All of this is just too hard.
What do I do?
How do I feel?
What do I do?
How does this reflect on us?
What do I do?
What should I say?
What do I do?
What. Do. I. Do.
I do I do I do
I don't.
Half a bottle of the honey mead that's too
sticky
sweet
followed by Jack and pink lemonade.
Suddenly everything seems too anything.
Too everything.
I'm smoking in plain sight because
what the fuck am I supposed to do?
Nothing worse can possibly happen today except for a death.
I shouldn't have typed that.
It was all too normal.
The man at the door.
The familiar pang of nervousness of someone I didn't know approaching our home.
The glint of his badge.
A policeman.
I stared out the front window and then got the binoculars as the handcuffs were put
in place.
The discovery of what had happened.
What had been happening.
Of what really, truly had be going on.
Anger, shame, and then what?
A little empowerment.
In this world where I,
the godless, dirty, drug-taking-underage-drinking, strangely-dressed, pro-choice, unshaven, liberal hippie,
usually the first to be put to blame,
was abruptly not the most law-breaking.
The right-winged, sober, Christian was now the wrong-doer.
The pain of having to hear what happened more than once.
I assure my mother several times this is not her fault.
The ache of hearing my little brother taking it out on his punching bag.
The redness of his eyes.
I have to be strong for him.
For all of us.
The arrest report in front of me.
A hug and an, "I love you." nearly broke me.
I'm sorry.
You deserve whatever the legal system gives you.
You're still my family but I don't know what to do with this.

There is difficulty in
discussing
the purchase of something that someone already owns.
And, anyway, the mall makes me cringe.
I'd rather buy my things from my friends or friends of
friends and friends.
There's a lot I can do
but,
and here I'm certain,
there's even more I shouldn't do.
But tomorrow it's back to the big, hot city
where the children play in the sprinklers of
centennial park and the lines are long
and the parking garages expensive
and the hotels scary
and the food disgusting
and the road there is so long
but we'll know when we arrive.
I'm excited to be somewhere new,
pretending to be someone new.
Even if it's a city where I've been before,
that knows me more or less.
I'm not afraid to run into someone I know.
I'm not afraid to get lost.
I'm not really afraid of anything...
except returning.

Snopes.
I'm not sure what I'm doing
or where I'm going
in this life.
Everything is as it is but
what if
it could be more?
Time is speeding by and mornings
are nights
before I even blink.
I want to stop feeling angry
and start feeling whole.
Start wholly feeling.
I want to watch a movie without
making
it part of my life and seeing
my life
in it
and
wondering if
drugs,
sex,
rock and roll,
car chases,
parties,
alcohol,
and
relationships are more
real
on either side of the screen.
Everything in
this life
sings to me but beneath the rush of it all, I hear the wind whisper,
"Smoke less, smoke less, smoke less."

Summer.
Smoke out my open bedroom window.
I can hear something moving where my eyes cannot see in cool, wet night-ness.
Paul sings to me, barely audible, about the nearness of my destination
and fathers and sons and sleep and the way things slide away.
Everyone I love is separated from me by time.
Hours in all directions.
God only knows.
But so many things make me remember you.
Gardenias, jasmine, parsley, sage, rosemary, and a pinch of marijuana.
Next track and it's a language I once knew.
I used to think in foreign tongues.
What am I missing?
Where will I go next?
It's my last summer in the lands of teenage immortality
and immorality.
The slow, mid-night faucet drip of my life has turned into a
waterfall
and it's going, going, going.
My shadows mimic my doodles and I can't even open
or close
my journal because of all of the flowers in it.
If I could have the freedom to go anywhere right now
I don't know where I'd choose.
I don't know which love pulls the strongest
on my heart strings.
Rain and rain and rain and a half bottle of merlot,
brimming with sulfites.
They make me red and I read.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Each page is the same and it's boring
and I just need to finish.
Each hundred pages amazes me.
There's nothing new!
I'm a week away from moving again.
New and old roommates.
A new old house.
Two weeks and I'll be back in Georgia but
after that?
I have no idea.
Ce n'est pas un illusion.
C'est ma vie et quelque temps...
Rien.

Squirrels 04-26-09

You cannot write down the moment as it happens.
Sudden breaks and empty spaces.
You should always say goodbye.
Tears are a good hurt.
Love is good pain.
Everything else fails.

I mourn the moment and it reaches toward forever.
Now.
What, Where, and How are we meant to be?
Everything I thought I knew about
Possession and
Ownership
has changed.
I need to find my heart in the quiet place.

Sometimes I wish I had subtitles.

Every Ocean is Composed of Singular Drops of Water 05-03-2009

I have a head full of thoughts
that bounce and soar and sink.
When are we at our most vulnerable?
When we're asleep? In love? In pain?
Mid-coitus? Post-coitus? When we
create? Destroy? When we're alone?
Surrounded? Intoxicated? Sober?
Anytime I can't define how I
feel toward someone or something,
I just assume it's love. Better
safe than sorry, right?

I am easily influenced by emotions that are not my own.
Should emotions be shared?
I connect my memories of times spent
with people to what we could hear at that moment:
Our laughter, the radio, the rain,
a record, the woods,
our hushed sighs
as we moved
against each
other in
the
dark.

We paint a lot of things around here. This is the first thing Danielle and I painted together. It's an homage to all things Friends and Friends (which is why it says "Friends and Friends" in what? Six languages? I can't be bothered to count them now. Just know that I've studied them all). The heart has everyone in the houses's names (Micah, Faryn, Danielle, and me, Susan) and everything else is just hippie shit. ( +4 )

Dov played this on Saturday night and we were singing along because we're all alcoholics around here and I spent forever trying to find it on the internet when he out of the blue sent me a link to it. I think he may be a little bit psychic.

"Jealousy is dumb. I know I'm a really jealous person but it's pointless. Jealousy and guilt."


"Try to act the way you think. It's one of my most pursued goals in life. Act the way I think. I hate betraying my mind."


"Starting now we're going to be reborn. We won't betray our minds and we'll free our souls. We'll give all of our love even if it's not returned and risk everything. Deal?"


"Oh, man."


"I can't do it alone."


"I'm trying to be honest with myself and see what I can do. Okay. Deal."

Don't you dare forget this.

Takers?

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me!

My choice.
For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

* I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
* What I create will be just for you.
* It'll be done this calendar year.
* I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
* You have no clue what it's going to be.

The catch: You have to put this in your journal as well.

Paterson Joseph, UH DUH.

Also, who could've predicted this?