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my ankles are cold. im blinking out the smoke. i see 'catcher in the rye' laying sideways on a dollar cart outside my favorite bookstore and a well dressed older man with a feather in his fedora nods at me. handsome. i know my eyes are shining. i've got this buzz resonating in the deepest parts of me. im humming sinatra. nancy sinatra. im glowing. im floating above the pavement. i can't explain it. my head is screaming out. im meeting myself. reacquainting myself with what i love. not worried about how quirky and passionate i am. ill be sad if i want to be. ill be ecstatic if i want to be. im filled with extremes. im glad im that way. "all art is entirely useless..." heh. ya right. oscar wilde and his marvellous brain have sent me into an internal tailspin. words that rip through my porcelain veneer. im resonating. i feel connected. other eyes that see paragraphs born out of brief encounters. the beauty in the mediocre. the beauty in the horrible. the art that screams out of vanity and sin. i dont know where i stand. im no longer threatened. i had to form opinions last year out of survival. i was on constant alert. but i dont assume a nun is pure... and i dont assume a hooker to be vile. i dont believe in stereotypes. we are all secrets and deceptions. every one of us. im interested in truth. not safety. im interested in the extremes. the passion. living life like a trapeze artist. you leave the safety and security of someone holding onto you only to fly through the air tempting death in the hope and faith that the next person will swing out to grasp onto you. and then you do it again. jumping cliffs. chasing the beauty in chance encounters. i could stare into his eyes wordlessly for hours. somehow giving up parts of me and becoming greater than i was. beautiful. what is true love. selfless. anti-selfish. to want the very best for someone else. even if that means leaving. hoping and dreaming the ultimate for them. i drink my newcastle. i sit in a makeshift lobby staring at a coke machine. im counting down the minutes. im filled with run on sentences. im echoing back his words. i let him see me in my ghostly state. muted and vulnerable. it made the sadness gorgeous instead of oppressive. so comfortable in my skin. i dont want to be fixed. im just alive. im full of feelings. im just as violent and ultra violet and full of desire and prayer as i always was. i pray to my fat cat god living in the blanket skies. violent. violet. lent. vie. im self conscious of my youth. im aware of it. i always took it for granted how brilliant i was at being 17. now that i am almost 28 im realizing it. i was so malleable. i was so untouched. now im full of more damage and heartache and i see things more dark and more beautiful than i did before. love is not taken for granted. creativity is not an assumption. success is not an expectation but a hope. im thankful for the pain. im thankful for the mistakes. i think my mistakes are the things i dont regret as i get older. i see them as my most important moments of change. its not possession anymore. i dont want to keep things just because im afraid that if i drop them someone else will pick them up. that crazy human habit to trap things under glass. "if i can't have you no one can have you." in the dark. i want to be as quirky as i am. i want my books and my habits and my attitudes and my expressions. i need to know where my lines are drawn. charting the constant transformations. im not the same person from day to day. i cant be held to who i was "then." those people dont exist. only i do. and im constantly turning into new characters. my heart is jumping. im not afraid of it. i am so ecstatic... living to connect to another beautiful heart and mind.