don't feel lonely

when i saw this i thought: that sunflower has windswept hair! and she's got an admirer looking at her while she reaches her arms out. but the two can't touch, can they? or do they, underground, their roots entwined? i don't know. there is smoke in the air and the sunlight's dimmed. what do they think of that?

event horizon

it keeps calling to me. i'm tired of the it and the the - i'm awake, there's a star above my head - because those things are so abstract. i don't like details, at least not the kind of details that hide ideas too far under. drowning them.

i like different words - and the details about words - and the way different words can say and mean different and similar things at the same and different time to the same and different people during different times and in different places. and i'm sad i've forgotten so many words and am so nude now whenever i'm trying to speak.

i can't sleep again. it's not for lack of trying. it's the pain running through my body - from the spinal damage - the burning in my legs. it's maddening.

i make it a day at a time through work and the tasks of life currently before me, the things that i must do to keep this old apartment, some food, and health insurance. it's not a complaint. it's just an observation: my energy is focused into my job and much of my job is uninteresting and provides little fulfillment: the much that i am referring to here is the details, the policies, the procedures, bla blah bla. but when i can get past that, things are perfect. i enjoy working with the people i work with - i especially enjoy being in a learning environment and working with students: i've just got to learn to relax a bit so i can open up enough space in my brain to learn something and to be myself a little bit more.

because i don't feel like myself.

ah, this fucking pain! i'm so sick of this pain. it wears me out.

Maple

Maple
Originally uploaded by Mark Olson

at the tea gardens, i call them that because i like tea, though the rest call them the botanical gardens, or the japanese gardens, or whatever. the point is this: there were so many lovely things to see. and i'm thinking i should get out more.

so i won't forget

i don't remember what it's about at all. someone all lost in the light or something. the result of the unbearable on certain psyches.

i am a bird now

In this picture is a stained-glass hummingbird that my great-aunt made with her two hands and me stretching out mine to try and fly. When the sunlight comes through just right, the bird begins to glow and my eyes turn into emeralds.

My great-aunt gave this bird to her sister, my grandmother, whom I cared for during the last year of her life until the evening that she died. But for twenty years this bird hung (or soared) above my grandmother's bed.

So, after my grandmother had died, and my great-aunt had disappeared into some far away place and became forgotten, I found this bird and brought it into my room and placed it near a window where the sunlight could touch it. And then I wrote a letter to my great-aunt which said this: "I know that your sister loved you very much. She kept the bird that you made above her bed for as long as I can remember. I'm sure that every time she saw it, she thought of you and smiled."

hiding

i've got to hide here for awhile where i'll be visible enough not to forget the unfortunate idiocy that's wrapped up well inside of my needs to be known and friendly and helpful to all of you so new and sharp like a snake's tooth.

i passed for nothing lapped white snowflakes from her tongue tasting warm and wet i bet like the sunlight in the sand.

the reason i did it is because i like you and him and want for everything to be well.

my shell's made out of flower petals. scratch me and i'll bleed scent. please, i can't keep this going, i need for you to forgive and forget as they've said a million times. it's the stars and then nothing else matters.

puppet show

tonight i was so lucky. i was able to put on a puppet show for my friend's child. the medium was through a webcam, and the child laughed and laughed. And i felt so much less grave. like i was back in that childhood land of perfect imagination... it was wonderful.

that's all. i haven't been able to do much lately. no writing, no songs, no painting, no nothing. but i hope this little bit of happiness carries me toward something else. otherwise, i don't know what i'll do.