drop me in the water

in a mist of mediocrity she had lost her barrings. she had no idea what was up or down because there really wasn't much of either. it was a calming of her mind and heart. during this time she mistook complacency for happiness and she thought the steadying of her heart was a sign of victory over two years of restless torment. she sunk deep into this mediocrity. as she sunk deeper, the brightness of the world dulled and the darkness lightened. she soon found herself in a vibrating grey abyss. one night as she lay silently in the arms of stability and routine, she was caught off guard as she saw the round white moon rising like a tidal wave over her grey horizon.

"i am happy for you," the full moon said, once he had risen high above her and was shining with bright confidence, bleaching her grey world.

she stared at him, bewildered. happy for what? she asked herself as she looked around her, searching for this happiness she thought she had just had beside her. she only found grey clouds. for what is all of this grey blankness? she asked. i am certainly not blank. why have i succumbed to a world where the dull and tamed dwell? why am i wasting my love on loveless things? she became very bored with herself and was appalled by what she had let herself become. she let her heart flood with memories of the many nights her and the moon had spent together. she thought about the awe she had felt when she first saw him singing above the trees. she laughed when she remembered the shadows he had cast beside her as they danced in a snow covered forest. his gravity, his light, his whole suddenly filled her with a completeness she had long forgotten. not only had he given her life beauty and love, but he had also shown her what it meant to be ugly and hateful. she recalled the sadness she used to feel when he would leave her at the end of each night. in his vacancy the sun would rise and give her terrible headaches and annoy her with noise. she blamed him for her pain. she recalled one night when they had an argument about his coming and going so often, after which she had said goodbye to him with an absolute coldness and wished she would never see him again. to her horror he did not come back the next night. in fact he did not come back for weeks, and not even the stars would come to see her during this time. on the 30th day he did indeed come back, but by then she had grown so weary from the pain it took to look up and not see him that she had begun to bury herself in daylight, blinding herself to his memory, and decided she could no longer look for him. she would force herself to sleep before the sun went out, and would not open her eyes again unless she was certain the world was fully illuminated. it was a time of absolute agony which lasted two years. this is when she met mediocrity. she indulged in its lack of highs or lows and dreamed quiet dreams that were filled with colours and numbers and everything else that did not hurt and what did not bring joy.

her grey and timid world suddenly became very small in the wake of her recollections. the arms that were about her felt like the claws of death pulling her down into a grave of empty ignorant blissful dreams. she screamed and tore them from her. the mist came falling and crashing at her feet. after it had all fallen to pieces, still vibrating, she gazed upon the unrecognizable rubble. none of it meant anything to her.

she looked back up at the moon and asked "for what exactly are you happy for? as you can see, i have nothing."

he had already begun his descent toward her now blackened horizon as he frowned and replied "i thought you were happy."

"no, this is not what i want, please, you must understand..."

"but it is what you wanted" he said as he slipped away.

she cried to him "please for the love of god do not leave me alone in this darkness again!" but he was gone.

her eyes filled with regret. she looked down at where the mediocrity had fallen and was amazed to find that it had already taken up residence in a small box in an unreachable corner of her distant memory. she sat down on a shadowless ground and stared at the sky pleading with the stars to please bring him back. soon the sun came out, and she closed her eyes in the hopes of finding him in the darkness of her dreams. she woke up once night returned and waited for him until day came back again. her life consisted only of this for five nights and days without any sign of his return. she thought she would surely die from the pain which had not only been growing at an exponential rate for the past three years, but was still growing inside of each moment that passed. but to her surprise, she did not die. on the sixth night she found him beside her in a reflection mirrored on a puddle of her own tears. she looked up, and as he smiled down on her, she wept with an exploding joy at such a furious rate that a lake formed around her almost immediately, surrounding her with the reflection of his smile.

she said:

"sometimes i fear that you are nothing more than a reflection. no matter how deeply i can peer into your heart and soul, when i reach out for you a thousand ripples radiate extinguishing your image. when i try to comfort and encourage you my words and hands are blocked by cold and unresponsive surfaces. if i wasn't so afraid to lose sight of you i would smash all of the glass and stomp in every puddle all around the world, in hopes that all of the racket would force you out of hiding in plain view."

but the reflection did not respond. she sat and stared for a long time and then went to do her laundry.

this

she woke up to the singing of birds in the trees crisscrossing the bedroom window. the morning was damp and the air was blue. he was still asleep and facing away from her. she stared out of the window knowing there would be no more dreaming for the rest of the day. there simply was no need for it. she rolled to her side to gaze at his bare shoulders. she quietly ran her fingers over the curl formed by his dark hair behind his ear and then kissed his warm neck. being careful not to wake him, she slid out of the bed and walked quickly across a cold wood floor which she knew the placement of every creak and groan and carefully avoided them all. she wore a thin white cotton knee length night gown with a loose drawstring around her waist and embroidery crawling around her neck and running along side her long braid that hung loosely down her back. the sun was beginning to warm the light coming through the kitchen window as she fed their two animals, an old curly sad dog and a cheerful but solitary short haired cat. the sky turned a pale blue as she walked barefoot from the backdoor to their garden where she buried her face in lavender and rolled rosemary leaves between her palms and rubbed their scents into her bare shoulders. her feet were numb from the dew and wet earth between her toes. she put her tan hands on her hips and tilted her head up to the tops of the trees where the birds were becoming more and more chatty, discussing the dreams they had and what patch of grass they might go look for breakfast in. she heard the water in the kitchen run and then stop as he was filling a teapot with water. though she couldn't see him, she felt his gaze through the kitchen window, and still staring up at the trees her eyes swelled with the perfection that was breaking open inside of a new morning. she smiled. she broke off a tiny branch of chamomile and glided back up to their house as he was opening the screen door. she put the tiny white flowers behind his ear, his green eyes shining like the wet grass under her feet. he smiled and then kissed her smiling mouth.

hope can be a very very dangerous thing.

8:34 am

this morning i dreamt of the instead, instead of wanting.
this morning you knocked at my door and your body filled the space your ghost has grown too comfortable in.
this morning i forgot to wish and forgot to remember.
this morning you realized that we are both too young to say: "i can't"

night bird

the air filtering into her bedroom was soaked in dreaming. her body lay tangled in the perfumes of a dozen different flower petals and oils. she breathed deeply to indulge in her own scent, and listened to the hum of a ceiling fan and the rolling purrs of the cat sleeping at her feet. she let her neck relax and her head came to rest at the left side of her pillow. she gazed through her partly opened window not realizing her eyes were still open. the sun was not yet creeping upon the houses across the street but it would be peering into their windows soon enough. a night bird, the first bird to sing of the morning sang a short song of solitude, his words not entirely clear, though she was able to decipher "bye" and "good" within his string of bells and chirps. she was familiar with this popular tune. she took another deep breath, this time trying to force down her heart as he began to scale the ivy covered lattice work of her consciousness to the place behind her eyes (a climb that was made whenever her body and mind became still enough). she closed her eyes, tightly, just now noticing how open they were and had been. she tried to listen again for the bird singing, or the cat purring, or the fan spinning, but instead her ears became filled with the sound of tiny pebbles tapping, clicking, being tossed at her window to the past. it was not at all like the one facing her night ridden street, it was a window filled with the light of possibility and blinding remorse that kept her mind in a constant state of dreaming. it was the brightness of it which kept her from sleeping. her nose began to sting with tiny flames licking at her sinuses as she clenched her teeth and grabbed the quilt wrapped about her in anticipation for the steam engine about to ram straight into her brain. it was an orgasm of sorts. matching at least in the level of fluids and elation produced. after the tears were expelled, behind the pools of her clouded vision, she could see and feel him most clearly. she could indulge her conscious and unconsciousness in his every part and whole. she followed him through open deserts and sweat with him in tangled jungles. she smiled to find his face sleeping next to hers. she kissed him. she tasted his breath inside of her closed mouth. straining to taste it with more depth, she took in a gasping breath, the sound from which opened her eyes again. she sank deeper under her quilt. she asked for the night bird to please, please, sing that song about the "bye" and the "good" again, how did it go? you see, i just have never understood the good in goodbye, but maybe if you could sing it once more...

sometimes the questions are the answers.

if i was homeless would you house me?
if i lost my sight would you lead me?
if i was jobless would you support me?
i wonder how fast you would get bored of me.

a thing that related perfectly with life at the moment

(excerpt from XII)


"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have spent on your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have spent on my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"People have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible forever for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

me to one

it is here in the cool shadows of great old trees
in the lucid plain contentedness of late afternoon irresponsibility
in the dawn of spring with the winter frosts still splintering the air
it is here in, when it is safe to say that yes, yes
happiness is growing through the dirt once again
and up through our palms as we recline in the dry grass
it is here in perfect forgetfulness that you can become most visible
as if not a memory at all but instead an ignorance
as a smile is appearing and quieting the fever behind the eyes and tongue
it is in here you are here in all
but in here you are not here at all