A boy asks how the story should be told. I tell him I don't know but as it keeps on going, we'd both figure it out.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"A friend."
A smile cracked on my face.
"No name?" I ask.
"Do I need one?"
"I guess not."
"Good, then."
"Why are you here?"
" To learn you."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything!" He jumps into a pirhouette and I laugh in surprise.
"That's too much, I think," I say.
"Aah, no. You let some know."
"I don't let them. They jsut get into me. What do you think of me?"
"I think you're simple."
"Really? Most people would tend to disagree. They think I'm too complex. So they run away. I never get it. But that's why you're here, isn't it?"
He smiles and twirls around.
"Is that a 'yes'" I ask.
He bows.
"You're Daniel, aren't you?" I ask.
"God is judge," he says.
"You're so happy."
"So are you."
I smile.
"Do you know Ithaca," I ask.
"I know you."
"And what do you know about me?"
"You're complex," he says, a mock-serious expression on his face.
I laughed.
"Then I guess I'm an oxy-moron, huh?"
"Most people are," he says.
"You're not real," I say.
"No," he says.
"They're real," I say and point ahead of me. "You know the funny thing? The real people say more of what I want than the ones like you."
"Then we've really got a problem don't we?"
"No. You do."
My real friend held the door for me as we walked inside.
Daniel vanished.
I was judge tonight.

Last night, I didn't make it back to my bed, but I didn't sleep alone and that's what made it home.
'Home' has had to be redefined.
I told my friend after thinking on it for a while that I really haven't felt a place called 'home' in eleven years. He looked at me for a second before saying "That's almost your whole life."
"I know," I said.
We stood in the doorway for a moment and then I shrugged and sighed.
"Maybe one day I'll have it again...Home, I mean."
He smiled out of the corner of his mouth.
"We'll find it," he said.
He left then and even though I went to sleep alone just like every night before it, I went to sleep smiling.
It's cold in my room at night, so it gives me more of an excuse to wrap myself up in layers of blankets (that I pretend are arms) and to box myself in with pillows (that I pretend are someone).
So now the hours tick by just like the days and the months and the years but for once there's a glimmer of real hope that it won't always be this way. Because this morning someone was there when I woke up and smiled at me and said in a loud whisper "Good-morning."
I woke up with him looking at me from the other bed and it was nice to feel that comfort of finally having that person not only giving me happiness but to whom I give it back.
In the back of my mind there's always the knowledge that this will end one day for one reason or another. But to be honest with myself, like he said to be, this is the one thing I can't ever let myself lose. This is the one thing I must keep if I lose everything else.
And I know I'll lose because I'm already losing because I'm going against the expectation and the grain.
So in spite of them will I do this? No. Not at all. I'll do it for one reason: because it makes me happy and I know it's right.
"Be honest with yourself. Think about it."
I did already. And you already know the answer.
I'm making my own grain now, my own expectation--my own home, my own familiy. Because I can choose. And I know it's right.

Early Night Angel

Thought a lot about making us over
Thought a lot about what that means
I remembered us in the clover
And I acknowledged that it's only a dream

Now my provocation's winning
I'm thinking about your hands
running over, learning the patterns of my skin
But the night ends early
So we never begin

I want to feel you whole upon me
learning the ins and outs of
who I was, who I am, and who I wanna be
I want that mutual feeling
But I'm dealing with a man who just
can't makes sense of what he's all about

But I think it helps that there's an angel above me
But I think it helps that there's an angel beside me
I think it helps that thee's an angel inside me
I'll send him with love from me to you

Really, I'm tired of sleeping alone
I'm tired of sleeping alone
So I'm going crazy in the moment
For your patience and your time

And now I want to feel you inside me
The way you'll discover me as you climb
I need that holding-me assurance
'Cause feigning innocence is getting old
and the winter's coming on

You're my resting place, my secret
And I think it helps that there's an angel above me
I think it helps that there's an angel beside me
I think it helps that there's an angel inside me

I think it helps that there's an angel above me
I think it helps that there's an angel beside me
I think it helps that there's an angel inside me

He was there the first time when our bodies didn't rhyme
But now emotion's in the potion and my provocation's winning
I'm thinking about your hands
running over, learning the patterns of my skin
But the night ends early
and we never begin
We never begin
We never begin

Lucid Dream

Lone footsteps echoed across the spreading marble of the spacious hall. The light was dim and reminded the girl of flickering candle light, but the constant glow of a full, silvery moon loomed greater in the back of her mind. She laughed softly to herself, amused by the fact that her internal eye set the mood of her external being.

But then she remembered that it was all internal tonight, so she supposed she'd open both sets of eyes and stop thinking too much.

A voice approached from behind, so the girl turned to see a friend coming towards her, followed by many more. She smiled in greeting and felt the relief of companionship wash over her and as it did, she forgot the moon and the flichering candle light as the room filled with light.

The girl looked around admiringly at the milling companions, then turned toward the door and busied herself with hanging the coats.

When the coats were hung, the girl paused before opening the door and returning to the room. There was no more light coming from under the door. She crossed her arms and shivered, then reached out tentatively and pulled upon the door.

Darkness met her when she entered the room, adulterated only by the external light of the moon.

She shuddered again and hit something that seemed to be drifting in mid-air and thought how quickly things change.

Her eyes focused and the room became clear to her sight. The floor had been reversed and where feet had once touched bottom, they now hung from the top.

Nothing floated in the air but the absence of life.

The girl looked upon rows and rows of black-garbed bodies hanging sack-like from their feet from the ceiling. They seemd to swing together, in rhythm with the time they'd lost, like a waltz that no one more could play.

How quickly things change, the girl thought. How quickly things end.

She wove her way through the rows of swaying sacks of bodies, running blindly--

Until she found herself on the water.

It was the shore, waves inky black in the blinding sun. From the waves protruded a mermaid who beckoned to the girl.

Come! Follow me, she said. There are revelations beneath the water.

The girl took her hand and let herself be led below to a world of eery light. Seaweed caught between her limbs.

Soon they came to a cavern.

A muse, said the mermaid, a seer, to make things clearer for you.

Around the table made of a flat rock protruding from the ocean floor sat the muse, the seer, garbed in seaweed and darkness. Three friends sat in rock seats beside her.

They were the bodies swaying, the girl thought. Are they back from the dead?

The friends motioned for her, their smiles eerily inviting.

The muse nodded her head to the mermaid and she turned, exiting the cavern.

To the first friend she said: You will be promised good fortune, so there is no worry for you.

To the second friend: The sky will never fall on you, but beware of the ground rising up.

To the third: Keep to the path you are on and you will find that which you seek.

Then all faces turned to the girl who felt a shudder begin deep inside her.

The seer leaned forward so the girl could see every vein of her eyes.

Aah, the seer breathed. You are the unfortunate one. For you are trapped inside yourself. This is your Fate for you are too scared to change it: All that you wish for and all that you seek will never be attained. yo uare too content with dreaming and it is the World you cannot grasp. Foolish girl. You are the only one here for whom Fate is a choice and you choose Misery instead of bliss! I have no pity for you.

The girl shrank back and saw the bodies swaying behind her eyes. She swayed in time with them, her feet bound together in death by stubborn time just as her soul was fettered in life by cowardice.

She opened her eyes and the bed was warm.

It had been nothing but a silly notion, and nothing but a dream.

Unsent

I really don’t know what to do right now. Of course, my first instinct would be to say I’m sorry. But I’m really sick of saying that. I guess I just don’t know what to do with any of this because I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why this isn’t ending or why you don’t want it to or why you care so much. And I know that none of that matters because what this is is good. It’s really good. But I don’t know how to react to “good” because it’s what I’ve always longed for but never had and now that it’s here…I’m drowning in it.

So you’re right. I think too much. I take the world too seriously. But you don’t let me take it as seriously as I normally would, and that’s good, too. I really don’t know why I’m always mad at you lately. I don’t want to be. But I meant it when I said I hated you, only not in the hostile kind of way. It’s the way you make me reevaluate everything I’ve believed I am. I call into question everything—Everything. And all around me are things that you can’t see, that no one else can see and I ask them to fly away so I don’t have to look after them anymore because I know you don’t want it to be like that. I know it hurts you when I slip between the lines of this world and the one inside my head. To give that up means giving up something very precious to me, something I’ve never lived without, something that has defined me as a person, that has saved my sanity while stealing it away.

But for you, I’d give up all those words. I’d give up all those worlds and focus only on this one. I don’t understand that, either, but like I said before, whatever this is, whatever it is that I don’t understand that causes all these changes and upheavals, is something to do completely with you and I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to lose it although my whole being struggles against it. And I never admit anything to myself. Especially things that confuse me and rewrite the code of my life, but this time the feeling’s too strong and time really is precious and flying by and I don’t want to waste it, although that’s all I ever seem to do. So I admit this: what makes me happy? You do. You make me happier than anything ever has. You make me happier than I’ve ever thought possible, more than I ever imagined possible. You do.

What do I do with that? Instinct says to run away. But the greater picture says something better. It says ‘stay.’ It tells me to stay. And I like that picture better than any other. I love that picture more than anything else. So do I hang it on a wall? Do I put it on a shelf and lock it up? Or do I live it? I want to live it. I want to live it. Because I keep asking myself that same question again and again about what makes me happy and the answer keeps coming back as you you you.

It's all gone to hell. And I don't really know what to do now.

"I'm sorry...I get like this when the family's around. It just gets me in this mindset," I said. (Long pause) "I have to get out of it...And I feel bad because I hate being like this and making you go through it too."

"Someone has to go through it."

"Not you. I have to go through it."

"So?"

"Do you do it because you feel bad for me going through it alone or because you care about it?"

"Care about what?"

"Me."

"YES."

"Sorry."

"Maybe you should keep doubting so you can be grounded in something. It's healthier for you that way. So keep doubting all of this."

I give him a look. He gives it back to me.

"If you ask stupid questions, I'll give you stupid answers."

He stands up and I stay in my seat.

"Come on," he says.

So I follow him.

A few days away is a good thing. No more fighting. No animosity. No awkwardness.

Hung out with Kate and Adam at Kat's house last night and played Scrabble until I got 42 points for the word DAZE on a triple word score. James still beat me by eleven points or something. Oh well. I'm still proud of DAZE. Then Kate got drunk on Time, I suppose, because she'd been up so long so she and Adam left and James and Kat and I talked until about 1am. Then I was falling asleep so we left and said good-bye to Kat and James walked me home. The moon last night was incredible when it was low on the horizon. Huge, orange. Beautiful.

Just took a shower. Good to wash away the filth of New York City and all that baggage. Family isn't healthy for me so I'm going to stay away for as long as possible. I'll come home for the B'nai Mitzvah in February. But Kat asked me to come to Florida and stay with her over winter break. I'm going to try and sublet an apartment here for the summer and get a job and/or internship which should be good.

Family just reminds me of the past and plants the past right down in front of me with the past uprooted, spraying dirt all over my head. It's the kind of dirt that never really goes away so I can't escape no matter how much I try to scrub. So I got back and had another episode. Uriel was there but Kat and James took me away and talked to me so I could look away from him. Then I started doubting if they're my friends because they feel bad for me or if they really care. Of course they'll never tell the truth if it's the former. That means I have to trust them and I will.

I'm sorry I'm becoming a ghost to you now by spreading the distance and time. But if I don't I'll become a ghost for real and I'm not ready to give up any of this world quite yet.