33. Cary & Beaumont, Richmond, Virginia

October 7, 2014

To a You,

Today I hold captive this tongue

notoriously quick to split and spit venom

because today in the silence of this battered brain

I heard a most reasonable voice

urging me

with sounds so soft and humble

to be thankful.

Be thankful that you feel this Anger

it said

because this means you are saved.

Turn it inside out in your mind

instead of hurling it against your Lover

or your Mother

or your Children.

Hold this Anger up like a map

that shows you where to find yourself-

where you've been

where you never want to go again

where your boundaries are

and give thanks.

These words were a foreign language

to this dumb child

and the stretch of silence before I spoke

was an unfamiliar region

but I stayed there

until through a cell of broken teeth

I heard my tongue move in thanks.

Your Friend,

A

32. Mary Angelo's, Carytown, Richmond, Virginia

October 7, 2014

To You,

The wind speaks to the water in my body,

commanding it to move swiftly-

to cells sleeping and raw with violence.

My eyelids shiver in revolt 

at the stuttering slideshow 

delivered by breath both sweet and cold.

With forced resuscitation

this swirling savior screams- "Breathe!"

The wind doesn't comprehend the language of refusal.

It doesn't hear the sound excuses make-

That disappointing thump of No.

It's a rough lover,

forcing me to feel all things.

Because to accept the shape and smell and taste of all things 

Is to know both how small and how mighty I am.

Your Friend,

A

31. 7-11 on Beaumont & Cary, Richmond, Virginia

October 7, 2014

To You,

I am a fortunate child
fostered from a forgotten heap
by thought-filled architects who
send one hundred whispered wisdoms
into the empty cups of my ears
disrupting dusty abstraction
long settled in the hot air of my head.
One hundred pillow fingered hands
tilt my chin into light
and ease open locked jaws
to taste the fresh fruit and air
that will rouse my stagnant cells.

Your Friend, 

A

30. Random Words

29. Garnett's Cafe, Park Avenue, Richmond, Virginia

September 2014

To You,

I am almost 35 and completely uncertain about who I am supposed to be. I feel like I've always been searching for myself, never sure footed in my path. Lately I find that I have been thinking about my biological father, who I never had the chance to meet but heard was an excellent man. When he was 34 my father was a successful salesman, providing well for his wife and two sons. However, he had what's been described as an epiphany, realizing that he didn't want to be salesman. What he really wanted was to be a teacher, specifically a teacher who worked with autistic children. He enrolled in a Master's program and became a special education teacher. Three years later he laid down on the sofa to take a nap, had a stroke, and died. Today, I examine my current state and consider how my dreams don't quite match up with my reality. I think about the honorable decision that my father made and I hope that I can be that brave. The one lesson that I my father left me with is that I would rather falter, fail, or die doing something that I want to, than falter, fail, or die doing something that I don't.

Your Friend,
A

28. Lucky's Bike Shop, Meadow Street & Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia

September 2014

To You:

My job is moving boxes.

I lift them.

I carry them. 

I stack them.

It requires no mental acuteness

just force and motion.

I am a workhorse.

Once this was a source of shame.

A downfall.

A disgrace.

A disappointment.

A failure not exclusively my own

passed with bread at the family table.

But I'm not a simple beast.

Untaxed by trade my mind is free.

It's a resourceful explorer

wandering like a wild creature

not a broken brute.

Your Friend,

A

27. Diversity Thrift, Richmond, Virginia

September 2014

To You,

There are 1,013,913 words
moving in a current between my ears.
When I close my eyes to see inside myself
they spill out from my mouth
and are ejected from my fingertips.

There are 1,013,913 words
but sometimes there are only 3
Love
Hate
Fear
and in those times those words
each grow inside me like a child.

There are 1,013,913 words
but sometimes there are only 2
You
I
and in those times those words
seem to be enough.

Your Friend,
A

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To You,


In the foreword of Brave New World Aldous Huxley writes:

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable
sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you
can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no
account brood over your wrong-doing. Rolling in the muck is not the best
way of getting clean.

As someone who has behaved badly, I felt great relief when I discovered this passage over two years ago. It was as though I had finally been given permission to stop pummeling myself, something any guilty person with a conscience would celebrate. However, I have found it surprisingly impossible to abide by Huxley's recommendation. I feel guilty for trying to cast off the guilt accrued for my collection of wrong-doing. It is as though there is an on-going debate between my past, present, and future selves. Past Self wields guilt in self-flagellation, arguing that my penance is my suffering. Future Self argues for change, suggesting that I can't be useful if I'm crippled by guilt. Present Self is humbled by confusion.

Your Friend,
A

26. Random Words

25. Colonial Avenue and Ellwood Avenue, Richmond, Virginia

August  2014

To You,

In the foreword of Brave New World Aldous Huxley writes:

Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable
sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you
can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no
account brood over your wrong-doing. Rolling in the muck is not the best
way of getting clean.

As someone who has behaved badly, I felt great relief when I discovered this passage over two years ago. It was as though I had finally been given permission to stop pummeling myself, something any guilty person with a conscience would celebrate. However, I have found it surprisingly impossible to abide by Huxley's recommendation. I feel guilty for trying to cast off the guilt accrued for my collection of wrong-doing. It is as though there is an on-going debate between my past, present, and future selves. Past Self wields guilt in self-flagellation, arguing that my penance is my suffering. Future Self argues for change, suggesting that I can't be useful if I'm crippled by guilt. Present Self is humbled by confusion.

Your Friend,
A

24. Bunnyhop Bike Shop, Oregon Hill, Richmond, Virginia

August 2014

To You,

I'm an alcoholic.
Like any true alcoholic
I accept no absolutes
outside of the bottled variety.
Nothing is true without adequate testing
including the truth that I'm an alcoholic.

Each leaf of truth cast down
by those much taller and sturdier than I
has been crushed into a palatable consistency
to put in my pipe and smoke.

I have ground great piles of wisdom
into a coarse collection of words:
God and Goodness
Motherhood and Moderation
Wife and Work
and burned them.

So long I've sat lost in hazy firelight
exhaling only smoke and hot air
that I've forgotten the shape of my body and
my mind can't assemble all of the real I've dismantled.

I've become an edge-less form
unable to outline myself.

I want to be a woman
with soft curves and a sweet mouth.
I want to be a woman
with pillow-tipped fingers.
But first I must be a human
that doesn't always bind myself
into the saddle of discomfort
and ride off in search of things to set ablaze.

This is a truth that I hold a match to
this night and every night
as I consider whether or not to fill my glass.

Your Friend,
A

23. WPA Bakery, East Marshall Street, Richmond, Virginia

August 2014

To You,

Fear has kept me here

shielded under bed sheet restraints

sweating out a twenty year hangover.

With fingers forced into the passages of my head

I've been saturated in self-absorption.

In soundless exile

this malnourished ghost

Me--your desperate friend

has finally stirred

hungry for sacred touch and

disoriented from former intoxication.

I need to hold your hand 

and be steadied

as I shed years of overplayed pain

and learn how to tame this wildlife inside me.

Then I can sit naked and still

and be your student

unabashed by my bony body and

my fragmented narrative.

Your Friend,

A

22. Alamo BBQ, Church Hill, Richmond, Virginia

August 2014

To You,

I've untied my animal mask
retracted my claws.
My coats been shed in clumps
irradiated with knowledge of self
no longer insulated by ignorance.
My animal self
dead-eyed and dormant
with all other extinct creatures.
The heat of thought
forced it from my flesh
stinking of sour sweat and
matted with evidence of violence.
I am naked in this newness
and awkwardly aware
swinging two left arms
attached to skill-less hands
not yet mature enough to grasp
not yet mature enough to hold without harm.

Your Friend,
A

21. Union Market, Church Hill, Richmond, Virginia

August 2014

To You,

I am almost 35 and completely uncertain about who I am supposed to be. I feel like I've always been searching for myself, never sure footed in my path. Lately I find that I have been thinking about my biological father, who I never had the chance to meet but heard was an excellent man. When he was 34 my father was a successful salesman, providing well for his wife and two sons. However, he had what's been described as an epiphany, realizing that he didn't want to be salesman. What he really wanted was to be a teacher, specifically a teacher who worked with autistic children. He enrolled in a Master's program and became a special education teacher. Three years later he laid down on the sofa to take a nap, had a stroke, and died. Today, I examine my current state and consider how my dreams don't quite match up with my reality. I think about the honorable decision that my father made and I hope that I can be that brave. The one lesson that I my father left me with is that I would rather falter, fail, or die doing something that I want to, than falter, fail, or die doing something that I don't.

Your Friend,

A

20. Abandoned GRTC Bus Depot, Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia

August 2014

To You,

I am bilingual

a cloud of language

a dense collection of words

certain to burst.

I speak in storms

ungovernable rain

falling in audible patterns

filling or flooding.

Some messages unspoken

observable in the shadows

cast by my folded arms

and the electric angles of my eyes.

What's seem and heard

frequently colliding

thunder and lightening

an imperfect storm.

Your Friend,

A

19. 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C.

August 2014

To You,

Fear has kept me here

shielded under bed sheet restraints

sweating out a twenty year hangover.

With fingers forced into the passages of my head

I've been saturated in self-absorption.

In soundless exile

this malnourished ghost

Me--your desperate friend

has finally stirred

hungry for sacred touch and

disoriented from former intoxication.

I need to hold your hand 

and be steadied

as I shed years of overplayed pain

and learn how to tame this wildlife inside me.

Then I can sit naked and still

and be your student

unabashed by my bony body and

my fragmented narrative.

Your Friend,

A

18. Fan Thrift, Main Street, Richmond, Virginia

                                                                                                                                       August 2014

To You,

I am almost 35 and completely uncertain about who I am supposed to be. I feel like I've always been searching for myself, never sure footed in my path. Lately I find that I have been thinking about my biological father, who I never had the chance to meet but heard was an excellent man. When he was 34 my father was a successful salesman, providing well for his wife and two sons. However, he had what's been described as an epiphany, realizing that he didn't want to be salesman. What he really wanted was to be a teacher, specifically a teacher who worked with autistic children. He enrolled in a Master's program and became a special education teacher. Three years later he laid down on the sofa to take a nap, had a stroke, and died. Today, I examine my current state and consider how my dreams don't quite match up with my reality. I think about the honorable decision that my father made and I hope that I can be that brave. The one lesson that I my father left me with is that I would rather falter, fail, or die doing something that I want to, than falter, fail, or die doing something that I don't. 

Your Friend,

A

17. Dixie Donuts, Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia

July 2014

To You,

I blame all things on this body,

an increasingly unfamiliar form

disguised by the paint of many wars,

paint effortfully applied to make it my home.

But it's not a place where I'm at ease.

It demands too much from me with its

always overreaching arms

flexed in false confidence

searching for something to embrace.

Fitful fistfuls of fingers

like a herd of unruly children

touching and teaching.

And these damn legs

that have forgotten how to bend in rest

and only know how to run.

This body is a dangerous collection of angles

through which faulty wires run live

triggering a symphony of false alarms.

And in this catastrophic noise and motion

I try to live and find some truth.

But I am just a voiceless passenger

who watches things disassemble 

from the ceaseless vibration of this body.

Your Friend,

A

16. Maymont Park, Richmond, Virginia

July 2014

To You,

I am bilingual

a cloud of language

a dense collection of words

certain to burst.

I speak in storms

ungovernable rain

falling in audible patterns

filling or flooding.

Some messages unspoken

observable in the shadows

cast by my folded arms

and the electric angles of my eyes.

What's seen and heard

frequently colliding

thunder and lightening

an imperfect storm.

Your Friend,
A

Interlude

I wanted to acknowledge that many of these initial posts have utilized the same pieces of writing. This repetition was intentional. In part, this was an effort to examine how people in different places react to the same piece of writing. There were also instances that I felt like the same piece of writing was well-suited for different environments.

That being said, I will be shifting into new writing in future flags. One of the primary objectives in this experiment is to propel me into frequent writing. It is my hope that by writing on a daily basis I can practice the articulation of my thoughts and purge whatever mental congestion lingers within. 

15. Virginia Commonwealth University English & History Offices, Franklin Street, Richmond, Virginia

July 2014

To You,

There are 1,013,913 words

moving in a current between my ears.

When I close my eyes to see inside myself

they spill out from my mouth

and are ejected from my fingertips.

There are 1,013,913 words

but sometimes there are only 3

Love

Hate

Fear

and in those times those words 

each grow inside me like a child.  

There are 1,013,913 words

but sometimes there are only 2

You

I

and in those times those words 

seem to be enough.

Your Friend,

A

14. Ellwood Thompson's Local Market, Richmond, Virginia

July 2014

To You,

Quiet acknowledgement of self

awareness interrupted 

by fevers of stimulation.

I'm riding this cosmic metronome

with unyielding momentum

to and fro between

where I should and shouldn't go.

The place in-between

a mystical middle

with proper allotments of all things.

It's glimpsed in passing

like that highway sign I miss

and huff, "God damn! I'm lost."

But even in fear propelled

to search for signs

as the metronome sounds

increasingly like typewriter chatter.

My story's being written

one letter at a time.

Your Friend,

A

13. Grace Street, Richmond, Virginia

To You:

This year has been an angry fumbling
in the dark
I have torn through pictures of you
muted Polaroid pictures
of our bodies postured.
With water in my mouth
I've shuffled and reshuffled
all the things you showed and said
and suffocated in the humid grief of silence.
My mind has been in tantrum
throwing thoughts like punches
into the wind from your departure.
Your swift flight into the openness startled me
as if you had died unexpectedly
in the birth of our creation.
I, this screaming infant
Wrestled from the womb of words
you spoke
of how each piece of me was yours
and that we were bound in this perfection.
I wrote you off.
Then I wrote you a letter
begging for you hands on me
and you came in hurried aegis
like a parent to a child in nightmare.
A return like a hushed lullaby.
I finally slept.
I finely slept.
And awoke with the taste of honey.
But daybreak brought stillness
and my awakening from a puerile dream.

From,
A

12. Belmont Public Library, Richmond, Virginia

July 2014

To You:

My job is moving boxes.

I lift them.

I carry them. 

I stack them.

It requires no mental acuteness

just force and motion.

I am a workhorse.

Once this was a source of shame.

A downfall.

A disgrace.

A disappointment.

A failure not exclusively my own

passed with bread at the family table.

But I'm not a simple beast.

Untaxed by trade my mind is free.

It's a resourceful explorer

wandering like a wild creature

not a broken brute.

Your Friend,

A

11. Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Virginia

July 2014

To You,

There are 1,013,913 words

moving in a current between my ears.

When I close my eyes to see inside myself

they spill out from my mouth

and are ejected from my fingertips.

There are 1,013,913 words

but sometimes there are only 3

Love

Hate

Fear

and in those times those words 

each grow inside me like a child.  

There are 1,013,913 words

but sometimes there are only 2

You

I

and in those times those words 

seem to be enough.

Your Friend,

A

10. Grayland Street Community Garden, Richmond, Virginia

18 July 2014

To You,

There are 1,013,913 words
moving in a current between my ears.
When I close my eyes to see inside myself
they spill out from my mouth
and are ejected from my fingertips.

There are 1,013,913 words
but sometimes there are only 3
Love
Hate
Fear
and in those times those words
each grow inside me like a child.

There are 1,013,913 words
but sometimes there are only 2
You
I
and in those times those words
seem to be enough.

Your Friend,
A

9. Cherry Street, Richmond, Virginia

July 2014

To You,

I'm an alcoholic.
Like any true alcoholic
I accept no absolutes
outside of the bottled variety.
Nothing is true without adequate testing
including the truth that I'm an alcoholic.

Each leaf of truth cast down
by those much taller and sturdier than I
has been crushed into a palatable consistency
to put in my pipe and smoke.

I have ground great piles of wisdom
into a coarse collection of words:
God and Goodness
Motherhood and Moderation
Wife and Work
and burned them.

So long I've sat lost in hazy firelight
exhaling only smoke and hot air
that I've forgotten the shape of my body and
my mind can't assemble all of the real I've dismantled.

I've become an edge-less form
unable to outline myself.

I want to be a woman
with soft curves and a sweet mouth.
I want to be a woman
with pillow-tipped fingers.
But first I must be a human
that doesn't always bind myself
into the saddle of discomfort
and ride off in search of things to set ablaze.

This is a truth that I hold a match to
this night and every night
as I consider whether or not to fill my glass.

Your Friend,
A

8. Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, Virginia

18 July 2014

To You,

There are 1,013,913 words

moving in a current between my ears.

When I close my eyes to see inside myself

they spill out from my mouth

and are ejected from my fingertips.

There are 1,013,913 words

but sometimes there are only 3

Love

Hate

Fear

and in those times those words 

each grow inside me like a child.  

There are 1,013,913 words

but sometimes there are only 2

You

I

and in those times those words 

seem to be enough.

Your Friend,

A

7. 47 1/2th Street & Atlantic Avenue, Virginia Beach, Virginia

July 2014

To You,

Quiet acknowledgement of self

awareness interrupted 

by fevers of stimulation.

I'm riding this cosmic metronome

with unyielding momentum

to and fro between

where I should and shouldn't go.

The place in-between

a mystical middle

with proper allotments of all things.

It's glimpsed in passing

like that highway sign I miss

and huff, "God damn! I'm lost."

But even in fear propelled

to search for signs

as the metronome sounds

increasingly like typewriter chatter.

My story's being written

one letter at a time.

Your Friend,

A

6. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia

5 July 2014

To You:

Art is heightened humanism.

The uncommon communion of the brain's many corners.

This stimulated muscle unfurling

a woven wonder if harmonious thought.

Stripped like lovers

tangents of the mind unite.

Your Friend,

A

5. Fountain Lake, Richmond, VIrginia

9 July 2014

To You:

My job is moving boxes.
I lift them.
I carry them.
I stack them.
It requires no mental acuteness
just force and motion.

I am a workhorse.

Once this was a source of shame.
A downfall.
A disgrace.
A disappointment.
A failure not exclusively my own
passed with bread at the family table.

But I'm not a simple beast.

Untaxed by trade my mind is free.
It's a resourceful explorer
wandering like a wild creature
not a broken brute.

This flag is a wish to communicate with anyone it reaches. It's an invitation for you to share your thoughts about this place or this letter or anything really...

Your Friend,
A