celebrity

step off the pedestal
wash off the constricting gold
just another
human,
flesh and bone.
standing behind the rope
close your eyes
trust no one
trust every one
boundaries broken,
strengthened anew.

physicality, inspired by inanimate contact.

touch
cool upon contact
warming soon as we press and
sink
in
maybe melting
then we shift
and the ghost of the warm
sinks deep in beyond skin
and phantom cold returns again

growing up

Her. She's the girl. It's that girl who graciously welcomed you lovely beans to her blog, that one who offered you a tea and company as you sat before the screen. You see her sometimes still, emerging from wherever she hides when they smile, jump up, tilt sideways, arms out like they're showing off a balancing act on the curb, greeting you with a high-pitched, cheery "hi!"
She hadn't made half as many bad decisions as they have, and in her eyes you can see that what she'll have ended up doing in the future would probably be the last thing on her mind, if she can even fathom such decisions at all.
She hadn't yet walked a Valentine's day through rain in rolling Frisco, soaking her hair completely, wearing red but wondering why all the flower shops were so full when all she wanted to do was buy herself a gift, forgetting the day, ignoring the love. Hell, she hadn't even walked past the asphalt yet the week before, just to learn it'd ended through another friend. She hadn't yet felt the warm tap on her shoulder that day in the warmer library, heard the scream-whispered happy birthday that set her heart alight again, even if only slightly. She hadn't yet set her foot down and cut the ties, set the music down, then turned it up, then cried.
But she did know the cold hallway before Cinderella when true love was dashed to smithereens. There was no rushing, no loss of a shoe. Just tense pacing, then out the door it was, putting one shoe on after the next. She did know the deafening crash of two calving, caving glaciers in Alaska and briny seawater carving disorienting waves into her vision as she tried to play lifering, fighting against the current.
And that's who you saw long ago, maybe even who you loved. But she's only part of what you see now.

herd

the white sheep
bore into you with their
beady eyes
then bow their heads
back down to graze
on the neon green grass—
As should you.

Mazas Opus 36, No. 7

“You need more soul. Imagine yourself as an old man, in the last days of your life, reminiscing under towering trees and falling autumn leaves.” My violin teacher had reached the peak of his impatience and finally, face cradled in his hands, instructed me, a ten-year-old girl, to do the impossible.

Over the previous week, I had been practicing the piece as my mother loomed over me, attacking every stroke of my bow. A plethora of technical markings swarmed the expressivo neatly printed on the very first measure of my score. By the time of my lesson, I had reduced the soul of J.F. Mazas to nothing more than a handful of incoherent notes with no fancy techniques to mask the droning. Standing flush with the white brick wall, I stared into the wine-red carpet below me as my teacher sat across the tiny room in his imperial black office chair with my mother, who leaned back on a worn leather sofa, shielded from my distress by a coffee table strewn over with magazines, recording the lesson from behind the camcorder as always. Mr. Lin kept his eyes closed and restored himself to his usual position, both arms on the armrests, waiting for me to implement his directions in the next playthrough. Had I not feared for a future filled with a fusillade of my mom’s criticism, I would have thrown my hands up in defeat, violin and all. Yet, though he sat like an ice carving, Mr. Lin’s expectancy for me to play washed through the atmosphere, even through the thick waves of my desolation.

Inhale, two three, four. I raised my bow up and brought it down dramatically. C, G, E, D. I began quietly, looking around behind my eyelids and imagining a crisp autumn day. A morning mist tinted the air grey over the path stretching through the woods. A trill of grace notes brought a whiff of fresh, fallen leaves and memories of my children, long grown up and starting families of their own. High, delicate legato sections rushed me past years upon years of experience. Tumbling scales grounded my old man-imagination and washed me over with nostalgia. From the distance, past this misty realm, came a sigh from the other side of the dim room.

“I need more emotion from you.”

I gripped my bow and clenched my toes, inhaling shakily. Wordlessly, I scrutinized the grain on my violin and each salty stain. There was still half an hour left in my lesson, and only one action I could take. So I played. Again and again, my teacher paused me. At times, Mr. Lin would offer gentle guidance on my technique, but I mostly found my heart fluttering with indignance as he commanded more old-man emotion from me, until finally, as the crickets raised their chorus in crescendo, I could pack my torture devices and head home under the weight of my mother’s disapproval.

“You need more emotion,” she parroted, face crinkling in the rearview mirror. Sure, I felt emotion, just never the right kind, or at the right time. And when I attempted to express myself through my violin during these lessons, I could never succeed.

One year later, the word “catharsis” slipped from my brother’s mouth and nestled itself in my mind. Mr. Lin moved away to teach at Juilliard, but left me with “The Meditation of Thais” to work on. A month later, I quit. As time dragged by, my violin, sitting out of tune by the fireplace, strengthened its silent siren song. Three years later, on one afternoon of a particularly taxing day, scratching my pen on my homework could no longer contain my anxieties. I unlatched the familiar black case and lifted the velvet shrouding my violin. The first piece I played was “Meditation.” The second was the dearly beloved violin etude by Mazas, Opus 36, Number 7. Each trill released tension in my heart, and on the lower melodies, my bow tore across the strings, releasing sonorous music. No longer did I have to stumble in shoes too worn, too large for me to wear properly. Standing tall on a foundation hammered down for years by my teacher, I could finally sculpt a tribute to myself from the myriad music scores at my disposal. Mr. Lin’s voice in my head reminded me not to imagine myself as an old man, but instead to channel my own frustrations, my joys, from just minutes ago to the beginning of my memory, through the delicate strings. Melodies reverberated through the wood of my violin and through the roots of my being. Catharsis.