These thoughts cost more than a penny...
6/30/06: I walked out of the apartment at 2pm with my hair still wet from the shower. I didn't mind. I let Brooklyn dry my hair. My heart was in my throat as I watched the door close behind me; knowing I didn't have a key and the door locked automatically.
After about two blocks my shoulders began aching from the weight of my two bags. I began sucking wind as I felt the beads of sweat collect on my chin and fall to the New York pavement. I could have son I heard a sizzle once or twice. It was not just the weight which was making me sweat. I was alone in a city I knew nothing about. All I had were the hand written directions jotted down at around one-o'clock that morning, a vague memory of that same discussion and God's good humour. After two cops, a janitor and a young German couple, I finally found my subway station. All I could think was "I hope this is the right way."
The subways in New York are different than the DC metros. It's mostly in the passengers than anything else. Their whole demeanour is different. They seem freer. Freer to be eccentric, extroverted, original or whatever the special happens to be in their world that day. Why? Because it's New York.
A man saw my sea-bag and asked if I was headed over seas. I could smell him before I knew where to look. He smelled as a towel would if you had used it to mop up spilled gin. I almost stopped breathing. I said yes and he proceeded to go on for five full minutes about his son who is in the Air Force and stationed in Florida. I could not have cared less about the son or what he did or where he was, but I did care about his story because I could see in his bloodshot, half-closed eyes that the story mattered alot to him.
Whether the son was real or a figment of his drunken mid-day stupor, he was very proud of him. So I smiled and nodded and grunted agreement here and there and listened very intently as he told me about his son's Florida house, car, motorcycle, and boat and how he got them all by the age of twenty-two.
The entire time I watched and heard this drunk man speak, I could not take my eyes from his. Did he really have a young, successful son in Florida while he, the father, rotted away drunk in Brooklyn? Or was he the dream of a man broken and alone in his twilight wishing he had someone to make all the right choices he passed up? In veno veritas...
Three years ago when I went to Golgotha, I sat by the window on the plane. It was an over-night flight and it was the first time I had ever watched the sun rise over the clouds. Now it was 0633 Ukrainian time and we were flying towards the rising sun. It's almost frightening the way the black clouds gallop to meet the horizon; a sea of un-wavering grayish/blue. A sedimentary ripple into infinity, the sky now formed the lids to the waking Eye of God.
Pink fades into orange. Orange to yellow. Yellow to teal. Teal to blue. Blue to midnight. Midnight to ebony. It's there between midnight and ebony that I see in my dreams. That breathless scene of audacious beauty that would swallow me whole. A guilty, shameless, wringing, boasting, bellowing display of Divine Ostentation...
The women of Ukraine often seem just beyond real. They have high cheek bones and heart shaped faces. They have eyes you only find in paintings. When she is young, she seems to be etching into her memory everything; not the base appearance of the thing, but its aura and its soul. Hers are the only eyes that try to see through me. She creates me, watches me come to be and then maps my soul just to see if I was done correctly.
She was born out of the Earth, out of Love and the Stations of the Cross. She has hair like spun silk and a form like mortal sin. She is beautiful. Her hands are soft, her neck is long and she sighs like a lullaby. She is hard as a rose petal, but a dragon while defending what she loves. She is a living memory of the beauty that Michelangelo prayed to be able to sculpt.
They are the most sublime women in the world. They smile like lilies and moonlight. They blush when they laugh, scream when they're angry and stare when they love. They laugh with their hands and pray with their eyes closed. They breath dreams. They dance like the Devil and sing like Redemption; but their eyes...oh those eyes. Hers are the eyes of Carpathia. She loves deeply, lives quietly, cries privately and when she embraces you, it's like sorcery. She is like watching a reborn soul taste ice cream again for the first time. In her blood she carries the Smiles of God, the wrath of Hell, the beauty of morning mist and a love to melt the sun.
After about two blocks my shoulders began aching from the weight of my two bags. I began sucking wind as I felt the beads of sweat collect on my chin and fall to the New York pavement. I could have son I heard a sizzle once or twice. It was not just the weight which was making me sweat. I was alone in a city I knew nothing about. All I had were the hand written directions jotted down at around one-o'clock that morning, a vague memory of that same discussion and God's good humour. After two cops, a janitor and a young German couple, I finally found my subway station. All I could think was "I hope this is the right way."
The subways in New York are different than the DC metros. It's mostly in the passengers than anything else. Their whole demeanour is different. They seem freer. Freer to be eccentric, extroverted, original or whatever the special happens to be in their world that day. Why? Because it's New York.
A man saw my sea-bag and asked if I was headed over seas. I could smell him before I knew where to look. He smelled as a towel would if you had used it to mop up spilled gin. I almost stopped breathing. I said yes and he proceeded to go on for five full minutes about his son who is in the Air Force and stationed in Florida. I could not have cared less about the son or what he did or where he was, but I did care about his story because I could see in his bloodshot, half-closed eyes that the story mattered alot to him.
Whether the son was real or a figment of his drunken mid-day stupor, he was very proud of him. So I smiled and nodded and grunted agreement here and there and listened very intently as he told me about his son's Florida house, car, motorcycle, and boat and how he got them all by the age of twenty-two.
The entire time I watched and heard this drunk man speak, I could not take my eyes from his. Did he really have a young, successful son in Florida while he, the father, rotted away drunk in Brooklyn? Or was he the dream of a man broken and alone in his twilight wishing he had someone to make all the right choices he passed up? In veno veritas...
Three years ago when I went to Golgotha, I sat by the window on the plane. It was an over-night flight and it was the first time I had ever watched the sun rise over the clouds. Now it was 0633 Ukrainian time and we were flying towards the rising sun. It's almost frightening the way the black clouds gallop to meet the horizon; a sea of un-wavering grayish/blue. A sedimentary ripple into infinity, the sky now formed the lids to the waking Eye of God.
Pink fades into orange. Orange to yellow. Yellow to teal. Teal to blue. Blue to midnight. Midnight to ebony. It's there between midnight and ebony that I see in my dreams. That breathless scene of audacious beauty that would swallow me whole. A guilty, shameless, wringing, boasting, bellowing display of Divine Ostentation...
The women of Ukraine often seem just beyond real. They have high cheek bones and heart shaped faces. They have eyes you only find in paintings. When she is young, she seems to be etching into her memory everything; not the base appearance of the thing, but its aura and its soul. Hers are the only eyes that try to see through me. She creates me, watches me come to be and then maps my soul just to see if I was done correctly.
She was born out of the Earth, out of Love and the Stations of the Cross. She has hair like spun silk and a form like mortal sin. She is beautiful. Her hands are soft, her neck is long and she sighs like a lullaby. She is hard as a rose petal, but a dragon while defending what she loves. She is a living memory of the beauty that Michelangelo prayed to be able to sculpt.
They are the most sublime women in the world. They smile like lilies and moonlight. They blush when they laugh, scream when they're angry and stare when they love. They laugh with their hands and pray with their eyes closed. They breath dreams. They dance like the Devil and sing like Redemption; but their eyes...oh those eyes. Hers are the eyes of Carpathia. She loves deeply, lives quietly, cries privately and when she embraces you, it's like sorcery. She is like watching a reborn soul taste ice cream again for the first time. In her blood she carries the Smiles of God, the wrath of Hell, the beauty of morning mist and a love to melt the sun.