Weather Patterns

He asked me to stay the night. I shouldn't have, but I did. I should have known better.

There's another tornado brewing. The leaves are getting restless. I've already been swept away. I just want to find home.

Through the Looking Glass

I grabbed a tree which hadn't toppled and let its roots ground me. Waves of familiar and not hustle by. I observe. I am learning how to be comfortable by myself with others.

I have one ear tuned to Berlioz, the other to the beginning of autumn breeze. A man is reading a newspaper a couple paces away. A woman attends to her neglected crossword. Friday's are always the hardest. A child chases his red balloon. A girl doles out cigarettes. A boy lights up.

Was this the spark he was looking for?

Would he know if I asked him?

Would I know if he asked me?

Next week we relive Creation. Next week the fist-shaped bruise will further fade.

It is the season of beginning again.

Hineini

It is the season of discovering self.

It is the season of discovering self again and I know it is different than before. I know I am different than before. I have been scattered across floors and subways and pavements wiped clean with rain. I have scribbled my words in notebooks and breathed sounds through empty air. I have organized and reorganized, yet there are corners still untouched.

There are secrets still unfolding.

There are answers still untold.

And my soul is sitting atop the radiator with my chumash and siddur and words of Jewish wisdom and pictures for the times I need reminding.

I shouldn't be afraid. That's what he told me. But sometimes I forget to breathe.

I shouldn't be afraid.

It is the season of discovering self and I am going back to the beginning, to the questions of yes and no and the give and take and the in and out. I am laying myself out before me, before you, so I can learn it all again.

And as the clock ticks early morning, I will stand before the sunrise and the New York City stare, and I will cry out through the dew drops:

Here I am.

Black and White

Black and blue and gold and bronze and the sun is disappearing beneath the horizon. The radiator's fading in and out. Another day unwinds.

My gaze shifts from the window. I'm caught in might-have-beens. And the tang of disappointment is fresh upon my lips. Breathe in and out. You are stronger than this.

You are stronger than this. That's what they tell you- the friends and the parents and the strangers on street corners. You are stronger than this. They know you don't believe it. They know your smiles are faked. They know the neurons are firing from your fingers to your brain, that your hands are moving all the right places... but it doesn't mean a thing. You are stronger than this.

Maybe if I repeat it enough times, I'll believe it too.

See, I chose not to draw the blinds tonight. I'm peaking at an empty parking lot and a flashing beacon far away. I'm staring at the pictures on the sill. I want to go back.

You are stronger than this.

They know you don't believe it, but no one wants to speak the truth.