understanding.

i'm not mad at her. i'm mad at myself.

all the signs i missed. all the mistakes i made.

how eager and overwhelmingly full of yearning and love i am, while lacking the savvy to control them.

i've been so quiet for so long; so hesitant in my affection that now it seems any contact and any promise of it is enough to reduce me to shrapnel, carelessly strewn over whomsoever mistakenly pulled the ring.

i don't know how to love properly.

i didn't used to think there was such a method.

i used to wear my heart on my sleeve with pride.

the fact that i could love so much, so easily, was both agonizing and binding to the sole purpose of my being.

i love so much sometimes i can't stand it.

at any sign of pain in another - any living thing - no matter how unfamiliar, that pain becomes my own and i want to rip my heart out of my chest.

let it pour out with the tears that fall at solitude's first chance.

in some way, i think, i hope that by loving this way, aching this way, i help put them at ease - that it all quietly becomes diluted, and they're relieved.

i remind myself that no matter how compassionate i may feel, i'm experiencing just a shadow of the circumstances' truest form.

but my own pain remains my own.

i keep it in my chest, feel it grow, beg for release.

but i keep it there.

i don't know why i do it.

maybe to protect others.

maybe to protect myself.

from what?

so i can love others, but no one can love me?

i'm a voyeur.

a predator.

i admire, but am ashamed to be looked at.

i prefer to savor things, people, but refuse to be touched.

too close and i pull back.

with Angela.

with family

friends.

no one can get too close.

even with [a certain someone], with all this talk of bitterness because i tried to open up to her, i know i was at fault.

i didn't really try.

not really.

i'm afraid of myself.

of what i'm capable of being, doing.

finding out what i'm incapable of being, doing.

it's why my writing's suffering, why my music and swimming stopped improving.

i'm afraid of myself.

she tried to talk about buildings.

i replied stupidly. vaguely.

even when i knew that all i think about is buildings.

secret compartments filled with hundreds of thousands of stories and thoughts i've never heard, will never hear.

entire lives, histories, undoubtedly knowing of pain and joy i've never appreciated, might never meet.

you said buildings amaze you because they were made by men; hands crafted those walls, drafted those plans.

made.

they amaze me because, after creating them, men also filled them with stories.

left marks that followers may never notice, but bear a signature; a sign of entire lives that existed there, just for a second.

a relic.

i know all about buildings.

that's all i wanted to say.

but i was scared.

scared of sounding contrived, unworthy.

of sharing thoughts i've never shared before.

i should have with you.

you would've understood.

you shivered in the night, even though you were under the covers.

without thinking, i went and grabbed another blanket, slipped it over you.

this, coupled with how you moved to my side while i was away, hesitated as i awkwardly hung halfway off the mattress, now i know that you wanted me to hold you.

touch you.

be together.

but i wasn't thinking.

or i was thinking too much.

i was too afraid to be that close.

because somehow i've convinced myself that no one would or should want to be that close to me.

i want to love, but i don't know how.

not explicitly.

my words always get lost.

my actions always restrained.

i only know how to admire.

i admire you.

i'm sorry.

spoon dream.

drunk. pardon me. an old journal entry. in my quest for catharsis and final release, i've decided to put this out there in a more permanent, however personal, space. get it out.

We're in my car at night, driving along the PCH. After several prolonged moments of hesitation, I finally reach over and take your hand. To my surprise, you return the favor, lace our fingers, place them in your lap. Your other hand caresses mine, and the warmth spreads all over.

I smile.

You smile.

Lean in and kiss me on the cheek.

Neck.

At a red light I turn to you. We kiss.

A car honks.

Several times.

Finally, we come to and start driving again.

My hand is still on your thigh, holding.

Not too firm, just enough to savor it.

But you take it and move it closer.

Up.

You start kissing my neck again.

I can barely focus on the road.

My hand moves.

Freely.

Up.

Down.

Soaking in every inch it can.

Even closer.

You sigh.

It warms my neck.

I sigh, too.

And now your hand is touching me.

I almost veer off the road and you laugh, lightly.

I feel it. It echoes.

You whisper, "Pull over."

There's light traffic and no shoulder; I have to wait for the next beach-front parking lot.

As soon as I push the gear to Park, we're kissing again.

Touching again.

All over.

You start moving over to my side.

Gradually, at first, finally pouring yourself into me.

and then you climb, gripping onto my shoulders, the back of my neck.

Everywhere.

Suddenly, you're on top.

Clumsily, I find my seat lever and lean back.

But I want to be on top.

To pour myself into you.

I straighten.

You hold me closer.

I accidentally press you into the horn, which goes off.

We laugh.

"This is a little cramped," you say. I agree.

I tell you, however anxiously, that the backseat collapses; not meaning to be presumptuous.

You smile, peck me on the cheek, and carefully cross back over.

Hastily, I get out of the car and throw the backdoor open, throwing the backseat down and climbing inside.

I rearrange things; I wasn't expecting a backseat visitor.

You laugh again, join me, put me at ease.

We meet in the middle again.

Move again.

Freer.

I feel all of you.

I give you all of me.

I want you so much, even that millimeter of fabric between us is suffocating. Restricting.

We remove every barrier, piece by piece.

Every sensation grabs me; I can feel every molecule in my body, restless.

I become overwhelmed.

By how much I want to feel you, how much I'm feeling, how much I want to give to you.

I shake.

You think I'm cold.

You hold me even closer, tighter.

Every time I feel your breath, I'm reminded of how alive you are, how grateful I am for the Big Bang that made you, brought you to me. Here, now.

I almost don't want to finish.

I could be happy feeling like this forever.

Feeling you like this.

But I know that if we don't, I might explode.

And we'd be missing the joy in every beginning.

So when you exhale one last sigh, grip me tightly and release, we finish.

I stay on top a little longer, feeling safe in your arms, between your legs, everything together.

Your eyes are closed as I kiss your neck, ear, everything within reach.

I rest my head on your chest for a few moments, feeling your heart. The rise and fall.

I kiss your stomach.

Caress everything so delicately, afraid of disturbing even the smallest atom of your perfect design.

I carefully move to the side - I'm not sure if you're asleep.

I rest an arm across your belly, the other supports your head.

You open your eyes, look at me, smile.

I kiss your smile, it kisses back.

We're naked, no blanket in sight, but I'm warm.

You turn over so we're spooning.

Your head rests right on my shoulder, you lace your fingers with mine and hold my hand on your stomach, my other arm you hold across your chest.

I breathe you in.

And we talk.

Everything I've never told anyone before, and the same goes for you.

I share thoughts I normally would've been too ashamed to confess.

We sleep awhile.

It's raining.

reading.

it's winter break, meaning i have way too much free time on my hands.

going out of my mind.

resolved to branch out and start reading for fun again.

starting with German lit.

i'm really falling in love with Rainer Maria Rilke, and i thought i'd share some of my favorite bits:

Entering

Whoever you may be: step into the evening.
Step out of the room where everything is known.
Whoever you are,
your house is the last before the far-off.
With your eyes, which are almost too tired
to free themselves from the familiar,
you slowly take one black tree and set it against the sky: slender, alone.
And you have made a world.
It is big
and like a word, still ripening in silence.
And though your mind would fabricate its meaning,
your eyes tenderly let go of what they see.


Lifting My Eyes

Lifting my eyes from the book, from the
tightly sequenced lines
to the full and perfect night:
Oh how like the stars my buried feelings
break free,
as if a bouquet of wildflowers
had come untied:

The upswing of the light ones, the bowing sway of the heavy ones
and the delicate ones' timid curve.
Everywhere joy in relation and nowhere
grasping;
world in abundance and earth enough.

it looks as though that time-honored tradition of accidentally and melodramatically reading books that go along with whatever post-adolescent/adolescent experiences i'm going through.

all i want to do is set out and write well.

too see and create.

give back.

set out, run away.

be me.

the only thing that's stopping me, i know, is myself.

i need to finally grow up and prepare myself for doing the things that make me happy.

i don't ask for much.

i wake up first.

i'm standing under the running shower head, soaking in the night before.

the door creaks open and you quietly close it again.

gently pull the curtain back and stand behind me.

you put your arms around my waist and press yourself into my back.

kiss my neck.

and we just stand there for a little while.

the night hasn't ended yet.

i turn to face you, kiss you.

i touch your face and your body.

"I'm blind without my glasses," i say, "I can't see you, but you feel beautiful."

i become a little embarrassed by this confession, but you put your hands behind my head, stroke my hair with your long fingers, and pull me into another kiss.

not too long.

just right.

and we stand there, holding each other.

fessing up.

i don't want to become my mother, a fearsome, broken vessel with only the shards of regret held together by anger and resentment to build her frame.

she wanted to be an artist.

to run away and become the person she always wanted to be.

but she was denied these things.

for so long, her entire being was crafted for her, forged in tradition by her parents' hands.

she went on to finally - so she thought - find escape.

but the world she came to was just as cruel and withholding as the one she left.

she had to trade her passion in for pragmatism.

raise her girls to succeed in the lives she knew and feared they would grow to hate as much as she did hers.

pass on the legacies of duty and practicality.

train them to be as realistic and prepared as she was forced to become.

but she failed.

underneath all those talks of what was right and real and attainable were whispers of an unforgotten, unforgettably passionate and angry past.

we heard the whispers.

soaked them up like sponges, more than we could ever do with the shrill call of reality.

we became passionate, too.

angry with the system that broke our mother and took her in.

i want to be an artist.

i want to say the things my mother never got to paint.

i want to prove to her and to all the nay sayers that the most real and most practical thing we can do is to have passion and to act on it.

to be the selves we were always meant to be.

to outweigh the anger with happiness and love and sincerity.

to stop breaking ourselves and to create and commit to the selves that hide, secretly, underneath all of the fear and doubt.

i don't want to be my mother as she is.

i want to be me and provide some ounce of comfort to the woman with night terrors.

i want to turn her nightmares into dreams and dreams into reality.

i want to give that secret self of hers a sense of solace.

and a voice.

going back.

the older i get, the more people i meet, the more i find out how much i've been missing out on.

i find myself reading and rereading old childhood gems that went ignored in my mother's effort to fashion 3 grown-up women out of her own regrets: a method that inadvertently let me forget to grow.

so now when i read Rowling or Silverstein or Juster, i'm learning more - or about the same - from them as i have from my fledgling adulthood or the presumptuously Big World i was once convinced had all the answers to all the questions i could ever have.

but the truth is, i'm coming to find that i haven't been asking the right questions or the most honest ones.

or any, even.

for so long my truest voice has gone unheared and unused, drowned out by that wful din of other voices - borrowed voices - that for too long spoke for me.

so now i'm constructing my own Neverland: walls built high to keep it untainted and unchecked and my own.

to guard the foundations of unconditional love and generosity and curiosity and hope and courage and the unyielding promise for change and growth that can come by taking the time to enjoy the simple pleasures of quiet nights or flapping sails or leaves that brown in fall.

all these things get lost in translation, between the jump from brief childhood innocence to supposed budding and predtermined adulthood.

all too often i see that missing glint in the eyes of passersby, jaded friends and family who, having long since passed that age of wonder, have lost that purity and strength of heart that got them here in the first place.

i wouldn't say that i'm a bad person, or an idealistic one, and i'd like to think that i'm kind and gentle, but i would also add that i'm unwise and unlearned, and the more i see those faded or absent sparks, the more i want to find out where they went.

have i lost m ine?

can you lose something you're not sure you ever had?

i'm on a quest now for my own Rhyme and Reason, to discover my own glint and help return those missing to the eyes of their desperate and rightful owners.

the fact of the matter is, though, i'm not a child.

a full recovery of what's been missing is now intermingled with the grown-up experiences - few as they are - that i've been able to collect.

so now, interspersed with mentions of spellbooks and giving trees and trusty watchdogs are cigarettes, red cups, and faulty relationships.

the point here - the upside to all of this - is that i'm learning on my own.

i'm growing.

changing.

finding and using my own voice to say things like, "No," or, "I'll give it a try."

in attempting to fashion my own person - my own beginnings, because this really is my beginning - with the pages of presumably childish fare, and the erratic events and experiences that are forging my adulthood, i am building something new, fine, and, to an extent, pure.

i'm creating me.

it gets better.

i wrote this as something of a treatment/narration for a short video idea that was inspired by Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project.

it's set to Broken Social Scene's "Pitter Patter Goes My Heart" and is intended to play over a montage of various animated sequences as well as snippets of live-action shots.

Pitter patter goes my heart when I get too close now.

Closer than I've ever been.

Because this distance between me and her, you and me, is the smallest I've ever let it be.

It's been broken before.

Once, twice.

Probably more than I even know.

It was born broken, I supposed, because it loved the wrong things, the wrong people, too much.

So it couldn't love me.

But there was never really hate in it, as much as I used to think.

Just too much bad love that no one - not even me - could understand.

It was full of longing.

Longing to belong to someone else or to beat for the right kind of person.

To sustain the kind of love other people thought was right.

Told me was right.

I didn't want this heart to be my own.

I was ugly and weak, and my heart strained under the weight of two bodies: one that was mine and one that was for others.

And it was dying, because the things that could make it happy and full and whole were denied.

And I had to save myself somehow.

Close that gap between you and me, it and others.

To get rid of the strain and let it beat.

I told someone.

And she loved me in that way that sisters do, and every time she said, "There's nothing wrong with you," my heart became fuller and more open and strong.

There was nothing wrong with me.

I wasn't broken, it wasn't broken, and there was nothing wrong with me.

There is nothing wrong with you.

Because you are beautiful because you are you, and there is nothing more beautiful than that love you have to give and that wholeness and strength you have in your heart that's waiting to break through.

And the people it touches - friends, family, lovers - will love it, too, and there'll be so many people sharing that love with the world and with you.

It gets better because you are stronger.

Because you know better than to let the people who're determined to discourage you to hurt you, because you know to hold out for the ones who surprise and love you.

Because you have faith in yourself and you have faith in others and you know that without either of those things you'd be lost and incomplete.

Because love is love and love is right, no matter where it goes and who it's for, and you deserve all of its beauty.

You are beautiful.

The world is beautiful.

It gets better.