i'm packing up my things, carrying all my possessions out in boxes, trashbags, slipping through the hallways, bumping into the walls, when i run into jonas, my neighbor, a short, sprite, 60 year old doctor.  he smiles, i pause, casual conversation ensues.  i tell him i'm leaving tomorrow morning, he expounds his laments, the talk turns to poetry, to art...

as i turn to leave, the conversation winding to a close, he turns back around, 

"you know," he says, i once asked a painter friend of mine, 'what happened to surrealism?'.  and he smiled at me and said, 'look around.' "

i lock myself in my now empty apartment all day, yesterday, wearing nothing but my emerald scarf wrapped around my body,

(you ain't a fairy you're just a bitch).

rob and sean bang repeatedly, on my door, at certain moments of the afternoon. i do not answer.  i do not venture outside.  not that i don't want fresh air, but i know they'll hear the swing of my door, the click of the latch, will pounce immediately.  

i wonder just how deep my faith runs.  i wonder just who is writing this.  i wonder just why.  i wonder just where.   i wonder just why.  i wonder just why.  i wonder just why.  

your legs aren't the only ones marked up.  how many dreams have you chased?

(sam and i, in an elevator.  

"haven't i told you?"  i'm giggling "my roommates and i have this thing, right, we asked people, who would you rather sleep with, someone without arms or someone without legs?"

sam laughs, god, i don't know, arms probably.

i mean, i add, i probably wouldn't sleep with someone without limbs, in general.

he blushes, i'd sleep with you, even if you didn't have arms.)

i'm leaving boulder, on saturday.  driving straight home.

hello, persona.  

what is it you want to present?  

vegetarian status?  wildflower honey?  homemade guacamole and rob's delicious curry stir fry?

not late evening mountain drives, for sure. or middle of the nightmares.

skiing on wild snows a good one, that'd probably go over pretty well, ascending thousands of miles into the moutains and trudging up snowy cliffs and lying down on my back with a goddamn ice pick sliding down the ice and skidding to a stop in front of christies laughing eyes.

let me ask you this

would you put your heart on display?  for sale, even?

i write about april, tequila, shooting stars, tripping, my black dress coat, torched, whispered, teal.

i should have been writing about the mountain.

i want to write about touch, or the lack thereof.  inability to.  and the vulnerability of strangers.

how we don't trust anyone, who doesn't fall in love 4 times a day.

and, some things i'm reading.

"i am trying to keep my heart open.  no need to slit the soles of my feet.  we begin the day in snow."

"let it come.  its coming.  when it comes, stand as close as you can. step over the line.  stand with your legs wide apart, palms facing out in front of your chest.  eyes open.  wooden boards.  blood in my hands.  a face.  a man, hunched above the shining metal, folded over.  paper.  his eyes.  gone.  arizona. oregon.  oil.  smoke.  my ankles are shaking.  i'm swaying.  stop it.  don't look away.  this is what you wanted.  you wanted to begin.  if you close your eyes, you will die.  but what about him?  that was him.  take the stone out of your shoe.  keep walking."

how i turn my music up.  working for a nuclear free city, my soundtrack.

"the sides of my mouth taste of licorice.  2pm.  i'm still wearing my pajamas.  there's so much and i can't begin.  sometimes i want to stick my pen in the arms of people who bore me.  every morning i wake up, put water on for my tea, flip my edith piaf tape, clear a space at the table.  i don't want to write stories anymore.  i am not a stripper."

jesus, holy mary mother of god

pray for your sinners now

and at the hour of our death, amen.

and i'll be damned if i end up playing job with god's loving hand on my throat.

i need a meaning i can get behind.

I raise my eyes, and watch a bumble bee, hovering around the pink flowers that grow alongside our screened in porch, one to the other, to the other.

I had a dream, last night, where I dove deep in the ocean to scour a ship wreck for gold, and what I ended up finding, was that the gold was inlaid within the matchbooks, sunk at the bottom of the sea.

"i don't know when we'll meet again, or what will happen in the future, but desolation, desolation, i owe so much to desolation, thank you forever for guiding me to the place where I learned all. now comes the sadness of coming back to cities and i've grown older and theres all that humanity of bars and burlesque shows and gritty love, all upside down in the void, god bless them, but you and me forever, we know, o ever youthful, o ever weeping," down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared and i said "god, i love you" and looked up to the sky and really meant it "i have fallen in love with you, god. take care of us all, one way or the other." and, in keeping with japhys habit of always getting down on one knee and delivering a little prayer to the camp we left, to the one in the sierra, and the others in marin, and the little prayer of gratitude he had delivered to sean's shack the day he sailed away, as i was hiking down the mountain with my pack i turned and knelt on the trail and said, "thank you shack." then i added "blah" with a little grin, because i knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world."

i pull my small jetta into the grass at the side of the road, and venture back into the graveyard that had been our playground for my late child hood through early adolescence, where we'd race after barn chores were completed, still in our paddock boots with zoe and elmo and disappear into the home that we'd created, amazonia, it was ours, and i pull my now 22 year old self up onto the crumbling wall, still in my paddock boots, and its there, still, far more overgrown of course, but the remnants of our three tiered swing even hang askew, from the branch. dusting the cement wall with my fingers, i see my name, in the cockeyed print of a nine year old, JAMIE, carved into its face.

i think of her, of her independance, of her spirit, of her thirst for adventure, and smile "i'm doing this girl justice."

"i thought it was nearly impossible to have a heart broken through friendship".

this wound cuts deeper than the heart, and the resounding ache weaves itself imperceptibly through your days, acknowledged only in the silent tears of empty nights. my blankets will all tell, of the way i've mourned for you. ask the solemn walls of my basement, to describe my grief; its continual and all consuming.
what is life, but reckoning?

my days are woven together by the crisp pages of books i've never gotten around to, and alex's familiar presence. i love watching a genuine smile curl up around his eyes when i bother him early mornings in bed, giggling in all manner of femininity and bothering him as if an obnoxious childhood friend "what are you doing what are you doinggg pay attention to me pay attention to mee" and burying my nose into his neck.

sometimes, he catches my far off gaze, resting his hand on my cheek, "hey, pretty girl. just. stop thinking for a bit, ok?" and i smile, laugh, take another sip of my coffee.

billys got a surprise send off waiting for me in state college, and i'm anxiously anticipating my departure. 8 days. there's no place i'm more true than away, alone.

"i reminded myself of the line in the diamond sutra that says "practice charity without holding in mind any conceptions of charity, for charity after all is just a word." i was very devout in those days, and was practicing my buddhist devotions almost to perfection. since then i've become a little hypocritical about my lip service and a little tired and cynical. because now i am grown so old and neutral... but then i really believed in the reality of charity and kindness and humility and zeal and neutral tranquility and wisdom and ecstasy, and i believed that i was an oldtime bhikku in modern clothes wandering the world (usually the immense triangular arc of new york to mexico city to san fransisco) in order to turn the wheel of true meaning, or dharma.."

so whats that saying again, they're only words and words can't kill me.

last night saw me stoned, chasing cynthia around my garage, while alex faded in and out of consciousness on the sofa. he was silly and genuine, as i related my tale of cynthia's drama "all of that just happened? right now?! oh my goodness i'm so sorry. are you ok? is she ok? you must have been so worried.."

lets talk about spaceships or anything except you and me ok

and i laughed in the kitchen with my sister and her friends and smoked bowls and cigarettes on the porch and let myself get carried away by a brand new episode of locked up abroad, set in nepal, yet another country on my list of places to visit, experience, delighted in alex's short sighted cynical laugh, "i have no desire to visit anywhere outside of here," he drawls, and i know he means it, and i no longer judge him for it, but instead allow myself to love him for what he is, a small town suburban boy who dreams only of a simple life in the town in which he grew up, with a girl to love and keep him company and an endless stream of music for inspiration.

burning out my center til there's nothing but dust.

really, i just feel like my brain has become fried in my spiritual pursuit and all i have the energy for is to surround myself with my roots, back building among those who have known me since the beginning. since my infancy. my ascent into consciousness. there'll be plenty of time for that in the coming weeks, but for now its an extended nap among my compatriots in the home sphere. no one asks for anything here but physical comfort and an ear for their dreams.

snap.

"i stayed in business for over fifty years.  its not what i would have imagined for myself.  and yet.  the truth is i came to like it.  i helped in those who were locked out, others i helped keep out what couldn't be let in, so that they could sleep without nightmares.

then one day i was looking out the window.  maybe i was contemplating the sky.  put even a fool in front of a window and you'll get a spinoza.  the afternoon passed, darkness sifted down.  i reached for the chain on the bulb and suddenly it was as if an elephant had stepped on my heart.  i fell to my knees.  i thought; i didnt live forever.  a minute passed.  another minute.  another.  i clawed at the floor, pulling myself along toward the phone.

twenty-five percent of my heart muscle died.  it took time to recover, and i never went back to work."

things i haven't written about, and moments that pursue me.

garrett, sitting on the edge of my bed, its pitch black and i'm inlaid with a glimmering, lonely, terrified sadness, a miniature clear midnight sky and i'm letting him talk out his fears, his fright tumbling out of his mouth and disappearing into the spaces between the dimming sparkles within my eyes, whats important here is that, this moment between us two is pure, garrett and i at a very real level, he takes me to the route of my problems with ease and i let him feel, experience, emote his own.

how armani, drunk off tequila,  stumbles in, bringing in that aspect i now recognize as immaturity, assuming there's something romantic, sexual, going on, in her jealousy trying to include herself in this genuine reality by assuming such a role, curling herself around garretts back and sliding one perfectly bejeweled hand along my chest..

i freeze.

i will not be drawn into a dance of jealousy, will not allow my own, genuine intentions and undimmed love for the two of them, yes, the two of them for my love for one person is never affected by love for another, and thats what so many people don't understand, i won't let this boundless love be distorted in explanation, catching garretts eye over her shoulder he rolls his eyes at me and we understand.  the meaning of this glance, however, reaches us all, and, ashamed, armani flees from the room in tears.

it has never been spoken of, but what i hold in my mind, of that evening before the world collapsed, is the beauty of our three silhouettes, alone, in the dark.

i went to the registrars office this morning, during my usual coffee run, to finally, after all this time, be reinstated. as i left, receipt in hand, i was confused by the lack of overabundant joy that had been present the last time this reinstatement had been attempted, feeling, instead, a sinking hollowness within my chest. as i drove away, i resisted the urge to crumple such a validating papers within my hands, letting it fly away on the cool morning breeze of mountain maytime. 

at least i know i'll never sleep at night, i'll always lie awake until the morning light.. 

yesterday was such a fun day i've grown to love transition days, really, at least, state college transition days, the deconstruction of an old life and the settling into the in between, the traveling state. i LOVE these times in my life, the times when my life is in my car, i'm homeless at the moment, and it feels, so. comfortable. the most essential components of my life are stowed away within my jetta, piled in the corner of michelle's new summer sublet. my furniture looks safe, at home, here. while i'm free as a gypsy, in motion in motion in motion. ani difranco was my farewell song for 719, as i pulled out of its driveway for the last time, chelsea holding wayne in her arms and waving from the back porch.. for the first time, in over a year, i feel like myself, again.

(insert, two days ago

i'm standing in my kitchen, listening to reckoning, and feeling as if i'm standing here, for the first time. this is the place i've spent the past year in, and it still feels foreign. these counters, those doors, have i lived here? and if it wasn't i, who was this girl, in my place? this girl for whom these walls reeked of home? they never reeked of home, at least i'll admit that, but still, this foreignness is almost eerie. 

my eyes are trained on a copper penny, face up, on the floor. 

i'm thinking of all this time i spent here, how broken, miserable, i was, here. obsessively cleaning each and every counter top, every dish, as if this one, last attempt would wipe away the grime, filth and guilt of my past; 

reaching out to each roommate, in the hopes of developing a spark of a relationship that might ease the healing of the scars of ages past. 

who was that girl, who leaped over the railing of the porch barefoot, breaking down in hysterical sobs in the side lawn? that was the last time, i can remember showing emotion, in this house; until saturday, when chelsea approached me, sitting, a stranger to myself in a foreign home, sobbing to such an extent, that even formulating it in words wouldnt be able to remove the depth of such a sadness.  

nothing was ever true, here.  

i'm standing here, in a pair of pumps i took from my mom ( win or lose, just that you choose this little war is what kills you, and either or its that this war is maybe also what thrills you.) realizing, that i'm losing everything i've ever known. this is act three, and as I stand here, alone in this darkened kitchen with only the hum of my ever present music to keep me company, its all, finally, truly, falling away.

and whats most startling, is that i let it.)  

alone, in my car, windows down, music playing, my favorite teal coat draped over my shoulders, even homeless, i felt a homecoming settling itself within my being. I FEEL LIKE MYSELF AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN GOD KNOWS HOW LONG AND ITS THE MOST INCREDIBLY UPLIFTING, INCANDESCENT FEELING I'VE EVER EXPERIENCED. this is better than falling in love, i say that with complete and utter honesty. "what is beautiful about man is that he is an overcoming and a going under," or so nietzsche says, albeit more fluently.  

love is all over the place, there's nothing wrong, with your face.  

i ran up to michelles house, bags in tow, beaming. she was sitting on the porch with a friend of hers, pat, and her new neighbor, a small elf like ceramics major named sam, and even in my exhausted, tired state, the two of us ended up huddled on her back porch, "its always so refreshing, in this town, to meet good, real people," he drawls, taking a drag of his cigarettte. i'm still amazed, the way its always recognized, instantly, the real, the unreal.  

he speaks of his frat, "i'm not really active anymore,"  

pat, michelle's friend has joined us on the porch, "its a hell of a good time, though. the most fun you'll ever have, i daresay." "but you could never handle it again," pat adds. 

we all laugh "sounds exactly like what i just went through.."  

is this a right of passage, for people like us? this terrible barrage of absurdity, of an accidental absorption of other peoples values, necessitated to engineer the strength to live the way we do, no rules, no limits, transcending duality. 

this morning, i wake up on my lounge in michelle's apartment. she's just gotten back from her physical, is getting ready to go running, and i'm still wrapped up in a generous aura of comfort, of safety. our afternoon consists of target and walmart adventures, and then an evening spent drinking wine, making cookies, and potting plants; yes, the boys too. 

"god we're gonna have to drink beer and watch football or something," pat laughs, but you can tell the way he's secretly reveling in the indulgence of his feminine side. thats the difference, you see. between girlishness, and femininity. i'm thinking of the waitress who served us at the ale house, and how beautifully feminine her body was, and how, for the first time, thats the ideal that i'm aspiring to. beauty, not perfection.  

alright alright, enough of this. its a beautiful day. time to shower and take to the porch, book in hand. this is the first day, of the rest of your life.

"all my life i have loved travelling at night, with companions, each of us discussing and sharing the known and familiar behavior of the other.  its like a villanelle, this inclination of going back to events in our past, the way the villanelle's form refuses to move forward in linear development, circling instead at those familiar moments of emotion.  only the rereading counts, nabokov said.  so the strange form of that belfry, turning onto itself again and again, felt familiar to me.  for we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue. we live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.

there was now not a single lit streetlamp in the villages we passed, just our headlights veering and sweeping along the two-lane roads.  we were alone in the world, in nameless and unseen country.  i love such journeying at night.  you have most of your life strapped to your back.  music on the radio comes faint and intermittent.  you are wordless at last.  your friends hand on your knee to make sure you are not drifting away.  the black hedges coax you on"

-divisadero

(a longer version, as per the request of my beauties.)

remember who you are.
(i know you're surrounded by people who have nothing, who have nothing to give.)
that feeling of loneliness, that isolation, had become too much to bear. i was trying to remain humble, by not placing myself above my friends, but i couldn't shake that feeling, i didn't trust any of their opinions more than my own, not one; and faced with a situation where i desperately needed an outsiders point of view, i was left with no choice other than to close my eyes and brace myself.
and i faltered.

after he left, i was empty and hollow, lost and overwhelmed to a point i had forgotten existed, i needed someone, anyone, and as i stood there in my barren family room.. i couldn't stay, he had found me here. he had found me here. 
i called my mom in tears
one by one my room became dismantled. every last piece. all my relics. crying. i had built this for him and now he'd found me, here. 
"can you imagine the crisis of faith" i whisper to julia and amy, as the wind picks up outside "that was my one big moment, my casting off the chains of dependancy and setting off into the unknown and i've worked so hard this past year, following my own advice and convincing myself that i was growing, that i was changing, that i was on some sort of path. and then. to wake up one morning and realize, you're right back in the same old hell." i shudder, choking feelings closing in around me. the same, old hell. "what can that even mean," i'm shaking "did i do something wrong? did i miss a step? was my huge, life affirming action completely and horrible misguided?" my voice trails off, my eyes, lost in the distance.

i'm going home. i had no idea, if this was right, i had no idea, if anything was right, at this point, but i began to take comfort in the sight of my pile of boxes and suitcases accumulating up in the hall, tucking each piece of myself within whatever bags, boxes, i can discover.
you question the choice you've made
see the gray in your hair, angel. your beauty can't be covered by insecurities. i hope the same truth would still hold true for me. because i've drowned in mine.

"we know whats going to happen," julia smiles, all limbs lounged in my porch chair "its going to be destructive, and its going to be bad. this is so heavy. i'm so sorry. i wish, i wish i could just lock your beautiful little self away somewhere until this passes..."
i sigh, "i know. in a month, though, i'm driving across the country. maybe its better, if i go with nothing."

dear life,
i know sometimes you and i get into little tiffs and i curse your name and doubt in everything that you've ever shown me. sometimes i forget that there exists, within your illimitable beauty, moments which are so open ended, where even the choices themselves aren't clearly defined and that in these moments, clarity, too can be found. 
picture, a plane, taking off. or something more beautiful than a plane, because i can't stand them, really, planes, screw metaphors lets picture a person, wrapped in the glistening flow of existence and the build up the build up the build up picking up speed picking up speed "its all in motion now" i hush to chelsea on the last day, its all in motion now and then that, moment, right at lift off.
HOW DO I STEER THIS FUCKING THING AND GODDAMNIT WHERES THE GROUND WHERES THE GROUND WHERES THE GROUND i'm so disoriented, theres no path, here, where the fuck am i going where the fuck am i 
i go through all this, before you wake up, so i can feel happier to be safe again with you

the curtain rises, act three. a portal, into a month in the middle of nowhere. a place where we're all mutants. all eviscerated, wounded, forced to live with these wicked scars, these absurdities. as the three of us wrap ourselves in warm, may evening harmony, its as if that scar comes to the surface, i can feel it, aching and raw, a scarlet letter if you will, glowing over my heart, my left shoulder. i feel safe, here, letting it show.

"she has all these personalities in her that clash," julia says, speaking of her mom "she's glamorous and flashy and then at the same time she's this warm, eccentric earth mother and then at the same time she's perched upright in her office thats so put together and beautiful you just want to sit in there and take everything in..."
something sparks in my brain "she keeps them all separate. thats how she keeps them from clashing." i'm grinning "i'm going to have to try that.. part of my problem comes in when i try to assimilate and all my selves get territorial and fight and clash they just all run together and i can't make heads or tails of it. i just need to keep them all separate..."
a place where everyone is as giving, as caring, as nuanced and receptive as i am, julia is pulling a huge bag of weed from her bag "please please smoke as much as you want" and thats the kicker, you can tell she means it, charity to me is nothing when its bequeathed with hesitance, a restriction, but shes beaming and handing everything over "i just, when i get high i love to share it with everyone, i want everyone to get high.."

a place where, once again, to reveal your inner glow is commonplace. where it feels like they're a part of it, and being a part of it, they can help you to isolate your hangups, your deceptions, your truths. where your little sister curls up on your lap, ("god i'm so jealous i wish i had a relationship like that.. theres two of them.. these two little perfect creatures."), and you can lean your tired head on her shoulder, inhaling deeply from your bong and watching the smoke trail off, into the night air. 
a place where your room smells like incense and you fall asleep with ease.

there on the street, are so many possibilities to not be alone.
home.

summertime.. and the livin's easy

everything is right, again. fucking portals, man, they always disorient me.
this could be called invisible.. cause there isn't something for us to hold...

call it women's intuition, but i think i'm onto something here.

(last night, 12:09 am

here, at last i can sit down to write. 
its dark in my family room, and i'm still slightly high, unbounded and trembling-
the magic, of my porch, of amy and julia..
they could feel, the nuances of my sorrow.
i'm flooded and flying down the highway "you must have been a little traveling gypsy" amy giggles, and i am, i don't even remember the act of packing but all my things, my life, is stowed away within my jetta, everything that matters and i'm moving i'm moving i'm moving. at times i cry for stretches of highway, squinting through tears to see the road i'm tired and weak i can't do this on my own i can't do this on my own i keep making wrong decisions and above all this, the one, single thought, i just have to make it through this drive. once i make it home, everything will be fine.

and then there were three of us, lounging, gracefully on my porch chairs, smoking and talking for, how many hours must it have been, three i would imagine, and i could have stayed for hours more.
its julia's face, the low drawl of her voice.
amy's radiant smile, 
and the storm coming in, the wind picking up, gathering so much strength and pure, unclouded love.. i tremble in it, allowing more and more of myself to show through.
"thank you," i whisper, as we leave, 
"you really, really, have helped me, tonight. thank you, for being a part of it."  )

sometimes, things that seem the most destructive are only necessary to provide the impetus to propel you to farther heights.

i've tumbled into a month in the middle of nowhere, and found something purely spectacular.

the curtain rises, act three.

on alleviating greed, and loving the things i'm blessed with. in the mirror, i saw you, as the autumn fell, until i made my turn i thought oh well, i thought well this could be the last time i see, your beautiful hands, your frozen hands, your trembling hands that could not hold on, to any heart thats warm, or any lie thats cold, your hands are paper burning in the sun. who is she, this girl? you see her in the library, elegant even in mismatched dirty pajamas, laughing with a friend of hers as she loudly and noisily rearranges the metal desk, calling "sorry everyone" as she shimmies with its weight along the tile floor, her pile of books and papers and multicolored pens tumbling everywhere and as she finally settles into comfort and turns up her headphones, you're not really surprised that you can hear it all the way across the library, the bopping beat of house music tapping against your brain in time with the tapping of her feet. (it seemed unlikely that anything could hold much longer) you think she'd be outgoing, for she's so secure, so solid in herself, but you're surprised to find that shes fairly quiet, especially in group settings, preferring to watch the action from behind liquid blue eyes and you cant help but wondering what shes thinking what shes seeing how shes perceiving things and when her voice slips out, laced with sarcasm you realize it, too, doesnt reveal anything about her ever elusive thoughts, every word is so noncomittal, so multi interpreted, is she kidding? is she teasing? is there seriousness, hidden in that lilt? sometimes you think you see her, really see her. if you want to find her, that is, her most revealing moments are late nights, draped in some form of pajama, packing bowls. make sure to keep the group small, or else you'll be witness to nothing other than witty one liners and hilarious anecdotes involving one or more of the wildly amusing people with whom she surrounds herself and you're of the sneaking suspicion that thats the main reason she keeps them around, they don't seem to provide any sort of intrinsic company or security other than to divert her mind from the inherent dissatisfaction she finds hidden behind every, glimmering moment. but when the group is small, preferably just the two of you, sometimes three is alright, you'll see something in her eyes. it'll happen only briefly. but sometimes, just sometimes, the guard in her voice will drop, the smirk on her face erased. in these moments, you see the face of a lost, lonely dreamer, asking you gently, is this right? and please, someone tell me, where are we?

this afternoon, walking back to my car after slipping my final paper under my professors office door, i listened to the bell chiming on old main, wondering just how many times in four years i'd heard that sound, how many moments of my life were saturated with its charm.

not but two hours ago, you would have found me in bed.  the beauty in those moments isinarticulatable.  (i know thats not a word, i dont know the appropriate one, and in all my philosophy papers i replaced it with "unable to be articulated, but you know what, here, in my blog, i'm using the damn word).  after my second bowl, i lay, buried in my pillows and blankets, headphones pressed to my ears, fresh air wafting into my cocoon through my open window, wracked with sobs, undone.  i threw myself wholeheartedly into every emotion surrounding every outcome and structure of the alex situation, tracing out each single nuance, an endeavor i've hidden from since sophomore year of high school, when he was still just that quirky kid who sat next to me in photography class.  muffling my face with a tear stained pillow, i apologized to my empty bedroom for destroying something so precious, so rare, so brilliant, cried for all this time spent without the truest companion i've ever known, ached at allowing myself a full remembrance of his texture, his hands, his skin, and just how his mere physical presence was always, without fail, enough to ease each and every one of my anxieties.  

and most importantly, i let my being shatter, thinking of the horrifying grip of addiction with which he is dealing, at this very moment.  

and when i finally lifted my head, i found clarity.  shaky, dim clarity, but clarity nonetheless.

when he calls me later, i know exactly, what i'm going to say to him.

"come to penn state.  today, tomorrow.  stay as long as you like.  yes, i think its a good idea.  i too, have missed you."

this, this is not about romance.

this is about, when you love someone, loving them, without expecting anything in return.  this is about removing your ego from the situation - of course, just as my mom advised - and letting things exist in their natural form, of seeing the other in the others terms.  i knew, this forced four day adderall consumption was necessary in order to generate the most brilliant self assurance and strength i'd yet experienced, but it was still too early to know for what.

for seeing past the bullshit, and the lies, and the misplaced insecurities, and the immaturirty.  for forgiving ourselves for being too young to deal adequately with such an intense relationship.   for approaching this situation with no intentions, no agendas, none of

 my needs, dangling, precariously from my sleeve.  for, in short,  being alexs friend.

the standard modifiers arent, alas illuminating

"steadfast" "warm" and "Feeling"

dont indicate the strength we need in dealing

with someone else's longing and regrets.

true friendship is never serene,

misunderstanding, valgaries of spleen

all the minutiae of despair

it is in spite of these one comes to share

experience, and sharing it, confirms

the other in the others terms

and not ones own (consult, as well as restriction

Patience, and Love).

3:20:49 PM silvrbullet731: yeah... well if we/ i come it's gonna be thursday afternoon until saturday afternoon

3:21:00 PM silvrbullet731: im pretty sure im comin jamie 

3:21:13 PM lacework: i'm pretty sure i'm pretty damn excited about it

3:21:13 PM silvrbullet731: so plan on it

3:21:18 PM silvrbullet731: :-)

3:21:19 PM lacework: :)

3:21:28 PM silvrbullet731: i can't wait to give you a hug

3:21:49 PM lacework: when i said i'd been thinking about seeing you, i was really just thinking abotu that hug

3:21:51 PM silvrbullet731: i think once we get that hug out we'll be alright

3:22:01 PM lacework: i couldnt have said it better myself

3:22:12 PM silvrbullet731: yeah. that initial hug is gonna be so great. 

3:22:17 PM silvrbullet731: :-)

3:22:22 PM silvrbullet731: sorry it's been a while since ive seen you

3:22:26 PM silvrbullet731: i feel good about this

on death, or, day 3 of 4

i know its just the adderall, or i think its just the adderall, or maybe its a combination, but i feel completely, totally numb right now.  i had never realized, that when you put your mind to it, school work can function as an incredible distraction during moments of major life crises.

maybe i'm being slightly melodramatic.

these moments are deeper and darker than ive experienced in a long time.

i'm lying in my bed at 130 in the morning with the window open, watching the moon..

cut too, ive retreated to the end of my bed, curled up in a ball, sobbing with fear, with terror as full realization of the extent of alex's intent on self destruction and the drug addiction that lead him there is seizing my whole body, tears long since dormant spilling down my cheeks and i cant stop trembling , i'd been trembling all night and now i'm aware of what it was foreshadowing, aware of just what was necessitating the reserves of inner strength i'd been storing up all day,

"sorry i cant explain now but i love you thanks for beingby there for me.  i will always remember that you were willing to help me."

even now, just typing it out, brings a tightness to my chest, warm tears welling up within my eyes caught in eternal stare.

upon waking this morning, i was in a daze. sobbing at my kitchen table, for what felt like hours, i finally dragged myself to yasis, showered (we're still without hot water at my house, of course) and then, adderall in tow, dissolved into the confines of the library, writing writing writing writing writing.

now, my kitchen table.

self inventory.

in the past three days i've eaten, one bowl of rice.  two pieces of bread.  a handful of pretzels.  a mug of microwaved edamamae.

smoked three packs of cigarettes.

all of my muscles ache.

my eyes are still red, from prolonged crying, cigarette smoke, and lack of sleep.

somewhere, wind chimes are sounding.

i'm not sure where my emotions are.  all i can feel, right now, is nausea.

yasi tells me i can't let my guilt over my relationship with alex trap me into feeling like i have to save him from himself.  that pressure was part of what drove me to leave him, after all.  but how do you sit back and watch the boy you've known since you were 15, made love to and cried to and held hands with and experienced the pangs of growing up with,  one of the most important influences on the girl you are today, tear himself to pieces, one day at a time.

my mom tells me to remove myself from this situation emotionally, to call his parents, to tell them the extent of the situation, so they can step in, get him help.

i falter, "i want to talk to him, first."

"why?"  she replies angrily "he's a drug addict, jamie.  a legitimate drug addict.  do you want to hear his lies?"

i do.  does that make me selfish?  

god i don't even want to think about this anymore goddamnit alex why can't you just grow up, take responsiblity for yourself for once if anything fucking happens to you, if you hurt yourself, or kill yourself, or get killed, or od.. i really just don't know, what i'll do.

i will be wrecked, i think,  for a long, long time.

maybe the burning in my eyes really in fact is from tears.

school work is a good distraction.  school work is a good distraction.  school work is a good distraction.

there is something gripping about all of them, as if a solitary person strews flowers upon his road of pain, deluding himself that it is a road of happiness.  they are like fresh and broken roses upon which he wishes to tread, while at the same time he is already braiding a crown of thorns for his head.  nietzsches thoughts sounds like a prelude to the shattering drama of his highest ascendance and his downfall.  his philosophy does not completely life a curtain in the drama, but its folds show flower threads and, half hidden, the large sad words,

incipit tragoedia.

its morning again and i'm watching wayne pounce leaves outside the kitchen window, the tiny bell on his collar ringing with every jump.

i called billy yesterday evening in a manic, terrified craze last night, praying he'd be able to help me find adderall, because, lets face it, as it was nearing 630 and I still had made zero progress on any of my papers, i was beginning to fall into an existential crisis about the intrinsic worth of my own person, and was illuminated more by the sight of his familiar silhouette leaping over the railing of my side porch than i expected, and even more excited to learn that he, too, will be returning to state college next fall.

"yes!"  he smiles, inhaling from the half of a cigarette he has left "maybe then i can finally realize my life long dream of dating you."

i laugh, lingering in a hand hold in parting.

spent the rest of my evening absorbed in words, with a short smoke break with conyers to break up the monotony, and when i got home, i proceeded to stay up til 4 in the morning, purely absorbed in "if on a winters night a traveler," which, i daresay, has become my favorite novel, of all time.  there are so many things i can, and will, quote from its magical pages, but to start, what follows, albeit long, is the most perfect description of myself i have ever encountered.  am i truly as timeless as characters from literature?  or was this written for me?

thats the trick about books, they could very well be.  written for you.  

"the kitchen is the part of the house that can tell the most things about you:  whether or cook or not (one would say yes, if not every day, at least fairly regularly) whether only for yourself or also for others (often only for yourself, but with care, as if you were cooking also for others; and sometimes also for others, but nonchalantly, as if you were cooking for yourself) [...] observing your kitchen, therefore, can create a picture of you as an extroverted, clearsighted woman, sensual and methodical, you make your practical sense serve your imagination.  could a man fall in love with you, just seeing your kitchen? [...]

There are countless things that you accumulate around you:  fans, postcards, perfume bottles, necklaces hung on the walls.  But on closer examination every object proves special, somehow unexpected.  Your relationship with objects is selective, personal, only the things you feel become yours:  it is a relationship with the physicality of things, not with an intellectual idea that takes the place of seeing them or touching them.  And once they are attached to you, marked by your possession, the objects no longer seem to be there by chance, they assume meaning as elements of a discourse, like a memory composed of signals and emblems.  Are you possessive?  Perhaps there is not yet enough evidence to tell:  for the present it can be said that you are possessive toward yourself, and that you are attached to the signs in which you identify something of yourself, fearing to be lost without them.[...]

The arrangement of the furniture and the objects on it is never symmetrical, either.  the order you seek to attain (the space at your disposal is limited, but you show a certain care in exploiting it, to make it seem more extensive) is not the superimposition of a scheme, but the achievement of a harmony among the things that are there.

In short, are you tidy or untidy?  Your house does not answer peremptory questions with a yes or a no.  You have an idea of order to be sure, even a demanding one, but in practice no methodical application corresponds to it.  Obviously your interest in the home is intermittent, it follows the difficulty of your days, the ups and downs of your moods.

Are you depressive or euphoric?  The house, in its wisdom, seems to have taken advantage of your moments of euphoria to prepare itself to shelter you in your moments of depression. [...]

lets have a look at the books.  the first thing noticed, at least on looking at those you have most prominent, is that the function of books for you is immediate reading; they are not instruments of study or reference or components of a library arranged according to some order.  Perhaps, on occasion you have tried to give a semblance of order to your shelves, but every attempt at classification was rapidly foiled by heterogenous acquisitions.  The chief reason for the juxtaposition of volumes, besides the dimensions of the tallest of the shortest, remains chronological, as they arrived here, one after the other; anyway, you can always put your hand on any one, also because they are not too numerous (you must have left other bookshelves in other houses, in other phases of your existence)[...]perhaps for you each book becomes identified with your reading of it at a given moment, once and for all.

Unlike the provisions in the kitchen, here it is the living part, for immediate consumption, that tells most about you.  Numerous volumes are scattered, some left open, others with makeshift bookmarks or corners of the pages folded down.  Obviously you have the habit of reading several books at the same time, you choose different things to read for different hours of the day, the various corners of your house, cramped as it is, there are books meant for the bedside table, those that find their place by the armchair, in the kitchen, in the bathroom.

It could be an important feature to be added to your portrait; your mind has interior walls that allow you to partition different times in which to stop or flow, to concentrate alternately on parallel channels.  Is this enough to say you would actually like to live several lives simultaneously?  Or that you actually do live them?  That you separate your life with one person or in one environment from your life with others, elsewhere?  That in every experience you take for granted a dissatisfaction that can be redeemed only in the sum of all dissatisfactions?"

this is where i'm beginning.  i feel this weekend will be a turning point for me.  

and so begins, day two, of chain smoking manic adderall induced philosophically rambling frenzy state.

sigh.

intravenously polite, it was the walkie talkies that had knocked the pins down

as her shoes gripped the dirt floor, in a silhouette of dying.

(dancin on the corpses ashes)

"you drove yourself to the emergency room and didnt tell anyone?! jamie pounds!"

"you know, it was when i hit my head twice, that i became this way," tariq grins, catching my eye

(number one, garrett tumbles, in his attempt to pick me up and spin me around.

number two, jimmy salantri hurls a large, rubber ball from the street to my porch and it smacks straight into the side of my head, demolishing my vision, sending a buzzing noise exploding through my skull. the rest of the weekend, i can hardly interact. i'm removed. i can't connect. nothing makes sense. piecing language together is unbearably difficult. my words come out slurred. i'm so exhausted, i sleep 7 hours on the porch sofa saturday afternoon, covered in small elm flowers, waking to peel them gently from within my curls. my head, is aching.)

the curtain rises on me, clad in nothing but my black dress coat, standing alone, on my side porch at 2 in the morning, watching the foliage, coursing with cerulean.

all it says is you're tonights casualty,

curled up in my huge, brown sweater on the fire escape of tariqs west college apartment. below me, a drunk girl and a semi drunk boy are fighting, her drunken slurs slamming against my ear drums "i just want to go to kyles!" shes screaming "where's kyle! where's kyle!"

tears are streaming down my cheeks.

to my left, the bedroom door opens, and tariq steps out into the night.

"i thought you had left." he says "are you alright?"

the drama continues below "i just want to to kyles!"

i nod "i just needed some air."

he pauses

"i'm just enjoying the air. i'm fine, really."

as he goes back inside, i stretch out on the wrought iron floor, head in my arms, sweater wrapped around my tiny body. i could sleep here, i think, shrouded safe in the shadow of the mountains and the hum of nearby friday night state college parties.

and in case it wasn't already clear..

this is all love, all the time.

undone.adieu.

this is about,

assembling.

my hands, intent, sewing.

functionality.  wedding art and purpose.

"you worded that so well".

and how thats assemblage, as well.

placing nuances and phrases, just.  so.

about the delicate way his hands brought to life.

about how yasi is annoying me right now.  with her insistence.. her..

how all i want to do today is sew, headphones bringing broken social scene to life in my ears.

learning, from people.

about that room, with all the clothes, hanging from the ceiling.  the thread.  the fabric.  "the machine sometimes goes too fast.  it may take longer, but i prefer to stitch everything together by hand."  the warm smell of pure earth.  and how it was only thursday, my hands smelled like dirt, for no reason at all.  how i saw him, on campus, while i was reading, when he was on his long board, glancing at me out the corner of his eye as he went past.  how all of these things seem portentous, now.   and everything, all these cherries.

one stitch.  two stitch.  thick, gold thread.

the hush of plants.

flicker of a candle.

this music, is beautiful right now.

my hands smell like dirt.

in retrospect, today was much better than i thought at the time.

almost thought i was losing it, before i realized that thats what its like to live as me, always in motion and teetering on the edge of balance like youre always just about to tumble over and somehow at the last second youre righted and did you do that?  or did it just happen?  and where am i going?  and where even am i? youre never quite sure but somehow you just keep racing forward aching longing for the next step the next step the next step.

sat out by the alumni gardens and read poetry for a few hours in the sun and felt rejuvenated, then took an in class essay exam in philosophy and walked home with joe rehashing each question and felt accomplished because i think i did better than expected.

(its night and the sky is clear, and from the park by yasi's house you can see for miles and she's twirling in the grass, arms out stretched, tipsy and buoyant and i'm lingering on the path watching her, half envious.  i, too, used to be able to do that.  in my small heels i'm teetering along the edge, swaying back and forth.  "i just... want kyle to come back."  i whisper.  i lower myself to the mud, remove my shoes, dig my feet into its depths.

"you know you just picked the worst place to sit down"  yasi laughs.

I shrug.  "no, i wanted this place."

kyle, january 11th, 2009: "i just miss you jamie.  miss the time where you could come over and we could so some good drugs, then pass out on each other.  how about destiny?  how about pure originality?  how about a classic example of intellect attracting intellect, body on body, you and i, lips to lips.  i am all fucking for you.")

i could try to continue an entry right now, but i think i'd rather watch the onset of dusk, admiring the shape of my shoulders under my razor back top in the mirror.   these are turning into just bullet lists of the things i've done and want, anyway. 

i say that like its a bad thing.  after a winter of constant self work, this plateau is nice.

windows, they contain what is best

of us, the glass your arm has arranged

into crystal by spinning eye, by alarms

taken when the rain has chosen a form

unlike the universe, similar to ups and downs

which vary or change as cowslips

in the meadow we cross have a natural tint

the planes reflect our hesitations and delight.

everything has been status quo, lately.

i've been reminiscing and reconvening and aligning and the like.  read 92 pages of the rum diary last night and am excited to get back out into the world and cause a little trouble, stir up a little scene.

stayed up til midnight to watch april come in.  it wasn't as metaphorically symbolic and exciting as i'd hoped.

i've been stricken with this latent desire to learn as much as i can from everyone in the world.

monday night, at garretts he had me in fits over the stories he was telling documenting his experiences on the bus from state college to quakertown and vice versa,("i just strike up conversations with everyone" he shrugs "i'm that kid i don't mind, you'd be surprised at how much people really want to talk") my personal favorite involving an old western pennsylvanian farmer with dentures ("and it was the first time i'd ever witnessed someone's teeth falling out imagine how jarring that was for me, in the middle of conversation for this man's teeth to just tumble from his mouth, catch them, and put them back in!  like, christ!"), who turned to garrett, as they were passing a quarry filled with water and said,

"you know, theres probably tons of cars down there.  cars filled with bodies.  they find them, all the time.  would you ever want to do that?"

and just turned, staring back out the window.

yesterday afternoon, was an outdoor table at pickles, one of the local bars, on my way to class, with mani and a friend of hers i'd never met before.    i spoke of love with this boy dan; its amazing to me how much the mind of people, specifically boys, of this college age are concerned with love.  admittedly, i too am guilty of it, though not to the extent of my teenage years.

he seemed to try to make the point of soulmates, of true love... theres 6 billion people in the world, he argued, what if you don't find the one person?

i told him his conception was flawed, basically.  

gosh, how to consolidate one shimmering, multi-faceted idea into two dimensional words.  this is about leibniz's theory of pre-established harmony, of an expression into time of something that happens outside of it, of the individual as one, perfect, complete expression playing itself out through experience.  

its not about searching, about finding... but about being, in proximity.  and even so, theres no necessity of forever.

i lied, though, when i told him i'd never experienced something so true.  its a lie i use to prevent grief, or expel hope, both equally terrifying emotions.

this morning its raining and i've been sitting next to the window in my kitchen all day, headphones over my ears, sipping coffee (8 am) and then blackberry tea (2pm), admiring the miniature blotches of green appearing amongst the wakening brown of the landscape.

you've got that guilty smile that culminates in bedlam.

aimless, afternoon vignettes

hum.
and how defeated i return.
skip skip skip sliding.

flirting with disaster, and loving it.
still wishing i could capture chords in words.
oh, my little girl.

this is an exquisite, unrivaled, dark beauty.
everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt, and the dance of strengthening light and its interplay on late afternoon dust.
pipers yellow silhouette against impeccable blue dusk, and huddled within the confines of yasi's shirt.
wait
wait
wait
descend now, but slowly, guided by each step. each... slip.
"its so raw. so real. SO honest. that album.. oh man"
"you absolutely put your finger on it.. it so fully and accurately captures so much.."

i have fallen into a beautiful melee from which i hope never to return.
of all the parts of myself i denied, the loss of this....
when was the last time music affected me so deeply?

"haha, 'and i'll live without your love but, what good is one glove... without the other.' i'm so glad you actually listened to it. when i say that album has saved my life, i mean it more than i've ever meant anything. and ps.. i knew you'd love it. some things you just know."

and you'd better be alone.

come and whisper in my ear,
you're very pretty dear
and,
it'll be alright.

you're lying, but i don't mind tonight.

(The bluest iris that I'd ever seen
SHe vanished like a dream, sinking back
Into the ground
Singing "maybe i'm ashamed and maybe I wept real tears"
But maybe she was hiding because she wanted to be found
You wanted to be found!

Don't be afraid of him.
Be still.)

what are you holding out for? what's always in the way?
, on 3 day lessons,
i suppose thursday is the best place to begin, and a light haired blue eyed girl clacking in miniscule heels down a rain drenched sidewalk, long brown coat swishing around spindly calves, umbrella slung over one shoulder, rain running in rivulets, pooling underneath her feet. clambering into bed, i pull my headphones on over my ears, drowning out the world with bloc party, the rapture, and johnny flynn, wallowing in my own transition.
not 30 minutes later, my phone rings and yasi's voice is lilting through my ears "oh for gods sake you are so emo," she laughs "get up, get dressed, its evans birthday and we're going to zeno's".
sweep my mess away, leave my body leave my bones
i'm nervous and terrified, dons going to be there after all, but i'm dressed impeccably, the corners of my eyes dusted with sparkles and black powder, legs marginally slim under my black jeans, the corner of one collar bone peeking out from beneath my violet, sweeping sweater. theres nine of us sitting around the center table, sipping german beer as evan and i recreate photogenic moments in front of a non existent camera, singing along to atlas soundtrack, a band i haven't heard since i tripped at chucks farm and the music is so reminiscent as i begin to feel slightly tipsy, desiring to tumble into its intoxicating enormity and don is texting me from across the table "your faces are priceless."

you wouldn't put your pen to bed, but we hadn't found our own
its about accepting and developing my own reality, after all. as i drop yasi and evan back off at her place, and return to my tiny bedroom, alone, i am crushed.
its about,
no no, rewind.
its thursday morning and amy and i are sipping coffee on her family room floor and we're speaking of dissatisfaction and retarding growth and its my housing situation thats the topic of conversation i honestly don't know what to do and i tell her that "amy, please, i really dont' know, i can convince myself either way and i dont know which are my deceptions and which is the reality and i don't want to make the wrong decision.. help me.."
"i think that," she begins "you know the right answer. and that its time to stop choosing things that keep you safe, that allow you to remain in one, comfortable place."
she's right.
thank you for knowing me better than myself.

out out out its friday morning and i need to get out and chelsea and i disappear into the wilderness surrounding state college and run off into the woods around whipple dam. we're off the path and barefoot, sliding down 60 foot creek faces and splashing through the water and giggling about tree bottoms and mud and i drawl "i just, i really see nature as metaphorical of life.."
its about remaining patient even when you near the end
about venturing off the path to find something beautiful, even if its anxiety inducing. it will always be there to come back to, after all.
and how the view from the top of a long, arduous climb, is always worth the effort it took to get there.

you help me put the breaks on, because you're kind.
i wonder where you learned to be so good
its about yasi, amy and i shrouded in the dust of an old, cramped glass shop, smoking cigarettes on my porch, and how no matter what we're doing yasi makes me laugh SO HARD and as my roommates are all crowded around with us we're all laughing, all us girls, giggling like school children.
or, 3 hours later, dissolving within underoath on yasi's bed and the conversation between the three of us is causing my heart to flutter, warming. we're talking of insanity, of feeling, "we're all crazy" yasi smiles "i have these wild fits at least once a year where i just need to scream and scream and scream. its NATURAL, all these things that have been defined as abnormal. its natural and wonderful and beautiful to just want to scream and scream and scream and throw a tantrum and feel sad and feel blissfully manically happy and why would you want to deny that to yourself? to deny the ability to just want to experience the world in as large handfuls as you can grab?" ok so maybe that sentence was my words in yasi's mouth, but that was essentially the jist of the conversation, and i really do have the best friends in the whole world.
you've got me, you've got me, you've got me stole....

and now its bar bleu and its one of those nights that everyones there, don and evan again and for the love of jesus no way is it zack, conyers and hacker, standing outside smoking cigarettes and i race across the street, coat billowing out behind me and wrap them all up in my arms and the four of us, that is, me yasi zack and conyers curl up in this swanky corner with all these leather lounges and we're all sipping from the same pitcher of liquor and laughing and trading stories
"jamie do you remember that night that we went in your roommates hot tub?" zack is blushing and smiling and touching me indiscreetly and i just feel so tender and vulnerable all the time,
"you mean the night i got maced and then we both tumbled four feet to our demise?"
we're warm and cozy and happy.
and then we're dancing to low jack, and conyers is laughing "i'm really just a terrible dancer" he drawls, letting loose with a bunch of air punches "lets leave soon and smoke, do you want to do that?"
and then its zack and i, in a corner. hugging once, twice, three times. "i miss you." he whispers, into the skin behind my ear.

and then its one in the morning and conyers and i are lounged out on their sofa.
"do you remember freshman year?"
we're so high and laughing and its just the two of us
"oh my god" he begins "freshman year was basically this. get 8 or so friends together in one room, drink as much as possible as fast and possible and then blast music and have a crazy dance party, pass out, get up and do it all again."
i'm laughing
"we're all so old now god i could never do that anymore...."
"it was great while it lasted though, wasn't it?"



and how this morning, i was up early.
to see my new apartment.
its beautiful. the perfect size for me, with three huge windows in the living room, and little tiny kitchen with a window over the sink and its set away from downtown, in this little woodland haven, with round cement steps leading up to the building and as i left, clutching paper work in my hand, i let my steps fall slowly in descent, imagining myself, months from now, when that simple, solitary life is at last mine.
sitting on yasi's bed last night, amy is clasping my hand "what are you most proud of?" she asks "its been a year since you broke up with alex.. what would would say is your greatest achievement, since then."
i smile, a year.
"i used to be reckless" i begin "but it was always ok, because i had the security of a relationship to come back to, to calm me, to remind me of my center. and i've finally created that for myself. it was worth every, treacherous second."
yasi smiles, "i really am proud of you, jamie. 4 years on and off with a person.. you've come through the backlash with more grace than anyone i've ever seen. made more progress than most people would. its inspiring."
i grin, blushing into my scarf.

this morning, i turn the music up.
johnny flynns guitar is dancing through my ears.
Did you see how far I'd been? Would you meet me in an hour? I could tell you what I've seen,

Have a heart that skips a beat
Oh come on
Roll along for free
In the middle of the morning
Swap your drinking nights with me

I can live with dying
I can chew my bit
Play panic to my senses
And hijack my head
It's the rhythm of moving
And a rolling and a rattle
Its a giving instead
It's a well sprung bed
We can roll around forever
We can pray for all we've been
We can knock it hell for leather
We can call it all a dream
All a dream

For your outward bound
Remember what we found


now, put on no sex for ben, by the rapture, (http://www.myspace.com/therapture) and bop your heart out.
one, two, three, here we go..

i like to watch my lovebird in the afternoons.
I just brought him back to school about 2 weeks ago, so everything in this setting is new for him, and his current favorite pasttime involves sitting on my lampshade next to the huge window that takes up about half of my bedroom wall, watching things happen outside. He's always real scared at first, chirping incessantly, flying away in terror at the passage of any car. Soon, though, he begins to settle, messing around with the jewelry hanging from the window. Then, something scares him again, and he's off in a tirade chirping chirping chirping tearing around my room in a frenzy like a right nut job, until i gather him up in my palm, holding his ferociously beating heart close to my chest, whispering into his feathers until he settles, when i then release him to perch on my folded knee. preening himself, he settles into contentment, winded and sleepy after his wild adventure.
he's sitting there now, fluffed up and calmed, glancing back over his shoulder at me through half opened eyes.



in ten minutes though, he'll be at it again, he can't get enough of that world, and when he's frightened i'll tuck him again close to my heart, allowing his realized fears to drain away with the lulling cadence of my voice.

he's a bird after my own heart, after all.

resolution.
spending most of my time in isolation and remaining balanced with just the right influx of johnny flynn, satine, and the rapture.
but that doesn't stop me from leaping in bed with abby and chelsea for the season finale of jon and kate plus 8, or wearing blatant red today. this is a tricky one. lets hope i emerge with pages of insight. or, at the very least, some schoolwork accomplished.

what of all those wayward priests?
the ones who like to drink?
do you suppose they'd swap their blood for wine?
like you swapped yours for ink?
you wrote me oh so many letters
and all of them seemed true
promises look good on paper, especially from you
the weight of all those willing words, i carried all alone
you wouldn't put your pen to bed, but we hadn't found our own.

its far too cold today to be able to enjoy the clarity of the light, and instead i've spent the past two days with headphones pressed to my ears, exploring the wonderful world of take away shows and falling in love with a world of music i never knew existed.
most specifically, johnny flynn. he sings to the mood i'm in, slightly melancholy, but still holding to a fading glimmer of hope.
theres no reason for it, honestly. most likely just a chemical inbalance and the errant longing for something warm.


leave me nothing i dont need at all.

edit, i've noticed i dont save anything anymore, really.
textmessages, im conversations, pictures.
i'm all about deleting.
i'm not sure if this is a good change, or a bad one. either way, theyre deleted.

ca-me-ohhhhh.
there there you are, there again.
staring through the street when the lights are dim
i wonder why you are there
i'll wait, i saw you again, your gossamer skin....


2 hours ago, my phone begins to ring.
for the first time in seven months,

it was alex.
i wonder why it is therrrre oh wait, i saw you again, your gossamer skin, i saw you cameo...

i'm looking at pictures from that time and thinking of emptiness.

i'm holding a wine bottle in my hands, drinking the all of it. i used to drink to feel free because it was only then that i had the courage to not care about alexs restrictions and i'm remembering clambering up onto the railing of the harbor in san fransisco in the deep hush of night while alex and his friends were smoking two blunts, huddled in a circle behind me.
"girlfriend, get down, what are you doing"

the wooden railing was damp beneath my hands and i'm mesmerized by the spray of salt and sea and wind on my face and the endlessness of the bay beneath me and the endlessness of the sky above me and i leaned just a little farther just a little farther climbed a little higher just a little higher,
"baby come sit down"
will somebody stop this train?

copper beech and all i remember is this moment is brilliantly illuminated it must have been fall for it couldn't have been spring and alex and i always got so high together on incredible weed and we're in bed beneath my light teal comforter and this briliant gold sunlight is streaming in through my gold curtains and everything is shimmering and shifting and expanding as if i'm tripping and i'm gripping to his bare shoulders holding tight to his silhouette without him everything was to lose substance and soliditiy and whirl away in a hush of color motion fire destination unknown.
holding tight
holding tight
holding tight
"and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom"
i dont think i'm gonna go to l.a. anymore
i dont know how to land and not race to your door.

"i'm so afraid of getting older, i'm only good at being young"
why am i even still writing about him.
in 8 days, it will have been a year, apart. 7 months since we last spoke. is that long, in the grand scheme of things?
"for there can be no absolute understanding of what we are as persons, and this in two obvious respects. a being who exists only in self-interpretation cannot be understood absolutely; and one who can only be understood against the background of distinctions of words cannot be captured by a scientific language which essentially aspires to neutrality. out personhood cannot be treated scientifically in exactly the same way we approach our organic being."

my thoughts this morning are aimless, directionless.

ask me about yesterday and i'll tell you about watching the rose sunset through the trees over sig chi's rooftop, glimmering in the resplendence of orange, pink, lavender, light blue.
i'll tell you about my roommates sprawled on the lawn on top of old comforters, tanning, laughing, gossiping.
and how the air right now is honestly the perfect smell.
i'll laugh as i attempt to describe tricking yasi into distracting me from my school work, delving into one of our endless conversations of analyzation of all the people we've ever known and loved, and how my entire being flushed crimson as my sexy professor walked by, beaming, waving and calling out springtime afternoon greetings as i crumbled like an awkward little girl.
there'll probably be a cliche or two in there as well, about garrett pulling his old clunky car in my driveway "did you hear the brakes?" he laughs, as he clambers over the wrought iron fence, shaking his lengthening hair from his face and settling himself into the chair opposite me.
i'll remind you to look back at the sunset, its becoming more vibrant by the second.
truth be told i still haven't even made a slight dent in the mountains and mountains of essential school work looming before me, but i relished in the brush of cool cement on bare feet, the hush of breeze on bare skin, the laughter of camraderie.
my past few days have been composed of nothing other than deep, revealing and emotional conversations with my nearest and dearest. one by one, each of my oldest friends and my newest roommates have settled themselves singularly across from me, unraveling.


it has been one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
i'm not sure how all this happened, really.
but nothing has ever felt more right.
how did i make it here? i couldn't tell you.
but i'm home.


(edit)
the light is perfect.
as is headphones pressed to my ears, the live version of john mayers "in your atmosphere" lilting on repeat through my ears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7FP5R2EOwc

thinking of kyle and moving forward.
as i let slip to armani through tear filled eyes "this feels like a letting go"
wherever i go, whatever i do, i wonder where i am in my relationship to you.