the small voice inside

says

you could’ve just been satisfied

but i know

i couldn’t;

memory

youaresucha

kind editor

kinder than i could

ever be

to myself

to this situation

even

to him

…

sometimes

i am afraid i made a big mistake

because it’s been over a year and

i left my punk rock fairy tale

for a piece of driftwood

and a promise

my skin is peeling

i’m wearing a dress and

heels for the first time

in a long time 

realizing the irony of

faux-officiating a wedding ceremony

on what would’ve been our

lucky 7 years

we never got to see the neon lights

and it creeps in under my eyelids

when i try to sleep

when the big band music is

too far away

and i don’t want to write letters

and you, 

damn

you

when your desperation cools

to shadows and sheets

and bodies not touching

like they used to.

i

realize

this

hollow fixations in my brain

for a girl who is nearly legally blind

hindsight seems even clearer

je ne regrette rien

i have scrawled over the

hole in my chest but

damned-if-i-do-damned-if-i

remember so i

i try not to remember

what i did -

i try to tell myself 

like i tell everyone else

it had to happen

i had to grow

we couldn’t

teach each other anything else

but have i grown?

am i really brave?

maybe i just

wasn’t listening -

did i?

do i ever?

how can my life

fall short for

wanting more?

i’m tired of 

being alone without

being alone but

when i come to think of it i

need to know

what being alone

is like.

i keep it at bay because

i miss the neon lights

i like falling in love

i like the din of 

head-over-heels

drowning out my worries

i always wanted

some place to lay my head

but now i’m just

a bird with one

broken wing

flying zigzaggy in

sick circles

wondering when i’ll

remember how to

fly so i

can remember how to

land -

universe i

need to hold your hand

because

i just needsomeone

i just needsomething

please don’t makemefeelguilty

because i

just

do

…

dressed up for the shipwreck

crystallized, i guess

i need to have things

taken away from me;

warning myself

would be pointless -

these are the risks

i write about

this is the 

poem i would swap with

the letter i should’ve sent myself

“be careful” is too vague

i never listen

anyway

comes a time when your fingers

are numb to touch or lack of touch

and the lit ends of your candle

are not giving off heat but just

smoke 

your beloved ennui

your dizzying pace

they resolve

to nothing

so

suddenly

it’s jarring enough to

pluck you straight out

of your world

like god had some

involuntary knee-jerk

or head twitch

that made you

unreal

again

but only halfway

and you are stuck

insect in the amber

spindly legs and

unfinished sentences

grazing the air but

never able to give in

to either fate;

stay dead or

break open, 

neither seems

like a solution when you’re

watching the world explode

behind you 

in a mirror reflection

but you can’t seem to 

focus on anything except

that smudge on the glass

good to talk to you

my dad says 

to the doctor who

implanted him with the

pacemaker to

stop

his heart from

stopping

then

fluttering

to recover

right out of his chest

each time he

awoke on the 

floor

i still hear

the beeps and drones

machines

IVs

the prayers

alarms

tears i shed in

the shower

the hallway

the morning of

when my mom and i

held each other in

his empty

hospital bed and

waited

the longest

wait of 

both our lives

absolutely

the doctor

replies

and yes i think

yes yes 

beyond words

and fears

and hopes

felt endless

so good

daddy

so good

that

you are

here.

watched a woman

spellbound

reading a poem about her

mother, passed

my heart clenched

tears

gripped

but wouldn’t

push through

you ever

love someone so much

it hurts to even

wrap your head

around?

that night my

lover threw me from

the nest

i had already begun to fly

away from

and my

mother and i

talked till 4am

i slept beside

my little sister

and i

wrote while my

brother played

video games and

wrapped my arm

around my dad’s and

curled into a ball

of equal parts

numbness and

safety and

somehow

it was all

okay.

standing at my bathroom window..

funny how the distance brings it back.

so many words, thoughts, dreams, smiles, tears, squeezed out at this window ledge..

the big old tree, now not only dead - but a vacant expanse.

a tapestry of birdsong, the red lights of the smokestacks quietly blinking on and off, as they always do - as they have always done.. and the light. 

the precious light carried by winter chill over the horizon line..

cloud cover and hazy pastels, waking from sleep.

spring will be here soon.

another winter, survived - but yet again life reminds me i have no idea where it’s taking me.

i feel the echoes in my skin, the reverberations of decisions past still not quite dormant in my blood.. i still remember. i still cry, sometimes.

but only sometimes..

standing at the threshold.

aren’t i always?

by now, i think it may be my favorite place to be.

it is the place of making things so - all warm, rush-to-the-cheeks, dizzying feeling - the torturous lure of possibility slinking its way into your thoughts, dreams - until it’s all-pervading, and life is surreal, you tell yourself, with no consequences to be found (yet) - this is how it’s supposed to be.

i am a fool for my own emotions - as much as i try to, i am near certain i will never be able - or willing - to operate within safe, normal constraints. and this is how i get here - all fluttering free, heart in my throat, fingers aching to

f e e l

again.

something beautiful, something new - something i haven’t felt.

maybe it’s okay to not know what i want.

maybe - i should just let the involved parties in on the secret..

then again - that wouldn’t be me, now, would it?

enjoy it while it lasts - the chance of the car crash only makes each excursion more poignant..

pure.

now this is all i have.

the moments, holy moments i have sacrificed at the altar to - again and again.

and again.

someone once wrote - if you want to make it last, don’t ever touch them.

unfortunately for me - even in my world of mystic intangibilities.. i need to feel the pulse.

i crave - from the deepest parts in me, the howling heart in me -

what’s real..

words filled with breath, written by warm fingertips, breath i want to know, fingers i want to feel - shivers and shakes, the first time is always the blaze -

and maybe that is what falling in love feels like -

the first man beholding the first illumination - so breathtaking that a force so perfectly destructive, so frighteningly absolute - could be struck by his own mortal hands -

isn’t it always -

just

so?

*

(and in all my years, i have never been awake to watch the sun come up so many, many times..)

i will grit my teeth and

cut me out of you

and you will

cut you out of me.

it used to be sad - 

now it’s all

boiled

blood.

sweet turned to

rot - burned away,

all bitter.

still i ask

why in god’s name

was i chosen to suffer

the slings and arrows

of your

outrageous

misfortune?

i guess - 

i guess it’s this.

right here, my

right 

to bear arms -

your arms i 

no longer have

to hold, my

words, the fire

in my arms

they stand,

ammunitions heavy

but my

heart still

outweighs..

i know

you wield your

words

so reckless

yet

seem to think you’re

the only one

getting hurt.

i am so 

damn tired

of getting hurt.

it’s just 

you and i now -

and the whites

of our eyes..

and it seems you’ve

never met a girl

who refused to

back down.

come at me,

i dare you -

let me show you

what a real weapon

looks like.

…

states away and you still

grind my life to

a screeching 

halt.

i’d better get out the

needle and thread

and sew my

big stupid mouth

shut.

yes, don’t 

wisecrack

the wisecracker -

some things you

just can’t joke about

apparently..

and it’s sad because

i know

we could be so much more

and it’s sad because

the hope for such a thing

seems

less and less likely.

are you angry because

i can do this

without you?

well

damn you because

it’s artificial

but damn me because

what’s real is

what you do to me -

this feeling

sometimes i wish 

so hard

i didn’t have, this -

this tyrant

among emotions

stamping 

into the earth,

hailstorms and

quakes and

sun-blotting waves and

i’m watching as

this vessel,

my compass,

our promise

are 

all swallowed whole

in this

whirlpool pit

opened up in

the center of my stomach -

pulling

on

every

thing -

goddamn

indeed,

did someone once

say

it’s nothing like love

to take the wind out 

of your sails

or was that

just me?

about my first literary event? i do this, always - i can go about, trying to coax my wild-eyes into level-headedness, trying to employ the buddhist practice i hold so close to my heart - non-attachment - but then, when things strike me, when things are too precious, i grasp, oh lord, i grasp. and i am grasping at last night and all the moments after - especially the end, those moments right before sleep - as strong as i can be, you take me to the most beautiful pieces and i just try to inhabit every moment, commit it all to memory.. (thank you i said, surprised and overwhelmed - thank you you said back, and somehow i felt we had gained something back…)

what will i remember? i was beside myself with happiness. perched in my corner, sometimes warm, sometimes chilly, nursing my glass of white wine. the full room making me excited and nervous for lack of space - the way the prompts worked out better than i ever imagined because i have insanely talented friends - the music that fit perfectly - the way i laughed so much and so hard at the performers - the lovely, GOOD energy in the room, even when i made the intermission too long or repeated myself at the beginning (speaking of which - i need to get better at “taking notes” from experiences of my own creation and staying positive - i remember after the NYC-wide shakespeare competition in high school when i didn’t win but got so many compliments and yet the only comment that stuck with me with a woman saying i was too brash, jammed in my head as i was trying to fall asleep, recounting the night’s events.. don’t be that girl who only remembers such things - gratitude, gratitude for lessons learned, because how else will you do so? - COMMAND the stage like you did when you read your own work, he says - take it all with humility and GRACE) - some had to leave, more stayed - but we still had the crowd at the end, waiting to see the outcome! - the way, at the start, i got to share some quotes and writing i love re: rumi, rilke, bukowski, and we toasted - to fire and life! i remember the glasses in the air - so beautiful. i remember my heart pounding out of my chest in the dead silence at the end of the night when i read the newest poem i wrote, knowing you were sitting in the back, hoping you could finally hear me.. my parents in the first row and my dad pretending to walk out when i (of course, OF COURSE) got the writing prompt that said “SEX”! gus: papa don’t preach! me: i’m in trouble deep.. shouting out fellow women with NADS! after carrie’s kiss-off poem.. shouting out ma who gave them to me.. “my dad is reaaallly loving this event right now” .. having them both there, having dom there.. the laughter in the room, the energetic warmth, the fire, feeling more (too?) comfortable as the night went on, head buzzing, smiling and marvelling, coming together, to do something new - people were so excited about something i curated, my wonderful, talented friends.. all the good wishes and hugs.. you killed it.. i learned a lot but even moreso the MEMORY will stay with me as much as i am trying to reconstruct it - truly, i am beside myself, too overjoyed, too loud, too filled with laughter - such a thing? - i don’t believe it - because this is always me, this is who i am - bursting from all corners of myself -

and god it felt so beautiful to stand there and see what i saw in my head come to life

i feel so blessed - that’s all you have to do - just go after what you believe in and let go out of the outcome. make something new. your life, your energy, your breath - makes it so.

keep creating, keep believing - the two are one and the same

XO

it is true that because of my doubts and anxieties i only believe in fire.

[…]

life. fire. being myself on fire i set others on fire.

never death. fire and life. 

–anaïs nin

you make the commitment, and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. dream the impossible dream, and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. this is the trick! this is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood, this is the shamanic dance in the waterfall, this is how magic is done: it’s done by hurling yourself into the abyss, and discovering that it’s a feather bed. –terence mckenna

AND DID I MENTION THAT MY FRIENDS ARE SO DAMN TALENTED???

god.

<3

idols go faceless..

i guess that’s how it should be.

they’re just like us

and only energy..

if the world was really ending i’d spend it here, i wrote with sharpie on torn-out moleskin page, stuffed in a broken-neck beer bottle on the cliff-shore of socrates park. my first real message in a bottle - of course it would be here, here where i climbed on sculptures as a child, ran through a triangle of planted christmas trees, jumped off a manmade mountain and felt my heart hit my boots, preened and posed like freddie mercury for a random guitarist, gave my number to a stranger who kept calling for awhile, saw nicole atkins sing with my boyfriend while getting teary-eyed about an ex, and had countless moments, season to season, just like this - carrying my questions to the riverside and letting them dissolve into the pure experience of simply being there.

happy end of the world - what would i be grateful for? still - all these memories.. the afternoon i spent with feet in grass, head racing, a few hours before i got fired.. the traipse through the snow on the phone with my nana, making me laugh after my next job, too, ended in flames. the moments being unemployed, or coming home after work, just needing to sit, to write - to pray for my father in the hospital, my lost kitten, my own uncertain future that always seemed clearer through the river’s lens.. the new year’s day i came out to write in the chill and the silence - hours after we made love for the first time. the connectivity of it all - i felt it then, i still do.. 

after the world ends

maybe someone will find my bottle

and feel that way,

too.

-ajd 12.21.12

church of christ
iglesia ni cristo
on the corner of 
21st street and 45th road
in long island city,
your red and green sign
affixed to the fence,
inviting:
“dear friends and neighbors
please come and join us
to hear the words of god.”
they are
in my mother’s
hands
and throat
the kindness
of strangers
my nana
in fiery sunset
clouds
the rainbow
after the rain
i don’t need
a building
to hear them -
they are in
my own footsteps
the candles
we light by
reaching out in
sacred inspiration,
universal brotherhood,
somehow knowing -
inherently -
the truths
of all things
yes, i will
join with you
in communion
for all things
greater
but while knowing
there is no book
no altar
no savior
no solace
like the divinity
in our own
human heart.
-ajd 12.21.12

sometimes i fear i will always be on the outside looking in. my cold hands pressed to your warm skin turned towards me, like a child pressing their nose to the glass, breath fogging the pane.. i am always waiting on the outside - content with the small releases of your heart.. content? rather, settling? because they are all i have. once, one year ago, we were madly, clumsily, unashamedly, agonizingly in love. now i am looking through and hoping to see you - not the same sad eyes in my own reflection, remembering how it felt to look into yours that night, the first night, and all the desperate ones after. the same questions keep coming up and up and up - it’s not just me, it’s not just me. yet still i cling to you and my insides start their same lone, sweet howl into the morning - why can’t you give me what i want? why can’t i just

stay?

21 years ago today.. the world lost one of its bravest and brightest spirits - the one and only FREDDIE MERCURY.

i have been captivated by the light of this spectacular being since i was 12 years old, and every year since then, my love and admiration for him has gotten stronger and more profound.

there are no words to describe the gratitude that overflows in my heart at the mere thought of him.. he is the reason why i stand today as the person i am.

it’s more than being a queen fan, a freddie fan.. it’s something in my blood, a bond unbreakable, a love like no other.

with everything i’ve got, my loveliest of darlings, i adore you wholeheartedly - today and always.

this is a video i made last year on the 20th anniversary of his passing when it fell right on thanksgiving.

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ XOXOXOX

so as you may or may not know, i self-published my first book of original poetry & prose this past may, on what would have been my beautiful nana’s 66th birthday. it’s called “DECISIONS WE MAKE WHILE WE DREAM” ♥ if you’re interested in getting a copy or have been meaning to get a copy, please please place an order now! this is the last printing i’m going to be doing for awhile since i’m starting work on my second book, “traversals.” i pay for every copy out of my pocket & ship them all myself, so every dollar goes to print more copies and will go to the printing of the next book. THANK YOU all endlessly for your support of one of my most cherished dreams. go here to order: http://audreydimola.com/getaudreysbook/ ♥ ♥

i can’t take how much this song speaks to me.

i’m still learning it.. but just love it so much.

first half ‘lover, you should’ve come over’

mad love to j. buckley

<3