Moonlit Maiden
BY MARISSA MOSES

     Beneath the clouds of soft and white
doth stand a maid in sparkling moonlight.
      Amidst the scent of lilac and pine
a glowing essence of silver doth shine.
      Tis life, tis love, tis all that is bliss
tis all of the sweetness that's wrapped in a kiss.
      Tis all of the goodness that makes life divine.
Tis all that is beauty, from her this doth shine.

To irimi = to "Choose Death"
Also, I reference a passage from Anne Bogart’s book A Director Prepares. 
Here is the full quote:

"I learned about the Japanese word irimi while studying Aikido, a Japanese martial art. Simply translated, irimi means, ‘to enter’ but it can also be translated ‘choose death’. When attacked, you always have two options: to enter, irimi, or to go around, ura. Both, when accomplished in the right manner, are creative. To enter or ‘to choose death’ means to enter fully with the acceptance, if necessary, of death. The only way to win is to risk everything and be fully willing to die."
(Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre, pgs. 49-50)

I have so much pent up frustration and anger towards so many things. I am realizing that my "negative" feelings of anger, fear, frustrations, etc. have always been brushed aside or pushed down. This is because, well, how I have believed I might feel wasn’t really important. At least admitting how I felt negatively wasn’t really important. Stereotypical thought patterning around “choosing love over hate” aside, how I really felt deep down and to the core didn’t actually reflect the fleeting feelings of negative emotions that swam their way through my brain and body. These negative feelings could not actually be real because I knew they were fleeting or thought they were unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

I am amazed to find how very often I push away negative emotions instead of letting them out. Only recently, in the past couple months to a year, have I been really attempting to voice all my feelings...at least fully to myself and those closest to me. I have a hard time with deciding when to irimi “choose death” and when to “go around”…can’t remember the word for that. I am reading Anne Bogart’s book right now and I am in the chapter about violence. It talks of the Japanese words for "choose death" and "go around" in regards to fighting within the martial arts system of Aikido. Both choices are important, and you must make a decision on which to use for different situations. If you go in to fight, irimi, you must fully accept that you are entering a choice for death. Only then can you fight fully and completely. This is how you must  behave; full acceptance of fate. I have a hard time “choosing death” these days. I don’t think I’ve always had such a hard time with it, but I feel that as the years have drifted by I have become more and more dependent on going around if possible. The funny thing is that I feel most comfortable, alive, and calm when I do “choose death” in situations. However, I feel like it is not right because in order to “choose death” you also “choose to kill.” This is where I have the problem.

The fear of my own “death” is actually something I feel very comfortable confronting, however, the fear of “killing” is something I retreat from. I think I retreat from this because I fear that when I really go in for the kill, when I do “choose death”, I am at peace. What does that say about me if I am most comfortable with the possibility life being taken? Perhaps I am too proud, too confident that I think the fates are stacked in my favor? Though really, I feel most uncomfortable choosing death in situations where I know I do have the advantage. I think this is where I have a hard time with Bertha. To choose death with Bertha makes me feel like I am choosing to strike down an ignorant, self-righteous bitch. That said, I feel like these feelings I have about her turn me into the same kind of ignorant, self-righteous bitch. It is so hard to respect her, and when I don’t have respect for someone I have a hard time respecting myself. I feel so many negative ways about Bertha and thinking them about her makes me think the same thing about myself. She is an unhealthy, unhappy person, and through knowing her I have become an increasingly unhealthy, unhappy person.

Why this is, is something that I am not sure of...I feel that her fear and insecurity lives greatly in me. I have been a very insecure person since I left my family foundation. It’s amazing how differently I handled social settings with new people after moving back from Canada. I must have been going through depression. It was hard for me to leave all the friends I had made. All the friends I really connected to in ways that I had only connected to with Gerty in the past. Gerty was my rock. She was someone I could depend on and look up to but was still my equal. She was someone with a heart of gold that seemed to know who she was. She loved writing, hearts, and teddy bears. Not because someone else loved those things but because they spoke to her. This was something I didn’t understand but respected so fully. I wanted to have the security and self-identity to know what I liked and own it. Owning what I like has not always been a strength of mine. I’ve always tried to like what others like. Often I will like what I actually like less when someone else doesn’t like it as well. The strength to live independently of people’s emotions and preferences is something I have trouble tapping into. I am so very swayed by what others are partial to. How do I find joy in something alone? Yet, I love being alone and find the most joy when I do have time to myself. I begin to remember what it is I truly enjoy. I don’t know why I can’t enjoy myself in this same way when others are around. Perhaps I feed off their energy and let it attach to my own? How does one exercise their energy field so that it gets stronger? For when I have tried to own what I like in the face of something/someone who I feel judges me for my taste(s), their response can deflate my confidence and ownership of self at the drop of a dime. I guess I feel the need to lie to myself so that I can lie to them and therefore "not cause trouble". But really this is where I think the trouble begins.

I feel trapped. I always feel trapped. I feel as if something is caging me in and pressing me down. I know that at its core all of this is something I either do to myself or allow to happen. I understand that we are the masters of our own life experience and reality, but I still have such a hard time with this. I don’t know where to turn to. I don’t know who to run to. I don’t think that there is anyone to run to but myself, and I don’t feel like I know who I am anymore. I know that who I truly am is always waiting inside of me, and that is beautiful...bladiblah, but knowing things and feeling them with belief and trust are two different realities. I don’t know how to reconcile on a daily basis. The thing is, I’m not sure if I want to know who I am - like really know who I am. I just know I feel certain ways about things that exist outside of myself. What is my aversion to self knowledge? Am I afraid to know who I am under stressful circumstances? That’s not true. I do know who I am under stressful circumstances. Am I frightened of knowing who I am in a working environment? Perhaps, because I really don’t care as much as this outside-force is making me care, or whatever/wherever this force is coming from. You see, I have this incessant drive to care and it is unrelenting. But the truth is I don’t really give a shit about work, not really, and that scares me. I don’t really want to win-at-life in the way I am desperate to win-at-life, and I know that doesn’t make any sense. I spent most of my life not really trying and having a great time. I was one of those people that things came easily to and I didn’t have to actually try in order to get by in life, in school, in art, etc. But then...I discovered what it was to try, and I found that I could really get into trying. How much more could I actually accomplish if I put hard work and dedication into the mix?! But the kicker is that the in-between place is what destroys me. The activity of getting by, of being a busy bee, this is something that is not friendly to me in my life. Being a worker bee feels like a waste of my time and energy, like I am missing out on something extraordinary...something I am meant for...

I am not good at having a ritual, which was actually my goal for this year. I want to find a sense of ritual and routine, a sense of freedom within the mundane. I believe the mundane can open metaphoric doors in my life because it provides structure to play within. Learn your jazz standard first and then play jazz. Learn ballet technique first and then forget it and release into dance. Learn what makes a cookie a cookie, and then stray from the recipe, and create your own fucking cookie! I have to develop my foundation. I have no foundation. I am swimming in an empty sea in the black of night with no shore nearby, and all I can think of is the giant yacht I understand how to build.

Mount Phaere
BY MARISSA MOSES

Sitting on the crown of Mount Phaere, legs full of ash and mud. 
I see his silhouette on the horizon; strong and stretched taught.
Sitting on the crown of Mount Phaere, stitching my fate in the seams of his shroud.
I envision myself immersed in the sea as I embroider.

...How I die of thirst. 

His song steels across the valley; 
vibrating on my lips as I inhale, 
echoing on my palate as I expire.

Vibrant and lost in my veil, he drifts on the breeze till he catches a twig. 
His breath builds behind my shroud like a wet balloon. 
Grains of fabric wrap round his neck…caressing the contour of cheek and chin as chiffon slips down the throat; 
embracing lips, caressing brow. 

A puddle of images slops between his ears and his eyes see only dark. 
He chokes with every breathe he takes. 
Worship me...
Oxygen travels through the weave of threads as he respires. 
Devotion...

Gasping; his hands dig in the soil, reaching for something wet. 
Through earthworms and weeds he deepens his grasp; 
particles of earth building under his nails till the skin breaks away. 
The taste of earth, a pool of sweat. 

He fondles the place where my breast used to be 
as the wind wraps fabric tight 'round his face. 
Connected to mud, connected to me, he stands as the mountain; 
shoulders exposed and glistening in the moonlight. 

I hum the song he used to sing 
in the days he had a voice. 

...He was sweet then. 

How I lost his mouth I can’t recall. 
Exposed... 
I’ll hum his tune till the wind reflects the trill of my tongue.

*The above poem was written for an high school English class. The project was to create a poem based off a single line found in a pre-existing work. I chose the line "One luminary clock against the sky" from Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" (posted below).