It costs money to die. They make sure you settle the bill before they’ll come near you with needles. But I’m only being unkind because the whole business of living is such a remarkable sham. That’s what it is, a business. Our life is a series of transactions. And we give it meaning because we contain the extraordinary gift to do so. But every move … Continue reading Bing Bong

I still remember the night we got home. Ruidoso remains my favorite place to think of. It feels like another planet now, not only because we traveled across a burnt desert to get there, but because of what came out of it. Two totally different people, leaving the crackling mountain heat for the humid May air, transformed. I knew I loved you before I left … Continue reading keep on movin’

27, you worked so hard. What more can I say besides thank you? I had the urging to read Crossroads today. It hadn’t hit me how fitting that was on this day, the last day I’ll be 27, until I was stewing in elderberry, lighting the candle I said I’d never burn. Crossroads was the illustrious, miserable, luminescent, hopeless cry for help and ballad of … Continue reading twenty seven

A woman died today. A 60-story building stood unmoved in her wake. I imagine the nascent rays of the day finding her where she lay. I imagine the turmoil and resoluteness with which she left the world. And I wilt.  I torture myself with false futures when silence leases space for my mind to wander. There’s no part of my tandem heart that accepts the … Continue reading The Harbinger

Let me preface all of this by saying that I’m aware of how fucking stupid it’s all going to sound. There is nothing wrong with my life. But here’s what happens: I go looking for trouble. Me and my little friends (neuroses) go digging into the foundations of all the good things in my life and look for integrity issues. Because here’s the thing – … Continue reading it’s now or never

I lend power to these hollow little shells I find collected in the corners of your years. I look past that breeze you allow to pass through them, I omit the monument you construct for me, and I reroute the energy I could expend loving my life dusting shrines you never intended to have built. And only now do I realize that the fears that … Continue reading my brand of existentialism

How did I get here? The brakes of a cargo train screech unseen in the night. The city looms over the atrophied limbs of winter’s trees. The light is low and warm in an apartment I had contented myself to never see. I remember peeking inside one day as the previous owner slipped through the door. I pocketed the image of a small entry table … Continue reading the rueful dormancy of broken bones

I exist in this little state of sadness. And I don’t mind it. It’s not a cavernous one that calls back my wails. A plunging one whose boundaries I can’t see or even trust exist. It’s a crawl space, conformed to the curves of my body. It encompasses me within a gentle heat. The low grade fever of my infected thoughts. It’s a cozy sadness, … Continue reading worse company to keep

I wonder if I was ever closer to you than that train platform in Queens. I wonder where I was when you were falling in love with someone else. What I was thinking about when you had your first kiss. I wonder if I was laughing while your heart was breaking. I wonder how many moments you were marveling at the moon at the same … Continue reading near miss

Gratitude is the one thing in the world that feels nicer when given away completely. It’s not meant for us to store. It’s cargo that sits too bulky in the center of us. It doesn’t fit quite right. It nests in the place just above our ribs, begging to feel the breeze of our open airways. It’s not really ours to keep. It’s meant to … Continue reading gracious hearts