We are stories.
We live within a world of narratives.
Those that cannot find or make a place for themselves in the human arc of memory,
wander forlorn ghosts.
They are lost. And, we are haunted. Until we find a fit.
Storytelling is survival.
To become a storyteller
is to make for yourself, and for others, a home in the imagined palace.
Our bodies may one day rest in the earth,
but only when settled in stories do we all rest in peace.
The special thing about planets aligning
is they don't stay that way for long.
The night I gave up my placelessness, was also the night that the sky started falling.
You'd told me a secret;
said you were wearing my shirt
turns out it was a little too tight.
I had no idea.
The stars turn to water on my face under a gray evening sky
There are many ways that stars can go down
Stubbornly, we love the darkness they leave; the star we can't see.
As if we had authority to house-arrest a memory.
It's good
that tonight there are clouds, or perhaps I'd stubbornly love the empty dark behind them.
You thanked me for walking you home.
I wasn't expecting your hand on my back, as though gently sending me off
I wish I'd taken your hand while departing; a picture of faithful companions to stars.
Even if stars could stay put, the sky is still constantly changing.
I walked home alone to my own kingdom through fields in muddy shoes
amid cold, falling stars coming down in tiny multitudes.
The frozen earth is gently cradled in white blankets.
Lost in the silent din of a widening gyre outside,
I think of my shirt tight around you,
holding you together where I failed.
I tell myself that even when it falls,
behind the sky,
there is still more sky.
Sometimes you're Theseus
Sometimes, his ship.
Sometimes you're Magellan,
and sometimes, the Victoria.
In the beginning
The land fell away on both sides
I walked a tightrope
I watched a horizon
This is the only way not to fall:
to put each step exactly where it goes and nowhere else.
The waves rose up. The air stormed.
Still,
only one put to place each foot.
The stars did not waver
Then, all was calm around me
The storm was yet outside
just distracting: a horizontal pillar of cloud and of fire
I walked through the Eye
until placing one foot in front of the next was second nature.
Then the rope became an open field
After all, with practice, what's the difference when regardless of terrain, you have only two feet and one path?
Speed skaters know the only place for each narrow blade is beneath the center of gravity.
We balance on an intersection with reality.
This walking is a meditation.
It no longer matters whether I follow the thread or it follows me.
From outside, it looks precarious.
I remember a chess player stating that he thinks only one move ahead - the best move.
The field may be wide.
The path is narrow.
And in each moment, only one step.
I find this comforting.
Even liberating.
A language and its culture grow together.
(Part I) Genesis
Ours
was a language of lips and of legs, smooth
punctuated by bedsheets
bellybuttons pressed tightly under night
skin seeking fusion
telling songs of how long we'd waited,
what we'd wanted,
hadn't spoken
for so long
Answering silently NOW
to foreign questions like, "why oh why didnt we ..."
We were suddenly fluent
in the present tense
sheltered alone together
under our own covers
exploring the grammar of looks and of touches
in a common native tongue
