Reflections on Third Avenue

I don't know where the hours went.

The days, weeks months.

It's 9 p.m. 

Where did the last 3 hours go?

Yesterday morning feels years away.

But I remember the dusk of summer

Like it happened today.

I look out the window

And can remember this view, the first time

On that steamy August morning

Penetrating New York sunshine.

A year of new friends and play.

So much work, always more to be done,

Learning, creating, and exploring

All my dreams finally won.

And there's more but first there's less

And some things stay and some things go

So I have to keep what I can and let the rest be

Though what, in the end, I'm left with, I'll never truly know.

--3.31.09

Draft II

It's hard to believe without trust.

"I love you"

Always comes with strings attached.

It's not just a story that

Lives with me, not New York or Chicago.

Those words, and everything they mean and shouldn't mean

Live in me, and in everywhere they don't belong.

There was a time when I arrived

I was here - here was where I was.

Those heaviest of words didn't matter.

I didn't remember the past.

I forgot I didn't have to focus on it.

I just didn't - I was released.

And this state of being to which all aspire 

I escaped from, and was free.

I knew it wouldn't last, and it didn't;

Now I'm indecisively split

With so many people

To whom I have lost this resilient heart.

Fighting against is hard,

Fighting for is perhaps twice as difficult.

--1.19.09

Written as an assignment for voice and speech, requiring the lines "I love you" and "I forgot I didn't have to focus on it" the subject being love.

Report Card

The chemistry just isn't working.

I was never good at science anyway.

The artsy types rarely are.

But I thought they were supposed to be good at falling in love.

Well I'm not very good at that either.

And being good at organizing isn't much help,

'Cause you can't organize emotions

In the shelves of life that keep falling apart.

I was a straight A student. I remember that.

I used to be good at being good.

Now I'm not even good at falling.

--3.11.09

Unbitten

I wake hoping to sleep

Rarely sleep.

Hour after eternal hour

Waking in despair.

Empty and falling

With no one to land with

No hands touching

Vacant lips.

Hot fingertips, freezing heart

Skin breaking,

Blood self-inflicted

Letting go.

Forgetting earlier words

Forgetting self

Can't forget you or the others

Haunted.

Falling

Breaking

Running out of hope

I've lost you, or

You've lost me.

--3.11.09