Poem

A very short piece of a poem I just finished, if you want the rest, I'll gladly send it to you, but it was long so I didn't want to post the whole thing on the blog. Get in touch and you can read the whole thing:

"All I know is that
It turns out there were magnets
mounted in the tips of our fingers
and in that empty cavity behind our ribcages
and they were just waiting
for us to stumble too close
and then they activated
so suddenly
I didn't have time even
to hold my breath
Before her violent smile
Took over
And left my eyes car-crash spinning
Inside their sockets.
The ground littered
With windowshield glass
Not jagged, but smooth-edged
Like tiny crystal balls
...
So we can remember
that melancholy is sewn into us
with only stitches of air"

In other news: exiting A Chorus Line tech. week and entering The Dybbuk tech. week - mirrors look like ass - first cast ever to not loose one toupee clip all week (WHAT?!) - M7 $20,000 digital mixing console = one to many nights on the corner for Hashiguchi. Great Halloween - Rocky Horror Picture Show with some friends - pyrotechnics - hells yes. Things going great in love and life, though maybe not academically...I'm working on it. Have a class schedule for next semester. Planning a road trip. Trying to find a summer job fo' realz. Looking forward to more than a month off for winter break. Co-designing a graduate show next semester and scared to death about it. Learning how to rig. Can't wait for cast parties and Techies Are Tired. Loving the 70 degree weather today. Considering keeping a one-word-a-day journal. Trying to find someone to go to the Artic Monkeys concert in December. This is my life currently. Have no time.

Something so Perfect

I feel the deep need to express the unexpressable about us, and whatever that quality or sentiment is, I can feel it every time you are near, but I cannot recreate it afterwards, no matter what medium I try, so I must always come back for more...

Every time I see you, even for the briefest of moments, I can't stop smiling for hours afterward. There's just something about you that draws me in, magnetic, and always has. The way you can smile with your whole body perhaps... And I think, maybe, the logical, control freak in me will just have to fall, and fall hard, this time. Maybe youth is about taking chances, and if you don't take them now, there won't be any more time left to do so. Maybe you have to fly just to see what it feels like. Maybe you have to let go in order to hold on.

"I can't seem to catch my breath.
It's in front of me, behind your lips.
And here I go, letting go,
just to never let you go.
I never thought I could be like this.
I wanna spent every moment here with you.
You've shown me a place I'd seen, but never knew.
So here I am, ... just for you. ...
In the dark, moving hands to find my way,
reaching for the chance and the words to say.
And here I go, letting go,
just to never let you go.
I'm so scared to feel so safe."
- William Tell : Just for You -

If I thought it was classy to reprint all the lyrics of that song into this blog, I would, because every single one of them fits like a pair of old shoes.

Just tell me this: how did we fall into something so perfect?

Forgetting

You know that voice that says that you've forgotten something when you're running out the house, already 10 minutes late for sports practice or rehearsal or your job? That voice has recently become a permanent addition to my consciousness for just about the past week or a bit less. And it's driving me fucking nuts...

It tells me that something is amiss. Maybe not missing, but not right, not yet. I don't know what to do with a voice like that. I've taught myself to stop worrying about just about every situation under the sun, no matter what it is, but I can't teach myself to stop worrying about something unnamed and intangible. And then, I go around searching for the source of this silent menace, and all I uncover is things that probably were not problems to begin with (but are now...)

I feel like every feeling I have is somehow misdirected and misplaced. I feel like I'm directing my energies to all the wrong places in my life. I feel like, I feel like, I feel like... what's here isn't here anymore... what I've achieved I haven't started. What can I say? I feel like what I want is totally unclear. I don't have any goals, no where to climb to. Everything that I could use as a goal is too far out of reach. I feel like the honeymoon stage is over: it's back to reality in every respect. It's the smackdown. Goodbye, summer instead of hello, fall.

I guess I'll just live it through until the "Oh God!" moment when I remember what it was that I've forgotten. If I'm being truthful, I guess really just wanted to complain out loud.

"No one's paved the road to paradise
or guaranteed that it'd be nice.
It's just a long road, hard road
dragging our little red wagon
'till were six feet under wondering
"What the fuck have I done?
Where did all my time go?"
At times in life you gotta take
a chance and dance on broken
glass and see who lasts…"
- TAT : Road to Paradise -

L'Shanah Tova Tikatevu...

This is the best way to start a new year...

"Like the brightest star you shine through.
Ashley, baby, you make me feel so alive.
I've got purpose once again.
Yeah, yeah."
- Escape the Fate : Ashley -

How do I tell the world that every autumn I fall in love with the leaves as they turn, but you're a leaf that won't turn from me? How do I express how perfect this is: like the smell of fall, like the touch of tall wheat-grass, like the wind against my cheekbone? How do I convey the way we fit in words on a page? I don't have to want anything from you; you function only in "are's." I thought melancholy was sewn into my life until you came around and I realized the stitches were of air.

(more pictures can be found here)

I'm just so happy you picked me, cielo...

I Didn't Hear You

This isn't happening. You didn't say those things. I didn't hear them. I didn't hear you. I won't hear you anymore. Maybe I'll forget this. I can't forget her. I shouldn't forget anything. I wish it were more simple. I wish it were easier. I always wish that. Everyone wishes that. I just want you to want to. I just want you to be okay. I just want to feel like I'm strong enough. I don't think I am. I'm not going anywhere, but I'm not stable here either. Why is this harder than anything else? Why am I so afraid? Why can't I trust you anymore? When will I be able to again? Everything I do feels false. I told her to take a hot shower and bake cookies. What kind of advice was that? I laughed. I'll never laugh again. I can't lose two.

Maybe you're in control, but it doesn't change this. I don't know why that is. I can't. I don't. I'm not able to. But I will. Why do I always? Because. Because there are always red sunsets over the Boston skyline. Because I've found the things that can save me, can't you find yours?

(Photo by Katherine Teeter)

"Give me a day, Jaime, bring back the lies, hang them back on the wall. Maybe I'd see how you could be so certain that we had no chance at all. ... But that wouldn't change the fact. That wouldn't speed the time. Once the foundation's cracked..."
- The Last Five Years : Still Hurting -

Naming a Face

Can you name a face? A person's name connects to their face, but it does not reflect it. This is where nick-names come from. Contorting our given names to match our personalities. But, if we cannot name something so crucial to being human, being ourselves, why should it be any different with other body parts, with emotions, with adjectives? So, I find it not strange that I cannot describe your eyes.

There is something molten smooth and unknowable about them. And it fascinates me to know and not know someone. To not pretend I have all the answers. I always have an answer, but with you I don't - not for any of your questions, not for any one else's questions, not for my own questions. Because after you, everything is surreal. Everything is highlighted. It's faerie lights and Harry Potter tunnels. This weather is King Richard's Faire weather. Hot in the sun, chilly in the wind, autumn smell on the breeze, beautiful crispness after dark. Everything when I walk back to my dorm is candles and pumpkins and Retiro park in November. It's fleeting.

I live my life often to make no sense to anyone but myself. Can't say if that's a fault or a virtue. Just like I stay awake for 36 hours straight just to say I can; I put up a musical in 24 of those 36 hours just because it's a feat. Doesn't everyone like to prove themselves? But this time, I'm not proving my endurance; I'm proving that I can progress, and I'm not sure if I know what that means yet. But I do know that I don't know. I do know that I can't put words to this. It takes paragraphs to whittle away seconds. It takes mountains of adjectives and explanatory phrases to say something so basic and simple: like, 'being in limbo frightens me.' And I don't know if I know what to do about that. But whatever I do, I've resolved not to think about the details, the end, the apologies. I've resolved to embrace the moment, the improbability, the peace, and the discovery. And I think things will be better that way. They already are...

"There's a tough word on your crossword.
There's a bed bug nipping a finger.
There's a swallow; there's a calm.
Here's a hand to lay on your open palm, today.

As on we go drowning,
down we go away.
And darling, we go a-drowning,
down we go away
away.

There are angels in your angles.
There's a low moon caught in your tangles."
- The Decemberists : Of Angels and Angles -

Hello, College

White noise is ripping through me. It's the white noise of college. Everything is flying like trees outside a car window.

Hello, college.

Hello, burritos, late nights, sticky tack, sexual innuendos, and decisions you can't grasp. Hello, sunsets, shabbats, commuter rail schedules, and drastic changes in temperature. Hello to roomates, shower flips flops, hills, steps, and dinning hall hours. Hello to magnets, sunflower seeds, (real) tea, friends with non-kosher kitchens, and palm reading. Hello to friends from last semester. Hello to friends from this semester. Hello to people who fit into neither category yet. Hello to theater, to insane amounts of work. Hello, tequila. Hello, rum too, so it doesn't feel left out. Hello to the email I will soon get from my parents about the last two sentences.

Hello, September.

I can't say that this semester is typical. In fact, in just over a week of being here I am daily astounded by my life's twists and turns. Who knew? But then again, who ever knows? Again, I say: hello, college. This would be an appropriate time to quote the Asher Roth song, which I WILL NOT DO. Sing it in your head. End of story. Instead let me provide you with some quality tunes:

"So, here I am.
Well, I woke up in a car.
I traced away the fog so I could see
the Mississippi on her knees.
I've never been so lost.
I've never felt so much at home.
Please write my folks and
throw away my keys.
I woke up in a car."
- Something Corporate : I Woke Up in a Car -

I love how there is always a really good song out there whose lyrics basically fit my life to a T.