Oh, that holiday spirit...

Christmas...A day of peace on earth and goodwill toward men, according to my upbringing. I should just learn not to follow the news on religious holidays. Ignorance is bliss, right? That way, I could just imagine the world in peace, prosperity, and righteousness for a beautiful twenty four hours. Well, maybe for an hour, at least. My idealist tendencies are going to be the end of me; unthinkingly, I perused the many news sources available to me for tales of faith, and consequentially spent the day viewing examples all over the world of human cruelty, short-sightedness, and extreme iniquity.
All is calm, all is bright...I could hardly be surprised by news that today the UN headquarters in Kabul was bombed (again), nor that more American troops were killed by Iraqi insurgents. A suicide bombing today in Tel Aviv ends two months of relative calm in terrorist attacks on Israel. It was coupled with an Israeli targeted attack on a militant leader that also killed two bystanders. The silver lining to this, I am told, is that these attacks should have little effect on the peace negotiations; the peace process was at a standstill anyways, so recent events can hardly slow it further. In Iran, a woman was arrested for dancing in a government approved program for an all women audience.
Joy to the World... In China this week, 191 people are confirmed dead after a natural gas explosion. Apparently, there were no safety devices, nor adequate rescue responses. Xioyang, the nearest village to the accident, reports 90% of its population killed, including entire families. Clearly, in its rush to bolster natural gas resources, China experiences no difficulties in exploiting and laying waste to its greatest resource, its population. Though given China's history, I don't know why this continues to shock me.
Oh, holy night... It was this report, from I-465 in Indiana, right in my own backyard, that finally set me over the edge. Apparently, in the dim, early hours of Christmas day, a man did a kind act by stopping to help another man fix a flat tire on the side of the road. A short time later, both men were run over by a white SUV that fled the scene, and the good samaritan was killed. The story continues, however. Another driver saw the body in the road, pulled over, and rushed to their aid before being struck by a sports car which also fled the scene. Never has it seemed so clear to me that the potential for human kindness is far overshadowed by humanity's obvious capacity for selfishness and cruelty. I see little hope on the horizon; if there is a brighter tomorrow, I can no longer imagine it. My idealism is dead for the moment. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Terrible night last night...couldnt fall asleep till 4, the dog nudged me around 5 am and I started awake, gasping, eyes wide, heart pounding like a drum...couldnt fall back asleep till 8...and had the most vivid nightmares. I may have to move to my aunt's after all, but at least I made it till christmas. Happy Christmas! Heehee...I was just described as "romantically ATROPHIED!!!" Alas, my poor tangled love life, or lack there of....
Another poem for today

Forgotten not forgiven,
Forgiven not forgotten,
There is no absolution when insanity's begotten,
My obliette echoes with deceit
And the taste is bittersweet upon my tongue.
Savory madness, delectable demons,
They smell of city smoke and icicles and semen.
But there is beauty in it all
There are graceful ways to fall
If you find your clarion call before you
meet the ground.

This is the first time i've attempted to write about this...well, here goes.

The Scream

Seven hundred boiling nights and restless days piled like dry tinder in my mind,
Like swift and violent rapids, a coiled spring that can't unwind.
I choked on my hate and bitterness, its acid bile surging angrily,
I lived hardly more than a corpse, yet again you tried to destroy me.
That filthy touch broke the camel's back, but forced it through the needle's eye.
Like lightning in tinder, like bursting of dams, I voiced a terrible cry.
Of mind and soul cruelly damaged, and a heart sorely wronged,
Pain and fury pushed within me, held inside for far too long.
My face contorted, hot tears streaming, blinded by intensity
Yet deep within this raging madness, I regained my sanity.
Carried on its sulfurous breath, it led me back to when I dreamed..
I could not have gone on living; my salvation was my scream.
It consumed me like a fire, purged the demons in my soul.
And I rose out of the ashes, weak and damaged, finally whole.
Its echo lives inside me, goes on ringing in my ears,
Though the tone has changed to triumph, no more chords of rage and fear.
This scream lives to remind me that I was born to fight.
A clarion call to tell me I shall not succumb to night.

a few of my better attempts at poetry...
Roses in Moonlight
Memories can be like fog,
Swirling intangible, shape without form,
But others, they burn with a glow like an ember:
I remember September, and I remember the roses in moonlight.

Through dim dewy darkness, they struck me,
Gleaming in the pale waning light, secret,
Somehow, and full of unspoken yearnings.
Late roses of fall, short-lived, special, spectral.

Roses, you taunt me, shining
Still, wreathed in moonlight and mystery,
Full of great sweetness and terrible longing,
Vivid, vibrant, and haunting. I remember the roses in moonlight.

Spiders of fate.

The dreamer of a thousand dreams
Has come undone-
Ripped out the seams

The threads blow off into the wind
The needles left
Just pierce the skin

And hot blood flows, first fast and thick,
But slows, like tears,
To just a drip-

Reminder of a thousand words unspoken
And a dreamer, lying broken.

Too warm to snow...too cold for anything else...and a thick steady sleet. As Zach said, we are living in a tepid misery. A soggy tepid misery. The sky is always a dreary gray, edged jaggedly by the stark black bare branches of trees. The wind bites hungrily into everything that dares to venture out, assaulting ears with a steady, petulant moan. The cold deadens everything, so that there are no smells, no colors, no noises... all is muffled by its touch. Daylight, filtered through the clouds, is a bright, harsh, unforgiving white that provides no warmth and seems almost scornful.

I miss Arizona's warmth and sun, and I even miss the poor confused flora, that, not knowing what else to do, blooms in endless cycles deep into the short nights of winter.

I watched the rambling moonlight from behind the clouds.
I whispered your name to the wind, and I shivered,
suddenly struck by cold.
You'll never know.
I heard the icy silence of the winter night.
I wished that you were here with me, and I sighed,
hopelessly hurt by dreams
You'll never care.

I made a scarf today! Its interesting how consuming and rewarding actual manual labor can be, taking the raw materials and physically working it into a new form, bending it to your whim. But now my eyes are tired and my back hurts from slouching over the yarn all day. No chance of a massage here. I miss you, Tom! I discovered, to my dismay, how out of shape I've allowed myself to become this semester. I attempted to go running this morning and could barely run a mile. Pathetic. Well, I have a month to whip myself into shape. It will be painful, but it has to be done.
The heat wave continues...46 today! We may not have a white christmas after all. I must remember to call Felix tomorrow and find out if he really dressed like the star of david on the last day before break. I love that boy.

hmm...sleep continues to elude me. So more random musings!

Sketches of Faith
My father is an infectious disease physician. He treats people from every walk of life. From the very affluent to the most impoverished, from the highly intelligent to the salt of the earth, from the slight cough to the terminal cancer, he cares for them all. In their sufferings, he sees all that is good and bad in mankind. In them, he views all human dignity and all human fallacy. This knowledge haunts him, for the energy of his agile mind is directed always toward their health; its powers cannot be allowed to assess the lessons his patients afford him. So these stories lay dusty, cluttering the back of his brain like pieces of a mighty jigsaw puzzle whose solution might bring him peace. Might bring peace to many. At night sometimes, his many sleepless nights, you can watch the pieces struggling to put themselves together in the shadow that moves across his eyes, in his silences. His life is too short and too full to do more than simply collect the fragments. Sometimes he shares them with me though, holds them out to me like secret treasures, shimmering with the promise of something majestic, yet fragile still, like the most delicate glass or the weakest wisp of flame. I hold them close, knowing perhaps better than he does that he's given me the keys to the world.

My dad tells me many stories about a Dr. Roberts, the man who inspired him to go into medicine. He was a remarkable man in many ways, but this is the keystone of his character, and it is beautiful.
There are times when a person enters the hospital, and there is nothing that can be done for him. There is no hope for his survival. It is only a matter of time before he is dead. Yet, every so often, defying every medical convention and every sense of reason, a person survives who simply should not have lived, who technically has no right to be alive. There is no explanation. Well, no logical explanation, anyway. In Dr. Roberts' career, this happened but rarely, and whenever it did, he carefully jotted down that person's name and then offered that person free medical care for life. An act of generosity? Not exactly. His reasoning is that this person is alive for a reason. Providing free medical care ensures that he'll come back. Dr. Roberts can keep track of him and hopefully discover why this person had to survive, what great purpose he had to fulfil. A worthwhile curiosity, and I wonder if he ever found his answers...

As the insomnia continues, so does the blog! For those of you who have seen Amelie (one of the greatest movies of all time), know that my mood very much matches those of the heroine of that picture when it is said, "Amelie refused to get upset over a guy." It is now three in the morning. I will exercise then go to sleep. The following I wrote some time ago and may eventually incorporate into that play which I will someday write.

On Madness:
Madness is not a stress. It is relief. Madness is freedom-releasing the nightmare. It is when you know that you are mad, but when you have not wholly succumbed to it, and you still remember that no one else must realize. That is, pretending to see red when you see green, continuing to act as though you still perceive the world as everyone else does. The worst is the hope, the hope that must, at all costs, be stifled. For if you allow yourself to hope...that maybe this person has been here, will understand...because you must never ever tell them. They will not understand. And they cannot help you fight the canker that festers in your very soul. They would be repulsed, cast you away, where the darkness consumes you entirely.

I have lived without hope. Bleak? More than you can imagine. Easier, in many ways. But perhaps it is this that sets me apart, keeps me out. For human beings always hope. Compared to some, my sufferings have been minuscule. To others, beyond imagining. For me, it was almost the end. In a way, it was.

Eventually, you have to choose. You either sacrifice, or are sacrificed, though you'll gain neither the glory of the martyr nor the purse of the traitor. Either way, you are destroyed.

I question my motivations at starting this, but I find myself drawn to proceed. So this is my blog. The title comes from Plath, one of my most revered idols, whom I hope to emulate in a literary sense someday, and have very nearly emulated in less desirable ways in the past.
It is very odd, coming home. I am forcibly hit by thousands of painful recollections. I had forgotten to what an intense degree I was unhappy here. The cold is bitter, and icicles form on cars, buildings, and hearts. Enchanting in its beauty, the winter is poisonous nonetheless. I drive down the streets of my former home, and everything is so unchanged that I feel almost like screaming that I have changed, and I will not fall back into this world which so nearly destroyed me once. I conquered this despair; its echo can have no hold on me. But I long for the sun nonetheless, to reassure me that the night cannot last forever.