The Wanderer Above The Sea (Intermission)

Der Wanderer, or The Wanderer Above The Sea, painted by Casper David Fredrick

Lost

October is more like the action of injection than a transition in Florida. We don't see the leaves change and we don't really put on our jackets until late November. When the cold hits, it's a sudden bone chill feeling that the holidays are here and the year is about to end. Inside me though, it feels like magic is brewing. A cauldron of costumes, goose eggs, voodoo dolls, sweet potatoes, and glitter. I Stir-stir-stir with a thick white bone of a fairy's back.

Why is it that everything starts to feel like it's coming to life, right when it's dying away?

A sudden rush of stories come washing over my notebooks and computer screen. Split-splat, split-splat, the words

dribble into the white ocean, feeding the fishy ideas that maybe this story will be good. It's more than just writing a story

though. Around November my family makes frequent trips north to Georgia and New York to visit relatives for the holidays.

I indulge my mind in World of Warcraft, Neil Gaiman books, old Sci-Fi movies like Blade Runner, the woods, Starbucks,

and cozy nooks of my mind along the way:

In the forest a lion rampages through, burrowing down the pine trees with a warrior's soul on his back. In the

warrior's left hand he holds a light-saber to help light the way and keep the snarling beasts at bay. The cackle of a witch

echoes from the stars, a signal that has the lion and warrior on edge. Can they get through the woods in time?

The trees rattle together when the wind-chills tumble through from the North. The witch will stop at nothing to

keep the soldiers from approaching the Star-Child. It was said to the warrior that the child was once human until

the witch had ripped her body from every limb and sowed her soul into a doll's knapsack skin. The lion's roar shakes

the vultures from their perch at the very thought of this.

Just ahead the warrior can see a landscape of stars, which means that the wood is coming to an end. He grips

his light-saber in ready for whatever danger comes their way. And a danger is coming.

We Are Golden

That moment you realize that you did all this hard work and then-POOF! For what?

Recently I did this music video with my friend, involving all the stuff in my room for Mika's music video contest: We Are Golden. While it may not be able to be uploaded for the contest (for some reason his website did not recognize the new address of youtube) I resort to displaying it here:

ENJOY!

All Our Sinners

Tonight was epic, tick... tick... tick...

When silence is still you can feel the mildew of time. I'm not sure if that makes sense or if I just wanted to sound poetic, but that's how I feel. Driving home from work I saw accidents and burglaries down the street by the house that I pass by everyday on my way to school. A gay couple lives there behind an old old tree and today I saw a dozen police cars there.

I'm not sure what happened but it got to me... and this pit, these ingrown tumor of thoughts suddenly sucked in all of my emotions. I suddenly realized that the person I had been in love with is no longer inviting me to their house every weekend. That those unfinished feelings is what life is about and they will forever linger behind the old old tree. A life that (is very cliche) might have been.

If we had lived in that house would we have created a beautiful life one day? Would I have planted my sunflowers like I did in my backyard today? Would you have grown the heart of our home in the bedroom or in the kitchen behind the pans of herbs and spices? Rocking chairs by the parrot cages, pencils drawing their own conclusions, passion stirring in the mug of our hearts each morning, and sirens singing in the fate of our deaths.

I'm not in love with him anymore even though he showed me the best of my potential... or maybe I was going through the best of who I was at the time that I met him... Either way I'm not in love with him anymore... but it hurts to think or to feel the presence of another reality so very close, and see another dancing, flourishing, beating, breathing right in front of you.

I'm tired of thinking but I heard that something stirs in the rubble and that one day they're cutting down that old tree, because the burglar was caught there, stealing someone else's loved

Bodies

Did you ever have a dream where you weren't living in your own body, or where you didn't have a body at all?

Chelsea used to have this dream a lot. She said that a shaman woman would come into her room and teach her potions and spells as to how to disarm her body and simply float. Sometimes she would scream herself awake, other times she just slept through until morning.

I was SO jealous that she had such a cool dream. I later blamed my dad for all the dreamcatchers he gave me, but I digress. She told me that she cried because what would happen if she landed in the body of a doll? You see, she had tons and tons of dolls lining her room. All the way from Nalla from the Lion King, to real African made dolls, porcelain, and barbies; and what if she had to live motionless for the rest of her life? Because she knew what we did to her dolls:

• We would tie them to the fan by her bunk-bed, switch the dial on high, and laugh when the flew around the room.
• Sometimes her brother would stuff them down his pants
• We would cut their hair and limbs when they got into a car accident
• Threw them out windows
• Painted peanut butter on the bodies for the squirrels
• Buried them in the sandboxes that the dogs urinated in
• ETC.

Eventually what I did for her was I gave her a magic doll that the children of Guatemala made. It was said to not only

get rid of bad dreams but to grant wishes as well.

Sometimes I wonder though what could happen if you really could dispose of your body and simply float? I'm sure Chelsea forgot all about this but somewhere during our friendship she gave me a locked box that held all of her personal things. And when I found it and just so happened to open it with the key I stole from her I thought of something new:

If you could live the life of someone else's object, which would it be?

Would it be their hairbrush? Their computer? Gum, beloved lego set, their underwear?

I think that I would be my brother's shoes because it's one of the things that he cares most about and that he uses everyday. I couldn't sit there and do nothing all day.

Or, friend's boa because it's so fluffy and makes everyone really happy when they touch it :D

Or, my grandparents wedding album, because of how often they look at it with gleeful eyes.

Or the sound waves that Imogen Heap plays with in her free time. It's so detailed and beautiful like strawberry ice cream on simmering waffles kind of beautiful.

What would YOU be, and why?

Bad Body Double by imogenheap

Galactic Glitter!

There's glitter absolutely everywhere!

(Takes a moment to brush out the gold flakes from the afro hair)

I'm not sure if it's my rising body temperature, creative inspiration, pure craziness, or the music that's got me doing this right now:

Painting gold stars on my bedroom walls is the absolute last thing I thought that I would be doing at 12 in the morning.

I mean, I guess I partly started doing it to get things off my mind. But I started thinking that whatever sky I navigate I need to know that I'm making a difference in the entire galaxy! I just couldn't live a suppressed life.

I remember when I was little that I loved loved loved The Little Mermaid!

I mean, what gay boy didn't, lol. I loved it so much that I wanted to create a little cove beneath my bed full of treasures of polly pocket towns, keys, posters of cute soccer men, legos, jewels, and sometimes even candy. Eventually one day my mom found it during spring cleaning and I ran into the bathroom trying to think of an excuse as to why this, all of this crap, was beneath my bed and why was I hiding it? When I came back out my mom said it was okay but just that I shouldn't keep so many things stored beneath. I think she knew though that she stumbled in on something private.

I guess since then I hate to suppress myself from others. I don't want to have to face that humiliation again--ever. So whenever I finish this sky I'll be sure to update and maybe I'll even include some of you in it!

March 0f The Wooden Children

Ta-thrum thrum, Greeeeaggg-AH!!!

Thrum-thrum-thrum, SMMASH!!!

These are sounds that I learned to avoid when I was little. I was never running away from monsters, parents, or even bullies but something much much worse- a girl! I could have sworn to you that there was nothing scarier than this girl in particular though; what with her black coil hair, pink hair bows, and booger crusted fingers, Chelsea Canson was the bogey-woman for me!

Remember that time you had me sell sandwiches to the kids on the block? Sandwiches that were made out of REAL sand though because you said everyone should use their imagination! Mhm! There was also the time you pressed my lips against the shower wall so you could see the ring of your mother's lipstick and then threw her pearls and nightgown over my round body... I don't think she was too pleased to find me standing in her high heels either though. From peeing in the sandbox, to eating mayo/bologna sandwiches (real sandwiches this time) in the tree house your dad built for you (jealous), making tents and sneaking gummy snacks when I slept over, bloody noses, truth or dare, first kiss, and best friends...

We told each other everything.

When friends died. When I told you I was gay. The secret to the magic meatballs. Love, family, virginity, spells, witches, wine, magic carpets, monsters, hurricanes, and family again. We even shared a silly pact name of the Wooden Children, because whenever people saw us walking down the street they thought we were brother and sister because of our skin color... brown.

So I have to tell you...

There is one thing though that I never told you. So please don't be mad...

I stole the key to your heart. I know! I know! Please don't shoot me after you read this. If you read this. Please don't leave a scar on my belly again! Please oh please don't start tearing off my limbs like you did to your Barbie doll! I was young! I was stupid!

I stole it when you were sleeping one night. That night after we talked about our... real famalies. I went into your Pollypocket collection and opened up the set that looked like the big pink star... and I looked in the secret compartment to steal the key. Your favorite key. It's tiny silver heart with the hole in the middle and two round teeth at the end. I kept it in my underwear until I got home the next morning and hid it in my own secret compartment.

I'm so so sorry! But I can't give it back!

I need it for something important. Because you see... the other night, when I was going through some things I found out that it opened something other than your big pink star... It opened up something... scary. And. I need to open it again. So please! Let me keep it! Just until I figure out what to do, then I promise I'll give it right back.

I really promise! And you can trust me! I'll tell you what it was for because you're going to be just as frightened and surprised as I was to see that we're still as much a part of each other as we were when we were known as The Wooden Children.

Time To Pretend

By Gregory Apple

My fingers drip streaks of sky blue liquid across the canvas of a table top and then begin to paint suds over the crayon and ketchup stains. I unearth a field of blue flowers by slipping the grains of salt into my palm by the edge of the table. A kid must have drawn them beneath the plate when their parents weren't watching. Clever. I put my nose to the table to breathe in the tiny flakes of blue wax: elementary, woods, blood, dream catchers, adopti

on, love, a brother, and imagination.

When I was little I used to carry around notebooks and multi-colored pens. Each color would represent a different character I drew. Pink would often represent evil. Red would be brave like my brother. Green and blue would be friends forever. And brown... brown would be the color of love. I would draw stories of princesses, Digimon tamers, friends I wish I had, boys I wanted to fall in love with, challenges I would put my real friends through, myths and games I made up, and of course me.

I would be the coolest character of course. I would wear maybe five belts and a pair of goggles like the cool anime kids did on TV. Sometimes I would be an evil android out to destroy the world, a powerful Digimon Tamer that could defeat any opponent, a princess with magical powers but horribly in distress; I could be the ocean, I could control meteors in space, grow wicked cool jelly beans, and even create worlds of blue flowers.

My fingers dance over the picture one last time before I decide to wipe the table and get on with my job. The wax petals crumble the moment my rag washes over them and I thank the little kid who drew them in silence.

Later tonight I walk back over to the same table before getting ready to leave. The entire night after finding the picture I kept thinking about the kid that might have drawn it. I guess I just feel close to them in some really weird way. It's like finding a friend ten years too late. I smile a little and then... a brilliant beyond brilliant idea comes! I whip my head beneath the booth and look to see if they might have...

And YES! They have!

A field of waxy blue flowers completely take over the underside of the table!