escape our bodies with our long winded breath

with my thumb and forefinger i unmindfully strike the flint, pulling the simple intoxicant through my broken smile and feeling it cascade through my lungs, and then i simply let it go. the same product out as the same product in. i watch the wraith of carbon monoxide and arsenic escape my cracked lips and close my eyes to envision a different place. a different dialogue of circumstance where we both could calm down the heart beats and express the thoughts and dreams that are both running rampant through our encapsulated minds. we burn like a cigarette, just some shallow moments that then escape our bodies with our long winded breathing. we are the smoke, trapped for a moment and then let free into the great, open, star-filled skies.

the point where we will grow gills or drown

i awoke this morning to watch the world be slowly cloaked inside a pretentious gown of white. slowly fluttering from the omnipotent skies it trailed on for the greatest expanse ever known to human thought or reflection. optimism used to entice these veins with the dawning of each new day, a wealth of possibilities to be endured and chanced upon. now there is just a sense of slowly churning dread. it as though i am constantly waking up in a dream, but not the normal vision where things are possible, no, this dream is consistantly marred by the restrictions of this earthly cross. every day that the calendar turns, every second that ticks off the clock, it grows ever more evident what a failure i am becoming. i have almost spent two decades walking these simple paths, and i am beginning to realize that they never lead out of these foothills, not a venue to the western mountains or the crystalized sea in the east. the extroadinary thing is, all though i realize this simple, ringing, truth, i am always trying to decipher a way around it. there is no escape, there is no glory like we witness on the film's silver screen, there is just the present. there is just this set of unvariable circumstances that are constantly forcing our heads underwater to the point where we will grow gills or drown. i'm not feeling very fishy at this current juncture in time. everything is stuck in this cyclical revolution, where the ideas on men's tongues overshadow the daft skill of their hands, we are a generation of lost dreamers, and we will give away the world for a chance at the things those before us were promised and found. a kindred heart, a steady pay check, and a delayed trip to the grave. i want none of this. i want to embark across the many fruited plains of this continent and find a place where this midwestern weather won't get stuck inside my skin, a place where the stars are an open invatation to dream. not of fortune, fame, or foolish men's dreams, no, but to dream of the things that are immediate, to dream of where you are, for your mind can not ponder a place of greater magnitude or grandure. so we will dream with open eyes and half filled hearts.

getting, going, and gone nowhere

this is a race. a race between my fingers tapping away, escalating the noise, across the keyboard, and my mind slipping into a meditative state. the pills always win, and they've had a solid head start. i can feel them creeping now. i'm slipping into the unknown and can't currently...i lose again.

Something I've Been Planning On Doing For Awhile

a couple of weeks ago i wrote out my goals for the new year in my journal, and i've been meaning to publish for some measure of accountability, so, here, they are.

1. stay in love, and be content with that
2. manage to get back into shape
3. play shows as much as humanly possibly, while balancing everything else out.
4. hit the west coast like a tropical storm.
5. find some source of stable income.
6. kiss someone in the snow, in the rain, and in the street.
7. write a record i can be proud of.
8. wear a bathrobe for some amount of time every day.
9. stabilize my relationships, cut out the highs and lows.
10. put my feet in both oceans.
11. go to fenway and wrigley, the two remaining chapels of america's greatest game.
12. dream, write, express, all while being mindful of other people.
13. watch the sky.

oh, and i'll add go camping with sarah and lauren for good measure.

cover me, breathing water

happiness for me is outlined with three common factors, a cup of semi-warm sugarfilled coffee, a shabby flannel bathrobe, and calrity by jimmy eat world slowly churning out sentimental structure in the background. right now i find myself at an impass, a distance neither here nor there, with many decisions to be painstakingly made. i could walk the path down near the river bank, the passionate, unkempt dream. just as easily i may walk the opposite direction and haunt the city streets for the upcoming years, cloaked in safety, watching the world transgress through a black and white television set. this is not easy, this is not hard, it is somewhere stuck in a purgatory, a previously untraveled distance. i'm standing on the edge of living, and just watching the waves preparing to crash from either side. am i ready? am i strong enough? no time to prepare the defenses, it's just a race to which tide will rise quicker, which sea will cover me, breathing water, lost to the rush.

a process of thought

there is the sensible choice
(and then the one that makes me quiver)
the one which stands out in bold print
(and the one who easily slips off into the background)
the one i have planned with my parents
(and the one that will never escape these lips, except to her ears)
i promised her some kids, a house, and wedding rings
(i never needed to)
she stood out in the light
(and I chanced upon the shadows)
i put time and effort into the relationship
(and it never even needed the work)
she was a thought
(and she was a dream)
she was the one i planned with
(she was the one i dreamed with)
we set out the future in black and white
(and yet it will be full of color)
she asked me to marry her
(and i felt exactly the same)
i love her with my head
(and for once i love her with my heart)

let them slip out of focus

life is like a stop motion work. everything seems to be trapped inside my mind in lapses. it just moves rapidly from one frame to another, the figures moving with very little fluidity. as a frame falls, as the pages of a calendar turn, the people present in my life are constantly shifting and rearranging. for one day there are the important ones, the ones that will always be a shadow cast on the background, no matter if they can actually be captured within that simple frame. however, more often then not i let them slip out of focus, forgetting what has built the image itself. i want to open the camera and expose the film, leaving the script to be completely rewritten with more precision and thoughtfulness. everything for me seems to be in constant cycles and this is no where more apparent than in my relationships with particular individuals. i will go months without consulting with those who matter most, and i will barely notice that they have slid from the forefront of my life. i'm a miserable excuse for a friend, however, this was never my intention. i spread myself to thin, like paint over too broad of a canvas, i can not possibly cover the surface i had envisioned. maybe someday i will realize how to correct this tendency, however, as the days go by and i find myself older, i contemplate the simple truth that this is what makes me who i am. i constantly fading figure on the radar of so many different people.

this propensity for courage is failing me

i fear for the worst right now. did i really just let the love of my life walk out the door? i assume that everyday for the rest of my life i'm going to look back on this time period and wonder if the right thing really was to walk away. i feel so alone. i love her. more than i ever thought i could love anything. this propensity for courage is failing me. all i ever wanted for so long was someone who i could love and would in return have their love. i never realized i had found that here until i decided to walk away. i know she is dishonest. i know it feels like i'm a number all the time. i also know that in my heart there is nothing that shines as pure as when she smiles and tells me how much she needs me. i wonder if all these promises to visit one another, all the misguided words will all turn up emptyhanded at the end of the day. i love her so much. it has been killing me for the last week to know that i am the source of her tears, and it has hurt so much worse that there is nothing i can do. i have to go back. i have to go to where home used to be and show myself that i can survive there without caroline. i let her take my world from me, and now i'm going to go and take it all back. however, maybe that's what i'm supposed to learn from all of this, that hannah is so much better, so much nicer, so much better for me, and yet i'm going to leave her crying in my wake. i feel terrible. what can i do? nothing. there is no emergency stop on this train, and it will roll away from here in a few days time, and there she will be on the platform of my life, forever waving my goodbye, laying a kiss on my lips, telling me to return soon. everyday for the rest of my life i will be fighting my way back to you, rest assured. i love you today, i will love you tomorrow, and don't plan on having a minister ask if anyone has any objections as long as i'm not standing across from you, for i will be the individual bursting through the heavy oak doors of the church to profess my unfading love for you. that's what this is all about. i may walk the aisle with someone else, but i'm always going to wish it were you standing there, holding my hands, whispering i do's in front of our families. i love you hannah, more than you can imagine.