The Meaning

What do you love? How do you seek it? And why do you love it in the first place?

This morning, I was on my way to work. I stopped at the 7-11 in Grandin to pick up Diet Cokes like I do every morning. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed an elderly man in a white and red cardigan, with reflective sunglasses, sporting a long white cane that he was using to sweep the ground in front of him. I got out of my car, grabbed my bank card, and as I approached the front of 7-11, so did he. He found the curb, stepped on it, and made his way away from the door. So I watched for a second, as he found a trashcan, and then I made my way to him.

As I reached the man, another person behind me called out, "Are you looking for the door?" but the blind man didn't hear. So I put my hand on his shoulder and he swung around. "Do you need any help, sir?" I asked. "Where is the door to the McDonald's?" "McDonald's?" I repeated just to be sure. "Oh no, not the McDonald's." He laughed. "I mean 7-11." I laughed with him. "It's right over here, sir." I linked my arm with his and slowly guided him towards the door, where the other helpful citizen stood, holding the door open. He said, "Thank you, young lady," and we parted ways.

I've done little things like this numerous times in my life. I bought a tube of lip gloss for a little girl in Bath and Body Works. I gave twenty bucks to two kids who I witnessed returning a lost cellphone they had found. I helped a broke, and possibly deranged, man who was living in a hotel. I've listened to people talk for hours about what pains them or about their ideas and notions they cannot keep locked away inside them anymore. I've given money to the homeless. I've held open doors, picked up dropped wallets, and let people pass me on the interstate.

I love making people happy. If I can't make the entire world happy forever, I would love to make one person feel slightly better than they had before I came along for at least a few minutes. You cannot predict when someone needs something; it just sort of happens. And a lot of the time, these people didn't even ask for any kindness to begin with. I just see someone that needs something, and I do what I can in that moment to help.

Why, though? Why do I love making people happy?
Is it for some selfish reason, that making others happy makes them like me more? Because I'll receive that little bit of validation when someone turns around to say thank you? Because I want that little pat on the head from my peers? Because my church and my bible and my God have told me so? Because karma exists, and I know I will be rewarded ten-fold down the road?

I think I do it simply because it's the right thing to do. And I believe that everyone should do it, regardless of his or her motivations. Kindness is a kindness, no matter what spawned it. And oh sure, if everyone did it "the world would be a happier, more beautiful place," but that's not why. I cannot change and improve the world, but I can improve me to help you, so we can change now.

Hope, She Calls It

If only, I sigh, with the wind of desperation that escapes me loosely. Staring into a tiny dot on my computer screen, knowing that perhaps, you feel I'm looking at you.

It's terrifying. Joyful and terrifying. To be so connected with someone so intangible. You hardly exist, in a realistic sense.

What I would give to feel you, for at least one moment. To hold you inside of me. To know that your pulsating heart does so next to mine. To feel those hands, those beautiful hands, as they firmly grip my hips. To feel your breath, moist and warm, on my neck, condensing with sweat and heat. The roughness of your facial hair grazing my collarbone.

Two lips, meeting mine, in a rushed flurry of tongues and passion. I'd whisper to you, and allow my words to fall inside of you. I'd pray they leapt across your heartstrings in the same fashion your words leap across mine. How I long for that one blessed moment when my skin can touch yours.

Instead I take solace in the sole fact that you are alive and breathing every day. Knowing that you traipse across the surface of this earth, the same as I, is enough. If only for now.

Do you think of me when you stare at the expansive cyan sky and know that I, just like you, stand below its vast greatness thinking of you?

Do you think of me when you stand amidst a blossoming forest and wish that I can be there with you?

Do you think of me when you are alone, and just as I do, do you long for that day when we can at least be in the same room as one another?
I cannot see you, I cannot touch you. Within the deepest chambers of my heart and within the very breadth of my soul, I do believe I can still feel you moving about. Restless and longing, just like me.

I miss you.

And I don't even know who you are.

My Favorite Things

Blueberry incense and warm summer nights
Card games with friends and bright Christmas lights
Open windows and books and old cocktail rings
These are a few of my favorite things

Visiting the zoo and big, white full moons
Bonfires and brush fires and watching cartoons
Learning weird facts and untangling string
These are a few of my favorite things

Being on stage and taking pictures of flowers
New pencils and cats and laughing for hours
Dancing with people and trying to sing
These are a few of my favorite things

When I'm left alone
When my heart swings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

Nyquil High

The rush of the earth impinges upon you such a sluggish display, and the room around you becomes festive and boring all at the same time.

Tomorrow's troubles seem like distant nuclear wars.

The waste of dread bears down on you like thick, gray chains.

Tear at you like starved bloodhounds.

The hot, steely lips of that broken-down devil swears and makes poems.

He leans against his liquid black car. The tears of his past pool and ripple around his ankles.

He hides his sly grin in the sleeve of his brown mole skin coat.

The epitome of empathy and compassion is letting those who will harm you win.

When you close your eyes, you can feel his voice settling in your ears. You can feel the room and all the world melting into a thick damp fog. When you close your eyes you spin like a dainty water lily traipsing around the glass-top pond. Consciousness flows out of you like a forgotten dream and you are at peace once more.

Treading Water

Kicking will only do so much for so long. You won't drown, but you won't get anywhere either. You'll tire out eventually. The treading, the waiting for a rescue, seems futile and fruitless. Allowing yourself to live, yet in such stressed circumstances, becomes an argument of quality of life over its quantity. So, you let yourself succumb to the water. And below its transparent surface, you dip.

This is another moment.

Another situation entirely.

You are now faced with the imminent prospect of death. Up above the surface, death seemed peaceful and like a good idea, but now... The water is filling up your nose and mouth, pressing in on your chest. Death is rushing in on you fast and from all sides. The great unknown yawns beneath you, ready to swallow you up as soon as you surrender, but the overwhelming fear of it all rushes to your limbs, causing you to kick and swim.

Your face breaks the surface.

You take a big gulp of air.

Your heart, hammering wildly beneath your sternum, courses the now dissipating adrenaline through your arteries. And you curse yourself for being a coward.

Too scared to live.

But too scared to die.

So you continue to tread water.

The Ghost

Sometimes I wish I can fade in and out like some sort of ghost. That little phantom that creeps up unexpectedly then disappears into nothing when you thought you were sure you saw something.

That presence that merely is, but doesn't matter. I like being noticed, don't get me wrong, but for some strange reason, I have a hard time being appreciated. It's almost as if I don't like it.

It feels like someone's attachment brings me into existence again, and I try to slip back through the wall the way I came in, but instead I slam into it because I'm suddenly solid. And I have to use a door to leave. And I hate using doors.

I begin to feel trapped, because I'm not who I was anymore. I'm not the mysterious mist that can reason and speak and can disappear and reappear. I'm a person again, with scars and baggage and the fear of using the goddamn door. I have no reason to use the door, other than I know that if I do get out of the room, I get to become a ghost again, which is both cowardly and rude.

I'm not pretending when I say I know how you feel. It's something like this:

Mumford and Sons: White Blank Page

I cried when I heard that song for the first time, because I feel like such an asshole.

Just know, that I'd much rather be in your shoes than in my own.

Mine give me blisters, and I'm not allowed to bitch about it.

Remember

When we were kids and nothing mattered

Except for five minutes.

It was only relevant for five minutes.

And maybe I'm wrong and

I should've said yes and

I should've waited and

I should've known what to say and

I should've done the right thing.

But, what the hell is the right thing to do, anyway?

Is honesty that good of a policy?

The truth was good but sometimes it changed.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the same.

Maybe the truth does set you free, but

Only when it's way overdue.

You're a lot like me.

I forget it sometimes.

I've not slept in 33 hours.

I've been sick today.

My father is in the hospital.

My mother is hurting.

My sisters are scared and

I'm scared.

I know I'm being watched.