I Know All The Rules

When I take a picture of myself I stare out it for hours, on and off, trying to imagine what other people would or wouldn't see in it. In me. Narcissism or the looking glass self?

Could You Make Me a Cup of Tea

So it happened. You heard a song, and it took you twenty paces back. Maybe it's not the right time to swallow down memories and feelings and faces. To imagine that your pillow still smells like him, to pull out those creased notes from the bottom of the sock drawer and read it out loud to yourself. It's a good feeling though, to know that enough time has passed that you can afford to look back for a little while. It's only a moment of realizing that you will be ok, that you're almost ok, and you can afford to crack down the middle for just a microscopic moment. Melancholy. All beautiful things in life are melancholy.

Noticing the Little Things

Today Something Happened

I'm writing my first novel. It's really happening. I'm really doing it. Maybe, if I can conjure up the willpower, I will post the goings-on of my process....BUT what I'm really hoping will happen, is that I will disappear and write something truly wonderful and magical. So for now, goodbye. Talk to you soon. - Yaz

Don't Ask Me To Rise

I can't put into words what I'm feeling. It's like every thing hurts. My eyes feel like lead weights but they won't stay shut. I don't know what you're trying to do to me. Why is it okay for you to walk in and out of peoples' lives when you know damn well how much you rearrange a persons anatomy the minute you look them in the eye. I finished putting myself back together after leaning on you for so long and now it just feels like my veins and nerves are splitting and reattaching themselves. Why is it so easy for me to forget the horrible, cruel way you treated me? I just want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you. I want to lay in bed with you, like we used to, and feel, for a moment, that I am safe and understood. I just want to sleep you away. I just want this ambivalence to end. I got what I wished for every day for four months, and now I have no idea what to do. I don't know what to do with you. I just want to sleep. But I know I'll just dream about being OK. I'll dream that you and I are OK. I'll dream so hard that I'll wake up thinking I'm whole. I can't be whole, you won't give back the parts of me I gave you. To fill in the holes, the gaps, the spaces that were left empty.

I just want to sleep.

I think I know

I am the reason. I'm the reason you felt the need to bring what you feel on the inside, to the outside. I claim to be holding every one together, but in truth I'm just a single, rusty staple. I can only go so far before time sweeps over me like high tide. Just like that salty expanse of tears, I'm a victim of the capricious moon's ambivalence to highs and lows. I love you though. So I will attempt to be better. I think I could be better, better for you. Just give me some time to wash my skin of it's sallow color. Just give me a little time to compromise with my bones so they don't try so hard to make themselves known under my armor, which is diminishing day after day. I think I know what you want, and I think if I fight hard enough against myself I could give it to you. I just need a little time. I just need a little time.

Her Name Was Naomi

I want space. I want blackness, darkness, quiet, a vacuum. To be suspended, not even in air but in nothingness. To remember to breathe in deep enough that you can see your lungs rise. You can find auspicious dreams in mundane things; collections of bottle caps, toy sailboats, books weathered by time. I just don't understand what it is that I am supposed to be waiting for, or hoping for. I don't even desire to think about anything but the future anymore, and a destiny of living a life defined by unknowns is a sad one. And words don't even make sense. You just write them, speak them, sing them, and trip over them. But who are you getting through to? It just feels like you could scream and throw your fists to the wall and you'd just wake up tied to your bed, sweating: it's all just a dream. You're living a thousand lives at once, you're throwing your limbs into pools of dark water and you don't even care if they get swallowed up. What is it to be so jaded that you don't even think, every moment is connected by impulses. And impulse by impulse you get farther away from your point of origin. what is it to be infinite? to have no clear beginning or end? Is it better to have faith or hope? Faith is defined by a thankfulness for every day you that shows you mercy, while hope is a state of blind expectation. What is it that makes more sense?

The night is the only time I dare think of your face, because you and I can only exist in a dimension separated by every thing else we are. I can't feel you when I'm facing reality head on, because you are not reality. I can't feel you when I'm awake, because I can tell the difference between the haze of constant dreams and the line that crosses into actuality. I feel you when I see the moon, and hear quiet breathing in the night, and am delirious enough to touch my cheeks and feel the wetness you left there. It might not be real at all, but that's okay. In the night it is okay to feel imaginary things. It's okay to breathe in the intoxication of after-hours visions. You aren't hurting anyone, you're not even hurting yourself, because when you wake up in the morning you can't remember. You can't remember sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, hugging your knees, and letting everything that you push away in the daylight to come at you full force. Just feel it, take it in, feel it touch your skin, and know that you are alive. You are alive for a reason, because someone needed you. You are alive with every breath you take, and all the discourse you choke down with tasteless water.

You sit on the granite counter top, it's cold and it feels right. You slide to press your face against an untouched square of stone, colder still, and let your fingers tap ghostly melodies near your ears. You breathe because you are alone, no one is watching, and it's okay to fall apart in the twilight hour. No one has to know the secrets you share with yourself. When the Sun comes up, you smile while your back is turned to the rest, and remember those silent moments. Moments where you felt your heart beat, and you felt your soul speak, and you know. You know