i'll never know you like you know yourself

i can't write when you're not here.


i just want you to be here and share the other side of my headphones with me. i miss you.

a dream sequence, pt. 1

the talking is incessant. we start these speeches out with run, jane run - simplistic in nature, but we're laughing at the unheard complexities (why is jane running? from the irs?). sometimes when i speak out, i'm speaking to you, though not directly, and i wish you could understand it. your chest was rising like the sun on the horizon beneath my fingers which traced your alien heartbeat. the colored charcoal stains my fingers; this picture is never finished. i highlighted the green stems with a spot of yellow, here and there. my finger causes friction over the dust, blending it in, picturesque payment. your heart is here under this piece of cheap canvas. (i picked it up from behind that old man's apartment building. a little stained, but nothing i couldn't work in.)

my thermos is decorated, though unintentionally. the warm flavored liquid is spicy and burns at my throat as it trickles down. the studio floors mark my knees and elbows with their existence, as i bend forward to illustrate these feelings. the warmth channeled into the palms of my hand, holding them equally apart around this piece of colored of colored plastic. my mind is blank as to how i could bring these edges together. the dark weather outside is stifling - the dark clouds block the sunlight from evading these 12th-floor glass panes. in my head, i am somewhere else ---

it'd be a grave disservice to you if i told you my location, because i'd want you to find it for yourself. at first, i didn't even know, myself; the surroundings were completely dark, hiding beneath the circumference of the palm tree leaves. a cool, salty breeze played tag against the bare pieces of my skin, summoning me forward. in the distance, a light was blazing on the end of a wooden post; a plank was lifted by bricks and held in place with what seemed like pure magic. as my senses adjusted, my eyes caught vision of people. several of them, dressed similarly, the same tourist-ridden uniform that defined generations of travelers. their eyes were all diverted to one central focal point, the brightest point in this conglomeration of humans...

(back in the studio apartment, a rapping noise came at my front door, pulling me back to reality. who was this, disturbing my sequence?)

good morning, sunshine.

my hands, my arms, my fingers are chapped. flaky, disgusting, pale. i hate the effects of winter on my skin; it's like as soon as the trees and plants start to die, so do my skin cells. i've heard this is only natural, but i (for some pessimistic reason) believe that the human race is made up of nothing more than cynics who like to believe life only throws bad things towards them. perhaps i'm wrong, but.. you never know.

i feel like i trust people too easily, and maybe not enough sometimes. there is no medium with me. and sometimes people i should trust i don't, and vice versa, but it's all such a confusing concept to me to begin with. trust is just another way to get stabbed, but without it, we'd be screwed right? it's lose-lose no matter which way you look at it.

i guess they're right. the boys. when they said that girls have two languages: reality and opposites. when we say "no" and really mean "yes", or when we say "no" and actually mean "no". i can understand the confusion, because i can barely comprehend what goes on inside of my head sometimes, so how could anyone else?

(it snowed in pulaski today. and somewhere in between moping and whining over my dry skin, i twirled around underneath the speckled falling sky and caught a few on my tongue, on my eyelashes, on my lips. all i could think was, when i look up, are they looking down on me? are they smiling like i'm smiling. because when i look up all i feel is warmth, like it used to feel when you'd give me a hug before i left. those long, soft hugs that i always loved and would come back for several times. i always wondered what his hugs really felt like. they keep telling me that i'm like him in so many ways, and i know he's my father and all, but it's hard to figure out how you could be so much like someone who you were barely around before they crossed over.)

it never occured to me until tonight how much i might miss them on the day that i'd want nothing more than to share this with them. would i even be here, on my bed at martin, had things worked differently? would i have known the amazing people who have opened me up and allowed me to be who i am today? what would i be like? it's an impossible question to answer, so i won't even try. but i will say that it'd be pretty nice to know. (regardless, i think i'm better off the way i am.)

just for your approval

everyone is a writer, right? because we all have something to talk about. and when we have something to talk about, we know we have to have somewhere to write it down. and when we write it down, we know we desperately want somewhere to publish it. and when we publish it, we feel as if we should have someone to read it. and when they read it, we feel as if we need a critical review -- and regardless of whether it's good or whether it's bad we all go on about our way saying that it needs a golden star. approval.

all those gold stars could only lead up to one thing, right? so thus it means that, by the former definition, writing is only a way to get gold stars. to get approval.



(remember that time i said i'd stop, and then i found a couple american spirits in my bag? i do too. and i also remember how incredible it felt to break a promise to myself. that makes us imperfect, right? the ability to break our own promises to ourselves. the ability to look at our faces and think that somehow, some way, we are perfect. but none of us are. and those who try so hard to perfect that outer appearance are only trying to hide the not-so-great one on the inside.)


my ideas have been lost between the flame needed to ignite the wick on my honeydew candle, that has since been transferred to light the end of your cigarette. they weren't packed very well. you blow out into the cold night and smile at me as the strings of smoke sneak through the microscopical gaps between your two front teeth. (you find that utterly unattractive. but it's imperfection, right?) and then you laughed, because you saw me watching that ribbon of smoke dancing around in the air, and you asked me what i found so interesting about its choreography. why it was so daunting to me. i wanted to write on your fingers - on the webbed edges connecting each of your fingers and up and down your hand and on your wrist. just things. so you'd think of me. things that would confuse the hell out of you, make you think twice. three times.

and then we laughed, in unison. about the same thing. i grabbed on to your side and held you close to me and under the artificial lights we burned, melted, jolted together.


(when i woke up, i wrote this. and on the top of the page, right underneath my name and the date, i placed a gold star.)

i believe in this.

we were laughing as the sun precariously melted itself into the horizon. between us, the smoke rose and settled and gawked at our insecurities. it danced between our fingers and played sweet melodies in our hollowed mouths. and for the first time, none of us cared.


i wonder: if this is what life is all about, then why are these moments so few and far between?




we are lost in this moment of complete simplicity which is so complex we've nothing to go on.

yeah, so i do.

i like this. the way things are going.

and i love the feeling of being bundled up in my car with a medium coke (thanks, mcdonalds), an old sonic peppermint, a good friend (hawkins), my favorite blanket, and the beautiful lyrical assemblies that trip and fall from my speakers.

it's nights like this where i wonder why i'd ever want my life to be any different.

your face is like the sun sinking into the ocean

i have nothing here to offer you.

under these sheets lie my insecurities
snuggled up comfortably in warmth.
these soft bass lines trail across their lips
traveling indestructibly through your ears
here is your lullaby, dangerous to hear
silent as it may be

i write my heart out in song lyrics
pouring over the musical notes
plagiarism in its finest:
pulling words from talented musicians.
with you, my only plagiarism
comes from the sweet graces of the dictionary
and the world's cliche phrases.

i struggle for these words.
for the syntax and the coherence
to explain to you these feelings,
but i have an insane notion
that even in it's sloppy state
you understand better than i do

and still...
i'm sorry that i have nothing to offer you.
i have nothing to offer you. and nothing,
my love, is just a metaphor for the one thing
that i am hesitant to give away.

(and i'll hope you accept it.
it beats and it bleeds.)

hey, remember that time i would only smoke parliaments?

i love the absolute wonder of the small, unspoken pleasures that life throws at us. the feeling of a hot cup of tea against the palm of my hand that sends warmth straight through my body. the soft whispers of a small gathering of people, huddled inside a restaurant, bouncing precariously off the mural-filled walls. the image of soft flames, flickering in reflection against the shiny red leather of the booth in front of me. the feeling of the rough pages of a heavy book and the way it sounds when my fingers grasp the pages. the smell of a mixture of musk, perfume, food, drinks combining together and creating something entirely it's own.

i wonder why i often don't notice these things. the small detailed stitches and the curious patterns. so wrapped up in appearances, words, other's thoughts that i forget my own small pleasures. the ones that reside here, between the ripped edges of a baby's blanket and the wave of wind across the monkey grass.

makes me laugh, really. to know that we worry so much about these "big" ideas and these "big" things and feelings and emotions when, in reality, the bigger emotion could be in the smallest of details.


(i have been listening to the thumbsucker soundtrack all night. originally supposed to be a project of elliott smith, but due to his passing, was taken over by the polyphonic spree. i've always loved the movie, but the soundtrack just solidifies the love. even if you haven't seen the movie you must pick up the soundtrack. currently on my list of "listening now":

- friend and foe: menomena
- the throne of the third heaven of the nation's millennium general assembly: le loup
- wincing the night away: the shins (of course)
- (): sigur ros (thanks, brent)
- if songs could be held: rosie thomas
- everything all the time: band of horses
- don't fall in love with everyone you see: okkervil river (my favorite song is "red". fantastic song.)
- illinoise - sufjan stevens (of course, again)
- the thumbsucker soundtrack
- the i'm not there soundtrack (sonic youth, cat power, sufjan, calexico, yo la tengo)
- feast of wire: calexico
- achilles heel: pedro the lion
- dilate, not a pretty girl, out of range: ani difranco.

all are amazing to fall asleep to.

)