Montage

With the twists and turns of my liquid neck

the flicker of the camera frame captures

a classic movie moment for siskel and ebert

Apertures and filaments, flash bulbs in my eyes

dilating the blind spots in my sickly vision

voices split, run and ream their melodic destruction

tenuous high string, zip and slap the nylon chords

Pinging drips of harmony, drizzle like honey the sweetness

of sound, golden and delicious and fix to each snap,

each click of the camera lens that captures my mind

imaging finds my memories and my very own home movie

in my head of all the years and times and blazing, burning

buried back in my brain. the moving madness in my mind

makes me miss my father, with his bright face the feature of

the film within my memories. the sound he inspired

the love of music injected into my veins like a wondrous

drug- an addiction he advocated, he appreciated and taught

me how to make it, mold it, and mean the music

the swinging camera circles my head, grabbing all these pictures

of family and love and grief and death and how things return

to a state of undiscovered territory after such bane removal.

He's still in the hidden in my mind, captured now onto filmy

reproductions of the life we had together. we do not connect

on any plane, but that I have you tucked away within my

heart and within my mind speak volumes of my love.

At the great beginning of things as it were for me, as you

wanted for me, I think of you and tip my hat to all the things

you've advised me to hold dear over the years

At this the beginning of my life as it will eventually grow to be,

as you will never get to see, I feel you near and that you guide

me and want to be a part of the person I soon will be. Take

my mind's stream of consciousness, the pictures of your

face etched onto the backs of my eyeballs, take this and know

that I haven't forgotten you, that I think of you and even

if you wouldn't have cared for the direction I followed or

the dope that I smoked or the women I've kissed, you'd still

know that I love you by continuing to live on through all of

my life and I haven't tried to reach you in a permanent sort

of way. I am living my life as you lived your life, to give me all

the opportunities I deserve. I love you because I've followed

my hopes and dreams for my life. Keep close the camera's picture,

capturing just the love I have for you. That I will always have

for you.

We are the nights

We are the moments you will reach for. We are the sticky, sweaty low-lit backrooms of a jazz club and you're dancing too close, too hot. Thighs locked between thighs as the bass strums a swinging beat. Swaying to and fro and low and dirty, rough and tumble with the city as your stomping ground. Streets to run through wild and free, find the next adventure destination. Slide through town on a string of saxophone slips and slithers. Twitch of hips, waggle of hand in a taxi you climb, slinking leg after luscious leg into the backseat of the chariot of the evening. Whiz, whirl, twirl about Broadway and 5th Avenue, rush your head around the buzz and call of the socialite's beehive. Patent leather high-heeled shoes clicker-clack down concrete streets, swishing skirts and shooing into hole-in-the-wall joints with light in your eyes and gin on your breath. A coo, a call, a cool rhythm boils up our blood and sends your hips shaking and shimmying toward mine. Tipped hat, ashing cigarette bouncing between two lips as we jive and boogie, hands exploring back and forth and leading the way around the smoky dance floor. Simmer, saunter down the darkened alleyways and avenues. Steamy vents and black and white smoke and mirrors, illuminate your face, you spotlit starlet and luxurious lover cavorting about town. These nights that blossom under activity and far too much spirit come crashing closed with sweet, enticing simplicity. We are the nights you long for, you cuddled up tight in blankets and suburban nightmares. We are the nights you crave, you claim to make your own when you've made it on your own. We are the ticket, the release from waspish, fetid and chained- let me free into the swirl and buzz of these stinging nights of unencumbered hedonism.

We are the nights you think of when lying braced against your cold mattress. Lonely, longing for the company of some heat, some action, some great show of life.

Defeated

I think I'm kidding myself with this whole being-a-writer thing. I can't finish anything I start and the things I do manage to slap onto paper are poorly thought out, dull pieces of nothing. Fluff, emptiness, wispy drips of inadequately contrived prose that doesn't mean anything to anyone- including myself. I have no patience, no follow through, no business even trying to make something out of this hobby. So I have a penchant for vocabulary and a way of fitting words together to sound pretty... this does me little good with actually creating interesting characters or a discernible plot line, creating or developing a world that anyone might take interest in. Who the hell cares if I can make some fancy words link together nicely if I haven't got the imagination to say anything that really matters? I can't, just can't seem to find anything to write about that isn't some ridiculous amalgam of my own life with some details changed. I don't want to put me down on paper. I can't write about myself all my life- I'm not that interesting to begin with.

I feel like such a failure.

We are only as good as the worst of us

I've taken the time to stop and think and realize that we are never as alone as any of us care to be. In the stark, moonlit sky there are countless stars just as in life there are countless faces, people we see but don't see through to their being. If you stand on a bridge or atop a tall hill or on some quiet overlook, fingers entwined with your love and look- just look out over all of the cars and the houses and buses full of people, people with thoughts and ideas and friends and loves and worries and failures. You'll sit and wonder as I've sat and wondered how all of those people, the hundreds and thousands and millions of people are feeling at that instant. And then one of those people is bound to be brother-in-law to your best friends cousin and then we're right where we began, with you on a bridge or atop a tall hill or on some quiet overlook, fingers entwined with your love. And in any given moment, any given place be it Egypt or Japan, the top of the Eiffel Tower, you are bound to see someone who knows someone who once bumped into someone or something and you'll know in that instant of palpable clarity- we are never as alone as any of us care to be. As tenuous as that single strand of connection is, it is there and it is claiming you and owning you and saying to you loudly that YOU HAVE A PLACE IN THIS WORLD. It is carved out and set out before you to walk and to wander, and you'll see the millions of faces each day that have their own paths and have you to thank for owning your place and allowing them theirs. I stand still in the busy-bee streets of the city and caution the blur of movement, of bustling people with places to be and people to see and I watch them and love them all equally, individually. I must have been one of them, somewhere to someone like me who watches. If I was loved by one person, somewhere who watched then I've been loved by thousands and millions and all who loved or was loved by that one person, somewhere. And now when I stand on a bridge or atop a tall hill or on some quiet overlook, fingers entwined with my love I LOVE and I claim every person in every car, every house, every building. I claim them my own, as my fellow travelers on the paths they have carved out for themselves. And I love them with all of the love I possess and I wish them goodwill in all that they do, then I think. I think if we all loved the world that we see stretched before us then there might just be less room in the world for anger or bitterness, keeping the throngs of tired and poor at the helm of society. If we all loved the people about us for just being there on our path, near our side as we clamor through crowds then we might all be able to fix up this place we're all traveling. If we loved all the people on all of our paths then they might love others on all of their paths and soon, since we're all tenuously bound to each other then we might be able to send love about to the places where it's sorely needed. If we think less like billions and more like just one then we might be able to live all together on the only home we know.

Precipice

Right now, I feel like I'm standing at the gate to the rest of my life. I've finally been going down the right path and come to the right gate, but haven't crossed the threshold yet. I'm teetering on the edge and peering through the bars to the kind of life I want to live.

Let me explain this a bit.

As a teenager, I spent a lot of time in recovery for my depression and self-injury issues. I never really lived a normal teenager life, and then my dad up and died. Because of my recovery and the need to learn how to cope with the death of a parent, I feel like I was forced to grow up quicker than others. But yet, even though I was forced into mature situations quicker than my growth allowed for, I tried to stay with the friends I had and the social groups I knew and the situations I was comfortable with. At best, I'm hesitant to change. At worst, I'm terrified of change. But lately, I've been so much more honest with myself and the people in my life about what I want my life to look like. I've realized that I can't let myself live according to the standards of those around me. I can't base my decisions on the approval of friends or their definition of the 'right' thing to do. This has been freeing.

Back to the path/gate metaphor: for a long time, I followed others down a path that I didn't feel so comfortable with simply because I didn't want to live without my friends. This path was Christianity. For a long time, I purported myself to be Christian, despite knowing in my heart that I disagreed with major doctrines and doubted the validity of the Bible and the idea that Jesus was the Savior of the world. I struggled with this for a long time, wanting to be a Christian in order to fit in (and also because, at that time, I still feared hell). It wasn't until Steve, my mom's boyfriend/fiance? came along that I really started to think about how unfair living that sort of life was to me. Steve loves to challenge people to be honest, and I watched he and my mother have intense discussions about what my mother truly wanted from life. The thing about my mother, as wonderful as she is, is that she tends to bend her own wants in order to please others. She's less inclined to tout her own agenda and more likely to follow the lead. Steve has been asking her all sorts of questions about herself-what she wants, what she likes, what she sees for her life, etc. For the first time, I think she's growing into herself and realizing what sort of woman she wants to be- independently of the expectations or desires of others. This has opened my mother to be someone I can relate to, someone who accepts me as I am with no hesitation. Considering her initial disgust and rage when I first came out to her, having an accepting and loving mother who approves of my decision to follow a satisfying- if not 'normal'- lifestyle is fabulous. She wants me to be happy and content in life more than she wants me to be her idea of what she wanted me to be. Sorry, went off on a tangent there but my point is this: Steve hasn't just been inspiring my mother to live the life she truly wants, he's been inspiring me to also.

This lead to a deep, fruitful search for the true representation of my beliefs. I knew I could no longer portray myself as a Christian, it would be dishonest. I've been living a Deistic life, and I'm incredibly happy as such. Christianity was the first path I hopped off in order to find the paths I really wanted to follow... and since then, it's been change everywhere. I've stopped limiting myself from the ideas I want to explore and things I want to experience. I refuse to let other people's expectations of me stand in the way of me living the sort of life that makes me happy, that gives my existence meaning. However, since I'm stuck in Cary for the time being, I'm not completely living the life I want to live. This brings me to the threshold of the gate.

I see college as final push through the wrought-iron doors of the gateway to my life. I'm so unbelievably excited to move to Chicago and study literature and writing. In all my life, I've been frustrated with academics and feeling unchallenged in school. I am hungry for philosophical discussions, talking about things that really matter with like-minded people. I am hungry for freedom of expression, soaking up all the inspiration of the city and letting my writing benefit from my furthered experience. I want to observe the city and feel the vigor of youth. I want to open my mind and take in the city on a higher level of consciousness. I am eager and excited to start building my life around the things that really matter to me: art, literature, music, conversation, love, joy, unbridled expression.

For me, it is an exciting time to be alive and I don't plan to take any part for granted. I am thankful that I've crawled from the darkness of my mental illness to this place. I am blessed to be able to stand here today, fully alive and exceptionally happy, and be able to free myself of the shackles of my past. I am proud of the woman I am and the woman I will eventually grow to be.

Happy longest-I've-ever-been-in-a-relationship-iversary

There's something in the way

I wake up to the planes of your face

that makes me tingle with the thought

of the closeness of us. Intimate, passionate

kindness and genteel. A draped arm, held

hand, tender kisses on my shoulder.

There's something in the way

your eyes rest on mine, with your mouth a

damned smirk of smartassery, that bears

the burden for just a little while. Taking

care, taking interest, taking me as I am

for all the right reasons.

There's something in the way

I get to call you darling that shocks me

with pride at the accomplishment of

building lovely months with you. The

knowing of you and the sharing of me

and the blossom of newness that is fresh

and long-awaited as the birth of spring.

There's something in the way

we are that fills me to bursting at the

thought of what we could be or what we

will be or what we won't be. A brightness to

the coming days, more filled with you and us

than I dared wished for. The future is

a happy place to look.

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