Me, Undone

Am I crazy to live with such ferocious intensity--to love and to dance with reckless abandon? I've come to believe that living life to the fullest is like running down the road full speed with a purple blindfold tied tightly around your eyes. You know very well that somewhere along the way stands a brick wall. The question for me is will I smash in to the wall or will I break through?

Something gives way when you realize you can no longer return. A general malaise. Like the burning of leaves. I feel this for you when I catch you alone. I remember, still, love for you. And perhaps I always will. How do I measure what is lost? It burgeons wide and vast--pulsing, expanding, filling my lungs until I can barely breathe. The chrysalis must first die before the butterfly can begin. But no one ever remembers the sacrifice.

I thought I had time to organize my effects, clean out my closet, transfer title, and wash my body of dead skin. She lit the spark. Fetched the twigs one by one. I did not wish to know her. Not yet. But she has wandered along my way, famished from the journey. Broken bones and all. Mary full of grace.

I remember crossing the George Washington Bridge to start my life at Barnard. Me, my two uncles, mom, and all my worldly possessions piled in to a white mini van and headed down 95 toward the city of dreams. I was full of hope and laughter. The sun shined so brightly on my head that day. And then there was a boy who recently headed down 95, walked across the George Washington Bridge, and leapt to his death. With cars speeding by in the mid-morning rush, strangers scurrying across the path toward big city opportunities, he inched closer and closer to the edge, and jumped. Did his mother know that she had touched him for the last time? He could not be gay in this world and be free. Only some of us are brave. Today, under the same sun and same net of sky, I will be brave for him. Never again.

my upcoming marking

 Each hour, each minute, each second, I am never the same.