Happy Anniversary

It's been one of those years.
More Blue than gold.
The Sun's been shining
But everyone's still cold
Another year in this city,
Beside this ragged Sea.
Drowning in the filth,
The rain, the inhumanity.
This city gets under your skin
It likes to watch you crawl.
Everything is for sale here,
You're forced to sell it all.
There are punchlines all around,
It's the jokes no one knows.
Take me away from here,
To where the Great River flows,
Back to the Mountain top.
Where the Moon first met the sky
Where Dervishes learnt to dance
With their souls sent up so high.

Here we stare out our windows
Waiting for the phones to ring.
Full of a hundred songs,
That no one will ever sing.
We give it all too cheaply,
All the laughter in our souls,
Then stumble around smiling
Over empty begging bowls
We are a war that shall be fought.
In a land not worth the blood.
We are humanity as it had become
Before Noah and his flood.
Our gods are fallen angels,
Our loves imperfect and tainted.
We eat each other's souls in the open,
We allow sinners to be sainted.
So tired in the nighttime
So weary through the day.
We're on trial for murder here,
And we can't seem to get a say.

But there is magic here,
There remains yet some Grace.
I see a greater Love than God's,
In the wrinkles across your face.
Every night this city breaks me.
Every night you pour me tea.
You sing to me, you hold my breath,
Mend the shattered bits of me.
We're stranded here at the edge,
Of this ragged little sea.
The rain only adds to the filth,
And mercy drowns in humanity.
But I hear you laugh
As you run through my door.
And collapse in your lucid love,
Like a man begging "No more".
I love your petulant whimper
When I rise from your bed.
I've found your gaze nestled,
In every poem I've ever read.

That you exist is proof enough,
There is a Goddess watching over me.
You're the Book she wrote for us,
Happy Anniversary.

Breaking Down

It's been so long that I did any writing. So long that I haven't even felt like it. Today I sat in my home, after a thoroughly disappointing day, on a bed that needed replacing a year ago, staring at the shoes I had kicked off, and the trail of Bombay filth I had carried into my room and felt myself close to tears. It's amazing how suddenly, how inexplicably, and trivially all your pent up anger and frustration and anxiety come pouring out of your face. I stared at the mud I had brought into my home and all I saw through the welling tears, were the disappointments I had faced and committed and seen since the last time I broke down. They burst from my eyes and hit the ground and ran around my room scattering my peace of mind and happiness as easily as a child does a flock of pigeons.

And so I return to the writing. Like a beggar to his bowl. So I return to these words and wait for inspiration to come to me. But I feels more like a lousy husband waiting for the wife he sent howling away. Now, he sits and waits by the chair in front of door, empty beer bottles clinking by his feet. Not the most perfect metaphor, but I'm not feeling like bothering with perfect. Tonight I just want to speak. Tonight I want to let the words pour out of me, and hope they take all my bile and bitterness with them, and leave me clean.

I was supposed to start a movie a few weeks ago. A movie I was looking forward to doing. But the leading lady got pregnant. Apparently she was pregnant while agreeing to the film, or at least actively trying to get pregnant when she said yes. So just as I was about to begin shooting, I hear the breaking news that not only is she pregnant, but shockingly so, way past her first trimester. And since then the issue has been the talk of the tabloids, which get funnier and stupider every year. There was even a huge article printed on how filmmakers now will be more careful when getting actresses to sign contracts, forcing them to sign "I will not get pregnant" clauses. For two weeks while the media has understandably had a field day, I've been waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for them to tell me what the hell is going on with the movie? Can I go ahead and cash my check? Can I start auditioning for another film, since obviously we're not doing this one anytime soon? Can I got ahead and shoot someone, just to get some catharsis? Can I go ahead and run through the streets of Bombay barking mad just to inject some drama in my life? Can I please just leave this country and industry for a while to recover some of the large portion of my equanimity and joy that I seemed to have bartered in exchange for living in this city?

Today was a bad day. First I had a meeting with a fellow that wants me to act in this movie he's written and hopes to direct. Young fellow, exactly my age. First thing he said to me as I walked in fifteen minutes late due to the wonderful traffic on these Bombay streets was "Bro, I've been waiting for fifteen minutes." I apologized, sat down, and gestured for him to begin the narration. He proceeded to knock back the first of his large vodkas and proceed to rant about the various retarded people in this city and all the shit work that's being made and all the retards he's forced to meet and talk to. I asked him to not speak about others and their work and begin to speak about his own. He asked me to have a drink. I told him no thank you. Noon is a bit early for vodkas, especially during a work meeting. He said you don't drink? I said not really. He said Fuck! I had a completely different image of you. I said I'm sorry to disappoint. He said I needed to drink. I would make me loose it. I asked him what exactly I needed to lose. He said IT! like he was revealing to me a secret only known to members of the Illuminati and Donald Trump and Daffy Duck. I said let's just get on with talking about the film. He proceeded to order another vodka before returning to his rant about the retards. Then asking me whether I was in or out. There was no money, there was no producer, and there was no coherent script. In or out? Then he called me "Bro" again and insisted that I should join him for a drink. I told him I didn't like to drink. I've had all the alcohol there is, I've been drunk enough not to remember a night, and I decided alcohol wasn't for me. I'm good. He said "No, Bro, you're fucking not." At which point I smiled and told him that if we were to work together it wouldn't really be a healthy relationship. Bro, why the fuck would you say that? I said because we'd end up having a fight, and he'd see what I looked like when I finally lost IT just before he went on a long trip to La-La-Land.

The second narration was worse if only because the gentleman was so alarmingly convinced about the shockingly vulgar and pedestrian story he narrated and kept smiling as he talked about the leading lady in the film being gang raped. You get it? He would ask me with the sweetest old uncle smile. Do you get it? I get it, Sir. She's being raped. I hate nudity and vulgarity, you know, he said with a faraway look he must have thought had been passed onto him straight from Aristotle and God before him. I want to shoot this film tastefully and with grace. The girl is getting gang raped in a van, but there will be grace. I get it sir. He asked me if I thought this story was as 'rocking' (Goddess, but I hate Bombay slang) as he knew it was. And I felt myself very close to losing the IT the previous fellow had been so desperate to see me lose. I just wanted to politely interject and say that I wasn't interested when he mistook my silence for assent and launched, by-the-by into another narration. I came to understand why someone would want to knock back vodkas in the afternoon. But I listened patiently and saw him off. Then in the middle of a crowded restaurant I found myself slowly banging my head against the table. It just felt so good to do that that I continued even after the waiter came up and twitched very nervously next to me without saying anything. I looked up at him, beamed, and asked for coffee like a opium addict asks for the pipe.

Let's forget the rest of the day.

Ah, my Goddess. I know you are preparing me constantly. I know there are many blessings I should count and be grateful for. I just ask for a little help here maintaining my emotional equilibrium. I don't want this city to so easily get under my skin and under my eyes and make me want to scratch them out. I want to go through a day without feeling the pull of all the poison that's so seductive when you're alone and adrift and close to breaking down. I want us all to walk out of this fog that's descended and back into the Sunshine of the Carefree Mind. I see similar signs in my close friends. We're all adrift. We're all surrounded by laughter and yet, terribly lonely. We're all slowly drowning in this sea of mediocrity they call Mumbai.

There are many things to be grateful for. There are many people worse off than we. But some days it's just hard to see past your own blues. Some days you drive through this city and the only songs that your iPod chooses are the sad ones, that crawl out of the bottom of whiskey glasses or are found in the burning ends of cigarettes the singer couldn't seem to stub.

This is why I needed to write. I needed to speak to someone. And all my friends were holding on to their happiness as tenuously as me, and I didn't want to pile my woes on them. So I came here. Thank you for listening, if you made it this far.

Some days I can't write about the happy things. Some days I just need to rant. The days you're feeling Blue and close to breaking down.

But you need to remember that you are being prepared for something grand. You need to believe that. You are going to walk back into the Sunshine. A better life waits inside your mind. You just need to actively seek it.

And I will.

I promise.

Every Song

Without you,
There would be no light
On the days the Dark
Comes calling my name.
Without you,
I would have little poetry,
A stranger to that healing music
You hold so lightly in your chest.
Without you,
The stars might not converse,
The Sun would grow cold and aloof,
The Moon would always be too tired
To join me for a smoke upon my roof.
There would be no traffic for me
No reason to rush through these streets.
I would stand at the edges of this city,
A mirror to all the loneliness I see.
Without you,
I would be lost in this madding crowd.
All living on an unclean shore,
All looking over a lifeless sea.


You are every song to me,
Every line that's ever been written.
You are the reason for ever tear,
You're every heart that's ever been smitten.
I dream the happiest dreams
When you're not here under my sheets.
For then I dream of you.
When you're wrapped rightly around me
I dream of nothing at all.
Because I don't need to.

Wanting You

I don't want to want you.
I want to go to sleep.
I want to finish a movie
Without checking my phone
For a message I know
Isn't coming.
I want to write a poem
About anything other
Than you.
I don't want to want
You to want me either.
Leave me alone.
You've enslaved the
Insides of my eyelids.
I can close them against
The harsh summer sun
Or this still, humid night,
But I cannot close them
Against you.
I'm supposed to be free,
Lone Wolf howling at the Moon.
Now the Moon longs for you,
I'm left with nothing to howl to.
You've taken all the songs,
You own Neruda, and Yeats,
Rumi forsook Shams and whirls
Raising clouds of words for you
To walk through.
You linger in my daylight,
You dance in my darkness.
I drive through filthy streets,
With your eyes in my rearview.
I'm waiting for you tonight,
While my tomorrows waste away.
I don't want to want you.
But I never understood wanting,
Until I wanted you.

Feels Like High School Again

Tonight let this be
The kiss I couldn't give you.
The midnight drive across the sea.
And your hair whipping free,
The banner of the Happy Few.
Tonight I burn hotter
Than the oldest fires.
Because I burn without you.
I'm a runaway slave
Heading to your Africa.
Over the limits of my flesh,
The boundaries of my fear,
Over the edge of your desire.

Tonight let this be.
The stripping away
Of another of my defenses.
The thousand poems kissed silent
And left happily incomplete.
I was a stone rolling,
That you startled to a stop.
You are my lonely river,
You are my mountain top.
You are my book of Psalms and
The broken voice I use,
As I raise my tired arms and
Send my spirit gusting higher.
You turned into shelter
The insides of my every cage.
A thought of you is enough
To fill my every empty page.

I've lived a countless times,
I'm sure, and only now
Do I begin to glimpse the truth.
I was this comet of possibilities,
Collapsing upon this very moment,
Of me missing you.

Roomfull of Regret

I got lost again,
With no one looking
To find me.
I yelled and turned away
Still hoping you'd remain
Behind me.
This night was made for
Loneliness and cigarettes
Slowly rolled.
Coffee strong enough
To remind me
I'm not good enough.
Not even close.
The wind went away
Without speaking to me.
The night sits outside,
A stalker who won't leave.
I've got a roomfull of regret,
And an ashtray full of dreams.
Every word I manage to write
Hurts me more than it seems.
Why am I never more
Than the angry things
I say to you?
The words I never said,
The things I couldn't do, I
Rolled into those cigarettes
And set on fire.
Puff puff puffed away the
Unbearable mystery
Of being me.
Tonight I am a friend
To no one.
Not even myself.
All this trying
Has made me tired.
Now I don't even want
To write.
I try to understand
Why I leap,
Just to remind myself
I don't know how to fly.

Shatterer

Flying is a wonderful thing,
Unless you've forgotten,
How to land.
I was so afraid to face
This life alone, I grasped
Your hand.
Now I can't seem to face
What you have come to mean
To me.
All that breaks before building,
All that shatters before shining,
All that crashes before climbing,
All this you are,
To me.
You're my color, you're the dyer.
My water, my plant.
You're the only prayer
The Gods ever chose to grant.
You're my prayer, you're my sin,
You hold my faith together,
Rip me apart with fear.
I know
You're what will shatter me
Utterly. I am the stone,
You the sliver of ice within.
I'm not equal to any of this.
I doubt I was meant to be.
I can only hope to grow
Worthier.
Every day that passes
Every day you're loving me.

Prayer for a Thursday Night

Dear Person Tired yet Still Bemusedly Listening,

I wanted to write something wonderful today. I wanted to transcend everything I've ever written and write something true. Something that needed no clever rhymes, or twisted imagery, or metaphors, and certainly no carefully chosen synonyms. Tonight I wanted to write something made from the bone and gristle of me. Cut the words out from the scars on my body, and paint them in the colors of my faithless humanity before I lay them out before you. Tonight I wanted to be a better poet.

But here I sit, smiling soft and wide and true. Here I sit wrapped in a quilt made of the happy memories I've yet to make. I am too happy for poetry tonight. I am too happy to dwell on my fading pain. I constructed this night out of a prawn omelet and a pesto turkey mortadello foccacia sandwich with Gouda cheese strong enough to slap you, and lettuce so fresh it danced under the water like nymphs in the rain, and a perfect cup of coffee, whipped with demerrara sugar and a pinch of cocoa, dusted with sinnamon (pun most assuredly intended) and served with a smile. Raphael Saadiq, my soul brother, pouring his ecstatic soul through the speakers turned up a nudge short of loud. The fondness and love I still carried for my mother, even though she was already on the plane and on her way. The love for a teddy bear father with a grizzly bear hug off in the jungles fighting all the predators for his piece of self-worth. A smile and a tear each for my apocalyptically cute sisters, off fighting for their own lives in streets peopled with my darkest fears for them. Even though they're on different continents, tonight it feels like they never went away. I have only to cup my heart to cup their faces, I have only to close my eyes to hear their maniacal laughter tinkling through this blessedly cool air, in imperfect harmony to the branches of my neighboring palm trees and the windchime's animated discussion with the nighttime breeze.

The world cannot touch me here. The thought of you can never leave me. I look back on all the winding paths, and cul de sacs, and know that every stumble was leading me here, to stand terrified before you. I am a lonely man, no more. I think tonight of all the friends I love, who miraculously, love me too. I remember the sounds of their laughter in this room, and the looks in their eyes when the looked at me. And the pleasure in their groans as they ate my mother's apple pie. And the wine that flowed, and the beer that swaggered, and dragons who soared with us, higher and higher. And all our lonely hearts, and our quiet desires, all gathered here to be put aside, until you all went home happy and tired. I think of you all and know that this fool is living foruntate. I hope I remain worthy of you, I hope you remain worthy of me. I hope we are the exceptions, to the pathetic examples of humanity we so often see.

Tonight I sit alone and happy. And the thank the Goddess for her blessings. Tonight I sit alone and happy. And know I will make it through with my spirit intact, and my soul Rastafar-high happy, and whole, and true.

Amen

Scribbling While Deciding What to Write About

I'm a poet,
So all my thoughts
Are better left
Incomplete.

---------------------

You're my muse,
Which means there's
No real difference,
Between my dreams of you,
And the nightmares.

---------------------

Love me a little,
Love me a lot.
Love me with abandon,
Without a single thought.
Love me cold, love me hot.
Love me for what I am,
And all that I'm not.

--------------------

I am in repair.
And the mechanic's sick.

Quick Thought

I walk a fine line
Between a seeker
And a fool.
I thought of you today
And smiled, then I thought
Of her, and smiled
Much the same way.
The first rays of
Sunshine live in my name.
But I feel more
Like the dew that's
Never allowed to linger.
Truth and light trapped
In a traffic jam.
I tune my new guitar
And dream of playing
Well enough to make
Muddy Waters approve.
Then I put it down
Unplayed, unheard.
And I write these
Little, little poems
And fill them with
The gaps in my soul.
So that when you read these
You'll think of all the ways
You can make me whole.
But it obvious
That it's not working.
Because you're at a party.
And I'm here alone.

Straight Trippin

I get so high
With the windows
Wide open,
and my arms
Holding a heart far
far from broken.
Sing along
if you know
this song.
And live life
like a lover,
Like a mother
Holding her
Daughter laughing
Up above her.
I get so high
Windows wide open.
I write poetry
Across the dance floor
You call your skin
With no pen.
I love you
More tonight
Than I did
This morning.
I thought of you
When I should
Hang my head
Low in mourning.
I run faster
When I run from you.
So why do I
Return quicker,
Than lightning
Leaping back
Into the sky.
Despite the huff
And puff
And treating you
Much too gruff,
I want to wipe
Every tear you shed
From your
Innermost eye,
That you never
Stain, by looking
At this world.
You're my girl,
And I'm your guy.
You're the Comet
Across my sky.
I'm shifting dust
In the Summer,
You're my rain.
There are no
More dreams left
In my slumber.
My name
waits wishing
To come across
Your lips, Again.
I'm your Summer
You're my rain.
Love me darling.
Smile, breathe,
Do it again.

Quick Scribbles

It ain't so bad, Darling.
Forgive yourself.
Happens to all of us.
You may be divine,
But you wear flesh
Like the rest of us.
Forgive yourself
And smile
Because I'm thinking of you
And smiling too.

---------------

Don't despair
Darling
Don't despair
Picture me brushing
Back your
Depthless hair.
Feel me cup
Your wet cheeks
In my dusty palms
Whisper words
Holy and sweet
Sweaty little psalms.

-------------

Now you're sitting at your window
Talking to me
The world is made of hope
And so are we.

Towards You

You've stolen my loneliness
From me.
You've taken my mystery.
Left me twisting beside
A road going only your way.
You took my strength,
You stripped down my faith,
And made it wander
Through a cold desert.
Every quiet moment
I might have had,
Now walks by without
Acknowledging me.
Even Mary is angry
Taking me no higher.
A pariah from my own
Dreams. You made
my honest soul a liar.
I'm a stranger in
Every mirror except
The ones you hide
Behind your insolent,
Impenetrable hair.
My every step betrays me
My every breath flows
Your way. Everyday
I sit like a hobbled gypsy,
Musician with a broken lute,
An old old acrobat,
Standing stooped and sad
Out beyond the carnival,
Not even dust in the
Patched, bedraggled hat,
Sitting sodden on the
Ground before him.
Before you I was.
Now I am nothing
But a page for the poetry
Tearing through
Heading inexorably
Towards you.

A Song Long Overdue

I miss you more tonight,
Than I ever did my home,
On those six-year old boy's
Coldest loneliest nights
In a little dorm room alone.
There I just said it
And I'm so afraid.
Look at what you've done to me.
Look at what I've become.
Reaching for you every moment.
Like a tree bends silently
Reaching for the Sun.

You're a dream I wish I'd had.
So I'd know what it feels like,
To see it coming true.
But this is all new to me,
I had no defenses against you.
They never taught me about the girl
That finally just crashes through.

I had to go crazy to love you.
To save even a part of my mind.
Only the crazy can love like this,
Without scratching themselves blind.
I was so happy when you called me
Until I heard all the
Happy people around you.
I hated that sound terribly.
Because that happiness
Had nothing to do with me.
I know it's unfair, unkind, unwise,
To sit so far away from being happy.
Because my happiness sits with you.
They told me love would be a mystery.
But they didn't tell me
We don't even get a clue.

As I picture you shutting the phone
Walking up the stairs to the party
Where everybody waits for you,
I wrap myself in motel sheets.
And try very hard to convince myself
I'm not thinking about you,
And repeatedly whispering "Please."

Tonight I walk across the burning bridges
And face my every fear of truth.
I torch the lies the world told me.
To move faster, to be smarter,
To be heartless, loveless, and strong.
Because I'm looking at your picture.
Panic thudding out of my heart.
And I know the world was wrong.

I had to go crazy to love you,
Only the crazy understand love
Like this.
I wasn't ready before.
I doubt I'll ever be.
But if I don't start loving you,
I may never become the man
You look at when you look at me.

There I just said it.
And I'm so afraid.
Because I can see you
At the heart of things.
Thinking about me too.

The Loss of Absence

I'm thinking of someone
Who was never there.
It's strange to say, but
There will be no change
In the routines of my days.
You were never around.
And now you won't ever be.
I'll have to find someone new
To hang this bit of anger on.
Now that you're done
Playing that role for me.
Maybe that's how we know,
We've finally grown up.
When new knives cut,
Into old wounds.
I'm thinking of a man,
I never knew.
Except as someone everyone
else seemed to know well.
And never failed to tell me so.
There is no feeling of loss.
Except a curious absence
Of absence itself.

I'm thinking of my
fatherless father.
And the grief he
cannot show.
Someone has to be
the patriarch now,
In this family of
Petulant children.
I'm thinking of a funeral
I cannot attend.
I'm thinking of the pyre
and the smoke. And the red
Eyed faces all around.
But mostly I'm thinking of him.
Alone on a hospital bed,
An old servant his only friend.

I'm thinking of the silly words
He would always say to me,
And the love I always saw
Shining in his eyes.
He's burning now,
Surrounded by important people,
Discussing tomorrow's agenda.
And family members
Discussing divisions and shares.
And the people who loved him
Standing behind all the security.
Unable to come close to him.
Because they were never
Important enough.

I'm thinking of you Papa.
Wrapped in stillness,
And the deep cleft in your
brow,
Like the tilak of a holy man.
I'm thinking of you
Watching the Old Man.
Walk up a staircase of smoke.
Into the clear blue sky.
Let him finally know rest,
Alone.

Somewhere Sings a Swan

I can't feel a thing.
I look at the ticket stub
In my unshaken hand.
My movie starts in five.
A movie I wasn't dying to see.
On this night
The one my grandfather died.
I heard the news
From a man I don't know
and know I won't like.
I tried calling my father.
But his phone wasn't his
Friend, on this night.
The one my grandfather died.
When I get through
All my father manages to say,
Over all the tears
He doesn't want me to hear.
Is that "He's no more."
In life he was "no less".
Now he's just the other way
Forever.
Goodnight Old Prince.
Forget this world now.
They never remembered you,
As much as you'd liked.
Forget this world finally.
They can't hurt you
Any more.
Goodnight Old Man,
Who never kissed me enough.
I'll try to remember you
Fondly.
But you created my father.
You deserve Heaven just for that.
My father weeps tonight.
While I write
Another mediocre poem.
I'm going to listen to some music
Now.
Because
I still can't feel a thing.
What's wrong with me?

Just a Little Song for a Girl Sitting Far Away

I
didn't mean it in a bad way,
Being a little sad is where,
The poetry comes from.
Floats down like feathers of the seraph,
And the unstill choir they sing
as though mourning
the death of the beings
We never tried to be.
But I rock along
Steady in the evening breeze
With a happy sky
Beside a forever sea.
And the breeze blew by me
And blew me a kiss,
For the next time,
Her sad little song
Frees me.
You are my dervish darling
raising me up in clouds of many dusts.
Talk to me darling of nights like these
When you're not near.
Talk to me darling of these hollow sheets,
And all the laughter I cannot hear.
Talk to me darling in your dreams,
In the mumbles you make when asleep,
In the little bit of wet you leave
beside your fairy dust cheek.
I'd tilt the world if I could,
And tumble you into my lap.
I've said everything but "I love you",
Everything I've said except for that.

Where are the words tonight? Where is my Goddess? For the last few days I've not felt her whisper brush the lobes of my ear. I've not felt her warm hand cup my heart and entreat me to write her another piece. Today I feel lost, sitting in a dorm room in the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Today I feel lonely. Shoot's not really started yet, and I've been wandering around campus pretending that I'm getting in to the skin of my character. But in honesty, I've just been wandering around, lost and fearful. Another film to do. Another knot of worry and tension coiled around my spine. What if I don't deliver on this one? What if I'm not nearly as good as I hope I am, or I need to be? What if the fraud I am will finally be exposed on celluloid with everybody watching and sniggering and shaking their heads.

There is sun here, but no heat. There is wind here, but no cool breezes. Even the quiet of night sits uninterested and sullen. The campus if full of interesting people but they have better things to do than to talk to the strange, tall boy they see in their classes or sitting in their cafeteria. They stare, some of them smile warmly, some of them come up and shake my hand. Some of them tell me they liked my work. Some of them click pictures. But still I feel alone.

I'm staying in a large room, with a wide, soft bed. Too soft for comfort. I sleep deep and troubled, waking up like a man in prison. The lights are all white and bright and harsh beyond bearing. There's a moth in my room that may just be lonelier and more lost than I. Aimlessly he flutters from corner to corner searching for whatever moths search for from light. But these energy saving bulbs give them nothing either. One of them comes and sits on my desk as I write and stares at me with his antennae twitching, trying to tell me something. I smile at it and try to tell it that you can come sit on my arm, take some of the warmth from my body. But it's wary, and rightly so. In a lifespan of about three days, why should he trust me to do anything but squash it dead?

I have things to read but I'd rather read. I have two scripts other than the one I'm currently shooting but can't seem to find the desire to flip through them past the point I've already read. I seem to to have lost the ability to gauge whether they are worth the doing or not. Every little grammatical error, every piece of bad dialogue screams at me, and I shut them fearfully. I don't want to say no to them without reading them entirely, but maybe I'm just hoping they'll turn into something written by Aaron Sorkin by the end, so I push on. I've got an Indian Ocean song ("Ma Rewa") playing on repeat throughout the night. Raghu Ram's voice and it's soulful crescendo only serving to show me the yawning chasm that separates me from the true artist, the true seeker.

Dear Goddess, bless me tonight. Let me sleep and wake full of energy and hope. Let me remember the man you created me to be. I feel strangely exiled from the calm confidence I normally carry with me throughout my days. Maybe it's just this night and it's unfriendly silence. Maybe it's just nerves before I start acting again.

What a strange profession this is. I've been dying to get back to work. Now here I am, and I'm a mess. I'd smile but I'm too tired. I wish the phone would ring. But it's not going to. I should get back to my script, but I just stare at the spaces between words when I do.

I don't mean to transmit my gloom to whoever is reading this. I just felt like pouring what I felt out of me. There is no poetry in me tonight. There is no wit, and no charm, there's just me in an empty room in an empty dorm. I'd get out and take a walk, but that would only remind me how empty the campus is at night and quiet. I could wander until I found a cluster of students and try and join in, but the thought of doing that makes me feel weak. I shouldn't need to force companionship upon myself to feel better. So I write.

And then all of a sudden, I get a letter from a friend from back in the simpler days. And he tells me he just saw one of my movies, and he's proud of me. How do I tell him the soaring relief hearing that brings me? Because admitting that would be admitting how much I need to feel loved and affirmed.

And all of a sudden I'm laughing at how silly I can be at times. And everything's alright. The moths' flapping in happy circles around my head and the Kings of Leon's "Radioactive" is crashing against the unfriendly white light and driving all of it away from me. And I'm back to being ineffable, self-adoring me.

Thank you for listening to my latest rant.

Unfinished

You are what Sufis dream of,
When they can't find God.
You are what I longed for,
Every lonely night abroad.
Those were the days,
Full of more important people,
All just passing through.
These are the nights.
That turn into mornings
Full of mist and dew.
God will forgive me,
My many many sins,
For loving you.

In That Kind of Mood

The music never stops,
The heart is always broken.
The sun is always setting,
And the door is always open.

Summers are forever ending,
And the waters are always cold.
The flight's still leaving in the morning
No matter how tightly we hold.

The food is over, there is water
Enough for one sip, maybe two.
They ate through your dreams,
And now they hunger for you.

The words don't flow, they march,
Angry and militant, a zealot tide.
Their torches are blazing bright,
There are no shadows where I could hide.

My soul remembers only sorrow.
The night is no longer my friend.
There is no great hall of greater men,
Just a quiet, wasted place waiting at the end.

The cold has come to visit,
And sits contented in the room.
You don't know when you're dying,
But you get a feeling it'll be soon.

And you're glad.