There is a stump in this lawn that, peering down next to in the dark, so strongly resembles her. The jagged edge ringed and slanted creates the contour of her face. The bark, her once soft, silken skin now cracked and wrinkled with age and regret. The moss and grass nestled up against the edges of where the stump plunges into the earth her speech bubbles, soft, inaudible, sometimes too caring and ignorant for her own good.
A cat jumps out and perches upon the stump. The image is immediately erased and I am shaken back to a reality where I cannot run. Cannot move. Feet cemented to the curb in quick drying guilt. I see her face for only a split second as it runs past me and only as I turn to see her soft heels kick up after her does it register what I have just seen. Who she is. Stunned, almost shamed into recognition that I was wrong. And continue to be. Wrong.
There was once a time when not everything seemed to be traced back to one event. Was once a time when each moment hung suspended in the air as a unique bubble waiting to be burst. Now, all lines are drawn back to one moment. This bird, that moment. These leaves, that moment. This thought, that moment. All is undone.

you are beautiful, like prophecies

and sad, like those that come true

calm, like the calmness afterward

black, like the white loneliness of jasmine

with sharpened fangs: she wolf and queen

your very short dress is in fashion

your weeping and laughter come from ancient times

perhaps from some book of other kinds

i've never seen foam at the mouth of a war horse

but when you lathered your body with soap

i saw.

you are beautiful like prophecies

that never come true

and this is the royal scar; 

i pass over it with my tongue

and with pointed fingers over that sweet roughness

with hard shoes you knock 

prison bars to and fro around me

your wild rings 

are the sacred leprosy of your fingers

out of the earth emerge

all i wished never too see again:

pillar and window sill, cornice and jug, broken pieces

of wine

there is so much face hiding here (whose from whose?)

and at night, to stir with that

blond golden scepter

in pleasures

with the weight of kingdom and tiredness

full circle

what one does not do can be of equal power as what one does do

i was the kind of person who said "never" and "always" often

i was never going to be this person

except that i always was.

and now,

 my feet: pounding over pavement and across rocks

flying down hills and slowly climbing them again

propelling me, hurtling me through space

to remind of the need for forward movement

things never were the way they used to be.

and they always were.

things will never be this way again.

and,yet, they always will

*author's note: i recently learned how to use my phone to take panoramic photos. they are, at best, slightly blurry and leave one desiring more, and at worst, irritating teasers of images which you are better left imagining.

in time of daffodils(who know

the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze

our now and here with paradise)

forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond

whatever mind may comprehend,

remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be

(when time from time shall set us free)

forgetting me,remember me

e.e.cummings

wrinkle in time

if this could be a series of images it would be this: the scent of orange blossoms. a wet japanese maple leaf falling to the ground, burned out windows, light filtering through the carbon charred glass, the faint (possibly imagined) sound of a few crazed birds in the fog.

 what is it to live with someone? how can they not recede into: meals, comfort, warm bed, white noise.

 a split second of your scent comes suddenly. running numbly, it hits me, impossibly sweet, impossible that it is just the air that smells like this, and not a person. a thing. you. this is what a scent should be; all around you, all of a sudden, like being engulfed in a burst of color, and then just as quickly, gone. this smell has a clear and simple meaning to me : you are here. now. and everything that was and will be has already happened and will again. and it is true. and i am grateful.

 a huge, wet, pile of leaves falls onto the sidewalk at my feet, first a few inches from my nose, then a few inches from my feet. it is as if i have, by running this block rather than another, isolated a tiny moment in time that would have otherwise been given to the birds or the wide open world, but instead, was shared with me. time slows down even more as the snow falls, and there is not one instant in which, in its descent, it is not beautiful.

i know, as i pass this house, from the roses that were left on the doorstep, the candles burning and pictures left, that the people who lived in this house died in the fire. now there are windowless vans of men pulling up to work on it, shattering the early morning silence, and every day as i pass it, i make eye contact with and nod my head to them. as I run past, i look inside the windows, somehow still mostly in tact. the light filtering through them is so strange. green moss trails along the outside of the windows, black carbon marks in the shapes of flames trace the inside. there is something oceanic about the light. it should be sad, or spooky, but instead i can only see the uniqueness of this light, the strange beauty of it all.
and suddenly my ears are filled with screaming of the birds, cackling at the top of their lungs, all at once. my senses feel completely taken up and i think that this experience is incomplete with only my shadow at my side.

"klink"

When I imagine writing about this city I see it in darkness; the still early, cool, crisp morningtime. I see a girl- very much like myself- sitting on the edge of a bus stop, perched off of one side as if by touching as little as possible her presence there would immediately be erased as she left. The cars downtown would not let up. She would want to be alone in actuality because she would feel alone, but the continuous presence of cars would tease her with the knowledge that even this desire appears impossible. The seat, warm and inviting for daytime passengers, would be very much cold and uncomfortable.
She would carry a bag with many buckles, in a subconscious attempt to keep the world out of everything that belongs to her. She would possess a strange beauty,though at first glance she would appear very plain and ordinary. Not ugly, just less than fantastic.
On second glance the viewer would fall in love, because a deeper and unconventional feeling emanating from her would overwhelm. She would not talk. She would read a book, but look up very often- every two lines or so- to see if the bus could be seen on the busy horizon. This would reveal the anxiety she tried to keep hidden. She would pay her bus fare in quarters, letting each one drop in and waiting for the "klink" to proceed and no one would complain.

first night

I have never seen a bus stop seat being painted, and yet they always have advertisements on them. Do they hire someone to paint them in the middle of the night when no one needs the bus stop? I know I do not need to worry about the cars hitting me, there are reflective stripes on most of my clothing, and a headlamp bouncing along the street with each of my strides, and yet I still feel like they could blindside me easily as they go flying past.

I stop at a busy intersection and look over to see the early morning bus driver, lonely in his rig. He sits upright, rigid, maybe ex-military of some kind, which would make sense for the stereotype of "bus driver". He has a drawn in face with features that jut out at odd angles, but not in an unpleasant way. His looks seems to say that he would be happy to just drive an empty bus and never have to stop for anyone, no matter how pointless that would be. Some nights, when I am this far into my run, I can think of nothing except how hot my insides are. I cannot escape the heat or the feeling of anxiety I get when I am running alone this early. It matters not how many times I do it or how ridiculous the anxiety might seem.