Grace

Shall we write a bit from the stream of consciousness? The stream of sub-consciousness? I tilt through a drug-induced fog, filled with the nausea of too many contradictions. Spinning with the knowledge of both paradox and purity, strung up with so much to say and no effective way in which to say it. I sing weakly of smiles aimed at backs of heads, I laugh loudly and it means, "I love you." I dream of old loves and of new and I worry not when I wake which is which. I plan to elope and I imagine the view from atop an elephant and I am consumed by the absence of pain and the evanescence of mystery. I stare at pixels til they picture me flying; I comfort the elderly as they mourn the futility of comfort. Fingers run the curves of bodies and the curves of sidewalks, the bends in backs and roads, the heaving of breath and of traffic. Intimacy is stop and go, tornados swirl fast and slow, you mustn't assume that she won't go. Birds fly in patterns because the sky's demand it. I would draw for you what I see, but then you could see it too, and it is mine. Don't you see? Ah. The sea.

It is so late. Too late. The world is massive and it suffocates--there is more space than we know how to fill, and we've none of it left.

I wish I had a giant Lite-Brite of the universe, and I would prick each memory that makes me smile, and they would alight the sorrow-darkened skies, and the contrast between the two would create shapes you'd decipher as stars and worlds and galaxies and rockets and ships and monkeys and plums and we'd pick the ripe ones and press their wine, we'd take rockets to the worlds and ships to the stars, and we'd say, aren't we just the happiest monkeys.

And we would be. We'd be the happiest. Some will disagree, and we won't blame them. We are too busy whistling, too busy squeezing hands and lemonade, too busy tying headscarves and shoelaces, too busy smiling at backs of heads, at the stars, at each other.

Flame

brain thoughts:

I don't listen to instrumental music often enough.

the idea of a puppy kind of makes me want to find the place in which I'd like to stay put, already.

I have quite a bit of tattoo real estate left. this is good.

I'm in love with somebody I don't yet know.

I don't know where to go or what to do or who to see, but I trust God and his love for me and its evidence in His provision, and that knowledge is all that's worth searching for.

Road trips are the best escapes, and that's why I think the flexibility and freedom on a motorcycle will result in the stability I need to move ahead with work and education and friendships and just general peace, really.

I have so much I'd like to do, even the things I don't yet know I want, and it pains me more to imagine still wishing for them ten years from now with no means to do them than it does to imagine leaving as soon as I get comfortable again.

I have to leave. I'll be back.

I'd like to adopt a few of my children.

I don't know why I haven't been to a concert in ages, but it doesn't concern me much. I'm more intrigued by the break from habit than I am by the opportunity to continue it.

I'm not as moody as I was before and I don't know why. it's usually the lack of understanding that triggers it, and so I'm standing by. but for a long while now, I'm never without reason to smile.

God answers prayers.

I am traveling without traveling. I am on the cusp, the brink, the wind. I am a hermit and gypsy and nomad, I am Tinkerbell, I am the Little Prince, I am Fantastic Mr. Fox. I write and read this story, I take pictures I wish required a darkroom to develop. I love loving even more than the people I love sometimes, and I wish someone would climb trees with me. I want to go rock climbing and camping and hiking and skiing and I want to play poker and catch fireflies and hold my breath for as long as I can. I want to listen, laugh, and speak, in that order, and never before listened, laughed, or spoken to. I want to give and to receive, I want to float and to burn, I want to jump and to fly, I want to connect a string between two cans and call it a zipline.

I want to work on the knot within me for as long as it takes, and I want to find what oils it free.

I will turn the oil to flame. I'll use it to light my way home.

Conch

I have so much to say and I am so behind. I am getting started and I don't know that I'll ever finish. But the frequencies in my mind have been quieted and I cannot waste this time. When in newly awake silence you turn to God and ask, what now? and He says Maybe you should write.

well, you open your laptop and you get to work.

***

Melts

I'll name my first son Frank. Honest.

Other things:

Sometimes my brain spins so quickly that the heat from its rotations melts its will to continue.

Sometimes the girth of what I want to say and the weight of my inability to say it fuse as a scream within me, a scream that I save for the insides of refrigerators.

Yesterday I woke up to heart pain, its beat weak and sporadic. I knew a heart could hurt, but I didn't know a heart could hurt.

The so far unseen manifestation of my painful self-awareness is an electric tingle, sprawling head to toe.

People find my dark as evidence of wrong. My light is evidence of right, but so is my dark, and those whose brows that furrows can only grow so close to me.

How do I rid myself of the homegrown obligation to write what I'm thinking? I don't even know how to think what I'm thinking. Praying what I'm thinking is enough of a feat most days. All days. I feel behind and inadequate and mis-purposed and... tired.

I do not write because I am tired. Sometime I do not smile because I am tired.

Sometimes I use my last energy remembering that I need to rest. To be still and know.

I am still. I know what I know.

Still, what do I know?

First Thoughts

I share angst here, but never peace. Shame on me.

I'm sitting on my sofa in my apartment alone, plate of fresh French toast in my hand, or it was before I started typing, with Rufus Wainwright's "Hallelujah" on Pandora, and I think, Hallelujah. Exactly.

God knows what day today would have been and replaced it with a new significance.

I forfeited an internal battle today. I let it win because the loss won't hurt me. Well, it might, but you'll know when that happens.

I found a new tumblr: beinlovewithyourlife.tumblr.com. I like what she posts. Surprisingly I find myself at odds with the weight some of those speakers put in the power of poetry, but I can appreciate many. Poetry is undermined so often by literary stigmas about its spectrum of worth and quality, but they blur the upper end as a result. I like when it comes back into focus. It helps me focus on writing for the upper end.

I had a very low point last night. I remember the thought, "I can't run away. I work on Monday." I remember the thought, "I don't care what You're teaching me anymore. I can't do this. Pull me out or I'll die here." I remember the thought, "I have nothing left." And then I put myself to sleep, because that's all there's to do at a time like that.

I woke up with a headache from the night's tears, and I considered mimicking Simon and hiding my face for thirty-seven consecutive hours. Then I got up and got dressed for my day. I saw my sister while she worked, reached my parents in time for their breakfast, and had coffee with a missed friend.

I turned two situations over and over and over again in my head, but then I remembered that they're not mine, so I let them go.

On the drive home, I felt God teaching me how to take a compliment.

***

All things work together for good for those who love God.

Back for Seconds

TOO MUCH ALONE TIME




too much alone time....


I get it. may I be excused?

Bicyclical

I've been keeping a journal of buzzwords and buzzthoughts I want to keep track of for writing fuel. Only I haven't been using them to write. I can draw parallels between the struggles I have with writing and the struggles I have with accepting affection or admiration. I suppose both stem from a fear of the unknown... a fear of what's to come. What if what I write is sub par? What if they only like me until they get to know me? What if what I write sets a new bar I'll never again meet? What if they love more about me than I could ever love about them?

How do I settle that score?

I feel like I'm comfortably walking a balance beam that stretches past my line of sight. I anticipate performing the same task forever and wonder what I'll encounter along the way. There's an audience of people around me; some want to know why I haven't learned more tricks--cartwheels, handsprings, flips and such--and pressure me to accomplish more. Some praise my consistent beam-walking prowess and encourage me to keep on.

I don't know which I'm performing for.

If I strip the performance away, I'm walking from point A to point B. Life to death.

On a more tangible, less morbid journey, point B is the end of this lease. What's the next step? I try not to think about it, but it's like not wondering goes against my nature. I have fully realized that I think for fun. I think for fun so often that it stops being fun.

I think about how I should have written more by now. Performed more poems. Started a portfolio. Earned a featured artist spot.

I think about how I should be reading more voraciously. Finish books before I open new ones.

I think about how I should encourage more friends. Write more letters. Make more calls.

I think about how I should travel more. Use my passport. Visit people I miss.

I think about how I should take more pictures. Get more sun. Save more money.

I think about how I should spend more time doing these things than I do thinking about them.

And then I go to sleep.

When I wake up, I haven't accomplished any of these things, but I've had more dreams. When I wake up, I don't consider the shoulds anymore. I open up a book or start a movie or text a friend or eat an apple and pat myself on the knee for doing any of these without underestimating what I've done.

And then I underestimate what I've done.