it's nice to be alive

If you needed a hopesong, a happy light.

(I am sorry for the lack of words, but this needed to be shared.)

give it all back

File this under—that smile, chipped tooth, hot breath.

Can you feel this?

Or this:

1. The Maccabees - Pelican
2. Dan Black - U + Me =
3. The Maccabees - Went Away
4. Eugene McGuinness - Lion
5. Noah And The Whale - Give It All Back

For these moments, we could go together in the same sweat, thickened, a crumpled charm, remnants of relief, a board game, thrown, holes in socks, jam smear, the ceiling spinning.

a bright army follows you even now

Whenever there is a moment where someone else's happiness makes you crumple upon yourself, you need to be furious—a fire—a force of thought. You need to remove whatever entitlement your sadness spits to lend. The insect in your head cracks so loudly, and you wander under its dusk song. But this does not sing out—only calls you out alone. Know this weight, but do not throw it further than already held.

And here, the happiness of another cannot break you down, but cast life. Forgive yourself of crooked rings—the far violence of a planet, the stinging tree—emboldened with your important bruises. You are not scar upon scar upon an end, but such a shape of love.

If ever happiness feels sharp, please be strong. We see your bruise. We see your colour. We are coming. We are coming.

I just looked for the sun/something goes right

And the sky feels like the song, and the light feels like the words, and I would be ruined not to sing.



And I heard this, and was so far away.

I loved you for eight seconds, and had not yet met you.

somewhere, a violent stopclock

I see my head and try to trap the fire in one room:

1. I am alone.
2. I am always alone.
3. the patterns are too loud.

it is really hot in a burning house. a lot of goodwill goes and is cinders, and a blinding haze of what was kindness. it is against the door, or teeth, or where songs would be beautiful. and an inferno is not like insect legs being pulled off—it kicks.

I am your friend—blaze—I am okay—blaze—I will keep you safe—blaze:

4. breathing does not correct anything.
5. I spoke her name with such ash, choking.

I am sorry. you will go, and look at yourself, and feel sad—I wrought that.

6. I do not want to be alone, but I cannot change my shape to any other.

I will fix it with sulfur, but it burns through even closed eyes, and i fight like a merchant.

I record this as a loss, but so forged with trying.

8.01, p.m. I am unlit.

10.46, p.m. the poison stays, once it starts. I breathe a lot, and try to be calm, but it is always a growing violence. and it is not a fair thing, to be fuel, and every day precariously striking the earth until it catches. I don't want to be different. I never wanted to be this acid slideshow, broken joke, impossible light. I could talk to people, who I think are cute, and they would not try to cut me with their words. I could live one whole day without the chaos plucking at my strings, and how a quiet brain would feel, I have never known.

but I am steeled against this. I record every mood, for those who don't, and who can't see that anyone else hurts like they do. I can't give up, not here, and I rise against—you cannot know the size of hope and where it moves, how close you are.

I remember that it is simple to think yourself someone else, that lightness of being, that you could trade everything and feel happy. but it is easy in the darkness to trade in shadows. when given enough thought, you must also sell your light. and there are so many things that only you can bring to others' lives, however stunted or squinting. so much that i would go on forever to let you know.

oils

and this sweat, like a bullfrog splayed, and muddy snowflakes, the guts of the day, and fingertips.

but then a small wind, a shivering light bulb, an ocean lapping against your tongue.

and you are not entirely okay, because you were just great, and now your thoughts click like a telephone, the heavy kind, a nickle pressed to your forehead,  the taste chiming in your ear, metallicky rainstorm.

it is passing.

hopewriting

I need to shape up, get started, take all that fire from the moment and use it. I started this for you, and I will be bold for you, even if that is only simple words, no cascade, or colour, or lightning within—it still crackles. The truth cannot be scared to stand only on itself, and therein still remains my weakness. But you believe, and you smile, even when I paint devils, even when I only strike as hell. I'm closing my eyes, trying to make it—yet so sure in my thoughts!

The purpose for all of this was to keep you safe—two years—234 messages—your name divining the light. I can be slow there, knowing you have come to be so happy, so I should stand here now, rise to breathe against the flame. but I still tremble, and show cracks—the thoughts of others terrify me. (the fire!) I am trying to show—map—depict the calm, the chaos, the shift of—(take heart. think of beauty. say the love out loud.)

All right, this is going to be ugly now. (a breath of pavement.) I started this for one, but I know there are so many, and that there can never be too much love, that wants to be reached.

You—I am in debted that your eyes even pass here. I imagine you small and strange, but a blaze of life, hope mapped on your palms. (a breath of storms.) Are you small? I won't tell you to be brave. But imagine that your smile is a strength that crashes against the stars! You take the light in. (a breath of sand.) I try to stand up for you, too, as best given from clay, madness, schedule.

The dream of 2011—the year has gone to bed. But this is a dream that survives all that hungry daylight. (a breath of fire.)—shit, fuck, I dwell—I want that we can all be so loud, or thankful, or kind—that smallest kindness can stave someone's war. But it can be hard to be weird, and speak like you are very wounded, or worn, that crown of fortitude. It is hard to be that they can not expect the colour of your flight, take through as easy braille, cast you out as cruel. It can be hard for so very many consequences—weird and ugly and great as you are.

(THE SLEEPING DREAM OF 2011.)

There are great people all around you—I was always fond of the pretty girl at the coat check. But if you look around—I also know the sad lady on the bus (for sometimes you can see the weight of the day hang to her lower lip). If you have fought a war, do you hear all those guns shots? But they don't mark your song. Be more than a soldier but as a traveller. Be more than a well but as an ocean. Be more than dimmed but as the determination of light!

(there is a hole here. I think for the words but they do not come.)

Move outwards as they cut at your branches. Cycle through the memories of sunsets when locked to the night. Sing your ugly song so close to their machines. Tell the stranger they are not.

(a breath of watercolour.)

For those of you who find comfort in PostSecret, this draws from that same hope. We send secrets that find ourselves, but what for the love you feel for the world? The idea will survive the tremors. You can make something real. Is there someone you want to tell such a warmth to? Maybe you will never see them again, or maybe you wish you would, or maybe they are a friend, or a guard, or a lover. Maybe they served you, or maybe they fell over in the train. Maybe their smile was enough. Tell the stranger they are not. Send your message here and I will post them (a string of lights) on Wednesday, anonymously or otherwise. Wednesdays are always hard, always lost, floating somewhere between, but maybe it could be found. And maybe they will never see your words, but kindness always travels quietly. Maybe one day they could find themselves here, on the wings of the infinite, quicksilver fates. I can think that they would smile.

This is the sleeping dream. This makes me blush violently and want to hide, but I remember you. I will replace your bruises with apples, and let them tell you the art of your worth, closer than I could ever draw. And though I know there are only a handful of people who might read this, I can not just rest with my earthquakes. I will try. I hope you will understand. I hope you will be a hopewriter.

the gay rights movement

This is just—

Everyone deserves love and hope and happiness. these are three things not inflicted, but given, and given most if we could.

We can—we goddamn can.

for jasmine, the words

I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower; Stephen Chbosky

You know what? Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work—fuck that. And fuck the Air Force Academy. If I want to fly, I'll find a way to fly. You do what you love, and fuck the rest. 

Little Miss Sunshine

I'm going to pull time apart for you.

Doctor Who

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

William Blake

I tried to notice everything, because I wanted to be able to remember it perfectly. I've forgotten everything important in my life. I can't remember what the front door of the house I grew up in looked like. Or who stopped kissing first, me or my sister. Or the view from any window but my own. Some nights I lay awake for hours, trying to remember my mother's face. 

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close; Jonathan Safran Foer

So why do I see a glorious fucking headfuck thing?

Skins

There’s this kind of songbird that thinks it dies everytime the sun goes down. In the morning, when it wakes up, it’s totally shocked to still be alive, so it sings this really beautiful song. I've sung every morning since I met you.

Restless

Above, the stars shone hard and bright, sparks struck off the dark skin of the universe.

The Stand; Stephen King

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower; Stephen Chbosky 

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness—only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate—only love can do that.

Martin Luther King Jr

Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower; Stephen Chbosky

Thank god for books and music and things I can think about.

Flowers For Algernon; Daniel Keyes.

To love would be an awfully big adventure. 

Peter Pan; J.M. Barrie 

And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower; Stephen Chbosky

Father, mother, always you wrestle inside me, always you will.

The Tree Of Life; Terrence Malick

As I look to you, I breathe in the earth.

Intro; Park

like water, i was

breathe out in slowness, the wires that run you through. your eyes don't crack, and your skin doesn't leave you. and take a sip from your lists, and a bug bite that keeps your thoughts. this was so important, that stills the gun, and climbs to the wall.

you will be happy for him. if you've learned anything it is that while happiness inflicts, it is of ghost barbs, and head locks.

be happy for him to be free. let go something you cannot.

do not move—it is okay—but make maps, of how the body will walk from this place. it may repeat—repeat—it may repeat, and trap, but there is trying. conjure that love from even the smallest moment—you are trying—

we can not always be great, or what you need.

and I hope you know I spit fire in every winter.

(my greatest fear, always, that never shakes—I try to work towards something, and the way there feels weak—your eyes are imaginary and, cruel. the dread that I speak only clockwork—and—you,—that—arch—stare—dividing.)

well, I hate my writing, it's all the same, when it drips like posture, my head just hangs.

—a dizzying splendor is here resigned to fate.

awkward

This is your song for a simple pure happiness, probably licking your fingers, squinting.

amélie

Amélie has a strange feeling of absolute harmony. It's a perfect moment. A soft light, a scent in the air, the quiet murmur of the city. A surge of love, an urge to help mankind overcomes her.

Amélie

the moth sting

marker sweating on your cheek

hair slides honey through popcorn

scrunched

thick like a jump rope

your lip snags in the light

and eyes already held

a curious song



I breathe in a mass

fizzy and crackling

a little fire dance

the smudge of postal stamps

spilling

my hands all over

a warm year


Ian William L.

if it is an insult

Were you upset today? Were you made to feel small? By those eyes, or those words? The ones you know are there, and you splinter as they strike—goddamn, we believed in you so much. You probably feel so broken by now, but I know you are loved, and I know you cultivate your quiet colours, with all those things that will make life kind for those who are able to draw close enough.

Take heart: the insult is unsure, the hate is trembling. You know this so deep in you.

So you were cast down to your beautiful puddles. So you were bent out of a common shape. So you think about it all, and find yourself with more wild dreams than the intent of the cruelty was to imprint.

If you are heavy now with it all, then you should be, that your belief in lightness was that inspired—how anyone could carry that grimness within. You realise they did not even know your name. I would hope that they were not so alone (surrounded) as they seem, to throw such spit.

We move so violently between these feelings, because we are alive.

(I received such a hurtful cut today, from someone I do not know, and hold no intent to hate them for. It moves even here—you are not alone.)

another end of yourself

Sorry, I swallowed the receiver, the bell, the doorknob, the handle. I slip into myself, and the colours hunger like spiders, and it can't be very pleasant. But I do wonder what happens when there is no more soil to drop the ballasts—I move that way bound.

But I remember the plane coming down in only the candle light, the smoke from every warm smile. I remember the fireworks at midnight, and the flight of hopes. I said I knew I could be myself, I could give everybody fair warning, and open outwards—only the truth can be mended. It's still my biggest dream and I will, but how and when?

You are hope across infinite night.

so, it's okay, you know? everything is only guiding you loosely—summer clothes you should not come to fall under—

but if you can hear me i will give you one thing: this stick remaining in my soul. I loved someone, and maybe I was not lost before that, but now I move with such beautiful fault.

—and hopes that will not come easy. so your sadness is not such a terror, blood nose, apology. I will be here writhing for you, if that could ever be what you needed to know. i will hold my conversation to many more seasons, because you always liked time a little bit. I will be strange, and maybe a little warm—you smiled so terribly crooked and swept up, all warm dough in cheeks, a wet dog nose in happiness. I take one picture, and it's you, and I keep it.

so i am telling, if you might catch that.

call me in the morning

you would be surprised how nice this is.

I know what you've been through, don't let go, honey, don't let go.

you are as cracks ran through me

the lack of sleep, all these wounds that we keep, and I am trying hard to know you are not there, and how these tremors used to stir faith.

(the strength of sadness is how violently it moves us.)

but I rest, with this, constellation—of—past—sorrows.

I am trying still to be okay. I was less lonely, all alone across the oceans (cruel, untruth.) I hold nothing more (liar.) what cannot be fixed (a faulty circuit, fucking safety.) I never speak (sideways.) you never hear (child.)

if you are sad, and you stay in the darkness, then you can only be smothered.

START WHAT YOU KNOW—REARRANGE—RUIN—FOR YOURSELF—KEEP, YOU DEATH OF VISION.

(I only record everything.)

and my spine arches, and goes cold, under this milk and bile and film.

hold on, lover, and it all fades—milk.

watch your fingernails grow for nine years—bile.

pluck out these insect eyes—film.

THE TRUTH IS WE ARE SO FUCKING AFRAID.

HOW DO WE GET BACK TO BE OKAY?

I STILL TIE MY SHOELACES WITH A LITTLE SMILE.

I HEAR HOW BEAUTIFUL A CAT IS.

I WATCH YOU GO ON FOREVER.

I BRUISE.

THE MACHINE BRUISES ME.

(there are page numbers, all bloodied on my lips, and scars.)

it is rushing through millenia—a taste of jet engines—crushed stag—skeleton dust into concrete—swallowing.

this is how it feels. this is how it always feels.

returning, you.

give me distance and bravery: i am home. but i feel jetlag takes my thoughts and so i cannot yet say what i want to be known.

(this is the new year. this is not a disappointment. this is enough.)

1. i will rest and recover.
2. continue to believe in love, against all!
3. everything crippling can be turned outwards, made kinder.
4. what i said: this is enough. i spend all my time afraid of what i write because i think you will think it not enough. but all i want to do is help and find the way through, so why would that be judged, if? so this year, this bold new fucking year, we move forward, outward, and we are enough—i will make this clean, with midnight seconds, if believed.