feelingspines

"I am the conch that hears you, burying hard against an earth."

Ian William L.

the astonishing light

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being 

Hafiz

 

a surrendering

You surrender to a lot of things which are not worthy of you. I wish you would surrender to your radiance—your integrity—your beautiful human grace. 

Yogi Bhajan

I am with you. I am loudly

See beautiful things, and know beautiful people, that all demons blunt, all days to hold you bright.

the broken ones

Chelsea gave this to me a few weeks ago, and in infinite lapse I did not shiver out loud for its beauty and message.

he tells of a spark

We are all born into a single moment in time, filled with our own force of colour, of sound, spinning through a spill of days and finding hope. We can't expect to master all pursuits, or know all great kindness. But neither can we cripple ourselves with a shrug of our spark, where such invention yet moves to radiate. We should hold warmth for the happiness of others, and perseverance for our own. We should wear ourselves well—ragged—lightning bolt—brave.

it burns through me, that you do not know, and i have more, and you are more

everything that does not belong to this world moves as a beautiful, fucking marvel.

recovery

I have been sick, and crippled for six days now. today is the first day where perhaps I can feel my throat has not become a grave, and my house slowly grows a door—beautiful fucking sunlight. there were fever words, and tremble songs. I am always so embarrassed for anything I write, that it carves a journal where I want a story, something to give. I know this will never leave me, and it is a toll I am always wrestling to keep. still, I write everything, horrific night wounds, glory of the days when we are not alone. I still only do this for those who need to scour the mark—the end of seasons, and steam engine, and skull tangles.

or, my sister—my venom bloats me, to carry her through. my light surges to keep to hers. my hope breathes a sky for her smile, to see all from above. we are both made from the same broken angle. I know her wrath to hang upon, the world to give her that much sadness. I visibly am undone at such—

your happiness was always going to be worth these lungs filled with hurting truth, taking away twenty breaths of this night, its kind strike.

0112

I take the reins here. I am marking this as a journal entry, only that I hate the idea that you think I write this so it could be about me, but that is the least that I want. but I am a real person, too.

I have a favourite mug. I love you from my strange place. I feel the warmth of my loosing socks. I could misfire and think it hope.

I haven't had words largely because I am trying to keep myself in check. they will give you so many pills, but gym and exercise are truly curative. I sweat out the night. I am wracked with happiness.

and friends return, and I let go of lovers, but for the force of love.

don't hide away. we won't leave. your darkness must keep its season.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

you never leave

I never want these bones to heal, for the ways in to be worn cleanly

if I should wake to only hang under the weight of my suit

and the light is only momentarily enough, as a lull

but—a song cuts me in two

your smile is no longer cracked with any trace of me

it was always edging, unfurling into reaches

now, I remember each day to be alone, things to make and lose

twisted metal wants up through my halls

how I can trace the sweat across scar tissue

chemicals, I only record you

pain, I move the world

another song, and my eyes becoming impenetrable

and what hurts more? the spike of memory, or the words that will not

tell how i fucking love you.

will remain nothing for you—

that you would find me, soon, and so

common, on these streets

cheap and flickering

and flashing

away

but I will not hide, and you will not come in fear

though your blood moves for centipedes, sometimes

as mine to yours, crowding

the felt trigger of those mouths:

I AM STRANGE OF LOVE
YOU WAIT NOT ALONE.

kindness is staggering

I finally raised my mind up, but my fingers destroyed the words:

1. the girl on far.
2. the love for my mother.
3. the world on near.

I remember this—the rest was maybe just chemicals, of the moments we are alone.

So I will forget, and strive in that.

Yesterday was my birthday. and I think of the year, and all of the infant colours borne from its tumult, and the day, bathed in.

Kindness is staggered, and staggering.

When we come together, we are menders, all rush of water and arch of stars—I will never not know this, believe this, keep this.

I wish I could recover the tongues I had put forth—greater than this, tired, lapse, (he thought of strings).

Please love them. Please keep them.

you, before the curvature

(Pause the tape, feet pressed firmly to the wood, the trees to bear you, your breath the match, the scratch, the song.)

You, before the curvature, and lately I have fallen, that I feel like such a liar for it. We create the dark...we cannot stem the shadow while we chew through our own stomachs. I write this without that hunger, with a hand made of pearl, holding sideways, sparkling up like an army carved from chains.

Are you okay? You know you hold such light, don't you? I only write that you might catch when you are splitting up under your axes, your axis bursting as molten clung, with feathers flashing like glass, piercing break of ages.

Are you nursing your greatnesses? Your bold attempts. Your exquisite wreckage? All punched and licked with babbling charm.

Are you shifting now, the comforts of your collected refuse? (that smile scrunched, a small shiver of autumn.)

Are you remembering it? Are you frowning like a joy? Paper birds take from your hands, flickering.

You, are art, are grand, are ruinous, are crawl.

Please know, it is you. You might find yourself so common, crushed, swollen speckled egg. But it is you.

When filled with so much life it corrodes, spat in every breath.

When no one makes your eyes on the train

When love will not remember you.

It is you.

(I ran out of skin to write upon. The tape clicks.)

—Ian William L.

closer,

It's true, to some extent, but I think it goes to the same vein as the rarity of the brilliant thing. we're always colliding and coming so close to things that feel so loudly like the truth, but then just can't be, but, again, this endless collapse leads to such appreciation and awe for the resonance to come.

don't worry. you are a fathomless soul, and that depth heralds discoveries yet still to flow.