On a Starliteve

Oracle

2010-05-20T09:16:00.004-04:00

Before I knew my power

You coaxed me to the looking glass

Stood behind me, your arms on my waist

Nuzzled my neck

Lightning sizzled across my skin

Your façade pressing into me

Sternum to spine

You stripped me of my defense

It was a trick

I fell through the looking glass

To an alternate place and time

You stole myself,

They knocked me from my tower

I didn't stop wanting you

Even as I sat in desperation

But I found it

It was within

I reclaimed what you stole, myself

I reclaimed you

Still tall with dusty gray hair

But young and impetuous

I drew you to me to show you

what I had become

And we embraced through time

We bathed in ice and snow

I tasted your frozen breath

Our bodies tingling with cold

We danced in fire and stars

burned in the heat of suns

You called me the oracle

An avatar

A Still Heart

2010-04-06T15:34:00.004-04:00

I went to sleep that night with no thoughts of you in my conscious mind. It had been more than a season since I'd seen you in person and a lifetime since I'd felt you. I tumbled into the dreamscape like Alice down the rabbit hole, and hardly caught my bearings before I saw the white, sterile hallway. It led down a corridor and to another room that looked more like a room where a serial killer kept his victims than a hospital room. Your lifeless body was on the table and an inept team was trying desperately to revive you. The tools looked archaic and the walls were dripping gray and black brick and it was all wrong. Something was so very wrong as they cracked your chest and the blood ran side to side. Then, all I could see was the sinew and bone rent from side to side, pushed back and then the still organ. Everyone in the room turned to me as if they expected me to be there, as if it was my turn to try - as if I had been called in to revive you.

Touching you inside was a religious experience, horrific and deeply real. Even as the seconds rushed by and I massaged your quiet heart with my naked hands, I could smell the rusty smell of blood, taste the tang of its mist and feel the warmth of your recently stilled flesh. My heart was willing yours, coaxing it... "beat, please beat, pump, beat, thump," faster and faster it sang out, begging yours to join it. My eyes were salty my hand was shaking from the pressure of walking a delicate line between not crushing your heart and pumping hard enough to make it start.

Your eyes were closed and your angelic face was perfectly still and silent. But, my fingers, urgently probing for any sign of motion, felt something - a skip. I knew you would come back if I asked you just the way you wanted to be asked. I felt a slight pulsing beneath the pads of my fingers and my heart leapt, but I never saw your eyes open. Instead, mine opened to the blaring siren of my cell phone alarm. I crawled out of bed and stood in the shower, shivering. I nearly picked up the phone to hear your voice, but realized that it made no sense. We were no more connected than we were in the moments before I drifted to sleep with only thoughts of another in my mind. I hope all is well with you.

What can you do...

2009-10-17T08:57:00.002-04:00

When you see the train headed for the end of the tracks and the brakes are out. Not a whole lot I expect. You can run around the train trying to stop it, turn it around, change its course some or just slow down, but if the train is full steam ahead, you're going off the edge anyway. Which wouldn't sound so bad if this was a toy train, but it's a ten ton steel locomotive ready to plunge into the abyss and smash into pieces. You might feel a little better being the one that runs around trying to save everyone on board, but it's a train wreck - there's nothing to be done. Why not sit next to the other person on the train and watch it hit the rocks? Then you can sing the old Neil Diamond song "Love on the rocks, ain't no surprise." And you can lift your broken body off the ground and keep moving. But you can't be too angry. You, after all, were the one who decided to get on the train.

What to say, what to say

2009-10-14T03:16:00.002-04:00

I haven't seen you in at least 7 years. I was underage at that bar and drinking brandy over some silly joke to impress a boy that didn't know I existed. You were there, quite a bit older than me... at least six years older. I remember sitting in a flimsy resin lawn chair on the bar's patio next to you and talking awkwardly about this and that. I can't even remember the conversation. You were cute with a prominent nose and handsome features, but short - yes, I seem to remember that you were 5'2 or 5'3 or so. That didn't bother me, mind you. You asked me if I wanted to hang out for a little while, and I drove off with you, leaving my car in the gravel parking lot across the street. We pulled up at your parent's house, and you showed me in through the kitchen, past the living room down to the basement. I recall some photos on the fridge and family photos in the living room that assured me you were part of a normal family just like mine. Once in the basement, the advances were quick and decisive. We were kissing in moments and touching and caressing. It was already well past 4 a.m. and we crawled up to your bedroom, careful not to wake your parents. What happened there I can't say I'm exactly proud of. We didn't make love, but we crossed at least one line I would have preferred to have held steadfast on. Soon it was dawn and we were sneaking out to the car so you could drive me back to mine. Later that morning I would rear end another car on my way to work, forever burning this moment into my memory. I can still remember your plaid basement couch, the brown blanket on your bed, and other things I'd rather I'd forgotten.

So now I'm sitting here and we're new social media friends. We're also both grown up, married and far past any of the silliness of that evening. Since we literally never saw one another before or after that, however, I find myself at a complete loss for words...

Thin Line

2009-10-08T00:22:00.002-04:00

There's a thin line between lust and love, I thought to myself as I wiped the crust from my eyes and rolled over to stare at the alarm clock, bleeping and blaring into the silent morning. In my dream, you were there, you, the unattainable. Asking me, begging me for comfort, contact. I brushed my hand along your arm lightly, a small gesture to comfort you, connect with your suffering in a difficult moment. Your neck snapped towards me, your soft brown eyes slowly searching mine for meaning. I slid my arm around your shoulder and pulled you close to me - just an embrace, nothing more. We held fast, frozen. For the first time in a long time I felt your shape, the curvature of your shoulder blade and the slight softness with lean muscle beneath. Our faces slid together and I felt your breath on my neck, the roughness of your five o'clock shadow scraped lightly against my cheek. I was held as much as holding, feeling every tiny motion of your limbs. The feeling in my heart, my stomach, the firing synapses of my brain, was so intense I nearly choked on it and it sent shivers through my bones. Love, pure and unadulterated. Or so I thought, for as it broke over me like a shimmering wave, I desired a culmination, a completeness of our expression. Then I stood there and looked at the shoreline, the thin line between love and lust. I decided to stay on the sand, but I relished every wave until the tide receded and we separated at long last. I woke. I laid in the bed, contemplating the meaning of our dreamtime rendezvous. I snuggled under the covers, warm with sleep, and contemplated the decision made by my dream-self to be true to the real me, not to the dreamer who had you in her arms.

Erogenous Composition

2009-09-11T02:02:00.008-04:00

Driving through a dusty construction zone, my iPod switched randomly to a song I haven't heard recently. It's an old song, five years old this fall in my memory. It hardly seemed decent in public, on a sunny day, but it reminded me of a dark fall evening and a crisp fall morning. The first time I heard it, when my friend gave me a burned copy of the cd, it had a sultry, salty flavor and it sang with purpose.

Another night, just a few weeks after I first found it, it would find its purpose as a soundtrack, as a metronome. I welcomed him at my door, pulled him inside near the wooden stairwell and tied a soft black scarf over his eyes, tucking his glasses in my pocket and leading him upstairs, pulling his hand behind me. The room was a glow with candles, and I hoped the ghosts weren't watching. I hid our deeds under a gossamer canopy I had newly attached. It draped the bed and swathed behind, trailing on the wooden floor.

He seemed unsure, excited. Our energy filled the room, like the glowing light he couldn't see and the hum of the music on my old stereo. He was the experienced one and I was the innocent in the light of day; this exercise was to be a strange role reversal. He was always the one desiring, chasing women in the past, never the chased. I was chasing him. Pursuing him, winning him over because I was entranced by his beauty. I stripped him sensually. I unbuttoned his casual plaid, long sleeved shirt, then pulled his slightly tight white t-shirt over his shoulders. I pulled off his big black boots, slid off each sock and unzipped his boy-next-door denim, sliding it down around his ankles. I looked at his gorgeous body, white shoulders into muscular arms, a narrow waist and slender, powerful legs. With only finger tips I pushed his chest and his body fell back onto the waiting comforter, sprinkled with rose petals that I found at the local grocery on my way home from work. They were fresh, soft and fragrant.

It was an exercise in tension with no release. I teased him, finding tiny tastes of his body to tickle, touch, lick, caress and massage. His face was electric with excitement and curiosity about this woman who was leaving him in tingling desire. His lips smiled and separated as I ran the soft edge of a rose petal against a nipple or the inner crease of an elbow. Erogenous zones were discovered in utilitarian places. He would try to reciprocate touch, but I would gently refuse, focusing on a new unknown place with the lightest touch of my fingertips. I took a long feather and ran it along his shoulder, his neck, his ribs, his inner thigh. I had a collection of sensations in my bag of tricks and I strung them together like a composition, forcing him, coaxing him to experience something outside the ordinary.

The music gave a rhythm to my tactile experiments. The haunting melodies and electronic noises filled the empty seconds between. I pressed a breast against his lips, only to pull away and watch him search. I streaked a cool stripe of chocolate down the skin on his stomach and blew on it, causing a shiver down his spine, then licked it up with a warm tongue. When my masterpiece of tactile connections was finished, I laid beside him, feeling the warmth of our bodies close together. I pulled the blindfold up over his hair and saw his full expression for the first time. His warm brown eyes were sparkling with intensity and interest as he nuzzled close for satisfying kisses. We weren't lovers yet, not then. We hadn't tasted each other. It was a beautiful exercise in sensual restraint and aching temptation. We kissed and talked and desired so intensely, so deeply. Then we fell asleep in each other's arms.

Then there was another memory, a memory of driving him to his monthly obligation at 5 a.m. before the sun had risen. It was a frigid November morning and the sun was just beginning to approach the horizon. It felt like driving him to the airport, watching him leave forever on a jet plane. He would only be gone for 8 hours, but I had a premonition. For some strange reason I had picked up the music from a night months earlier and slipped it into the disc drive. What once had a sexual bent was now sultry sadness, haunted. I remember driving away in the deep blue morning with just a touch of blushing sunlight at the horizon, pushing green then blue sky away, the music blaring in his car.

Now when I listen to the music it is both sensual and haunting, tempting and morose. I will never be able to play it with my new love. It's old and used up for me. In the same sense, it belongs to that old memory of a new love budding, a new love that ran its course and expired. The death throes and broken spirits from the overdue, overdone ending tarnish the tensions and releases in each song. When I hear the album now, it feels out of tune with my life. It feels private and full of old meaning. I keep it though, because the memory is interesting. A chapter in my awakening as a woman.

Writing is Dead

2009-08-18T02:58:00.006-04:00

Lately everything that I want to write is a piece out of my life. The problem is that some of them are private pieces, pieces I wouldn't want to recreate so exactly. I feel like I lack the creativity to change the names and places, keeping all the feelings, moments and faces. Somehow changing it takes away from what it is, which is beautiful realism with a touch of pain. It's frustrating. I feel like I have so much to express, but it doesn't want to march across the page. Instead it sits right below the surface consuming my thoughts, stealing my awareness for its own private purposes.

From angels to mortal men and music to mortality, it's all swimming around in a pool of words, visceral reactions and disparate desires. Some is past, some is present and some is alternate reality. The future remains a question and an inference.

When the words return to my fingers with the intent to be captured and arranged, I will add to this journal. For the moment I have to use all my words for practical purposes.

A Taste

2009-07-24T03:28:00.006-04:00

Was it a form of avoidance and escapism or just a personality flaw? She couldn't really define the way she felt. It was akin to the moment you try your favorite food for the very first time. There's almost a desperation for more accompanied by a tiny but insistent fear that you'll never taste it again, so you must drink it in with all five senses in that moment. Every so often she'd see a new face, a new body, hear a new sound, meet a new personality, see a new movie star, read a new character, and that first taste - that first taste led to hours of reading, listening, watching, thinking, fantasizing and daydreaming.

She didn't see it coming, she wasn't expecting anything from her evening in the dark little club. She made plans to see the show to recapture a memory that she'd rather not consider, but she found herself enamored with the voices on the recording anyway, so she came. It wasn't even the band she came to see, but an opener - she didn't even know the band name until the end of the set. And he walked on the stage.

Her first reaction to his lithe figure and leather jacket with tousled hair was something like contempt. Oh please, who do you think you are, Elvis? He took his place right in front of her and started fiddling with his pedals and she watched with fascination. Leather jacket, tattooed wrist, less-than-friendly demeanor. His band mates came out on stage and she was momentarily distracted by the cute blonde one. The lights dimmed and the guitars started growling low and slow.

In that moment, illuminated by the red lights, she saw a familiarity about him, even though she had never seen him before. As he crooned out the lyrics into the crowd, she saw his ultra-defined adams apple skipping up and down; she stared, transfixed. Behind his ear was a tiny tattoo that she could barely see, and his face was twisted with intensity. His tight jeans left nothing to the imagination as he swayed and stomped with the music.

He walked closer and she could see the sweat glistening, dripping, sliding down his chest that had that erotic ambiguity of being both a youth's and a man's. He was slender and perfect and sharp, and consumed by the lyrics and the chords on his guitar. He tossed his hair and she felt a little sprinkle on her skin, her hot sticky skin, surrounded on all sides by pushing arms and hands and bodies. She wasn't prone to desiring band musicians, but her heart was racing and her eyes were focused on drinking him in.

Then he slid off the leather jacket, tossing it behind him onto the stage. The cryptic tattoo around his wrist winded and twisted into a sleeve of tattoos that covered his forearm. She imagined it climbing his shoulder and weaving across his back, but the only uncovered evidence was another tattoo sleeve descending from the other sleeve of his v-neck t-shirt. A silver chain caught the light and sparkled as he hunched his body into his guitar, ripping the sounds out and throwing them to the crowd.

She was consumed with the task of capturing each detail. Once she arrived home, she knew she would scour the net for information - who is this man. More often than not it led to things she didn't like and loss of interest, so for now - for this moment, she would forget that and enjoy. As they took their final bow her mind had already wandered, placing him in 1,000 different situations of interest. This was her first taste of a delicacy and she would not forget.

Open My Eyes

2009-07-10T02:19:00.005-04:00

Teach me to see

I never dreamed would come a day

When I felt isolated from what I knew

What my daddy told me as a little girl

What I observed in silent halls

Through a meditative and holy moment

But along came struggle

Pain without hope of repair

The chambers of my heart rent from one another

Broken, bleeding and banished

And then the ways of the world

The loose lips sinking ships

And the wreckage washing up on the shore

And I drifted away, rough, ragged driftwood

The waves softened my edges and I began to hear Hosea

Come back to me with all your heart

Don't let fear keep us apart

Then I met him, he seemed like you

Humble, caring, loving and holy

He spoke Your name

And I loved him

I love him

I believe he loves You

But his ways are not my ways

His beliefs not the truth written on my heart

And his people hate my people

And I'm lost

How can I love you both

And show that love

And live that love

And though my heart is breaking

Day in and day out

I will not feel alone

Instead, I give it all to You

I will not be stubborn with You

I will go, if you lead me

I will not harden my heart

All I ask of him is harden not his

To listen to You and go where you lead

If You lead us apart, it will be a torment

Like one heart ripped in two

But if You tell it to beat, it will beat

If You tell it to live, it will live

If You lead us together, give us the strength

To choose what is right

To do Your will, not our upbringing

To truly and finally become one

We're still halfway through the marriage moment

Though we've said our vows

What remains is for our hearts to be sealed

By Your truth and hand

I have not prayed in so long

I have felt like an abandoned daughter

Hard as I tried, I couldn't find You there

I did find good people and honest

I did find good will and good intentions

But You were hidden from me there

Now I pray and beg to feel You again

I give all over to You and pray for your guidance

For your vocation

For your hand in my life

Like a little girl who skinned her knee

I need my Father to heal me and set things right

And I pray that you preserve my covenant

It was made in love and honesty

The love that rejects self

Only, in rejecting self, for a moment

I rejected the home we have known together

All the days of my life

Help me to find a way to love him and You

I pray in Jesus' name, Amen

Open my Eyes Lord,

Teach me to see...

Until I See Her Again

2009-06-29T14:44:00.004-04:00

The bar was filled with the chattering energy of at least 50 people. Some were stylish young professionals, some were local servers who had just finished their shift and some were empty nesters who just had to get out of their empty homes, nursing their chardonnay. The karaoke MC sauntered up to the stage and made a few lame jokes as he opened the evening with a cheesy version of some 80's rock song.

After a few singers took their turn shouting out ballads and their obligatory rendition of Bridge over Troubled Water, an elderly man walked up to the stage. There was a hush of anticipation among the people. Well, as much of a hush as you might hear in any bar after 11 p.m. and several margaritas. No one could ever remember seeing a man this aged (he looked near 90 years old) in a karaoke bar, late on a Saturday night. He smiled and told the audience that he was going to sing a song for his wife.

The name of the song came up on the screen - "Remember When," the Alan Jackson country song. It seemed like an odd song for this little old man who looked for all the world like someone's grandfather. The lyrics didn't come to mind immediately upon seeing the song title, but the sound seemed all wrong. Until he began to sing.

Instead of the crooning country sound the song usually carries, this wizened man was evoking some of the greatest singers of the 20th century, most notably Sinatra and Tony Bennett. He gave the song a lilting sincerity that transformed it from what many of the audience members considered a cheesy country ballad to something magical. In those moments the young pros, the bikers, the nesters and the servers stopped seeing a grandpa and started seeing a youth, a new father, a young man and an old man. In one of the most common places, they were getting one of the rarest perspectives of life, love and grief.

Nearing the end of the song, the man's voice choked up as he uttered the lyrics, "Remember when we said when we turned gray/When the children grow up and move away/We won't be sad, we'll be glad/For all the life we've had/Remember when." He barely made it through the last few lines of the song and when the music finished he walked slowly off the stage. The crowd knew his wife wasn't in the audience that night and for a moment, everyone was silent. When the magic of that realization lifted, a polite applause began. To the man, it was deafening.

Couples young and old were holding hands, thinking of their plans and where they'd come from. A server texted his girlfriend that he was ready for her to move in and that he was sorry it had taken so long. An empty nester kissed his wife on the shoulder and whispered sweet nothings into her ear. The old man just hobbled back to his table, where some of the audience members noticed he had a large cd book of songs. He was a serious karaoke singer, probably in some other bar. They hoped they'd hear him again.

One girl walked over and asked him if he sang often. "I like to sing for my wife," he said. "Until I see her again."

Please Call a Priest

2009-06-27T04:41:00.008-04:00

I have a joyful exuberance for life, about 40% of the time. The rest of the time, I'm a negative Nancy, a complainer, a little black rain cloud. Today was a sunny day for me. I got to sleep in, which is the exact way that nearly every sunny day kicks off. Then, I got to work on what I wanted to work on. No corporate servitude for me this afternoon. After meeting with a happy bartering client, I went off to meet a good friend at an artist's showcase, and took my happy client/professor with me.

I'm easily swayed by the weather. My disposition often depends on the sky - a sunny day, a thundershower or a soft quiet rain, these are the ingredients for happy, sensual and introspective me. Today was of the sunny, hot as hell variety. Professor and I wandered around the streets towards the artists fair, sweating and swearing about the construction and the traffic zooming by. When we finally got into the shop we had a lovely time browsing, waiting for my friend. When she arrived we went for iced tea and came back for one last look.

They were sniffing some artisan soaps and looking at hand knitted sweaters and I was wandering up to the register to purchase a must-have t-shirt. As I stood in line, it caught my eye. A rack of sterling silver necklaces with tiny colored crystals and intricate details right down to the clasp. One in particular caught my eye. With an abalone shell, a silver ring and a miraculous medal dangling from a small silver ring, the necklace made my fingers tingle with desire. I stepped out of line to reach up and touch it. The price tag dampened my initial interest. Not outlandish. My husband wouldn't even pout over the purchase, but it was still money that could be spent elsewhere.

I turned to see that a woman had stepped in line in front of me, and I had to make a quick decision - necklace or no necklace. She turned and smiled and said, "oh, I'm sorry, were you in line?" I smiled back and said yes, leaving the necklace behind. As the clerk rang up my t-shirt, I found myself agonizing over the necklace. "If you still want it tomorrow, you can come back and get it," I kept telling myself. Then, I happened to see a red blur out of the corner of my eye. A woman in a red dress had stepped quickly up to the display. I saw her fingers creeping towards the necklaces and rest on mine. She looked at it for a moment or two, dropped it and wandered over to the coffee mugs.

I felt an intense moment of panic. What would become of my necklace? Would it even be here tomorrow? "Calm down," I told myself, "she was just looking." No sooner had I thought those words when another woman stepped over and, like a paperclip to a magnet, her hand was on my necklace! I waffled over the t-shirt purchase, nearly stopping the clerk, but then I told myself again "Calm down." It was when the third woman touched that necklace that I snapped.

As soon as she backed away from the tray, I walked over, lifted it up into my hand and held it. I had to keep it safe from these other women's molesting fingers. As I turned over the pieces that hung from the pendant, I noticed that the miraculous medal featured images of Christ and Mary. On the back it said "I'm a Catholic, Please Call a Priest."

Flashback to three years ago when I met my husband. He's practically perfect in every way, like Mary Poppins, except he's not Catholic. I was a devout Catholic and a Heretic all at once. I was deeply connected to the liturgy and the eucharist, but distanced and doubtful of the Pope and Papal Seat. Husband is devout in his religion, and after studying it, it seemed to make good sense to me. I decided that I could and wanted to commit to living a life with him, in his religion and raising our children in it as well.

Little did I know that the practice and logic of religion are two very separate things. In the first year and a half of our marriage, I had begun to crave the Catholic mass. I found myself desperate to receive the Eucharist, to confess my sins and have a voice answer back, even though I know God is listening to all of my prayers. Perhaps it's habit or tradition or some other emotional crutch connection, but I felt lonely without it; I feel lonely without it.

It's not that there's anything wrong with his church. The people can be a little off the beaten path, but aren't we all? They are all good-hearted and well-intentioned people. It's not even that there's anything wrong with his Dogma! I believe it is close enough to what I've always known, and even improves upon it in many cases. A few things are a little off for me, but remember what I said about the Pope? No religion is perfect.

Lately, though, I've been feeling a deep sense of fear about raising my children anything other than Catholic. If they aren't Catholic, they won't be like me. They won't know the things I've known or appreciate the beauty of the Virgin Mother's sacrifice for her son, the rosary, the Eucharist as a real experience of Christ, singing all the hymns I love and choosing their confirmation saint with agonizing maturity. This fear has paralyzed me spiritually for the moment, and it feels so much easier (but lonelier) to avoid. I haven't been to church in a few months at least.

So there I was, holding the little miraculous medal that says, "I'm a Catholic, Please Call a Priest." My great-grandmother had a bracelet that said that on the back of it, I remember tracing the words and the saints with my little child finger. Mary is on the front of the piece I'm holding, along with Joseph and St. Christopher, carrying child Jesus on his shoulders.

Suddenly, I imagine that I walk out the door and on my way to the car, one of those cars whizzing by hits me. I'm laying their on the sidewalk, dying, breathing my last breaths. One of the witnesses sees the necklace, turns it over and calls a priest, who comes and hears my confession - gives me the Anointing of the Sick, the sacrament I've waited my entire life for, as every Catholic does. From today until the end of my life, I may not be in "the Church," but at my last moments, I want to see a black collar with the familiar white square and say my act of Contrition and the Nicene Creed, and maybe a few Hail Mary's.

I knew in that moment that the necklace had to be mine. I pulled it down and took it to the register, paying what seemed a minor tariff for something so beautiful. Wherever life takes me, it will be a little symbol. The ring is a symbol of my confirmation vows - my promise to serve. The abalone is a symbol of Jesus the fisherman and the net I am to cast. And the miraculous medal is a symbol of where I came from - the place I met God the Father for the first time, and the place I want to be when he calls me home.

hinged existence

2009-06-24T02:18:00.007-04:00

your existence is questionable

until i stand nonchalantly

watching people wander

i'm not looking at them, but through them

looking for someone

a familiar face breaking through the sea

of strange combinations of eyes and noses

i'm minding my own business entirely

until someone stops in front of me

for just a moment - perhaps to meet someone

or to read a flyer posted along the street

i turn my head and my eyes are fixed

trapped

imprisoned

the hapless passer-by has paused

and i see a slender upper arm

expanding gracefully into the elbow

the elbow is youthful but enhances the effect

of arms with little more than bone

slight sinew

some would call it ungainly

that large joint which tapers into a slim forearm

but i have a tactile response

i remember when you sat across from me

doodling and dancing around the conversation

as i stared at your elbow connected to your wrist

to your hand that held the pen

the special pen you had to stop and buy

making you late for our meeting

i hear you babbling through trivialities

with an ironic eloquence

as you sketch with eyes turned down

then as i look up from your beautiful elbow

you stare into my eyes

daring me to say what i really feel

but the time for that has passed

i met your stare then glanced back at your sketch book

changing the subject with little more than a glance

back to your fingers and hand

along the slight hairs of your forearm

and back to that joint which has captured me

it reminds me over other sensations

i long to reach out and rest my hand on it

to stop the passing of time

suddenly you exist again

even after my familiar face breaks through the crowd

long after the passer-by passes on

the original moment lingers

as if it happened only today

like a lucid dream i welcome it

savor it

then let it slide back

to be re-shelved in your section

covered with faux cobwebs

The Pier

2009-06-20T01:06:00.005-04:00

It was the young couple's first day on the coast; his first time near the ocean. They walked down the length of the beach in the chilly fall air. Wasn't it supposed to be warmer in LA? She saw a long pier reaching out to the ocean with a familiar ferris wheel and roller coaster winding on its track over the salty waves. She hadn't been here before, maybe she had seen another one like it.

"Can't we take a quick ride on the ferris wheel?" said Virginia, with a playful exuberance. David smiled at her, patiently. "You left your jacket at the hotel Vi, you're going to freeze." She smiled, thinking that he would keep her warm on the ride and insisted. Content to play along with her little adventure, he followed her past the indoor carousel and the carnival games. The pier was long and he watched her closely, afraid she'd trip on the large nails sticking out of the hefty wooden planks. They passed a caricature artist and a man selling glass statues of dragons and unicorns before they finally reached the giant wheel. David paid the operator and they jumped into a lurching, yellow car.

The sky was cloudy and oppressing. Beach goers still ran along the surf, but the chill in the air made it feel more like the last desperate days after indian summer has sputtered it's last breath than the sunny vacation spot she'd hoped for when they boarded their flight. The winds blew over the ocean and lifted her hair, causing her to shiver. David chuckled a little bit as she cozied into his shoulder. It was just like her to insist on freezing in a ferris wheel on a cloudy day just to get a good look at the ocean.

After they came down from the wheel, he walked her all the way to the edge of the pier where a white haired man was singing Jimmy Buffet songs and many different kinds of men were casting poles over the side. It would have been the perfect spot for a photo except for the pigeons and their droppings and the buckets full of bait and guts. Vi wanted to put money in his case, but David, ever the pragmatist resisted. Finally she pried a dollar out of his pocket and dropped it in the shabby old guitar case. Despite his resistance, he couldn't help smiling as she smiled at the man and complimented his songs. She was more his opposite than anything else, but it made her so beautiful to him.

As they left the edge of the pier she ran ahead to read the menu of Mariasol, a restaurant serving mexican cuisine that boasted a roof deck where diners could view the ocean under the moonlight. Even though the menu seemed too esoteric for either of them, Vi smiled at David and told him how very much she wanted to return and have dinner on this pier. "But Vi, there's so much else to see in town, and we've already done the pier," said David. By the resolute and slightly pouty look on her face, he knew he would be back at the pier.

David had some business the next morning and Vi spent the day alone wandering the beach. On this particular day, the sun was out and she stopped to photograph little birds running through the spray. She walked alongside the pier and took photos of it in the sparkling sunlight. She wasn't sure why she felt so drawn to this place. Perhaps it was the sounds and smells of a carnival, or the beautiful view of the beach and the nearby mountains. She wandered leisurely looking forward to her evening, fantasizing about what their romantic dinner might be like.

When she returned to the hotel, he was there waiting for her, pressing a shirt for dinner. She put on the nicest dress she had and walked downstairs with him, like an old time movie couple ready to go out on the town. Once again they walked down the pier, this time after dark. The ocean and the sky were equal black expanses, but the sound of the waves and the salty scent of the spray let them know that beyond the restaurant, which glowed yellow and blue and flashed with the colors of the game lights, the sea was still there.

Vi felt an overwhelming sense of anticipation as David helped her down the pier in her dress shoes. Many of the vendors from the day had gone and couples walked along the pier, hand in hand. They walked into the restaurant, but no one was there to greet them. The bar looked empty and only a few people could be seen talking quietly over their round, hand painted, wooden tables.

Finally someone came to seat them. Vi craned her neck to see the rooftop deck, but the hostess immediately told them it was closed for the season. She sat down and looked at the menu, but instead of the high-class coastal cuisine she had read earlier, the lower part of the restaurant only served down to earth tacos and refried beans. Instead of showing her disappointment, she tried to remain cheerful and pleased. This is the perfect night for David to propose, she thought, her stomach quivering.

All throughout the meal she looked for signs that he might be preparing to drop down on one knee. They hadn't known each other too long, but when he invited her on this trip, she began to suspect he was up to something. A trip would be perfect for a proposal. Tonight seemed like the logical night; his shirt was pressed and he looked gorgeous with his glossy black curls and his soft brown eyes. She was patient through the appetizer, but by the time the entrees began to fade, she felt her heart sink. Maybe he will have the ring brought out on the dessert plate, she thought, but when he declined dessert, all was lost.

As they walked back out on the pier, her disappointment was palpable. "Vi, is everything ok?," he said. "I know you were disappointed about the moonlit deck." His breath made little clouds in the cold night air as he spoke. "It wasn't just that," she said suddenly feeling very silly for her previous excitement. "I, well... I thought you might propose." He laughed, thinking it a joke, but then realizing that she was serious, he stopped to think. As she explained her reasoning and gave him a play by play of the many ways he led her on, he looked on with bemusement and a touch of embarrassment. At first his laughing eyes sparkled with apologies, but then he stopped in his tracks, looked at her and said, "do you really think we're ready?"

In that instant all the doubts of their relationship crept in and filled the place where her heart had fallen, making her chest feel a little tight with question and the shame of having guessed him wrong. As if he could feel her uncertainty, he slid his hand around her waist and pulled her close to him. "Soon enough my dear, soon enough," he said and kissed her. She slipped her cold hand into his back pocket and they walked along the pier, watching all the other happy couples and wondering if they would ever return a truly happy couple.

Specter Lane

2009-06-19T01:08:00.018-04:00

As she made her way along the sidewalk, she felt a lurching wave of recognition. She was visiting the city for just a few days. She didn't think she would remember the place they had met on her last trip. It had been nearly five years after all, since she had visited the indistinct downtown hotel for a conference. It was a lifetime away, but the moment she rounded the corner, she knew. That past locale was right across the street from her current accommodations.

She caught herself reminiscing as she went through the motions at her meetings, meals and even before shutting out the bedside lamp and pulling up the starched hotel linens over her shoulders. It was if she couldn't help thinking about that space and what it might feel like to walk through it now that the entire world was a different place. Would it be just like any other space, or would the ghosts of what they did linger there behind stone pillars, just beneath the surface.

The next evening, after a long day, she found her feet pointed towards the tall, eerily familiar building. She passed two men sitting out front, laughing at some secret story they were sharing. She plodded up to the taxi stand and felt a twinge of memory. She remembered standing there in the cold night air watching a taxi door close and roll slowly away as her heart fell through her shoes, between the cracks, into a sub sidewalk grave. On this particular night the humid heat was stifling.

For some reason the lyrics to an old song were flashing through her skull into her lips: "I have often walked down this street before, but the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before." It was a strange association. This was not the street where he lived. She knew he lived on a street near enough, and she also knew she had no desire to sing and dance outside his door. She came to the turn style doors and pushed slowly around into the lobby.

Maybe she had hoped for a renovation or a demolition, but the lobby sat there, looking for all the world like only a day had passed rather than half a decade. The fountain still trickled in its familiar way and the striped fabric on the sofas was the same as in the old photos she had from her trip. She had only spent a few nights there years ago, but somehow it had burned its way into her memory, as if she had stared too long at the sun and it was burned into her eyelids. She stepped onto the escalator to the second floor and saw the corner where they slipped, surreptitiously, to touch.

She knew it was a strange thing to do, but she walked to the corner and leaned her back against the wall. As her head rested on the stone she remember the way he had leaned forward, pinning her against the stone as his lips brushed her seductively. It was almost as if she could feel them now, and his hands on her cheeks, pulling her face in for the most desperate and hungry of kisses. She felt the breath tightening in her chest as she tasted the finality of that kiss, a longing so intense it could only come during a kiss that both kissers knew would be their last. She reached around him and felt the sharpness of his shoulder blades, sliding her hands down to his jutting hips. He was angular like a building and... she opened her eyes, only to see a store clerk staring at her out of morbid curiosity.

The magic was broken and she walked away quickly, back into the open lobby. Once the visceral experience had cleared, she felt like a visitor in the museum of her own life. "And this," said the tour guide, "this is the last place that they ever kissed, before going on to completely separate lives." If the tour guide was especially knowledgeable, he or she might tell the visitors that they would meet again, briefly, after she had married. "They couldn't keep a real friendship together, so they stopped talking altogether, though she kept up with news of his building commissions and he attended several of her performances without her knowledge."

Whatever had been drawing her to see the grave of their last moments as lovers, it had passed. She felt as if the chord had been cut and she was free to move forward without the ghosts of this moment haunting her mind when she least expected it. She walked back onto the sidewalk and saw the two men laughing again. This time, she smirked as well, as if privy to their joke. She walked briskly down the sidewalk, away from the museum or mausoleum and back to her hotel room to call her husband. Now she would occupy her empty moments with memories of her and her real beloved's starlit walk down a romantic pier, with their hands in each other's back pockets, talking about the future. The walk down memory lane had shifted from specters to living, breathing moments that had bearing on her past, present and future. She was looking forward to the trip home.

it's not you

2008-10-27T03:13:00.004-04:00

by Starliteve

It’s not you

So don’t mistake my meaning
When I reached out to know you again

It’s not you, it’s never been you
You weren’t enough, you aren’t enough
You wouldn’t ever be
Even given half the chance

You’re the one that got away
No, you’re the one that never was
And your mystery surrounds me
Your sycophantic fever
Clings to me tightly, salty and sweaty
The heavy words you use to draw me in
Syrupy and devoid of truth

It’s not you, It’s an idea
Whispering, Singspiel at 2 a.m.
Talking art, everlasting souls and politics
Over some bad phone connection
With the moonlight pouring in
Drowning me, suffocating me
Dripping through my hair onto the pillow

And I love you for those moments
And I hate you for those moments
And they never became more
But they’ll never become less
They just sit in the annals of our history
Smoldering, festering, inspiring

It’s not you
I just thought it might have been
Because the mystery still lingers
Still stirs and questions
But you never disappoint
In that you always disappoint
So let’s both be clear, it’s not you
And it never will be

the apple

2008-10-06T08:47:00.003-04:00

forbidden fruit smells so sweet
its overpowering, dizzying musk
temptation magnetizes the fingertips
irresistible force pulling
towards the curve of your spine
the narrowness of your waist
the sharp incline of your shoulder blade
to touch is poison, deadly
but to resist is homicidal
killing a fleeting moment
crushing a short unlived sensation
watching it die brings some satisfaction
and a short stab of bitterness
mixed with a heightened sense of desperation
then serene resignation
i savor the process
it jars me from my daily course
then i return so smoothly
as if to say yes,
i saw you there
i haven't forgotten
but time pushes forward
it only glances behind
and i follow a steady purpose
a heart that's found its mate
and I leave the apple hanging
lush, red and crisp
and the serpent slinks away