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Certain capacities

January 29, 2013    |    0 COMMENT(S)

Sometimes I find myself randomly surprised at the many things our bodies and minds can do under pressure, or strong will.

For instance, memorizing more or less a hundred and fifty provisions for a single test that requires specificity and particularity - an ironically difficult task for someone like me who appreciates the stories in the details, but who has the memory of a slightly-more-retentive goldfish - and writing them over and over again, until your hands no longer seeem to move within your control;

holing up in the library for an entire Saturday, just going through cases and reciting provisions alternately, endlessly, without the privilege (and peril) of a high-speed internet connection or other such good enough distraction (i.e. an actual person);

running, without pause, twice around the Oval, even when your legs hurt and your mind is tired, because you realize now that there is a certain kind of comfort, a physical kind of relief that washes over you and makes your cheeks flush, after catching your breath and realizing you have done what no one expects of you;

waking up earlier than usual to read more: to catch up on things forgotten, or to get a step ahead;

starting to like the place that has, since the beginning, only pushed you away, and seeing the beauty in the little things that make it whole: the wooden tables, the marbled tiles, the view of the Sunken Garden, the chatter of people both eager and afraid to get through the day;

looking away when the sound of a private message pops up from the laptop beside yours;

growing deaf to the sound of feelings you're afraid to admit you're slowly turning indifferent to;

choosing to see past mistakes and imperfections; or understanding what it means to mess up and realize what one wants;

forgiving;

welcoming the quiet and the chaos inside your heart that can only be traced to one;

putting yourself back together again, with the pieces that feel right, and the questions that know the answers even without being asked.


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Tacit

January 21, 2013    |    0 COMMENT(S)

The peril of implied actions in obligations is that you can never be too sure.

Has the old obligation been extinguished? Was there an agreement on all parties involved? Is the new one valid? Are the old and new contracts incompatible in all points such that the old obligation is deemed unenforceable? How can you be sure about what to expect from the other party? What do you do?

What? What now?


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a good morning

January 11, 2013    |    0 COMMENT(S)

The thing about looking at things one day at a time is that while it may seem too flighty and noncommittal, when you wake up suddenly to a beautiful feeling - a beautiful, tangled up knot inside your chest that can't wait to burst out - even though it's six and your class isn't until ten, even though you'd still rather sleep because you still have cramps, it makes your morning. And your morning makes your day. And one day can mean everything.



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Parallax

November 19, 2012    |    0 COMMENT(S)

The four of them wanted to see light. Atop the observatory, they were looking up at the stars, half-asleep and half-drunk, but fully expectant of every bit of dust and light that might shoot its way across the sky. They were lying down on the floor and talking, the kind of talk that was aware of how this wasn't the kind of talk they normally do, the kind of talk that was meant only to make sounds to keep each other awake and to keep each other warm. But it wasn't at all gibberish. It was the kind of talk that sang, it was the kind of talk that led to song. They were singing of Stars (or at least two of them were) while waiting for stars, while waiting for something significant, while waiting for a cosmic event that will set things in motion. Wasn't this how it always began? With a bright light and a wish? They were doing nothing else really, other than just look up, but somehow lying there, with friends, in a campus that wasn't theirs, in a night that wasn't even supposed to happen, meant something. The anticipation weighed just as much, if not more, and they knew it. They knew it in the way they clinked their shot glasses, in the way they nibbled on the chips, the way they traversed foreign territory just shy of midnight.

The meteor came - in fact, it wasn't even just a meteor - it was a fireball. It ripped through the black sky quickly, gracefully, almost as if it was ashamed of having ruined the perfect stillness of the sky. It was enough to keep them in awe, in a momentary state of shock. But it was only for a while, only in that instant that it was traversing the blackness across them. After it was gone, they went back to talking, about pasts, about futures, about song. About each other. About things that didn't matter, things that did. They found the light, yes. But it wasn't in the meteor.


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the end where i begin

November 8, 2012    |    0 COMMENT(S)

we keep ending it with a comma, as if we were merely catching breath, as if we have been speaking too much in the last two and a half years and we just needed a break, we did, i now understand, we really did; you did, you thought you did; but what i never realized was i did too, because i kept talking and talking and talking, as if merely rambling out words were enough to justify a conversation; but we both knew what it was, wasn't it? it was no longer just about my day because you asked, it was about your day because i didn't ask and we had nothing else to talk about, so you put a period on it finally, just to end the conversation, and i didn't like the silence, because it drove me crazy, it brought me to the point where i couldn't wash my own dishes, and i refused to sleep on my own bed, and i stopped wearing the pink jacket you gave me, i stopped being me for a while, and it wasn't beautiful at all; but there is an exquisite kind of pain, the kind that makes your eyes sparkle over the joy one finds in little things, the kind that makes one grateful for oreos and donuts and people saying one has nice legs - things that no longer come from you because you put a period on us, and we stopped talking - and i found comfort in that silence, but i refused to accept it, i pushed it all away, because you made a sound again, the sound of a phone ringing in the middle of a night, unanswered with a hello at first, but eventually welcomed with much relief, like a lost pen being found, and we tried to hold on to the sound of our cries and laughs and moving hands, as if trying to make up for the silence of the last four months, as if trying to deny feelings of loss or betrayal or pain, as if pretending knowing about the pill didn't hurt, things that kept looking us back in the eye when we tried brushing them off - so we put a comma, we put a comma because we never want it to end, because it sounds right, but there are other sentences to be written, other stories to be told, and commas only clutter things, like this, because can anything ever make sense in run-ons?



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September 23, 2012    |    0 COMMENT(S)

he did the arm lock to attack all her weak points, which he still knew: feet, waist, armpits, wrists, and everything in between. and laughing didn't even feel wrong, just confusing in a comforting kind of way, because it was 2010 again that night.


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In re early morning episodes

September 20, 2012    |    0 COMMENT(S)

1.
The night is young at 12:22. She looks out the window while everything is at pause, while the silence - this silence - cannot be construed as an acceptance or a refusal, just a statement of fact. The lights left opened in neighbor houses comfort her, for it just means someone else is up at this hour, waiting for something just as well, just as much. Maybe they're waiting for answers too: to a homework, to a person, to a feeling. Maybe they too are bothered, or tired, or distressed. But then she realizes some people sleep with their lamps on, and suddenly the people behind those windows are no longer there - and she is alone again. She counts the hours she still has left before day breaks and takes the silence as a yes, a yes to finally saying good night, to this, to now, to an unrealizable future.

2.
When she realized what her hands were doing and where they were going, she stopped, for what good would that do? She was touching the seat belt, the buttons, the door, (not him, no longer him), in hopes of still finding herself in this passenger seat she used to call her own. And then after a few more minutes of nervous fiddling she got what she wanted: the perfume was still there, perfectly enclosed in its box inside the glove compartment. 

3.
She looks at the mirror and she sees a different person. "You look anguished," a friend said last night, as an endearing insult. Somehow she hears the mirror saying the same thing, only with much resolve, and less humor.

4.
She looks at him, on the floor, and he is not looking back, for he is sleeping, he is away, he is somewhere else she couldn't hurt him. Maybe that's where he should stay, and maybe that's where she should want him to be. But she looks at the empty seat beside her and all she can think of is, What's taking so long?


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Musings from the fourth floor at four in the morning

August 17, 2012    |    0 COMMENT(S)

(1) For the first time in a while, it isn't a rainy morning. The sky is not quite blue yet, just a shy shade of lilac still waiting for the grays to fade away. (2) It is marvelous how the chaos of a room looks comforting under the semi-darkness of early morning. (3) Blankets are on the floor again; the body speaks the truth in sleep: one has accepted that there isn't always comfort in warmth. (4) There is an overwhelming feeling of control when one chooses to eat breakfast at 4:21, when the clock looks at you and says "It's too early for that," but you take a bite anyway. (5) Much more empowering is thinking of other food while taking a bite. It is as if you are saying "Just because you are here doesn't mean it is you that I think about." (6) Being dramatic over a slice of bread is a symptom of stress and exhaustion. (7) But it can also mean being alone has been embraced again, that the idea of talking to yourself and no one being there to listen isn't so bad anymore. (8) Being alone is a circumstance. Feeling alone, however, is a different story. (9) The sky is blue now.


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