The air in my apartment smells the same, the grass outside is the same color. My bed is still just a bed, and my hands are the same size.
I have a few more clothes than last year, and a larger collection of DVDs. There is less food in my apartment. I have gained a few pounds, lost them, gained them back.

My hair is longer than it ever has been. My fingernails look the same. The TV is still dusty. The sign on the door saying "Check: turn off AC" is still taped securely. I am still five feet nothing. I listen to new bands. I listen to old ones. I have read more books this year than any other year in what I consider my "adult" life.

I still worry, I still get upset. I'm on time sometimes, and sometimes I'm late.

I am more assertive than last year. I am more uncertain than ever, but in some ways more sure. I still don't know what happiness is, and I'm not sure if I will ever find it. I have made so many mistakes, consciously and unconsciously. I have learned about the destruction of inertia. I have learned that I choose my problems that are the size of looking at a cell phone, whereas Gandhi turned to bigger problems.

My toenails are painted silver once more. I'm wearing the same rings.

My heart has been torn open, but only because it has been open have I been able to look inside. Only through clawing through darkness have I experienced light.

There are roads here, where we used to follow them. But where we're going, we don't need roads.

"Out beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I will meet you there."



Meet me in Montauk.

these wars will be fought again,
the sleeplessness, the desperation, the hope, the shame

these boundaries will be crossed again,
curiosity turned distrust,
alcohol and ambien


i have been told to let go
in more ways than one;

the coaster is just a coaster, the sheet of paper just paper
that we spend all the time holding on, for dear life we expend this energy
fingers peel apart,
light as a feather

rolls of film will go wasted,
the fog will creep in
and morning will rise again

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Leonard Cohen, as written on rachel's fridge

sometimes the dreams dress in white,
and hide in the softness of the creases.

i am unsure.


-


carrie's gestures about my photography, that her standards get higher every time, and somehow i manage to reach beyond them anyways. her words always make my heart swell with incredulousness, with gratitude.

"well, what do we do now?"
"i guess, we just keep dancing."

I read today:
"why are you so faithful to your fears?"

"the bad thing about beautiful buildings is that you cannot see them within them."

i can't find where i read this today.

rainy, climbing fences, belly dancing, pigs in a blanket, conversation with j, stretching up with my leg, i prefer to dance close, you don't dance close enough, are gin and tonics girly?, dirty hands, hands on hands, his name, laughter, singing in the car, his hands, i don't care if they are dirty, steady, we are bound to trip, but no, he won't catch my fall

my friend Sriram sent me this today. these days, the things that can make me turn to pieces in my office during the day are also the only things that hold me together.

A Girl You Should Date

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

– Rosemarie Urquico –

the idea of tragic is just that. an idea.
for, many people take tragedies
to be serious until they are told
they are actually comedies

and dancing is dancing until
it is no longer dancing
and really my hips are moving like water,
because i am water,
and you swim in me

and we built this kingdom together,
skyscrapers and volcanoes that take just
one-one-hundredth of a heartbeat
to cave in and destroy
here, first you take a whack at it,
and then it's my turn.
and now, yours.

and we can't recreate memories,
but what if we accidentally forget the past?
then the accident wouldn't be a tragedy anymore
instead the sun would rise just like yesterday
yet we would see it with unborn eyes

and in the accidental comedy you laugh until you cry,
but you won't understand why,
and you will swim in many oceans
swallow so much water
and forget many kingdoms,
and this city is just a city
and the moon will start rising
what is the diffference?

i suppose there was a window,
but perhaps we never looked outside
even at the darkest,
it could have always been morning.

"I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.”
― foer

"Use mornings of courage, light and optimism to draw the roadmap that will work in the darkness." -Alain de Botton

the heels of my hands dig into your collarbone, deeper, deeper, in which i dream that i am creating kingdoms where i can live again

does it get quieter, less visible?
does understanding it make it feel better, do the questions come faster and stronger and then there are no more questions as the closeness fades?

"that was the year... when I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it." -meghan

will we talk about it enough that the words fly from our mouths and rejoin together so that they may disappear from our own selves? do we find ourselves less weighty once that gravity leaves us? do we find ourselves lighter, or emptier?

she called me about a relationship that ended 2.5 years ago.
she couldn't believe that something about that relationship could still trigger feelings inside her, after so long. she is still looking for answers to a question that can never be answered.

--


we were driving together in the night, and he sighed and told me he hadn't slept much the night before. he said he had taken a five minute nap, and during the nap had one of those intensely vivid dreams. he said he dreamed only of their hands, his hand holding hers. and when he woke up she was not there, and he felt intensely sad.

somehow he knew it was her hand he was holding.

Also- Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, and Stuart Duncan's
Tiny Desk Concert

“Si le niegan la boca, ella habla por las manos, o por los ojos, o por los poros, o por donde sea.

Porque todos, toditos tenemos algo que decir a los demas; alguna cosa que merece ser por los demas celebrada, o perdonada.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano

sat with my mother and talked about trust. talked about intention, and about the inexistence of wrong and right. about obsession versus love, about possession over loving.

about my dad, and how he truly didn't think he did anything wrong. and explanations and apologies. about intention, intention, intention. sex and the city, where carrie lies to aidan about smoking when he asks her. she says "i must have liked him a lot" to have lied at first.

and what is rote existence anyways? and what makes us interesting? what makes us dissatisfied with mundane, yet yearn for stability?

why do we coin phrases like "ignorance is bliss" and "painful honesty"?

Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play

And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues strong
It’s always darkest before the dawn

And I’ve been a fool and I’ve been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
I’m always dragging that horse around

And our love is pastured such a mournful sound
Tonight I’m gonna bury that horse in the ground
So I like to keep my issues strong
But it’s always darkest before the dawn


And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh woah

I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
Cause I like to keep my issues strong
It’s always darkest before the dawn

And given half the chance would I take any of it back
It’s a final mess but it’s left me so empty
It’s always darkest before the dawn


And I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t
So here’s to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I’m ready to suffer and I’m ready to hope
It’s a shot in the dark and right at my throat
Cause looking for heaven, for the devil in me
Looking for heaven, for the devil in me
Well what the hell I’m gonna let it happen to me


And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh woah

if you think in the past it has been the "harder" task to give you space, it is not so. it is not about easy or hard, i see now, as in the past few days without you i have laughed and smiled more, but simply in the presence of your typed words my tears flow free for no reason but the absence of your affection.

t talked to me for a while.
she said, write, write profusely, write all the time.

i have, as the mountains of words unspoken and letters unsent grow.

"Love never dies by natural causes. It dies because we don't replenish its cup."

i promise myself i will let myself cry without the guilt that has grown over these years. i promise myself i will no longer feel wrong for feeling. i promise myself i will allow myself time to sit still. i promise myself i will not feel weak for wanting what i do.

out beyond ideas of wrong and right, there is a field.
i will meet you there

rumi.

“Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you.”

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

“Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names.

It was love lashed by its own self that spoke. It was pride half slain that fluttered in the dust. It was my hunger for your love that raged from the housetop, while my own love, kneeling in silence, prayed your forgiveness.”


“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”


“When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

“Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.”

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.”


the one and only gibran.

i think it was March. i was sitting in the car with you, and i was thinking that for some reason it was funny to have you drive me somewhere.

we were both quiet, and i just remember your quiet heartache speaking to mine.
my baby brother with his new heartbreak, not saying a thing.

i told you i was sad, too.
and you reached over and gave me a brother-hug, this sideways hug. it was like on Big Bang Theory when Sheldon hugs Penny. and i knew it would be all right.

i've been doing extensive searches on letting go, learning to love being alone, lying, truth, and forgiveness. these are searches that occur on Google and in my heart and in verbal dispute and more mistakes, and disappointment.

"For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?" - Bell Hooks

what it looks like, i don't know yet. the shapes, or sounds, or tastes of it, i don't recognize yet. i didn't know then, i don't know now.

whether it seems likely or not, from the moment i stepped back into my home, i felt your presence and absence everywhere. i felt the expansion of time.
and i sank to the ground, not having touched the red towels neatly folded, not having looked at anything else.

the emptiness of having been forced to say goodbye to you once again had sucked the hope out of me. and yet it still took the strength of every fiber in my mind to stop myself from calling to you, from telling you i looked for you at the airport, oh smoldering hope. i searched for you in every face, in every body. in every dream i fought the memory of you.

i punished myself for doing so, because i thought you were already gone. i punished myself for my puny, smiling hope.

i picked myself up with our simultaneous pain. i thought you were gone. i convinced myself you would never come to save me. who am i but a liar to myself?



“While I can’t have you, I long for you. I am the kind of person who would miss a train or a plane to meet you for coffee. I’d take a taxi across town to see you for ten minutes. I’d wait outside all night if I thought you would open the door in the morning. If you call me and say ‘Will you…’ my answer is ‘Yes’, before your sentence is out. I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you. For me, imagination and desire are very close.”
― Jeanette Winterson

“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

“Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”

― Steinbeck

My Meadow, My Twilight

Sure, there’s a spell the leaves can make, shuddering,
and in their lying suddenly still again—flat, and still,
like time itself when it seems unexpectedly more
available, more to lose therefore, more to love, or
try to…
But to look up from the leaves, remember,
is a choice also, as if up from the shame of it all,
the promiscuity, the seeing-how-nothing-now-will-
save-you, up to the wind-stripped branches shadow-
signing the ground before you the way, lately, all
the branches seem to, or you like to say they do,
which is at least half of the way, isn’t it, toward
belief—whatever, in the end, belief
is…You can
look up, or you can close the eyes entirely, making
some of the world, for a moment, go away, but only
some of it, not the part about hurting others as the one
good answer to being hurt, and not the part that can
at first seem, understandably, a life in ruins, even if—
refusing ruin, because you
can refuse—you look
again, down the steep corridor of what’s just another
late winter afternoon, dark as night already, dark
the leaves and, darker still, the door that, each night,
you keep meaning to find again, having lost it, you had
only to touch it, just once, and it bloomed wide open …

By Carl Phillips, found here

“When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

there are some coincidences that are not coincidences

today i pulled cello suites out of the river
and Bach rose from the remnants of your voice,
and i looked back to 2008,
wishing we were in bed, the mornings of the years to come still spread before our feet.

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

- charles bukowski

for two nights, i have been dreaming of people that haven't appeared in my real life in months or years.

you were in the house, it was a rented house, with couches, and kitchen countertops. your things were everywhere, your backpacks, your cameras. you came in with your red hair wild and free like it always is. we didn't speak much, we shook hands like we had never met.

it was ours to fight for

there will come a time when you think everything is finished. that will be the beginning

- louis l'amour

oh. even when i don't go looking for it, it is in front of me.



--

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next.


It's funny, as you live through something you're not aware of it.



If we can't face death, we'll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light.


- Maya Lin

we grow bigger
we swallow
we conquer, and are conquered
we divert
we diverge
we kick
we scream hoarsely
we make out in stairwells
we swell, but disappear
we dig without movement
we hope without hoping
we end without beginning

they lied, healing doesn't exist- forgetting makes us pretend to be better,
anger takes over, lets you forgive without feeling blame,
exhilaration because finally you are no longer prisoner to guilt,
the guilt in which you lived in (but instead you named love)
reeks,
aching and stale
shirts open
mouth on mouth
wounds like flags in the sky, white like clouds over the ocean

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.

jack gilbert

i've been reassessing the way i talk. even my writing is indirect and passive and not wholly truthful. i avoid eye contact when i don't know you. i avoid names when i speak or write. i'm terrified of being straightforward. i keep saying it was about how i was raised. what the fuck do i do about this?

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom." Anais Nin

it is absolutely necessary, this expanse of time in which i toggle between optimism and mourning...

And when I use others' words as my own, or others' words as yours, since there is emptiness where our love once stood. The mountains, though silent, stand there still, whether they are in front of us or behind us.



"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."
- Carl Sagan

I read an interview on louchelink.

Two simple questions and answers that i loved:

What is your biggest fear?

Loss in different ways...people I love mostly.


How would you like to be remembered?

As a person who laughed a lot.

"What's the difference between hesitation and waiting?"

-tm

someone asked me once why i don't write humorously.

i guess in the cases where i would write with humor, i'm just already too busy laughing.

there is a balance to this, i swear it

"In order for the most banal event to become an adventure, it is necessary, and sufficient, to retell it."
- Jean-Paul Sartre

you never call.

hearing your voice after not hearing it for months was shocking.

i am so proud of you. little boy into a little man, entering the world.
your conversation is deliberate, and your vocabulary is surprising. you're not 8 anymore.

i like the way the silence sounds when you're listening to me talk.

i have never been a good sister.

i had a conversation with S. the other day, and she told me about how her brother married a girl before he had lived with her.

S. said that her brother calls her every other day, complaining about things that his wife does, things that are mundane but matter a whole lot.

i think i told you once that i felt like we were always going through something. but when i look back on it, i realize fondly that i know how you will react in these situations, and i like the familiarity of knowing how you take care of things, the way you think through them with reason.

even though there were some very dark periods, there is a familiarity to your pragmatism, a familiarity to your emotion, a sweet expectation to the way you leave your wet towels on the bed and your empty coke bottles on the coffee table.

there was a growing tenderness to the way you would touch my belly when it hurt, or kept me company when i lay on the restroom floor with pain.

the little things are the ones that helped drive my heart back to you.

the incredible warmth of your hands whenever you touched my skin. i remember maybe only one time when i took your hands in mine and they were cold. but even when your hands are cold, they are not clammy. they are smooth, like rocks in a riverbed.

the way your hair feels between my fingertips.

the roundness of your eyes, the slight droopiness at the corners. it was in your eyes that i could tell you loved me, the way they would soften across the room. i could tell the times you felt nothing for me, and the times you felt everything.

your expression when you're driving

your laugh

the way your face changes with embarrassment, the cute kind, where you smile in a square shape


your feet


i used to think that the methodical way you spoke was analogous to hardness, but you are just that way. your enthusiasm comes in volume more than animation, and your animation comes in your hands.

this morning i woke up at the sound of the alarm,
which usually doesn't happen
it's not as bad as it once was,
but somehow still,
feeling
my heart palpitating and feeling the desperate heaviness of life,
somehow confusing it with the lightness of death.

i touch my loneliness with my fingers
and stroke it softly
i make love to my loneliness, because there is nothing left,

and no, good intentions are not what matters in the end.

my boots are heavy


A Pity. We Were Such A Good Invention

They amputated
Your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
Each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
They are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An aeroplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

-Yehuda Amichai

and you said you knew
how you were gonna take it
that you'd take it all
that you knew my heart was not that small
and how could we ever manage
carts and horses could never carry

all I want to give
not give enough
I want to give
not give you love

I chose the strangest little cup
to drink you from and stir you up
and you were beautiful it's true
and all I ever wanted was
to be good to you

and when you see me cry
you ask me, but I think that
you already know why
I'm staring up at the sky

and you said you understood
but promises are not that good
in this improper marriage
love and justice found miscarriage
at the only embassy
with an office for the damaged

and when you see me cry
you ask me, but I think that
you already know why
I'm staring up at the sky

-thao & mirah

it was love that set our fragile planet rolling
tilting at our perfect twenty-three
molecules and men infused with holy
finding our way around the galaxy
and paradise has up and flown away for now

but hope still breathes and truth is always true
and just when we think it's almost over
love has the final move

something right went very wrong
but love has been here all along


- C.R.

words carry oceans on their small backs

- l.y.

I suppose there is something strangely cathartic, even magical about the shamelessness of crying on public transportation during the early hours of the morning

Slow and sweet were the nights.
Now is bitter and grinding as sand--
"Let's be sensible" and similar curses.

And as we stray further from love
we multiply the words,
words and sentences so long and orderly.
Had we remained together
we could have become a silence.

- Yehuda Amichai

probably a house,
probably leftovers in the fridge,
probably shelves and shelves of books,
probably safe,
probably walkable from good or bad coffeehouses,
probably potholders in the shape of farm animals,
probably too many things,
probably full of plants we want to keep alive but never do,
probably flowers on the counter,
probably lots of trees, yes, trees

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

— Franz Kafka

"fate rarely calls upon you at a moment of your choosing"
- the transformers movie i'm watching while under the blankets in a hotel room

i find shelter, in this way
under cover, hide away
can you hear when i say?
i have never felt this way

maybe i had said, something that was wrong
can i make it better with the lights turned on?

could i be, was i there?

it felt so crystal in the air,
i still want to drown, whenever you leave
please teach me gently
how to breathe
and i'll cross oceans, like never before
so you can feel the way i feel it too
and i'll mirror images back at you
so you can see the way i feel it too

- shelter, the xx

perhaps tonight i'll make myself sick doing inversions in my hotel room while eating apples covered in peanut butter

or perhaps tonight i'll make myself sick thinking of you

one of the two.

If, when studying road atlases
while taking, as you call it, your
morning dump, you shout down to
me names like Miami City, Franconia,
Cancún, as places for you to take
me to from here, can I help it if

all I can think is things that are
stupid, like he loves me he loves me
not? I don’t think so. No more
than, some mornings, waking to your
hands around me, and remembering
these are the fingers, the hands I’ve

over and over given myself to, I can
stop myself from wondering does that
mean they’re the same I’ll grow
old with. Yesterday, in the café I
keep meaning to show you, I thought
this is how I’ll die maybe, alone,

somewhere too far away from wherever
you are then, my heart racing from
espresso and too many cigarettes,
my head down on the table’s cool
marble, and the ceiling fan turning
slowly above me, like fortune, the

part of fortune that’s half-wished-
for only—it did not seem the worst
way. I thought this is another of
those things I’m always forgetting
to tell you, or don’t choose to
tell you, or I tell you but only

in the same way, each morning, I
keep myself from saying too loud I
love you until the moment you flush
the toilet, then I say it, when the
rumble of water running down through
the house could mean anything: flood,

your feet descending the stairs any
moment; any moment the whole world,
all I want of the world, coming down.


Domestic, Carl Phillips

and today, i thought that maybe for being so different in our needs, perhaps we are too much alike.
the chronology of our anger, the geography of our hopes
all the while, our sexuality blooming around us


your cigarette-infused mouth covering mine,
saying things and swallowing my heart like
this cave that i found myself wanting to curl myself into,
and give birth in, or to (one or the other)-

in slow motion i watched your anger come through my door,
pull off my blankets from my legs, demand answers. your anger kissed me in the mouth and continued yelling at me and then

your fingers raged war against my skin, the war everyone thought had ended

but secretly i am glad that this is the war that has come to stay,
not a war between countries but of the regions of our hearts,
for war means peace soon,
in this case perhaps never,
but still it seems so likely
that even in battle i find my wounds worth kingdoms

in the morning i smell the cigarettes in my hair, and i breathe in the smells and sounds of your sweat, the kind of breath that is never satisfied

and i welcome my hunger for you
the space i have lived in
and the space i will crave

INTERVIEWER

Which is most important to writing poetry, description or compression?

GILBERT

Neither. I would say presence, feeling, passion—not passion, but love. I usually say romantic love, but here I don’t mean being thrilled. I mean the huge experience of loving another person and being loved by another person. But it’s more than just liking someone or thinking they make you happy.

INTERVIEWER

In your poems, how important is the interplay between syntax and line breaks?

GILBERT

I don’t think that way. I work by instinct and intelligence. By being smart, emotional, probing. By being sly, stubborn. By being lucky. Being serious. By being quietly passionate. By something almost like magic.

INTERVIEWER

To which of your poems are you most attached?

GILBERT

That’s like asking to which of the women you’ve loved are you most 
attached—the best ones.

INTERVIEWER

Do you think poetry is relevant in our society anymore? Do you think it has a place?

GILBERT

Someone once asked Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization. And he’s supposed to have said, “I think it would be a very good idea.” That’s the way I feel.

INTERVIEWER

Do you still wake happy but aware of your mortality?

GILBERT

Yes, though sometimes I have to have a cup of tea first.

i dreamt about you again. maybe it was because i spent time envisioning our childhood, banging on pots and pans, dancing in our diapers (my mom said that since we could walk, we could shake our booties).

some similarities cannot be seen, i suppose.

"When there is nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire"
- stars

there is something about the attentiveness of suspicion. threads and threads of it.

last night, loren talked about human self-preservation.
that i had to start understanding that's why you left me so many times.
self-preservation, delusion- that's why i have lied to you. that's why i am a coward.

we have such a built up sense of instinct, and it all funnels towards these instant reactions that sometimes we can't take back but we try oh-so-hard to. that's why we fight, for the epic feeling of overcoming.

but that's not why i'm fighting.

i'm fighting because every time a dark hole has swallowed us, you pulled us out, and made me fall in love with you again.

i know i may not have the same capacity. we'll swim somewhere else, and then it will be just us and the sea.

what i like about tango is that even when i am not thinking about it and someone brings it up, i can't help but start smiling. i know that after a bad day, i will be surrounded by friends and doing something i love. that's why i do what i do.

i am so lucky, i have the best friends and best family

notes on the weekend:
starlight, heavy with intention
feet, heavy with intent
hands, heavy with hope

notes on your skin:
soft
darker than mine
dimple in left cheek


i used to crush my dimple with my finger, wondering if it would make it deeper, wondering if it would make me more different from you

your face looks unfamiliar, but so much like mine, smile upon smile, mouth opening and closing.

i like the way your lips move, thoughtful. they move unlike anyone else's i've ever seen. but i don't watch my own lips much, either. perhaps i notice because we often eat together, and i have always admired the thoughtful way they crease.

perhaps they talk about you as if you are a concept, but everything i remember about you is very corporeal.

today i feel my hands heavier than normal, and i touch my lips as if they are not mine.

dreams from last night:
seattle, my sister lived in seattle
my twin sister, lots of her, more than i have seen in two years, everywhere in my dream, saturated feelings
calling you on the phone, asking you where to eat
vivid images of sushi restaurants i have never seen before

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
-george eliot

what is it about geography?
i find such significance in travel, but i am always essentially coming back to the same place and exploring the same people with the same smoothing of my fingertips.

in denver, the light was low (hotel rooms are always lit in the same way).

i turned to you and said, "i am always writing the same thing, over and over again, in different forms. but still the same reincarnation"

you said, "really?"

and i said, "yes, i think all writers and artists (in all shapes and forms) are always re-making the same thing."

i turned to carrie and asked confirmation. she nodded, with that famous look of infinite wisdom and innocence, if such a paradox could exist. and what are we living then, if not a circle? and what do we breath in, if not a rhythm? and what do we love within, if not a cycle?


"As soon as you stop, it's because you've started again.
You can put a picture aside and say you won't touch it again, but you can never write the end." - Picasso

when i remember my dreams, you are always in them

across the top of the last page of the journal i started this year, i wrote:

2011 feels like heaven



on that page, i wrote down 17 goals, and have succeeded in 14 of them.

the three i haven't achieved yet are as follows:

1) cooking healthy
2) read more current events/news
3) de-clutter my home


but my favorite one that i have accomplished is:

- be happy

familiar territory, this treading water. oh how the highs are high, oh how the lows are low.

Please don't say we're done
When I'm not finished
I could give so much more
Make you feel, like never before
Welcome, they said welcome to the floor

It's been a while
And you've found someone better
But I've been waiting too long to give this up
The more I see, I understand
But sometimes, I still need you

Sometimes, I still need you
And I was struggling to get in
Left waiting outside your door
I was sure
You'd give me more

No need to come to me
When I can make it all the way to you
You made it clear
You weren't near
Near enough for me

Heart skipped a beat
And when I caught it you were out of reach
But I'm sure, I'm sure
You've heard it before


- heart skipped a beat, the xx

"It's the strangest thing. When I met Brittany, I was not the I am now, and she was not the she. People change so much as you know them (high-speed changes). Sometimes your changes cross paths. We went from nothing alike in the beginning to shockingly alike now. In the best of ways. And, even better, different enough to want to know more."
- traci

"Life is scarier than death," she said

what is it about restlessness that makes it so powerful?

“Ask yourself about the source in your artistic longings. Why is it so necessary that you want to do your thing? How strong is it? Would you do it if it were forbidden? Illegal, punishable? Every work of art has its necessity, find out your very own. Ask yourself if you would do it if nobody would ever see it, if you would never be compensated for it, if nobody ever wanted it. If you come to a clear ‘yes,’ in spite of it, then go ahead and don’t doubt anymore.” - Ernst Haas, thanks Viju

everyone is born into this world alone

but i wasn't

i wonder how much of my life this explains. probably a lot more than i think.

to be honest, most days i have as many meals as hobbits (breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and supper). today someone at work noticed that i'm always snacking at my desk and asked me if i'm expecting.

someone else said i eat so much because i'm in love.

i wonder if everyone else knows things that i don't.

the only moment we were alone
you put your hand in mine
and what a glorious alone it was

if we were volcanoes

i can't stop listening to drumming, or cello-playing because all i can hear is how it echos the way my heart pitter patters and splatters all over everything

it's dark, darling. you're not here. like most days.

my headphones are on, the big bulky ones that you always say must have cost me a lot of money. the bigger the things the more it costs, it seems. and Wake Up is blasting, over and above everything, darker than the darkness and louder than the words that you never even spoke. there are three blankets on top of my thighs but i feel colder than i did on the glaciers
oh how dare you, but now my life is being saved and my breath is shallow
in between or in the seams i can't tell
or i can't remember,
one of the two.
i think i'd be prouder of the latter, but the former would have let me sleep.

he held me as i cried your tears
and he held up the architecture he never designed
and he cleaned up the messes he never made

The music we listen to defines our shared identities even more poignantly than the books we read. There is no more challenging question than the seemingly casual "what music do you like?"; the right answer makes two people soulmates, the wrong one makes them strangers.

- bill davenport on tierney malone's exhibit

it's your fault i spend all of my time listening to music
it's your fault i can't concentrate
it's your fault i'm dissatisfied with beige walls
it's your fault i eat more fruit
it's your fault i play my guitar
i blame my happiness on you

my eyes can't shut, and my ears can't stop listening

music of the month:
- vampire weekend
- the xx
- lykke li
- thao & mirah
- beirut
- lenka
- balkan beat box
- stars
- the section (quartet)
- coeur de pirate
- arcade fire (still! because they saved my life)

tastes this weekend:
dark semi-sweet chocolate chip walnut honey pancakes
oatmeal with nutmeg, cinnamon, and dates
omelettes stuffed with with serrano peppers and onions and tomatoes
bananas, sliced
sauce guessing game at my mom's
egg drop soup with corn
snap peas
mushrooms and onions
mom's famous chicken wings
spicy garlic sauce
rice
lasagna, baked with peppers, broccoli, spinach, meat sauce, no cheese
mangoes, both sweet and sour
plums
truffles
homemade guacamole and CVS tortilla chips
biscuits with corn, with lime
rocky road before and after every meal

let me count the ways.

in seven years, i will wish that i had taken more photographs of my mother. in seven years, i will wish that i had gone swimming more often. in seven years, i will still chase the sunlight. in seven years, i will wish that i had had the guts to climb more mountains. in seven years, i will no longer be afraid to ride a bike. in seven years, i will still hate cheese. in seven years, i will wish that i had laughed instead of cried. in seven years, i won't remember the scars on my thigh. in seven years, i'll still be in pieces over the ocean. in seven years, i will further understand how lucky we are that we can see. in seven years, i will wish that i had practiced the piano when my teacher asked me to. in seven years, i hope i still feel as much and often as i do now.

if you're right, then all love is a lie

where our endings were the same as our beginnings.

"Because I will come home to you at night and make love to you until you cry out for me to stop. I will leave you in the morning with the taste of my kiss on your lips. I will live my life for you. I will fill your days with gladness and if God sends us heartbreak, I will hold you in my arms until your tears have passed and then i will teach you how to laugh again."

- judith mcnaught

as i stepped onto the plane, i was still furiously trying to mend my heart. i remember the anticipation thick in the air, the kind that is incited only by red velvet cake or something of the same richness. i drummed my fingers against the plane window. the plane arrived.

i walked through the airport, calling your phone. nervous, because i knew you were sort of dependable, but not always. i know, that is a purposeful paradox.

i left you a message after you didn't pick up several times. i walked some more. i sat in different places.

i walked to the gate. i looked around. i probably looked for your curly, messy hair. i didn't find it, so i kept walking.

i listened to music to keep myself from getting too frustrated.

and then i walked again to the gate, tired. this time finding you. and our eyes probably had the same tone, some kind of misguided hue, wondering, curious, because it's been 4 years. your eyes were bigger than i remembered, you hair (or lack thereof) trimmed close and receding a little (in an endearing way), which is why i didn't recognize you. your skin about the same, your lips a little wiser, your teeth a little whiter from your obsessive brushing. still as minimalistic as i remembered you, for your carry-on was a neck pillow and a book. you were holding your phone, which had proceeded to die as you landed in miami. you said that you thought you saw me, but my hair is longer, unrulier, and you said I looked Latina. so you didn't wave me down.

and we laughed, kind of the start of all the bells of laughter we'd play in the coming weeks.

untitled
July 1, 2008 – 6:43 am

last night, before you came to bed, i dreamt about the ocean. there were children and lovers and hopeful mothers and it was a funny time of year (when the sun sets so slow and all you can hear is wind).

the calligraphic clouds draw fearlessly from our strength, and i watch the waves wandering closer.

i’ve been waiting all this time for something to break. i’m balanced here earnestly waiting for inevitable collapse, and still you patiently build sand castles around my feet.

i strum

March 11, 2009 – 1:04 pm

i’m dancing unconsciously again, to whatever music they are playing in the Starbucks downstairs.

my god, she says.
i wonder what your mother was doing when she was pregnant with you, because music courses through your veins like this unstoppable force.

–

i think about the one a lot.

he’s probably a poet, throwing verbal tantrums and spreading it across pages of moleskines like peanut butter on bread. he probably has a bit of money tucked away in various tattered pants pockets so that at any moment’s notice, he will suggest that we run away to a different continent and experience each other in a different context of life. he’s probably an amateur chef who loves to cook simple breakfasts, and he will let me photograph him in colorful aprons even if he forgets to wash the dishes most of the time. he’s probably a photographer who finds his muse in my eyes and composition in my unruly hair. he gives me piggy back rides. he lets me stand on my tiptoes to kiss him. he kisses me in the rain. he’s probably a musician, who is fascinated with the bandoneon and the piano and plays the djembe. he only snores when he’s very tired, or has a cold. he’s probably a computer nerd who used to play computer games, but has converted to being well-read instead. he looks good shirtless and he drinks dos equis with lime. his dark hair is curly and untamed in the mornings. he knows his current events, and has strong political opinions. he is fiercely loyal, too pragmatic for my taste, but he still loves me for who i am, and listens with sincerity when i have romantic volcanic catharses. and damn, he can move his hips on the dance floor, and he doesn’t care who sees. he sings in the shower, and is more successful at folding laundry than i am. he forgets to put the toilet seat down and i work on biting my tongue. he is a swimmer, and when he swims, he carries me with him.

–
i don’t have time to feel, so in turn i have nothing to process.
but i will say that last night i had the window down, and i was driving to the yoga studio, and i was singing alanis morisette or jason mraz or something that falls between those genres, and i smiled and felt good again.

–

in austin, tu and i studied the art of a heart on a fork.
our hearts are little strawberries, roots stretched across the soil, feeling deep, delicate and they can get cold and sick so easily but when they finally come through, oh, how sweet they are. and we have festivals to celebrate them, and it’s a cycle, you know, one day again after the frost, they’ll ripen again

Monday, July 3rd, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9:00 am - when we part



i am back in the country. i contemplated writing "i am back in my country", but gradually i am not so sure.

i left the mighty mountains of yunnan armed with too many photos of the sky and memories overflowing my heart.

i turned twenty one on my first day in Tainan. i cried in front of the starched paleness of my grandfather's hospital bed. my cousin got me drunk that night on Smirnoff and karaoke songs.

my last three days in beijing were composed purely of heartbeats in an inmeasureable rhythm. i looked into the reflection of his sunglasses as i pressed my palm to the window of the taxi cab. his mouth was set in a pin-straight line, and he did not move as the taxi pulled me quietly out of his view. "boyfriend?" asked the taxi driver. "no...no. a very very good friend." leaving him meant leaving china.

my flight was delayed two hours.
i got into san francisco and dashed toward the gate where my transfer flight was waiting. in slow breaths and 4/4 time, i passed matthew scheer- curly hair, green eyes. falling hard while walking across the golden gate bridge and falling asleep while watching waking life. life moves in cycles. i catch my breath. i can't stop smiling when i hear Tu's voice.

the plane slipped into the houston air just in time for me to witness the golden clouds of the Texas sunset. i cried as the escalator brought me into view of my mother's smile. 800 renmenbi are still carelessly stuffed into my purse. my plastic credit cards stretch and smirk in their sudden usefulness. the future rushes at me with sickening certainty. i have not yet learned how to stand still. i think about being single. i am tired of answering questions about what i write. i seek change with far more dignity than i should be allowed,

"You are what disappears: you are the thing that someone has let go of, you leave a trail of words behind you simply to continue existing." stephen bor
.

我们第一次见面
却好像认识了一百年
谁回相信
这么美丽的开始...


during lunch, yesterday, i discovered that my hands still hadn't stopped shaking.

the problem with being straight is that i completely emotionally exhaust every man i'm with.

saturday, march 17, 2007

i took down this quote.

"... in whatever one does, there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart. One must come to one's subject in a pure spirit. There must be time for contemplation, for reflection about the world and the people about one. If one photographs people, it is their inner look that must be reflected. One must reveal what goes on inside them, as well as their relation to the outer world."

Henri Cartier-Bresson, on Portraits.

Having troubles telling how I feel
But I can dance, dance and dance
Couldn't possibly tell you how I mean
But I can dance, dance, dance
So when I trip on my feet
Look at the beat
The words are, written in the sand
When I'm shaking my hips
Look for the swing
The words are, written in the air
oh, dance...
I was a dancer all along
Dance, dance, dance
Words can never make up for what you do, hey
Easy conversations, there's no such thing
No I'm shy, shy, shy
My hips they lie 'cause in reality I'm shy, shy, shy
But when I trip on my feet
Look at the ground
The words are, written in the dust
When I'm shaking my hips
Look for the swing
The words are written in the air
oh, dance!
oh I was a dancer all along
Dance, dance, dance
Words can never make up for what you do
Dance, dance, dance


Lykke Li, dance dance dance

"live through this, and you won't look back."

from here:

i am becoming increasingly aware that the things that make me an interesting writer (i can say that, no? interesting? let's go with it) make me a less than skilled liver-of-life.

i spin stories and fill in the blanks and make illogical leaps that i then get to justify. and that justification is awfully tricky and awfully fun when done on the white blank page (or screen, as it turns out).

it's the best part, actually: making real the illogical. making true the impossible.

and yet, in life, this contortionist's act is...less than helpful.

i'm working on it, on taking things at face value. and trusting that if someone says something, they mean it.

but what this really means is, i get insecure. terribly, so. and i may not always be able to distinguish if we've talked about something or if it's just a conversation i lived in my mind.

so, do me a favor won't you? squeeze my hand. and pull me the three feet down to solid ground.

love, love,

the one hoping she learns to plant her feet before you find her

out of the 16 things that i wrote down to do in 2011, i've been practicing 10. not too bad.

"Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love."
— Jonathan Safran Foer

"With writing, we have second chances."
— Jonathan Safran Foer

it's funny because i think, if we are no longer together, well, it makes me sad but not so much

i know that the next girl you are with will never know how much you have worked at yourself. and grown. but i do.

i am convinced that the absurd happens in life until it convinces you that it no longer is absurd, and suddenly everything changes again.

"We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it" - George Eliot

fear of being alone versus fear of being hurt

we seldom do things that make sense
but maybe that's what will make this work

recently i examine my status as a chameleon.

tango instructor, tango dancer, occasional tango DJ, even more occasional pool party DJ, obsolete web designer, easy guitar tabs guitar player, sort of photographer, sometimes writer, casual salsa dancer, rare swing dancer, former token-asian-girl-on-hip-hop-team, shower singer, lover/fighter depending on the cause and the rebellion, self-proclaimed writer both humorously and food-ily, shy poet, alpha-female in the workplace, people-observer extraordinaire, mountain-climber, 4-inch-stiletto heels wearer, riot causer, proponent of peace, runner, retired casual bicycler, park rollerblader, arguably "half" or "whole" of anything, american but chinese, chinese but american, taiwanese not chinese, chinese and taiwanese, something like mexican, traveling technology consultant, stumbling Spanish-speaker, travel-bug-infested backpacker, posh-hotel-stayer, hopeful human being, doubtful, certain, and everything in between.

what must it be like
to not feel at every turn
every look

There's an art
to everything. How
the rain means
April and an ongoingness like
that of song until at last

it ends.


"..."

I love you, he said. He was
shaking. He said:
I love you. There's an art
to everything. What I've
done with this life,

what I'd meant not to do,
or would have meant, maybe, had I
understood, though I have
no regrets. Not the broken but
still-flowering dogwood. Not

the honey locust, either. Not even
the ghost walnut with its
non-branches whose
every shadow is memory,
memory...As he said to me

once, That's all garbage
down the river, now. Turning,
but as the utterly lost—
because addicted—do:
resigned all over again. It

only looked, it—
It must only look
like leaving. There's an art
to everything. Even
turning away. How

eventually even hunger
can become a space
to live in. How they made
out of shamelessness something
beautiful, for as long as they could.

-carl phillips

may 23rd, 2009. he wrote to me and sent me this poem:

We weren't exactly children again,
too many divorces, too many blood panels,
but your leaning into me was a sleeping bird.
Sure, there was no way to be careful enough,
even lightning can go wrong but when the smoke
blows off, we can admire the work the fire's done
ironing out the wrinkles in favor of newer ones,
ashy furrows like the folds in the brain
that signal the switchbacks and reversals
of our thought and just as brief. Your lips
were song, your hair everywhere.
Oh unknowable, fidgeting self, how little
bother you were then, no more
than a tangerine rind. Oh unknowable
other, how I loved your smell.
- Dean Young

this morning i woke up and did yoga facing the sunlight... before going to yoga class.
how 'bout them apples?

but aren't we the powerful ones?
the soft ones, the alive?
the treble clef in our hands, the music in our eyes?

x

in tense territories, we learn how not to fall

funny how
in this manner,

anger became my greatest companion
and compassion my greatest fear

it makes me giggle stupidly to remember how you told me this story.
we were on the phone, again, it's been two weeks straight that we've talked every night- and your mom walked in

and she gave you a knowing, cheeky smile while gesturing to the phone
"it could be a boy... it could be a girl..."

and closed the door.

my finger tips are bruised. also, i bought yet another plane ticket today. i have 6 pending flights from now through november.

the songs i learned (or re-learned) on the guitar yesterday:

follow through
(oh, this is the start of something new... and we can build through this destruction... oh, look what i'm holding here in my fire, this is for you)

arms
(i never thought that you would be the one to hold my heart...
you put your arms around me and I'm home
how many times will you let me change my mind and turn around?
i can't decide if i'll let you save my life or if i'll drown
i hope that you see right through my walls
i hope that you catch me, because i'm already falling
i'll never let a love get so close)


i will follow you into the dark
(love of mine
someday you will die
but i'll be close behind
i'll follow you into the dark
if heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied
illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
if there's no one beside you when your soul embarks
then i'll follow you into the dark)

between the sky and the sky
our hands met in the darkness
violently trembling

but curiously, this time, not from the glacial cold.

god of the night
tell me more about your sun


--

i treat so many things with the utmost urgency. i like reading on my sister's blog,
"life is not an emergency"


---

"It's that easy. It's dangerous how quickly I let go of things. With how much force I pick things up.

And then, of course, is what sticks around. In spite of me letting it go. That we call love."
- traci

i found the perfect man for me when i was 19. but i wasn't ready yet. and now he's no longer perfect.


and since then, i have loved the same kind of man, over and over again.

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
8:53 pm - i know how he felt





in a city that doesn't belong to me anymore, in a bed that isn't mine, there are the not-so-fleeting moments that i remember how it feels to be away from you. your absence has the consistency of tango rhythms and the texture of constellations. the wind will change again, and i'll see you clearly again. the tides will turn and the sun won't feel so hot, and the piano will sing again. i like my moonlight sonata, on the rocks. just let me cry a little while it plays, and i'll be okay.

i think about the way my arms pooled around your ankles, like discarded pants. it is impossible to forget the way your hands pressed against my shoulders as you held me away from you, and how the blue hood of your sweater rimmed your cheeks. you only think about how much sleep you're losing while in the midst of breaking my heart.

you are so gentle with the cultivation of desperation that shadows me in my dreams. careful not to let me feel more than i am, but so forceful to make me feel less than i've ever felt. a girl throws away friendships for you, and you just look away.

but aren't we the leftovers of our own dreams?

aren't these the moments we should spend reveling in life, and color, and words, and young love, and drumbeats, and footsteps? not video game controllers, not dollar patrons or burning martinis? i remember your fingers lacing across my thighs. i get drunk off of touch. i could care less about alcohol.

you are fearless, he said, watching me throw my body against the little sailboat. it was raining.

yes i am. i said, while thinking about you. yes, i am.

does it all end the same way? it seems like it. it's just one big circle, and every moment i'm just at another one of the points that is just like the last.


i've made a fucking lot of mistakes in the past

i haven't processed it all yet.

the wet, freezing air. possibilities of movement everywhere.
our breath, heaving, pushing, and hanging there.

the tents like caves, our hearts like rivers.

the faces of Peruvian people- etched with carvings of the land, the history, the politics, the hope and the patience. the throb of excitement in sharing the stories. the slow, winning smiles.

i sit here now, in the lull of air conditioning, surrounded by the theme beige walls. i bore myself, looking at the wrinkles on my hands. thinking about the scars on my right ankle from tripping on mountains, skipping across the sky.

dear r,

i feel all of this hope, this life. but i'm not sure where to put it, where to hide it. and why should i?

the lights in the city speak to me of a different past. one that i tried on like flimsy socks, the kind that move around and don't fit quite right. i am terrified of the strength of how i felt for this past, i am terrified of the oceans of fear that ruled me and gave way to undertows of ruin. perhaps our tenderness would have been enough, perhaps our pieces whole.

is shallow better because it hurts less, or allows fewer unknowns to lurk inside of it?

i will publish the letter one day, but until then, i believe in you to make it real.

with tentative love but certain light,
rose

i practiced handstands. i fell. i did the splits on chain ropes. i did cartwheels. i put one foot in front of the other.

i bet they didn't know
that in the spaces of your jest

there is an ocean of seriousness
looking me in the eyes

unspoken happiness lines my lips
as she quips that one needs wit to keep up with me

--

there were moments in the glacial cold when i would glance briefly at your hands, shaking with starlight (or just freezing, one of the two). i could feel our distance, intentional and silent like the mountains.

---

is the idea grander than this reality?

--

when i look into your eyes, i cannot tell the time. i cannot feel the cold seeping into my 7 layers of clothes. i cannot feel the snow, nor the immense stomachache that consumes me at this altitude. i do not recognize thirst or exhaustion.


--

this is not luck we feel.

I said I've been looking for myself
And now I know where to look

there is so much my heart is learning right now
i can't contain it all
my eyes too polite, my lips too desperate

as we meander through the cobblestone streets and rakesh scolds me any time i am on my phone, i relish the feeling of stepping into this place. corn is sold in baskets, eggs are sold in stacks, and in the bustle of 11pm there are hot bowls of soup and skewers of beef and potatoes for sale. the sun peeks in and out of the clouds, and the mountains cradle the city lovingly as it has since the beginning of time.

i believe in the colors, the woven craft. i believe in smaller cars, in rice and chicken. i believe in the curious eyes and the dogs fighting over meat stuck to bone. the older women carrying babies on their backs and breasts. holding hands to cross the streets. the yelling of agony and extreme enthusiasm during soccer matches. the celebrations of tradition. the children being children, and yes, loving dirt.

i theorize about their stories. and when i am lucky, they tell them to me.

the cold wakes up something inside of me, and yes, this is what it is to be alive.

full of heart, full of green. south america astounds me every time.

i'd like to go west,
where the boundaries of our past do not bind us,
where the wind takes us where it pleases, which is where we want to go

i lost my journal for the second time this year.

and despite my growing fears,
we are together

you were vulnerable to get in touch with me
and i was
to let you in.


we touched with water, pooling at each other's feet.
we swam, jets streaming in our faces, heat carried on our chests
does the magic hit you the way my heels hit the ground?

i ask more questions than i have time to scrounge for answers to

well. it touched me. Quoted from Liz's blog post:

In 2000, I accompanied my mother to Sarajevo to meet a family that she had been supporting and corresponding with since the war, through Women 4 Women International. This was soon after the war ended, and the region was still somewhat unstable. You can’t imagine the people in my life who begged me–begged me–not to go.

I haven’t written about it much publicly (although I did touch on it here) for reasons I can’t entirely grasp just yet. But it wholly changed the direction of my life. How can it not? I met families who became my family, like long-lost cousins I had just discovered.

I listened to women tell me, first-hand, stories of rape and abuse at the hands of Serbian soldiers.

I had toasted steins of pivo with friends, dancing wildly to turbofolk albums in bars that were entirely unremarkable–except for the bombed-out shells that passed for the front entrances.

I slept in the bed of an elderly, formerly wealthy woman who rented out her lovely apartment to visitors to be able to afford her rent. We discovered the next morning over strong coffee and sweet rolls that she had slept on the couch.

I graciously carved the small chicken at a family’s home, that was intended to serve 14 of us.

I picnicked in the most gorgeous park, which our friend had to scout for landmines before choosing a spot for our blanket.

I traded smiles with ten year-old children who had to re-learn how to run, that long had they spent in hiding underground.

I sobbed, as my friend Tima took my hand and held it to her throat so that I could feel the shrapnel that remained imbedded under her skin.

And then, I came home, continued doing what I could for these families emotionally and financially, wrote furiously in my journal about it, and hoped that some day I would find the right way to tell these women’s stories to a larger audience.

Then I went on with my life.

Is my experience one that should be dissected and mocked, simply because of who I am and where I live?

Was I simply a “poverty tourist?”

I guess I am one of those “means justifying the ends” types of gals. I don’t care how or why Madonna adopts children in other countries. I don’t care about Angelina’s motives for being a UNICEF ambassador. And I don’t care whether Nike donated $100 million to human rights charities for good publicity and the tax deduction.

These are the acts that make good things happen.

i'd like to study anatomy
where you are my textbook
and my canvas is your eyes

so what is this aesthetic?
the one that mocks our dream?

my beautiful friend and coworker Hend got married this past weekend. after a whirlwind of music (both latin and arabic) and words and dancing, i see the meaning of happiness left there standing with brilliance in the end.

we have come such a long way. 3 years ago we were writing our hopes and dreams on napkins and restaurants. and look at us now, just look how far we've come.

i did find your bed of anger
i slept it it with my face down against the pillows, rank with the smell of your fear
i made the bed of your anger, carefully sliding my hands across the sheets
and you were lying there, prostrate
and i find tears leftover where there should be none,
i drink water when we are no longer thirsty and when i am thirsty i find no drink

but today i see sunlight, and sunlight wipes this bed
clean with its fingers
reaching further than i could ever hope
and hoping deeper than i could ever reach

i am cradled
in the heat of the night time
your body emits air
and i breathe it in
i'm not sure where my heart wanders during our dreams
of floating and bathtubs and travels across couches
but in the morning it follows the hollow of your throat
back to your arms again.

i really like food way too much

sometimes i'm in yoga class, coming out of final savasana, and i'm turned on my right side towards the evening light streaming from the windows, and i just smile. it's like the molecules in the universe come in and you can't do anything but smile. and then you know how powerful you are, everything you are, just the way you are.

I suppose I could become a wave in the night. They come in, rocks and tide, ripping the sand and following the wind.

I suppose I could become like my Chinese name. It means "joy", but who knows what that really is anyways?

I suppose I could become like Carl Sandburg's fog. sitting on my silent haunches. Coming in on little cat feet.


"And I became fierce like a lion
Then tender like the evening star."
- Rumi


by the way, I updated www.rosekuo.org.

the day the world ended

the day the world ended,
i collapsed
my body was leaving itself
i couldn't see or hear
but heart found me through, hers and mine

i've been putting volcanoes in my poetry my whole life, and i finally walked passionately along the the base of one

you will know when i have arisen
you will hear the absence of my tears.

also
he said he liked my poem
the one i recited
or made up
at the time
about hiking across his chest
my fingers that is

notes:
like volcanoes
except
maybe even more surprising
more burning with
liquid heat
my ears
my heart

spreading spreading

and maybe even more destructive
because it's so concentrated

yes,
i enjoy invisibility
from time to time

but not today.

if i went to wyoming, i'd kiss the trees and watch my breath form shapes in the fog

we'd listen, and we would be unstimulated but so stimulated
no billboards or phones
just silence and sound

impossibly possible

what are the opportunities that are borne of this moment? what are we missing by thinking about tomorrow?

what does sexuality mean? why is it so important to some and not in others? what does it signify?

is this nature or nurture?

where do i find inspiration?

eyelashes. water. light. mess.

a new year, a new light

heart flutters, full of flight