it's like a love letter.
all of these clumsy thoughts cobbled together with masking tape.
you structure each sentence carefully, weaving each word into the next, making sure it flows delicately and precisely.
the end of each sentence has to smoothly transition into the beginning of the next.

it's like a dance.
each movement has to fall directly into the next, on point, on beat, in sync.
you start with one leg, one arm, and the rhythm works its way into your blood and trickles over your whole body. the moves become liquid, iridescent, one becomes the next and they are chained together to become one entity.

it's like a story.
it starts off slow and simple. there is a conflict, a climax, a resolution. there are ups and downs, highs and lows. little stories within stories. subplots that make up a legend. and you don't know you're being lead trough a maze to an ending that you never expected.

crumble, crack, break

you wake up every day and you do the best you can, right?
you do what you can in the time that you have, correct?

sometimes, when i try to pull my life back together, when the pieces are laying all around me on the floor,
when i pile them up and start to set them out in order, so i can glue everything back together,
sometimes, it just seems impossible.

this place will forever be a heap of broken promises.
it's piled high on the floor of my bedroom.

a stack of not-so-white lies is toppling over by the back door,
like pieces of paper, little contracts, little lies, little false hopes, teetering, ready to fall.

when i look out the kitchen window, there's a field of empty dreams
that i can see clearly, so far away,
wildflowers blowing in the wind, grass growing high.

in the attic is a web spun of wishes,
its gossamer strands swaying with the weight and age of the house.
it stays there in the shadows, the wood soaking up the tears and blood that surround it.

in a place like this you have to take those fragile, beautiful pieces of yourself and lock them away in a box.
you have to hide them and protect them, but not forget about them.

as the pieces fall off, i wrap them in little scraps of dreams and put them in a hatbox under my bed until i have the time and the space to glue them back on. sometimes i take them and string them by the window so that the light shines through.

when i return home, i can be that rag doll, pasted, scrapped, tacked, sewn together, the rough edges showing clearly.
i can sit in my hatbox, with the pieces of myself laying about, free to fall where they may.

when i am here, i have to sand everything down, so that the edges are smooth, glossy, pristine. i have to pretend i am whole, without cracks, splits, chips or dings.
i become hollow to survive. the outside is sparkly and fresh, while the inside is empty, starving, wasting away.

at home, i can sit in the sun and dry out, fall in the grass and break apart, melt in a pond and feel it all.

for now i am locked in the attic, with my broken pieces, spider webs, broken promises, lies, dreams and wishes stacked around me. i hold them close, pulling my rag-doll me tightly to my chest,
and i wait.

Maybe it would hurt a little less

If you could just be a footprint in the sand,
That washed away with the tide,
Maybe it wouldn't hurt so much.

If you were a sandcastle I spent all day building,
With turrets and princesses trapped in it's towers,
And a drawbridge that led to the place where our love grows,
And a wave knocked it all down,
It would still hurt less.

If I built us a little house to live in,
With terra cotta walls,
Lace over the windows,
A back yard for the dog to play in,
And a flower garden out front,
And a hurricaine knocked the whole thing down,
Reduced it to rubble and mud and ash,
It would still hurt less.

If I painted the walls with flowers,
And the night sky and life and death and birth,
And it always smelled like dinner and muffins and pie,
If I lit candles to protect us every night,
And always got you up on time for work,
And we grew old together,
And one night you passed in your sleep,
It would still hurt way less.

If we had children and we named them after myths,
Little faces that looked like you and me,
Little you's and little me's dancing around,
Learning to sing, play, laugh, and cry,
And it turned out just to be a daydream,
It would hurt less.

If I had made the whole thing up,
And you never loved me,
Never knew me,
If the whole thing was a figment of my imagintion,
It would most certainly hurt less than this.

Full-tilt Boogie, and other thoughts

As i procrastinate, i am thinking of movement.
I am working on my thesis, and working on my life.
Movement is so strange. sometimes there are points in your life where everything is swirling around you so fast that you can't seem to get a hold on anything. other times it is moving so slow that you feel like you are stuck and can't even take a step forward. currently, i am experiencing both. which i thought could never happen. school is moving so quickly that as i watch the calendar days fall away, i am becoming increasingly paranoid about what i am going to do after graduation. step one is to graduate, obviously. step two is to go home. i have decided that i cannot stay in LA after graduation. i need to go home and reconnect with myself. this place makes you forget who you are. over the past four years, it has slowly sucked out my soul. this may sound negative, but for me, going home is a positive thing. i need to be back in my element again, but i also need to renew myself in San Francisco. i cannot go back and fit into the same life that i had before i left. i am not the same puzzle piece as before. i have changed so drastically, that i expect it to feel somewhat like moving to a whole new city. one that i have never experienced before. my anxiety is mostly around finding a job up there that suits me. but i really don't have time to worry about that, it will come sooner than later and i can deal with it then. for now, i have to face the reality that i have about six weeks to get all of my paintings done in order to have enough time to properly prepare my senior show. its flying by, and i'm hoping to have a grasp on it in the next two weeks.

the slow part of my life is the personal part. i have been sitting, stagnant, for months. after a parting of ways, i was extremely upset, disoriented, and lost. i was in a real bad way. after sitting on my parents' couch for all of winter break, crying myself to sleep every night, and eating everything that could possibly fit in my mouth, i decided to get up. i couldn't sit and wait around for things to change, i had to make the changes myself. and now that things are coming full circle (slowly but surely-ish) i find myself having to be patient in a way that i never have before. i am forced to just sit and watch the days drag on. there is nothing i can do about it, there is nothing i can say to speed up the process. i have to wait. i hate waiting. i am a very impatient person. but if i rush things, i know it's going to blow up in my face. so in the meantime, while the magic does its work, and while the universe sorts things out, putting them into little files and pulling out old ones and moving them around, i sit.

there is a push and pull that is happening as a result of this dichotomy. i am flying around, trying to get all this work done, but then, out of nowhere, comes a moment of absolute stillness. sometimes it's peaceful and calming. other times it is unsettling and it makes me anxious. i don't know exactly how i am supposed to handle these two opposing parts of my life, but i am doing my best to be patient and keep working through them.

when i feel rushed, the slowness is where i want to be, and when i feel stuck, i crave the movement. it feels like i am in a whirlpool, being tugged around and sucked into the center. hopefully there will be answers there?

for now, i have no time for stillness in my work. i have to produce and i have no other option. i am letting the stillness be the top of the river water, looking calm and slow, and the movement be the undercurrent, ready to suck down anything that should so happen to dive in. that's a little terrifying, maybe i need a better analogy.

the only comfort i have is that time will keep ticking. and i will eventually come to an answer. everything is going to happen the way its going to happen, and when its going to happen. and it won't happen any other way.

presently, i am full-tilt boogie (as my teacher would say) on my work. taking a moment to pause, and enjoy the still quiet that surrounds me.

Journey to the Precipice

When you were born, The Creator came and pressed his finger to your lips.
"Shhhh", he said. "you will remember what no one else does".

A scared child runs down the hallway of an empty house. Shadows chase her. She clambers into her room, where they cannot enter and dives under the covers of her bed. She is protected by a fortress. The walls glow while she sleeps and two dark figures stand behind the threshold. The tall one, who she has named Tom, stands and cocks his head to the side, a curious dog. Then he grins. His pale, dead face contorted with the grin as if it causes him pain. The blue-yellow tones of his skin are drowned out by the candle light in the room. His skin, hanging limply from his bones, (if he has any) ready to peel away and melt into the floor. The smaller one, about two feet high, with bright yellow eyes bares his teeth, a green algae color. He has no figure, more of a small lump with legs, no color, just a small black mass of shadow, but his eyes glow with the reflection of the candle.
The child knows she is safe, but they stand there, torturing her, keeping her from sleep. She rolls away from them, pulling the covers over her head, but leaving a space to breathe and more importantly, to see. She turns her head to make sure they are not getting closer. Terrified by the thought of them, she tucks herself back under the covers.
In her mind, she calls her angels. They appear in the middle of the room, glowing. These are not the angels of the bible, white, ethereal, winged. They are a ragtag bunch of spirits. Dead friends, guardians, people from the past. They begin from the right-hand side of the door, spreading a glowing barrier from the floor to the ceiling, working their way clockwise. they work all the way around the room to the other side of the door and seal the door with the same light.She knows she is safe

I'll see you when we get there

i'm here, reflecting on the past five years.
it has been a long journey, and i feel that i have come a long way. but i also know there is a lot of work to be done. i miss those that are gone, and those that are here but are not around.
i remember the phone calls. i remember the voices that told me. shaky, in shock, and somehow vacant. the voice that you use when all you can do is survive. when people ask you how you are and the reflexive, "i'm doin' alright, you?" automatically comes out. you operate like a robot, all programmed, no impulse, no creativity, no emotion. because once one emotion comes out, they pour out in a release that cannot be stopped.

fall
recover
fall
recover
fall
recover

you get a little more removed each time so that when you fall, you barely feel it anymore. you just know the familiar thud against the ground. you hear the familiar sounds of your life rushing by uncontrollably.

i come from a place where the young die unjustly. i come from a place where people kill each other and kill themselves. where violence is so deeply rooted in our culture that we begin to take it out on ourselves. the violence turns inward and it keeps going.

So You're Going to be a Senior...

as i approach my senior year of college i feel scared, overwhelmed, relieved, happy, and nervous all at the same time.
i have 8 months to get together my whole senior show and be ready to face the world as an adult with a degree...
i have been having a recent onslaught of small panic attacks whenever i think about school. they are usually followed by nausea and exhaustion. i start a week from today. it will be a long, scary road, but i also feel like it's going to go by quicker than i anticipate. i know that "tomorrow" i'm going to be standing at senior show, shitting my pants and wondering where the last 8 months have gone. i know it will be exciting, but it scares the hell out of me to think that shortly, i will be completely responsible for everything that happens to me. no more class, no more papers, no more critiques...

no use in wasting time,
back to Otis in a week!!