2007--2017 Read online

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  Monday, July 23, 2012

  Late at night, when your brain is tired of thinking of everything else, you will find me there. You cannot throw me far enough away.

  The Bed Of Clocks

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  Monday, February 22, 2010

  I never slept well next to you. But at least I slept.

  The Things Which Aren’t Love

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  Tuesday, July 10, 2012

  Your salary is not love and your word is not love. Your clothes are not love and holding hands is not love. Sex is not love and a kiss is not love. Long letters are not love and a text is not love. Flowers are not love and a box of chocolates is not love. Sunsets are not love and photographs are not love. The stars are not love and a beach under the moonlight is not love. The smell of someone else on your pillow is not love and the feeling of their skin touching your skin is not love. Heart-shaped candy is not love and an overseas holiday is not love. The truth is not love and winning an argument is not love. Warm coffee isn’t love and cheap cards bought from stores are not love. Tears are not love and laughter is not love. A head on a shoulder is not love and messages written at the front of books given as gifts are not love. Apathy is not love and numbness is not love. A pain in your chest is not love and clenching your fist is not love. Rain is not love.

  Only you. Only you, are love.

  The Things I Would’ve Said

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  Tuesday, November 27, 2012

  If you’re strong enough to take that blade and draw it across your skin.

  If you’re strong enough to take those pills and swallow them when no one’s home.

  If you’re strong enough to tie that rope and hang it from the ceiling fan.

  If you’re strong enough to jump off that bridge, my friend.

  You are strong enough, to live.

  The Phantom Limbs

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  Tuesday, January 31, 2012

  And when we speak now, seldom as that is, the old language returns. I wonder if old names make guest appearances in your mind. If you can feel the skin of my neck near yours one more time. Do you reach across the bed for a shape, no longer there. Do you remember it clearly or is it all just memories of memories. Is there still warmth from my fingers tracing the contours of your skin, left somewhere in your body. If you smell the smell of how I used to smell in a crowd, do you think of these things. Is something missing in everyone else’s or someone new’s voice. Will they never know quite how to laugh or breathe just behind your ear. Do they know what you look like when you want to leave a party, when you’ve had too much of people. Could they rebuild your body out of clay if they needed to, because they’ve touched it so many times. Does your back still arch the way it used to when I still kissed you.

  Does an old singer sing an old song on an old radio.

  Did it sound like this?

  The Burst

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  Wednesday, August 22, 2007

  Live like nature. Explode slowly, day by day, from the center outwards. You won’t notice how brightly you burn or how big you’ve grown until you look back. And then you will be amazed.

  The Series Of Changes

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  Friday, January 18, 2008

  You want a new life. But you take the new one you get every morning for granted.

  The Escape Plan

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  Friday, January 9, 2009

  I’m not the person you left behind anymore. There’s no one here to miss.

  The Crowd

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  Thursday, August 23, 2007

  You think you’re the only one who feels small. You think you’re the only one who isn’t sure what tomorrow might bring. You think you’re the only one who’s scared the world might eat them.

  We suffer together and hold each other tight because when we touch each other, we know:

  You are never alone. Ever.

  The Bargain

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  Thursday, July 30, 2009

  He gave me that night back and this time, I told you the truth. We talked and held each other till the sun came up. And as I went to hell, the devil asked me if it was worth it. I said yes. Yes it was.

  The Way Home

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  Thursday, June 19, 2008

  Take the long way home.

  Live interestingly.

  The Age At Which It Happens

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  Thursday, March 22, 2012

  The Fury Of Water

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  Thursday, January 14, 2010

  You can try and hold me back. Build your damn walls, pack sandbags along the edges and yell at the clouds and the rain and the sky to stop.

  But I will not relent. I will reach you. Because I am the sea. And I will continue to love you no matter what.

  The Person You Meet At The End Is You

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  Tuesday, November 13, 2012

  The universe curves, as does the Earth. And as hard as you try and run away from everything you are, you’ll find yourself where you left yourself when you come home. Just tired.

  Fix yourself before you try to outrun yourself.

  The Time It Takes To Fall

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  Wednesday, January 28, 2009

  So if all we have is that glance in the window. If all we have is till this train stops. If all we have is till the sun comes up, till your lift picks you up. And If all we have is till the day I die. I’m ok with what we have.

  The Fire At Sea

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  Tuesday, July 13, 2010

  When the tide goes out for the last time, all the shipwrecks will be waiting for us and the bones of the Earth will shine bright white in the sun.

  When the tide goes out for the last time, I’ll meet you by the planes that never made it past Bermuda.

  When the tide goes out for the last time, I swear, we will have nothing left to lose.

  The Agony Of Being Other People

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  Tuesday, January 8, 2013

  I keep wondering, how many people do you need to be, before you can become yourself.

  The Nod And The Wink

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  Thursday, September 2, 2010

  Time never said,

  “Best you enjoy yourself now because we’re going somewhere soon.”

  But that’s what he meant.

  The Heart Is Red

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  Friday, April 30, 2010

  I’m sorry. But you could never tell the difference between the mood you were in, and me.

  The Guide To Grace When Falling Apart

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  Wednesday, September 30, 2009

  Hello. Where are you? Here. Where? Right here. Can you feel that? Yes. That’s me. I see. Yes. You feel like me. I am.

  The Absence Of Oxygen

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  Monday, October 26, 2009

  Forget the air. I’ll breathe you instead.

  The Bottom Of The Dark

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  Sunday, January 24, 2016

  Everyone’s got someone, deep in their lungs, that they need to breathe out, before they can sink.

  Is that why you’re trying to breathe me out, darling, while I’m still trying to breathe you in?

  The First Sounds

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  Monday, April 20, 2015

  Before language, there were only sounds, and we had to tell each other everything we could with nothing but the noises we could make with our mouths.

  What sound could you have made for, “Look at all these lights in the sky. Isn’t it amazing?”

  What sound could you have made for, “My chest hurts when you are not here.”

  What sound could you have made for, “I am hurt, and I am slowly pouring out of me.”

  What sound would you have made for, “I do not have a name for the feeling I have when I’m with you, but it is a feeling that I never, ever want to end. Please don’t go to sleep forever.”


  The Stones From Other Houses

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  Monday, March 24, 2014

  I wonder if houses miss each other.

  I wonder if you can hear them creaking at night, in pain for some other structure they once knew.

  A view from a window changed forever by a wrecking ball, a storm or a fire. A place where things used to live.

  Why would the universe be so cruel, to build two so close to each other, only to take one away?

  And what of the house you build, in the ruins?

  The Things I Meant

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  Tuesday, February 14, 2012

  A heart was meant to beat. And air was meant to be breathed, close to your ear. And your skin was meant to remember what mine felt like. And some songs were meant to play on repeat. And the sun was meant to come down. And we were meant to ignore it when it woke up. And days were meant to pass. And nights were meant to follow. And your eyes were meant to cry out whatever pain was left.

  And I never meant to hurt you.

  But I guess that’s what everyone says.

  The Strangers In Waiting

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  Wednesday, February 1, 2017

  The Seat Next To You

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  Wednesday, June 17, 2009

  When I sit near you, my hands suddenly become alien things and I don’t know where to put them or what they usually do, like this is the first time I’ve ever had hands and maybe they go in my pockets and maybe they don’t.

  The World Of Your Own

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  Tuesday, October 21, 2014

  How sad it is that you’re somewhere else, when you’re here.

  The Last Fall

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  Friday, December 2, 2016

  Perhaps you only find out at the end of your life that happy is as good as it gets.

  And there’s nothing that lasts that can be anything more.

  Maybe looking for more is like going to the edge of a cliff, and walking into the beautiful view.

  The Laughter Stopped You From Crying

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  Monday, February 15, 2010

  If you can pretend as hard as I’m pretending, this can be the first time we’ve ever met. Not the last.

  The Beauty Of Errors

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  Wednesday, November 11, 2009

  I made a lot of mistakes before I got to you (each one honest and none that I regret). The same way a tree bends in the wind and twists and turns, before it can touch the sky.

  The Immortal Sadness

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  Monday, August 24, 2015

  I know you have a great sadness. I have had a great sadness too and I want you to know: I am alive and one day, you will say this same thing to someone else.

  The Tiny Iceberg

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  Friday, July 16, 2010

  The View From The Bottom

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  Monday, October 26, 2015

  It’s not that bad. If you want to be sad, come and write sad songs with me. Or we can sit and watch movies. You won’t have to worry about bringing me down - I am already down. I will watch the blackness swallow you and you can watch the blackness swallow me too.

  The Moment My Skin Brushed Against Yours

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  Monday, January 26, 2009

  But really, all we want, and I speak for the entire human race here, is contact. Someone to let us know that we aren’t alone. That the world isn’t a dream and you and I really are happening at the same time, even if it’s not in the same place. That this is real. You’re really there. I’m really here. We’re real.

  This is real.

  The Sound At The Back Of Your Throat

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  Friday, January 23, 2009

  Our language is dead. No more heavy consonants and long vowels with soft meanings. No more names only you and I know.

  Because no one speaks Us anymore.

  The Best Way To Run Into Traffic

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  Tuesday, February 10, 2009

  It does not count if you believe in yourself when it’s easy to believe in yourself. It does not count if you believe the world can be a better place when the future looks bright. It does not count if you think you’re going to make it when the finish line is right in front of you.

  It counts when it’s hard to believe in yourself, when it looks like the world’s going to end and you’ve still got a long way to go.

  That’s when it counts. That’s when it matters the most.

  The AWOL Hearts

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  Friday, November 6, 2009

  Let’s play hopscotch in malls. Let’s drive fast with the top down. Let’s turn up the music as loud as it’ll go. Let’s put a couch on an island in the middle of the freeway and wave at everyone on their way to work. Let’s hug strangers in parking lots. Let’s hand out secret messages at traffic lights. Let’s make lists of all the things that make us smile and tick them off, one at a time. The world will carry on without you and me when we’re gone. Let it carry on without us, today.

  The Molten Core

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  Monday, September 20, 2010

  This world is hard. It has sharp edges and points that cut. It’ll make you choose between love, money and sleep. Choose love each time and sleep when you can, money - only when you must.

  Because this world is hard. And at times, it is too hard, for me.

  The Contradictions Make Me

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  Tuesday, November 4, 2014

  Poetry is a way to take pictures of things you can’t take pictures of.

  Pictures are a way to say things you can’t say.

  This is a way for me to do things that I can’t do.

  The Shade

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  Tuesday, September 30, 2008

  You were always my dark cloud that let me stare at the sun.

  The Glass Sphere

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  Tuesday, September 15, 2015

  Even if you are made of night, try to be made of more starlight than darkness.

  The Parts We Keep

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  Wednesday, January 11, 2017

  Don’t let them kill the parts of you that they don’t like.

  Keep all of you and never be afraid to be everything you are.

  The Inkblot Test

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  Monday, August 17, 2015

  Tell me what you see, when I fold my heart in paper, crush it, and open the pages again.

  The Picture We Make

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  Monday, June 1, 2009

  Fine. Maybe I’m the puzzle.

  But you’re still the pieces.

  The Efficiency And Perfection Of The Lost

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  Monday, November 5, 2012

  Yet you still value the things you’ve lost the most. Because the things you’ve lost are still perfect in your head. They never rusted. They never broke. They are made of the memories you once had, which only grow rosier and brighter, day by day. They are made of the dreams of how wonderful things could have been and must never suffer the indignity of actually still existing. Of being real. Of having flaws. Of breaking and deteriorating.

  Only the things you no longer have will always be perfect.

  The Stories You Tell

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  Tuesday, January 8, 2008

  Life is not a story. No matter how much you’d like it to be.

  Life is life. It can end, begin and become whatever you want it to be.

  Nothing is written down.

  The Sky Is A Distraction

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  Monday, September 7, 2009

  I can look anywhere in the world but at you. And it hurts to look anywhere in the world but at you.

  The World Would Be Easier

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  Monday, October 22, 2012

  The world would be easier if the homeless were all just lazy and all they needed to do was just get a fucking job.
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br />   The world would be easier if evil were a real thing, instead of just confusion, misunderstanding, miscommunication and misplaced desire.

  The world would be easier if you could just be happy for what you had, while you had it. If you could eat memories like flowers to keep your heart alive.

  The world would be easier if comfort didn’t rest on the backs of the broken, if your swimming pool was dug by soft hands that never worked a day in their life.

  The world would be easier if we all just got rich and famous and we were all each other’s #1 fan.

  The world would be easier if it were an automatic.

  The world would be easier.

  But it isn’t.

  The world is hard because it requires real human effort to make it turn.

  The world is hard because you may wake up today but not tomorrow. And yet no one will accept “fear of death and a futile existence” as a reasonable excuse to miss work.