the moon is as near as the street lamps, tonight.

The philosophy by which I live my life, my code of existence, was handed down to me by the most fake, artificial person I have ever known. A fake persona, a ghost. That person does not exist anymore and I’m not being metaphorical, I’m being literal. I’m terrified by that truth.

It’s a simple one, her philosophy, rather obvious really. But at the time I needed to hear it, the ghost gave it to me, and it changed my life. Perhaps if I were religious, this ghost would be a god. But I’m not. This frightens me, and by as much effort on my psyche, I am thankful.

Anyway, that philosophy is mine now. And I throw it around sometimes. I hope whoever it hits thanks the ghost that threw it at them.

Today was one of those days. I heard the ocean call my name and I had to heed her call. I rode the train to Ocean Beach. I’ve always wondered about the off-white phosphorescence in the trains. It makes people look sick, almost jaundiced. But today was one of those days where I just wasn’t interested in the people. Don’t get me wrong, I love my strangers, I really do. But today they bored me. Today I did not care. I put on my headphones and let the music fight away my reality. Somewhere during my journey between wonder and heartbreak, the train stopped at Ocean Beach. It was the last stop. Otherwise, it might have been a very interesting train. “Ocean Beach”, the conductor called in a Chinese accent that betrayed a boredom drowned in alcohol. I like that name. Ocean Beach. 

It’s not a train per se, this weird hybrid that the San Francisco MUNI runs. It runs on tracks, but it follows the traffic rules when above ground, making it, effectively, a bus. So when I say the train stopped at Ocean Beach, just think of a bus parked curbside by the beach, in the dark, its silver sheen responding to the poetry of the moonlight. It was a full moon night. 

Just by the stop was a little cafe, where I stopped quickly for a hot chocolate. I carried it with me, through the dunes of sand, until I was directly facing the ocean, the city dark behind me, in the shadow of the massive sand dunes that San Francisco rests gently behind. I took a sip of chocolate, using the cup more for its warmth, than its content.

Orion was low in the sky, the way I’ve never seen it before, and I do keep my eye out for Orion because it is the only constellation I know. Every time that I trace the dots that form the hunter, from his head down to the bottom of his magnificent sword, I am filled with pride, a pride that accompanies a sense of accomplishment. But Orion was not the only spectacle in the sky tonight, the whole gang was out, the moon was full and the sky was cloudless as if dissolved in the moonlight. I was surprised at how the light from the city did not pollute the night sky, but Ocean Beach is all the way at the edge of the city, far from all the action. The air was frosty and damp. The waves crashed upon the shore without repose and the spectacle of the sound was reduced to a wet rumble from the ensemble. I missed the crisp, emotional crack of the lone, falling wave. I turned my back to the ocean and resumed looking at the stars. The moon was as near as the street lamps, tonight.

“So dark, indeed, the secrets that you keep”, came a voice from behind me. I turned around and saw the silhouettes of three people. The voice that spoke, was that of a man. I also saw another man, and a woman. He was not talking to me, or to anybody, really, as he stood looking at the bejeweled sky, but I answered anyway.

“Indeed.”, I said. “The nights are always the same, wherever you are. Everything is unified in darkness.”

“But we are walled by our secrets”, she said. “We may be unified, but we remain guarded from each other, by our own darknesses.”

I thought about that for a while. The three of them were from Europe, I assumed. I did not ask them, and I could not see their faces in the dark, but I could hear the German and French in their accents and the music in their voices. They smoked their cigarettes and listened to the waves. I could also hear the occasional car tearing through the Great Highway that stretches the length of the West Coast of the United States.

“What do you miss?”, one of them asked me.

“I miss being around”, I said. And they nodded and agreed before I could finish my sentence so I let the silence complete my thought.

I also thought about that for a while. I thought about everything I miss. I thought about what it means, to miss. “What do you miss?”, I asked the shadows.

“Oh, we miss everything, so far we’ve missed two trains and one plane, and soon we will miss the bus.”

I laughed, I think. I missed missing things for a while. Trains, planes, buses, appointments, birthdays, dinner. And so I thought about that for a while. One of them pointed to the horizon and said, “that’s where infinity begins”, and one of the others said, “or ends”.

I felt an absence that manifested itself as a haunting presence. It is a feeling that I both dread and love at the same time, I know it only too well. It creates a wound that I can then dip my quill in, drawing blood from it like it were ink from an inkwell. Inspiration, when it rises out of an emptiness, is tangible to me. It hurts, the wound really does hurt, when I draw from it. But it is what makes me happy. I missed my camera for a while, and then I pulled out my phone and took a picture.

They say that inspiration strikes. Yes it does, it strikes and it wounds and it tortures and it heals. I could feel a sneeze coming, and I really wished to savor it, so I shouted a goodbye to the retreating shadows and they shouted back as I sneezed. I watched as they disappeared past the dunes, leaving me alone once again.

“Don’t miss us”, the lady said.

hat.

“There was the distant call of a firetruck. I did not feel distress then, but I do now. I feel like I remember more than I saw. It is not my memory that deceives me, it is my conscious mind that does. Do you hear the chirping of the birds or do you hear my voice?”

“I hear it all, but I’m only listening to you. Keep talking.”

“I was standing in front of the glass panel by a storefront. It was a shop that sold hats. I love hats. I’ve stood at that window everyday, but have never gone inside. The hats catch the sun in the evenings. They cast their shadows on the wooden shelves. How I love those wooden shelves with their golden shimmer- like the sweat of caramel in candle light.”

“Sounds  lovely. Tell me something, why don’t you wear a hat?”

“I love the sun too much.”

She was a beautiful girl. I felt quite lucky talking to her. It was a Thursday. I remember it for no particular significance. She had broken into tears in front of a stranger– me– and being as awkward as I was, I did not know what to do. So I did nothing.

I was sitting by the street, on the stairs that lead up to my house. I had made a cup of chocolate to enjoy with the evening. I don’t remember if I was reading a book. If I did have one in my hands, I doubt I was reading it anyway. I love the smell of books more than I love books. But perhaps that is a lie. 

She was walking up the hill with her cycle by her side. I live on a hill far too steep for cycling. She needed a rest and I needed somebody to talk to. We exchanged artless smiles with our practiced pleasantries. She sat next to me and heaved a sigh. I had nothing to say so I said nothing. That is when she broke into tears. 

She was beautiful in her sorrow. Fragile like a thin sheet of glass shattered by a flower in the breeze. When she stopped crying I offered her a cup of chocolate. She told me she loved chocolate but hated its smell. I was disappointed, but at least it saved me a trip indoors. I waited in the silence, hoping for it to end.

It did. And it was wonderful. She never told me why she cried and I never asked. I’ve been cried to before, this felt like I was cried at. I don’t mind being cried at. We spoke of music she’d never heard and books I’d never read. I told her of places she’d never been and she told me of food I’d never tasted. An hour went by and with it, the sun. She stood up to leave and it hit me at that moment that I did not know her name. But I did not need it because I knew her by her laughter and her tears. She had not asked me for mine.

“Did you go inside?”, I mumbled absently. I looked at her. “The hat shop– did you go inside?”

“No”, she said.

“Why not?”

“There was no door. Just a window.”, she said as she walked into the night.

 

free.

I surveyed the German countryside from the second-class cabin of an InterCity Express that was tearing through the air from Hamburg to Cologne. The foliage near my window whizzed past me in a blur of chaotic leaves fighting canola fields triumphing in a glory of green-meets-yellow. The sky seen through the rush of those trees remained as still as my thoughts. No burning rage in the engine with the power of a thousand horses seemed to matter to those that watched us from above. No human progress could outrun the clouds as they cried upon the frail shoulders of the dying German countryside. The stars blinked in mockery and the planets watched with interest. I watched as a girl’s golden hair was set ablaze by the setting sun and returned to my book when my eyes had recovered. I could smell the rain. Not every pleasure is lost to the sterility of the German railroad. Have you ever watched as the rain pours in defiance of a mighty sunshine? There is a romance that comes with those tear-filled, dark clouds. Then, there is hope in the sunshine. And perhaps in those last sips of  the wine I was drinking from that awkward plastic cup, there was the metaphor of the sunset. Had I been ten years younger and twenty wiser, I might’ve pressed my face against the cold windowpane, my eyes perplexed in curious wonder, my nose making marks on the innocent glass, my mouth bereft of sin, lost in the reverie of an unfated life. I might’ve inspired the poet in a despondent man. I might’ve coerced a song from a drama queen. I might’ve won their hearts with nothing but an unmasked face and a genuine smile. But I was ten years older and twenty colder. I was afraid of what they’d think of me if I were to show them even the slightest little bit of myself. Her hair was not on fire anymore. There were other people in the cabin too. We could see each other through the corners of our eyes, veiled by the hypocrisy of our sunglasses, too egotistic to give each other the pleasure of interest. It was that fear again. A fear of being discovered. A fear that the plastic mask of my face, built from 20-years of wearing a new lie each day, would melt away and leave me transparent. Sometimes, when I look at myself in the mirror, I feel a jolt of that same fear because I know that the hypocrisy adorning my face has no place within the honesty of my moist eyes. And when I look into my own eyes I know that I haven’t changed much- it is only my face that changes. Sometimes, unrecognizably. I once held a razor blade to my face and drew more blood than I did hair. It left a scar in the wake of a beard that nested pungent memories. Today, that beard is back and it has outgrown those dusty days. Time is infinite and infinity is just time without a tale. And every tale is veiled by the hypocrisy of those damned RayBan Wayfarers. I took my sunglasses off. I hate people who wear sunglasses indoors. I returned to my book. I always have a book with me for when I have to take my sunglasses off and I always feign interest in my books because a photographer needs to see before he reads.
 

 

I reached for my camera to take a picture of those last whiffs of blue sky before the sun was stubbed by the night sky like a cigarette. The night was upon us and as if by the hand of god and the will of the devil, I was forced to contend with what my second-class cabin had to offer me. That second-class cabin of the InterCity Express that was tearing through the air from Hamburg to Cologne, stopping occasionally to feed on people who lived in cities named after cheeses. The hot-chocolate man brought me a cup of cocoa in a paper cup labelled “Starbucks”. I must say that my heart sank a little, but I enjoyed the chocolate as I always do. The deep blue hue of the twilight sky had transferred neatly to the aging skin of the velvety seats. The cushions looked like they were sulking, and I along with it. I looked outside but I could see nothing. Oddly enough, it was too bright inside for me to see anything outside. I was drowsy with a longing for sleep. I looked at the old man with the young face and the young woman with the golden hair. I wondered what they might see if they looked my way. They’d see a boy lost in the mist of his mystic music. They’d see a book with unwrinkled pages and and they’d remark how closely it resembled my face. They’d see the pen in my pocket, a pen that I never carry with me. A pen that was only in my pocket by chance. A chance that I had not taken. They’d look into my eyes and see my blood turn cold in fear. They’d see my eyes dart away in shame and they’d see me pretending to look at the scenery that flew past us all in the darkness. But they were not looking my way, at least not when I was looking their way. I hoped that they would though as I fully submitted myself to the quiet of that moment. I prayed to my own soul that they should see me as I press my face against the cold window-pane of that InterCity Express that was tearing through the air from Hamburg to Cologne, at 330 Km/h as indicated on the screen by the exit row. I cupped my hands around my face and stumbled forward to breathe the dusky air chilled by the glass window. There was a forest in the darkness. The moon was hidden away behind those tear-filled clouds that followed us. There was a white glow that lit up the tree-tops. I longed for the shadows as I feared the darkness. There I was, a face in a window, a shadow without a face. The air precipitated with the lust of the moment as I peeled away from the poetry and returned to sulk in my reverie. Everyone on the train had resigned to a poetic slumber. I watched as their chests heaved in unison. I did not need a mask anymore, I was free.

 

the beach...

the music of water, 
the texture of sun,
the weight of breath, the ticklish skin,
an ocean of dust.

having your cake and eating it too: a method

If you believe something(or believe in something) strongly enough, that, in itself, stands as a premise for bias, and that premise can consequentially discredit your open-mindedness about the subject at hand(or, often, the larger world). In other words, your mind must be closed for you to be able to actively participate in the agency of belief. This realization had dampened my spirits as a free-thinking individual, because I do not want my beliefs to get in the way of my discoveries. I like to think that I am an open-minded person, but I find myself extremely prejudiced against certain realities that I do not enjoy(or agree with). How can you be both strongly opinionated and open-minded at the same time? I was beginning to resign to the idea that perhaps I am not an open-minded person, after all. But I am extremely receptive to the new, the unexplored, the unseen, the unfelt. I am always ready for an adventure. I want to be an open-minded person.

I've spent a few nights occupied with this thought, grappling with this question of an "open mind". I have realized that my open-mindedness does not come from the possibility that I might be empty-headed or so embryonically sacrosanct in my value-judgements, that it is impossible for me to be wagered by egotism and its proclivity to endorse the superiority-complex of correctness(or being more correct than my immediate group, given a subject). It does, instead, come from being labelled a failure for such a long period of my life that the act of failure is second-nature to me and does not affect my disposition, especially when this failure is a mere deviation from the rules set by the status quo. I would hate to be a failure if I failed myself, but I don't really concern myself with any projected failure. My new method to open-mindedness is a readiness to fail, and a readiness to be wrong(which might escalate, through certain subjects that I might be personally invested in, to a readiness to be proven wrong). Innocent until proven guilty.

“From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all. But whether or not one can live with one’s passions, whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt - that is the whole question.”
— Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

used books.

I bought a used copy of Walker Evans' American Photographs. I love used books. I like my books to feel read(probably because I might never get around to reading them). I like the fraying of the corners, the yellowing of the pages, the shelf-wear. I like the smell of age from the paper. I like the folding of the pages once used as book-markers.  But most of all, I love the secrets. They're all secrets.  Scratches, doodles, underlines. Names, dates, wishes. Scars, bookmarks, photographs. 

​I wonder about Christmas '95.

and Tony too.

I wonder about the photograph on page eleven.

or photographs, perhaps.

I wonder about Hilde​.

I wonder...​

raag shivanjali.

My tastes tend to prefer sweeter ragas, those that are delicate bordering on the tender, those that can melt as quickly as butter, those that are effortless in its unfolding. The ragas I have fallen in love with always feel obvious to me. Obvious in its shape, its form, its textures, its colors; obvious to my psyche the way that my name is obvious to my subconscious. I find beauty in familiarity and comfort, like everybody else. But, I also dislike stagnation with a staunchness that sometimes upsets the rhythm of my everyday, and oftentimes sends me scurrying across borders and over the foothills of the unfamiliar Himalayas.

​This is the first time I have experienced Raag Shivanjali. Shivanjali is as beautiful a raga as it is a name, but I only see the beauty after spending a very difficult time listening to it. In this performance, a majority of the improvisation is in the pursuit of comfort, the familiar cushion of the Tonic is rare, and something about the design of the raga keeps me from feeling the body-shattering resolution of the build-up/return to Sa. Because of this, my mind is pushed beyond familiarity for longer durations than I am used to, and the effect is profound. Triggers go off in unusual centers of my brain, and they linger because they have nowhere to go. Panditji also works repetition into the performance the way a masseuse would work repetitiously on a particularly sore muscle. I can only liken the hammering down of these notes upon those unusual centers of the brain, to the effect of an exceptionally feisty Kerala monsoon where the rain stings your bare back as your run for cover and hide under the wind-fraught trees. This likeness only remains metaphorical, the experience unfortunately, is inexplicable. Shivanjali is a mind-expanding raga– uncomfortable and addictive, like all addictions– but where a physical addiction might lead to mental discomfort, and a mental addiction might lead to physical discomfort, Shivanjali’s discomfort leads to a very tangible resolution where both your mind and body are challenged to the point of breathlessness, at which moment comfort is found in the air, comfort is found in the water, comfort is found in the silence of your empty thought– and the experience of being massaged, without ever being touched, is addictive.

If there is such pleasure in the unknown, whatever I roam the Earth searching for, I hope I never find it.

​

shelves.

Once,
​I found a roll of film
​​on an empty shelf.

My old camera​
​met the cold night
​on that roll of film.

I took pictures
​of buses and balloons
​and empty shelves too.
​
Then I returned
​the roll of film
​to the empty shelf.

The shelf it is on
​is now
​inside it too.
​
​The whole world
​lives
​inside that roll of film
​on the empty shelf.
​
​Once,
​the roll of film
​might be found again.

​​Or perhaps lost, or stolen,
​buried, or forgotten,
​and the empty shelf
​will be empty again.

being watched...

tawang.

Back in the summer of '11​, three-months before I left for San Francisco, I spent a few weeks in  Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya(not pictured here). I spent most of my time there alone, in the sleepy little town of Tawang, and walked plenty through the lane that held our room to the gates of the monastery. I never walked past those gates.

I have lived in conflict. One of the spirit. At 16, I had no voice, no inner voice, no outer voice, no voice. A 16yo who cannot hear himself speak is one who is told many things because he listens in silence. I was told many things. I still am. They had a name for the bunch of us then, in school- failures. Concrete noun. I used to cringe at the word having had spent 15 years as a truant of being one, but it was a word that said more about the people sent out to inspire us than it did about us. I did not really mind being a failure in their world, at their game, playing by their rules. But I did fight- not to be a "winner" but out of general bitterness because that label bothered me so much. I wasn't a failure-to-be; to them, I'd already failed. Failure. "Failures stay back after class." And we all did.

They asked me to "just finish school and do whatever you want". Yes, but I had nothing to do. I did not know what to do, I just had to. I don't know how photography happened but I needed something to show for to get into college and I was already familiar with hiding behind the camera every time I needed to find a safe refuge. Relatives, mostly. I turned to the camera because I'd only ever used the pencil before to scratch my back. I got into college. We all did. And it felt like school again but this time, I'd changed. I'd found something that made me happy, I did not know it at 16, but i know now that it's all I've ever lived for. To be happy. And I also know now that to be happy is to tell myself that I am and to know the reason- in words. To speak to myself in a voice I like to hear. The camera made me happy. I took pictures of flowers, leaves, sunsets, sunrises, people, and everything was just so perfectly beautiful. I enjoyed the beauty and the happiness until I realized that I'd lost my voice again. I was told the photographs were good and I listened in silence. I'd put so much importance on the impact that the 'what' had gone to make way for the the 'what else'- and somewhere in that loss of spirit, in that loss of confidence, in that conflict, I slowly turned to 'why'.

Why.

Reality, causality, perception, identity: the existence of the self in casual independence of society, a self that believes in freedom and rationale. A self that also cannot exist in complete independence of society and it's absolutes, having been born into a system much too big for it's small ego. But the ego grows, the soul shines brighter and the self is placed as it's own end and a contentment is found in the knowledge that he is not, in fact, a pawn of society, but the hand that casts a shadow on the chessboard. The mind that moves the pieces. The soul: an abstraction of the ego's own morality and code of existence. The soul represents the ideal. The vanishing point at the climactic horizon. But society claims the sanctity of the soul to feed the monster of the ego. Happiness, a reason and a code of conduct- I had these. I was still lost. I traveled to many places in search of the answer and had not found it. Meanwhile, I'd found a photographic sensibility, a method of questioning that sensibility and an approach that kept me happy. Also, I realized that I'd always be told things and that it did not depend on the volume of my own voice. I listen because I like hearing their voices and not for the lack of my own. But I also learnt that I can only do the things I have in my own head and nothing else. Expectations are meaningless outside of a system that can't define them in concretes. 

I found my answer in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. Because I still believed that I'd find it if I went far enough. And Tawang was the farthest. The drive there was demanding, the days there were not easy. Circumstances. I spent many misty days in our beautiful wooden room(most of it in complete solitude) just thinking about all the great photos I might've taken had the light been good. Thinking, in general, while looking out the window at a sheet of metal that shone brightly in the fog. Clouds of thought replaced my brain like a smokescreen that hid that undefined purpose. One that presented itself as a quest. I was journeying to explore the non-verbal struggle of my soul and had found rest and relaxation instead. But as if at a luminescent crescendo of sight and perception, an idea was born. That the clouds of thought within me hide the meaning of this quest much like the clouds around me hide from me the collective progress of the human mind. The exploration I make with the camera is only to better understand my own ideas. To see, to recognize, to resonate with and to appreciate the beauty of that seamless super-imposition of idea and image. To wonder in bewilderment what led to the birth of the image in that decisive climax of the shutter-button. A primal and instinctual physical response that bore no load on the mind. For me, the reflection only came after the reaction. 

My photographs are not the answer. They are the question. They are my means of wondering aloud, of reading the unscripted play hidden in the mist of my mind. A bread-crumb of hope tossed by the subconscious to humor the hunger. Questions. Ironically, that was my answer. Questions.
I'd realized that in everything I'd done, it was the pursuit that mattered to me the most. The quest. Something to do. It was the "DO whatever you WANT" that made me happy; the freedom and the pursuit that still does and always will. The journey is not a quest of the mind but a quest of the soul to liberate the mind and let it wander. So it does, in solitude, in clouds of thought that define its purpose- a definition that cannot be expressed in a language of the tongue. 

The (photographic) process is blissfully simple- a conscious and physical recognition of the mysteries of the sub-conscious mind leads to the birth of the image. This is only the first step, one that relieves the tension of an elastic mind stretched to breaking point. The answer and the meaning comes from the translation and never from the definition. To translate the silence of a photograph into words, to see and understand the questions they raise. To create that perfect question, not of hows- but of whys. The answer is everywhere- it is the question, the language, the translation- the thought.

Made of the Mist.

In my constant quest to define photography I've realized that a photograph(like the mist) hides more than it shows and the beauty lies in the dark(in the missed). A fog descends upon the frozen mind and as the mind warms to the knowledge that it is in complete control of itself, the fog clears, a steam rises from the ice, the curtain of mist is drawn and ideas are born. Such is the nature of this series, my struggle with photography to question myself, to learn truths from the observation of life unfolding around me. Such is how it helps me take pleasure in the fact that I can find happiness in a physical craft not guided by bodily need but by moral duty to the seed planted in my brain. I find hope in thinking that one day I might climb that tree I raised so I may see further than I'd ever seen before.

I don't make pictures to have something to show, anymore. I do so because I have something to say and photography is my means to that end. Besides being an incredibly beautiful sensory experience, it is also a sensory exercise. I enjoy both. The material, materializes out of air, out of light. The mysticism of the mountains does not come from having its feet in the plains, but from having its head in the clouds. At that point- during my days in foggy Tawang, the clouds were a symbol of my mind: mysterious and ever-expansive.

This series is in tribute to that mind and that state of being; the clouds of thought, the mist, the mystery. To be made of the mist is to be an abstraction of actuality. The mist is but a veil that blurs objective reality to provide sight to nothing but by it's own volition. A selective representation- much like our own ideas and how they exist in our mind. Much like photography. Veiled, but present, waiting in earnest for inspiration to come and spark thought, to draw the curtains open- to face the light. I drew the curtains, I saw mist. I faced the light, I stole it but I only saw(stole) what nature wanted me to see. I was starved for inspiration and the icy beauty fed me well. I saw mist, I saw mystique, I felt the photographer in me bow down to the photographer in the skies. I took pictures of the little I could see and now I show them to you. I understood. Such is the nature of the mind, it understands only what it wants to understand no matter how objective the vision is. I was happy there. The maid of the mist had kept her promise.

​

night.

​The best of his days melt into a night of pining and he’s left with its dribble on his cold, often unwashed, palms. Tonight, I carry a notebook and a pen, of which I will make a present should I run into him again. 

I like taking walks after the city has resigned into a dull rumble. I know where I am going and I know who I will see; I have made friends with the shadows and the bridge knows to wait for me before she sleeps. She lives in a distance, but there’s a terrace at the end of Vallejo, where I can rest profusely as she twinkles over the San Franciscan bay. Berkeley twinkles too, but behind the low-hanging veil of our beloved fog.

This terrace is special to us, and it is our little secret. We bring ourselves here each night, not in friendship, not in fellowship, but in understanding. Here, we lie on our backs upon the grass, for minutes that seem like hours and in silence that oozes concern.

It is 3am now. I bury myself within the folds of my woolen scarf and I set out into the night. I have a bottle of wine and two paper cups, my camera, and my gift.

Dear City, how you have changed. I no longer recognize you as the monster I know you are. I feel forgiven as I make my way past the Spanish Chestnuts, now dressed in black for the Midnight Ball. And the moon, seduced into a narrow crescent, a tiara like only the heavens can craft. Even the spirits are dancing to the chirp of the crickets, disguised as the wind in the chest of a shirt on a clothesline. I raise my glass to an empty sleeve and I walk.

I smile as the view of the bridge slowly edges into my thoughts. Instantly, I am stirred out of my stupor and I recognize the ebbing light. I see the familiar shadows upon the terrace, and I try to smile, but I find that I am already smiling. I feel a warmth absolve me as I rest upon the grass.

It is cloudy, but we are hopeful. Within each of us is the truth that we can part the clouds just by believing we can. In time, they do, and we search the skies for a lone, twinkling star. I shine my flashlight into the sky and light nothing.

“I’m god-fearing”, he says. We remain silent. I wonder if he actually lives in fear. His cigarette burns with an audible cinder. That’s how quiet it is, when the sound of a TV stabs the night. 

Perhaps our silence frightens the lonely girl. Or perhaps she doesn’t know her friends stand right by her window, disguised as the night.

​

 

from the summer...

The originals are in color... you're just gonna have to imagine the colors.​

SF MoMA.

Spent some time in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art today.​