Today, I Woke Up

Anyone who knows me, knows that I spend the majority of my time at the library. I even have a specific place in the basement where I like to sit. My friends, when they cannot get a hold of me, know exactly where to go...down the curved staircase, past the government documents, science and psychology books on the right with the literature, computer-science and math books on the left and over by the square-windows...there, you can find "my" desk.

I love how I can see trees wave to me. I try and figure out the names of the trees. I think there's a juniper and an ash. My favorite is the pine. I like to look at their arms when I get tired of reading. It is winter, so all but the pine are bare, exposing their tender veins which remind me of dendrite webs.

I imagine my brain is made up of countless tree branches upon smaller tree branches, their expanding twigs stretching out to almost touch one another, the synapses gaps keeping them eternally apart.

So, I spend many hours trying to read, but the tress usually have their way of distracting me. When it grows dark, their bodies are still there.

In the library basement bathroom, there's a sign someone put up on one of the doors. I noticed it a couple days ago. It reads:

Today, I woke up and ______________

When I first read it, I was having one of those days where words are dry bones. Where I'd sit and count lines on the back of my hand, wondering when the gods of the library would appear. Where did they go? Where is their joyful dust? I'd ponder my palms, the lines God drew before I breathed the cosmos in my lungs. Bits of dust, dust, dust. I couldn't write. I was uninspired. I was stubborn and raw.

I read the note on one of those days and felt a simple voice inside whisper "Today, I woke up and...."

I woke up and read, I thought. I woke up and I tried to write. It wasn't anything brilliant or even coherent. But look! It is true!

Today, I woke up and read, wrote.

Today I woke up and

and do we love this minute? Do we notice it's clothing? Do we wake and breathe? Yes. Surely, we breathe.

It's easy to forget. This morning, I woke up and.

And I cried, thinking I wasn't listening to you. Thinking I was losing track of the words. Thinking my mind was blind and the library gods thought me a bad steward.

It's easy, so easy to forget. This morning. How there are trees that keep their heart-wood radiating from the inside out. How there are friends longing for our voice, how our parents still wake, astonished we were born.

This morning, I woke up and loved you.

Sometimes, there are signs.

I don't know who put up that sign in the bathroom. But Thank You. And thank you Sarah Lawrence, for encouraging the spontaneous, creative spirit that reminds me....

Today, I woke up.

You're Not Failing, Child. You're Singing.

I want to live fiercely. Like I’m climbing for my minutes. My days.

*****

You are not failing poetry, child. You're singing. You're whistling footsteps. You're guiding a thousand gods when you cry, when you think you've failed.

They see your passion. They can smell it from the mountain.
Then they come down.
Now you’re wondering when you’ll die. Just as they rejoice in having seen you born. Let all the grass tickle your eyes.
Do not despair. Or, rather, despair. Despair into darkness, climb down the hole, but keep a candle lit, close to the chest.
Because despair sleeps at night with passion. It strokes her hair, it loves her gently.
She will return.
Let the darkness understand, but do not understand darkness.
You have not failed.
About you are lightning bugs. These gods. Your whistling sent them messages.
They’ve come from the mountain to glow about your head. Warm bodies.
There is hope.

You’re guiding a thousand gods when you cry, head in hands. Look up! Angels.

They have walked toward you, gods of the old country.
From your childhood.
From the tea-lights.
From the garden.
You cannot see them, but around you, messages. Look up.

*****

I was running five miles, I was singing.
But in breathes. I was running and breathing, sweating doubts out.
Calling your name. I was singing. Your name in breaths.

This is how I fail you. I breathe in.

Before I know your name, I sing it.

The dark spots build hives in my eyes. I am running.

Speak of how I will come back to you. I have come back and do not know it.

At night I compose long theories in the air about how my heart is electricity.
But it fades with morning. My lips seal the dream. Kisses the theory, smudges the lines so I wake with smudges. Nothing makes sense. Have I failed?

*****

You’re not failing, child. You’re singing.
You’re making your way through what will be the map of love.
Breathe in. Your palms.
Despair already licks the skin. But clean.
It is whistling the theory. In your ear. A thousand gods build hives.

It is hard to believe the streets have stone-bodies.
It is hard to love the body of rock.
The gods against you, this is why you bleed.

You’re full of theories. Nestled, there, in cell-homes.

One day, you across the sky.
The gods rejoice, seeing you, child, sparkling.

You are not failing, you’re moving. Singing. Inside you, the world.

Barefoot, Why Give Me a Voice

"We are brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground."


I woke clutching daisies, hair of some other world. There, I say, stay. Alive.

These are my words, dropping off, leaping off onto the carpet, scattering their language and cursing the nation.

How can I understand. Morning is slipping away.

Last night was a woman, barefoot in Grand Central, sliding her way to God.

The soft padding of her feet, past me.

Holding high heals, swinging notes, hips, dress-coat smiling at the lights.

all this and bells! In my ears, bells!

I want to kiss her feet. Now, it is morning.

Why remember the stitches in the night, before the 11:10 train, which I missed on purpose, why remember? On purpose, missed. Let go. Leave.

I do not want to leave my bed. I do not want to open my hands to you.

The daisies will not stay alive, I ask them to.

Things grow out to wither. If I write this down, I said nothing. The train is leaving.

Woman, take your shoes and run from here. I cannot kiss your feet. There are no daisies. The bells stop ringing.

Go on! I cannot get out of bed because of you. I cannot write but that I hate the day, and your smiling dress. Let go, miss the train.

Why give me a voice?

My words, they missed the train. To run away. I hate the day.

I cannot get out of bed. To tread on words. On the carpet. Your Bells.

I will wear images on my feet. The woman sliding to God. Barefoot. I will wear her. Like a dress-coat smiling to the lights. Imagine. Nothing for our feet to walk on, one day.

I woke clutching daisies, hair of some other world.

Remember, they said. You’re alive. Let go.

Language, Pulled on by the Roots of its Hair

Coming back to You is cold water.

There are notes in my hand.

But here I am, sat with my knees to chest, canceling notes out one by one, refusing to listen.

I need to be honest. Need to go ahead with what the gods speak. But my body, my brain, slugs on.

I can feel you when I climb the stairs. Your light through the window, but I cannot hear you in others, in the night, on the train, in Brahms. Where did you go to? Lean into me. Push against me again.

I cried driving home from the store. And a stranger leaned out the window, throwing his words like barbs.

How have I moved away from you?

It happened I passed into St. Patrick’s at Mass. I knew only half-prayers. The ceiling filled in the gaps.

And just as I feel my body being lifted, there, again, the weight.

Did this anchor chase you in dreams?

I keep spinning off the corner of the bed. Each time I’m convinced I’ve lifted. I can hold onto that feeling at dawn.

But it vanishes. Parts of you vanish. Where in the water do you go?

It is useless to ask why the body tires, why my mind changes language.

But you know it is constant, this movement.

The gift, pulled around by hair, is singing. Singing by the window. Looking down into some kind of ocean.

This is where I lift. You know this. You know the grooves on my mind’s edge-work.

But it vanishes. Parts of the sensation into the water.

On the subway, it could be any year. And so I wanted to go back to that line. Not just the line of thought, but that line in time when I wasn’t thinking about speaking, when you were speaking to my loneliness as though in a box.

It is constant, this movement. So why the thought of jumping, right before the 6 arrives?

This is the gift, pulled by the hair—the end-notes running along ahead of the 6. Tied to their backs, letters from you. End-note pests, end-notes from the deepest gutter in the Earth’s bowl. From You.

And the ceiling fills in the gaps. I am sat at the platform, confused.

And now to You who do not think

I am addressing each letter-curve to your house.

Tonight, I want to line each thought in a row and pull their hair. And through the floor-boards, feel it. Up through your feet, feel the root of how pain wraps its legs. Of how you know the groove of my mind’s edge-work

Speak.

I cried in the car, returning from the store.

The 6 keeps surprising us with joy. Letters on the back. What I wouldn’t give to cancel your end-notes.

You want to be spoken to.

Coming back is cold.

Where in the water did you go?

This is what I’d say to you:

Letter 1:

You will never believe. I thought something was saying my name. Out. Though it was just the train. I know, I know. Tracks clacking their teeth. And still, under my seat. A man to my left “I thought you were going to sleep through your stop.” How did he know my stop? What if I already slept through my stop? But I smiled, and gathered my things at New Rochelle. He laughed when my head hit the window, falling asleep. I heard my name. Called out. I know, I know. It was only the train. But perhaps I love you.

And, after making tea for the eighth time, I’d climb the stairs and compose this in my head:

Letter 2:

I didn’t mean I heard the tracks. I meant that I text a man each night I’ve never met. I meant that I don’t understand love.

Letter 3:

There’s a moment, in Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15 that makes me want the world in my mouth: 2 minutes and 55 seconds in. The strings break cages. Usually, I am on the train when this happens.

But 3 minutes and 30 seconds in, a soft bend. And I want to kiss you.

Letter 4:

You still won’t believe. Even when strings break cages, ceilings talk when you go silent. I tell myself this is your gift. Imagine, you in every turn. But, crescendos swallow themselves. Eventually, the advantage you have over me will weaken.

Letter 5:

I do not mean weaken. Can I ask, have you heard Piano Concerto B Flat No. 2. Op. 83? I know. I know. But the moment gets away from me, standing on platforms. The movement is more than likely your hand. The mice, philosophers ear-wings. I mean, yes, of course I converse with numbers. You are You only when I am not addressing her dress--plastic bag in a tree.

But I do not send the letters.

The gift I find, tugged on by the roots of its hair, when trying to comfort myself, is licking. Is tying its hands to mine. This is the language of grass. Of having a love and knowing it. Of walking each day toward a door that will not open.