I loved to despise him.

I've always had a fondness for vampires. Call it weakness. Call it lust. Call it what you will. It has always been.

But admitting it. When the vampire has had his fill? What then. Feelings of inadequacy. Feeling like your blood isn't heavy enough?

Knowing that it's too heavy. That it falls too hard. Drip drip drip. On the floor. Too heavy to drink up. Wasted drops. And you call yourself a vampire?

Games we play. I'm no good with games. I don't like rules. I play by my own. And where do they get me. Full of blood, bursting with blood, too much blood for those

vampires.

Drive them away. That's what my new brother says. He gave me the magic potion, and I anoint myself. What did I expect, putting the potion on my neck. No vampire will any longer draw near.

Such a fool, the girl who goes hunting vampires with a garlic necklace.


She bit herself, and opened a bleeding eye to guide her way.

wallow

Something mysterious and strange hangs in the air tonight. A thick electricity of chaotic potential. At any moment it might erupt in brilliant violence. The moon is new and the world is new. I am weighted with a directionless longing. Because I want nothing, I want to want something. This longing is lodged in my belly, waiting to be turned on its head, shaken loose. I need to be shaken, stirred, my fires stoked, unshackled from the familiar and routine. The city is alive with possibility, seeping forth like gas from volcanic vents, struggling against the density of the whole ocean.

My dreams have become more real than my waking life. My emotions are more fully alive where reason cannot reach them. I linger between contempt and affection, love and hate, hope and despair. I do not know what gnaws at my heart, only that it is unfulfilled, hungering. Unsated, it feeds on itself, growing stronger, all consuming. Anxiety shivers down my spine, anticipating the day when this thing is satisfied, consuming itself with cancerous abandon. My heart is ever broken.

There is no peace in my mind, no respite from this nagging need for the mystery that eludes me. I cannot find what I do not know how to seek. I cannot find what I seek until my searching ceases. And still I sense this enigma beyond my grasp, and find myself pursuing it to all ends in the hope of turning up some clue. Yet, nothing. I am met by a mile high wall, erect and defiant. A plaque on its face reads, "You have not reached a wall. There is no wall where you stand. Go forth." It mocks my futile pursuit of a shadow of a dream. When will the shadow take form?

I send myself to bed hungry, a furnace roaring in my gut and bitterness on my tongue.

tension headache

I weary of this disdain, this exhausting frustration. The specters of past failures drift as I drift, through tunnels and alleyways, empty hallways, this empty bed. I mourn these ghosts as half-heartedly as I cared for them while they lived. First, frustration sprung from this desperate impotence; next, a passionate anger, rage where there was once, even briefly, tenderness; finally, indifference, an unfortunate casting away of all vestiges of the potential for a life unlived. It is foolish to cling to hypotheticals, foolish to linger in the shadow of ambivalence. And yet... and yet... ?

Writing with Rain Water

Today I photographed the clouds as the storm rolled in from the west. Deep greys with streaks of lighting and growling thunder. The city was just a foggy silhoutte in the distance. A few raindrops suggest the impending downpour. There is something about the rain that welcomes isolation. Within the last two weeks I have found myself deliberately going outside before the storm, somewhat aggravatedly getting drenched, but savoring the wetness, the exposure to the elements. The wind throwing stinging raindrops in my eyes, against my cheeks. I greet it with a smile, shutting my eyes against the assault. The water cools the fire that the city stokes in my veins. The passion for more, for less, to be rid of the oppression of identity, to embrace my ghostly anonymity. The struggle against reason, to succumb to every capricious whim. The roof is my solitary island, the width of the sky affording room for all my expansive thoughts. When I am alone there, I am content in my solitude. The lightning excites me, the thunder answers my silence. My sighs, otherwise deafening in the confines of walls, windows, and doors, are stolen away by the wind. They are not trapped inside, amplifying and choking me in my dreams. They are small, fleeting things, and I am free to let them go. Then the rain comes, and washes me clean.

Chambers

The moon is full tonight and my eyes sparkle with silent tears. I am waiting on a platform with other fools for a train headed the wrong way. This is the moment I am always waiting for. Neon lights flicker overhead. It is humid and dirt gathers with perspiration on my cheeks and forehead. My ears are ringing with graveyard songs. I hide in the open from blind eyes. Sweat gathers in the hollows beneath my eyelids. The odor of old garbage mingles with that of moist bodies and frustration. I am waiting to go home to a place that doesn't exist and never did. I am covered in the dust of so many unburied bones. We are all lost, we are all searching. Our only purpose is to keep moving. I miss the constellations, my guardians. The stars only emerge in my dreams anymore. I think I'm dying.

Book receipt

Shakespeare & Co. Downtown
716 Broadway
New York, New York 10003
Phone: 212 529-1330
Http://www.shakeandco.com

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4/22/08
You don't know me, but I know you. Deep inside you
there are shadowy corners where you've hidden your
shameful secrets. You know what I'm talking about.
You're shifty now. You're avoiding my gaze. What are
you hiding? We're all hiding something. My secret is
that secretly I thrive on all this pain. It reminds me
how vulnerable this plane of existence is and yet, how
enduring. It will go on without me. Without you, too,
and so will our secrets. But secrets are lies. I don't
want to die with lies in my heart, so I try never to
carry any. The sad thing is, most people don't want to
hear the truth. They loathe what the truth does to
illusions, and illusions are oh so precious nowadays.
People will give up everything to live beyond the bare
bones reality of walking everyday upon this Earth. Life
will kill you. It's as simple as that. Might as well live it
up while you can! I want to be among the awakened
when this dream ends. My dreams are the reality I care
most about. They are my true brainstorms, and there is
only calm after. Beauty and terror. Sorrow and joy.