Ember of Rage.

Go! Do something!

Rules, and having them. And occasionally breaking them.

This is clearly against the rules. Basically, all of them.

But I don't mind.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every day is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He or she may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door, laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-Rumi

Open

Here, he says, is my gift.

"I dream of your hands, of your face, of your lips. I have heard your every dream and fear and bless your generous heart with every ounce of mine. These are the things that come to me over and over again: your form moving against mine in a soft, dark world of our own creation; your eyes sparking with laughter, ready to light me afire; your voice, a secret pathway to the garden exploding with the scents of my desire, ylang ylang, lemon verbena, and lily.

Ask me whatever you want; I am an open book."

No, I am an open book.

Equal Parts

I have this desire to take my posts down, to undo all that was done. To unfeel what was felt. But I won't. I'm struggling to accept what I feel and am, without editing and revising for my own satisfaction, for my own approval.

Right now, here I'm feeling everything is equal parts death and life. Things are passing too quickly, as though I were the unmoving star of a time-lapse video. I'm living like I should have years ago. I feel behind. I feel too far ahead of everyone else my age. I want to say "I'm sorry I disappoint you by being 26 and not married. Fuck you for thinking I should be." But I don't say it. I never do, instead, I cringe and say "I do hope you're happy!" While knowing they're already not.

I fall in love too easily, my heart pours itself out to every waiting ear, giving up a bit of itself every time, hoping for something back.

And I'm reluctant to even post this.

On the dream.

Waking up, after a night in the woods, I am groggy and cranky because there's no shower, no hope of one any time soon. We have pine needles in our hair. I have morning breath, and am struggling out of sleep and uncertain if I can actually live without hot water, or a comfortable bed. And then, a kiss, laughter.

And the knowledge that even now, I love you. I couldn't imagine anyone more perfect than you.

It bears repeating.

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. - Neil Gaiman

"The law of averages maintains there must be other people out there like me."

I have written and rewritten this next post so many times I don't even remember what I was trying to say.

I just had a really amazing experience of knowing someone wonderful. Someone who was so like me, someone who made me laugh and renewed my faith in intelligence and caring. Someone I already miss, someone I feel somehow smaller, less without. One of the things that brought us closer when I asked these two questions - "What do you fear most?" and "What do you dream?"

My answer to the latter was I dream of the end of the world. Of an apocalypse. I dream of the coming plague, the sun dissolving on the horizon, of reality falling away like puzzle pieces to reveal another reality beneath. I dream of utter horror and loneliness and I dream of the world reborn. Mostly I dream of knowing it will end, that the power of a thousand suns will be released on earth, that what we have created will end us, and we will die in a nuclear holocaust, or worse survive.

But that's not what I fear, it's what I dream. When I asked what you fear most, I didn't have an answer to my own question. But now I know.

And even saying it turns my spine inside out, knowing who helped me find the answer turns my heart to shadow because what happened between us made it even more likely to be true.

I fear being alone. Not temporarily. I love living alone, I love being on my own. I love dancing in my car, staying up curled around trashy disposable fiction, passing hours on my own. What I fear most lead me to ask what I wanted most. And what I want most is a family. A partner to share my life with, someone committed to seeing the next day with me, and the next. And the next. Someone who knows me, is overwhelmed by love for me and the whole world, and maybe wants to adopt a kid with me. And we have friends.

That's what I want most. Stupidly simple. Maybe just stupid. Because I can't do it on my own. You can't have a dream that depends on someone else because there's no guarantee that it can happen. In fact, the law of averages maintains it cannot happen. And so that's what I fear most, dying, leaving this world, and not having had that.

A Message

I want to scream my throat raw, collapsing in the street. I want to say I feel nothing, to laugh at the mention of your name. I want to saw away at ice for hours before I find your face, surrounded by a shimmering blue halo. Instead there is only an echo, an ache. I wake up, your name on my lips, and feel (instead of anger) only want.

I turn your kindness and comments over and over again, shuffling what was said and unsaid.

Even now, I only wish for the silence before your nervous laugh.

What New Orleans was Really Like

Of course, it was wonderful, squeaks the plastered smile.

I wrote this while I was there.

I could die here and no one would know for days. Maybe I already have. I wasn't able to resist, hooked one heel over the railing and leaned...

I am in a sort of limbo, clearly neither heaven nor hell. There are too many beautiful things here - exquisite snuff bottles etched with bats and butterflies, but it is a sort of hell, each room and restaurant as faceless and unfamiliar as the last.