reflections.

there are parts of you that you never knew were there, that hide behind what you are, or at least; who you choose to look like to the rest of the world. there is a purity within, that is tainted and altered as it is being shone through the filters and screens that are our appearances. and somehow it survives. it persists. perpetually illuminating, and ever so often it reaches our conscious thoughts unscathed. and it is times like those, that really teach you what it means to be here.

there was a little girl once. she was born small, and sick. she was born an addict. the hospital sheets hardly had time to absorb the warmth of her mother's body, before her mother was gone. she packed only her suitcase, and left only her promises. the little girl didn't know this person, or who she was to her. she did know that her face was the first thing she'd seen when her life began. and she trusted that. somehow.

the little girl was taken home to a place she'd never seen, by a man she'd never met. a man her mother had scarcely met. a man whose ethics outweighed his abilities to forget. but then, the liquor helped with that. she listened to him scream, and she seemed to think that the harder she squeezed her eyes shut the less it would hurt when he touched her. at least she could hear him. at least she could feel him. at least he wasn't gone. not completely, anyway.

ten years would pass, the little girl was learning quickly. she already knew how to double-clutch the man's truck the swiftest route between the pub and the trailer, without waking him up in the passenger's seat floor. she knew which carseats the cops wouldn't drug-tap, and how many tiles were on the ceiling of every room in the house. the man told her she looked like her mother. but the things the girl had learned and seen of the mother scared her. the things she didn't know of the man she shared a home with scared her just as much. her bruises and scars were hidden from the eyes of anyone who would care. funny, she thought, of all the shooting stars she has wasted wishing for someone who cared- her biggest concern now was hiding from them.

she would read to pass the time. any words she could find, she made sense of them. applied meaning to them. dreamed dreams within them. in her classroom she stood taller than the rest, but only when she got to read out loud. only when she could tell the world- well, a room full of 12 year olds- just how she planned to save their lives one day. just how she planned to save the world. only when she knew she could make them understand what's out there, and how much bigger it was than she, or they. or anything. and everyday, she would go home with hope- finding what she expected. she would promise god on her knees at night that she'd make up for the lives wasting around her, if only he'd give her the chance.

she walks home today to the same place, down the same road, with the same pub lights showering the same bodies on the same sidewalk. she still knows how to pick the man out from the pile. she still knows how to keep from being caught staring when she see's the mother out; laughing happily, with a new baby in her arms. the little girl is unrecognizable to this woman now, but still- she watches from afar. she still knows how to pick the locks of the doors she was so frequently thrown into, locked out of. she still cries when she lies about why the man is too busy to meet someone important to her, about when the mother will finally get that big break and call, just to say it's okay to come around.

she still has the same dimples that her mother has. she still has the same dreams that man left behind. and even though she has neither of them, she does have something that's going to take her farther than she ever daydreamed in that classroom.

she has faith.

so let it be said, that when life loses you along the way, and when those you once trusted, and those you could have loved, leave you behind- the days in front of you are because of the days behind you. And the glass seperating the two can be one of two very similar yet fundamentally opposite things:

a mirror, or a window.

lessons of copper pocket lint.

i would like to think that in one hundred years the world will be a better place than it was when i walked here. i would like to think that tomorrow the sun will shine a little brighter to make up for the clouds that distorted it today. i would like to think that ten lives ago... i was someone great. who evidently still hasn't learned their lesson.

i would like to think alot of things.

i was greeted this morning in my oblivious post-slumber fog by an angry sounding alarm clock. of all the things in the world to wake up to; sandy beaches, lush gardens, australians... this is how i readapt to conscious life every 24 hours or so. shaking off this momentary miss-bliss, i pursue my morning ablutions with ferocity, as they peeve me something disdainful, and i come upon a penny-- aglitter and aglimmer in the light of the 60watt energy hog that is the vanity-- and, thinking it nothing more than one of my hundreds of weekly self-disoveries, i pick it up, stick it in a pocket, and meander on to the glorified watering hole with a tube attached that we modern civilians know as showers.

singing 'provincial life' attributed to a certain beautiful/beastly adaptation of moral standards to myself, quite happily i might add, i walk to the bus stop some hours later. the trip home from the belittling satisfaction that is my job always proves interesting. what i was unaware of, at this point in time, was that soon-- life as i knew it was one proverbial flush away from total obliteration.

i don't know who was late first- myself or the bus- but the vacant space before the bench proved all too much for my being to endure. cursing to myself i walked on, wishing some fat kid with a bike i could borrow would happen by. i put my hands in my pockets to complete this encompassing feeling of dread, and i felt something. the penny. cursing it and everyone associated, (at least i was honest, abe), i immediately called it's bluff by summoning the age-old addage of 'find a penny pick it up' to memory. i could have easily, and reasonably, blamed this penny for a lifetime of troubles, i could have easily cast it to the walk for the next poor sap in need of a little hope to find, i could have easily lost my mind.

in a moment i realized the one common practice in all of human woes.

all we really want out of life is something real to count on.

perceptions of a god and the unknown tarnish with age. ideas and beliefs fall away like we from our pasts, but, much like our pasts- they follow us forever. over time faith can die, truth becomes faded, and hope goes down with the ship; white flag in-air. but in the midst of a scramble for a meaning we don't have to lose that sparkle that makes us what nothing else can be. human. screwing up is mandatory. missing out is necessary. and happiness... happiness is contingent.

the bones of it is this: to give a hearty 'fuck you' to safety and security- go out and believe. in absolutely anything. from santa claus to a good luck penny. the only thing that matters, is that you can make like fingerpaint- and not be afraid of life getting a little messy.

drexel street.

i lost the highway 43 miles ago
i ran until i cried
i thought the truth would always lead me home
i'd squeezed it til it lied

of all the places to be here
where is yours

i found god in an empty crate
there was some glass a rock and a bloodstain
i said sorry but this time you're too late
he just closed his eyes and felt the rain
pour

of all the reasons to be here
what are yours

i walked back and i numbered the weary lights
of where they hope to find themselves tomorrow
i lost count around the same time i lost faith
they all looked at me and wondered
how

of all the ones to leave here
who are yours

there was a boy with empty in his eyes
on the corner where you would wait
he said i'm sorry but there's no good down that way
i smiled and said i have lived these lies
home

of all the voices to silence here
which was yours

saw you sitting there like you always do
you had a different shade of smile on your face
i thought if you turned around i would talk to you

but you sat there
and you stayed there
and i lost you
for good

of all the things to destroy here

i was yours

back for you.

if she runs away it doesn't mean that she wants to
if she hides her face it doesn't mean she doesn't want you
to see her
if she packs her things and leaves the magnet letters on the fridge
you know that she'll be back for you

when she leaves you hanging it doesn't mean she meant to
when she see's you crying it's not that she can't do
she won't do
when she hurts then hurts you worse just to feel pretty promise me
you know that she'll be back for you

why she paints her clothes instead of her face
why she knocks you down when all you need is faith
why she wants to hear you love her just to hate you no one knows
but you know that she'll be back for you

how she looks so plain and somehow feels beautiful
how she hates today just because it felt perfect
how she wants to keep your sweater but leaves your life out on the lawn
all say that she'll be back for you

what she loves the most is the picture you colored her
what she lost for hope is an ocean in those eyes of hers
what she doesn't say would never come out right anyway
still you know that she'll be back for you

if she looks at her shoes when you ask her to watch for you
if she turns away when she spent all day finding you
if she holds her breath and hums when your arms are full of her

she just wants to know you'll be back for her.

e. e. cummings and jumping into puddles.

sometimes i wish the world could go blind. sometimes i wish we would all spontaneously lose our sight at the same time, and be thrust into relying on another soul to find home. to be forced to suddenly function on feeling- on truth- rather than the arrogance of sight, of knowing enough about where we are to ignore where we should be. if we lost our ability to comprehend visually, we would no longer look to the brightly colored for standards we should set. look to the thrice suited elders for what we should deem important. look down on those who differ, or up to those who look down on us.

we would be miserably free. in a painful, beautiful way.

the strong would press on, anger fueling them, until they walked into the ocean and never returned. the weak would pity the self, until they trembled for the final time in their dark corner of solitude. the indifferent would simply adapt, leading no joy nor sorrow to encompass their lives, robots feeling their way down 5th avenue to buy a piece of bread, daily goal being to make it to the next. how simple, how lonely, how cruel.

there is one group left to imagine. we will call them the bold.

this group would sense a change immediately. amidst the screams and the turmoil, they would realize how heightened you become, once visual effects no longer are a factor in perception. they would realize that trees also have a sound. that the air also has a taste. that the warmth of the sun can also be felt; not just viewed until recognized and then filed away, ignored. the bold would be scared, of course. but in reaching out, as we as human souls are predetermined to do, once the deepest depth of our perception is taken away; they would feel. one hand would link to another. appendages would intertwine. our most underestimated sense would take hold.

touch.

in considering love and the properties of such, i realized what an age-old cliche has been telling us for centuries. love is blind. there is no question of that. the blindness preys on the weakened portion of our hearts, the vulnerable, the trusting, the needing. blindness accelerates the strength within us, to the point of obliviously digging our own graves. a lifetime of the two, then, can create the bitter indifference, the gaping maw of survival. existence. hollow satisfaction. we become sleep walkers, quietly drifting, heading nowhere in particular. after all, we've earned it, we've been to hell and back.

in our own pain, once again, we forget about the group that lingers. the miscellaneous. the misfits, the odd-ends... the broken toys, perhaps. that fit in none of the above categories. how well they must hide, then, to never be discovered, lurking in shadows. but allow me to venture a theory at which you will be sure to hoot:

the bold live inside all of us. the weak, the strong, and the indifferent just consume us so entirely that we simply feel too much to believe we have the ability to reach such a state of heightened willingness to screw up. look past the fear, past the rage, past the safety, and there you will find the one shot of adrenaline you need to close your eyes, grab a hand, and trust their eyes- and their heart- to lead you in the right direction.

after all, feeling is first.

why pay any attention to the syntax of things?