last post for july

the most politically-correct definition i can give of myself:
i am a female-bodied person who presents in untraditionally feminine ways and is attracted primarily to other female-bodied people, of various genders.

my view

just in time for it to set, the sun finally came out, after hiding behind positively vengeful gray and wet all day. and the angle of the light and the patience of the trees and the low, racing clouds are nothing
to the shadow of the flag against the roof of the carnegie music hall.
perfectly centered and slow-dancing

a note more justly scribbled

a lot of my words lately have been happening in real life. spoken or signed. or thought and trapped there.

i came to the realization recently that my inner life has its own merit, and not every thought needs to be written down. it seems counterintuitive to even type this. mostly i'm trying to excuse my written absence over the past few days, and the fact that i still have nothing to write here.

a lot has been going on. very little of it has even been penned. i fear the eventual loss of my memory.

i could very happily start every day the way i started this one.

about time

i just read something i wrote to someone else at the beginning of my sophomore year [of college], right after a bad breakup. and i am horrified....at who i was, or maybe just at how little i knew. it would be easy enough to write it off as "i still had a lot to learn, and i wasn't familiar enough with myself to be mature in my interactions with other people"--but that was only almost three years ago. yes, i've changed a lot in the last three years (some parts several times over), but i can't have changed that much. ...right?

i'm young yet. how much am i going to learn in the next three years? how appalled am i going to be when i look back on the things i'm writing and saying now? with how much regret/sadness/nostalgia/wistfulness will i remember the relationships i am building/have built/am losing?

at the end of three more years i'll have my master's degree and my C's, assuming i do everything right. i have no idea what part of the country/world i'll be in or who i'll be with or who i'll even still be talking to. i'm certainly not now where i expected to be then....maybe part of the lesson is to live life with no expectations.

[untitled poem 7/14/2009]

i want to make things explode
learn to breathe in the staggering smoke
let them free and imagine what
breaks out

your lungs are the vessel
for precious words i long to capture
my ears the home of your freed creations

my mind the g(r)asping, comprehending,
mmm-uttering resting place
for a thought that began with you
its travels long and perilous
its bridge crafted out of thin air

its journey succeeds
when we are both understood.

breaking the silence

U.S. military deaths in Iraq since war began (3/19/2003): 4325
(since "Mission Accomplished": 4186)
U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom (since 2001): 739
as of 7/14/2009 at 10:04 pm, from antiwar.com

If we as a nation were to hold a minute of silence for each American killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11,
we would be silent for three and a half days.

just a thought.

poem 07/13/09

if i were to speak the truth
if this were within my power
to say the words that held the meaning of the universe
and make everyone hear them

...no one would listen.

there is no room for a modern-day christ
but there is room for a small voice,
whispering from the darkness,
rustling through the leaves of the trees,
reaching those who most need it.

a smile crosses the lips
of the first person to hear the words
that give meaning to everything,
and she resolves to keep it quiet in her heart
and speak it through her deeds.

the wood of the cross holds no greater secret
than this:
love is the (most) powerful means to an(y) end.

she touches her finger to her lips
and looks at you
with a shy grin,
before turning and running away,
skirt flapping, eyes shining,
all brightness and living.