Schedule?

Beginning Italian?

Beginning Painting?

oh boy!!!

Get me outta' here

The airline is booked

the passport is coming

the visa is a mess

and everything else is verified

I don't know what I'm doing

First I started off wanting

to go to another school

and study their

language and their culture

but now, in one night

I've finally realized

that the image I have of

myself is not the image 

I really am. I am not who

I think I am.

Truth.

Its because, in part I'm going away

And now I am.

The image of this trip was originally

for educational purposes and to see the world

Now its for self-discovery

and re-invention

if I am even worthy or 

intelligent enough for that.

Its their turn now, to experience

the curtains & footlights, 

mine outstayed its welcome

and it's my turn to go away.

Far far away.

Luncheons and Weddings

He expected it to be something for his parents regarding taxes or something of the sort. But his name was fancifully scripted on the front, with the return address of her office in the corner. She was out in Tucson today, celebrating a friends wedding. He was just slipping home from a brief luncheon in New York to somehow celebrate someone else's new freedom. Smells had lately brought on a whole new meaning. He was smelling scents of the theatre, of self-discovery, and of a city he'd frequented so many times before with so many wonderful people, including her.

Hesitation flooded his mind. Should he open the package? Should he drive back to the city? He was pressed for time and had to cover a function for the school paper, preventing him from attending a matinee in the city, bringing him to the package earlier than expected.

He left the package on the dining room table to be opened another time. He was committing other things. Great things. Behaviors that he'd only dreamed of. But something inside, something deep beyond one's own self-control make the boy pick up the white envelope and begin to open it. At first, it was tightly sealed, but he tore it apart to find it contents. Closer and closer he was to seeing what it was that she had sent him. He slipped his hand inside the packaging and pulled out a gift. Something he'd never expected. Something that made him, for a brief second, believe otherwise. And his first reaction, his first words, his first utterance after seeing the contents were:

"How...curious."

Sounding like a stranger.

Darkness permeated his bedroom that night. Little glows from his laptop and his stereo but his mind ran dry. Such a passion on her lips but he had nothing left to say. Holding the receiver up to his ear he listened to every word, but never knew his response.

"You sound like a stranger," she uttered

He stayed silent, what words would he say after the year past and the one ahead, with the friend burning through his mind. Tears stream down his face but she would never know it. She would travel across the country the next day and he barely knew how to say good-bye.

"I'm sorry," he barely slipped out.

"Are you on drugs or something?"

"No."

"What did the last week mean? Anything?" she might have begged.

But it was too late for him to speak. It meant the world to him. But his own confusions and wants made it nearly impossible for him to tell her how precious she was. "Will we ever be friends?" he thought, but the words would get caught in his stomach overturning and never make it to his vocal chords.

"Goodnight," she tried to finish with.

"Bye," were his only words.

The phone stayed connected for moments longer, they both listened intently to the silence, the conversation was no where near finish, and neither were they at all. Perhaps waiting for the other to hang up, or for something else.

"Are...are you still there? Good Night," and it was over.

And he hung up the phone as well.

And the days passed, and she flew away, and he lived another life where he reveled in fantasy and perfection of the universe. He didn't know what happened to her or where she was or when she would be back. He thought she had erased herself from his life and he was living in another world. 

When suddenly, a large white envelope arrived on his door step...