Ghosts

I was cleaning today, going through some old (old!) papers, and I came across a collection of poems I wrote. Here are a couple of my favourites:

*****
he sings the names
with conviction--
so unlike the unconscious
humming harmonies
of night whistling
that I hear so often
in reply to the silence
afforded by intimacy.
those arms are betraying--
strong but terrified
they cling to their fear.
I've felt them and wondered at their contradictions.

beauty offers no protection,
honestly little more
so those strong arms keep clinging
and questioning
and helpless I stand and smile
and wonder--
offering no explanations
whistling in my own darkness

---written early 1990, for my friend Samuel

****
in the green
in the wet
in the smooth
of the deep
green
wet
pools of your eyes
I can see so many things. . .
and then you blink

---22 may 1990 about my then crush, Will.

Cheap and Conflicted

Cheap? Perhaps not the best word to define my chagrin at having started the year off with such a bang and finding myself, here not much more than a month later, whimpering in a corner. It sort of works though. As in, my attention is cheap. My appetite is cheap. It doesn't take much at all to distract me from the goals at hand which were, in a nutshell, to eat better and exercise more.

Which I did. For exactly 16 days, until The Burning Crusade was released.

I wasn't going to write about the game today. I was going to talk about the smell of wet dirt and how much joy it brings me. I was going to mention the fact that I think it's immensely ironic that I spent much of my childhood picking rocks out of the grass at our various houses-in-the-country but now I have to pick errant bits of grass out of the desert landscape that is my yard. I was even going to mention the fact that Sundried Tomato and Basil Parmesan Wheat Thins are the best snack cracker currently on the market (yes, even better than Chikin in a Biskit!).

However. The game dominates all. It is social for me. I have friends there that I've known for longer than some of the people with whom I work. It is therapy for me. In my crazy job, my task oriented psyche gets little comfort; the game sets distinct, ascertainable, goals for me. It's catharsis for me. After a day of bitchy co-workers and rude customers, I like to pretend that I am gorgeous and powerful. I can beat the crap out of the bad guys and/or lead my less powerful friends to safety. I can create items of amazing power and utility. I can fly.