What I Believe

I believe in love, in love at first sight and at second sight. I believe in being alone and ignoring a ringing phone. I believe in crying and open windows in the middle of winter. I believe in the meaning behind music and the curative powers of throwing up. I believe in hot coffee, walking fast, and not wearing watches. I believe in reading, writing, and thinking. I believe in loud music, ball point pens, and practicing good handwriting. I believe in Storyhill, Paulo Coehlo, and asking questions. I believe in the color red. I believe in hair ties, in trying harder, in bridges, in trains, and in the occasional punk song. I believe in taking notes, reading lists, and making it up as you go along. I believe in saying so when I don't believe in something. I believe in hot water and sad songs. I believe in yelling when you have an argument. I believe that war is evil and sometimes necessary but never glorious. I believe that death happens and that God exists if you believe he does; I do not. I sometimes believe that I exist, and sometimes I believe that I have made myself up entirely, all the way down to the fingernails on my long-fingered hands. I believe in silver shoes, old jeans and thin jackets. I believe in sleep. I believe in black and white and the rest of the story. I believe in covering your face with your own hands and sobbing quietly, even with someone in the next room. I believe in asking why over and over. I believe in good poetry. I believe that what I think is good is actually good. I believe in lilacs, in daisies, and in walking through the grass without shoes on. I believe in falling asleep with the lights on. I believe that I walked in on a friend trying to die. I believe that I have wanted to die. I believe that life is. I believe that life is hard, and wet from tears, and red from blood, and tired from trying. I believe also that life is apathetic to the trying and the fatigue. I believe I think too much and simultaneously not enough. I believe in down comforters. I believe in staying up late and sleeping in. I believe in good posture and driving with the windows down, regardless of the weather.

Listening to post-modern rock with my mother

dazzling crystalline melancholy
blood red wine cellar
damp brown light
quietly rocking chair
midnight blue electric guitar
cinematic masterpiece famous literary heroine
sweetly drying in poetic black waters
shiny silver hand motions
and different words flying through each mind
simultaneously expressing the same thoughts

Once Again

once again

and again
the white before me mocks my thoughts
and my tryingness to perform
and the very thoughts I try to keep in line
,that I try to order into a somethingness,
not only leave something to be desired
but leave me
somehow
again.

Once I was standing on the pier of a great lake
and the blue waves stretching before quietly (silently) made promises
they couldn't keep
and though I should have known better, I believed the
impossibilities without trying hard enough
and trying too hard is how I lose the strings
of a somethingness
tied to a time I don't
believe in.

On a dark street in a town that doesn't look real,
(though it didn't strike me as such then; only now in memory
does its peculiar charm reveal itself as contrived).
On a dark street, I remember walking out on my past
and also giving up my future
,once again, from not trying hard enough
and trying too hard, which I used to think was
impossible.

welcome home

empty headed minded hands
with only now occasional afternoon wine glasses
no more foggy late night listening discussions
lessening coffee mornings
fewer tiredness teachings
reading literature and non literature
and learning to learn about listening to music.