disparate

it's not that i'm not tired-
i am. i'm so weary.
and it's times like this,
that i can't seem to muster the strength to do get up off the bed and wash up for bed so i can actually sleep.

instead, i lie here. with my head down, staring at the screen, in a vague state of inebriation, clinging to this restless imitation of rest, acknowledging that this quiet numbness would pale in comparison to sleep, but yet unwilling to concede because in order to be able to really rest, i must be the opposite. i must leave this vaguely resemblent state in favor of a state so disparate from what i want to be. but it's worth it.

can you guess what this is analogous with,
where the parallels can be drawn in?
yeah, connect those dots.

sighh.

i really am weary.

you're still the one

looks like we made it
look how far we've come my baby
we might've took the long way
we knew we'd get there someday

one day, i'll get to sing those words to you.

ain't nothing better
we beat the odds together
i'm glad we didn't listen
look at what we would be missing

one day.
okay?

one life to love

you only get just one time around,
you only get one shot at this.
one chance to find out
the one thing that you don't wanna miss.

one day when it's all said and done,
i hope you see that it was enough-
this one ride, one try, one life to love.
- one life to love/33miles

flaccid

today, i had lunch with the woman with the weakest handshake in the world. it wasn't so much that her grip was weak, but rather, an absolute lack of any semblance of a grip.

it started out like any other handshake, she held out her hand and i extended my own and met hers halfway. but then things started getting a little strange. i grabbed her hand and curled my fingers around her fingers, but to my surprise, and slight disgust, her fingers remained completely flaccid and uninterested. my fingers were quite offended by the lack of effort her fingers put into this handshake. i was carrying all the weight while her hand was just suspended there as what i can only assume to be a disagreeable formality in her mind.

it seriously baffled me. after all, handshakes are kind of a big deal. they're crucial components of first impressions in the adult world and she is clearly an adult. how has she gotten by? i wonder if she's aware of her shortcoming, if this is something she does on purpose? i mean. it's not that hard to curl your fingers a little to acknowledge the other person's hand. i'm not even remotely exaggerating. her fingers didn't even tilt in a single degree or bend in the least to greet mine! they just. flaccid. that's the only world that could describe her handshake. no. not handshake. there was no shake. just "hand."

come out of the shade

imported from facebook.

was it love, or just something that reminded me of
something that felt a lot like, but wasn't

take a step and come out of the shade
i can tell you're no longer afraid
i'm helpless without your warming smile



take a step and come out in the sun
i can tell it's already begun
i'm helpless without your warming smile

- the perishers

postsecret

i won a raffle! he called my name.
one less thing on my list of things to do before i die :)

my secret:
when i was ten, my dad moved us to china.
i pretended to be upset, but secretly,
i was thrilled-
the police couldn't chase me all the way to china for the pair of little magnetic cross earrings i had shoplifted from the drug store in new jersey i can't even remember the name of now.

broken hearts parade

just another lonely soul marching
just another dragging sole keeping time
for love remembered.

to what beat do i march to,
when the drumming of our hearts have stopped?

though i cannot fly,
i'm not content to crawl.

a taste of happiness

what does happiness taste like?

it tastes like moon cakes in the hotel room with my dad, unwinding to tv after an activity-filled day.
it tastes like california rolls in the food court after a satisfying shopping spree at the mall with jenna and dilys.
it tastes like a creamy pesto grilled cheese sandwich in the campus center with alex, jane, and joe between a play and a movie.
it tastes like dimsum in chinatown with allistair after reading to kids during sunshine story hour.
it tastes like a grilled cheese shared with chris in the campus center at 2 am after walking through the rain and partying it up in hillsides with new friends and old.

but still, the only thing i long for
is a taste of happiness breathed straight from your lips.

all i've got

i've got crumbs in my bed,
and tangles in my hair.

but pray tell,

what, oh what,

is it that i've got in my heart?

all i know is you've got thorns on your brow,
and nails in your hands,

and that should be more than enough for me.

light switch rave

do you ever think

when you're all alone

all that we can be 

where this thing can go?

am i crazy or falling in love?

is it really just another crush?

do you catch a breath

when i look at you?

are you holding back

like the way i do?

cause i've tried and tried to walk away

but i know this crush ain't going away

once again, the question arises:

do i want this to go away?

on and off

on and-

wait for it,

wait for it-

off.

on 

on 

off 

off 

on-off-on-on-off.

we're living a frigg'n light switch rave.

it's me, debra

once again, i sit here on my bed with my fingers poised and my heart heavy and i type away. and then i erase it all because it's all ugly. just like last sentence, just like this sentence. just like every sentence i harbor inside right now. these past two weeks have been. have been. have been what? halloween night conversations and candy. helplessly listening to your saturday night drunken depression. thursday night questioning faith sermon. friday night with my dad and watching changeling. friday night in the hotel room after he's gone to sleep, sitting on the floor of the bathroom, crying on the phone with you. who am i? am i happy? sometimes i feel like i'm pretending to be the very person i need in my life. if that makes any sense. i need someone who has complete and utter faith, someone who will get people excited about God. and since i haven't found that someone, i'm trying to be her. for me. for everyone. because if that's who i need, others must need it too. but is that really me? that's who other people see me as, but i'm not convinced. i'm. it's just.

my entire identity is built up around who i am in Him. in who He says i am. in what He's done for me rather than who i am and what i do. i can't help wonder if i'm just holding on because i'm scared that when i let go, everything will change. my friends. the music i listen to. the way i express my love. the way i see the world. the people i'm attracted to. the way i act to attract people. but even as i say that, i know it's not that i'm choosing not to let go. i couldn't even if i wanted to. i can't even imagine that existence. is it even possible for me to fall away? every time i pick up a guitar what songs am i going to play? when i'm scared or hurting or stressed, how can i not cry out to God and ask Him to hide me now, under His wings. and every verse i know by heart, every verse i know on which side of the bible it's on, every verse i know to be true, how will my heart ever forget them? how can i keep myself from praying, from worshipping Him, from talking to Him. but is it only impossible cause it's habit, it's all i know. it's. is it? i mean, i know life before that. i wasn't always a christian. but that's the other thing. with all this interfaith conversations i've been having i can't help but wonder, had this not been the first religion i tried out, would i be as devout in believing something else? i was okay during the conversations because i knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what i believed to be true and that i believed it simply because i had experienced Him and no logic can ever change what i knew from experience. but. then there she was talking about other religions and how they felt their God's presence, they experienced their God in the same way we did. christians aren't the only ones who have a God that can be experienced. now what? where does that leave me? then there was him who said that christianity was nice and all but it was more of a emotional outlet. and all these questions. all my questions. they clamber up to the surface. but i was still okay until that movie and all the thoughts of death it put in my head. why is death always such a brick wall to me? i get so scared, so unsure, so timid. i crash into it. i fall. and everything unravels. because if i can't believe in heaven and hell, then where does that leave me? it's so easy to have faith here. now. about our future. about what God is doing in our world. our world-here. i want to teach in inner city public schools because i believe that even if i can't make a difference in what i teach them, i'll know and be able to pray for them, and that could make all the difference. it's so easy to believe in His power and His love and His grace and even His sacrifice. but. why can't i seem to believe in heaven and hell? what good was the sacrifice if it was for no purpose, if it didn't allow us, who were all destined for hell, to get to heaven and spend eternity with God. so why is death such a clincher in my mind. i think about death and all i think is the end. full stop. i can't. i don't. i.

who am i?

who are You?

i'm so scared of death

tonight, my dad and i went to go see the movie changeling about a mother whose son is kidnapped and the corruption of the LAPD who returned her a nine-year-old boy who isn't her son and when she insists that it's not her son and begs them to keep looking, they shut her up in an insane asylum until one of the non-corrupt cops stumbles across a homicide involving a farm on which twenty little boys were hacked to death by a man named gordon. and there's this one part of the movie after gordon is convicted of the murders and has finished his two years of solitary confinement and it's time for hanging and he's walking down the stairs from his cell into the room with the gallows and i felt a pang with each shaky step down the stairs as if the steps were extensions of my heart. i don't even know how to describe the feeling. i could picture him running through his head everything he wouldn't ever do again, the grass he would never feel again, the rays of sunlight and the droplets of rain, the feeling of ice-cream dripping down his chin, the comfort of a bed beneath him and the snugness of down blankets on a cold night. i could feel the overwhelmingly trippy notion that right now i'm treading this ground, breaking in these shoes, wiggling my toes in these socks, still seeing faces and breathing the air of this world, but in a matter of minutes it's all going to stop. one second you're here and the next you're not. you can't even wrap your head around that other state--death. and then he had to climb the steps to the gallows and he's practically in hysterics and he's crying and holding on to the railing and the guards are marching him up the stairs and he's crying and crying "PLEASE, don't make me walk so fast!" and even though he's the bad guy, that moment my heart broke for him. "don't make me walk so fast.." his sobs filled my chest. death. it's so permanent. what's on the other side? hell? heaven? it's so easy to have faith about now. about things God is doing and going to do on earth. it's so easy to have the faith to start prayer meetings, to cry out to God, to intercede, to worship Him. here. but i'm so scared of death. it feels like a brick wall and i can't. i can't. i don't know. i'm scared. and then i was talking to my dad on the subway and maybe it was because he was telling me about schindler's list and life is beautiful, but looking into his eyes and seeing the wrinkles on his face, i felt so incredibly sad. i don't want him to die. i don't want to think about ever having to lose him. and what happens after inevitably i do? i feel like that guy walking up the stairs: don't make me walk so fast. because every step i take is one step closer to when i have to lose someone. and a little part of me is going to die. and another and another, until one day, i'll give up that last little piece. and then what?

exactly enough time

everything changed the day she figured out
there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.

once when i was younger,
when my heart was still situated at a lower center of gravity
and falls brushed off as easily as the dirt sticking to my clothes,
i found myself standing downwind of a conversation.

i retraced the path of the wind until finally,
there i was, standing in the doorway of their words.
in my silent curiosity, i poked my head through
and glimpsed the amused faces of mother nature and father time
trading anecdotes about their children.

the tinkling of their laughter resounded like wind chimes as i,
enticed and unable to resist their giddy amusement,
pushed aside my wariness and stepped in through the doorway.

for a while there was silence,
and the wind no surreptitious messages to deliver.
they stared at me, and i at them.
then they glanced at each other
and a twinkle passed between their gazes.

they sat me down and told me a secret,
a secret of the most classified sort that most people only catch vague snippets of when their lives start to wind down and they find time to close their eyes and pay enough attention to the wind to hear its secrets.
and even then they only hear vowel sounds, for the wind does not dabble in consonants.

abounding with a childish appetite for secrets,
i pinky promised with five gatrillion cherries on top and crossed each and every heart and star under the sky and sucked in my pursed lips to demonstrate the vast control i had over them.
they laughed at me and said with a sad smile, that won't be necessary,
they wouldn't believe you anyway.

i smiled back, not fully understanding
and still convinced of the necessity of my secrecy.
i sat there expectantly until finally they told me with that same sad smile,
the simple secret that changed my life:
there's exactly enough time for all the important things in life.

i began to cry. if this was the case, it was too late! if there's only exactly enough time, i've already run out of what i would need.

again i heard that light tinkling laughter
and i lifted my tear streaked face up,
start now, they told me kindly. and with that, the wind took me by the hand and together we raced back home.

where i proceeded to plop down in front of the television and watch scooby doo then full house then friends then the oc, gilmore girls, one tree hill, pushing daisies, how i met your mother.. until i managed to waste the next decade of my life. and now here i am. haha jk. i just don't feel like writing any more..

but seriously it's hard to be motivated to do work when i know that there are bigger things in life.
and without motivation holding me back, i'm making a break from reality and taken up permanent residence with indulgement. i just want to go out in the world and embrace the living daylights out of it and then photograph them on their way out, down to the last drops.

i feel numbingly good, as long as i choose not to look over my shoulder at the impending descent of reality and all my responsibilities.

now that it's all said and done

sigh, i had to delete everything i typed,
all the inarticulate details.

vague shapes have taken over my mind.
they claim to be my thoughts,
and i surrender to them.

boo.
did i scare you?
when was the last time you were scared?

i typed, then deleted your answer just now,
maybe i've romanticized it in my head-
i tend to do that.

maybe i'm just scared right now
because if that warranted reading into, then
shouldn't this?
and if so,
is it over?

which is ironic, seeing as just last night i explained why i couldn't get over you with the fact that, if there was a chance that you weren't over us yet, why should i have any need to get over you? that would just leave two unnecessary broken hearts. mine, as i tried to let you go. and yours, from being let go and feeling a need to match my letting go. and then mine furthered, from seeing you letting go and and and... there's no end. if there's even a chance of us, i'll hold on. i can wait for you, i can.

but maybe you are over us.

and if you are-
what the heck are you doing?