Walking slowly through these streets and old buildings I do feel a sense of home. Even as these city people pass by quickly, their chatter busy and distracted, glancing at me briefly, I know that I’ll still have trouble relating or connecting with anyone here as I usually do. These are small matters, though. My memory centers around what I see and experience here. I glance at the buildings and scenery around me rather than worry about the people who fly on by without a care to where they are. I love the architecture here, the feeling of history all around, the stories these easily missed markings tell me, the feel of crumbling cement. I like to stand on the bridges here and watch everything move around me, the water below swirl and change color as the sun gives it fresh vitality.

A few days ago I watched the sun rise for the first time in 2 months.

an inspiration from our recent conjoined and deflecting thoughts, flying ever more closer to a paradox neither will ever know, but only sense in a vague articulation and intuition: who could explain a sunset? it could only be experienced.

An observation of fear—
It’s like spouting flies
And saliva
Like revelations
Like yesterday
Reckoned with too late
No more than words
Are self-projection
A devotion to paper causes
And actualization
More than pieces
Is like peace of mind
Uneaten pieces of cake
Ant-filled coffee cakes
Held breath
Overflowing, toilet sounds
And no more like promises
Is it not
Better to be
Needle-pinned, butterfly wings
Than pluckered, protein flies
Of wine jars
Pride fermenting in a beautiful lie
Ripe, ready to be
Amber stupidity over flat decay
Correct lighting to make up for emotion
—Nowadays
It’s always safely substituted and afraid

fresh imagery of summer ghosts:
PHOTOGRAPHY

What can I say? Here I am as I always am, wondering why this all is the way it is. It’s not as if I am necessarily discontent with the every day flow of life. In fact, for the first time in awhile I am doing mostly what I’ve always wanted to do; I am not under constant authoritative pressure, just the opposite. I like what I am doing. And recently I have found a wonderful spot on a bridge close to my school. It is a cement roof of a maintenance house that sits right in the middle of the bridge. One would not even notice it if they did not have the habit of hanging over reilings and staring straight into the water below. All one would have to do is hop the “protective” barriers of steel and settle down. The view is of the water way into Milwaukee, and the overpass of the highway, impressively massive; I am always in awe of the winding streets that reach high into the sky. The buildings are beautifully watermarked and cracked, old warehouses with ghosts of the years melting down in rust and graffiti; time has given nature a bit of leeway, vines and other plants grow through the cement. It is my new favorite drawing spot. Tranquil, slightly isolated, so as to observe the city without much disturbance; it allows me to step back to appreciate where I am, and not forget where I’ve been. Hmmm, so, yes, I am finally having my cake so to speak.

Yet still, I am held back. Still I have bouts of regret and wonder if this is really where I should go. I am not used to things happening at their own paces, of not worrying if personal relations will get in the way of what I’ve been fighting to do. It is like I have been climbing a cliff for so long, my fingernails breaking off and my muscles aching, pain a constant linger, frequent headaches and an underlying anxiety so close; I finally glimpse the top and I don’t know if this is a mirage or the real thing. I know it will all work itself out in due time, i suppose I still in the middle of a transition.

Of course, there is always the constant wondering of Wesley, whom I once thought of as my other half. I suppose I still do and this is where I am still held back, still glancing behind my shoulder. Trying I suppose to grab his hand and pull him up with me as he keeps slipping further and further behind. It seems he does not glimpse the top as I do, believes it is some place else, believes he must trail the entire mountain before he can accept that this is in fact the top, might even decide to jump off and climb an entirely different one, just to see if that one is better.

And I know that the only result, the only action looked at from any angle is that I should let him go, let him fall away from me. But it is like flesh tearing, like something deep within me, some vital part of me, will be lost forever. I am utterly baffled by my actions with him. I freak out, I lose all etiquette, all practical reasoning to just let things happen as they may. I am desperate because I can’t believe, can’t accept that this is the beginning of the end for us. I can’t stand to think of us settling into distant, passing thoughts, to become the whispers of my past like Kelly, Chuck, Jackie, Angie, Mike, Joe, Monica . . . To be calm, not minding to see them once and a while, but not really caring too much if I never see them again. I want him here in the present, in my waking consciousness, in my eyes, my mind. After all these years of anxiety and searching, I felt like I had finally found at least part of SOMETHING.

I remember that. I remember a cold, harshly-lit room, sounds of water pumps, bare floors, sleepless nights, constant random conflicts, screaming voice in my head; it didn’t matter though, none of it mattered. I had something that was meaningful to me for once, that was worth it for no reason whatsoever than it just simply WAS. The most certain thing I have ever felt in my entire being, my entire life. It wasn’t perfect, not reasonable, not any sort of definable human relation. In fact, it was better not to define it, not to say “you are my soulmate, you are my boyfriend, I love you, etc.” None of these words were adequate; their connotations and cliched backgrounds were too broad, too specific.
It just WAS and it was beautiful, worth living for, worth dying for. And it wasn’t just because we now had someone else; it was as if we were freed from all of it, it didn’t matter where in the world we were, we were free—still confused, still wondering, still bothered and searching, but now there was at least something else. The world didn’t seem so empty, so stripped of a real feeling for once.

I don’t really know where I am going with this. I suppose I want to make it concrete, to show that we did have that because it seems so far away, like it never happened. I want to remember why I could possibly be so attached to this person, even as now it seems we hardly even know each other. I want to keep saying it because it seems he doesn’t know, he forgot, but it is becoming more and more apparent he just doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to remember and the most painful realization I have come to in these past couple weeks is he doesn’t believe that it was worth it, has lost faith in everything we were or are. I suppose that is rather easy; I believe something like this is one of those intangible precious treasures in life that are so commonly taken for granted. In essence, he has lost all faith in me, so I am at a constant pressure to redeem myself. There are no words for this feeling, I will probably never forget it. How could any breathing human forget a line like, “I don’t love you anymore,” or “I have no faith in you anymore.” This is not something I just need time to forget or “get over.” I let this boy into my very soul, I trusted him above all else, even myself. I made the mistake of believing in something, and it’s not as if he just disappointed me. He basically informed me I wasn’t worthy of receiving or keeping such a precious thing; I couldn’t handle it without crushing it. I wasn’t what he had thought I was, so in essence I am some kind of facade. And I myself have done too much damage in the everyday banality and oblivion of our lives to ever be forgiven and in turn for him to ever be able to trust me again.

My hopelessness has undone me. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself. I suppose now I will only sit alone watching the murky waters of the Milwaukee river and its inhabitants pass me by. Truly I am afraid to touch or live in it. I used to believe I could make a difference here, to make even the smallest things better or mean something, give people hope or dignity, even if the ever the slightest, but now I realize I am just as vulnerable and more likely to be the destroyer rather than the healer.

I am in Milwaukee, first week. Start class next week. I am quietly observing this strange behavior everyone exhibits as well. Yes, heard it all before, the insecurites, the need for friends, a place of comfort for oneself. Hmm, freshman have a lot of growing up to do. I suppose it only becomes another form of the same “oldness” as well. I am not very bothered by these newbies, all their thoughts are just beginning. I can see already how their thoughts have that familiar 2-dimensional quality, that need to connect and hold to old values and experiences, unwillingly to the most essential degree to be vulnerable. Open with themselves, aware of themselves, these all seem like simple concepts that are taken for granted once again. I have 2 roommates, which I am sure I will have no problems with, but it is at the very least amusing to observe their behaviors. Art is the most direct form of self-expression and if one is not open with the self, holds on to this straight, unyielding lines of insecurity, it will ultimately reflect in their art and they will not advance to the degrees of others who offer their naked wills freely as I plan to. I will pass no judgement, I will be patient with everyone and everything, for I understand the places all these people have come from. I can see their needs to feel comforted because they have never expereinced a place where there is no need to defend oneself to the hilt to remain intact. Here one must be broken and then trust themeselves and others to be built back up, better and stronger, more inspired and skilled. I believe this is the safest and the best place to exhibit oneself so completely.

There is a nauseous anticipation in waiting for you. Where raindrops form the rhythm of footsteps and every car that passes is yours. Every shadow that flickers or sound or breeze is the familiarity of your sounds, your smell, your breath on my face. I am here still, unmoving, and breathing patience like rain, clutching to these blankets that remind me of something lost, the fading scent of a boy. The cloth sticks to the sweat-filled hopes and salted air, humidity thicker than love and hate. How or why I am in this nostalgia? Even as I am still here, not more than 15 minute distant convenience. I have 3 weeks to go, yet these walls already feel like a memory, insubstantial, taken for granted. The storm is bittersweet tonight. Cooling the heat, but leaving the humidity to drown us in our own shivering sweat.

I thought I finally might have something to tell you, something for you to remember me by, something to redeem myself for whatever I have done. Which is really nothing, of course, and that makes it harfer to forgive or realize or speak of. I thought maybe I could draw you a picture, but in truth it would stop short just as my tongue at the precise moment where it mattered. Afraid, I suppose, of the wrong ending, of any ending at all. And these flickering thoughts so remind me of street lamps and city light, the echoing of cars and voices I hear at night, hiding myself away in these thin walls, listening to the loneliness of it, of the isolation and solitude that echoes here. How they collect to give me an impression of an uncertain desire, something I remembered 2 minutes ago but fail to hold the attention span to articulate. It wouldn’t come out right anyway and I am easily distracted.

I feel as if I am already gone from this place, a ghost of it, which doesn’t necessarily bother me as much as the idea to be gone from your waking consciousness. I’ll be another haunting echo of your past, of my own, a familiar scent on the wind. You insist on forgetting me even before I have left, which I think will be the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. That you could and you want to smoothme over, cover my face in layers of dusty impatience and oblivion of every day life. That I could be fading, becoming these walls prematurely of your own free will—to move on with time as I desperately try to hold on to it, stetching it. Yet, I am only making myself more transparent, easier to brush aside with hysterics and childhood dreams. All I can think is I wish things were different and all I can mouth is anxious silence. We’re all on the brink of something.

But still, it does comfort me in a strange way to hear that you fear losing me, that you would have a fear of anything, except yourself. That you, at least, touch me hesitantly in my silence to tell me in a strange way that you are still here, that I am still here. And I think that at the very least, I will still be a part of your waking subconscious if not always in the waking of your eyes.

I am at a loss as of late: words, thought, articulation, anything that I would consider worthwhile. I am not necessarily in a depression, just …. something. Blank, bleached, preocuupied, I suppose, with nothing in particlar, just the regular trivialities of life.

And I have come to a realization even in this haze. Everything here in this damp stupidity, piss-beer colored water holes, is for preoccupation. What to do to entertain us today? As if the present is all there is and there weren’t an infinite number of reasons why here is here, why present is so laced with desperate whipsers we mistake as wind howling through our ever-forgetful bliss of consciousness. Why responses are so tired, why we’re all so fucking exhausted. Time is seen as a single surface, smooth, shiny, opaque. Even a single mirror, ourselves as the center-fold, of course. Who the hell else is there? Well, only a few billion others, a few trillion other things of no specific importance to our present moment. But there is a strange occurence when one places another mirror at a cetain angle in consideration of the first. There is a long train of selves, an infinite of blank eyes. Can one ignore so many blatant stares? It seems bliss is a parasite, sucking all reserves of brain mattter so that such occurences, such uneasy stares, can be eaten away just like ice cream. And shit out and forgottten down that convenient water hole we swim in a week later. I suppose nature is not without a sense of brutal irony.

Does every one swim in their own shit and smile as brightly as my mother, as countless others I encounter each day? spouting shit from every orifice. It is amazing she hasn’t drowned yet. I suppose I laugh, but I have my own cesspool to attend to. I do believe I am slowly draining mine though. Hers will be a fucking ocean soon. Yes, I have utter faith in ignorance is bliss.

I have come to realize that above all right now my subconscious linger, my obscure source of bitchiness is because I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid of myself. I am afraid I’m going to fuck up everything that is meaningful to me. I am afraid of my dreams and “talents.” I am wondering when people see me do they see an artist? A writer? An intelligent person? Do they ever just see Annika? Do they ever like that I am so absent-minded? That I leave strange objects like phones in refrigerators and go looking for my lost wallet in trashbins at midnight because I think I threw it away with my fast food tray? Or when I say something that my eyes are pleading and apologizing and saying more than my lips could ever utter? Do they notice why I do the things I do? Or do they just see “talents,” potential? Most people I have noticed wrote in my yearbook that they could always say “they knew Annika before she was famous.” I can’t remember how many times people have said that to me. I don’t want “to be famous.” Do they see this burning desire this hollow need in my gut, this thing I am trying so hard to find or really bring out in myself much more than words on paper or paint on canvas? This thing I could never describe …

I am afraid mostly of myself. And I know I am afraid, dear Wesley, of what you see in me. Of what the mirror shows me, this starved, hungry look. I am wondering do you know I wouldn’t give it up for anyone. Not even you. I am wondering do you see this desire lancing across my pupils, cutting me open. For you, dear, I would give the knife, but never the power to reach inside.

Waving goodbye and wipping my hair to the side for you

causes death and hurricanes in China.

Hmm. The power of love and butterfly dreams. Hah.