August 26, 2012

"I thought that an arrow pointed the way."

"And so it does."

"But you never told me which way that was. Wrong or right?"

"Perhaps all paths converge, Little Girl, and so an incorrect path is the right one because a misstep tells you the truth."

"So the destination isn't the point."

"Not so much, Little Girl."

"Will I ever stop being your Little Girl?"

"You will always be a moment in Time. You have always seemed the same to me, enough to make me wonder what a Man feels, how he sees."

"When the Gypsy stole my heart and scattered it, did you catch it, Uriel?"

"Perhaps I did, for the breadth of my wings is wide and the vision of my eyes is keen."

"Answer me! Do you have it?"

"And if I did, what would it gain you, Little Girl?"

"The chance of putting back together again."

"There are some things nothing can fix. To reform ashes into what they once were? You would need to bend back Time. But if you bent it back, you would not be you. You can grow a new one, Little Girl."

"But the old one had hope."

"A new one can have more than hope."

August 23, 2012

"Uriel, help me."

"You are capable of helping yourself, Little Girl."

"What a great friend you are," says the girl.

"I was never your friend, only your guide."

"I guess you're right. But it was nice to think otherwise."

"Since when are you one for deception?"

"Since never. But sometimes a half-truth is nice."

"You know I cannot feel," says the angel.

"Yes you can. You have been taken from me because of it, and you have been rewritten."

"An angel is a blank page upon which humanity writes the story of itself."

"And God?"

"You know better than to ask of God. you have heard. And you have seen. God is the voice inside your head and the promise that is broken. Now, Little Girl, take in the world around you. Feel the wind on your skin, hear the music in your ears. If you are looking for a different God, you have found it in this. Content yourself with that, for there will be no love for you."

"There will. But only in one direction. Uriel, I know my place."

"Yes, Little Girl. You know your place and you fit perfectly in the space between my wings."

"Take me now, Seraph! What is there for me to make in the world?"

"Everything, Little Girl. You have hands to form a universe, to grasp what you desire. You have ground on which to walk and air to breathe and lungs to accept it. You have a heart that can feel and a mind that can collapse and construct Time and its absence. You have a cliff from which to jump."

"And you, Uriel?"

"I have Vision and the lack of everything that you possess."

August 19, 2012

"Shh, Little Girl," says the angel. "I will cover you now."

"Yes, please," the girl relents. "Please cover me for a long time."

"Always."

"I give up again."

"You never came out of it."

"Must you remind me?"

The angel laughs. "I have never reminded you. I merely open your eyes to the moment in which you have always been. Your fate met you at the beginning. Try to avert your eyes and it stabs you in the back. Best to face it willingly. Nothing will change you."

"You are not being very helpful, dear."

"I am not meant to be helpful. I am only an arrow pointing the way."

"And an arrow isn't helpful?"

"It is not an arrow on a spear."

"Maybe that would be better."

"You are not ready to come with us yet and so, we do not carry a spear for you."

"Oh, yes, you do. You just don't throw it. I know you never miss. How could you? When everything is destined from the Point?"

"Does it hurt?" asks the angel.

"Does what hurt?"

"You. Now."

"Everything hurts. Would you like some? Take it!"

"As you know, if I could feel, I would take it all from you. Or share it. But I am incapable."

"Of course. Of course you are incapable. Like I am incapable of saying anything to a human being and having it understood."

"It will be one, day Little Girl."

"By people? Or by you?"

"Yes."

"Nice answer," says the girl. "Avoiding. As usual."

"What did you expect?"

"Nothing. I expect nothing. You've trained me well."

"You have only trained yourself. As you know, we could be nothing more than a whisper you cannot hear, if you so wished it."

"I have always found sanity in the madness that is you, Uriel. Don't ask me how. But it is true. I would rather be mad with you than without you. Because my own race sells me short. Or I sell them short. Or whatever it is. How should I know?"

"You know, Little Girl. Like you know that we cover you."

"Let me deal with this alone."

"You have never dealt with anything else wise."

On Independence

July 4, 2012

I used to be proud of this day. Unfortunately, I have read my history, which never leaves me shy of ashamed. The pit of shame grows deeper every time. There is nothing I can do about it.

We Americans will never fight the right war of independence - we are too blind, too shortsighted for such bloody activity. For all our pomp, trampling around on the "home of the brave" and "land of the free" -- when will we learn to look backwards and examine just how valiantly our fights were won?

When will we ever weigh the cost of our illusive freedom (for turning a blind eye is might blissful and a Big Mac is more pleasing than shoving the likes of Wounded Knee down our throats) against the cost of dignity?

I realize now, of course, always too late, that no destiny was ever manifest but that which we create and execute ourselves. Divinity fled from Eden as we marched West and jumped off the cliffs of California. And what a white man's burden is that! Chasing God all the way into the sea to claim our "destiny" all in the Good name. And questionable faith.

The idea used to be beautiful to me. It was beautiful until I learned how much of its full meaning I had to omit: life - if I were a land-owning white man; liberty - to plunder and pillage and oppress - if I were a land-owning white man; and the pursuit of happiness - repeat the refrain again. Though the definition has been revised time and time again, Americans have still never quite defined "happiness," and I'm sure we never will.

If it really is that picket fence, painted shiny white but termite infested, then it's not my dream. And if it really is money,l gotten through deception and derived from imaginary confidence or the lack thereof - it is not my dream, again.

July 5, 2012

I have built my own dream, far away and I know the irony of it. East not west but still just as manifest as ever, expanding borders of attitude and ideology, again with my presence that is not native. Am I just as guilty as everyone who won the West?

People always have a way of looking back on history and convincing them selves that they aren't continuing it. It is a shame, then, because there is nowhere to run, trapped on this green and blue sphere that we systematically destroy. It is a shame that for all my thinking, it will always be human.

Don't misunderstand, I am not self-hating, only frustrated. I am not out of rope, just lonely. It is all empty space except for where the atrocities are. Maybe there is a veil somewhere that ripples occasionally and lets some beauty through. Or maybe beauty is something we contrive, so desperate for goodness we start hallucinating our greatest desires. The heat is strong. And the mirage is seductive. But its water won't save us.

July 4, 2012

"I must be an idiot," says the Little Girl.

"Because," replies the angel, "you are still trying?"

"Precisely."

"Don't give up."

"Even though it's futile? I made that decision so long ago...to be lonely..."

"Instead of untrue."

"But lonely anyway."

"You would have hated yourself," says the angel.

"Yes. And instead I hate everything else. Running and running. All my energy wasted."

"We know you are tired, Little Girl. You are more tired than ever."

She sighs. "Yes. I am very tired."

"And yet you choose to live, as you chose to be born. If you think that thinking is a sin, then end it. If you think that it is a privilege, then continue - and do something about it."

"I will try."

"Don't try. Do it."

"No one is listening."

"Then leave it behind. Someone will hear it one day and be grateful. Don't cry."

"You know I'm not crying, Uriel. If I were crying, I wouldn't ever stop."

On "In Pursuit of Wind"

July 1, 2012

Time flies, even if you're not having fun. I suppose I try to make the best of it, and it could be much, much worse. Waiting is never fun, though, especially if you don't know if what you're waiting for will ever arrive.

It is already July and we are moving into the heights of summer. Imagination has left me, so instead of imagining new worlds, I go back to old ones. Since I left Sibyl Fried for good, it has been six years. But now I can finally rip her apart like I need to.

Her madness is no longer my own. I have expunged that voice from my head and I no longer have to know every breath nor every moment and how they feel to someone who is not me. There are so many wavelengths of Sibyl Fried that I glossed over and shouldn't have, and there are so many more that I described too much.

But writing is never easy. Writing is always an exercise in laying what is most private within you bare to the world's criticism - and worse: your own. Of course, I am no longer the teenager who wrote her, who wrote her children, who wrote their madness, their violence, their incestuous, narcissistic love -- who wrote impossibilities and the small patch out of a tapestry of time. But that teenager was me once, and she has grown into this.

At twenty-five, almost, her dreams both deferred and come-true.

So I rip her apart and build her back up again. Perfection can never be achieved, but you can come close. I've ripped whole paragraphs out. And know i'll write more to erase her esoteric rambling so that her profundity can be understood. This comprehension is more important than flowery language.

They tell you from the instant you realize you're an artist that one of the most important things you can ever do is just let go. Sometimes it takes years because letting go feels like nothing less than slashing and burning yourself.

May 28, 2012

It is known, of course, that every great idea comes from the germ of nothingness that hibernates and bursts forth without warning from one single consciousness. It is also known that that explosion from nothingness is born out of another's germ that had sprouted and come at least partially to full fruition. But ideas are never whole, for always one builds upon the other. So there is no end to greatness as we struggle like slaves out of stone -- from our humanity into something more divine.

May 14, 2012

When you are young, love is a flame that burns. It is all you can feel, an ecstatic burn, nerve ends blunted. Until the inevitable moment when you wake up -- when the truth of the burn hits you, the flame of fools.

And when you're older, it is the gentle caress of a question, a feather blowing to and fro, that you follow with your eyes and gamble on.

I have always gambled and lost.

May 13, 2012

One thing, at least, is certain: happiness is not a party I was invited to. I am only ever there as a chaperone  waiting outside on the steps for a glimpse in the door.

May 8, 2012

"I am here," says the angel.

"I know," says the Little Girl.

"You should give it a try, being with people."

"What the point? Pretending I'm happy? Turn myself into a doll with a painted face. What does it matter when it's all going to be over sooner rather than later."

"Because if you pretend you are happy for long enough, you just might become it."

"Me? You know that's not true. You know I have always been alone and I always will be. They'll discover my corpse days or weeks later because the smell in unbearable. Not because anyone misses me."

"You will be with us by then. Scattered."

"Now would be a good time to take me. Now. Why can't you take me now?"

"Soon, Little Girl. Soon."

"I know. I can feel the poison."

"You can still choose to stay."

"There's nothing to live for. No one to come home to. No life ahead of me. I choose to go. Just make it painless. And fast."

April 23, 2012

"The game isn't over, Little Girl," says the angel.

"I know. No fat lady singing," she replies.

"You know," the Little Girl continues, "whenever I'm with you, I'm standing on the edge of the world. Even though there's nothing but solid ground under my feet for miles. That's what you do to me. Put me on a precipice."

"And who in the world of the living is not standing on that same ledge?"

The girl sighs. "No one, I guess...and what about you?"

The angel laughs. "An angel? Stand anywhere? Feel the pressure of heights? Vertigo? I am bound by wings, Little Girl. Forget your precipice. I have nothing beneath my feet. And no feet."

April 22, 2012

"You keep quiet because you have too much to say, Little Girl. I know you."

"Shh," she says. she is not in the mood for the angel right now. but of course, it is right.

"They complain of pain that you carry in greater quantities. But they don't want to hear of it."

"Why should they? There is always someone worse off than yourself. But self-pity is always more preferable. Indulgence is comforting and sympathizing is not."

"You are used to being forgotten. Does it still hurt you, even so?"

The girl doesn't respond for a few moments. Pain is something to be swallowed because the world outside is too small to contain all that has been condensed within. She swallows.

"Of course," she says. "Even so...Because everyone has a different definition of loneliness. Aloneness...whatever you want to call it. Open your eyes to the world and a void looks back. Accept it into yourself and you're free. Can you take that? There is no one to share it with. No one. Not a mother, not a father, brother, sister, cousin. Not a friend. No one.

"You are supposed to take care of that yourself. No one can be bothered. So what do you do? Accept it into yourself. Freedom is illusory. We all wear chains."

"And yet," says the angel, "your chains are finite. You hold the key in your flesh. Flesh is the key. To Scatter. To end. You will escape."

"We are still bound by Time. I can try to believe you all I want. But I will never be sure until I get there. And the only thing I know for sure is that I will end -- and you will not -- and I know absolutely nothing of what there is after."

"Are you afraid, Little Girl?"

"No. Not of getting there. Just of getting there too soon. There is too much to see. I don't want to arrive too soon."

"Then hold on."

"Maybe you should let go, Uriel. Maybe that is what you and the others have to learn. let go. For you, everything is in the mind. Let go of the only thing you have. Let go of your Self. But you won't. Do you know why?"

"What is your theory?"

The girl laughs.

"My theory? That we are alike. you fear what you don't know, too. Scattering. So you will never let go. And I have no choice, so I fear that. But we are both afraid."

"I cannot be afraid. I cannot feel. Don't you know the first thing about us? I would think so, by now."

"You claim this and you claim that. But I know. I am looking in at you and you are always looking out. I would think you would understand that by now, angel. That it is all a matter of perspective. And when it comes to ourselves, the pictures is always skewed."

"You are saying that I curse myself."

The girl keeps silent. The angel keeps silent.

"You understand loneliness, too, Uriel," the girl says after a while. "You understand Forever. On and on and on. You convince yourself that you don't. That way it hurts less. But you are just like me, otherwise. Because we were all Scattered in the beginning and we are all Scattered now. It all comes full-circle, so we end where we begin.

"And begin where we end."

"Mmm," says the girl.

"Do you dream of me?" asks the angel.

"Isn't that the way we started?" she answers. "Both of us dreaming of the other, so that the dreaming never stops? And we'll never know which one of us started it, because neither of us did. We were dreamt out of each other. That's just the way it is."

"Do you understand that, Little Girl?"

"Yes. I think. Finally. But I can't explain it. The idea comes and slips away. Never concrete. Dreams are like wind. You bring the message."

"I am the message. And the message is you."

"Yes. And I am your message. That is the way we dream of each other. Pulling out the messages inside ourselves, for each other. This is the way the circle cannot break."

April 17, 2012

"So, Little Girl, you believe someone for once. Let us hope that the world does not get in your way. for you well know that the tide moves anything as it wishes, despite every good intention."

"You know the problem with you, Uriel?" asks the girl. "You can never stop talking. One day it's this, one day it's that. I well know the way the world works, my dear. And unlike you, I can feel it. I believe I exercise as much caution as is possible. But as you so expertly had to point out, there is nothing we can do about some things."

"Might I suggest taking a wait-and-see approach?"

The Little Girl rolls her eyes. How absurd can an angel get?

"Quite," the Seraph comments, for no thought can be hidden from it.

The girl sighs in resignation. "One thing you may have noticed," she says, " is that despite our infinite stupidity, despite our depths of sorrow and heights of joy -- we are strong. We can handle what is thrown at us., we miserable, mortal human beings."

"Indeed you can," agrees the angel.

"How do I even have time for you? You've done a great job with me. I am fully immersed in real-world problems...otherwise known as bullshit. Aren't you proud?"

"If an angel could be proud..."

"Yeah, yeah. If you could be anything but incapable," says the girl.

"My apologies."

"No need. I am used to you."

Love Song

July 16, 2012

A meeting of minds is always a love song, a twirling dance, weaving itself into an explosion of ideas like a double-helix DNA strand. We explode like grains of sand, drawing our lines by the billions.

The meeting is captured, threads tangled in a newborn tapestry. One side reaches out tentatively - that side is me, waiting for the moment of necessitated recession.

You are the other side, thrashing about, a storm that crashes and enlightens, pours itself out, never empty and never full.

The helix twists.

There is newness, a heaven of amalgamation - then: creation.

Q: What happened when you left?
A: We kept walking.
Q: Did you have a destination?
A: Far away. Just to survive.
Q: How many of you made it?
A: Not many. And we left children behind. Anyone who had to be carried. Anyone who couldn't keep up.
Q: Whose decision was that?
A: Everyone's. It was necessary. Children can be made again...not the same ones, of course. But for survival's sake, they can be made again. And those couldn't keep up, they understood.

Rage

July 9, 2012

It is almost always worthwhile to rage at the state of the world. Humanity is a disgusting race, in all our forms, and it is maddening to be a helpless cog in the machine that tosses its potential away. It is always a good idea to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation because horizons should always be stretched. There is always more to a moment than meets the eye.

I need to write a story that disorients us like a labyrinth, that sprouts creatures we haven't seen since Ovid but which we run into everyday.

"What have I become?" it will ask, as every time it looks in the mirror, it gets introduced to a different face. The ancient forest will be our modern streets, Narcissus the wannabe wasting away on egotism.

It will be an assignment for myself. Read, model, write. Read, model, write. The ink must start flowing again. because we can be nothing without pain.

May 28, 2012

The only lover who ever touched me was the Muse,
with its pornographic imagery flaunting impossibility -
but it stroked me with its asexuality
while all the other lovers were too distant
or imaginary.

And so I drowned in its song,
in the waves of insanity that crucify sound
minds along the daytime shore.
I joined it there, pinned across its T, horizontally,
remembering my future like a distant
past and cursed the sand beneath me
while the other victims screamed beside the sea.

The lover is that maddening melody,
intoxicating, a torturous mind-joined-to-heart
obsessed with ethereal births incessantly rising
and receding, windblown on the page.

But the Siren, the Muse, who subdues passion with rage
killed me on the day I was born.
Yet its music never taught me the
only thing I ever learned -
to release the million billion grains of sand
that spear into us,
to succumb to that sea, to be impervious
with glee.

Instead, it pulls my hand, obliterates lust with desire,
suffocates flesh with dust
and while time passes unseen,
I miss my life for its dreams
and the Muse continues its dance.

It is a lie, you must know by now, that Artists are
born with Chance - we are crippled and chained
from our first instant in the air.
And yet, you take my other hand, unfettered by the Muse,
although to understand only brings us farther apart.
And yet - you dare to love the absence that is me,
overflowing with the elements of rain and sun.

The worst of it is over,
for we are young,
and the Muse always claims
the best of us before we have begun.
You've undone me, my dear, but the
Must will always have my ear,
and do you think you can dig
deep enough to release me
from the Siren's sphere
that wraps itself around me in the sand?

May 8, 2012

"I am here," says the angel.
"I know," says the Little Girl.
"You should give it a try, being with people."
"What's the point? Pretending I'm happy? Turn myself into a doll with a painted face. What does it matter when it's all going to be over sooner rather than later?"
"Because if you pretend you are happy for long enough, you just might become it."
"Me? You know that's not true. You know I have always been alone and I always will be. They'll discover my corpse days or weeks later because the smell is unbearable. Not because anyone misses me."
"You will be with us by then. Scattered."
"Now would be a good time to take me. Now. Why can't you take me now?"
"Soon, Little Girl. Soon."
"I know. I can feel the poison."
"You can still choose to stay."
"There's nothing to live for. No one to come home to. No life ahead of me. I choose to go. Just make it painless. And fast."

The Incision

April 30, 2012

You are my horizon,
my brand in the dark -
a wish unreachable
but years prove unteachable.

And between us is a string
that we've pulled taut,
fragile as a life
between the scissors we bought.

April 26, 2012

"I should be used to it by now," the Little Girl says. Because the loneliness is acute tonight.
"Some things don't change," replies the angel.
"Obviously...But I grew up and things are still the same. I've been waiting my whole life for my generation to catch up, or for me to move backwards. But it's the same. I'm still alone. And there is still no one to talk to except for you."
"I don't count to you?"
"No. You are nothing more than the air I breathe and the voice inside my head."
"You know I am more than that."
"Shut up," she says. "I can't feel you."
"I cover you," says the angel.
"I know."
"You can come with me if you choose to."
"No. That is running."
"And you are not used to running?"
"I wouldn't call it running. More like attempting new frontiers. There are some things in life I couldn't live with anymore. New scenery was not a desire. It was a necessity."
"Are you afraid?"
Fear is consuming. Of course. But it is an emotion I turn off. At least it is one I put aside. Fear paralyzes. So I do what I have to do."

Letter

January 14, 2012
I often find that I write in my sleep, casting words and ideas out into the unknown. But upon waking, I knew that you were meant to be the recipient of this letter. [ -- ]

Occupy Wall Street is a symptom of American societal and political degradation and decadence. I hope that it is not the result of the country's first death throes and collapse. But the scene isn't pretty.

I hope it is the start of a proper revolution, the most American action I can imagine, but I am pressed to find enough structure holding it all together. Rather, I see scaffolding hoisted against a burned building--in other words, merely the preparation for repair. No blue print. No clear plan of remedy.

But the organization surrounding the protests of the Congressional legislation, SOPA and PIPA, does demonstrate structure. I am thoroughly impressed and proud. The organized demonstrations in protest of these two cousins of proposed law give me reason to doubt my certainty that the United States has doomed itself, buried itself alive under miles of apathy, ignorance, and (ultimately) stupidity. Perhaps there are enough of us left to organize with a purpose, to produce a concrete focus of opposition, to halt the country's race towards a fascist era that hides behind the thin gauze of democratic rhetoric. What a republic we are!

From abroad, I do my part. I sign petitions, I send revealing articles to friends and family to make them aware of the cesspool of which they are in the midst. Interesting, isn't it, how one can be just as involved in revolution from abroad as those remaining within specific geographical borders. One could argue that those involved via virtual platforms are even more potent than those standing physically on the ground--on Wall Street, or in front of the Capitol.

If the online boycott successfully shuts down Google, Reddit, Mozilla, Facebook, Twitter, you name it--this Wednesday, tell me, how is this less damaging than causing the ground beneath our feet to disappear? [ -- ] The virtual platform is more crucial to the survival of governmental and societal integrity in today's world than physical ground.

And from this position, I cannot help but wonder: Am I a coward? Did I flee? Did I give up too soon? A country is not a playground from which we can enter and exit with abandon -- I still carry the burden of my citizenship and everything that means, whether I am aware of all implications or not. The country still carries me. And now another. I possess the passports of two nations now, fully aware of the fact that with those citizenships I both enjoy the privileges and accept the responsibility of histories, atrocities, and glories of two nations.

My heart is with Israel but my mind is with America. My mind is with America's rise and fall while my heart is with the miracle of Israel's desert-turned green.

Perhaps it is time for me to come back. There is something to be said, after all, for those of us who can create real-world results. from the virtual "other side". The pen is a sword and true patriotism cannot and will not be silenced even coming from an ex-patriot.

The Modernists wrote very loudly, indeed, from beyond their own borders. And Joyce (though not American) only found home once he left.

"Happy New year," says the girl on the corner,
"Wouldn't know what I'd do without you, my love."
"Happy New Year," says the boy across the street
as he waits for the  man on the sign to turn from red to green.
"I'll be coming on over to you soon, my love."

And meanwhile, the construction crews set up shop,
place a new layer of tar under our shoes.
The girl waits at the corner, reads up on her New Year's news.

The crew blocks her view of her
boy by the light--
It's been hours now and she just can't wait all night.
So she turns, heads home,
pours herself some scotch,
only cure that works, blocks out the things she's lost
until the morning when she wakes
to the clock, singing "Noon!"

She goes down again, waits for the boy, 'cause he
said he'd be home soon.
"Happy New Year," she says, a year gone by now,
"I wouldn't know what to do without you, my love."