cats

The nice thing about cats is that sometimes
when you're alone and lonely and sad
they will come up next to you,
gentle and quiet,
and sit down and curl up
into a ball of purring warmth
and press their soft foreheads against your leg.
And they don't say anything,
but they know
and they're there.

a thought

"You're nice," he said. "You're like the smell of coffee, but not the taste."

I thought about that as I stood on the rainy beach, holding a cup of hotel-brewed hot-chocolified half-strength coffee. The weather was grey and cold, but the cup was warm through its little cardboard sleeve. It made me happy.

And I thought that that's one of the nicest things anyone has said to me in a while.

1 AM

Sometimes I stay up very late, feeling scared and inadequate and lonely. When I get like this, a little shaky and too tired to sleep, I sometimes read a book. Sometimes I write emotive embarrassments in yellow legal pads, or watch the beginnings of movies I'll never finish.
 Tonight I went downstairs to make myself a cup of tea. I took it outside, and sat down on the wrought-iron rocker bench on our back porch. I pulled my knees up to my chest and looked up at the stars. We live in the suburbs, so the stars are whispers, not declarations. But the longer I looked, the more stars I could see. Look at the stars, look how they shine for you. They have always seemed so friendly. Between the tea and the chilly night air, I managed to calm down.

(You said I should write something in that half asleep, half awake state that sometimes happens late at night. Just leave it up for 24 hours.
Why? I asked.
It will be funny, you said.
I don't know what you had in mind. 
But here's...this.)

together

Sometimes my girlfriends will ask me what I imagine my "dream guy" to be.
But I think that one of the few things I've always wanted is someone who will read books with me.

(Video from Foolish Oats)

an observation

One of the nicest things I can think of is when you find yourself laughing very hard about something, and someone you like tremendously is laughing equally hard with you 

about the same thing. 

blood and poetry

I memorized a poem this weekend. It was at the moment when bloody knuckles no longer seemed beautiful or valiant, but, instead, a far weaker symbol. The line between glory and pain is thread-thin, but chasm-deep. A line like a scar.

You do not have to be good. If you tell me to count the stars, I will chase the number, not the promise. In the vastness, I will lose sight of the mercy.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. Memorizing a poem has a vastly different character when it isn't for a grade. You read the words aloud a hundred times, over and over, tracing it into your skin and your soul. Sometimes, you need to hear the kindness in your own voice.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. You whisper it, sleepless in bed. It's a prayer. You get quieter as you go on. It's a lullaby. Meanwhile, the world goes on.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely You scream it alone in your car, make yourself promises instead of threats. the world offers itself to your imagination

Calls to you like the wild geese –– harsh and exciting You scribble it along the bottom of your class notes, heavy black ink lace.

over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

Your scars will fade with time. The poem will dim. There will come a time when your glass soul will need a different prayer.

But today, with the marks of a struggle still fresh on my skin, I need to steal someone else's words. I need to steal them and keep them for my own; use them to tell myself the things I haven't learned to say.

2.22.13