hands.

she took my hands in hers and said to them, "you have lived a rough life, haven't you?" and looked up, less a question than a declarative statement, holding my eyes, refusing to let go. she had called to me as i was walking by her porch, on the way to somewhere from somewhere else, lost in the cleveland summer. it scared me how much she seemed to know about me, how it seemed like she had known me from some other time, some other place, so i never went back. it was hot that day, but i had goosebumps on my arms for hours after from the chill that lingered. and my hands were shaking. i forced myself to ignore what they were telling me.

the lines in my hands run deep. i want to make up something about what that means, to make sense of what my dermatologist told me recently as he held my hands, palms up, and commented that there was nothing abnormal, only that most people have one or two layers of skin there, but i have several. maybe more. it takes me back to when i was 16, and my mom took me to a dermatologist and stated that my hands were starting to matter in the way it does when girls think about holding hands with boys. we were both more optimistic then.

my hands have a greater capacity for memory than my head does. they hold cigarettes with grace and love, as if they had found the perfect accoutrement to their disconnection. they hold alcohol with trepidation, knowing what my tastebuds like to forget. they hold pens as if the pen itself will determine what is written. they accentuate my speech and infuse it with feeling my intonations don't always reflect. they feel everything intensely. they are the part of my body that stubbornly refuses to get warm, stay warm, when the temperature is below 70 degrees. my hands control their own destiny, and are not liable to listen to much of what i say, searching your body for what makes you giggle and moan. the rings on my hands mark events and places and people, the traces of moments, of ideas, that i could spend my life trying to recreate. my hands contain stories and lives i could spend my life trying to forget. mostly, i try to remember.

but words are insufficient for this. words will never tell you what i want you to know. what i need you to know. take my hands in yours. and never let go. let your hand warm mine and make me forget about the chill from just a moment before. when my hands shiver, let me remember the feeling of your warmth. let my hand leave an imprint on yours that marks you forever. let my touch sear your heart.

take my hand.

not ok.

jesus h. christ. snow. !!! this weather makes me want to renounce my vow to never live south of the mason-dixie line. if you need me, i'll be under the covers, hands over my ears, humming loudly, trying to convince myself that it is not as cold as it is. i may or may not hear the phone ringing. i mean, really.

lust.

i'm in new york city, baby. new york city. the city that burrows in my bones and electrifies me. the city that encapsulates my desires and longings. the city that tells me that it's never too late, that i'm never too late. overwhelm me with your lights and furious living and passion. you are the lover that terrifies me with your grand gestures and romantic stylings because how long can that last? you sweep me off my feet. and make me think that nothing else looks as good on me as this city looks on me. even our fights make me hot. this place that tells me that i am alive. that being awake is a way of being, not an option. this is love. this is love delayed and denied, but this is love. take me as i am. i'm in the city, baby. the city. there is no place but here. i have come back to you. and you've been waiting. i've come home. and you won't say anything when i leave, knowing that i will dream of you when i sleep. and someday, will wake up, and come back to my true love. this place that fills me with lust. lusting. lustfully. lust. i want this city so bad. i live elsewhere, but this city that tempts me and teases me until i can't say no, and there i am, back in her arms. and i want to explore every inch of her. i want to get lost in the complicated fractured beauty of this city. fill me with desire. wear me out, keep me up all night. make me never want to leave, make me never want anything other than you, right now, in this moment.

holding up walls.

it was the end of a long day, and i was waiting for the elevator when a woman walked up and looked at me, saying, "holding up walls, eh?" and i laughed and said, "yes". yes. yes i am. i laughed because it is so succinct. i think about the women in my life. all these women. all these beautiful wonderful women. women who make me cry and ache. women who teach me how to laugh, who show me how to love. women who have no idea what they mean to me. women i have only caught glimpses of. women who leave me wanting more from myself than i had ever imagined possible. and my sisters. my sisters who are my world. my sisters who give me reason enough to fight harder than i think i can, to be smarter and tougher than i feel. my sisters who remind me to feel. all of these women who show me what beauty is, what brilliance is, what devastation is. and we are all holding up walls.

and i think of my sisters and this struggle we call living and think we are doing the best we can to hold up these walls. and i know that prometheus and atlas have nothing on us. there is nothing glamourous about this job of holding up these walls that we know can crush us if we stop pushing. that still manage to crush us sometimes, even when we are holding them up. this is not the tragedy of ancient myths. this is the tragedy that was never written in those myths. this is the tragedy of being denied space, the tragedy of having to sweat and struggle and fight through our fears and insecurities and indifference and oppression in order to remain standing. for this alone, we deserve more than the myth we were not given.

but don't ever forget that this is what you do. because we are told all the time, that this is not what we do, that this is something we don't have to do. and it's a lie. it's all a lie. while we are all busy holding up our walls, it is so easy to forget that we are standing together. our sweat runs together, and we keep each other alive. and the walls sometimes seem to close in, and the tiredness is overwhelming, and when that happens, i remind myself to look up. look up. look up at your sisters. see how much love can fit within tight spaces and how love itself pushes the walls back. that's the secret. that's what we've never been told. look up.

the walls are still standing. as are we. we have gotten so very good at this, that we forget how incredible our work is. we are holding up walls. so, the answer is yes. yes, i am. yes, we are.

spring days are perfect for this, apparently.

there is something thrillingly ironic about a group of white people wearing tshirts and signs that say "stop racism now" walking around downtown, all very pleased and happy with themselves. i was tempted to strike up a conversation, but didn't want to interrupt them. they have a lot of work to do.

the taste of coffee black.

i am up earlier than i have been in awhile, awake in the way you are when you are glad to be awake, not just needing to be awake to get somewhere, and not just because you were up all night. the type of awake you are when you are just happy to be here, and that's why you're awake. i have my cup of coffee beside me, not because i need the caffeine to waken my sore tired head, but because i want to savor the sips of heated flavor of rich, bold coffee, with a hint of bitter and sweet. i drink my coffee black. but you knew that from the moment you met me. just like i knew you didn't.

the birds are raucous this morning, and the trees have already changed from yesterday. i marvel at the changes that have happened so quickly, that i am noticing the subtle movements of spring coming. of spring arriving. on my doorstep. standing in front of me and around me, as i sit on my stoop. i never really know i'm yearning for something until it's there right in front of me and i realize i have been holding my breath for an impossibly long time. i have been shaking, holding my breath, and then it comes, and the air rushes out of my lungs to meet it, and the shaking stops, but now i am trembling. and just so so happy that it has come. because i have been waiting so long, i started to convince myself that it wasn't, to try to prepare myself for the disappointment.

i keep asking myself when i became this woman. these past few months have been so intensely difficult for reasons you know and reasons you don't, and not like there weren't wonderful moments of love and joy there, because there were, but time has been difficult in the way things are difficult for a compulsive perfectionist like me who needs to know what's wrong so she can devise an intricate plan to fix things. i couldn't figure out who i was or where i went or anything. i didn't know what i wanted anymore. i had lost myself somewhere along the way. i wanted to fix things, but didn't know what to fix, where to begin.

so i am beginning here. it's early monday morning, and i am giddy with the knowledge of experiencing the first spring rain from start to finish, of trees that have changed from one day to the next, of writing that makes me never want to stop reading, of falling asleep to the sunrise, of waking to the sunrise, of cups of coffee that i savor and don't need, of popsicle brand popsicles, of time that is not measured by numbers but by everything else that is unquantifiable that gives you reason to remember particular moments over others.

the thing is, i didn't just become this woman. i didn't need to fix anything in particular. i needed to see myself in a new way. i needed to allow myself to be defined in ways other than the ways i had become so comfortable in being defined, in defining myself. and i know that i have been this woman all along. that i am this woman.

i learned to drink my coffee black because i liked what i thought it said about me. i drink my coffee black because i've come to love its complication. it may or may not say the things about me that i was hoping for when i first started drinking coffee. but you're sitting there, across from me, drinking your coffee with 2 shots of cream, and you know why i drink my coffee black.

i am this woman who gets out of bed to see the sun coming, to greet the day. and i drink my coffee black. it's good coffee. and i'm not trying to prove anything anymore. because i am sitting by myself, drinking my coffee black, and it's for me. it's for me.

i have been waiting a long time. and it's been worth the wait. i have been worth the wait.

leave no room for cream or sugar. fill it to the top with hot hot coffee. i take my coffee black.

plans.

i had things to do today. i had plans for today. and now, i'm sitting here on the steps that lead up to an empty house, ashing onto the steps leading into where i sleep, my heart pumping quidkly, reverberating rhythms through my chest, out my cheeks. my left shoulder is so tight, i can feel the blood pushing, struggling to pass through, and i'm taken back to winters in michigan, driving through piles of snow, trying to get somewhere, anywhere, my little red escort will take me. the radio has been gone for as long as it's been mine, so it is silent except for my choppy breathig, the shallow inhalations of concentration, the pushing of air out of my lungs. my heart beating. i am trembling with nerves and anticipation. my trembling is the only betrayal of my fear, and if you look closely, you can see me, dressed in my fear. but i am so good of hiding that most people don't notice. my makeup is more convincing than the sorority girl i don't want to be, if only because i know i can't. can you disappear if you only disappear because you don't know who you've become anymore?

last night, i caught the first spring rain. the first. my first. each drop surprises me and lingers while the next falls. it's a succession of contained cool and my skin makes them warm to the touch. and they linger and spread, and it's no longer just rain. now i'm just wet and shivering. the rain stops and i breathe deeply. it is the smell of the street moving to meet the rain, impatient to let it just fall. the smell of spring in this city of asphalt and roundabouts and square patches of yellow grass they call parks. the smell of spring that is muted by the the knowledge of so many suits in shiny shiny shoes. the smell of spring that never lets on that in a few days, another cold front will move in, and your sandals will be exchanged for your winter boots.

i bring my quiet with me. but i am always looking for it, trying to create it. my quiet slips through me to you. you see it and touch it and try to move it. meanwhile, i have the pain in my shoulder. the pain in my shoulder is the trace of you and me. like the air on a hot hot day with no hint of breeze.

beauty.

beauty is found in the pieces of the fragments of what you think is your heart, but may be just your life, and you call it your heart because it seems smaller somehow, even though that doesn't really help matters much because really, you are your heart and you know it. or you want to be, even when it's like this, even when these pieces, luminescent, transparent, capturing light and never letting go, even when these pieces are deceptively hard. and you know because after staring at these pieces of yours, imagining the possibilities of reconstruction, you get impatient, and reach to pick them up, and the pieces are stiff and hurting and don't want to be touched, and they cut you a little, and you see a drop of blood in the palm of your hand, but it doesn't hurt. no. it's the pieces. the pieces hurt. these fragments are so achingly beautiful, and you wonder about their separation from each other, and wonder when they will stop hurting. what hurts you is not the blood, but the sharp intake of breath. the signal of fear that is noiseless.

days like that.

you have my best writing. and i wonder what you do with it. do you keep it safe? do you keep me safe? today is infused with the chill of the grey day, and it seems too optimistic to think of spring, to hope for it the way i'm hoping for it. i desire warmth the way that people chase faith. i stepped in the sun this weekend, and managed to convince myself that it would never go away. even with the shade overtaking the day, accentuated by the wind. the wind that pushed through all my layers and blew the hat off my head. the wind that gained strength in the shade, daring me to remember the day the way i did. as warm and sunny. and bright. like that patch of blue sky that was only so blue because of the tree with leaves so green, it made me wonder about the possibility of planting fake trees outside. trees like that that can give more color to everything around them, but not air. it made the sky so blue, i didn't care about the air. i was holding my breath looking at that tree. looking at that patch of sky. acknowledging that sometimes, you have to choose between air and color. the color that reminds you of who you want to be, makes you think about what you want. the difference between the air that keeps you alive and the color that reminds you that you're living. and you know it because your chest is tight, and you find yourself holding your breath a little, and maybe you catch yourself waiting. and you're not really sure what you're waiting for. but there's that patch of sky right in front of you, and that tree right there, and you think, i could wait here for a long time. a little breathless. waiting for warmth to cut through the grey. waiting for the wind to die down and change from its pulsating techno rhythm to a lullaby that caresses you. watching the sunset. waiting for sunrise. i close my eyes, and i'm not tired. i'm just waiting. i'm waiting for the wind to grow tired. i'm waiting to be kissed by the mist of spring coming. i'm waiting for the heat that makes me sweat. when i open my eyes, the blue is there. the tree is still there, with its green greenness. the tree is real, though. i see that now. sometimes, you don't have to choose between air and color. sometimes, moments extend into days, and as you're falling asleep, you're smiling because you just realized that you didn't have to choose between anything. and you dream of blue blue skies and green green leaves that have grown early, convincing you, even on grey days like this where the chill comes out your hands, even when you're inside, that the warmth is coming. soon. i stay awake for a long time and fall asleep right before sunrise. creating my own warmth, waiting for the sun as it creeps closer and closer. you have my best writing.