Because I Have No Braincells But Desperately Need To Remember Things

Wed & Thur

+Hooping (so much hooping!), then Belmar to see Mike
+Belmar beach, pizza, & Social Network

Fri

+ Work

Sat

+ Coffee with Sandra
+ LOTR Two Towers live with the parents
+ Chill time with Tony

Sun

+ Crazed work day
+ Whiskey & Guiness with Jahmaalah & Tony
+ Taco Bell
+ Woody's with Dave & Eric
+ U2 Kareoke until 4AM with Eric & friends ("Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" & "Kiss Me Deadly" for the win)
+ Danced like Madonna
+ Slow danced with Eric in the laser lighting like it was 1988

Mon

+ Watched "Hoarders" with Mom, had a great, ground breaking talk with her ("The ones who leave you, why is it that you can't you just turn them off? Your truth is your truth unless you change it.")
+ Lip-synced songs with Mom on the Path train, then windowshopped the giant Macy's
+ Diner con madre
+ Listened to awesome chick artists, walked from 34th to 15th and visited Tony, Marge & Jenny
+ Went to Williamsburg with Tony to meet up with Meredith & friends at The Knitting Factory
+ Turns out they were having a Buffy Trivia night...between Meredith & everyone WINNING the trivia game, they also had bobbing for beer & a pumpkin pie eating contest...which was freaking hilarious, everyone got so into it.
+ They played Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog which was amazing, we all got so into it
+ Chilling with Tony is the greatest thing ever, I seriously absolutely adore him I couldn't ask for a better friend who I can COMPLETELY be my fucking retardely ridiculous self with, on top of being able to laugh ALL the time and still talk about serious stuff. Amazing.
+ Anyway, I went into the bathroom & tagged the shit out of the fogged window, before coming back out to find everyone dancing wildly in the middle of the bar, so of COURSE, I joined in
+ I started dancing (like I do) and everyone started to cheer me on and told me I was really good at dancing! And the host told me, "I don't know which compliment you want first; how your outfit is awesome, or how good at dancing you are!"
+ Everyone ended up leaving, and I stayed to continue dancing with the host, and the DJ wound up playing Toots & the Maytals & the Clash
+ The host winds up telling me his name is Jeremy (the Jerm) and he met the DJ in the seperate ska bands they were both in from Austin, TX
+ When the set was finally over, he said, "how about a round of applause for our last dancer, and life of the party tonight, Ryan!" and some British guys sitting at the bar clapped while one said, "Thank you so much, cheerful girl, for your crazy dancing and your aura of energy and happiness!" Oh, gosh, man it made my freaking night.
+ I wound up talking with Jeremy for a while, we exchanged e-mails, and he wants to throw a wild dance party at his flat in Green Point soon, have the DJ (who's name escapes me now) DJ and have me bring all of my friends and my "wild dancing" to start the party! He took a pictre with me and his friend & his DJ& it was, ah, just magic. So much fun. What a night, what a set of two days!

Tues (tomorrow)

+ Work
+ Hooping with Kayla & Sara at Central Park

Wed

+ Hiking with Eric
+ Over Brandon's

Thurs

+ Spend the day with Brandon

Fri

+ Work

Sat

+ Work
+ See Eric's band TVTV in Willyburg with Tony, Sara, Kayla (hopefully), Jenny & who knows who else..


Just...just awesome. Over & out.

Today

I thought, for the first time in my life, that I understood death as a much quieter response to living. Today, I understood how the eager soul-flame waivers in the quiet complacency of utter comfortable misery intoned in the every day. Today, I sobbed in the workroom bathroom then stood in freezer choking on water as I tried to drink inbetween cries. What if she lost her hands? Today I embarrassed myself. Today I didn't tell people the whole story, for the first time. Today, I opened the fridge and for the first time, bare feet cold on the kitchen tiles, I stared at liquor and considered taking it up as a hobby; alone. Today, tonight, as I wipe the snot and the mascara from my face and notice the utter pain in my whole body from anxiety, I think about the worry and the guilt and the should'vebeenthere's, should'veknown's.

Tonight I went back to the fridge for a second time, held a liquor bottle in my hand and then slammed it back on the door and made for my hammock.


There are already enough fucking miserable alchoholic writers in the world.

Your Abstract Painting

Maybe what scares people the most about liquor, isn’t in fact the consumption. It’s the social situations that drive us to the drink, or perhaps, what’s worse, when we don’t drink enough; the sole, little amount of liquor quickly giving us a clearer version of what’s truly going on in our heads. The meat of the situation is, there’s a whole wide life out there waiting to be lived and one day, taken down off the board and there’s this little five foot tall girl I know hesitant to start the walk even though she’s twenty one years down the line. Fact is, the little lady knows more than she should, and less than she will hope to ever understand. There are large shears tearing away at the suspension cords, and as I float my head quivers with the sudden satisfaction of the cool collect of dissonance. There are things to be done, places to be seen, and moments to be had just the same as these and theres and yet the road seems distant and the feet to get me there seem already, sole(soul)less.


I will write all I can, though it be 2AM, though I be exhausted, in order to figure the truth about what is going on in my head. Well the truth is, I have no clue what is going on. I’m further from being in the know about I feel than I ever have- mostly, I’m sure, due to the fact that I haven’t been able to barely catch a minute by myself. Even in my own room I feel I am getting stared at at every angle (which technically, I am; most especially from Gabba’s walls), and I hear the constant noise of others around me who I have probably seen at least half a dozen times in the last week and I know their toilet rounds and heeled afternoons, most unfortunately, by heart. I am surrounded by people who assume they know what is going on. More specifically, those who assume they get me. I am surrounded by an institution who keeps forgetting my credits, or how many courses they need me to take or…what major are you again? I’m sorry…and what did you want to do after college?

All I wish to do is cut the crap away. I’d love for people to be straight up with me; maybe then I would know exactly how I felt about each and every person and each situation. Instead I will sit here, smile and act pretty because that’s what I am here for, isn’t it? To listen and give my frank two cents, even though everyone thinks me cutely kind for it. I do it to prove nothing. I do it to solve only what little problems I can help with and hope that one day, one singular, future day, will hold better things with bigger problems with people who need help with mending that cannot be taken care of in a single-sweep coffee conversation. I just broke the fourth wall; spoke in earnest and was unforgiving with my words and now THE TRUTH IS OUT! We can start to no longer trust her again, and thank god, she was becoming too honest for our own good.

No. I do not expect anyone to “understand”; no, I don’t particularly--no-- I just honestly care, not a bit. This game we play of collegiate mess is a tricky thing to figure; pretend we can play Russian Roulette with each other’s hips and fingertips in order to shove the opponent off the socio-emotional board. I wonder, often, how many people I will actually correspond with after graduation; and then I remember how fleeting such connections are and add in my head the miles growing between us and them and already.

I wondered if I wanted to take anything seriously, today, as I walked back from class after a test I crammed for a few hours for and finished in twenty some-odd minutes. I wondered if I cared it went anywhere and when I realized I truly didn’t, I wondered where a part of my heart went and thought it was stuck somewhere in my shoe before remembering it was placed quietly behind my ear. I wondered then when I would care if anyone truly saw who I really was again before remembering I don’t care now so how should I expect a reciprocation of such said caring.

Bitterness is a molecule that when force-fed correctly to other molecules, subtly creates apathy. The hardest science fair project is to debate the where and how passion does not drizzle and freeze into being apathetic, and where the twists are in the plot of bland living situations in order to make us mental bank.

I used to want to eat love for dinner. Hope it made me feel something, if not, full. Instead it gave me everything I hoped for and more- it taught me something then reminded me I had to one day, show up at my own door and remember to love this selfsame chick again, somewhere, burrowed under all the lesson plans for future manly endeavors. I know now giving in to unexcitable love is the rule for those who’s flames have been licked out by a duller turn in life, and I only hope to never be the other side of the lonely chosen one. What is dedication to another, do I even remember the term any longer? Now that I’ve realized I’m more like the last one I loved than I had ever imagined, and finally know I’m no greater than the wisp of wind he as a dipping, spinning leaf turned on? I am a little, awkwardly blurting, cheeping bird who knows no distinct migratory pattern; who expects no hand to sooth her wayward, miffed feathery coat; who figures it smarter to peck at the choices far from her, the seeds of a distant ground more tempting and less apt to be a stage five clinger.

If you want to remember freedom, I will give it to you; it rests between your sheets the day you wake up and find cotton stuffing as your head about the fact you sleep and you sleep alone. Your heart swells with pillowcases soft and lavish in all your glory of alone-ness; of all the sweltering heat you could’ve friction-forced adding legs and crossed fingers into the illusion of a fully good-intentioned night.

If you want to remember prison, I will give it to you; it rests between your sheets the day you wake up and find the most detailed stranger etched before you streaming their snores all wireless and without connection.

If you want to remember me, I will not be able to give me you, or give you me. Whatever anyone will remember me by, I surely will never tell.

I am a detached, naked and shivering fledgling, excited by the prospect of using fake Keds for jumping ropes, and using all the heart in her kindness to fix the broken hands of the ones who need building.

For once I don't give a shit about being loved, but what the fuck, gentlemen? Would someone hurry up and get the fucking point already? I'm earnest as shit, but woah boy the more honest I am, the less I make sense so treat me as I am and hang me up as your abstract painting.

Rebel Yell

You pushed your glasses towards your
face and drew me in with a
Pandan icecream afternoon with the words
"Give me a kiss, first" before we
left the Samurai sword dancing
man behind us for
saki.
Your lips were true or
otherwise without
chap or giving me lip
"It was my favorite conversation, between
Avenue A and St. Marks,"
you told me,
“The one we had about poetry? Ginsberg and
Buddy?” you added as
I smirked and said “It’s all coming back, a little,”
And you laughed and said
“Don’t you dare take me for a sucker; I know you can’t remember.
There were quotes from a Buddy poem I’d tell you,
If I could remember them, but I can’t. I was going to read
The book by that guy you like, to try to impress you,
But I didn’t find it at the book store.”
“Isn’t that where that bullshit it’s the thought that counts comes in,”
I laughed the words back at you right before the
five hours later we found ourselves
Tongue tied at the 12:49 ALLABOARD sign and you
Signed me off with an until next time,
And we said,
Until next time.

Sophisticated.

We went to a bar where Jimi Hendrix used to drink and drink a lot. We went in after the large man checking IDs asked me exactly how many hearts I planned on breaking tonight and I responded none. We walked in and were a foot and a mile shorter than every sophisticated, 30 something beautiful person in that bar, covered in old framed phots of Grace Kelly, Bob Marley, and some other influenctials. Beautiful people sipped gin and tonics and laughed close to one another's faces as we tried to find a place to cram into in the corner so we could talk above the music. She told me how she didn't see this coming: her psudeo-boyfriend wasn't really working out and I could see her faith in that distant thing called love or a connection fading out as quick and as fleeting as the belief was. She sipped her drink through a tiny red straw as I took mouth fulls of beer and told her I wasn't sure about anything anymore because moving around made you lose your balance, and I was so sick but sure about suitcases that boxes made me scared and boy there sure were a lot of them in my apartment currently. She finished her drink quickly and told me she had to get home. I didn't finish my beer, but still put on my coat and told her, maybe I'd catch her next weekend. I walked past the fabulous people smoking cigarettes and walked the longer way back to my apartment because the weather was warmer for a Feburary night.

Product

I wrote this napkin for you
I created it by mushing paper pulp
Pulled pieces from my parts and
Heart
And licked coffee onto it's outsides
So you could smell me
Stinking right beside--no--
Right in front of you.
Right under the plate holding
Your one-night standards
Cleaning up your grease
This napkin, she was fashioned
Just for you
By the polyurithane company
Don't ask me why
They can't throw me out
But you never exactly let me in did you?
Do you?
Pick me into pieces, keep me in your
pockets--
Who knows;
Maybe one day you'll even use me.

Manhandling Animals

You weren't smoking a cigarette, but the smoke curled around your eyes even though we were in doors. The drums ticked in the background, the clarinet player wildly swinging and jerking his arms around in time. The jazz bar was filled but our friend--my friends-- and you, we sat in the back where old fans and African figurines dorned the walls. The couchs were soft, and I didn't know why, but your drawl kept me listening and my cheeks hot when your breath came too close to mine. The artwork crawling down your arms towards your wrists marked years of terrible ideas and memories you'd maybe rather forget, but you are not bashful. My leggings tucked into my leather boots, my hair tied back in taught bobby pins and you felt every word I said, even though I didn't and don't know why: all I know is it made me feel stripped clean of everything I was wearing and everything I had done. Like you had forgiven me before you ever even knew all the wrong choices I've made because you made the same ones, and often times, worse ones. Cigarettes and caffiene carefully calculate all the years you spent with pills and powders, but you wouldn't pretend you were anything different. You wouldn't make light of the fact either. The fact is it is only fact, and facts are everything, and nothing standing alone. It's only when you've finished talking and your smile fades a little and your crows feet give their squinting happy eyes a rest, that I see right into you, an observative and curious boy peeking through the layers of years all encrusted and mended on top of your blood cells. I can't help but forget much of what we talk about. But I know it is different, and not at once deeper. But you feel me just the same. I never knew I could be felt without someone taking hold of a submarine to reach my depths. My intensity just some old strings left to be plucked running the length of my neck and down to my legs. But you didn't pull on my strings, and for that, I am thankful. That night where we met too many odd strangers who kept your lap for their sitting, we decided to laugh for hours at the most serious movie, and keep the door closed when you slept for 30 minutes and I for none. You held me close and kissed me. Held me there for a moment like you hoped you were kissing through to my soul. Your nose at the back of my neck and your hand held mine close. But I'm no longer the one who needs bandaids and for all the things I don't notice, the fact that I'm alright isn't one of them. I'm doing so well that none of this could matter if it all disappeared tomorrow. But the thing is? They won't. This is the dusty old path that my shoes decided to kick themselves down and you were there, long before I noticed you, plugs in your ears and all. Who you are and what your business is, I may never know. But you are there nonetheless, all smiling and waiting to take your part. I wonder how your years match and outlive mine, by six, and by what standards? Does your age match your mind? Have the decisions you've made waisted your time, or do you like drinking and not eating? Are you the person who likes to make up excuses? Or are you just as down on this earth as I think you are? Honest and open and willing to let things go. Willing to let thing be as they are. Because they just: are.

Bread Shop

You are
My little shop with no windows
No sun and no time
For things as useless as clocks.
There are fingerprints smeared across your cold case
Placed neatly Windexed in the center
of my little shop with no windows.
People form lines
Fingering your many pastry options.
You are,
Too many options for
Too many of them
To ever make up their minds.
(Just enough, maybe too few, for me.)
The flour floating in here makes you
Foggy,
And, my feet, they can't grip the tiles.
You are,
my little shop with no windows.
No sun, no glimpse of the outer world,
Just existence here, in the tangy air.
You are,
Everything I could've hoped for.
Here where I don't have to think or
Worry about too much air.
I can be me, and you can just
Hold me.
Because I
Work
Only
Here.
I sweep up your floors and serve
Well your many customers,
One by one, bagging your little pieces
With a napkin each.
Please clean up your mess when you are
Done consuming.
But they won't use their napkins,
And I'll continue to clean up
Your mess.
And you'll pay me in leftover goodies
I'll hoard in paper bags.
I tell my friends, I love my job
It helps me not think...Though it does take up most of my time and I can't seem to figure out how to say I have to leave soon because this is really just so I can save up enough dough so I can get out of here and find something-

Better.
More suiting.

My little shop with no windows.
You'll never learn how much
of a tourist stop you are.
How shiny and new and
Attractive you look from the outside.
Even the flour filled air
Lets everyone know how
sweetly centered you are.
Everyone can smell and taste
The lucious bits
Just underneath
That cold case in the middle.
The cold case
You tell me I'm the only one
Permitted to reach into.

Black Boots

And of all the things that you could have written about, and all the things that you should have said; all those damned things you wish you'd speak up about or fought harder for, or said hello to (yes, you on the subway) all of those things equal up to the moment when you are walking home alone with a peaceful mind. It takes a whole lot of shit, a cold, a skin virus, a bad stomach ache, a terrible situation and the possibility of things much worse for you to see a movie with a great friend, and laugh your ass off. It takes a whole lot riding home on the subway, exchanging pastries and leftover bread because you didn't have enough money to eat that night, and she worried about your stomach. It takes a whole lot of friendship and awareness to leave happy and smiling after a heavy subject. Friends can take heaviness lightly, when you need them to. And its the sound of your new black boots not lightly tapping, but punching the pavement beneath your feet as you walk by every closed window and locked door of Houston Street for you to realize that the life you live is great and not a single, solitary person or problem is going to snatch that from you. It's then you know you shouldn't have walked alone that night, and you know you shouldn't have stayed out that late because you have a million things to do the following day and a job to nail down and your whole future to figure out. But you also know it isn't about all of that. Not right now. Not this moment. Not when the whole city lays before you, quiet on a Sunday night and you suddenly let yourself realize that it has become a greater part of you than you would willing admit. For better, or for better. It's for that moment when, in the first time in months, you felt like you held up your head a little higher. That you got your confidence back for a while, not because of a guy looking at you, or your friends saying something nice: but because it just felt like the time to do it. Because you felt like you were ready to do it.

Countless people who have never been to New York City ask me if it's really anything like it is in the movies. I always tell them the same thing: New York City can be anything you want it to be. That's the thing about it, the movies can be all right and all wrong at the same time. Of course, anywhere can mean anything to anyone. But New York City is a pretty bold character, isn't he? Isn't she? With so much change going on right in the open and underneath the surface, sometimes you can confuse it with a living, breathing person. Always changing while they're changing.

I came home, took off my boots and noticed I had managed to trash the place in a single night. I told myself, outloud, good. Chaotic. Just like I like it. Then continued to clean up the dishes, my shoes, some clothes and drank water from a wine glass because I liked it like that too. It's cold even though the windows aren't open, and my tan socks stretched over my pleather-covered legs draw the cold in like a drafty fireplace. I drink my water and look around.

I'll get this all figured out.

Fake Snowballs

I laid awake on the small, cramped couch, my feet sticking out of the three blankets I piled on top of my shaking figure, almost kicking the fake Christmas tree. I watched the digital numbers click steadily onward and as the weather threw Christmas rain drops at the windows. Face halfway between my pillow and a couch cushion, I thought of him in bed with her. Each time I blocked out the semi-dark with the permanent black of my eyelids, there they were: having mountain-men sex in my head, all over the pine needle covered forest, all pumping to the lyrics of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan that I loved and have scribbled everywhere in my notebooks, on top of my favorite blanket. It was blasphemous and beautiful, crude, and its everything that I and he ever wanted except it was here it was them, naked, not: me. I never wanted to gouge my mind’s eye out of its socket more. It isn’t the memory of “I love you” or the way he nuzzled my neck: the finding of every text he sent me just before we split, right around the time the conversation was sparse and he could hardly bargain anything but an “Oi! I’m sorry. Call you soon?” No, it is memories of sex in mosquito-ridden tents that kills me, in parking lots, in his bed. That, and ocean-filled kisses we exchanged over the fact that we promised we’d never be like those other couples, tossing a football over the shallow waves. In a lot of ways, we never were. In a lot of ways, that is what made this harder.

If it’s time for me to start being brutally (and I mean, brutally) honest with myself, then honestly comes with a continental lemon, salt, and a lofty price. The kind of price higher than any Anthropologie hand-sewn dress all patch-worked together somewhere in the back under the piano music and above the Indian floor cushions. The kind of price that today made me stare into the beautiful displays of clean white paper and plastic sculptured into a pristine, indoor, oil-heated winter and want only to lay in the display of fake snowballs and never get up again. Most confusing thing about my heartbreak, really, is that it isn’t like anyone else’s I’ve seen. It doesn’t come in waves and it sure plays an obvious game of hide and seek. There he is right in front of me. All photographed, smiling and happy, lips upturned in his permanent smile, his early crows feet locked in his hopeful squint. My head took that still shot, its still up there developing behind my forehead. Only life has taken the largest pair of scissors created and meticulously cut out his shape. Only his dim outline, the lake, and his canoe exist beyond the metal cutting away at his memory. His lack of a presence now becoming a dull throbbing just under my eighth layer of skin cells. All at once I want to write him a thousand letters explaining other people aren’t meant for each other, but we! We were crafted from the same tree, you see, carved with the same knife, and sewn with the same thread. I am the bristly bark, he is the soft chamber of collected rings. And there is the genius of the thing: you think we are nothing alike, but really, we are just different sides of the same sapling. Then I want to take those same letters all made of our tree and burn them all, so I could keep them from being true.

Because they aren’t true.

Just as you and I are not two sides of the same coin, missing you and wanting to forget you at the same time, is.

For months I have stared at my notebook, refusing to write, afraid of what might come out. Lately, I’ve been more prolific. Speaking of lately, I have been thinking deeply about the fact that I have always wanted someone to wear lacy underwear for. I know for a fact that I don’t look like someone who would own any, but maybe that is what makes the idea more tempting. But I would get some for him and he would think it cute rather than sexy because, well, I’m petite and that’s just the way these things work. When I say I have been thinking deeply about this, I mean that in the sense that I wonder what the deeper meaning of lacy underwear could possibly be, and why it is the first thing that comes to mind. Mental hilarity, of course, ensues.

You come to realize that after all this speculation and self-searching, heartbreak is really something ridiculous, poisionious, but ultimately: what could be more neccasary? How else would we build up a certain knowledge of ourselves and of other people, if it doesn't get to be converted into utter shrapnel and we have to start all over, rebuild it again? Thanatos complex aside, that's just it. Those moments when you just want to fall into a pile of fake snowballs, and stare up into the plastic icicles of yesteryear forever, wondering, "how can I ever be strong enough to feel happy again?": those moments, are when you begin to find a way.

And A Very Merry See You To You Too

The door to McNulty's opened, and the distinct smell of musty tea and coffee beans hit the mix of fresh air flowing in from behind me. I looked around at the boxes upon boxes of teas and large glass containers with labels reading LAPSONG OOLONG and GREEN GUNPOWDER in old typeset. I noticed the diced, dried fruit in a large glass canister, and saw the strange reflection in red of a teabox behind it. The strange manipulation of the light and the colour made me realize how much love has made me miss out. That's when I realized I wouldn't let this take over, what you admitted to me. You told me last night that she was yours now: the girl you said you didn't like is who you are with now, and you felt bad telling me. I asked if you cared about her when you were still with me, and your silence told me everything. It took me two phonecalls, an hour of staring, an hour of crying, approximately 5 hours of terrible sleep, and one lunch with four cups of coffee to realize that all you are is a coward and that all of this still isn't my fault. I loved with you with every inch of my being, and to be honest, I don't know that you will ever know what exactly that meant to me. You changed me, and you stayed exactly the same. You told me I introduced you to a lot of new things. Sure. Like books and art, and what did you give me? Only a soul cleanse and a better outlook, but sure, that is only cheap change I know. And you would have me be alright with the situation ("Don't worry, things don't have to change with us, we can still talk. And if she gets jealous, well, oh well"). Congratulations. You aren't the saint you or anyone thought you were. Congratulations on your first instance of being the bad guy. Welcome to the club, enjoy your stay among the real people.

And I refuse to believe that I will be forever forced to fall to ill-fated love. Whether I am comfortably wedged in my warm bubble of denial or not remains to be seen, however, even if the universe owes and will never owe anyone anything, I do know that I will find someone, someday. But that isn't what I want right now. And you claimed that wasn't what you wanted- that you couldn't be with someone even if you wanted to because it would take away from how you wanted to travel, see the world: no one should hold you back. But therein lies your weakness, eh? You claim all these things and are too weak and too abstract to find yourself. You think its better to be a terribly disfunctional sponge that only half soaks up the experience it lands itself in, rather than fully absorbing, or fully squeezing and expelling the world around you. At this rate, by giving yourself no time to be comfortable and figure out how you work, you WILL never be fully happy, not in the way you could be. Not in a passing happy-go-lucky way. You will always be that, I have absolutely no doubt. But you WILL miss out. You will.

Not for a moment would I change the way I truly feel and live every piece and part of my world. Not for a second am I humiliated that you derrailed me, not for a second would I take back the sheer, momunmental amount of construction these past months have made me take on. I don't wish unhappiness on you. I am not bitter. I am shocked, yes. Am I dissapointed? I am MOST of all dissapointed. Because you never admitted that sometimes being hypocrites is alright. Humans innately go back on things they say. But you could never see it that way. Humans are innately just, we can be good for reasons beyond reward, and everything is innately good and wonderful! You CAN'T see things that way. NOT everything is as shiny and magical as you would have it. There is plenty of hate and terrible things in this world, and its in having that dark side that GIVES the world its light. If you refuse to see the darkness, even within yourself, then you will never truly have shine.

I wish you nothing but the best, and I mean that. Can I talk to you anymore. Hm. Would it be worth it? Honestly, no. You are removed from my life and I have spent too long getting by without you for you to leave any more marks on me than you already have. I will not allow you to cause more damage.

But no one can, anymore. Not right now. I'm officially locking up and throwing away the key. No one is allowed in, just as none of my friends are allowed out. I have my loved ones already, my family, my close friends, all deep in my arteries and nothing will change that. But no one else is entering, not for a while. I owe it to myself to be strong for myself, so that I might be strong for others who need me, like my friends, and my family.

He was sent back the institution, for trying to hurt her, yet again. Now he has to be sent away to a home, and his little brother hasn't even been tested for anything. At least, not to my knowledge. I am afraid for young mind, just as I am afraid for his mother's. I would wish to be there in a closer way, but I am afraid, I cannot. It would be a dangerous path to tread. Christmas is going to be a rough one, but when is it ever not for us? I have Mr. Munchie, the diva dog, to tend to on Christmas Eve day and for a week after that. But he is a personality I don't mind traversing 2 subway rides and 2 1/2 hours to spend time with. And that is what we have to revel in, isn't it? What little things that keep us going and all at once remind us that some things may never be okay, while other things always WILL be.

Contrary to all of the above, I am feeling stronger and luckier than I ever have. I have loving parents, a roof over my head, some great friends who I love, other friends to share a laugh or a sigh with, and some futures ahead of me for the writing. I will be bold and the days ahead will be rough, but if anyone will take them on head first,

You bet your fucking ass it will be me.

Hibernation.

And writing cannot do these days justice, but my words, they try their best. My lack of writing cannot do my words or grammar justice but they try their best.

The snow engulfed the street ahead. We walked in silence, both too tired, knowing that things weren't going our way and that-- and maybe now we could face those facts all there in the fine print-- things won't be going our way for a while yet. Not until this blizzard is a memory. Not until the sparkle and shine fade away down the street drains, and the streets are all reduced to slush, revealing the shattered bottles beneath its glaze. But for now, the white covered everything we didn't want to see. All the ugly parts. All the things about these roads we walk that we can't change, until we learn to chose between our left and our right, instead of considering the forks and divets ahead. Instead the flowing white keeps all the facts quiet, keeps our feet numb, and the miles forever stretching, even if the West Side Highway keeps us from crossing rivers. Even if the wind mixed our hair and the snow and icicles hung from our faces, we trudged on, laughing at the fact of all our facts and at the blank canvas being lain before us, our only job to dirty it with our feet. We lay in the streets, almost anyway, setting down our wings and halos in the snow where cars passed dangerously close.

I lay in the snow thinking about my size and shape: large and all masonry. My corners reaching across the quiet avenues: an empty cathedral, hoping for piety from the religious that walk through her doors, with no religion of her own to fill all the guts. Only the weeping of a sole cellist and the lonesome song of a whale are heard, all wrapped in their velvet depths, all swimming and playing in my echoing cavern. Only the sounds reaching up through the years, echoing down my halls, all ancestral and guiding, ascending and mixing with the metaphysical, could comfort me buried under my dusting of snow under those lit Christmas trees. I lay in the snow, thinking about how under all these layers, be they socks and leggings and jacket and hat or logic, there is love lodged there for you: boy. Something complex and not all at once certain, but it is there nonetheless, it is warm, and it is for you. Lodged where snow glitters under the streetlights and dances around the ribbons all tied up in the hope that this year, that this time, things would work and things would be difference and for Christ's sake we could have faith in something. Love all tied up in trees and the wind whisking our souls around from place to place, our heads all in the clouds and our bodies never once forgetting that we were never of this earth.

But for once, the love for myself is at greater value, and so your love will stay lodged there, all discontent in my ignorance for it, all shriveled and annoyed. I will revel in the cool dissonance in my own voice, in the warmth of my own hand holding my own hand, my own eyes all starry and mystic in their reach for something beyond all of this. In this shining landscape, I find myself all over the place. I am a structure who, for now, will chose to stand ignored. Who will, yes, feel the pangs of loneliness when passersbyes don't stop to take pictures; who all wonder why I am so quiet and such a far walk from the main drag. But these bells will not be forever hushed. One day they will chime, and my love will burst from the doors, leap from the stairs, and my stained glass will light every street, all at once. The time needing to be taken for that instance is now, so that I may open those bronze, heavy doors, one day, when I am ready.

I touched my cheek to the cold of the ice, and breathed myself in, all icy and distant, all happy in my emptiness. I smiled in the beauty of my exactness. For once, no grey.
Only white.

Oh My God I'm Feeling.

Out there, people are trying to shake the idea
Of God down,
Make him come out of hiding;
Scream hallelujah
And hope he will illicit something.
I, on the other, or one
Of his or no one’s hand(s)
Stumble across old or dusted fates
Try to decipher, try to
Remember

HOW I EVER UNDERSTOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Because suddenly, there is a break
In my wing’s wind
And there is:

You.

My clocks fall from their walls
And I am deep in your hands, in
Their hands,
The mastered clicking, setting, interrupting hands
Displaying our only minutes.
But I will not refuse them our
Presence, here, in the quiet
Between pressing breathes and
Warmed lips.
The clouds are parting, the
Gods are shouting for our
Attention
But we, but I, am too apt
At ignorance
And instead, fumble over
The lightening rods being hit inside
Every strand, every colored vein
In my being when your
Soul brushes mine.
If this isn’t fair to them (to whom? To everyone excluded. To everyone.) and the
Stucco ebbs of pre-war buildings
Fail to house the growing
Pound of what fills my heart
Then so be it that the open sky
With all those
Brilliant, pulsing stars beating
Down on the most beautiful,
Ugly comforter you ever saw,
Be our only cover.
Be it that the trees are the only ones who understand
The way in which I sway.
Be it that the tides are the only
Motion-fueled creature who
Understands my lack of bounds for this.
Be it that every sheer infinitesimal fiber
Attach to every cell of my skin to
The foundry that birthed and forged
Your very being.
Be it that, so let it be.
Please, let that be.
For with every well-composed work
Of prose comes five dirt covered
Chapters beneath
And with every mussed, dog-eared
Corner,
My fingers only long to turn
Them over in you more;
Tired of ever counting
Clear indications.
Should it be that those
Who believed They were making
Us, made us, then, so be it.
If whatever hands, or no hand(s)
At all, took a handful of
Flower, concrete, and soil and
Created

You,

Then by Them, by God,
Those hands created me.

　

　

POMEGRANITE.

I dig first into your

(you nipped your lip a bit, and too hard, and so allow the crimson) red,

Fleshy skin, and with my broken fingernails
Softly peel back
Piece by white, smoky, sultry
Piece.
Underneath, each individual
Pulp converges with the sudden
Gasp of air, releasing also onto
My fingertips their fiery dye,
Running down my palms, to
My wrists, then finally,
To my lips.
Small, teardrop seeds scatter
About, each new, airy, open
Compartment
Shows the signs of the pulp
It had just housed, now blood let
And without weight.
The inner flesh carries the
Great shape of the inner,
Wonderful, cavernous workings
Of an (artichoke) heart’s soul.
And with each smooth, bulbous, bursting
Pod I remove, place gently,
Let burst suddenly, behind my
Teeth and with my tongue,
Feel sudden, feel tart, feel cold and close

And yours.

Here's Looking At You, Kid.

I felt the purple sky come down over the buildings when the light turned green and you held my hand. Your smile reverberated off of the street signs. The smell of coffee fit well between our touching fingertips and kept our words company. (Lets take it slow, there are far places that this could go, could go.) But I won't pretend your hands holding mine and swinging me across the dance floor didn't spark our two hour conversation later; that our time spent making jokes at diner tables didn't lead to kisses over songs of Clark Gable; that our kisses didn't lead to long talks of how incredible that we were us and we were all we were. Ourselves. A word we figured we knew to ourselves and with other people, until we readily admitted while we laughed we didn't have a damn clue about until: now. You led me down the sidewalk, shivering,cold with the weather's drop, and made me fight for the side closest to the road, never letting my hand drop. And your crazy, and anxious, and have beautiful, deep, knowing eyes. Your face tells me everything: you have been through much and have found yourself lost inside many faces; that your smile is as much a part of your disaster and it's that demise of human condition that brings this higher. Your young and witty, laid back, energetic, beautiful; but you're dark, and intellegent, and bemused by the more cynical yet beautiful things. But I am crazy, and anxious, and want to know you. We kissed over my closed front gate and I grabbed your face because the feel of your skin feels, just right.

This feels just right.
Let's take it slow; there are many far places that this could go.
Let's go.

(I looked in the mirror tonight and saw a woman so different that she looked like me. And she was happy to see me.)

Mind Vomit

Brightly colored yarn

All stitched and hemmed together

Leave the rhyme out of this.

The walls, they smell of chalk

And not of you.

Grape seeds and pomegranate leaves

Find your foundries, and leave the

Rest of us be.

And whatever this was that was bothering me inside, has been left to wilt, left to die on the sidelines. Because it isn’t as if I hadn’t been there, been there, been there before. And it isn’t as if, I never will again. As much as we all want to move up and up, ever on and forward, we can’t pretend we’ll never run the same old circles. But whatever good things we have, we can only hold them as tightly as we might moths: however quickly they may lose their shining scales against our greedy, holding shells, oh well, oh well. You tighten, you lose. At least the earth gave them permission to float at all. At least, for a moment, we can say we had it all. Just as lightly green Luna moths dance around in or around my head, the hands of my clocks let lose the blocks they hold fast to and drop. Where is that moon, where is our tide, they ask, at last? Gives us our tides, our ticks, our seconds so that we may continue on our path. But the moon, oh she was so busy, unable to fill up her wine glass. Those days she needed off, she gripped her temples hard and said just leave me alone! But the world it kept on turning, the sun he never stopped burning, and the two danced wildly in dizzying perfection around her. Poor moon, always with no one to toast her a job well done, and all those fans looking up from their back porches asking this is what I want, this is what I want, what the hell do I want? But, no. She has no face, no hands, no wine glass, no state of imperfection. The moon, she is simply the moon, and no latent amount of word and poetry will give that to her. And let that be a lesson, to all of us spending our time groping for the moon: we had it in our possession the whole time, we just mistook it for our shoes.

Give Me My Words Back, That's All I Ask.

It was two summers back that I dug my fingers into the thick blades of grass of your backyard, when that rabbit hopped by. The rabbit that I always told you wasn’t wild. His ears were too long, and his comfort around people was too strong for any sort of natural tendencies. You rolled on your back, donned with your headlamp and raincoat for no reason and claimed that you were ready for jungle exploration. I looked at the grass and asked you why domestic rabbits weren’t enough, but you laughed instead of answering. Two summers. It was two summers ago when I had no job, and you had too many, so that when I came to visit, I would spend hours out on your back lawn, reading books until I fell asleep on the warm concrete, or waiting around on your living room with the thick carpet in-between my toes.

Your house. We were in love, back then, in your house. I never told you, but in the beginning, your house scared me. I watched it from the corner of my eye. Filled with family photographs and other normal things like sewing rooms and toys from when you were six. Boxes of car magazines and assurance that one day you would amount to something. But sometime shortly after we began snapping photographs on the boardwalk of southern New Jersey, I started to love your house. The way your mother’s rocking chair still swung minutes after she got up to cook dinner. The way the house’s floors muffled the sound of a hard walker’s feet. Your room was where I felt I fit into one of the only niches I could find in your life. In the room where the grey walls showed off photographs of bikers, trucks, trains speeding to this country or that. Boxes upon boxes piled up to the sides of your bed, filled with vintage tinker toys; that particular box of old keys you kept on your bedside dresser. Right over the drawer you used to keep our scrapbook, my letters, and my picture inside of. To the right of the corkboard you kept magazine cutouts and photographs of family and friends. Your clothes spewed forth from your closet that was never cleaned, and your bureau vomited t-shirts and dirty shorts from hiking trips. Bike chains and gear parts covered the floor, tripping me every time I walked in the room.

In that room, one night, you pulled out your box of keys and I asked you to tell me which one would be the key to your heart, if it existed. You pulled out the smallest, most ornate one. This one, you said. I put it on the chain around my neck. You always wanted to close two locks around one another, to show the rest of the town we were in love, closed and set. We used padlocks, but combinations for its release were always there. You attach it to the side of a bridge, you would tell me, and then we’d be just as romantic and hopeful as young couples are in Florence: where that mass of locks, all huddled around and among one another, keep people holding hands. We both visited Florence, with different people, different years, before we knew each other. We both wanted to carve our initials into tree trunks, but you wanted to on our college campus and I thought that juvenile. Meaningless. I wanted to carve hearts all over Keene Valley, but you feared for the natural surroundings hikers craved to be unmarked, so in a huff I let it be. And so our initials exist only a bridge in Connecticut somewhere, the same day I told you to pull the car over on the side of the highway: I had lied about something. We could only do things on the run; but serious conversations couldn’t be helped when nothing was meant to matter, and so the sides of roads became stomping grounds for things amiss. Blinking caution lights reflecting tearful conversations, serious misunderstandings, or unzipped jeans.

But that is where it all ended, wasn’t it? Pulled over on the side of the highway, our tears spilling over the gravel. The words were meant to come flooding back, and instead that was where they stayed. Next to your car, on the side of the highway.

With your headlamp on your forehead, you smiled, that day, two summers ago. "Maybe I'll get to go to Iceland this year. Or Prague, or Africa." You smiled at the sky, and even then, two summers ago, you were already gone.

The Things I Gave Up

1.
I will not settle for lack of words.

I AM NOT A WORD
I AM NOT A SENTENCE ON A BLANK PAGE
I AM A PERSON
AN ENCYLOPEDIA DRIPPING WITH AGE
I AM CONSTANTLY BEING UPDATED
RE-EDITED
I AM THE EDITOR,
THERE IS NO WHITE INK HERE
THERE ARE NO DOUBTS TO THESE FACTS HERE
AND HOW DARE YOU TRY TO EDIT ME
LESS CURSE WORDS
MORE GOOD THOUGHTS
AND SO YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD CHANGE
AND SO YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD
READ
AND SUCK AWAY THE MEANING
BUILT BY THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF PENS
CREASED MILLIONS OF FOREHEADS
LICKED UP MILLIONS OF TEARS
SAILED MILLIONS DOWN THE RIVER
BUILT PEOPLE TO SHOW PEOPLE TO KNOW PEOPLE TO SHOW THAT WE ARE
PEOPLE
WE ARE PEOPLE!
WE ARE- JUST- PEOPLE.
AND WE ARE ALL THAT IS PEOPLE.
WE ARE ALL THAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN
ALL THAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN TO BE WORDS
TO BE CONFIGURED AND STUCK TOGETHER BY WORDS
THAT ARE CREATED IN THE PITS OF OUR STOMACHS
AND PUMPED THROUGH THE WOUNDS OF OUR HEARTS
AND WORDS
WORDS ARE STUCK IN THE KNOTS OF MY SHOELACES,
FALL FROM THE FOLLICLES OF MY HAIR
AND WORDS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD ARE SCREAMING
WHERE THE FUCK DID WE GO WRONG?
DON'T RUB YOUR WRISTS TOGETHER
MAKE FRICTION AND TELL ME
YOU'VE CAUGHT MY SCENT
DON'T CRUMBLE PICTURES IN YOUR FISTS
AND TELL ME YOU KNOW JUST WHAT MY SKIN FEELS LIKE
YOU KNOW WHAT MY SKIN FEELS LIKE
MY SKIN FEELS LIKE
PEELING

2.

I WILL NOT SETTLE FOR LACK OF WORDS.

There are many spaces on my walls that haven't been filled; I feel that someday, they will talk to me and tell me what they'd like to represent them and there's and maybe someday they will be able to tell me the roads they've walked and the families they've started and maybe behind that I'll smell the rot of the concrete and know that one day, one day, a long long time ago, these grains were in the eye of a friend who no longer likes Napoleon because of his terrible taste in clothing; so the grains would will themselves to be flicked away from the forgotten man's tear duct and decided to sail away with the tides just so that they could be here, listening to me now, holding up my walls while I try to hold up mine, while I lick the linens and try to get a taste out of something; anything.

What I Spent Hours Writing in My Journal At Washington Square Park/Jack's Coffee House

Knowing everything will inevitably change never keeps people from lamenting about the fact. With the recession forcing doors shut, and the streets filled with people who don't know that the Washington Square fountain was, until recently, 20 feet t0o the left, it seems we as a general populace, will always remain in the dark about ourselves. With innumeral factoid sheets spitting in our face how many jobs have been lost, the question of "how will consumerism save us now?" seems to loom, static, in the background of all we do. But not just at face value. With my friends and family all hoping to achieve great things (and, unfourtantly, success in this country normally goes hand in hand with money) how will anyone figure a way to be happy, or, at least, be content? I am extremely lucky (?), derranged (?) enough to have no real direction, nor any immediate goals. Just to: be. But I do feel I have been keeping a tad bit quiet for much too long, in a couple of ways. This will change. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" sounds from my left, as more laxidazical New Yorkers make fun of the many passerbys, photographers, people with cameras, and other New Yorkers simply minding their buisness. It's actually buiser than it ever has been here, though ironically, far less musicians and more street lights. There is also strangely more "Passive Lawn, No Sports" and "No Dogs Allowed" signs that are strewn about the park, to protect the immediate dollar at work on the grass that will at one point or another be the wrecking ball of this and every city. But I digress. "All Along the Watchtower", now; the men playing the song on a mandalin and acoustic guitar wear reflective sunglasses, sporty in their shades, laughing and awkward with Bob Dylan's words falling from their mouths all over the place, and too late. The Village has changed. An untrained pitbull to my right coughs up phlegm, barks excitedly, and gets hit on its snout by its two European owners; "No, no, no, no!" The men playing guitar play more Dylan covers, assuming everyone around them aren't drawing the connection to the area, and think themselves smarter for it. Across the way, two men in breakdancing outfits make quips about white people, as a white crowd claps them on. It smells like hot dogs and tobacco smoke. A man on a CurrentTV episode claimed that he hated to be the one to break to the nation, but this, from an economic standpoint, is monetary normalcy, if we've ever seen it. Which we haven't, so we as Americans all look at one another curiously wondering what in the hell to do now. But no one really pays attention to each other, and even when we do, we all shake our heads to any sort of alterior motive. But that's most of it for you. Of course humans are innately good-- but, just as John Lennon also reminds us, "we all have violence inside". I believe the chemical reaction these two extremes make gives us passion. I just hope one day I'll be able to harness an inbetween were I can speak as well as act. I hope one day this country can speak as much as it can act, and understand as much as it yells. Two girls slowly creep up to the man playing guitar. The man has a voice that could cut through bullshit, if there was such a voice. If there was such a need for such a voice--and there should be--but some could argue either way. A man is selling photographs of the old Village. This was my last Summer in the city, maybe forever, but who can really tell these things for sure. Not too much longer until a new city with less obvious motives. One that doesn't try as hard. To Jack's Coffee, if it's still open.

----
At Jack's.
I don't know if I'd have faith in coffee houses anymore if it wasn't for this place. Seems like everywhere else is just horribly half-assed, or simply put, dull. Best damn coffee here, though, really. Rose bought African Dwarf Frogs for our suite. So awesome. Ok, so I'm really going to miss the slowness, the relaxation, the...Ana! of the city! But really though. I like how close she and I have gotten. The city, and Ana, and me. I hope I get my writing groove back. Once I'm at school and am forced to, I'm sure I will. You see, I'd like to be able to set goals for myself for this year, but I can't figure if it's worth it or not. Might as well, I suppose:
1) Hang out with as many friends as possible (within reason!)
2) Do well in my writing classes...well, all of my classes!
3) Get most of my senior thesis out of the way this semester
4) Figure out something awesome either as an internship, or a class for next summer. Bushwacking, etc.

---
Now, in real time, it is 2:04 A.M. The cabs are whistling, the dump trucks are rumbling, and soon I'll be in a real bed again surrounded by friends and other random people alike. Every year lends new suprises, some very good and some bad, but given that this is my last year, I will try my damn hardest to do my best to make it memorable and generally good. I feel I have surrounded myself with people who can make it that way, though. I feel I accomplished a lot with myself today, even just with walking around, drinking coffee; because when I came home I without thinking researched volunteer opportunities, and signed up for 2. I am also now seriously contimplating taking courses after graduation to work with battered and sexually abused women, because these women need help, and I truly believe I could be someone they could talk to too.

You know, I honestly do not know what I want to do with my life. All I know is I'd like to make my life a good life; and not be a good person because I think others want me to be or because I'm comparing myself to others. But because I simply know I'm an alright gal, who just wants to help people out. I was there once, too, where too many people have been and should never have to be and I know I appreciated the helping hand when I got it. I would simply like to return to the world the favor.

I am here as a consiquence; I only hope to exist here as a favor.

Goodnight, and good luck. To me, and you, and everyone here.

Σειρήν Seirēn (The Siren)

The bareness of my legs confronted the texture of the sheet and my shadows on the bedroom door are orange. The fan forms itself in my silhouette. The streets outside glitter, splash unnecessary light onto the walls, onto my face, onto the week before I knew I could live without you.

My eyeglasses knock the hard tips of my eyelashes, thick with mascara; I wear fire engine red lipstick hoping I can smoke signal you from here (Can you see me?). Those are my teeth buried in the sky, behind the shooters; the quick, flashy, moving stars. Those are my lips signaling sunrise. Red smears across the skyline. But vinyl sleeping bags keep your eyes shut, your head lolled away. Thousands of hundreds of steps of miles of meters away. The idea of stars will catch your attention quicker than the thought of my naked body here, tangerine with the street lights. I’ll keep the extra blankets at the foot of the bed for you. You will forget warmth is where I keep huddled. Instead, I will be forced outside, swiveling my hips in the witching hour air; just beyond the trashcans. Next to the stone steps. Just to the right of the Asian-Fusion outdoor seating. Air conditioners will leak on to the sidewalk, start currents, form rivers under my shoes. The water will mix with leftover coffee from street venders and then you’ll smell me. Somewhere in the stink of pressed coffee grounds and soil thick with the vomit of worms. In between snapped twigs. In between Birch tree bark held taught with paper clips. I’ll just keep singing my song, until your ship comes crashing home.

Just So You Can See How Dumb This Summer Has Made Me...

Alright, maybe not. But this is a poem I wrote last semester:

I gather my statements, poems and lines into a jar.

And they, each running in to each,

Fumble their letters,

All mesh together

As they make their dance like captured

Fluttering, brilliant beetles

Wing’d and no longer lit or free;

With the rubber rim tightly fit

‘Round an old forgotten gospel hymn,

The round glass brims in tight knotted

Knuckle wound rucksacks;

Keeping licked stamp to letters

Asphyxiating and close;

Close enough to keep the soul tied quiet in

A ramblin’ mans’ jib.

The metallic clip

resists the explosion of further reaching

comb binding slews;

Lest the inky pages try and stick too far

Into your ever-soil pressing shoes;

Grasping your ankles and wondering

Where the author went?

Suffocating the words in whole, at last

Compressing and tightening through

the bottom of the glass,

The ethereal lights do dim-

The words left in their own wake to shrivel; make do,

Choking down water before ever escaping the brim.

Reverberating clashes of thunderous flowers

Shake the woodwork of ancient wireless modems

Christening phantoms, and Luna moth wire cutters;

Raking together, scratching and kissing one another’s

Thighs

Roaring and crackling

To let the glass open wide.

With hesitant fingers I always hope to grip

The thick rippled seal, along all the modern lyric,

Underneath quotes, and definition’s tips

To rip aside the glass and try

A readied apology to the author whose

Personality I had begun to unsuccessfully pry.

But neither the thick ribbed, stained tank top brandishing man

Nor the petticoat, brazier boasting woman

Could take my eyes from off the steadied blaze

The words inside my jar forever will create,

Eternally wafting in and about one and another

In a waltzing, crafting, drunken haze.

And this is one I wrote just now, very tired, slightly hungover. It makes no sense, but it's all that would come out.

Streets lighter than dark,

Though all that could be seen of the glow

Was everything that is, everything that was,

With words ever fighting for right of way out of my mouth.

The seas of streets did pour

And so they will, for endless,

Many decades more;

Assuming its war torn parties will ne'er be washed ashore.

'Til finally, one day, time was tricked

And the assault weapons stopped

The wind died down and the

Ocean failed to rock;

The ship that ne’er do sail,

To seas too far for stronger quells-

There, did the cannons lose their aim,

Did the eye of the storm then rage,

Upon that wasted, evasive,

Lost and holy wave.

To shore, for sure,

Did the wave hope would be its final move

To be in and among, the watery naked dunes.

But the ships that waged their war

Had other plans for the wave to make

For what use is a current calm,

And a breeze far gone

For a ship to cause another to quake?

“Rock, you unholy wave; rock so that we

May be at war again and again."

“Nay,” claimed the wave,

“For it is not me who begs the water churn,

Who stocks the rifles taught

Who nips the light from the dark

Just as a hand would stop naught a clock.”