Finding Momentum

There is noth­ing ahead but fire­light, sweet chamomile tea, four ounces of froth and eraser dust. Sud­denly, we too are chil­dren; we too are pop­pyleaf flow­ers rid­ing rogue gusts of unbri­dled wind. The solace you seek lies one octave above, above the cloud cover, above the sor­row and heavy mat­ters of dirt, scan­dal and earth. […]

I. When the rest­less­ness again enters my legs We dare do what mere men dare not! We linger in the rain when moth­ers world­wide would frown, wag­ging their fin­gers at us chil­dren lol­ly­dal­ly­ing in the pud­dles, stomp­ing on muddy daisies, the rain soak­ing our pores. We run exclu­sively when it’s wet, through throngs of umbrel­laed passerbys […]

Let’s love when we’re young, and let our freck­les shine in the dark. Let’s love hastily and reck­lessly because we fear the cousins of the unknown. We might stum­ble and we might fall, but we have time, fear­ful, dread­ful time on our side. Let’s love when we’re old, and let our wrin­kles count our bot­tled years. […]

Six AM sun still slow bite the chill of morn­ing air and a win­dow left ajar sirens and city noise are your ser­e­nade as you stretch and shake off cob­webs of yes­ter­day. Seven. –8/28/2004

There are four of us in this room, keep­ing the six-o’clock watch mark­ing the sun’s descent in this myrtle-green night­club under­go­ing trans­for­ma­tion to a sacred space, saw­dust fill­ing our nos­trils and uncov­er­ing shafts of light leak­ing from sky­lights (and I sneeze). One cor­ner of the room is a cafe in a half-constructed state with orange […]

There is a strange art instal­la­tion in the side of the Vuit­ton store here in the mall that my fam­ily walks through each night–a neon-rimmed iri­des­cent par­a­bolic reflec­tor behind wall-to-wall glass, a bright bulb in the mid­dle direct­ing light into the cen­ter of the mall. Return­ing the gaze of the giant iris evokes a haunting […]

Look up, look up, look up, look up. Life is far too beau­ti­ful, far too valu­able to waste it on your­self. It is a gift; you are to love, live, give breathe. We were made with too many holes, I think. They accu­mu­late, these scrapes and bruises as we teeter off bicy­cles, miss appoint­ments, exhale […]

We sit in the van breath­ing the same air, together in the seven-seater as a fam­ily for the first time in many years. “It’s so weird,” my sis­ter insists, “it’s so weird, grad­u­at­ing.” Four hun­dred fam­i­lies had cel­e­brated her grad­u­at­ing class that after­noon. My dad looks over the driver’s seat, “How does it feel?” “It’s a […]

Do you ever worry about los­ing your­self in some­body else? That they would com­pletely and fully engulf you in your every wak­ing moment. That their words would become your words, their thoughts would become your own, their iden­tity is trans­planted into your own? Are you ever as miss­ing as the empty pil­low beside you; lonely […]

[HE, a young man stands in cor­ner of room, back turned away from HIM, a fatherly fig­ure. A chair in the mid­dle of the room.] HE: [paces room] It’s like I’m stand­ing here at the precipice, some sort of mile high moun­tain [stands up on chair] and I’m look­ing down at the val­ley below and I […]