kids.

we were kids together
(and i mean kids as in
“the opposite of adults”).
we were outcast together.
we were in-between states
together.

apart, we were together.
alone, we were together.
in new hampshire, together.
park benches and trains,
downpours and snowfalls,
together.

your face has changed since then.
your features have swirled into the
graceful elegance of a woman.
you’re not a kid anymore;
you’re more beautiful than ever.

snow.

the last time i saw snow like this, i mean really saw snow, i shared a secret in a house full of strangers.  i began to feel like i wasn’t a stranger after all.  snow in march, snow in october.  what’s the difference?  both are abnormal.  even here.

human life is dangerous.  the cyclical pattern of our days means we take things for granted.  our minds go numb.  every day could mean something, could be worth while, instead they melt together into periods.  elementary school, college, rebellion, when i played football–whatever.

as sam beam would say, “our endless numbered days.”
human life is hard.

on one side of the spectrum, we have a fresh day upon waking.  the sun rises every morning, despite anything.  these days can blur together, feel like chores.  routine makes life possible, boring.  we are always in danger of sleepwalking through our lives.

i have been guilty of this far too often.  i look back at my four years in college and see very few distinct moments/experiences; a look back at my time in high school produces even fewer.  it is hard to treat each day as a gift when they all seem so much alike.

on the other side of the issue, our days are numbered.  no one is immortal.  no matter how endless this barrage of clean days may seem, it can be so for no man.  life on earth always ends.  we are always in danger of fearing our own end to an extent that it interferes with daily life, weekly life, monthly life.  we are in danger of transfixing and writing albums, poems, notebooks full of fear and worry.  we are in danger of forgetting the point of life in the first place.  we are in danger of forgetting Love.

let us never forget Love, for Love never forgets us.  Love is light.  Love is caring.  Love is action.  Love only exists for those with childlike spirits.  Love for the cynic is as hard to see, as hard to achieve as Heaven is for the rich man.  Love refreshes each day.

each day is a gift.
each endless, numbered day is a beautiful, inescapable gift.
human life is what you do with it, how you perceive it.

Love locks itself out of the house and laughs.  Love sets its shoes on fire (accidentally) and marvels at life.  (it is anarchy that sets its shoes on fire purposefully.  nihilism does not have shoes.)  Love steers through deep snow on the interstate and keeps a smile attached to its face.  Love notices the difference in the shade.  Love cannot be exhausted.

the poets and the saints sometimes realize how precious human life is.
i say we should all strive for that realization anew each morn.
we haven’t much time to make a mark on this world, no matter how endless these numbered days seem.

those late night promises.

“i’ll be your friend.”
but you just haven’t made me yet.

“i’ll call you tomorrow.”
but i don’t have your number.

“i love soccer.  yeah.  i’ll meet you in clemson.”
i mean, i do love soccer.

“i got a big place in memphis.  you guys should come up.  you could sleep on the floor.”
i never believed that one, personally.

“both of my parents are from boston.  yeah.”
who said that one?

“we can try again next week.”
or maybe next, next week.

“yeah, i think i’m going to try to call you more, like once a week.”
no, that’s far too often.

“you guys are really great together.”
but you’ve already broken up.

“it’s like a hotness sandwich.”
but only one piece of bread was hot.

“you’re not going bald.”
why do you lie to me?

today is exactly how i feel.

some people give themselves too much credit.

i give myself too little.  let’s be honest and forthright here–growing up is hard to do.  in middle school, i remember people talking about how hard puberty is for tweens and teens. ‘the hardest transition of our lives.’  they were wrong.  if i had stopped after college, they would have been correct.  if life were over at 21 when a degree was placed in my hand and evans p. deferred shaking the other because we  had more honorary doctorates to give out, that would have been true.

college was easy.  college was simple.  familiar.  college seemed permanent and happy.  four years.  maybe this is just the path i took.  easy undergrad degree, plenty of fun to be had, but you’ll pay for it later.  maybe i’m not even making sense.  i don’t miss college, life is just hard once you are released from that shell.  or maybe it’s not.  maybe it’s just me.  maybe it’s just having to do this alone.

i did move 1000 miles from home.  1000 miles from kathryn.  i can’t remember what originally made me want to flee south carolina.  i’m sure it’s a composite of 1000 things.  the earliest seeds were probably sown during my fifth grade trip to dc, but that’s not the point.  the point is, here i am.  i am farther from south carolina than paris is from rome.  i could see a fourth of europe in my 19 hour drive to south carolina.  maybe that’s a drive i don’t really plan on making again.  i can’t call it home.

home is where the kat is.  i don’t care what anyone thinks about that.  it’s the truth.  i’m getting married in may.  in the meantime, i have to allow myself some leeway.  growing up is hard to do.  i’m alone here in massachusetts.  let’s be honest, it’s a beautiful, wonderful place.  it’s the birthplace of autumn, but at the end of the day i’m not going to get coffee with a friend or walking around some downtown with a new digital camera.  life is tough right now, but it’s making me tougher.

and i can’t complain, i just can’t complain.  i am provided for.  i have a beautiful fiancee, a job, love from the highest, and a brand new macbook pro just in case.  sometimes my brain just runs ragged and gets a little foggy.  sometimes i just need to take a nap or eat a whole thing of frosting with my fingers.  sometimes i need to do both.

history of.

just made a ‘history of emo’ playlist.  it is by no means a history.  it is by no means made completely of ‘emo’ music, other than the fact that i consider all of the songs to have emotional qualities.  it includes:

• ou est le swimming pool (electronic)
• monsters of folk (folk?  no.)
• brand new (‘america’s radiohead’)
• tears for fears (‘new wave’ kings)
• rilo kiley (‘indie?’)
• elliot smith (swoon.)
• the cure (obviously.)
• weezer (miss you, days when weezer was relevant.)
• the vaselines (missed these guys too.)
• the smiths.  (obviously.)
• phil collins.  (hah.)
• kid cudi. (pioneering the emo rap genre.)
• kanye west. (grandfathering the emo rap genre.)
• gillian welch. (too new york to be folk.)
• death cab. (emo.)
• starflyer 59. (marginalized =.)
• emmy the great. (of course.)
• the replacements. (oh my.)
• jeff buckely. (seriously.)
• manchester orchestra. (slowly going the way of the buffalo.)

there are more artists on there but.  i’m done typing.  i have no pertinent commentary at this moment.

50 ways (1/5).

1. fall down the steps.
2. bad sushi.
3. southern accent.
4. the usual.
5. focus.
6. blood vessels.
7. social anxiety.
8. caffeine withdrawals.
9. meta-cognition.
10. taking a left when you should have taken the first right past the hardware store.  (directional miscues.)  you’d be surprised at how certain roads stretch and curl back in on themselves, or even toward nothing at all.  nothing specific at least. sometimes you get on a road and just keep going because it seems like this road would eventually connect to a road you are more familiar with.  it seems like the same general direction.  this was one of those times.

an initial look at the psychology of selective twitter.

selective twitter is interesting.  what makes one decide this ‘tweet’ should be on facebook and another should not?  what thought process adds ‘#fb’ to the end of this one and not that one?  there’s a whole psychology behind selective tweeting; the roots are exposed.

if i say ‘i’m cleaning my room,’ i don’t deem that facebook ‘worthy.’
so what can make this sentence ‘worthy’ of going on facebook?

(why do we even want our twitter updates posted on facebook?  aren’t we the people who, when faced with the ’silliness of twitter,’ tell our friends that we do it only for ourselves, as some kind of ‘running journal’ to look back on.  there is no rise and fall of hearts or days as we publish or refrain from publishing our twitter updates on facebook.  to understand selective twitter updates, we must understand why post updates to facebook in the first place.  it seems to be ~75% egotistical.)

the twitter updates that we send to facebook seem to be of some self-boosting nature.  these tweets usually involve self promotion–’check out my new blog. #fb.’  usually, if we think we said something funny, we send it to facebook (‘yo, george washington, i’ma let you finish… #fb.’)  most people are more likely to send a tweet that mentions their significant other to facebook, especially if said person does not tweet (‘just had ice cream with my girlfriend. it was SO great.  we’re totally in love or something. #fb.)  we’re also very likely to selectively tweet something that seems like a large personal accomplishment (‘just ran two miles in a thunderstorm! whew.  #fb’)  some people send tweets about their personal spiritual life to facebook.

i guess the last one is the only one i’m really not guilty of.  in fact, after i finish this post, i’m going to tweet it and send it to facebook.  i’m not passing judgment on selective twittering, but it’s interesting to think about what the tweets we pick really say about who we are.  i think.

don’t you dare fake it.

want to help me pull the gravel out of my palms?
(you can say no.)

i’ve had worse things in my palms but nothing ever hurt me more.  it was always some reciprocal.  it never meant anything before today.  maybe i think in analogies too much.
(maybe like you said for that one week stretch bad analogies.

and i kept telling you darling, they aren’t necessarily bad analogies.  they’re good analogies; they are just cliche analogies. they wouldn’t be cliche if they weren’t fitting.

you just nodded. and smiled.)

today, i bring before you a bad analogy.
i tripped, i fell, you picked me up.

it’s not a bad analogy because it’s overused.  it’s a bad analogy because it’s not at all what happened.
and maybe my palms are what i really want you to know about here.

i see the world in grey and white.

i close my eyes and think that i’ve found it.  i dig deeper into my pocket, feel the clinking change and the crumpled dollar bills.  (an inflatable moose stares at me from the foyer; this is how they know me.  i’m the inflatable moose guy.)  i find my keys and reach for the doorknob.  i’m yearning to get out for one more cup of coffee.  i need one for the road.  it won’t belong.  it won’t be long.

she didn’t understand what she said, what she did when she drew that line in the sand.  leather flip-flops with holes in the heels.  mermaid skirt.  bewildering layers of shirts you would never wear alone.  (i didn’t even know what a mermaid skirt was until i met her.)

i’ve heard it said that love is a battleground.  love is war; that old story.  i never could quite decide.  absolutes are for statisticians and doctors.  life reflects no absolutes.  her line in the sand was an attempt, a challenge.  i couldn’t fall for it.  i spent half my days on one side and half on the other.  my dorm was on one side, her house on the other.  i went back to the inflatable moose, guitar riffs, and ginger beer.  she moved to alabama.

if life is a world at war, love is a brand new colony on an uncharted planet dual-citizenship.

daisy.

i fell asleep at an incline and woke up in november.
some people are too young to die at 27.  ”these holes
don’t dig themselves.” some people are too important
too quickly.  these people either give up or they fade
into obscurity; often they move to alaska to drink and
fish.  (this is what they do in alaska–drink, fish, and
practice not being eaten by bears.)  i woke up at an
incline and felt the blood rush to my head.  who are
these people?  who are they that they can just quit?
don’t they owe us something?  too old to burn out and
too young to overdose, so they give up.  life is cold,
but it’s not that cold.  or maybe sometimes you do
have to stop while you’re ahead.  sometimes quitting
makes you a legend.  the whole world wonders what
you could have done.  ”you weren’t even playing with
a full deck.  you were too young.  try it now kid.”  what
do they know?  someone will have to lower that box.
better you than me.  is that what we’ve come to?