life versus death

i think about a time when i took a train to another train. i stood in the rainy morning with a man who wanted to buy me a cup of coffee. when the car came for me, you said, i almost lost you to him? i smiled, laughed a bit, thought, you will never lose me. i always come back to you. a moth to a flame. we ate bacon and eggs, touched our feet under the table, and i gazed at you. i said to the forest! we stomped around, deep in the green of the springtime, needing to be together outside in the world. branches broke when i stepped on them and huge prehistoric ferns spread themselves in our path. we stopped on a fallen log and i gazed at you again. a moth to a flame. i am all nerves. i thought this was over but yet i sat there gazing. it smelled wet and my pants felt wet and my shoes were muddy. you looked at me, you gazed, and i smiled. i want to be back there again, in that time, before everything stopped being about moths and gazing and started being about life and death. to a time that had no questions, no expectations, no fighting, no hurt. i am so glad there is one cigarette left on the dresser. i want to change everything.

off to places where lovers have wings

daybreak

COME my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the
seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines
within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high
plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental
blood intervein'd,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the
Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd
mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly
fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions
pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait
behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your
work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding
on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it
wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

-walt whitman

we can all be free

i just watched the rest of beautiful losers on netflix. i am not in love with them, the beautiful losers. but i appreciate them and their perseverance. their motivation. their persistence. i am not these things right now. i've spent five days hiding from my responsibilities. instead, i eat bagels with cream cheese and tater tots with ketchup. i smoke cigarettes and drink new beers. i look at lights and sit in movie houses. i laugh. of course, these are all good things too. for sure, no doubt. but i slack and i feel heavy and gross. i feel full of all of these things. and it just continues, this overindulgence on food and laughter and love and cigarettes. i want to overindulge on work instead, but there seems no time for it. its 8:55 and i want to sleep because tomorrow i will take the train to nyc and eat lunch at elephant and castle and shop a little and come back to a naked tree in need to decorating. i will eat dinner with my family and smoke cigarettes with my sister and play mario kart. i will not go to church. i will avoid my responsibilities of grad school and my future and reading goethe and instead eat bacon and drink eggnog and coffee and play video games. when will i return to normal? my father repeats himself 35 times a day and i wish i could sit in a coffee shop and use my brain. i wish coming here didn't make me slow and lethargic because then i might be more inclined to move here and live. instead, i still long for berlin. and the future that awaits me there.

look what you've done for me

sylvia sleigh

apres moi

did you know true love asks for nothing?
-stevie wonder

inspiration

dans la grande pomme

say yes

in the lost and found

man friends, best friends, new friends, school friends...t minus 5 days until new york city.

(maybe, just maybe, t minus 6 months til life in nyc is reality)

regnerische Tage

brunch with roommates and boyfriends and friends is the best way to start saturday after a friday of pool and beer and pizza and whiskey. i slipped and fell on my ass last night right after i poured myself a nice glass of jameson. it spilled and i quickly filled it up again. i started a dance party at gestalt. my boyfriend has moves i've never seen before.

today after the brunch of latkes and chocolate chip pancakes and apple butter and bananas, we lay downstairs rubbing bellies and snoozing. we were extremely full and extremely happy and i believe extremely relieved that we didn't have to make brunch for 8 people.

2 hours after bellies were rubbed and appetites were satisfied, i bought a gorgeous aqua lacoste sweater and nick bought a new scarf and we looked at paintings. now i am at haus with a latte and the rain is off but its still wet outside. san francisco is beautiful today.

wolf among wolves

gordon matta-clark. my favorite artist. ever.

i see the sea

work by maya lujan