Boundaries; or Why I Would Like To Do Anything For You

May 2, 2007: found in my Bible as Lit notebook.


Maybe this is how I'll always
feel; looking back on the occurrences
that drenched my spirit in
lighter fluid, then tossed me in
the flames (even though it takes a
while for things to catch on fire in
the altitude, it still happens eventually).
Maybe I'll be stuck with my confusion,
frustration, bitter prejudation tinting
all of my memories and convincing me
that nothing worth it happened at all.
(Except for you, that is. You made my
year. Remember?) But there's the
rub: worthwhile things finally made
it into my semi-non-existent
life. Your smile finally lit up my
days. Your encouragement finally
pushed happiness into my walk. Your
chilvarous notions finally made me
believe (that they're not all like
that "other one" out there in the
real world).
Yes. You made my year worth it.

Summer of our Youth

Monday night and life is about to begin:
the hurling, unfurling, fleeting flight of humanity, caught
in their quest to return to their holes, some
rushing outside to linger in the sunlight while the rest
are unwelcome to join the whole. One
moment forgotten by few and it still unrolls along the swift
cliff of the beginning. We are the learners
of knowledge, the students of wisdom, but this is not the
most important to-do point now. We are
a school of fish and we've been oceans away for months
too long and this is the time to misbehave,
disobey, soak in the summer of our youth. We will pay
attention to what we must when the time
comes, but for now, this is our day and we will play.

We will play.

Proverbs

She calls to me from the streets,

begging me to turn away from

the simpleminded way of the world.

Her cries tug at my lonely life.

She is the wife of my youth, the

sweet lady of wisdom, and her

advice is what I don’t want to

listen to in this moment.

I’m faced with a decision, two paths

to choose from: one leading into

the growing of the light, the

other disappearing into the falling

darkness. She pulls at my arm,

whispering down the back of my

neck the words to convince me to

choose her way, the way of gleaming dawn.

But the immoral woman is smoother

than oil and it is she who

succeeds in pulling me to her

side; we stumble blindly along

the crooked trail, over

stones and bones, unaware

victims of the deadly decisions

we do not know we are making.

stage parade

I was wanted once,

a perky yellow daisy afloat in a sea of bound-to-be-exported

roses,

driveling talent wasted and praised.

I was that girl once,

the girl with the smile and the hair and the style, taking her

place

in the center of the stage parade.

I saw clearly once

in a thousand shades of brown, blended at the edges of a

world

of standard blacks and mighty whites.

I am more than what you pretend to see.

Do yourself a favor and know me for what

I truly am.

I am 20 years old.

I am 20 years old and rapidly growing out
of the things that made me a child. I am 20
years old and no longer a young girl with
puppy fat and knobby knees. I am 20 years
old, but while the world is moving into adult-
hood, I still linger in the waiting phase of
life. I am 20 years old and if you expect me
to be engaged or child-bearing or self-
capitulated into what will be my life-long
career, you will be disappointed. I am 20
years old and I still have 80 years to
fulfill all of the things that are expected of
me. I am 20 years old and different from
others of my age, and the things that I
consider important are different also. I am
20 years old and I'm waiting to fall in love,
I'm waiting to make a complete commitment
to another human being, I'm waiting to
figure out what I want to do with my life.
I'm 20 years old and maybe I'm still a child.

Tangible Evidence

Don't act so surprised, please, when
I know you've been waiting for this
day to come. The difference is that
I'm not 15 anymore, and the things
that marked my uniqueness back
then might be useless today. I'm not
the same innocent, wide-brown-eyed
girl I was, but I still can't look at
pictures without memorizing the
features on your face because it's only
the first time I've had tangible evidence
that you were a part of my life, a
touchable part of my life, at some point.
I'm still stuck with confusion eking out
of my every pore and I still want to know
what your face looks like [in person]
today. If it's the last thing I do, I'll take
my own picture of you, with face maybe
drifting closer to mine and fingertips
back where they belong from the times
of bustrips and cardgames and youth.

it is night

merrily tying the knot: fingers drift
slip lick the way across your [sighs],
obscene, yes yes yes they go with
error preceding them
12:36 here but you're just a phonecall
away if the ring ring ring can call
you awake. it may be time for sleep
but all i want is to call
you now now now before you
realize i am destructive [shameful]
hurt. same situation, you should
know, only i was the one to break
the knot, yes the same you tried
to tie
me up stuck here where you left me.

there are more questions where these came from.

Overtime

I tip and I tap,
I type and I tope,
I sit as I speak
and I sip from a cup.
I polish and demolish
and admonish all this cottage
cheese, beans, please, seize
my work from my quirky
Dr. D,
for these words, oh they churn,
they are
eating
me
alive.

Lifechanging/Euphoric

i fall in love with you easily,

quickly,

without questions,

as if this is what i always wanted,

even though i gave up on this

so long ago. i begin to dream about

your fingertips on my chin, tilting

my face

closer to yours and it's like

these dreams never ended.

it only takes a spark, and i'm

lifechanging

again.

while of course you, in your perfect euphoria, are

still stuck.

In a sweater poorly knit

This happens to be who I am.

New Heavens for Old

Amy Powell

I am useless. 

What I do is nothing.

What I think has no savour.

There is an almanac between the windows:

It is of the year when I was born.

My fellows call to me to join them,

They shout for me, 

passing the house in a great wind of vermillion banners.

They are fresh and fulminant,

They are indecent and strut with the thought of it,

They laugh, and curse, and brawl,

And cheer a holocaust of "Who comes firsts!" at the iron fronts of the houses at the two edges of the street.

Young men with naked hearts jeering between iron house=fronts,

Young men with naked bodies beneath their clothes

Passionately conscious of them,

Ready to strip off their clothes,

Ready to strip off their customs, their usual routine,

Clamouring for the rawness of life,

In love with appetite,

Proclaiming it as a creed,

Worshipping youth,

Worshipping themselves.

They call for women and the women come,

They bare the whiteness of their lusts to the dead gaze of the old house-fronts,

They roar down the street like flame,

They explode upon the dead houses like new, sharp fire.

But I--

I arrange three roses in a Chinese vase:

A pink one,

A red one,

A yellow one.

A fuss over their arrangement.

Then I sit in a South window

And sip pale wine with a touch of hemlock in it,

And think of Winter nights,

And field-mice crossing and re-crossing

The spot which will be my grave.

I'm Not Lying

It wasn't fair, not to me, but least of all

to you. It became a game between three

players, one player who didn't even know

he was playing.

You may have had no chance of winning,

but here's my truth: I would have given

it up, all of it, just to have the assurance

that everything would be ok.

I would have saved you if I could have.

I'm Not Lying

Ellen Wittlinger

I am lying in a clapboard shack

the wind blows through. It has followed me

all the way from Boston to this sheltered

harbor where I am less protected than I've ever

been. Invisible as a fish in the ocean

I've tried to listen, to understand the

mystery of two people who could almost

touch, except they have in common trusting

no one. I'm not lying when I say I tried.

I'm not lying next to you

and I never will. There was a night

we needed more than affection

though neither would admit it.

To tell the truth it couldn't matter less

who wears the pants or the dress, but only

who becomes visible to whom.

You saw me truly, and I saw all you let me;

I'm not lying now, and I hope I never will.

The Piercing

I’m looking at pictures of you, and
I don’t recognize the person I see.

I don’t recognize that smile, or that
hairstyle, or your sweatshirt, or the
way you do your make-up. When
did you become a stranger to me?

I’m confused by how it happened,
but I know it had to happen. We
aren’t kids anymore, and maybe
that’s all we had in common: just
a background, a story, and stories
can’t last forever. They have to have
some kind of ending. Is this ours?
Is this it? Are we no longer destined
to be friends for life?

Are you ready to let me go?

Maybe you already have.

From a while ago, but I'm feeling it now

save it for later

What happens when we grow up? What happens
when our beginnings have finally turned into the
middle, and we're no longer able to see down
that finnicky old tunnel that most people call life
and that sometimes involves sea lions and youth
pastors and sunsets that can never be erased from
the corners of your mind...? Some people fall, and
some people forget, and some people get lost in
the gigantic San Diego Zoos of life and are never
quite returned again. But when you look at what the
purpose is, at what should be pushing us forward
into this new "epoch" of our life, maybe they were
lost for a good cause. Because remembering them
is almost as good as really being with them.

Right?

Do you realize??

I come from a place 

that intoxicates it's visitors with sweet-smelling flowers and

towering mountains, a place that stays fresh in your mind

until you can't hold back from returning, just onemoretime, 

to catch a glimpse of that overpowering joie de vivre. You see,

my home is a home

that will never let go of your soul, even though you think you've

moved on, the eyes that at first welcomed you and made you 

the highest priority (then later forgot) will always live in a picture

at the foreground of your thoughts. No one ever understands

what makes this body

so intoxicating, so inviting, so INTERESTING, because to the

untrained eye, what makes it so special is exactly what makes

it ordinary. Ordinary and plain and simple and underwhelming,

while at the same time, unforgettable. If you won't forget, then

neither will I.