Thanksgiving Weekend

Well, that was yesterday... I don't remember everything that the psychic said, except that I am lonely, will have interruptions in my life but will eventually be stable and successful. I should "focus my divine communication" and that I had a gift for understanding the world in a way that others can't. I don't know how much is true and how much is just sweeping generalization that everyone can apply to themselves!

Anyway, LilSis, Jar, JD, Jen, Aunt B and Uncle R went home this morning. Times have really changed... everyone has their own life now...

I went to buy some jewelry but I didn't want anyone to see me and then I saw Nanny and Judy at the counter, so I am hiding before I go to pay for what I picked out.

Maybe Dr. G read that dream about the emeralds... Maybe that's why she called me...

I still feel this tension-- like I have to get away fast. But then I remember that I am away and I wonder why that pressing and that choke have not freed me yet. I don't know why or where, but it's like-- I feel this primitive voice screaming "GO! GO! RUN! Change worlds NOW!" And I am desperately trying to ignore it because I don't understand it or what it is asking me to do.

I think I'll get up now to see if Nanny is still there.

**********************

Uh oh... She was there with five other people. I just walked by and the sales lady didn't see me... Maybe I shouldn't buy anything. Maybe it is all stupid. Why do I really want it anyway?

I am getting a really bad headache and I don't have any Advil with me, but God... it's going to be a bad one.

Maybe I should just go get my coat and take a walk by myself around the lake and write poetry. (God, I still haven't done that paper!) But I have been perfect with cigarettes this weekend! I just want to go to sleep... or to go away or something... I told you, I hear the call, but I don't understand the instinct of how to get rid of the urgency or the ache.

This woman next to me just borrowed a coin to scratch off a lotto ticket and she won $3. I hear my mom's voice, but she doesn't see me. I guess they have left the jewelers though, so I can go over in a few minutes. I will wait for them to disappear around the corner.

Psychic

I just got a psychic reading. Everyone is asleep on the couch. I will write more later.

Isolating

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Anyway, I am surviving so far... I have been playing piano all day. It is so hard for me though, to have so much going on and not to be able to talk to my mom or anyone about it when all of it is spinning, spinning, spinning inside. I wonder what that phone call from Dr. G. meant... Does she think that I am even more crazy now and is trying to be nice about it? I don't know...

I am just feeling so suck of routine... I feel like I need some kind of a clean break form everything. But then I wonder if that would just be running away.

I just want to be myself again and read and love it and write music and poetry and feel good and productive and to have everyone that meets me admire me... I think I need that.

******************************

Anyway, later in the day (9:55 PM) and I am skipping out on the night club. BigSis and my mo just got into a fight in front of Aunt N about LilSis' "bad behavior" and my mom ended up crying. I really can't stand it when she cries... It's always a sign to me that things are "really bad."

I asked her about how I was when I was little, though, and she said that I didn't show a lot of anger or aggression and I didn't throw a lot of tantrums, but when I did they were disproportionately insane and I would cry uncontrollably and bang my head in public and stuff... I don't know... Will any of this ever make sense? What Dr. G. said about Olympic ice skating is right though-- you never win without falls along the way and you just have to be able to pick yourself up and brush yourself off...

******************************

I just moved down to the lobby (by the piano). I don't know why I need to be by myself so much... I just don't have the energy to see the show and do that whole thing... I need time for my own thoughts and I'm not even sure where or what they are anymore. The curtains in here are painted in smokey shadows of pink and slashed with light, echoing (although not repeating) the stony tones of the nightscape of winter (sparkling pavements and frozen throats!) My right eye burns and I don't know why...

I keep thinking about that "Cassandra" theme... I am overwhelmed with the urge to create, but am utterly uninspired.Those things really develop when they start from nothing.

I finished that painting project with the wooden planks that Scheisser gave me... It came out really cool... I just have to attach the chains and have my stepfather connect it for me.

"Can a man carry fire in his bosom and his garments and not be burned?" (Proverbs, 6:27)

"The soul unto itself is an Imperial friend or the most agonizing spy an enemy could send." (Emily Dickinson)

The Night I Discovered "Kettle One"

In a taxi on my way to meet Ally at the World Trade Center. I had my appointment with Dr. G today and she gave me back one of my journals with little notes stuck in it... It's so funny that she noticed that VJ told me I have "borderline personality disorder" and she asked me what I knew about it and the answer is absolutely nothing. That is, until two days ago... And VJ never really told me that directly anyway... She just referred to cutting yourself. Dr. G told me that it is really bad to do that and that I have to stop, but it's not as easy as all that... I guess she's right, though. I should at least try.

Tomorrow BigSis and Bro-in-Law are picking me up to go to the Catskills (K this year), but I'm really not up for it this year... I just have no energy-- things are finally beginning to sort themselves out enough that it seems weird to have to stuff them all back in... I don't know... Well, it's kind of hard to write in the care, so I will stop for a while.

**********************************

Anyway, I'm still in the taxi... I was just thinking about this thing with ChoirMan. I know that he says it was all me and Ray says that it made him uncomfortable, but that still doesn't sit right... I wrote him that letter apologizing and saying how weird I felt and how I never wanted it to happen again, but on Monday when I got out of the car at the gates, he got out of the car too, as if he wanted to kiss me, but didn't... I don't think that I am so bad at picking up signals that I am reading this wrong...

I don't know... this taxi ride is taking forever and I am getting really annoyed. Anyway, I will close for now.

I Just Want to Get Better

Well, Wednesday sucks and Thursday was spent in tears, but I have decided that his is done. I was doing all this research on the Internet about Borderline Personality Disorder. It's creepy that I fit almost every symptom. I guess it would explain so much...

Anyway, I was supposed to go home this weekend, but I had to get out of the doctor's appointment because of the slashes on my arm, so I stuck around here. I hung out with Contessa on Friday and had a choir meeting at "Student Activities." Then I did some shipping, rented a movie and cleaned my room...

Saturday I slept most of the afternoon and then went out with some people in my suite for one of their birthdays.

Today I never even got out of bed, except for the fire drill and to pick up my food downstairs. I swear, I slept on and off for the whole day (it is 2:48 AM now and of course, I am wide awake.) But I feel really good... I didn't drink at all, and I think it's a kind of detox. I mean, emotionally I am still drained, but in a different kind of way.

I really feel a renewal coming... and not just because things are so bad and I've hit bottom, but it is just getting better.... it is. I am never going to call Scheisser and I am not going to get drunk (at least until after Thanksgiving). (Well, maybe just a little buzzed...)

I am so tempted to pour all of this out to my mom and I think that is a really good sign because that means my issues are fading int o"history" and are not as pressing and that they will be irrelevant one day and I will be able to tell her.

I just want to get better. I JUST WANT TO GET BETTER. I just want to get better.

I will prove to everyone that I am not dead. I am still as good as I used to be.... and I have redefined myself, and I have escaped the "one I was" and so now if I go back, I am not trapped there... I just can't let myself get trapped here either.

Whatever... I have to wake up in five hours and Ally is coming tomorrow, so I should try to get some sleep.

Wanting to Run

This just sucks... I am so, so tired and emotionally drained and there is no one left and nobody trusts me... I am so sick of this and I want to pick up and run away. But where will I go? I don't even have the energy to move...

VJ and I are supposed to go see Elizabeth at the movies today...

Angry

Okay. Twelve hours later and I have somewhat calmed down, although I can still not comprehend such a betrayal! He is a psychotic lunatic who can't let me have control over my own life. And I have to discredit him in every way possible... Basically, I hope he backs off after Dr. G tells him that I am OK and his help is unwanted and unnecessary.

But God, how I hate him!!! And God damn him for doing this to me. And AIR7 too... What a way to fuck things up!

I don't even want to think about it because I can't even process what I am feeling into any other emotion than anger and hatred and definitely not into words...

It is 3:48 PM and I am starving, but I have to wait two hours to go to dinner with VJ. Maybe I will go check my email... I have no clean socks, so I have no clue how I'm even going to wear my boots. Maybe I'll wear them without socks...

To Trust or Not to Trust?

So, now I don't know what to think... I was so sure that he was a controlling asshole and now I don't know again... What if he really does care about me and I'm just overreacting? He was really nice at the end and said that now he trusts me and he will be there for me, but he also said that he didn't trust me or respect me before... Which means basically that I meant shit to him at all, without trust or respect. And therefore, that should negate him "caring about me" so much that he had to intervene, meaning that it was all an asshole control thing to do-- like VJ--- holding something that made her vulnerable in his possession and then watching her squirm... so is is an asshole... But maybe an asshole who cares about me...

Whatever. I knew he would convince me that he means well... Fuck. He almost convinced me. And God, I want to trust him and for him to be trustworthy, but I can't! I want to, I want to, I want to, but it is too risky... He is playing with the one part of me that I can't let anyone touch-- the facade. I have to hold this together somehow and trusting him just is not possible.

Hyde-- you hate him, you hate him, you hate him, you hate him, you hate him, YOU HATE HIM!!! And please, please, please, please, please don't forget it! You are safe now (besides figuring out what he said to her) and you can stay that way by staying away from him. You have to convince her that you are more credible than he is. That fucking asshole... Robbing me like this...

Why couldn't he trust me to begin with? Why couldn't he just give one the benefit of the doubt, or did he really value and respect me that little??? And if that is the case, I want to die for ever having been so stupid as to trust him... How many times has he made me cry, and has he made me panic.... And what am I? A toy or game to be laughed at? To amuse him? to give him his fucking high and then be dropped without a second though like he did to Anne and VJ? And I was not even supposed to be his girlfriend, but his friend...

And now I know that AIR7 hates me for doing this to him... And I deserve to be hated because even if Scheisser did this to me, I know that in some way I made him do it to me, and so, if AIR7 is hurt, it is I who hurt him and I hurt Scheisser and I hurt myself and so many other people and so I deserve all of the pain now. I deserve to suffer while he pulls the strings (but I can't handle it!)

And God, if only I could let myself trust him again... If only I had never been such a fucking fool dot trust him in the first place. That is probably my own fault and I should never have trusted him and I should never trust anyone again.

Now he feels better... Now that nothing has changed, but I have suffered and he can show me what he can do to me with just worlds... Oh God, he has won so thoroughly and he knew he would in the beginning... Why did I even bother fighting? All of this was unnecessary... I did not need his help-- and I think he knew it all alone.

(But what if he DOES care and he WAS trying to help and he cares a lot about me?)

Hyde, don't let yourself think that way. Remember that you hate him, you hate him and you have to. You have to hate him to save yourself!

You have to hate him to save yourself!

Betrayed

He is shit, he is is shit. I fucking hate him and I want him to die. He is such a worthless asshole. He is twisted and cruel and power hungry and domineering and I have NEVER felt such hatred before. That piece of shit, asshole moron who I want to stab over and over. That shithead. Fuck! He doesn't understand anything.

A Quickie

Okay. I just left Dr. G's and I can't believe that I left three of my journals there!

**************************

Okay. AT B's and shit! Remind me to write more later.... He will be back from the bathroom in a second... Oh! I hope I remember everything spilling through. Oh! And another reminder-- remember to transfer your phone mail onto a cassette tape.

Back from Washington

Well, I'm back from DC and sitting in the BP (at Haven). I am not pissed anymore, but I still have to be careful... I know that he will take things into his own hands when he feels it is "appropriate," but that is a chance I just can not take...

Anyway, I just checked my messages and I got one from B and one from GoldenFinch, each equally bizarre and happy and in each of them they mentioned the other. I am pretty sure that they hooked up this weekend. And while I'm happy for them, I will feel kind of weird if that really happened... I mean, I don't want them to share information and I don't want to be the odd man out...

Oh well... I have to wait until tomorrow to hear the full story anyway.

I almost feel like everyone is lost, though, and slipping away more rapidly (special!). But AIR7 is right -- I can never be that to ChoirMan. How is it so easy for other people to deal with people and not care about them with their soul (Scheisser) and I am exhausted...

I just drove five hours back form Washington so I will sort all of this out tomorrow.

(Oh God... tomorrow night!)

My Epiphany (in the National Gallery of Art)

The insanity of longing and the motion, motion of all of it! And how he was blessed with the gift of letting others see through his eyes! See the quivering of every moment and understand the pain that I have always understood but have never been able to adequately express.

And now I stare into the dead pale cheeks of the past-- hollow eyes and spun gray hair wrapped in rich fabrics of pink and white (although I have lost AIR7 and Scheisser) and the shadowed winds of the storm sweeping nature in to terror means nothing against their cold, plastic stares... These two women and her children (Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough) and the death against the memory of Van Gogh so poignantly teaches about vision and about how all of our truths create absolute truth.. that no one being can understand it and very few can even present their own piece of it, but all together convinces me that truth exists... in form less tangible than emotion and impenetrable by language an though.

Is that what they mean when they say "God?" Is that the presence I see etched into the sorrow of her blank stare and the glow of her white neck against the wind?

*********************************************

Okay, later and in the quiet darkness of gray and black, illuminated by reflections of bronze and rosy kisses of light spun with blue and broken by the black of winding tree limbs. Four small patches pressed into the wall and winding leaf motives (La la!) climb in swirls of smoke and fall simultaneously in gentle arches and crests. Shards of yellow and ribbons of pink, rocks of turquoise (Peter) and washes of blue... and I am so in love with color and I long to be locked in the same way, but I am reminded that I dream it and the pain that it causes then...

AIR7 and Scheisser are gone and I am supposed to meet them in half an hour...

But I stood in that room of fantasy and whispered (anachronistically against the glass)

"Look at yourself now, Hyde! Look at yourself now!"

And her hair falls in two great thick golden ropes and the blazing eye on that ceramic goose (powdered faces tuning brown) and Gabriel's feathers match those of the gold candle sticks (moulding like the Fleur de lys) and I wonder if anyone still knows that it's the symbol of annunciation... that Chinese fortune that says "the philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next" but it clearly works the other way too...

And that kiss keeps coming back to me (or should I say those "kisses") and I am really worried because I sense the start of something bad, and yet I can't (don't want to?) stop it... and these glowing images promise peace, but I can't reach out and take it... not yet... I'm not ready

(Open and read! Open and read!)

I am still sucking the sweet juice of that stolen pear, but with the fearful knowledge of that day in the garden. (The Christ child's sorrow!)

God, what am I going to do about him... about myself... everyone has given their warnings and yet the lion's teeth invite me still.

(They are all broken Cassandra's! Eyes stained with the blood to come!)

I think she will be my theme for now (Sweet Mary, I am sorry!) and Gabriel is brown now and the lights here brightly dim (My eyes burn from the bronze reflections!)

And all I need is "air, air, air!" (Thanks, Porfiry Petrovitch)

*****************
CASSANDRA

Screams but is not heard
Sees but can not explain
Warns but is ignored
Knows but is not believed

STABS BUT DOES NOT DIE!!!!

People Pleasing

Plummeting on the LIRR back towards home. I have to pick up the car today to go to Washington. And although I haven't finished my old journal, I feel such a break in myself that i Had to start a new one. (I went in on Wednesday).

And the sky is streaked with the colors of my afternoon at the seaport; and my guilt sits at the bottom of my stomach like a rock.

VJ is in the hospital and I feel so terrible for her... nobody deserves that... but there is nothing I can do. I don't know...

And this whole thing with ChoirMan is really getting to me... PhysicsGuy is right and KSing is right, and I know that, but God, how I don't want them to be... And why should I subject myself to more disappointment? Isn't anything constant or unconditional? It's just so easy for me to fool myself and swim in hope.

And AIR7 told me: "this is where it stops! and that he's "coming down hard on me." But that is so foolish! I am drowning and desperately grasping at straws to keep my head above the water and he thinks that if he says to me "okay-- this time swim to shore; enough is enough," that I can say "okay" and just be better! I CAN'T do any better than I am doing at this moment, and try to understand why.

I think I know why about ChoirMan though; and I think that it holds true for everyone-- I want to please people so desperately and to be the person that everyone wants me to be... I can't tell my mom any of this because I want to be the best daughter possible...

And I hate myself for what I do to GoldenFinch because I want to be the best friend possible... And staying up for B until 6:00 AM when I had a fever... and taking Schiesser that angel food cake... and now this with ChoirMan...

It's like, if he couldn't deal with me before because I wasn't on his level, I have conformed to everything he could ask for and I have become what I had disdained... And it's not fair that he's that way... And that I am so easy to twist... And then I wonder where this comes from and I think maybe it comes from my dad...

He would come home drunk and we would pretend to be sleeping. Or he would ask "Who loves Daddy the best?" and I would should "Me! Me! ME!" whether I felt like it or not. I learned not to interrupt or ask questions. He was too drunk to make sense. And I learned when and how to play along with the whole game... And life became a series of situations that I had to respond to appropriately. And "appropriately" came to mean how others wanted me to be. (That day cleaning up after school with Mr. S.)

I don't know... I am so pissed at myself for just eating all that shit, but I have to put all of that aside for the weekend... Ia m just so grateful that KSing wasn't mad at me and that she understands... she is so smart about all of this... much smarter than I ma...

So, it will be weird now with AIR7 and Scheisser. I know that they can't understand that I really am okay and that what happened on Wednesday was normal... But the old me has now officially died and all that anyone can see is her charred remains wrapped in ribbons of lunacy (Don Quixote broken)... but the drive into the city will be nice, left with cigarettes, cassettes and the wind.

I ma so sorry that I missed B's birthday (well, it's tomorrow). I want to write him something beautiful so that he knows how much he means to me, but it is something that I can't articulate and besides, I would never even know where to begin.

And I wonder if ChoirMan will ever call me back about lunch this week and if he ever did read those letters.... The one from my journal might scare him and I wonder if he is already scared. I think in terms of that kind of fear, he is already more afraid of me than I am of him. But it's weird... I'm not scared of anyone anymore...

If this were last year, I suppose I would be worried that I called E-the-R on Wednesday, but I'm not... He doesn't worry me at all and I wonder what has changed about me... (Oh God, but I can see myself allowing it to happen again and again!) I must convince everyone that I ma fine and then fix this on my own... (and the trees tangle in colors of death outside the window-- ripping across the sky to the pumping of the railroad).

It's as if the world is a painting today,w ashed across with the muddied brown of spilled paintbrush water. The whole thing looks violently peaceful-- like the rainfall scene in Sense and Sensibility (GoldenFinch's favorite!)

Alright. I will pause for now...

A (cut-off) Apology

Okay, now you are officially getting your letter and I"m sorry it's not for the happiest occasion. About last night-- I just wanted to apologize and to tell you that I will do my best to avoid a similar situation at all costs. You should have had to be put through that ever and I feel so terrible about it. If I didn't feel that it was an emergency, I never would have called. I am doing my best to keep everything under control, but I have had a lot on my mind lately.

I bet you would never have guessed that I made it up for class, though! For some reason, I woke up at 7:30 AM, even without an alarm!

Anyway, about this weekend-- I can not keep the car past Monday morning, so unless you want to do late night shopping on Sunday night, I can't take you to the supermarket. I hope that it's not too much of a problem.

And about the other--

Tumbling

Oh God, I'm glad that this is ending soon because I am so dizzy... so dizzy! And I kissed ChoirMan last night (I mean really kissed!) and now I am so confused that I don't know what to do or where to go, and does this mean that I should stop writing to him? I am just so dizzy! (And after AIR7 on Friday...)

*****************

Okay, well, I just relocated from the music library to the hallway outside 814 Dodge (and God, I am so dizzy!) after fixing the email situation.

Isn't it funny that ChoirMan thinks I'm being hurt by S and vice versa? (God, it's spinning and I feel sick!) Why did he let that happen though? (And he said he's rather give than get, but so would I). Did he try? And did I? And was he serious? How can he really care about me when it's so clear that it's wrong and that it would confuse me. I don't know... I want to die.

I want to have dinner with AIR7 tonight and just get away form here. I want to get away, get away, get away from here!!! And what does KSing think of me now? (And it is officially hopeless with HIM). And I have such a terrible, nauseating headache. How could I have kissed him? And he said that he hasn't read any of those letters yet (except one) and I wonder why not and how he can be so incurious...

I want to vomit all of this out and die right now... I want to vomit it out and be dead NOW. I have already died in so many other ways and what is left is not worth anything... Not worth shit...

I am supposed to go to the doctor on Wednesday and I really don't want to go.

A Letter to my Mom

Dear Mom,

This letter may seem a little strange, but before you read any further, promise that you won't ask me any questions...

I have been upset for a really long time, as you probably know, but the way that I fix everything is to pretend that I'm not upset and that everything is perfect. This usually goes on until I have a breakdown every now and then and you never understand why I cry so much over such a little trigger. The thing is, I have gotten so used to pretending that I'm okay that it has become nearly impossible for me to articulate to anyone, especially the people closest to me, that I'm not.

I'm telling you that I'm not okay and I think I've been depressed for a long time. I think it is too big for me by myself right now, so I am asking for your help. But I don't want help directly. IT is too hard for me that way. I need to see someone to talk to while I can still keep up my old "self-defense" mechanisms for the moment.

I understand if it's a lot of money, but we have to find a way, even if I stop singing because this is robbing me of all of my life.

I love you so much!

H

I Need Help

And so it comes again, and this time completely out of control. And I am ready to leave, leave, leave and take the thousand dollars and go...

And I have nobody left and B hates me and GoldenFinch is scared and oh God, I am scared too... What am I doing and why do I feel this way?

I need help, I need help, I need help. I think it's time to ask for it.

Blackout Bottom

Okay. I'm going to write for as long as my fingers will obey.

I am sitting here waiting for the shuttle, cast in the flavors of all of my terror and all of the sinister faces of this orange pink, pink orange (I bash myself to sleep). And the chaos of the softly turned cigarette butts wedged between the rocky symmetry of those waves of bricks reminds me of last October (See Me Now!) and of the irony of how things go around and around and around. (Did I talk to Scheisser about drugs? I don't remember.)

That is starting to piss me off, by the way-- all of this memory loss! And GoldenFinch said that I called her to plead last night and I remember neither the phone call nor the feeling. (Record me with your fist!)

God, it's cold out! In the low 40's. And my naked chest cries out... I'm back! I'm back! (Although it doesn't mean a fuck to anyone else!) But the cold bites me now and I press my cheeks against eh cutting prism ever harder. (Branded forever?) And so that's how he knows all those drinks...

The subway sweeps below and I balance between the bricks and the grate.

Oh, but today I went to A La Vielle Russie with GoldenFinch! And I saw a world, again, that I would die for and it shocked her and those beautiful crystallized truths shone in her eyes and I saw all of the perfection in enamel that people say can only come from God! Of all the places to find it... In enamel! But it was so beautiful and it was so perfect! And now I have to go pick up the remains of my heart in a backpack and never wonder again why I have no time (or money!). It is all there for the taking when I really want it.

Oh, but that trip would be so much fun! And spindle branches cover the trees and my stomach lurches through the width of the window. I love car windows at night and sip in the melon flavored traffic lights and I wonder if motion sickness is at all related to any kind of these other weird symptoms. (God, the bridge!)

But I spent way too much money yesterday... $80 on coke! But if I stop eating then I can save a lot of money that way... Two more days and I should be able to starve again.

Okay, well, the bus is shaky and I want to look out the window, so I will close for the moment...

*********************************

Anyway. later and in the computer lab waiting for Scheisser to finish typing. (I think he is on "spell-check.")

It really worries me, what KSing said about ChoirMan though... that things may be too much. Maybe his no reaction is like B's no reaction... fear or discomfort.

My foot just fell asleep and I am wondering if it's from the two days of being good. And Scheisser keeps switching off my Walkman. Alright. My headache is grounding everything (as usual)... The only constants are change and headaches.

And I wonder what that phone call meant. Oh well... we will see tomorrow.
-Must go!

*********************************

So, I am sitting here bored out of my fucking mind on the couch, but dread, dread, dread going home to do my chromatic homework. (It's 11:33 PM).

And sometimes I wonder about taking procrastination to a new level (and I feel likes shit doing this... YOU know what I mean) and understand what really demeaning behavior is... And now I have no way of getting home and I haven't' done my homework and that makes me feel even worse about everything else. (God, I wish I could read thoughts!)

And the skin on my hands is rosy and scrubbed (Kitty!) to its rawest form and I feel like I can't even write anymore because my mind is soft and blank and I am so bored but with so much energy and I remember nothing nothing nothing and God, how I remember nothing! And it scares me and I am really scared when I think about what this means and what is happening to my mind and what I will do if I lose myself to this thing, to alcohol, and commit the ultimate betrayal. (And I was just wondering about spelling!)

So I feel sick of myself right now and want to give myself away, but I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't and I don't know what will happen, except that I'm sitting here with this shit instead of doing homework and there is something really wrong with the way that this whole thing is going!

And I wish to be back in the museum, solidified, and with no obligation, no time, no anything because it's warped, warped, warped and then I wouldn't need it anyway. And so I feel it wash over all of me now. And I know... I know...

Downtown on the Hudson

Waves of gray and greased black. Frozen fingertips and Jacques Brell. Even the clouds sputter across the sky in silent coughs, streaked with the yellow of light. Complexions are softly washed and the boats strike the sky with their puzzle-piece counterparts. (My hands colored with faded blood) And ripples of light quiver in the water below.

I lean my head against the iced rail, thick with layers of white paint and a ribbon of dust slashes the sky in two. (Suzanne). The spindles of the Brooklyn Bridge promise to sing like a harp against the gentle cries of these painted birds.

I, in gray too (and denim), grow twisted and cold, but the shuddering wind pleases me. (He himself was broken long before the sky would open).

And all I feel is peace, peace, peace. As if this is after the end and we, on the boat, are waiting to be carried to what's next. But I know what's next... it is only this.

Pink and gray pale faces. No time and no knowledge of anything except the bite of the wind and the ribbons in the sky... I will never understand the size of the sky and will never cease to be grateful for that infinite gulf that it makes me feel-- between my heart and the rest of my body.

And I try to drown out the drone of our tour guide, an irritant so recently added. But I think that I will close now to fall into this sleep and to press my face into the green and gray below.

*******************************

Later and in the subway--

Okay, that was really weird. I just got interrupted (now I'm on the 2/3 at Times Square). Anyway, when I walked into the subway at Wall Street, I was listening to Les Mis in French and singing to "On My Own" and I passed these two black guys. Anyway, one of them said hi to me and I said hi back and we were sitting on those benches in the subway station.

"Excuse me, can I hear your music?" he asked.

"Okay," I said.

"You can hear mine too," he offered.

So, we switched and then he started trying to talk to me in French. Well, we got on the subway. He's from Gabon in Central Africa. He said that he's only been here for three months and that he has only one friend and no family. He's trying to meet people.

Anyway, he gave me his number and asked me to call him and got off at 34th Street. Why do weird things like this always happen to me?