emergency above.

oh three. fifteen. oh nine. two. sixteen. pea. em.

I am in the grass on a patchwork of blankets with the women of the Conexsh. My friend Cait calls this place Break Up Park, but no one here is leaving anyone else.
It is Sunday, and half of us are no longer opening our eyes.

All weekend I have been full of this feeling… with no sure words to describe it. This morning, Track*3 began with seventeen seconds of guitar chords—those chords show exactly how I’m feelin. Also, yesterday, I got my hair cut. I leaned my sore shoulders back into the sink. Eyes closed, I caught the smell of lemony shampoo and thought… Lemons: This feeling is like the smell of lemons.
Both of these conclusions yield no further answers, only sounds and smells.

However, there is one discernable change in my senses—these past few days I have been awake to my breathing, stretching, aching. I have become very aware of my body. This is new to me—to be in touch with my temperature, my muscle energy, my connecting bones. This weekend, I perceive my footsteps. I swim laps and feel the rhythm. Reach, CHURN, Kick, Reach, CHURN, Kick… my breath escaping into the water… my angling arms… I am a tribal drum inside of Gold’s Gym. touch. turn. pushhhh.

After the pool, I am rock climbing—my legs lend themselves to my arms. I am forced to find my center, and then send strength outward in four directions. Right. Left. Pull. Stretch. This too is a rhythm, a dissonant octopoda song.
Even my toes are connected to my wrists by a wriggling line that bends and contracts between them. I dig my fingers into a distant hand-hold, and feel something new as I pull myself upward— within my forearms, tendons stretch like strange vertical strings, like there is a fret board in my forearm. They are side-by-side, but pull me individually. I think they are playing the chords to Track*3—it pulses me, finally, to the top, where I look down at Brooklyn and say, without much thought, “I’m ready.” She releases the rope and I fall in waves back to the people below.
I have ascended. I am tying knots to do it again.

Last week the wind went yelling through campus. It was at my back, then slowing my path, then pulling me north.
We were everywhere, the wind and I. She stirred the dust of the earth, hazing the air between me and the mountains, distorting my view of everything far away. Students swayed inside of her puzzling path, awoken from their sleeping Wednesday patterns.
“ENTER HERE,” I heard her tell us.
“The coming days will shake your certainties. Blow around in the beauty of risk.”
She was permeating and without apology, like the neon scent of lemons. I look down and say, without much thought,
“I am ready.”
Since that day, I have been falling in waves.

But today, something is amiss.

Track*3: Seventeen Seconds of Chords

Fill up.

6 He that ascended up on high,
is also he descended below all things,
in that he comprehended all things,
that he might be in all and through all things,
the light of truth;

7 Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ.
As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun,
and the power thereof by which it was made.

10 And the earth also,
and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand.

11 And the light which shineth, which giveth you light,
is through him who enlighteneth your eyes,
which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings;

12 Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space.

My immensityofspace gratefully exhales...
not to mark the ending of a journey,
But to create
Space
For another
Deep breath.

Hey you-- SPEAK UP.

Hey, remember the struggle I used to always talk about? Remember him?
Well, back when we were, um, dating? What was that thing we did? What would you call that really?
I can ask him here, because he’s here too, he reads this with you.
Well, whatever we were doing-- during that, his old girlfriend was in a faraway country. I knew nothing of her, but she was reading this too, she read with you.
And then she came here, and did that thing with him just like I did.
Now they are together,
the real way, the not-what-we-did way.
Yesterday, me and this girl decided to be friends.
I like her. I love her a little. Mind blowing.

Yesterday, I got two other little-letters from people, both confessing their readership.
I just didn’t know.
I had no idea you all were here.


Last week Sabrina showed me how to view the locations of my readers.
Does it freak you out a little? That you are my readers? Me too.
Is it weird to come to this page today, where I am not recounting my thoughts-- but speaking. Directly. To you.
Can you handle that?

26 people today. 71 so far this week.

Hello Jordan.
Hello Claire.
Hello Spain, Indonesia, Venezuela, and Brazil.
Hello North Tonawanda New York—who visits daily.
Who are you people?
Who is in Idaho Falls, New Hartford, Little Rock?
Who is in Utica, Sevierville, Phoenix?
Come on, stick your hands into the fire.

Whoever you are, its okay that you’re here. You are safe here. This is public, and I know what that means. It means it can be your place too. But before it was yours, it was mine. It has always been from the core of ME. So why are you here? I ask this not with malice, but honesty. I’m just wondering why no one ever says anything.
Today I call you out.
Read my life, its okay. Then, contribute a piece of yourself. There’s a comment button down there, you know, if you want.

Thanks for reading.
I mean it.

I am a circle.

I feel God here with me.
Right here in my little basement apartment:
He feels my full heart.
Tonight I am angry. I am thankful I am peaceful I am elated in my happiness. I am face to face with finality—and its fluid possibility to never actually be final. I am tan. Finally. I am barefoot in my highschool jeans I am baffled and I am exploding with all of this. I swim in my own contradiction, thankful for the complexity of the woman I am.
Stand back.

I am so full of gratitude for my junior year of college. I am full of new knowledge. I learned about the culture of India and how to dance with the Hare Krishnas. I learned how to be best friends with a girl again, only because of a feeling that we should be. Three months later, I learned how to send that girl off to China. I learned the possibility of a boy who listens, who sees my metaphors, who sees me. He really did. But after that, I learned that it’s not enough for a boy to see me. I needed more from him. I learned about what I need. I learned how to watercolor paint and string seashell beads. I learned about nineteenth century England and the way literature saved society when they could no longer believe in God. I drove and sang at the top of my lungs for hours—to battle my sadness, to prove my freedom. I ate paste. I painted and etched pottery like nobody’s business. I spun across the ice at 45 mph, in the backseat, toward another car in the canyon; I closed my eyes and thought “I might die.” I found out how to miss someone that lives down the street. I taught myself how to install a showerhead, set up a video projector, and make a bomb shelter more fun than it is creepy. With my Dad, I finally began the resolution of what we’ve never talked about. I took my car towards the lake on the horizon, turning left and right with a feeling, until I found some water—and named it my writing place. I hiked down Timp in the dark. I learned that I can be alone. I drew lines. I found peace in my solitude, and ached in a beautiful way—to let go. God rejuvenated me. I watched my hope ivy grow out towards the light. I ran down my street with my pants at my ankles. I missed my Mom. I finished six journals. I learned that sometimes I am not strong, and that’s okay. I’m still learning how to admit that out loud. I found inspiration in my homework, and knew that that is what college is supposed to be like. I discovered my love for orchestras and concertos and sonatas and oh man, cellos. I learned about Romantic, Victorian, and Contemporary authors. I ate sushi. I kissed a firefighter who walked 24 blocks to come back to my house and do so. I wrote a sonnet, and felt trapped in the pentameter. I tested the boundaries of my bravery. I found out that my favorite tree on campus has a name… there’s a little inscription just by the roots that I never noticed before: THE FREEDOM TREE.
I am thankful for this year—when many of my own roots clarified their inscriptions to me.
So many words have come into my vision.
I am branches of learning.
I am the potential of three thousand rejuvenated leaves,
a faithful green.

Raise up ya'll.

There was this thing that used to make me sad.
Last night, it came. Right in front of my face.
I waited for something in me to freak out.
And then, nothing.
(I only wish I'd worn a hotter dress.)
I felt fine.
I still feel fine.
I am not sad anymore!
It didn't come back!
This
was
A physical manifestation of my freedom.
I went home, changed into my scrub pants, and tackled my Sabrina in sweet celebration.
I danced in the street, bought double-stuff oreos, and spilled my gratitude all over this town.
"Goodbye," I said to them.
I am no longer colonized by that part of my past.