toward action

I do not write about you, for if I did, I may know truth.

Even those of us most obsessed with it--elusive truth--may sometimes not want it for a housemate. If you live with something long enough, it demands action.

I occasionally regard truth as a glowing elixir, locked in an aged amulet, and hanging on a chain about my neck. It is a long chain, and a small amulet, and the world you cannot see it when I'm out.

In fact, it's light, and breathable, like fabrics of a certain purpose, and barely do I remember it lies against my skin.

A few words written here and there, perhaps a turning of the screw, a sliding of a key. Someday it shall set truth free.

a tale told by the haunted, full of sound and doppelgangers, signifying something

Two weeks ago. As my cell phone and I head eastward, downtown around City Hall, setting a course to purposely meet paths with the friend on the line, we see the first one. We come face to face just as he is about to open a door and head inside. He nods at me, I nod back, and as the door closes behind him, I erupt in a string of expletives my mother wouldn't appreciate, accusing the universe and all holy names for haunting me with visions of you. It takes Friend on the Phone a millisecond give or take a nano to figure out to whom I am referring.

Last week. My iPod and I weave our way in and out of the tourists and meanderers on 34th Street, and we run into the second. He is weaving in and out as well. Our paths slip past each other's, and with an accidental nudge, I look up, he looks down, and we smile with apology. His eyes are honest, and not unlike the color of the Tuscan sky at the summer solstice. I do not want to speak for fear that he will answer, and he will sound like you as well.

Then, this week. The dance floor. The line of his shoulders, the plumb line of his spine, his arms crossed and his weight balanced evenly in that posture you use when you are listening intently--only he can't be hearing me, so near we are the speakers. He is only watching, watching me with eyes I recognize each time the colored lights dance across his face. A resemblance so striking, the next morning I awake with a fitful paranoia that the semi-darkness had tricked my senses, and I have walked away from you yet again.

refrigerate until ready to use.

I am at home in the kitchen.

My ambitions range far beyond, and I am at home in environments many would not consider "homey", but these truths do not preclude my being at home in the room that, in the past half-century, has become emblematic of every horror perpetrated upon womanity over the previous two millennia.

I cook well, and often, though more often than not, rather messily. A good risotto needs to bless the range-top every now and again. My only reservation about cooking for the ones I love is that I wish my services not be received with the air of entitlement that has so often inspired my wrath at holilday get-togethers. (I am equally at home in debate.)

Yet this isn't the kitchen of my heart, for that lies thousands of miles from now or several years from here, give or take a you or a me or an us or a we.

Give or take a few truths that may never see the light that pops on every time the refrigerator door opens.

I was not alone when I took this picture, though that you cannot see.

I will not curse the camera for failing to capture my company. With or without photographic evidence,

on some days, I can stare at that door and see someday written all over it.

YCD, this is yours, wherever the heck you are.

january 1995. tokyo, japan.
on a layover from bangkok, we wait in narita airport. our return flight is delayed; no reasons are provided the passengers. we are traveling in a large group. we tie our backpacks together, take turns walking around the terminal in pairs and threes, kill time by playing a card game whose rules i can't remember. gazing out our glass enclosure, we spy mount fuji in the distance. moments before exhausted by three weeks climbing pagodas and trawling the red-light district, we're now edgy, restless, taunted by the thought of being stranded in a world we won't get the opportunity to explore.

five hours later, maybe more, all our liquids are confiscated as we get one step closer to boarding. due to an apartment fire in manila two weeks earlier, authorities have uncovered a plot that would have resulted in the explosion of up to eleven u.s. aircraft departing narita on this day--an early phase of ramzi yousef's project bojinka. we get home in one piece, and i've still not been any closer to mount fuji.

august 1995. new york city, usa.
at midnight when we close the theater, we change our clothes and meet in the parking lot at midland beach. so many of us, in concentric circles of cliquedom, all but few loyalties shifting with the sand. but keri wants to dance tonight, and i'm with her. if we leave now, we'll hit the dance floor just as things get interesting. then we can lose everyone else in the crowd, and the darkness, and the trance.

july 1996. new york city, usa.
at work. again. i've stopped counting the hours, but i continue to think. if i have to change one more tank of CO2, count out one more cash register, or inventory one more case of straws, i just. might. kill someone. i can't believe they let barely-post-adolescents run this place. yet every major tenet of management that i will find valuable in the next decade, i learn here.

the next day.
lollapalooza music festival, randall's island arena. thousands upon thousands upon thousands stream in. a humid new york city summer day. metallica. the ramones. and some good younger bands, like rancid and the screaming trees, as a bonus. baggy pants and ripped jeans, goths and ravers and hip-hop kids. i wonder which locales of which multi-billion-dollar conglomerates they'd been running yesterday--whose doors they will unlock tomorrow morning without having slept.

april 1998. london, england.
i climb the steps on the monument in trafalgar square. marble beneath me, i mentally commune with the inanimate admiral nelson. then i gaze at big ben and think, "it's big ben. do i really need to get any closer?" just now, i'd rather watch the pigeons, and the people relaxing or strolling under the momentarily clear sky. i wonder how many of their paths might have crossed mine elsewhere, or might yet again, on some ordinary day in the future.

july 2001. key west, usa.
there's a tremendous, gnarled willow near the hemingway house. i run my fingers over one of the knots on its trunk, wondering how long the tree has lived before me, for how long it might continue after me, and how soon it will be before i see it again.

june 2004. fiesole, italy.
seated high in an ancient amphitheater, i look down upon the outdoor stage installed for the summer festival. its modernity--sleek and black and minimalist--contrasts starkly with the curves of the cypresses and the richness of color in the small valley harboring the etruscan and roman ruins. paradoxically, the presence of the stage, the curtains--the lights, even--doesn't seem paradoxical at all. this amphitheater is what spectacle was; and that stage is what spectacle is; and i want both their spirits in my work. i survey the performance area, imagining all i could do with a theater like this, all i could bring to life on that stage.

july 2004. bayonne, usa.
a native new yorker never can head south without seeing a familiar face. i board a caribbean-bound cruise ship expecting to encounter at least a dozen people i know. it turns out that two people at my dinner table share my zip code, yet not a face on board do i recognize. certainly, someone aboard this ship must have crossed my path at least once before. but who?

and who else might have missed such a crossing by moments or minutes, days or decades; treading the same steps, yet never at the same time; harboring the same spirit, yet never in the same hemisphere?

Hot fudge ain't got nothin' on you.

Nearly 2am. I imagine you there. You are alone. The day was long, and you'd be exhausted--if only you could wind down. You can't, of course, and all the wine in the world can't help you.

There you are, in my mind: itchy, restless. Your bed is just through that door, but it's not even worth an attempt to lie down. You pace, untuck your shirt, nibble on your fingernails. You can't get my words out of your head.

I close my eyes and imagine your fingers. Then, other parts of you. Your forearms, as they cross and uncross in front of you. Your hand, as you rub the back of your neck.

You toss yourself on the sofa, hunched forward. That doesn't work. You throw yourself back, look at the ceiling. No answers there. Your eyelids flutter closed, the darkness letting you better imagine the scene I have set for you.

I wonder if the idea flashed across your mind, so quickly as to be a blur--but if it had been there nonetheless. To follow me into the bathroom. That bathroom--the bathroom with the window, the bathroom with the view. The one I had to steal away to, to stare into the mirror at my own face until I could stop seeing yours; to grip the sides of the sink until I could grip my own impulses. The ones that told me to follow you. Did you want me to follow you?

But that moment is nothing but a memory. In my mind. And now in yours. You open your eyes and you are still on the sofa. But now you are biting your lip. I am not there.

I close my eyes and imagine your fingers. Then, other parts of you.

Your fingers, on other parts of you.

Are you doing what I imagine you're doing?

The Texture of Sushi

Salmon is cool on my tongue, and sweet. No matter how I try to remember, its smoothness is always a pleasant surprise, the creaminess of the fatty ripples a decadent treat.

You can never know what someone else is thinking--across the table, across the street, across the ocean. No matter the glimmers of light that beacon--occasionally, intermittently, consistently--another person's mind is always the darkness over the unbridged chasm. All I can know is the taste of the salmon, and the metallic coolness of my keys as I press my fingers against them to make sure I am there.

If your mind runs away, she tells me, grab your keys. Run your finger along the jagged edges. Look at the keychains. Touch them. Your mind will come back.

It is true. My mind travels, but when my senses call, it comes running.

I can never know another's thoughts, and why would I want to? If ever we could truly share a brain, we'd not desire so blindingly to share our bodies.

Perspective whispers in my ear: even and until then, there's no denying a shared acre of heart. In a world in which all I thought I could be sure of was the texture of sushi, that little assurance is a sweet surprise.

Cupcake

Do you ever just want to write something delicious? Something simple and sweet and... perhaps a little naughty? Something, let's say, not on your diet.

Or maybe you don't want to write it. Maybe you want to say it. You want to sit across the table from someone and swirl the frosting on. Sprinkle on some bits of sugar. Watch as the spring-hued sweets fall across the bed of icing, some of them toppling off onto the tablecloth. Then you'd take a step back and store it in your mind--the colors, the textures, the contrasts. Before you moisten the soft pad of your thumb, press it down onto the sprinkles, make them stick. Lift it to your mouth.

What you do next is up to you.

A mental snapshot... a tiny taste... pricelessly delicious teases.
But not a substitute for the whole thing.

Will you answer to "Cupcake"?

Virtual Care Package

View from a skyscraper. Skyscraper of your choice. Anywhere in the world. To have the world at your feet. Literally. Immeasurably better than a pat on the back.

Long weekend watching Monty Python, eating whatever the heck you damn well please. And because I'm a fan, I'll throw in some DVDs featuring Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, and Ben Stiller. Let someone else make you laugh. Works wonders. And if what damn well pleases you should include

Homemade Italian food (and it should), then I've totally got that covered. The chef recommends the wild mushroom and goat cheese risotto, but the lasagna is also reliably delicious, as well as the eggplant parmigiana. In some circles, the braised short ribs and meatballs in my grandmother's gravy is acknowledged to be exquisite. By the way, I'll need preferences in advance as I am very particular about where I do my grocery shopping. I must mandate, however, that the menu include

Soup. Also homemade. Accompanied by tea, with honey and lemon. Warm liquids soothe the throat, and your voice should need soothing right about now.

Wine. Because, really, when can a person not benefit from some vino? It calms. For

Sleep. A lot more than you are currently getting. And to that end, you'll need

• The power to stop time for the rest of the world but continue living yourself, so you can actually sleep for longer than five hours at a time.
• Bedtime stories, lullabyes, and soothing affirmations in a foreign language. Originals, of course; slightly off-key, likely; in italiano, sì? Non c'è nessun altro nel mondo abbastanza come tu.
• Perpetually-cool, heaven-scented pillow of ideal firmness and fluffiness. Also requires you to specify preferences: so what does heaven smell like to you?
• Relative silence, excepting the white noise of nature. Because it isn't words that are the most important.

Resulting in...

Sweet dreams.

A new day.

Sunshine.

The open road. How much is ever enough?

...and eventually...

Home. A piece of architecture, yes, but that's not the home I mean. I mean the pieces of home that are so small they fit inside the house itself, and you fit inside of them--a sofa, a bed, a kitchen chair, a hug; and also the pieces that are so vast, the only place they fit is inside of you--joy, serenity, security, and hope.

A virtual care package is delivered in a sideless, topless, bottomless, dimensionless, timeless box, so if you have any particular requests just let me know. I'm sure they'll fit.

Maybe, After All

Oasis. (noun) 1. a fertile place in the desert, due to the presence of water.
Water: next in my series of poems, following Sky and Air. I haven’t yet a clue what it will say, but I know it will exist. Parallel: the existence of some people; me not having had a clue what I would say, now or then or someday; only knowing, somehow, doubtlessly, that they would exist.

2. any place or thing offering welcome relief from difficulty, dullness, etc.
It is possible that we don’t sense the dullness until the oasis appears. Desert and dullness both parch, but an emotional thirst can be repressed a good deal longer than a physiological. To be oblivious to its bluntness, to its rounding of your psyche like a soup spoon, is not so far-fetched.

“THERE’s a hole / there’s a hole / there’s a hole in the bottom of the sea…”
I’ve always had an affinity for nonsense songs, little me, singing them at the top of my little lungs, over and over until my parents’ ears bled peanuts and railroad tracks and hearts all-aflutter. Little me, sensing somehow, in some context, that nonsense made perfect sense.

ARE there ever songs that get stuck in your head, that play themselves a million times over in the jukebox of your mind, for no reason readily apparent?
MANY of them, I find, are prescient. Years later, they make meaning where before there was merely melody.
THINGS once ambiguous and immaterial take on sense and substance.
THAT I ever doubted their clarity seems absurd.
I never foresaw the need for an oasis; I never believed my life would require intervention.
WOULD you like to know when I figured it out? Only after.
LIKE months after. At my favorite table, in my favorite bookstore.

TO intend to write one thing, and have your pen be overtaken by a story you didn’t know you wanted to tell, about an oasis you hadn’t realized you’d visited, is to be jabbed repeatedly by a cold, blunt, soup spoon. At first, there is a chill. And maybe, you laugh. Because how could a dull utensil do any damage? You laugh.
SAY, for the first three drafts. Well...maybe four.
TO continue laughing, however, after you discover that something has pierced your skin, and indeed, gotten under it, is a sure sign of delirium. Or writeririum.
YOU realize it’s in deep when the pain seems a surer sign that something’s going right. Very right. There are thousands of words where before there was only a visceral impulse to run up onto life’s metaphorical stage and kiss the universe.
BUT you’d remained seated so long, nails dug painfully into your own thigh, that your fierceness had dulled into numbness.
I fear numbness now.

DON’T get me wrong. It doesn’t overtake my system, the way my textbook phobia of all things puncture-possible will have me hyperventilating in the fetal position. It’s a wonder I can even write metaphorical punctures, a miracle that I once pierced my own ear: testament to the veracity of the assertion that given sufficient motivation, any phobia can be overcome.
KNOW that my fear of numbness is more the pain of those first few taps of cold blunt soup spoon. A rhythmic chill and retreat demanding vigilance.
HOW I ever allowed myself to get to that place of oasis-desperation so thirsty it couldn’t acknowledge its own lack is beyond my present comprehension. A nonsense song yet to make any sense. Stuck in my head. On repeat. In hindsight, one message shimmering above the sand: don’t let it happen again. I detect the piercing need for a sharper reminder. Now I understand why some people get tattoos.

Wonder. (noun) 1. a person, thing, or event that causes astonishment and admiration. Initially, surprising to me that this is the first definition listed. Initially, I say, because contemplation yields sense. It is this wonder that births the next. Without it, no need for definition number two; without that which is a marvel to me, no words written. And that is why I thank you, I believe you believe, far too frequently. But I will not stop unless you tell me to. 2. the feeling of surprise, admiration, and awe aroused by something strange, unexpected, incredible, etc. It is a gift in return for which I ordain no amount of sincere gratitude to be excessive. As a writer, though, I loathe meandering unpurposeful repetition. Fortunately for me, an infinitude of ways to express wonder. I won’t run out any time soon.

(int. verb) 1. to be seized or filled with wonder; feel amazement; marvel.
I can write as long as I wonder. Writing can strike as long the iron-awe remains hot, lightning over the dark sea. 2. to have curiosity, sometimes mingled with doubt. Insidious doubt, electricity cackling through the undercurrent of my vast wonder—conducted to, pooling in, the hole in the bottom of the (my) sea. Awe and doubt: two sides of the same lightning bolt.

I fear your silence. Incommunication breeds numbness.
DON’T assume that because I fear numbness, I am blind to its power as a defense mechanism.
BELIEVE not q, then p. I see its power and therefore, I fear. Numbness can be cozy.
THAT is its threat. It lulls.
ANYBODY you ask can tell you ignorance is bliss: ignorance of your thirst quenches your fire. It
FEELS, at first, like a little death. Not the French le petit mort. No—that is far too pleasurable. But it requires the same surrender… I rethink… Perhaps it’s not so different after all, succumbing to the numbness.
THE relinquishment of responsibility halts the flow of electrical doubt—a reprieve from pain virtually indistinguishable from pleasure, in the
WAY falling asleep against the cool tile in the bathroom after grueling hours spent retching is the best you can imagine at that instant.

I do not wish to succumb to the numbness again. I must remain vigilant, even if means prodding myself with my own cold spoon.
DO you believe my doubt destroyed the moment of our mutual marvel?
ABOUT my inability to answer questions, to be verbal in my wonder, my silence indicating my incredulity of the incredible: I profess my responsibility, recognizing that I was the one who advanced to your soil, and also the one who started slapping mortar, laying bricks, doubting my welcome the louder you greeted me. I was given what I'd hoped for and was too stunned to properly receive it.
YOU know nothing of the depth of my regret. May you never. I wish my regret unwarranted.
NOW for the first time, I wish to be lightly informed of my unquestionably overactive imagination.

See how I redefine words for you.

Wall. (noun) 1. (and only.) a figment of my imagination.

Commence. head-scratching. now.

purple is a fly i never thought i'd own. it's a blammerific fabulousity that my mother never doubted suited me. WHY? because purple was always her favorite color. carpet-purple-curtains-purple-dresses-purple-myrtle-purple-people-eater. it begs the question.

dif-fur-ent-ly than blue begs the love of my life-love, cookie monster. "oh, for the love of cookie monster," would my grandmother exclaim! "for the love of cookie monster!"

NO. Scratch that.

Scratch what?

"go scratch your ass," gramma might actually. say, that is. might. actually. say. familyism. 40 in a kitchen on a sunday afternoon. maybe brooklynism, going nether to scratch. maybe 66th-street-ism. 4th from the corner.

or all things 1159.

"11:59!" screameth the mozzarella mob before ball-dropping. before the bells. 1159. a house of yesterdays.

rendezvous on the white wall. hide behind the garbage cans.

duck.

Ducky is coming. And he's going to tease me.

but scratch "for the love of cookie monster." scratch. off the scorecard. (Henderson and his god-for-effin-saken hammie, what's the good of season tickets with a team of prima donnas? next year, get a puppy.) or down his back. hiiiiiis. back. MINE. Replace with:

more likely Meema-sim, "what's that got to do with the price of fish?" what, indeed.

Reply: "fat gives you fat," crusty-burnt potatoes are worth a flying elbow.

brats.

AND

it has everything to do with the price of one pair of yellow-wheeled rollerstakes. and a poster of Miss Piggy.

tutto.

Stir and enjoy.

Relativity, Speaking

Something about thirty has given me words I've never had before.

When I was younger, when I was more forthcoming, more trusting, very rarely did I do the writing. I did the talking, I did the nurturing, I did the giving. Unfortunately, I trusted the wrong people. Millions of words, lost.

I regret every single word I have not told you, but now I am a writer. I write--pictures, poems, stories, essays, plays. All full of images. (You, me, us.) All full of regret. Regret that I did not trust my instantaneous trust. Pre-emptive regret for the explaining I may never do.

Why never? Because. Just because. Because how long will it keep coming? Wells run dry at some point, and my well and your well--well, they're just not well-synched. My regret is your obliviousness. Two weeks for me is a day to you. My physics teacher spoke mostly Russian, but time dilation was one concept I didn't need explained.

Maybe, we were twins. We are twins. But we are separated. You are on a rocket, approaching the speed of light. I am here on earth. Your clock seems normal. To you. You expect I am living at the same velocity. You expect there is plenty of time. Will be plenty of time. But my life just keeps ticking, and in your place are words.

Won't you be surprised. When you return, all you'll find--in the place I once was, next to the place you never knew you had--will be a pile of scripts, a handmade book of poems, and this.

I ask myself: should that make me happy?

Snow.

Each room is brighter, aglow. It's the reflection, I know, off the snow outside--streaming in the windows, illuminating the curtains and corners and crevices. I see things I couldn't have discerned a day ago, notice things previously immaterial. Value them.



I don't want you to melt away--gone without so much as good-bye, darkness without warning.

Yet neither would I choose the sloppy gray--hopping, jumping, tip-toeing, fearful of where I might stick my foot this time.

To(o) Long

Keep your eyes on me.

Treadmill today. Eyes straight ahead. 4 miles. Left, right, left, right. Keep breathing. Left, right. Stay loose. Left, right. There's that mound of papers to read. Left. Two deadlines I'm behind on. Right. Turn up the iPod. Left right left right left--

That's right. Look here.

Blender. Here's the milk. One cup. Look for the peanut butter. Where could they have moved it? Oh, there it is. Behind the whipped cream. Of course. Tablespoon of peanut butter, scoop of whey, packet of hot cocoa--diet. Adds flavor; adds calcium. Blend on low. Shoot I forgot the ice cubes. Don't want it to be warm. Want--

I want you to see who it is.

Laptop. See if there is any email. There is always email. Respond. Talk mission statements. Production budgets. Grant applications. Revisions. Messages from students. Missed class. Missed a deadline. There's always a calamity. Who is it going to be this semester? Who--

Who it is that makes you feel this way.

Only the second week. Already way behind. Two sets of diagnostic exams. One set of essays. Ought to have them read by now. Ought to have feedback, comments. Organization, style, mechanics. Just so they know what to work on.

Just so there's no confusion.

Tactile

Often folks will assume that because I am a writer, because I teach writing, I conduct my life from an ivory tower and prefer it that way. Sometimes, I find this grating. Sometimes, it hurts me. Sometimes, it hurts me because these people have been hurt themselves.

I live a life in my mind, but it is inseparable from my body. I write because I want to touch the world. Not metaphorically. Literally. I literally want to touch the world. I want to reach out with my two-week-old manicure and run my fingertips over every single thing.

"I touched all the plants at the Botanical Gardens," she writes, "until my companion asked me how I knew which ones were poisonous."

"That was one of the first things he said to me," she tells me. "'I'm a tactile person.'" I've not yet met him, but I imagine I can smooth my thumb along the ridges of her love for him.

He instant messages me, "I'm a hands-on person."

I could go on--on with quotes, on with links, on with people in my life who love to touch. Who love people who love to touch.

"I knew I didn't want to be locked in a room with books for four years," he says. "I wanted to be out in the world, making things." And I can hear the hesitation in his voice as he realizes he's saying this to a writer. If he'd said it in person, I'd have grabbed his hand, entwined my fingers with his, kissed each one. Murmured that I know what school does to those who love their own hands too much.

The best teachers show you how to use your hands to get what's on the page into your brain. And to use your mind to turn what's at your fingertips into words. Just so you know you can. Even if you choose not to.

The best teachers know that we don't yet teach each person's heart's content. Those of us who'd already loved books just happened to have gotten lucky.

Ironically, this post has no name.

Calling someone by name gets their attention, lets them know you are speaking to them. Calling me by name mid-conversation, mid-sentence, even, is like a well-placed hand. It gets me every time. If I’m yours to be gotten.

You do it sometimes when you know my mind is racing. It runs ahead; you bring it back. Without a break in the rhythm of your sentence, without distraction from the task at hand, you guide me back to here. To now. Much like I imagine your hand would.

I never liked my name as a child, fell into apathy as an adolescent. But years breed informality; old friends play the name game with ease. Today I find myself answering to diminuitives and nonsense names, as if the years had gone in reverse from the moment I entered college. They've softened me up for you.

You creep toward comfort, playing with my name, inviting me to play with yours. I find myself wondering what names we will decide upon, and when our hands might speak instead.

Hate is a four letter word. Self-hate is two four letter words. Stuck together with a hyphen.

1. Insight. You realize that genuine self-loathing may be misconstrued as a ploy to get attention. Not everyone sees that.

2. Some see it, but don't admit it. Those are the people who are actually trying to get the attention. You are not one of those people. I get the feeling that you'd rather melt into a puddle and dribble slowly toward a sewer than have a person you deem worthier look at you with admiration.

3. Look at you at all.

4. And for that, I would slice a million tiny papercuts into the eyeballs of whoever is responsible for slivering the selfhood of a little boy graced with the wonder to see the sublime in a slug.

5. How few see the sublime, ever, never mind approach it so often that its absence is the anomaly.

6. And beyond: to win its trust, have it feed out of your fingers, take it home, teach it to speak in the common tongue, coax it to whisper its secrets to the world.

7. Your world would kiss you for your gifts to it, if only you'd stop biting bloody your own lip.

8. A gift all its own: lip-nibbling, literal. Deliberately. With a tug of the hair, and fingertips pressured upon the pulse-point in the neck.

9. An undeliverable promise, to be recompensed with an eternity in tacit understanding.

This is what I think as I run.

The steps on the south side of Union Square are groggy all winter, soggy with dirty city snow. But spring brings the skater kids, baggy pants and retro-punk. They jump steps, slide down handrails. They'll talk to you if you know what to ask. They'll let me photograph them, if ever I find the time. They keep you company until I get there.

I call you from the north side, from the picture window inside Barnes & Noble. Tell you to sit tight. Face south. Watch the traffic stream down Broadway. Look over at the movie theater's scrolling marquee, and the red neon atop Virgin. I'm coming. Just sit.

You listen, and obey--for a few moments at least. I take my time. You get impatient, look around. I am standing behind a tree. I call you again.

I said, face south.

You look around some more. I can see you. Turn around. Sit down. Wait.

You do as you are told.

I draw closer. I am coming up behind you. You start to turn your head. Don't. Eyes back on Broadway. I keep you on the phone, walk slowly. I am going to come up behind you. Don't worry. It's just me.

I don't want to startle you. It's me.

I bend my knees, put my hand over yours, guide the phone away from your ear. You see my hand, my stacked glass rings, a bit of arm, nothing more. I hit the button to end the call. Stay still. I'm here.


Photo courtesy of aviewoncities.com

Hell, Hatchlings, and the Elegance of Longing

Longing may be elegant, but it also hurts like hell.

Long too much, too long, and you invite exhaustion. Emotional and physical. Quite a frustrating situation when it is longing that fuels your writing.

Because sometimes, you'd rather just curl up in a ball and read, rather than bleed regret.

There's more to be said, you know. But you also know now's not the time to say it. If you're sick, you can't donate blood. Of course, you also can't donate blood if you've recently been to Mexico, but that has no immediately obvious parallel in the extended metaphor.

Though, upon further contemplation, it could be about an incubation period.

When longing incubates, what hatches?

Toey, Revisited

Some people hate feet. How? Each toe is a wonder. As when a baby arrives and parents joyfully count each digit, thankful for their existence, each one. How can you love someone and not love their toes?

His beauty is his innocence, I realize. There is darkness but no shame. When you’re a little boy, no curiosity seems inappropriate. Everything beckons. I paint my toenails—sparkly and pink--and think of him.

“Inappropriate” is a word I use when I am too shy to explain the truth. It is the lazy way out. The cowardly. I never mean it. I would never use a word I didn’t mean on the page. But I will say it to avoid the long truth. Even a truth I want desperately to share.

He is still a child inside. But so alluring. He balances opposites. He shelters wonder.

I am three years old with a new baby brother and a cousin on the way. I rub my aunt’s belly. She leaves for a doctor’s appointment and I announce, “She is going to see the people that make the feet.”

His toes are those of my baby. I want to tickle them and kiss them and count them and name them. Each one.

"There is nothing sensual about winter."

We buy a case of mangoes, take them home, choose a few ripe ones, slice them, put them in a tupperware in the refrigerator. I put a few slices in a bowl and sit cross-legged on a chair at the kitchen table.

"Why are you eating that with your fingers?"

"Because there is nothing sensual about winter."


Actually, there is. There is a lot sensual about winter. But none of that is what I want to feel today--velvet and cashmere and wool; hot soup and tea and drinking chocolate. The sensations of winter are found in what covers us and fills our stomachs. Where is the sticky mango juice dripping down a chin, falling onto bare toes? I want to write something--something that has skin and sweat and hands that know too much. I have a desire for desire. But what's that if you can't muster desire itself?

Winter is getting to me. Already. Outside, everyone is covered. Today, there is no mystery even in the long darkness; there is only flannel pajamas. I want flesh in front of me. I want to see skin. Muscle. A sheen of sweat. I'm not dancing nearly enough.


"Mangoes and fingers, huh?"

"Yes."

on distance. and color. and candy.

I speak young, but don't sound like a child. I catapult from words to sentences precociously. My mother speaks to me as if I am an adult, especially since my father is so often away on business. Even though her family is just next door.

Each time he goes, we pack for him--the green fold-over that holds his business suits, and another bag for his necessities. My mother gives me candy to hide in the bag--Peanut Chews, Twizzlers, and Chuckles. I separate them so he doesn't find them all at once. Lots of little surprises are better than just one.

In time, I am allowed to roller-skate to the corner store to buy the candy myself. "You know the ones to get," my mother tells me. I tuck the money into a skate. She leans over the fence and watches me go.

I don't like the way the Chuckles are arranged in the package. Red, yellow, black, orange, green: ugly. Why would they do this? It should be red, orange, yellow, green, blue--a rainbow, like my bedspread. But there are no blue Chuckles. There should be a blue one, and it should taste like the blue raspberry in the rainbow Italian ices. But the black one is his favorite. If I can find the black licorice-flavored Twizzlers, I buy those.

I add notes and drawings, pages ripped out of my coloring books, carefully shaded with my Crayolas. The blues are my favorites. Blue, blue-green, green-blue. My best friend in kindergarten, Marie-Elena, decides we must each have a favorite crayon, but we can't have the same favorite. She gets blue-green; I get green-blue. Blue-green is really my favorite, but I let her think it can be hers. I don't bother to tell her that she can't change my mind.

I don't ask my father if he gets mad at the black Chuckle like I do, for taking the place of a blue one, though I want to. His eyes are blue. Maybe that's why he doesn't seem to care that there's no blue one. Maybe he thinks it would be like eating his eyes.

Souvenir

“Remember,” my mother says. “Don’t touch what’s not yours.” Everywhere we go. Home stores with rows upon rows of sparkling glasses. Other people’s homes with shelves of knick-knacks and whatnots. Department stores dripping exquisite ornaments from the branches of artificial Christmas trees. “Look, but don’t touch.”

I am a well-behaved child.
I don’t touch what’s not mine.

Eventually, “I don’t have to say it. She knows.”
But she says it anyway. “Don’t touch.”

Smooth fabrics, textured papers, juicy fruit-flesh.
I want to touch. At the MoMA, it’s a conscious struggle to keep my fingers off the Van Gogh’s. Gobs of thick pigment prickle out of the sky of “The Starry Night”.
I stand before it. I look. I buy a postcard and go home.

Can you regret it, not touching what’s not yours? Can you regret it so much, it hurts all the way down to your fingertips?

Sea Glass

I wake up slowly in the morning, the luxury of working afternoons. After a few months of this, I realize why I’ve always thought I hated waking up early. It’s not the hour that’s the problem—it’s the sharpness of alarm clocks, their automated disregard for the progress of my dreams. The night dreams and the waking.

Waking up slowly, I write scenes. I’d always thought they were fantasies, a luxury whose time-toll I could not afford. Or worse—by-products encasing empty calories, beer bottles tossed carelessly into the sea. But the images feel organic. With room to evolve, they writhe into the shape of drama—first people, then scenes. The scenes replay and I put words to them. Several times in one slow morning, I run the words, then whisper them, head still on the pillow, eyes still shut, until finally the scene comes to a natural end. Climax, dénouement. I open my eyes.

I write by hand. I like the feel of different pens, their sounds as they slide across the paper, the bleeding of the ink as it courses into the fibers. The words people love best are always written by hand.

Showers help when I can go no further. Water courses over the words, picks them up, tosses them, breaks them and rearranges, carries them along, smoothes them out. Running water has a presence and a rhythm that I can close my eyes and hear. And borrow. Later, I can read aloud.

Finally, I type. Tapping fingers have a different rhythm than running water, a different rhythm than coursing ink. The three meld. Always, I change things--words, details, actions. A guiding hand on the back inches closer to the hip. A shout becomes a whisper. Bitten fingernails, a bitten lip. The words I imagined saying, now to be murmured by someone else. But always, they’re mine. Still me. Still to be spoken. Still what would slip out if the phone rang too early, and I answered in my haze, and you asked.

Borrowed Words

It is as if I’ve always known you. The way the details fall into place—the tilt of your head, the line of your back, the crisscross of your arms folded in front of you. I watch you walk and know it is you. "Oh, THERE you are," I think. But I have never seen you walk before this day.

I think I am imagining things, the way I am imagining history to fill in the crevices—places you’ve been, places you’ve loved, the things you love to do. Songs you sing when no one’s listening, songs you sing in your sleep. Until they turn out to be true. This is more than imagining. “I know exactly who you are,” you tell me. I don't doubt it.

I have always known you. I know it, but somehow don’t believe it. Without you. I don’t believe it without you. With you, there is no question; without you, it is lost. Because I am afraid. What I don’t admit: I want someone to tell me it is more than just imagining. No one else can. The hints between two people who have known each other all their lives but only just recently met seem obvious to only them. No one else can really know this. No one speaks that language they share.

You’d tell me, if I’d ask. But I don’t. It’s not something I know how to ask. The words aren’t there. And in those moments when I could try, when you're listening, there's no need.

A heartfelt thank you to the insightful people from whom I borrowed the italicized lines. Cupcake and Brandon, if only I could sing on key, I'd serenade you both.

Writer-girl, Interrupted

Music reminds me of you. I’m almost afraid to hit play. Because what if a song comes on and it makes me wonder where you are, and I don’t know, and I really really start wondering and I have to go out of my way to find a way to distract myself to stop thinking about you so that I don’t have to spend my time thinking about someone who is not thinking about me?

Sure, I have no proof that you are not thinking about me. But I don’t have any proof that you are either. So I guess I will write in silence. Once I start typing, I no longer hear the music anyway.

Like that day that you called and I had been writing for so long, staring at the computer so long that when the phone rang I didn’t even realize what I was supposed to do with it. The music had been playing all along but I hadn’t been hearing it. Some part of my mind that I didn’t even know was awake took over and answered, but I could barely make sentences. You started talking, then thought maybe I had no idea who it was, because my tone of voice didn’t change, as it normally does, when I realize that it’s you and you can hear me smile from there. So you identified yourself. I knew it was you. I always know when it’s you. I just couldn’t make sentences.

The music was still playing and I didn’t even realize it had been playing all along until I started trying to explain to you that yes, of course, I know who it is, but I can’t speak, I can’t make sentences, I'm trying to mute the music, but all I can do is listen to you talk, just the sounds, not the words, I can't comprehend the words exactly, but I know what you are saying is meant to put me at ease and somewhere in the back of my mind I just want to keep listening. But I can't just keep listening. I have to react. I have to say something, because you are worried now, that I'm not talking, that I'm not laughing, that I'm not giggling like the little girl I was when first we spoke, when last we spoke, when every time in between. I can't just keep listening, but I can't seem to make sentences either.

It wasn't me listening to you that day; it wasn't me that answered the phone. Because if it had been me, the me that always wants to talk to you, she would have said something, she would have reacted the way you expected her to, warmly the way she always does when you say something light and silly and unforgettable, a future secret. It wasn’t that me. I know it because that me would have first been aware of trying to hide the excitement in her voice when she answered the phone so you wouldn’t know, because she’s too cool to let you know all the time, how happy she is to see your name on the caller id.

It was another me. The one who’d been far, far away, staring at the computer screen, not even hearing the music. Probably formulating some words that she wanted to write about you. She was writing about you somewhere in the back of her mind, silly boy. That’s why she didn’t smile through the phone when she heard your voice. She was writing about you.

What It's Like to Be Me, Vol. II: Sexy If and Only If Math Turns You On

My father’s birthday. We go to Atlantic City to play poker. I can’t play poker recreationally. I start counting cards, calculating probabilities, and wishing I could be one of those evil geniuses who beats casinos out of large sums of money. Also, I would rather spend discretionary funds on new shoes than on gambling. I have no problem spending $20 on a dessert plate.

Last winter. My brother decides he will no longer play Clue with me. He takes one of my used note sheets—a pattern of checks and x’s and question marks that makes no sense to anyone but me—and hangs it up in the kitchen as a reminder. Grocery list; important phone numbers; reasons why no one should play logic games with my sister. I don’t know why he would do that; I'm sure he won the most that night.

Thanksgiving dinner: My cousin is in the midst of an LSAT prep course. His girlfriend is a grad student in accounting.
Girlfriend: I should have taken a prep course for the GMAT.
Me: I love the GMAT!
Girlfriend: (laughs)
My brother: She’s not kidding.
Girlfriend: But I thought you were a writer.
Me: Did I mention I used to work in test prep?

A few summers ago. The Public Theater produces Shakespeare in the Park each year. Most of the free tickets are distributed at the Public and the Delacorte Theatre in Manhattan, but representatives are also sent to the outer boroughs on certain Saturdays. Usually, the line in Staten Island is negligible, but this time my friends and I arrive to find a crowd already gathered. We get in line anyway.

People behind us: I think they only have 100 tickets.
Me: Then we probably should just leave.
Them: Huh?
Me: Well, there are 140 people in front of us. Give or take.
Them: Did you count?
Me: No.
Them: Estimation?
Me: Eyeball.

When an employee distributes numbers, I am #141.

Me: Did I mention I used to count crowds every day?


1994, or thereabouts. It is my job to inventory everything in the movie theater. Every night. Five concession stands and a stockroom. In each stand, there are four sizes of soda cups, four sizes of popcorn cups, about 20 different types of candy, and a few random items. There are hundreds of each. Total number of entries on the spreadsheet: 180. Give or take. I complete it in 50 minutes. Give or take.

Lately, things are disappearing. Money? Cups? Candy? I know my counts are perfect; the problem is somewhere else. Someone on staff is way too comfortable. My boss thinks my “emotional state” due to my “asshole boyfriend” would compromise my math. Silly man. I may have been crying in the kitchen, but math is beautiful because it is not arbitrary like an insecure nineteen-year-old actor. I go home before 1am.

When I arrive the next morning, he has recounted everything. I am fuming.
Me: Fine, if you’d rather not sleep.
Him: Well, I had to find the mistakes.
Me: Where were they?
Him: (Silence.)
Me: Did you find the money? Did you find the mistakes?
Him: There was a nacho dish hidden in the kitchen.
Me: HUH?
Him: Someone hid a nacho dish.
Me: You didn’t find any mistakes, did you?
Him: (Silence.)
Me: So you’re buying me lunch all week, huh?

Justified gloating is sweet. Like all the ice cream sundaes he bought me.

My Muse Is a Son of a Bitch

My muse is a man. I appreciate those Neo-Classical visions of ethereal women with fabulous hair and gossamer robes, but they don’t speak to me. Not like he speaks to me.

He says anything he damn well pleases, but always pleasantly, always politely--unless of course he feels like channeling Batman on a given day, because then he speaks a bit more pointedly.

My muse, that son of a bitch, will not desert me. I have tried to get rid of him. Avoid him. Ignore him. I have tried to jot down the ramblings of other voices, hoping it would make him jealous. No luck.

Because nowhere in the “muse” job description does “jealousy” ever appear.

And worse, “modesty” is apparently on every line.

It must be pretty sweet, being a muse. Knowing you can make words dance.
Living as if it were simply part of the job.


That painting is: Jeune Homme Nu Assis (Young Nude Male) ~ 1855
By Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin

You

You think the world can’t possibly not love you. Most days.

And others, you feel tiny as a speck of sand. A nanobot. Why would anyone dream of you?

You take a shower, cover your face with your hands. Let the water pour over you. Think “this is my life, and my life is absurd.” Maybe you even say it aloud. There’s no one there to hear you anyway.

You think you have control. You always have control. You quote from Radiohead. “I want to have control.” If you’re singing that you want it, you don’t already have it.

You think you always say what you mean. So just this time, you won’t. Just this time, you can afford to be vague. It can’t possibly go wrong.

You are wrong.

You hardly ever say what you mean, when it matters. You know what you would like to hear, but you won’t say it yourself. You are a coward.

You think you are a realist. You think you’ve been brainwashed by optimists, and they’re the ones who call you coward—they of the storybook endings and “Say Anything” monologues. People aren’t really like that, you think. That doesn’t really happen.

Not unless you make it happen.

You.

You just don’t get it, do you?

Or, maybe this is all about me.

"The Persistence of Memory"

One of the Twin Towers still stands in a small desert. Or maybe it is a deserted dock. That's what it feels like, though I can't see the water. I am with two other people. I know them. We run by the tower, into a warehouse, to steal a piece of furniture. I take the drawers out so I can carry them away. An officer discovers us and orders us to leave. I put the drawers down. We run. We run by the tower again.

I am running in my sleep, kicking the blankets off, lifting one leg after the other in swift succession. Running dreams come often to me. I can't remember the other thieves.

An animal is chasing us, I think a lion cub. We are so close to the tower. I wonder if this one will fall too.

I wake up still thinking that one of the towers remains.

It is only a brief span, between when the first tower falls and the second. I wonder: what will New York do now that the Twin Towers are only one? Will it remain? Or will it be knocked down to make room for something new? It doesn't cross my mind that the other may fall as well.

Subliminal Messages

When we drive cross-country, we rent a convertible. If not a convertible, why bother?

And it has a tape deck, so that we can alternate connecting our mp3 players. (Those transmitter things are annoying in big cities, where all the frequencies are already being used.) Whoever isn’t driving gets to DJ.

I want to hear you sing to me.

I take along my laptop, to download all the pictures we take with the digital camera. Of places and people. Of each other. Of us.

We buy a cooler and snacks and jars of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. Eventually, we get bored on the road and have a food fight.

There are parts of you I wouldn't mind seeing smeared with marshmallow fluff.

I buy colored pencils; tape and glue and scissors; and two small notebooks. One for me, one for you. The one for you is a gift. You can’t touch it until home.

Everywhere we go, I buy postcards. Every place we eat, I keep the receipt, or a matchbook, or a placemat. Every motel we stop in, I steal stationery and take tourist brochures. (And the pens as well.) When it is your turn to drive, I cut them all up and glue them every which way into both of our notebooks. But I still watch you drive.

I like to watch you when you're not looking. I've done it before.

In my notebook, I write everything I feel, everything I see, everything I think. We travel so long, I have to buy another. I take them home with me for future reference. One day, I make a play of it all. (But don’t worry; some secrets are ours alone.)

Your notebook is different. Not random thoughts and endless babbling, but a piece of art. The postcards and the pictures and the paraphernalia are personalized. On every page I write a thought—a thought I think about you. While you are driving. While you are sleeping. While you are showering. Some of them I tell you; some of them are a surprise. But either way, you have something to remember this by.

Something you can touch.

One day, we watch the sun set into the Pacific, and it is time to go home.

You won't forget.

What It's Like to Be Me

“What I love about you,” he tells me, “is that you don’t make mistakes. With numbers. Your taste in men—not so good—but your math is flawless.” I study him and try to see what other girls see. He is my friend. I spend most of our time together running interference for him. He would argue this, but he breaks hearts. His eyes are clear and green. He is beautiful. He would argue that as well. The girls are not heart-broken to be separated from his naturally shrewd business sense or his artist's eye. Probably no contention there.

We hug warmly, his arms wrapped around me, his body against mine. People see us and assume the most. None of it is true. In private, he musses my hair—what remains of it after ordering the stylist to chop it off in a fit of post-adolescent frustration over guys telling me “don’t cut your hair.” It is short, pixie-ish. “You don’t need long hair to be sexy,” he tells me. “Wear your glasses. I love hot smart girls with glasses.” My fingers trace the tribal band around his upper arm.

We have no shame about changing clothes in the same room. His boxers are low as he pulls up his pants; fluorescent light bounces off the sharp lines of his bare hips. Aesthetically fascinating—so different from what's under the waistband of my jeans. His angles bring to mind the geometry of the architectural studies he sketches for homework. I wonder if he would rather be penciling curves.


We dance in the lobby of the local diner, to disco songs we sing off key. “Older sisters,” he confirms. “Girls like to see your feminine side, as long as that’s not all they see.” He dances just close enough to make me wish he’d get closer. He knows too much for seventeen. So do I, but that’s because my dance partners are always older. High school boys are afraid to look you in the eyes when you’re dancing. Not him. His eyes are golden-brown, and they match his hair.

He shows up on my back porch and asks me to his senior prom. I say yes. He shows up on my back porch and says we ought to be just friends. I say “I guess.” “But,” he asks, “you’re still coming to the prom with me, right?” I go, because I have a fabulous sequined dress that I want to wear again, and because he can dance.


His lips taste faintly of coconut. It’s not chapstick or anything; it’s him. Always faintly of coconut--sweet but still masculine. I watch as they draw back into a smile and I know without looking up that he is glancing down. That’s what he does when he’s about to cast aside inhibition. He will kiss me again and his eyes will shift to the greener side of hazel, and I will know what he is thinking.


“When you look at me like that, I think of chocolate.”
“Well, we are in Starbucks,” he laughs. “I’ll get you a brownie.”


I know his eyes are cobalt, but I can’t see them. We are on the phone, debating competitiveness and office politics and drive. I ask him leading questions; he makes me define my terms. A screech cuts through the phone signal and for a few seconds, we are kids, giggling, bickering in the school yard. “Was that you?” “No. You?” “Well it wasn’t me.” Boyish. Charming. Then back to business. I ask him questions requiring statistics, and gauge his facility with numbers. I put words in his mouth. He cuts in. I talk over him. He says: “listen.” And I do. I stop mid-sentence. It is a small submission I do not begrudge. He doesn’t call himself a writer, yet he always uses his words precisely. And I want him to talk some more, because the sound of his voice makes me squirm.

He pauses, making sure my abrupt stop is not just instinct. He wants to know it is a conscious decision to yield. I wait--willingly, because he seems aware of the crucial but delicate balance. Without my willingness, his power has nowhere respectable to go. Acknowledge my authority and I will want yours. He modulates his drive as well as he does his voice, something feral only flickering occasionally—in the silences, between his careful phrases, when I catch him off-guard. Always tantalizingly close, but clearly well under his control. I hear assurance in his voice as he speaks of ambition, and imagine how lamplight looks playing across the skin of his bare hips.