grace's epiphanies

I. The wave is forceful, it is directional. The wave curves up and jumps in a sometimes perfectly rounded, sometimes chaotic ‘U’. It ever stretches its arms toward the pull-aim-strike of the shore. II. The dam was built, and it barricades and it narrows and it towers over. The waves rose more wild, more torrenteous, determined to squeeze into the cracks of the dam and explode it to its fall. Each stream of the edge of the wave was like a long screaming tear with the smell of

I. After Everywhere I am Nothing. Here is a house. Sand walls—skin flows horizontally through the cracked veins of a grainy surface, if I took these walls in between my thumb and forefinger and middle finger and pressed hard, it would crumble like dried, coarse flour. Countless waves washed up against it, the wind made a paper cut with a piece of seaweed. There's nothing to go back to. It's not a house and not sand, it's nothing now. II. I Want a Total and Violent Clearing. T

1. There, under the muffy yellow light and the freckles of toothpaste on the mirror, are a string of floss and a bobby pin, cast into the trashcan or unevenly on the side. It is not entertaining, it is not engaging; not motivating, adventurous, a dream or a granted hope. I look far away over the muffy room, beyond the hum-drum of the electric toothbrush. There, on the sunny, crowd-centered bench, are friends, eyes creased, of humor, shoulders arched back, enjoyed. And for a s

What I have in me surfaces in a sudden splash of ink, plopped onto the canvas, making the observer jump. I sit very still, in my warm-toned, buttoned cardigan—upright, slender, my expression stilled. I am aware, and stiff, and constrained. Thus when red gushes onto the canvas, the observer blinks, is startled. Red splashes clumsily, in a burst of intense motion. When I laugh and when I exclaim, I rush forward. And I roll my eyes, and twist my mouth in humorous sarcasm, a wry

The Waves by Virginia Woolf p. 7: "... and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually." p. 94: "... I, who desire above all things to be taken to the arms with love, an alien, external. I, who would wish to feel close over me the protective waves of..." ---------------- You say that Your waves are perpetual, the strokes everlasting. Yet I feel if I left today my heart a

"The Raising of Lazarus" Ribera lo Spagnoletto, Jusepe de ca. 1616 The glow of light around Him It doesn’t have to be flashy to be capturing. Here is your protagonist. A gaze of absolute authority. Death cannot resist Whatever He commands all will do. I fall in love with this Man of supreme force. Why won’t You command my unhappiness, command my sickness, command all pain and evil? None could resist You should Your gaze pierce them, Your finger command them. This is the my