lock and key

I met a girl
               loves winter
I met a boy
               stays away
I met a fairy yesterday
but today I lost the key

I followed the river
               downstream
I followed the sea
The arch of the sky
               called me
but then I put down the phone

I buried the treasure
                for her
I unlocked the blue door
And took down my coat
                (for him)
Then I forgot the point

I tramped through the snow
                   today
He looked over his shoulder and said,
"This way!"
I tumbled downstream
I can't believe I lost the key

I saw a bird
one morning
Flying across
the field
And in its beak
was a gold key.
I lost my heart
that day.

I found it months later -
It was in a small box
at the bottom of the pond.
And when the ice melted,
and the sun hit just right,
I dove down and got it,
put it soft in my pocket,
and followed the flight of the birds.

happier

Often, after nights of pretty bad depression, I have days that are happy and light and full of possibility. Especially when I spend the night writing about the depression. It's a form of exorcism. Then the next day is made of clean air and easy sunlight.

Right now I am sitting in the dining room at my friend Nikki's house. I'm living here this week (from Saturday to Wednesday) with Nikki and her brother (whom no one really sees because he hides out in the basement) because her parents are in Maine. I've done this a few times before and it's incredibly fun. Nikki is still at school and the elusive brother is (guess what!) camping out in the basement, so right now I basically have the house to myself.

I just called my mom and the package of clothes I ordered should be arriving at my house today. It includes my new combat boots and a (faux) leather jacket. Woo!

This morning I spent LOTR class in a state of partial dismay, staring at his back, wishing that a miraculous inspiration would cause him to turn around and ask me out for coffee out of nowhere. But it didn't happen. I was sad. Then I went to the library and drank a big cup of coffee and read a good book and felt better, went to French class, then walked to my car, the long walk in the winter's-end sunlight gently glinting off the snow.

And now I feel quite all right for no definite reason - perhaps it's the universe being gentle with me today, or me being gentle with the universe. Whatever it is, I'm thankful for it.

the derailment

This might sound melodramatic, but I feel like, after & since high school, I've gone through a derailment. Am still going through it. The last year & especially last months of high school were amazing, wonderful, possibilities everywhere, on and on and on. And then it ended. I fell into a romantic relationship that was not the one I wanted, and a university that was not the one I had anticipated. There were many times when I did not recognize my own life and was actually quite shocked to see what it looked like.

Now, one thing I can say for myself is that I am not one for regrets most of the time. The only things I regret are things I maybe should have done, and didn't do. But things that I have done, I do not regret because I learn from my mistakes. So, I don't regret the decisions I made that caused my life to be unrecognizable. But it's been a hell of a challenge fixing the derailment.

I have felt mostly lost these past months. It's been really, really difficult to find a sense of purpose, dreams or ambitions. I'm at school but have no clear goal or reason for being there, other than it's just what you do when you get out of high school. I have at best a lukewarm attitude toward my major. I feel like I'm in a period of creative barrenness. And I am terrified of the future.

For a while there has been this tight, at times almost suffocating panic in my chest, and lately it's been harder than usual to shake it off or calm it down. When I think about the future I get even more panicky. What am I going to do? There are so many things I want to do. Travel the world, see things, learn things, find things, create things. But how, how, how am I going to be able to do this and still have a place to live and health insurance and food and other important things??? I don't want to sacrifice myself and waste my life in a boring, meaningless job.

When I think of the things that used to give me hope and drive... that I can find a way to make it work by going after what I want enough, working hard enough, being confident or outgoing enough... The panic remains. I feel too tired and burnt out to put forth a huge effort. I feel anything but confident. I feel like I've been broken into pieces and carelessly stitched back together and I've still got threads coming undone and buttons falling off.

Gods how I want to shake off this depression. It keeps coming back. I hate it! It's not just a recent thing - it's been on and off mostly my whole life, and it sucks! It drains everything, makes everything look dull and grey, makes me feel like it all isn't worth anything. I need to find a way to fight it.

to me

Hello
It's okay.
I see that you are holding the same old mess of tangled strings, with a few new knots added.
Your hands are so busy trying to undo the knots that they have no freedom to do anything else.
Here is what you are going to do...
Drop the tangle.
Let it go.
And walk away.
Do your homework. Go to your job.
Write stories. Make art.
Read literature, read fashion magazines. Read your favorite things and some new things.
If you want to, step back toward hope.
Remember the things that make you happy and hopeful. Like trees and neopaganism and the seasons and love.
Be with your friends. Have excellent times.
Listen to lovely music.
Make some lovely music. What? I know you can't play any instruments. But you have a guitar that you don't know how to play yet, and you used to sing all the time.
If an idea comes, write a poem.
Stop forcing things.
Stop feeling like you have given up. You haven't.
The future is not a thing to be feared.
Healing, life, possibility, love, will come. Trust.

even more cryptic than usual!!

Je vais pratiquer mon mauvais français par raconter l'histoire de ce que j'ai fait aujourd'hui en place d'aller à ma classe des "graphic novels." Le wombat et moi, nous sommes allés à la bibliothèque pour chercher la chambre où on peut regarder des films. Nous l'avons trouvé, et la femme qui y travaille a donné à nous le film, "La Belle et La Bête." C'est un vieux film français qui est différent de la version de Disney, mais cette version c'est aussi bonne. J'aimais écouter à la langue francais, et souvent je pouvais la comprendre sans regarder les sous-titres, mais quelque fois j'avais besoin de les regarder. C'était amusant... regarder ce film avec un bon ami c'était meilleur qu'aller à la classe des "graphic novels," où le prof parle constamment des lignes et des autres choses qui ne signifie vraiment rien (mais elle a des bonnes intentions). Alors, je m'amusait bien aujourd'hui! Kyle je te remercie pour avoir eu la bonne idée de regarder un film à la bibliothèque!

jealousy and infatuation

Often, for me, attraction is a sign of jealousy. Countless times I have liked a boy because he had some quality or characteristic that I lack and that I want.

Around the tenth and eleventh grades, I had a thing for the theatre guys at school. I envied their confidence and ease onstage and offstage, and their talent. Attraction can also be a sign of feeling that I have something to prove. For the first couple years of high school, most people seemed to think that I was a shy, meek, boring person. So I thought, if I had a boyfriend who was one of the confident, talented, popular theatre guys, then that would show everyone that I wasn't quiet and dull.

In that last failed relationship, he had comfort and security, when I was feeling lost and disappointed. But then I grew to hate that reliance on comfort.

Last autumn when the art fair boy with the lip ring seemed to really like me, I had this feeling like I had achieved something, or that I was worth something. Those kinds of boys - who look kind of rebellious and all - are the boys I tend to be attracted to. So the fact that one of them actually liked me back made me feel like I had finally overcome the leftover middle-school / high-school image of myself as quiet, complacent, conservative, a pushover... I also thought something along the lines of, "Wouldn't it be awesome if this boy could be my boyfriend. That would show the people at work who think I'm shy / my ex-boyfriend / all the voices from the past."

And of course, whenever I get rejected by one of these boys, I feel horrible, like I'm not worth anything, like I will always just be the awkward thing in the corner, like I will be stuck as "the shy girl." If someone who seems so interesting, talented, gorgeous, sexy, etc. does not like me, I feel like I will never possess any of these qualities.

I usually get infatuated with boys who are: confident, talented in some art - especially music, outside the mainstream... Often this infatuation translates into jealousy because the qualities that I am attracted to in them are qualities that I feel I am missing. I'm not very confident. I don't know how to play any musical instruments. I often doubt my ability as a writer or artistic type.

I also always, always feel like I have something to prove. To everyone. It's probably the residual effects of being badly teased in elementary school & middle school, and just the leftover low self-esteem from being branded with the image of the boring pushover while I was growing up.

On another note... I know that it is love, not infatuation, when I do not feel like the person I am in love with possesses something that will fix me, or complete me, or make me look good to others. When it's love, it's a feeling of deep appreciation for the other person, with no aim toward personal gain or proving anything to others. It's a private world. I've never been in a relationship with love, though, and that makes me pretty sad.

Anyway, my point is, that this has to stop. I have to stop defining myself by envying others, and then feeling terrible about myself when they show no interest in me. I do not have to have a confident, individualistic, creative boyfriend in order to prove to the world that I am confident, individualistic, and creative.

I'll get my own confidence instead of parasitically living off of theirs.

In short: if he's not interested, fuck it. Too bad for him. I'll get my own pair of motorcycle boots and my own (faux) leather jacket.

laws of attraction

BACKSTORY: With mainly one thing on my mind, but a reluctance to sink into the pathetic-ness of writing "love poetry" about someone I don't even know... I decided to write something about all those boys I've ever liked or loved. Hmm. I hope it's not awkward. All except the last are reflections on feelings of the past... Names omitted to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent! ^-^

--

It was Halloween when I fell for the boy who sat next to me in ninth-grade French class. He gave me some of the candy his friends had sent him because I hadn't gotten any. I listened to Ayumi Hamasaki on the bus ride home and felt electric. For months I agonized about this boy, an actor, the boy with the marble-swirl eyes. He didn't care at all. To my first crush of high school: Because of you I asked a boy out for the first time. Sugarsweet candy hangovers and J-pop will always remind me of you.

--

Sophomore homecoming I learned what it is like to want a slow dance to go on and on. To that flash of a feeling and one almost-date: Because of you I learned how to wish and later how to steal back my wishes.

--

Another day in eleventh grade in the musty afterschool auditorium. I, the timid director's assistant, and he, the strong charismatic stage manager. One winter day the starlight lay thick on the snow and a frosted moon hung high up above. It was only us, alone in the hallway in front of the auditorium, waiting for our rides. Without his many friends, without my many insecurities. So we talked. I threw a snowball at him. The crescent moon glimmered. To the actor with the beautiful voice: Because of you I learned when not to ask a boy out and when to start a conversation. Snowy moonlight and the auditorium smell still make me think of you.

--

The last months of twelfth grade flaming toward graduation. The hot creative writing classroom, the weeks of warm summer rain, the red platypus. Flowers. Sun and wind on the lawn. The last dance when the world burst into color. Running through white hallways in Boston. Staying up all night and the sliver of quiet summer sunlight through Maddie's kitchen window. With my hand on the quick excited pulse of May, I got lost on the way to your house. To one of my best friends: I am so happy for you.

--

Eighteen and the seashore and the chocolate cake. A year of comfort, hanging on when exuberance and spinning hope fell through. The dark windows and the towtruck. Giving chances and taking too much. Too much. That year I lost myself a little, and finding myself again hurt because I had to look where I didn't want to go... And when I admitted the truth to myself, I had to say goodbye to him. To the kindhearted boy: Because of you I found out more of what I want. I spent a year cocooned in safety, then clawed out and cried till I was hoarse. And then I got my voice back.

--

Nineteen in October and when I met him I walked down the autumn sidewalk, I crunched leaves and breathed turning-to-cold air. We brushed hands, he walked past me, he looked, I looked. I smiled, stepped forward, and swallowed the sunset. Hello hello. He had a lip ring, a Pomeranian, a faux-hawk and a beautiful smile. He sold statuary near the white fence. The most beautiful autumn day ever. To the bicycle spirograph boy who never called me back: Because of you I realized there is always new possibility in unexpected places. The smell of cigarette smoke in autumn will always remind me of you.

--

Oh look new day
Hello there boy with the motorcycle boots and leather jacket
I hope that we can get to know each other soon

positivity!

I have a bunch of scattered thoughts right now, so this post might not be very eloquent or well-put-together... but anyways. It has to do with the "epiphany"!

A lot of the time I do things or think in a way that is not good for me. I kind of have a really bad habit of feeding myself negativity. And when I'm feeling negative, depressed, disappointed, or anxious, the negativity tends to breed more negativity. And that usually leads to some sort of weird existential crisis, and well, nobody ever said those are pleasant.

The other night I watched with my mom for the gazillionth time, the movie Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, based on the book by Rebecca Wells. Since I'm bad at summarizing plots, I'll copy the book summary from amazon. "The Ya-Yas are the wild circle of girls who swirl around the narrator Siddalee's mama, Vivi, whose vivid voice is 'part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah.' The Ya-Yas broke the no-booze rule at the cotillion, skinny-dipped their way to jail in the town water tower, disrupted the Shirley Temple look-alike contest, and bonded for life... Siddalee must repair her busted relationship with Vivi by reading a half-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's packet of 'Divine Secrets.'"

Anyway, my point is, why I like this movie and book is this: the women in it are so damn awesome. They have problems and griefs and sorrows, but they're still full of life and love and are ready to party. They're crazy and hilarious, irreverent and full of spirit. My mom and I also have a connection to the story because it takes place in the crazy depths of Louisiana, where my mom spent half of her childhood.

Back to the main point. I usually feed myself negativity... For instance. If I'm having one of my major days of religious doubt, I go over in my head all the atheist theories and all the negative things I have ever heard about spirituality. If I feel like I'll never amount to anything, will never be able to overcome my fears, and will end up wasting my life - I think about how many people must fail all the time, and tell myself that I'm too shy and afraid to accomplish anything. And I feel like shit!!

Sometimes, however - like after I watched Ya-Ya the other day - I remember positivity. I remember how amazing life can be with the right attitude and fearlessness. I start thinking that maybe, by thinking & acting positively, I can make things good. On a really positive day, I get a feeling that - dare I say - I can make my life the best fucking thing the universe has ever seen.

It also has something to do with what kinds of things I give myself, or let myself indulge in. If I read and think about positive, daring, juicy things like Sera Beak's books about eclectic spirituality, this website's articles, magazines like iCiNG, my favorite books like I Capture the Castle, Thoreau at his loftiest... Whenever I fill my day with things like this, I always feel better, more positive, more bold, more ready to laugh at myself, more ready to embrace & trust the universe and whatever is out there... more confident... more open to possibility... more like I am living rather than floating through the days like a drone. Eager to "wink back at the universe", even talk to strangers!, and be excited about my life.

I am sick of greyness. I am sick of commas trailing off midsentence and question marks hanging everywhere. I want exclamation points! I'm sick of my dull and tired agnosticism, my grey noncommittal attitude toward my life, toward humanity, toward my ambitions. I'm sick of all that crap! No more grey. I want powerful red, bright sky blue, leaf green, pure snow white, rich night sky purple, spunky sunset pink.

Now, the question that comes up is, how to fill my life with positivity without turning into some sort of pink fluffy bunny who thinks that there is no war and lollipops can solve global warming. I can't ignore negative, ugly, bad things because they will still be there and will still need to be dealt with. I'm not sure about a solution for this problem.

poor little izzy

So my poor little car, Izzy, is somewhat severely injured. One of the headlights is kind of hanging out and the fender needs to be replaced... because I crashed it last night.

There was an epic snowstorm on this end of the state, that started while I was at work. By the time I left work at 8:00, it wasn't snowing much, but everything was solid ice and the wind was blowing insanely. So I left the parking lot and went down route 2 for about five seconds, then there was a red light up ahead so I hit the brakes. Which did not work. The car didn't stop, it just slid forward on the ice - and kept sliding... into the next lane, where my car ran right into the side of another car that was stopped at the light. Oh gods.

It was terrifying but kind of really weirdly slow-motion terrifying. It felt kind of like when I was little and went rollerblading down the street and didn't realize that I didn't know how to stop, until I was careening down a hill with no control. During the accident I had this weird kind of calm outside-ness, like I was watching it and wasn't a part of it. But anyway.

I crashed into another car, tried to swerve away and hit the other car again, and that finally stopped my car. My car ended up being more damaged than the other one. The girl whose car I hit was really, really nice, almost the same age as me, and she didn't blame me for what happened... for which I am basically eternally grateful...

There was a lot of standing outside in the violent cold wind and the night felt quite surreal, ice everywhere and wind, and sirens filling the air (there were very many other accidents because of the dreadful ice). The fire department came and the firemen moved our cars out of the street and into a parking lot, then the police came, and my parents. It was really odd.

I was extremely nervous about the cost of repairs, because it is going to be a lot. But it turns out that the insurance is going to cover practically all of it. Yay! While the car is in the shop I have to have my parents drive me to school, or peel the parking sticker off of my car and put it on my mom's so I can borrow it.

Ahh. Poor little car... This has been a really bad month for driving. Maybe I will learn how to teleport. Or start memorizing bus schedules.

I have possibly come to a revelation. Maybe I'll write about it later.

the lost feeling

Oh gods. I read them... The old posts. These old posts. I feel unreasonably jealous of the seventeen-year-old who wrote them. And guilty for being nineteen and feeling negative, disappointed, blahblahblah.

When I wrote those old posts...
I was sixteen or seventeen. High school junior or senior.
I wore a uniform every day, with odd against-the-rules touches like combat boots disguised with legwarmers, a non-uniform sweater, and Celtic pendants.
I was the most confident I have ever been.
I was worried about college. I wanted to go to Wheaton. I thought going to a fancy out of state school was the only way to succeed in the world, and that if (oh noes!) I went to a place like URI, I would end up living forever on the same street on which I was born, or something.
I was unemployed and somewhat irresponsible.

School was a safe, fun place, a place for passing notes to friends in the backs of classrooms, drawing comics about our adventures, passing out cupcakes on weird holidays like the Ides of March, loitering in the parking lot when we borrowed our parents' cars.
The future felt wide open. Because I didn't have to do anything about it right away, it still seemed easy.

Interjection: God it's so vivid. The snowbanks out the window in the tiny AP Statistics classroom. The constant cold in the hallways and classrooms and especially the auditorium. The swishing of a school skirt. The heavy stomping in my boots down the tiny hallways. Lockers slamming. Friends' voices. The carols at Christmastime and smuggling candy in the pockets of school sweatshirts. The foul smell of the carpets when spring rains came. The red platypus. The dawn of summer and warm rain every day. The sound a slinky makes in physics class when you pretend it is a sound wave. These memories & sensations actually hurt. The small hot creative writing classroom, surrounded by claustrophobic computers, nervous about reading a new poem, hands shooting up into the air, debates, friends everywhere. That last one kind of really hurts. The sand and sea and feeling of drenched polo shirts and seaweed around our ankles, screaming with the seagulls.

Don't get me wrong... I would not go back to high school if I could. Seventeen is so small. The place was so small. But all of it - how it was - is beautiful... partly because it is gone except for the memories.

When I was seventeen, I thought that one's life was supposed to take off after leaving high school. Everything would open up and be great. Possibility! Adventure! But, no. Everything closed and shrunk. I was in a relationship in which I felt small and protected, nothing like how strong & confident I had felt as a high school senior. I actually felt like I was a few inches shorter.

Perhaps what I have been feeling these past few months is post traumatic stress or shock or whatnot. Breaking off that relationship caused me to examine just how much confidence and drive I had lost, and the results were pretty staggering. And then my favorite aunt passed away. Aside from missing her terribly, it puts childhood even further out of reach.

Honestly, I feel lost. Not really depressed or "woe is me." But just... lost. I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know how to find this out. I have around two and a half years until I graduate with an English degree. Until I won't be covered by my parents' health insurance anymore. Until I will have to find a place to live, a job to do. Until I will probably have money problems. Until I will have to figure out how to do all the things I have always dreamed of doing, while still making enough money. Ahh!!!

Reading the old posts, I was jealous of my seventeen-year-old self because everything seemed possible. Not only possible, but probable. I would probably become a published writer. The universe was probably divine. College would probably solve all my problems. Everything would probably be okay. I didn't really have a list of goals back then either, but I did have a strong belief in possibility. And I sure as hell did not feel lost.

Addendum:
After I posted this post, I started to reread it. Then I had this odd moment where I felt like I was looking at myself from outside myself, or that a self in the future was reading this... just like I read the old posts. And somehow I had this strange but fleeting feeling that I would be okay eventually and would wonder what all this worry was about. I hope that's true.

so what

So I was going to post my tirade about why I don't like literary criticism, but I didn't feel like it. This came out instead.

I spend a lot of time wishing everything were different.
Often, I wish...
That I had clear goals and ambition.
That I had a sort of all-consuming passion for something.
That I weren't afraid of strangers.
That I could go into a new situation without shaking from nervousness.
That I were in love.
That I were full of energy & eagerness to take on the world.
That I did not constantly worry about things that are impossible to change.
That I could stay a child, or a teenager.
That I had musical talent.
That I would never have to worry about money.
That I had some kind of strong faith.
That people were immortal.
That I could be guaranteed a fun job with good pay and insurance when I get out of college, instead of feeling like I will probably have to live in a cardboard box, or at least scrape by in a tiny apartment on the salary from a boring job.

Well, I was thinking about this, then something kind of whispered to me, "Screw it." Screw the pointless longing for things that I can't change. In the past, the fact of not being able to change something has only been a cause for more worry. If I can change something, I don't worry about it because I say, "Well, I can always fix it later, no big deal." But if it's impossible to change, I worry about it because one thing I hate is inevitability.

But you know... So what if I don't know how to play the violin. So what if I'm not in love. So what if I'm not immortal. So what if I don't have a list of definite goals. So what if I get nervous easily. So what if I'm not guaranteed wealth, fame, or success. Big fucking deal. If there were guarantees, no one would ever do anything. They would sit around all day and wait for everything to be handed to them... because they would know it would happen. Didn't I say that I hated inevitability?

I want to try to learn to love & accept the questions, and the possibility that there may not be any answers. I want to love the journey, the ride, the finding stuff out and screwing stuff up. And I'll never find anything out if I don't do things. I haven't really done anything in a long time. What to do? I guess I can't plan... but just be open to possibilities.

Since high school ended, I've felt my mind slowly closing in. I don't mean that I'm conservative or closeminded in regards to lifestyles or political issues... Just that I've closed my own world in. I've told myself that things are impossible. I've imagined a future for myself that I dread, and then I send myself in a panic by trying to think of ways to get out of this imagined future. Well, screw that too. I'm going to tell my negative devil voice to shut up, and I will start living.

The Future?

I think it would be really great to live with passion. Passion for an art or a way of life or an idea or a job or whatever. Usually, I am too indecisive to be passionate. How can you have enough time to fall in love with something when you spend every moment thinking, "Well, I could do this, but what if after time I don't like it anymore? Maybe I should do this instead? But there are approximately 15.2 ways in which I could screw it up..."

It's my instinct to contemplate every way in which something could go wrong, draft solutions for all possible outcomes, and question everything before it has a chance to turn out badly. A huge question in everything I do is also, "Is it worth the risk or the terror?"

For instance, to me, talking to people I don't know (especially if they are my age or close) is absolutely terrifying. I'm socially inept. Just the idea of trying to make "small talk" (aka, torture) fills me with dread and anxiety. So I have to carefully weigh whether it will be worth it before I talk to a stranger. Sometimes I don't have a choice, like when cruel professors decide that Group Work is a good thing. But if it's up to me to make the choice, I carefully weigh whether it will be beneficial enough to talk to the person, spend time crafting what I am going to say by scanning through the script in my head, etc. etc.

But that's not really my point. It's The Future that is my point. One of my biggest fears is having a nothing life. Getting stuck in a boring, soul-crushing job, only being happy on the weekends, and basically wasting my life. AHHH! But how to avoid this?! An obvious answer is... Work for myself! Do something creative and artistic! And the most obvious choice out of things artistic is writing, because I've done more of it than other kinds of art and thus have more practice.

But this is where the indecision comes in. I can't seem to commit to writing. I have always had a hard time falling in love with writing. I do like it awfully a lot... but I wish I were passionate about it. I haven't written anything but blog posts in months and months because the thought of working on a short story or something has given me that heavy, grudging, "no" feeling. Grarr! And if I spend such long periods of time NOT enjoying writing, how could I make a living from it? And the lifestyle of being a writer (working where you live, no boss, no set hours, ability to work ANYWHERE, time to travel the world) often seems better than the actual craft of writing. I wish I loved the craft and not just the result.

Sometimes I think it would be awesome to just stay a little kid.

on the pier

I stand alone on the pier. My clothes are still heavy with dust from the abandoned theatre, and the tired ghosts of that empty place still haunt my thoughts. I have been battling the world and there are cobwebs on my combat boots. But - I have to remind myself of this - I've made progress. I escaped the theatre. I rode the ferris wheel into the sky and down to the dirt. I stumbled down cold dusty roads toward that sliver of sea that I saw from up high, and now I am standing before that ocean, wider and more endless than I had imagined, while the sun slowly sinks into the water.

Seagulls cry and wisps of clouded color dance in the sky, while a cold salty breeze ruffles my hair and ripples my skirt. I stare at the horizon, hoping that things really can be as endless as they seem. I am saddened to find that the sea, which I had sought so determinedly, now frightens me with its vastness, its deepwater mystery. While I am thinking about this, I notice that there is someone else standing at the very end of the pier, also staring out to sea. I cannot see his face, but I know that he is the other actor from the abandoned theatre.

The last of the sunset now lingers in the sky. Ghost light. Then the red globe of the sun falls over the edge of the world, and the sky slowly darkens, waves whispering toward night. I see his blurred outline start to turn and walk back down the pier, but then someone else rushes past me and embraces him. I look away from this private moment. Then I hear their footsteps, and see them walking hand-in-hand down the pier, toward the beach. The boy looks over his shoulder and notices me for the first time. Our eyes meet for a moment and I smile crookedly at him. He smiles back, and then the other person puts an arm around him, and the two of them start walking down the beach.

I turn back toward the sea and stare at the glowing snow-moon high above, and the stars just twinkling out in the rich darkness. I think about the two people I have just seen. I am happy for them. The other actor has truly escaped the theatre. But still I feel a little bit jealous, because the marks of that place are still noticeable on me, and I always hear its nightmare-whispers after sunset. Suddenly I feel alone. It's an unfounded feeling, but it's there anyway. The loneliness is not strong, but it's there whispering in the back of my mind. I examine it and realize that I do not regret the relationships and the past that I have turned away from. But I do resent the thick cobwebs that prevent me from reaching out to new opportunities and the risk of hope. Oh, stop being melodramatic, I jokingly tell myself, but I can't shake the feeling that there is something I am missing.

Then I hear music. It is faint but clear, beautiful, every note ringing in the ocean air. I look out to sea and back to the shore, scanning for the source of the music. Then I see it. Perched at the end of the pier, a small phoenix. Red and orange like fire, with seawater-blue tail feathers and piercing eyes. From its delicate beak emerge the magical notes. I start to walk toward it. I have a question to ask it... Something I think I need to know. But then the music stops. The phoenix grins, winks at me and flies toward the moon.