Promises from a surfacing person.

Nowadays I will ramble on to any acquaintance or quiet night I find. I tell them exactly what I feel when I feel it. I often find myself apologizing a lot too--even to those who have known my ways for years. I apologize for my lack of filter, for my external monologues, and my short-lived bouts of mania followed by an urgent need for sleep. I leave a lot of parties early. I slip out without saying goodbyes. I skip with joy to the parking ramp and relax in the solitude of the night. My dear friend tells me, "Now, don't keep yourself in a container." I'm not. I'm trying not to. And I think I am doing a pretty swell job at it considering. But I cannot hide it when my heart beams back, "I love the time spent in my head."

It startles me how little I hold myself closed. I am an open door to any initial conversation about the meandering of religion, the lack of direction, and the pain of growing up. I am startled by how quickly I can snap off, like an unfamiliar room going pitch night when you are standing right in the middle of it. Bring up an unfavorable topic, like Thoreau's body of literature or the pleasure of keeping time, and I will send you bumping into all of my clumsy, made-from-wood-that-feels-like-steel furniture without a hope for you to find EXIT.

It reassures me how patient family, most friends, and even more near strangers are with me. It is like the universe sent out an open-letter memo with instructions on the right things to say at the right time. I give heartfelt thanks to the universe and those who check their e-mails every day. And in return I am trying to give them all the best and worst parts of me in honesty. I am picking up where I remember myself to have been three years ago. A work in brutal truthfulness. A work in authenticity. I do not support shameless pride. I will not discredit the experience of a despairing teenager--telling them that they do not know what love is. I do not indulge in giving leave of conduct to friends who bat eyelashes at their other friend's interests (When I was nineteen I would have gladly patted them on the back in their conquests). Now I do my best to slip on the heartache of other people, try it on, and wear it for a while. No one deserves neglectful heartache, no matter how much it strengthens. We are all struggling; we are all trying to heal. No one needs the extra burden of other people's carelessness on top of all of that. I can barely babysit myself at the best of times; I have no energy to coddle those who are not wide-eyed breathers themselves.

It all moves in twelve hour shifts. Hope fills me for the morning and Sadness takes over when Hope goes home to sleep. Sometimes they trade because Sadness has too anxious a mind and needs to air it out into productive work. But often the two do this without informing me, and to punish their short, or no, notice switch, I make Sadness stay a few extra hours past Her stint.

But I am trying to love myself as others love me. I am trying to see myself as others see me. I make no excuses for my faulty actions--I make apologies. I eat less, but instead I eat my favorite foods when I want to eat them (Cheese and chocolate are always on the menu). I read a lot of women writers. I lie in bed with a sometimes busy mind, and keep telling it something I heard that has helped me, "Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it." And to my surprise my cycling thoughts shut off, and I am left with a lightness and a love that I have not felt in months. Funny how the smallest of things help a seemingly code-red mental emergency.

I want you to know that I will be alright. I have a whole person inside of me, it is just floating--bit by bit--up to the surface. What a shaky, unsteady creation it is in the making. But every day another part of it comes together, and I welcome each part. I want you know that I am going to be bigger and brighter than I have ever been before.

I've had to rid myself of other pieces of myself and will probably continue to over the course of this year, but they will be toxic pieces. Pieces you will not miss in me. I am reminding myself that I deserve to be loved. And those who love me are doing an incredible job of showing me this. I promise that I love you back, but I will show it better in the coming months.

They say that tragedy hits in threes. I believe this. Three is the divine number. I have never trusted evens. Three friends gone last year, and this year set me up for the triple tragedy of my own sort of passing--the professional, the family, and the personal. But I believe this is only a passing of a former self, and this strange transition of a year will pull me into everything I was meant to be.

Penchants and Practice.

When I was young I fought against fairytale expectations and romantic movie expositions. I was determined to experience, but knew that I was unlike the heroines. I had heart, and I had backbone, but I lacked the silver tongue and the perfectly manicured talons to entrap.

Later, I took pleasure and comfort in Dostoevsky and the promise of his words--Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth. So I bathed in pain, in sadness, and let it form me--letting it sink its roots into me. I cultivated my greatness in the lack of what I had. And after that I never took a single wet eye for granted, and naturally I was sought out by those that would instruct further than Fyodor could.

One taught me that I could be loved. Two taught me to never fall in love with someone just because they show you love. Three showed me that there are conditions to affection. Four ignored me. Five only cared for me. Six hated me. Seven and Eight should have taken Two's advice. And Nine reminded me to make sure I had others around me to remind myself of who I really was, because losing yourself is the surest way to lose everything else around you.

Love is a dangerous angel, and trust is its gilded winged counterpart.

I now love with a very deep heart, but trust with a large intelligence--knowing that trust can bind or blind, and no one can ever see through the layers of heart and hurt to predict whether the one you trust can trust themselves.

The best we can do is have a cautious, well-natured hope for the future, and a penchant for both lucky endings and new beginnings.

Adelaide.

Adelaide sat quietly on the balcony, watching the sun rise and the commuters set off on their daily plunge into the mundane.

The already heavy air was enclosing her already sopping-wet insides and squeezing them, until she felt she could heave her heart onto the cement platform at any minute.

The future.

It was a weighty notion that overwhelmed and consoled. Ideals were being purged, and reality was growing brighter and brighter just beyond the silver buildings across the freeway.

She lingered upon those ideals. They had made her feel awed and so lucky to have been chosen.

Who was she?

Several years of all that she had dreamed, built, and named was slipping away. Adelaide clung to it for a few more minutes. Holding its warmth, touching its corners, memorizing its form for one last time. And then she breathed it all away from her.

The reality stung upon new arrival, especially as it fully reached her from the horizon. A new, and slightly familiar face to characterize and comfort her. It made promises against the former, and undid the past with a vow for the now and the to-come. She had never been one to trust strangers.

But her ideals had told her that this one would be better, although a little painful at first, and without it she would not be able to continue.

She so wanted to continue.

Therefore, she scooped it up, carried it inside, and slowly began to swell with a love and a quiet understanding for the times that had led up unto this one.

I want to live my life under a magnifying glass, to burn away the excess. Peel layers of skin underneath the summer sun. If I could only suck on sugar cane and drink lime colored cocktails, perhaps then I could waif away until I would be so small as to build myself a castle to stow away in.

One day she would find me painted into a corner, poised against a wall, and she would ask, "Why ever so still?"

"I feel like I belong in a photograph."

She would pull out boxes of black and whites from underneath the bed frame, show them to me in droves, pointing at all of my captured features--the candids, the poses, the backgrounds.

But I felt in those, those are memories. I feel like a shot without intent.

She would scold me, "You should eat something, you look too thin.

And I would think--the less of me, the less to break.

I met Emily in a place I refer to as "Spain." A quaint little establishment with an atmosphere reminiscent of stale cigarettes and perfectly ripe oranges. We did not trip into each other, as much as we fell for one another.

Emily reminds me on a weekly basis to calm down. She is the sea without sight of land, and I am the coast. I would only convert to her religion, if my current would not keep heaving me onto the angry children with soggy castle mounds. She guides the people on her turf, I just piss mine off. I want to rebuild, but she says that it is no use living that way.

I rarely tell her, but when I see her I nearly always think I see myself--although she possesses much better form. I would even go as far as to call her my savior, although she would balk to hear such a thing. Emily absolutely detests flattery, and will have none of it. I tell her it isn't flattery when it is true. She pretends to have not heard me over the blare of electronic notes timing out of our car's stereo.

What I envy most is Emily's ability to compartmentalize things without limiting their potential. For instance, I store everyone in boxes labeled:

"I need you, I think"
"I miss you most days"
"I miss you when it suits me"
"I cannot live with out you"
"I cannot live with out you, but only if you stop drinking and wearing that hat"
"I don't like you, but I will always love you"
"I hate you, but call me in fifty-two days and I will probably pick up the phone"
"You are an awful human being, but I still want to fix you"
"You are wondrous, and I love you"
"Please never go away"
"You are weird, do not ever look at me again, thanks"
"If we pretend real hard, then I think we could be okay"
"Soul mate: keep forever"

If you offend Emily, her good opinion is lost forever and you get thrown into an unmarked box near her fireplace. If you happen to redeem yourself before the next time it snows, then you are saved. If not--your sore luck.

Everyone else is put into boxes labeled:

"Think about"
"Do not think about"

It is as simple as that. Emily is a genius. I, however, am too bogged down with fear and anxiety to be a genius. That may be her secret.

Once I asked her, "Why is it that we so often ascribe a familiar fantasy to a person? We weave them a new name, and eventually we forget what they really looked like in the first place. Why can't we just look with flawed eyes into flawed eyes?"

Emily stared at me with blank confusion.

Emily is a genius.

cliches i can live by.

enjoy the little things.
enjoy the little things while you have them.
take those risks.
it is always better to have tried, than to regret never knowing.
listen more than you speak.
people can change (only as they grow), i have seen it happen.
have a little more faith in others.
those who refuse to grow, however, cut away.
eliminate the toxic ones, you will be better for it.
people will always disappoint you with their behavior.
people will always surprise you with their love.

epilogue.

I met him weeks before I knew him. He thought I was tough, and I thought he was boring. We were both mistaken.

There is no where tidy to start when two people come together from different angles. One with a clean slate, and one with a terribly dirtied beginning. It was like pretend from the get-go. We were trying to fit two pieces from different puzzles together. I tended to saw off the stubborn corners, and he let me do it.

We would write each other letters, pretending to be future modern essayists. We created a world around us—afraid that if we played out our true characters, we would run out of things to talk about. I was the scorned heroine, and he did his best to put on the part of the hopeless romantic. I would ask, “Can I tell you a story, Rick?” And he would query, “Has it got a wild finish?” My practiced reply was always, “I don't know the finish yet.”

He was never my white knight. He would say the right things at the wrong times. Eventually, whenever he opened his mouth to speak, I would feel the undeniable urge to heave, or to run, or to sleep. In time I made a rule that before either of us took a turn in conversation, that we had to provide a handwritten outline as to not offend. In the end, we spent more time scribbling and blotting out words than we ever did creating them.

The night that did us in was in late August. He refused to sleep with the window open, and I—as I did since I was young—needed to feel the promise of the midnight air to reassure me to sleep. He said he was afraid of what memories would be blown in with the wind. I felt as if I were to die, trapped in his quiet room.

The next day he promised to never speak again, and I wove him a dream catcher to hang above his bed.

We never attempted to find each other after that.

I cannot say that he saved me from myself, or even that he saved me from a worse fate in those days. By vanishing he saved me from the idea of him—petrified my faith in what he could have been to me.

That's all I could have asked of him, I suppose.

i thought your eyes were brown,
but they are obsidian black, black, black.
an oil spill.
a freight train threat.
a weak imitation of a low rent
horror flick postlude to the sequel.
purple blue slick--
maybe with some scorpions underneath.
they say "the bigger the better,"
(less to kill you with, my dear)
but yours can fit into your sockets--
they aren't big at all.
intoxicate and eradicate.
intoxicate and eradicate.
i was one and a half into it,
but i found release in your strike.
a complimentary excuse to fall out gracefully
(with grace fully with me).
sure i lost a limb,
like those World War vets,
who also maybe lost a lung
(more for holding tongues than for speaking).
now i have no obligation to blame,
cause ghosts are always overlooked.
i gladly lost my arm in this all,
because girl number 1 is still trying to save her parts
against your poison,
and now she is just rotten,
rotten,
rotten
(like most of them).
since my death i just keep an eye on that black,
and watch its movements.
i'd warn them, but it isn't my place.
instead i hold my surviving hand
against my finally beating heart
and feel phantom syndrome tissue and bones
pointing and screaming in your direction.

paper doll glitter queen.

she was a paper doll glitter queen,
with a glamoured life and a yellow sheen.

i matched her up against my limbs,
and found her to be more perfect.

but glitter queen refused to part
with her lofty notions and her die cut heart.

and as my shape with time did change,
her ageless thoughts seemed to others strange.

all of her shine gave off a jealous glare,
now, as her conceptions never showed any wear.

and sometimes mine, too, shone harsh light,
but then i'd shrink and bide my time.

sunny dispositions lived within excess
jaundiced her whilst inside drink and love beds.

and although i tasted, and swooned, and burned--
i moved through quickly taking the lessons i'd learned.

paper doll glitter queen boomed and burst--
a brilliant firework scene even at her worst.

but soon her ash fell in their eyes,
and as a hopeful spark i felt just fine.

My Adreanna.

Whenever there was a perfect lullaby moon hanging in the sky, Adreanna perched herself outside of my window. She used to tell me that I had the perfect view of her favorite piece of sky. Every time she said this I swear I could have roped her to my roof and kept her forever.

I pretended her visits intruded on my personal time. I demanded that she find other places to praise her pagan gods. Adreanna never believed me. She would just begin to tap her long, tapered nails against the window pane. I imagined she kept the rhythm of the world's night in those fingers.

I never saw her during the day, she claimed disobedience to the sun. She refused to oblige it by entering into the afternoon. She said that her moon would see the adulterous touch of it on her skin. I thought she was full of shit and self-doubt--worried about what other people may have thought of her--but I still loved Adreanna anyway.

One lullaby moon night Adreanna did not appear at my window.

The month after that--still no Adreanna.

Then in January I awoke to banging on my window. I went back to sleep.

In the early morning freeze Adreanna's message was still etched onto the glass: "I miss your sky."

I thought she was full of shit and self-doubt, and I knew she had wandered into someone else's sky for a time.

From then on I kept my window shut at night--long past the cold months.

all we can do is breathe.

i sometimes fear long periods where everything is going so well.

it is an up, up, up hill climb until one simple day there is nothing of notice. nothing good. nothing bad. just everything mediocre. those days send me into a tailspin.

i have grown accustomed to greatness.

a standstill feels like a backward fall when my life has been go, go, go with laughter and happiness for weeks.

so foolish. i need to remember that i am fine. that nothing is wrong. that i am in such a wonderful place. remember, remember, remember.

my mind plays tricks on me, and i am starting to figure out its methods.

Silver Bonaparte is the psycho-killer blonde I met last month at this grocery store rave in Northeast. "Pour me another one," I ask her politely, whilst she sidesips my martini with her neon blue straw. A naked dip in the neighbor's pool. Silver doesn't follow normal codes of conduct. In the short time I have know her, I have known her to; rescue nine dogs from the inhumanity of leashes, and therefore their tyrant masters; cement sixteen yellow "deaf child" signs into the lawns of governmental office buildings; and hold three ex-lovers hostage until they would give her back her heart.

"Love is a dangerous angel," Silver sits tall and squares herself to my hunched shoulders, "And I love danger."

I don't face her; her eyes are looking to ignite something, and I am full of doused ideas.

I pick apart a napkin with some hopeful's telephone number scrawled across it--not my napkin, but Silver's, "Love just leaves me bleu--aged and sour."

I meander on about the vanity of blacks and purples, the cross-stitching of lives, and the absurdity of painted glass. Silver's eyes never leave my hands while I speak. I imagine she sees how unsteady they are, how faltering.

Before I duck my head to say goodbyes, she digs her violet nails into my arm and demands, "Never leave bed before high noon, never apologize, and never--don't ever--let them take you dead. Fight like hell before you have to sink your teeth in."

I think Silver is a beautiful vampire, living eras before her time. She fights wars while the humans dream away the twilight, twisted around their worser halves. She wants me to fight too, but I can't sell my life to some cause--I am too busy trying to own mine.

It was five o'clock somewhere, but here the sunset was already beginning to let its colors fade out from behind the clouds.

Madeline Roedell steadied her breath, drew up her shoulders, and forgave her consciousness for the screams of revolt that were currently exploding inside of her skull.

She removed a crumpled reciept from her purse, uncapped her eyeliner pencil, and began to scribble a note to her future self.

Madeline was not a wanting girl, she was merely the product of her abandoning surroundings. With little in hand, it is much easier to dream oneself to be deserving of better circumstances.

In the twilight of our past decisions, we can never look back and attempt to drag the sun back into the sky. We must let the light - and the moment - pass underneath our feet, in faith that we will once again feel the warmth of another day.

the things i could tell you but never will.

people do not change so quickly as one may hope. i have learned and relearned this lesson. how you see people treating others, is often how you are--or will be--treated soon enough. there are rarely special cases.

trust me.

but i send my best wishes, regardless.

I'll be the first to leave.

They say the last heat of the summer is upon us - that the last humid night is here. It startles me, as I have not even seemed to witness the season begin. This one has passed quietly, as the last one felt to last months into the frigid winter.

I feel a year older, but I also feel much more lost. There are less people around than before, but I am better loved. I forget if I needed silence then, but I crave it now. I know I feel the wrongs of people more now, but I also love those people despite and for those faults more dearly. I held on more then - a foolish hold. Now I am learning to let go - wisely. I laugh more, I love more, and I worry more - but I trust less, I dream less, and I remember less. I have less hope in the future than I did, but I still have faith in it. And I wait more.

I wait for a magnificent action. I wait for those words to come. I wait for the time where I will begin to forget. Any of those three would make breathing easier. Easier, however, is not a word we use to describe our growing years.

I want to stretch out all of my moments in life like a wheel of film, examining all of the corners to find the things I have overlooked. I want to paste bits of memories up like wallpaper in my room. I want to lie underneath fireworks forever and pretend it was like this.

This year was a strange time for children like us. And although a part of me imagines having jumped off of the landscape of Silverlake in those few weeks in the beginning, a part of me wishes I had stayed perched on top of it - waiting for years.

and i'm not sure if i can resurrect you.

The air was so thick that month. The June bugs had only just ceased to beat themselves against screen doors and porch lights. We made no mention of what was to come those days. Instead we spoke of Paris, sad flowerpots filled with cigarette butts, and the semantics of the English language. I knew that the summer would end before it had even announced itself. I knew that I would soon ache for the memory of it. In thirty-two days I would see the night skyline and miss you in the reflection of distant stars against darkened windows.

may we always dance into the night with heavy hearts.

i think a lot of the time we try to convince ourselves that we are this or we are that.

but really we are only this. right now. in this moment.

every man is an island.

but let us try to keep a free trade policy operating.

i wish we could start over. no. i think the beginning was perfect. i could have lived forever in the beginning. those first few weeks, where i swear i did not breathe. where we were teenagers again, anticipating our first kiss. you were nervous, measuring the stars between the span of your fingertips. i was trying to play it cool, hoping you would not see me smiling uncontrollably in the dark. i could have lived in those moments on my front porch. both of us wrapped in blankets, getting as close as we could to one another without revealing too much.

black and white photographs.

a thursday night thundersnow redefines my perception
i may be convinced that this world has been reinvented
a partition to separate our past from our current place
to distinguish between dysfunction and refreshing grace
porch lights illuminate the stoop where our breath converged
dialogue on insecurities and all of the colors we have learned
sound of distant motorcades coming to take you away
tears through my front yard.