i suppose that there won’t be a better time for me to unabashedly record this breadth of feeling; barely censored, semi-public.  i doubt that you’ll happen upon it any time soon, but if you do, it shouldn’t hold many surprises.

you’ve managed to reverse night and day. my sunsets are sunrises now, but that was a long time coming.

you’re the simple thing that complicates most of my undistracted moments with the slow uncertain promise that things could be more than adequate, for once.

you’re the thin sheet of ice on which i lay in muffled paroxysms, spiderwebbed with fractures like the arterial streets that enwrap our fair convoluted city of sodium lights and chemical smog.  you’re the forerunner, the tribulation, the sharp breath caught in my chest, the wildfire by which i warm my numbing hands.  you remind me that very few things are difficult enough to warrant a premature ending.

unexpectedly, my priorities have been consolidated, a warm and unfamiliar future faintly pencil-sketched in my wavering stars, awaiting a more lasting ink.

it does not bother me that i no longer recognize my reflection when it’s illuminated briefly as we pass under street lights, a quietly cinematic stranger staring wry through dark tinted windows, in the giddy dreamtime state that follows repeated a lack of sleep. 

words aren’t required as the both of us observe the rest undetected, overly alert and faintly amused.

when the time comes for the play’s last act, that great cataclysm, the grand finale of it all, i can almost see us watching it all burn out, expectant and unafraid. 

smiling, even.

i grew in the womb upside down, so they had to cut me out. whenever i see a bug on the sidewalk I pick it up and move it to safety.  i am a storm chasing, rifle shooting, edge walking sentimentalist.  i was supposed to marry my best friend but we had religious differences.  when i was little i thought that the fates of i and the yet-unknown man for me were so hopelessly tangled that god himself would be forced to concede that it was curious, the number of times our paths unwittingly crossed. maybe his family drove by my house (him, sleeping on a pillow in the back seat) while i was playing in the yard.  maybe we had adjacent gates in the airport for connecting flights.  maybe he was working in the kitchen of the restaurant i stopped at while on vacation.  these days, i am mostly stoic, but at my low points i fall under the spell of idealization all too quickly.  i miss waking up to chill breeze and the sound of crows.  i miss precipitation in all of its forms and i miss the color green.  i’m slipping into complacency again.  i’ll always be living a half life, but the object of my affections, projections, ill intentions will change.  that’s the one thing that i can’t change, but i sure as hell can deal.

lately i’ve been jarred by the rapidity of time’s passing, as if woken from sleep, swimming in the restless air- restless, (rest. less.) sleep is a slow death in a fast moving world.

there are three small punctures in the leftmost skin of my right palm, almost healed. grabbed a handful of long thorns to arrest a fall on a wet ivy’d slope. after i pulled them out i thought the dots of red were a nice decoration, though not nearly as evocative as the scrape i obtained climbing through a clouded window ringed with broken glass; somehow it came out looking just like a city skyline.  well, more of an abstraction of one, i never assigned it any specifics. 

my favorite scar is the one on my back, deep puncture and tear from a rusty nail; it looks like a knife wound and still aches and itches dully, on and off, though long since healed.

i am momentarily at rest in the honeysuckle coffin of my hometown (i refuse to give it the big city status it so strives for).  the summer-smell is stifling, the humidity and heat softly strangling like a overlong embrace from a distant relative. it’s a time for silk worms, fireflies, a myriad of ants, potato bugs and hornets. it’s around now when i hunt down the scissors and turn ripped jeans into cutoffs, and sit outside just because.

we came east and down in the wake of a tornado but never quite caught up to it, just trailed after through its path of debris and fallen trees.  storms are much more disappointing on the road, because unless you are driving direct through a squall line, you are through them before you know it.

it’ll be clear tonight, but this has never been a place for stars.

a chernobyl survivor described the light from the ruined reactor as a sunset lasting two days.

here the radio crackles and hums with talk of evacuation zones and potassium iodide. i’m sitting here picking at my fingernails and refreshing news pages over and over to the faint scent of burning plastic, drinking apple-raspberry-cranberry juice and staring at the wilted roses that they were giving away at the grocery store some indeterminate amount of time ago. 

my days are made up of highway lines and roadmaps, but i’m stuck in a loop, like vestiges of bathwater circling a drain.  midwest, northeast, mid-atlantic.  round and round and round.  the days are warmer and there are some things that i would like to get closure on but for now, all is in flux.

the cards have yet to fall, the hand is still yet to be revealed. schrodinger’s timeline- the coming course is uncertain.

if only i could stand blinking in the sunlight and beat out my illusions like dust from a rug.

the nights are still cold and clear, but the light of the stars is poisoned by the absence i still feel so acutely. 

i think of the days that i would sit on the backyard porch smelling dirt and rain and something i don’t think i’ll ever be able to adequately convey.  i’d be sitting there, hair long and blonde and tucked behind an ear, playing with paints, using one of those little glass cups from the kitchen, the ones that seemed designed to hold either cat’s milk or dirty paint water, for what other use could they have? 

anyways, you know, when i was tired of using one color and wanted to switch i’d dip the paintbrush in that water and watch the color seep in and gradually spread, robbing the water of its clear, clean, untouched qualities- it’s like that.  except the water cup is my mind and- ah, but the important part is that i must constantly reassess and carry this to its conclusion.

in my dream last night i managed to convince a crazed murderer that he shouldn’t kill me because I was the only one who accepted him for who he was.

that was pretty considerate of me, i guess.

these idle forced pianist’s hands have forgotten too much for their brief time on earth. 

oh, what i wouldn’t give to be out in the cold with you tonight, feeling that queasy approach anticipation i know so well.  i have been neglecting myself; i have fallen into disrepair, and that is another familiar feeling, though unwelcome.

quiet expected disappointment tempered by complacency. the undercurrent of contentment is new, however.  it bathes me in a cold fluorescent glow and allows me to keep amending each hasty statement with “but it’s going to be fine, this will pass, it’s all just temporary, for all of us.”

i used to lay in the street like a marionette with severed strings and watch the bugs crash themselves repeatedly into the street lights. 

when the light went out on our street the other week all three of us wondered briefly if someone had put it out deliberately to cover their approach to the house and the funny thing is that we actually told each other about our thoughts instead of silently feeling like as if it’s about time we keep a pistol under our pillow and stock up on tinfoil hats.  that ought to mean something, right?

my extremities are always freezing but sometimes when we are sitting close my entire body seems to radiate heat- but you know that already.

at which point do you start to know a person too well?  i am an all-forgiving masochist but i think we all have parts of ourselves with which we are uncomfortable, parts that can’t be easily to understood or accepted if you haven’t lived them.  most times i wish i could hug every person in the damn world and not just because my town has less than 1000 citizens and .10% nonwhite people and nothing that is open past eleven pm.

this is uninteresting and cliche and i have no good reason to be informing the internet but it is also true: i am lonely tonight.

Elegant degradation is a term used in engineering to describe what occurs to machines which are subject to constant, repetitive stress.

Externally, such a machine maintains the same appearance to the user, appearing to function properly. Internally, the machine slowly weakens over time. Eventually, unable to withstand the stress, it breaks down.

the scorched earth method worked for russia but it is a terrible strategy for human relations. 

remember that time that i spent the night and we were woken by air raid sirens?  it was in that bittersweet heart of suburbia and we were half asleep so we just walked around to all of the windows confused and anxious with no explanation and no adults.

the next time i heard them it was in the bombed out shell of a glass factory and it worked much better, aesthetically. 

my brother and i used to play in the fallout shelter under the church.  we were attracted to the yellow sign and the staircase leading into the dark before we knew what they signified.  

sound is the predominant sense today. i’ve been leaving the window open. it’s just the constant stream of cars passing on the highway, the jangle of windchimes before a storm, and snow quietly melting in the backyard- wait, that’s not a sound.  it lays there in odd haphazard stripes and piles.  i wish i could convince myself that it’s going away for a while, but it’ll probably be back by the end of the week.  it’s that way with many things.  i am not satisfied with myself; i lack the needed components to function, to pass through the aether, ghostlike, without leaving a long trail of hurt and confusion in my wake.   

in the military, hair ties are called “hair restraints” and they must be the same color as your hair.

here are some things about me:

there are a lot of songs that i only like because some inspired person decided to use them in a film in a way that transcends their intended meaning and causes them to be quite ironic or sinister.

every time i watch a movie, i point out all of the tower cranes in the background of the cityscapes.

i think there’s an atmosphere on the west coast that i would like to experience.

in the summer, i almost never wear socks.  this is because i am constantly followed around by a little sock gremlin with an insatiable hunger, and since he is an adventurer and never wants to eat the same meal twice, he only ever eats one of each pair. the last pair i wore was full of sand from a cave in minnesota, but he must have not minded.

i don’t like the look that people who love me give me when i am climbing something dangerous. for an instant each time it makes me want to stay at ground level forever.

this blog has become the dumping grounds of my non existent commonplace book.  it’s like whatever, it holds no illusions of what its purpose is. 

…in real life, and sometimes on the internet, i have always said “like” too much.  i hope it’s just a symptom of teenage girl disease- that i shall be rid of soon, you know.  i’m turning twenty in a few months. how’s that for surreal?  how many of you pronounce the second “t” in twenty?  i don’t.  twuh-nee. i say it like that. that’s ugly.  i like saying twen-tee better, actually.

there are too many sad girls in the world, and they’re always lonely because their particular kind of underhanded narcissism causes them to lash out at anyone who reminds them of themselves.

i don’t think i’ve ever called anyone a slut, a bitch, or a whore that wasn’t in jest.  if i have, i am truly sorry. 

in all our transparency i still have secrets i don’t say.

don’t we all, don’t we all.

don’t try to guess them; i am still strong in this regard.  i’ll drag it out, for better or for worse.  perhaps i am a coward, or perhaps for once i am being truly brave.

here i am shrouded in vagueness, vagaries as usual, but specifics aren’t meant for this medium.

we’re both overlooking the complications, it’s just a matter of who breaks first.

these recent nights spent keeping it together with smoke on my tongue and hot blood on my lips.

i feel more at home in my body the more bruises i have.

i never knew you, but

i’m afraid to ask about you

because the truth might shatter the illusion

that maybe i wasn’t the only black sheep.

maybe you would have laughed at me in your head, or called me unrealistic, or maybe you would find the things i like- the things you did- hopelessly mundane.  maybe it would have been really awkward, maybe you would have been tired or irritated with me, or think i was trying to relate to you and failing. 

but maybe we could have talked about black holes and string theory, and rebar and tower cranes and etudes and literature and picnics on rooftops and how we always wanted to get a pilot’s license but where on earth would we put the plane.

but oh, i’m afraid, so i’m reduced to analyzing your bookshelf and reading and re-reading your obituary

and remembering that you used to walk down the road to watch the construction that went on around your house by the lake

after your mind was mostly gone- the time you got fed up and removed yourself, like i do, and you wandered in that same spot of woods

that is now a shopping center and even back then was dotted with barbed wire fences and little orange flags.

did you also feel lost in the immensity of the stars?

did you find other people’s stories fascinating?

did you, too, understand the beauty of the man-made structure?

what were you like as a boy?  did you ever go on adventures? 

tell me what i don’t want to hear.

i was born too late, and i lost you.

at an arts festival in my hometown I came upon an elderly dutch fellow who seemed to be the only photographer on display who hadn’t committed numerous cardinal sins of photo editing and subject matter (though his work was far from groundbreaking or thought provoking). 

he saw my gaze of silent approval and in a friendly and slightly accented voice he stated proudly that he still shot, processed and developed all of his own photos, that he invented a darkroom technique in the 70’s, and that some of his photos were featured in Robocop. 

i smiled and nodded at that, and continued to do so as he went around providing exposition for landscapes of various nature scenes that hung on the canvas around us -stark and well executed, but not particularly exciting.  presently we came to a pleasantly monochrome scene of a sea shore at high noon.  “This is New Jersey, you know?” he said, as if expecting me to be astonished at the thought.  “It’s very lovely.” I replied -without adding “…in a nondescript sort of way”.  “Yes,” he continued, “All most people see of New Jersey is the turnpike, you know, on the way to New York.  Is not beautiful.  Is industrial.”

I felt a momentary sadness at that line, but chose not to press the issue.

I suppose most of us just take the work of other people for granted.  What is it that inspires the feeling of the sublime?  Surely not humbling vastness, perfect geometry, a marriage of aesthetics and usefulness.  These qualities do not belong to nature alone.  You might say that I have a thing for nature’s second cousin- for our designs are merely nature, once removed.  Just because something wasn’t here before you got here doesn’t mean that it can’t be beautiful. 

I’m not attempting to have the wilderness come off as some dull, tired cliche- it still has the power to inspire awe, even when i’m least expecting it.  The chaotic beauty of the organic world is never the same way twice.  But pure design, by the unassuming, blue collared gods of industry- in all its stages from construction to demolition- or that slow, much preferred invalidism of being left uncared for to be slowly ravaged by the elements: I wish more people would see the beauty of that. 

i cannot clear my mind of the image of the wastewater treatment plant I stumbled upon when i was sixteen.  we were wandering through the woods at dusk, lured off the busy road by the glint of construction lights and red carolina mud laid bare and riddled with rusted pipe and steel that gleamed in the sun.  it was almost dinner time and your parents thought we were making out, but there we were making our way through a most surreal pre-industrial playground. 

the manhole shafts went down what seemed like hundreds of feet into the darkness once we reached the top of the hill.  you went towards a half-built tower and I followed, and suddenly it yawned before us like something out of a dream- the kind set on an alien, futuristic version of your world that is heartbreakingly beautiful but only half remembered- the deep white basin the size of several football fields, so giant and clean and empty in the setting sun. 

we immediately slid under the rail and went down the gradually sloping walls until we reached the middle and stood in front of the gaping mouth of a giant tunnel into the earth.  the monolithic churn blocks stood in front of it as a reminder that sometime in the very near future this vast alien structure would be entirely full of human waste of all types. 

we knew, in an odd way, that we alone would appreciate this structure for anything other than its utilitarian purpose- it would literally be full of shit and thought of as nothing other than an unfortunate but necessary part of modern and civilized life that very few people would even get to see.

then your parents called you, rather irritated, and we walked back in soft tracks through the clay and the long unkempt grass that grows under the power lines and talked about things that I don’t remember.

4:50 am. heard the creaking of a chair; it sounded like that familiar scratching and soft thud i had become accustomed to in the house of my childhood. i turned around expecting to see a cat, softly purring and pushing for attention, but found nothing but air, the dripping of the faucet, whirring of my hard drive and the faint sound of the last summer crickets. 

every time i stop to think about it, that which used to be my life seems to recede further and further away until i’m merely a towheaded stranger who actually got out of the house once in a while.  all these things are slipping away- the lovely sundappled places in the mountains (full of campfire smoke, sunrises, drum circles, miniature boat races in icy clear streams and dew on bare feet) those place that i used to go to every year until the one time i just stopped going, picked the thought up like a fallen shirt and shoved it in the bottom drawer until next summer when it’s warm again.

the house centipedes are my only pets now; they’re harmless and they do a good job of eating the more menacing types of bugs.  having only seen the tiny outdoor type before, i was apprehensive of them at first, but now i regard them with a fondness that is perhaps undue, and more than likely a result of my lack of feline companionship. 

i had grown quite familiar with the biggest one, what with the number of times he skittered across the carpet and into the dark places in a startling manner, so i felt a curious wave of emotion when i found him drowned in a water glass one morning.  i couldn’t help but imagine his little legs kicking as he struggled in vain only a few yards from where i lay asleep.

we bought a little novelty robot beetle to replace him, but as much as i love artificial life, it simply isn’t the same as my old housemate. 

He/she did have children, though, and i’ll continue to regard them with distant affection, like you might do with a friend of a friend that you have with on facebook, but have never had a real conversation with. you’re just not sure what they’re all about, and if you try to pick them up, they might bite you.

i can’t pretend to have known you.

trying my hardest, i can’t conjure up much more than harsh sunlight on a winter day, me wrapped tightly in my pea coat and absently poking my fingers through the spaces between the thick mesh of the lunch table, writing page numbers and concepts on my hand in ball point pen- you sitting across from me, studying sheet music, memorizing lyrics, both of us too awkward and unfamiliar with each other to try and make much more conversation than the usual complaining about assignments and perhaps the weather- maybe you asked me how i was; i can’t remember my answer.

you might have been quiet, like myself, but you were not a coward; you were brave, so brave and selfish (though i’m sure you didn’t mean to be).  with all the edges i stand on, you can be assured that the knowledge is there as a dark reminder, a constant.  i’ll never know what gave you the courage to step off into the dark- it’s not my place to know, because i did not know the boy himself. sometimes it seems so easy, to throw it all away, but i know it is the hardest thing in the world. 

i have my regrets, though fortunately fewer than some.

but i cried for you tonight, suddenly and silently, as i thought about how much you must have been hurting.