on the things i do for them

the poison rushes in. voluntarily rushes in. i do this to myself. but i do it for them.

i dont feel any different.

but everything is different. everything around me is different and my clothes are different and my job is different and my mind is different.

so why are we pretending nothing's changed

i could stop. start over. let it trickle out slowly like the last drops of honey reluctantly making their way towards the world. clear my system. ive done it before. nothing happened. but its different this time. the magnitude is marginally larger and i cannot predict the outcome.

i dont know what i am supposed to do.

on the sleepless hours

you should get to preview dreams
like a teaser in your mind
before the darkness sets in

i lay awake
mind racing
desperately trying to grasp onto a strand of thought
amongst the millions of beams shining behind closed eyes

the words ebb and flow
the restless shore of consciousness
jumbled and tumbled and cast away

these are the sleepless hours
the hours of pure abandon and selfless truth
we blink
we wish
we wait for night's quilt to wrap us up in her arms
and softly purr a lullaby
as we slip into oblivion

on now

I'm learning to be here. to slow down and notice. just the little things. its all i can do right now. but its something. the curve of a chaise lounge, the steam whisping from a fresh cup of coffee. the feel of a cool autumn breeze through my hair. i need to live the now. i stress and worry and obsess about the future, the past, the could be, the have beens, but i forget to live now. and now is okay.

now i am sitting in a cozy little coffee shop with the mock theatre lights that remind me of home and my new boots that make me feel like a pirate. there is eyeliner around my eyes and a good novel sitting next to me. i am alone and i am okay. and that is good.

i have now been working for two weeks at the JCC children's center as a daycare teacher. it's nothing that i studied nor am  qualified in, but i am there. and they want me there. the other teachers, the adorable two-year-olds, their loving parents. they all want me there. i have knowledge to contribute - experience to share. and sure, there are a lot of poopy diapers to change, but i get paid to sit on a carpet with a child in my lap and tell fairytales. i can make silly voices and goof around and sing and dance and color and play. and its okay. its good.

the thought of returning to the theatre still scares me more than anything. and i dont know if its because i truly was so hurt by it, or because i've been so convinced that it was awful for me that now i dread it. but i miss it. i know i do. theatre was my home. my religion. my breath. and now its gone and i dont know what to do. but every time i get close again, even just seeing a friend's show, i feel so hurt and betrayed and full of failure that i completely shut down. block it out. like a virus i am slowly building up antibodies against. but theatre is not the enemy. it cannot be the enemy. it was me. it was such a huge part of who i was, who i am but i dont know how to understand it anymore. i know it has to come back to me, that it will make sense again. i just dont know how much time i need to be away from it before i am strong enough to try again. i try to put on a tough front - drink black coffee, fight with swords, wear black combat boots - but the truth is i am soft and weak. and i cannot bear to be irrelevant.

i still crave the creativity - the passion i used to feel. without it its as though i'm walking around as a shell of my self. a hollow pie crust without the savory filling. i want so badly to be good, whatever that means. i want to be a fine artist. i want to be recognized, even if only by a few peers, as a unique artist. i want to bring something to the world. something that was not there before. i want to matter.

but for now, one day at a time. let the soft autumn winds blow.

on the lost ones

they tell me i should write. that it would help. so i sit and stare at the empty page - well, screen - and wait for the words to come. i know i'm not trying anymore. that i'm just floating through. getting by.

i quit my job.

it's my own fault, really. no one else to blame. 

but if i think i can be happy is that hope or ignorance?

i watch the people go by. people doing things. needing other people. living day by day. i watch. i don't listen anymore.

because every time i try there's another reason why it wont work. i'm sick of the excuses.

i want to be strong. i want to be the woman i idolize. but she's not even real. just ideas on a page...

pretending that none of it matters makes the pain swell and blister. but i pretend anyway. pretend that i'm okay. that i'll be okay. i pretend for them. i pretend for me. maybe one day i'll believe it.

i've managed to make myself physically ill. stopped causing external damage only to resume again from the inside. i sit and wait for the phone to ring, but when it does, i dont want to answer. its always better not to know. create the fantasy. live the illusion. everything else is crap.

i'll never be okay with this. it sounds ridiculous when i say it out loud. one of me is dead. and no one will let me grieve for the fallen. the other wanders lost, like a drone. mindless, senseless, unfeeling, uncaring. 

i wish i could let it all go and just breathe. but none of it makes sense. maybe my brain just isnt wired like that. i do it to myself. i don't know why. people try to help and i push them back. my instinct is to resist. why can't i evolve?

if i could sign away my body to another conscious, i would do it in a heartbeat.

on Horesh and Zibli

14 years old, she walked into Israel with her baby brother. 

They had caught a train from Baghdad to Beirut, and from there, they crept in the night closer and closer to the border. The border to freedom.

17 years old, he was smuggled into Israel on the back of a vegetable truck. He was the oldest of 7. He came alone.

They had known each other before. Back in Baghdad they slept on the roof of their buildings, dragging dirty mattresses up flights of stairs for a chance at a small evening breeze in the sweltering heat. His father was the chief Rabbi, her father - who knows?

And with them came the secrets, the stories, the anecdotes, the recipes - well - not the recipes. For there were no recipes. Just loving mothers in tiny kitchens. The mothers hold the secret to the most amazing Iraqi food. Hamin and Shakshuka and Lebane and Borekas. The most incredible creations.

It was a different world. A simpler world. or a more complicated one? When his mother came, she carved a hole in her wooden trunk in order to save a few precious pieces of gold and pearls. Today, my mother wears it and we live in ignorance of the stories it holds.

The families joined at the hands of Yitzhak and Aliza, the melding of two complete sets. There were many multiples between them - Yitzhaks and Moshes and Avrams galore. He was drafted to the army and stayed there many years. It was a good job. a job with a purpose. 

They gave the couple an apartment. a small room in building H entrance 2. They met the three couples surrounding them, all four pregnant wives, all four army husbands. The babies they had in turn, and this is how they grew. together. as one family. Three generations later, they are still the best of friends. Their children and their children's children grew up as cousins, not as neighbors. for they were no longer neighbors, but the connection remained true and strong.

The Jews are not a religion. They are not a culture or a way of life. They are not the food they eat or the prayers they say or the clothes they wear. They are all these and more. They are a people. A strong-willed, incredibly stubborn, bravely loving people. They are a family. And together they thrive.

on nothing and everything

sometimes it all comes rushing back
like waves in the heat
i push it down once again
wash, rinse, and repeat

if i think i'm doing okay does that mean i'm ignoring the truth or does it mean that i'm getting better?
can you get better from something like this?
i have good moments. moments when i forget it all. i'm reborn.
i'm the spring blossom on the barren cherry tree.

sometimes i wish i could just run away
start over somewhere else
new name, new body, new life
do it over again
do it better
do it right

but what is right?
and what makes this wrong?
i've had a good life. i have no reason to complain or to be unhappy.
and the guilt sets in like the thick black date honey
seeping through the cracks, drowning my every thought.
i don't deserve the medicine. i don't deserve the care. i have it good.
i can't escape the stigma behind my illness.
i can hardly admit that i have an illness at all.

i take the pills no one wants to take and talk to the people no one wants to talk to
and i manage.
i try.
try to be patient as time heals my sobbing soul.
i sit on couches. i drink black coffee. i write angsty poems.
poems that make no sense
poems that aren't even poems.
just words - a mere crunch of syllables
an octagon of vowels
nonsense on a page.

i take my pills, let the darkness settle in for the night.
i'll try again tomorrow.
try for moments.
moments where i can forget and just be.

on the ugly truth

childhood memories lay scattered
shattered in the kitchen sink

chamin v'salat v'hummus v'pita
chatters and hugs and laughter and cigaretts
the family i once knew stolen away by the ugly world

the world of hate and of greed and of blame and of shame.
how i wish i could forget - become small again - only see the good.

but the ugly truth has been revealed and we have reached the point of no return.
we sit at coffee houses and drink our cappuccinos and pretend everything is the same.
but this is the moment - the final test. which family will survive - the blood or the community?

when we grow up knowing and loving and sharing with a family that is not your own
your whole world is in a spin
blood is essential, but it is bitter and salty and stinks of hate.

so we try to make sense of this fucked up world
piece by piece
like a never-ending four dimensional puzzle
we carry on.
it is all we know.