Overs

It occurs to me that my words were better before. That my blood coursed quicker in poetry and has since slowed. My fingertips are cold.

It occurs to me that there is too much to sort through, to break down and build back up. I do not know how to do it. It is not a matter of choice.

Perhaps it was New York that did it, that sent music to my plain existence and painted the stories in more vivid colors, more appeasing strokes. I am not in New York. What else is there to say?

It occurs to me that it is time for a break. There will be more. But I have nothing left to give, now.

Frailty

Phones, always these voices, always this change they bring. I called the apartment on Morton Street and could barely grasp that she was there, amidst puppies and Halloween decorations, and I was standing freezing outside a grocery store. Aren't you at least coming to visit soon? she said, and the dagger turned slowly in my heart.

Later, it rings again. A love so nearly lost, the struggling body packing up belongings and making arrangements for a world without. Here is the money that I owe you. It's not all, but it's all there is. Clothes ready to throw away. The end so near. Don't ever read the letters, burn them, pretend it was never this close. The phone rings, the waiting room, the scared heart hoping for a lifeline.

If you ever feel so bad that you are done, don't be. You write those letters because there are words left to say. People left to love. They love you too. You are not making this place any better by leaving it.

You don't know it yet, but things will get better. You don't know it yet, but it will not be cold, forever.

After All

(This is my life.
How lucky I am.)

of Wisdom

It finally arrived, that book, whose title was scribbled on my wrist weeks ago even though it was barely legible in the aftermath. I bought it used; the seller said "Like New" but wasn't it filled with scribbles and markings after all? I flipped through it, trickling down dog-eared pages and deciphering Somebody Else's handwriting in the margins. Like a secret treasure, that I could sneak into their read, try on their experience, sit in their armchair a little too closely and relax.

Appropriately enough, this is what I found:

Money has been the one thing I have never had, and yet I have led a rich life and in the main a happy one. Why should I need money now --or later? When I have been desperately in need I have always found a friend. I go on the assumption that I have friends everywhere. I shall have more and more as time goes on. If I were to have money I might become careless and negligent, believing in a security which does not exist, stressing those values which are illusory and empty... In the dark days to come money will be less than ever a protection against evil and suffering.

and

At that moment I rejoiced that I was free of possessions, free of all ties, free of fear and envy and malice. I could have passed quietly from one dream to another, owning nothing, regretting nothing, wishing nothing. I was never more certain that life and death are one and that neither can be enjoyed or embraced if the other be absent.

Henry Miller,
The Colossus of Maroussi

I will read the book, the whole book from beginning to end and try to ignore the underlined passages to make the book my own. But today, now, I thank the previous reader for a breath, for a momentary lifeline. They are invaluable, in whatever form they may come.

Wednesday Night Flag

Turn the corner, it's a straight line from here. At the top of the hill, see the lights of the square where you live. Where you live. There is an apartment where your books lie piled. Here live Jack, and Henry, and Sylvia; that is home. A song in your head reminds you of a dentist chair and the feeling that it will be okay. You are not lost at sea and drifting.

The bar has turned into ours, into a place where you feel safe and soft and borders are erased because the walls will hold. The soundtrack is perfect, the bartender a friendly face. She says such kind words but you cannot hear them. You only hear your own critical words but no matter. In this short moment, this subdued light, you are safe.

I would not toil, and struggle, through poverty and worthless mind circles, through such storms and winters, if I did not believe in the Reason. I would not suffer for the Word, if I did not love it.

And that is all that matters.

Not Your Fault, But Mine

Tuesday Nights

I went away, I'm sorry. I don't know why. I feel fine. (Perhaps that's why.)

If you haven't got something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

(Although in my case, the "nice" seems to have been replaced by "self-centered, self-indulgent, and sad". But you get the picture.)

Words will return. They always do. It's raining out, but things are pretty good.

I haven't image googled cute puppies this entire time, I swear.

Liff

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I image googled "cute puppies".

My life, for all intents and purposes, is over.

My Sweet Carolina

Oh, the American Night. Oh warm, humid air and do you remember how we would camp out on lawn chairs until the sprinklers began in the morning? Our neighbors had one of those giant trampolines but I was too scared to do any tricks. Years later, I turned 25 in the Mobile night and all the road lay ahead of us. Crickets in Texas, sunsets over that wide river in Mississippi, rooftops in L.A. looking out over the end of the road, the end of the Earth. I still remember the feeling of stepping out of Penn Station, how quickly amazement gave way to the comforting feeling of Home.

America falls apart before our eyes. My poor, unemployed, uninsured self whithers at its ungracious foundations, politicians falter while the People rise, voices loud but words scorned by media, gagged.

Eighteen years ago we went West in search of the American Dream. Its blood still courses through my veins, I cannot let it go. I will not. America, I miss you, tonight. I fear you will never be the same.

I haven't been, since I found you.

Relativity

Last night, late night at the office and when I walked home, the air was black, the streets glistened with fallen leaves and rain. Today, frozen fingers and frozen nose, it is fall. I write my father a long letter, tell him not to worry. Tell him I won't end up on a park bench, I won't starve. Only realize later that maybe that wasn't his baseline criteria for where his daughters would end up.

A teary voice calls to me from warmer climates and it breaks my heart that I cannot make it better, that it is bad at all. Another voice comes from across the ocean; why is everyone so far away? Why am I. She spoke of her last birthday, how we were all together. I look back, am reminded:

"She asked me if I feared the dark as much as I used to, if I trembled at the thought of winter with the first turning leaf and the anticipation of what is to come. I had to think about it for a while, the answer not immediately clear.

No, I said finally. Not since I moved here."

I'm not on a park bench. I will not starve. This, too, shall pass.

Right /Rite/ (Write)

I cannot make heads or tails of it. So many days without a breath of fresh air. Days of sunshine come and go, I do not notice them, I pull down the blinds. Twenty-four hours of darkness, it wouldn't work without it. I eat, I forget to eat, I make coffee and realize it's evening, I turn off my phone, try to turn off every connection to the outside. Startled when the mail drops through the slot and thuds on the floor.

Is it supposed to be like this? For every hour of productive writing, there is one of procrastination and another of agony. I wander the apartment, tear at my hair, read other people's words and love them, want them to be mine. Look at my own and my gut turns. Is this all I've got? Did you think something would become of this? I lose my breath, can't be bothered to regain it. Opened up the wrappings of this heart, to try to find the letters that trickle out of feelings, only to find piles of pain and no words worth retelling.

Difficult to calculate worth. So much pain, for so few ounces of printed page. So much blood, for such pale ink. I wish I could tell you now, that when the moment of clarity at last came, when there appeared in the rubbish just a sliver of poetry after all, that it was worth it. I don't know that it was yet.

But I don't know any other way to live, either.

Epilogue

(There was a picture, the view from the office at sunset. The Empire State building glittering so. The way the buildings would glow. Distant twilight sky colors, busy streets, New York. I realize why I don't miss you so much. It has not sunk in that this is no vacation.

I haven't realized I'm not coming back.)

Modern Prose

http://www.poetspath.com/transmissions/messages/kerouac.html

Remember
Remember
Remind
Remind
Lather
Rinse
Repeat.
Repent.

Notes

I opened a book, a note fell out. My name on it. I'd know that handwriting anywhere. He is always there when I need him, always bringing me words and dreams. Always too far away. (Everyone is always too far away, though.) And in the card, a quote.

"Write
in recollection
and amazement
for yourself."
--Jack Kerouac

The world is too large, the miles too many. I could spend my every day in transit, I would never be Everywhere at once. Forgive my confused ramblings. All I wanted to say was Thank You.

( )

It is better to have loved
and lost
than never to have loved
at all.

They say.

I'm not so sure, myself.

The Cave

Two days of solitude pass by, and I haven't seen a single person I know. The afternoon's quick stab to the corner store my first moment outside the apartment since Friday and I felt like a stranger among humans.

I thought I would enjoy the time alone, an entire apartment to myself, how long has it been? But I seem to lost my shape, trickle into puddles along the floor, I become aimless and pointless. Miss morning coffees and being held accountable. Busy myself with cleaning, scrubbing soft soap into unseen corners and remembering how much I love that feeling. Carry music in headphones and sing, sing, sing until I tire.

My sister tells me to take a few days off, finish that damn book already. I am so grateful for the time, I know this restless energy is the required precursor. I know I don't want to face those pages lying there in wait. This manic sprint is just another escape. The desire for happy music. Finally, for a second, I dare to peek into that black hole which I have so diligently avoided, knowing full well what lies therein and preferring denial for a bedfellow. I have a drink. I pace. Soon, soon, I will sit down.

Good for Something

I took a break from the dinner conversation, leaned out of a staircase window and had a cigarette. Friday night and still the little town so quiet. You can see stars here. I took deep drags and meditated over glowing embers, the proper courtyard below. How do they get the grass to grow so primly?

We were celebrating the new friends' engagement. Three months apart, three weeks together, and already ready to make promises. It made me smile, earnestly, I adore them their sparkling eyes and lack of pretense. This is what happens to cynics like us, she said and noddded in my direction.

A dear friend from stranger times returned from a Vipassana silent meditation retreat and said his life had changed completely. Everything arises only to pass away. I admired him his nearness to zen, his letting things run off his back. But I did not envy him.

Is not the struggle what makes us human? Is not the constant tugging, the crashing waves and the rarity of sunshine what teaches us our outlines and the beauty of our impermanence?

My roommate went to New York today. I forgot to forget you, again.