8:19 AM - pale flight
Current mood: loved
Category: Writing and Poetry

For Jack and Alia, who are always there to be this little girl's wings
I love you both forever, and I'm sorry I couldn't make this something better like you deserve
My world is beautiful because of you

-

I'm standing on the bridge
Talking to the stars below
White moths skim the ripples
Like memories of screeching tires and sinking heroin
Water is dark, and so was my mind
I lost the numbers of the seconds since my dreams slipped into mildewed velvet
And I stared too straight to kneel and touch the moss where everything began
I was the faded photographs that stare above the mantelpiece
Colorless and cold
Unmoving in their silent lies
Veils wound around ideas of flawlessness
Which save the gray ones from their hearts and the peace of the world
I was the dusted sheets of music that make no sound
Wrapped in plastic purple and drowning in the metronome's tick
But the wind now blows on secret light
Hidden in the hollows of my fingertips
And I will always smile inside
The colors have returned
And words are true and beautiful
For you have taught me to laugh for a world of love
Taught me wake up with galaxies in my hands
And to fly forever on indigo wings though the cage is silver and strong
I know that these are things they cannot take from me
I know that I am because of you
To remain forever here and be...

Fireflies and starflowers to your dreams tonight, love
Fireflies and starflowers to your dreams

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8:07 PM - [Repost] Pro-Family Values
Current mood: determined
Category: Life

Repost from Russell Ravnostic.

I

Am Part of an American Family, And I Am Valued There.

I

Have Parents, Siblings, Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Nephews and Nieces Who Love Me For Who I Am.

I

Am a Homosexual, or Know Someone Who Is.

I

Am Sick of a Segment of Society Who Feels MY Existence is a Threat to THEIR Existence.

I

Am Fed Up with the Hatred and Intolerance of This Current White House Administration, and Their Cohorts in the Houses of Congress.

I

Support Equal Rights for ALL Americans, Including the Right to Have my Relationship Valued Equally by MY Government as It Values Heterosexual Marriage.

I

Will Not Accept Being Told I Am Worth Less Than You.

I

Have a Voice.

You

Have a Voice, Too.

We

Can Let Our Voices Be Heard.

We

Can Send An Echo Through the MySpace Universe That We Do Not Accept Constitutionalizing Discrimination.

We

Can Cause Others to Think About This Issue.

We

Can Change the Mind of

One

Person today.

The goal?  There isn't one, really.  But if I can cause one person to think about how they would feel to be marginalized by society at large, we may change an opinion.  How do fat people feel about paying for two seats on an airplane?  How does the person in a wheelchair feel about not having access to a home or business because it isn't wheelchair ready?  How does the person of whatever color feel about be relegated to the back of the bus?  How does the Native American feel about being relegated away from their sacred homes to a reservation.

Discrimination, while a lesser evil today than in days past, is still with us.  And it

Must.

Stop.

Sometime.

The day it stops is when enough of us band together and let our voices be heard.  Maybe we can't change the world in a day, but we can change the mind of

One.

I ask that you copy/paste this into a blog on your own page, with the same title.  Together, we can evoke at least a debate, if not change itself. Thanks.

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7:55 AM - s m o k e
Current mood: depressed
Category: Life

I watch the dull floral swishes of her housedress curl around her naked legs. I watch them flutter with her every movement, my every thought. And I watch her, my mother. When she turns, I will see a woman with soft brown hair and tired Asian eyes, proudly stooped shoulders and pretty ears. I will see a worn face the color of time, a stern mouth that kisses my father's forehead and tells me, "Be good, Dana," and the misted shadows around it that silently add, "You pain of my life." I will see hands that stroked a little daughter's hair to peace years ago, now wrapped pale around the handle of a black saucepan. I will pity the saucepan, because the sting of a slap which hugged skin harder than love still lingers beneath a big daughter's cheek. And I will look down, away from those hands, though they will still be in my mind. Her bare feet are clenched against the linoleum; if I wanted I could kneel down to trace the thick azure cords that snake their way across them, those lines so like the sharp stories I sketched beneath her eyes and between her brows. My fingers twitch and scar the dark blue dyeing my jeans.
We are all tragic lives. We spin glass walls around ourselves and convict ourselves, forgetting to make the keyhole in the door. So did I. I made my wall. It clings to my skin; I almost never notice it now. I can almost forget that I see everything alone. But sometimes I catch a flash of glass against skin, and then I remember the choices that brought me here. I remember the sentences thought and written and spoken; I remember the familiar eyes that flashed strange colors. I remember the red that was a knife, the blue that laughed at me, the ice white that locked a home behind my back, the purple that was my dreams wavering in cold, the gray that buried me in lies and gave me a safety like a cobweb. I will draw them with my breath, all the hued faces that know my name, and all the beliefs that hold me close. I want to laugh when I realize how small a number of sounds would do to paint the glass dark and cut me off from everything here. And I am frightened to realize that I would mean them if I did. I would say goodbye to the woman's voice, to the whispers, to the coldly watching eyes, to secret keyboards. But I know, I know that I will not say those words, because I was born never to leave this home that the Father gave to me. I will not because I pray for this woman what a boy did for me. I will not say them for a reason that is not a belief but a feeling.

I love you, Mother. I say this in a place where you will never hear me to make up for all the times you stopped me from say it as often as I wanted to. I love you. I love you, Mommy, even if you won't say it to me again. I love you forever. And Daddy, I love you too. I love you, I love you, I love you.

The woman in the floral housedress turns. I look into her tired Asian eyes in the worn face that is the color of time. And I hear her say to me with different words the thing she always does.
"Why aren't you at the library yet?"
"I was - I was just...going."
"You're not...again..."
"No, Mom."
"Then go."
And I do, leaving the dull floral housedress and my mother behind. I am a liar in white-scarred jeans.

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6:23 AM - s i l e n c e
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Writing and Poetry

Dreams in the air
Dreams beneath our feet
Shattered to the dust of another whole
These are the mirrors that we will not see
That burn for the time to come
Father, hear my prayers to you
Fade the cherry blossoms from my hair
Let me remember without shadows
And teach me to spill the water clenched in my palms
Let me be a song in a world of heartbeat
To read the cracks written in asphalt gray
To be a winged soul
To be what I have never been
And at the end of all these things, Father
May the rain set us free

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7:30 PM - epiphany from a teenage am keyboard 3
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Writing and Poetry

Romance cannot be represented. It can only be shown. There is no exemplar in love, only what two people feel. Focus on the feelings and forget the husk. Strip down to the core and revel in the kernels. Do not stick f/f into an m/m story just because it is gay fiction. Write what only has a life of its own, not what necessity or popular mannerisms seem to point out. (If you won't, shut up about criticizing mainstream music.) Do not write what you seem to have to say. Write what is you. You will never be more than you are. Neither will your writing. Love it and watch it. Trust it only occasionally. But do not deny it. Be corny realistically and be realistic cornily. Never let the cool take too firm a hold on you. Create darkness with a heartbeat. Remember that we are all the same differently. And write of different sameness. Write about humans and human hearts. And be human.

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6:02 AM - k i n d e r g a r t e n
Current mood: listless
Category: Life

"But like, why?"
Why. Why why why why why. Why. They won't leave me alone, you know. They're all babies. Can't chew words down as they come. Can't digest them. Always have to say it. Why.
That's what I want to ask. Hypocritical, I guess. Crap that for now. Maybe Tyler is right after all. Maybe I'm dumb. It's been almost two years. And two is an even number. Remember how you always told me that even numbers could make things feel better? You said even numbers made you think of late afternoon sunshine and red-gold apples, roasted marshmallows on gnarly pine sticks and chocolate chip cookies. I think you were kind of right - except maybe for eight, because somehow I've never liked that one. Not because it's a Mobius strip that never ends, but because it's shaped too perfectly, and it's so easy to screw up. It's so easy to screw up what's perfect. What could have been perfect, rather. But I'm sick to my nose thinking of Might-Have-Been perfection. The brand sucks.
Sorry. I'm feeling off today. You know me, right? My stories won't go anywhere or nowhere. They're like caffeine junkies. They stare at me from across the huge oak eight-seat table we have in our dining room/kitchen. Just stare and stare and stare. I know exactly how they're supposed to be. But the words won't come. I actually wish that those stories would leave me alone, go to sleep for a while if they aren't going to come jogging with me on my keyboard. They make my fingers feel stupid. If Tyler is right, though, it doesn't make much of a difference how my fingers make me feel. I know that. The bad thing is that they're all waiting. I don't like keeping  people waiting for me. It's selfish and bitchy and...me. Honestly, don't know how you ever put up with Dana Mackenzie. Forget this. Forget this.
Hey, can I ask you that thing again? Can I ask you why? Yeah, I know it was predestined, but why? I'm a mess these days, really I am. I'm such a gray loser. I'm being everything you taught me not to be, and I hate myself for that. I hate myself for doing this to you. I was really bad to you. I guess I still am. I always was bad at changing when I had to. And I'll always be a silly little girl too scared to take care of herself.
I really don't get why I'm beating myself up over that thing, though. It's just a word. It makes some people philosophers, some teachers, some geniuses of the world, some jaded workers who tell their brains to shut up daily with stinking office coffee. It makes some people happy that they can look for the answers, and it drives others to suicide. I'm not sure I should think about what it does to me.

Three letters. One syllable.
Why.

Why you, why me, why them, why then, why so fast
Why couldn't I have been there for you, why did we meet, why did you wake me up to everything, why do I have a memory
Why you
Why me, why me, why me, why me

In some ways you failed with me. I still can't ask for the things that I want. I'm going nowhere with my parents. I crawl in front of them. I don't tell them a thing about what we believed in together. I live in a place that doesn't even exist. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me. Yes, I'm using alliteration. You know what that means. I think if you were here with me, you'd tell me to shut up and close my eyes. And when I opened them, you'd be looking at me with that cherry blossom smile on your face - the smile that didn't make things better, but let me go someplace else. Just far, far away from all these mental stones that walk and talk and share my blood.
You don't mind if I tell my Internet friends about you, do you? Technically, they won't all be friends, since I'm writing this in a blog. It's kind of for you, this blog. But it's okay, right? Please tell me it's okay. I think I need some kind of self-prescribed therapy. Home-made therapy. Doubly pathetic, yeah. I need to shut up. I wish they would stop asking, though. Stop asking why. It isn't as though they'd understand if I explained. And furthermore, I just won't. I won't tell a bunch of snobs and brainless beautifuls just because they asked. Just because they said, "You write gay fiction? I mean, that is like - weird, dude." Or gross. Or even worse, a sin. All those damned italics. I'll go insane. I'm going to stop thinking about their ethics. They don't know you. They don't know me. Oh sure, I'm the good, clean girl who aces her schoolwork and never talks back to her parents. I'm the girl who loves volunteering, who loves classic literature, who (supposedly) never listens to the "trash" called popular music. I am such a lie. But I like being the doppelganger you made for me. Even if it's only on the Internet. They still ask me why, though. Why, why, why, why. They're not even people who really know the fake me. They're people from the swimming pool and people from the gym who will never speak to my parents or my church members. Or my brothers. And they ask me why. Why can't they just understand that I'd prefer to write about the only true love that I've seen in my entire life, instead of a dumb drunk skank giving it in the alleyway or frigid forty-year-olds who tell me that it's a sin to date when I'm in my teens? Why do they have to ask why? Why do they have to be like me? Why do they have to be those Linkin Park songs coming true? Why can't they just let it go?
This is why, you know. You are why. You. Maybe me too.
Someone's coming.

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7:13 AM - epiphany from a teenage am keyboard 2
Current mood: geeky
Category: Writing and Poetry

It is useless to write what the world already has an abundance of unless you have something terribly unique to say in a tired out mold. Write what you alone have been given for you alone to say. If you can't think what that might be, shut up and take a nap. Then wake up and describe the dream you had. If you are not in the habit of dreaming, sit down at the table and watch very hard as you pour yourself a glass of milk. No milk falls the same way twice. If you are allergic to milk, use juice. Any juice will do. Just not prune juice. If you are on a diet and are abstaining from juice, go out, rent the movie which has the best characters/plot and the worst screenplay you've ever seen, go home, sit down at your desk, and rewrite it to your heart's content. (Presumably, no one has your identical heart.) If that doesn't appeal to you either, you should simply read. Read good writing and bad writing. Then shut up and take a nap. If things go well, you may be able to steal someone else's dream. Of course, you would have to have something terribly unique to say about it for it not to be useless...

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