Still a Death.

What if the sword kills the pen? 


I don't want to live without you.

Pentecost

The night seems to have reached its darkest hour; the sky stretches in shades of deep blue. At the edge of the city, pale yellow streaks simmer quietly, and it's impossible to tell if they mean sunset or sunrise. Perhaps it doesn't matter. It is light.

Stolen lilac branches scent the tiny apartment. It is an eruption of chaos--I am never home to mind it, I refuse to make myself chose sense over sunlight. We go to the water, I swim the hangover straight off my skin, the water is cool, clean, perfect. He drives the boat along shorelines full of people, along little islands where we imagine we will camp out, across high waves and the boat smashes into them, sending cascades of water over our slowly browning bodies. Again that moment's rest from the duress of Life. Tiny beads of cool water assemble in my windblown hair; I laugh.

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

I do not know the names of the birds, though I have heard them my whole life. The soundtrackof their songs lays thick in the dawning sky. The promenade is empty, quiet, my drunken steps cannot lead me there straightly but wind their way unsteadily to a park bench. Pictures of club dance floors fill my feed, I could've been there with them, I chose the other direction, why did I? Walking home in the dark night, the trembling morning, the relentless dawn, it seemed inevitable. I heard your voice, that same voice, those same words, it's been a year and I still walk that same path. I crossed underneath the subway station in the Old Town, tried desperately not to cry, climbed the long hill in morning colors, turned the corner to a historic street and all was quiet.

The park bench was void of company, its view overlooking Stockholm in colors of morning, perhaps I stole a lilac branch or two, the scent was too honey-dewed I couldn't help myself. Three hundred years ago people toiled and struggled up this hill and what are our lives now? Our bodies sustained, it is our hearts that break young and never mend.

I stood on his balcony and slowly smoked the cigarette in solitude, looked out over the city, wondered. Was this my home? Was this the city I despised or the one that I had decided to love? It occurred to me that leaving my City was like breaking up love. That I was the fugitive of a messy divorce, and this was me facing this world alone. That the city was my reason for carrying on, and it is no more; I am alone. Lost and drifting out to sea. This is what being on one's own means. I always thought I fended for myself, but I had no idea.

Finally the morning gets too light, the broken lilac branches need their vases of water. I retire. I sleep.

But I am far, so far, from resting.

Is Easy

Our heroes always disappoint us with their mortality. Our aging minds discern the greys, the relativity, the circumstances and we do not bother with madness. Everything is for sale, nothing is new, where will you go with that?

I lay sweating in the grass, the world smelled of new sprouts, of lilacs and perspiration, my skin warm to the touch, the moment perfect. I was unable to think ahead, to think back, there was only that instant, that sunny day in May when all the world was right and Summer lay unruined around the corner. And still, I walked along the harbor later, dragging that heavy ball of lead along, unaffected by the sweltering season. I haven't a single answer, after all. Light steps danced along the old railroad tracks and still my heart was so sad. It occurred to me that that muscle has been heavy in my body for so many years, it doesn't seem to know any other way to feel.

Perhaps that is what life is. Sunny days and heavy hearts. Perhaps this is the life that is mine.

There must be something to be done with that.

Eighteen Thousand Steps

The world is painfully beautiful now. Every tree in bloom, every flower washing its colors over the world, it happens so quickly.

Blink and it will be gone.

My head was full of black today. I cancelled the plans and began to walk, instead; I did not stop for hours. Walked through the lilac hedges, the apple blossoms, the pink sunset sky and still waters. I turned up the music, loud, angry, it could not keep out the scents of spring. My molten lava within could not make amends with the sweet serenity without.

People love to run, they say it clears their heads, that it sets things in order. Later, I lay in the bath and couldn't remember a single thing I had thought, a single question I had answered. I end as I began, only with slightly wearier limbs. It is light, I cannot sleep. I don't want to, until fall.

Is this life now, Stockholm? Do you offer me every delicate joy imaginable, that I will forget my disdain, my plans, my direction? Do you smooth over rough edges with that view over the harbor, it gets me every time, I know you know that. You build our love in a castle in the sky, it is bound to fall, I tip-toe so carefully so as not to remind it of its frailty.

There is too much surge to fit in this heart. Life is a long struggle just to keep it tucked away.

Get My Story Straight

Hearing him say my name stabbed me in the gut, I was caught unawares, my mind was elsewhere and I had forgotten, it all came flooding back. Late night conversations, falling asleep mid-sentence. That first night in his new apartment and he asked you to stay. That night on the stairs when he cried and you said all the wrong things, you never recovered from that. It's so many years ago but my heart grew just as heavy now at the loss.

I spend the day reading old letters to myself. Fourteen years of words, of inspiration and chastisement, I laugh at the melodramatic girl I once was but just as often get swept up in her message. That life is now, the time is now, that you have it in you to go, be mad, and live. That I love nothing more than a good adventure, making friends of strangers, running wildly through the nights and ending up laughing in unknown waters.

It occurs to me that I have wasted the entire past year. That my life in Stockholm is no life, that I grow old before my time, that I have resigned myself to the simple stream. I hate to admit such squandering, but it can be ignored no longer. I must make up for it two-fold.

The days to come must be amazing.

Your Record Collection

It was summer, yesterday, I swear it was summer, when did the leaves turn so green? In an apartment down the street, adopted family receive new keys and a new life, and we laugh at our proximity, how fortunate we feel. You cannot leave now, she says, not now that we are finally here. I feel the creeping tendrils of the city wrap themselves around my fleeing limbs. A jealous partner, it will force me to love it even when I fight against it.

Later, in the beer garden at the top of the hill, we look out over the glittering city and he tells me the million reasons why he loves it, why he wouldn't leave. The drinks amass, the eyes grow foggy, we find nothing in common except our company, and perhaps that is reason enough. We stare at each other's blank slates, paint portraits, assess potential. The night grows long, and colder, the foliage lies in wait, ready to swallow me whole. I must be careful, lest my body grows roots here, itself.

Post Title.

I wish the working year only stretched from October to May, she sighed, I can't sit still when it is light out. But I cannot be troubled by lack of sleep, by jittery legs. The giggles are always too close to the surface, it's as though I've spent months short of breath and am finally filling my lungs, it is divine.

I bike home in the early evening, birdsong and breezes lain gently against my racing legs, I smile at strangers in my way, the city spreads out in what are not yet sunset colors, up that last hill you see the whole town and how green it has become, how sparkling the waters, you cannot hate such a sweet view.

She tells me she's looking at apartments now, close to the new job, would that be midtown east? New York lies like a promise in her future, a new husband, a new life, a sweltering jungle of bureacracy and changing the world. I look at a map of Manhattan to help her navigate the grid, every street corner a stab at my poorly rehabilitated heart, I was caught off guard. I stare myself blind at the blue dusk outside, remind myself of giddy ecstasy, of my returned invincibility, take deep breaths. In five hours, the sun will rise again, the darkness always passes, you will lie in your bed wide awake and laugh.

I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm gone.

Suds

Down the stairs and you're in a Lower East Side club, who knew, the stage is really just the end of a couch, the ceiling plastered with old concert posters, the beer is cheap and there's a big bucket of popcorn on the bar, it's perfect. I was already drunk, I'm always drunk in his company, I gathered my baubles and walked home before it was even dark, it was wise.

But my heavy lids had not rested for a mere minute before the eyes behind sprang to life, giggled of stories and May, and before long, pink strands of dawn were sneaking their way in through the blinds. I lay laughing in my bed, watching the sunlight grow, cover every corner. I could not sleep, I did not want to. It was enough just to lay there and be alive.

Today, we waded through her grandmother's apartment, the remains of 88 years and the pictures to tell who they were. Not one picture shows her working. Grandma was all about indulgence. We drank port wine in her honor. I walked home later with a bag full of her old food, enough berries to keep me with jam until winter. The skies were still blue despite the late hour. Life ends disgracefully. We better enjoy our youth while we can, I whispered to the season, but it was too young, still, to understand a word I said.

Ashes and Fire

Do you see that? I asked and pointed at the east. It is dawn. He laughed at my sentiment; we parted ways as I continued giddily toward the blueing skies of morning. That is the magic of May, every time and it never gets old.

The songs streamed through my brain, such an odd venue and such a nervous crowd but the songs carried on unabated, reminded me of the American night, of the religion of music, of the undying delight of passion. They say you can't feel all the time, I scribbled in my notebook as he changed guitars, What do they know? A life without being overwhelmed is no life.

Ten years ago I sat in a cramped and dark apartment, listened to that song and decided my life would be more than that, decided I would run off and see the world, decided I would accept and love the melancholy. Last night I listened to that song and agreed to do it some more. He doesn't know it, but I owe him my convictions.

I have to live that way,
I wrote.
I don't know any other.

Soak

It occurs to me that this must mean something. 
That I keep returning to that thought,
not out of psychological repetition
or cognitive dissonance,
but because it means something,
because there is a point to it. 

I will never have money,
I know that now, and accept it. 
I will not find commercial success
and carry designer bags on my arm. 
But with no one throwing money 
at you
you never have to sell out. 

This must mean something. 
I will revel in the grime,
and suitcases
and trembling streets
until I know what it is. 

That will be your art. 
Just you wait and see.

on Security

Such pretty distraction, such simple deceit. Washing the land with blossom and sunlight, making the beer taste just a little better at the outdoor tables, spreading smiles and wiping the tired from long-sleeping eyes. How easily we are swayed, how quickly all those questions and that weary dread are swept under the carpet, you are distracted, you relent. It is too inviting, your days of darkness too many, the break too welcome.

But for a minute, when the blinds are down, when the piano keys tremble like autumn storms, I remember. The dreams I once had, the boiling blood that rushed through my veins and made me run across the lands in excited fever, the words that built up in me and begged to be written. For a short instant, I glimpse that person I thought I was but whom I so easily abandoned.

The vision leaves me panting on the floor, gasping for air, trying to hold on to something, anything, to keep from falling. This is no life. The money, the apartment, the stocked pantry and vacation plans. They don't mean anything to me. They let me sleep soundly at night, but I don't want to sleep.

I want to live.

May We.

I imagine
if I just let go
now
Spring would
pick me up
and carry me off
trickle down the steps
run through the grass
roll along the flowers
turn me
into a dandelion puff
and blow me into the wind
that I would sail
gently
out to sea
and never look back. 

Fear has nothing
on the return of sunlight.

Hiatus

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
you must get intoxicated,
get intoxicated,
and never pause for rest.
With wine, poetry, or virtue,
as you choose.
-Charles Baudelaire