2am

When the world falls alseep, why am I still sitting here expecting confetti to burst up over my computer screen? Why do I check my silent cell phone? If I've been caught up in a tornado all night, is this just me suffering from the shock of the end of the wind? Or maybe it's just pure insomnia, or abuse of caffiene. Nevertheless, here I sit, watching night breathe on. Love songs play from YouTube, with no meaning other than the soft tune they put into the room.

As I stare at green digital numbers, I can feel time dripping down on me, and I start to feel layers disappear. Tonight is not just tonight - it's every night I've been awake in the middle of the morning, wondering if I'm about to fall out, or if I'll see the sunrise this time. Everytime I've been worried, or blissful, overly contemplative or scared. Any time I have held this vigil, 2am on Fort Washington Avenue. I start to realize I'm staring at the same pencil-smudged plaster and paint I stared at years ago, and signed my name and pledges of love. Written like prisioners' wall carvings to prove that I was once there, in a different form. Of all the things that have changed, I still find myself in the same room, awake, absorbing night's gravity.

And then when the sunrises the purity of the dawn will shine off of urban windows and in faint ways around red and brown bricks. And I will feel every morning I've ever lived, the cold ones and the warm ones. I will feel the simultanious dread and wonder that I'm alive again and there is another day to live where there will be life on earth. Dawn is the best time to determine your character, as light baptizes you. There's a certain signifigance of seeing the first moments of morning - there's a reason you're catching that moment; it doesn't tend to be coincidental, and even if you think so, I suggest you think twice.

Security

What is this destruction that is bringing down the structure of our lives? What is this communal "our" that is supposed to put us all in the same position? Why are there scars on children's faces that can only teach them about the darkness in people's troubles? Those liars who don't preach to raise awareness, but only to hide their own problems...

I don't know what someone could say to put together these pieces I'm holding in my hands. See those fibers like paper ripped apart that were once a face. And not the face of anyone I know because security doesn't have an identity. Security is a liar too - preaching examples of places where you can be unharmed. But everywhere is dangerous because you can always get hurt, but to say you're safe hides how vulnerable you really are. Every step taken is putting your entirety on the line, and we are more easily destroyed internally, before anything external can touch us. So as I hold these pieces that used to be Security, I am thankful that I get to breathe, and to stare down at my bare hands thinking. Because like those liars who are hiding their own problems by trying to act like they're solving everyone else's, I am sitting back and letting knives dig into the weakness of my own soul. Because I am the greatest example of one of those liars.

Wrist

Her wrists were so innocent. White, soft skin, like they were the day she was born. Veins of life seen through the surface, perfect and untouched. No tension, no hate, no devestation that would be obvious at the sight of the rest of her. But feeling around in the darkness, she picked up her wrist, and felt the inside of it with her fingertips. Her hands were cold and her arm was warm. The blade was cold, and the blood was warm. It slowly came in, and the sensitive skin over the veins reacted to the slightest touch. The skin was tight and unmoving as the blade stroked it, sinisterly toying at her fate: two inches down, two inches up, pausing at the base. After a while, this rubbed a sore spot. She clenched her hand, and unclenched it. The blade came down, pinching the first millimeter of skin it came in contact with. Then it pressed harder, leaving a whiteish-pale green mark that eventually melted into the pale pale rose pink that they use to describe kids' clothes in magazines. She was left undecided what to do with the knife.

23

That night, she kept walking. The black door beckoned as it had every other night, but she couldn't go through it now. The wind brushed her cheeks and summoned unemotional tears, despite the cirucumstance. She didn't have the want to go, but she didn't want to do anything, except get somewhere cold, somewhere holy, somewhere that would tell her what to do. Past the black door and ignoring the red light, the darkness ahead was as looming and inevitable as it had been when she woke up that morning, her fate already decided, but her being unaware of it. It was a tunnel that called to her, because wherever she was wandering that night, it was far better than from where she was coming. Something about the cold darkness was comforting, gave her a sense of belonging. Belonging to the cold is to belong to nothing, to loneliness and that little black part in your heart.
Every breath had weight that questioned if another breath would ever come. Then, it came, rushing all too fast into her lungs, and the woman, the girl, almost choking on it, before suffocating from lack of it. Without any consious choice, her legs proplled her forward, away from a shattered world, and towards a world she didn't know yet. She stopped at the wall.
Looking over the wall, snow was shoved up around the fences, once beautiful innocence, now packed into the uniform truth of what it means. Light reflected off the glistening concrete, from the street lights, creating a white and golden hue. The mini bowling ball in her chest rose, and fell. The wind grazed the top of her hair, and she lifted her head to the sky, to look for the moon. Once located, the familiar white curve shone down pressing truth onto her face.
Frozen in her mind was the sight she'd seen so often before, and taken for granted. Now, tonight as it appeared, it stopped her heart, her breathing, her head spun and she stared at the image in her head. It took over and she asked - why. it was the happiest sight of her life. And given previous events, it was questioned, if it too, were real.

Hundred

I feel like my heart has left me and it's never coming back. This scary darkness like the closing of a book came towards me starting as a dot from the distance, spreading like ink on a page, until everything was black as if I were blind. THen this ghost, of no particular figure or shape, but with a white-sliver hue. This ghost lunged at me, and I was so frightened. I was flying, lost, crying, clinging to every cryptic word that came next, until slowly the white ghost became a solid, and formed white walls, and I was within them. This room proved to be suspended my a chain that went up in space indefinetly. And my four walls began to swing, which held the feeling of fear and that I was still moving, still, without solidity in that space. Yet, the box, gave me this little bit of safety that kept me together. And then life restarted.

This is my 100th blog post (thus the title). WHOO! One hundred rants that I've put up on the internet and that people have actually read! I feel so accomplished.

Solstice

Yes, we celebrated the solstice last night. We all sat together talking about our days, and then talking about what has happened to us in the last year, and what we were thinking of right now. We discussed the fact that it was the longest night of the year, that the sky was dark for the most time out of any other time in the year. That after this turning point, winter would begin, and the process of the days getting longer would begin. We went to our altar where we had candles and incense, and we lit and burned them. We turned out all the lights and sat together and prayed. It was silent, and dark. All you saw was the two little flames on the altar quivering. We passed around the singing bowl, tapped it so you heard a bell, that repeated steadily like a heartbeat. 

When this moment was over, we got up and began to talk. We talked about the elements, fire, water, earth and air, and how they made up everything in life. I began to drum, softly and consistently, I drummed for a long time. Then my father had his turn drumming to fill the air with wonderfulness. We waved the incense around and then took deep, calming breaths. At midnight we all came together and I drummed as long and as fast as I could, keeping the energy rising, and then it fell again and we sat on the floor, looking at the candles, still burning. I prayed to The Earth and Sky and Elements and Stars, and I was sitting on my living room floor, watching the flame...