summer.

i see myself in the big silver spoon
i'm upside down, though
my whole world is
carving out its insides
i love the sound it makes
like ripping paper
slurping and chewing its insides
it looks like guts
guts with white and black seeds
pools of translucent blood
at the bottom
a need for something sweet
with the illusion of a daily serving

mute.

my body's straining from sleep deprivation and now my eyes are straining in this horrid 6am light... it was like a movie. the timing, i mean. i had settled on my back, face and palms up, eyes painfully stuck open. i fixed the earbuds on either side of my brain. my finger hovered over the button and-- he speaks her name. my stupid heart stops and curiosity overtake the need to sleep. once again... i am vastly incapable of remaining content with myself. i asked him in my head" do you ever feel like you know exactly what and how you think but the next minute you're more lost than when you began?" or was it something more meaningful... i catch that glimpse and i feel swimming in the warmth of childhood. but i can't tell if i'm dreaming. can't tell if my brain is so over-active as to make my eyes believe they had seen a sign of love... and still-- i smile. i smile so hard my brain hurts. happiness-pain is the stuff of real love. and i can see i'll be just fine.

quote by yours truly

"i hate being quiet when my soul is so loud."

spring 2006 column.

Beads of water formed on the outside of a pitcher of ice-cold lemonade. They reflected the sunlight and made the pitcher glow as if summer itself was contained within the glass.

We spread a blanket, whose pink flowers had faded from years of sun-exposure, but the emerald grass was so long and soft that we almost didn’t need to. Lying on our backs, faces upturned and eyes squinting, we played The Cloud Game. Finding bunnies and pirate ships in the magnificent cotton balls that floated across that sea of indigo was better than any television show.

Memories like that show up in my mind with a soft haze around them, like they do in the movies. I look back on those times with such fondness that, sometimes, I find myself longing to be four years old again. It was so much simpler back then.

I wonder how I got here: this clean, well-maintained classroom with computers lining every wall. Thirteen other college students click-clacking on their keyboards, hoping this column will be able to boost their grade before the end of the semester.

Wow, the end of the semester. The end of my first year in college. I’m going to be a sophomore. But it was just last week that I received my acceptance letter! It was just yesterday that I jumped for joy at the thought of attending my dream school!

Lemonade has been replaced by coffee. Clouds have been replaced by computer screens. Blankets have been replaced by my friend’s dorm room futon because "I just need a break from studying for finals."

Her name was Sarah, and she was my first friend ever. We grew up in houses on either side of Elena Drive in a quiet neighborhood in Laguna Hills, CA. I hardly speak to Sarah anymore. The occasional obligatory email is all that remains of our almost two-decade-long friendship. My family has occupied two other houses since the one on Elena. And none of them ever felt as "homey" as that one.

Raindrops cling to my car’s windshield as I drive up the 5 freeway toward Chapman University. They reflect the surrounding landscape, holding the world within them. But the images are inverted—turned upside-down—such a different world than what it used to be.

true man.

He brought his portable bunny-eared 12inch television to the coffeeshop’s lobby area and pulled up an arm chair. He propped his booted feet up on one of the small round low tables and watched the highlights from some baseball game in Canada. His belly sat on top of his thighs and rose and fell with every labored breath. I imagined his wife had told him to get out, he was in the doghouse, and so even though he still sleeps next to his cold cold wife at night—only because his back problems wouldn’t permit even one night spent on the couch—he spends all of his time elsewhere. At work behind his steel desk at the nut canning facotry. In his comatose mother’s kitchen, making himself a meal of lentil soup and left-over turkey. And in the posh coffeeshop, setting up shop like some lame window display, confusing the young co-eds coming in to study and the caffeine addicted mothers-of-6.