all we had to say.

2010-01-28T20:38:00.001-05:00

http://grandmotherwillow.tumblr.com/

love is lak de sea. it's uh movin' thing.

2010-01-27T19:46:00.002-05:00

Tree tops are the friendliest part of nature. They greet you good morning and shade you from the violent rays of summer zeal. They wish you goodnight by tapping at your window, whispering with the wind that they do hope your next day is even better than this. They're a jungle-gym when needed and never too self-absorbed to relinquish the fruits of their labor for the benefit of another. They're the home to creatures no one else appreciates and the canvas for young lovers who will never pass by again.

pretty as a picture, says the blind man

2010-01-27T19:42:00.002-05:00

"i gave away my baby, gave away my clothes, gave away my vices, and lost sight of all my friends" says the shadow in the furthest booth, like they've won some sort of contest for the heavy-hearted. we say cheers to their misfortune, dancing internally that we're so much better off. it's all a game and competition is weak at best.

what are you, new?

parts of me i'm not quite proud of

2010-01-25T20:33:00.004-05:00

Love me sweetly, with softness when you can.

Love me wildly, with sternness when it's best.

Love me mildly, with distance when it's hard.

Love me thoroughly, with adoration when it's right.

Love me roughly, with passion when it's time.

Love me in blue and love me in gray, love me while the sunsets and wake with even a great appreciation for what we've shared. Love me from a window-sill, while I am left wanting more. Love me from the door step, when I am too difficult to touch. Love me in anger and in envy and in desperation, love me in happiness and joy. Share with me, your prides and your accomplishments. Allow me in when it's most frightening, allow me to stay in the shadow of the things you're least proud of. Love me through wires and across the sea and from a rooftop when I'm too sleepy to hear the things you're whispering, and love me around the dance floor with lights meant to entice a romance we've surpassed. Love me because you choose to love me. Bask in sunlight with me just because, and run through the rain for a midnight showing neither of us have caught the previews about. Love me through your tears and love me greatest in your laughter. Choose your own way, live your own life, but love my small and seemingly insignificant piece the greatest when you're really asked to be introspective. Love me in an afterthought, in a parenthetical statement meant to rely purely on unconscious thoughts or desires when you've supposedly shared the "meat" of your query. Love me when you're lost, and love the sight of home when you've found your way.

the last song that i write while still in love with you

2010-01-25T20:24:00.000-05:00

Wishes down a wishing well, I've got questions and you're stingy with the answers. A tisket a tasket, don't count your eggs before they're really in your basket - why'd you have to go and get so brave, who asked you to face this big world on your own? And where do you get off being so free, don't you know those chains were meant to keep? They rusted and were torn, but we trusted you to know your limits, to know you had no other options. We're all trusting trusting trusting that no one's ever gonna leave and we forget to maybe give them a reason to stay - stay with me, wish with me, answer all the things I'm dying to know and pretend even when you can't. Let me be free, let me be free, these chains are meant to keep. I'm rusted, you're torn, you trusted me but limits aren't my color. You threw your wishes down a wishing well but I stopped believing in all those games so long ago, my money's burning a hole in my pocket where your picture should be. Here's your heart, here's your shirt, here's all the things we whispered, I'll take my chances where I'm free from expecting things out of you.

you told us to write about waking up breathless in a room that wasn't our own but the crowded lunchroom was overwhelming i apologize please forgive me

2010-01-20T21:04:00.003-05:00

It would take a year to count the dots on a classroom ceiling. Blink blink blink cheap florescent lighting flicks away so dimly that you aren't entirely convinced it's not a trick of the eyes. There's no doubt that the stale scent of cigarettes and various cultural body odor makes the halls uncomfortable, but you're stuck here with the oddest arrangement of people you'd rather never see again. Funny story. A boy accused of rape last year was reading the paper in my favorite coffee shop with a brunette who had evidently bought both his lines and their drinks. You wonder who you're really sitting next to, glance over your shoulder before yet another joke pops in to your head. Did a math project with a chubby sophomore who had a child, she called her most recent lover by another guy's name. You wonder who you're really sitting next to. Everyone has a funny sort of story that would sound more plausible in day-time soap operas, and everyone else is interested in each unsavory detail and giving their misguided opinions on such. You wonder what they know of you, you wonder what they think.

The ceiling block closest to your door has 385 dots.

Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink and when you're flush pride keeps you from the pawn shops

2009-12-20T18:11:00.004-05:00

Here is where we give our toast, our glasses clink and we laugh through our teeth. Here is the dawn of our obligations, aren't you so delighted? Winters are warm, summers are sweet, we are happy little people in a big world.

Everything's gotta euphemism, so why's it still taste so bad on our tongues?

telescopes

2009-12-20T11:26:00.003-05:00

I drink coffee like it's water and run like I'm invincible. I forget to eat, I get angry when things don't go according to plan. I am impatient, I am loud, I have thoughts that run through my mind so continuously that I want to scream sometimes. I feel colors and I taste the weather, I am not proud of my compulsions and unwilling to follow doctor's orders. I hate the height that others envy, I drive too fast only when the road is bad. I am not a daredevil and I will swear up and down that I am happy. I like the cold, I miss being warm. I make my bed daily even though it's never really messy. My hair isn't always in place and I do not wear make up, I still want my mom when I'm feeling under the weather. Kisses aren't contracts but I feel like I give a small part of me away anytime I share them with someone undeserving, and my favorite sort of bath is unclothed and beneath the sun. I love the beach, I want a house in the mountains, I'm going to build a boat one day just to say that I did. I could live in a room made only of maps.

Enjoy your fish bowl, this soul is far from lost.

2009-12-19T20:07:00.003-05:00

You drew your sword, I drew upward on your puppet strings. Rosy with embarrassment, you hang your head as you realize you've never known what it was like to have the upper hand. You are so pretty, your story shall be told in the most vibrant of ways, but you have never quite been more than the ring you leave on the coffee table once you are gone.

mango trees and papaya dreams.

2009-12-03T21:40:00.003-05:00

i'd dance along your jawline, you'd swim through my hair. i drew all the prettiest pictures down your hipbone whilst you uttered the sweetest melodies in to my ear. we built a fort of tangled sheets, night fell upon the adjacent wall in the form of our shadow as my back reflexively arched. you were sticky and tasted sweet, the room was a lively cream, your body felt the liveliest of pinks and reds. you were soft and rough, you were kind and coarse. you were tangible, you were mine. you existed in your most beautiful form, beneath me and the stars. it was raining, it was dark, my memories are so painfully bright.

hopenhagen.

2009-11-30T14:03:00.003-05:00

Hello Tweed Jacket, I am supposed to know you as I shake your hand and smile solemnly over our mutual loss. Hello Cheap Lipstick, I am supposed to love you as I hug you halfheartedly and glance awkwardly at my feet when you mention our mutual loss. Hello Fake Teeth, I am supposed to miss you as you pat my shoulder and we share a funny story of our mutual loss.

We acknowledge blood as warmth and affection, pretend to feel nostalgic for the days captured in wrinkled photographs, and smile fondly to strangers who are supposed to mean a great deal to us because they are blood.

keep your last name

and your coat on.

we're better together when an ocean's between us.

dispassionate

2009-11-20T17:26:00.002-05:00

My head is a windmill, though the nearby stream feels disappointingly empty. There's little inspiration to be found in the margins of textbooks, there's no quality time for counting stars or cozying up to our own eye lids these days. Autumn come with sympathy, come with grace. Autumn come with peace of mind.

It's time to go.

these walls are paper thin and every one hears every little sound

2009-11-08T18:06:00.002-05:00

Jude Law and Novocaine, he likes cigarettes and she likes her lovers rail thin. There's a subway passing by tonight and they will hitch a ride for reasons we are not privy to. Some people live for simple pleasures, like the outline of their ribcage when they're fresh from the shower. Their most interesting function is that of allotting punishment, even if they're the ones deserving.

I bet the sky is lonely. It's the soundboard for everything wrong in the world, from wilted flowers to dead grandparents. Reaching out via see-through wisps to grab on to the tips of birds that are heading towards sweeter scenery, it can never really join the party and wouldn't be invited anyway. It rains when we're ready to celebrate and is joyous on our saddest days. I bet the sky is so terribly lonely.

"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That's the Chicago way."

2009-11-04T20:32:00.004-05:00

Dripping wet from a shower that could've lasted the entire day had you any say in the matter, cold toes meet colder tile and your skin is graced and covered snugly by a burnt orange towel. Scented pine cones allow you the pleasure of fantasy; lost in memories of a mountain you haven't seen in years, and the regressing detail of a face that has since shared breath with so many more suitable partners.

Paper cuts and fire trucks, lincoln logs come tumbling down and and the sky is lit up with the flames of celebratory bon fires. Every thing's coming together, everyone's growing apart. Give in, let go, we all want out; what I'd give to get back in. Flip the pages, set the score, all things come with a count down and pass with over exaggeration - there's not a single holiday that won't come around again.

spy work in the graveyard

2009-10-25T14:34:00.000-04:00

rum and coke

and dizzy declarations

of fleeting feelings and

frivolous desires

while dancing with

your shadow.

mirrored silhouette

tempting my finger

tips and taunting

their journey

down your spine.

oh, what an

expedition.

sporadic thoughts for worn and weary

2009-10-19T19:46:00.000-04:00

sharp tongue
wobbly legs
split ends
callused hands
nervous kisses

counter top ring from coffee mugs left sitting too long. cold and stale, these tales have been shared throughout the ages and evolve only in face and name. it always ends the same, crawling to bed and a mental portrait of better days ahead. those coins you tossed will never meet the fountain. always dreamed in color but forgot to stop and smell the dew.

now to make up for lost time.

golden locks of flirt and fury.

2009-10-17T11:08:00.002-04:00

the season's style is simple and stale; torn comic books cover a carpet that wouldn't catch your eye anyway. you breathe softly, you ask me questions of where i'm from and how i feel and i wonder why you speak in tongue. you're the shakespeare of these barren tree trunks, and i am passerby who could count all the other places i'd rather be headed.

hot like wasabe when i bust rhymes.

2009-09-11T13:50:00.001-04:00

cinematic film lines these thoughts, daring to push further and enticing the dramatics. everyone's a poet, everyone's a critic. is everyone dancing on these egg shells, too?

skin like that is just begging to be touched.

2009-08-29T00:35:00.001-04:00

we'll share an adventure and pretend it was all for the sake of art.

thrill me.

2009-08-17T00:53:00.001-04:00

In wake of my death there will be no statue, no book to recall the life I lead or collection of sonnets to share my beliefs. There will be no crowds of candles or expensive bouquets in effort to weakly demonstrate affection for me or the radiance of my presence. Days will pass, close relatives and friends will move on. No one will sit idly by in green fields of sunflowers and think of my brown hair in the wind, nor my tongue upon the tip of my own nose in an effort to catch a snow flake. Life will continue with no more than the faintest of ripples for a minimal crowd, and I will face my fate and deeds with a full heart and the simplest of legacies.

But I know there's a boy who's in love with a sand box that has my name carved in to the side. I know that when he sits upon his swing set and stares at his mother watering daisies, the only time he can get her outside, he thinks of me and his yellow room and being an air plane for the first and likely only time ever. He will remember learning to use a paint brush, and having kisses to his cheek when his knee was skinned. He will remember someone who reminded him to wash his hands before eating and was so excited to see him that she twirled him in the air. He will know, for once in his life, that he was the most exciting thing about someone else's whole summer - that he is an important memory to a girl who will forever feel blessed to have met him despite his bitter shyness. He'll grow up, and either become or reject the life he was brought in to. He will leave his own, likely minuscule, legacy to leave behind one day - more than a decade after myself. I hope he knows how it feels to change someone's summer, to let someone be an air plane. I hope he knows we talk of him often. When we visit this summer to check up on him, he won't remember us exactly. He won't run to us, hugging us and screaming for joy the way we know he will secretly want to. He will smile shyly, wave politely, and go to his sand box. He will remember when the sand was fresh and we took our shoes off despite hating how it felt between our toes just so his sand could stay clean, and he will remember the wind upon his face the only time he could fly. That's enough. The day that I die, that will still be enough.

bye bye blackbird.

2009-08-16T17:47:00.003-04:00

I live beneath skylines, my job is that of burning bridges. Broken cobblestone lines my way from here to anywhere else; my dreams are a Sepia tone of there's got to be better than this. I want to see the world and hold all my favorite possibilities in the palm of my hand. From a phoenix on my shoulder to a dolphin beneath my waist and every color of the ocean surrounding my adventure, I wish to taste fire and smell warm rain within a jungle that at any other point in my life would be terrifying. It's neither realistic nor what ever could've been expected, but say you'd be tempted to come along for the ride and I'll rest easy for the first night in months.

last chance to lose your keys

2009-08-16T17:45:00.001-04:00

There's the warmest of bodies next to me and I am resting against the headboard of a bed I have not found comfort in for too long. The drapes are open and I wonder how many people are out there counting stars, wishing they were anywhere else with the warmest of bodies next to them. I know that I should be appreciative for the attention and the comfort, but I feel out of place and exhausted from the race taking place in my head - I can't block out images of a particular set of lips or a particularly crooked smile that I would kill to be the cause of once more before dying.

When he wakes he will be lonely. He will slide closer and pull me towards him, asking questions of where I've been and where I hope to go. He will whisper words of past lovers and how this morning was the best in a while, and I will daydream of one who knew when distance was best and the beauty of a simple sentence and the faintest of kisses. When it comes to words, less is more. And when it comes to love, I often choose the door.

buddy holly

2009-08-08T23:30:00.000-04:00

there's a silhouette to be traced by your eyes, to be explored by your fingertips. there's the most innocent of moonlight to be met beneath, silk clouds rolling above the heads of two birds wishing for love but settling for less. there's warm breath and cold fingers - shaking with the anxiousness of a dozen unrealistic expectations. there's a shadow reaching out for another, a pair of chapped lips dancing with the softest of collar bones. there's no rooms for lambs nor time to hide beneath the wool of what your parents told you; two shadows meet for a dance and get lost beneath a tainted moonlight.

"I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart."

2009-07-29T21:19:00.002-04:00

i sip tea with the greatest poets of our time!
i've sailed along the most exotic islands in a yacht i built by hand!
i've read every mainstream holy text in every language known to man!
i have a greater understanding of the human race than the greatest prophets the world has ever known! i outsing doves and outrun panthers in the depths of jungles unexplored by any living man! i am alive in ways no one else could ever comprehend!

i am small small small and wish wish wish i could be so so so much more than i've ever dreamed dreamed dreamed.

i call you love.

2009-07-29T21:15:00.000-04:00

nothing more than the faintest scent of autumn; cider and maple leaves and all the browns and golds you ever tried to count in my eyes. i'm overcome by the memory of a man-made lake in the middle of nowhere and two shadows tracing the contours of one another's palms because they've got nothing better they could imagine spending their time on; the sun is falling and his chest is rising from the hefty breaths of two shadows becoming one. the moon whispers its' salutations but neither hear - the birds sing goodbye above the tree tops in the distance but neither notice - there's nothing more than two shadows becoming one by a man-made lake in the middle of nowhere, and i am overcome by the reality of four walls surrounding me and the absence of both cider and one who counts the colors in my eyes. one becomes two and shadows become memories and autumn becomes a part of the past that keeps me awake at night, wishing for one last walk or palm line to trace.

put your money where your mouth is.

2009-06-23T00:08:00.003-04:00

hey stranger, sit with me and have a chat. we'll sip from our mugs for a while and pretend we can detect the taste - i have nowhere to go and you've got nowhere to run, i've seen the look on that face a few times before.

sometimes life feels just like a song.

hush.

2009-06-22T09:26:00.001-04:00

people exist for various reasons, and i believe no two people exist for the very same reason. right now someone's having their first kiss, their last kiss, their wedding kiss, a goodbye kiss. someone's dying and being born and for some, it's happening at the exact same time. this is the worst day of someone's life; this is the best. today someone will experience more excruciating pain than they ever have or ever will again - today someone will be irreparably traumatized. someone's indulging their vice for the last time. someone's getting divorced. someone's lying to someone else, and someone's telling the truth. within 24 hours everything worth feeling or avoiding is experienced across the globe, by different people and under different circumstances - they will handle it individually and uniquely, the same as they experienced it; some won't handle it at all.

i like to imagine all of the things that are happening around the world when i go to sleep at night. i wish i could say that all of the exciting parts about breathing and interacting outnumber the sadder and more disappointing parts of life, but i don't know if that's true.

someone somewhere is counting down to the most significant thing in their whole life. whether it's good or bad, it's coming. they can't stop it, and they don't know exactly where to go from there.

we're all so small.

i burn (out) with the best of them.

2009-06-21T14:44:00.002-04:00

a
tisket
a
tasket
we
all
fall
down.

sweet morning dew, we've always been the best at licking our wounds.

2009-04-07T21:05:00.002-04:00

kick off my shoes and back with you, my silver lining's pure gold and spelling out spring time by the country side - bathing in daisies and the sound of my name along the lips of a jay bird.

the broken record you never wanted to hear in the first place - it's so nice to dream when you'd rather crawl out of your skin.

your golden spoon is melting between your corroding teeth.

2009-04-01T21:59:00.003-04:00

when one door closes, another one opens. it just so happens you took my heart with you through the last one.

i'm a time bomb, the ticking of a clock that's aching to stop.

everything's coming up roses.

2009-03-19T22:14:00.002-04:00

my calendar's bleeding and i feel the laughter rising in my throat. watch the days fly by, i laugh and weep with the best of them. let's lose our way and remember nothing more than our daily paper, read the comics and burn it for warmth because we'd never bother cozying up. sound like a plan? meet me in egypt; i'd swim the nile if it meant you'd ever consider tossing a bone.

seashore.

2009-03-18T21:13:00.006-04:00

ebbing in tease, begging you to chase and rising with laughter at the failed pursuit - it touches your feet not because you are worthy or capable but because it chooses to. it could take you over, it could carry you away, it could swallow you whole and make you vulnerable victim to the few who are strong enough to dwell within. but it chooses to let you float, returning you to the shore at the end of the day and ebbing in farewell, covered by fog. you wish your heart could be in such control, you wish your dreams could fall in to place not because you are worthy or capable but because it chooses to. you wish your natural course was as simple as the teasing sea, but instead you go home and crawl in to your cold sheets for another night achingly aware of how alone you are.

...and not in the form of half-whatever-wins.

2009-02-26T07:03:00.005-05:00

I sing with bluebirds, I run with the antelope. I scale mountain walls and dance at the top - I've read all the classics in every written language. I am wanted in forty two countries for wide-scale protests I passionately believed in!

I believe in dreaming, it's all I've really ever known to be my own. People falter and change their mind, but when I close my eyes I'll always be a super hero meant for greater things than you or I would ever be able to dream up - thus the absence of my long-deserved book. Everyone's something of an epic proportion, and I'm finally reaching out for my own lime light. Thoughts and soul and laughter, the greatest things in life are resonating within us.

Anne Morriss, A Starbucks customer from New York City. She describes herself as an “organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist.”

2009-02-23T21:53:00.001-05:00

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.

I am a shadow, my act is that of the follower. I dance in your wake and sing your praises when you're feeling slightly lost. I am a jay bird, I skip across the morning dew and rest outside your window until you're tossing and turning with morning grog. I'm your morning paper - go on, count the newest death toll. I'm the dust beneath your boots and the sound of "your barbaric yawp", I am the hills that you've metaphorically climbed and the worst joke you've heard in the best of company. I'm in everything and I feel like the owner of nothing - I am lacking, I am yearning, I am giving away all the things that leave me feeling incomplete. I'm a wanderer, the hiss in the back of your mind that refuses to let you settle. I'm a pusher, a fighter, an excuse for all the malicious thoughts that cloud your mind when that particular individual passes you. I'm the cracks beneath the pavement that plague your superstitutious tendencies, following you throughout the day after you've stepped across and over and finally on top of me - accidentally. I'm an accident, I'm a beautiful accident with everything to offer and nowhere in mind.

lull; storm.

2009-02-08T20:10:00.002-05:00

She pretended it was lace, that she was tracing the letter of an invitation to the greatest party anyone had ever thrown. Jay Gatsby would be put to shame, her imagination mused. In truth, it was the coarse paper of a cheaply constructed funeral invitation. She'd get dressed up nonetheless, burn it later and pretend she'd been worth a better announcement. Here lies all my hopes and dreams, the actual friend disappeared from her mind and was replaced with what her life should've been.

cozy up to me, let's see who can spit furthest.

2009-02-08T20:06:00.005-05:00

Turn the page. Rip it out. Break the glass. Crash. Hear the crackle of the thunder? Pop snicker break boom rattle - EVERYTHING IS FALLING APART! - my head is caving in caving in swallowingmewhole I'm screaming tearing falling wearing dying gone gone gone!

I LIKE TO SCREAM AT TRAFFIC LIGHTS WHEN RED FEELS TOO SILENT.

2009-01-19T11:08:00.004-05:00

(walking) nightmare on elm.

2009-01-06T19:45:00.001-05:00

Sauntering off after last kisses laid on rosy cheeks, bodies scatter through out the city and fill the streets. Some leave by sea to make the journey home while shadows of lovers wait helplessly on docks, willing themselves to turn and walk away. What's gone is gone and I am inclined to believe it will remain so, Moon states as both fact and grievance. We are inclined to agree, whisper the Stars. Go home, Shadows, go home. By the time the shadows find their voice, the night itself has gone to bed. They whisper to Nothing, We've lost our way. Not surprisingly, Nothing has nothing to say in return.

sweet sundancer.

2008-12-30T21:21:00.000-05:00

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.

2008-12-26T21:41:00.000-05:00

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.

2008-12-09T16:54:00.001-05:00

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).

2008-11-26T10:31:00.004-05:00

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

callused hands.

2008-11-26T10:25:00.001-05:00

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).

2008-10-20T17:43:00.000-04:00

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.

2008-10-12T20:55:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-10-05T08:45:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-09-08T20:31:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-08-27T22:35:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-08-27T22:33:00.001-04:00

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).

2008-08-22T14:22:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-08-18T21:13:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-08-18T21:10:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-08-16T18:30:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-07-26T12:28:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-07-20T21:24:00.004-04:00

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

2008-07-20T15:40:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-07-20T15:35:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-07-20T15:32:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-07-11T21:03:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-07-03T12:29:00.001-04:00

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.

2008-06-29T13:11:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-06-28T14:48:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-06-27T10:20:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-06-23T19:34:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-06-19T20:47:00.002-04:00

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."

2008-06-15T21:34:00.002-04:00

"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.

2008-06-11T18:26:00.004-04:00

"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.

2008-06-07T22:18:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-06-01T22:03:00.003-04:00

"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.

2008-06-01T10:12:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-05-26T17:47:00.003-04:00

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?

2008-05-25T22:46:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-05-22T21:05:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-05-22T20:46:00.005-04:00

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.

2008-05-16T21:11:00.004-04:00

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."

2008-05-10T14:18:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-05-08T20:40:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-05-08T20:36:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-05-06T21:56:00.002-04:00

"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.

2008-04-29T22:16:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-04-29T22:12:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-29T07:12:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-04-29T07:10:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-27T19:22:00.002-04:00

parasitic.

2008-04-24T06:59:00.006-04:00

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.

2008-04-22T22:32:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-04-22T19:32:00.001-04:00

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."

2008-04-20T09:24:00.004-04:00

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.

2008-04-17T16:28:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-17T06:41:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-15T22:45:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-14T07:37:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-14T07:01:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-13T19:58:00.001-04:00

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.

2008-04-12T18:33:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-04-12T00:06:00.003-04:00

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.

2008-04-11T23:33:00.013-04:00

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?

2008-04-10T10:54:00.005-04:00

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.

2008-04-09T06:53:00.002-04:00

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.

2008-04-05T23:17:00.005-04:00