10 things that you may or may not know about me:

1) I’m really, irrationally, afraid rats will eat my toes. I have to live with this fear wherever I go: I curl my feet under me at the movies, sleep with the sheets tucked in even in the heat of the summer, and I have to wear socks or shoes if my feet are going to be under a table for any length of time… To be honest, this phobia has improved dramatically over the years: I used to fall asleep contorted to protect my ears, nose and fingers in addition to keeping my feet covered.
2) In kindergarten I once stole a toy stethoscope from a classmate and brought it home. I got a huge lecture from my mom AND my grandmother, separately and eventually promised to return it to the girl. Well, I didn’t and kept it hidden under my mattress for a while. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t play with it, it was my guilty treasure. A few weeks after, school let out for the summer and I went to France to visit my father. When I came back, my grandmother had renovated the house and the wing that had been my bedroom was walled off. For a long time I was convinced that my stethoscope was buried. I thought it was some kind of cosmic retribution for theft…
3) I cross myself every time I pass a cemetery. I’m not sure why either – the closest way I can explain it to myself is as a sign of respect for the dead… but even that doesn’t ring a true bell of understanding.
4) When I was 12, my cousin, her cousin and I snuck off into the back of the garden to smoke - only we didn’t have cigarettes. That wasn’t enough to stop us though; we rolled up notebook paper into thin tubes and fastened them with scotch tape. For tobacco, we plucked dry(ish) grass from the ground. Phillip, my cousin’s cousin, was the first one to try one. His first puff triggered a coughing fit that launched my cousin and I into hysterics, but didn’t deter us. Troubleshooting, we figured that the thing missing was a filter so we trekked back into the house for cotton balls. Back in our hide-out we stuffed our makeshift cigarette ends with the cotton and, with some trepidation, inhaled. That night, no one could figure out why all three of us had no voice.
5) I luuuurve water. Whenever I’m the slightest bit stressed – I jump in the bath. And if the going gets really tough, I duck my head under water to drown out the world (no pun intended).
6) I can eat and eat and eat. In my family organic vegetarianism is the law, so when I moved out at 18 there was a whole world of meat and junk food just begging to be discovered. And, boy, did I ever oblige! I went through a hot dog phase that probably caused a major boost in 7eleven business. Don’t get me started on bagels or McDonald’s breakfast (in fact, decadent breakfast in general). And I have an ongoing, everlasting, passionate love affair with burgers and fries, medium rare with ketchup if-you-please.
7) I dance. Not just when I’m out or in dance classes but also, I confess, when I am alone. I can’t help it, the rhythm is in my blood: I come home and put some music on and before you know it, my hips are shyly swaying, my toes tentatively tapping… Half an hour later, I’ve stopped everything I’m doing and dancing idiotically through my apartment. And, mind you, this isn’t dancing fit for public consumption it’s all out, mad, entranced booty shaking. And, no, you can not come and watch.
8) I used to write in a British accent. I was nine and living in England when I discovered I had any sort of penned talent, and I guess the accent stuck around my head longer than it did on my tongue. I don’t do it anymore, but maybe I should, maybe there’s a correlation between the nationality of my thoughts and the quality of my work. Would you like a cup o’ tea, mate?
9) I like to give really personal gifts. Or none at all. I actually believe I get more pleasure from the process of choosing, wrapping and giving a present than I do from receiving (well, let me not exaggerate here, it depends entirely on what I’m getting). I’m also not a fan of convention so the farther out my gifts end up being, the more excited I am to give them.
10) In lieu of bedtime stories, my mother used to recite poems to us. As a result I can remember bribes of Hugo and Verlaine. But if you ask me to recite them, they inevitably get tangled in my mind and rhymes of one get mixed in with rhymes of another.

Okay

I have nothing but faith to go on
Everything real is telling me to go on
You led to the rise and then the demise
Of the trust I put in your eyes.
But I turn the key into your relief.
Let myself into the world of belief,
Because something in the ones we once were
Is telling me it is something we can never alter.

Becoming someone we had to love
Turned you into the biggest mess
You were the one I reached for up above,
But turned into the cause of all the bitterness.

Something I wrote three months ago:

I've been reading some of my older journals – the ones I've always started and never finished. It seems that all my life I've spent my time hoping I could be better, waiting for my dreams to come true, for my life to start. And here I am today for the first time confident that everything is going to be all right.

Everyday is not perfect, but that's ok. I have ups and downs, lapses in judgment, I make mistakes and take wrong turns. Sometimes I cringe at my decisions. In the end, though, I am happy to be me in my life.

After many years, I feel God again. I believe love will come to me. I have faith in myself and whatever I will become, whatever I am.

I have learnt that the answers always come and that everything makes sense in the end. The important thing is making the moment magical. I know that is the most difficult.

I laugh into your eyes
Because simple, uncertain things
Shape our coupledom.
You sway my senses into abandonment
And make me plainly happy.
Your impression intoxicates
Makes me crazy,
Precisely sunny.
You defy my reason
And beautify my season.

Last day

That morning, when I awoke, I felt as if I was sweating inside. Hot vapors swelled regularly in and out, freezing as tiny pearls of water on my skin. For a long time the morning unfolded around my bed, where I lay unable to control the inner changing of seasons.
I hesitate to say how long I stayed in that penumbra of cognizance, refusing to test my ability to live the day. It was only as I saw the palm of a hand separate the beads of rain on the window and his gray outline on the window that I dared wake up. I sat up, wet with cooling sweat, stung by the freezing morning air. Around me, the room took shape as a plain cubicle, the bluish white washed walls stared dully at me and light shone through starry hole sin the ceiling.
The lips belonging to the face touched the pane and flattened. I felt a dizzy spell of fever and raised only my hand to meet the solemn greeting. I waved the kisser in.
Reality hit me like a beating: my last day! I wanted to lie down. And yet my last morning. He ran into the room, locking the door behind him. In the green light that trickled in through the curtain from outside, he looked ghostly and young. The few feet of concrete that separated us seemed to stretch for miles and miles. I closed my eyes and fell backwards on to the pillow. He crossed the room, stepping over ripped out magazine pictures of beautiful colors, and the steel trunks and suitcases that littered the room. I put my hand over his on my cheek and looked up.
-I’m sick.
-I know.
-You’re leaving today.
-I know.
And that was that, he slid under the covers and held me until I was warm enough to move. Then, he got up, calmly took out clothes from an unclosed trunk and sat back down next to me. We were painting line after line of extraordinary plainness. Acting as serenely as on any other morning, moving poetically through waves of passion.
I sat up, looking into his eyes as he unbuttoned my shirt, slowly, ceremoniously. I stayed indolent while he slid it off my shoulders. We could have stayed there, swaying between beautiful half words for ever had it not been for my involuntary shiver. He drew my naked and damp body to his chest, ignoring the fact that my breast had stood bare between us only once before, and dressed me.
I do not remember the precise moment I started to cry, but steady violent spasms were shaking my body with uncontrollable sobs. He said nothing, he wiped my tears with his lips and lay me down to take off my blue batik pajamas.
Until now, love had been a series of loving actions. Loving notes. Loving words. Loving looks. I had never known the elation, the ethereal surge of emotions that now swelled in my heart. He echoed like a hologram against the background. The cavity in my chest filled with invigorating warmth, expanded to accomaodate another. I loved.

Unwhole

I have always deemed me better,
Above all basity.
But when you look at me without a smile,
Or not at all,
It strikes me that I am not, after all,
An entity.

Looking

I am looking for the sun
In the eyes of one
Whose gaze
Will warm into my heart
To awaken spring
And bloom the blossoms of my love.

I saw the sun

I drove East
and back West as the sun rose.

With nothing to tint my thoughts
but the hum of the road,
I let my mind reach out
to the colors in the sky.
When I set out
the sky was still black,
save for a growing sliver
of bursting color on the horizon
and with each new beam,
the darkness
and my mood
lifted.

I felt the ceiling of the sky rise
and it filled with violets and roses,
and in my heart
a new feeling was born,
one as large and bright
as the growing morn.
I was driving towards the day,
rushing to meet it on my journey East,
and I drove in awe
that it should seem
to hurry to my meeting also.

All the strangeness of the night lightened,
and all at once,
was gone.
For finally, it was morning.

I turned back home,
feeling,
as I went,
the warming sun behind my back.
There looking forward and away from the dawning,
I realized the sun was all around –
and the awe I felt while driving to it
gave way to its permanent dwelling in my soul.

For the sun
is always East or West from where I am,
no matter how long or strange the night
it will always rise
and it is always dawn.

blank day: transparent

Notes that run in and out, excite memories... One word wakes mountains of images, the other darkens them into nostalgia. If I close my eyes I can no longer tell the difference: am I here or there?

***

I have weights on my eyelids that anchor them to your feet, but my lips still kiss the soil.

***

Words parade against the backdrop of my vision, audition for a place in eternity.

***

If my hands tell stories of all the things they touch, oh the shock of soap.

The light of day pierces through the leaves outside in spring-green shadows. I feel as if I should do something worthwhile with it, the light: take it in my arms and spread it out, stroke by stroke on a canvass, or take each bright leaf by the hand and lead it to its place in writing. It would be too dull to let such beauty be, too common, not poetic enough.

I, the pentadactyl

Look at these outlets of flesh,
Each a port to ships,
bearing Midas’s touch, and duplicates of Ozymandias,
king of kings.
Each laden with pearls,
with skins so white, and hair so bright,
drugged proofs, of empires’ deaths.
Each vessel
steered to the command
of half blind, limping commanders.

Look at these phallic jokes.
Holding objects,
even more abject and lewd.
Each finger probing inside, nearing the gut,
raping the shame,
tearing the guilt, of virgin life.
Each finger, digging deeper in an ubiquitous race.
The sacrifice of white clad, unsullied brides,
because the hand
could not contain its onus.

Look at these, ten of these
instruments of kill.
Look at these vultures to a world of Prometheus,
these Titans to a world of Zeus.
Look at these, and then bring your ears
closer to their lips of finger nails
hear their words,
and know that these fingers,
are not willing harbors to pestilent mites,
nor form consious part of my body.

rain, wind and no sleep last night.

I am sure that with the eyes, you can make love. Copulation through the pupil. You can make love filling the blank stares with arousal, caressing voids with intimate bareness. Making flesh of pure abstraction, attraction.

Love through eyelids becomes a penetration of the soul, a climax of thrill.

Portrait: Black on White

I often envision my father
In images of moments
As he acts out his epics.

This one is absurdly vague and insanely accurate.

Set against the big screen of enigma,
The pose howls defiance:
My father resisting definition
Turns himself from the lens.
The beholder is flustered and enchanted,
Discovering him by default.

It is a perfect picture vision.

His eyes pierce through the print,
And shoot marvels.
He has carved himself a palace
In the madhouse of the backdrop,
Where he stands regal,
And laughing.

A snapshot ode, for the one I love most.

From this portrait
Stems an unorthodox fascination.
My father stands alone
To armies of ignorant paparazzi,
Ready with smile and wit,
In his left hand.

...corruption...

Softly seeping
Openly beaten
swaying
The melody is ended.
My love,
again
is unsure.
I walk away.
I think I know then doubt sets in.
Iwalk back.
I am swiftly soaring
Then heavenly crashing.
Circling steps
and
light cadence.
I lose hope, then those lips again.

Thoughts on a hill

If I close my eyes and stare into the black abyss of sweet rain clouds on their lids, I can see a story. The light is dim and the wind is musky. From my vantage point I can see the whole periphery of land, my land. To the west a crimson light bathes the flat arid fields. By a simple tilt of my head, the East is cast in dancing shadows. The Celestial stars above my head are admitted into the night, millions billions of light clusters, gathering to watch the lavish nocturnal spectacle. The short dry blades of grass at my feet hush a tune that I have never heard before, complemented by the sheep herd and the shepherd boyscry. Inside my mind, these thoughts keep me awake: 'We are screaming inside, though we can't be heard'. So instead of hoping that, onto my high pedestal,you'll join me out of sheer hope I shout your name. Once, and an echo, twice, and an echo, thrice, and an echo... So I leave, tears on my chin and my lips glistening from my happy cries. That night is the night when after years of laborious patience, I hold you in my arms.

In moral

What, pray tell, is morality? Is it based on human intellect, culturaldiversity, religious order? Who is to say whether cannibalism is barbaric, oreven if religion is primitive? Who decides? How does one know which direction totake at the crossroads of right and wrong? Who defines the frontier? Are wegoverned by inner or outer forces? Shouldn't we ourselves be able to discern thedifference between our acts? Every killer seems to know if his deed is decent,or monstrous. Every angel seems to be impregnated with a sense of his ownrighteousness. Should we be judged by what the world deems unworthy ofaccreditation? Is not action a wholly personal concept? Would the world not bebetter if each were left to his own opinion? I think violence would not have itsplace, even amongst the contradictory spirits of society; lies would haveabsolutely no purpose, wrong would not be wrong; adultery, and other such crimesof treason, would not be considered morally opprobrious with commitment notbeing such a vast concept. If we were left to our own means of discernment, whois to say the world would not be a better place?

Meditating after heart break

thick intrinsic gold and daisy
paths wave incense smoke like
until the tussle end.
and i follow them
from my plump Olympian down and spring.
my eyes steer off the fringed limits
and blur.
the carpetupians are right:
past their world life melts into salty rivers.

The Sun

The sun IS dancing on my face.
I know because he waltzed on my lip.

The sun HAS many lovers,
I know because I spent the day in his arms.

The sun DOES sing ballads.
I know because one just kissed my ear.

The sun IS beautiful like you
I know because he makes me as blind.