february 18, 2002
there was a riot, a huge mob of fists and screams. against the light from the inside, all the faces were gray, solid, expressionless, each person a shadow filled over the top with tension, each person a machine pounding upon everything in its path. and then there was music; fifty feet of space found sweet jazz winding out of saxophones and flowing from the bells of trumpets. such a different sound filled the room, and such a softness settled beneath the rose-colored overhead lamps. but behind those golden keys burned an anger, sets of eyes that hit harder than fists or clubs or broken bottles. in those eyes were riots more brutal than the one next door, and fires whose fuel never burns away.
this weekend i felt hated, hated for looking similar to people whose actions have always disgusted me.
this weekend i won and i lost, left without a scratch on my body but ended up with my heart bruised purple and blue.
this weekend i spent time with anger and provocation, hoping it would leave for good,
but finding out only how much it likes to stay around.

february 8, 2002
their names come to mind much more easily now, and their faces stand out from the many people who walk these halls. their grins and their "i just can't get this note" faces, their words and their personalities all draw lines of different, distinct colors across the air, as does each passing day.
out of a rocky river of pain has emerged a sea of excitement better than any drug can give, and out of the mist of confusion have come the fine details of familiar faces and conversation. these shoes are easier to step into every morning, and the dark of each night brings that much more peace. even the music seems to speak its meanings more clearly and deeply, warming the air with its breath.
someone loves us all in a way we cannot understand although our minds are big and wild and amazing things.
and that love stretches wider than all our hearts laid end to end, and runs deeper than all the oceans piled upon each other.
the words trane told us still make our hearts race!
but something tells me
that's not even half a taste.

february 4, 2002
sometimes it's not the words that come, but only their meanings, only their sounds. all that is able to be communicated is the feeling that wells up in the heart and sends out through the tips of the fingers, the curve of a wrist, the moist heat of a breath. textbooks and stories, fact and fiction pour forth into the air, flow quicker than hands are able to confine them to paper. sometimes a currency of letters has too low an exchange rate. some things words just cannot describe. in short...
lookin' for a word, and not just any word.
maybe this feeling will take a few of them to express. or maybe it demands no letters, wants to be felt instead of read about. but it makes the air clearer, like silence, like light. and although a chill has descended deep into the streets and through the sidewalks, it is easy to walk as if facing the summer sunset. there is an energy whose presence is hard to detect until it consumes everything in its path, descends upon the world on which all of us walk. and its power makes every house blaze with light, swirls steam atop coffee mugs and sets fires in our chests.
lookin' for a word,
but letters are so very small.