sweet sundancer.

your laughter dances as a flame before my eyes, laced in easy confidence. dance for me, dance for me, the command comes in a melody i did not know you had in you. my lips part for the sake of refusal but your ears have swallowed themselves and hidden in your hair. do not listen and you will hear no disappointments, shouts the cynic that lives behind your eyes. again you say dance, so i do. and i dance until i'm skipping and i skip until i'm jogging and i jog until i'm running and i run as far away from you as i can, swept up by the wind and pretending that if i just extend my arms i could fly. but there is your laughter, following me as a smoke cloud that will always fill my lungs.

fallen snow angels.

a stranded bird who has no wing - a music box that can not sing. your heart is a landing strip and i make no apologies for recklessness. been so long since i have slept, care to have a seat and loan me your dreams?

i'll be buried in energy drink cans and shopping bags, tapping away to the ticking of a clock that's reminding me i do not sleep enough and scraping along the empty plates that i should have filled with nutrition. my heart will explode with caffeine and cynicism; you taste tart. why so bitter?, the beatles will complain.

i see your shadow in my nightmares.

staggering through allies as though intoxicated by the surrounding air and the intensity of the temperature. a shadow. an outline. the manisfestation of your presence in my life becoming a ghost; a piece of the past and bitter portion of self history. and i call to it, reaching outward to touch you with my fingertips and feel for a moment that you are real despite your shades of black and white and lifelessness. you turn, looking to me with eyes i'm sure no one else could see, and disappear. with out reason, with out cause, and with a look that says it's not what you want but it's all you know how to do - you disappear and i am alone in the ally. the intensely cold ally with intoxicating air.

i am with out voice; sound. i am with out color; life. i am with out breath and creativity and power and the ability to wake as a human rather than a robot with a schedule. i am a space holder, waiting for someone who would know better what to do with this potential i do not wish to utilize. a thrown away apple core; a ditch you avoid on walks and aimless drives. i am the broken swing children see no use for and the pebble that you threw with no direction. i am a rut. i am a rut. i am a rut. i am a broken record. i am going no where. i am going no where as fast as i've ever seen anyone go. i have no brakes. i have no way to stop this.

farewell fair weather (friends).

break every bone in my body, i do not care to move from here unless it's a forever kind of gone.

callused hands.

play the role of my alarm clock, wake me up and sew my eyelids shut - i'm sick of the downpour that comes with heaving shoulders and a sunken chest. my eyes are hollowed in shades of gray and my exhaustion feels comfortable; it's the warmth in this room that seems so foreign.

you are so far.
you are so far.
whendidyoumakeitsofaraway?

i'd pay to be bundled and thrown in to the ocean. this is what i get for falling in love with a dreamer; an optimist.

fever dream (let me out).

A body on the pavement. Everything he could have been is outlined in chalk, multicolors for the multidimensional failure; the brightest he's ever looked is glorified in the loss of control over bowel movements and the emptying of blood from his facial pigmentation. Tears fall down the face of a woman that waited too long to be a mother, and another who took too long to set him loose when she fell out of love. Being constrained by the hopes of what other people had for him was the focal point of his life, providing a place to pinpoint his troubles when he lost sight of a language that had always failed him - his own opinion. The air was crisp and leaves were every color that he'd hated the most, and it seemed almost fitting to the few that had taken the time to know him that he died after listening to a symphony of his own regrets; beating himself up in the open street until a car could come along and help. It seemed fitting, of course, that he'd hate everything about the people and weather surrounding his death.

Despite the autumn state of mind, not a single leaf fell for him. There were no beautiful sounds from birds in mourning, nor baskets of materialistic condolences on his family's front porch in the coming week. Life went on as usual, and people moved on as expected. His name was soon nothing more than a whisper in the wind, straying across the cheeks of almost loved ones when he wanted to check on them. As always, he was still easier brushed aside than dealt with or acknowledged. A body on the pavement.

sick of writing letters to a boy who burnt his mailbox.

Tracing the bottom of an empty glass with her finger, she wondered where along the line she lost her taste for schnapps and acquired a craving for Pomegranate Lemonade. It couldn't have been the overwhelming sweetness or the fact that her teeth literally ached after downing a glass, but perhaps the fact that twitching from the taste allowed her some kind of escape from feeling numb and looking lost. Tilting her head to look at her reflection in the countertop, she wondered where she lost her knack for conversation and mastered the art of analyzing her thoughts in the form of self-conversing. It was the worst possible dialogue, when the audience was an empty bar stool.

furrowing my brow, i trace my fingertips along the banister of a stairwell that should have long since rotted due to the lack of proper care. i have to talk myself out of comparing it to my heart and shake the weary thoughts of what's so different? as i take my seat at the bottom step. i pretend that i'm waiting for someone. when it no longer seems fun, i pretend that someone is waiting for me. my elbows lean on my knees and i tuck my chin in to my palm, noting that i pretend an awful lot of things and wondering which are realistic and which are fantasies i am not suited to experience. and i wonder who is, and what makes them so. the story of my life is merely a reel in my mind that i will never live out, and wouldn't know how to handle if i could.

waiting up for already casted shadows.

17 years down the drain and all i've learned are the do's and don'ts of what may or may not work if you play the hand you're unfairly dealt right. right from wrong are etched in to my mind from being scrawled across chalkboards and all i've found that i'm good at are the gray areas left for perception by passerby. i'd like to be a passerby who gets to walk away from this when the clock strikes midnight. i'd like to be a lot of things but this chalkline on a sidewalk certainly isn't one of them.

i'm the postergirl for disappointment.

tonight is a brand new shade of blue, and i am terrified by how inward i can tremble. i'd bet everything i've ever had that i'm what broken looks like.

my mirror's singing "goodbye" but my heart's screaming that those don't exist.

an empty glass, an empty heart, an empty mind. oh, how did we get here and from where have we come? i feel so teathered but hope smells fresh; this path has forked at the worst possible place. i hope you feel brave for having made it so far away, because i feel nothing at all.

no use crying (over spilt guts).

took a look in the mirror and asked for my best shot; looked my worst and felt about the same. asked the image on the wall for a little bit of insight, and got: "you're nothing more than dialogue and i'm done reading between the lines."

so tell me how it feels to get sick of yourself, 'cause i'm done cashing in on all the credit you give me.

the red carpet went up in green flames today.

there's a puddle on the floor and i should clean it up before someone slips.
but there's something about the mess that helps me sleep through the night.

out of sight, out of mind, out of body.

i'm the book on the shelf with dust between the pages, wishing you'd open me up instead of blow me off. i'm the papercut that wakes you up when you've fallen in to dreamland instead of taking notes, and i'm the dream you had when you were five that's causing you to check your closet twice a night before you can shut your eyes.

i'm nothing more than what others consider bad news, and i let them think it because it's easier than showing them otherwise. dreams and hopes fill my mind on a daily basis, and i keep them to myself, stuck between the lines of a song you never really wanted to listen to.

I chew on tin foil to remember your voice.

She's sold her body to buy a ticket out and now that she's got a way, she realizes she's got nowhere to go. There's pictures on the wall covering the holes that she never wants to see again, and she wonders if her life will always consist of smaller mistakes that she uses to hide the bigger ones. There's not much to do for herself these days, so she chooses to do for the rest of the world; kicking holes in her head while digging them for wellwater in a faraway country.

I read once about a woman whose secret fantasy was to have an affair with an artist.

Tilting her neck to the side, her eyes followed the movements of a boy covered in paint and dirtied by charcoal. She wondered who he thought about as his brush hit the canvas and even more when the canvas hit the trash. Writing, she thought, is much the same. And she wondered why things that people were so passionate about couldn't come out more naturally. Words, she thought, aren't my problem. It's the presentation of such. And much the same, love is more easily felt than conveyed when we're left to our own devices and time to think.

Outside, a bird ran in to a powerline. It's song had never been so lovely than at the last of chords, and she had never been more sure of home than when she'd stepped outside to see an artist, disappointed in his own creation (heart.)

warforme.

Woven through your fingertips is the very heart you stole from me, and buried between your lips is the breath that I gave so happily to fill your lungs - with which you sing to me so softly. My ears are warm from whispers shared too long ago, and my nerves are shot from the lack of your fingertips sliding along my spine and forcing them to wake.

This night feels like traintracks as bedsheets and losing sight at the first of dawn. As though it could go on forever, these dreams die in my shadow and wake in the sadness of your voice, and I am left to wonder about these steps that we've taken. So seemingly hard, and yet I rest assured that the end of this pathe will come in the form of brownandgreen and eskimo kisses.

song of songs 6:3

My heart's a waiting room, a brokeninto tomb, a rock that doesn't roll and yet still attracts no moss. My faith's a rusted fence, a cityskyline with no room for stars nor patience for questions. And my body's a dying breed, breathing only for the sake of, "I know no other way." These thoughts are aging athletes and time is setting the score, ruining habits with state lines and verses I'd tried to ignore. All that's left to do is sing myself to sleep, but the chords inside of me are breaking at their own performance.

The worst mistakes are those you reap yet hadn't sewn.

Good morning lossofsleep and linesblurredbytears, pardon the neglect but I almost thought I'd escaped your wake. Isn't it funny how we never really reach the shore until we find purpose in the travel? Just like merchandise won't sell until the morning before you realize it's worth. Well, hello tiresome, you've knocked on my door (eyelids) just in time for me to think there's a dream worth having. I saw a dry day just in time to implode on regrets and revelations.

I bought a pack of camels but I never really smoke.

The spots on the wood match the bruises on my legs and I'm not sure if I like this ache because it means success or because it means I can still feel something at all. The softest melody I've heard in a year comes from a guitar player on stage who's singing about how he misses Colorado winters and the presence of God in the form of snowflakes. What brings a man in love with 40below to Georgia in July? I wonder if he lays awake at night, trying to find the scent of Denver woven in the plaster dots on his ceiling. I pray to God that I've never been Georgia to my brownandgreen Colorado winter.

well look at me, still thinking of myself.

An undressed four year old looked me in the eye and told me that he hated himself. Part of me hated the way that it was a thousand times more genuine than a politican has ever spat in my direction and part of me quivered at the way that his broken heart hadn't even been given a chance. Mine, mine, mine was the only word he could speak confidently and his knuckles were the only ball he'd ever managed to toss with the assurance that it would be caught.

Four hours away from my own home was a rundown trailer surrounded by woods and filled by a group of people who had no idea what the next morning would bring. My heart broke and my throat twisted and I almost lost my lunch: from the stench of poor living conditions and the lack of life. Good luck, four year old; good luck in the world that's looking to break your already tangled heart.

conversations with the wind.

It's in between the lines of a broken record and at the bottom of the lake in a drought. It's at the peak of the mountain that you'd never climb and it's the crack in the window you've been meaning to fix. It's exactly what you need, but you'll never set your sights on. It's what you're reaching for, fighting for, it's the hit or miss that you keep losing with and it's the sound of a bird when you don't want to be awake.

What's right is almost always what's hard. It's always worth it, but no one sucks it up anyway.

when the word that once meant "nothing," begins to mean "paradise," you can safely say the world's gone mad.

Nineteen hundred miles and two weeks and four cartons of cigarettes and forty five cups coffee and sixteen gas station trips had brought him back to the one roof that he'd never slept right under. He sat on the bed, what was their bed. He walked to the dresser, which still held the clothes that he hadn't been able to put in a suitcase. He looked at the picture frames that were now empty and the fridge that had always been empty and saw which lamps had been replaced and which windows were cracked and if the kid's rooms had changed. He sat the counter and waited for the crack of the door and the footsteps of a woman he'd never given a chance to. Ignoring the surprised look in her eyes, he stood and closed the space between them, touching her forearm to ensure that she was real before clearing his throat and speaking.

"I spent my whole life trying to get close to you, and once you let me in I realized that I'd only cared so much because it seemed unattainable. I knew nothing about you except that you liked watching birds and traffic and anything but me watching you. Once you finally looked my way, I realized that we had nothing in common and didn't really want to get close enough, but it seemed too late. We got wrapped up in expectations and you wouldn't just let me push you away. Anytime I ever wantd you to go right, I steered you left. I set you up for disappointment so I could set myself up for leaving and set us both up for ache. I thought if I set the kids up for college that the rest of those things I lined up so flawfully wouldn't quite matter, but I realize that they do. You don't have to respond to any of this, I just wanted to apologize."

Despite the way that he'd prepared himself, his heart cracked when she had nothing to say. Looking him up and down, she tilted her head to look away from him and stepped around him, walking to her kitchen. She set her sights on tile and wallpaper and anything but him, just as it had been and as it would be from now on. She didn't even need the first time, but she wouldn't let herself be fooled twice. He stepped out, closed the door, and headed to his car while he tried to figure out what exactly he'd actually expected from the trip.

heaven's not a place you go when you die. it's the moment you touch him and finally feel alive.

smile for me, sunshine, and cast your worries aside. you're my silver lining and i'm the streetlamp lighting the way. there's something better on the other side, so keep your perfect chin upward and head towards my arms.

i'd walk on broken glass to get to you.

the fairy godmother had to perform another abortion today.

i'm the broken pieces on the pavement in your way, and i'm the wind that blows them along the sidewalk and makes it impossible for you to sweep me out of sight. i'm the underdog with no cheering section. i'm the joke with no punchline, yet you hear it all the time.

there's too much attention in being broken and that's not what i've aimed for. i'd rather be out of sight; out of mind; out of the way.

well darling, you've got me in stitches.

It seemed as though the gravel had become his home, covering his feet and weighing him down. He was convinced that he would no longer move from this spot, staring in to a home that had never been the bearer of his heart. The silhouette of his father moved slowly across the curtains, and the light turned on in such a swift motion that he knew it was his mother, always concerned for the eyesight of his father when he tried to read in the dark. He imagined their gentle banter and the way that the house would feel quiet despite conversation, and he found a part of himself stepping forward and yet no part of him moved. Was it his mind, urging him to rebuild previously severed ties? He thought of the way that their quiet conversation had turned so hostile when they were displeased with his own input. The way that their voices iced over and their eyes became a glaze of nothing more than forced dreams from one generation to the next. He'd chosen love and they'd labeled it lust, demanding that his bank account carry more weight than he was allowing. He thought of the way that their fireplace was always going and how the crackle was supposed to sound like home and growing up, but all he felt was a cold chill when he heard the rocks beneath him. Movement, finally. He allowed his feet to lead by the pull of his heart, and ten minutes later placed him down the block and away from the roof that had nothing but shield him from all that he'd wanted. He'd chosen love, and he wasn't willing to accept the labels that anyone else could place upon it. Perhaps he was young and far too hopeful, but something about the way that a December night could feel so warm gave him the impression that he was doing something right.

whatever happens from here, know i'll always go to bed with hopeful thoughts for your journey home.

Lost in the brownish tint of beer bottles and the chorus of drunken peers, she stepped over the bodies and made her way out the door and down the steps and in to the streets. Hugging her arms close, she travelled along the road and watched her shadows grow and fall in the different street lights. She felt like she was running and coming in the exact same step, just as she felt like multiple people in the light of something ten feet above her and guiding her step.

It wasn't until she reached the bridge that she realized the weight of the situation. It was the summer, and it was supposed to be the most important summer of her life. "Freedom and forever and the possibility of love and something better." Wasn't that what her best friends had always promised each other for this summer? Not quite sure, but she figured that her old yearbooks would confirm. I can't believe I'm validating myself in lines on a page that weren't ever quite thought through. She thought to herself, before realizing that she wasn't quite okay with the thought of not mattering, and chose to validate herself in things that didn't mean shit instead.

Leaning over the bridge, she allowed wind to whip around her face and remind her that she was cold. That she was lonely. Cold and lonely and standing above water where fish were getting more action than her that night. More laughter, more affection, more worthwhile conversation. She'd spent the night speaking to wallpaper and laughing along with slurs she didn't understand. She'd spent the night walking to a bridge, talking to pebbles, and trying to make up for the lost conversation that the fish weren't having to go through.

With a heavy sigh, she turned around. Swallowed up her pride and her past and the lack of forever in her life; lack of freedom and validation. She swallowed up every expectation and hope that she'd had for herself and this summer, and chose instead to walk back. Instead, she took a step and found herself in the grasp of something tall and strong. Glancing up, her eyes fell on brownandorange, perfect eyes with a face covered by the street light. She'd never spoken to him, and when he stepped back to let her pass, she realized that she may never again. But he was watching her, and he was interested. She would walk home that night and he would stay on that bridge, but he would hope to God that she'd gotten home safe.

And for that summer, that was enough.

"sorry, kiddo, but you're going to have to answer that one on your own."

"let's say the same thing at the same time." what was originally supposed to be the inward thought of a cynic on their third strike came out, instead, in a muffled admission.
"you can't plan that sort of thing." was the only retort given by foresight.

cast your hopes to heaven in the form of prayer and wishful thinking. it's the only thing to do besides watch the clock and hope that luck's working in the name of God for miracles or something like them.

"let's run in to one another's arm at the end of a winter spent alone and with out heat (love)."
"you can't plan that sort of thing." casting your wishes doesn't promise you a damn thing.
"what am i allowed to plan, then?"
"which part of the yard you're going to bury your pride when your heart's shoved back in your face by someone who didn't deserve it in the first place."
"there's no hope to cast away, is there?"

when it's time to go, it's time to go; these hearts were made for beating, not breaking by day.

"alright, i'll bite. what's your game and how exactly have i been losing?" his words came out harsher than he really intended them to, but at this point he knew that she was long gone anyway.
she shook her head, managing to entice and frustrate him in the same moment. "all it will do is hurt you." was all that she could give him.
"hurt me." he said after only a beat. "you know i'll forgive you by morning anyway."
staring at him, she felt her heart swell with appreciation and then deflate with realism. "you're a fucking disappointment."
"well cast away, princess. you've always been what i've always wanted."

she should've held him closer or begged for forgiveness, but the next thing that she knew, his left cheek was flushed and it wasn't from blushing. she felt the sting in her palm, and the ache in her heart. a moment later, she felt a wave of emotion wash over her as his eyes registered with forgiveness. she turned on her heel and walked away, doing what he should've done for himself long before.

running through the streets like we're heading out of style.

we throw rocks at windows we do not wish to break, and cry over broken pieces we do not plan to mend. we spin in circles, searching for an answer to a question we never asked but demanded results from. we inquire about things that do not change, yet remain ignorant to things begging for reform. we step out of the way of flowing disappointment and allow the waves to crash over others, yet push constantly against walls of integrity and positivity. we color outside of the lines and wonder where our silver sign of brighter days has gone. we have umbrella's for sunny days and dance through rainfall.

my father always said that the world is heading to hell in a hand basket, but i always thought it was simply off it's axis. see, the blood is rushing to our heads. we're not thinking clearly, and all we need is for the clouds to clear and give us a moment's peace.

a moment's peace, and this could all be fixed. but humans are humans, and we strike the faces that always turn back to our needs.

let's pretend it's earth day and we're cleaning up your act.

"Love me if you dare, but I've got no heart to give in return." It was at first a challenge, and then slowly became an epiphany. He stared down at the ice beneath his skates, and he wanted them to crack. He wanted to sink in to the water and freeze over in the way that her ability to care for other human beings had been hardened. Lifeless seemed to be in style, but he couldn't shake the blood from his veins. He was still breathing and hoping and he'd be damned if his heart wasn't beating a thousand times a minute out of all the love that he had to give. The ice wasn't going to crack, of this he was sure. So instead, he allowed his heart to. Swallowing down everything he'd allowed himself to feel, he shook his head. "You had me at dare, Sweetheart. I was always one for truth." He packed up his bags and his stomach and his expectations; hit the road and hit himself for ever thinking things would work out for him.

Let's lose the manual and put it together anyway. Let's take shots in the dark and to the heart.

I'd like to be twirling around in my kitchen at midnight, in a frenzy of flying flour and toppled eggs. I'd like to throw it all together on the walls instead of a bowl and watch the room become the oven. There's a thousand things that I'd like to do; all scream chaos and poorly done indie films. But at the end of the day, they all scream laughter and breathin' easy.

What's the point of livin' easy if all you've ever done is follow instructions?

I'm the crack in the window that reminds you not to play too hard indoors, watching you in your bed and keeping count of the notches you won't recall.

She's sitting at the counter and she's dragging out the last of her twelfth cigarette that evening. He approaches, trying not to even consider how many she's had through out the extent of the day. He sits down and extends a hand, asking what she's doing in such a crummy place. She says she's trying to get lost and thinks that she wishes he would do the same. He cocks his head to the side and glances at her shaking hands, smirking at her coffee as she gets her fourth refill and suggesting that perhaps there's better ways of relaxing. She rolls her eyes, says she knows his game. Now he's interested, and he asks what it is. She says he's nothing but a skipping heart or bitterandbroken, and watches as his shoulders sag when she continues on to state that she's not in the business of butterflies any longer, and has zero method of making him feel better than he did when he woke up that morning to the cold pillow next to him. He warns her about assumptions and she warns him about talking to strangers. He says he always was a rebel and she said it's a pity, because his eyes were an awful lovely shade of blue when he finally looked a little scared. Fears for the weak, he mocks her statement out of resentment at her wit. Rolling her eyes yet again, she says that it's time to roll out and that she hopes his evening goes well. He asks what she'll do for the rest of it, and she begins to unwrap a brand new pack of cigarettes, shrugging her shoulders despite knowing the answer. Her night will be spent sitting within her window seal, and she will watch geometrical flights of birds pass her by as she continues to chug back the coffee, wondering whether a heart attack or cancer will reach her first, and wondering when, and wondering what happened to the little girl that used to claim she'd fly home every winter because spring would be spent exploring. She'd lost her appetite for exploring right around the time that she'd lost her appetite for regular diets, but she didn't lose hope and certainty that the world was still as beautiful as the catalogs tucked beneath her bed.

Loved and lost or loved and feared or loved and worked through it all?

Freckledfaced boy moved from the big city, and he said that nature was the most intimidating thing that he'd ever had to experience. When he finally got his license, he couldn't help but swerve so that he could hit the birds that didn't fly away too soon. He said that he always lost a part of his heart when he heard the crunch, but he couldn't deny the fact that controlling such an infinite kind of end to something gave him a feeling of power that he'd lost in the move. Sometimes people tell him that respect through fear isn't respect worth having, but he throws their bibles in their face and tells them to readminister their faith instead. They tell him that it's about loving, not fearing. He scoffs that love with fear is no kind of true love, and a romantic from the crowd screams that if you're not scared of losing the person that you love then you're a joke to anyone that's ever been in love. Freckledface has been laughing for the past ten years, and cobwebs are growing on his heart. There would be woven webs of bitter goodbyes, but no one ever got close enough to carve any sort of impact. Freckledface drives around, running over birds that don't fly away soon enough. He used to do it for power, but now he says that he's putting them out of their misery.

our hearts race too fast for our schedules to match, but i'm yours every step of the way.

there's this special kind of silent that you can only find on a sunday morning when you're sharing a bed with the love of your life. it's the faint light on the carpet because the curtain's blocking the sun and the outline of their spine when they're checking the clock. it's the way that you hear birds chirping and you hear them let out a grunt of groggyness and you hear a door in the distance close and you hear the sound of your bodies moving around in the bed, but you hear absolutely nothing. nothing but their heartbeat, marching in time with yours and escalating when your eyes meet. nothing but their eyelashes batting as they blink. nothing but the perfect sound of their silent breath somehow meeting your eyes, just because you're attached enough to every moment. nothing. but it's everything. it's everything.

silence is absolutely unnerving.
unless it's sunday morning and you're sharing a bed with the love of your life.
and then silence is everything.
it's the most prominent sound in the whole world, and i'm in love with that kind of silence.
perfect, unattainable, and yet reasonable.

my (least) favorite scene in titanic is the one where the woman tucks her kids in to bed while the boat sinks and reads them a bedtime story.

there's this guy who lives three blocks down and remodeled his house for all the cats that he owns. he claims to know what they want. and when you ask him why he'd do all of that for cats, he says it's because he's always been in it for the underdogs. and when you ask him why he'd root for the loser before the game has even started, he says it's because they're the only ones worth getting behind. and it makes me think of all the people sitting in leather chairs in the top floor of their office building in the biggest cities in the world, and where they started out. and i wonder if they were underdogs that were worth getting behind, or if daddy bought their way. and i wonder who they slept with to get there or who they slept with for love and those that haven't even had a legpopping kind of kiss yet. i wonder who's smart enough to get what they want, and who's manipulative enough, and who has the right kind of connections, and how we differientate from the two.

sometimes i wonder if being on top could ever be worth it, when all the ones with souls are only getting behind the underdogs. maybe bottomandout is the only way to live and the only way to appreciate, because guys like the man who lives three doors down and that you'll never speak to will be rooting for you from the sidelines.

i feel bad for people who don't possess any sort of competitive spirit or willingness to scrape, because i'm not sure that i believe in success based merely on good deeds anymore. no matter what happens, though, i think the guy who remodeled his house for his cats is the only one of us that's ever really felt like number one. and in a way that no one can take from him. what's it like to win something that can't ever be taken? a title that's a way of life and not a stepping stone to something bigger? a success that utilizes your full potential for both loving and producing?

two can win at this game.

alright, so there's this three year old who ate a little too much sugar at school today. his hands were shaking through out the day, but he chose to marvel instead of inquire. by two his mother was done with work and had picked him from the daycare, and by two fifteen he had managed to finish telling her everything he'd found conversationworthy about his day. when he went inside, he kissed her hand and ran to his room, shutting the door and pulling out his coloring books. he hopped on the bed and tried to reach for the tallest shelf to grab his favorite crayola box, the 200 box. his fingers swiped it but couldn't seem to hold a grip, and the box came tumbling down. the colors spilled out, and the three year old's hands went flying to his mouth. he jumped off of his bed and tried to pick them up off of his carpet, wondering how to explain the tiny dots that had accumulated in some places. he worked through the pinks because he knew that the box was color coordinated, and by the time he'd reached the grey's he knew that the scale was almost over. he was almost done. he looked at the few crayons left, they were all shades that led to the charcoal black he'd already placed in the furthest right corner of the back row of the box. the three year old glanced at the other colors and ran his eyes along them, scanning the difference between pink and red. violet and indigo. slate and sand. he wondered if other people saw the colors in the same way that he did, and he glanced up at the colored piece of paper that was hanging above his bed. he'd done it at pre school a few weeks ago, and had colored one shade of green on to a different shaded green piece of paper. he couldn't quite make out the drawing, just the change in color. somuchgreen, he thought. somuchgreen and such a waste of beauty. imagine all the blues i could've used. and the three year old apologized to the blues. to the greys. to the oranges and yellows and random shades between brown and dark blues and light blacks that people could sometime confuse with one another. he apologized for not taking them seriously enough. he wondered again if people ever saw the colors the same that he did. if his slate was someone else's slate and if there was more than just a label on a crayon. "what if my slate is my dad's purple but this crayon's simply named slate so that either of us who look at it can know?" he wondered what it would like to be color blind. he wondered how anyone ever managed to pick a favorite color.

he finished picking up the box and went downstairs to apologize to his mother for the tiny spots on his carpet. she kissed his forehead and took his hand, but he politely slipped it away from her grasp. "i'm sorry, mom. but i've got to go outside. i've got a lot of apologizing to a lot of awful pretty things to do. do you know how often pretty things are looked over? i'm awful awful sorry."


yeah, do you know how often pretty things are looked over? not new haircuts or lowcut outfits or vehicles or anything else that man has created. not even man itself. do you how often truly beautiful things are looked over? go outside and watch a butterfly land on a rock. does the rock scare it away? no. they are completely seperate and unproductive to one another, and yet they manage to get along. we share entire beliefs and personal philosophies and yet find ways to kill one another. a butterfly can sit on a rock, but we can't even sit next to each other on a bus.

"ps. officer, go home and love your family."

the best writing ever done is with an underlying sense of throwing in the towel. admit it, you love me more when you love me from afar and when you remember how things used to be. but all things grande shall lose their tune; these keys aren't as catchy as they once were.


i'll admit it. i love you more when i love you from afar and with an underlying sense how things used to be. throwing in the towel has never seemed so catchy.

I used to think that coloring inside of the lines was what growing up was all about.

Can you imagine how it feels to still have relentlessly shaking hands? Feel like I planned a thousand things that fell apart at seams I hadn't fully sewn. Thinking a thousand things a second and nothing's seeming productive. Full plate, empty stomach, counterprogressive.

Putting everything on your shoulders and wishing we could dig our way out of loneliness. Know it won't happen 'til you're next to me all the time. Apologizing in my head and unable to form the words. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

The funny part of life is that traveller's know more about home than anyone else.

Backpack your plans across Europe. Call me when you figure out that you're only a hasbeen who never was. I'd be happy to sing you to something like sleep. And when you lose sight of everything you ever wanted, you can drop your prayer book off in Rome. Remember how you said you'd send me a postcard when you found your new home (heart)? Yeah, neither do I.

sat around a campfire and listened to way back when's, wishing i'd live to sit at a campfire and share something seemingly pretty.

"back then, the diner's were the in place," was how he began every story. it was always the later summer and the later of evening and the later of the 90 degrees, but we'd let our legs be eaten up by bugs anyway. he'd tell us everything that came to mind, usually making up things along the way because he forgot a lot of details. like his first love, who he mentioned all the time; her name was always different. i always thought it was cute that despite his obvious senile tendencies, he could still tell you his wife's favorite ice cream toppings and how she hated dishes but she loved laundry because of how it smelled when it was fresh from the dryer. that night was more than a diner, though. that night was more than made up names and altered stories and biased viewpoints.

that night, he told us about the man who was always at the diner on saturdays at noon. he said that he switched between five outfits, and it never failed. everything matched, and there was never a time that he mix matched. he'd take the same ten steps from the door to the counter and order the same strawberry milkshake. he'd spill on the third sip from his second booth by the left window, and never paid attention to the same laughter from the same groups of boys who noticed this action. everything went fine. he'd smile the same smile and give the same seventy five cent tip, waltzing out and feeling proud because seventy five back then was tipping high for teen's at a diner. one saturday, though. he was there at two. he'd never been there at two. he was staring at the third step from the door, at a dime. his change had fallen, and he wasn't quite sure what to do. the nowold man who was an atthetime youngster picked up the dime and handed it to him and patted him on the back. he didn't know what to say because he didn't understand why it was such a huge deal to be one step behind your usual schedule.

the man grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close and whispered, "kiss with your eyes closed."
he took his final three steps, and walked slower than usual down the same street. the nowold man never quite understood, he told us, until he got married.

everything in life becomes a pattern. and whether you have a mental disability or you're simply stuck in a rut, you're going to grow used to every person and action that happens to you regularly. there are a thousand things in life that are mundane, but love shouldn't be one of them. unless your kiss blinds you, cripples you, heightens every sense but the ones that could cause distraction... it's not a kiss, and it's not love. kiss with love; with your eyes closed.

it was the later of summer and the later of night and the later of 90 degrees, and i was sitting by a campfire, listening to what it takes to truly live.

"ready, set, go." teacher sets the timer as pen hits the paper, making up people she wishes were real so lessons could mean anything at all.

I knew a boy named Optimism, but reality broke his wings and taunted, "fly away boy, find your way home." Some days, I watch the clouds float by and I'll see a shape that makes me hopeful; I think about Optimism and giving up.


I knew a girl named Cold, and one day she fell in love and found herself basking in the gold of summer. She learned how to dance that year, and she started to cry on roof tops. I go hiking some summers now and I see flower petals floating in the wind. They'll hit my cheek sometimes, and I'll think of Cold and how it feels to find light.


I knew a boy named Dreamer, and one day he believed in an alleyway that promised a ticket out. He threw himself in, only to be chewed up and spit back out; broken. Whenever it rains, I'll sit on my counter and chew beaten mirrors, thinking of Dreamer and beautiful bits.

my plane crashed south of mexico, i woke up in a hospital and covered in bee stings. when i got out, i took that trip i'd always been planning.

I moved across the world to find out who I was, but instead I found that people are still hungry and crying themselves to sleep at night. When I sober up, I go to train stations and watch the people board with their passes. I wonder if they're going or coming or simply running away. I wonder if they're excited or scared out of their minds. Just as I figure out that I'm coming and going and running away all at once, I realize that I'm scared out of my mind; then I wake up. These nightmares are crawling beneath my skin, but I guess there's just no other way to learn.

at the bottom of everything.

So, there was this man who was sitting on a park bench and watching people walk by. He saw a mother scold her child and contemplated anarchy. An old woman followed behind the saddest dog he'd ever seen and it made the man want to talk to God. He peeked over his right shoulder, at the stone fountain a few yards behind him; he wanted to set it on fire. He sat back in a few moments of silence and thought of carving "love everyone" in to his arms, but shook his head immediately after.
"No one really exists," he told the pigeons at his feet. "Which means there's nothing to love."

everybody sing with me, we're young and carefree now.

i'm tripping on leaps of faith and fighting fits of laughter. it seems kind of wrong to be so happy but i'm high as a kite on met expectations. you know, i'd bet you look good in the moonlight. i bet you look good right this second.

home is where the hide and seek is.

parasitic.

it's been so long since i've heard (made) you laugh that i've forgotten what it sounds like.

everytime i see a soldier, i stop and turn around. everyone else is saying thank you for serving and thank you for protecting and thank you for giving and i really just want to scream thank you for giving a name to walking away that makes it impossible to be angry.

i'd like to think you went away to save everyone here; home. but this never really was your home, now that i think of it. when you ran, you ran backwards. you jumped over fences and kicked soccer balls clear across the field, no matter what you should've been aiming for. you were dying to get out while they were dying to keep you and you hated the way they loved you so entirely. you wanted out and you took an out. they said you couldn't do it and this is your fuck you.

i hope your fuck you doesn't get you killed.
but sometimes i hope it does.
i'd like to remember you in terms of hopping over fences and running backwards, not killing based on proving something to yourself.

i don't need to believe in fancy uniforms and dressed up titles to know that this was nothing more than you walking away.

forgive me if i stutter, but you're so flawless that my imperfections are swallowing me whole.

teach me what it's like to sleep through the night. what's the use in sleeping if you can't even dream? i've got so many questions that i never thought up in the first place and not a single answer worth stating. what's the use in sleeping if you can't even dream? the only dreaming i do is the daytime kind. i dream about you all the time; daytime kind.


i still fight shutting my eyes like i'm five years old and my mother's tucking me in. i'm burnt out and ready to slip in to sheets and lose myself, but i can't. i can't. what if i miss something? what if i miss out on something better? all that i'd do is read anyway. all that i'd do is write. write the words i could think up in the morning, too.


i'm burnt out and ready to lose myself. i'm far gone and ready to sleep through the night. i'm ready to dream, the nighttime kind. i'm ready to find you at midnight just as i do at noon. i'd like to call in sick from hoping and simply live in the moment, sleep through the moment.

i'm fairly well rested for someone who's so busy over nothing.
i'd rather be wasting hours with you than the tick tocking of a classroom that provides nothing more than a location for daytime kind of dreaming.

i dream about you all the time.

365.

earth day '07 we were driving home from virginia. you were hanging your head out the window and i was screaming that rancid had gotten old. you responded with mest and i groaned at repitition, how many times before you ruin the music i've loved since 6th grade? bitch, bitch, bitch. we'd gone shopping and we'd gone dancing and we'd been to the best concert either of us had seen the night before. we were on top of the world, and we were together.


we were together.


earth day '08
i don't know shit about you.
except that your seat in fourth was empty today,
and your hair looks weird when it's long,
and your hips are as wide as you predicted them to be
but i was right. it is not awkward.
you're beautiful.
and i don't know shit about you.

journal 256: "you're the worst possible version of yourself that you can imagine, and you're disappointed."

it was the middle of summer and i sat on my girlfriend's porch. norman rockwell should have thought ahead when he gave society a perception of what neighborhoods should be like; perfect is really fucking annoying first thing in the morning. i'm chain smoking my thoughts away while she's snoring from the bedroom, twenty feet behind me. it's not working, and i'm thinking about how i should be the happiest that i've ever been. instead here i am, and the best conversation i've had this whole weekend was with myself. i tried it out on a coffee cup but i'll be damned if 90's pop didn't teach me right.

i thought about what you said, when you babbled on about loving fully. instantly, my entire body went cold. forget the smoke and forget filled lungs and forget caffeeine and forget twentyfeetbehind me. the only thing i loved about this place was the fact that i'll never own a mattress so comfortable or a kitchen so accessible. the only thing i loved about this place was that i'd waited six fucking months to get here. i thought about what you said, when you babbled on about loving fully. i've never loved a single thing fully, and i've never seen a problem with it until now.


i'm still chain smoking and talking to coffee cups and damning 90s songs that taught me they wouldn't ever want to talk. i'm still damning myself, but i'm doing it alone. the only thing i love fully is being alone. fuck norman rockwell in the mid summer, and fuck disappointment. fuck me. fuck me. fuck me.

I spent my whole life being the girl that I'd like to be friends with, and never the girl that I'd love.

I figured out what my teachers meant when they told me that I talked too much. I figured out what it meant when my father told me that I made up my mind too quickly. I figured out what it meant when someone who had everything stood on the side of a highway and claimed to have nothing for the sake of a handout they didn't really need. It's about giving up and choosing a different path, an easier path. I ignored the work that I didn't think I needed and chose to laugh instead. I ignored the scenes that I didn't want to see and observed what caught my eye. It's easier to take what others have worked for than it is to get your hands dirty, playing on sympathy and gestures of kindness. I have spent far too much time glancing in the wrong directions because it was more convenient or it was easier. I have focused on the maturity of moving on and acceptance and forgotten how to be mature when handling others who need to go through the same process. I have bypassed the technique of being sympathetic towards those who have poor coping skills and focused repressing empathy, I hate feeling.



everything is fucking sour when you're upset. i'm a mess of emotion and don't know what to do with myself. i remember the days where i didn't depend on anyone else to make me happy. i thought i already was.

thought.

if november had been deader and we'd hidden a bit better, we'd be strangers.

i want to see grass that's notsogreen and know that my side's the better side. i'd share my side of the bed any time you asked. i want to fly across the world and find something to be appreciative for when i get back home. they say it's unhealthy to put all your eggs in the basket of someone else. in another person with their own shortcomings and their own mistakes, who could drop it and crack them and crack you. but their non existence does not serve their case all that well, now does it? i kind of dig being all wrapped up in someone who could (won't) tear me apart.

selfish is as selfish does, and i want you all the time.

when i was little, i used to pretend that my life was a movie and someone in a different universe was watching it. i was hoping that i was interesting enough for them, and that i played my part well enough for them. i would think, by the end of a day, that those hours probably passed quickly for them since they didn't have to watch. i wondered when the commercials took place. i wondered when there'd be a "to be continued," dancing across the screen. but then i realized that movies didn't have commercials and they aren't merely continued to save time.

i came to terms with the fact that i probably wasn't interesting enough to watch on a movie screen. but right now, looking back, i'm kind of proud of the things that others would've seen. and if you're watching, i hope you're smiling. i'm happy and i'm in love and this is the kind of story that ends with a happy ending, those mushy ones we dream of when we're five. i wasn't allowed to dream of those, but you'd know that if you were watching.

it's like he knew i needed him before i knew anything like that existed.
he's the happy ending i wasn't allowed to dream up.
warm and perfect and mine.

i'm holding up my hands in defeat. you're the best battle ever lost.

i've never been completely committed to anything.
who else gets it right on their very first shot? i'm lucky, and i don't know why. but i do know better than to fight it.


what's it like depending on one person to pick up your inner slack? what's it like being the missing piece in some puzzle that someone didn't know existed until they completed it? what's it like to stand back and look in the mirror and see a second pair of eyes because you're carrying another person with you always? why isn't it scarier? i never understood why anyone was able to actually let that kind of thing happen. now i do.

i get it.
i get why you've fought so hard. i hope you know i'm fighting too.


(ps, your checklist is uncompleted. and i love you.)

i think i'm getting cold feet about life.

i want to run away, but only far enough to make you miss me.



i wish i was the perfect girl that went running through your mind when we first met.
these vacations from grace are making me sea sickofmyself.

i've been wanting to know what it's like to fall in love.

She
said
if I
tried
to kiss
her
she'd
cry.
i
dried
her tears
all
through
the
night.

she's fallen in love with northern lights, but dreams of southern skies.

tell me how it feels to have everything in front of you, wrapped in strings of gold and promise. now close your eyes and make a wish, your eyelashes are falling as you weep with appreciation. yeah, you've got everything, princess. the second you dream it, daddy's on the case. by the time the sun sets, it'll have your name on it; wrapped in strings of gold and promise.

but easy now, princess. this world has no capacity for something resting on top for too long. didn't anyone tell you? nothing lasts forever.

so tell me how it feels to watch it all set to flame and not feel a thing. it's melting in heaps of black and yesterday. close your eyes and make a wish, 11:11 is met with the sound of sirens. you'll wish you ran away, won't you? you'll wish you were running away from yourself and that no one could ever find you. you've got nothing now, princess. the second you dream it, daddy's patting your head and whispering condolences. by the time the sun sets, your name will be nothing but a rumor of how things get shot to hell; melted in heaps of black and yesterday.


easy now, princess. don't look too sad. silver linings come in the ugliest of packages.
no offense, but you're looking pretty ugly right now.

i want it anyway you know it.

love and hate are the same thing. there are no lines and there are no differences.

and you're right, there are entire families torn apart on the behalf of one couple's love.
and there are famines happening all around us while all we care about are happy endings.
and you're right, i'd rather hold someone's hand than save someone's life because then i know for a fact that i'm ringing through their mind in a thousand different ways, not just appreciation.
i can't argue the fact that it's selfish. love is selfish. and i can't argue the fact that love is cruel and i am cruel for believing in it above hate and war. but don't get me wrong.

i hate the fact that someone's life is going to fall apart the day that i get married.
i hate the fact that someone will lose their childhood sweetheart the day my child is born.
i hate the fact that my birthday is the date of divorce for someone on the other side of the world.
i hate the fact that someone's getting hit for no reason when i'm swaying by a lake.
i hate the fact that i'm giggling over a dinner table while someone else is being locked away.

but i love the way that he touches my lower back when we walk.
and i love the way his fingers curl perfectly around mine.
and i love the way that i know if something happened and we weren't together, our hands wouldn't fit with anyone elses and we wouldn't go to lakes with anyone else and we wouldn't be sitting at a dinner table and giggling with another set of shining eyes and curled lips.

we're in love.
someone else is falling apart, it's true. but we're in love.
and maybe i don't deserve it, but he certainly does. he deserves everything that sunsets and picnics entail. he deserves photo albums full of smiling faces and cheekkisses. he deserves waking up to the smell of his favorite kind of breakfast and going to bed with a hand on his chest.

breathe me in. inandout. let me out.

postsecret is my secret. i'm not comfortable looking at an image and caring about a person that i've never met. so, i pretend not to. i pretend to be fascinated by an art project. i'm fascinated by the people. i hate it, but i love them.

and you, you're skin and bones; turn in to something beautiful. did you know for you, i'd bleed myself dry?

My perception of your explosion.
When did you start going to bed before 3am? When did God mean enough to re-evaluate the way that you spoke and when did you believe in looking at the stars? When did you stop moving long enough to take a deep breath and when were you stressed based on responsibility and not just fucking up with me? I liked you better when you fucked up. I liked you better when nothing mattered. That's when you mattered. That's when I mattered. I liked you better when you fucked up.


The answer that I don't have the heart to say to your face.
Having nothing else to do doesn't mean you're fucking up. And nothing is wrong with wasting your day away in swimming pools or on the pavement of a nowheretogo road. God was in my life at the same time as you, you just blocked that part of me out. You wanted to think of ODU and bitches in third period and downtown restaurants and obnoxious phonecalls. You wanted to think of no sleep and zero nutrition and jumping on a trampoline to the beat of the raindrops falling on us. You wanted to think of twenty years down the road and how we'd still be in each other lives, but not how our lives would be different or how we'd see the world and the possibility that we'd see it differently. You wanted to think of my love for you and how I'd hold on to our bond, but not the possibility that I'd be the one to grow away and you'd have to put a little effort in to holding on to someone. You didn't want to think of losing anyone and it not being their fault. I hope when you're crying over how your best friends are treating you that you remember how it felt to dance in the rain after graduation, but I hope you never expect the same. Responsibility means fucking up. It means there's something to do and something to lose if it's done poorly. This is me fucking up, and you're no part of it. You have no emotional investment so it doesn't really matter. You liked me better when I spent my days attached to a brick wall, stuck in discontent and therefore the inability to be any lower. You liked me better when I was rock bottom.

I like me better when I'm fucking up. There's something to learn. You taught me nothing but what it's like to chew on tin foil with every new breath. You taught me nothing but walking away from friendships that don't bend to my mood. You taught me nothing but how to say I love you, but goodbye. You're not worth any of this.

You taught me nothing but walking away. walking away.

what a beautiful smile.

if every one is special, no one is.

this whole being optimistic thing is getting really frustrating. i'm trying to wrap myself up in what the hell were you thinking? but my head is filled by nothing more than i hope it ends up better.

why'd you have to come in and make everything beautiful?
why'd you have to come in and make me so much better?

I want to sit on your lap and eat cocoa puffs together. I don't even know if you like cooca puffs, but sunday morning looks like your laugh.

let's reinvent the wheel.

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."


If I were a little less practical, I'm positive that I'd be a radical. I look around me and choke on the words that I hadn't truly spoken, biting my tongue until blood soaks my intestines; don't you realize that your mistakes are obvious and that the solution is obvious and that every person you're looking down your nose at knows?

A friend once stated that being second to last is better than second to first. To be second to last means that someone is worse off than you, at least. To be second to best means that you barely missed out. There is someone who is better than you, and you simply did not have what it took.

I'd like to turn the whole world upside down. I'd like to see the parishes fall from grace. I'd like to see every person who's sound asleep in the security of apathy have nightmares, and scream out in discontent. I'd like to see the UN watch a commercial about a starving child in Africa and then try to say that trade barrier regulations are the first priority at hand. I'd like to see the President shake hands with all of China and say that second best makes a mighty fine ribbon.

The only way to see any nationalism is to ruin something. We join in times of sorrow and anger and the possibility of vindication, but not when it's 70 degrees and there's a "V" of birds who are flying home. Our home is what we own, forget what it feels like to listen to our hearts.

I'd like to see everything flipped upside down. I'd like to be a radical and say that we need to tear it all apart and start from square one, but the shortcomings don't belong to who runs our government. It belongs to being second best in our own homes. In our bedrooms. To our best friends. To our significant others. To our children and parents and pet. It's being second best to our childhood dreams; lashing out at the government won't help you play doctor one more time. Give it up, kid, it's not your place and this is not your game.

The kids that I babysit fight all the time. And when they do, they scream until they feel better. They scream and they're mean, they cry and then they apologize. They hug and they share what they were fighting over and their worlds go back to smooth sailing. No one is any better than a five year old. We just learn how to be selfish.

Fuck your heart. Open your ears.

caffeine and indecision.

dear exhaustion, can't say i've missed you. i feel heavy in more ways than one and it's making my tongue far sharper than necessary. my fuse feels short and all it takes is bad weather to light me up and send me on my way.



i want to hear the roar of phone against wood and the sound of "hello," filling my ears.
i want to have you to myself when the sun sets.

jay tee ess.

dear valentine,
cupid is bitter and the sun has finished radiating.
jesus says that he's done believing in happy endings and satan's building snowmen.
there's a bum on the streets who's never been so full and our president is starving to death.
classrooms are lined in dreamcatchers because teachers have lost faith and churches are handing out vodka for the sake of personal salvation.
st. patrick is going in to rehab tomorrow, and the rolling stones have finally retired.
john lennon did not die, he ran away when the dictionary omitted the word "peace."
kurt cobain is the only one who's gotten it right, and oil is free because there's nowhere to go.
the fourth of july celebrates the shackle business and the hottest birth site around is a graveyard in queens.
the world is shot to hell and every new song is a form of igiveup.
hearts break when the sun sets and treetops are where prayers go to die.

this world has absolutely nothing,
but you've got me.
every single bridge is up in flames,
but i will carry you.

and i'll give up speaking if it ever means nothing more than disappointment and i'll give up moving if it ever means nothing more than walking away.

dear valentine,
cupid is bitter and the sun has finished radiating.
but you shine so bright and we never needed them anyway.

i'll be your blanket when hell freezes over.

if my heart had a face, it would be smiling.

glasshalffull. sunriseinspringtime. browneyesandliplocks.

the apple of my eye
is the very best part of me.

my wallet's full and my project is almost finished. i'm okay with the fact that classes start again tomorrow and the only green in my life is the shine of my eyes. i've got what i want. it's with me all the time.

wait, they don't love you like i love you.

I can't possibly be the only person who hates maps this much. Geography is a study, not an act of God... right? Every time I love something, it ends up hundreds of miles away.

New Jersey's kept captive the only girl I never want to punch in the uterus, and Texas has taken claim of the only person I've ever looked up to.

I'm so scared that you're going to fly away from me.
I want to take care of you when you're down and spend time with you when you're up. I want to hold you and curl in to you and touch every inch of you againandagainandagain. I want to wake up to browneyes and fall asleep against scruffyjaw. I need your chest against mine and for you to beat along with my heart.

I've never, ever needed someone.

explicative.

every ten minutes i think of her voice running through your head and it makes me want punch something until my knuckles turn red. and then i think of your neck being red from my nails running along your skin and how you look when you say that no one's touched you that way. i almost smile, but by that point it's been ten minutes.


it took me thirty minutes to finish this.

i'll be your sunset if you'll be my silhouette.

tuck away old securities and feelings of warmth. relax in sexual chemistry and optimistic thinking and pray that one day it'll get better because that's all you've got for the time being. tuck away the time being and look ahead. look ahead or you'll look behind.

i wish looking behind was even still a mental option, but i'm too fucking stuck in the biggest part of me and my life and how much i love everything about it. you're perfect. but everything else is weighing me down. i'm rock bottom and i need you to make it better.

new frontier.

it's running through my mind like a bad cd that's been placed on repeat. the first movie out of three when you've got work in an hour. i'm wondering when it will go away, but it probably won't.

i hear your voice and up i go - forget the moment that i felt secondbest and a thousand miles away. and then click, away you go and down i go and out the door goes my smile. i'm left there, sitting and wondering a thousand things that i can't even articulate in to question form.

i want it to go away.
i need it to go away.
soon isn't good enough anymore.

give me makingithappen.

you can lead a heart to love, but you can't make it fall

my life can be summed up by the white border of a polaroid photograph.

late at night, my itunes shuffle will hit the songs that was ours with them.
and i'll wonder if he ever had a song with anyone else.
and i'll wonder what it was.
and i'll hope that i've never, ever heard it; that i never, ever will.
then i stare at the mirror and curse the green snake that's coiling around my neck and clenching my throat in a knot of doubt. i'll think about my past and then i'll think about his and the snake's set aflame by how angry i grow at the thought of anyone else tracing his collarbone or hugging his neck.

he'll tell me that there was never anyone else, not like there's me.
i'll know it's the truth. but my throat is still in knots.

you're a rock, i'm a gull. might be okay to stay if you could hold me, but you've got no way to do so.

every modern film cut out for anyone above age ten includes a bar scene with hazy smoke and burnt bridges being rebuilt over drinks. they laugh and they glance at each other and they wonder where the time went, and then they remember. tension grows and hostility rises and there they are, ten years previous with passion in their eyes. it's a fleeting moment of almost's and maybe's and whythefucknot's, before they're back in a bar and sharing awkward glances over drinks that ten years ago they never would've dove in to.

i wonder how much of a film is taken from real life.
and i wonder how many people sit in bars trying to find their whythefucknot's.
i wonder if they do.
i hope they do.
i hope they don't. i hope they can make it up in their mind. the awkward moment of broken tension when one of them confronts the other and it's finally stated you just weren't enough for me. and i hope that they walk away from the bar that night and feel like they found closure in that mixture that ten years ago they never would've tried. i hope they feel better by the time that they're in bed.

but more than likely, they won't.
and the next night, they'll be in a hazy room, looking for tenyearsback.

i wonder how much of a film is taken from real life.
and i hope that that's just a popular scene due to the emotion and the thought,
but not because it's so realistic.

i'd like to get lost in sunsets and blankets and coffee cups - yours, filled with tea. not hazy rooms with almost's. i think i'd die if you were ever an almost.

spring cleaning.

I want to take a road trip to absolutely nowhere, just you and I and miles of music that we'll never agree on. I want to hit the highway and go until the road runs out and keep going nonetheless. Argue with me about books more, I love the way my heart beats when you're being such a pain. You're my Spring, and the sun is shining, and I feel free at the brush of your palm.

you're not a good writer until you can forget how to be a good person.

boys become men when they're finally laid and a girl becomes a woman when she learns how to move on. men are gross when they smoke, but women are plastered in black and white on the front of a magazine. turn them in to murals and a man will have his pick in love, but give her more than 3 and a woman's destined to reside on a barstool. give either of them morals and you're setting them up for disappointment.

it's a strange world when machines can replace people.

i never want to be a footnote at the bottom of a page.
i never want to be the dedication paragraph.
i never want to be a hasbeen or a oncewas.
i want to stay here. here, with you.
here, where we're better.
here, where things make sense.

i never want to be a footnote at the bottom of a page.

fast forward.

i wonder which part of you decays first after death. i wonder if it's different for every person. i just hope it's not your hand, and maybe there's some piece left to hold for quite some time after, for those that ache.

i wonder how many people engage conversation for the sole purpose of sharing their own thoughts, and how often they actually listen to the person that they're talking to.

the luxury of loneliness.

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he mumbled something along the lines of "The scent of June will always be that of your love and my lack there of." He meant that he'd never forget her, but she took it to mean that he was long gone. She bit her lips and turned her back, and with every step, he wondered how often do misunderstandings break hearts, and why his mouth couldn't ever win the race with his mind.

He didn't miss her until he finally realized that he wasn't going to be the only man to ever notice that she stuck her tongue out when she was concentrating, and that she'd curl her ankle around another man's leg when sitting in a restaurant some day. It was then that his bed felt four sizes too big for simply himself, and that the idea of a first date with someone else felt more like inward explosions than dizzy fireworks. He wondered what he got himself in to, and what on earth had brought him to a night so cold and lonely. He wondered how many hearts had been broken from misunderstandings, and how many people had been the cause of the cracks in their own heart; merely for the sake of possibility.

He'd chosen possibility over passion. He'd chosen the idea of dancing on a picnic table with a brunette in a sundress over the ginger standing in front of him with snowballs and cocoa. He'd chosen the idea of you're my sunshine over let's dance in the rain, and he'd chosen an empty bed with a plethora of mental images over the feeling of a palm on his arm.

He wanted to call her, but instead he went to sleep.
He hadn't even known her name, and some man at that exact moment was probably going out of his way to figure it out.

He wanted to call her, but instead he went to sleep.

The day you were born, you were born free.

"My dad said that when I was little, I liked to listen to the Beatles. They said that my favorite song was Hey Jude, and that I really hated Bob Marley."

Everyone leans in and shares in the discussion - what they liked and what reminds them of a carseat and the face of their parent shoving a sippy cup in to their face. They laugh and they ask questions and they compare notes, while my mind races. How did they know what your favorite song was? What if you didn't like the song that made you laugh, because you really liked the songs that made you quiet and sad? What if you were a bowl of self pity at that age and enjoyed the songs that made you think and made you angry? How on Earth can your parents know when you can't articulate that you want a sandwich instead of whatever they've got in that bowl? And what if they were wrong? What if you hated that song and you only like it now due to the power of suggestion that they instilled when you were ten and they convinced you that it was your favorite?

How do you know whether the thing in front of you is going to be a footnote in a book some day, or the dreamer on the corner who was too afraid to conform? What's going to stop them from ending up in the papers as the local monster that others use as an example for what they hope their kids never end up like? You? Are you going to stop them?

Nature vs. Nurture is scarier than religion, I don't care what anyone says. If you're wrong about God then you're hurting yourself, but what if you're creating the next Unibomber every time you rub their back? And what if it doesn't matter how many hits you take for them - it's already setinstone that they're going to hit a wall and bring their whole science hall with them?

I'm sick of hearing, "you just do your best," about everything. It doesn't apply to tests, your new job, an interview, the first time that you drive, and certainly not the raising of future generations. Your best may very well not be good enough, and the idea of such deserves more analyzation than hope and optimism and silver linings that may not be yours.

Apathy makes me cringe, and I'm consistently recoiled lately.

and if i fail, well then i fail, but i gave it a shot

I'm terrified of desks and failure, and you make me safer but it doesn't make me better. Who meets their match at the end of a pencil, and who's endoftherope is in the form of a green pen and illegible, nonjustifiable marks off? I'm coming to find that knowledge isn't everything and manner of presentation wins in the end, but I'll never be able to provide conformity in words; on those tests. I'm terrified of desks and failure; they're becoming my middle names.

first day of my life.

material world.

it's first thing in the morning and i am with out caffeine. tim's cartoons are making me giggle and indie covers of cyndi lauper are filling my ears. it's cold and it's bright and i should really just be waking up, but damned the clocks for hopping forward. i love the smell of my skin and how my hair feels, and maybe i'll put on more than sweat pants and a hoodie for classes. but maybe not.


ps. dear latin class,
i don't care what cober says. if you're born in '79 then you are an 80s kid. suck it.


summer's almost here.

smile lines.

This room is bright from the blindingly-risen sun and I am waiting for my phone to buzz across the table. I've got ideas worth pursuit and something to look forward to, and there's never a time happier than the realization of worth.

Not worth in self, but worth in life.
You're turning me in to an optimist.

hell in a handbasket.

the world has had fluxuations in temperature since the beginning of time, your neighbor's obnoxiously scented hairspray is not why spring is coming earlier than usual. in about six centuries, everything will likely be covered in ice again.

americans are told to exercise freedom, protect rights, and understand their ability (duty) to ensure that their government is efficient. when it's been multiple years and the senate won't use the simple power of raising their hands and signing the bill to overrule a president's martial-opinion, then perhaps you should be writing angry letters to your senator instead. verbally slapping the country's symbolic head around just because you haven't realized the balance of power and the limits to such is not productive. you're calling him a dog, but you're the one chasing a tail.

if you're twelve years old and you're squealing at an unnatural octive over the fact that zac efron is booming through your butterflystickercovered stereo, then you'd better damn well remember it and own up to the fact when you're thirty. no, you don't stop liking music. you simply broaden your taste and discover new things, nothing's wrong with having an open mind.

when ten people who have nothing to do with one another tell you that you're being a dick, then it's probably true. there's no way that every person you encounter is merely jumping on your ass.

late at night, when you're talking to the one friend that you actually care about and you're telling them how much you hate what the world is coming to, look yourself in the mirror and make a mental note of the fact that you're a part of what you hate. if you hate it, then change it. if you're not willing to, then go out and make the best of it. no one wallows in shit that they didn't sling themselves, and there's always a way out; things can be fixed.


you're the one right thing in the world today, i'm positive.

mix tape compiled of retrospect.

everyday is just another mile passed on a (seemingly) neverending roadtrip. the rearview mirror seems pointless because you know that even if you managed to switch gears and head in reverse, the weather will have changed and the sun will have set and the drive will never be as smooth as it was on the dawn that you missed your turn.

we're told that it's all been said before, but if that were so then maybe we'd have ourselves a little more figured out. we're living the life of a dozen before us but the mistakes seem to be a brand new kind of fuck up; forgiveness, a breath made up of an air newly fresh.

there will always be a person who cries when it rains or dreams of dancing beneath a moon during the first snow of winter. the dreamers are the ones who will likely change, and it's unfortunate but it's true.




i'm talking in circles and i'm thinking in frayed strings of irrelevance. i'm frustrated and i'm cranky and i feel empty when i'm not glued to the better half that my body's come to know as thoroughly as the rapid beats of our hearts. i wish it made sense to someone else, but the only conclusion to be drawn is that the only compassion that's ever going to be genuine is the one that we show for ourselves and our wrong turns, and if we're lucky, the wrong turns of the person that we're desperately trying to keep up with.

keepupwithme.

"show me something that you find beautiful"

Maybe it's possible for every social philosophy to actually be correct. A good system is an efficient system, and people are inherently good. I don't care what anyone else says; you can have it all.

promises.

it'll take time.

even when i'm not the one who was directly hurt, he warns of the obstacles ahead. he prepares me and my currentlymiserable heart and reassures me that it will be worth it in the end. that we will find our way back to warmth. and even when we're both upset, we say the same things at the same time.

no one's ever been able to hurt me like this,

just by being hurt themselves.

and no one has ever been able to make it better with a kiss,

make me optimistic with an embrace.

you know you're the only thing i'll ever want to be mine,

or i'll ever let be indispensable.

right around the time that you decided to forgive,

i decided to be okay with needing someone.

perfecttiming.

I wanted to be what you truly deserve. (mission failed)

i feel this big right now.

I want to crawl in to a hole, fall asleep, and never wake up to climb out.


Of course, I'm the person who hurts the person that everybeatofmyheart is for. I hate people.

fuck.

you said that you needed me.
and you couldn't imagine your life with out me.
and that no matter what happened, we'd be together.


now you don't know.



i hate me.

nightmares.

Last night, I had a dream that I taught you how to swim.
And when we were done, you swam away.
I woke up and I threw up.
Then I dreamt that you'd taught me how to fly,
and when we were done, you stayed on the ground
and said I was free.
I woke up and I threw up and I stayed up.


I never want to be away from you. This distance is killing me.

"The time you finally care will be the time that all the others come to bite you. It's life; no one gets out unbroken."

tell me i'm still your best friend.
your pumpkin.
your babycakes.
your forever.
your best friend.

tell me i still know you better than anyone,
and you know my word's as good as gold
just like your heart.
tell me i didn't break it for the sake of pride,
and that you understand.

tell me that you know he's lying.
that if i hold you we can go back to being perfect.
that we're still closer than ever;
better than ever.

tell me you're still the cheese to my macaroni,
and we're still going to cuddle against a tree to see a mountainview.

tell me that it's my chest to scratch, still.
that you'll stay scruffy for when we kiss.
that we're picking out a place together.

just tell me we're still us,
like we were before.



i'm going deaf and i need your laugh,
i've forgotten how music sounds when it doesn't make you cry.

self-animosity.

I haven't thrown up since age five, not the kind of throwing up that keeps you on your knees while you chuck your whole stomach forward. Now my head is plastered to porcelain.
I think instead of a civics related prompt, I'll write about how weak I am, and how much better he deserves.

That could certainly fill up two pages.

hands down.

I want all the possibilities of you in writing

I want to give you your reflection

I want to travel into the lightness with you

I want everything before you to follow us like a trail

I want never to say goodbye to you, even on the streetcorner or the phone

I want so much, I'm breathless

I want to put my power into a poem to burn in your pocket so I can sew it back together

I want my words to scream through you

I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close

I want endless day when its daylight and nighttime never to end when its night

I want all the seasons in one day

I want water up to our waists, and to be drenched by the rain, up to our ankles with holes in our shoes

I want to think your thoughts because they're mine

I want only what's urgent with you

I want to get in the way of the barriers and for you to be tough when you're supposed to

And I want you to be tender like you are already

I want us to have met for a reason and for that reason to be important

And I want it to be bigger than us

I want to forget....

I want to remember us

I want your smile always, and your grimaces too

I want my scar on your lips

And I want your disappointments in my heart

I want your strength in my soul and I want your soul in my eyes

I want to believe everything you say....

And I already do

And I want you to tell me what's best for me when I don't know

When you're lost, I want to find you

When you're weary, I want to give you steeples, a cathedral of thoughts, a coliseum of dreams

I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you, exhausted from the blinding light glaring on us





To the girl who messaged me,

"Holy crap. you truly have a gift. One that can't be coppied and must come from inside. I'm amazed by you and everything you do. You are amazing."



Thanks, but not everything.







browneyes, i've got tunnel vision. you're at the end. always.

lean on me.

He sat with a pail on his head, beating his tiny fists on the carpet that seperated his butt from the hardwood floor. He could hear the sound of skin on fabric and he enjoyed the thumping sound that he was causing. He almost felt productive; progressive. He almost felt like he was doing something worthwhile. In the end, however, he simply felt like he was sitting on the floor with a pail on his head. And he felt like that was okay.

Old teenage hopes are alive at your door. They left you with nothing, but they want some more.

For the first time in my life, I audibly referred to human beings as dispensible. And I meant it, from the bottom of my heart. I could call them frustrating, but then I'm faced with the times that they bend over backwards just to make someone else feel convenient. I could call them stupid, but I've known the scholars and the readers. I could call them warped, but the dreamers are the most beautiful things alive. So I'll stick with dispensible. Vibrant and capable and challenging and dispensible; my world will continue to revolve.

At the same time, I'm terrified of every single one that dies. They now know something I don't know. Please God, let me be right.

Knowledge is power.
I feel so weak.
I'm dispensible.
That's okay.

"Who is your heart beating for?"

Have you ever felt like there was an entirely new world inside the eyes of the person you love?

I've made it a habit lately of asking questions that no one can actually answer. It's not that they're rhetorical - I honestly don't know the answer, and I'm certainly not trying to prove a point. I just accept that it's likely that I'll never have an answer for them. That's never been a good enough reason for me to keep my mouth shut, and that applies now as well.

I feel like roses stemmed from love. The redness of a petal comes from how deeply some goddess in the classical period blushed, touched by the love that was expressed by a god. It would make sense, would it not? The greatest love of all is only found when one is not afraid to deal with thorns along the way.

I feel like there's an entirely different world to see than I've ever thought was possible, but only when we're making eye contact. The mornings that there's blue encircling your perfect brownandgreen are the mornings that I close my eyes and I'm swept away, on the middle of a lake in a boat that's being paddled by the only person I'd ever trust enough to paddle out on a lake with. And it'll rain - c'est la vie, but your love will be my umbrella. It's the perfect kind of soaked, in my mind. I never get past the part where it rains and I'm happy though, because your lips press against mine and I'm torn to a time of Christmas Mornings and Brand New Snows and Fourth of July's and Coming Homes. A time that you're staring at me, inches from me; a holiday within itself.

I don't know where I'm going to college

or what kind of a house I want

or how next year will be

or when I'll be able to drive legally

or where I'd like to go on a honeymoon

or how many kinds I want to raise

or every name I'd like to pick in case there's more than three

or how I'll handle the times they mess up

or how I'll handle the next time that I mess up.

But I know you.

And to know you

is to love you.

And then to

keep you.

there's no combination of words that i could put on the back of a postcard. no sing that i can sing, but i can try for your heart.

every single part of me is screaming out with the knowledge that we're perfect together.


one last game?
spell "forever", and simon says be mine until we find it.

backbeat.

I should be writing an essay for Teacher Cadets, or reading for AP European History. Instead I'm listening to music and toying with a Rubiks Cube and wondering what makes a person like a certain genre of music. I'd like a head to take apart and mark the way it works; maybe fix the kinks that seperate me from them. I'd like to figure out why no two people ever like the same thing; and why I can't write an essay about one person I've always been able to depend on, when she's managed so many words about me.


Stephen King stated, in an essay, that people enjoy horror movies because we're all a little crazy. My English teacher aimlessly rebuttled that crazy doesn't exist in the South, it's labeled eccentric. Stephen King went on to state that people enjoy horror movies because it gives them a tingle and a surge of life that they haven't experienced since youth. That every human alive is a potential-lyncher, simply out of the zest in living life. An acquaintance, Rex, has stated previously that if he could have any super power, he would choose the power to control weather; because power alone is power worth having and power well spent.

So that's what I've gathered in the past few hours; no two humans enjoy the same thing, and yet all enjoy the experience of fear for the experience of thrill. The power of controlling what they're going through, and expecting what's coming; no matter the fact that it's going to be awful.

So what of us who don't like horror files?
What of us with zero sense of potential-lyncher?
What of us who don't enjoy the writhe of someone else in pain, or someone else in disappointment while we bask in something beautiful? Are we the few who have it together or those who, even by Southern standards, fit in to the line of crazy?

I hate horror films.
But I can't say that I'd never be the potential-lyncher, who finds comfort in the pain of another living being. I feel a bug beneath my feet and almost instantly, I feel content. The death of something that makes me uncomfortable, causes me a bit of uneasiness, is enough to make me calm and allow me to recollect my composure. It's not the bug's fault that I lost it in the first place; it's my own, personal nature that I never bothered to alter when I was a baby because no one ever made me simply deal with it. It's not the bug's fault, and yet it's playing sacrifice for the sake of my comfortability.

In my mind, I am the first, the foremost, and the most important. The only thing to take priority above myself are those I love, and they will continue to do so. Beneath me are those I dislike, and beneath them are non-Sapiens.

Nothing gives me this right.
I hate horror films.
I love myself.
Nothing gives me this right.

redundant.

i'm sick of talking to your voicemail. the sound of your name isn't nearly the same as your laugh, and it's an awful shame that we can't curl in to blankets and get lost in conversation. i'm always on my toes to hold myself up from the edge of my seat; how long will he be mine before technology rips him away?

for someone so close, you feel awfully far away.
i'm hooked.
just wish you'd reel me in
and keep me near.

tell me i'm different.

the week that you spent here was the best week of my life. away from florida and orange bottles with labels about whatcouldhappen and whenitsokay and whyyoushouldnever. we watched nickolodean and talked about how it would feel to grow up and have a family. i said "kids aren't my thing," and you said i didn't know what the words meant. you promised i'd fall in love with the smile of a toddler, and you promised that you'd be there to see it.



oneoutoftwoain'tbad.

the skeleton's of my past are clawing a hole through the closet that i've kept them in. cobwebs won't tangle them long enough for me to escape their grasp; they're holding me hostage by way of the ghosts that are swimming through my mind and screaming to know where'd you go and why'd you leave.





i went somewhere better.
because you left
just like you promised you wouldn't.