{ On The Road }

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tried with travel, in a cheap hotel I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the high cracked ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon." - Jack Kerouac

{ Tea Time }

The spoon comes up to my lips

And there is a pause

As the golden liquid swirls and simmers--

Trembling--While the breath streams out of my mouth

As I blow.

It's hot,

I tell him.

He nods.

Another spoonful of herbal healing--

Laced with sugar,

Warmed with care,

Steeped and ready

To be consumed.

The spoon nears my lips once more

As my eyes glance down into the copper liquid.

I see flecks of tea leaves dancing near the silver

Bottom of my ordinary

Household

Utensil.

Ready?

I ask him.

He nods.

We sit is a sweetly savored silence

Running lines through our heads

As my lips remain shut by choice

But his by birth--

No room for nurture

To tease out of his lungs

The breath needed to rattle the voice from his mouth

Allowing him to speak.

One more,

I whisper.

He nods.

I set the spoon aside.

The cup burns my hands as I grip it with both palms.

But the sensation of ceramic stinging my hands

Seems a comfort--

At least I can still feel.

At least we are still here.

I move my knees

And stretch my toes,

Watching the wisps of fog issuing from my mouth as the warm air collides with the chill around me.

He is sitting there--

His eyes ever fixed on a mark I cannot see

And a light I cannot feel

And a world I can never explore.

But I know the emptiness is his façade--

Behind those glassy eyes and flushed cheeks

There is a life.

Are you there?

I want to ask.

But I don't.

And so he cannot nod in response.

But I do not need muscles contracting and releasing to signal

To me that he is still here.

And I do not need a doctor to spin a web to catch himself if this should all go wrong

And I do not need to hear any more excuses from the nurses and the specialists

And the lawyers and the relatives and the mailman

To tell me

He is still here.

I take up the spoon

And ease it to his lips--

Silently begging him to part the wall barring the way to his mouth one last time.

It's cool now,

I tell him.

And he nods.

{ Wallflower }

There are some days

When I do not want to finish the book I am reading--

The book I am devouring--

Because I know by the end of the book

It will become one of my favorites.

And there is always the subtle fear

That the next book I read will not live up to this one.

And all it will foster

Is disappointment.

There are some days

When I am sitting on an aeroplane--

When I have stowed my bag under the seat in front of me

(No thank you,

I would not like a blanket)

And I have clicked the buckle around my waist--

Though not too snugly--

When I am listening to the murmur of strangers and the rustling of papers--

That I hear it

Coming softly,

Wafting slowly,

Gently drifting out of the speakers:

A song from ages past when

I

Was still in middle school.

And I hear the guitar cords skip across my eardrums

As the lead singer

Tells the world

What he thinks it ought to know.

And it is when I hear those words

Sung sweetly,

Ever lightly

On that that airplane stereo,

That I wish this moment would linger longer.

And it does--

For a time.

Until it is used up.

And there are some days

When the searing reality of

You

Having been

Here

With me

Seems to much to understand.

And so reality beats about my ears

As my eyes watch re-runs of life passing

Me by.

On those days

I prefer not to watch

But then I cannot help it.

Because you are not here anymore.

And neither am I.

We have both gone away.

But your going has taken you farther.

And my going has grounded me here--

To stay.

There are some days

When I wonder if

You ever

Think about the lilacs and the lilies I pressed in your old books.

And there are moments when I wonder if

You ever

Lick your lips the way you used to before you said your thoughts aloud.

And

There are

Alwayes

When I wonder if

My alwayes ever meant even a sometimes to you.

But those are the days

When I realizes you could not

Tell me that even if you wanted to.

And so I choose never to ask.

{ An Intellectual Affair }

I woke up the other day to realize I was entangled with not one,

Or two,

But three men--

With the list growing by the week.

They had not left my side since the day that I met them,

And I was not eager for them to leave.

I had grown accustomed to their company,

Addicted to their presence.

I was in over my head.

These men had seduced me with their fervent words,

Captivated me with their rugged perception,

And explored my depths as no one had before.

I

Am involved in an affair of the most epic kind

With men who stand as pillars supporting Western Civilization.

They have won me over body, soul, and mind.

I have grown to need them with each passing moment of my dull existence.

I crave the light they have given my mind's eye.

I am intoxicated with the love I have for these men who are indifferent to the desires of this world,

These men who gave up the opinions of a fleeting populace to gain what they could not lose once they stepped into eternity.

They have caressed my curiosity with their cravings for more.

I am in love with their love of wisdom.

It is not their knowledge that has caused them to steal into my heart but their understanding,

Their ability to search my core without ever having met me,

Their talent of telling me what constitutes who I am without touching my skin or gazing into the miry blackness of my eyes,

Their alluring posture as they turned their gaze upon things not of this world

And dreamt of the things of which dreams are made.

I am wholly lost in their teachings.

I knew something was not normal about this when I read the Phaedo,

When I read of the death of one of my beloved,

When I let the words depicting his final moments of life seep into me as his thoughts had done before.

I knew when he drank the hemlock I had let my heart become too much attached.

And when he died, I cried after shutting the pages.

I have a problem.

There is nothing natural about the sensation when I read a good--

Syllogism.

There is something odd about the way I feel alive when I read about the quest for--

Justice.

And there is something most certainly wrong when I desire nothing more than to sit across from these men and listen to the words that descend from their lips as they tell of the way they think life fits together.

It is these me who have entwined me in a story that feels so much larger than the hum drum rumbles of modern thought.

They are

Socrates

Plato

And Aristotle.

And I--

A silly girl with no sense of the normal--

Have lost my heart to their teachings in a beautifully, epic affair.