Farewell, Florida. There are words but at this point, what do they possibly matter? It was all a very strange dream I had once. I woke up and the world was this way. I'll fly away too someday.

I don't feel so well tonight. I just want to hide. I just want to hide. I just want to hide. I want everything to be fixed. I want to be re-born. I want to go back in time. I don't want this to hurt anymore. I just want to hide. I don't want people, I don't want anything but my books and my music. I just want all of it to get better. I can't understand anything anymore. I can't think straight. I can't find anything to connect with. I'm watching everything falling down in front of me. I just want to hide. I don't want to be here anymore. I can't breath. No one can hear me. I just want to hide.

Red Tide

...and then we all danced around the wildfire like banshees
we were crazy locomotives with flailing instruments
there was no need to tell the time
when we were howling on the dark side of the moon
through space and time
and I was on my way back to you.
Through the dunes
the violent, insanity of those goddamn dunes
we were in the middle of nowhere too
but nothing spoke as loud as my heart
so much louder now, you jumped from the dirt mounds
to the grey sea to melt quiescently
and I forced a bone down my throat.
But somehow when the bottles were crushed
and the weight of the solar star collapsed,
we were free again of our chains.
Sailing openly above crimson tides,
vacant volcanoes became our home
and I'd wake, making love underneath you.
Come at me when all is lost,
watch me burn, burn
tell me your secrets,
how you never lied.
you're the only one in the room who'd be on my side
and then whisper it all to the rock in the sky
that for a few breezes, I was there too
and then, just then, we stopped time.

Nothing You Could Buy.

In so many words
I'm falling asleep.
Falling away
far far away
take oranges over philosophical discussions
over empty mountains
hang over the water
these are the days
over a pile of boiling black mold we now see.
grasping my blindful
this is all too much
but, oh, sweet hunger, I'm hanging on
to one good thing
I felt in me.
imagine mirror images across the room
clinging my arms around the falseness in the air
blood runs silk through the river
to the whispering trees
as I see, there's no more daylight to breed
it has planted the seed.
How can I save me from me?
In so many words
I'm falling asleep
falling away
far far away.

Earthbound.
I hit the soil.
I hit the very skin of this place.
Earthbound.
Spirit fly,
hit the sky and bounce to the ground
Earthbound
soul,
dig into the ground
to the blood of the Earth
and leave it where it's found.
Earthbound
heart hit the wind
and keep the passion all within
release
unleash upon the mightiest of waterborne spirits
the shakers of the earth
the movers of the soil
the strikers of the wind
deserve the passion within
Earthbound souls.

Stranger.

One day I wish for things to shine

One day the kites will fly high over California cities

and remember a day back in a foreign city.

Stranger, stranger than ever you've become

and being, I want you evermore so but what's done

is done

and I am stranger too.

Distant smile

a bed

a glimpse of a momentary lapse

or flaw in the time.

I am estranged yet my heart still strikes strong

that I would never hurt

or cause such harm.

Never mind,

It will be fine in time

I'll be living inside my heart and my mind.

the deeper oceans and the deeper worlds

the ones untouchable by those

unlike us.

dear friend, what can I do?

A fierce fire still burns in my view.

"What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that had flickered out. How long I stood frozen there, I cannot say. If I was ever going to move again, someone else was going to have to furnish the reason for moving. Somebody did. A policeman watched me for a while, and then he came over to me, and he said, 'You alright?'
'Yes,' I said.
'You’ve been standing here a long time,' he said.
'I know,' I said.
'You waiting for somebody?' he said.
'No,' I said.
'Better move on, don’t you think?' he said.
'Yes, sir,' I said. And I moved on."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

Breathe now. Breathe.
Search for it...dig deep
it's inside you
the strength, maybe rubbed against harsh sand
but it is there
it is truly there inside.
Breathe. Breathe
don't lose control
don't lose control.
the anxiety that punctures
it will all be over soon.
The lights will dawn over the horizon
and you'll mean something soon. Soon.
Push through. Push through
it is only time that takes us through
don't think about the past
try not to cry
move on move move onward
keep moving
keep breathing
stay awake
stay alive.
It is only a matter of time
time to where your heart won't hurt
time to where this is all a bad dream
time to where you are free.
It is only a matter of time.
only time only time. stay awake. stay alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziQx0cXV4nY

Comptine d'un autre été l'après midi

Now lay beside me
so I can see
the beauty inside thee
and let me dream
comptine d'un autre été l'après midi
une autre.
un de plus, je te prie.
And my eyes close steady...
and my heart beats steady
and only, only one minute of the time
the time that slips by...
Soudain nous sont cinquante
et je vois encore
comptine d'un autre été l'après midi.
And I think of such foolish things
so many sails I wish will sing...
Pour vous et pour moi
Mais toujours je rêve
comptine d'un autre été l'après midi.
I am in a box, or scattered in the wind of the sea...
allé.
And even then I'll find a way
to wish and to dream
un autre vous,
celui qui a vu et qui savait
et qui se souviennent de tous les jours
de la comptine d'un autre été l'après midi.
Pour vous et pour moi
comptine d'un autre été l'après midi
une autre.
un de plus, je te prie.
je te prie,
je te prie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJDNSp1QJA

Suicide Seeds.

In light we strike
undermining madness they persuade
persuade again, masses of bodies
struggle to see
the affliction afflicting you and me.
We're grains in a field,
undistinguished colors
to your crops we yield, infertile seeds
and swarm in the air
hoards of false hopes take wind...
fly. Become raft of Medusa versus sea
in the nature of green
and Romantic dreams
in future will come
the fate of a species who's bold mind
is so young.

I just want to get out of here.

Delusion.

Out of the depths
they cry
one million tired souls
hungry hearts
aching minds.
Crawling up the underground
conjointly lingering over hopeless thoughts.
I am.
agony....broken words or questions
old woman scrambling over the pieces
to find a small chain of gold
or the lonely piece of diamond.
Time. Never time.
Shake. Wasted time.
Quiver to the thought
the song, resounding emptiness
resounding depths of quietness
there was left.
We ate the end of time.
We ache the end of time.
It is nothing.
Never what you see
what I didn't know
illusions.
We were illusions
fading in the dirt
rotting away
dispatched carbon
disposable memories
the whole time.
Now silence to indifference.
strangers, we mean nothing.
Old woman alone still scrambling in small hours.

“For indeed, a man who aspires to rise above the mediocre, to be something more than ordinary, surely deserves admiration, even if in the end he fails and loses a fortune on account of his ambitions. It is my belief, furthermore, that Sugimura did not die an unhappy man. For his failure was quite unlike the undignified failures of most ordinary lives, and a man like Sugimura would have known this. If one has failed only where others have not had the courage or will to try, there is a consolation—indeed, a deep satisfaction—to be gained from this observation when looking back over one’s life.”

Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World

October Reverie.

You know what's there
waiting on ahead of you
you've seen the whole world
and some nights you crave to be
in the spaces between
all the beautiful days
yes, the beautiful days
of the October breeze
and fast settling humidity
Riding inside you
flying on beside you
days too short
and some confused and long
but a drawn out whisper
from years ago
carries me on
carries me on.

Water.

For No One,
This is the beginning and the end all at once. I've been crawling out of the darkness taking the smells of the soils and injecting them into the marrow of my bones. I'm going on an adventure, beyond physical, more sensual, euphoric relief away from everything that's polluted me. Because I'm tired of waiting for someone to dream the way I dream, waiting for permission to really feel things in a much deeper way than just skimming the surface of what could be oceans. Because I'm fed up, enraged, impatient, passionate, affectionate, idealistic, and as mad as hell. Because I've been tied to Sisyphus' rock. Because I've been rotting, because I've become the worst part of me. I want to feel things passionately, I've wanted it so long. I want to have sex on beaches and on mountains. I want to feel cold, naked and at the same time full of life in dew grass, I want to look at the stars and remember how young we are and imagine seeing the whole world.

I want to make love that really means something, not have it taken for granted, not have it taken away but rather evenly spread out. I don't want the city, I want the trees and the hills, and sunrises, and laughter that echoes through canyons deep. I want to sleep at the base of mountain lakes in Idaho. I want to hear old people tell stories and write them down. I want to travel and not settle. I want so much more than to just move away, I want to be a nomad, the way I always dreamed I would. Why? Why does everyone settle to dream pragmatically when there's so many incredible, beautiful things that call out for something different, something much more than just a room to sleep in? You can see it in the infinite roots of Argentine banyan trees, I can feel it in the moment we were both really alive and acted like animals, because we are animals and we should follow feeling, not logic, we should risk everything on a long shot and not be ashamed of holding that hope in our hearts. Because I truly, madly believe in the love between beings, real love, that goes against the current, that doesn't settle, but burrows deeper, deeper than the idea you think can work. There's so much more than that if you're willing to take it, if you're willing to steal the universe's chaos and live inside of it. Because it's more than a normal life, because it's better, because it can dig deep inside and infect you with only good. But you can't miss the launch, you can't miss that one moment in time that can change everything before it splits and becomes disappointing and leaves everything to denial. You are a tight-rope walker, but only on the rope.

That was love on the beaches and the small, cold shack and the glorious bedrooms. That was love; unabashed, unquestioned, unjustified, confusing, exciting, and risky. And I want that, to rub the back of a sleeping human and have no doubt that it will wake and turn and want to feel in that second the way I do, want me, want to live deliberately, unafraid, naked in a pool of sharks, the ocean in the middle of a new moon night. To take a real risk and fall (without stopping) off of that passion cliff and hope you won't hit any rocks at the bottom. That's what I want, what I've wanted, what I've waited for and I don't care now that I waited in vain for an unshared dream, I'm going to find it, I'm going to take it all the way to Portland and see the west, hop trains and buses from there to California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Montana. Ride horses barefoot through vast open spaces. I will shed no more tears and be alive, really alive again because I've waited too long and any more time and I'll whither and the most precious part of my being, my alien soul that cries out for the love of humanity and can do no more but to hope for it and hope that they one day realize will die without ever having the chance to know those sparkling stars in the sky.

I'm ready. I'm ready to really live, above everyone else's life. Because I understand what's really exceptional, and because I'm in touch with everything that has feeling in this place that people seem to have abandoned for imitations of something. I'm not afraid of it, I've just waited, waited for so long to find nothing, nothing existed in it. I want to be free. I want to love deeply without consequence or constant pain. Those things have stifled me, made me dream pragmatically and I can't live that way. I won't settle. I will die on a coffee farm in South America, perhaps alone, perhaps with no one around, perhaps without ever having known the contents of this letter, but at the very least I searched for it, I didn't give up, I didn't settle for less. That's what I want, it's what I've wanted to share but now will do in a way that I never dreamed I would before.

Water has made a new path.

Ethereal, Pneumatic Reverie

Steaming through the constancy
titubation at rest
and gliding in humbly.
Gathering the tiny stones
walked over the jejune centuries
I made up, imagined,
but passionately.
And they were my dreams
Ethereal, pneumatic reveries
bequeathed to the truly venerated, hopeful world
that was different and higher than I could reach.
But it's coming to the close
of a drawn-out, naive day
and those that I dreamt quietly, ever so peacefully
slip away...
Still it infects me, draws blood away
that you won't be there
further up that road my someday.
But I pass quietly,
giving wide, sweet words
of what I wish away from me.
...and close my eyes
and pretend for a while
that the image inside
is giving back a whisper and a smile.
I'll pass silently,
the light, that lit a world for only me
and still dream.
oh yes, I'll still dream
for you and for me,
that in some way
the crooked world
may one day set our foreign hearts free.

"Give me hope/ Help me cope,/with this heavy load/ Trying to, touch and reach you with,/ Heart and soul"

George Harrison

Thoughts From the "Material World"

George Harrison is always my favorite out of the almost miracle band that was once The Beatles. Perhaps because I see things in a similar sensual manner and because in a way I desire that spirituality that others take their whole life journey in attempt to understand it (I’m speaking of Hinduism). He understood human beings and cared genuinely for them, as do I even when I pretend not to. See, that’s my personal flaw I think as well, that’s where George is different. He had that spiritual mantra thing happening for him, so when the time came to let go of something, his mind was forward. Of course, they say he truly missed The Beatles after a long time and ended up getting involved in various groups in film and with The Traveling Wilburys in order to enjoy himself and be a collaborator again. It’s what he loved. I’m not really sure how to explain it anyway else, I mean honestly John wrote more songs for The Beatles that transcended the few George got on the records but George always has a way of reaching me, I understand his being. Every time I feel out of place in this big world that fights back at me, I can listen to All Things Must Pass or any one of George’s songs and feel all that much more connected in the world. That’s what’s so beautiful about music really, it isn’t just entertainment, it’s something that is important in reaching you.


I wish that I could explain things, in terms of my love for certain things and have them be understood so clearly and fluently as a musician can. I try in my writing but it comes out more as pain, but pain leads to the reward of seeing how wonderful of a thing it is you see before you. My animals, my lovers, even my parents who reject every effort I make to try to please them. The Hindus believe that you can only truly love one person in your lifetime, and the idea is unconditional love and it reaches above and helps you understand the love of God. I’ve always thought that was such a beautiful thing. Not that I’m going to spend all of my money to go to India and become an “untouchable” on a spiritual path to save myself. But I’m not afraid to learn about peaceful things that help people. And I’m not afraid to love the people out of reach from me, although I may have my weak moments where I fall to my knees, become some pitiful creature, it doesn’t change the fact that my heart keeps beating for the same cause even if it means I have to change the path and the way I must oversee that love. My weaknesses I don’t think are ever truly weak but rather sadness built up for the failure of myself projected onto a distant thing. It is a pity, but it means something to me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq2drqGI8-0&feature=related

I'm awake, but not really alert. Anything could snatch me, the ruling or the folly. Uncontrollable drifting. And I'm painting, painting for Goya. Thinking of the dark trails winding off the Earth and twisting, bending swiftly into innumerable corners, drifting into a sleep of reason deeper than the surface, perfect in the benign indifference of the picture, straying from harsh human thought. I'm following, following a light trying to make out the depths in the shadows before me. Trying not to slip into them. Trying not to let them consume me, break my bones, cut my ankles, my shins, Achilles. I'm listening, listening carefully to my feet crunching under me, not knowing the surfaces they are touching but the fantastic mind produces the image based off sound bites over years of memory. Still, the unknown shadows jump out at me. Will I fall off the edge of the mighty force that shot itself from the crusts years before I dared stroke her spine. Is this the reference of the ageless time I let pass between me and the rest of the world. I can't breath, but I'll climb with rusty muscles to this rocky corridor and take in the impending light. Even then, I won't crumple. And still, scraping the edges of these great cliffs at the close, eyes glazed staring out the train's window, I can feel the home of this winter cold. I can feel the warmth in these impoverished homes. I can feel the rise and fall of the lungs of the animals in the pastures. I can feel the almost frozen soil in its gentle rolling nature over these mountains, giving these courageous people the food they have earned. And when I watch the sun fall over the valleys of this diverse and absolute place, turning to purples in the mountains and reds over the rolling crops, I feel this sense of calm rush over my eyes and in my heart, everything is functioning just fine.

“I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,
the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things
come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go,

not one lasts."
~Carl Sandburg, "Autumn Movement"

Chase after my night
Free me from the light
your starlight
Echoing
Frantically contagious virus of light
slither through me
drag me through time.
Take me, unending river
crawl against the lathered road
feel to midnight entering
Thrust me through
carry me through
drag me through time.

Stepping forward into an abyss...

I'm driving in the middle of the night windows down and sweeter jazz pumping from my speakers, as if I were racing towards those musicians, I could find them if I drove faster and faster yet. In dream fields opening in my mind I find I'm the one racing through time. There's no relevance of it, see, there's an open road running and running and I'm this mirage of speed and pure unavoidable ecstasy. Keep driving, keep pumping into me, thrust up from underneath me and steal my breath away. I'm thinking of a place I want to be and I put myself back there, rewind to the exact same moment, open my eyes and let my hair fall down and crash like cotton waves over the sides of my bare body. Yes I'm free in these arms and draped in neon sheets that wait with me oh so patiently. Yes I am free, discover this last world with me, feel it, heart keep pumping into me fight against this emptiness, against the odds we faced from the beginning, against those goddamn humming hoards of drowning figures with their painkillers and useless ivy league degrees draped over their shoulders as they shovel shit for beans. Fight here with me, against my body. Fight here with me, against my racing veins and coming down in time to meet the rhythm of your wind stroked eyes. Because I loved the smell of that soul next to mine, that I could get close for minutes in sublime powers and please oh pleas of crying exasperation and evaporation into the flying sails I knew were not mine. Oh but the time, it was fine with your weight over mine and I felt for moments so everlastingly able to face wrath of a hundred herds of angry wild horses that would beat over my body whispering one thousand things unkind. How I wanted every moment to be mine, to be able to come and find you when I grew hungry and needed to feel the climb. But now I'm driving in this lonely desert at night and I find no signs , I'm lost forever in time. Just this meager memory who floats away. I made no mistake in that I'm stepping forward into an abyss and I'm setting myself on fire. The weight of the beautiful soul inside you will reach higher than I can ever know, that I feel, that one thing I inherently know. I'm stepping forward into an abyss and I'm setting myself on fire.

I keep thinking about waking up in the desert of Peru. It wasn't ideal, being that it was a night on a bus and although I'm only twenty, my joints and back get sore just as they would at an older age. But for some odd reason there was something invigorating about that bus ride in the morning dawn. I felt the lighting through the misted windows so I wiped them as best I could with my hand to uncover a sunrise I won't forget. It was quiet, I think I was the first passenger to wake in the scene of the fog setting in over these mountainous dunes that the road winded through. I remember thinking of how beautifully empty that part of the world is. I remember looking around at the people sleeping and wondering about their families, their work, their opinions, their dreams, how peaceful they are. I looked back out the window. I'm so far away today. Sometimes I lay awake at night and think about random snips of time where I had at the moment they were made, been deep in thought, it's like suddenly being awake in them again. If only I could live in them.

Dear Diary,
I'm afraid I am gravely ill. It is perhaps times like these that one reflects on things past. An article of clothing from when I was young, a green jacket. A walk with my father. A game we once played. Pretend we're faeries. I'm a girl faerie. My name is Laura Lee. And you're a boy faerie and your name is Tita Lee. Pretend, when we're faeries we fight each other, and I say, "Stop hitting me, I'll die!" And you hit me again and I say, "Now I have to die." and then you say, "But I'll miss you." And I say, "But I have to. And you'll have to wait a million years to see me again. And I'll be put in a box, and all I'll need is a tiny glass of water and lots of tiny pieces of pizza and the box will have wings like an airplane." And you'll ask, "Where will it take you?"
"Home." I say.
--Synecdoche, New York
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8BgFTR4PjQ&feature=feedf

Checking In

So I know I said I'd be offline for a while but I figured I'd let the people who read this blog know what I'll be doing. I'm very excited about what I've in mind and I was originally going to wait two weeks when I had more of a collection to brag about but for now, this is what's going on: I'm going to be doing a series of photos, drawings, paintings, and journal entries entitled "Farewell Florida" (title may change). I'm going to be traveling around the state on my days off and capturing some pretty sweet places I've found in my two years here. It's something to do really, when the days start to drag, I have a day off to look forward to in which I'll be doing my all-time favorite pass time of raw discovery and nostalgic exploration. This exploration goes far beyond literal, however, and in a variety of ways:

Reading...scientific books as well as new novels that I may have missed on the shelves will be part of this. Beginning with Darwin's Origin of Species, something I've only ever read large excerpts from but never cover to cover, I want to examine certain disciplines I've been taking for granted.

Drawing... has never been a strong suit for me, however I've been doing graphite sketches and they've all come out okay.

Watercolor. I want to get back into my painting, really focusing on it instead of dabbling wet on wet scenes.

Writing. I'm writing a novel. It may take a long time, it may only take a month or two depending on my focus. I want the story to fulfill a missing part of my philosophy and for that I'd need to examine myself more closely than ever before. I also bought a quill so that I would write slower and really take in and think about the words pouring onto the page. I highly recommend it too.

I will be posting on my blog periodically, just not every day. I have to admit, no connection to the Internet opens up a lot of creative freedom and makes me want to deep sea dive into information (ironically). I'm very antsy about this project, it feels good already. The pictures are just an introduction of much more to come. Keep reading, this only gets better. Oh and listen to some good tunes I'm currently listening to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziQx0cXV4nY&feature=related

I'm going to disappear for a while.

There's some things right now that, I really don't need. I know that you're okay now and that's all that's important to me. I'm going to take some time, watch some films, read some books, maybe continue writing my book, do a photo series, and stay away from this internet thing...do some healing. I'll always be here for you if you really ever need me. I'm going to focus on my art for a while.

Fish

There's a legend in China about a koi fish who swims up the Yellow River his whole life in order to overcome the waterfalls and be transformed into a dragon. For long the fish have symbolized the perseverance of an individual but also the struggle for independence, freedom, in the face of societal conformity. Fish are some of the most impressive creatures when it comes to the harsh conditions they face. Able to survive under a frozen glaze and even live out longer lives than humans who keep them in captivity, koi fish are notably some of the most beautiful fish in the world. It is their poetry and and distinguished versatility of their look which sets them apart from normal carp. Some koi are able to develop trusting relationships with one or two human beings in which they show affection and love.

Few people in the world actually exemplify the traits of a fish. Within the zodiac a fish symbolizes creativity, empathy and caring nature. A person is unpredictable, and someone important is never disappointing. Choose which way to swim, either with current and simply plugging through life or against it fighting for the life you want and the one you deserve. Fish are free it's what makes them so interesting.

When I was ten years old my dad brought a fish charm back from Japan with him and gave it to me. I tied it to a piece of string and wore it all the time. They say it is supposed to bring you luck, but it never did that for me. When I got older, in a way I gave up on it and tied it to a chain and wore it more simply and not as frequently. I'm not a fish, I don't really have those traits. In a way I think I was always just meant to find one. My soul is so much more Earth-bound than that of a fish. When I did finally find a fish, I considered myself for the first time really lucky. I fell in love with a fish, but fish don't really love back it isn't in their nature to love so simplistically. Fish love things that are larger than their own spirits, they can go beyond their years, they can swim upstream and become dragons. There's a story for everything, a legend even. If I had to go back, I wouldn't change the way I met my fish, the way I loved my fish, or the way I had to set my fish free. In my heart I will always protect that fish, keep its spirit alive and safe. You can only ever come across one fish, that's why I know I'm lucky.

So when you wake up one morning and the sky is heading towards the ground, as long as your mind is there, you're going to be okay, it'll be a beautiful day.

Thoughts from Vacant Beaches

I skipped class today after work and took a drive out to a beach I know of that's usually vacant and found it still is. I've begun to hate the beach and I avoid it at all cost. I don't really know why, maybe it's the people and the noise they make or maybe it's just me hating Florida. This place is beautiful, I can understand why people like it. I was talking to a writer the other day who was finishing her book where I work and of course she told me everything that everyone always tells me, "These are the best years of your life." I hate that. In the end I haven't lived them to the full potential if they are. I need change. I need things to get better, desperately. I haven't been in the best state of mind lately which is why this blog looks like a graveyard on the summary page. I've been lashing out at my life because I've been stuck in this little box for too long and getting out, feeling the air a bit in the world for such a short while woke me up to the way I live.

I really had intended to stay down there until I realized just how lonely I would have become, as if I'm not already bad enough in that aspect. I don't think people realize that. A lot of people say that they would rather be by themselves but I know what living like that actually does to you first hand. I worked so hard to get to South America that when I got there, I was so tired, exploration wasn't as vivid as the original idea had been. It was still worth all the while and is unforgettable. It's the best trip I've been on and I can't escape the memory of who was there with me. Although I feel I took up too much time, I could tell the days he would have rather not been there and didn't want to be around me. I felt horrible about that the whole time. He was always good to me, I just want him to be happy. I wanted loving him to be a good thing but it didn't mean anything to him. I wasn't worth the fight. It isn't easy, I have to think about him everyday and I've written some things I didn't mean but I have hope that further from now he'll remember me and maybe smile. I hope that one day he'll have everything he wants. I want that so much.

Of course, it is a personal flaw that I had told myself to come back convincing myself that things would get better, there were ways of improving. When I did come back, everything was the same, I was just happier and still taking daily dosages of that hope. Until what remained of my money was taken from me, I started making myself sick out of stress and not eating, and I had no one's place to escape to, there was no quiet bedroom I could collapse in, no one to talk to, no arm would wrap around me when I went to sleep, and I realized I was in the exact same place I had been before I left and that scared me more than anything. I don't think people realize what lonely really means.

I'm creating though, through everything. Art, however bad mine is, has always been worth it. I bought a new hat and some books. Hats always make me feel better. Weird ones that I can work into my wardrobe in some way especially make my day. I need more hats. Lastly, someone told me he'd move with me to Portland. We're going to start a house out there and we laid down all the requirements which really made everything seem real. We're driving up at the end of January with another girl from where I work who doesn't know yet that she's coming. We're also going to start a band, which is something I've always wanted to do. I've just always been too intimidated to join in anyone else's. We plan on raising free range chickens and having a diverse vegetable garden and we may start our own microbrewery. It's all very exciting and since we work together there's no way this excitement can just die over night.

I'm looking forward to the Northwest and exploring an area I've never been to before. Mostly I can barely even stand the wait to feel the mountain air and being outside really doing things.

I left the beach feeling better. I need to learn how to control the passion that I have inside of me. It's as if my life is one of the novels I read, I need something to be happening to me for it to be worth even telling the story, I need change, I need a future, I need hope. I just wish sometimes that I could have had just one thing I've dreamt of or fought for. I really can't live off of false hopes anymore. I'm going to close my eyes tonight and live in the things I've wanted. It is as close to real as any of it ever can be.

I've been fond of this song lately, it's funny how you stumble on songs that seem to fit so elegantly for the time. Music has a way of finding you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT69zOTNa8Q

Run the curve of the spine
fingers through hair
and smile for the first time.

Images laying on unsettled beaches
claimed with whispers
flag draped in memories unsearchable
untraceable effigies.
We will never leave.

The raucous noise of after night
that breaks between our minds
replaces skin to shadow
breaks through, creation of unremembered hour
how uncertain the hope infected mind.

Unmerciful lonely sanity
empty trays and sounds fade
feel the heartbeat that goes beyond me
this was our last day.

Run the curve of the spine
fingers through hair
smile for the last time.

Fields of sabulous structure
hollow hearted thunder
watch the needled arm bleed
and wish to live some other life
in some other time.

In the bold and busted quiet I heard
echoed cries of a bridled soul
and it slowly shattered mine.

In the dreary morning
I wake to find
you still glide through the mountains
in my unrested mind.

In the thick of it all, I've lost everything that mattered to me. There is a storm that some know of and they see the weather in my eyes. It is these lines that say where the story should have began, where it should have been in the intersection of running themes, where it should have overcome every obstacle, and where it should have ended, and then humbly states where it has and where it will. The truth is what last leaves the mouth. It opens up the curtains and blinds the one who wanted to know the secret, the only secret being that blinding pain and nothing else, just an abrupt end to the dreaming.

There are no more words.

I wish for the world to fall into your hands.
For the oceans to flow in your veins,
for the soil to roll over your skin.
I wish for the fire to burn in your soul,
for the cool, still, air to fill your mind.
And I wish for all the peace to fill your eyes,
so that only hopeful rain you may cry.
And I wish for your heart to sail in the sky,
and to reach freedom as you fly.

Jagged Soul.

The uneven fit,
jagged edge in the life's world
it was written in the blue of it all
that it would never know it at all
and so is the fall
of the uneven fit in the world
and the jagged edge in a life
Everything feels lost tonight.

"Guerrero De La Independencia"

Cementerio de la Recoleta
Buenos Aires, Argentina

in any other world...

I am ancient.
satined, silked, and laced.
I dance en pointe to the hollow melody...
pianoed, violined, celloed
on repeat.
I spun with flocks of seagulls on an ancient beach
and watched your eyes turning everyday
away from me.

My eternal winter waits with me
only to view sun avoid sea.
Steady, moved, agile...patiently....
patiently.

Canyons weather larger
no desire lingers to cross those summer passes.
Against the water, rivered acreage,
against the back dropped meadows and rain forests
against the mighty elements that crawl me
out of my skin
I am ancient.

Colorblind analysis of a dappled orange sunset
it was a story closing in.
Still standing,
drunken in the desert
to wait and wish for the fabled return
of the only lost friend.

Sorrow becomes the soul
trickles black rushing through flush porcelain.
Distances, distances, miles and oceans to cross
and only one misty sailor remains.
I am dust and shattered gravel
kicked up, now settled
from the day you paved your road.
In the shadows of the street lamps and echoed halls
I felt you breathe.
Knowing I'll never feel you
feeling me.

I am ancient.
Satined, silked, and laced
and dance en pointe to the hollow melody...
pianoed, violined, celloed,
on repeat.
I've spun with a flock of seagulls on an ancient beach
and watched your eyes turning everyday
away from me.

I am ancient.
To be
misplaced memory
in a future unseen
I lost.
I am ancient.

I was coming in off-white
barred by confusion,
then I turned
faced west with the rope
chafing my neck,
to the rain that might kill me
and glad if it did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfb8W5HZB5E

We Can Smile

In a morning shower that shines, we can smile.
Moonbeams and your life,
beating,
vibrating
against mine.
And we can shake up the world tonight.

You're the honey
dripping on my ribs
absorbing are my,
hungry lungs.
Sweet in everything I'm going to breath
I will smile.

We're heavy
but we're the leaves
tumbling from trees.
And I feel you
swimming against my skin,
and you're free.

I see vacant picture frames
but I fear my life may be a passing second
and I'm holding on just this last time.

I'll have the courage
not to ask for more
although maybe the scissors have cut
through the feathered pillows in my mind
I'm here still, in this vacant orchard.
We still run through my filled up soul.
Even though we'll die tomorrow,
I can take my gloves off next to you tonight
and for just this moment
everything will be alright.


We can smile.

Visionary

I am most alive in a dream. In these restless quiet travels, I can stumble over mountains and wipe my eyes with sand and fervently move my hands down the lines in the lands caressing the noble void that is a heart's frontier. An untouchable, invisible stretch of exploration that spans across centuries, millennia even (for we can live that long if we try), carries its weight over my body and over yours. A warm wind with periodic gusts may escalate the balance in the meter of our souls. A pendulum can keep time but tell no time to the cushioned rains over clouds. No maudlin existence resides here, only a benign sort of nostalgia enlaced in the cross-hatch patterned stone under our bare feet. The reaching above all hypothesis had ever anticipated, above the foundation that firmly places me, strong, stubborn life, exhaling in the pleasures that fall into a basket, I can wear as ribbons to show them why. Why the sun can always rise to warm every particle on the inside and stroke my face in a comforting habit. Why I smile when the rain comes barreling down from the sky. Why I know every thing is going to be just fine. In my dreams, I feel so much more life, a real life, an existential binge and an endless search of knowledge. In my dreams, we're alright.

Letter (Random Excerpt)

For no one,
oh no, I'll never disappoint you. I feel this dream moving inside of me but I can't feel the life and I think that kind of confirms everything. I've never been more awake than the day I realized the truth that no one really has any friends. And maybe I'm a little lonely, maybe I'm just looking for some peace of mind.

It's getting quiet again. I can feel a black haze falling over me, it feels like death, and smells like it too. Lillies and wine. I'm watching the curtains falling over every day.

I'm waiting, eyes closed, slowed breathing. The scent of a long past gently touching me. Pathetically hoping that tomorrow everything will feel okay. I had only wished.

Still I dream of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5yQ8JJ8R9E

Dying.

My pieces weave delicate patterns
Encompassing moments that brought them.
Splintering my own fingers.
Dying.

Every last note
a minimal composition
accented to a heartbeat
and playing along.
A peaceful penetration.
But dying.

Every breath drawn
Every breath released
Every breath that rises above,
twisting innumerable smoke streams.
Evaporating ecstasy.
That move you farther away from me.

Dying.
Under leather skin
from the whispers, gasps,
a smile.

And seeing the length of the skies
against the shortest moment of our lives
and living again, just one more time.
And then now,
Dying.

I wake to the sound of jazz playing in some distant room. I wake to the waters that covered the outsides of my eyes and dried. I wake to the breeze, to the heat, to the ground shaking under my feet. I wake to a morning now far off. I wake to a stranger's heartbeat, I won't ever hear. I wake to voices long since forgotten, replaced by some familiarity. I wake to an aching that never seems to end. I wake to this room, empty, with some awkward view of oceans I'm too small to sail on and of forests I may only drift through, maybe once. I wake to silence that hungers me. I wake to an inch of a swallowed whole that clings by nails that dig the flesh and cut the bone, but it's the only piece of this wake that I know, the only broken edge that stabs the eye and allows the canvas to survive.

Dream. Too Far.

The day has gone blind. /She falls all over herself. /Lost in everything, /it's some impractical dream. /Losing sight. /Only soft scent on the horizon points to some--/is it destiny? /No. Just something. /Some daylight. /Warmer than this/ recedes.

"I want to be left alone. I want to sit in the grass. I want to ride my horse. I want to lay a woman naked in the grass on the mountainside. I want to think. I want to pray. I want to sleep. I want to look at the stars. I want what I want. I want to get and prepare my own food, with my own hands, and live that way. I want to roll my own. I want to smoke some deer meat and pack it in my saddlebag and go away over the bluff. I want to read books. I want to write books. I'll write books in the woods. Thoreau was right; Jesus was right. It's all wrong and I denounce it and it can all go to hell. I don't believe in this society, but I believe in man, like Mann. So roll your own bones, I say." Kerouac to Ginsberg, summer 1949

Dreaming of Anticipation

Last night I had the most vivid dream. I was walking down a street, one that I knew very well except it was empty. The buildings were vacant, even though they were still well kept and the street was clean, maybe even cleaner than in reality. There were no cars, the people I had once known to walk down that street, you know, one of those laughing apparitions from a timeless memory, they were gone too. It was just me, and I saw the lights still on from the old movie house, as displaced from a sock-hop era America, gleaming in the reflections of the windows of the cafes and book stores. Everything was there, but, everything was gone. Everything that mattered about that street had long since abandoned it. It felt the way an empty stadium feels, like it has no purpose, but there's this constant anticipation about something that will never happen.

The next thing I knew, I was walking instead down the long hallway to my room. The room that I spent most of my days in when I was growing up, not the one I live in now. But it felt like home and at the same time, like I was touring my own past. The walls were painted the way they were when I was 11, except I may have exaggerated the pink color a little. I still remember the name of the shade: Impatient pink. It's so fitting for how I felt about it, constantly anticipating the day the color could change. I liked it when I was 8. Three years changes a person's perspective especially when it's spent surrounded by pink. As I was observing everything, still in its place and still cold as anything because that room hardly wintered well, when placed next to the creepy, unfinished spare room. Sometimes I swore I heard someone knocking on the other side of the door in the middle of the night. I noticed something that wasn't there before, it was another person. A girl, not me, but doing probably exactly what I was doing when I was her age in that room, writing some useless information from a stolen textbook into a journal. But the room then became less welcoming when I saw her, as if it didn't need me to fill its large, cold, gaps, with those high cathedral ceilings and the ominous unused door. So I left. I picked up my cat, and left.

Keep in mind, this cat hates me and because of its mentally unstable, deranged personality, I have a difficult time liking it (the cat's family has a history of mental illness... that was actually confirmed by a vet). But, it seemed really important to take her, so I did. I chose my dad's truck which in reality I can't drive a stick shift and this particular truck is part of the reason. My dad tried to teach me but, he gave up after a long lecture about how I was burning the clutch (it was the first time I had ever even tried). In my dream I remember thinking of this, my heart sort of raced because of the urgency I felt to get out of that house but I knew I couldn't because I couldn't even drive the car. I'd never be able to keep it from stalling every four feet. I'd burn out the clutch. There was too much expectation, too much anticipation, to much noise from the damn cat sitting next to me.

I did it. I drove to the end of the driveway without stalling. I drove to the end of the road. I turned left, this was where I panicked, I remember thinking "shift, shift, you have to fucking shift" and I did. As smooth as ever, I kept that truck running. I looked over to see the cat on its hind legs, staring out the window. I smiled. There was this sense of relief, but still that anticipation. It felt better though, as if I could be going anywhere, but no matter where it was, it was going to be good. I'd be happy, I just had to keep that truck from stalling.

Why did I need that damn cat?

I have this overwhelming need to escape everything from the outside in.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

"And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. [...]"

~T.S. Eliot~

Tell-Tale.

Emptiness in eyes are first followed by words.
They will tangle, twist and leap above
to curl neatly at the foot of the bed.

Wintered silences stifle
what stranger beats the door.

Most nights it's like not being alive.
Most nights it takes the pillow too long to dry.

It'd be too late to wake the walls enclosing.
Too late for hopeful slander.

They'd ease through the cracks
in the heart that now sleeps
Brave sleep.
Eternal disbelief.
Scrape the callases from feet
...but the scars won't go anywhere.

A soul with a window
carries the draft
with the stench of the void.

Most nights it's like not being alive.
Most nights it takes the pillow too long to dry.

Assembly Line Dying

In the gathering of gases,
omniscient to the world within him
for the soot they shove at her feet
and despair slouched in the street.
To themselves they burn their angered torch's fire.
Cats picketing under the slight haze
above rats galloping in their gifted maze.
Run the length of elevated tombs
and the knowledge of this prison still looms.

Two Lone Standing Figures

Sharp magnetic intrusion
interrupts infertile stance
of solemn drifters weeping
at seas of desolation's initiation.
To a parallel palace of ennui awaits
their calling of unforgiven reveries.
In one, among the raining numbers
signals the horror of the rightful befallen stage.
Next is the nativity of rapture,
the Shiva of our dreams.
Behold their legged besetting beauty
but benign in strides of the hidden
voices, faces of the sky.
One is the sand in the typeface melted stone.
Forged is the future of our impending thought.
Birthed is the unwelcome portraits in our home.

Distress on Unrest

Not more.
I make me make myself.
Shift....drift.
Invincible end of winter
sheds my skinless eyes of fear.
My tears
carry in arms of slabs.
In the spattered whispered massacre
make feel below my shadows concave.
Crave.
Aroused is the anxious withdrawal
I am not your will. I will not fill
your nightmare.
Rage, unaccomplished, compounded, compassion.
My hymn is your utter of nothing
and your spacious willows may keep.
Golden is the underworld of my estrangement
that I am not the fiction, rather creation
of this our alien nation.

"In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel."

~Werner Herzog~

Subordinate & Flaw

Set me free, set me free
I want to be free
please please set me free.

I want to see,
to see how few and far in between.
The blood the blood,
on your hands is so clean.
Untouched on silver frames of snow.
And my aching body did sweat the moss.

Let me be let me be,
let me grow. Never let go.
Let me lay my body against your river
and then turn, I be your stranger.
No talk, won't speak
of all these secrets they'll smell on me.

A flower a flower
I'll be wasted hour.
All this sand all this sand
flows straight through my hand
I am I am
less than human.

Paris, 2008

I wish there was some way of explaining this feeling.

My hands are shaking
my mind has heard the crushing
of one thousand yearning vessels in my blood.

They're trying to change me
deranged but unoffered whispers
from behind me.
If I scrape out my eyes
they will never find me.

Never know me.
Feel me.
Hear me.
I scream.

This ardor binds to a distant world
maybe the next
maybe illusion.
Confusion
of what a soul means against
all of you.

Arch my back,
carry my head
and nail my feet down.

For what I am afraid
is not a place of tears.
Or of isolation--now I dream.
but of the binding invisible fortress
and my wrists...
these ropes....
this chair.

Being what part
of the greater whole
and finding that whole
wants no part of being.

These scraped knees
red with iodine
and the temporary cuts
but the bruises that remind.

Of what I fear
tell by this
unconquerable mind.

Dreaming Alive

This is how I vanish.
block it all away until the cracks in the walls just fade
and I am floating so far away.
swimming in oceans deeper than our lives
to touch them would distract them.
We're aching flowers on a whim and closing within.
In the center I hear the violins
if only you were there holding them
if only I could break free of them.
but when I let the light in,
we're standing within our endless hearts
beating amongst their stained valleys
but it is peace.
A piece, of the world at large
and we'll carry them in our arms
to hand them to you,
here in my cerulean hue.
Entangle our bodies and take them like fruit
dream in your sweet far away dreams
someday, I wish...
we'd freed those hearts in our hands
and sail down our flooded streams
because we've let go of our frozen dams
where we are, at last, awake in our dreams.

The Art of the Film Score

It may be no secret to some that film scores are sort of a secret obsession of mine. When films were silent, the score was important in the dramatics of the players as to the feeling of the audience. Although, silent films tend to be a bit on the creeping end of boredom for most, they're interesting to watch from a cultural standpoint, especially if one focuses on the efforts of Germany's early film industry which, with no knowledge of the French/American sideshow captures, instead focused on the more serious ground of film. Film did not begin producing truly remarkable scores until about the mid-1920's Russia and from there began to progress, facing some declines in between now and then but altogether remaining pretty unremarkable until about the early 1990's when score composers began to focus more on innovations in music.

The most notable from the early 1990's without a doubt would be Schindler's List, composed by John Williams, one of my personal favorites when it comes to score composition. In conjunction with the violinist Itzhak Perlman, one of the most well known film scores as well as violin solos was produced. Schindler's List is already a heart-wrenching social realist film by Spielberg that truly delivers the message Spielberg had intended. To compose a piece of music that holds the fear, sadness, and altogether morbid state of the time puts John Williams, the first of the composers on my list of great film scores, somewhere near the top. Personally, I've always looked at Schindler's List as one of the most important films ever made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLK5OWU2YGw

The first film to ever draw my attention to the soundtrack would without a doubt be Gladiator, a compilation of Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. I can never forget sitting in the theater with my dad when I was nine being completely thrilled by just the music alone so that when my dad asked me how the movie was all I could reply with was, "The music was amazing," or something like that. The next day he bought the soundtrack for me and I can remember listening to it for two weeks straight. I was so happy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHAvjaHtlMA -My favorite part. To this very day.

Later, films would develop dramatic soundtracks mirroring that of Romantic Era composition, with their lack of restraint and their wonderful feeling, some films even borrow from this era, most commonly used is "Flight of the Valkyries" a very daring Wagner composition for the time. Films such as The Fountain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihF_aXi-Huk and Requiem for a Dream exemplify these dramatic compositions both by Clint Mansell. Perhaps, however when there is a mix of the original classics such as in Dario Marionelli's composition for V for Vendetta, where Tchaikovsky is used in between percussion at the very opening of the film, introducing the nature of the soon-to-be-announced character, V. Some of the more dramatic soundtracks seem to be repeated as time progresses, John Murphy's "The Surface of the Sun" for the movie Sunshine was recycled in Kick-Ass, completely abandoning the original feeling and creating a new feeling showing the true versatility within these modern compositions.

Moving into even more innovative works of modern composition, film scores have become for many movies, enjoyable just as they are, without pictures to amplify the feeling of the music. For Memoirs of a Geisha John Williams collaborated with the extremely talented modern cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman to create a beautiful work that combines classical composition with Japanese traditionalism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT1-Uo5eUJk James Newton Howard examines colonial American instruments combined with classical composition in The Village. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyUwUW-lRjY

Dario Marianelli is a score composer that reached further into individual composition, putting forth music that was more personal and innovative in creative material used in both Atonement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_wN9hSdIKw and Pride and Prejudice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQgnEvQX3eM (A very beautiful composition by itself in its entirety). Marianelli's piano pieces are remarkably beautiful and, again, enjoyable just on their own. However, as far as relation to the film and conveying the emotion portrayed on the screen as well as putting forth a truly spirited piece of music, James Horner's composition for All The King's Men (also one of my all-time favorite films) is a perfectly delivered work (in my opinion of course). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irs5cJ-Ph-8

There are many films that I did not mention such as Inception, Pan's Labyrinth, The Illusionist, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which are all exceptional soundtracks. It's just that I could probably write about this all day and I doubt anybody is really going to read this post anyway. On a side note, I did not mention Danny Elfman because, although a fantastic composer, proven to me by Good Will Hunting, I feel he is too limited with Tim Burton. The magical realism theme is catchy and mystical, but is turning rather cliche in my opinion. The Nightmare Before Christmas is noteworthy for Danny Elfman's actual singing participation as well as Big Fish for sort-of kind-of branching out of that eerie lullaby music Tim Burton enjoys so much. But most of the films listed in this paragraph supersede the music composed within them, albeit they would be nothing without the score, the story lines are very intricate and beautiful, so the soundtracks (some nominated/winners of Academy Awards) get pushed to the background.

In short, I really enjoy soundtracks.

Frankenstein

"How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.
[...]
When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?
[...]
If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.
[...]
Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from Earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures."

~Mary Shelley~

While We All Fade (a work in progress)

"How is it you believe to know the world, Antoine?"

"Because I created it. I am like that God you said, only I am the painter. I know her imperfections. I know where her sands crawl and her trees yawn. I know where her rivers open and her flowers blush. My divinity is simple in that it is nothing. I am everything. I am in this painting and as it feels.... heavy. I am stolen in this great sadness for I cannot fix her withering sleeves. They close at the edges and we are encased in glass. Do you know of Heinrich Heine? 'Lovely as a flower' but it hurts him. I know that. I am this world and the one looking in and we're all lost in it. There is no way out. What they see in us, never seems to change. For ages, we remain."

Personification. (in another sense)

I was falling asleep in class today and dreaming mid-day dreams in iambic pentameter. I was sailing in William Hughes's summer's day. It's difficult to find the reality when you're diving in and out of it. Time stood still for a moment and I nodded my head at the clock, but it hadn't changed. We were frozen here in this "techniques of poetry" two hour life un-altering class. I wish I had known that when I signed up with my limited financial aid. These may be my last few months in college as the future really won't tell me how far in debt I'll be now, I'd rather not test her weight. I don't mind, it's time I moved on to something else. My nomadic heart is pulsing again and the blood is thinner than ever before. It's cold though, because it's all alone in there while I sleep in my car and the sun makes that feat hardly comforting. But the chillness I seem to have inherited in my blood escapes and breathes. In and out I'm falling over and over and over again. I see these faces of people I've attempted to know only to find I have no interest in further people venturing. My shoulders keep filling up with the dust of two years of waiting. There was a psychic who told me I needed to point inward towards myself...how far does she expect me to go? I'm all the way inside looking out on everything and realizing just how far I've faded from sight. I'm wading in Lethe in another mind. I'm silenced in Asphodel but existing in Tartarus. It feels like I'm falling far out of sight. I can't hear my mind, because I left it somewhere a long time ago, so I'm listening to something that's supposed to make me more but discovers me less. I am brave, but I'm not finding the way. Maybe we're all lost. Maybe everyone in this class is drifting above this building, floating freely on breezes but tumbling uncontrollably out of sight. To torment the night we drink from goblets of our restlessness. We speak in words that shoot venom from our tongue tips and our insanity provokes our rampant emotionalism. We're closer to the world than ever. Our spirits have rustled the soil. Our hearts have whispered their lies. I can hear the wind cry, she's telling me to set sail, she's telling me to run as far away as her song can guide me. And I have to listen. I have to obey.

I raise my eyes and forget you, dear Shakespeare, with your heavy language and heavy heart. Where were you when you cried? Who held your hand when you died? No one. There is no one here but the sky and the sea and the endless land that tortures me. I want to feel you, world, I want to be you, I want to be with you and cry your name between sensual breathlessness. I want to become your land. And when I am at my end, I donate myself to you in your rawest, cleanest form and let my dust sail on your calling wind.

I have awoke with mission in mind and time in my eye. I will be by your side. I promise, to be at your side, my home, my spirit is native and far beyond my mind. I am here. I exist. And we are beautiful. We are alive.

Thoughts From The Floating World

It was quite comfortable weather today and seeing as it was my last day off before school starts on Monday and I triple my work load for a hopefully rewarding semester that will, in return, put me in an uneasy state of a debt racking above my head as far as the eye can see, I decided I needed some time to look at the real world. I drove east for an hour and stopped in what appeared to be an empty space where I could let go of my thoughts and let them twist above me like steam rising from a boiling pot.

It felt good, laying there in the grass with an ageless sky above me. My only wish is that the grass would be lush like the fields up north, how it feels so good that you start ripping it out of the ground. Or if it's long, like the horse pastures I would keep my horse in because of his tireless metabolism, you pick one long strand just to gnaw on, as if you could nurse the lush youth out of it. I loved those days; how I'd lay next to an animal that could easily crush me but know that he wouldn't. That bond was sacred; my horse would never hurt me and I would never hurt him. I'd listen to him next to me, vigorously chomping at the grass like it was holding him to the Earth and he needed desperately to find one substantial cluster to grab on to. Sometimes out of curiosity he'd wander over to me, flicking his lip up and down over my face and sniffing, proceeding further when he would get a reaction of laughter out of me because his breath would travel into my ears and tickle a nerve somewhere. When he felt comfortable, he'd lay his head down far enough for me to grab on to his neck and he'd pull me up with a massive strength into an awkward embrace with my arms around his neck and his head down my back.

Sometimes I'd take off my shoes and get on his back, wrapping my feet around his belly, feeling him breath, feeling his great muscles in their movements. And I'd grab his mane, making a glob of his coarse hair the only thing left to cling to before the ground if my legs couldn't hold. I remember how it felt up there, a sort of quiet, trusting thrill. I knew that if he spooked, there would be no way for me to stop him. But something about being one with this huge creature as he grazed peacefully gave me comfort. I loved his company. I never needed the horse shows with their ridiculous decadence and politics that swarmed above the arenas. I only needed the air in that lush grass and the sound of him and the trust between us. We were a part of a bigger world, one greater than the horse shows, the trailers, the cars, the cell phones, all the devices that we added to a simple relationship between two species. It was always a good place to think.

The nostalgia made me think of a Japanese phrase that I have read in a few books, one being the actual title of the book, "an artist of the floating world." How pretty the words were together, maybe even more so in their original tongue. It is as if this "artist" is above our world, not because he or she is any better or any worse, but because it is a place of no organization and a dreamlike picture from which he or she can look down upon the real world occasionally and paint what is seen. I thought about how if you wanted to be a part of that world, you'd give up the weight of this one and glide through the clouds, feeling the water brush against your cheeks. I thought about how it might be filled with moments like that one in the pasture with my horse, feeling like ancient spirits tied together. I thought about how the air would be thin and crisp. I thought about how peace isn't always happiness but still allows room for serenity to fill in.

As the sky began to change I felt the cool atmosphere fall down upon me. I had lost track of time in the midst of my dreaming. I was gliding to the floating world. I had reached the destination where I felt a part of the changes, the growing, the breeze, the ants invisible underneath me and the sun falling on me, feeding us all the life we crave. Perhaps for that moment I was an artist of the floating world. Perhaps, I have never been. Perhaps it is something that is to be earned over tiresome, loathsome years of isolating anguish attempting to turn these heavy thoughts into beautiful words. Attempting to breath. However you get there, to this floating world in its weightlessness, effortless beauty, and childish innocence, I need to find the way.
I need to get home.