the gift of you

"When you start to crack open, don't waste a moment gathering your old self up into something like you knew before. Let your new self splash like sunlight into every dark place and laugh and cry and make sounds you never made and thank all that is holy for the gift because now you have no choice but to let all your love spill out into the world."

—The Gift Of You; Brian Andreas

I and you are

"But you learn to accept who and what you are. Most days. The days when you don't fly into the sun. The days when you don't spill and thaw and crash. I am brief and violent and true. I am always true. I am that blurry, breathy promise, cracked lips, long hopeful seizures before sunrise, sweat and tears and story. I am yours, and I am now. I am living and dying and always coming alive."

—Ian William L.

oils (redux)

"But then a small wind, a shivering light bulb, an ocean lapping against your tongue. And this sweat, like a bullfrog splayed, and muddy snowflakes, the guts of the day, and fingertips. And you are not entirely okay, because you were just great. And now your thoughts click like a telephone, the heavy kind, a nickel pressed to your forehead, and then removed."

—Ian William L.

the typewriter even now

"On that piece of white paper Sam wrote, 'Write about me sometime.' And I typed something back to her, standing right there in her bedroom. I just typed, 'I will.'"

—The Perks Of Being A Wallflower; Stephen Chbosky

luce

"When we finished high school, Luce, we knew less than a hummingbirds-wings' amount of anything. We knew less than nothing about nothing. We slow-danced, felt all moon and magnolia, all hip on hip and hot on skin. But we were kids who ate the tinned soup our parents simmered, who spent our summers just—just—just hanging out. I can't count the things we didn't know. Things about working—about the persistence of working—the way it never stops. About really being alone out there. About how you can pack up and leave. Or come back. About what it mans to be poor, Luce. Or, as well, what it's like having money—what it's like to order drinks and appetizers and desserts and just do it.  Lucy, we didn't know. We knew cricket-wing, moth-wing, less than paper. We knew zero. So how the fuck, Luce, did we find each other? That's what I want to know. Luce, I love you and that's what I want to know."

—Sean Michaels; Said the Gramophone

the only moment we knew (redux)

"Live loudly, through all fault and favour."

—Ian William L.

thrashing line (redux)

"The moment you thought to ignite fell more gravel than breath, and careful ache. I still feel the debt. I love you and will give you more. But tonight, I am turned out—a milky film slipping through waste glass, cigarette eyes choked to the street, the divine speck left cold."

—Ian William L.

anautumn

"Sitting on a bench in a park on one of the last days of autumn. Leaves falling like snow. A soft meteor strike. Thick pin-pricks of afternoon. The light shining through their bones. I wish I could pen each one to the page."

—Ian William L.

212918052014

I am losing my voice. I am always losing my voice. I always have been. I let the world into the head and chop me into firewood. Be Ouroboros with an ax wound. I write backwards, suck it in like blood. Vampires between the paragraphs. I am screaming a mountain. I am rock face less. The tense always fucks me. The wanting and the not wanting. I feel imaginary sadness. None of this matters or is worthy.

But I have to record something.

I breathed heavy and nothing came out

I made nothing beautiful. I see it, though.

SOMEONE COME OUT, AND SAY: I UNDERSTAND YOUR CONDITION.

Practice.

Swallow down another photograph.

Filter blur.

I am nothing. I am nothing. I am nothing under all of this.

Study the chemicals. They go so fast. Faster than my keystrokes.

Why couldn't you just be louder every moment you are saved?

Mute. Nothing. Silence. Clenched teeth. Head in my hands

Atomic illumination of information and connection.

Life is good. This is all my head inventing.

Experiment.

Call this flux. I have.

I am failing my dreams. It's true.

So, this exists in tandem. The mirror side of my shadow. Always has.

I just breathe in songs and berate myself until my feet feel floor. Until I retreat.

But I tell the truth. I am not a writer. I always say that. They always disagree. But this is proof. I am trying my hardest and only this mess falls out. Rings of scissors. Schisms. Traps under feet.

I will invent a way that lets me speak the story that is singing jet flight and ends of everything behind.

My head hunts me.

I will speak.

unprecedented

“You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.”

—The Fault In Our Stars; John Green