the ground is still frozen, and my step is light so long as the forecast says there's a chance of snow. the cold somehow punctuates the forever-and-a-half days. thank you, jesus, i have only twenty four hours, each one. waking up to forgotten coffee, forgotten keys. stumbling through lectures and getting myself to lab. i roll up my sleeve and can't find the pulse. not the branchial, the radial, or the ulnar. it's gone, so i give up and release the pressure, diving underwater, finger up. i forget as the ice numbs. it numbs so healthily, and i want to scream and shout at the ones who wait for spring. my precious winter--i wish it were here to stay.

when library turns sanctuary, and god is in books, and books are full of numbers and figures (and too few words), where is my creator? where do i fit in amidst the constants and equations, the formulas i don't care to use because they are nothingness attributed all the meaning of the world? I want so badly to feel so much, and these symbols mean nothing to a girl of words.

tap-tap. (fake). i didn't hear a pulse.
just pretend. graph it out. t-test. set. go!
p is less than .05, so i must be sifnificant.

diversity is important. S.H.O.U.T. it out.
come to my events and see how i plan.
see how i try so hard in search of meaning
(close your eyes when i fail miserably).

the rat in latin class gives teacher the creeps.
take it out NOW. it might gnaw off those mots.
la nouvelle vocabulaire. ce n'est pas tres importante.
NON. je m'en fiche. c'est fini. the rat is long dead.
mon souris. ne le souviens pas!

laden

i stutter over the words laden as the woods
following wednesday's winter afterthought
the trees too heavy and my world so white.
i look for miles, and i see soundless footfalls.
anticipation forgotten, because nothing's there.

looking up quickly, the blue hurts my eyes
slow adaptation--my retinas can't fire enough,
the blank page is filled with the things i never
wrote. meeting at three thirty, eternity at two.
sleepiness betrayed, because nothing was EVER there.

i forgot to write it down, so sure it'd be there always.
neglected the shrieking pen. no need, donc stay firm!
invisible ink appears in the wintry mix of morning,
in mourning sepia skies, i see them each crash down.
was THAT commotion worth it at all? nothing will ever be there.

it might have been should it not have been, but it was. i'm so terribly sorry.

a wordless janplan in words

the tissue between my forceps is opaque and persistent. i pull in opposite directions, creating particles, teasing out choice pieces. my eyes strain, and i move slowly away from the microscope—the eye pieces and laboratory appearing before me. i look down at the dish and see nothing—no one can see the work i’ve done, unless they were to view the specimen through the powerful lens to which i acclimate slowly. even then, should someone else decide to look, there’s only room for one near the microscope. and, whether that person looks or not, there’s no way i can nearly articulate what i’ve seen. the focus for me and position of the ocular parts is different than it is for the rest. my eyes are set strangely, and i hate how i can’t tell them about this private world i’ve seen.

the ambiguity makes the matter workable. the cells valid. applicable to life as i understand it. nothing is cut and clear, and tissues vary depending upon the light. finding the right plane is always a task, and sometimes i land on a plane where i see nothing at all.

a recovered poem

i missed the moon for days on end,

the frigid air that cracked my hands.

they bled amidst the sorry integrals

and the latin words I held so closely.

i missed the sun slip down playfully

beyond the brick, the white columns so firm.

it was already dark, and I understood no change.

i was silent in the whirring blizzard

and the white noise lulled me to forget.

the flurries beckoned me to the sanctuary

barely lit.

I missed the wonder, the fear, the pain

I swallowed obediently, and slept.

water, swallow. sleep. forget.

i forgot to cry until it was too late.

my protest was futile and I lost it all.

I missed nine months of red sunsets.

I missed a year of days.

I lived a long time of time not going

and then, it went. then is now, and now

I’m scared. I am terrified and I do not sleep.

I missed the sunset,

but I didn’t miss the sunrise.

sepia skies

On February days when people talk and forget to listen; when the very things I'm supposed to do feel petty and empty; when I sit down to translate Vergil only to realize that I can finally breathe, and the air comes in too quickly---I need more than anything else for my best friend not to be 3500 miles and two time zones away; I need the courage to say no definitively and yes wholeheartedly; and I need a brown paper bag, a liter of coffee, and a worn Bible to hold (if not to read).

I feel like too little and the world feels like too much. And then the world too little and myself too much. Big me in this box of a hill, trying hard to thrive in a place more conducive, more viable, than that from which I came. The air here is clear, yet I forget to complete my own breaths when classes feel like guilty pleasures and labs feel like nightmares. When people talk incessantly and each thought fights for its space in my head. I miss bitter cold mornings, Anne Sexton in tow--snowshoes drying on the cardboard near my door. I miss the hot Los Angeles pavement on my skin until I remember the glare of the sun that made it that way.

February days are cold in Maine, without the crispness of Fall. They bear uncertainties up to their brims, and they don't keep promises they never make. February nights have sepia skies, but everyone else says they have purple. The stars go into hiding because summer sometimes feels so near, until daylight comes and I see the black ice.

I'm learning to navigate today before tomorrow, and to treat yester-February-day as a fond memory upon which I might focus when the March nostalgia comes.

windows

Some nights I can't help but be drawn to the cold. When it's twenty below zero, I generally keep my distance, but when the bell strikes one a.m. and the temperature's hovering between seven and twelve degrees, everything changes. I'm suddenly (and miraculously, considering the codeine in my system) giddily alive.

Now, I have this thing with windows--my roommates would rant to you all about it, perhaps through clenched teeth. I hate screens on principal. (In rural Maine, what really is out there that you need to be screened from, aside from the drunken hockey player gallivanting on the roof and the occasional black fly?) To be separated by black netting from an unadulterated night sky and miles of pine trees seems sacrilegious; the fact that the window-pane itself must exist pains me enough (note: I am grateful for the barrier on those -14 degree nights). In the suburbs of Los Angeles, a thick pane (and skin) is a blessing; I'm happy to keep out the blaring sirens and the roar of the freeway. But here, glorious here, I want the windows wide open, the air streaming in--forcing me under (my blankets), all the while pulling me in (to the black sky).

The cold was as cold as cold can be, and I opened the windows as far as I could, safety latches allowing. Thinly clad in bedtime attire, I leaned over the sill, looked both ways, and impulsively climbed, barefoot, out into the darkness. Onto a roof swamped in two feet of snow, and dimly lit by windows all around. Cold moved fast to my head, and I surrendered. Already stupid, already resigned, I dove facefirst into the snow. Quickly coming to my senses, I rolled onto my back, flapped out a quick snow angel, and scampered back through the window, snow in tow.

With a face and shoulders sporting red splotches, and hair and eyelashes full of white, I grabbed my towel and marched triumphantly to the shower, where I stood in the heat for a long, long time.

I don't know why, but I finished my shower with cold water.

delicate

"The stuff is delicate," my dean stressed, attempting to explain why so few were willing to touch upon the issue at hand. If it weren't delicate, I wouldn't do it, I wanted to say out loud.

***

The truth is, most things worth dealing with--worth weighing, worth pulling apart, worth putting down a cup of black coffee for--are immensely delicate. They are delicate because, when taken too far, they can be destroyed easily; but also delicate because their threshold values are varying and confounding. If the stuff of life is heavy and tough, oftentimes requiring a bulldozer (or snowplow, say, in Maine) to make headway through, then it is equally fine and intricate, quickly damaged with a child's shovel (or a tame April snow-blower).

I read poetry because words are delicate. Easily shuffled, they change meaning with the deletion of a modifier, with an appositive omitted. I peel grapefruits because the segments come apart perfectly--and I'd never want such a brilliant design to be wasted on me. I study neuroscience because it's abstract, because action potentials themselves are unpredictable and sometimes inexplicable, and because cells create beautiful images on my eyelids before I go to sleep. The stuff of life in which I wish to immerse myself most is, above all else, delicate.

Delicate like the eyestalk of a fiddler crab. Delicate like fine tissue under a dissecting scope. Delicate for the very reason that the thing lying on the other side of the boundary you're probing is unthinkably dangerous. And because that boundary is so easy to perturb (especially with three cups of coffee in your bloodstream and shaky, shaky hands).

This sturdy girl is indeed ready to brave the fine powder and finicky balance.