Halo in the Vertigo

Once upon a time there was a little boy who was a story within himself. He didn’t believe he had any stories at all, that his inspiration had been suffocated out of him until it died.

His reflection said otherwise. The aging features, taut with disillusionment, the eyes rent in half-ignored sorrow. The man sighed and looked around matter-of-factly.

Just another day, he thought as he ran his hands over his newly almost-shaved head.

The night before had been like many others: the girl in his arms, he, the man in hers, both gasping as they attempted to make love but only really got around to fucking because the connection wasn’t there. Tonight, he’d walk past the apartment and make his way to the Seventh Avenue whores, paying them his rent money for that little bit of company he couldn’t’ find in his girl like he thought he should.

No matter, though. There would be other girls, other lovers for him and more Mister Rights for her.

He turned from the mirror, rubbing in the aftershave before clicking off the light.

The city was loud today, like everyday, but the incessant roar of eight million people and their troubles wouldn’t get through to his ears.

Crumpled up poetry littered his apartment floor and his footprints were moulded in the pages as he walked from the bathroom and back to the bed where he kissed his girl and crammed his feet into mud-caked sneakers.

Eight flights down and his heart still wasn’t pounding. He was used to this, in shape, accustomed to caustic landlords and empty pockets.

He thought of the faceless girl from that night three months ago. This one he hadn’t touched, hadn’t slipped a lustful kiss. One thing he had done was listen, then whispered his thoughts in response, but the whispers came out too loud and everyone in the sixty-minute crowd heard every word. She’d stood there, alone, almost shamed, but fighting that long-ago accusation that she was a coward. Valour held her up as his broadcast whispers showered her, and when he shut his lips, he saw hers open in an embarrassed grin before she mouthed the words that had left him hanging.

Later, she’d told him it was nothing and that she’d save his commentary for a later date when life was more than ice-tread and cloudy midnight skies. He let her off in the halo of a street lamp and when he’d glanced back she was gone.

The cement under his feet reminded him that this was the morning and that the girl was lost, most likely, that the road would take him to work where he would earn his daily bread.

Damn it, he thought. I can’t even remember her face.

The silent world reverberated around him as he stepped into the office.

Tell me the stories, she’d said.

Don’t have any, he half laughed.

Of course you do! Everyone does.

He turned and looked her in the eye.

She looks like my mother, he thought.

What? She asked.

Nothin’.

It’s weird, you know? Almost like I know you.

He looked away and concentrated on the road.

That’s a story, isn’t it? She asked.

He shrugged.

Don’t know.

Well, this is me, she said when they reached the street lamp. Thanks for the lift.

He watched her climb out, his hands fixed to the wheel, his heart screaming to go after her.

She leaned down in the door and smiled at him.

You know, just find me here if you want. Write something down and let me know.

He nodded as the car door shut, then drove away.

On the way home, he fought the impending frost bite as he made his way to the street lamp.

She came soon enough, out of nowhere.

So? It took you long enough. Have anything to tell me?

He walked up to her and kissed her deeply and melted into the halo of the street light.

Actually, yes, he said. Poetry I stamped on this morning. Lonely mornings and nights. Too many stories to tell all in one night.

Then take it slow…don’t say anything at all, she said.

She took his hand and led him to a room flooded with street light beams.

On her sheets laid out on the floor, he finally succeeded in making that love he’d been trying for for so long. He fell back, smiling, satisfied, at the ceiling.

She laughed beside him and he thought of all the words he’d shape into the stories of his life.

He leaned on his elbow and gazed into her eyes and sighed.

I really don’t have any stories at all, he said.

She smiled and shrugged as the street lamp turned off.

Neither do I.

"What is it you left?"

I read Plato's Wall again tonight. Out loud with Beth. It's still just as amazing as the first time...when I actually had the conversation. That's why I went back again. Because things go around and around and around. He knows me, and I'm lacking that around here. So I went back to my best friend. Yes, I went back to my best friend. Not the one I say is, usually. I went back to my Harvardian because he told me I left him everything and that got me a long time ago just like it gets me today. Things are ending with the other one. I'll try to be there with him, even though I'm pretty sure it's going to be a futile effort and I'll have to go through expository writing. But just to see, I'll try it.

Anyhow, things are ending on the other end of the spectrum. No more whistlin' gypsy. At least in the more-than-friends regard. I knew I'd get over it eventually. And as for the others, well, I'll just see them come and go as they all do eventually.

More sleepless nights coming up and too much work to think of. Over and out, I suppose.

Beautiful Boy Undone

I've undone the beautiful boy. Without meaning to, as usual. I make him feel "inadequate" because he thinks I'm too "brilliant" for him. See? Too good again? Fuck it all. Make me bad! Make me bad! I can't stand myself, really. I can't stand myself. I wish I could have all memory erased. All Vision erased. All my soul erased so that I'm someone else. So that I don't lose people to whatever the hell they think they're worse than. I can't help what I am. I can't help the Madness.

They all "need to fucking hide." They think I'll find someone else. Or they think I'll find them again. All I find is emptiness and the abyss grows larger with each passing moment until the entire world is full of Nothingness and I am alone. Again and again, I am alone. I think I should be the one to hide away. No one to meet, no one to miss when all is said and done. I think I'll do that. Hide away. Stop talking, looking, listening, singing, writing. Writing. I think I'll stop writing and sink into my schizophrenic mind without releasing anything. No one will hurt then. No one will feel inadequate. They won't know.

I'll tell you about the Madness now
I promised you I would
It's everything to do with that.
When I say I'm a writer, I don't mean that it's me. Imean that I'm the raped one. The Art is the rapist. I write nothing. I'm forced to. And for a while now, I've sort of been writing on my own. But the Madness is coming back.
The Ink is coming back. The Ink intrudes as a veil between my eyes and the world, so that everything is made of blackist ink and blackest words in every language said and unsaid. I can only read my own, but I hear them all shouting, incomprehensible to me.
I hear it on the wind and on the ocean. And when the wave of Ink comes, like it did the other night, I have to work hard to shove it aside so I can see everyone and everything in color.
That scares people. at least the people who understand it, because first they're intrigued and then they run away. Like Jeremy. He lost it.
Or if they don't understand, they mock it and they leave me lonely. So either way I hate myself because I'm the inadequate one. The one who isn't human.
On the surface. I know how to pretend.
I'm a mask. A character. Nothing else.
I'm an artist.
I want to be the eye that blinks and make it all full of meaning but in the end I'm empty because nothing is mine.

Beautiful Boy...Again

Beautiful...like he's pure imagination running wild. A piece of art, the form unchiseled from the stone. He's like an Unfinished Slave, forever doomed to ripping himself out of stone, the Master gone, the chisel broken. Always in the act of ripping and never ripped.

I shouldn't fall in love like this. It's not the usual kind. It's like falling in love with a book. The fatal kind of falling that is nothing but pursuit of wind. What heart is this that lies within me? Loving what can never love back, what can never be caught. My gaze shifts in the other direction, but the beauty still invades. Distilled beauty floods the world, so much so that I almost wish for Hell. But no, that's beautiful in its own way, too. So whichever way I'm turned I'm still caught.

Take this heart of mine and toss it in the river! I beg of no one in particular, but the heart remains suspende in the river of my own veins, beating on and on for fear of dying.

I'm gone tonight. Shakes that tide off of me. The ink is back.

Beautiful Boy

There's a brilliant ray of unadulterated happiness coming from the little boy's eyes, from his smile, from his entire countenance. "It's a miracle!" a voice inside me cries. Live and let live, says the music.

It's funny where you can find that. I can find it on the air, in a child's eyes, in a melody. But most of all I find it in other people who have lived through it already--the virgin bliss that seeps into the space around them for the joy of existing. He cries in every motion, in every breath between the lines "I am alive and glad."

His eyes are like mine, I think--not surprised at anything, both child and adult wrapped into one. Too bad there's so much distance, because I truly want to match that gaze more often. I suppose frequency will never be and infrequency will have to suffice. A laugh is escaping me now and I can't help but smile anyhow. But he'd gladly trade lives with me. Gladly. I don't know if I'd like his as opposed to my own but I do know that I'd like to share it more. Maybe I'm luckier than i make myself out to be--especially for myself. I've found another someone who, if he were nearer and closer, perhaps would provide another mirror for my eyes, another fountain of Madness, another full moon for this Inky tide of mine, another connection. One other I've found and now distance separates us, too.

But he looks so young, feels so young to me. how could I give myself up like that? So quickly? So artificially--it's the same with both of them. But this one is Berekiah in my own world--your world, too--with a decade more life than I.

I told him once that I don't understand how it's possible for me to pour myself into someone after only having met once. How it's possible to feel that immediate click. He said there is no reason, nor a need for one--I opened up and he reciprocated. I asked why--no explanation. He knows, too. I am a Friend. And if it were possible, he'd drop everything and come four hours to see me for two, and then go back again. He'd come just to go back again.

But life gets in the way.

I'd do the same, but circumstance is the same for me, too. So I'll avoid 2 a.m. because that's where my life leads and I revolve around no one. But maybe--maybe when the shift ends and the city pretends to sleep--I'll be waiting for that second Friend. Maybe I'll be waiting for that Friend, whose eyes reflect my own over that decade I've not yet lived--will never live--over that decade we both understand doesn't matter because eternity is a moment and makes up for lost time.

New York Weekend

Well, the weekend has been good, I suppose. Saw people. Got my yarn as opposed to more bibs, because unlike everyone else, I'm not having children. (Yay!) Hung out with Hank and Jodi and Cuteness (aka Matthew) all day yesterday and then Jeremy and Astrid came to visit me! That was awesome. We all went out to eat at this really good Thai place and I finished the food this morning and everyone was complaining about me eating dinner for breakfast instead of breakfast. Whatever.

So I get to go back the Woo today. Oh joy. And now Sharen and the girls have arrived so I'll finish this up later when I get back and after I see James for the little music party. :-)

Gypsy at the Window

A few days ago I woke up to a mild morning. The first thing I do everyday once I'm actually out of bed is look out the window and out onto the playground across the street. On this day, the Whistlin' Gypsy was there. It's weird, because he really looks just like him. Sure, I should get it out of my mind. Because this is just turning into obsession while the other is real. And in the end, I know that the other is more important. It doesn't matter now, though. I still hear the song.

On a different note, I got an A- on my paper, which in effect, is no different from an A because all A's are 4.0's. Which means the C+ midterm is out of there as long as I don't screw up on anything else. Also, I spoke to Betsy and we're going to work on redoing my paper, so that will be an A, too. Hebrew quiz...100. Again. So my quiz average is 100.25. Nothing to worry about there, I don't think.

So I'm happy. And pretty secure for the time being. And I'm listening to the Whistlin' Gypsy and that makes everything better.

"Do you believe in angels, Julian?"
"No. I--I don't know...why?"
Silitha sighed. "I don't know. I just watned to know what you thought."
"Well, I don't know, Sil. I'm not very into the whole religion, God thing. You know?"
"Yeah...it's just...God, I don't know, Julian. IT's been bugging me. The idea of angels. not in the goodness halo sense. Just--messengers." Her eyes flashed up to Julian's.
"Messengers?"
"Yeah. Just as messengers."
"Why? i mean, what--what kind of messages?"
Anything. The abstract, the concrete. Anything. The world. I just, aaah, just antyhing. Messages...messages. What are we, what aren't we? What is the universe?"
Julian scratched his head and furrowed his brow.
"I don't know, Silitha. You're losing me. What are you getting at?"
"I see them, Julian. I mean really see them. Everywhere. Like a delusion. Not a dream. Like a delusion but more."
"What do you mean?"
"It's like a feeling, a glimpse. And I ask why. They don't really answer."
"Ask why what?"
"Why they speak. To me. Why they speak to me."
"You think the angels speak to you?"
"I know they do. But I can't figure out whether they're real or delusion. And does it matter in the end?"
"Ever thought of seeing someone about this, Sil?"
"Yeah. But would it help any?"
"Won't find out 'til you try, huh?"

Tin Soldier

If I don't say his name, maybe, somehow, he's still alive.

Maybe somehow he's still alive.

And I never tell anyone, but I make believe he's still alive by keeping quiet.

He died for nothing. That happens sometimes. And I loved him once. I really loved him once. But the world is so full of pain and I can't understand. I can't get it through my brain. I can never get it through my brain.

War is all for nothing. People die in the end anyway, so what does genocide accomplish but prolonging the grief of the living and the illusion of the dead?

I loved the boy with the bright blue eyes. The boy with the bright blue eyes.

But I think if I blocked the memory out, I'd go looking for it again because I'd feel the empty space. Which is worse? Ignorance or knowledge? Ignorance isn't always bliss. At least for me.

So I'm being like a book tonight: vague until the end when all the pieces come together. Unfortunately, the end isn't soon, so no big picture.

Bus bombs. Those get me more than anything. I see out of someone else's eyes when I see one of those or hear about one of those. Because maybe if I keep seeing, it'll keep him alive for one more moment. But it doesn't.

I look anyway.
I look anyway.

Whistlin' Gypsy

"But what does it accomplish in the end? What does it do to benefit the world?" I asked. "Look at you. You'll be a doctor. Save lives. You have an impact."
"Nah. Look, I'll be a doctor. Find some miracle cure for cancer for some poor old 75-year-old man and he'll be cured for life and five years later, he'll die because he's old. So what will I accomplish in the end? Everyone dies. So what's the point there?" he said.
"To prolong life. Keep it going for as long as possible. Isn't that enough?"
"Maybe. But look at you. You might not be saving bodies. But you save lives. What you do is more important. People read, you save the soul."

Two Songs

Still From Home
There's a light
and I want it to burn
Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
So that they all roll down
water the ground

And the crowd passes me by
I'm my only company again
The faces all merge
into the alabaster ground
My mind wanders back to you
I imagine you
Find me

Find me, find me
I'll be waiting on the miles of
empty air
Find me, find me

I miss the space
that always seems to fade
when your eyes
and my eyes
speak wordlessly
create eternity

Find me
Be my light
And I'll be yours if you'd like
But the season's shifting
and the deadbeat
inspiration's still from home.

Gateways
Somewhere over the rainbow
I caught a glimpse of instant heaven
and it was you
Now I go
up to the gateway
and I wonder what to long for
and it's just you
and it's just you
and it's just you

'Cause the dream is coming true
and it's still you
Now this song calls
for no sorrow
And I will follow
that little by-road
think of tomorrow

Somewhere over the rainbow
I found you
and it seems like a long time ago
or just yesterday
Somewhere over the rainbow
I go sailing upon the sea
and it wishes and it dreams of you and me

They sky glows
night and daylight
why look for another?
When it'll be all right

Somewhere over the rainbow
I found you
And it'll be all right
And it'll be all right
And it'll be all right
Somewhere over the rainbow
I found you
and it'll be all right
I found you and it'll be all right

Somewhere over the rainbow
I found you

Enough

"What is it you're looking for, Little Girl?"
"What everyone looks for."
"What is that?"
"No one knows, Uriel. At least until they've lost it."
"Must you lose it?"
"Yes. Nothing is missed enough until you've had and lost. Too much is taken for granted.

* * *

A soul. For a soul to be nothing but light. For a soul to be nothing but a ray of light, forever eternal until absorbed by a body--and then, still extant. I pity the soul embodied as nothing but light, for embodiment is nothing at all when cast as nothing but soul.

I understand the angel now. A soul of nothing but light -- not to be seen unless enmeshed with all others in a being that doesn't quite resemble a star. But I hear him, and I see what he would be. I feel him, although his only feling is emotion -- I feel him.

Micha'el is here, watching me from the shadows. He understands human ailment. He can't feel life giving out. He understands emotion, though, but I don't understand his. part of me says he's wiser than Uriel. Part of me loves him more.

But of all celestial beings, it is a human who holds a place higher than them all. Angels don't have wings. I saw him again today, but I didn't approach more than I needed. Uriel says it's him. I still don't believe him entirely. But I am drawn to him anyway. Maybe I will go. Maybe I will calsp a human angel who's never known a thing of airborne wings.

Back in Kate's room again. Hmmm...got out of Medieval Lit. That man is amazing! He specializes in exactly what I want to major in. Only I can't because they don't offer comparative religions here. :-( The past few days, we've had discussions on pagan symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, only not just that, because it's joined with early Christianity...exactly my interest. The great thing about this particular text and the particular teaching of it by Bastien is that he acknowledges that it is neither a Christian nor pagan text, solely, but rather (possibly, most probably considering the symbolic evidence) a conglomerate of the two.

What bugged me was that he mosied around actually saying what I was thinking: Perhaps the poet is making a point, not just invoking both, but saying that both are one and the same in the mind's of the people confronted with the Pagan-Christian religious transition? Now I can't get that pentagram out of my head, nor the color symbolism, nor the fact that he touched on the black goddesses without going into the modern-day worship and invocation that still exists of the surviving black madonnas throughout continental Europe (specifically France) and the vestiges of it that made their way into Britain.

All right, I'll stop here because I can go on forever about this. *Sigh* What the fuck happened on that midterm?!?! This is the best class EVER. Well, since the midterm and the clarification of the specification of pagan/Celtic reference, I've noticed he's been especially careful as to specify between one and the other. I'm happy. And now that he's going on about continental Europe and Isis and Diana are in the picture, I also feel much more at home. Who would have thought?

Another friggin POWER OUTAGE!

SO....another power outage. Scheduled for...oh, I don't know, about twenty minutes from now. I hate this crap.

Anyhow, it's cold again, so that's nice. I went to class this morning, bored as hell as usual, but I made a B+ on the analytical reasoning quiz instead of a B! I didn't think that was humanly possible for anyone in the class. Then, I went to Hillel and talked to Manda about some stuff. Won't get into that. After that I tabled for Hillel and Kate sat with me instead of Joanna L because Joanna's got bronchitis and has a fever :-( I hope she gets better soon. She's been sick for a month now. After that, Kate and I walked to Hollywood Video and returned her movie and then she just had to get KFC so we went in there. Now, here I am back in the dorm waiting for the power to die and Kate's in a church with a nasty little bratty eight-year-old tutoring for community service. I think not. She went on a rampage about how I should work at camp like her this summer and I said "No...I think I'll work at Borders. It's my dream job."

She said that would be good for me. Stupid brats. Anyhow, I better turn this off before the power goes. I'll be back later, maybe. Writing the report for Hebrew. I hate Bitchla. By the way. Al haLu'ach, Eta-Meena! Al haLu'ach!!!! Damn it. WE KNOW.

Distance does take it's toll, but perhaps I had it wrong all along. The toll is not of me, but to me, and when people grow up, closeness works the other way around. Distance brings souls closer if they're real for each other. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For being real.

I never had it before, and now, the unmade beings are everywhere, flaunting themselves, hurling themselves upon my reality. I've decided that I must write them away. I must write the angels away. I will write them all away to make room for what is real. I will make room for you because you're real. Real. Real. Real! I have it all and it's real. I can touch it, I can hear it, I can smell it, I can see it--and none of it is ever my imagination.

Another Angelic Visit

Uriel came again today. They were all there, standing in the middle of the swirling autumn leaves. Wynn came, too. I haven't seen her in years. Since Uriel came. And I spoke in that other language again, and I still remember. The angelic language that rolls off my tongue and no one else's.

"Why now, Uriel?" I asked.
"We hold the wind."
"Like where you were born? I thought that was the desert."
"Aah, but the wind blows somewhere with all of its voices, Little Girl. Now it is an autumn wind. Not a desert wind. We revel in this, too."
Then, humans interrupted and he disappeared but the others were still there, on top buildings, trees, or wavering in the wind on the ground.

When I got away from the people, Wynn came to me.
"Where have you been?" I asked.
"Wandering all over the earth," she said.
"You are like Satan, now," I joked.
"I suppose we all are."
"I forgot what you looked like."
"Yes, child."
"Why do you come to me? Why do you all inflate my world?"
"That is what we are for. Eternity is...boring...if not for human time. Why have it all pass in a moment? This is why."

Fixing a Hole Where the Rain Gets In

I have to fix my mind. Somewhere in there, there has to be some meddling done, some altering. But how do I transcend myself? Too many dreams flood me and the borders are blurred between them all and what is real.

What is real?

I don't know anymore, Mac. I don't know.

Damn it. That was Sibyl Freid. See her? That was Sibyl Freid. I'm that girl again.
Nononononononono. Not again. No not again Sibyl Sibyl. Not again.

You see? Back to it all again. Aliya is her mind, you know. The Ascender. Aliya is her mind, Berekiah the face and the emotion--almost. I will ascend.

Ascend! Ascend! Aliya! Aliya! Ascend! Ascend!

I will ascend to where?I don't know. There're too many angels tonight. The night is dark and full of angels tonight. Will they take me? Will they make me? Will they pull me from it all and erase that everlasting madness?

I want to rid myself of Uriel. But where would I be without him? Whre would all the words be? I must write him away so that he never comes back. Then, I will be myself. No more Sibyl Freid. No more Aliya. I will write him away so that everyone can read him and then he will come no more.

"Aah, now, Little Girl. What say you now?"
"Dream of another, my sweet angel. Dream another before I dream you away."
"I Dream. But only of you."
"I Dream. But it'll be over soon. You're next. Ithaca will have to wait."
"What will the others say, Little Girl? What will become of the Universe?"
"They'll say nothing. Because nonexistence says nothing, is nothing, never was, never will be, never is. That is what I say. That is what they say. Nothing nothing nothing."

Same old thing

So it's back to the same old thing. I'm used to it. I'm used to it. I know I know. Well, there's Kate. And I'm not some piece of shit to her. Actually, I'm a friend and she's mine, too, so I'll go with that. The good thing is, she's in both worlds: school and home. It's amazing how you can live down the block from someone for years and never meet them until you go more than a thousand miles away.

I'm really missing some people right now. Really really missing. I want to hear them and they're not there. And I want to see them and they're not here.

Yesterday I was sitting in the middle of a bout 500 people in the cafeteria. Everyone was into conversation with everyone else and I was alone. I can start out with people, and soon they'll fade and the loneliness will set in. "Sweet misery, she loves her company. She's in a crowd when she is all alone."

Go figure.

And it never stops

So, the essays don't ever stop. I didn't realize until recently how intense this school is. Hmm. Well, I guess that's why it was offered Ivy status, huh? So the medieval lit essay is in. I get the midterm back tomorrow and I'm scared shitless when it comes to what the grading will be like. I guess I'll find out shortly. You'll either have a cry or a rant on here soon.

Speculative Fiction rough draft due tomorrow. Only the assignment changed, so it's now two pages and an outline due and I've already done a bit more than that, which is awesome!

Don't want to talk about anything bad on here now. I'm too busy enjoying my hot chocolate. We'll see what happens with things as time wears on, I suppose.