Where are the Dancing Girls?

There was an exchange. He said a few things and she said a few things and I said a few things. We know nothing about each other. We have no chance of comprehending the depth of each other’s emotions, experience, or hurt.

But what else is there to do but try? What else is there but to try to catch a glimmer of understanding, of empathy? What else is there but to provide support, to give hope for spiritual connection?

Life, you are an absolute lark. You told me that this is in the best time of my life – my youth is my prime. Is this the best time? Can it really go downhill from here? When do things become lucid? When will an answer arrive? When will we reach contentment? When will we quit begging for change? Where are the dancing girls? (They are dancing behind your eyelids)

moment of recognition

The end of my cigarette turns ashy red as I inhale gently. The smoke floats into my lungs, fills, spins, and exits upon the release of my breath.

I look at her, her long brown hair flowing over her shoulders or tied up in a head scarf twisted into a messy bun. Her eyes show her sadness, her trauma, and her infinite love. She speaks seriously. She is contained within her small frame but shines around it.

Upon the back of her neck flies a bird to symbolize her free spirit. Many young woman hold onto this ideal but she lives it. She is as feminine as she is androgynous. Men approach her and try to capture her but she simply refuses and flies on.

When I saw her for the first time, some energy immediately drew me to her. Her bright blue eyes lifted behind dark eyelashes as I introduced myself. It took some time and some repeat meetings to make an imprint in her day to day life.

I came to notice things invisible to most eyes – her inconsistencies and anger, her sensitive soul shut behind an intimidating barrier. Her confident stroll turned into an unsure wander. She is just as lost as I am.

“Can I use your lighter?”
She speaks and it takes a second to process. I reach into my pocket and produce a light for her to smoke another cigarette.

a cold december

Don’t carry on carrying efforts
Somewhere there’s a room for each of us to grow
And if it pleases you to leave me, just go
-Sufjan Stevens-

“I don’t know what I am doing,” she says. Her dark chocolate eyes turns black behind the tears. Silent –her face is stoic, unmoving. She stares blankly at the wall. I don’t recognize her.

Her voice is steady but slowly she whispers, “I swear I will never leave this moment. I will fall asleep for months at a time, going through the motions, but I will wake up again in this place, in this emotion and die again. I feel like I exist only briefly in moments of despair.”

I wonder why she doesn’t try to talk to someone about this, but at the same time I know. To extinguish these reoccurring moments of pain would be the equivalent of murdering her. She suffers. She despairs; this is her artistic medium. Her body only lives, only truly breathes, this way. I see her pretty black lined eyes turn into those of a panda – infinitely sad and round.

“I have never been with someone who didn’t care about me. It was terrible. Never have I felt unintelligent, unappreciated, objectified. I simply participated. A nameless, faceless participant in an event soon forgotten,” she says blankly.

I don’t know what to say to her. I love her. I love the way the light catches her eyelashes and the curve of her ribs and the way she wrinkles her nose when she is being cute. I love her full lips and her teeth and the way she kisses. I love the way she meets my eyes and speaks her mind. I love that she apologizes when she feels she has talked too much.

“I am not sad to lose him, I am sad because he made me feel worthless. I have lost my friends in the process. He has made me a worthless recluse. I haven’t left my house for nearly a week. I want to go away. I have to go away now.”

I am sorry, I am so sorry I don’t have the words to tell you how I feel. I wish you were okay. I wish you could find good, affirming, inspiring love. I know you miss your past and I know you wish ghosts back into your life. I want you to be more than a skeleton. I want your nerves to vibrate with excitement. I want you to feel again, and I want you to be okay on your own. You need no one but yourself my love.

a sufjanian haunting

Now Playing: “Impossible Soul” Sufjan Stevens

As usual, this tale commences with a long drive. Driving through the nothing, through the fields, across Ohio and into Indiana, I didn’t feel right. I am in transition. I am still in love with an idea attached to a person. I have friends, but I resent them. They are destructive, they don’t understand.

The city at night was beautiful. We walked on cobbled streets surrounding a monument, we saw the theatre that our concert would take place in. I couldn’t bear it. The coldness, the excitement, the newness was just a reminder of my past, my  extinguished love. I know you are seeing someone else, but I sent you an “I miss you.”

“I’m sorry if I seem self-effacing
Consumed by selfish thoughts
It’s only that I still love you deeply
It’s all the love I’ve got”

I knew it was true, you are all I have left. I am attached to nothing but you. I am sorry that I had to tell you, I am sorry that I won’t let you let go. I am sorry that I keep haunting you.

I tried to displace some of that emotion. I projected it on another bearded boy, one that I know is not right, that would never work. And when I saw his face light up upon the sight of another and when they walked too closely together, I accepted it. I accepted that this was my fate: to be alone until I know myself again. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run.

“Endless lights prey upon the lonely, prey upon the lonely
Weightless lights, oh, I would rather be, but I would rather be fine
I want to be well”

I felt the briskness of late fall, of the night, creeping into the fibers of my clothing, into the pores of my skin, making even my insides, cold. It’s my fault, it’s mine. I walked away, I ended it. It was me. I destroyed my one source of comfort, of truth, of love, of forever. I want to be ok again.

“But I couldn’t bear that it’s me, it’s my fault
I should not be so lost
But I’ve got nothing left to love”

I took my seat in the theatre, my worn and faded red velvet chair. My eyes slanted, heavy, like there was something in between my eyebrow and eyelid, prohibiting them from excitement. Blankness. Some conversation rose and fell quickly. I had no tolerance for chatter. I have nothing to say, nothing.

What occurred from here on, I cannot say. It is blurred by an intense mix of emotion. The lights, the video feed, the music, the dancers. Everything was a flurry. What should I focus on?

“I know I’ve lost my conscious, I know I’ve lost all shape
But I must do the right thing
I must do myself a favor and get real”

What is real? What is my focus? What am I focusing on? This is beautiful, this is alluring, this is distracting. This is a disjunct. Discord and beauty. Mixes of sounds.

It was not what I expected,
Anger, anger at the noise, the clash
But his voice
Oh his voice!
The waves reaching and crashing over me.
Crashing…

No response. You don’t miss me.

It was then that he dedicated the show to a schizophrenic named Royal. It made sense. I felt like Sylvia Plath, I was lost, time escaped me. Where was it? Who am I? What is this that I am viewing? WHAT IS REAL? TELL ME WHAT IS REAL! I felt like I was being pulled apart. I hated and loved it.

Even the next day, I felt the experience pulling at me still. I was a part of art. I lived art.  I feel art. I am art. Everything is this great artistic experience. I can’t explain it.

I went to work and it felt so fake, so insincere. What am I doing? Why am I not living art constantly? Why am I only living it sometimes?

“Seems I got it wrong, I was chasing after something that was gone
To the black of night, now I know it’s not what I wanted at all”

You are not all that I want. I want to be alive, I want to go back to feeling again. I fear that you are gone, that I gave up a chance. I miss you, I miss how you made me feel. I miss finding home in someone else. I miss exploring and experiencing and sharing. I miss cold winters and cuddling and showing you my artwork. I want to feel my emotions. I don’t want to be numb anymore! It is art and creation and philosophy and love and experience that I want.

“It’s a long life
Only one last chance
Could it get much better?
Do you wanna dance?
It’s a good life”

Nietzsche is right. Plato is right. The world is meaning neutral. We have so many opportunities to create from it. There is no prescribed meaning. It is a blank canvas for our scattered life and scattered thoughts.

Scattered.

Maybe this is an opportunity to find myself, not a chore. Maybe. I left pieces of myself in you. I left them scattered about when things broke. I have been denying them because they hurt too much. I can’t get them back without you. I can’t get them back without hurting us both.

missing mornings

When I was a little girl, I used to wake up in the mornings and listen at my parent’s door to see if they were awake. If they were, I would jump in between them and allow myself to lie there despite my excitement for a new day. I can still feel the way the sheets were warm from sleep, smell my father’s shampoo, and see my mother’s tousled hair. On the days without school, after my father left for work, it was just me and my mother. I remember playing “little bunny fou-fou” and feeling the sunshine warm on the windows.

On the day that Princess Diana died, my mother sat with her back straight against the headboard and cried. I thought how sensitive and beautiful she must be to cry for someone she didn’t even know. Their hairstyles were the same then, and even though it was cruel, I was happy that it was not my mother in the crash. Even at six, I was overwhelmed by the thought that life could be taken away so fast.

I wonder why people wish their childhood to return. I know I am the same six-year-old girl that sat wide-eyed looking for comfort and love every morning when she awoke. I know I had the same mental capacity then. Perhaps I didn’t have a name for my emotions, didn’t have an exhaustive psychoanalytical profile of myself in my head, but I was aware and I was not invincible. To be young is not to be numb and happy. It is to be vulnerable and defenseless. Yet, if one is lucky, they will be granted the privilege of growing up with love surrounding them.

And that is the difference I noticed this morning. I awoke and I was not comforted by the presence of love and I realized that I can’t remember the last time I was happy to wake up next to another body. I felt the sunlight play with my eyelashes and that was hopeful, but still. Something is lacking. I am that little girl confused at the tears, but this time they are not my mother’s, they are mine and they are mourning the death of something I don’t quite understand.

getting colder.

That brisk October night brought sheets of rain down on the roof. With soggy shoes by the door and wet jeans tossed over an armchair, we sat. Surely there was an exchange of words, a discourse on the scattered thoughts in our heads, but I can’t recall anything distinct. It seemed like there was a void there, something tied like a boulder to our interaction, weighing us

down
down
down.

The fiddling of scarves, computer dazes, and blank faces.

How has this happened?

We’ve all gone mad!
We’re all dead.
Nailed shut with a thousand indecisions.
Sealed in, there is no escaping from it now.
A personal hell.
A dualistic world with no interaction,
No touching, just the appearance of doing so,
Just the sense of doing so.

The warm tears turned cold on my cheeks
The emotion fading as they fell.
“How has this happened?”
I must tell you that I do not know.

How can I express
this feeling in my chest?
“How has this happened”
I am a victim to my own life.

But wait, “that is not it at all,
that is not what I meant, at all.”

The Wasteland has spread in a Sermon of Fire
I was Leda and he was the Swan.
We’ve lost it all, I tell you.
What do you think? Tell me.

But you are not there, you are staring
At the mark on the wall,
Lost in your own head.
Remember, “I am with you in Rockland”

And even if the planets and linnets won’t fall
I am there and I am waiting
To gather you in my arms
And play this wretched game of pretend.

My words just deceiving waves
Dissipating, disappearing.
How long do we have?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME.
We have none of it, I smile

And we never will.

A Memory

When looking forward or backward, there is an impermeable haze clouding actuality. Yet, occasionally, it seems that a bit of reality seeps through in slices of perfect recollection. A moment so clear, it seems impossible to skew. During that winter, there was only one person who could rattle my spirits in such a way to avert my daydreams. I feel like it always started with driving.

In his car, we rode silently along the chipped freeway.  Being there with him gave me this inexplicable comfort. I felt the slight movement of his warm hand on my knee, saw the hemp bracelet I made him twist slightly on his wrist. His blue eyes were focused on the road, but I still saw the sun’s light playing with his long eyelashes. His skin shone soft in the morning glow, small freckles hidden under the ivory hue. The navy dress shirt he wore, sleeves rolled up over his elbows, gapped a little around his neck revealing the curve of his collar bone. Something about that vision made it feel good to breathe.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror, and it shocked me how much older I looked. The coolness of winter had turned my lips bright red, a shade that was only enhanced by the vibrant cherry color of my peacoat. My eyes appeared black as coals, lined dark with a silver shadow encircling the almond folds.

“Mana,” he said and pointed out the window. What I beheld was the dreariest city I had yet to encounter. Smokestacks poured a colorless grey into the atmosphere. He laughed and I laughed and without saying a word, we both knew we were in Gary, Indiana. I leaned across the center console and kissed his cheek lightly. I felt his skin stretch into a smirk and a little wave of warmth pass through my head. I brushed his face with the tip of my nose, smiling. Sufjan Stevens sung our background music and I remember being happy to have found a little joy in that gloomy pass. I should have refused to leave that moment, my face on his, the blush of a kiss still hot under my cheekbones, absorbing those beautiful chords, I can’t explain the state that I’m in/The state of my heart, he was my best friend.

We parked and I felt Jack Frost’s breath swirling around me as I stepped out of the car wrapped in a white scarf and knitted mittens. That beautiful boy gathered me to his side and we sauntered along Hyde Park Boulevard. Icicles hung from the trees and we approached a quaint cafe tucked in next to a used bookstore. Our legs assumed the same pace and it felt like we were tied together in a three-legged stroll. I opened the door for him and his eyes grew soft. We ordered two cappuccino and a cinnamon scone and found a seat across from each other. I grabbed his feet with my boots and somehow that felt more intimate than a kiss. I pressed my lips to the mug, enjoying the way the foam clung to my top lip while the milky espresso crept in, warming my goose bumped body. Snippets of conversation rose and fell. I broke off a piece of the scone and tasted the pleasant cinnamon spice permanently intermingling with the memory of him.

We walked over to the bookstore. Orange shelves climbed from floor to ceiling, creating a labyrinth of knowledge. The spines were worn, the pages dog-eared and tattered. I wanted to gather them all in my arms, uncover their secrets, let my mind dance around the notes in their margins. I shuffled my feet towards him, holding a book with a childish grin on my face and he took it from me, “What’s this?”

“Ferlinghetti. When we are married, we should read a poem everyday over breakfast.”

He met my eyes and smiled as I snatched the book back from him. Following the familiar cracks in the spine, I read, “and I am waiting/for linnets and planets to fall/and I am waiting for lovers and weepers/to lie down together again/in a new rebirth of wonder.”

We spent the rest of the day exploring avenues and boulevards, drinking tea, and laughing lightly. He took my hand and I forgot to worry about the time. The parts of that afternoon that still capture my attention seem so obscure and minimal. The unspoken understanding between my lover and I, the way my body reacts to changes in temperature, how bubbly foam tickles cold lips, what it feels like to hold hands in mittens, the kisses of Mr. Frost on my rosy cheeks, how lyrics of songs seem to present themselves at the perfect times, and when lines of poetry make me fall in love with humanity. Things that surprise me, that leave me wishing I could pause and breathe it in for a minute more. Things so wonderful that I couldn’t have possibly conceived them in my mind, but fill me with an inexplicable rebirth of wonder.