tonight, the center of my heart is still

.

my bedroom window in open.  i can hear my neighbor flirting with a girl on his front porch.  and every so often, the thick click of a new can of beer being opened overlaps their giggles. 

this is the dance.

i think of my newest banner stitched to the cold pole of a stop sign in front of a wasted, graffiti covered warehouse.  the words wail out in black in white: THE WAY YOU NEED TO BE LOVED.  isn't that the only search?  isn't that what we're all up too out here?  isn't that the dance?

the voices next door lower.  they're speaking softly in spite of the beer.

the way you need to be loved...

i've been asking myself this question for a while now.  we all crave that beautiful sense of security that tends to proliferate romantic partnerships.  we all want that sense of security and belonging, of being understood.  i'm no different.  those things feel good and sometimes in the middle of the night the deepest seed hunger in me begins to ache and twist.  i think of eyes locked in to one another and hands lost in hair.  i think of eager mouths and eager hearts and sweat flying.  i think of all that gorgeous softness, all that fantastic hardness and sigh.

the way you need to be loved.

i think of the words i bang out across the keys.  i think of all my scribbles, the pages i fill, another volume of the diary nearing its end.  i think of the images i've made and the images i need to make.  i hunger after their creation.  i want them in front of me.  i want them to exist.  i want them to be seen and to be known.   my value dwindles in their absence.  a day passes and i haven't drawn and so i begin to feel the worthlessness of my life stand tall.  if i can't do this, what is my life for?

the way you need to be loved.

i remember laying awake next to the snoring body of a man who no longer touched me.  i remember waking up early to run and sweat.  i'd pretend the pounding rhythm of my feet on the pavement was the pounding of hot, delicious sex.  i was young and alive and i wanted to express those qualities, luxuriate in the beauty of them, but i was in a relationship that no longer provided for such things.  my heart broke over and over again every time he rolled on his side away from me in the bed.  i would gaze at this dark outline and try not to cry as i felt the worthlessness of my life stand tall.

the way you need to be loved.
the way you need to be loved.
the way you need to be loved.

i miss my siblings.

i miss our mother.

i thought about her a lot in Germany.  that was her fairytale land.  it's a place where anyone can fall in love.  it's a place where spectacular heartache and spectacular beauty rest side by side.  one morning as we cruised through sunrise in the most uncomfortable bus i've ever sat/slept in, i looked up right in time to see the sign for Hannover.  i thought, "that's your Germany, mama.  i'm heading back to mine; my rough and tumble Berlin"

i'm more schooled in what i do NOT want than what i do.  i look at myself in the mirror and realize that i'm simply searching.  just searching.  i've still got so many unknown corners within myself to explore.  i don't want to backtrack.  i don't envy the relationships i see around me.  all the locks.  all the ugly names.

i took this photo in a mirror inside an exhibition at the Foam Museum of Photography in Amsterdam a few weeks ago.  It's half-frame photography that ended up in an accidental double exposure.  it's actually a very accurate self-portrait.

the images collide and waver.  the outlines are indefinite.  i am searching.  must it feel like sadness?

that seed that twists itself like a knife within me is trying to tell me something but i've not yet learned its language.  i have to listen closer.  i have to get the static out of my ears and the anger out of my heart.  i have to pay attention and make room for the unexpected.  i have to pay attention and i have to be brave.  i have to use my two hands and build a life for myself that fits me.  who i truly am, not who i've been expected to be, nor the dream others have of me.

i like this moment...  laying in my bed alone listening to my neighbor flirt with a girl.  soon, another beer will crack open and i'll raise my cocktail silently toward my open window in cheers.


the way you need to be loved
the way you need to be loved
the way you need to be loved

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