pure heart, dirty mind.

fish_for_stars @ 2009-12-14T06:31:00

2009-12-14T11:31:23Z

holy crap

"A nanofactory is a proposed system in which nanomachines (resembling molecular assemblers, or industrial robot arms) would combine molecules to build larger atomically precise parts. These, in turn, would be assembled by positioning mechanisms of assorted sizes to build macroscopic (visible) but still atomically-precise products.

A functioning nanofactory could create virtually any product at the cost of only the input raw material and energy."

gag and cheer

2009-12-03T02:46:03Z

so. it's pure heart, and really dirty mind with me then.

oh, and would anyone like a holiday card? :3

where i'm going

2009-11-30T16:56:00Z

so i'm home finishing up my uc app (the server has to stop crashing; it's giving me panic attacks) and the other two essays due tomorrow. :| i will be strong.

but:

【THE TIME CAPSULE MEME】

if i haven't found your thread already, SHOW ME THE WAY ♥

love, cassie

p.s. filled out transient_words's (and just saw hers for me; lol we used the same string of adjectives for each other without knowing it). self, go fill out questy's & dual's

EDIT: APPLIED!!!

young adult friction

2009-11-23T22:20:18Z

in response to transient_words's questions:

1. top five characters?

this is a difficult question. characters in what? literature/manga/other graphic novels/movies/tv shows/games/my own? hmmmmm. i have to say recently that leo gursky of nicole krauss's the history of love resonated with me - the way he lives in the past, that one eternal love, the way he talks, his loneliness, his relationship with bruno. charlotte bronte's jane eyre is also one of my favorites - intelligent, independent, strange, a little too practical and still likeable. um. i love caulfield siblings, holden because he's fucked up and phoebe because she's not. i'm going to count that as three. singer from the heart is a lonely hunter by carson mccullers. and maybe stargirl - yes, from the jerry spinelli book. i wanted to be her friend.

i'll do top character in all the other categories: manga/graphic novels - naruto is my number one, movies - ummmm the star wars cast can start doing battle with each other, tv show - merlin v. chuck don't make me decide, games - lakitu of the mario series.

2. what do you prefer - reading or writing?

as important as writing is to my life... i guess i enjoy reading more. i think the key word is "enjoy" in the prior sentence. writing is so dear to me but it causes a good deal of strife.

3. any languages you wish to learn?

yes! i wish i fully learned cantonese and mandarin chinese instead of halfway and quarterway respectively because i'd really love to be able to converse with my mother in her first language. (at my house, we do a chinese/english hybrid to communicate, as my mom speaks limited english, and my brother and i even more limited chinese. [we talk to my dad in english. he's first gen and probably more americanized than we are.] we understand each other perfectly though!) in addition, i would like to learn spanish to the point of fluency, and i would also like to learn german. i have no clue why i want to learn the latter, but i do. i want to learn arabic, too, for some reason. french, too, maybe? not that any of this matters because i am ATROCIOUS at learning languages. ._.

4. is there anything you're scared of?

loss, death, the dark, pain, being a fool, heights, certain thoughts, insects, commitment, driving at night, driving at night on mountains, falling, large audiences, strangers, deceptively empty subway tunnels.

5. a must-read book? or a book that changed your life?

since i talk a lot about books i do like, how about a book i dislike? that would be prep by curtis sittenfeld. fuck, i hate that book. it's the first book i've really truly hated. and i hate but am drawn to dissecting why i hate that book.

if you'd like, leave a comment asking for questions

fish_for_stars @ 2009-11-12T20:39:00

2009-11-13T01:39:14Z

oct2009.

minnows into sharks and whales

She pressed her ear close to the sound of the English Chamber Orchestra, which poured note after exquisite note, from the stereo at very low decibels – in the morning, her father did not tolerate noise louder than the genteel murmur with which he was reading to her the news items in today’s paper – and there it was, that beautiful swell of violins that always caught her unaware, like the gentle and unstoppable force of a little rogue ocean wave rolling into an unsuspecting shore. This, and a yawning space like the stretch between stars opened beneath her ribcage, and this, and the pressure of tears weighted the backstage of her eyes. But no, her father would disapprove of nonsense like crying over a record in the morning. She only, then, sighed, a heartfelt release of air tumbling over her bottom lip, and her father merely paused to look over the thin, rustling pages of his newspaper at her before reading aloud in his genteel morning murmur that a boy her age had been hit by a car yesterday.

For a moment, she hated her father for reading that particular item to her, and then she didn’t, as a trembling cello note abruptly sloped into silence and she found herself suddenly envisioning it:

the wet misery of an autumn day that had seen rain, a halo of soggy scarlet leaves on the pavement around the boy’s head while his limbs were sprawled as widely and as awkwardly as a starfish plucked from the sea.

Whether the boy hit by the car was dead or alive, she couldn’t decide, but the memory of the sweet and ceasing cello note, heard just a few heartbeats ago, unfurled itself in her skull and she heard it clearly exist and then not-exist in her mind. Her age, she thought. Her age, and it sounded like a death knell, like the sweet and ceasing cello note.

love, cassie.

THE LIST | autumn 2009

2009-11-07T19:46:50Z

read
1. to the lighthouse by virginia woolf
2. the tragedy of hamlet, prince of denmark by william shakespeare
3. the republic by plato (translated by allan bloom)
4. the mysterious benedict society and the prisoner's dilemma by trenton lee stewart

reading
1. naruto by masashi kishimoto
2. the savage detectives by robert bolano
3. the waste land and other poems by t.s. eliot
4. sophie's world: a novel about the history of philosophy by jostein gaarder (translated by paulette moller)
5. paradise lost by john milton

to be read
1. the right stuff by tom wolfe
2. 2666 by robert bolano
3. the things they carried by tim o'brien
4. "the quilt" by ismat chughtai
5. in cold blood by truman capote
6. the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay by michael chabon
7. deadeye dick by kurt vonnegut
8. concerning the angels by rafael alberti
9. mulberry and peach: two women of china by hualing nieh

watched
1. pirates of the caribbean: at world's end (2007)
2. the goonies (1985)
3. food, inc (2008)
4. sky high (2005)
5. shrek the third (2007)
6. up (2009)
7. the princess and the frog (2009)

watching
1. merlin season two

to be watched
1. hair (1979)
2. requiem for a dream (2000)
3. wristcutters: a love story (2006)
4. pan's labyrinth (2006)
5. the station agent (2003)
6. rachel getting married (2008)
7. summer of sam (1999)
8. mystic river (2003)
9. rear window (1954)
10. cold mountain (2003)
11. jfk (1991)
12. milk (2008)
13. doubt (2008)
14. pushing daises
15. charlie wilson's war (2007)
16. catch me if you can (2002)
17. the terminal (2004)
18. a. i. artifical intelligence (2001)
19. good will hunting (1997)
20. big fish (2003)
21. girl interrupted (1999)
22. but i'm a cheerleader (1999)
23. the chumscrubber (2005)
24. dead poets society (1989)
25. the godfather (1972)
26. chicago (2002)
27. west side story (1961)
28. persepolis (2007)
29. ponyo on the cliff by the sea (2008)
30. the big bang theory
31. charlie bartlett (2007)
32. coraline (2009)
33. first season of heroes
34. freaks and geeks
35. firefly

heard
1. doves - lost souls
2. the pains of being pure at heart - higher than the stars
3. thao with the get down stay down, with portland cello project - live at bowery ballroom on 11/04/09
4. this american life, episode 218 "act v"
5. spoon - ga ga ga ga ga
6. rachael yamagata - elephants... teeth sinking into heart

to be heard
1. st. vincent - actor

love, cassie.

p.s. recommendations very much welcomed

i never want to see you unhappy

2009-11-07T14:37:38Z

dear kiwi,

good luck!!!

love, your sister.

another reason why sleep eludes me

2009-10-29T07:09:16Z

oh yeah, i care about things other than getting into college

cassie's latest project

is

drumroll pls

RE:FRESH

... and you know what, this link is going to get reposted many many times.

love, cassie.

hey hey btech

2009-09-25T01:03:02Z

from one nyc specialized high school to another:

KUDOS and a million thumbs up!!!

http://fort-greene.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/students-turn-out-and-westboro-leaves/

yes these are the anti-gay and anti-semitic extremists (http://www.godhatesfags.com) that the uk rightfully BANNED

love, cassie.

fish_for_stars @ 2009-09-14T22:42:00

2009-09-15T02:43:00Z

oddly, brimming with cheerfulness.

hi i'm a senior now

2009-09-10T00:45:24Z

FINALLY. last year of high school!

1: free
2: advanced computer technology and networking w/ colon *
3: western political thought w/ polazzo
4: lunch
5: ap literature: society & self w/ henderson
6: american government w/ schweitzer (temp)
7: calculus applications w/ kalish
8: ap macroeconomics w/ bushman
9: ap environmental science w/ citron
10: free

a lot of my classes sound pretty bs but so far they seemed to have been lovely.

* OH HELL NO not comp tech again asdfghjkl; :( NO i am getting this changed on monday

love, cassie.

inspired by wangechi mutu

2009-08-06T02:13:04Z

metamorphosis is always uncomfortable
nervous spiders scaling up the miles of your spine
naked arms mottled with alien light
and boats of your soul unmoored from their lines

your skull a-light with gold & ache
dark moths take flight from your tired hips
damning poetry from his ancient lips
but a young world has her courage

metamorphosis is always uncomfortable
as night settles faint & sweet about your ears
and ocean breath burns on your new skin
bloody champagne names the new years

love, cassie.

THE LIST | summer 2009

2009-07-05T17:54:01Z

read
1. pride and prejudice by jane austen
2. a ring of endless light by madeleine l'engle
3. breakfast at tiffany's by truman capote
4. the mysterious benedict society, the mysterious benedict society and the perilous journey by trenton lee stewart
5. kafka on the shore by haruki murakami (translated by j. philip gabriel)
6. anne of green gables, anne of avonlea, anne of the island by l. m. montgomery
7. plan b 3.0: mobilizing to save civilization by lester r. brown
8. the brief wondrous life of oscar wao by junot diaz
9. a concise chinese-english dictionary for lovers by xiaolu guo
10. the year of magical thinking by joan didion
11. beowulf (translated by sean heaney)

watched
1. slumdog millionaire (2008)
2. transformers (2007)
3. trick (1999)
4. pride and prejudice (2005)
5. public enemies (2009)
6. palante siempre palante! the young lords (1996)
7. away we go (2009)
8. born into brothels: calcutta's red light kids (2004)
9. first season of chuck
10. dr. horrible's sing-along blog (2008)
11. crossing arizona (2006)
12. nova "first flower"
13. beauty and the beast (2001)
14. what a girl wants (2003)
15. first season of merlin
16. stranger than fiction (2006)

heard
1. meg & dia - here, here and here
2. regina spektor - far
3. metric - fantasies
4. the pains of being pure at heart - the pains of being pure at heart
5. the pierces - "sticks and stones"
6. other lives - other lives
7. taylor swift - fearless
8. conor oberst and the mystic valley band, with jenny lewis - live at battery park on 07/04/09

love, cassie.

p.s. recommendations very much welcomed

open letters

2009-07-04T17:50:58Z

1. dear _____

please don't set your turtle free. your turtle will be an eco-terrorist, as he is almost certainly a red-eared slider, and res are invasive species, of dubious legality, and probably meant for soup. and if your turtle is not native to the ecosystem he is released to/if he was captive from birth, he will probably not know how to fend for himself and will additionally wreak some minimal havoc on his new habitat.

sincerely, me.

2. dear _____

saw you checking out my legs on the bus today. it was disconcerting, but i went home and checked myself out in the mirror. i kind of look good in shorts.

sincerely, me.

3. dear self,

YOU ARE RIDICULOUS.

maybe learn to embrace it.

sincerely, yourself.

4. dear _____

there is nothing wrong with liking conor oberst. don't judge me. i will be going to battery park today to watch him and his mystic valley band. in addition, jenny lewis is opening. i love jenny lewis. she can sing about rabbit fur coats and acid tongues to me any day and everyday. or just today. i will be leaving in twenty minutes.

sincerely, me.

5. dear _____

honey, i'm trying not to be resentful. but if you're going to cast me off, please screw subtlety.

sincerely, me.

6. dear all,

happy independence day! bbq your heart out in this alarmingly but pleasantly cool and beautiful weather. and think kindly of mr. jefferson. have a glorious fourth.

love, cassie.

neda means "voice" or "calling"

2009-06-22T23:49:45Z

spread?

<a href="http://weareallneda.com/" _fcksavedurl="http://weareallneda.com/"><img alt="" src="http://i42.tinypic.com/2rzeum9.jpg" _fcksavedurl="http://i42.tinypic.com/2rzeum9.jpg" /></a>

love, cassie.

i was named after her

2009-05-14T03:00:03Z

the ONE and ONLY picture i could find of cassie seifert, who was an anchor on nightly business report in the early 1990s. my mother named me after her. WHY? almost just because. because my grandparents watched the show. because ms. seifert was intelligent. pretty. sophisticated. ~~(the namesake not so much)~~

my brother played one of my jhs graduation songs and now i'm all sad. again.

love, cassie.

p.s. name stories? your birthname, a nickname, your lj user name.

lúbrica y pura, sus senos de duro estaño

2009-04-24T01:38:33Z

voy a recitar (una parte de) este poema de lorca en clase :3

Romance de la luna, luna, luna

La luna vino a la fragua
con su polisón de nardos.
El niño la mira mira.
El niño la está mirando.
En el aire conmovido
mueve la luna sus brazos
y enseña, lúbrica y pura,
sus senos de duro estaño.
Huye luna, luna, luna.
Si vinieran los gitanos,
harían con tu corazón
collares y anillos blancos.
Niño, déjame que baile.
Cuando vengan los gitanos,
te encontrarán sobre el yunque
con los ojillos cerrados.

Huye luna, luna, luna,
que ya siento sus caballos.
Níno, déjame, no pises
mi blancor almidonado.

El jinete se acercaba
tocando el tambor del llano
Dentro de la fragua el niño,
tiene los ojos cerrados.

Por el olivar venían,
bronce y sueño, los gitanos.
Las cabezas levantadas
y los ojos entornados.

¡Cómo canta la zumaya,
ay cómo canta en el árbol!
Por el cielo va la luna
con un niño de la mano.

Dentro de la fragua lloran,
dando gritos, los gitanos.
El aire la vela, vela.
El aire la está velando.

love, cassie.

fish_for_stars @ 2009-04-16T00:00:00

2009-04-16T04:08:43Z

(surprise! it used to be original fic. edits ahead.)

2008.

a wreckage refashioned

Who knows why you jumped off that bridge, who knows. You didn’t even wonder much until you’ve already spent a moment or two plowing through the soupy summer air of a hotly golden July afternoon as gravity pulled you home.

You drove over that little white bridge every day, with its little white sign on the right that always reminded you a little cheekily that you should keep it 65, man, 65 or you know state troopers in their maddeningly ugly brown uniforms are going to magically appear in your rearview window. You saw that sign every day and every day you made it a point to accelerate an extra ten, push the little needle up. Out of spite. It’s a stupid, stupid, pathetic middle-finger gesture that no one ever sees, but you don’t care much that it is. Stupid, stupid.

But.

You never thought much about the little white bridge itself, even if its speed limit pissed you off.

You also never thought much about the river beneath. But then again, no one did. There was never anything remarkable about it. Not a critical artery of water by any stretch of the imagination. Didn’t lead into the heart of a shimmering city. Wasn’t beautiful enough to draw the poets and the dreamers. Didn’t inspire. And there were never any children playing on its gray shores. And probably, murderers never considered chucking bodies into it, either; no cadavers washed up the next day only to be found by a hysterical local.

You had never thought about committing suicide by jumping. Offing yourself by going over. Maybe because somehow, you just knew that was exactly how it was going to go down. Your body would wash up the next day and be found by a hysterical local. And fuck, you’d rather go by spontaneous combustion than have them manhandle you into some plastic bag. Let them find nothing but ashes.

Existence was wretched, but not wretched enough.

Anyway, when you jumped, you weren't committing suicide, even if it felt like it, a little bit. Wasn't even an attempt. You were going after someone else who tried.

Yes. It was more like:

A minute after the old gray car in front of you (minding 65 and pissing you off, by the way) swerved off the bridge, your socks and shoes were off and you were standing on the edge staring darkly down at the water maybe twelve feet below.

And the way the old gray car fell, the almost graceful motion (it was a metal machine but it was a dancer’s elegant arc through air, with rubber spinning without the solidity of pavement beneath, and then there was the violently musical crush of steel against water) that is the almost dignified way that some poor fuck, either drunk or suicidal, was ending his own wretched existence - it’s a pretty and miserable and brief movie in your head.

And.

You were no hero.

It wasn’t your goddamned business.

Who knows why you jumped, who knows.

But you jumped and really, wow, whaddaya know, you jumped. You jumped. A previously secret orchestra roared to life in your ears, and so a hundred violins accompanied your madness.

And falling really was the worst sensation in the world, and air made a paltry effort to stop it, slow it, but it’s only twelve feet after all and your world soon became water all around, kind of green, and dim sunlight filtered through to gently crown your flowing hair.

love, cassie.

fish_for_stars @ 2009-04-10T03:30:00

2009-04-10T07:37:32Z

(throwback, throwback to bad poetry. i was a pretty insecure kid at 13, too, apparently.)

2005.

truth.

a few words
t u m b l i n g
out of someone's mouth
carelessly said
not aimed to wound
just
the blunt
Truth.
i never imagined it could feel
the raw unveiling, painfully real
and it unravels my carefully spun acceptance
of my flaws.
it unravels that tentative thread, that fragile strand
and crumbles
my walls.

love, cassie.

asdfghjkl what is that!

2009-04-03T01:13:27Z

GIANT BUNNY

why haven't i heard of herman before ._.

courtesy of my brother.

who apparently looks up ginormous cuddly woodland creatures in his spare time, but whatever.

love, cassie.

[EDIT:] GO IOWA.

fish_for_stars @ 2009-01-29T22:58:00

2009-01-30T04:10:13Z

jan11, 2009.

watching for lions

after classes on an iron bridge
i am watching for lions in a bright yellow coat

[i bought it yesterday,
wore it home,
bright yellow:
like the centers of daffodils
(that don't grow)
in my mother's garden
my mother, who did not even ask me
how much it cost:
the answer was ten days
and a hundred pages]

the pockets aren't very warm.

my fingers, folded, getting cold
as people stalk past me
people,
gray people and sad people and there are many,
but no lions.

[there are some looks
at my bright yellow coat
i know the way bright yellow catches your attention,
borrows your vision and doesn't give it back
(at least not politely)

i know how their eyes sharpen
and how their mouths flatten
into who does that think she is anyhow;
she think she can pull off yellow
with that face,
that body?
hell someone's been dreaming

i understand

i wish they wouldn't,

but it's okay.]

most people, not-lions, stalk by
without turning their busy heads
[i know each skull is swollen full of Important Things,
perhaps Happy Things,
perhaps Not Happy Things,
but there are definitely Very Important Things,
rocketing up and down long, delicate threads of neurons]

not everyone, perhaps nobody,
has time the way i do,

and so it's alone that

i am watching for lions in a bright yellow coat
after classes on an iron bridge.

love, cassie.

2009!

2009-01-01T04:46:30Z

see, if i were cool, i'd be hanging out in times square (biggest new year's eve party on the planet) right now waving little sparkly things or i'd be hitting up the (other) party scene. but it is horrifically cold outside, and um, it's horrifically cold outside.

but omg, to everyone in the world :]

☆ HAPPY NEW YEAR! ☆

♥ it's been so epic.

love, cassie.

fish_for_stars @ 2008-12-28T14:57:00

2008-12-22T03:59:05Z

(last revision for now. mostly edited according to dual_avi's attempt at brutality. :]

alas, not quite an original story, but close enough to be on this journal rather than the other. it's my secret santa submission at ochiba.net, for OQM. i have interpreted OQM's characters [they are here and here]. lovely, aren't they?

i have obviously taken liberties, and it's a loose art-to-words interpretation. i've adopted a soberer tone, for one, than the artwork.

on another note - i've also been a little enamoured with elephants lately, anyway, because of rachael yamagata's elephants. also, hemingway's hills like white elephants has appeared in the comments more than once, though i wasn't thinking of hills at all while i was writing this. and of course, i am no hemingway. :])

dec21, 2008.

his bride and her elephant (or, that is that)

-

Tonight, there is a white elephant on the plain. You’re sure of it.

Almost sure of it.

Maybe not sure of it.

From the balcony of the Haugustian house – not yours, but just yesterday he promised what is mine will be yours, dear heart, so perhaps yours in a way – you can see the pachyderm standing still, alone, brilliant. It's more brilliantly white than the moon, which is actually not at all white tonight. Tonight the moon hangs yellowed, ancient, crumbling. It’s kind of the way you feel, fading in your dark room with its beautiful grand balcony with the black and white tiles (severely elegant) and the gauzy maroon drapes (wispily pretty).

But the elephant!

Staring so hard at the white hurts.

Your head hurts so often nowadays – slow, lingering aches and dull hotness in your delicate skull. Your eyes may as well be a little… unreliable. So perhaps there is not a large elephant with curling tusks and wrinkling white skin standing in a dusty plain, a hundred meters from your balcony. If it were real, it would move, perhaps. But the white hurts your eyes, then doesn’t that mean that the white exists? And then, doesn’t that mean that the elephant exists, too?

No matter; the elephant vanishes at dawn. The gentle stroke of first light, gold and pale and revealing, erases the elephant that may or may not have been.

And that is that.

-

The elephant that may or may not have been is the next night, however. Exists. You didn't notice its entrance, on that plain – on this plane (of reality?). Unreliable eyes! – but there is something wonderful in the elephant’s recurrence.

Perhaps it means that this is all a dream, and you’ll wake up one morning with rough mother-woven cloth against your face, and it’s your sister’s spine against your spine in a little bed you’ll never ever complain about again. The walls will be wood, and there will be no balcony. Your family has always kept their feet upon earth.

It’s only wishful thinking. You don’t really think that it’s all been a dream. No.

But the elephant, maybe. A dream, that is. In any case, the elephant is a maybe-dream that happens for the next hundred nights.

-

Thirty days later, the moments begin - moments that dare you to think why don't I run . These moments usually happen when the slow, lingering aches and dull hotness bloom into fierce storms in your head, bright and loud and as furious as scarlet forest fires swallowing trees and dirt. And like scarlet forest fires, these moments leave smoking, deadened, unbearably silent trails – skeletal frames of things burnt and fluttering silver gray ashes become your reality on those days.

And at night, you look at that elephant – because it’s there and always there – and dream about walking up to it. Passing a trembling hand over its great flank. Whispering I hate it here don’t you in its great ear. You think that maybe then it’d move. Maybe walk. You think that maybe you and it could walk together. Maybe run.

-

The hundred and first night you are not alone in your dark room with its beautiful grand balcony.

He touches you for the first time with a whispered dear heart and other murmurs you choose not to hear as he strokes your black hair, brushes your cold skin, lifts so gently the flimsy gold cloth that covers you, caresses so gently the loops of gold around your neck, in your ears, circling your wrists and finger (he bestowed them all upon you, weighed you down with the weight of his gold).

Everything is so heavy, heavy and Mr. Haugustian is so heavy, heavy.

You don’t get a chance to look out the balcony.

-

The hundred and second night, the white elephant is gone.

After Mr. Haugustian is asleep, you slip out to your grand balcony, bare feet on the black and white tiles, brushing past the gauzy maroon drapes. You watch all night, steadily, but there is no white elephant to blind you, and it is only when dawn comes that you know that the elephant is really, really gone.

It surprises you that you aren’t very sad. You search for the well of sorrow that you’re sure that is quivering somewhere, a bitter melancholy ready to overflow and spill. But you can’t find a well of sorrow, you can't find the bitter melancholy - and that makes you sadder than the disappearance of your white elephant.

-

So the hundred and third night, when Mr. Haugustian comes into your room with the grand balcony, you are gone.

And that is that.

love, cassie.

happy holidays

2008-12-17T10:41:05Z

TRANSCRIPTION: happy holiday friends!

and of course, it's just about a week before vacation starts. and before christmas. and as you might have known or guessed... i love love love the holiday season and the spirit and all that jazz. i'm such a sucker for all of that! "it's beginning to look a lot like christmas!" except i'm too lazy to figure out that song out and you get a messy instrumental rendition of "jingle bells" instead. you can hear me spacing out a little in the middle, too. (... and gawd, but i hate my voice. .__.)

but hey, happy holidays, everyone :]

love, cassie

fish_for_stars @ 2008-11-24T22:19:00

2008-11-25T03:30:31Z

(last year, i sent off a poetry collection, including "the secret wish". one poem was entitled something like "lanterns". last week i revisited the theme of saving-some-light-for-a-darker-world and the lantern symbol for my djing/creative workshop women reborn. and this resulted. somewhat meant to be read aloud, i must admit to sacrificing... something for the sake of better sort-of meter and for the little bit of rhyming. particular use of these words: abstract, luster (lusterless), gravity, stark, alien, mystify, vital, inelastic.)

nov19, 2008.

the necessity of lanterns, reconsidered

I believe that one day we'll need lanterns

'cause when the sky has finally tumbled down
from its lofty, abstract blue
when it's just bones and ashes, lusterless
in these crumbling ancient streets
when our history is a dream that no one wants to remember
(it's irretrievable, let's move on, let go we have to go)
when it's a lot of dust that floats about our eyes,
obscuring remnant light,
the newest world the most terrible way
and so this will be our plight:

it will be a little darker,
it will be a little colder.
it will be a little end-of-days.

but –

it'll be that gravity is still here
that you and I, we're still here
gravity how it weights our souls
also keeps us standing
our feet firm on this fucked up planet
stark, exquisite, so much our own
we'll find we haven't spiraled off
a moonless galaxy away
we're not lonely in an alien place
because gravity has made us stay.

and so in the end, at the end
it seems that we're still home.

and it will mystify us, bewilder us, confound and exhilarate us

it should have been the end, but it's not the end, so it's time to move along

we will be restless when we have learned
to walk this newest world
something will bloom in these vital veins
and future will be in the forging
'cause the inelastic reality
that's always beautifully true
is that we are fragile but we will rise
and that's what we will do.

we will rise from bones and ashes, and we will clear the dust
and we will rise and we will walk, because we want and must
and if it's a little darker,
a little colder,
a little end-of-days
then all that means is that there is
a necessity of some lanterns.

(so pocket a little light away and save it for the tomorrow)

love, cassie.