Tell Me You Love Me.

In the bridge in my brain is where I met God, my hand taken over by my right brain after a broken attack, clutching my pen to approve of my left hand's behavior. Shut up to my mind, while I'm icing your crayon, waxing your cranium with apologies and memory. I miss green beans with you but nothing else, except most things. But I'm off topic now. Here's what's really going on...

I am wrapped up in you, curious of what you got me, searching the waves between us to find where in your mind I am, given the situation. I am crying underneath an apartment made of blankets and a severe lack of criminal activity. Here, I am safer than I have been in my entire life and I can't handle the suspense. What happens when people begin behaving is that sometimes they become boring. I remember cradling in the corner saying at least we weren't that. Now I am cradling into you like you could save me from trying to save everyone else. I am crying in the corner tears of joy or chopping onions, but not depression. I cannot find where I belong in the sea of something similar because this is something different. In the midst of memory, I am your lost goat, I am your cream cheese and lox, and I am good for you in a way you haven't figured out yet. See, you and I fell in love the same, based solely on hope and heartbreak, but it is not something I regret. Based on you, I am figuring out that nothing ever goes away- only sits there in your brain like a dormant volcano, waiting to explode and kill everyone you know and care about. My panic has been seeping out of my pores like a bad sweat, completely out of somewhere but the roots are uncertain. The only thing I am sure of is God and panic, breaking and entering, and breaking and entering and breaking and breaking and breaking and tight fists clutched in fear inside the bathroom at work, mascara reminding everyone that you are just a litttttle unstable. I want you to know that I would not trade anything in my life for something complex ever again. Repeat how sorry you are, repeat how different you are, cry to a boy who doesn't owe you understanding, let him know more about you than you should, give him a chance to prove that he is more in love with you than you knew before, remind yourself that this is good love, that there is nothing to fear but the unimaginable grips of panic and depression, and that the truth is, at the end of the day it might be your own hand you hold but he will still be trying, curled up in your love waiting until you come home and realize you're beautiful.

Truth destroys prison walls.

-Ram Dass

Sometimes when I reread something I've written I cannot recognize myself in it. I always feel like I am a teenager again reading posts by Kate Gervais and sometimes feeling better, always feeling understood, being two of the same person just to have somebody else to talk to.

I feel these blues happening and trying to drown me but I forget how to do that by myself--- which I think is good. Still don't know how to talk about it which is not as good. Everything was good except for me. If Peter lets me through the gates, I think I will just hug God and tell him how sorry I am for not loving myself. I thought about that in the car when everyone was worrying about somebody else's problem... but the difference is I've never had anyone else to pretend to blame, maybe.

I'm talking in circles because I need to talk to somebody and I'm realizing the only person I really know how to talk to is myself. Where does that put me?

I'm always talking about myself, even when it has nothing to do with me.

Nothing more than moving my bed and the purr of Cat Power's vocals matching my sadnesses, all it takes for me to cry you a river. I'm worried over nothing. Starting to get bored because I'm not moving any mountains. And this damn song has played like four times in an hour and I just feel like you're all following me in a dream and we're holding hands screaming insecurities and crying together. I've been with one man for nearly 8 months and haven't seen him cry once and to me this resonates as failure. I don't know where I am right now... I was just sitting here so mad that my room smelled bad and I ended up pushing everything around and shoving my bed and crying over nothing and maybe a lot of things and remembering that for the last week how heavy I've felt and how I don't know who to talk to that would be appropriate. I feel like I'm crushing myself with concern and I tried to tell you without saying anything and I remember how that never works. And I kill myself wondering why they never read my writing or why the cat decided to pee on the only thing I feel like I wanted to save forever (even though it was under a bunch of other stuff in my room. I feel like I can't keep doing this kind of crying because I am always alone and I feel like that's not what this is for. I don't know what my problem is.

If I'm being honest, I'm not unhappy. I'm just so overwhelmed of never telling people things that actually matter. Even when I was playing therapist, I don't feel like I was telling you anything. I just wonder if it is me indeed or if people don't want to know me that way? I know its not anyone else's fault. It just feels like I've really written my whole story so wrong. And I just want to feel like I'm really loved for being the person I am and not for being this half person all the time.

I just don't know what I'm supposed to do about it.

I feel sad, and like there isn't much I can say.

Jibba Jabba

These are last year's songs. These don't have the same words anymore, though it feels like they do maybe.

At some point, he looked at me and told me not to look at him like that. I asked "like what?" even though he knew. And he told me that I already knew, but he knew I was going to ask when he said it. He said he'd been good. I knew what he meant, but I didn't say anything. I am two people on one swing. I am three people scared of how to talk to one other person. I am a small child screaming into the sky wondering why I was born alone. I am staring into you and reading your heartbreak. I am your number one believer. I am sure we'd fall back in love if you came too close. I am a million years away from being loved. I am scared of good people. I am happy when I don't have time to complicate my life. I feel good dancing in your shadow, but feel embarrassed and unoriginal. There are different versions of me crying myself to sleep. I am sitting in the back of the Oldsmobile writing poetry and wishing you would miss me. I am smelling something I hate talking about. I am getting out of jail free with this orange or green card, but I can't remember which one. I am older. I am dreaming that I am having a lucid dream where I am forcing myself to write down this one dream I had last night in the dream. It didn't remind me of the word inception until I told someone else about it outloud and felt unoriginal. I think about Matt Sherling every time I'm grooving on poetic wavelengths. I write that down. I am praying to God. I am scratching my arms. I am yelling in sync with orphans and circus clowns. I am laughing. I might still be crying. I am learning differences. I am worried about passionate love and dutiful love and named my cat Clarissa because I am justifying my life. I am offended. I am smarter than these girls so I tell you I may come around in time, even though I am just watching three hours of tv I don't even think I like. I am dreaming of naked girls. I am listening to time pass, in case it has a good soundtrack. I am singing along to this Justin Bieber song while Neil Young reminds me of independence. I am loving the sound of fingers on keyboard. I never meant to betray you. I'm still not sure if I have. This is the first I've thought of you during this moment. I still feel guilty for things you did wrong. I am not sure what that says about me. I want to have homework. I wouldn't know how to be a wife. There are ghosts in my hair whispering on my neck about beauty and disgrace. This is coming home. This is terror or glamour. Man made divinity.

I could do more.

"Something you can't see or hear or touch or smell: OK. All right. But something you can't even feel? Because that's what he feels when he tries to understand something to really sincerely pray to. Nothingness. He says when he tries to pray he gets this like image in his mind's eye of the brainwaves or whatever of his prayers going out and out, with nothing to stop them, going, going, radiating out into like space and outliving him and still going and never hitting Anything out there, much less Something with an ear. Much much less Something with an ear that could possibly give a rat's ass."

From Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Because I've been watching so many videos and having conversations of thoughtfulness

Trying to compile a list of intimate equidistances, somewhere lost between where I found you and where I came from, walking backwards on my hands, which is more like forewards afterall, and all I can do is apologize for not remembering how to love you more. I cant explain what I'm trying to do because I'm not sure that I'm trying to do much of anything, other than try to try my best or something resembling effortless happenings. There's nothing much I can do to adjust the prefixes, adjust my "past" as they keep referring to it as, forgetting that its happening all the time. Do you remember the first time it happened? Crossing over rocky mountain tops and letting the Allman Brothers wake me up first class or last class, or late to class maybe, all I remember is a song of letting things go, moving forward, pushing on. This is the inspiration. This is the poetry. This is the nakedness of everyone I've ever said "I love you" to. I'm never sorry for forgiveness and I'm not sorry for the rest of it either, but words hurt like bee stings that don't happen --- perpetual paranoid and papercut fingers. I remember how proud I was when I could tell my mom how to drive to the library, her pretending she'd forgotten the way just to give me something to do. I remember this and remember poetry and remember pretending like its the only thing, and I dont know how I forgot this before. There's something missing in you now, but I know where to find it. I just don't know how, how to turn left or make an appearance that makes an apparent difference. You grew a beard and I could barely recognize your immense cheerfulness. Given the arithmetic, I am reminded of my inability to cause joy and my lack of bandages. But then I look to the sky, bright blue and pregnant with rainclouds and I am lost in something more apparent that all these problems I had to excavate from my loved ones. I'm not a sorry person, but I'm sorry for being the person I have been--- sometimes. Not today. Today I'm fine. Today is a feeling

because matthew reminded me of carrollton, i reminded me of b.c.

brighted blue skin astringent smells like five weeks in spain and missing perfect teeth. somewhere between locked eyes and me telling my lover lies, i remember what wasn't waiting for me back home, in georgia, where it was probably raining, like it didn't for five weeks--- at least, it wasn't raining to me. but spanish is hard for me to grasp, even harder back then, muffled between locked lips above metro entryways, mapped out in picasso's confusion, or dressed on cream cheese pizza... noise and noise and beautiful noises reminding me that nothing, even a good thing, makes sense. but maybe spanish rain is dry, like the way my eyes were that summer, the summer of refusal, the summer of turning off the lights in order to hear someone else. farah's big brown eyes made me feel loved and understood, even though she is my opposite- how my little cosmo is now. something like understanding the impossibility of this is what made me forget how badly i wanted to forget other things. today, this is what i remember.

i feel like i deserve to be missed more. i know this is selfish, i guess.

Don't go so deep looking for tears - those ones will never matter. The ones that are to worry about will float to the top anyway. He will tell you what the Fear is in this one. And you will talk about how you can't hear about it. And you will realize that what you thought the Fear was isn't quite it at all. And you realize that he is simple, in a wonderful way. And that it's so lovely that his Fear makes sense. And when he is gone, you cry yourself to sleep because you don't know what yours is. And he'll tell you you're looking for something that isn't there. And so you do that, in case you missed something. And suddenly you are shredding journals for cocaine pages and praying to God for big silences and tears in locked closets and under some mechanic's fingernails. But you remember Tom Waits before anyone told you about him... and you remember when he laid in the middle of the road you knew exactly what was going on. And sometimes that is the point. To remember the you without the other and to remember that you aren't the same but that still exists within you. And it is all choice and chance and chaos and coffee and apologies and forgiving yourself for not knowing how to overlook the lookout. But know at the end of the day, the most beautiful thing in the world is knowing that no matter how many times you give it away, it never runs out. And if you don't believe me, ask God next time you're about to eat breakfast.

If I can have a moment of reality here, none of that is necessarily saying something directly about me. If you know me, you know this is how I write, how I go, how I think. One thing to something big to nothing about me. But of course it's all relative. But I did want to say something really straight forward... and that is I would have stayed up just to make you feel better, and I came over just to make you feel a little better, and that somehow even without being in the same room, I felt like that was the most beautiful experience I've ever had in Love, and with you. Just knowing it was a good thing for me to be there... I hope you know what I mean. Contrary to popular belief, I never say what I mean ;)

And on and on...

I ain't writing no more of these damn reviews about poets and poems I didn't want to read. Get me out of this place where words are turned into something sinister, remind me why we practice writing with our right hands, write only to write off the ones whose writing isn't enough for us to manipulate and turn into something good enough for you. If I've told you once, I've told you a time or two that nothing is ever as confusing as it could potentially, depending on the weather, seem or feel or what is that word on the fifteenth page of the dictionary next to a picture of some Eden fruit that sort of looks like a greener kind of pineapple but with a different hairstyle... Wait... was that a question? Questioning whether or not it qualifies might be the problem in the first place because every good man knows that when you ask a drug addict which was is up, he's going to point to his insides and mumble sorry and i just miss eating birthday cake and tears are just as good as bottled water. There's no point to much of anything except forgiving people who tend to forget to apologize when their anger gets the best of them. We can't help how we feel so we rub each others hands together, press fresh fingertips crimson covered and wet along each others, and apologize for practice because marriage gets boring. There's nothing wrong here, with you or me, or the way things are. All we must do is see things differently they tell us every time. So Lorraine and I raise our hands to the sky and force our legs to defy gravity, scream as the toes dance in the air, return to the ground. Little ones, little ones. It's not normal to feel good. That's a good way to think about things. Another thing to consider is that it's not really garbage if you just bury it behind the sage bushes in the backyard and don't tell anyone about it. I wonder where Jeff is now, and if he's still wandering around Berkeley leaving notes for people he has no intention to meet, if he stopped smoking herb in favor of starting over. It's not like you changed my life - you just changed everything else. My hair turned gray when we met. So I cut it all off and planted it in the middle of People's Park and you can go there to this day and you'll see sage bushes and hummingbirds and homeless humming words to that song we can't remember the tune of exactly. HE WILL REMIND YOU is carved along his shoes, filled in slightly with crimson and birthday cake and little ones, little ones.

Ain't no way I'll ever stop from loving you now...

The second dreamcatcher just doubled all my dreams, can barely sleep from all the visions, all the wild horses and broken handbags, happiness in traffic jams and a calendar's worth of trying too hard reflected back to me in perfection, simple and strong, woven into the chords of a song I'll never learn to play on the blue guitar. I named her Adeline because it reminded me of Berkeley - the idea of my bad voice and something good. I can't explain drunk puppies but I can explain that. That something about Berkeley breaks my heart some days... but I remember the softness in your eyes and I remember how perfectly the world has tumbled together just for me. I don't know. I'm saying all this because today was a good day.

Birds and words and other floating things, I cannot tell you how long I've had the same headache. I'm trying to keep the good vibrations flowing, but that's not my job. The job of adult bookstores and maybe something like harmony keep me reminded that I have no control over how things feel. There's nothing for me to offer you except my empathy, and only for so long before I don't know how to have a conversation anymore. If my dreams came true, I'd still be at work saying and doing the same things. Don't you see? Where do I see myself in five years is under a bridge stacking rocks next to my friend Pierre the troll. There's something crooked about my mind; it's not violence or hate, but a complete overdose on everything from consumable goods to magical feelings. There's nothing left to believe in when you've absorbed all resources. Give me a break. Breaking is the easy part. Healing is hard. Where am I now is a more important question. Last night's meditations led me to hearing voices of people I don't know and when I woke up I was five pounds lighter. Where is the fine line? What does insanity resemble? Can't we all just... get along?

Maybe I am just not cut out for this.

I don't think you were right. I think I love myself more than to put up with this level of all this.


Or maybe... just maybe... this lil shawty done grown right up.

We'll see.

Sensitivity.

Positives and negatives to every aspect of our selves, who we are in this world, the traits we offer, some lack. Sensitivity flows through me, push it to the side when I have things to get done, save all my vibes and feelings for a time when I feel a little indulgent, let all the feelings consume me.

Telling you there's something good about it all, able to pick up on someone else's problems without asking, not sure how to solve them but I'll listen to you without you talking, read your eyes, read the world, if I look you directly in your eyes, it's me, not you, that might explode. I just have problems, you know? When I get too close, I feel too much of you and that's what holds me back.

You know, I started listening to Drake's Take Care album on vinyl today (unnecessary... but it does sound freakin sick) and I was trying to do things and clean my room and for the first time in months, I stopped what I was doing to JUST listen to the music. And I wasn't thinking about work or things changing or missing anybody or being sad... I just listened to him spitting off his struggles and his love for his team and this insane passion and lyricism that regardless of how you feel about a person is undeniably impressive. What I love about this music is that there are actual words to this album and it kills me, breaks my heart... Then, thoughts start flowing about something I used to share with somebody who is still important to me, but I'm not sad about it. It's just like I feel like I really understand the other side somehow now, like I understand what Drake was saying, like we're talking over coffee, like it's okay to be miserable as long as you're being honest. I have listened to this album a million times and certain songs have hit me a million times, but for some reason when I put it in today, I got put in this really intense mental space. It got bigger than what I thought it was about before, bigger than what things meant to me before. Now it's words based on principle. Too alive. Feel me.

Questions I ask Google...

How do I become more attuned with the prophetic aspects of my mind?

Can I blame recent connections on the second dream catcher?

I've never had this problem before the last few months:

Cannot single out the thoughts I want to think due to the noisy thoughts leftover from work/worrying about the store.

Problem.

The answer is a joyful noise.

Tell me about a broken heart.

Not the last one, but maybe the one before it... or before that one. Maybe the first one. Or the worst one. Or the way she smelled after the goodbye following the first kiss. When was the last time you saw her? When did you decide she wasn't so important? When did you decide the blonde would be dumb? How to adults carry on with so much baggage when I forgot how to love after the only heartbreak? Let me be honest about the only truth there is: I don't know what I'm doing.

Forget about me, for a second, here. Let yourself face the window and tell me about the way you did the things we've done, and how it was different, but how there is still room in your heart to learn to love differently. Can this be done? We sing together, a song irrhythmic and lonesome, worried and hurried and precious and simply ours. This is the song we started singing, with no interest in a duet. But the more you sang about the broken heart, the more I wanted to be the one to mend it, the more I wanted to clip your wings, and teach you that you don't need anything but fresh air to fly.

I remember tight rope strings snapping and reminding me what I was after and I remember how sorry I was when the silence set in, but I also remember the love flowing through my circulatory system like lightning wondering how long I could feel so good and this is why we love: to light up and turn on the world.

feel me?

Horoscopes from prophet paul

Just because it's completely vague and could apply to most things does not mean I'm not amazed when it applies perfectly.....

"Aquarius: You don't need a reason to prove yourself. You'll do it just because you feel like it. You'll surprise yourself. You might find out that you can be strong without any of the things you thought were making you stronger." 

Interesting. Question to ask myself... what do I feel "[makes]" me strong?

and, also:

"Aquarius: Despite all you've experienced, you still will maintain the hope of the innocent and the faith of the uninitiated. You will see parts of life that are precious, wondrous, and beautiful."

Obviously.

Because I'm feeling so much better...

You're right: I look for things to be sad about.

Truth is, I think this is because for most of my life I did have a lot to be sad about. And when others could not bare their own sadnesses, I would absorb it and carry it for them. It was always someone's sadness to live in and work through. It was a choice. That's the gift. It is always ever only a choice we make to be the person who deals in these sadnesses (or anger, or what have yous). You can ask me anything... I've heard it before. This is my gift... my book of other people's sadnesses... open any page... I will read it to you without names. Somehow, we will get through this. It's always us. You don't have to be alone. The soundtrack to my life is just laughter and crying... something of a symphony. The last few months there has just been so much noise that I almost forgot how to listen. The world is so very loud...

But if I am quiet in the rolling fields, if I am attuned and receptive, if I am still... my natural state is laughter. Maybe now the issue is that I am not sad, but only missing a few things I need to find the silence. Right now I am listening to lyrically profound rap tunes and eating applesauce, dancing on my unmade bed and the wind is making this incredible and constant whooshing noise and there is nothing but a good thing, God's heartbeat pumping the alphabet through my fingertips. I wonder about a book I don't know how to write, but I just think and laugh and keep eating my applesauce, bobbing my head back and forth, letting the wind dance within me, think about the good vibes we give each other, think about the man who made me a most perfect breakfast, think about my family  and flower seeds and harmful conversation and things that go bump in the night. Somewhere in the darkness, there is a monster under the bed just needing somebody to talk to. That's a whole book right there. All I'm saying, is that when you can't make time for yourself, it makes it impossible for you to be of any good use for anyone else. That's the only truth here. That, and that there is a lion in the wallpaper.

And now all the sad songs have sick beats and all the things we built together are on the floor spread out like fresh records and it's new and recycled and it didn't have to go anywhere: it just had to change. Things could not be the same but there was an element in there that we needed to find through one another. I'm not worried about moving forward with You because I see the gift even when I am upset. There has been this hardness on my heart, even when I realized I loved you... just because there had to be, because that was how it was going to be. But I think my heart has grown back, swollen into something more capable. I want to make sure you know I feel better...

Fight your own cause. Where's your truth?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca3hhFfFH-k

Why was it then that I felt better?

I'm not sure what it was, or why I feel so un-good right now, in this moment. But I went for a walk sitting still today, just syncing up my tears with the melody, trying so hard not to let God know I was crying. There's just something about lately that makes it real hard for me to know what to do with myself... I just keep trying to remind myself that it's not personal, that it isn't my fault... that it isn't anyone's fault. Somehow, though, I'm so sorry for not being able to fix it before it was this bad. Not that in general it's all bad...

Sometimes talking in circles is the only way I know how to walk a straight line again....

Too early for intrusive sirens, I'm buying poptarts at walgreens and saying a prayer in your direction. It's not the same anymore and I'm so desperate to make something tough into something better but joy is a hard quality to navigate under rough circumstances- even when you've got it, it's hard to give out when the whole world is crying but won't just hold hands. There's something beautiful in all of this, I know. But I don't know how to help you get that, how to help hold your judgments back or how to dry tears you're not even sure you're crying. People never know if I mean it or not, but I do. It's about the translation. You know? I stare at the marble and try to find the faces in the twists, try to see if I can find a lion in the white walls.

I want you to know I wouldn't choose any other way of living because I love it just like this.

In other news, I like the sound of Obama's voice.

Scripture says He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes...

Walking and talking and learning how to forgive just by engaging in a matching feeling, twins sharing nostrils and breakfast. It's not that you needed this from me, but just something I needed, to remember the closeness just because - not for having things in common or things to talk about but just the good feeling of another person existing. I don't know how to explain what I've been going through but I worry it's something like regression. I just hope something in God is willing to work with me on this lack of green fields and moments of silence. I'm working on it. 

But in the mean time, I'm grateful for living this big life, in case it ends up being a short one.

Patience.

There is something about the panic and the body, the way the two merge and blend and how the panic swells the body, becomes a body, makes itself something grander than that which contains it. I want to explain how much it scared me, after years of the war against me and the me finally winning... I want to explain how this felt like the biggest failure of all, how I'm still not sure what it was or how I let it happen, how it came out of nothing, how it came and went and hurt so much even once it was over. I see now why people need someone else to talk to... I'm just not sure if it would help. The truth is, I don't know how to carry all of this weight on my own, and the truth is, my arms are getting so tired. I think I just was happy for so long that I forgot what it would be like when it began to creep on back in. I know there's a darkness within me I cannot and don't want to fight ... meditate with the darkness, let me radiate my light. Things aren't easy for me right now. I want you to know that when I say panic, I only mean it a little. I know it could have been worse. Just don't tell me you know how I feel, or that people understand, or that I'll be okay. Nobody knows how I'll be. I just need the silence, I just need a song, I just need the air. You know what I mean?

BART musings...

This song, and this computer, and the way you smelled when you picked me up last night from the BART station, remind me of the summer I stayed in California and all the time I spent alone, and all the writing I did avoiding all the writing I should have been doing. You weren't with me yet, but you are with me now in those memories, seeing as how you are here now, pouring out of each line I'm afraid of writing, seeping from the inches of fear and magic and anxiety. I remember that summer being full of so much I wanted to forget, which is funny because now all I can really remember are solitary moments and the song I played over and over again curled up on my what some people might call a bed in Germany, windows wide open but hiding under sheets that weren't mine. Nobody told me it would be cold. That's what I remember most of all... how cold it was and how nobody warned me. That's the funniest part about the San Francisco bay area... nobody tells you how cold it can get here... especially in the summertime. Just like Germany, there was so much alone time here in the beginning, and especially that summer... so much time being worried about being too much and so spending all my days alonely. Somewhere between then and now, I've only changed a little, added some lines to my face and toughness to the heels of my feet. There are new Yous now... but less music. There's a dog and probably more happiness. My dream told me last night that there were things I was forgetting I could feel, and when I woke up, I was scared. But the truth is, I'm better off without it and I know that we'll have our time to set sail and go somewhere new. For now, this is still new for you. That's okay.

Anyway, this is what I wrote on BART yesterday in the back pages of my copy of Infinite Jest...

We left one another in deep silence often. I'm learning to forgive boredom, forgive everyone around me for letting me believe I were what they call somethin' else. It's her in the quiet noise next to you, but I don't mind, making jokes about girls I don't actually care one way or the other about. I make comments but I know how I feel is mostly apathetic, mostly concerned with my lack of presence, mostly unconcerned in general about anything. Who am I kidding? You don't read this anyway. Before I had my heart broken, my favorite color was blue, but I never told anyone. But it was blue, like joni mitchell, like how I was often, like how it feels when someone kisses you when you know they have a secret, like how you know they haven't deleted their memory yet. Blue like broken bones and like they say about blood before it meets air, like eyes tired from crying and apologies and solitude and how blue is the word "sorry." Blue like salt, like worry, like music you play on repeat, like the places you'll never go. Like when noone asks you what's wrong even though you don't want to talk about it anyway. Like the missing button, like what Robert Frost really meant, like poetry nobody wants to talk about, like pouring out, like melting. Blue like a bad joke when it's on you, like water tastes, like sadness (of course). Like you when you were honest, like real heat, like how it's hard to wake up some mornings, like sleeping alone, like psychological tragedies, like Alice, like you after me, peaceful and ready for better things. Like how change can be blue. Like how water isn't really, like how we feel better thinking it is, like the last time you talked to God without a meal first. Like anything else, quiet and tired and ready to find land.

Sunny days, chasing the clouds away...

It doesn't get easier and that alone gets so much harder to understand. I'm not sure where I went wrong, or where we went right, or when I decided to grow up. Or why I won't ever know how to grow up. All I know is that the more I miss you, the harder it gets when you go away. And all I know is that the longer I love you, the more confused I am when I'm sad with you. I just want to fall asleep on my parents' couch and apologize myself to sleep. I think that's the only truth. Right now, I don't know how to explain myself. I just feel a little bit less than I know I am.

Okay, starting over.

I just want to fall asleep on my parents' brown couch and apologize myself to sleep, forget everything I know and just start humming the words to all the songs I remember, only 90s hits and songs about self harm and sadness, songs about the way I never know how to be, songs about doing the right thing the wrong way, like all things, like all humans, like bad times, and making your middle children write right-handed. There's nothing wrong with prayer except when nobody's listening, and when Nobody is listening, and when nobody listens, I stutter, forget how to say the alphabet backwards, and talk in nonsense. Honestly, this is the only honest moment: I was driving through the roses on a two way street, but only going that way, and I felt the skin on my body. I felt the skin on my body. I feel nothing but that when the air gets weird, trees are too much tree, sky too blue to comprehend, all of it too much like something people don't think about God creating (even though aliens like us, we know better). Somehow, I feel like talking like this says more about how I feel than things that make sense, than words you know, than alphabets in order of appearance. My dearest, let me be the tears on your lips )though we've never seen our actor cry( because I like the way salt tastes, I like the way it feels when I can't escape confusion, when I know nobody reads anything I have to say, when I know I'm the only person who ever played that one game where you see how much you can do it without crying enough for somebody to hear it --- again, remember how you never asked? All I remember is how I'm done talking. The only thing that ever worked for me was silence. And I'm sorry.

Only important things get written twice.

My days off are generally the same... drive somewhere... find wilderness. Sit in said wilderness. Write forever. Ignore everyone. Think about crying. Don't cry. Feel overwhelmed with good feelings. Consider writing poetry. Drink chai tea latte. Continue ignoring people. Love the earth. Wonder if I'm still much. Write on postcards. Wish I were better. Give thanks. Breathe deeply. Stretch. Pet a cat, somehow. Spend money. Drive home. Smile a lot. Go to sleep.


Something wild about how simple my life has become... something wild about how it's never the same day twice, even when I do the exact same things, talk to the same people, sleep in the same bed. You know why? The difference is a miracle, and a secret.

Christmas.

Truth be told, I don't remember what it was like loving you. Be that a blessing or a tragedy, I'm still uncertain. But what I do know is that sometimes, all we want is a specific "I'm sorry," one that can simply explain the pain, even if there's nothing we can do to take it away, erase me. Between us, it was the first after the end, the one that said in plain verse, directly and earnestly, "I'm sorry I couldn't appreciate you." A broken heart waited two years for words so clean. It made everything okay. And I'm sorry for bad words and madness, post-split poison and missing pieces, for not knowing how to forgive myself for you. We all hurt a little sometimes, and you were right, and I was always asking for it. There will always be a softness in my heart for you when I say your name, and for that I'm sorry I never knew quite how to love you. I miss your dad's laugh and your taste in music, the little sounds of unconditional patience and underrated experience. But in all of these shifting days, I don't know what else to do but raise up my hands to the sky and thank God we made it here.

I like the songs written in broken chords better, the ones with the choruses that just repeat a single name, that just cry out into the universe a chance for forgiveness.

I named this post Christmas because that is when I originally wrote this, and it's funny how much longer after the feelings actually caught up with the words, really. There is a season, turn, turn, turn. <3

And I think of Love, as something new...

My love and I

There is only stale jealousy between my lover and I, never quite active, at least not that I'm aware of. I'm only ever worried about my lovers big loves from before I even knew how to reach them, loves I have no way of touching or taking away, loves I know you could have loved forever if only she'd been just a little more patient and you just a little more aware that you could break a heart like Cinderella broke curfew, and your relationship just turned into smashed pumpkins after the crack of the bell. I'm thankful for this, in some way, in my way, in the way that the voice inside my head is more of an Alice than a Kate, the way that the words come so easily sometimes, and so painfully so much more often. There is something I'm thankful for in the way I wake up with my sister beside me and how it is a different kind of thankful when it is you. I know you might even have more to be jealous of, but where I hear the words and the same kind of love, just with a different one, I worry that this is not something I can live up to. I'm always worried I'm not enough woman to break a heart, not enough princess to sweep you off your feet, just a little too much youth to be taken seriously. The truth is, I've done my best and I love you as much as I never knew I would be capable of, in the big way that makes little girls dream about wedding dresses they may never wear but they're so sure of holding onto, the way that makes big girls sad when they can't make babies, the way you look at me when I know you mean it when you're not thinking about anything - just looking at me because you can and because you love me.

The truth is, I've done my best and that's my worry. There's this thing about humans, about how they don't know what they've got 'til it's gone, but maybe because humans don't understand disappearance, can't comprehend ends and stops and just over its. But I think about the way these things end and how hard it is and how much I never actually want to hold onto anything but that light in your eyes, keep it in jars on wooden bookshelves, like firefly collections. I think about how you loved her, and I know I don't have to  be that. But it would be nice for once in my life to realize I am loved and to just appreciate that being enough. You will always have another hole, another bruise, scars and stars and wasted pieces of paper and songs about girls I hope I never meet--- but I want you to know that in this moment I hope you understand that I hope I have you always, that I get to keep you, that you want to be that person in my poems, in my songs, in my prayers, praying with me, laughing with me, crying on beaches against big waves and knowing that the bugs in my eyelashes only like you.

Sometimes, it is all a little bit too much noise. My average work-day consists of so much noise and so many people and so many interactions, all of which I am grateful for. I just need, at the end of the day, that loving silence and to feel the pressure dissipate. Here we are.

I haven't been writing much because I can't handle my own noise. I can't deal with knowing there is this much going on in my head and that I haven't acknowledged a large portion of it. But in general, I'm feeling good. I just need a break.

Do you ever just miss dictionaries?

May God's Love Be With You

And it's still just me and You, ain't it? Quiet in the dark with salt water and something not quite sadness but something equally soft, equally comforting... It's really the same thing, same as when I like a song and I just leave it on repeat for a few hours, sometimes a whole year at a time. For so long it was that one, the one that reminded me on a nightly basis that as much love as I was capable of giving, I had yet to learn how to love myself. All that bullshit about having to love you before you can love somebody else... well, I always saw it as I just had to be able to Love, maybe Love You, but I never have forgotten, there was nothing to remember. There is only this darkness in this moment that reminds me that I don't know what I'm doing, that even if I know what I want and even if I know how to get it, I might not be able to find a person to go after it with, that even when I think I do, like I always think I do, maybe I just don't know, maybe nobody I can meet will be ready for that something with me. You know, I heard this one on a tv show, some episode about a funeral and it made me cry then even though I wasn't watching the actual episode... all I know is when I hear somebody sing like this, I believe in something so much that I'm still not sure of. I ramble a lot because after 23 years, I still haven't figured out how to say what I mean, even after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of words, miles, tears, books, photos, people. None of it is quite the same as what I see when other people talk. Is that light in your eye or just a splinter? I think part of it is that there's always this noise, and this silence that I am so desperate for, and this person that won't sit with me in the silence yet, and this need to make people sit in that with me, and this pain that comes with knowing how much I could hurt you with it.

We never talked about that again.

I don't know why, but it bothers me that you never asked...

Maybe it's you, not me, that isn't quite ready for this.

Sometimes, even when it feels good, I realize it doesn't quite feel like what I need it to.

I miss living with Cara... and I miss other things sometimes. I don't miss all the things, but there are things I miss. There are more things I love than things I miss, but right now my eyes are wet and I just wish I had somebody to eat dinner with.

The Wackness

Quiet music notes humming through cheap speakers and all I can speak is to her, about how it isn't her fault, how even if it's her, it's not her fault, fault lines and cheap cameras and bad whiskey and a million apologies from a boy with a pocket knife just too accessible for a healthy relationship, there's nothing sharper than words and cheddar, and I don't mean money: honestly, I don't mean anything. To write, to escape, to eliminate, to remind myself that just because a wound is healed does not mean people will not later ask of a scar- and I mean this literally, literally imprinted upon some part or all parts of a body and a story and even a spirit has a scar and I wonder if God has any of those. A lot of people manage to hate Him (or It) and I wonder what THAT feels like, even with all the love of the rest of the world and knowing that every time somebody celebrates the beauty of a horizon or reuniting with an old something or finding forgiveness in their heart after so much hurt, even knowing all of that gratitude is yours, how does He hold it together to make another day? The truth is, it's irrelevant, and probably irreverent, and probably I used spell check to spell a word so simple I should know how to spell things like that without looking when I can spell big ole fat words without even a second guess. There's something sick about me some days and I wonder what it is, how to fix it, how to be a big person when I'm so small, how to cry less, how to cry more, how to listen better. The truth is, I can only be this little girl with scars and a song in my head and a cliche to work out. I just have something big big big it's something inside me waiting to pour out so much so the floodgates themselves will cry. Do you know how hard it is just to say what you mean when you aren't even sure what that is only that it IS is the thing? I've grown to love her deeply for her pain without knowing how to forgive myself for my own. Is there such a thing as sin if God already forgave me? I just want to make it all better, wish these bandaids were just a little big bigger. I'm still limping with a bloody foot, even though I finally washed my hair. IF I have a daughter, I'll name her Amelie and build her a big wooden swing with daisies in the yard and I'll know how to do something right, I think. For the record, only some things are true... others are just what they are: words or actions or make happens or do betters or stop cryings. I know that you loved her big, but I want to love bigger, love so that her broken heart can maybe forget that. You know?

Xoxo

Just...

Complaining is an act which makes me feel guilty... and I try not to focus on the negative so much in my life so that those complainy feelings are usually very short lived anyway. Today was really rough on me in some aspects, but as I walked the street up to my white picket fence, smelling the insane scents of blooming California roses, I forgot why I wanted so badly ten minutes prior to burst into tears. 

I'm fine.

That's nice to just acknowledge sometimes.

There was something insane about the carpet floor, about the way you said her name, about how softer the world seemed when we were able to look one another in the eyes, for the first time, as friends. And I'm just grateful for the grace of forgiveness. Not only toward you, but the way I felt as if I'd forgiven myself, something I could not know how to do without you. The world, even softer still, growing soft and soft and cotton and clouds. I'm happy. This is something I need to accept.

And there was something about the time of night, my new "you" pushing my back along the hardwood, our lips holding back stifled laughter, and the music playing, and the look in your eyes, and knowing I love you. The way you say my name and the way you ask me questions. Something about how you are Something, my George Harrison, about the way you move me, about the way I push back and you don't let me, about toast and chirping birds and a really well formed sentence and seeing and old friend and a perfect frame for an okay picture and the way my handwriting looks right after I wake up and the day you can finally just leave your window open. This is what you are for me.

My heart moves fast and with you even faster, and you gave this to me, this ability to open it. Because it's never been quite this way, I still am constantly fumbling to figure how to be this way, how to enjoy without question, just how to come up and meet you for air at a normal person's requirement. You are teaching me how to breathe... but I'm a stubborn student. Learning to "let go" is something that makes me very nervous. But, for you,  I'll try.

"I respect you for challenging me." ... Marilyn Manson said this in an interview I was randomly watching and I loved how he put this. Dita Von Teese was the featured guest on Love Line last night and I ended up just researching her all night and that inevitably lead to me looking into Marilyn Manson interviews... wacked out night, but in a good way. Interesting cats, no doubt.

Anyway, rando shoutout to this fantastic makeup artist, because of a completely non-makeup-related video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8rVg3mT7Y8&feature=g-all-u&context=G2b9669fFAAAAAAAAVAA I loved this.

I will show ya

I'm not sure if it's just the time of year, that time when I can't produce because I'm too engulfed in the real world... I remember Paul in the living room saying "depressed people simply have more time," a great truth in this world I think. But also, my mentor once told me, you don't need a crutch, a disease, a grand problem, or a drink to be a great artist. In fact, if you do need those things, you're probably not. I don't know quite what I think of it all but this is my art: the way I move my arms when chasing seagulls, the way I'm so desperate to smell the sky.

The art I have is living, no way for me to stop and sit down most of the time. Truth is, great talent isn't the same thing as art. I want nothing to do with writing or sharing my stories, most of the time. I want to be able to have a real conversation about the heart of life with people, engage in how wild the little things really are, pet a kitten, cry over a not-even-that-sad thing. I just want to continue feeling something grander than how things are. Is that an art?

When I met you, I knew I had nothing left to be sad about. It wasn't that I knew right away that I needed you, but I knew right away upon meeting you that I wanted something to change, and I wanted you to be apart of whatever this was. And that's how it went. I keep saying the same things, because I'm still trying to find the words to say that I love that you are mine.

How things change so quickly... how all of the best things in my life have always come so quick, taken me by surprise. How from something that was always comes something that is, and how currently that something that is has taught me to just let go, and feel something so beautifully love.

Something from this newness is a gratitude for that which has always and ever been wonderful, being my two sisters, and my two best girly friends. Something about how tender my heart feels right now, in the matters of everything, from the color of the sky to the sound of music, is how I know that it is, really open. And as much as it scares me, it's the most magnificent feeling I could imagine.

Ya diggg?

Sometimes, the best thing to do, is just say yes.

Sometimes, just writing it out is prayer.

The last few days/weeks/months, feeling a return of people presenting these really strong emotions/expressions of self to me and it's something I love, exactly what I live for. But I worry I'm not currently equipped to deal with these feelings, unsure of myself a little. Trying to find that foundation outside of me once again. Have I mentioned that I may have buried myself alive? Point is, I love this. I'm just not sure I know how to do it, right now.

I hope that I do. And I want you to know that I'm doing the best I can to find the moments for everyone. It just gets to be so very much sometimes... and some days, I just have these moments of desperation for solitude.

Broken skin is only one aspect of a wound.

And more on that later.

“Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.”
― Ram Dass

A heart wounded by the belief that what we had was a good love and the awakening that maybe it was not even love, but a deep found intrigue fueled by the both of us, in love with everything but one another, everything except the very thing we thought we were fighting for. I'm not saying it wasn't, but I'm saying I'm not sure what it was anymore. When one mixes tenses, nobody can focus. We lose sight of what we've seen or will see right now. You see? All I know is that the first time I met him, I knew I needed to find a way to be okay. And the second time I met him, I felt the shift in the universe, and I heard God whisper to me that my life was already changed. What I feel now is the ability to breathe, and it's hard to cope with this. Happiness is very disorienting for a small percent of the population, including the alligators and all of us middle children. Mostly, I consider that considering your process won't necessarily help me if I can't forgive you. What I'm learning is that the more you let go without forgiving yourself, the more guilty you feel when the happiness swells. I'm not talking about you, though, obviously; I'm talking about myself.

So, let me start over.

I have been practicing happiness lately, learning just now that I am a being deserving of love, and I'm daily seeking forgiveness as well as looking into the heart of something to seek forgiveness in the name of those I've felt have hurt me. I've also let so much of the things I've been holding onto simply go. It's not always my fault if someone cannot release their pain, even if it is because of me.

Okay. I did it again. How about this?

I know that I am doing the right thing because I couldn't be doing anything else. I want you to know that I am doing just fine. And that I'm happy. And that sometimes it takes something, or someone, new and beautiful to help you wake up and see that you, too, are a beautiful, radiant being. And that there's nobody in the entire history of possible infinities that is a better you than the one you are. And that there's nothing left over or reachable in the backwoods of who you were that is going to help you feel better now--- just let it go, let it be, and let someone let you matter. Maybe.

I think that's what I meant.

All love,

lil kg

It was like a weird teenage wonderland, pizza and something beautiful between us. Here we are, I guess. Here you are, I guess. It's refreshing.

I'm really overwhelmed with not talking about things, and that's important to deal with. This feels like a grown up issue I can't grasp fully, but the disappointment I felt this week has just been incredible. "Sometimes you do the right thing, but it isn't the right thing for another person." It was funny hearing that, like at the end of Wizard of Oz when Dorothy states what she's learned- a funny moment of absolute reflection, like a moment of this is what I was meant to learn. But nothing is changed because of it. It's frustrating to feel out of control.

I write this here because I'm not sure how to deal with it there.

"I will do these things inside your love
However fragile is how broken it becomes
If I don't tell you how I'm feeling it's because
I'm still learning, but I will learn to love

This is how we walk together, old and filled with holes
In these sweaters, scarves and fireworks between us holding hands
Inside a million stars together as we walk
And we sit on some old bench I touch your hand in this old park
Inside of you, inside us"

For you, I'll try.

It's actually amazing how disappointed I am. No, really. I'm amazed that I can even feel like this.

Today/night has not been the highlight of February.

No, but seriously...

Too Much to Remember

Something random I wrote, maybe the beginning to a story. Maybe the end. I don't know what it is. Written in October, inspired by crumbled mountains and the Gervais family driveway.

Xoxo, kg.

---

I watched her books disappear over weeks… the words bound shrinking just like those between us. I had done nothing wrong, she said. But I knew better. I knew that if I had done nothing wrong, she wouldn’t leave me, wouldn’t have already left me. Here we go.

Before I fall asleep, I can still feel her breathing down my neck, her softness bringing me to life when I least wanted it. I never took advantage of these kinds of things.

Is this not the greatest tragedy?

I didn’t mean to fall apart, of course. But it’s wedged between us, something like air but more beautiful, something like water but heavier. All I can feel is my heart breaking again and again and again and again and again here we go, I say instead: I still have our box. I can’t help it. I can’t throw her away. I can’t give her to goodwill or forget worn jeans or mermaid hair. I didn’t know how to keep her and so she was gone. If I believed in God, I would have prayed to Him. Who the hell knows, maybe I did. I can’t remember anything except trying not to cry, trying to hold myself away from her, when all I wanted was to feel the soft animal of her body falling against mine, make me somebody. She wasn't the only one, but she was the only one that matters. You would learn to hate me if you knew.

Nothing Even Matters

Not a legit music video or anything...

But. I'm so in love with how good this song is. Smooth. Reminds me of rainy days and feeling calm.

Today was wonderful.

There's a black cat sitting on the sill of wide open windows in my San Jose home. My hair is in my signature messy bun and it's my day off, nowhere to be. There's a group of kids outside ringing their bicycle bells (no, seriously.) and Jerry's guitar is singing to me. I finished my unicorn puzzle this morning. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. I feel wonderful.

It was a bizarre conversation between you and I, fumbling between business and curiosity, laughing and misery. I never know what to say to people when they ask me what I'm doing. I never know what I'm supposed to say when they ask what I've been up to. I'm always doing the same things. I brag about the little things because I don't have much else to say... a poem will be published and I don't know how to talk about it... I know it's significant but at the same time, it's not so much. But for me, it's something huge. Is that enough for me to talk about? Can I hold your attention with my small joys?

The truth is, what I'm up to is teaching myself to be happy.

I still laugh at all the wrong times. I'm not anxious anymore. I have enough money, always. I don't eat enough. I cry rarely. Something good is happening. I miss my sisters. I'm falling apart toward someone else, and it's beautiful. I don't have any cats. I don't know how to hold a conversation a lot of times because I've buried myself alive. I had a girl scout cookie for breakfast. My heart is full of something hopeful. The weather here is perfect every day... even when it rains.

I have changed. Not much, but I have. I want you to know that I answered the phone this time not to help you or give you some pointers or anything. I answered the phone because I prefer to say yes, because I think it's time. I know there is a sadness in all of this. But there's something valuable in old friends and old anything... maybe for you, the depths of me that destroyed us are all you know to look to when you need saving. Just an idea.

There's something about how good this day is that reminds me why all of our miseries happened. Heartbreak is productive. Launching forward, straight into sunlight.

But. Even when they are the same thing, you are not the same girl who saw those things the last time. Not necessarily. How do you want to deal with these same things? Do you want to deal with these same things? Are these same things worth all those things that are so very different?

Look at those patterns all you want.

But at the end of the day, what I remember is the way our eyes open at the same time on accident. And I remember we're people. That you're you. And that no matter how much I expect/want you to disappoint me, you want my radiance more than I want that hurt.

There's a first time for every thing.

Sometimes, when things look really different, but you have a feeling they might really be the same, look closer. They might just be the same. Over and over and over and over again.

this sucks.

It's actually weird how much I love managing my money, paying my bills, organizing my various savings accounts. Collectively, I'm in about $20,000 in debt (eff student loan interest. For seriously.) but it's healthy debt and I don't worry about it too much. If I were to (God forbid) lose my job tomorrow, I'd have at least a teeensy bit of squish room and that's exciting to me. If you know me at all, you know I'm notorious for spending money... and when I was younger, I was the notoriously irresponsible one who somehow had two jobs at all times and never had a dime to her name, always borrowing from the Bank of Britta and taking out Mommy loans. I've come a long way.

It's scary to me to look at my student loan repayment and feel like even paying twice as fast as scheduled, the number is somehow allowed to keep growing. It's a weird monster in my life, but one that I am living with, accepting of. Although I have my fair share of opinions on academia and financial aid now that I'm out of college, I can't change that I owe the government this much money and I wouldn't, considering it was all for fantastic explorations and magical misadventures. What I can do is have a positive attitude about it.

I work very hard at my job, five days a week. I'm extremely dedicated to it and I love it, would not want to leave for anything at this moment in my life. I love it. I felt that there were moments in the last few months where money would get tight--- by that I mean, I'd have money to cover small things but I found myself transferring out of my savings and this and that, which defeats the purpose of the savings, and it just started to bum me out. I started babysitting one day every other week and that tiny addition to my funds, while not necessary, is helpful, and comforting. Maybe this blog should be more about how I taught myself to manage my money, but for now, I'm just reflecting on how I turned this thing that used to be such an awful demon in my life into something fun and thrilling. The most important thing for me was setting small goals, ones that were both attainable and more fitting to who I am, not just what I had to pay for.

Yay!

Valentine's Day is for....

Me: So, are you looking for a gift for your Valentine?

Rando guy shopping alone in an all pink store: I don't celebrate Valentine's day.

Me: That's because you're single.

Rando guy: I actually hate you.

Such a sassy moment! Whoa, baby. You know... it's totes cool if you don't dig Valentine's Day. It IS a dumb greeting card holiday that encourages overeating of sugary snacks in already overweight spoiled children all over the place. It creates a lot of unnecessary pressure to buy people things they aren't ready to receive and it reminds me, personally, of a whole lot of disappointment. But... like Thanksgiving, a holiday which I think is completely stupid, I'm going to go ahead and give out a KAUG "Holla" for any day that celebrates something as completely fantastic and awesome as love, courtship, mating. I'm the kinda girl that tries to show people I care year round and I don't want anything from anyone on that day of all the days of the year. But I'm going to go ahead and say I love love, I love falling in love, I love when I am in love, and I dig that there is a special day to say hey lovers. Just, for the record, more than half of Valentine's day cards are passed between family members, which I think is a beautiful thing. I get that you don't necessarily recognize this day as an important calendar holiday, but, you know, I just love having something to look forward to, having these small things throughout the year that I can mark it by. I don't know if I "celebrate" this "holiday," but I know that there are a lot of people who will be getting cards from me on February 14th and I guarantee the back room of Jest Jewels will be flooded with candy and cookies and magic. And my nail polish will probably be... pink. Whatevskies.

Point is, I was kidding. And I like sending mail. And I hope somebody tells you they love you on February 14th, Valentine's day or just another Tuesday in February, whether you get candy or not.

Xoxo.

Is it pathetic that this song still makes me cry?

I remember a few years ago when Seth Lanier lived in Colorado still, I sent him a copy of Bob Dylan's Live 1975 (Bootleg Series Vol. 5) - I am thinking of this because that version of Mr. Tambourine Man just played on Pandora. And I remember he posted a myspace bulletin about getting that in the mail. I loved that. Because I love attention, maybe, but because I love knowing that my instincts are right, that my dear friend would appreciate that specific collection of jams delivered in the very strange way I delivered it, definitely. And I'm happy to know that even thought I don't reserve the same time to send that same kind of ridiculous mail, I still do, from time to time, send those messages into the universe that are pretty on-point when people need them. I think that's important to consider. I do wish I knew how to set more time aside to do that. I was also crazier then, and in a time of mania. I needed to talk to anyone who wasn't around. I needed to explode. It's easier when people aren't close--- they won't judge you as much from far away. Something like that.

I worry about the people I miss, worry about them knowing that I do miss them. It's hard to keep yourself afloat with so much worry. It all just feels like selfishness. It feels mostly like I can't explain myself. Why don't you just get my brain messages? Why is that the best I can do?

Anyway, today I didn't have much to say. I was uncomfortable all day, not upset or anything. I just felt strange, like a weirdo, like I just wanted to sit at home with my dad on the brown couch and think of nothing. But I couldn't think of nothing. All I could do was actively feel uncomfortable and worried.

But then I hear that beautiful damn song. "Play a song for me." And I feel so good humming along to my favorite lyrics. And I know my dad's already sitting next to me on the couch in my brain, no big deal. And I think about the way we spend time with people who aren't around. And it's not projections or mental instability--- it's the spirit! It's beautiful communication in the mystical realm. It's believing and knowing and experiencing and refusing to judge your own self, even for just a moment. I love that music is often this signal in my life, reminding me that we're all in this together, and reminding me so often that I'm okay on my own, too. This doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, because I'm just writing this time for myself, giving myself a little something to sing along to.

And now, Me and Bobby McGee. A song I will always hear through my mother's voice in Swedish. Amazing. So good. Good night.

How do I keep getting fatter and skinnier at the same time?

We all have our little secrets.

"Can I tell you a secret?" inked quiet on a blue sticky note, delivered safely to my mailbox... inside, full of music and sound, that fleeting joy I've been holding desperately onto for a month now, trying to believe that this is actually happening, that you might actually be here, that this might really be different... trying not to run the other direction... let the music quiet me. Then you sent me this music, for real, and I'm quiet. And in this quiet is something magnificent. In this quiet, I'm telling you. This is what I fall asleep to.

Butterflies and noise... the way it looks like my ceiling never ends in the darkness, like it goes straight up to the sky it's so tall. I fall asleep to the song of myself. Stopped playing that list that I love, but, God, it just haunts me now. I fall asleep to blankets and Maxie and chimes and carousels and, sometimes, tears. I fall asleep to words and laughter and people, but always just myself. In this quiet, there are a million mes with a million yous and the part of that one Decemberists song and your voice, now, singing me to sleep. That's what I fall asleep to... I fall asleep to hope, to forgiveness, to prayer. I never make it to the "Amen." I fall asleep to chance, to "maybe tomorrow," to another go, to not letting go. Sorry after sadness after mania after depression after joy after chaos after colors after travel after homelessness after hot breath on car windows and sitting alone. Solitude. Missing you. Missing somebody I don't know how I know so well so fast. Missing lines and curves and circles and always depth. I'm not sure if I know how to do this. Nothing is happening. I'm not lying when I say this. Nothing is happening. But, at the same time, there is something being written between the lines I'm not bold enough to write, something collapsing and rebuilding before I even knew there were blueprints, letters, cliches, and that ever present sinking feeling that I don't know how to do this.

What I fall asleep to is infinite possibility, and the song of you. Because even if I don't know how, I promise, for you, I'll try.

January Puzzle Completion!

Missing piece aside, I completed the January puzzle!

Not sure why they're in this order, but it's nice knowing that last picture was only about 2-3 days ago.

I know it probably seems dumb to want to complete a puzzle a month. Why do people even do puzzles? I like the quiet. I like the challenge. I like that I'm an 80 year old woman inside. I like that now that I did it, I get to destroy it. I like that it'll go back in the box and nobody but me will know there's a missing piece. I hope my brain gets stronger this year.

Cheers to resolutions.

Last few months/weeks have been extremely social for me here, comparatively speaking. I'm pushing myself because I know it's unhealthy to spend so much time alone. And I love everyone! But there's something that sounds so good to me at the end of the day about sitting in my bedroom alone with Ryan Adams playing, putting together a puzzle or burning through pages of my current read. Tonight was really fun! I'm just sleepy.

As always, though, there is a balance. That's the key. Remember, Miss Kate.

Help! I'm a rock.

To the untrained eye, there is a sameness in someone who is openly emotional and somebody who is able to talk about their emotions openly. I'm only the former. Terribly overwhelmingly afraid of letting people take care of me, outrageously anxious about "letting people in" (a phrase which I understand, but also can never understand), openly uncomfortable with sharing myself in a deep way.

I'm a joke, I think.

I feel the connection forming in my bones, under my skin, in the stars and I pull back, desperately. I worry about judgment and tears and unnecessary conversations about how somebody or something hurts me. "I don't belong to anyone, my heart's as heavy as an oil drum." I sing this to myself over and over again, even when I thought I was yours, even though I hope to become yours, someday. It's just the same old thing 1000 times though. Stupid and stubborn and self critical and I don't know how to make myself just be kind to myself. I don't know how to let somebody just love on me and I don't know how to let somebody know that this is something I need. I'm a mess, I guess. I'm a mess, definitely.

The truth is, I wish I could do something about it and feel all those things normal girls feel and be obsessed with the idea of togetherness and happiness but it just makes me feel anxious, makes me feel like I'm going to drown in discomfort and I'm going to disappoint everyone. Yes, you are different. You do something different. They always do. But I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what this is.

All of this being said, I don't know what it is that I'm supposed to be telling people. I don't ever know which moments are moments of opportunity to "let" somebody "in." I know that I wish I knew what it meant. I wish I knew why I still get that urge at 2 am when I'm all alone and I know it'd be months before anyone would find out and I'm crying while I write this because I don't know that anyone would know what I'm talking about. And that's my fault.

I'm not guilty, but this is my pleasure.

I've been severely disappointed in her last few singles, but Miss Kelly's come back swinging and I love this jam, shamelessly. I dig her sweetness and think there's something to be said about an artist in this time who consistently releases family friendly hits that don't suck.

Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm aloooone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn676-fLq7I&ob=av2e

I've written more for myself in the last 27 days than I have in years.

I might have you to thank for that.

I can't explain it. I can only appreciate it. And hope I don't do something crazy before I have a chance to enjoy it.

I spent the last 3 days with Kristyn, and the immense and divine joy this brought me I can in no way begin to articulate. All I can say is that I love her. And that there's something she does for me that no other person really has... Kristyn just lets me be. She always invites but never pushes me, just kinda lets me do my thing. She questions me a lot and asks me questions that I know I should consider, but Kristyn's never told me not to do something. I think I've always needed this anchor, this stability, this comfort. If the rest of my life is continuously chaotic and insane, there has always been a certainty in our love that I am grateful for. I felt like because it was not sunny, I kind of couldn't show her all of the things I love here, and some of the things I love didn't look as beautiful. But really the experience I loved most during her visit was laying in the guest bed of Claudia's house just talking with her before falling asleep.

The truth is, I came here to write something pretty emo, express some serious negativity I've been feeling the last few days. But I remember that moment and dancing in the rain with her and I feel a completeness that reminds me how boring sadness is, how much it isn't what I want to focus on. There's something fantastic about how quickly a few good vibes can erase an entire mood.

Maybe I'll be emo later. For now, I'll take that you just want to be alone as a sign that I need to be. And I'll remember what it was like to feel cold feet on colder cement. And I'll be okay with that.

And then there's this cat painting...

Desperately trying not to be a huge baby.

But it's my party, I can cry if I want to.

lol

Part of my 500 words a day that I've been writing... some weird stuff! I don't even remember writing this?? No clue where this came from.

When you loved, you let her pull your fingers close and broken along some line or another we all speak the same language of boredom as grown ups. I remember watching you, fifteen and too much eyeliner, black gunk drenching already heavy eyelids, promises of revolution paired with the sweetness of depression. Do you remember my eyes? Glued to you, watching you, waiting for something and anyone other than you? I wanted to make myself matter by mattering to you, when really, all I needed was to make more money and do more shit. Get real, Clyde. My father was always afraid to be alone, even though he isn’t boring. I wonder what it would take to wake up everyone. A sleeping pill so big we call it the moon. When I count sheep, I could you first, just in case you can feel my fingers forming in air the swollen belly of the number five. Can you feel my pregnanted finger against the nape of that number? I know this doesn’t exist. I don’t need it to. All I need is to feel the sweetness inside you, the music above me. I have no answer for you because I don’t understand the question. She will tell me that it’s happening. And I will sigh, wonder, for the millionth time, we are all speaking backwards, in tongue.

When building a fairy tale, one must remember how to be a child: how to grow short limbs and a small nose. Here is a brief fairy tale about a munchkin and her friend, the hunter.


Break. But no brakes.

But we, we built a fort out of blankets and bad humor, overgrown marshmallows and a side of heartbreak. There is something in brown eyes and this is not, no, poetry, this is the mountains rebuilding in a different form, with someone new. This is deep red wine and cigarette smoke. This is a borrowed kiss in a bar on accident, but not a mistake. I don't know how to tell you without telling you, save repetition and slow kisses. It all sounds so much more. But you said to me, brushing burned hair behind small ears: "I'm an asshole." I could barely catch my breath, choking on laughter and irony. Do you know where we were? My answer: "I seek pain." My apologies, with you, brief. Nothing to explain, nowhere to go.

Too Much to Remember

Something random I wrote, maybe the beginning to a story. Maybe the end. I don't know what it is.

I watched her books disappear over weeks… the words bound shrinking just like those between us. I had done nothing wrong, she said. But I knew better. I knew that if I had done nothing wrong, she wouldn’t leave me, wouldn’t have already left me. Here we go.

Before I fall asleep, I can still feel her breathing down my neck, her softness bringing me to life when I least wanted it. I never took advantage of these kinds of things.

Is this not the greatest tragedy?

I didn’t mean to fall apart, of course. But it’s wedged between us, something like air but more beautiful, something like water but heavier. All I can feel is my heart breaking again and again and again and again and again here we go, I say instead: I still have our box. I can’t help it. I can’t throw her away. I can’t give her to goodwill or forget worn jeans or mermaid hair. I didn’t know how to keep her and so she was gone. If I believed in God, I would have prayed to Him. Who the hell knows, maybe I did. I can’t remember anything except trying not to cry, trying to hold myself away from her, when all I wanted was to feel the soft animal of her body falling against mine, make me somebody. She was the only one….

I know you want to say something.

Insanity and Conviction

The mattress's fall broke the tension as it snapped the ropes atop the purple van we wouldn't end up taking across the country. We left Carrollton without me saying goodbye- I couldn't do it. I don't understand the word. The only thing I understood was moving forward, flying mattresses, the music between us, and heavy boots. He didn't understand me. That was okay- that was the whole point. And I didn't cry when we left, though I know I should have. There are times where I hold it up in me so tight I'm afraid if I started letting the tears fall it would be a physical impossibility to ever stop- I'd cry a new ocean onto a map, cry a new world where everything is water and everyone is safe except for me. I can't stop crying. Fourteen days in California... all tears. No fear. I just had to let it go.

The mattress was just one thing. It all cracked. Over the year, so many things. So much has fallen off the metaphorical purple van that used to be literal. From him and me to my own certainties in general to my belief that I would never be safe- all of that is something else now. Liquid and morphing, these things I once "believed" in are now lost in that sea I cried. I stopped believing in anything but us and God. I don't know. I remember there is never bad- only darkness, only a temporary glow of shade on my light. Believing isn't real. There's something deeper. What have I experienced this year? Conviction. Knowing I am. Knowing there is more than just a slight certainty--- surviving the worst, being miserable. In the depths of hell, I found God waiting for me to share his hot chocolate and a newspaper. I'm sorry for everything I could not fix. I always am. If there was nothing else about me you understood, there will always be my blues. There will always be thousands of tears. You will always have them, flooding your pillow cases and making your dreams come true. I'm crazier than I look.

With you, there was melting and music, something I need to pull out of you, something I have to know. I always know, because I have to know. There's something budding between the lines, making meaning, making the fingers dance upon frets I don't understand. There are brown eyes and soft voices, whispers and couches and kisses nobody else is supposed to hear. I don't know about anything. I just know that writing doesn't have to make sense as long as you can feel it. Do you know what I mean?

And still, I miss long hair and cooking in that kitchen. I miss writing poetry and being sad. There are times where this is all too much joy to handle, so much I can feel it seeping out of me one radiance at a time and I worry that I can never contain it and then I'm alone again. For the first time, I am crying. Newness and broken hearts and new words and responsibility and being a grown up and bills and bills I don't know how to pay and things that matter more than all of this--- I will still tell you when you show up in my dreams. It's the least I can do.

day365.

Ignore that fear, for just one moment.

Now, what do you want?