Only love can stop you now

you went away again

2007-11-29T21:32:51Z

My restlessness consumed me until I crawled into bed and melted into music. Sometimes I feel that there is so much inside me that I might burst at any moment, a shock of dust in a firefly-lit grotto and then nothing. A tremble of thick August air on curled fern, a whisper of crickets high in the dark tree tops.

But with the music, it comes out in a dream, a swirl of red and green on my closed eyelids, a breath of cool air on my burning skin. It pulls it out and dances with me, touching faraway spaces I thought I lost. It leaves me with sleep, with dreams, with the distant memory of a waking world that never seems to have enough for my restless bones. And somewhere deep inside my heart, I can touch the fairy tale I'm too afraid to live, the one I believe to be fragile, the fairy tale that might turn me into dust.

These melodies reach inside and take me away. These songs touch my heart in a way this worried mind never could.

am i a part of the cure?

2007-08-17T05:48:17Z

Mars and I had a late-night whispered conversation a few days ago. He was red, twinkling in a glowing navy-black sky and I was a pale shade of flickering blue, hiding behind curtains hoping to catch a falling star. We waited together, speaking in rhymes of heartache and fairy tales, my eyes upwards and his eyes down.

And just as the pain in my legs was too much, just as I was ready to say goodnight, a moon-bright star fell past the shadow-trees and deep into the forest. And this, this was the most magical, most dazzling thing I had ever seen. It was more than a streak of pale-white on a dark star-speckled sky; it was a ball of white fire burning from the inside out, it was an incandescent diamond tumbling for the horizon. It left an imprint brighter and bigger than most shooting stars; it left an echo on my dream-filled mind.

I gasped and Mars smiled. I sat back, drew my fingers to my lips and wondered how something so beautiful could be made of space rock, how something so surreal, so movielike, could flash before my eyes. How could that moment be mine? How could I ever dream that I would not only capture a falling star, would not only whisper to Mars and find fireflies in the heavy heat of August, but capture a fireball?

It was like a wish magnified and wondered if maybe, maybe if I believed, that if I wish on this particular shooting star, a silver fireball all my own, if would come true. Because that moment, it really did feel like magic. In that blue room, with the red light of Mars fluttering above, it felt like magic.

and the embers never fade, in the city by the lake

2007-08-09T05:33:32Z

I looked at the stained ceiling. Hidden beneath the shadow was a water-stain shaped like a sea horse, a sea horse with a giant white eye, a hole into the sky. I shut my eyes.

Come away with me, come on. What are you waiting for? Just let go of tomorrow and you'll be free. We'll take a balloon ride to a kingdom made of crystal spires and sea foam towers and roads paved with pollen and honey. Way up here, in our ribbon and tulle balloon, you can see the sea, a cornflower sheet of glitter connecting the waves to the clouds. And, look! The clouds are alive, lions sleeping on mountain ridges and silver-lined bicycles skimming the rooftops. On the valley edges you can see the tiny houses made of clay, clay of every colour, smoke spinning from chimneys where tiny cakes are ready to be served. You'll find flying machines soaring with the birds, jars of candy behind every window and a song in every heart. It only rains when you miss the the thunder and the silence, rain drops on tin tops, and the snow only falls when you need a snowman, long to sled, wish to fall and find an angel when you stand. The magic still flows in our rivers, the wonder never leaves us as we age and adventure beckons from every dark forest of every foreign land. This place is built on dreams, shaped by wishes, drawn from every heart left with a reason to believe. You can come away, you can have the place you always missed upon waking. Just let go.

I opened my eyes. The sea horse gazed down at me, welcoming my return. I breathed in and sighed, touching the wall and hoping to find something wispy and dreamlike. It stopped me, cold, a barrier to the outside. I stared at the ceiling again, at the sea horse, and before dropping down into sleep, realized that where the sea horses eye was once empty and white there was now another stain shaped like a tiny hot air balloon.

i hope you feel what i feel, someone to stand beside me

2007-08-07T05:12:03Z

Maybe there's a part of me that wants you to see what I see. To still see a sky past the rain drops falling from the tree tops, to feel a dance when no music is playing. Maybe I want you to find the magic I do every day, the mushrooms in the garden winding down to a fairy hide-a-way. To taste the nightsky and not be afraid to follow the dusty roads where the lights to not glow. Maybe I want to take you to the city where hanging garden meet ashy roads and tall buildings are strung together with glass beads. Maybe I want you to see the electric colours, the faded-polaroid hues, to understand the twinkle and shine. Maybe I want these words to echo in your heart until you learn to see with your eyes shut, to dream with your eyes open.

But maybe what I want more is for you give me your own magic, to paint a world and invite me in, candles lighting the way. Maybe you'll build a home in flowering apple tree or maybe we'll sled down the iced stairways of stained-glass churches. Do you talk to the sunflowers, do you sing with the seagrass? Maybe the birds are all bejeweled, weightless anyway, and the moon and the sun hang together in the sky every hour of every day. Is the carnival always in town, the scent of sugared dough heavy in the air, lightning cracking in the distance? Maybe you spin your own lullaby and the words echo in my own heart, the hum sweetly ringing even as I sleep. Maybe I want a heart that still believes.

it's not me that you love

2007-08-04T03:16:44Z

"I will teach you how to breathe," you whispered, "And then I will take it away. I'll show you how to fly and then I'll break your ivory wings."

That was the last time I saw you, in a dream, peering between the bars of my rusted bird cage. I wondered, long after you left, if you'd remember me there some day, and how I used to sing for you.

Maybe you trapped me there knowing I could fly. Were you jealous that I could taste the atmosphere, that I had followed corn field lines across the country and found myself in a city made of ivy and sunflower roads? Maybe this was how you wanted to keep me, yours, a memory locked in a metal box.

But I didn't believe any of this. These were the lies that I told myself to fill the silence, to keep the truth far away. If I flew away from here, if I escaped these chains, it would only be in hopes of chasing lies. I would fade into dreams and lose myself to a place where the truth could be tamed.

That was where my story began, at the end of you.

My hands shook as I slammed the diary shut. Rain streaked down the dirty window pane and I wondered if maybe if that was how this place had looked to you every day.

I hated her for doing this to you, I hated that she made you run away. I hated that this tiny book was all that remained of you. It was just the echo of you, abandoned under the mattress of a bed you'd long left behind.

I listened for the sound of footsteps and then slipped the last peice of you in my bag. With one last glance, I saw the tiny glass elephant she had given you two Christmases ago. You'd put it at the front of your collection where it would catch light and cast rainbows on the paisley papered walls. Now it sat dusty, catching nothing in the faded light.

I opened the window and threw it, hoping it would find a rock and smash into a million glittering peices, scattered by the wind and caught in rivers of rain. If you ever came back, I didn't want you to find the memory of someone who had forgotten you.

look at the stars, look how they shine for you

2007-08-03T02:59:55Z

We spoke in whispers, afraid of the morning, afraid of the light. We were ghosts of the night, tracing constellations with our fingertips, connecting the darkness in between. We followed the satellites, the plane lights, the murmer of fireflies. We were night blooming, collecting dew and echoing the soft flutter of evening breezes. And when they switched the sprinklers on, soaked the dirt and fed the trees, we jumped up screaming, laughing, spinning, dripping, singing, hands tight, knowing even the chill couldn't drag us apart.

The nights were ours, the headlights on a grey highway, the moon on the rocking tide. We drew the curtains and tasted the moon. We hummed with the crickets, the cicadias, the frogs slipping into the pools. We knew shadows, it was the place we'd been kept alone, apart for so long. But somewhere along the way we found a way to glow, twin lights in a navy room. A flicker of yellow, a ring of red and we were promised our castles would never go abandoned.

I know you when the thunder rolls in, when the moon overtakes the sun. When the dream starts playing, you find my hand, across a desert, across the darkness. And this is where I know you, this is where I'll find you.

dancing little marionette, are you happy now?

2007-08-01T00:58:49Z

The need to run was ever-present in my heart. Our home in the country was flanked by nothing but space - corn fields and deserted highways and dandelion hills - and yet I was confined to the backyard, to building houses in trees and watching the distance for any sign of escape.

I never let loneliness touch me, even while surrounded by silence. I imagined the shadow of my imagination twirling beside me, cartwheeling in the long shadows I cast as I watched the birds jealously. Her stories filled the silence, her voice a singsong serenade erasing the dull hues of the real world with vibrants shades of magic.

Even with real friends, I preferred her company to theirs; it was a habit of mine, at home, on the playground, to call up impromptu games of hide and seek, yelling as I can for them to find me. I could imagine I was being chased my monsters or spies or warlords from another land.

I was never caught.

I always wondered if it was a secret wish to be caught, if this was why I ran and hide, moving along quietly with only my imagination to keep me company. In the back of my mind, maybe I wanted someone to grab my wrist and demand that I stay still, stay there, stay with them. But when the bell rang, or night fell, I slipped out of shadows, left only with my lonely triumph.

no more looking out, i'm looking in

2007-07-23T20:09:17Z

There is a sea in the sky tonight, she thought, watching the clouds curl over the moon.

"What is the sky but the constant reflection of the sea?" came a voice from the darkness. The girl jumped and looked around, finding only darkness and the gentle sway of her grandmother's sunflowers in the distance.

"Hello?" she whispered, voice cracking, hands shaking.

Nothing.

I... It's my imagination again, she thought, pressing her hands down on the cold, damp earth to ease their shaking. There's no one here.

"Of course there is," came the voice again, clearer than the words echoing in her head. The girl felt movement next to her hand and pulled it back instinctively, jumping to her feet as her heart raced painfully in her chest.

Still, she found nobody as she looked around.

"Did it occur to you," the voice said somewhat lazily, "To look somewhere other than up?"

Looking down, she found a hare sitting where her hand had been moments ago. The panic that had constricted her breathing gave way to confusion. Her first thought was that she had finally gone crazy.

"You're not crazy," the voice, which she presumed was issuing from the hare said, "You're just-"

The girl cut him off. "Then I'm dreaming," she whispered, mostly to herself. She looked back at her house and, though she was rather far away, expected to see herself fast asleep under the billowing curtains of her window.

The hare looked up at her, blinking slowly. Shaken, she sat down, although she kept some distance between the hare and herself.

"Animals don't talk," she said, looking at the clouds that continued to wash over the moon. The hare looked at her as though he agreed. "I talk to my cat," she continued, "And like to think she talks back but I know full well she doesn't." The hare did not look surprised. "At least not with a voice," the girl added as an afterthought. She sighed and thought to herself, I used to believe she could talk to me, though.

"Why would you stop believing?" the hare asked. The girl jumped again. The hare had been so quiet as she had rambled on that she had hoped he would stop talking and she could chalk it up to the wind.

"Because," she said indignantly, "That's silly and childish. Animals can't talk no more than... than that rosebush can sing!" She looked over at the rosebush as she said this, half-afraid that it would begin to sing just to spite her.

"Well, if you don't believe it can sing, then why are you afraid it will start just to spite you?"

She looked down at the hare, a chill prickling down her scalp and into her spine. "Are you reading my mind?" she asked. The hare said nothing. Are you? she wondered.

"Perhaps you're reading mine. After all, animals can't talk." There was a hint of humor in the hare's voice.

"I can't read minds. If I could I'd have..." she trailed off, her eyes suddenly shimmering in the faint moonlight. If the hare found her amusing, he wiped it off his face and looked up at her with a concerned sort of pity. As she wiped her eyes, she found it completely insane that she thought there was any sort of emotion on the furry face of a hare.

"Of course I care," said the hare, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"Why are you here?" she asked, her voice thick and slightly tempered. The hare shifted in the long grass but did not answer.

"Why-" she started to ask, but paused. Her eyes connected to something distant and unseen. The hare looked up at her with a shadow of pride on his face, waiting for her answer.

Why are you here? she wondered.

"You asked for me." he answered simply. As if to prove this as the truth, a star tumbled out of the sky and disappeared behind the trembling sunflowers.

When? she asked.

The hare looked at the sunflowers, trying to figure out what she meant. A light began to glow where the star had fallen. The girl understood.

I mean, when did I ask? I don't understand.

"When you saw the mirror."

She looked over where the starlight was beginning to burn brighter. A tear formed behind her eyes again but this time, she did not attempt to wipe it away. It fell from her face and landed on the soft ground as the star illuminated night as day. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that no one could see this.

"That's right," the hare said softly, "Only you."

Why? she asked. The light seemed to melt inside her and began to dissolve the pain that ached inside her heart. The tears continued to form, continued to chase one another down her cheeks, hot against cold.

The hare looked to the tears, then to the sunflowers. "I can't tell you, exactly, only you know that." She looked at her dirty hands. "You are different, though." The hare added, sensing her distress. "Only someone very special could have seen it."

I don't want to be dreaming, she thought, closing her eyes tightly, the last of the tears breaking free and dropping silently from her chin.

The hare struggled with something and then, upon seeing her opened eyes said "There's more to life than waking and dreaming."

The girl nodded, understanding completely. From where she sat, between the reflection of a distant tide and the flickering light of a fallen star, she saw the space in between, something often distant and unseen.

gonna come back and take you home

2007-07-13T04:59:33Z

We grew up together, sisters, living in the hills and capturing daisies. Where we once shared Barbies and secrets, fought over crayons and the front seat, we now shared a quiet friendship brighter than the sun.

But we still fight over the front seat of the car.

open my heart and let it bleed onto yours

2007-07-07T04:14:13Z

In a world full of villians and monsters, we spent our days running and hiding, our breaths caught in our chests as we watch shadows roll silently pass the doors. High above the world was an escape route but with heavy legs and weak arms, we knew only the balloons ever made it that high.

Long after the footsteps faded away, we slowly drew the curtains back and allowed ourselves to face the day. Was he gone, we'd wonder, or were the dark spaces in the basement hiding his distorted form? Is this old house just sagging under its age or are there demons in the attic?

We lived with frayed nerves and hearts constantly pumping with fear. But most of us found solace somewhere, most of us melted into safe arms and a lulling voice. For me, that was you and when I crawled out of the dusty cabinet to find you, my heart skipped two beats and my silent lungs allowed for a joyful sigh.

Those moments you held me tight erased every moment I had spent feeling alone and afraid. Somewhere far away was a monster who killed, who sent us running for concealed spaces but all of that washed away in your presence.

You kissed my forhead, my fingertip and asked me how I was before a ringing telephone pulled me from sleep.

these words can be broken, washed away

2007-07-04T00:27:20Z

Last night I dreamt I went to an hospital in the trees made of wax paper and glitter where faeries sewed my heart back together using silk sutures. They made me rest and heal on a bed of roses and downy emerald feathers and when I was a better, I could breathe under water and tell stories nobody wanted to end.

When I woke up, I still felt exactly this way. Like my heart was better, like the ghosts in my head had left for another world and as though I had nothing but lovely things to say to people who longed to listen. I feel like the whole world stretches on in front of me, an adventure ready to unfold, while the wooden cage I thought was home lays in a million peices at my feet.

figures dance around and around to drums that pulse out echoes of darkness

2007-07-03T04:38:59Z

Spinning, spinning madly. Swinging high into the June sun and long days spent rolling down a bleached highway. Something inside me was broken in my absence, in yours. In silence there was doubt but in the wind, it was swept away. Like dusk burning on a worn mountain so faded my love for you. Down the tiny waterwalls and deep into the valleys, below the fog, to reach the rivers and oceans and lands I may never see.

It is not as easy as silence returned, it is not as simple as melting in a place only known as "Gone" but with time, it just may be enough to cast these ghosts to their resting place.

These roads twist and they turn. They shrink into tunnels and expand into busy highways packed with glinting cars and mirage-warped horizons. I have crossed the country more than once, swung back and forth, just for someone I believed in. I've moved nowhere, I've sunk down, floated high, twisted and turned all the while believing my heart knew exactly who it wanted and that it was as simple as that.

But it being Gone, in giving up, letting go, in seeing a world beyond the one my heart believed so deeply in I have finally found freedom. A rickety cage opened to air filled with lilting music and the scent of rose and soft tomato leaves.

I wrote thousands of pretty words for you only to find the ones I wrote for me, for the sky, for wildflowers and dragonflies and a hazy, distant love I met in a dream were more beautiful and powerful than anything I hopelessly struggled to craft, to no avail, for you. They whisper back, as it is, sing me songs and lullabies to sleep. The moon hums patiently while I wish on stars for a summer that is never coming back to me.

Loving you was lovely but the adventure in letting you go and melting into Gone is a love only birds and astronauts will ever know.

i used to watch the moon retreat and wonder where it goes

2007-05-04T04:32:50Z

I've dreamt of that dandelion-speckled hill hundreds of times. I wonder if it really exists somewhere out there, rolling up to meet the cornflower sky and dipping low back into the valley, cut by a tiny, silver stream. I mostly dream that I dance barefoot, unless, melting into the cool waves of dusk until I am nothing more than a pale star in an endless sheet of black silk.

But last night I dreamt that you, My Mystery, were there with me. And we were blowing tiny, iridescent bubbles, dancing their own fluid ballet over the shivering blades of grass. Sometimes there'd burst before they could break the wand, splattering us with droplets of shimmering soap.

We didn't stop, not even when the stars come out, the darkness engulfing all but the faint line of silver light illuminating the edge of the bubble-ghosts. We didn't stop, we didn't talk, we just laughed and waited for the plastic bottles to run out of the magic.

There was no point to it, we just sat together, soaking in the fiery light of a dying horizon and watch soap expand and shine and float away. We sat together, quiet and in love, soaking in one another until we were sure that we were light enough to float away.

(note: This entry really needs to be appreciated because nearly half of it was almost lost. I think my heart actually stopped when I minimized this window and opened it back up again and saw that I was missing two and a half paragraphs. Bad computer!)

ima shake you off though, get up on that horse and ride into the sunset, look back with no remorse

2007-04-14T22:45:28Z

Pain radiated up the girl's arm as she instinctively pulled her hand back. She examined the tiny bubble of blood that bloomed on her thumb, marveling at the way the body could move faster than it could feel. Without thinking, she put her thumb in her mouth, the red liquid metal melting away. A few moments later, she took out her thumb and replaced it with a yet-to-be inflated balloon.

The balloon was an ugly shade of green, dark and dingy, but as she shared her breath with it, light broke past it's latex shell and glowed a yellow-lime. Using her injured hand, she deftly popped a sheet of paper into the tiny opening and tied the green orb with a shimmering strand of white ribbon. The ribbon was tied to her wrist, leaving her hands, injured or not, free to carry a small shoebox that had been painted black, the word "free" glued on from glossy magazine cut-outs.

The girl snaked out past the crumbling fence of her yard, the balloon trailing behind her, bobbing madly in the wind. Despite warnings from her grandmother, she made this journey barefoot.

The hill was not a particularly steep one but it did open up into a field of yellow daisies and violets. As she climbed it, she tossed her golden hair into the wind and smiled up at the sun. This was a place she could call home and it was the only place she could think of doing this. As the colours came to greet her, as the warmth spread through her core, as the wind sang softly in her ears, she felt peace wrapping itself tightly around her. Her smile grew wider.

Once atop the hill, she set herself to work; she was ready for this to be done. She set the box down, ribbon and balloon tugging on her wrist, and opened it up. She pulled out a pair of scissors and a bottle of water and left them resting in the overgrown grass, next to her exposed feet. Picking up the box, she looked down at the rest of it's contents and felt sadness briefly tug at her heart.

She looked down at the flowers, then up at the endless sky. She had tried to prepare a few words, a eulogy of sorts, but nothing came. Reaching into the box, she grabbed a handful of ashes, ashes that had previously been hundreds of letters sitting in this very box in her closet for years. Then she slowly loosened her grip and watched the wind take the charred bits of words away, a black mist spreading over a landscape she had come to loved. She continued this until the box, once so full of love and promise, was just a dusty vehicle for once-new shoes.

In a few days, the rain would come and wash the ashes from the flowers and the grass. Until then, she took the bottle of water and washed her stained hands clean of a past she was ready to forget. Sitting down, palms turned up to dry in the sun, she looked up at the balloon, still dancing merrily in the breeze. Inside, a tiny sheet of paper bounced around and a name scrawled in blue ink was trapped, waiting for her next move.

The girl hated the name now. And with that, hands still glistening, she took the scissors and cut the ribbon.

_irredescent @ 2007-04-01T13:14:00

2007-04-01T17:13:56Z

Happy Birthday, Fred and George Weasley!

i can't explain where i've been

2007-03-23T15:36:58Z

I cannot tell you exactly how this feels beyond saying that I think I am standing on the edge of the silvery sea watching the lightning flash and dance in the distance, the waves shimmering white with every burst of static. And when I breathe in the heavy, salty warm air, that is almost how this feels.

I can feel the electricity, it's crackling in my lungs.

I miss lazy days in the rain, blanketed by smokey skies and lined with rippled mirror-sidewalks. I miss the slowness and the silence spring storms bring, the soft hum of tiny rivers running down the streets, sliding down the windows, dripping from the trees. I miss the colours magnified, greens and pinks and yellows illuminated against the silvers and whites.

I cannot tell you exactly how this feels beyond saying that I think I will go for a swim.

your words in my memory are like music to me

2007-02-28T05:45:58Z

Speechless. I don't think anyone ever believed that I could be speechless, as if I stood in a river of words, catching them in my net as they swam by, constructing a feast for everyone to enjoy.

But it doesn't work that way. I can't say the things that matter. The right words don't come by, they don't find me, I don't catch them in my net. The sun is on the surface and I can't always see into the water.

I am not infalliable. I can't always speak, I can't always find the words. Sometimes I find myself slipping under this stream, wondering how I look blue and covered in bubbles, floating away, away, away. When I don't have the words, that's what I do; I slip away.

And sometimes, the words are inside me but they don't want to come out. Sometimes they make it into my net but when I get them on they table, they just move too much, too fast, they're too slippery and I can't hold on, I can't keep them.

Sometimes this glare blinds me, sometimes, I can't hear over this river. Sometimes the things inside can't be found and sometimes, they just slip away. And I'm sorry if sometimes I slip away with them. I don't mean to but sometimes, it's safer under there where darting specks of metallic light brush your skin, where the world above is just a blur of color muted by blues and silvers.

I need your help. Tell me where to start the story, tell me what you want to hear. I'll write you a palace of flowers on a snowcapped mountain if that's what you want, just give the net, just show me the words that need to be caught.

Because sometimes I'm blind and sometimes, I am deaf. Sometimes, I am speechless.

you’re like a parachute descending from the sky

2007-02-24T08:00:18Z

There is a photo album of lost dream places, technicolor memories. Windy, faded, unlined roads and the broken fences that follow them; I found a flower pushing through the cracks in the grey pavement.

There was once a butterfly shivering in the morning mist, it's wing a tattered testament to the wars of far-away lands. I picked it from the dewy ground and was surprised to see it's zig-zagged flight against a sigh filtering down through the trees.

Yesterday and ice clings to the swinging lights, crawls along the wires, clutches every blade of grass and climbs all walls. I wonder how a world once green could turn blue and silver so easily. Coated and frozen, the trees glowed again in the spring.

Once the world fell down. The streets were lined with all that dwelled above, the sea spit out creatures we rarely saw. Everything we knew turned to disaster, drawn together and torn apart.

And yet it all grows again. It is rebuilt, it will fly, it will blossom, it will be repaired.

this is not my town and it will never be

2007-02-19T23:23:26Z

There is something amazing about this moment. Maybe it was the sun I saw shine brightly for the first time in weeks, the orange light like flames on these off-white walls? And maybe it's the paint it's leaving behind, the purple and yellow-white streaks in lines of navy clouds lost in a azure sky, an explosion of blue and blue and blue drawn from the horizon? Or maybe it's that I get a sunset at all.

Maybe it's the city lights? There's not a colour I don't see on that busy street tonight, not a colour that doesn't break the cold snow on the ground below? Is it those tiny lights way off in the distance? The ones flickering like stars, just like stars, curved just enough to let me know that they end on the water?

What is so amazing about this moment? It's nothing out of the ordinary. Orange light finds everyone at sunset, clouds often span the sky, city lights always flicker in the distance. The words it inspires are nothing special, it's not as though no one saw paint in a sky or stars in man-made lights. But this moment? It makes perfect sense, as if Forever found me and took me somewhere like home. Even now that the moment has ended, caught in inevitable nightfall, I still feel it lingering, a promise that will be kept.

you had to find it, all things go, all things go.

2007-01-28T19:52:57Z

(I appreciate that, when I sat down to write, this is not at all what I originally intended. And I love it and I hate it.)

We had two gardens carved into the Earth behind our home. One was my own, the one I had spent an entire spring transforming. It had once been beautiful, I had known, but neglect by it's previous caretaker had stripped it of any flower, any shimmering grass, any herb or any ruby-red leaf. The dirt had greyed and weeds, some deeply rooted far beyond the surface, had choked any chance that I would have my daisies.

But I found myself fighting the heat and the spiders and ants that crawled up my increasingly dirty legs, to turn it into a tiny peice of paradise within our fenced-in yard. When I was through, I would stand back and wonder what the hummingbirds thought, the dragonflies, the fairies that I pretended were still out there, if they maybe saw it as one of the few beautiful places among our human dwellings, on a planet scarred with asphalt and gridded city streets. Somehow, the hummingbird's opinion meant more to me and I made sure to place several sweetly red flowers to keep them finding their way back to me.

The other was my father's garden, "the food garden" as I sometimes referred to it, if only to myself. This one was far less lovely but I would find sustenance for more than just my body when I was standing between the rows. I enjoyed more than wandering back there to watch the tomatoes turn from a muted sort of green to the brightest red imaginable, to watch my reflection spin madly on the mirrors hanging to scare the deer away.

I was alone on those summer afternoons. My job was to care for the plants, at least within the fenced-in yard. We had many, in my garden, in pots around the yard, and even if it took me nearly an hour to give them the water they needed, to whisper to each of them to promise the world was okay, I breathed easier knowing they were there.

I always imagine that my life will always be this way, in my daydreams, this is all I need. It was like a fairy tale, the way the flowers bloomed for me, the way the shimmer-winged birds and insects found their way to my home, the way I learned to speak to everything without a tongue, without that thing in our throats that they call a box. I was free, tied down to nothing more than the thought that without my plastic blue watering can, the plants would wilt away and die and I would lose my wonderland. That, the very seeds me father had planted had grown up into the cucumber that fed me, body and soul.

i want to know why my head is overrun with ghosts

2007-01-26T03:59:17Z

This needs some serious re-writing but I felt a pressing need to write it right now. Like a large portion of my "writing" it's not based on actual events but just what I feel. I'll let you figure out which one is "me." (which is why there was a ginormous need for me to write it out. It's my self-revelation.)

"I wonder if it would be okay for me to take this love and give it something that will return it, like an ocean or the never-ending ticking of my mother's grandfather clock."

"That's specifically why I avoid love. We're told in fairy tales that love is simple: love is born and is returned in some charming prince or lovely princess. They live happily ever after. But in the real world, it's born and it grows and sometimes, it lives forever alone in the heart of one."

"You can't not love."

"I love. I see my family, I see my friends and feel that the love we share is... it's just like floating. When I think of it I feel light, like I might burst into a puff of dust and be air. I have faith in that."

"But no one else? You have faith in me as a friend but, say, nothing more?"

"If I loved you, you'd never know it. You keep your love to yourself. You think it isn't returned and when it is, you're looking at the very fairy tales that have us trapped. You're dreaming of a prince, you've got your eye on a star you'll never touch. You're living far away, acting wounded, as if no one in this world sees you as their star."

"I'm not the one who said I don't love."

"I didn't either. I said I did. I said I avoided it, avoided obsessing, avoided holidays made out of chocolate and pink and red paper cards. I avoid diamond rings and broken promises, I avoid the fantasy of it all, that love is a thing we can label, that it's a word, not an action and not a feeling that, once we have it, it's perfect and it'll free us. I'm already free and I already love. I'm not going to be bitter and look to the clouds and ask them to take my love, because the person I want to have it is looking beyond me, beyond them."

"Then what? What if you're alone in love?"

"Then you keep that love for yourself. If no one ever took it, you can't be empty. You can't be empty in a world like this, anyway, you can't be alone. You've always got something to listen to, whether it be music or the wind, and someone will always hear you, even if it's just a lady bug looking for a place to land. You give that love to yourself and you share it the people, the things that do want it. I tell my cat secrets every night knowing he'll keep them, knowing he'll love anyway, knowing that he's happy to receive the love I give him. Even if all you have is a flower garden, you have something to love, something that will love you, something that makes you light and free. Fairy tales are made when we let illusion run our lives, when we see perfection and think it's possible, when we think it's something more than getting caught in the rain with someone who will hand your hand until you find shelter. You can't believe that when you love that boy, that girl, they will love you back, and you can't let your heart be so fragile as to break when they don't. Because sometimes, they don't. Sometimes they don't see you and you can either cry or you can go curl up next to your mother and remember that she loves you."

"Do you know this from experience or something? That you can just sit back and let people get away? Because that's a terrible philosophy, to just 'go where the wind goes.' I think you need to be active, to fight."

"You can only fight for someone so long. You can only love them unreturned so long before you realize that you need to stop, turn around, and walk away."

"You just give up?"

"You just give up. Not on love, because it's still there. Just on the idea of that person, on the idea that life is rainbows and butterflies and every dream comes true just because you dreamt it."

"You gave up?"

"I don't know. I want to say yes but it could be a lie. I'd say no but I know it wouldn't be so. I just know that when you said 'I wonder if it's okay to give my love to something that will return it' I thought, 'You will never know who is willing to return it because you've got your eyes shut and dreaming. And maybe, I do too. Maybe I need to wake up and put this love in the real world.'"

they say bliss is born of beauty; beauty of butterflies and soaring balloons

2007-01-10T06:25:26Z

What is it about snow that makes me, even in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but slippers, a thin tee shirt, and heart-patterned bottoms, that makes me want to throw the door open and disappear into the white? What is it about my skin turning pink and blue, my hair spinkled and shimmering, my breath dust and vapors, that makes me truly believe it's the work of magic and not the clouds?

Because when the sun comes up, the sky is grey. There's not a single tree that hasn't been robbed of it's leaves. The grass has browned, the fields a shade of faded, worn gold. There's no feast for the eyes, just whites and grey mixed with gloomy shades of brown.

But I imagine within the snow there's a new fairy tale waiting to be told.

no more looking up, i'm looking in

2007-01-02T06:21:43Z

What if my head is so full I'm not sure what to write anymore? I live in too many stories, not a single one of them overlapping with the real world, the one I can touch. There are hundreds of characters I know, from diferrent places, times, under different skies but I forget the real ones, the ones I didn't name. I spend so much time working on their worlds I forget my own. I don't come to the screen anymore, my fingers never hit the keys and I've forgotten how much I love my purple pen and yellowed paper.

And I even forget that these stories are made to be written. There's too many, I can't see just one.

(p.s. last semester's English professor: yes, it is blatantly obvious that I need to take creative writing classes in the future. Someone needs to teach me how to channel my scattered mind.)

_irredescent @ 2006-11-13T11:16:00

2006-11-13T19:16:46Z

So if I actually survive to Saturday, it'll pretty much be the greatest miracle ever. When I say I have no food I mean I have no food. All I eat anymore is pasta and peanut butter and jelly. Not on sandwiches, however, because I have no bread. On English muffins.

I keep expecting to get scurvy or something from my lack of a nutritional diet. The only food group I eat from anymore is the grain one. You know, that big one on the bottom? Yeah.

Good thing next week is Thanksgiving and I'm going home. I think I'll eat the entire turkey. And then demand some steak. Five steaks. And an orange to even things out.

three little birds sat on my window and they told me i don't need to worry

2006-11-12T04:18:02Z

Okay so, Anderson Cooper is now my number one hero. Incredible hotness aside, he's basically the greatest person ever. He's incredibly funny. I mean, it wasn't that surprising but then, I didn't really except him to be that funny. He's intelligent. He does actual reporting with actual, real people instead of the Fox News pundits who seem to be perfectly content with bitching and moaning about something Hilary Clinton did. Actually, they just seem content with sharing their opinions with the rest of us which is not what journalism is and I love, love, love that Anderson Cooper is attempting actual journalism (or news. As in, telling us the truth and not his opinion).

I am so, so glad that I put up with the freezing rain and rude shuttle drivers just to go seem him for an hour and fourty-five minutes. I'm glad I paid for floor seats just to be close enough to see him.

I'm glad because I discovered there's a chance Stephen Colbert may come here.

We're still voting on it. I was handed a card with fourty or so names of people we were asked if we'd like to see come to UB and to check off their names. It took me awhile to notice Colbert's name.

You know the episode of Futurama where Fry discovers that, thanks to having a savings account from a thousand years earlier, he's rich? And he does that demented hyperventilating-breathing-basically-foaming-at-the-mouth thing when the teller tells him his balance? That's pretty much what I did when I saw 'Stephen Colbert' on the card.

I actually circled his name and put a smiley face next to it. I checked his name three times without even thinking about it. I did everything short of asking the usher to give me sixty other cards just so I could vote for Colbert sixty times. Believe me, it crossed my mind, and I contemplated wandering over to other sections and filling out the cards multiple times and turning them into different ushers.

Colbert? Yes please!

Don't worry, Anderson, you'll always be my number one. He really inspired me and he actually helped me on my research paper. He doesn't know that, however, but he did.

But to see Colbert? To giggle in his presence? Um, basically my life-long dream! After Jon Stewart, that is.