340/ Diamond sea

The boy I love is allergic to sea water and for his birthday I brought him to the beach. Where does the sea begin— and I see him by the shoreline, watching over water as if he were guarding me. You cannot cross her, you cannot cross here, and he lets me go knowing he cannot follow. He watches as I swim further and further, and there are times I feel I am strong enough to go on swimming. I could spend my life without air, I can win over the forgetfulness of distance. And yet I always turn back to face the shoreline where he stands, the edge where sea ends.

He is allergic to sea water and yet he is in love with me.

I nourish just as I destroy— the warning is never lost— and the argument of whether I am good or bad for him is never won. All I know is that he is not water, he can never be water, how can he ever hold me?

On that blue shore I see him standing like a cliff, a stronghold, a refuge, a rock, and my waves crash against him with rage relentless as his patience is unrelenting. He could not be moved and I found that moving. He was both starting line and anchor point, port and dock. He lets my waves engulf him, and after I’ve drowned him with my roughness, he spreads himself like sand. I sink into him with the calmness of mornings, and never have I been held like this, never was I so contained.

Here I am with my disquiet and rage, and here is a lover who assumes my shape. He is more like water than I know, he is more than the water that I know, he is more than water.

339/ If I lose all my words, know that they have drowned here.We had three flashlights filled with LED and firewood that lasted five rounds of conversation. There were no sockets for plugs, no electricity across the entire island, and the sunset marked the curtain drop for pitch black immensity. We waited for anything that gleamed but the dark outlasted each glimmer, and our time dwindled into the last bits of coal. We listened to waves crash into a shore whose borders we could no longer distinguish. (Where does the sea end, where does it begin, these familiar themes return.) We unrolled sleeping bags and slept underneath the slow procession of trees. And it was then that we saw hints of starlight appearing and disappearing beyond the alcove of leaves. D. and I got up and followed the sound of waves, we walked until we were certain we were at the edge of water, and we looked up and finally saw it—the most important photograph from that trip was never taken.What if the sky was the sea in reverse, and Orion and Dipper were communities with lights shining out of kitchen windows and secret attics. Who knew how many houses we were staring into through their chimneys like telescopes? Who knew how many children looked up from their bedrooms to stare up at us, our flashlights and bonfires their very source of starlight, our ocean their liquid moon.Quick, a kiss, and a wish sprinted from our sky to theirs. High-res

339/ If I lose all my words, know that they have drowned here.

We had three flashlights filled with LED and firewood that lasted five rounds of conversation. There were no sockets for plugs, no electricity across the entire island, and the sunset marked the curtain drop for pitch black immensity. We waited for anything that gleamed but the dark outlasted each glimmer, and our time dwindled into the last bits of coal. We listened to waves crash into a shore whose borders we could no longer distinguish. (Where does the sea end, where does it begin, these familiar themes return.) We unrolled sleeping bags and slept underneath the slow procession of trees. And it was then that we saw hints of starlight appearing and disappearing beyond the alcove of leaves. D. and I got up and followed the sound of waves, we walked until we were certain we were at the edge of water, and we looked up and finally saw it—

the most important photograph from that trip was never taken.

What if the sky was the sea in reverse, and Orion and Dipper were communities with lights shining out of kitchen windows and secret attics. Who knew how many houses we were staring into through their chimneys like telescopes? Who knew how many children looked up from their bedrooms to stare up at us, our flashlights and bonfires their very source of starlight, our ocean their liquid moon.

Quick, a kiss, and a wish sprinted from our sky to theirs.

338/ the sky and wider places (advanced lessons in flight)Never have I been in a relationship that involved so much people. I got used to just us, him and me, sometimes a book, always, a blanket.Now there are introductions, and even introductions to introductions, and I keep worrying I’ll never remember who they are (I’ll forget who I am). Why was it harder to fit inside a place that grew wider each time I entered it? I was the opposite of claustrophobic; my only home was in the tightness of a hug.Arms and legs are for small spaces, you said, and this is why you have wings. Take it all in like this, your arms outstretched to your sides like you could hold the sky and wider places. First, a familiar flutter, and then I learned that flight was nothing but an embrace that began in release. — (More of my project three-six-five here / here.) High-res

338/ the sky and wider places (advanced lessons in flight)

Never have I been in a relationship that involved so much people. I got used to just us, him and me, sometimes a book, always, a blanket.

Now there are introductions, and even introductions to introductions, and I keep worrying I’ll never remember who they are (I’ll forget who I am). Why was it harder to fit inside a place that grew wider each time I entered it? I was the opposite of claustrophobic; my only home was in the tightness of a hug.

Arms and legs are for small spaces, you said, and this is why you have wings. Take it all in like this, your arms outstretched to your sides like you could hold the sky and wider places. First, a familiar flutter, and then I learned that flight was nothing but an embrace that began in release.

—

(More of my project three-six-five here / here.)

(via wordswidenight)

335/ March (the verb this time), 3If earth in all its vastness survived the splitting of its islands, so can we. We are the contintental drift of an embrace erasing itself. The sea must divide us for others to learn to swim and build their lives in the comfort of new arms— ours. Don’t you see? The world broke itself to make more homes. High-res

335/ March (the verb this time), 3

If earth in all its vastness survived the splitting of its islands, so can we. We are the contintental drift of an embrace erasing itself. The sea must divide us for others to learn to swim and build their lives in the comfort of new arms— ours. Don’t you see? The world broke itself to make more homes.

332/ February 13, 2012 - “Trust time this time.”There are things about me you are now starting to understand. As a child, I was fascinated by calendars— there were numbers for each day, and each of those days belonged to a week, a word. The last day of the month was always a celebration, the tearing off or the turning to a new page the sign of something gone, something good, and that there was more of it coming. I had a collection, time maps I liked to call them, for the walls and the wallet. I carried with me the comfort of knowing that the familiar can always be new, that each week had a Monday, and each year had our birthdays and all the holidays, and we were all just shuffling along: men and months, moments and memories.You and I don’t believe in how time passes. Our story has no start, and maybe that is reason enough for it not to end. We are the rising action always rising, the middle part of a story a monument to itself, refusing to move. And yet we move so swiftly. I look at the date on my phone and smile at the memory of a year ago, how we weren’t friends yet, or maybe we already were.Maybe we already were. High-res

332/ February 13, 2012 - “Trust time this time.”

There are things about me you are now starting to understand. As a child, I was fascinated by calendars— there were numbers for each day, and each of those days belonged to a week, a word. The last day of the month was always a celebration, the tearing off or the turning to a new page the sign of something gone, something good, and that there was more of it coming. I had a collection, time maps I liked to call them, for the walls and the wallet. I carried with me the comfort of knowing that the familiar can always be new, that each week had a Monday, and each year had our birthdays and all the holidays, and we were all just shuffling along: men and months, moments and memories.

You and I don’t believe in how time passes. Our story has no start, and maybe that is reason enough for it not to end. We are the rising action always rising, the middle part of a story a monument to itself, refusing to move. And yet we move so swiftly. I look at the date on my phone and smile at the memory of a year ago, how we weren’t friends yet, or maybe we already were.

Maybe we already were.

331/ January 9, 2012 - Again, a disclaimer. D.—I know of this Filipino poet who broke up with his partner by saying: “I’m much too happy with you. I can no longer write.”I wish to borrow those words while keeping all my words and keeping you. I’m much too happy with you but “I’m much too happy” does not say it right.Instead I borrow from the past for contrast. The fastest way to use up all my words is to turn my inkwell upside down, so I’m letting it all spill out, the shadows of secrets that I tell you when we both can’t sleep because we’ve had too much coffee or laughter and lightness and everything else suffuses, becomes white noise. I need weight to anchor me to this page, and I look at my past for pulse, and I look at you and think of how I want my children to have your eyelashes. We’ve talked about it before, how maybe we aren’t right for each other, how I’m too hopeless when you’re hopeful, and the reverse, but I’ll take my chances and fold my worries until we prove ourselves right by proving us wrong. High-res

331/ January 9, 2012 - Again, a disclaimer.

D.—

I know of this Filipino poet who broke up with his partner by saying: “I’m much too happy with you. I can no longer write.”

I wish to borrow those words while keeping all my words and keeping you. I’m much too happy with you but “I’m much too happy” does not say it right.

Instead I borrow from the past for contrast. The fastest way to use up all my words is to turn my inkwell upside down, so I’m letting it all spill out, the shadows of secrets that I tell you when we both can’t sleep because we’ve had too much coffee or laughter and lightness and everything else suffuses, becomes white noise. I need weight to anchor me to this page, and I look at my past for pulse, and I look at you and think of how I want my children to have your eyelashes. 

We’ve talked about it before, how maybe we aren’t right for each other, how I’m too hopeless when you’re hopeful, and the reverse, but I’ll take my chances and fold my worries until we prove ourselves right by proving us wrong.

328/ January 2, 2012 - The startling In bed, the blanket a tangle representing my life. Troubled, we hold hands but only lightly, ready to let go.“Do you think I’m sad because I read too many books?”“No. I think you’re sad because you like being sad.”And in that moment, he knew me better than myself. High-res

328/ January 2, 2012 - The startling

In bed, the blanket a tangle representing my life. Troubled, we hold hands but only lightly, ready to let go.

“Do you think I’m sad because I read too many books?”
“No. I think you’re sad because you like being sad.”

And in that moment, he knew me better than myself.

[excerpt]

But of all the things I have to let go of, I must first let go of myself. There is a prayer in my body that sings of triumph; the strength of my limbs are ready to climb the troubled terrain of hearts, mine and yours. It is time, it’s about time, it will be time for death to die. My escape will be thunderous, hope will grow hands to clap for me, and I will run with wind rattling like chains not of last breaths, instead, first gasps. (327/365)

It does not mean anything yet.
I am getting used to how tactile my thoughts are again.

(Also, three-six-five here or here.)

325/ of things to say when accused of comparison with the pastIt could not have been helped, how much people asked me how I really felt with D. when I’ve written so feverously about A. It was as if nobody could believe the heart’s resilience no more than they accepted the heart’s folly.But you made such beautiful poetry together, they’d remark, and of course I am stung by the sudden occurrence of loss. Perhaps it was a mistake to keep such a tight record of everything I felt—it was stuff for fiction, things you stuffed fiction with.When I first saw D’s room I turned pale from the utter lack of books. When we go to bookstores together, he goes straight to the heavy coffeetable compilations about the lives of rockstars and filmstars and stars, the astrological kind— while I while away in the aisles of fiction and the classics and poetry. The pictures, to me, are less obvious than that, I pointed out to a Rolling Stones cover of Jim Morrison.But we have not given up on poetry; we have only begun to understand it through different lenses and languages. He hears the languid listlessness behind chord progressions the same way I am devilishly delighted by alliteration. In the car, we are both mesmerized by the light-then-loud staccato of rain against a symphony of traffic, with the interlude of the windshield marking caustic breaks in the story, the song, our unwritten poem.“Go ahead, fill my shelves.” D. said and soon enough I had a three-level fortress. I’d pick a book, he’d pick up his guitar, and I’d read as he plucked a tune about a girl who read on his bed and smiled from time to time. High-res

325/ of things to say when accused of comparison with the past

It could not have been helped, how much people asked me how I really felt with D. when I’ve written so feverously about A. It was as if nobody could believe the heart’s resilience no more than they accepted the heart’s folly.

But you made such beautiful poetry together, they’d remark, and of course I am stung by the sudden occurrence of loss. Perhaps it was a mistake to keep such a tight record of everything I felt—it was stuff for fiction, things you stuffed fiction with.

When I first saw D’s room I turned pale from the utter lack of books. When we go to bookstores together, he goes straight to the heavy coffeetable compilations about the lives of rockstars and filmstars and stars, the astrological kind— while I while away in the aisles of fiction and the classics and poetry. The pictures, to me, are less obvious than that, I pointed out to a Rolling Stones cover of Jim Morrison.

But we have not given up on poetry; we have only begun to understand it through different lenses and languages. He hears the languid listlessness behind chord progressions the same way I am devilishly delighted by alliteration. In the car, we are both mesmerized by the light-then-loud staccato of rain against a symphony of traffic, with the interlude of the windshield marking caustic breaks in the story, the song, our unwritten poem.

“Go ahead, fill my shelves.” D. said and soon enough I had a three-level fortress. I’d pick a book, he’d pick up his guitar, and I’d read as he plucked a tune about a girl who read on his bed and smiled from time to time.

(via wordswidenight)

322/ of hearing (Part of the series "On the sudden occurrence of loss / and the vast recovery within a second.)

There are days we don’t hear each other very well and there are days when we simply don’t listen. I am used to the depth of silences, the wordless comfort in nods and gazes sent wistfully from across a room. You, you are a clatter of praise, a clamouring for attention resounding like the days we’ve agreed not to count but have counted anyway.

When I think of you, I hear the happiness of childhood. You are the memory of playground songs and eager footsteps running down the stairs.

With the slowest and softest motion of your hands, you uncover my ears. With you, there is always music. With you, I forget how to write but only to remember how to speak.