other influences affecting the situation or creating a problem:
(ace of cups) change. alteration. erosion.
instability. sterility. unrequited love.
clouded joy. false heart. inconsistency

can it be saved?
(xiii death) transformation. clearing away the old to make way for the new.
alteration.
abrupt change. bad omen. illness. mishap. loss of financial security.
bad investment.

two equal halves
both equal to the solution
of the problem

i hate people like you. and i'd say it, over and over again, to your face of all places. people who only stick around because they want something out of it. in some pessimistic philosophical stances it is a way of life - that relationships only exist for what one can get off of another, and vice versa...and while it can be a good thing, it can equally be just as bad of a thing...

don't think i don't notice. i fight myself everytime you find the nerve to talk to me to ask, "what do you want?" i know what's coming. can you help me get this? can you help me do this? and i'm sick of it. i sure as hell may be able to find it, but i won't help you. not anymore.

and it's not like this is the first time i've noticed, either; i assume it with each person, each relationship. it just seems that every one ultimately ends up with the question, "what can you give me?" until i'm stuck giving all that's left of me. you might think it's funny - might think i'm stupid, but i always made it my priority. i didn't want to see people suffering. didn't want to see people in need.

but you're not in need. none of you are. you're just so ridiculouly greedy you couldn't look past the edge of your nose if you truly wanted to.

one day, it will be you and me and you and me and
one day, it will be only us, loving the sunshine that
infiltrates the gaps in our smiles

when it was over, all i could think about was how this entire notion of oneself, what we are, is just this logical structure, a place to momentarily house all the abstractions. it was a time to become conscious, to give form and coherence to the mystery, and Ii had been a part of that. it was a gift. life was raging all around me and every moment was magical. i loved all the people, dealing with all the contradictory impulses - that's what i loved the most, connecting with the people. looking back, that's all that really mattered. - waking life.

who defines the problem? who defies it? there might be five steps but the first four are slippery, covered in moss. and they'll trip you up as soon as you set foot on them.

the problem isn't that i love you. the problem is that i love you so much that i would give up the things that bother you in a heartbeat. how much is too much? where do i draw the line between what i shouldn't be and what i should.

am i really on my father's path?

death was all around
and not a single lonesome sigh

(you have a pressure in you
to destroy the one who loved you)

trivialities

it's been a long, long week and i'm slowly losing everything i have to give. no, this is not complaining; this is my saying, thank you for pushing my limits, week. i appreciate every second that you gave me to feel frustration seeping through my veins, especially the parts where i took complete control of that frustration and reduced it to the trivialities of being.

"sometimes you have to give in to win."

this is my road to a clear conscience, clear heart, clear mind. living solid for my own being and for others.

tainted obligation

you fight hard to make meaning of metaphors,
and yet you miss the whole point.

697 times. over and over and over,
poked at, prodded, skipped around,
alluded to, (the big picture in the
tiny molecules that make up the
thread that makes up the sweater
that covers up the body that is
made up of molecules, not like
those of the sweater, but close
enough to point out inconsistencies),
over and over and over...

and you might fight fire with fire
but i promise i will fight with a different kind
the kind only i can produce at my core
the kind that:

breaks every inhibition
lasts longer than a five-syllable word
remains truer than a momentary "right" conviction
fills every vein with a pump-pump-pump that inevitably
will tear inequalities apart.

(i can't see anything else that could be
any more appropriate.
you can hit me all you would like to,
you can stab me, slash me, cut me open.
i won't blame you.
just remember - these veins run deep,
red as the freshly falling leaves,
spilling out every letter that i
refuse to form on my tongue:

you can fight fire with fire
but i will fight your fire with all of my love.)

you pull me by the collar of my shirt and i fight hard not to pin you down, fight hard not to make you feel everything i am feeling at that exact moment. in the seconds that we pause i can imagine the smile you might have crawling slowly across your cheeks, taking no prisoners in it's warmth, and catching it out of the corner of my eye is like a bright flash of sunlight after a dark night. i'm blinded, heart pounding, frozen in that second in time.


if this is what they describe in those romance books, they do a really horrible job at it. words always fail when it comes to you - the ethereal deserves so much more. three words would never be enough to describe this phenomenon, nor would one thousand.

in
tox
i
cat
ion;

but not the kind where, in our
drunken staggering, i taste the remnants
of spiced rum clinging to your
lips;

instead, the kind where
the molecules that make up our every
parts come together, static
electricity

combining vision and
attraction, making me yearn for any
amount of time i could have,
wrapped

in your arms, lips to
sober/not sober/halfway sober lips,
not caring about the specifics
because

you are like a series
of fireworks, exploding brilliantly in
the sky, and i am like
the

child, completely
enthralled, mouth wide open, wondering
how it's possible
that

so many things
could mesh together and make such a
perfect picture
of

such a mortal
being.

hurricane drunk.

the rain reminds me of the fractions that are left in my skin, signaling things that i should have or would have or could have been. they hang out half-haphazardly. they cry out to me every time the droplets hit the roofs in the city - it's like a bad case of arthritis or maybe just an injury that's never healed. actually, that's exactly what they are.. injuries that never heal. little cuts to remind me of what i haven't done.

usually i don't regret them. usually i continue on, leaving the maybe's and the what if's to life's ebb and flow. i imagine the ocean - constantly moving, never staying stagnant, always creating new ripples and filling in little cracks with liquid power. in life's ebb and flow, however, the science brings evaporation, bringing rain clouds in and... in the midst of it all, i'm standing with my heart on my sleeve in the middle of the storm.

i reprimand myself. remind myself that life's brevity doesn't make ample space for self-pity or over-exaggerated regret. no matter how much we like it, the earth always keeps turning, life keeps going. people die. people are born. gas prices go up and down. the government lies. right wing and left wing get in arguments over who's better or who's right instead of just addressing the problem at hand. people kill for money, power, pride (which are generally interchangeable). and yet the colors keep swirling together, day after day, creating the dark of the night, creating the light of the day, creating our skin tones and eye colors and hair colors. we're a collection of molecules, delicately bonded together, moving with the vibrations and hoping not to fall apart (which makes discrimination amusing. our "visuals" are just merely light tricks). and yet the world keeps turning - gravity keeps applying itself so that we don't fall apart. and i am in the middle of it, in the eye of the storm, reminding myself. continuously.

when i'm with you - molecules seem like a foreign discussion. the smell of your hair alone could be classified as heaven - even more so when you mix that with a coy smile. forget clichés - they could never match up to the actuality. and especially right then, with the rain hitting the shed behind the house, the windowpanes, the fence, the little cuts remind me. of the things i could have been - the skinnier person, the smarter person, the wiser person, the funnier person, the sweeter person - and how you deserve so much more than the incomplete person i am.

in the morning, the sun will shine. things will resume. the apocalypse won't come - not now, at least, or if it does then the one exception will have been made. but for right now, all i have is this. the storm, gracing me with it's presence, reminding me of my fallacies and my immortality and my ignorance. the best thing is - i'm not afraid of it.


and you can't hold me down
i belong to the hurricane,
it's gonna blow us all away.

short, sweet, to the point

i miss you a little bit, here and there, filling in spaces between the ripples in the water and the clouds in the sky. the grass is always greener on the other side, but i'd much rather have the cold and the falling leaves gracing my presence than this warmth that keeps me up, sweating in the night.

thoughts

the light in your eyes
sparkled with the reflection
of big-city lights.

the kind that were connected by telephone poles
and strung together by pieces of imaginary wires
and held, in awe, by your slightly-parted lips
and the shallow breaths you took, noting
every little bump in the road with a slight change in rhythm;

and we were soaring, flying, 80 miles down
a deserted road that was anything but deserted
(except for the old man, sitting discreetly
under the awning of the corner store,
one eye shut and the other open,
catching sleep while keeping guard, another
night spent in fear of being found out)
because the footsteps of those aimless wanderers
resonate from the pavement to the bricks that form
a perfect alleyway.

your signals were as mixed as the radio's -
never making up it's mind as you never made up yours,
where we should go, who we should be, what we should see...
engaged in argument with the air around you about
whether abraham lincoln really was a vegetarian or maybe
it was that he was a smoker or maybe it was that he
religiously drank coffee because it got rid of warts -
whatever path it was, i would pipe in every now and then,
and you would lead me astray, lips barely parted,
singing melodies like the sirens, pulling sailors away,

and maybe you didn't know the dangers of your song, because
when we collided head-on with the sand bar
(they call them "medians" where i'm from), you
removed your eyes from the lights, dumbfounded,
staring me down with the reflections, and i blamed it on
a turtle or maybe a dog or maybe i just said it was you,
the appearance of you, transformed into little particles
pulled and sewn together, and maybe you smiled and gently replied,
"thank you for not hitting me, i value my life"
but all i could think was, "it's not your life i'm saving, darling."

the sky keeps sending huge droplets of water on my head and all i can do is smile, because it's a wonder i can feel the water in the first place. these are things we forget. the little, beautiful things that make up our life...

and my summer list of things to do, slash priority list, slash if i don't finish these things before i come back to martin i might shoot myself in the face:

- finish my articles for advanced comp before the beginning of school;
- do really, really, REALLY well on my internship;
- book a flight to san francisco and find someone to adequately illustrate my ideas for my back piece;
- make enough money to cover at least three months of rent when i get back (hahaha...sad, right);
- spend as much time with my grandfather as possible;
- enjoy every second, because life's too short to worry about silly things.

here's to holding up to my lists.

in a dream
you call me up and ask me, quietly,
if i would like to meet you for a drink
and when i got there you just looked at me
as you spoke to yourself
"if you take me home tonight
i know that we will kiss
one of us will fall in love
and it will be a mess
but if you want to take that chance
then please just let me know"
i slammed my glass down on the bar
said "grab your coat let's go"

=)

i'll miss it.

i'll miss it. three months, but it feels like forever...

a freak like me just needs infinity.

we looked like giants. the melody was pouring from the holes in my speakers, so close to the floor that i could feel the bass line reverberating under me as i laud cuddled up in my bed. i remembered all those days when i'd fake sick from school and you'd bring me lunch and we'd lay nose-to-nose in bed, watching the day go by and counting the heartbeats in between. (i'd wonder later how it was possible to have such an incredible and terrible year all at the same time. you got your appendix removed, cheated on me three times, and left for college all in that year and yet we had some of the most beautiful moments - funny how things worked out. funny how we worked out...) but you - you're not the subject anymore. at best, you're a passing memory, something fleeting that pops up in my mind when i hear certain songs or go certain places. i'm not the girl you remember. i've grown, i've loved (funny 'cause you once told me i'd never be loved by anyone but you...), but most importantly, i've found myself (or at least the part i understand). at one point you controlled me - never again. i burned that when you were burning everything i had ever given you.

and we were passing all the signs to better places. 65, 31, 45 - nashville, huntsville, birmingham. coffee and cigarettes and blinking lights. we found a spot where the lights of pulaski were so visible that it looked like i was going home - i meant to take a picture to show you, but maybe instead you'll see it for yourself or i'll paint it out with colored words. you would have loved it. on this same road, we were startled by what we thought was a cat in the middle of the dark, slick road - we were wrong. it was an owl, yellow eyes glittering in the clouded-over moonlight. maybe if i were superstitious, i'd be scared of it. it's a good thing i'm not. the cows were watching as we passed, chewing on blades of grass while miniscule droplets of water dropped on the tips of their noses. i was happy to be alive. happy i had such a great friend who was sharing the view, the music (we're so close to something better left unknown... who'd you rather be, the beatles or the rolling stones? oh, seriously, you're gonna make mistakes, you're young. come on baby, play me something...like here comes the sun)

we knew we were some of the only ones left. everyone has parted ways. some we said see you later to - others we said goodbye to. you don't ever realize how much impact a person has until you know they won't be back. but it's life, right? constantly changing. constantly moving. people leave your life as soon as they enter. you make promises to keep in touch - but will you really? never replacing the people who are there, only adjusting to the different people. forever changed by their presence in your life. if we don't take in twenty years, i will remember this. the drives we took, the things consumed, the mix cds made, the tests we did(n't) study for. the love we grew in our hearts. makes me scared to grow old (if i do), but also puts me at an inner peace. i'm holding on to this moment forever.

and it's like the beauty of a photo album. all these memories stream through our minds - of friends, family, love found and lost. my closest friends walking across that stage, tears in their eyes, happy, sad, confused - a collection of emotions they refused to explain (and couldn't if they tried). i will be twenty-one this year. in a year and a half, i will be walking across that stage, moving from back-roads and happy hour at sonic and the creek to a more stable life. but thank whatever for college. for the people. for the change that teaches us to be thankful and flexible and sentimental. fearing change is not an option - it will happen no matter what - but we would never be the same without it. know that i love you all, regardless of our current standing, and that our goodbyes and never forever. YOU. ARE. ALWAYS. IN. MY. HEART.


"and now?" gregor asked himself, looking around in the darkness. he soon made the discovery that he could no longer move at all. it did not surprise him; rather, it seemed unnatural that until now he had actually been able to propel himself on these thin little legs. otherwise he felt relatively comfortable. he had pains, of course, throughout his whole body, but it seemed to him that they were gradually getting fainter and fainter and would finally go away altogether. the rotten apple in his back and the inflamed area around it, which were completely covered with fluffy dust, already hardly bothered him. he thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. his conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. he remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. he still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor; and from his nostrils, streamed his last weak breath. - franz kafka, the metamorphosis


e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

overwhelming vs overwhelmed

there's a difference between cockiness and strength. when one speaks of strength and really means undoubtful surity in the ability to do everything, they seem to merely be drowning themselves in arrogance. when every thought is original and every belief is "non-conformist" (despite the fact that there's really not such a thing), that - to me - is arrogance.

strength is just the opposite. strength is knowing that one has weaknesses. that fear isn't the enemy, or cowardice, or insecurities, but that knowing when to have a balance is. knowing when to say yes or when to say no - because we are not all capable of doing everything perfectly, and if we believe so, we've just fallen to the utopian ideals of "perfection" and competitiveness that have been set before us. dance in your insecurities. love your flaws. knowing that you have them is not the enemy...denying them is.

and in that moment and in this moment and in every moment where your skin trickles with enticement...this is where it is best. and i would have done it, right then and there if you had asked me to.

a series to make me forget and remember all at the same time

she laughed.
in my face, of all places,
and the anger was trickling through my blood stream
just like the water was flowing down my body.
this is once where you had touched
long before i realized
my body is my own temple
and is not for you to desecrate
(with your graffiti hands that burn me at every
inch you get closer)

and as much as i'd hate to admit it
those old tunes you'd use to play are still
sneaking out of my speakers
unassumingly i'll listen
(just as i had once done)
until

certain chords and certain beats will remind me
bring me back to those graffiti walls
and you, red-handed in the spotlight
laughing insanity mess
drink
to
be
me.

"baby we're only young once.
live this right, live us right."
and if i had a thousand lives to live
trust me, darling:

none of them would be anywhere related to you.




"i will talk to you soonish"...sometimes i wish you wouldn't lie.


we each lit one
candle, two matches
blazing to the heavens
above

the window cracked slightly
wind whispering to us through the
screen that would protect us from everything else
and you, your arms are here, hold
me close and protect me here

your lips, my skin
"a kingdom for a
kiss upon the shoulder"
your lips, my lips
"all my riches
for her smile"

so we lay solitary
eye to eye
the way i like most
in the distance the curtains
catch wind by the hand
warning not to disturb
us and the only thought i can
muster is that

if my ultimate wish is
to return to the oceans after death
i could die looking into your eyes
and i would be home



exit 259: infinity
and
beyond

so you took another hit
turned the wheel 90 degrees
towards an exit with no exit

i didn't try to stop you

maybe i should have, or at least that's what i thought when the car went skidding on its top across the four lane skyway. the view was nice, or what i could see of it through the shattered sun roof looked appealing --

and from my peripherals
i could see you with
your hands to your heart
clasped together
in meditation
and as we went crashing
into the pacific
you bowed forward and
whispered
"namaste"

sinking to the bottom and we had our most meaningful conversation
talking about fate and life and all its many crashes
and the one-hundred plus speeding trips we would take
that was like love, for the first time;
with a metal tip you etched into my hand
"never forget"

it took me until we reached the bottom to realize what you meant. your infinity was already over, denoted by a hard blow to the steering wheel, and i was looking through the windshield at schools of silver fish catching their scales by the sunlight on the surface. "never forget" - never referred to life or to the things one experiences, but instead - that life is not exclusively ours, bottled up in a pickle jar like lightening bugs you caught and kept on your nightstand. every life will drown one day. every life is replaceable - none are immortal. "never forget" - what you do is probably temporary. but if temporary touches a life, forgetting that each breathes and lives accordingly is a never kind of thing.



i want to write this down.
write you down, frame
your perfect figure
in a sequence of meticulously thought-out words.

impossible. as the veins in my lips
trail the outline of your freckled skin,
and i can feel you breathe (in, out, in again),
i grasp this indescribable emotion in my hands.

(tighten. arch. grasp. hold. scratch. release.)

the smoke is hollowing out the roof of my mouth.
feels like the inside of a cathedral. the wisps act like monks
walking uniformly towards one central idea.
blow out. uniformity lost. and when i smile
(with this white cylinder clouding the sanity in my lungs)
all i want is that feeling in which says

take every vulnerable party of my body. of me.
(tighten. squeeze. deepen. bite. relax. breathe.)
peer pressure, and persuading you is like persuading a light pole.
useless. but still, your face:

lights up the room you're in
and inside my chest these fireworks explode
playing techno in this hollow ribcage
bounding wildly against my hardened skin.

(that patch of decorated dots on your shoulders
are merely outliers on this complicated diagram.
inside of each other we do not find ourselves;
instead, we find that "i" we wish to be.)

yours truly...



(p.s.: your eyes? they are like a color wheel
intermittently swirled in numbers of two's and three's
laugh gently, sweet thing. breathe softly, me in.)





look at me with eyes not fit to stare
touch me with hands not fit to feel
talk to me with lips not fit to speak.
in this charades game of colorful persuasion
I am not who I say I am but
who I say I am is not relative to I --
where periods actually denote endings instead of
age-old life-changing beginnings
is where I tiptoe, difficultly, conspicuously,

and in the morning when you creep
across the drops of clear dew resting on
the freshly-showered blades of green
please do not forget about the lilies
that grow in small, undiscerning patterns
and only open in the mornings for your empty delight

cross them with dancing feet and light movements
as you go about your day, forgetting them as you breathe
each second a heart beat arising from the blood in your veins

but instead in the night when you arrive back
from your plentiful yet meaningless adventures
and you feel the lush carpet beneath your feet:
pedicured, fragile, soft, vulnerable
please remember that i, as well, am laying there
like the discerning morning lilies
and i am here, my darling, only to soften your step



extended periods of time where you've been in my life and nothing more monumental than my pen tracing heartbreaks has happened. it's a miracle, right?

pretense is all about the "tense"

you, flames -- i, raindrops

the rain
trickles in
the holes
in the window.

slowly, unassumingly, hitting
the crackled white windowsill.
resting near, the audible
movement of flames dance
in stark contrast to the
pitter-patter of the weather.

you, flames: your dance is
dangerous. what i should
not touch in my mind, in
my heart is blurred with
curiousity. the blues of your
eye push and pull with the
reds and yellows of your
outer body --

the rain
trickles in
the holes
in the window.

i, raindrops: i am falling.
hitting in and out; sitting
on this windowsill and
creeping down the sides,
bringing with me splinters
and scars, bringing with
me every bit i fight to
keep hidden --

you, flames, i, raindrops,
we cannot mix - our
combination is deadly. pushed
together and we extinguish
each, creating an
evaporated puff of smoke --

(but when we extinguish
each other, do we really?
or is the dance transformed
into an eternal particle,
floating hidden in the sky?)

the rain
trickles in
the holes
in the window
and the flames
dance beneath.

she's cute, that's good. i'm happy for you. really, i am - i promise. it's just that sometimes i really don't understand you or your intentions. and as my best friend - or what used to be called my best friend - i thought that we were supposed to actually talk to each other. especially about things like this.

and sometimes i remember the tattoos that were blazed across her wrists and chest. sometimes i remember the cigarette-and-coffee breath that i, for some reason, liked... despite the fact that i hadn't ever liked it on anyone else.. and maybe i especially liked the fact that everything was a disaster. a beautiful disaster, the kind that they frame on big movie screens in big cities. the kind that changes your life, not in a garden state cliche-way but in a synecdoche, new york kind of way. makes you question your life and your purpose and makes you laugh at the frail inconsistencies that make up life. the stupid things we worry about and the nights we spend trying to fix things we don't understand (and things we can never fix).

i'd die for that feeling right now. the feeling of my legs tingling under the pressure of little white dots... it's been too long.

oh, and by the way... i'm going through with writing that article about my dad. wish me luck on my self-revelation...it will be much needed.


>

because the misquotes are eating my legs

one paper down, one to go, three exams. finished my portfolio - took forever, but hey, at least it's over now.

the sun set today at 7:00 as we were rolling over the hill near my house. it was like the apocalypse and heaven all at the same time - whatever my conception or your conception of heaven might be. it amazes me how some people never think of these things - about heaven or hell or the lack thereof - because it's a constant thought in my brain. reincarnation? heaven? there's no certain answer. there's nothing than we can say that will surely answer any of our questions and yet we keep picking away at them, proclaiming ourselves "right" because we have to be "right" or we wouldn't be able to validate ourselves. what's so great about validation, anyway? and is it really possible for any human to fully accept the truth? what if there is no heaven - what if there is no hell? no reincarnation? what if it's a lie we continuously tell ourselves to soften the blow that our lives exist only in one realm, one place, one time, one century or decade or however the hell long you live.

i'd be scared to grow old. scared to be incapacitated. scared to have to rely on someone all the time to do the things that i normally would. i can imagine that, if i were to live to see myself become that way (or not see, who knows), i'd probably be bitter as hell. anyone who knows me knows that i do things for myself and insist on it. having to be the other way around? would probably absolutely kill me.

but for right now i'll enjoy it. my useful legs and my useful heart and my useful lungs - i'll sit out here on this back porch and take in every smell and breeze and every little drop of water that happens to float my way, because even if i don't have heaven or hell or reincarnation or whatever other-ly world one could believe in, at least i have this. and that's really all i can ask for.



i guess for me there's been few
who've walked up smiling and drawn a line
between so far and from now on
yes, a big glowing life time

and i've been disappointed
i've been heart-broken
i too have loved from afar
but we are 78% water
even our pumping hearts.
ani <3