so many hands.

I find myself beginning with "so where do we go from here?"

There's so much interest in knowing the future, so much obsession with finding The Path.

Breaking up the scar tissue and pulling apart what makes the body taught, I find a new sense of purpose. My fingers relax one by one until all pieces of Past are fallen by my feet. It's a start.

Now we walk.

Careful not to slip trip tumble, we crunch orange leaves of memories and prickly sticks of old regrets. I want you to take my hand, but if I tell you, you'll just nod and say you Will. So I push my tongue between rows of teeth, against the back of my lips, and I smile small.

Hello New Day. Hello Yellow Morning.
He greets the rising sun like it was his own Mother. I can't do the same. We don't have that in common.
Hello Today. Hello Mellow Mourning.
He just thinks I'm sweet and funny, nods, and reaches still toward the sun. I just burn. I think, "I burn for him."

Where do we go from here?
No answer.
Now we walk.

waterways.

I suddenly feel like so much is wrong.
I suddenly feel like excitement has drained--quickly-- from all of The Things.
Can you see my bones through my skin?
Can you feel when my eyes melt away from you? I can't look away all the way.

He can see the blood blue through my skin. He thinks that's love. He says he doesn't trust lust. He has his religion. He has his politics. He has his blue-making-invisible eyes.

Red is his color. I can see it around him.

grateful.

It baffles me just how blessed I have been my entire life. I have literally never been in want of anything, despite desiring so many things and truly needing nothing. The best people I know are the most riddled with hardships. These people are also the strongest and most resilient. If I turn out to be half as thankful as they are, maybe I'll be fine. Goal.

cannot think.

I cannot think of a better time to write. I cannot think of a more lonely table, a more far away feeling... Getting a nicotine buzz just from breathing the air beneath my nose. They're not coming anymore. Delicate, weighted eyelids shut out the burn but not the night. There are too many lights, colors and colors of light... I can't even feel my fingertips anymore, but they're not coming anymore.

as opposed to yesterday.

Today, I jumped out of a plane in my mind. A plane hovered at the very roof of my skull. I jumped and never landed.

Today, I knotted up my shoulders. I ruined a massage. I thought about an illness that makes one's glands swell up. I felt pain.

Today, I gained an enemy. Scrunched up inside of the corner of the darkness in my body there was an enemy. I fed her cake and asked her to come in. She did. We are now enemies.

Today, I left my childhood behind. In a beautiful park with sycamore trees and clean, clean sand. I left her in a park with a dripping Popsicle in her hand and little scrapes on her knees.

Today, I fell in love. With myself. She ain't half bad.

Decide.
Commit.
Succeed.

thankful.

One of my Chapman writing professors, published author Martin Nakell, has an Iranian pen pal who is a student and aspiring writer. Recently, I found Vahid on Facebook, and connected the two men. Dr. Nakell sent the following email, which really served to put into perspective how blessed I am to be an American.

studenti --

thanks to sera, vahid got the request to be my friend on facebook. incredibly, the regime shut down facebook (as well as other sites communicating with the outside world) after the last presidential election and the riots that followed. so vahid cannot access facebook anymore.

i just got this message from vahid as well:

Some terrifying news is that they have arrested a very big number of those who were exchanging political news and spreading the events on FaceBook, too.

whew! a good thing i or we weren't on facebook with vahid after all!

'til tuesday, have a good weekend of enjoying our freedom, yes?

dr. nakell