postmortem winter, way home

weak grey light
peels up my eyelids.
we used to take walks
on cold days like this
little finch,
you far ahead and full of life
me, behind
i walked so slow i
felt more empty
than
I am now
a pane of glass
i’d like to have shattered it
if i tried

i can’t quite get it right.
if only i could say,
if only it was,
was
I walk on
cold hands, open
by my sides
somewhere on the ground
a tender thing
the grass is grey, pressed down
i want to lay with my face up
and feel it press me down like that
freeze me still
make my bones unstuck together
and compress me into the earth
like a damp leaf
instead i’m cold as stone and i feel like it too
hard. hard.
there were times i was warm as butter
none of it mine
a hundred degrees of softness
i’d wrap you up in it,
if i could; and me too, both of us
warm yellow melt

i’m a piece of stone
my mouth tastes of minerals, iron, salt
the teeth hurt
somewhere on the ground

a tender thing

 

dust

I guess it’s only fair

since we’ve never met before

at least our bodies, this way

but that’s not for certain, I suppose

 

I like to think that maybe one day

we merge with the cosmos

little bits and pieces of

the white vapor of our souls

              the twinkling dust of us

we’ll melt back into the earth, that way

 

that’s what happens to me

when I step out my door and listen to

the way the birds are chirping

they’re singing to me

they’re singing

wake up, wake up

it’s your day and your missing it, all of this little glowing day

made here, just for you

 

I like to listen to them in the morning

when the day is still sinking in around me

and nothing’s been decided

daylight is on the brink of taking in its very first breath

here I am, among it

Nina

One of the most startling realities of the situation was, when investigated more closely, there really wasn’t anything so special about Nina. To pin her up against a board and dissect her features piece by piece, like the anatomizing of a rare species of butterfly, would reveal a number of human qualities: blond hair that frizzes against either side of her scalp, a pale complexion whose pinkish pallidity makes her lips difficult to distinguish from the rest of her face, and an average height that is often disguised by moderately-heeled ankle boots. Overall, as a creature evaluated behind an objective barrier that excludes all remnants of human inclinations, she was really quite ordinary. However, remove, the boundary (if such a thing could ever exist), and the complications of emotion interfere with the picture.

Firstly, she was the “new girl”. I’m sure that regardless of stature or aesthetics, being the fresh face in a sea of uninteresting people whose particularities have long since melded into unrecognized and commonplace features can only serve you well. However, it wasn’t only this new sense of arrival that drew our eyes to her like hungry moths to a luminous flame; it was also her command of attention.

She had no shyness–not even a drop of self-consciousness–in her warm-blooded body. She was bold and unapologetic. She would laugh loudly at inappropriate jokes, a spew of giggles that unraveled in spurts of endearing raspiness and high-pitched chortles. If she didn’t like the way someone was acting, she’d roll her eyes and say, “For the love of God.” Taken aback by her confidence, anybody would stop mid-sentence, with eyes widened with sudden awareness of self that was inextinguishable. Nina’s legs sprawled, uninhibited, underneath the desk. Boys whose legs usually sat, wide-kneed and unapologetic, suddenly drew in with timidity. Nina had a possession of authority, but seemed completely unaware of it.

Because of this, her name spread around the lips of everyone and anyone who had met her. Sometimes, it would be a mere topic of conversation, you’ll never believe what Nina said today, and was typically met with a falsetto spew of laughter that rang with slight envy and amazement at whatever they had found amusing in her that day. Other times, it would be coiled in hushed conversation, whose content would remain behind drawn curtains, did you hear what Nina did, and bore the jealousy of girls who can’t stand to see someone else’s confidence illuminate the lack of their own.

I watched her carefully, myself. Fortunate enough to have classes with her, I had a healthy spread of time in which I could indulge the corner of my curious eye with observation. I was startled when she entered class, in shirts whose hems hung just above her stomach. I studied her closely for signs of self-consciousness of the line of pale skin that banded her waist like the sun-bleached ring that appears on stones collected from the beach. I was confounded by the fact that she didn’t seem to hide herself. Her body lied languorously in her desk, limbs sprawling, hair spread across her shoulders. She wasn’t like the other girls whose clothing hung around their bodies–revealing a glimpse of a thin shoulder here, a peep of exposed waistline there–whose arms probed their stomachs nervously and gently pulled folds of their clothing out from their frame as they spoke. When Nina raised her hand, she didn’t bring one hand to her waist and one arm up, halfway, hovering. She thrust her arm all the way up in the air and if her hand wasn’t noticed promptly enough, she just spoke.

I watched her with awe as she gnawed on the rim of water bottle. I smiled to myself when she swore loudly when the teacher moved to collect last night’s homework and how nobody seemed to care. Not even the teachers penalized her, so hypnotized by her confidence were they: just like the rest of us. Amazing. I watched her with a gleaming mixture of pride, you can do it, and amazement, how do you do it, and a sliver of hope that toyed in the back of my mind, I wish I could do it.

storm as my tempo

I love the

thunder beat

underground rumble

charred roads running.

The mellow light

under the door

Footsteps

thumpthumping

on the cherry wooden floor.

I like the long black

crop circles

staining underneath your

star-ridden eyes.

The deep green

sleeping dreams

that always make you cry.

I listen to the

bass drum

tempered thrum

raindrops on the roof.

The red strings

the violin sings

echo into empty rooms.

We’ve got warms sheets

tangled feet

bodies in-between,

Reading under yellow lamps

and guitar amps

leave music on the screen.

Crackling sky

breaks beams of light

Fractals of plasma

scattered in your eyes.

The world is tipping, only

under broken borders

are we still here at all.

And while the music’s still

going

And my heartbeat’s throwing

The thunder,

meanwhile,

calls.

 

The Observing of Nothing

We rose early to see the sun rise.

A couple of bikes piled

against the fence on a one-way

A few helmets strewn

like goat skulls in the desert

A jacket with sleeves trailing

like the flag of a war-torn country.

We filed in silence down the gravel, and hung tightly

to the strip of exposed shoulder

of the mountain,

morning eyes unfixed

by undulating fog.

There was evergreen and pine

to seclude us from the road,

but their leaves lay waste

in the dampened overcast–without green–

but dimmed to the worn copper

of an abandoned penny

left out in the rain.

We were quiet in our anticipation

as we sat like gulls

with our knees tucked in,

Facing the vast white glades of ocean

that shattered and reformed

on the face of the rocks.

We had come to see the sunrise but

the only thing that blew light

into the lungs of day

was fog,

Which shrouded the world

in a surreal mask

of fine white paper and ash.

The horizon was blended

into the lost line of the ocean;

I felt the cold irony as

we stood and observed

no rise of day or sun itself;

But the same emptiness that had encompassed our eyes

not moments before

as we lay dreaming.

Out beyond the blurred sheets of

chalky-white residue,

there lay a sun

ablaze

in its emergence.

And here we sat, before its pale abashed frame,

without the eyes

to see past

and glimpse

 sweet morning fire.

Morning

We have blinked

and in the dusk behind our eyes

we have glimpsed the future

in the most untouched form;

before reality has materialized

and chipped away imperfections

to let you know

that life is not a dream.

There we met, in the early morning;

our voices soft and warm

while the shaky hands of the wind

played piano on the panes.

There was no touch of corporeality

—but the feeling of timelessness was

not spiritual or grand.

It was soft, the texture of a

deep dream.

Together we sat in the outskirts

of tragedy;

No, not the outskirts—

We lay in another world

where nothing ever happens

except a freedom of mind

and the blessing of a hand in another hand.

We are old here,

We have lived our lives and now

we sit in a knowing silence.

We are so pleased with our elderly peacefulness

that we can hardly bend our lips out of

a smile to speak.

A roll of steam from a mug,

a soft word–spoken but without importance–

and we are here.

 

The Pact

We sit on a dock, its body extending into the water like the sun-baked body of a snake. The sky overhead is a deep blue of July, clouds large and lumbering but not promising rain. The sun pours down all around us, dripping into the lake and into our hair in puddles, lingering on our eyelashes. I sit with my feet into the water, which still carries a chill. My two friends have their bodies sprawled against the bleached wood of the dock, their arms dipping into the water below. Their pale skin and the crescent moons of their fingernails reflect light, causing fractals of light to dance around their hands. We have been sitting here for a while, but we don’t know how long. Time eludes us. It seems to sprawl itself into the landscape of lake Champlain and unwind slowly, each blade of grass bending from its weight.

“Do you think we’ll still be friends in high school?”

Someone has asked this question. I do not remember if it has originated from my mouth, or somebody else’s, but we are all thinking the same thing. Quietly, we let this idea brew in us. We know that high school is approaching, and our sense of realism is developing. We study each other’s differences, aloof. This one’s too popular to hang out with us anymore. The other one is too interested in school to pay attention to what’s going on. This one is too bored with her life and will seek adventure elsewhere. We know that we are being evaluated by each other, but we don’t say how.

“Of course we will.”

This is the definite answer we have come up with. And because of this half second of reassurance, suddenly we believe it. Although I detect doubt from myself and my friends, I believe it. I must. I look across to watch their bodies, the sun coloring their skin. In this moment, my friends are all the world I know. For years, we have nearly lived together. Sleeping at each other’s houses every Friday night, playing endless and pointless card games, staying up until three in the morning just talking. We have confessed secrets, we have admitted fears, told inappropriate jokes. I have come to know their homes as part of my own. It is sprawled in their kitchens, making microwavable macaroni and cheese and watching Parks and Recreation, that I have fit in. We have hung up the phone saying “I love you”. We have cried and laughed and hated each other, only to come running back on Monday morning with arms full of hugs and apologies.

“Let’s make a pact. Even if things change, we’ll all still be friends.”

High school does not seem real to me. In my mind, I envision what books and TV shows have shown me. The adult aspects of pressures of college and the oncoming independence seem too far off, like I am being given something I am too little to carry. Something in me feels that the onslaught of all these new variables were impossible for us. As we sit on the dock, even though we have the entire summer ahead of us, it seems like the last moment we will still be together. I feel, stirring deep inside me, that we are growing up and have been selected for new fates, diverging off into the world and carry pieces of our shared memories with us.

None of us could envision what our lives would be like. We could never have guessed that before the end of middle school, one of us breaks the pact. How we watched, hearts bitter and mournful, as she faded into the rest of the crowd, with newer and better friends. We would never have guessed that by freshman year, another of of us would have broken the pact, falling into trouble at her new school with drugs, and cutting us out from her life. We would never have guessed that I would be the last one, holding the words of our promise in my hand, tiny and feathered like the fragile body of a bird. We never guessed that I would make new friends, find new places to hang out after school. That I would pass through the halls and become a stranger to them.

But now, sitting on the dock, sun on our faces.

“I promise.”

“I promise.”

“I promise.”

 

The Pinecones

The Pinecones

 

I approached a trail, breath loose in my lungs

as I prepared for the epoch ahead, soon to be colored by the gentle green of the forest.

As I started in, my eyes lifted to the branches

that manifested overhead;

and on their limbs lay the ornaments of the forest.

The very cones that christened this land, the “Pine Tree State”.

They drooped from the trees,

copper spines unfurling like flower petals;

yet without delicacy.

Instead built ruggedly to be tenacious against

the frost and heavy snowfall,

compressing wreaths of floral aroma into

the tight, sweet smell of pine,

so clear it evaporated into the air.

As I continued, the burnt yellows and oranges

of leaves lay bloodlessly on my path,

and soon my footsteps overturned them,

revealing thousands of pinecones…

blackened by the dark growth of the ground.

Suddenly, they were no longer ornaments.

They were the discarded debris of the forest,

tossed from their mothers once deemed obsolete in their age.

No longer did it bear the lingering promise;

the tender life of another tree knitted tenderly into the green fibers of its youth.

Ephemeral.

 

The Ballet

An unedited short story of myself as a child, and my first experience at the ballet.

 

 

I hated the ballet.

It’s true. The first time I went to the ballet, at age nine, I found it truly and flagrantly, well; unbearable. Now before you jump to any conclusions, I must explain the nature in which my distaste was bestowed.

I did not hate this art form in the sense of finding it boring, or otherwise unamusing. Not the bland, fruitless hatred of something that I find myself too busy or important to subject myself to.

It was not a dislike of the seats. They were thick, plush red velvet, that sank to your shape and were perfectly formed to your weight and seating position by the end of any performance. As I sat, my small knees crossed, the miniscule fibers of the fabric brushed against my new tights, purchased for this very event. Its pelage swayed like an anemone against the deep blue waters of the dimmed theater. No, it was not a dislike of the seats, their appearance added to the grandeur of the theater.

The theater! That couldn’t be subject to my dislike, either. The gold gilding the walls, the murals, the way the lights twinkled on the edge of the stage as if to materialize the stardom that would take place upon it. It ran shivers up my spine; I was certain in my nine years of life that I was witnessing one of the Wonders of the World. I waited eagerly, eyes tracing each detail, for the thick red billows of the curtain to swing open. I pulled anxiously on the sleeve of my mother, who smiled at me in return, coaxing patience into me by showing me the anticipation added to the experience.

Soon enough, however, the lights lowered into darkness, and a hush fell over the crowd. There was a gripping sense of mutual appreciation, even solidarity, as we sat together in the darkness, waiting. Then the violins began; soft, a single note suspended in air, dipping and weaving in between the caverns of the house. Then the rest of the pit joined in, and the music swelled inside me, brushing goosebumps over me. I was just a small girl then, trembling with the beauty of a violin, thin wire glasses tilted on the edge of her nose.  Then, the long awaited moment came. The curtains, huge and quavering in the slight breeze of the silence, drew open. And as the first dancers came out, and flew into motion, their arms and legs quivering with strength and moving with painless ease and delirious beauty;  I suddenly began to feel peculiar. The hearty enjoyment I had been experiencing strangely dwindled, and a discomfort suddenly arose in my stomach, spreading some poisonous emotion throughout my bloodstream.

It was the hatred of the finest degree; an impermeable, restless, and completely irrepressible jealousy. It was the dark purple seething of selfish hatred, in which everything I watched suddenly became a personal vendetta, set against my very existence. The sweet melody of the violins turned sour in my ears, and the beautiful strength of the dancers seemed to mock me.

How I longed, in that moment, more than anything, to be one of those dancers. To be long and graceful; with fine blond hair twirled neatly into a bun. To have my legs know exactly what to do, and to be able to spin and spin with my arms in the air. To be a ballerina, to glitter in the light like that, to be beautiful. I longed for that beauty, in that moment.

Even hours after the ballet had ended and I was lying in bed in the darkness; I could still hear the instruments echoing in my mind. I stretched my fingers far above my head, and wiggled my toes underneath my pink sheets, closing my eyes and imagining myself on the stage. Even the flexible, endless kingdoms of my imagination could not give me the satisfaction of being a ballerina. And sadly, that dream would never come to be filled in my later life.

However, I still hate the ballet.

 

Roadtrip

An hour into the ride and I was already losing my patience.  Jim not only had a seemingly unbreakable habit of interrupting me as soon as I opened my mouth, but also had an affliction in which any song on the radio that played longer than a minute and thirty seconds was not good enough to be listened to. He detested pop music, but hated classic rock. Classical music, he said, would send him into an induced coma in which the haunting faces of Beethoven and Bach laughed maniacally over his body for eternity. However, upon being asked what he did like, my brother replied with an indifferent shrug and a very blasé statement “oh, you know, anything”.
                   Jim had been fickle (yet particular) his entire life. From the day he came out of the womb, he was criticizing something or other. I think somehow we screwed up; forgetting to imply the distinction between arguing and making conversation. We all expected it to be a phase; in middle school we expected the other kids to shut him up when he lectured them on baseball cards. In high school we thought his enemies would kick the shit out of him for constantly picking fights, or what he called “lively debates”. After college came around and no professor had a hand strict enough to frighten him into being polite, we lost hope. We simply began to accept the fact that it was in Jim’s nature to be critical. This unfortunately did not make it easier to be around him, especially when the judgement was inflicted upon us.
               However, this didn’t usually occur. Jim was a die-hard family guy. Growing up, he would always tell me, wide-eyed and voice so earnest,  that he’d “take a bullet” for me. Although his courage for an event that was highly unlikely in our small town was somewhat useless, his intentions were always sincere. He was a good guy, really. And hell, did he love that little boy of his. Some of the family speculated that  it was the name they shared in common that bound them together; but I believed that it was because they were both children at heart.
              “How old is James now?” I asked, glancing at my brother, who was absentmindedly stroking his new five o’clock shadow. Whoever told him it was a good idea to grow a beard was clearly under the influence of something a lot stronger than a cup of coffee. He looked forward.
               “Four now, turning five in February.”
               “That’s soon,” I replied, surprised. The sizeable banks of snow that sat, glaringly bright, on the side of the road seemed more fitting for December. Yet, here we were in the middle of January and still expecting a snowstorm this weekend. Luckily we would make  it to my parents’ house by nightfall, where the wood stove and local snow plows would take good care of us. Jim didn’t answer me.
              Instead he jammed his fingers toward the radio, silencing Bon Jovi with an aggressive jolt. He began punching different stations, all swimming in and out of audible range as we drove farther north. Suddenly he angrily slammed the radio with the palm of his hand, shutting it off altogether.
              “Jesus Christ, James, what was that all about?” I chided, leaning over to push his hands off the stereo. He sat, pulling his hands into his laps, head bent like a sulking teenager. I’d seen that sunken silhouette too many times in my life to ignore it. I glanced at him again; watching him rub his temples, wincing. I opened my mouth to speak, but he interjected before I could say anything.
              “Sharon–” he began, but his voice caught. He cleared his throat gruffly and tried again. “Sharon and I are getting a divorce.”