A book left partly read by a voracious reader,
came in his dream and revealed the secret:
"Don't you think anything left incomplete
would mean much more than a definite finis?
When each new reader tries to fill the gap
the unwritten part gets richer than the other.
Here is a book left unfinished by the author,
whose life suddenly said "NO" in just two bold letters.
Does the book's self feel incomplete? Who knows?
But think of this: Does anything we know ever get completed?
Why bother about the changing patterns of this kaleidoscope
as we are only colored specks that turn and turn with the rest.
Time, that magical construct, hates perfection, (would you believe?)
though it loves to draw circles mistaken as perfect,
when it's really another form of limitation, by deceit.

the storm moves in slowly
building strength as it gathers
rain becomes steady
as he moves out into its wet features
its wind break upon him with its warm intent
his thoughts are clear with the seeing
its a scattering of cherished memories
on the hard surface
that catches the edge of her eye
and lets her pause in thought
and mid-stride
to let her mind wander over
bedraggled and rain-soaked figure

inside that scattering
of memory
is a kaleidoscope of images
patched together with the thin thread
of the craftsman
he labors in the night
a room lit only by the one small lamp
casting huge shadows into the background
the light shifts and the pattern changes
the night reveals the images are culled from
the small corners of a dutch master
its cracked and blackened surface eight hundred years old
the rubbing from a new england tombstone
a child who passed in the winter of 1709
her eyes feast on the loam colors
and rich sequence
giving into the intrigue of long lost faces
people whose lives were so different from the mundane like her own

her bone features an uncertain veil
like a paper thin skein wetly attached to the
dark surface of her mind
illustration painted in garish light
he runs all night
and he barks like a dog
interpret his mouth actions
with abacus
and slide rule
cause you cannot measure the madness
with anything less than absolute numbers
the dutch painting is as much of a tombstone
as my long goodbye
i drew in the sand at her feet

I always knew I was different.

Although, at the time, I couldn't pinpoint it exactly–
what was I doing that was so contrary
to the behaviour of other young girls?
Surely it wasn't the way I dressed, or the way I looked;
I'd always been self conscious
but even the darkest part of me knew
that on the outside I appeared just the same
as everyone else.

No, it was none of that.

It was my thoughts, my mind, my brain.

It was my inability to form a normal friendship.

Much to my dismay,
it was always the unusual misfits who latched on to me–
with the broken families and the shrunken hearts
and the hole in their soul that I was expected to fix
but I was just as just as cracked as they were
even if I appeared whole on the surface.

And even though I longed to be one of those girls
who belonged to a circle of bubbly friends
that never had to worry about not having enough
people to play grounders or double-dutch,
I continued to clutch on to every bleeding girl
in hopes that something good would come
out of two loners being lonely together.
But the truth was that it wasn't her fault,
nor was it the next strange girl that
followed me one day at recess.
The fault was mine, just like it always was,
because deep down I knew that I was the one
who wanted them.

When I grew older,
I also grew weaker and even meeker
after friendships became broken beyond repair
and the fault was mine, just like it always was,
because I may not have been the one with the
broken family or the strange disease
but instead I suffered from a sickness of the mind
that screamed at me day after day after day.

Then finally one of those days I realized something:
I don't know how to be a friend to these people
because I never learned how to be a friend to myself.
I never learned how to take a compliment
or how to look in the mirror and say
"hey, I actually look nice today."
But my mind taught me many things,
like how to lose 15 pounds in 25 days
and giving up food just so I could weigh
90 pounds and be classified as below average
because hey, I always knew I was different.

But it didn't stop there.

High school came and I worried that I was gay
since I never felt anything when guys looked my way.
And still, to this day, I find myself chuckling
whenever I see a girl bat an eyelash
to a boy across the room
or the perfect couple caressing each other
right outside my third period class.

But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like boys.
And the truth is that I long for love
but love to me has never been something
you get from making out in the hallways
or two people texting each other
every minute of the day
and thinking "man, this is as good as it gets."

I hadn't realized that before.
And that's why it scared me the first time I kissed a boy
and the second time and even the fiftieth time
without ever feeling anything at all.
I thought maybe I wasn't doing it right,
maybe there was some trick that I didn't know about,
or once again, maybe I just wasn't into boys.

But no.

The truth was that the fault was mine,
just like it always was,
because I decided that love for me
will never be a pretty face
or a kiss in the rain.

Love for me is a tentative smile
with cracked lips and the
faint smell of bile.
It is scars and dusty books and
long periods of silence.
It is two shattered souls with
beaten down hearts that
no longer pulse right.
But beating together as one,
they almost sound...
normal.

And maybe, on the outside,
everything will appear normal.
But I know the truth, and the truth is this:

*I have always been different, and I always will be.