Eagle Spirit, are you strong enough?

I don’t see any painted sky. Why does it have to be so blue all the time. I look each way for something new; my compass has no news of golden treasure, rains of enlightenment. There are things I have to be doing. This map doesn’t let up, I tell you. I know that it will hurt when I break away from some dotted line. But I can’t see you cry anymore. I can’t hear the disappointment anymore. I can’t hold your weight anymore, or watch the lines crease your face anymore. It’s the same old, same old. And where’s my news? Who’s reporting for me. It’s not timely. Books crowd my head. The christmas lights hang low, reminding me, taunting me of times, safe, and alone in my bed of green. I’ve lined these pictures and they grow old too. When will things stop growing old? When fire meets skin, and I blow away into the wind; blowin’ in the wind. Watch from the watchtower, won’t you? I’m not sure what I expected college to be like. Independence, new friends, variety, possibility. But there’s not much new but an old new town and dirt roads that now pave into palms and cacti. The bunny mountain isn’t so big no more, camelback’s not that small. I’m still waiting for power in crystals, and wolves with their mother moon. Luna, la lune. Native American legends in adobe mountains and sedona’s vortexes heal, you know. But I don’t know. I can’t feel. I want to feel. Young and used, I’d sit in the back of an old red firebird, my head resting against another window that trapped me within circumstance, and I’d watch those painted skies change each way. A compass that finally moved somewhere other than North. I wanted to melt with it all, like the sky with the heat, know the map and the treasure. ‘Cause fuck, it gets tired always searching. I wanted to just be, or know that there was something that followed after me too. Skies of maroon and gold, and magenta too. It was beautiful. It was heaven. It was homemade circumstance. And the past didn’t end, but danced in ritual’s hands of fire and sand. Dust storm take me away; wash my skin, cloud this view, make mud out of my sense of direction. Am I strong enough yet, blowin’ in the wind, burning in your eyes, El Dorado’s dusty Hidalgo? Look up towards the sky, and turn, side step, work your magic shaman king.

College

Due to the haze of what seemed like an ending, and yet, never ending last summer at "home," and a new wave of debilitating emotions over my move to college in Arizona, I haven't been able to post much of my writing lately. 

However. 

I did get back from a roadtrip at the beginning of August with some friends to Socal, and I have a lot of pictures and various writings/journals that I will post soon!

So don't leave. 

Strength in Broken Shells

Great danger, they let their guard down.

There was tank fire. There was artillery. There were airstrikes.
It was hard to navigate—tank fire, artillery, airstrikes.

How could this happen? Who is this man, the self-image of an African “king of kings?”
The latest news read:
Not a single sentence makes sense!

A loudspeaker blared, “we will remain,” in revolutionary refrain.
With a weary smile, the men were terrified.
Rebel fighters kneeled on the ground, belts of ammunition draped over their chests, and, prostrated in prayer, they recited: “God is greater than what I fear.”

Not by choice, the youth had begun to lose hope.
Human—an old man with a wrinkled, sagging face, muttered baffled and embarrassed.
“He is just a man. This will come to an end, finally.”

To an end, flat and open, shouting at the top of his lungs: “How long can we stay like this?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03Libya-t.html?pagewanted=1&sq=1943&st=nyt&scp=6

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/lynsey-addario-its-what-i-do/?ref=world

So this was a found poem I wrote for a new york times contest. Thought I’d share.

I will go down with this ship, and always will be

 When the sun sets I'm 7 again, where dreams melted like rocket popsicles, push pops, hands sticky, stained the color of the sky; purple, pink, yellow, orange, burnt red. Sometimes I bring myself to a swingset, and just sit. I peel back and push my feet off the ground, kick my legs and hope my skin doesn't stick. That tree isn't there anymore, but I was in a different world then, a long-distance country, where you were here and I was there. The Gods above blessed me with wings, smiled down and lifted my eyes to blue skies and deep seas and the heavens as one with here and there and the in-between. Higher, closer, I'd make my way to the clouds, the sails, soon cathedrals and Ancient Greece and the Tower of London with the Eiffel Tower from peak to peak. My hands curled in stretched white grip. My knuckles and bones holding onto another side where I was free from you and me and this whole damned world. God, I didn't want to let go. I closed my eyes until they hurt, and let my head fall back, my hair mid-twirl, brushing the sand beneath and the sunlight that danced rays of white and gold in the mess of watercolor. Back when I was 7 again, where the beach was as close as the park, the water fountain, the ocean and a sandcastle as real and sturdy and naive as a disney tale, you and me. Where trees were an easy climb to the top of Mount Everest; the world in the palm of your hand, in the smell of the forever evergreen pine breeze and view of the city, so small and weary. Back when walkie talkies were your best friend; top secret missions took you to the Sahara, a camel and the sand and those boys from next door. Football every year, those boys don't know me, a girl can play just as mean. Summertime meant baked lemon chicken, a call from mom, the sun still high, baseball with fallen pine cones, the goal: that mean dog-haters window, backyard, mom and dad won't see. The pool, as rough as the Indian Ocean, no place for a doll and its tupperware boat. But that didn't mean you didn't want to see someone else sink, not me. The frontyard with all its leaves, plants with the goopy saliva and broken trees; a medicine cabinet, a chef's kitchen, if you may, brewed potions for a childhood of young love and magic and time's relentless chase. Sun tea with lemons and things lost and forgotten beneath the blue tides and the backyard tent with s'mores and tumbling, jumping, laughing high into the night kids. We'd walk through the center, sure and unseen, broken boards to the right and Jack and Rose and the Titanic with all its ghosts, loyal and brave, "I will go down with this ship," you'd hear them say. And you'd say. Where pets deaths were your first glimpse of this hard, sunken world, and they meant funerals and flowers and the whole neighborhood brought together for kind words and seances. But no one could replace that friend, or that curiosity in the glimpse of what death meant and the finality in that underground sentence. And in that california sun, and its cruel high noon, where you and your bike took crusades to save the orange and black caterpillars, the butterflies of its day, that couldn't make it to the cool pavement, the broken shade. And then you'd close your eyes and pray, and cry, and hold your hand out with that stick, scared to touch a creature so unlike you where moving faster didn't make sense, could not be done before the day was done where wings were grown and the sun and wind understood. I guess when the day was done, feet slipped, they struggled to kick, but could not kick. And the sand dragged down your limbs and eyes so high, until you and I were making circles with our eyes and we jumped, 1, 2, 3, like a bird in its first flight. The sand crashed in a tsunami wave, shielded our eyes from our otherside where we were young, happy and I was who I was meant to be, young and happy with wings, colorful and free and understanding of death, the sun and wind and the in-between. 


And yet there was no white flag above our door. I'm sure that that makes sense. 

Swallowed in the sea of green and gold and the lost and homeless

Wasn’t graduation a time of celebration, when hats raised to the ceiling meant transcendence of time and space and the in-between? You were out. Out of that prison, that prison so many called home. Skewed perception, am I right?

But that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t some holy night, some speaker of the peace. A flame should have been burning in prayer. But it was distinguished, you could feel it, see the smoke cloud the sun and wash away those green and gold colors so many came to paint their very skin. 

Not mine, no, no, no, never. What is life when all you ever feel is the moment candlelight is blown to ash, and wax hardened to the mold of your finger, that desire to burn like the rest, like you, inside. 

And when I stood before those people, I imagined what the person who called himself my father must look like; what he might feel, if he feels the desire to burn like the wax in its liquid heat, or the wick consumed in flames. I couldn’t stop myself from wishing he was gone, away from haunting my life, my existence, my coffin of safety I made to protect myself from his very draining, needy being. 

He was there against my wishes. I was only a child they say, no coffee for you, but go to college and get a job and pray; I grabbed my diploma, I grabbed my friends hand, my face red, my eyes watering, songs that whispered “they’re just spies,” raced along the inside of my ear and tired mind when I left that stage where so many failed to clap for me and my soft-spoken tears. I faced that doorway where I could see the man I hadn’t seen in years wait with caution. Vines stretched out to me, trying to tangle me up in devil’s snare. Deep breath, walk, “Hey J,” “Hey, hello.” And on I go. Wave of my hand, head bent, what do I do now, now, nothing, sit down.

And afterwards when I could find no one else but that very man who handed me a poem that spoke of pride and love only for blood and made-up words that was a testament to the imagined of what it would have been like to watch me grow from that “baby with blue eyes in my arms to a girl who holds her own.”

All I could do was hold my own, and care for someone who only cared when they had someone back home in their bed to hold and replace that loneliness, burning loneliness. 

Where did holding my own go? When I couldn’t say all the words I wanted to say, that slithered within with such sharp grace. Fake it. Thanks. Appreciation. I have to go. And to go guilt took nest within my gut of monarch butterflies. Can you feel that? Humanity, it’s energy all together and red and yellow and green and blue and purple. I closed my eyes and walked forward with increased speed. Where’s my family? What’s that? Do they exist? 

Nod of the head to a boy that lingered between the two; my face red, my eyes heavy in blue. Did he notice the way the green sweat its grasp as I increased the gap? The way my face held its own despair, regret, need to care and protect. 

And I was near breakdown, always working, pretending for others. And this was just another day; graduation, what did that even mean? I spoke of it to those people who did nothing but fail to notice, rather prizing in judgments. They looked at me with no emotion, I gained power with daggers of words. I told them. My one moment for truth. Beat the butterflies from my stomach, my lips and mouth and tongue dry from fear. Below you, who are you! I cried in nervous speech. Here’s me, here’s to my hard work, pain stakes and broken betrayals. The truth of how they made me feel, how no one notices one another, and we all keep going on without a care. How friendships were made throughout the years for a one-time playmate in the sandbox. A free for all, contest for the rich and famous and loud, yes the loud. I told them, I wasn’t sure of myself, but I can hold my own. With a glance to the boy that lingered between the two, always guarded, I wondered if he heard what I said. If he even cared. That it was done, over.

Like my graduation, like the kindergarten judgments, and stars that shone above an aqua lagoon, me on my back, weightless, my eyes looking for anything to call home. 

Open up your eyes, home is where the heart is, they say.

And good God do I want to know what that means, to give me heart, give me soul to patrol, patrol, survive and control where I can finally hold my own and say that this is where my heart is.

Tree of Life

Roots stretch through cold brown dirt; they intertwine together, linking arms, connecting the past to the present to the future. The tree, the roots speak of our family history, so long and forgotten; no one really knows the beginning, no one really knows the ending. Mind racing, braking, slowing to a drowsy stop painted leaves a tinge of green, roots a dripping brown. As kids did we one day think we would become this? You know, from that age where we held onto a yellow balloon with all our might; don’t let go, don’t let it fly into a space so black and glittered with stars and suns and moons and red planets bigger than our thumb and eye. Where spaceships flew and air was hard to come by. And without warning, the balloon leaped your grasp, and you cried out for help, for someone to bring it down, away from the unknown that was so dark with no night light to keep you safe. Leaf by leaf hung delicately to each branch and root, and we grew to become shy with our big, forgiving eyes. It was that first moment, that first realization that the rest of the world didn’t love us unconditionally like they used to, and they didn’t cry out for the yellow balloon that flew into the unknown, so dark, so constraining. They weren’t there when you painted eggs, blue, green, pink, yellow, purple, and you asked which sticker was best to finish it off. Which sticker, that was it. And there they were, your mother, your brother, your grandparents and adults that seemed so close because they were. They sat there and they smiled. “Which sticker do you like?” “I like you.” And a grin, pure and naive, broke your face into a million little pieces, and you spread your roots into the ground, into that one memory where easter eggs and stickers and people that loved you radiated in rays from the sun above; your biggest night light from the blackness of space and sky. Because we grow and our trunks age with lines that hug in circles, so deep and clear. And the roots wrap with such grace to connect our past to present to future. And like trees, we were alone, yet connected from leaf to leaf where we fell from innocence and youth and the summer breeze one after another, each changing like the seasons. We reinvented ourselves, cleansed in a sort of rebirth from the old ways of desire for unconditional love from the mass of piling, decomposing leaves. To love, to cry for the love of the roots we dug so deep, without a night light where we realized that no one loved us like they used to, that we were different away from our family, our roots. As trees of life we cried out for a yellow balloon in space: “This is not the end.” 

Embittered French Rose

“Adieu, adieu,” she said in the midnight hour; to the wind, the trees, the stars, broken alleyways and missed payphone calls.

Comme il faut; we all go on when the world stops spinning, and we have a chance to sit in our chaise longue and think, really think and watch the leaves blossom, and fall with each changing day.

And right in that moment, we whisper to ourselves, fermer les yeux:

“We are content.”

Earlier that night, the girl with long blond hair made her way down the Champs-Elysées, she walked côte à côte the Seine; the summer air stuck heavy to the nape of her neck.

Leaving the café, with her café au lait still steaming with wisps of blanc, she wished the nearby étranger, “Au Revoir,” and scurried off to the prochaine rue.

She noted the twilight hour and was transported to the belle époque when life was simple, elegant, and beautiful.  The cri de coeur pierced her with such intensity that she stopped for a moment and leaned against the rail to feel the wind, the trees, the stars and broken alleyways and missed payphone calls. She wanted to capture that one moment and sew another patch into her âme essence, paint another picture, breathe life into a dying sigh.  

When she reached the quartier, she watched as smoke cradled in waves from burning cigarettes. When engulfed in flames, she thought to herself.

With a light touch of the shoulder and an “entrez-vous,” she ducked beneath the low wooden beams to squeeze into the sea of people.

Déjà vu called the masse en rapport. Her head swam with a lyrical chord that beat with every string. The floorboards moved with a rouge ambiance, and as if in a masquerade, shadows spun in release to society’s beck and call—a rendezvous of sorts, for the lonely, the moved, the feeling.

As if a party of the fin de siècle, everyone was en suite, the entire world spinning in melodic symphony.

It’s like a coupe de foudre and you are struck, and you can’t move, paralyzed, mesmerized with him, her, that look, that sense of belonging, where you are home.

The espirit de corps swirled together in such beauty that the sway of bodies imprinted silhouettes onto the walls, the floors, the aura of energy itself, that moment captured in joie de vivre, a certain je ne sais quoi.

Who’s to call a faux pas? One’s own gauche, awkwardness defines the raison d’etre, unites us as individuals, living, breathing like a roman-fleuve of great sagas.

As her body pulsed with the blood of people and music coursing through her veins, the source of life’s light, she ran, away, faster, quicker now. Moving alone, among the boulevards, her debutante acted as a transformation from a world so young, new, naïve, where she questioned the very importance of amour-propre: why we can only love others once we love ourselves.

 “Adieu, adieu,” whispered the girl like a billet-doux nearing the end.

“Touché,” sang the midnight sky in the moonlight hour of a shooting star that brushed the black canvas of a film noir.

Encore, Encore. Adieu, c’est la vie.