all of the above.

sanity.
long walks from columbus circle to herald square. two cups of coffee a day. text messages. “MUST update you. very good meeting.” of course, of course. friendship with that much urgency. rambled email messages that say more than the words i write and to know i’m heard. dinner with my brother. shared quiet moments at the end of charged-sparked ride. songs on repeat. hooded sweatshirts that smell like dryer sheets. requesting hugs. used novels on amazon. hot lattes. writing.


insanity.
redundant complaints up and down the sidewalks. stomping. un-dried hair, medusa default. a bedroom without a light. contradictory instructions. heavy responsibility without any authority. two-thirty am work sessions. trying not to wait for the phone to ring. incomplete assignments - mine. six years of coursework. mistaking frustration for stress. loneliness. the way she looks at him. unpacked bags. unpacked boxes. unpacked emotions. anticipating a subway cry. 


life.
the lake. even on a rainy evening. his courage. her church whispers. when they both say “...didn’t burst into flames.” honesty. kindness. watching us (us, us, us) eat in the college dining hall more than ten years later. four hours of tears. red autumn leaves. realizing i already let it all go. for the better. unintentionally making him laugh so hard water comes out his nose.  “what are you thinking?” in a quiet that matches my quiet. to be known, in a moment, in a decade, in a single glance, in an old, familiar squeeze of the hand. i am here.

A House

I picked us out a house in the country. An old Victorian with a wraparound porch and crickets that we can hear through the screen door in the kitchen. Their chirps in the background of our murmured conversation. One last cup of coffee for the night. The dishes drying in the rack and your finger aimlessly tracing my knuckles as you talk.

I am carefully disassembling the house now. The table's empty; I'm not sure you'll even hear. The soft pop of each shingle, the swing of the door out only - each screw in the hinges removed. Board by board, I take down the walls and neatly pile the lumber. I know better, I have learned better, than to be a wrecking ball, slamming into its side - and then crumbling along with it. I wish instead to be a Notebook page and still build us a staircase, fix the leaky faucet, watch the geese migrate from the front porch. But I am of the faithless. I am taking up the floorboards of a house we never bought.

You're holding the door as she laughs her way through it. I'm looking to the moon out the train window.





[I never intended to leave this space for so long. Which makes me uneasy to say I've "returned" or unpack the (mostly boring) reasons I've been gone so long. I don't want to say "I'm back!" and then unintentionally disappear again. But if I do unintentionally disappear, I want to let you know I'm still pretty active on tumblr, twitter, and instagram (links to the right). And if I do, I'll be back again. Of that I am sure.]