"The light is bright," said Evangeline. "It radiates through everything. I am awake. The top of my mind extends upward. For the first time I see the faintest shadows that obscure in clumps like a living flitting screen between myself and light. We are defined by light. My skin absorbs it. Our eyes swallow it and send it to the mind. What can I see with the eyes? Can I sift the light from shadow? Maybe if my heart thumps faster, if my components begin to tremble - the back of my skull strains, my ears pop - then the whole world would crackle and split.

"What would they look like? These beings around me, unsheathed of this - I know not what, but this - we retain our bodies, but NOT... not this. The page before me becomes whiter; I scarcely notice the floor, black and solid. There is a blue glove dangling from the handle on the window like the outside twilight gathering in. The blackboard is smudged ferociously - it tangles my perception and sinks in my gut."

"I am humility," said Moriah. "We are buried here, in the earth. We live each moment; we either move or we don't; we conflict with each other and define our shape."

"I pretend to be a child," said Evangeline. "I smile and step lightly and quickly. Perhaps it is best that they perceive me that way, so that they will accept and allow my presence. I wish only to escape. I have glimpsed the boxes and bones and I have no desire for them. I watch Moriah drag her feet in the dust. I love her, thus I understand. But Walker presses me - I cannot understand unless I feel the dirt beneath my nails. I have no desire for the grime but I land because of the set of his shoulders. His blades are set."

.

descended, they have
their careful white umbrellas and compassion-
ate black microphones and the rotunda shrouded
columns pressed like pins through the map: "here"

"violent," i hear between the crunch
of pebbles between cobblestones
his eyebrows are slanted in practiced
concern
the sun burns its way under his skin

i didn't mean to, he told them when they found him
alone, perhaps, crying, perhaps
crouching in the dark that wound its way around and around
the doorknob that turned until it drilled a hole
through her bedroom door but his leg
is scratched and there are splinters
and his face so recently boyish now sunk
into jawlines and hollows and black pools
spilling at the edges

i didn't mean to kill Love
i didn't mean to kill her.


--

in memory of yeardley love,
and all hearts broken by her passing






pray for george huguely, her murderer, that he will not be lost

miracles

[transcript of the talk on miracles i gave to youth group tonight]

hey folks-

So tonight I'm going to give a talk on miracles. I'm going to read a passage from the Gospel of John, Chapter 11 - I'm sure most of you have heard of this story before - it's the raising of Lazarus, one of Jesus' last and most famous miracles. It's in John 11:17-44. (click!)


--

First let's just take a moment and reflect on how awesome this miracle is. Not only did a dead person come back to life, but we're talking 4 days this guy's been dead. Martha says "there will be a stench." Four days back then was a long time - they didn't have funeral homes to embalm the body - by the end of the day the body is decomposing.

But look at what he says first: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" Ok, this is what I want to focus on - this is the heart of the miracle. "I am the Resurrection and the Life."

So Martha and Mary's brother dies, and they get him back - how many people would kill to have that? To get someone back for just one day? And they got him back for good. I don't want to be a downer, but - some of you were here last year, when I talked about how my Mom died from brain cancer - I mean, every Christmas growing up my letter to Santa with my Christmas Wishlist was like, "#1 - Mom back." And then, you know, my poor dad had to explain that Santa wasn't bringing Mom back, so me and my brother and sister - we're thinkers, you know - we decided to just cut out the middle man and started writing Christmas letters to GOD. We were like, okay St. Nick, maybe bringing people back from the dead is a little out of your jurisdiction, a bit above your paygrade - so we'll just talk to the Big Guy. And then, you know, Dad had to explain that God doesn't really work that way.

So I got older, and soon I got old enough to ask the question - why do miracles happen to some people and not others? Why did Martha and Mary get their brother back, but me and my brother and sister couldn't get our Mom back?

In order to answer that, we have to look at the "why" before looking at the "why not." So look at what Jesus says: "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." So that they might believe. In every miracle Jesus performs in the Gospels, He always says "your faith has saved you." And here again - the miracle happens so that they might believe that HE is the Resurrection.

Think about it - Lazarus eventually dies again - everyone does. Life expectancy back then was about 45-50 years, Lazarus was about 30 - so he bought 15 to 20 years. So - why would Christ even bring him back? What was the point? I mean, it's great that they got him back for a few more years, but was that really the point? It can't be. It's a sign of a deeper truth. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead to show - I can do it in this world and I'll do it in the next. Lazarus might die a second time - but he'll rise a second time, too - even if you don't see it.

The purpose of a miracle is to glorify God - to express a Divine Truth that we don't usually get to see. It was good that Lazarus could live another 15 years, but the real glory is that through Christ, we can live forever. That is what miracles are about. If we pray for a miracle - and it doesn't happen - we have to trust that as crazy and as irrational as everything seems, ultimately the greatest good and the greatest capacity for hope and for love comes from that miracle not happening. If it's really about God's will, and not our will, we must trust and submit obediently to that. We have to persevere in hope and in love in order for anything to make any sense, in order for the good to be drawn out of despair. And I can tell you that with my mom - as painful as it has been for my family, as much as we're still working through it and dealing with it - I can see inside the love and hope and joy that has come from it, that it has left something beautiful with us. That ultimately, in some senseless way, more beauty and love can come out of that pain than could have come out of a miraculous healing.

There's this book called the Brothers Karamazov, my favorite book - it's about faith and doubt. At this point in the story, a holy elder that everyone considered a living saint had just died, and everyone is convinced that he is going to be incorruptible - a miracle that happens to holy saints where their bodies don't decompose. So everyone gathers around the body of this elder, waiting to see if he's going to be incorruptible. But by the end of the day, everyone can smell him - they can smell him decomposing. Not only was he corruptible, he was decomposing faster than most. And people were jeering and saying that he was never holy. His disciple, Alyosha, was tormented by this. Here is what the narrator says:

But it was justice, justice he thirsted for, not simply miracles! And now he who, according to his hope, was to have been exalted higher than anyone in the whole world, this very man, instead of receiving the glory that was due him, was suddenly thrown down and disgraced! Why? Who had decreed it? Who could have judged so? These were the questions that immediately tormented his inexperienced and virgin heart. He could not bear without insult, even without bitterness of heart, that this most righteous of righteous men should be given over to such derisive and spiteful jeering from a crowd so frivolous and so far beneath him. Let there be no miracles, let nothing miraculous be revealed, let that which was expected immediately not come to pass, but why should there be this ignominy, why should this shame be permitted, why this hasty corruption, which "forestalled nature" as the spiteful monks were saying? Why this "sign" which they now so triumphantly brought forth together with Father Ferapoint, and why did they believe they had any right to bring it forth? Where was Providence and its finger? Why did it hide its finger "at the most necessary moment," as if wanting to submit itself to the blind, mute, merciless laws of nature?

But look at that line - "spiteful jeering from a crowd so frivolous and so far beneath him" - who does that remind you of? It's Christ. Christ's death was senseless at the time - He was supposed to be the Messiah! He was supposed to drive out the Romans and free Jerusalem and save the world and there He was, nailed to a tree, like a common criminal! And His Resurrection was a reality that enabled our own Resurrection yet to be seen. But that senselessness - that is life. That is how we learn about hope, that is how we learn how to love. If everything went right all the time, we would never know what it's like to really hope, to really love. Miracles are about hope - so sometimes, the miracle is that there is no miracle - sometimes the best way to learn about hope is to persevere despite feeling that there is no hope.

But we always have one miracle to return to, always - that's Christ. The Eucharist. The miracle that is the all-powerful God who created everything humbled Himself, fused Himself to humanity in all its sin, and offers himself as a sacrifice that you can receive every week - or every day if you'd like - that is a miracle that God consistently sends us as hope and consolation.

Earlier this week, I was praying pretty hard about some future decisions - I could either go to Honduras, or go to UVA grad school. I was feeling really anxious, so I was like, "Okay, God. I want to do what You want to do, so let's make this easy. You send me three signs - three signs - telling me what I'm supposed to do next year. So the next day I'm feeling pretty good - 'okay, lookin for my signs, lookin for my signs' and I go to Mass. FIRST reading:

"WHY do you ask for signs and more signs?"

[people started laughing]

"You have already been given the greatest sign - Christ present in the breaking of the bread."

I was like, COME ON.

You know, I'd been feeling like I should go to Adoration to pray about it, and now it was like God wanted me to go to Adoration, pray, get this great big ambiguous answer.... FINE. Have it Your way.

But miracles aren't about making things easy - miracles are about cultivating the capacity to hope and to love, to draw us closer to God. And that doesn't always look like we think it's going to look. Maybe miracles happen just so we know that God can change things - so we know that if He doesn't, He must have a really good reason. Maybe miracles happen so we can embrace the everyday.

And there we have the Eucharist again - the glory of God humbly present in the everyday. The most important part of miracles are invisible. In every miracle, the most important part of miracles are invisible. When you're in Adoration- who's to say miracles can't be worked in your soul? When you love God, when you pray - you can become a walking vessel of God to the world. You can be a miracle in the lives of the people around you.

There is so much beyond our understanding - miracles teach us this. Submit always to God's plan, and I guarantee you that you will see miracles worked in your own life



mt.

bullet

we rock over the tracks like a heartbeat
of the steel bullet aimed at the heart of
the city

the disheveled student to my left
fumbles to keep his thoughts
from splaying across the floor like sheets of paper
the blonde beauty stands composed like a symphony
arm twined around the smeared pole like the clef of an ottava bassa
and the man with sunglasses by the sliding door
pretends to read yesterday’s news

my friends are my blanket
we flit like a school of fish through the echoing station
shuffle one by one onto the metro
they surround me now, laughing
i stare hard at the map of the tracks
senseless weavings of red, yellow, blue
our paths will split, our paths will split

that line of blue, there, that’s the one
it will carry me to a large gray station
empty except for an old man with a cane sitting solitary on a bench
a crumpled newspaper fluttering across the cement like a butterfly
a large cracked laminated sign that reads
“Arlington National Cemetery”

it will be strange
to reduce her gentle hands, the humming voice,
the pen-thin wrists and afternoon snuggling
to a cold white stone in the grass

there, the beauty has gathered
herself closer to the pole
an automated voice announces the impending stop
the whole world leans forward, then straightens again
the man clears his throat and exits
the student shoves his work into his bag

they have surrounded me, these friends
they press so close that i don’t need a pole or seat
i put my hand on one’s back, just to feel their presence
they are laughing at something one said,
they are preparing to go to dinner

here is my junction, we stumble to a stop.
the door slides open, all is immediate
i drape a handkerchief of light brushing fingers on one's arm
push myself in swift strides through the door
i freeze on the platform, for just a moment
for just a moment, i suddenly realized
no one else was coming.
i turn and stare
at my friends all crammed inside the doors
holding ropes and poles and walls
and they stare back.
they are forever different, we both realize
but only for a moment

the intercom dings and i am recomposed
i gather my thoughts like paper notes
turn sharply and march towards the flashing screen i cannot read
they watch me through the dirty windows
until the bullet clasps shut
and fires once again

surfer

the waves have stripped the girl to her base
she strides so regally through the foam,
face upturned to sunlight
broken shells strike at her calluses
small fish suck at her legs
slight fingers drift along the surface, enjoying the tension
of water-meets-air

there, to the left
a buoy once cleanly flayed
red to white, floats smudged with stains once-living
chained to a rusting cage below

and on the horizon
a clean line of snowy gulls
signs ‘away!’

gravity compresses and lifts
a swelling of liquid sapphire topped with sequins
that once destroyed six villages

she turns and faces its being
rushing toward her obliviously
at the last moment, as it curled its arms
in a crushing embrace
her toes reject the rigid vacant sea-urchin homes
and she rises like a gull to the crest of the wave
inhales the foamy light-meets-liquid
rides its crest until it breaks
and deposits her with a fond sigh on the damp slanted earth

she rises
fumbles under the weight of gravity and
the awkward slant of her surfboard
fixes her blue-and-white striped suit to dispel wandering looks
of pepper-haired men with sunscreen on their noses
and black orbs masking their eyes.

charlotte.

jericho.

helen.

moriah.

chapter 5

"I want to tell you about my love," said Charlotte. "I do not know where he is but I want to tell you about him so that you will come to understand me. I met him six years ago. His eyes were almonds flecked with gold. His voice was deep. It encased me. It drew me out like the ocean murmur of a shell that lures the mermaid into air. Every move was deliberate. We would gather after the chaos of class and find a quiet corner, a business desk and two chairs. He would sit behind the desk, leaning back in the black computer chair, and I sat poised on the chair on the other side. He seemed so grown and gathered, though he was only two years my senior. We carefully measured the gap between us and sat on our designated foundations and spoke slowly. Throughout the day I would think of the perfect phrase, full and blue and beautiful, to deliver to him in the evening, and he would receive it with gentle cupped hands. The gap was carefully measured and none would cross it, like hallowed ground. Finally he trod carefully on the oblivious grass, he looked at me confidently and said, 'I feel like I know you so well, but I know so little about you.' I hesitated, stared at his feet so daringly planted, stirred at the thought of the roots and boxes below. And I decided that his feet were not insolent, that earth was made to be walked.
I nodded and brushed my fingers against his arm, I brought him to the sandy beach.
The beach is so lonely in the winter, and so peaceful. The sand seems whiter, like snow. I stood still for a moment, stared at the expanse still unviolated, and cast him a sideways glance. He ventured onto hallowed ground, and I will allow him, I thought. He was asking for trust and I decided to unearth it. I held his hand tightly and led him out. We plunged below, past the icy night to where the bottoms are warmed by unseen forces, pulled him into the caves sacred white. The light danced designs on the smooth round walls. I heard the faintest murmur of singing and the splash of a water bed. Do you hear her? I asked. I could see her faintly in the darkness of a far cave, blue outlined robe weaving regally and languidly in the weightlessness. He was still. I don't know if he ever heard anything, but his silence was deferential. There it is, I said. Perhaps to you it seems mysterious and dark and wet and cold, but truly it is my greatest beauty."

"After four years he has returned," said Moriah. "Charlotte cracks nuts and casts them into the fire. The white ash grows underneath like an undiscovered life. She sits on the edge of the fireplace and cracks the almonds ferociously and feeds the flames to watch them dance with deathly beauty. Father is leaning back in the old stuffed blue rocking chair squinting at the smeared stamped news from behind his thick brown-rimmed glasses. The black words smear gray onto the creased paper. Mother weaves roses in the air unknowingly. She straightens a book on the coffee table. Evangeline curls her legs beneath her like a ball of yarn, pen poised above her striped notebook as her wide blue eyes are suddenly still and staring at the corner of the wall and ceiling. She has untied the kite from the spool.
I rise suddenly and hear my feet pound across the wooden floor, I press my hand to the stone counter. I extend to the off-white refrigerator stained by too many fingers, it pulls open with a sucking noise and I tremble as the air splashes me briskly. I slip open the drawers and scavenge - bright red strawberries, puce round grapes, hairy bronze kiwi. I hear a heavy form behind me and I turn. Jericho hulks behind me, waiting for the oasis to clear. I gather the fruits in my fists and shuffle away. He stands in the artificial light of the open cold and stares at the untasted contents."

"Ah, I am so silly," said Evangeline, "sitting here curled and stirring the contents of the pot with a quill, or puncturing a wound with its formidable fang. I hear music and wonder if he will call. I see the sun pass through the window and think of the gardens. I wore his mask as a game, I giggled as I took it on and off. But truly I wanted to understand its shape, what the back of it looked like. I wanted to feel the shape of the darkness to find a crevice to widen for the sun. He makes me dig in the earth with my short bare nails, and the dirt bangs rudely on the thick wooden door under my nails demanding entry. I am covered in dirt, but that is the way that life is. Life is not life without the muddy streaks, so paint them on your own face. Light a fire to boil the mudpit so that it will soothe you. Use your dreams to find the good, and dig through the earth with your bare nails to work to the good. Vote, he says. Go to city council meetings. Love is a political party and I have joined it. He has rapped sharply on the ceiling of my pristine pride and pulled me down into the grime. 'Humanity lies in the grime,' say his hunched shoulders and exceptionally dark hair. 'What are you doing floating apart from the others? You have not learned what it is to love. To love is to be broken.'"

chapter four.

"We are all gathered home for the winter," said Evangeline, "Perhaps for the last time. Jericho is preparing for war across the ocean. Helen is learning to fly jets. Charlotte wishes to move to a warm island far away, and I want to go with her. Moriah will continue to study. We are all gathered here, for the first time in a long time. We clash with the hardness of Sarah, our new mother, but we have finally limped home for refuge. My hope is exhausted. I wish to find a crevice and rest. And yet I wonder - will he write? Will he call? We spoke a few days ago, Helen rolled her eyes because I laughed the whole time as I pressed the telephone to my cheek. He weaves gossamer designs in the air and draws me in. One weekend seven months ago he looked at me with love blazing from his eyes and everything was delicate. We walked through the blooming gardens and found a quiet bench and spoke. The sun was too hot and splinters worked through my skirt but I pretended not to notice so that the afternoon would not end. He grinned shyly and dared not hold my gaze. But that passed traceless out of existence like the breezes that had abandoned us. Now I am home. The kettle sings as the water escapes. Jericho is teasing Helen, she cannot stop laughing. Sarah our new mother shuffles past me to remove the metal from the heat - her figure is like a flame, her hands like bricks. I sigh and drift toward the window."

"We are home at last," said Charlotte. "Evangeline stands at her post by the window. Mother readies the tea. The evergreen displays its canes flayed red, the bells hang lightly. Moriah is making lists. Helen and Jericho's laughter forms a wall between us and them. I lift the murmuring teapot from its hot coils and relieve its ocean of a glass. I pour it over crushed flowers; they turn the liquid gold. I find the honeycomb in the sticky plastic box and I peel it open. It languishes seductively between spoon and steam before winding downward into the hot blue mug. I lift the blue with two hands, always with two. The heat penetrates my palms and the steam warms my chin. When I drink flowers my mind unravels contentedly like a cat stretching. When I close my eyes I drift in watery caves on the floor of the sea. I stroke in beats over to the stony walls, no longer pristine. My fingers linger regretfully on the gashes in the stone, the irreparable charring. I can't hear her singing any more, but some crevices still preserve a few echoes like a ballerina in a music box. But I have heard them so many times that I can hum them - and music underwater always sounds like one's own thoughts. I open my eyes. They are blue. I gather myself up and carry her to the piano. I set her down gently on the stool and I say, look. The keys. They are either black or white. Now press them all in succession and you will understand. And Charlotte carefully spread her fingers across the checked palate and let them move."

"Evangeline is dreaming and Charlotte is playing music," said Moriah. "They are both beautiful but I suppose I despise them both. When they have the chance they will leave. When they have the chance they will dissolve. They will go where I cannot follow. They do not live in daily succession. They try to fly without the physics, to climb without the mountain. They transcend but they do not live. Mother is emptying the dishwasher. I move to help her, pausing only occasionally to wipe the lukewarm water from the tops of upside-down cups on the wet dishrag with disgust. They do not respect me. I am too blunt for Helen and Jericho, to harsh for Mother and Father, and I refuse to mingle with the other two. And yet I know that I am durable - I, above all else, will endure."

chapter three.

"Jericho has come,” said Evangeline. “Our brother has shed his wide-eyed inquisitions and come. His brow sits low over his eyes as though strengthened through narrowing. He pours protein powder on his breakfast. He tells us a story about escaping from special-ops during his training. He puts on sunscreen and sunglasses and walks shirtless down the beach. When we were little he would convince us to jump off of his bunk bed, and we did. He folded a quilt on the ground and said it would make it softer. He gave us helium balloons from the supermarket to clutch between our feeble veined hands and said they would slow us down. We tugged experimentally on the thin ridged ribbon to the elusive hovering orb. We shut down thought and pushed our feet off the dull blade of the bed frame into flight. The ribbon uncoiled like rope and snapped taut against the watching rubber. It resisted with a pop and then surrendered to gravity. We fell in a heap onto the frowning floor. It kicked us for our insolence. We didn’t fly.”

“Jericho has come,” said Charlotte. “His eyes are still blue but they are hard and shiny like a smooth black jar, except when he speaks to us. When he speaks to us the shell thins like the discarded cloak of an old snail. His teeth are white. They used to shine like an actor's but now Dad says that they look like a shark’s grin. He is darkened by the California sun. Two years ago he fell in love with a girl for the first time. One year ago she left him a jigsawed half in the cold stone-grey fortress of a school. Now he falls in love halfway with every girl he passes. When Mom was sick my aunts and uncles called him a demon and when they looked at him they shook their heads. One day he left our ammonia house and ran down the street. The night crawled in and the streetlights turned on, and he didn't come home. Finally the chill scuttled up the blades of grass and we found him insolently at our door. Dad told him we were worried, he had done something very bad, he's grounded for the week. The water gathered behind his whole face until it overflowed, and he screamed that he wished Mom were already dead. They said he was a demon. He hid in his room and cried. The day Dad told us that Mom left he was the first to believe, and the first to cry.”

“Jericho has come,” said Moriah. “He does not escape now, nor hide. He plunges through debris with a torch, he snarls when he is angry. He conquers mountains and leaps from boulder to boulder like a stag or a flickering flame. He says what he means when he means it; he does not filter through water. He has a beach house and a sports car in California. He wants to be a millionaire before he is thirty. He weaves together experiences with flame and he tells stories. He keeps a picture of Mom in his bedroom. He swims with sharks and learns to fly.”

“But nothing penetrates,” said Charlotte.

“And here comes Helen,” said Evangeline, “our little sister. She how she comes with light in her hair and birds printed across her shirt taking flight. See how the breeze in her skirt turns her into an ephemeral being. See her eyes wide like a doe’s.”

“She walks with confidence,” said Moriah. “She says, ‘I am the sun around which you turn.’”

“See her chin lift her mask of selfhood,” said Charlotte. “But her hand twiddles her hair tie and cries, ‘I do not know who I am.’”

“It is strange,” said Moriah, “that the planet’s center of gravity is not solid, but air and fire.”

“But water produces life,” said Charlotte.

“And what then am I?” asked Moriah. “Is earth then truly the most insubstantial?”

“The light fractures on the surface of the water,” said Charlotte.

“She is too young to remember the death,” said Evangeline. “It is for that that I love her.”

“She parked the car two years ago and shouted, ‘you think you love Mom more,’” said Charlotte. “She said ‘she’s dead’ over and over until the waves crashed on the sand and the sun sucked all the life away.”

“The earth is no longer firm,” said Moriah. “So I scoop up rocks for weapons.”

“Helen is here, and she smiles,” said Evangeline. “It feels like an afternoon breeze, and it smells like coconut.”

“I have erected a wall of rocks against Jericho, I am armed and facing Helen,” said Moriah.

“I serve them lunch and then retreat into solitude,” said Charlotte.

“I hold this rock, thus it exists,” said Moriah. “I stand on ground, thus I am this, not that. I must wage war against the lies of insubstantiality, I cannot scatter like sand. I must be strong so that I can say, ‘I exist’ and ‘I persist.’”

“Moriah is throwing pebbles into the ocean,” said Evangeline. “They pretend to be bullets but their arc betrays them. The wind nudges and teases them. It gathers together and pushes the waves toward the gravity moon. The moon rests behind the daylight. Charlotte sleeps in her room.”

chapter two.

“Our mother died,” said Evangeline. “Our mother died like a bolt of lightning splintering a tree into us three. I was 7 years and 12 days old and a black rock plummeted to the depths of the ocean, wrapped in a sigh of resignation. I stared out the windows in car rides and let myself fly away. I longed for dark swathed stretches of night to erase me for awhile. When I was fifteen I tried to fly. I practiced flips in my living room. I fell in love with the mysterious man who fought while in flight, who taught me the art of war. I loved him for his flight; I loved him for his dreamlike words. Then he left like a breeze, three years present, rooted, emulsified into my being, the next day disappeared. When I was fifteen I tried to fly. I used my fireplace as a springboard for a back-walkover, but in mid-flight I looked into the heavy eyes of gravity and I surrendered. In my dreams when I am chased I stop running and lie down, let it catch me to kill the fear. When I was mid-flight off the fireplace in my living room I looked into the heavy eyes of gravity and surrendered. It placed its hands tauntingly on my weak knees and quivering belly and pushed me downward. My feet tried to catch and missed; the edge of the fireplace slammed into my shins and I crumpled. I crumpled like a discarded essay ridden with red ink. I mopped up the blood and hid the marks. I ignored my brother’s wide-eyed inquisitions. I couldn’t say I’d tried to fly. A notch carved on each leg to remind them of their duty. And now the doctors say they were broken, and re-healed slightly offbeat. They are strong but slightly off, these spindled foundational branches that bear my weight.”

“Our mother died,” said Charlotte. “Like a wave snipped into knives by wind and rocks, chopping grey-crested over black ocean. I dove beneath, to let the force rock over me. But it caught me, swirled me violently across the dull inconsistencies of the rocky bottom. I went limp to conserve energy, my breath, and thought, I would surely die. But as the last breath expired, a current lifted me like a hand to the limp surface under grey clouds. I knew it had saved me and I dove into its depths, to its glorious muted existence with the glimpses of light magnified in its aquarian scatter. It was there that I remembered her liquid hazel eyes and the musky smell of milk, thin arms and the sound of the waterbed splashing as I snuck under the hot covers after a bad dream. In the sun-warmed caves resting on the bottom I heard the murmurs of her singing. I guarded her jealously, her indefinability rendered silence sacred. I emerged to breathe only, but underwater, warm pulsing love flowed into the crevices and drew together the wounds.”

“My feet are on the ground,” said Moriah. “They are glued by gravity, the force between two objects. I trust the stability of the earth and its irresistible pull to resistance – I am this, not that. The moment a thought forms it must be spoken – I must feel its shape on my tongue, weigh its heaviness in the air. I must say “it is round” or “it is sharp” or “it is crude.” I must speak so that it does not take root, because roots too closely intertwined necessarily must separate; there must necessarily be a perishing. My mother is buried in a sandstone box. The soil pushes up grass obliviously. I stand between the sharp dry grass and stare across the beach. The rootless sand drifts and blows away with a scattered sigh.”

chapter one.

“I am 22 years old,” said Charlotte Claire. “I can tell a 2003 Cabernet blend from a 2005 vintage just by smelling it. When no one is looking I drink my coffee through the small black stirrer so I can taste the sugar on the bottom sooner. I get dressed up before I go to the library because I feel more alive. My eyes are grey when I’m shielded and blue when I’m feeling. I don’t know what color they are right now. He is sitting across from me. He gets sad when people say the word ‘suicide.’ He is sad but he has not lost hope, because if he lost hope he would not look sad, but hard and empty like a smooth cold black jar. I am smiling. My teeth are white because I whitened them yesterday. My eyes are painted black. The bag around my heart cinches tightly like a full purse, it draws the back of my throat together into a gravelly undertone to my words. I see you note with the forced relaxation in your shoulders, with your eyes directed outwards, that we do not connect. You don’t know why but I know the bag is cinched tightly, you can hear it in my voice. I want you to look, but I know I would attack you. I want it to be right. I want to be alone.

Now I am driving. I am 22 years old and I had three dates this week. I like the upward curve of my eyes and the way my brown bangs fall just below my brows. I want to lose 15 pounds. I didn’t love anyone today, or yesterday, or last week. I want to go back in time and uncinch the bag. I realize that I don’t know how. My foot gets heavier on the acceleration, the streetlights pass like missed joys overhead. The electric music passes like a watery dream into the passenger seat, a tuned-out guest. You Charlotte always drift across the white-dashed lines; they are guidelines not rules, until their reedy bending ends in your imminent perishing. The bridge’s potholes torment my wheels. Now the bay stretches into a sunset behind the silhouette of cranes and naval warships. Now the road sinks into a tunnel, the shoulders disappear and cement walls lift the ocean blue above my head. Everything constricts; I hear the hum of the engine echoing in circles down the hollow underwater tube. When I was little I held my breath from beginning to end; now I know that you could live your whole life underwater, breathing in and out, in and out, and not pass out of existence.

“My name is Moriah,” said Moriah. “I hiked 10 miles up a mountain in 20 degree weather. I liked the feeling of my foot plowing into the rock, each conflict declaring, ‘I am this, not that.’ I liked feeling warmth generating from inside of me, flowing through my capillaries and hanging in a coat around me. I liked the frozen cascades of small waterfalls over boulders to climb around. I liked pulling myself through the rocks, hiding in the earth, emerging to the endless views of valleys and mountains. I like hovering in the log cabin shelter halfway down, gathered close to friends and strangers around the flickering heat, pouring fiery chocolate down our gullets before bearing the teeth-chilling 2 degree wind chill again.

Now I retreat like a bear to its cave. I hoard nuts and meats. I curl under blankets. When I am not moving I am cold. My body temperature is two degrees colder than the average human. When I drive I wear a coat and hat and scarf and gloves, and turn on the heat until the air scratches my sinuses. When I shower I stand under the stream unmoving. I do not dress until I am dry, so I do not shiver when the droplets chill and bind to my clothing. I shower before I exercise so that my sweat is clean, so I can revel in my health. Today I visited a friend on the other side of the bay. I navigated through the wide open streets of the beach town and parked in his cement drive. I step into the cold and let myself shiver violently, in hopes of generating heat between now and the doorway. There he is. He knew of my arrival; he has already opened the door. I greet him with a hug (I am this, not that). My shoes slip off and my feet hit the hard cold floor. I sit on a stool and twine my legs like roots around its base. One hand holds the counter, the other the top of the stool. I speak of the studies I’ve read and the shows on TV. I toss heaps of earth onto the kitchen table: this is real. We speak of the sacrament of marriage. When I see the water shift in the center of your chest I crush my insides into sandstone, a clumsy wall. I comment on a small detail, the food perhaps, and the danger is passed. My name is drawstring; I bind things together.

“I dream of flight,” said Evangeline. “I bind myself to motion and I skim on top of water. The board slaps the cohesion beneath me like cement; air makes all else solid, deadly. The foam peels before me in a running “V” like kings and queens bowing. A crash would be like slapping onto a flat road. I must make myself small. I jump with the foam around me. I live for the moments of breaking-away from the endless blue expanse, the leap into white. But Moriah has bound me in a sandstone box. I told her the water was solid and she believed, she rode on the board and when she fell she nearly shattered. Then the concrete gave way to sinking; her feet pulled her down. So she bound me in a sandstone box, carved it around me and forbade my flight. Now I wait until she sleeps and I creep out, I gingerly sidestep her stalactite warnings dripping from our ceiling. I pass Charlotte, swimming in blankets with sea-salted spray on her cheeks. The door creeps open and the night air envelops me in its arms, breathes into my lungs. My eyes turn blue and my cheeks are kissed with pink. The door creaks closed behind me. I drift up the path to the cliff. The clouds are moving fast overhead, like a stampede. I crest the bank and raise my arms like I used to on roller coasters at night, to the side with eyes closed, imagining flight. The wind peels the sleeves of my nightclothes away from my arms and twine around me. I stand unmoving. I dream of flight.”

“I dreamed I was a prison guard,” said Charlotte in her silence. Her hands, twined tightly around her mug of coffee, and her head tilted slightly down as the morning rays poured around her back, murmured together, “We planted a spy in one of the cells. She succumbed to brutality. She saw our injustices and she succumbed to the bars. One day she escaped. She ran with her blonde hair streaming behind her. Her face was distorted with hate. I ran after her but I couldn’t keep up. So I crouched on all fours like a wolf and vaulted myself towards her. She screams (or laughs, I can’t remember which) that I am jealous and I launch towards her, I pin her to the grass by her shoulders. I am not jealous, I said, you broke the rules. You broke the rules. She fights but I fight harder. We throw her back into the cell and lock the door with a triple padlock. I stand guard like a crouched thing. Now she is a prisoner. Now she is hateful. Now she is lost.”

“I put the bread into the toaster and I prepare the butter,” said Moriah. “I eat it quickly to feel the heat rest in my center. Charlotte is sitting at the table by the bay window – the light from the sea reflects onto her back, and her face is in shadow. Evangeline has gone for a walk. She is in love with the man from across the bay. But I have placed her in a sandstone box before she learns that love twines roots too tightly together, that separation means some measure of death. The hard clay of the coffee mug warms in my hands and I sip the hot black liquid. It seeps like warm earth through my veins and binds my hand to the counter.”

“I see the fresh sun resting precociously above the horizon,” said Evangeline. “My feet flicker lightly across the boardwalk. The swallows spin in whirling dervishes. The clouds are cotton candy, pink and yellow. A line is drawn from my eye through water to the burning orb, another from the celestial blue through into the deep to earthy bottoms that no eye has seen and big-eyed fish flit through the gaps. The world is an orb divided by one line up, and one line across. A woman is collecting shells of beings that once were. A boy is searching for treasure with a beeping beggar’s cane swinging to and fro, to and fro. The seagulls squabble over breakfast.

an introduction to gravity

don't mind me. this is a short piece right now that i'm letting have a little breath of its own. it'll become what it will, i suppose. feedback is welcome.

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“Our love is the measure of the cross we bear,” said Charlotte.

Charlotte Claire loved to stare at the sea. She loved how the black depths turned blue in the sunlight, how it lifted and turned a sanctified white in the air before plummeting to escape on the shore. She loved its roar ending in whispers, how it curled within itself again and again before obliterating into peace.

Once, three years before, she sat on the California shores and fell in love with el mar, with the way the sunlight kissed the foam into eternity. Her legs carried her unresisting feet through the sluggish hot sand that tugged pleadingly for her waning, to the rough flat stretches of once-wet sand, to the shifting dampness that seemed to draw her down into itself. Finally she reached the hissing meandering ebb and flow of the last of the clear water, and waded in deeper until the brisk water slapped against her legs, then thighs, then finally submerged her bottom half. A wave lifted mightily to slap the newcomer to the ground, but her feet pushed from the bottom and she dove through the wave, and the foam pulled through her hair like a brush.

For an hour she stayed in the waves. She drifted far enough away from shore that no one could hear her, and finally, abandoning convention, began singing as loud as she could, leaping at precisely the moment to join the white cresting. The waves became more and more powerful, rising above her, sometimes pulling her under, but she shot to the surface again, gasping in the air with a mystical joy, eyes closed, imagining herself breathing in sunlight. She felt encased in the arms of power, on the crest of danger but perfectly safe, guarded by the air and sun above her. Finally her limbs began to feel limp and trembling, and she slowly worked her way to shore. For a terrifying moment it seemed as though they kept pulling her back out, for an instant she feared she would run out of strength before she could make it to the miniature models of people traveling like ants left and right across the beach. But she calmed down, and timed her strokes with the waves, and eventually they returned her with a gentle sigh onto the shores. She stood up, legs heavy, and pulled herself through the newfound gravity towards the cluster of people talking excitedly. Something seemed to be wrong. Her heavy feet carried her upward. In twelve seconds she was close enough to hear what they were saying.

A boy went for a swim 45 minutes ago. His body just washed up on shore.

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