{ maybe this time }

it's gonna happen

happen sometime

maybe this time

i'll win 

{ rose, in "gypsy" }

the handpieces are emitting their high-pitched whine. the disney channel is blaring in the waiting room. the kid in op 1 is telling the hygienist the x-ray apparatus doesn't taste good. you know, the normal morning / afternoon / evening sounds of my world.

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last night i sang my heart out for a few people with a great friend. no mic, no monitor, it was up to him to shape the session and set the trajectory. i just sat there, looked pretty, and then i sang. everyone knows i'm better at the latter than the former, but i don't think i distracted anybody with my post-sunday-afternoon nap hair.

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i took a walk with a friend who had come to the event and realized just how much i miss being in college, those spontaneous opportunities to have a conversation, to stay up unreasonably late, to laugh in an empty hallway until passerby stop and stare.  she fed me salad and taught me how to cook rice.  we whispered when her roommate fell asleep four feet away.  i felt young again, and alive.

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sometimes you hear the best compliments secondhand...i often hear nice things people say about me from the people they said them to. and sometimes someone tells me something so kind straight to my face that all i can do is cover my mouth to keep in the oh stop and the you really don't have to be this nice. i'm instinctively distrustful of affirmation or love because in the end, it usually amounts to disappointment.  people walk away or forget about you and then everything nice they ever said or did is just another thing to be confused about. i keep trying to find a different pattern in the constellations of loss that litter my dark sky, but science is science.

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i can feel the storm gathering in my collarbone she said

i can always tell when something's coming that way

my ribcage shrinks when the fog rolls in

oh for the warmth of spring and i could stand up straight again

{ s.r. }