It’s been a while
I forget how beginnings go
I’m so eager to start running that I forget to tie my shoe laces
Maybe that’s why I’ve never won a race
I couldn’t remember how to start and I didn’t bother taking the time to learn again
So once I skipped right to the middle, throwing in all the ingredients, trying to bake something without even bothering to look at the measurements
Too much contact, not enough connection
The ending came too quick
And i was left with a mess i’m still trying to clean up
I’ve found myself facing never ending beginnings
Where you’re left hanging onto anything because it’s just about to happen, like the tempt of a sneeze
But all you get is teary eyes and wasted tissues
I’m a collector of stories
And I’ve only ever found pieces and rough drafts
I’m not sure how beginnings go, or how the threads would unravel into a book
Because all i have is my patch work quilt of Once Up A Times and Middle Chapters
Maybe You’ve had a beginning, middle, and end before
But by the time you’ve reached the end and found yourself facing another beginning
You might forget how they go too
Maybe it’s been a while
So let’s paint a picture
There doesn’t have to be any rules or guidlines
We’ll paint ourselves a sunrise
A perfect beginning
Because as it comes up, even the Sun isn’t sure of what it’s about to face
And we can paint ourselves a river
With whirlpools and rocky edges
Stretching far and long
Because our middle will have power to split mountain ranges and the strength to make it through the roughest terrains
Let’s curl up under blankets with flashlights
Cause the world is a dark place and I’d much rather stay here and make forts out of sheets, where the only demons we’ll find are shadows cast from out flashlights
I’ll whisper you lullabies, just promise to keep holding me tight
Babe with you here, my universe doesn’t need to be anything bigger than this mattress
I’m a collector of stories
But i’m not quite sure how to write one
So let’s stay here and not think about endings
I’m not sure how they go
And i’m hoping i won’t have to know for a while

There is noone above me
Beside me
Infront of me
I am my own anarchy
My inner soul of
Wisdom for that I have lived
For long and
Suffered twice as much
I wandered through the
Gazing abyss,
Flashlights of every submarine
I swim with my inner coward
The color of your eyes
Has been withdrawed
In the arms of sleep on a
Moonless night. On a
Windy day
Thunderstorm took me away.

No, it doesn't happen
Through secret glances
And shy smiles

Nor does it happen
When you gaze into ones
Deep crystal eyes

It doesn't happen
In the midst of flashlights
Or romantic background music

It happens
When you see deep within
Ones soul
Not just the window
But the whole house of emotions

It happens
When he grows meadows of daisies
Inside the ugliest parts of you

It happens
When he caresses your tear stained face
In 2 in the morning
And holds you like you're gold

It happens
When you're upset over him
Not being there for your little fits

It happens
When the suitcases under your eyes
Are packed
With thoughts of him
And only him

It happens
When you're too young
To fully comprehend
What the universe holds for you and him
But what if
At a tender age of fifteen
You know he's the one?
The one
That holds the perfect fit
To your broken soul

It happens
When you least want it to

9:00pm: We hugged and chatted. Your sister joking with us, your brothers being silly. I love your siblings.

9:30pm: We went hunting for gear. Your dad helped us find sleeping mats and told us where to find some tarps.

10:00pm: We climbed onto the fort and made our beds. I swept the bugs and pine needles away. I remember thinking, I hate pine needles. Why Florida trees, why?

10:30pm: We made tea and got ready for bed. I love chamomile tea. Lots of sugar. Washing off my makeup was easy with your sister's fancy face wipes.

10:45pm: We climbed into our sleeping bags. I was warm. I love the plaid pattern of the sleeping bag I always use.

11:00pm: We ate snacks, drank tea, and talked. Poptarts are so good late at night. Better than in the morning. And the hot tea felt so good against the chilling breezes.

11:30pm: I turned off the flashlights. I liked it better that way. I like hearing only voices, not seeing the person. My hearing what they say feels amplified that way.

11:30pm: I laid on my back and realized how pretty the trees are. The sky was orange, oddly lit up more than normal for that time of night. Few clouds drifted in the sky.

12:00am: I poured the story out to you.

12:05am: I began watching the moon cross the sky. It was very orange and it moved faster than I imagined it would.

12:30am: I got a text.

1:00am: I proposed an adventure. I wanted to do something. I wanted not to have to think for a while. I like late night happenings. And I like not being alone.

1:15am: We got off our lazy butts and went to the garage. I started riding the ripstick. I picked it up right away and didn't fall which was new for me.

1:30am: You taught me how to longboard. It was fun, though I kept forgetting which way I would put my feet.

1:45am: We started riding bikes. I love your mom's bike. It's so smooth and easy to ride..but it clicks sometimes in weird ways. I liked the clicking too.

1:50am: ***** it, I didn't want to reply.

2:00am: We rode through the neighborhood. I love the houses in Naples..

2:05am: I fell in love with the night sky. It was beginning to look more like the normal dark blue rather than orange. The stars started to peek through better.

2:10am: The cold air made my blood rush. I was wearing such warm clothes, but the wind went straight through. I loved going fast, racing you. Speed is beautiful on a bike.

2:15am: I never wanted the night to end. I wanted to ride late at night forever.

2:35am: The silence was so beautiful. We would be quiet for short bits. I liked the pictures my mind created during that time.

2:40am: I wished I had his time stopping watch. I always wish I did.

2:45am: We started the ride home. My breathing got pretty rough. Cold air always hurts my lungs. But it was so worth it.

3:00am: We put the bikes away and crawled back into bed. I loved the fort so much..

3:10am: You fell asleep.

3:15am: The moon was higher in the sky. It was clear and white and full.  I could see it perfectly. Peeking through the trees. I fell asleep slowly. Loved it all.

Spilled ink.
Old film.
Crumpled paper.
The click of a shutter.
Pens dying.
Wiping lenses.
Flashlights under the covers.
Struggling with a tripod.
Daydreaming.
The Rule of Thirds.
Tattered pages.
Beautiful sunsets.
Coffee shops.
Skittish animals.
3 am.
Cropping.
Always thinking.
The horizon line.
The frantic search for pen and paper.
Frustrated with trying to capture the beauty of the world In a small package.

we’re riding in your best friend’s car
where yah tell me that I’m cute
I just bow my head and say
you’re pretty cute yourself
you put your arm around my shoulders
and tell me I’m adorable
my body responds by touching your leg
my head just thinks “how can he be mine?”
he sings outloud, “please fall asleep so I can take pictures if you
& hang them in my room”
I just close my eyes and bob my head
to this tune that reminds me of you

This is my life. I have to be okay with the dark presence that looms over me, and I have to accept that I won’t be able to expel him for I must make friends with him to get my way. I have taught my self to just breathe every time I hear his loud footsteps coming up the stairs and not to duck underneath my covers or shout my mother's name. I learned to keep my distance, and In the darkest hour of the night even when he creeps through these halls, I must keep my composure and swallow my pills until the shaking has gone away. He goes by the name Dad, but he’s treated me unlike so, and now I don’t look him in the eye or laugh any longer than I should because one day I’m scared of what’ll happen if I do. I’m afraid of the day when I will lose to the darkness that creeps inside rooms once light and beautiful and changes the presence for good. Rooms once light now dark and dreary.

I.
There will be a day, you say,
where the world stops and all that ever was
and all there ever will be would cease.

                                                                     Trust.

There will be a time, he says,
when I will no longer love like how
you built the moon for me, balancing
upon a staircase of wooden boxes.

                                                                    Trust.

You don’t care. You let him weave
with string, then with your soul,
your heart the ball of yarn at the end.

                                                                   Trust in him.

You are a lover. You are a fool.

II.
Light. Soft light and harsh light and lantern lights
and fairy lights and neon lights and flashlights.

Light, like that which comes on in his eyes
when you tell him you want Honey Stars, and
you two spend the night picking at those overhead.
He tells you that when you drop stars into the
Pacific, they become sweet, like honey.

All you wanted was cereal, but you are a fool
one that picks at stars that have long since died,
one that can’t tell a corpse from a sparkle.

You don’t get any stars in the end, except for the
ones in his eyes.

A fool.

III.
This is where you grew poppies,
expecting to harvest the seeds and
crush,
thinking that maybe,
just maybe,
the dust will help you sleep, like the
sand of the Golden man.
You teeter on the edge that separates
wanting and needing,
You walk on a slowly fraying tightrope.

Tight,
        like your heart.
Rope,
          like how you rope
souls into believing you,
how you rope in friends
and demand their faith.

This is where you rearranged
his little soldier boys, where the
ceramic crashed against the wood
and refused to break.

Not like you, then.

This is where you kissed him,
over
       and
             over, because
air is useless without oxygen
and oxygen is useless to a pair of collapsed lungs.

IV.
You hate him. You hate his strength,
how he bangs the table and it snaps in two.

You hate his laughter, scratching against the walls
in tune with your sobbing.

You hate how you have to scan his eyes before you sit,
have to look before you make the metaphorical leap.

You hate how you let him force open your legs,
hate his pride at being in control, and his guilt
for the purple and blue spots on your skin,
like garish children’s make-up,
a clown at the party of life.

You hate how he holds onto your sides till
you hear the crack, and how you tell the doctors
you fell, because you did.

You are still falling, every time he looks at you,
Honey Stars in his eyes.

You don’t hate him. You love him,
that’s why you come back to be destroyed.

You hate yourself.
That’s also why you come back, to be destroyed.

You can’t repair hurt like that
but you try anyway, because the best part of building
is when you knock down.

V.
It is painful, but pain is a symptom of life.
You let him hurt you, let him crush your
bones and self-esteem, because no one
taught you how to love and if it means giving,

then you must be doing it right.

VI.
Wake, from the best sleep you’ve had,
wake from a nightmare, to a nightmare.
He is gazing out of the window, with
suspenders to hold up his pants
and his courage.
Your canines sink into your thumb, as
he turns to you and he says, “Hera,
I love you, but–”

The memory ends there.

Hera was the wife of Zeus,
goddess of women and marriage.
Your parents made a mistake,
more than once.

VII.
You are alone.
Quiet was never your thing, silence the most
deafening noise in the world.

This is your hand, a hand that once
rested against his neck, a hand that
felt his blood pulsing in his veins.

This is your hand and it is green
not from gardening but with envy.

These are your shoulders, shoulders that once
carried backpacks stuffed with Honey Stars
and sour things like love.

These are your shoulders, and even Atlas
cannot carry the weight on them.

This is your heart, and it is red.
This is your soul, and it is aluminium,
his words like sandpaper, polishing
until your soul tears and can be collected,
filtered and cross-examined under a microscope.
It will be reactive with the acid of his absence,
but only for a while.

This is your neck, and the rope feels rough
compared to your memories of his hands.

In my Times column Thursday, I reviewed a new generation of LED light bulbs. They last 25 times as long as regular bulbs, use maybe one-eighth the electricity, work with dimmers, turn on instantly to full brightness and remain cool to the touch. A big drawback has always been cost, but now, I noted, the prices have fallen.

This column generated a lot of reader e-mail, probably because LED represents change. And change is always scary. Here are some excerpts, with my responses.
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* For LED bulbs, the biggest issue that most consumers will notice is the color. You correctly point out that you can get different colors, and also different shades of white, from warm white, to cool white, to daylight. However, not all white is the same. Two bulbs, both of which measure 2700K (warm white) color may create a completely different impression in the room.

The difference is C.R.I. (Color Rendering Index). Incandescent bulbs have a C.R.I. of 100. Really bad LEDs have a C.R.I. of 50; average ones (most of them) have a C.R.I. of 80 to 85. The really good ones have C.R.I.’s above 90.

C.R.I. is a way of expressing how many colors in the rainbow are actually contained in the white light. Incandescent bulbs contain every color in the rainbow, all in equal measure.

With LED bulbs that have low C.R.I.’s, the color of objects looks wrong, and everything “feels” ghostly. It is not a subtle effect.

Wow. Well, I’d never heard of C.R.I., and it certainly isn’t listed on the package.

I can say only that I’m completely happy with the light color of the Cree bulbs. They look nothing like the weak, diluted light of the compact fluorescents they’re going to replace. I don’t perceive anything ghostly or wrong about them.

But if you’re worried about C.R.I, maybe try out one bulb at home before you replace the whole house’s bulbs.

* Why I don’t have LED bulbs: I have yet to see one that puts out close to the same lumens of an incandescent bulb rated at 75 or 100 watts offered for sale in my area.

Many of you made this point: that the 40- and 60-watt bulbs I reviewed are not bright enough for aging eyes, reading, detail work and so on.

That really is a good point. You can buy 75- and 100-watt-equivalent LED bulbs — online, they’re plentiful — but they’re still expensive ($30 to $45 each).

* At my home, CFLs don’t last half as long as stated on the box, and when CFL electronics flame out, they leave that nasty burnt electronics smell, strongly disliked by my wife. A few friends have reported CFL flame outs that have set things on fire.

Sorry to hear that! However, my column was about LED lights, not compact fluorescent light bulbs. Compact flourescents are basically curlicue tubes filled with gas that lights up. LED bulbs use tiny light-emitting diodes, of the type you have seen in some flashlights and the “flashes” of smartphones.

* Why didn’t you write up the LIFX bulbs on Kickstarter? Are you some kind of paid shill for the light-bulb industry?

Mainly, because I hadn’t heard about LIFX bulbs. Now I have!

Looks like it’s a lot like the Philips Hue kit I reviewed, in that these are LED bulbs you can control from a phone app: brightness, timing and color. The beauty of LIFX, though, is that there’s no router box required. The networking electronics are right in the bulb.

And the LIFX does more, too: changes color in time to the music, for example, or notifies you when you have new e-mail.

These bulbs did super-well on Kickstarter, so they’ve obviously captured the public’s imagination. I’m in touch with the creators, and they’ve promised to send me one to try out when it becomes available!

* You have done what many before have done: Praise LED light bulbs — without touching on the quality of light.

It doesn’t matter whether the light bulb is $200 or 50 cents. If the light is ugly, and it hurts your eyes to read, then why should I buy it?

Compact fluorescent lights have an austere blue tinge. Some give a “warmer” shade of yellow. But the quality of light they produce is atrocious.

I did, in fact, mention the quality of light; in my opinion, it’s wonderful. You can choose “daylight” (whiter) or “warmer” (yellower). With some, like the Philips, you can dial up any color you like: white with a touch of blue or yellow, say.

But I’m not sure why we keep talking about compact fluorescent lights. LED technology is completely different. There is zero relationship between a compact fluorescent light bulb’s light quality and LED’s light quality.

* You neglected an important point: because of heat issues, you’re not supposed to put LED bulbs into enclosed fixtures, like ceiling “cans.”

Actually, I asked Cree specifically about this. The representative says the bulbs are fine in ceiling cans. “The Cree LED bulb can be used in any application that would use an incandescent bulb. As long as there is an opportunity for air to circulate, the bulb is designed to work properly.”

I’m aware that not all bulbs meet this criterion; I’ve seen warnings on 3M and Philips bulbs, for example, not to use them in ceiling cans.

* Is there a potential issue with RF (radio frequency) interference from the circuitry? I know someone who put the LED bulbs in his garage door opener and then had trouble with the remote control.For more information, please visit cree led flashlight

Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?

Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.

In the hurricane, when father's twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
'Thor is angry; boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don't care!'
But those ladies broke the panes.

When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.

Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother.

I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.

Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born.
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.

I was marching down the crowded avenue
When I realized my hair was covered in kerosene.

Eyes flash; memories appear.
Bitter lips and kisses just covered in lies.
I was as stainless as the flowers in my hair;
The ones you picked from the garden.
I was as passionate as the ocean;
Always coming back to kiss the shore.
A sweet love, a love as wonderful and
As vibrant as the floral perfume around my neck.
The same one that gave me a rash.

Once we held flashlights, escaping into
The dark and hollow night alone.
Two hearts ignited on fire.
But flashlights always run out of battery,
Right?
I breathe in the salty ocean air.
I detect traces of you.
A ratted baseball glove.
Faded mint soap.
Stale potato chips; always crushed.

Nights of March play over and over;
Leaving and leaving and lying.
You talk of
Nightmares of dead flowers, wasted love.
Dissolving all bonds of emotion.
All I can see are flames.

You held the knife,
But I was destined to burn.
I was holding the matches all along.