epilogue:

from journal entry, 10:14 p.m., June 16th '08

"Where to begin? 'Landslide' it is. I will miss her more than I can articulate; I love her more than I could ever explain. But even if she did love me, it would be selfish to expect someone so.. just in general in their own right to live as part of what I hope to become. But I will miss her, yes, so much. I do genuinely believe that certain souls are fundamentally connected, and that this severance is so painful because of that bond, which will probably take far longer to untie than our lives will, possibly longer even than our lives themselves will take to pass. I can only hope that I am mistaken in this belief as I have been with many before..."

"London Morning", 3:17 a.m., June 30th '08

She's here again in London, the sleepless sun-rising in her throat,
to greet the lump of realization which will either stay or go
that perhaps among it all she fell asleep or lost her mind,
and one day maybe she'll wake with horror at what she finds;

'cause maybe she was wrong about it, maybe she was right,
and one means she's been alone all along.
Maybe all she's strolled away from wasn't worth the fight,
but maybe it would've been were she strong.

She doesn't want to spend more time is funny on wasted attempts,
but still, she doesn't know if it's inexhaustible 'till it's empty,
& who are we to say that she's walked away from the one?
Hell, who are we each London morning to expect the sun?

M.L.A.S.A.

the prophecy

I cried until my body ached,
tried to expel contents it didn't hold,
and put stars in my eyes,
then turned them solid cold.

I sobbed until my soul, broken inside me,
was released.

We

Intoxicated by the vine of
our entwining minds,
we travel, and together share
the joy and life each finds.

If

If I were more of a woman,
if I were more of a man,
if I were more undecided,
if I had more of a plan?

Would you love me?
Would you have me?
Would you never let me go?

Say, I'll do it, for I love you,
for I love you, love you so.

Man

I envied you today,
but not as I expressed;
I envied not your luck of mind,
instead, in fact, your chest
was what I envied you, so firm,
while mine hangs full of breast,
and that's not all I envied you,
I'll let you know the rest:

I envied green the slim green shadows
of your veins, under thin skin,
streaming so surely to'ards efficient
muscles, feeding them therein,
which, in their turn, could feed the mouths
of your wholesome, blood-bred children,
which nature hands you, nonchalant,
while mine, so kind, yet less than kin;

I envied weak your strength of birth,
your privileged position, ran
through in my head what crime, what
reason, rhyme, in me, born as I am,
and your God-given right to love,
contentment, family, life, canned
simplicity, for you are man,
for you are man, for you are man.

For Now

For now, I pointedly drop my necklace
under my shirt to sit over my heart,
out of view.

For now, I hold onto your gaze sometimes
as I shouldn't, holding strong but part wrong
onto you.

To the part which, for now, is as close as
I'll find to a part of your soul I can
hold as mine.

For, for now, and perhaps for this life, all
I hold in my heart must be held back, forced
to false "fine".

contemplations

It's so much more powerful,
and yet more sedate,
than you ever expected or thought.

As though what you thought was love,
was in fact rain,
and Love itself is actually the Ocean.

faith

Your beauty shines into my heart;
it warms my soul though we’re apart
(we aren’t)
I know my words aren’t big enough
to hold the sky, the world, our love;
(I’ll try)
you are the perfect kind of dawn,
when colors sing and air is warm
(you’re life)
you’re when the words fall into place,
you’re the sun’s light on the moon’s face
(at night).

This love is all, is all the strength I need to stand.
Don’t let me fall…but if you did, I’d understand.

And every angle of your face
reminds me we’ve got to have faith
in us.
And every moment in your eyes
makes breathing worth how much we cry
(we love).
‘Cause everything I am loves you;
we’re strong enough, we’ll make it through
(we are),
we’re living faith, we’re the first kiss,
we’re nature’s gift of perfect bliss-
I love you.

This love is all, is all the strength I need to stand.
We cannot fall, so long as we are holding hands.

I know my words aren’t big enough
to hold the sky, the world, our love;
(I’ll try).

pathetic fallacy (working title)

Oh God how I wish it would rain,
would just pour,
for days it's been grey and damp,
but I need more;
I need torrents of empathy
flooding the Earth,
as my heart floods with You,
floods with all that you're worth.
I need dark, looming storm,
furious, heavy cloud,
darkened sky, screaming wind,
soaring, roaring aloud.
Newspapers over heads, headlines
dark, running ink,
planes stopped and trains slowed
as newborn streams gladly slink
past crowded doorways, cramped cafes,
brimming with tears,
fallen from unaware coattails
or from cold ears,
I need streets shining soaked, but
not lit by the sun,
sparkling under street-lamps,
while figures, dark, run.

Yes,

what I need now is rain,
hard and heavy as pain,
rain to drown out my tears
'till I'm with You again.

broken

I understand the full impossibility.
I understand a difference in direction.
I can comprehend if you don't feel this.
But do you have to be so damn okay?
So calm, pre-mediated and objective.
While watching as poor small me falls apart.
Pathetically broken and soft-armored,
laughably lost, longing for long lost life.

Sobbing into shirts whose scent won't hold.
The sunrise which you smiled at hated me, & left me cold.
I need you here, need to run far from you.
And all I'm left to cling to is the future which holds either.

I am broken.
This has broken me, in every single way.
Left here cycling through sleep, sobbing, sickness, & decay.
Falling out of love with the world, while you thrive with each liberating day.

fragments

"You know what we said about the U.S. and S.A.,
that feeling, like opening your own front door, arriving home?
That feeling like a dull discomfort when you're
somewhere different, a distant, nagging tension
that is more like a lacking than a presence?


A sigh in your mind of relief on walking
through the gate,
then the door,
whether it's arriving home,
or landing in a homeland,
or."


"From the slanted gap of the blind and the wall,
the sun sneaks in, lights up the thumbtacks in my wall
like little stars,
a constellation just like ours,
and just like every other detail of beauty in this world,
it reminds me of us, of where we've been,"


"I know I eventually have to stand up,
and stop crying, and dust myself up
for however much acting.
But I can't seem to pull myself out
of this heap on the floor,
see getting up means leaving something behind"


"No words.
None that you haven't heard, anyway.
And they won't change things no matter how much we say them."


"Can't write.
Can't eat.
Can't stop crying.
Can't become anything more
than a heap of not us,
sobbing at its lacking on the floor."


"limiting and forced
stroll around my mind,
tormenting me,
while more fish in the sea
laughs itself dry."



It was just a world hard to leave,
hard to walk away from simplicity,
even if artificial or temporary.

But you are the real world, we are.
And that will not change,
even if we at some point evolve.

amo te

obliviscar

amarem te qualis uxor,
sed unus verbum atque,
si vester votum est,
obliviscar.

sick note

I feel like writing a list of symptoms;
"please mister doctor,
I can't look at myself in the mirror,
I can't look at her self either,
I can't even think,"
I can't even find my way around my own thoughts,
my own state of mind doesn't feel quite like mine,
my music and I aren't getting along,
reason and nature no longer singing my songs,
no longer anything solid to stand on,
and can't move on.
From this thought, I'm running around in a circle
of trust which can't rust,
a love which can't change,
I don't think,
but I can't think at all,
I can't sleep,
my head hurts,
and I feel like the water's so deep
all around me, above me, below me, between;

and the one lifeline I have is around my neck.

"so, doctor, now why don't you tell me what I should do next?"

debilitated

I take this necklace off at night, I always have.

I used to take necklaces off at night because of something
a grown up once said about the dangers of strangulation.

But that isn't why I take this necklace off.

I carefully unclip that beautiful little physical reminder of
you as a part of me every night because
I am scared that it might break.

And this reason instills as much fear in me as the former,
which may sound a little ridiculous, but not to you.
Because you can see that it's that same fear
for my life that goes against my innate
lack of discipline every night
and reminds me quietly not to leave it on.

Is this a weak analogy?
It seems to fit to a strange extent,
right down to the tiny tug in me that doesn't want to let go and hear
the cold clink of metal on windowsill or bedside table tonight.

So here's what I want you to tell me,
because trying to figure it out without you feels like..
a lot of words, all of which mean either wrong or ridiculous
or futile.

Or as impossibly difficult as writing is when I'm so utterly lost.
It's like I'm stuttering, wading through something thick,
and frustration.

See?

What I want to know is if you think that leaving this necklace on
is maybe something I should risk.


I'm sorry that this isn't more eloquent,
a hundred times,
my best;

I am debilitated by the lack of your input in an area of my thoughts.

detour

I am Radclyffe.
I am Melissa.
I am Ani.
I am my father.


I am me,
then in walks she,
with all her entourage of pain,
her pockets full of promise,
and her heart full of distain
her mind full of the questions
for which I have all the answers,
her face full of stained memories,
lost "happy-ever-afters",
and all dissonant rhyme
my honest melody surpasses.

And then, of course, she needs me,
maybe even it's a want thing,
and then of course I start to think
that it's all real, start falling.
And when I say "fall", I mean
fall to my knees, fall for her,
I mean sacrifice arteries
to drip red carpet for her;
I mean that she walks in,
and I stand up, suddenly Hall,
and by the time I hear the
"chime-clunk-chime" (winner takes all)
I'm Prince of Denmark, heart of gold,
not expecting the fall,
forced by the weight of that
crude metal, and I'm left here all
bloodless and wandering
for years, wondering what I missed,
robbed of my rightful place there
as King of Her Heart, I miss
her as much as I hate her,
and what she turned me into,
I hate that someone will
someday do what I couldn't do,
I hate that she's still hurting,
her cheeks still tainted with salt,
myself for taking the bait, I hate
that it wasn't time's fault,
(and don't try to blame fate).

But most of all, I hate that
once the characters are gone,
the faces and the phases, and
the lines and all the songs,
I'm back to sitting, writing
in some two-bit cheap cafe,
healing myself with words,
because sentences don't decay,
and I am me again, and I'm
March, April, and I'm May,
and I am me, but John's still hoping
you'll show up someday.

Silvered Glass [still drafting]

You're her at sixteen,
everything but clean,
everything we lost;
you're not what I mean.

You're her way back then,
you're her before them,
you weren't without warning
(all over again).

And that's why I know
what you're about to say,
that's why you've always
affected me this way.

And that's why you hate her,
'cause that's how it goes,
like a shard of mirror
in her face, 'cause she knows

that you're her at sixteen,
that same smile, same inflection,
and that's why you hate her;
who likes their reflection?

Dinner party conversation..

A premature prompt you didn't need for the next line of suggestion; preceded by your line, rehearsed, gone over in your head a hundred times; followed by more of the tiresome same. How many hundred more before you convince yourself it's true? It doesn't make the difference you think it does anyway, because there's no escaping air; especially the sort that hangs between your past and this. And I'll crop up again regardless in some other city, a different name and voice perhaps, a different color eyes. And even that won't make the difference up between your future and the fact that I am the best opportunity you'll ever think you had to lose (and did).

hospes

My music is painfully loud,
'cause I'm trying to drown out your eyes.

Meanwhile, I'm the one who's crying into my philosophy;
what's a little more logic washed away by this, "you & me"?

You've got your hands over my eyes, I can't judge,
and your name's etched too deep, can't forget.
All that time spent convincing myself it can't work,
we don't fit, we don't know- we don't, yet.

I feel like a moron for walking away from you,
shying away from more pain,
when I know I would never stop thinking about you
if I never saw you again.

I acted like a stranger.


Maybe that's what I wanted.

To meet you tomorrow, to know you and love you again,
to go back to darkness and red light and love and no pain.

As I Said

I felt shy for the first time in a long time when I saw you,
just couldn’t get past all the things floating above our heads,
and couldn’t work out where I fit or how I felt or why all
the songs that I’ve been listening to about you now seem void.
Is there a chance that after all that’s happened, you’ve grown up?
Is there a chance that I have too? If so, what does that change?
Do we become suddenly perfect, or no longer fit?
Are these just more questions, unanswerable, to avoid?
I felt shy, as I said, when I saw you, when we talked,
not because, as I have said before, I don’t know how you feel,
but because, with irony immeasurable and predicted,
now that circumstance has caught up…

Repeat Line

"What can we know?"

What can I know?

I suppose that's the best place to start.
And I suppose there is space in this heart
for this question to sit..

but there isn't,
that's just it;

I can try to avoid, for fear of mistake,
but avoiding could put so much more at high stake;

I could lay it all out, put it all on the line,
but I can't untangle which emotions are mine.

This is poor.

I am stuttering.

I know nothing.

Repeat line.

the Innocence of Time

I'm not some secret Pliny;
I'm all out of metaphor.
All I am is still regretting fiercely;
I could've done more.

And if there's one thing I can't
ever absolve myself of,
it's letting him have you, hurt you,
despite all of my love.

You gave me a sword made of glass,
your love was mine, then dust;
too busy tending pride, I made
my loss entirely just.

So here's to you, blamed thoughtless,
and to me, victimized, raw,
to time and fate's innocence,
'cause, see,

I could've done more.

pin

Everything is in my heels.
Like someone came in the night
and slid all of the things that are usually
"on my shoulders",
the weight of the world,
into my shoes.
The weight of my world is in my heels,
meaning I can't walk at my usual speed..
then again,
how fast can you really walk
when you don't know where you're headed?


Sorry, that's all I've got.

Not much for a pro is it? Never mind,
'cause failure clearly is an option,
or hobby or something.
Which this can't be anymore,
'cause I may not want to nourish myself
right now, but at some point
I'll need to.

I can do this
I am strong
I am big
I just need to
get it out of my heels and

onto a page
or a line
onto a stage.

Just a stage

of transition,

I'm just in shock,

I'm sure fruition
is around the corner,
I just need more time.
And lighter, stronger heels.


I'm just so fragile,

the spaces between my own lines shake me,
the lines that used to make me
now feel bad, feel out to break me,

my lines are woven, strung up,
waiting for my neck,
my life,
dead or alive?

Line of my life, or noose?
Fight, or flight?


Here I begin.

Brave face for a stranger,
& a dropped pin.

some little things that appear sometimes..

"nec spe, nec metu,
corpus sine pectore,
all I want, you never knew,
been strange not speaking to you."

"tonight all i'm wanting to do
is fall asleep and dream of you
and all i'm wanting you to do
is think about you too.
tonight i want me to be
part of what you want life to be
all i want, selfishly, is for
what you want to be.. me."

"I've noticed a small light hiding nearby,
quietly beautiful, and way up high.
Here's hoping that's a star and not a plane,
so it'll stay, not drift away again."

"Don't think that I'm not thinking about
what I'll leave behind.
Please don't believe I wanna leave
to get away from this
family or this home, 'cause just the thought
makes me feel blind.
But there's this pull in me to work
through survival to bliss."

"lines attempting to dispel her underestimation"

I dreamt about our wedding,
about blue lines on sticks
and it's ridiculous, I know,

but in my mind you're irreplaceable,
you should know.

So It Seems

Her head is on my shoulder,
I turn my face to face her,
I feel her heart beat faster,
I tell her that I love her.

And the weeks go flying past,
yet there’s not a week to pass
when she can stop herself from coming here
and visiting me in my dreams,
so it seems…

that her head is full of questions.
and the pressure of the blood hums
as it rushes there, the tap runs,
leading water where there’s no sun.

Out her window, seeping by,
hunks of metal somehow fly,
and her longing to be up there
makes her want to scream or cry, or seem or try,
or so it seems.

So I watch as they come and go,
smiling quietly, ‘cause I know
that the more she tries to let go
and forget me, the more it grows.

And I think I feel her breath
softly resting on my neck,
as I step inside her head and find my name
etched into walls, stitched across seams,
well, so it seems.

Forever ago, we were here;
your heartbeat was all I could hear,
and we came so close, got so near,
that I could whisper in your ear,
but too soon, it seemed, all too clear,
lost by my weakness, by your fear,
and the pain of you, it still sears
through my head, my dreams, as the years
visit me, and keep us both here,
tied by tears, falling forming streams,
or so it seems…