the story is that for all of my jabbing and taking jabs, sometimes, in what should be a non-contact sport, a blow gets landed accidentally. I take it the best I can. But when the same blow lands, the lack of self confidence and confidence in my ability to be worthy of my friends kicks in. Like I said, this is mostly my shit. Blogger is for therapy.

If you think I don't know silence, you don't know me very well. I have my silence, I have my time to be with myself, apart from the world and quiet. I look at my extroverted self and think of it as every day fare, a beer with lunch or casual drinks with friends. But silence, to me, is a fine wine. To be had when the time is right, savored and cherished for it's worth. I know silence well, we are old and intimate friends. Just because I don't mention her very much, doesn't mean she not a part of me.

The Grind

2005-06-13T11:55:00.000-04:00

We're not talking about coffee either. I'd eat coffee grinds right now if I thought it would send me home. After coming back from any vacation, I never want to return to work. I know most people understand. This was even worse. There was so much about this vacation that got to the very core of me.

It's probably that place. Martha's Vineyard has a strange effect on me. I love it there. I would seriously consider living there. I don't know that I'll have the opportunity to ever live out there. One more wish to make.

Now I'm at work. I'm not even doing anything productive today. I'm just working on my own things. Doing some maintainence of a few computer issues that arose last week. Other than that, It's been a blog haven today. My hole is good for that. Sometimes I lament not having windows in my office. Then sometimes, I'm happy no one can see. That's the best freedom I can ever hope for at work.

I'll post some film pictures from the excursion when I get them back today. Until then, the digital ones can be seen in the gallery under "Travel". Enjoy!

At Last

2005-06-11T06:54:00.000-04:00

As of last night, I was in my favorite place. I was where I knew I could smile with no weight. I was with someone that would understand that smile, take it for what it was worth and smile with me.

This is the first time I've been here for more than a brief day-long excursion since I was engaged. It felt wrong, briefly, to be here without her. I asked those feelings if they would allow me to have a good time, and thus far, they have obliged. I could very easily wallow in the misery that sits, so tangibly, just below the surface sometimes. I could shake my head at every thought and be in a "mood". But then, why honor such a wonderful memory with such horrible thoughts. Let me, instead, cherish those moments I recall and hold them where they belong, still so close to my heart.

When I step on that beach, my whole life will change again. It was there she looked at me with those perfect eyes and smiled and cried with me. It was there, on a cold and blustering day, dressed to the nines, that we didn't bother to think. Feeling was good enough.

I love her with depths unimaginable.

Trapped Freely

2005-06-08T11:23:00.000-04:00

Breaking again. This time in the unsilence of my technologically charged hole. I'm sitting here waiting for something that is actually nothing. I'm nervous, overaware of my surroundings. Somehow I feel like someone gave me a jolt of caffeine even though I haven't had any coffee today. I want to run away. I want to run straight in there and bury my head in those arms and never ever leave. Instead, I'll bury my head in my hands, try not to cry. Cry for the loss of something I never had, something I wouldn't be able to handle if I had it.

I have a need to get over it. A need to find my way out of a prison I built with the keys in my hand. Still, my feet won't move to the door, my hands won't find the keys. I'm just trapped, freely in a place I understand but can't escape.

A Weighty Subject

2005-06-07T17:51:00.000-04:00

So see...I'm not skinny. I'm not mamoth either. I have extra weight that I have had for a good portion of my life. I haven't gained or lost more than 5 pounds in almost 10 years. It means that I'm comfortable at this weight. Well, it means I don't have the motivation to lose the weight.

I don't think I look so great with no shirt on. As the summer rolls around to being here, I always remember how much I hate that part of this time of year. I am reminded that, No, i'm not skinny. I'm also reminded that girls, in general, whether they claim it or not, like their men thinner than I am. I'm assuming not every guy has to be a twig for a girl to be initially attracted to them, but there are a scattered few women in the world that are attracted to the thicker male population. That population that I'm in.

So do I lose weight? Do i go to the gym, drop the pounds, in hopes that a girl will find me attractive? No. I can't bare the thought of losing weight because I want a date. I can't bare the thought of looking in the mirror and going "Am I thin enough to be noticed?" I'm just not that kind of person. So i'm pigeon-holed into the "large" category. I'm dismissed, initially, by the majority of women because I'm not an ideal.

I find it hard to deal because I'm so open when it comes to women. I have no initial ideas of what beautiful is. Beautiful can be heavy, skinny, blue eyes, brown eyes. Beautiful can be a personality or a smile or a way of speaking. There are so many thing I'm attracted to in the female sex. I can safely say I've NEVER dismissed the notion of attraction because of someone's weight. Perhaps because I am, in fact, heavy myself.

This time of year is my favorite. The sun and the heat and the summer in general always revitalize me. At the same time, this time of year is a test of my self-esteem. And now, in my single status, it is even more evident.

Do I lose the weight for a date? Or do I lose the weight for myself? In the end, if a girl walked up to a skinnier me, because I'm a skinnier me...I don't know if I'd be any better off than I am. Well, maybe a bit healthier for my own sake.

Almost Too Bright

2005-06-02T16:37:00.000-04:00

I didn't sleep well, if at all, last night. I didn't get up to watch TV or make warm milk. I didn't try and take some sort of drug. I just lay there, staring up at nothing. Now, as I'm thinking on my sleepless night I can see correlations. Staring up at nothing, trying as hard as I can to see something, to make an image appear without closing my eyes.

I was trying to make the image of normalcy settle in place. I was trying to force all of my emotion and lack of emotion, all of my decisions and my complications and realizations, all of my love and hatred into some sort of normal place. It didn't work. I didn't sleep.

It was a vain attempt. I know that. I need to deal, one thing at a time, one moment at a time. This year, in general, as a friend has pointed out, just sucked for me. I've been doing good. I know, dear reader, that you have read so much sadness and emotion here. I know you may even have left this place with frustration at my own decisions, at the things i've written. I wish I could say it is better now. All I can say is that here I can be the overly-romantic, sappy, ridiculous, emotional, dramatic person that I can't be in the day to day of my life. Here I can release all of this energy and it comes out creative, mostly. So here is where I put it. Here is where I wish it would stay. When I stood up this morning, I got ready for work, showered, ironed, forgot to take my medicines (for which my stomach is none to pleased at the moment) and walked outside. And the sun seemed, somehow, almost too bright.

Undercurrent

2005-05-31T19:49:00.000-04:00

I am being pulled down by the undertow. I can feel the dragging of the sand through my toes and the power, hinted subtley. I can almost taste the salt water on my lips, drying them, making them thirst. When I open my eyes, I am standing alone, in darkness, nothing but the familiar sounds and quiets of my room. But the undercurrent is still tugging. Not at my toes, or the sand running between them. It is tugging on me. As yet, I have stood here, strong stance, holding my own against the tide.

It comes to this again. It is not unfamiliar, only unwelcome. I try not to involve those others, those that I care about so much. This is my own to do, my own to win and my own to fail. Though, even as I say that, I know that I will need them and call on them and they will be there. It gives me comfort to know that they are there, even if, very deeply, I would never wish myself upon any of them. Whether self-pity or lack of confidence, I can't imagine dealing with myself, and I am the only one that truly has to. Still, they tell me to stop, no more nonsense about such things. They tell me they're here for me, as I am for them. I thank them, and love them more and hate myself for allowing anyone to deal with this.

It is all so low. This undercurrent of constant sadness, hidden so well. I am a master at those things, as my passions drive me to smiles and sarcasms and random. The randomness keeps me alive and sane. It reminds me that not knowing can be beautiful. Ignorance can be bliss. And when reality haunts me again, I will not turn and run. I will let the current tug at the sand between my toes and stand there, laughing at the tides, telling jokes to the wind and smiling an effervescent smile. Challenging the world to take me, challenging my health to fail, challenging my heart to break again, challenging my friends to need me, as I stand here needing them.

Letter Eight

2005-05-26T01:55:00.000-04:00

...How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. So you mustn't be frightened if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall...

Rainer Maria Rilke

Down

2005-05-25T01:01:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling down. I just had an amazing 2 days. I just experienced a lot of life. I had a good time. I spent quality time with an amazing friend. I laughed and smiled and joked and talked and talked. And I'm feeling down.

It's the pain. I'm down because I hurt. The same hurt as always. the hurt I don't talk about to anyone, except when it's really bad. I cause it myself, with the way I eat, the way I live and treat my body. I just want normal. So I act like it's normal. I take the medicines that usually work, I do what I want. Most of the time it's ok. The dull aching pain is something I can deal with. But other times, my body reminds me how much it hates me. Like now.

So in all the amazing that was the entire weekend and into this week, I am depressed. It compounds, so I begin to think about other things, and that depresses me more. So I sit here, writing this, and doing a damn fine job of self-depression.

It will pass. The pain will keep me up tonight and it will fade with the morning. I'll have a picky paranoid view of food for a day or two and then the worry and the pain will subside to it's usual place in my stomach as a dull roar.

So I could write about all the things bothering me. I could ramble about the things i'm depressing myself with. Or I could just skip all the secondary reasons and get right to the facts. I hurt.

I just want to curl up into a ball and fucking cry like a child. As sappy and ridiculous as it sounds, that's what this pain does to me. It makes me a weeny, a pansy ass. It makes me remember things I don't care to remember and feel things I can't stand feeling. Emotions, memories and physical discomfort are so linked that it threatens to drive me over the cliff I stand on called my sanity.

From the top of a cliff, the most obvious direction is always the same. Down.

Past Tired

2005-05-19T23:47:00.000-04:00

I've reached that state. The state where your mind is asleep but still functioning. Your eyes are half-closed and you're fighting to keep them open enough to finish posting your thoughts. I have been depriving myself of sleep. Trying to squeeze as much living into my life as I can. Long hours of work lead to long hours of play and then short hours of sleep.

I need a vacation. A vacation from more than one thing. Mostly, I need a vacation from myself. From this self that chooses to be overtired, overemotional because he won't just collapse into bed. I am past tired and into exhaustion. So much so that this post is slipping away from me. So I go to sleep and, hopefully, dream.

Worth The Glide

2005-05-19T11:26:00.000-04:00

Trying...not to fall, fast and hard. To enjoy this experience, this new thought forming in the center of my mind. I'm trying to live, appreciating this situation and not overthinking, overfeeling. My track record for pushing the limit is notorious. I skydive into my feelings, pulling the parachute rip-cord at the last possible moment every time.

This time, though, I'm cautious. I'm callous, maybe, from the experiences of my life recently. I don't want to watch things go awry, out of my control because of things I could have prevented. Spiraling out of control is not an option. This is worth the glide.

Orbital Random

2005-05-17T18:11:00.000-04:00

This is going to be short. Not because I don't want to make a long post. Only that my observation is a short one.

What's the deal with the random happening? Seriously. It's like I attract random. Especially girl random.

Today, a longtime internet friend sent me a message and said she was working 5 minutes from me. She then proceeded to talk about a set of circumstances that were so coincidental I might actually think she were stalking me. I'm sure she's not. I am just enthralled with the random.

So thank you Marina. Thank you for reminding me that sometimes random is beautiful.

Intrigue

2005-05-16T01:31:00.000-04:00

I have been intrigued. The simplicity of that feeling has only recently been fully explained through my own experiences. I can see where this path of intrigue might lead. I can see where I'd like it to lead. The path and my hopes for it have not given any big sign as to their intentions. I do not know if I have a chance.

I can hope for the opportunity. I can hope, and pick a new star to have a new wish for. I can stare up at my flat, darkened ceiling and replay the time spent. I can run the video playback in my mind, looking for any possible problems. I can wake up in the morning remembering the intrigue first.

It seems the only thing I cannot do is have confidence. I cannot believe that I should be given a chance. It's self-defeating and ridiculous. I do deserve a chance. I still find myself attempting to soften a non-existent blow.

I'm intrigued and helpless. I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. I could say this will end badly but I don't think it will. Still, the future
is still the future. And the video tape in my mind is still just the past.

In the present, thinking of the laughter and the good times shared. As i'm thinking of the random and the conversations about nothing and something, my intrigue sits inside my head, legs crossed, eyes closed and smiling.

The First Time

2005-05-12T02:09:00.000-04:00

I'm listening to "Of Love and Hope". If you've been reading the blog for a while you'll know that this CD has been hard to come by. Until my friend Ms. Twist decided to send a copy to me. Now i'm sitting here listening. Now i'm sitting here with my tears. Tears of remembrance, of happiness and sadness and melancholy. Tears that remind me of who I am again. They remind me of the beginnings of things. My first times.

How fitting that Ms. Twist would send this to me. The first woman I ever fell in love with. The first person I ever knew I'd love forever that wasn't related to me. Her lullabye is on here, as are some of the poems i loved when I was younger, poems I listened to like they were scripture.

"Acquainted with the Night" and "You Darkness" taught me to cherish the night, the darkness, to exist in it and cherish it for it's perfection.

This was the first time i had ever heard Sonnet CXVI (116). I have had it memorized for years now.

I bought "Letters to a Young Poet" because of this CD. Rainer Marie Rilke is still a favorite of mine...

...I fell in love with this CD ages ago. So much here is a part of my life, so much a part of the deepest pieces of who I am. Once again Ms. Twist has made me smile and remember. Thank you m'lady, for helping me remember. Thank you for still being here, after all these years. Not all of us are so blessed to still be friends with the first person we cared about so deeply. You helped me through some times when all I needed was an ear, or to hold your hand. I hope you know how precious this is to me. How precious you are to me. I remember rewriting lyrics in the darkness of my room, one candle burning on the bed side table. So many things are lost now, but some, even in the fog of memory, break through and echo...and I remember and smile and cry for beauty's sake.

"The voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses.
Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."

Priorities

2005-05-10T01:12:00.000-04:00

You may notice that one change to the blog is the lack of what blogger calls the "Profile container". That's the spot that has my little icon and a couple of things about me. My name, my place of residence and a link to my blogger profile. In other words, stuff you don't click on very often. Which means it's worth it to rethink the priority there.

A friend recently turned me on to One.org. I'm not the activist type. Somehow though, this hits a chord with me. This is important. Just like the Lance Armstrong Foundation, they are doing the bracelet thing. And they are working for a worthy cause.

I don't want to hear about how the bracelet thing is a "fad". I'd gladly give these two organizations my money with no product to be had afterward. If I can show a little support and possibly make one other person aware, then I'm the activist I never was before.

Not sure why this hit me so hard tonight. I'm thinking of Benny I guess. I'm thinking of friends that have AIDS. I'm thinking of my dad's friends, some of whom didn't win the fight against AIDS and some of whom are still struggling. I'm thinking of my children. I'm thinking of the world I would want, do want for them.

I'm thinking of all those things. I may not drop everything and join the peace corps tomorrow, but my priorities just got a kick in the pants.

Moved In

2005-05-09T22:06:00.000-04:00

Looks like this is going to be home now. Welcome to my website that i've had forever and done nothing with. Yeah, there's a few pictures on here. Yeah there's a place for my resume. But honestly, who reads those things? So now I'm dragging you here, dear readers, and forcing shadolight.com down your throats.

Thanks for sticking around. And, once again, if you know anyone who has a problem getting to the blog, let them know I am updating, just at a new location.

Stay tuned for more tweaks to the template as I continue down the path of integration with my own website.

Now I'm off to drive with the Jeep top down. I'll take every moment i can get with the decent weather. Every moment.

Moving...

2005-05-09T16:27:00.000-04:00

This blog may be moving to a new location. I'm fairily sure it will all carry over, but I'm not so sure that THIS site will update anymore. The blog will be moving to

www.shadolight.com/blog.html

I'm gonna try. If it sucks i'll move it back. Stay Tuned and thanks for the support.