all we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us
- penny, from lost
yes. i am very late to the lost game. 

"They missed each other. The missing grew large between them,"

"This song / Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness."

two lines from Song, poem by Brigit P Kelly

i read this book earlier this year. hmm.

“Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance back at you.”
― David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary

“If you’re a woman, if you’re a person of color, if you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you’re a person of size, a person of intelligence, a person of integrity, then you’re considered a minority in this world. And it’s going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way or else you’re worthless. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution and our revolution is long overdue.”

- Margaret Cho


“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

i asked my friend (who lives far away and happens to be an amazing poet and also carried me up the stairs one time and also brought me avocados to eat and coconut water to drink after going out for a walk with his dog) to send me some poetry that he likes, so that i could have some poetry to read. It was funny because I asked him on a day that I felt sad, and I told him that it would cheer me up to read poetry but of course every poem he sent me was very melancholy. Can you be happy, and write good poetry? Unsure.

These words, they are grinding up the inside of my heart.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.

Silence - by Billy Collins

There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.

Miroslava Duma, who stands at 5'0 tall and dresses so fashionably-- on being short(er than average):

“But I never had a complex to be taller. We have a saying in Russia: A small dog is a puppy until very old age.”

Oh! and to lighten things up, I have a confession. Ever since watching The Walking Dead in a record marathon with one of my best friends, I've been kind of obsessed with talking about zombie apocalypses because they are so fascinating in many respects. (being injured and forced to stay on the couch and find entertainment really allows you to become an expert in really useless things). The CDC even has a sort-of "tongue in cheek" response as to what to do in case of a zombie apocalypse. You can judge me later, but Quora is onto me and emailed my weekly digest with this question:

What don't people do in zombie apocalypse movies that you would do?

This weekend,  I went to this amazing art warehouse/rooftop party with yoga, a DJ, live music, free drinks, food, the whole shebang. all to benefit a nonprofit that is working to bring yoga to all. We did the wobble (I successfully executed my on-crutches version of the wobble), drank Summer Shandy and hard apple cider, watched the sunset across the Houston skyline.

Sometimes I think we do need reminders (I love it how straightforward Dooce's post on this is) of how utterly beautiful the world is around us, in our own backyard. Even if there are no mountains or rivers or rolling hills. I laugh when people tell me that Houston is "ugly"- have you seen the sunset? have you see the skyline? have you felt the evening breeze, the only kind where it feels cool enough to feel refreshing yet warm enough to still be in a tank top and sandals?

Even though I couldn't do all of the poses, just sitting down in the midst of amazing people watching the evening sun set, I couldn't help but feel gratitude, (and yes, this is my daily theme), gratitude for being alive, for being able to move around and wiggle my toes, for being able to reach my arms to the sky.

*photo from here

this morning:

Lifehacker's Unconventional, Scientific ways to be happier.
Also, "It's easier to put things off than it is to actually get to work on them, but as author Alvah Simon reminds us, "The best time to take action toward a dream is yesterday; the worst is tomorrow; the best compromise is today."

Kristan and I have been creating a collaborative playlist on Spotify, and while driving I listened to this song that she added. And I loved it.

"Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go"

(Passenger, "Let Her Go")

And,
I thought about this all weekend long:
“…you can hate a place with all your heart and soul and still be homesick for it.”
- Joseph Mitchell

staying up reading and listening to harmonizing sisters. pretty nice. listening to the sound of night. and not gonna lie, enjoying some major netflix action. writing in my night time gratitude journal. and a snippet:

- saw a rainbow after the rain
- the sun came out, in the evening! it got dark, and then it got light
- amazing dinner. succotash, salmon, steak, champagne, dessert, conversation, laughter, most of all.
- that whirring the fan makes
- one-legged squats, yep
- wit
- feeling safe

---

“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

“The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.”

- Oscar Wilde, Salome

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

- Maya Angelou

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”

- Joan Didion

“Let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I often have internal struggles about this blog. Should I keep writing here? Should I write somewhere else? Should I write only privately? Should I migrate to my tumblr? My friend Angie paid a high compliment to the snippets I post here, and I often have the same internal debate that she mentions here. There are so many mediums nowadays to post and share our thoughts. I think about posting a comparison of all the ways I "get things done" - online checklists, syncing private journals across devices, managing email addresses, managing email content, attempting to code, building things, keeping track of tips and recipes, etc. Sometimes it's a chore just to keep track of the WAYS we keep track of things! I am super interested in what tools people use and how people work.

Anyway. No matter what we all decide to do- here's to evolution, and constantly challenging ourselves to discover new ways of being creative, and/or using the old ways to discover other avenues of creation.

haiku:

It’s funny, they named
Mars after the God of War
Have a look at Earth

—

Benedict Smith 

the famous J.J. Watt finger wag. he's good because he believes he will be good. you tell 'em, J.J.!

It's a softball question possessing about as much bite as a Disney cartoon. It's one of those queries that leaves you wondering if the reporter who asked it is merely trying to court favor with J.J. Watt. 

But Watt is still having none of it. 

He bats it down like it's a Ryan Tannehill pass. For this softball question — as cushy and happy as it seems to be — contains elements of limiting J.J. Watt's vision. And the Houston Texans defensive game changer absolutely refuses to accept such talk. No matter how kindly it appears. 

So when a reporter earnestly asks Watt if he could have a better season in 2013 even without those supersized 2012 stats, the defensive end practically scoffs back. 

"I'm going to be better," Watt firmly insists. "Just watch." 

And it's clear by better, Watt doesn't mean in some intangible way suggested by the questioner. No, Watt means better in the measurables too. As in 20 and a half sacks, 16 passes defensed and four forced fumbles are just the starting point.

Recycled Sunlight Pieces by Robert Montgomery

"If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark."
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject.

“We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you’re happy, and if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” Dr. Mehl said.

But, he proposed, substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.

“By engaging in meaningful conversations, we manage to impose meaning on an otherwise pretty chaotic world,” Dr. Mehl said. “And interpersonally, as you find this meaning, you bond with your interactive partner, and we know that interpersonal connection and integration is a core fundamental foundation of happiness.”

Talk Deeply, Be Happy? - NYTimes.com

i felt pretty sad today, when i woke up.
my joints were sad, my toes were sad, my eyes were sad. my hands, bruised from using crutches, felt sad. my ribs were sad. my tongue was sad from all the saltine crackers that i eat every day. i felt sad that my writing is about being injured. everything feels sore. even my heart. i felt sad that i have been absent as a friend, that i spend long hours sleeping and feeling numb instead of being present in relationships. i felt sad that i make people uncomfortable, and that people feel pity for me when they hear what happened. i felt sad that people are too careful around me now. i felt sad that people stopped talking about dancing around me because i cannot dance. i felt sad that "easy" tasks like doing laundry and carrying a cup of water to my desk are really hard now, and require help from someone else. i felt sad that i write about this every day. i felt that maybe i am being punished for something.

i hobbled over to the kitchen table. the sunlight outside was happy. it was a romantic kind of day, droopy and hot, bright and hopeful. i'm so lucky to live in Texas, where it's sunny almost every day.

today was another trip to the doctor. he decided today that i should be in a wheelchair instead of crutches, which definitely gave me some mixed emotions. maybe i'll learn how to do cool tricks in the wheelchair (just kidding). it made me happy that my doctor has a sense of humor. he taught me how to do what he calls "ballerina stretches," and told me that i could perform in ballets when this is all over. i laughed.

i listened to some romantic-day kind of music. i spent a lot of time staring out the window.

i ate some more watermelon and told myself, it's no use feeling sad. it's a decision to be happy. we can make that decision every day, and spend our energy towards happiness. isn't that a better use of our thoughts anyway?

as it turns out, i can still be enthusiastic about life. i don't have to feel guilty for it. so i'll do some tricks in my wheelchair. i'll rub my joints and ribs and hands a little, and teach them to be happy again. i'll decide that it's okay to write about my injuries every day until i get better, until i don't feel like i need to write about them anymore. and it's okay to write about being grateful every day. it's a choice we make.

we talked about Trayvon. about the color orange. about generic brands. about logos. fluorescent lights. we prayed the way we pray. we did laundry. we touched our faces. we unraveled string. we made ravioli. we talked about NPR. we listened to NPR. we cleaned yoga mats. we wiped off tables. we wiped off sweat. our eyes overflowed. our wine glasses overflowed. we listened to reggae. we listened to jazz. we listened to Anthony Hamilton. we listened to R.Kelly. we drank sangria. we ate the fruit. we dug around the bottom of the cup to eat more fruit. we took sangria-soaked fruit to karaoke in to-go cups.  we stopped saying i love you. we started saying i love you. we spoke another language. we made up a language. we sang along to otis redding. we memorized the words to the songs in Aladdin. we went barefoot in your house. we ate off of paper plates. we ate off of fancy dinnerware. we talked about the color green. we sat by the water. we sat by the buildings. we sat in your car. we sat in mine. we fogged up the windows so that we could write messages on them. we breathed out. we breathed in later. we talked about the weather. you said, "pray for me." i studied the books on your bookshelf. you studied the books in my eyes. we ate peruvian food. we threw a football together. you let me put you on a canoe though you are scared of water. you carried me to your car when i couldn't walk anymore. you sprayed me with water first. i dumped water on you back. you took me to the rooftop. we danced there. you said you liked the color of my skin. i laughed because i didn't believe you. you said you liked my legs. i laughed because i did believe you then. we listened to Misuko Uchida play Schubert. we ate hash browns. you washed my hair. i touched yours. you let me sit on your white carpet. you showed me how to do a push-up. i showed you how to type fast. we met up at the park. we pretended not to know each other. we acted like we didn't want to get on the carousel. we ate cake instead. we went go-karting. you won. you beat me at pool. i beat you at nothing. we drank margaritas. we sweat. we talked about failure. you pretended to be Batman. you almost invited me to a wedding. i almost invited you to stay. you almost told me you missed me. we almost crossed each other's paths. we almost made ourselves cookies. you almost let me go. we were never sure of anything. we were certain of everything. we visited art museums. we listened to street musicians. we talked about the news. a year later we might have acted like we were strangers. we smiled still. we listened to the city. we almost won the race. we never began. when finally you said, "i'll meet you in chicago," i knew i'd never see you again.

part of me knows that it will get redundant to talk about this, but this is where i write, so i'm going to write. one of the directors from my company called to check in on me today. in the hustle and bustle of business, i couldn't even fully express my gratitude that one of my bosses would offer to bring me groceries or to give me a ride to the doctor's office. even though he knows i most likely have friends and family taking care of me, he assured me that all of the executives were willing to help me if i needed it.

call me cliche, but i can't stop smiling these days. someone asked me why i was smiling when i had such tragedies happen recently, and i just couldn't even find the words to explain the gratitude that i feel for being alive, for the people around me, for the love i feel.  even the people i work with, especially people like directors who don't even work directly on my project, even they have shown me how people make all the difference.

the director ended the call with a pause, and he said, "i am so happy you are on our team, Rose. you are such a joyful person, and it makes everyone's day brighter to hear your laughter even when we are just in a weekly status meeting."

and that, that is the sort of thing that makes me happy to be alive.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”

- James Neil Hollingworth

hmmm

Every day that someone shows me what real love feels and looks like, I feel touched to my very core. Even if it is just the characters in movies or tv shows.

"Hope."

"Stay."

"Home."

"Here."

"Safe."

"Let's."

Lots of four letter words. Not much makes sense these days, I suppose. Love is when I feel, "this, this is home."

after another doctor's visit, i learned that it will take longer than i expected to heal. the pain is still there. the feeling of helplessness. but, within all this, still i grow gratitude for life. 

quiet patience. 

quiet strength. 

loud hope. 

"Have patience with everything that remains unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to A Young Poet

“There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them, and let them hurt me.”

― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

mmmm. hot afternoon. sliced up, perfectly cold (seedless! YES!) watermelon to counter the heat. ceiling fan on, too. headphones for the cello instrumentals. fading sunlight melting against the venetian blinds. enlightening conversation. laughter, so much laughter, finding the humor in things because of course that is always the cure, or, if not the cure, at least the beginning to finding it.

foot propped up.

and now, this.




all of this interview is amazing to read, in my opinion. i thought the following excerpts were quite applicable at the moment (not in order, i ordered them at whim):

Joyce Carol Oates, on the art of fiction

1)
INTERVIEWER

What have you learned from Kafka?

OATES

To make a jest of the horror. To take myself less seriously.




2)
INTERVIEWER

Do you find emotional stability is necessary in order to write? Or can you get to work whatever your state of mind? Is your mood reflected in what you write? How do you describe that perfect state in which you can write from early morning into the afternoon?

OATES

One must be pitiless about this matter of “mood.” In a sense, the writing will create the mood. If art is, as I believe it to be, a genuinely transcendental function—a means by which we rise out of limited, parochial states of mind—then it should not matter very much what states of mind or emotion we are in. Generally I've found this to be true: I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes . . . and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. Or appears to do so. Joyce said of the underlying structure of Ulysses—the Odyssean parallel and parody—that he really didn't care whether it was plausible so long as it served as a bridge to get his “soldiers” across. Once they were across, what does it matter if the bridge collapses? One might say the same thing about the use of one's self as a means for the writing to get written. Once the soldiers are across the stream . . .

3)
INTERVIEWER

Do you keep a diary?

OATES

I began keeping a formal journal several years ago. It resembles a sort of ongoing letter to myself, mainly about literary matters. What interests me in the process of my own experience is the wide range of my feelings. For instance, after I finish a novel I tend to think of the experience of having written it as being largely pleasant and challenging. But in fact (for I keep careful records) the experience is various: I do suffer temporary bouts of frustration and inertia and depression. There are pages in recent novels that I've rewritten as many as seventeen times, and a story, “The Widows,” which I revised both before and after publication in The Hudson Review, and then revised slightly again before I included it in my next collection of stories—a fastidiousness that could go on into infinity.

Afterward, however, I simply forget. My feelings crystallize (or are mythologized) into something much less complex. All of us who keep journals do so for different reasons, I suppose, but we must have in common a fascination with the surprising patterns that emerge over the years—a sort of arabesque in which certain elements appear and reappear, like the designs in a well-wrought novel. The voice of my journal is very much like the one I find myself using in these replies to you: the voice in which I think or meditate when I'm not writing fiction.

4)
INTERVIEWER

Do you feel you have any conspicuous or secret flaw as a writer?

OATES

My most conspicuous flaw is . . . well, it's so conspicuous that anyone could discern it. And my secret flaw is happily secret.

5)
INTERVIEWER

What are the advantages of being a woman writer?

OATES

Advantages! Too many to enumerate, probably. Since, being a woman, I can't be taken altogether seriously by the sort of male critics who rank writers 1, 2, 3 in the public press, I am free, I suppose, to do as I like. I haven't much sense of, or interest in, competition; I can't even grasp what Hemingway and the epigonic Mailer mean by battling it out with the other talent in the ring. A work of art has never, to my knowledge, displaced another work of art. The living are no more in competition with the dead than they are with the living . . . Being a woman allows me a certain invisibility. Like Ellison's Invisible Man. (My long journal, which must be several hundred pages by now, has the title Invisible Woman. Because a woman, being so mechanically judged by her appearance, has the advantage of hiding within it—of being absolutely whatever she knows herself to be, in contrast with what others imagine her to be. I feel no connection at all with my physical appearance and have often wondered whether this was a freedom any man—writer or not—might enjoy.)

so let me set this up. Lying down on my back. Ceiling fan spinning above me. Typing this on my phone in half-dazed painkiller consciousness. Resting for a few minutes from tearful painful super awesome physical therapy, trying to keep awake. Super awesome because i know i will get better! Listening to Aaliyah's "no one knows how to love me quite like you do". Gulping green tea for the caffeine.

Don't we all just want someone to say "shoot, that's my baaaaaaaby" about us? Just saying. 

Also, i am thinking about how the day after my accident we stayed up watching "So you think we can dance" because he said that watching it makes my body think I am actually doing it. I loved that. No wonder the next day I woke up feeling so happy. Serotonin works for real, y'all.

Also, I remember opening my eyes and feeling so happy that I could WIGGLE MY TOES! Wiggle your toes tomorrow morning, it will make you so grateful for being alive I promise!

This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something. 

Elizabeth Gilbert 

on a happier note!
one of the things i love to do is to handwrite notes to people. and of course to receive them, i won't pretend to be selfless!

i got over having to find perfect greeting cards and usually use computer paper. this weekend i had the pleasure of writing on orange typing paper to two people! i like hiding them for people when they get home, or when they get back to their cars. i used to stick post-it notes on friend's driver-side windows so they could find something nice when they got back to their car.

and I love this kickstarter project,
Valentines for Lunch!

"People have asked how I'm keeping up with making all the postcards. I make cards every night and I also carry a ziplock bag with blank postcards so I can make a few whenever I have a free moment."

I had a dream last night about the conversation we found in our kisses.
It was always furious,

furious with both restraint and abandon.
at times furious with guilt,
cautious,
burning,
careless. hopeful and hopeless
too many contradictions

my dreams about you are like that, a mess of confusion.
I was always furious that it wasn't my lips that you kissed first. I felt like that meant you didn't kiss me because you wanted to kiss me, you kissed me because you wanted my body.

anyway. speaking of contradictions:

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
- Sigmund Freud

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”
- Ernest Hemingway

“I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers, but hold up a ship.”
- Michelle Williams in an interview with Elle, in which she confesses her obsession with water. I suppose this is part of why I am obsessed with water, too- the malleability, the stability, the way it allows you to pass through, but also the resistance it creates... Before I injured my knees, I had started swimming again. Just a little bit. I hadn't swum laps in, well, maybe decades. It winded me, for sure, but after I practiced for a while I loved it. I admitted to a friend the other day that it was the best thing I took up again, because unlike running, the more you do it, the calmer you feel, and the more you feel like continuing, even if you are tired. With running, I just feel like collapsing after a while. Water holds me up. Anchors me, yet gives me freedom.

I. 

“Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it, or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.” - Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities

I do think that when I am most afraid of losing something, or someone, I stop speaking about it, to him/her, to anyone else. I'm afraid of losing them all at once, so I stay as quiet as possible, to preserve it. That way, if I close my eyes, it almost feels like nothing changed at all.

--

I was left to my own devices
Many days fell away with nothing to show

And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?

And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

We were caught up and lost in all of our vices
In your pose as the dust settles around us

Oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?
If you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?

[lyrics from Bastille's Pompeii, which, has been a great companion through all this]

---

II. 

lately, of course, i feel a little too emotionally drained to do pretty much anything at all. But I have been tucking away pieces of inspiration for, you know, later.

If you have not watched or read a transcript of Joss Whedon's (the writer, director, producer) commencement speech at Weslayan, this is what you should spend the next few minutes doing. 

You have, which is a rare thing, the ability and the responsibility to listen to the dissent in yourself. To at least give it the floor. Because it is the key, not only to consciousness, but to real growth. 

To accept duality is to earn identity, and identity is something that you are constantly earning. It is not just “who you are,” it is a process that you must be active in.

Spoiler alert, this is the end of the speech, and it is really really good, so if you plan on reading the entire thing, you should do that first.

And that’s why I’ve been talking only about you and the tension within you. Because you are, not in a cliched sense but in a weirdly literal sense, the future. And after you [the graduating class] walk up here and walk back down you are going to be the present. You will be the broken world and the act of changing it in a way that you haven’t been before. 

You will be so many things and the one thing that I wish I’d known, and want to say, is: don’t just be yourself, be all of your selves. Don’t just live, be that other thing connected to death. Be life. Live all of your life. Understand it, see it, appreciate it, and have fun.

also, jeopardy contestants robbed for answering "Zelda"!

hobbled outside today for about 2 minutes. 

i've been wearing the same shirt for a couple of days now. 

i haven't looked in the mirror for a while now, so i haven't really tended to my face, or hair, or anything for that matter. 

which means that i didn't realize until today that the bruise on my chin has now shaped itself into somewhat of a smiley face

which, as anyone knows,

is always a good sign. 

***

also- today, in my inbox, haiku from Borges:

Haiku

1

Algo me han dicho

la tarde y la montaña.

Ya lo he perdido.

2

La vasta noche

no es ahora otra cosa

que una fragancia.

3

¿Es o no es

el sueño que olvidé

antes del alba?

4

Callan las cuerdas.

La música sabía

lo que yo siento.

5

Hoy no me alegran

los almendros del huerto.

Son tu recuerdo.

6

Oscuramente

libros, láminas, llaves

siguen mi suerte.

7

Desde aquel día

no he movido las piezas

en el tablero.

8

En el desierto

acontece la aurora.

Alguien lo sabe.

9

La ociosa espada

sueña con sus batallas.

Otro es mi sueño.

10

El hombre ha muerto.

La barba no lo sabe.

Crecen las uñas.

11

Ésta es la mano

que alguna vez tocaba

tu cabellera.

12

Bajo el alero

el espejo no copia

más que la luna.

13

Bajo la luna

la sombra que se alarga

es una sola.

14

¿Es un imperio

esa luz que se apaga

o una luciérnaga?

17

La vieja mano

sigue trazando versos

para el olvido

both tiny and grand reminders. both quiet ones and booming ones.

also, sometimes the tiniest are the most grand. and the quietest seem to resonate loudest.  

reminders, that "it's all a luxury, this being alive" (Donald Revell)

(What are your ghosts like?)
(They are on the insides of the lids of my eyes.)
(This is also where my ghosts reside.)
(You have ghosts?)
(Of course I have ghosts.)
(But you are a child.)
(I am not a child.)
(But you have not known love.)
(These are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.)

-from everything is illuminated by  jonathan safran foer