From My Brain to Yours

my hands are small and bony and my arms are like that, too; i keep each bony foot inside a well-selected shoe for what i lack in substance i make up in part with length, and i’ll swear that i possess deceptive quantities of strength i’ve been lifting up this pile of ideas every day; the pile keeps on growing since i can’t throw one away my face becoming bonier, i hollow out with age — i’m getting gaunter at a rate i really cannot gauge  it doesn’t happen daily, but it happens as i go, because the face inside the mirror’s not the one i used to know  i like who i’m becoming and i like the whos i’ve been, and i truly can’t imagine thinking self esteem’s a sin my mouth’s a sanctuary, full of music, words, and food, a couple dozen bony teeth, a tongue those teeth have chewed… i find comfort in my body, bony limbs and heart and all; it’s the vessel that i’m riding down the river to the falls

if something’s in the air and then it rushes towards the earth, it’s gravity that pulls it but the impact is a birth   a thud is the beginning of when pre-thud times are past, and before it fell we didn’t know that time would be the last in the moment, we were thinking of our grocery lists and chores; finding time to wash the dishes, take the trash out, mop the floors but when came the thud it startled us and changed our point of view — we realized very suddenly that pre-thud days are through  and now we will continue through this newly altered age, we’ll explore our new reality when forced to turn the page  we will push through the beginning; we may never see an end until the time itself is shriveled. in the meantime, be my friend

 when simple simplicity lacks specificity complex rigidity fails to contain it if i spit in a cup then the cup’s full of stuff which eventually should be poured out and drain-ed i was born as an animal, weaned off of flammable milk from the breast of a fiery dragon though the dragon’s invincible, strictly on principle, i’m still convinced i might fall off the wagon  i know i’ll still grow if i will it to happen; i think hard enough to do lots in a day, but sat in the seat of this life i’m not strapped in — now might be the time to be learning to pray

i think i’d like to spend a night back then years and years ago, when there were stars in the sky  when we could look up where we were and see the heavens, before we blinded ourselves with our own light  to spend a day when things were slower, with not so much to separate me from a forest squirrel  climbing trees and looking upwards, feeling dirt between my toes  when an idea was as big as the ocean, full of life, wonder, and color  i could have just one and never see it fade instead of spitting them out like chewed up bits of gum from a blister pack i took the last one out of and threw away  i’d like to breathe in the air of walking for miles and reaching nothing, journeys taking days and weeks to see the world change around me, but not too much too fast everything is spinning and it won’t stop… i’ve been caught up in the twister all my life  if i can look into a mirror for long enough i pause, but i have pills to take and buses to catch and oh so man...

when you are small, the world is big in life’s great forest, you’re a twig as you may snap if you’re not careful, careful you must be  if you are blessed to grow a bud, and by god’s grace it blooms you’ll join the ranks of those whose thanks come mostly from perfumes  a silent word, a quiet thought, a third peculiar thing they come together in a pot till steam begins to sing when you are singing, you can fly above the tufts of trees  but on your landing, take good care — you mustn’t skin your knees when you are big, the world is small you cannot feel a thing at all you’re numb to little pricks and blisters, nonchalant and calm and when you see a little twig, it’s strewn across your path  it’s fallen to the ground, you see: well, you can do the math  i’m in a place where thoughts abound, and dreams are clear as day yet if i think too hard it seems i’ve got nothing to say if i were big i’d burn too bright, and i don’t like goodbyes it’s clear to me i’d rather be o...

surrounded by dreamers when one is a cynic’s “today’s meant to be” versus “well, life’s no picnic” enjoying a life while the life’s not romantic won’t mesh well with dreamers with stars in their eyes with feet planted firmly, you know who you are  but a dreamer’s convinced they may well be a star and a star they may be, but that’s so not your style so you smile and nod as they strive for some prize for dreamers, a life is as big as the ocean one drop in the water will stain the whole sea a cynic will scoff at illogical notions for cynics, a life has a limit of Me surrounded by dreamers when one is a cynic’s a school kickball player whose friends go olympic or seeing the world through the eyes of a finicky farmer who’s scoffing as pigs try to fly to stand and observe endless truths being twisted  is frustrating, true, but recall you must be understanding of things you had thought had existed  while climbing the branches of life’s twisted tree

if i were a troll under a bridge it would be a rope bridge and i would hang by a harness fifteen feet below, dangling over a ravine i would know when people walked over my bridge because the bridge would wobble and i would swing and if i happened to be in a particularly bad mood i would climb up my ropes (there would be big knots for footholds) and face the travelers if you dared to cross my bridge while i was crying you would surely be in for it a shower of my tears would accost you, obscuring Your vision the spray of salty water from my eyes would catch the wind and swirl all around, shaking the bridge violently and you would wonder why, but i would never tell you i could watch you fall down into the ravine, never having touched you with my hands you would descend through the air in slow motion, falling farther and farther away from me until you became a speck in my vision and once i could not see you anymore, i, too, would jump down off the swinging rope bridge, speeding through the...

if you took my brain out of the skull it sits in and stuck it in a blender, you'd get some kind of funky pink sludge. and from that sludge would arise a cloud of vapor the vapor of my hopes and dreams, half-formed imaginings of what i might do someday when i figure out what exactly it is i'm meant to. if i figure it out i have a whole world at my fingertips but i can't bring myself to snap - a snap that could create a universe or just a small clicking noise that echoes inside my mind as the touch of my fingertip lingers on my palm. if you were to take that pink sludge and put it back inside my skull i wouldn't be me anymore - with pudding for a control center my eyes could never paint the pictures they see and what a delight it is to look around and see pictures! to open my eyes every morning and take in the world... i'd miss it if my brain were sludge i think my favorite sense is smell. in the springtime, at least. i could spend my whole life breathing in the cool ...

i'm tracing a line when tracing, rewind into scenes that have played in the past they have laced 'round my spine, tumbled into my mind and dismantled my ship's solid mast if i throw myself under the current, the waves will envelop as downward I slide if i stay underneath and I breathe in the gravel i'll spit out each tear that i've cried i'm washing a bowl and the bowl is my skull and it's hollow but smooth like a stone my insides may roll until truths become null and i'm left to myself, all alone

I began writing this post about my COVID experience, stopped, started again, stopped again, and finally completed it on September 27, 2022, six months after the the whole ordeal. Here it is: Two years into this whole mess, I got covid. It's a little ridiculous; I've kept so safe for so long, and just when it was the least convenient, just when I could not possibly afford to catch it, covid caught up with me. I began writing this blog post while in isolation, around March 31 probably (I don't quite remember; I stopped writing it and am now revisiting this post on May 24), so I apologize for the confusion regarding the timeline of things. I could have caught it at any other point in the last two years and it wouldn't have ruined things the way it did this week. To be fair, that's a bit dramatic; I'm very grateful that covid didn't hit me hard. The worst of my symptoms came last week, when I was still under the impression that I just had a very bad cold. I star...

when things are all shifting i’m forced to reflect reflecting, i didn’t expect to connect for when all things are fleeting, life’s falling apart i take a small moment to rethink my art i’m walking down aisles, i’m searching for space i’m spacing, i’m floating, i stare at your face and when i’m in the mirror, i smile and cry i’m thankful that i’ve had the courage to try when i’m finishing up and i’m closing my door it slams shut behind me, i watch the rain pour and while i’m standing by and i’m keeping the score i am questioning whether i’ve been here before

there’s something that’s shifted a change in the air and i’m facing it, eyes open wide it’s just slightly different with delicate flair so i’m building new worlds in my mind the lights’ shine is dimmer, the cold smell of rain comes weaving its way to my nose my thoughts ride on carousels, round in my brain as the day gently comes to a close i’m eager to share it i need to explain but my words can’t convey what i know each day seems so rare, it can’t seem to remain in the world where all days used to go

i can't write anymore, like my brain's getting sore like it itches but i cannot scratch and i can't think of things, and it hurts and it stings like my brain's been replaced by a rash i don't know why i'm here, like i'm pierced by a spear which has taken my art from inside and it's crumpled it up, and what's left is all rough like a monster from which i can't hide and i bitch and i moan, i complain and i groan like a child who can't get their way i am innocent, yes, but i can't pass the test so i'll pack up my bags for the day and my brain's like a shell, like i'm ringing a bell like the sounds in my skull magnify, it's not like how before i could do any chore without even having to try like a juicer has squeezed, and i'm begging, like, please, to return to my previous state but my brain i can't cheat, and what's done is complete since i'm old now i can't wipe the slate

another year gone and it’s more of the same it’s passing me by, though it all seems a shame that i’ve changed and i’ve grown, but have nothing to show there’s no picture to put in my frame another year’s starting; i know what’s in store, what is coming— i know that i’ve been here before but i’m new now, i’ll do what is meant to be done i can handle a little bit more another day waking, another day spent another day borrowed, another day lent another day saved, that i’ll face when i’m brave in the calendar i’ll make a dent another year gone, i don’t know what it means another year’s starting, the slate has been cleaned but another day more is the same as before, or at least just the same as it seems.

wherever winds blow you, hold tight to your friends when choosing your teas, pick the happiest blends it's certain that all things must soon meet their ends. it's hard now to tell what is real, who pretends or which hand holds the needle that's threaded to mend at the end of each day to ourselves we must tend for it's certain that all things will soon meet their ends. while we hope our trajectories upwards will trend all our time, sitting, waiting, we cannot just spend what is wide becomes narrow, the rigid will bend and around every corner's a letter to send but it's certain that all things will come to an end.

 I still can't wrap my head around pain. Pain and suffering and death feel so foreign, so out of place in my life, and I'm sure that in itself is a privilege. I guess at some point you just have to get used to the fact that there is bad in the world, maybe even the fact that the world itself is bad.  But if we look at the world as a bad place where bad things happen, where does that leave us? If everything is arbitrary, what's the point? Are we just skating by on pure luck until one day we run out? My existential ramblings are nothing novel, I'm sure; the human condition is made up almost entirely of wondering why we're in this condition in the first place. There's something rather juvenile about the lens through which I view life. It's as though the minute it dawned on me that bad things do and will happen to people I know and love I started thinking of that as some sort of dream. If you separate pain from reality, it becomes distant. But it doesn't go ...

 As I'm not one who seeks out to be scared, come Halloween I'm never quite prepared. Though blood and guts and gore may fascinate my thoughts on that are much less love than hate. However, through the years on me it's grown and certainly in this I'm not alone. I love the autumn joy of making crafts I float across fall winds upon my raft. Creation brings a new birth amidst rot and so I'm grateful now for what I've got. The charm of hallow's eve just doesn't lie in looking up as ghosts and spirits fly, but rather in my little living room where building costumes lifts me from my gloom. But I suppose by any means I've come to the conclusion shared by more than some. I've joined the ranks of folks whose eyes do gleam whenever they hear talk of Halloween.

it's shiny and new, oh so modern and sleek they say it could open in less than a week i'll return to that line, through the window i'll peek at their dozens and dozens of bagels though the new hut may seem to stray far from its roots we must see it promotes the same glorious pursuit of providing the campus with yeast's finest fruit i will be there each day if i'm able while complaining is justified, it's not too wise for the hut's true improvement is in its new size and this upgrade should fit far more bagels inside like with horses in gigantic stables as we sit and anticipate what is in store all my dreams have been filled up with bagels galore and it's reached a point at which i cannot ignore the desire for bagel hut bagels

I'm back! Just over a week ago, I made my return to the real world after a two-month stint as a camp counselor (never thought I'd do that again, certainly not at a camp that wasn't the one I grew up going to), and now I've also returned to Philadelphia, where my senior year of college has begun. I don't know what I'm going to do after I graduate. In about eight months, I'll have a bachelor's degree in classical voice, and I'm really not sure where I'll go from there. I've always known what the next step was in life, and now I don't have any clue where my path will lead. I have a lot of drive and talent and passion and charisma, and I've learned a lot about who I am over my twenty years and change of being a human. I know I love music and performing and telling people what to do, but I'm not exactly sure how to apply that into a Real Adult Career Path. Right now, I'm about to begin my second year of music directing Broadway on ...

if words aren’t meant to fail her, then where is her inhaler? her lungs becoming frailer, her body is her jailer her face is growing paler, the world seems to assail her if life’s a sea, a sailor she is not