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.

8th grade

The room held an ominous silence.

It was late. Most had gone home.

One day.

Fake money and plastic flowers

Scattered across tile

Where the darkness gave fluorescent lights

a creepiness.

And that finality

Known all too well

When the energy is built up so high

Just to crash

When hours ago

This room was filled with laughter and joyfulness

Gone so suddenly

Almost like dead spirits

Now all that's left

Are half filled racks with suits

And an empty hallway

Where Axe lingers in the air

And props scattered on the ground

The remnants of multiple souls

Or one collaborative soul

Which I now mourn.

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.

A

The A train is friendly to my soul. It exists with me to balance life, like a metronome to the musician. It makes life easy, hell, it makes life run. From the Heights of sun and hiding, to the Downtown of people, if I am sad, or alone, beginning or ending, the A train is there for me. It is friendly to my soul.

On a dark February night, there is nothing left but the A. The people are gone, the luck has been wasted, and the love is lost, but there is still the A. On a dirty platform, freezing or swealtering, and the hobo in the corner won't stop singing, there is only one tunnel of hope to see. And out comes the A. Two little lights from the black abyss, followed by a blue circle. And glowing in that circle, is the letter that is my love. Once I see it, I know I will be okay. The A train has come to save me. The A train is friendly to my soul.

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...