Stories and Starlight

I tried to write about love, but   everything I want to express has already been written. (a shelf weighed down by vinyl records, decades of lyricisms for love and heartbreak.) I forced myself to write about love, but  I can't remember what I saw in you the first time -- I don't even know if I want you anymore.  (a case file with faded photographs, all proof too dated and aged for the detective.) I started to write about love, but  it strained my thoughts and muddled my feelings too much to try. (a never-ending book, an unsolvable puzzle, pages and pieces scattered over the floor.) I wanted to write about love -- about you --  but (a smudged page, gray marks from words I tried to take back.)   at least I know I tried.

It was silent storytelling: words and noise traded for music and movement among the soft swishing of skirts, tapping of feet and a solid scuff-marked stage underneath. All tethers of reality, identity thrown off no names, but feelings and faces half in a dream no worries, but wild forgetting within practiced routine no time, but the infinite now --  spotlighted: fragile and strong, safe and free. **** author's note(s):  As a child (wow, it feels really strange to say that), I was a ballet dancer for six years: I started when I was three and stopped at age nine.  This was originally written in 2020

I. It was dinner time when I wrote him a note. Pulled out a pen and covered one, two  sky-colored sticky notes front and back with neatly printed marks. You’re a great friend to have. Stay in touch. Phrase it as a fact, write it as an order. Finally finding the courage in my quick-beating heart to  be upfront, straightforward --  a heady rush of newfound strength. To approach, but not to ask if he feels the same, and never to know what might happen if he did. (Cover it all up in friendship terms,  can’t let on,  can’t let go.) II. Sometimes he’ll give a smile, sometimes hey, how are you. Sometimes a hug. Sometimes not even a pale blue glance. Scan the room, find him, anticipation rising... and I feel the drop, the b     u         m              p                ...

hello . it's been awkward. six hours and thousands of miles but not a word was said to  bridge the gap, only a sprinkling of laughter: crumbly plastery filling,  forced lightness, because we can't seem to accept the darkness:  that cramped pretense we put up instead, a poor protection for what should be spoken, but hangs out to dry on the fine line of silence,  waiting, perhaps, for when we turn and (actually) say  hello. it's been tiring. three years and thousands of conversations but hardly a word was said to  bridge the gap, only a sprinkling of outings: flimsy sugary filling, like melting ice cream, because we can't seem to have a full meal, that duty called "quality time" by convention ,  hiding the longing for something substantial but giving in to habit just one more time, waiting, perhaps, for when we try to (really) say hello. it's been difficult. one childhood and thousands of memories but not a word I've said to bridge the gap, only a scrapb...

Every film in this post was something I watched during the fall of 2020. I talked about the first four in another post , but I pasted the reviews here anyway because I wanted to have a complete list of everything I watched and wrote about.

Yes, I am aware that it's no longer October or November. Or 2020, for that matter. But I re-discovered this post, drowning in my sea of unfinished blogpost drafts, and decided it had some good thoughts that deserved publication. They're just... four months late.

why couldn't it be me? every time I remember, there's a hollow in my heart and no one knows how deep it goes: not because my heart is empty but because I'm so full of desire someone's out there in a place I want to be in a role I want to play but I'm the one who prayed I'm the one who crafted the dream I'm the one who read the books and wrote character studies I'm the one who ran deep into my own ambition and all I have left are saltwater tears and a heart overfull,  over years of dreaming and nowhere to go with it. why am I here? what happened to the promises? and maybe I'm in denial, but what do I have to grieve? maybe losing these dreams is like losing lives; except these lives never existed outside of me,  so maybe a part of me is lost too. what a puzzle grief is; what a puzzle I am. worlds collide behind my eyelids  but the world outside my window leaves much to wish for, and desperation drifts into the mix. how much longer do I have to wait? Yo...