Trace The Lines

I try to trace the lines back

The night was dark

Purple

Without stars

Do you know what I mean?

My body was twisted

and formed of clay and pale powder.

Thrown into the air

and endless rolling hillsides.

I try to trace the lines back

Red and white lights

streaked below the bridge.

Veins that carry flesh, soul, meaning.

I peek out from a blanket of forgetfulness,

stretching from California to Arizona.

Catch the road, straight and black.

Look for a star.

I try to trace the lines back

Somebody was there

a mirror

just past the shabby brick building.

I dismissed the thought

Curious, slashing in the wind,

those elements tangled me in color,

leading me to desolate places

surrounded by water

and black carrion birds.

I try to trace the lines back

There was a fluttering hand

the ropes of my bondage cut into me

the sound of an animal.

I am carried home unto awakening

can see forever in every direction

I try to trace the lines back

I cannot remember

I cannot remember what I was

I cannot remember

Far Off Songs

I could hear them fighting in the other room.  Every few seconds Jonas’ high pitch scream would pierce through the music I was listening to, it would crawl under my skin and make me shiver. 
I could hear them fighting over the tablet playing cartoons. As I listened to the vocal coaching on my computer and tried to sing along and practice, their constant bickering moved through the glass door and found me and pushed me away from my concentration. 
I could imagine Noah trying pull the computer more towards him and Jonas pulling back, finally strong enough now to defend himself against his older brother.
It was the endless struggle for property that would stay with them until death.  Territory and desire and anger, they were fully present even at three years old. They were even more evident than in adults, due to the lack of social flitters and niceties and the many disguises the adult world has devised to cloak those inner urges.  When those little boys wanted the computer, the cookie, the train they took it. Available responses of the other was tears, or a scream or to hit back.
I could not hear any response from Noah, so I assumed he was the perpetrator.  I had stopped trying to intervene.  I had grown tired of trying to make them share, or warning them, threatening to take it away, now I had just grown silent. I had other things to do.  I sunk back into the music and left them alone, it would be survival of the strongest.
Occasionally I heard Jonas’ weapon of choice: that scream. The high pitched wail irked me from the inside, one of those sounds which physically chilled me and made me shake and try and shrug off the noise.  I closed the door to the living room.  They were going to do what they were going to do.  There could be no reasoning, they were too young, they were little machines. 
The boys used to sit with me as I did my vocal work. When Jonas had just learned to sit up by himself I would put him on a chair next to me and he would look at me with huge, smiling eyes and laugh at some of the sounds.  Noah would sometimes sing along and then we would dance.
Just a few years later and fully human, they were more interested in Dora and Umizumi and their computers and ignored me as much as I tried to look past their fighting. The babies had recognized the work, they could sit with me, patiently waiting sometimes as I went through the things I wanted to do; these little people did not.
They had fallen.  It was only a matter of time, all beings must descend, become human, become mere machines.
Maybe one day they would stop fighting and hear me singing from the other room. Maybe they would remember some of our early nights together when we sat in three chairs in the living room and they would come out to join me once again: singing, dancing, laughing.

Habits

I sat on the cold wooden seat of my high-backed stool, my back straining slightly to keep me sitting up after the many loads of bread I carried from the truck across the street to the table beneath the shade of a palm tree.  There were other vendors all around in the park, each hoping for sales and a few goodies to fill their belly at lunch.  On display were varieties of tofu, French savory pies, elegant chocolates filled with the best fruits and cremes. There were dozens of people walking by, some holding tighter to their purses than others. It was a park transformed into a marketplace with samples and delectables, all surrounded by the smell of fresh roasted coffee beans.
For a moment it all felt very cluttered to me- different fabrics, sounds, so much movement and thoughts- I took a long breath and focused my attention. And as that strong moment of attention filled me, I looked from person to person, giving each a few seconds of attention: the bleach-blond rockabilly laughing, the Afghan guy smiling as he took a five dollar bill, his associate smiling as well, bringing his hand to his chest while referring to himself in conversation. A potential customer looking at her cell phone, a small boy eating a pretzel. 
All sound seemed to cease.  I saw each gesture as a manifestation of a deep habit.  Every smile and laugh, every movement and step. It was all habitual and mechanical.   
Each one.
Every one.
And as I turned from one person to the other and saw each manifestation, I felt apart from them, blocked from them by a bit of gray air around me that separated us.
For a moment, I thought they could sense my difference. I didn’t feel the attention of one person, but I felt as if they knew I was different. 
Could they possibly know?  Detached perception turned slightly cold in me as I began to fear them slightly, as I worried they would perceive me as other, as strange. 

Instructions

When the springs were longer and the earth was not covered in salt as it is now, you once asked me how to construct a talisman. At the time I told you to gather yellow crystals along the ridge of our mountain and construct a bag of fabric and twigs. At the time, I thought you were not ready for more complicated instructions. It was not just the degree of difficulty you might have had in procuring the substances and objects, but I also thought you were not ready for the power of a more sophisticated talisman.
As I said, the springs have gotten shorter, and there are many we could count and remember in the years we have spent together, so as I survey the white streaks in your hair, as I watch what was once a more impatient, angry man and see the slow, deliberate person before me at the fire, as I observe in simple detail the careful watch of a man that has grown into what will be a fine king, I see that you are ready. 
It has taken years, harder work than I am sure you initially thought, but as I have tried to show you through example, change is possible. As I have told you many times, kings are not made by riches, but by metaphor, and you, now, have developed the awareness necessary to hold your many facets in equal balance, at least much of the time. No gold or jewels could make a finer king.
I see now that more detailed instructions will be useful to you, perhaps not now or in the upcoming cool weather, but perhaps soon. I will impart what I have. 
As I have said many times, both to you and to others, there is no truth, just versions of it.  Each one will look different depending on the man who perceives it, and although it may be redundant, I much emphasize, there are many ways to make a talisman.  This is simply my way and the way of my teacher before me, it is not the only truth.  You are free, after careful thought and consideration, to alter the instructions if need be.  This mountain will change and the instructions may need to change with them. 
As I am sure you have understood, though I will emphasize it again now, it is not only the materials which are important (for indeed they are), but it is the way they are gathered, the calmness in you body as you design and construct, the even flow of breath as you move over the mountain.  So if you must change something, do so always maintaining your awareness.
When I am gone, as one of these days my body will return to the soil and a new journey will begin, you may look though the leather journals of my office and find other instructions, not just for various talismans but other things you may find useful. I must once again state that the world of magick is vast and deep, so do not hold onto the instructions like the habits and identity you once carried like a torch before your heart. These are instructions, not rules.  Look at them creatively, like you are creating something from the other worlds and bringing it to life (and indeed you are.) Life takes many forms and at some points, you may find it necessary to alter.  Use your careful and creative judgement.

Now for the instructions:

Take a piece of virgin parchment, made from the skin of a stillborn lamb.
It will probably be cold to the touch, warm it beside a low fire of hot coals.
Use your finger to draw blood, either yours or that of your female companion.
She will give to you, as she always does. 
Take what you need, she is willing. 
After the skin of the animal is cured and soft, (this I know you are capable of doing as I have seen you do it many times) take the parchment and lay it flat against a wooden surface.  Let the moonlight cleanse it of human touch, of animal remains, of anything that ever was before. 
Now it is something new. 
Draw a star in the center.
At the center of the star, trace the image of the sun in red ink and paint its center in gold.
Let the parchment rest in the moonlight for several hours.
Roll the parchment into a scroll, as tight as you can make it. Fold it in half.
Set it into a jar of water and let it sit until completely tender and pliable.
Form it into an oval and cover with the red sand at the mountain’s base.
Dry it in the sun. 
The entire process may take half a moon cycle. 

The Order Of The Factors

I woke up this morning with a sense that it was too early to be up. It was a work day, but it wasn't time to work yet. I still had a couple of hours. I didn't want the night to end.
I had woken up at the wrong time but I was fully awake, all drowsiness had left me like water falling from a bucket, leaving it empty and ready for something new to come to fill it.
I looked at the clock and saw that it was an hour and half earlier than the time I usually woke up. A pain on the side of my hip had been bothering me for several weeks. It wouldn’t let me sleep for long no matter how hard I tried. I tossed and turned during the night, repeatedly pulled out of restless dreams by the recurring shocks of deep pain coursing through my body like tiny messengers wrapped in red flame.
I was wide awake but I didn't get up from the bed. Instead I lay there, vainly trying to understand what had just happened. My eyes were open but I just stared at the gray ceiling in a kind of dazed stupor. The questions that invaded my mind didn't have enough of a clear shape to require answers. Instead they just floated through my consciousness, mute witnesses to aftershocks of searing pain.
Without saying it to myself, I was making a last ditch effort to sleep some more, to find some remaining crumbs of restful peace before the day actually started. Maybe if I stared long enough, sleep would overtake me and I would recede into dreams for just a little longer, enough to let me flee the looming and unavoidable reality.
But my efforts were in vain. I was wrestled out of any remaining sleepiness by my insistent thoughts, by my shapeless questions, by my undefined images.
I looked out the window and saw that the sky was still dark, a dark blue fading into a lighter grayish color, a heavy night that was slowly but stubbornly changing into another ephemeral day. A touch of red was timidly showing up in the distance, over the roofs of the Victorian houses, all the way to where the very top of the Golden Gate Bridge could be glimpsed surrounded by white shining fog. A clear promise that the sun would be coming soon. Unusual for a city as foggy as this one.
I decided to get up and do something I hadn’t done in a very long time: I would watch the sun come out, I would watch it unfold its warm morning light over the city, a spectacle I once enjoyed in my youth but which had been nearly forgotten with the passing of time.
I stood up, went to the closet and picked some sweaters and shoes in case it was very cold. It's usually cold in this city where I live, very different from where I grew up. I'm still not quite used to it. Something inside of me still wishes it was different. As if the weather would follow my wishes, as if my wishes had a grain of objective truth hidden within their multiple subjective folds.
As I went through the choices in my closet, my memory went back to a particular day in the past. I couldn't remember the details of the day. I couldn't say what had happened or what I had been doing. I could only remember that I had been looking for something. It had been a day when, no matter how much effort I put into my search, I couldn’t bring myself to find that thing which I was looking for. I remembered that I eventually found a solution. The way I finally did find what I had been looking for was by sitting and contemplating the world around me for a long period of time. Quietly. Softly. Subtly. Without rush.
To contemplate in length seemed so easy, so simple. And yet I had not done anything like it in such a long time. Like waking up early, like looking at the rising sun. Things I had forgotten.
When I first moved into this apartment, I made sure I went out to the balcony early to sit and contemplate. I would do this for at least thirty minutes every day before engaging in my daily routine.

I kept this up for a while, until one day I suddenly dropped it. I couldn't really say why. I can't even say for sure that I noticed when it happened. Suddenly it was gone. Like so many things, it just fell out of rhythm, out of step. Maybe I didn’t get that much sleep the night anymore, so it was harder to get up early. Maybe I was just too lazy one day and I preferred the warmth of the bed sheets. For whatever reason, one day I didn't do it. And then one day turned into two, and two into three, and soon my thirty minutes of contemplation were gone and forgotten. Like old shoes or lost memories.
Today I once again remembered. Why did I remember today? I was struggling with pain all night, pain that wouldn't let me sleep. I couldn’t go back to sleep even when I tried with every trick I was aware of, every trick I had been taught.
It then occurred to me that it would a good idea to do that thing I used to do. The pain didn't allow me the easiest route so I had to pick the next option in its place, a route not so easy but full of its own rewards. As simple as that. So unpredictable. So completely beyond my conscious control.
I geared up and went to the balcony like I used to do.
Now the sky had more pinks and oranges than earlier, the darkness had disappeared rather quickly and had left behind a glowing whitish blue that suffused everything with its freshness and light. I heard a bird singing in the distance, I heard the honking of a bus coming from a few blocks away, I heard the tinkling of a little boy's laughter, I heard the murmur of a large sprawling city that was slowly waking up, maybe lost in its own city thoughts, maybe struggling with its own kind of urban pain that forced it to awaken from its concrete slumber even if it would have rather stayed asleep a bit longer, even if it wasn't quite finished with its strange city dreams.
I stood there looking and listening. I noticed my mind getting distracted, a stream of thoughts trying to explain what was happening, what I was trying to do, why I was doing it, how it would happen.
"Focus your mind on what you are seeing, don't worry about your tasks for the day, don't worry about what happened yesterday, don't worry about what will happen tomorrow, just place your mind on this that is in front of you, I just have to remember that one project that is due, I have to remember, I can't allow myself to forget. I just don't have to remember right now, right now I just need to look, look at all of it, but I should make a note, a mental note, but I have to set aside the mental note in order to look, look openly, look without thinking, just remember to get the laundry later, remember later but forget it right now..."
I slowly slid into disappointment. I was disappointed with myself, very disappointed, disappointed because I still remembered, I could still remember what it had been like once. I remembered that I didn’t use to do this before, I remembered that my mind had once been quiet, I remembered that I didn't have this long train of thoughts invading my sacred moments of open perception.
This didn't happen before. I used to contemplate and feel…feel and absorb all the beauty I could take into me, without getting distracted by explanations, without being pulled by responsibilities, without being shaken by running thoughts about obligations and random tasks. I could just sit and look and absorb. I got very disappointed and the dark disappointment just added to my struggles, a speeding downward spiral, a sliding avalanche of negative emotion I couldn't stop or set aside.
I opened my mouth to take a long, deep breath. I went back to a particular memory from my childhood, something I always wished for, something that always made me long to go back, even if it was only to live that one little moment, a tiny scene from a not so pleasant past.
I was probably 10 or 11. My father had promised to take us to the beach the next day, but only if we finished our homework in time. I loved the beach, I was really excited to go, but I had a lot of homework to do and I wasn't sure that I could finish it in time.
I made sure that I got up very early to do my homework before the trip. I jumped out of bed as soon as my eyes opened and I picked up my school notes, ready to start working. The homework was to fill a sheet of paper with the following phrase:
‘The order of the factors doesn’t alter the result’
The teacher wanted us to memorize this by writing it many times on a piece of paper. This was the way we were taught back where I came from. Repetition and repetition and more repetition. Rhythmic cycles of linguistic instruction, calculated to drill thoughts into a young mind overpowered by constant change.
I was getting ready to sit at my desk to do the homework, when I noticed that outside the window there were some extremely beautiful colors, shifting and shining and sliding and twisting just outside the glass.
I got on top of the desk so I could look at them. I stood up on the desk right in front of the window, my eyes wide open, my mind wide open, my attention wide open.
I saw the sky turning from deep black to shining orange and then to bright blue and white… I saw flocks of birds flying by, I heard the noise of some of the people in my house waking up, my father walking to the bathroom and yawning, my mother turning on the stove while whispering to herself. I heard a car passing by with the radio on, I heard distant footsteps coming from a block away, the sound of high heels tapping on cement.
All of it fit in perfectly. Like an enormous jigsaw puzzle made of sound and light, a puzzle I had never before been able to decipher. Everything fit with everything else. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was to be discarded, nothing was to be occluded, nothing was to be set aside.
I saw some black birds flying in perfect formation over the roof of the house across the street, I heard roosters announcing the coming of the brand new day, a new day which I was a part of, a day which I was meant to live.
I was taken away by all this perfectly coordinated beauty for what seemed like forever. I must have stood there on the desk, looking out the window, for at least a couple of hours. And yet it felt like nothing. No struggle, no effort, no pain, no purpose. I had completely lost track of time while I looked out the window, time had ceased to run in the way that I was used to. I forgot where I was or why I was there. I forgot everything except for the beauty that was all around me, the extreme and perfect beauty that surrounded me from all directions, the vibrant breathing beauty that called to me, that made me feel welcome, that made me feel alive.
I found myself standing on the balcony now, trying to do the same thing I had once done so easily, that thing I had done which I never meant to do, that thing which just happened on a morning so long ago.
But I was running into serious difficulty now, I was stumbling and crashing into intangible obstacles. I was having problems with this thing which once had been so simple, problems with something that had once seemed to flow unimpeded, soft and smooth and natural. It was not so easy anymore, not as easy as it once was, not easy at all.
Maybe I thought about it a bit too much, maybe the thoughts of loss were like dark clouds that prevented me from seeing openly. Maybe I had lost the gift of simple observation somewhere along the way and now I couldn't say where or how it had happened.
‘I used to have the experience and not the explanation. Now that I have the explanation I am looking for the experience. I can only find it if I get rid of the explanation that I once worked so hard to find. The experience, the direct experience, just like a child, just like the child I once was…just like the day I was working on my homework and the morning went away in a maze of colors and sound and light… the order of the factors does not alter the results… the order of the factors does not alter the results… it doesn’t matter what comes first, the experience, the explanation…the order of the factors doesn’t alter the results…'
And the morning opened up before me, slowly but surely, while I quietly did my homework, the homework I was finally understanding for the first time, the homework that spoke in a rhythm of simplicity and recurring sonic beats, the homework I still had time to finish.

In The Moment

She wiggled in bed. At some points she was purely wiggling, her body moving huge blasts of energy in unpredictable bursts from toes to fingertips and then back again. Other times she convulsed, her torso lunging forward with wild power that rivaled thunderstorms and bursts of natural fury. Her arms, legs and torso moved without her consent, buckling on their own, reacting to energy that had reached a peak. Her mouth opened, letting out sounds that broke the boundary between moan, pain and pleasure.
She had reached the mountaintop, a place that had once burst with rainbow colored hand gliders and parachutes. She used to sail down the rocky cliff-side on gusts of earth-scented wings, content to fall once again to the place she had come from. Now, it was the same mountain and the same breeze with its salty smell. It was the same place, but she was not jumping. She stayed at the top, holding hands with the man that had brought her there, holding onto him as the wind tried to push them over the edge and back towards the waiting ground.
And now she held back, holding onto the strings, breathing in spite of the breeze and the cries of energy that desperately wanted to move up and over, falling back to where she had once been when her clothes were on and the bed was still uncrumpled and her mouth unkissed. But she was here now, pulling tighter on the strings as the roar began and the convulsions started.
‘uuuuahhhh’ she let out a sound into his bearded cheek.
He lay still as her body twitched beside his, breathing gently, showing her how to relax.
She took in big gulps of air, holding them, forcing her body to breathe slowly, to do what she could feel was happening beside her.
Another convulsion.
Time passed, ones turned into fives, fives turned the clock until the birds sang outside his barred window and her breathing returned to normal. The hand gliders and parachutes melted back into her bloodstream, sitting eagerly on the edge awaiting another opportunity.
Soon she was getting dressed. Pulling on her jeans, her socks, stuffing her bra into her sweater pocket. It was probably cold out, as it had been when she arrived. She put on her jacket, her scarf and gave him a kiss goodbye.
She started her car on the street beside his house and began the short drive to her house which was just a few blocks away. The streets were empty and she began to think, going back to just a few moments before, back to the bed, back to the warm skin that was not her own, yet was. A part of her leapt away, once again wishing to be there, to be with him, not just kissing, not just touching, it was the mountain, the fall over the edge, the sinking into the abyss. She craved that, though they did not jump.
She spoke, ‘you cannot be in a constant state of orgasm, not like the kind you are wishing for.’
She guided her car down the small ramp beneath the subway platform. She remembered she could be happy. ‘Be here. You can be happy with him in bed, but when you are here, driving, you can be happy too.’
She looked at the road, at the subtle curve ahead. She sunk into the curve, putting her full attention on the shift of the yellow line. She turned the wheel of the car with her whole body, feeling pleasure as the car moved. Feeling the dark night coming through all the car’s windows. She smiled.
She thought about all the things she did, all the places she went, all the times she could just be happy if she just remembered to enjoy it. It was hoping for other things, longing for the bed, for his skin, ultimately for the mountaintop, it was the longing for something else. It was the torturous road she liked to walk.
She drove along the dark road, through the two lanes of parked cars. She could be there, in the car, driving, not wishing for someone else, something else.
Not needing anything to happen differently.
She felt that truth wash over her, she understood the source of her daily pain. Her body vibrated with the kisses from the mountain top while her body relaxed into the night around her and the slow drive towards home.

The Beauty Of Loss

I see thousands of pretty sights.

There are lush and delicate weeping willows whose long drooping branches blow gently in the hot September breeze. I glimpse them as my car continues along at 45 an hour on a newly paved street. I smile, seeing the contrast between the long green branches covered in tiny leaves and the dried up hillsides in the background. I know I will never be here again.

Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look.

I am sitting in front of a bread bowl of clam chowder in Monterey. My parents and sister share the wooden table of the restaurant with me. I look up through the front of the restaurant which only has a wide-open roll up door, there is no barrier between us and the foggy day outside. There I see her, walking on the worn wooden pier. A young woman with short dark hair and dark eyes. She’s wearing a low-brimmed hat from the 20s which covers her eyebrows. For a second I see her. She’s smiling brightly, her eyes revealing flirtation and mischief as she turns to someone behind her and smiles even more broadly. She looks like a painting, like a vision. Her body keeps moving though her head and eyes are focused on something behind, a young man, I imagine.

I see thousands of pretty sights. Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look. Each worthy of a photo but I can’t even grab it fast enough.

I’m on a train weaving through the Italian countryside. It’s fall and the sky is heavy with gray clouds. As we move at seventy miles an hour, I catch a glimpse of lives beyond the train window. Women hanging up their laundry on old cords between barren trees. Huge persimmon trees with bulbs of orange fruit hanging like Christmas lights on a dark fall day. An old woman walking with a bramble of sticks balanced on her head.

I see thousands of pretty sights. Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look. Each worthy of a photo but I can’t even grab it fast enough. They roll in me, through me and pass by just as quickly.

There are people sunbathing on a long cement wall buffered from the Mediterranean by a few dozen feet of large white rocks. I watch the hundreds of sunbathers through the tempered glass of an air-conditioned bus. On my ears are large headphones pumping the hard beats of a Bjork song. As each beat drills into my ears I match it with my eyes, jumping from one person to the other. The tan lovers, the older man laying down his towel, the group of girls sweating in the sun, the mother and toddler. A collection of people moving past me in perfect rhythm to the sounds in my ears. I quickly grasp the moment, feeling its preciousness slipping with each second. The song will end, the cement wall will not go on forever, the bus will change lanes. Soon it will end but as I watch I am struck with each moment of beauty. They mark me as I pass, weaving their way inside without even seeing me inside the bus. I wonder how I could even look at them without the music, they fit so perfectly together. But as the song ends, coming artfully to a close, the bus shifts and the wall ends. Tears rush to my eyes.

I see thousands of pretty sights. Each vision is beautiful and ephemeral, slipping from sight just as fast as I look. Each worthy of a photo but I can’t even grab it fast enough. They roll in me, through me and pass by just as quickly. I gasp and cry, letting salty tears pay the price for the beauty that moves past, forever marking me, for a passing moment, making me remember.

Fading Light

I lay on my bed as the last of the sunlight fades, giving us, this small little planet, its final heroic effort of the day. In a dim room, bright orange light streams in through the window, hitting just three different spots on the walls. I lay on the bed, just minutes out of the shower, my hair now wet and cold. My pale legs are covered in oversized black sweats with jaggedly cut ends and a man’s thin striped pajama top.

I look at the last bits of light, feeling suddenly aware of the calm chamber.

My hands rest on my stomach, my feet are extended, supported by a jumble of three blankets that cradle them. Tiny gurgles call to my fingers below my pillowy stomach skin.

“Just be here,” I think to myself.

My chest fills with air, then deflates slowly.

I look to the wall on my left, the wall my bed presses against. There is a rectangular orange-gold piece of light, like a bright framed piece of sunlight on the wall. Cutting through the center of the light is the dark shadow of a cross. I stare.

“So pretty, I should get my camera…” But I don’t move. My hands stay on my stomach, my legs remain in the folds of soft blankets.

The cross, such an intense symbol; a torso and head, two arms extended, two feet pressed together as one. I see Jesus on a hill, I see myself in the morning, just after 7. How long did it take for people to realize the shape could be used for killing? For the structure of torture?

Perpendicular to the wall is the French glass door that leads to my kitchen. The top half of the door is bathed in soft yellow light, though the top-center of the door is glowing orange in the sun’s last rays. I realize the light is coming through my small window (parallel to the wall with the cross), hitting the doorway, then the glass is reflecting the image on the wall.

I look back and forth between the wall and the door, not needing to turn my head.

To the right of the door, directly in front of my body, on another small section of wall, are a few fragmented pieces of light, long jagged rectangles and bent circles and little speckles.

I think about the photographer I used to work for, Emily Payne. “It’s called the sweet light.” I can hear her say it, holding her big black camera in her hands. I imagine photographers around the world waiting for this time of day, waiting till they have the ‘right light.’ Do they stay indoors like inverted vampires, waiting only for a special hour? How many moments do they let pass? Is everything overlooked until the sweet light emerges?

I look up to the cross and the door. Has the light changed? It must have, the sun is fading by the minute. I search the color of the door. It’s just a bit paler. Still bright, but lacking intensity. It’s fading in front of my eyes and I can’t even watch it, I can’t see its fading unless I look away and then look back.

I turn to the wall. The cross has lost an arm. It looks like a T on its side. I should have gotten my camera. I could have written something about this and I would have had the perfect pictures to go along with it. I stay in bed. It’s too late now. “Just watch it, it’s fading away.”

How often had I missed this light? Maybe it would be the same tomorrow. Or nearly the same. The earth would not tilt too much in one day. What if I had not laid down? Would I have just sat at the desk, doing something, oblivious to the light around me? How many times have I done that?

I look up again, the light is dull.

“Just be still and watch…” I keep wandering away, I can’t even watch the light change for a few minutes without drifting.

The cross has become a single vertical line. The French door creaks open, pulled by the crack of the open window 15 feet away. As the door comes forward, the cross shifts, creating one solid black line, then another slightly lighter shadow line behind it.

Then the door creaks closed, and a single line emerges on the cross once again. The door’s bright orange light has faded almost entirely. I know that soon it will be completely gone, maybe then I’ll wonder what happened, how it left so fast.

I look over at the speckles of light on the wall perpendicular to the cross. The light there has faded too. Watch it. “Don’t take your eyes off it, watch what’s left.” I hold my eyes. Its fading…but a part of me cannot believe it. I realize I can barely watch it straight on. It’s almost painful. Why can I only see something changing if I look away?

The door is now dark. The cross is gone, and just a few sprinkles of light remain on the wall next to the door. I watch them, intent, finally holding my attention fixed as they fade. Dark, darker, then they are gone.

The phone rings.

Training The Dragon

Did you know there was a dragon inside? I can see him through your eyes, while the green folds of your eyes flex and point, watching me with blunted teeth and heat so intense it has turned to ice.
Did you know there was a dragon? Angry in its cage? Angry in the skin that looks so different from green scales and long gray claws, different than the life it knew as a flying beast. But the rage is there, bottled into an even smaller vessel, so thin and long and hairless. So smooth.
Did you know it was there? Breathing your air like a parasite? Eating your food, transforming your thoughts into fire and coal.
I have looked, and in certain lights, certain mirrors, I see the dragon. Steam streams from my flared nose, its Semitic length perfect for this orange and blue life. I move slightly, just a little turn, and see the green in these otherwise brown eyes. Flecks of fire and rage. But only in certain lights, certain mirrors. I forget about the dragon, the beast that moves with every shake of my arm, every click of my tongue. It fills me from the inside, keeping my breasts pert, my stomach round.
Did you know it was there? Have you seen me in the gray light of dawn? Through tempered blinds? Through the lens my eyes hide?

It is there, waiting, breathing, spitting fire.

Did you know?

Did you know?

Each beast carries a rider, though I’m not sure who moves who. My arm is not my own. And when it roars, when the cage opens, the iron doors releasing the full fury of a pent-up beast, my toes move without direction. My tongue carries me to the worlds I hoped to never see again. I watch from above, riding the back of this black dragon, watching the dark city burn. Sporadic fires and fleeing screams. Horror, laughter, redemption. Are they my thoughts? Are they his? Who rides who?

Can I tame this beast? Train this dragon?

In the right light, in front of the right mirror, I see the dragon’s eyes. I feel the flames of heat moving in my chest, the moment before the explosion. And I remember. My training, my practice, my sword.

One deep breath….Veeeehhhhhhhhh

I hold my breath….Kaahhhhhhhhhhh

I release the breath….Daaayyyyy

I repeat.

Every sound in the room is ignored. I cannot hear who’s talking, what’s playing. There are no thoughts, not if I’m doing it right. Not if I have the sword in my hand and the beast on its belly.

One deep breath….Veeeehhhhhhhhh

I hold my breath….Kaahhhhhhhhhhh

I release the breath….Daaayyyyy

I repeat.

It is strong. It is old. It is me…entwined within the fabric of my eyes and ears and lifetimes of habit. We are coiled like snakes, lovers without boundaries and eyes.

In the right light, in front of the right mirror, I see the dragon’s eyes. I feel the flames of heat moving in my chest, the moment before the explosion.

One deep breath….Veeeehhhhhhhhh

I hold my breath….Kaahhhhhhhhhhh

I release the breath….Daaayyyyy

I repeat.
And as I repeat, I train the dragon.
My dragon.
Me.

The Mountaintop

She had been on the mountaintop since the early afternoon the previous day. She had watched the birds and the lone hawk that swept over her in circles again and again, as though he had something specific to communicate. She searched his feathers and form for a message, letting the tenuous sparks of insight fall to her like snowflakes.
The afternoon had stretched long and wide, opening its tunnel of curiosities as the sun arched across the sky. She walked the path of the day without fear of a setting sun, and soon, as she knew would happen, the light turned golden and then slowly drifted below the long mountain range in the distance. Her vision blurred and she opened her arms wide and lay back on the firm soil of the earth, letting blue twilight spill over her like the sweet arms of death.
Blue turned to crisp black and without light, her body quickly grew cold. She kept her eyes wide, letting the blackness and flickering stars roll and tumble over her with possibilities, letting it drag her mind into depths that daylight preferred to avoid.
There were demons and they laughed and giggled. There were animals with horns and a lilting flute somewhere in the distance.
The wind moved over her and a nearby howl danced with her fears. Dark time lasted for an eternity, just the slowly arching crescent moon marked the movement of the earth and her body’s place upon it.
Her body held onto the deep worry that came from childhood and her parents and the movies she had seen. Her mind clung to visions of chains and bumpy demons and the sounds of crying. She knew she held on to the light, thinking that it alone would ease her deepest fears.
Just as she clung to the daylight, she held on to the world, to the flowers and plants and dreams that she could see. As she looked, she saw the nightmares of her youth and the cold waiting chains of years within a sphere of words she had never asked for.
The long night opened its tunnel and she walked in, letting herself be filled with its chill and rich sounds of pain and mystery. And then there was a chamber without words. Here, she was truly scared. Here, she had no body, no role, no purpose. Here, she was nothing.
Then the nothing found its way back, it found the body, the fears, the worry. It found all that it ever was. But it brought back the memory of the chamber. Her eyes were wide once again, and she knew that to live in the light, she would have to learn to voyage in the dark.
She lay on the mountaintop as morning light spilled into the world of a newborn day, and she drank in the pale pink light, letting it come into her like the semen of the sun. She opened her arms wide, letting the day bathe her in its clarity.

Piece Of Paper

She looked out the window and saw a small scrap of paper blowing in the wind. It was a small yellow post-it note and the wind pushed it to the fence where it stayed tangled in the bunches of wild mustard plants and yellowed bits of grass that clung to the edges of the yard. A white moth-like butterfly flew over the wooden fence and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove that covered the hillside below. She stared at it, at the little trail of darting white that had faded into green and silver. Her house was warm, and because of the heat inside, she indulged in wearing only purple panties, that had lace along the edges, and a striped purple T-shirt. Her legs were bare except for the pink slippers keeping the bottom of her feet warm. She wanted to go outside and get the little bit of paper. She wondered what it said, where it had come from, who had dropped it. Would she find her own writing on the yellow paper? She wanted to go outside, but, although the sun was out, she could see by the rustling eucalyptus that it was windy, and wind, at least here at this elevation and so close to the sea, meant chill. She was not anxious to let the wind brush past her and strip from her the warmth she had accumulated over a night of sleeping under thick blankets and warmed by space heaters in every room. But what was on that paper? How come she didn’t just look right past it the moment she saw it? How come it didn’t just fade into the other images that she took in and let wash over her without a second thought? Was there something different about this piece of paper or was she just getting fixated on something, finding meaning or hidden purpose when there was nothing there. Maybe there would be nothing on it. But why couldn’t she just stop and go back to her computer and start writing? What kept her standing here at the window, so close to the cold wind that managed to find its way in despite the glass barrier? She thought about all the things she had lost over the years. The small chunk of Tibetan turquoise stolen from her bathroom. Her stacks of vinyl records. Her purple and white batik shirt that just went missing one day, the blue v-neck T-shirt that Suki had given to her before her parents sent her to a rehab facility in the mountains. Could this piece of paper be one of those things, a precious bit of her or someone else, something that was about to drift off into the bushes any moment, only it had stopped here for a brief second, waiting by the fence and held close by the mustard stalks.
Act now! This is the chance. Move and grab the curiosity in front of you. Act now, or it will disappear forever and you will always wonder, you will always stand by the window and wonder about that thing which called to you and you did not respond.

Fractals

I pick you up with the slightest of efforts, your form rests in my sweaty palm as though it has always been there. The web of your surface transforms in the light of midday, and I gaze in tenderness at the mountains of your flesh.
I look further, deeper, and for this discovery, my eyes are reborn with new lenses equipped for this sacred task. The beauty of this form is revealed, a pink flower of petals that get smaller and smaller with each successive layer, smaller still until they shift dimensions and move back in on themselves, covering the tunnel with their soft scent. In my hand, mountains stand mighty and tall, gazing down at the rivers that course though you with unsentimental love. Red waters and clouds carry your thoughts. A basket with gifts floats with a gift from the gods, a word from the people of air, a token from the people of stone.
Inch by inch, a further examination proves that you are covered in even smaller lines, lines that create valleys, valleys that create hills, hills that stack to form more mountains. Bushels of hair smell like sagebrush in the south and I breath it softly, it will be my last. Like the roots of a tree, the source fills you with a substance even more powerful than air, more delicate than oxygen, more polluting than the carbon you spill. Beyond the window of my eyes, ants travel the length of this coast, trees branch forever in a quest to reach infinity, my mind stretches, allowing me a moment of access beyond the lazy mood of this room.
With one hand stretched out, I reach out to grab for the nearest star, and you laugh at me, truly knowing how far it is, yet I hear you in my mind, telling me to stretch just a little further, that the sun might be within reach, that we might soon have a new home, if only I stand on my tiptoes and if only I devote my heart to the task and if only I focus just a little more. I hear you and my muscles lengthen in the stretch, my heart expands to the balloon size it once had, before I knew a possibility of breakage, before I knew that everything that begins must end, before I realized that there can be no joy without the contrast of sharp pain.
The pendulum swings, and I ride it with the thirst of a lost bear, with the yearning of a mermaid searching for the sea. On the metal gauge, my hands gripping the metal string like a lifeline to the heart, I hold on, balance, wait for the descent. It will come, because truly, it cannot be any other way. It is the force of rain, the growing grass, the lifeless squirrel, the movement of time. It will come, and as I go down, maybe I’ll remember that I have been here before, maybe if I remember this time the journey might not be as hard. Soon I will be heading up, and then, after a short stay, I will go down again.
Yeee! Here I come, make the bed for me, prep the tea and here I come… The grass catches my fall, I land with a soft thump and taste a bit of soil. Bright blades poke me like little itchy fingers, an endless blanket of them, they tell me their secrets, a million whispers mingle in my ears and I blush with their intimate details. Who knew this would all be so kinky?
Sure, tell me more, think of me as a new bed of soil, a new fertile piece of earth to plant with desires and old memories. Give me what you have and we’ll see what new shapes emerge. Will they be the formless structures of seaweed which lack names, will they move like pink feathers on the wind? Will they come as droplets of my tears, blinking in the dark night as I head for my car?
Everything and nothing, you give, I take, and soon, just as the pendulum swings and just as the earth opens up to accept its lost child, I will give back to you, giving my body of material, take it all and send my stories off to the next little girl.

Time

My eyes are heavy with sleep. As they linger in the memories of colored dreams, my mouth yearns for the taste of black tea and cream, a signal from my tongue that morning has arrived. The day is bright and young and there are plenty of cars on the road. I am slightly startled by the realization that lots of people get up this early; when I’m usually warm and naked and covered in a heavy blanket, there is an army of school buses and brightly vested crossing guards and morning commuters with coffee for a carpool companion.
I brake at the first stop sign I see. On my left, I notice a plump orange cat trotting down the street, he’s just about to turn the corner and head south, his small padded feet are soundless on the sidewalk. Just as he’s about to pass the first house, he hops onto the house’s front stoop effortlessly, and then he continues for three trots until the step ends and then he jumps back to the sidewalk. I am struck by its fluidity. Walking, jumping, continuing on. He moves as he wants, without a second of hesitation. There’s no time for thought or calculation, he just moves as he should, so inhuman, so unlike me.
I smile as I press the gas and continue on. I make up a two-line ditty about the cat as I drive, one sentence ending in a high note, the other line ending in an extended low note.
I enter the freeway, cars pass me, I pass others. The light is bright, the golden rays hit the side of my face, I like it, but still, I move the visor to block some of its strength. The road curves, winding through the wooded hills just a couple miles from the coast. In a thicket of cypresses, I notice a slated structure of wood at the top of a hill and I’m surprised I’ve never noticed it before. Is it a sculpture? A church? My question is answered as the small gold cross comes into view.
The three lane highway gently winds and I feel my chest making itself known. I bring my attention in constantly, my face is relaxed, there’s not a sound coming from the radio. Just me and the world beyond. This drive is one I make twice a week in the early afternoon, and usually it seems as quick as a blink, but today in the early light of morning, it feels like the journey of a lifetime. For a couple of seconds I panic, wondering if I’ve passed the familiar exit, but no, I see a sign for the junction I need to take in the distance.
On my right is a pretty lake, the deserted body of blue waters that seems too picturesque to be without mansions in the hills beyond. But somehow, it has remained calm and undeveloped. Sometimes I notice hawks circling above, today, it is only my chest that circles with energy.
The well worn journey is different today, although I don’t realize it until later, until the moment has passed and I am once again “myself.” The usual commute that zips by in a whirl of daydreaming and talking voices and instrumental sounds that cascade to me from the local college radio. Today, it’s me and the world, me and my presence, me and my attention, on the lake and the cat and the sculpture of a church that sat there for years without my notice.
It’s me and everything I see…and really, it is not me, it is Us…This, Here. This morning, some of the many “I’s” are actually here, present, and we look into the world and see wonder and secrets and silent steps that are filled with a thousand teachings. The journey is long, the minutes are themselves full and expanding, pushing my perception of the world to the brink. The cars move forward and then recede from my vision. We are all here together, in this bright morning of circling energy and colored visions. Today, I can see them. Broken from the usual habit of mental chatter, I have more time, an extended reality. The drive is the same, just as many miles, just as many minutes, and yet, there is more of it today, more that I see, more that I can feel, more to take and transform with words and shapes and sounds.
How much of this have I missed through the many years of sleepwalking? How often have I truly been alive?