Wednesday.

The sun is shining in Amsterdam and a cool breeze blows steadily through the windows of the apartment. It is Wednesday.
The days are running short, hours flying by, bringing me ever closer to the 23rd and my departure to Marrakech. It is Wednesday.
In the other room, G's newest couchsurfer is sleeping soundly, after arriving from Atlanta, GA just over an hour ago. It is Wednesday.
I haven't written in so long- and the more time goes by, the more I have to say but the fewer words to adequately do so. It is Wednesday.
I think of life, I think of love, I think of the lines of my favorite poem ever, and just for the moment I feel completely at peace:


Writing Lives
Out of a life it is done
and without ever knowing
how things will turn out

or what a life is for that matter
any life at all
the leaf in the sunlight the voice in the day
the author in the words

and the invisible
words themselves
in whose lives we appear
and learn to speak
until what is said seems
to be almost everything
that can be known

one way with the words is to tell
the lives of others
using the distance as a lens

and another way
is when there is no distance
so that the water
is looking at water

as when on a winter morning
as early as you can remember
while the plains were whitening
in the light before dawn
you saw your uncle- was it
your uncle?- reach
from the shadow and wash his face

to us it is clear
that if a single moment could be seen
complete it would disclose the whole

there is still that light in the water
before sunrise
the untold day

- W.S. Merwin


It is Wednesday.

Then & Now

The emptiness which I feel upon waking
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never feel it as I do
nor suffer it exactly the same way
because for you it is an element of creation
a space filling the space of your lacking
exposed in the breaking light of day.

The sorrow which I know in my heart
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never know it as I have
nor understand it in a similar form
because for you it is a faint sense of loss
regret spun on regret for the wrong things
and silenced as soon as it is born.

The hate which I kindle in my being
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never control it as I can
nor embrace it as I do so now
because for you it is an element of substitution
a misuse of a useless emotion
that poisons as only it knows how.

The blood which I have on my hands
is mine as well as it is yours
but you will never carry it as I must
nor mourn it as I have for so long
because for me it is a stain of injustice
of innocence killing innocence, unblinking
and the desolation of an unfinished song.

- 20 March, 2007
Granada, Spain


I scribbled these words on a napkin in an obscure little cafe between lectures less than a year ago. Reading back on them, I find it hard to believe that they're my own, that the way I felt then could contrast so vividly with the state of mind I find myself in now. It's funny where just a few short months can take you, how the passing of time can erase and create so much simultaneously. Nothing remains the same forever, and it's the transition between stages which somehow makes life so beautiful. Perhaps, in the end, that's the true lesson of it all.