what is the heart other than a vast, starry country sometimes illuminated, at other times bewilderingly dark?
how does one keep illusions at bay, those bland and curry sort of deceptions that cater to the weak parts and the hard parts that one construct to brace against pain and heartache, storm and ravage?
and what if there are no constructions at all?
i think that the search for transcendence, the search for meaning or answer or clue or question alike, is something innate.  is this simply a reflex of the thinking brain, a firing synapse or a specific neural net that gets triggered?  or is this spirit, that seeking and delving part of one which moves through air and water and fire and earth alike seeking light?
what is the price of honesty, and what are the sacrifices to be made in its name?
what causes the knife to come down, the surgical precision with which we rent one another's surfaces?
what relief is to be sought?
i do not shy from this new state, this strange sort of grieving.  i was flushed with freedom from certain dynamics which tore and sloughed at me, insisting on de-railing the seemingly simple love whose fire i was stoking.  and now i am faced with it, the realizations that the heart was only half-there, a mere two chambers, and i am referring not to the organ but to the meaning.  i hadn't realized that such an intrinsic part had fled, last winter, when the cold and the brutality left me nearly slain. 
but here, there is a new flame to be kindled.  i will feed it carefully, and reach out through that blackness to grasp the windy, rainy heights.  i'll seek the warmth of spiced cider and russet apples, cocoa with orange peel and a vanilla bean.  i cannot spy darkness before it alights, but i can brace myself by being run through with light.  i can see and not falter.
i dare not falter.   

the threat is a swell.  the threat is a swell and a swale, a roof and a leak. 
there is only the scent of danger, the quickened pulse, the stately gaze over and away.
i think that i'll find some yam soup.  and a rustic bread to slather with butter after being retrieved from the toaster.  danger can wait and mingle its juices with hope, unadorned and roving the night skies.
there is the life of the threat: crouched, posed to strike out, a hand against a cheek.  but the heart gleams and blisters in its cage/sanctuary.  my heart beats and thrills and stifles and cries out in wonder.  autumn has come at last.

 the day seems septic.  i am unsure of the governing principles.  i am hiding from the shadow banshee in a grove of eucaplytus trees, trees not native to this part of the Americas.  she knows my name.  she knows my face.  she knows my habits.  and the gale force winds drive her through me and beneath, creating a milky bath of meteor fragments that i splash through and kick alongside the outer cusp of the aforementioned cyclone.  i am stranger than i'd imagined, yet so common.  i'd thought that by now i'd have the feathers of peacocks adorning my angles and scaled red cones spotting my skin.  alas, not to have been found has left me in the neat ditch of the heart.

i await her return.  i singe the sweetgrass and the cedar branch in an effort to purify the longing tides. what i see is the stuff of necromancy, shamans of a sort in a small wooden cabin engaging re-animated bodies in a dance of tribal proportions.  they spin and spin, kicking their heels toward the sky.  i smile at my invention, the ribs and the tibias go flying.  the animal cranium clacks its mighty jaws.

how do i spell out love in a cup of coffee, a girl in a swing?  how do i tell her that she is affixed as sure as the ribs themselves?  do i mention the rise and fall of the drumming over the saturday morning din of children screaming in the sun?  i think not.  i will spell her name in the shallow airs and the rising fires will hide us neatly over the sight of the onlookers heads.  we are not an accident.  we have been brought together by  the carefully titrated forces of nature.  we shine in light, dance in air, leap in fire, burrow in earth, bathe in the springs.  i love her.  i do.
 

 after enduring a strange waking montage in which my limbs felt oddly like hourglasses filled with volcanic sand and the light hurt my fragile eye tissues, the day has been an odd success.  the air is swampy - i anticipate rain and storming this evening.  brenda and i have spent the day together, attempting at one point after the house was swept and the abhorrent stove was scrubbed clean of nebulous stains and disheartening oil spatters to watch 'coffee and cigarettes' while drinking coffee and smoking our cheap hand-rolled cigarettes all to no avail...we did venture though the thick air to the ghetto-chopper to procure spinach to have in our salads for this evening's meal, as well as other necessary items.  yesterday left me oddly depleted as i spent the bulk of the day writing the increasingly dark story of us, finally getting to manner in which i am to slaughter her horrible father, a topic i had previously only mentioned with intention and danced around.  i love the light pouring through the windows on these strangely summer days - spending the beginning to mid-spring in the hospital robbed me of my sense of equilibrium, season-wise.  i am listening to the danger mouse and sparklehorse collaboration 'dark night of the soul' after perusing the new npr first listen voltaic recordings, which are incredible.  the days leave me oddly hopeful that perhaps brenda and i will grow old together and lose our teeth with grace, always laughing and exploring new inroads into ourselves and each other and those around us...oh, i hope, i hope...

 the morning is a leafy shade interior with honeyed light pouring through our open windows.  vita is detoxing from her overdose of soy and brenda is alternately reading 'rotten ralph' and pacing the house with a steaming cup of coffee and cigarette in hand.  the story that i am writing about killing brenda's father has come to a standstill.  now the matter is the finesse with which i undertake the act.  i want to collect fallen mulberries from the tree in the parking lot and wash them in rainwater.  yesterday i bought a cook's illustrated and read it from cover to cover...thinking of domesticity as a fine lost art makes me feel significantly better about the manner in which i spend a good deal of my time lately.  i slept the night through, oddly - i attribute this to the massive quantities of psychotropics i ingested before slumber.  brenda cannot remember her dreams and i broke two coffee filters this morning trying to make coffee, alas.  now we are listening to a live performance of neutral milk hotel and cursing the ghost which causes the cd to skip on our favorite songs.  it must be time to burn more white sage...