caught · & · spun · in · the · light

the space behind you meanders
into shadow. your hands scrabble
at the glass for purchase. chilled fingers
clutching, moth-like, a frozen
flutter. where there's light there's warmth.
sunny climes. playgrounds at midnight. wildflowers
chattering nonsensical rhymes. people who love.
the great poems you might have composed
if you lived on the other side. if you were light.
you sink backward, weak with envy, sick with the beauty
of someone else's space, warm, lit and well-loved.
hands splayed against the stone, unfeeling at first,
then the sharp of the cold. then the scratches and grooves
of your rough edges. then the comfort of a substance
so unyielding it made you stand
when you could have fallen. then the grief
for lives led and lives unknown and lives only glimpsed,
warm, breaking in waves, part of a darkness so intricate
as to approach beauty. this is who you are,
an empty stone chamber
breathing slow and painfully,
turning sorrow to a sort of bright joy,
a room you love for its poetry
and silent rage
and exultation.

FIRST:

New car.
Nice apartment in a nice building.
Engagement (first and only and mostly perfect!)
Kitties.
Classy bathroom accessories.
Professional job that I enjoy.

Who knew that being normal and adult would be so fun?

I've been too busy to post lately and anyway everything's going well so there's less need to write.

Stephen and I are absurdly happy together. :) I wake up every day excited to be engaged to someone so perfect (for me) in every imaginable way. Also, he has the sexiest eyes EVER.

On Monday I will return to work not as a contracter, but as a full-time employee. It's very exciting because everyone liked me so much that they were really rooting for me to get a permanent position with the company. Benefits and stability are good... AND I will receive a rather significant raise from what I made as a contracter! We're in the middle of a huge project and I'm extremely busy & learning a lot of new things.

My good friend T and I are planning to move out together soon. The place we're staying in is more than a little bit too crowded and I'm not very comfortable with the building... we've had a car broken into, notice of a sex offender in the building, the scent of a certain illegal substance in the hallways nightly, etc. T and I get along really well and she cleans more than I do, so it will be a great match! Stephen may be leaving the state for a few months to manage a new facility for his company, and he will likely move in with us upon his return and during his visits home. We will be crazy cat ladies... she has two, and I have Stephen's kitty and possibly another kitty from our good friends. :)

Other than that, things are pretty quiet. We hang out a lot. Get margaritas with friends... attend murder mystery parties... go to shows... play karaoke video games... cook... make out furiously, etc.

Today has been a bit of a trip.

I am heartbroken for my brother and his family. V was such a kind-hearted, giving, beautiful woman who unconditionally supported and loved her three daughters and was always there for them in times of need. She welcomed my brother's entire family into her house on holidays, knowing that many of our traditions ended when my grandmother passed away. I can't really believe that she's gone.

Things are looking up as far as the job situation, though. Currently I'm doing contract work, but I may have found a fulltime position that will be a good fit for me. I don't want to say much until I know for sure, in two weeks or so. At any rate, I'm very hopeful about it.

Also, my roommate is a doll and read an essay of mine the other night & gave me really good commentary on it. It felt like such a relief to write creatively again and I was happy to have someone to share it with me. :) S, even though he lives in a different state now, has also taken an interest in it and the two of us are keeping in touch more than I expected we would.

My life is quiet in the winter. I find myself in contact with old friends and old loves, like certain books of poetry and studying literature and journaling. It isn't as *exciting* as some stages of my life have been, but this is a pace I'm comfortable with, strolling rather than racing to the edge of another precipice and launching myself off the edge, into free fall and a rough landing.

This morning the Jeep was frozen shut.

I mean, all four doors FROZEN shut. A bigstrong guy living in my apartment building took sympathy on me as I kicked the door in frustration and helped me, but even our combined effort did not prevail.

Eventually I pried open the hatch, crawled through the cab & backseat, and started up the heater. I managed to kick open one of the back doors, get out to scrape sheets of ice off the windows & properly close the hatch... and I nearly couldn't get the back door open again from the outside! Then I clambered back into the front seat, said a brief prayer of thanks for four-wheel drive, and proceeded to have some @$$hat drive on my bumper most of the way in. Excuse me, but a badly-paved, bumpy back road with huge potholes and no curb to speak of isn't the place where I want to be speeding when there are sheets of snow-covered slush on the road. I slowed down to about a crawl while crossing the worst of the potholes and I think he got the hint after that and backed off.

BUT! I made it to work safely. And the driver's side door opens... for now.

The best valentine's day gift I ever received was ______ .

Share your happy, morbid, unique, or supersweet & romantic recollections!

In college, I had my really sexy & smart boyfriend go waaaay out of his comfort zone to pen me a lovepoem that I still have in its original, hand-written form along with an origami rose. :) That's the coolest gift that I remember.

winter is the inward
curve of bone that shelters
soft tissue underneath. winter
is an averted gaze: the absence
of warmth in her eyes.
winter is stillness, a cold
aquiescence to the way things are
& always have been.
poems hanging from the eaves,
sharp stilletto curses
beautifully formed
of twisted verse.
who shelters in the winter?
those who like to hear the howl
of frozen breath through an empty
expanse. who sleeps
in the winter? those who like to forget
that spring, with its promises of honey
and warmth, never unthaws
this ground
under curve of bone
beating slower
to conserve its strength.

Friends are the folks who can tell me when I'm wrong
and see my flaws without disliking me for them.
Strangers are people who see one superficial defect
and pass judgment on me for it.
I waste my time worrying about what strangers think
instead of listening to my friends' good advice.

~**~

I saw a picture of a mutation last week: a frog
with extra limbs, and a fruit fly with an extra pair
of wings. I bet the frog doesn't feel ashamed
of his fifth leg. I bet the fruit fly doesn't complain
about her second set of wings. Probably,
they are too occupied with life.
Probably, they survive as well as they can.
Like the rest of us.

~**~

When I grow up,
I wanna be
myself,
only
better.

there is no exit.
the walls narrow
on closer inspection; the ceiling
stoops to meet a bowed head.
even under sunshine, with a beloved
word but lately on my lips, in the company
of kindness, the nuance (particular;
shadowed) of a single instant might rouse
clarity of perception. the corridors
tremble, contract, resume their devious
designs. the blueprint shows a single
room hardened to stone, blank and adamant.
a lie, pretty breath of sweetness, might feign
the breeze from an open window, vaulted
ceilings, the potentiality of many chambers
but truth subtly
& cleverly contrives to build my prison
by shrinking the moment. a day collapses,
the year past coalesces into a singular
sense of hopelessness in my gut, my lifetime
reads like a one-word line of dialogue
in a play with no star and no stage. in the blueprint,
there is no exit.
my hand reaches
upward to greet the ceiling;
my thoughts retreat
inward to stir no imaginary winds.
the smaller i am,
the larger seems this space
where i dwell, pacing
in circles
with no starting points,
no ends, and certainly
no way out.

I like
falling asleep
alone. The memory
of a windchime,
silver maple leaves,
summer sunshine
or the white curtains
in a room of my grandmother's
house, curving
with a breeze - a song
in images, a lullaby
of days I loved, fragile
but strong enough to endure
time & struggle,
returning now
untarnished
as a dream, before
sleep I am holding
myself &
smiling.

And it would be all right, Lisseut thought, as she ended the song. She was no longer a child. Life did not always or even normally grant one the wishes of the heart. Sometimes it came near, sometimes not very near at all. She would accept, with gratitude, what seemed to have been allowed her tonight -- with a hope ... that there might be more such moments graciously allowed...

(Guy Gavriel Kay)

this afternoon i Drove
out into sunlight
where old moss-hung trees
border the road & fields of corn
sing golden . for a moment
joy caught up with me & wind
whistled through my hair ; the light
spilled through my veins .

i forgot
the inevitable
sadness of Nothing Changes
& breathed
like song .

then my broken
heart caught up again . i turned
back into town & thought,
"it just doesn't matter
anymore"

had i something left to break
i would guard it jealously
and let no one come near.

but now
a golden field of corn
in a stolen instant of light
is all that remains

. i was a child once & inlove
with everything that shimmered
but she has gone
to sleep beyond waking
with my hope

that things work out in the end
or that love ever applies

to me .