tom's diner

I saw your book today.
Recalling the crisp the days of winter.
of eating notes in a diner, and reading sighs off of our
runny eggs and coffee.
I remember what it felt like to drink your pages one by one.
As if each sip was made just for me.

Then again, I always knew I was never
special enough to be admired your world.
No dedication, introduction, or prologue in prose.
Never meant to be more than a
segue or stepping stone into a
greater unknown.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t
me,
maybe it was you.

free association.

"what do you think about when you recall last year?"

regression.

what it would be like to drown instantaneously.
metaphorically not literally.
restricted to the point where i could feel my endorphins rush and my heart flutter.
to feel the tightness of breath illicit a seizure....
powerful enough to create a proverbial collapse
lungs empty. body full.
loud enough recall a distant ache.
subtle.
and yet, something i still miss from time to time.

freedom.

choices.

sensations
remembering what that felt like?
what i feel like?

the dark.
the motion.
the reaction of force across my face. firm and yet not to the point of stinging.
but painful enough to wake me from my neurosis.

headaches
hands carrying boxes. springs dancing still. heels caressing the heart.
his head.
hangovers.

the ocean.
the smells and sounds resonating across a cylindrical space.
confined to dark corners and squares.

pressed up against tables. chairs. car windows.
knees sliding, skating along wooden floors.
keys.
rug burns on bed sheets.

sunbaths
pink and black stripes.
tendrils being pulled taut.

sangria kisses.
sunburn.
driving down the coast on a cloud.

connection.
subtraction: how loss always seems to fall into addition
silence
sound.

true love.
forgiveness.
hope.

Rummaging: Finding the New Value in Old Things.

so i've been rummaging. sneaking.

sorting through other peoples pasts: garage sales, vintage stores... manicured lawns, dirt roads, vacant alley ways.

lives that were never meant to belong to me... now shared by the desperate and indifferent.

here i am at my most voyeuristic... vicariously living... gaining through the loss of others.
there is something that (for as long as i can remember) has excited me about gaining insight into things that were never my business to know.

like collecting pieces to a hidden puzzle.

places like this enable a healthy outlet for what can sometimes be considered a somewhat perverse predilection.

but lately i've been thinking.... and thinking has always opened up doors that lead to more answers, which ultimately lead to more unanswered questions... and i can't help but feel melancholy at the thought of this.

it makes me wonder about all the things i don't know... all the things i'll never know...

and potentially how maybe no one ever really shares it all.

all of their belongings... all of themselves.

though the objects once belonging to someone else are now mine.... i am still just as perplexed as i was before i acquired my new found things.

i wonder... are these things less valuable if it didn't belong to me first. or second. or third?

then again, maybe it was supposed to pass hands. maybe it was meant for me. or maybe i'm meant to pass it on to someone else.

maybe i'm never really meant to own anything.

maybe moments, like relationships, experiences or objects... are like seasons. never static.... transitory. always changing.

and if that's true... for as much as we value the things around us. the notion of how things are inherently fleeting makes it all feel a bit lonely....
a bit bleak.
as if there will always be a gradual end...
or progression into something else.
maybe something better.
better than good.

maybe.

one can only hope.

thinking. about today

is it bad to say that i love days like this.
the overcast gloom that pervades the sullen air.
watching a small wind dancing with the fabric on his window sill.
is it bad to say that i love waking up everyday, no matter how dark or light the day gets, so long as it's next to him?
that i can't remember the last time i've ever felt so at ease.
it's been years... so many years that the distance makes me wonder if it ever existed?
once, maybe..... but only once.

in many ways there was always a forced communion, connection. a shoe dangling,
waiting along,
aside a trail of disappointment....
a path of knowings.

and yet, today.... here... i hear no afterthoughts.
i hear no voice in the back of my head playing with the delaying of the inevitable.
no notion of borrowed time.
the unraveling of pain, baggage, and unsettled emotions.

those pieces have faded.
been laid to rest at our proverbial door.

and in this house. colorful... and cold i lay listening.
to sounds of the water singing songs into the gutter.
thinking of the past. enjoying the present, hopeful of the future.

here it is warm.
here i have never felt as safe
at peace
in love.

traversing: back

its been over a year. or at least it feels like it has.

and i realize that once in awhile you become a passing thought. or notion.. if only for a brief second. maybe to say hello in my mind... maybe because it's the only form of acknowledgment i want to return. something only to myself. something that can never be shared with you.

not that i'm not inclined to share right now.... or anytime for that matter. i've never been one to hide much. but i've come to realization that i like not talking to you. hearing you voice calmly resonating before the dial-tone. i don't feel at a loss that i don't have your presence to lean on. and it's not because i built new bridges. or solidified old ones.

i just can't recall why i'd want rebuild any bridge someone maliciously burned, regardless of intentions.

there are many forms of forgiveness that i have given in my time. and relinquishing my disappointment with where we now are is more than forgiveness enough.

i don't need any semblance of what we had. i don't know if i ever will.
though my door is always open if you so choose.
know that i don't miss you.

word of the day: obscurantism

obscurantism
1. Opposition to the spread of knowledge.
2. Being deliberately vague or obscure;

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin obscurare (to make dark)
wsmith@wordsmith.org

My thoughts: interesting word at the moment. at least for me.

It makes me think of intimacy. The notion of giving oneself without exception, and if that is truly possible...? It also makes me wonder if it is possible to truly term things in absolutes. To say one is all light, all giving, all of something... then withholding, dark, and the like within another context... makes me question the notion of giving, of initmacy.... of my own level of understanding.

Can one truly acquiesce and give of themselves wholeheartedly while still denying other parts of themselves to others? Or is both possible?

food for thought.....

name (:to my everything)

this
thought.
a shadow that connects the primordial orders of my working memory.

made me perceive
past
connections.
made me
believe
I under-
stood.
where i moving
where i was standing.
where i was.
till there was
this.

still
there was
un-knowing.
which transformed into seeing
seeing into
believing.
believing into actualizations of epiphanies colored in song.
visionary dances in deafening delights.
sounds blinded in silence.
in darkness.
in
this.

this.
the representation of definition is where it resides.
this.
is deification conjured by the current of creation
by the chaos of calm
by the mere thought of it.
of
this.

words
give passion, desire, and love no real meaning.
hold no measure or weight to what this feeling encapsulates.
in it.
in
this.

this.
is the reason sounds ascended into words
words evolved into
meaning
meaning formed into the
defined.
the reason Webster’s needed a book of reference to capture our collective frame of mind.

this.
each letter,
sy-lla-bles
formed by the need for articulation
for the need beyond all
need
formed my dreams into a wish list and conjured
this
into
Existence.

into being
into my thoughts.
my limbs.
my loins.
my heart.

this.

my dictionary.
my reason for rewriting all notions.
previous perceptions of emotions.
all feelings shaded by thoughts of under
standing.

this.

at the end of all reason
lies this.
in this.
of this.
in this.
and this
is.

you.