The Circle In The Grey

Angel Girl

2008-02-27T17:59:00.002-06:00

Small, young girl, you shuffle slowly through the woods next to me, quiet and unsmiling, heart deeply saddened by your slight years, eyes blank but pleading, and silent your fears.

You tell me how angry they make you, all the people in your scarce existance, and i hear louder how much they crush you, hurt you. The snow shimmers dancingly in the golden sun in our forested world but you, my fighting fragile girl, have long since lost your own sparkle. I smile from time to time, laugh and exclaim even, despite knowing my efforts are past being contagious. You tell me your dark dreams, dark thoughts, dark life. I want nothing in this world right now except to make you smile, make you shine a little, make your hidden soul move. You don't even feel like a person. You barely feel anything anymore, you no longer want anyone, you want to be no one and nowhere. You tell me how you think the nurses in the hospital mixed you up with another baby when you were born.

You are tough. Tougher than you ever were meant to be, and ever had to be. You tell me that you don't cry. That even in those raw times when you want to more than anything, when you almost did yesturday night, how you won't let yourself. You have become a master. You don't cry. You don't even worry that you may.

Yesturday night was one of the best I've had. It was probably one of yours as well. We walked and walked and walked over the crunching snow on the frozen Winnipeg river, aimed towards a distant skyline marked distinctly by twighlight, then by dawn, silhouetted by a wooden bridge on one side, a tall silver tower on the other. Even the very air we breathed was shadowed by the night. You were different I think, you seemed free, young, OK again. We talked about the beautiful wilderness, the warm melting winter, the way that we both just wanted to live in the woods for a year with no city distractions. We looked for stars, and planets, and the Northern Lights, and ended up finding red satelites and twinkling blue planes and friendship. You told me about the Native Spirits, and the animals and the land.

For that brief moment on our stargazing walk, life was ok. Life was manageable. Not just for you, but for me too. Becoming friends let us both experience a new freshness. A new perspective on life.

Angel girl, take those minutes of freedom back into your hand, swallow them, let them nourish you with the reasons for living, let them dispell the depressive weight you carry with you day after day after day after day.

Rebirth of something old

2008-01-17T20:38:00.000-06:00

Quiet.
Then, crack of the whip.
Thirty more crack their whips too.
Horse whinnies echo strikingly over rocks
As, simultaneously, they respond.
Uniform clashing of voices,
horse and man and echos,
Of the night flight taking off.
A thousand earthquakes from horse hoofs
Thundering to somewhere new.
Sound has been reborn.

The silence has been broken!

Stay tuned. More to come.

To Need Such Adroit Attention, the Situation Must Indeed Be Desperate

2007-04-13T00:19:00.000-05:00

like the tiny silver

that slices slivers

in the black

My Eyes Are Shadows

2007-04-11T20:43:00.000-05:00

i walk
under the stars on a gravel road
in a tiny town in the tiny glasshouse
of night sky that protects the rest
from piercing light that explodes
everyday. everyday. everyday.
sometimes the tiny stars are
the only lights i want
because they are sharp but
small and still allow for the night
instead of the star called sun
that allows nothing but its
radiance and vast shinings
and creation of shadows
shadows that cover my eyes
sometimes i just want whats small
want the world to be small
my world, myself, small
like the tiny stars
i barely see above my goulish
head in smoky air
like the tiny silver
that slices slivers
in the black.

Comatose

2007-04-06T22:48:00.000-05:00

I didn't hear you leave

I wonder how am I still here

And I don't want to move a thing

It might change my memory

Oh I am what I am I do what I want

But I can't hide

And I won't go

I won't sleep

I can't breathe

Until you're resting here with me

And I won't leave

I can't hide

I cannot be

Until you're resting here with me

I don't want to call my friends

For they might wake me from this dream

And I can't leave this bed

Risk forgetting all that's been

Oh I am what I am I do what I want

But I can't hide

And I won't go

I won't sleep

I can't breathe

Until you're resting here with me

I won't leave

I can't hide

I cannot be

Until you're resting here with me

- Dido

Black Dresses need White Wine

2006-11-25T03:03:00.000-06:00

Sherri and i had fun last night...

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

2006-11-19T01:18:00.000-06:00

Just a reminder to all of you out there who, as of yet, have not had the opportunity to experience the wonder and delight of CHACOS: even though the Canadian winter season is fast approaching, CHACOS are still the top choice of footwear to consider! The top-quality sole, (option of three types!) is not just durable and noteworthy on earthy terrain, but performs flawlessly on multi-season surfaces like ice, snow and...iced snow. They're great for parading down a festive sidewalk, a frozen skating rink (imagine peoples' faces when you glide effortlessly by, while they struggle to stay in an upright position on their single-purpose Bauer's!), or even the airy ice-storm clouds. Then, these versatile little buggers easily make the transition from such a chilling, northern climate to hot, sweaty Mexico when that January time roles around and you decide you've had just about enough of this frigid air and are more than ready to say a huge "HOLA" to the tropical, life-saving kingdom of Mexico!

To put it simply: CHACOS are the pride of yesturday, the sustinence of today, the reason for tomorrow.

Firestars, Starflies

2006-11-11T20:03:00.000-06:00

now away from the crowd and
away from the place
the stars burn out that
used to light up her face,
and now he's walking alone
in the middle of the night
and is she thinking of him
because she's on his mind,
and staring so deep into the same black sky
and drifting so far into the same black void,
and thinking of you,
and thinking of you,
and thinking of you,
and thinking of you.

Void of the Innocence of Perfection

2006-10-29T11:27:00.002-06:00

Alright, so it's about time to update this void. At least, that is what i have been told more than a few times now. i have had many good intentions to in the last month or so, but life has a way of throwing you curve balls (as the saying goes) out of nowhere that can be completely consuming. And when i say curve balls, i truly do mean curve balls. Like rediculous angles that you wouldn't believe are possible - i sure did not. But that's another story to be told another time.

Which reminds me of the book "The Never-Ending Story." Now there's a great read. i don't have a copy of it out here in the prairies with me, but now that this thought has popped into my mind, i think i really want to search for one. Really, i would strongly suggest it. At least, six years ago, when i last read it, i definitely would have. But maybe that was just because Mike recommended and loved it so much. I was always one to trust that opinion.

i don't have anything in particular to blog about momentarily. Usually my poetic juices run amok and overflow, or, at the very least, my words formulate themselves in artistic, vague patterns to produce what are, hopefully, glimpses of written art rather than thoughts and babbles on a page. None of that is present right now. I wonder how long until it will be until it is again. In some ways, i have had life completely sucked right out of me, and with that life goes creative capabilities and inspirations. Sometimes i wonder if i would rather keep what i know, what i hold fiercly close to me, what defines me in many ways, like writing, over even my sanity. Scary thoughts, but holding some degree of truth nonetheless. Sanity is only worth much when it accompanied by personhood, identity, self. At least, that is what it seems like when personalized. But maybe i am just misguided. That happens every now and again. Regardless, this is not a topic i should be comfortable flirting with just yet.

It's like yesturday night. I was at a social, a Halloween one in fact. After the social, the floor, littered with beer and broken glass and dirt and paper and other unknown liquids, was just the perfect slippery-ness for me to be much too tempted to give up sliding on, especially because i was wearing "hot, strappy one-inch sandles." So i started spinning in circles, letting the wet, liquid-saturated floor propell me on. As you can imagine, shortly after i found myself sprawled completely un-gracefully on the same disgusting floor, beer seeping into my clothing, people staring bewildered and amused. Anyhow, that same incident illustrated completely, at least to me, what i mean by flirting with topics. Perhaps this means nothing to you, the reader, the wonderer. To me it does though, and just because of that i am not about to go back and delete this entire, possibly useless, paragraph. At any rate, the social was amazing just what we needed. Dancing the entire night away without thinking about anything. Dancing myself out of my head.

It is snowing outside today. The perfect snow. By perfect, i don't mean perfect as in glass- elevator-on-the-blackest-night perfect. I mean tiny drops of perfect, gentle, graceful snow barely floating down from the heavens. Complementing the November bareness entirely, a foreground for the dark browns, greens, blues and beiges that characterize the Winnipeg streets. Perfection. Ah, how my eyes will never be drawn away from seeking perfection in everything, even what i see. Perfection. The false allure of the hopelessly innocent.

Introducing Frederic Chopin - Aesthetic Genius

2006-09-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

I am sitting here as the world calmly fades into the pastelled background of another gorgeous Autumn sunset, watching outlined grey clouds provide the skeleton-like framework that contains this present scene; a scene that i can feel more deeply and completely than i'd ever be able to see. And seeing it is moving and striking enough. Striking the chords of my human existance much in the same way that those genius musicians of the 16th and 17th and, especially, 18th and 19th centuries struck chords in their beloved instruments, providing the framework that allows me to understand and communicate life in a way that, otherwise, would be impossible. A framework that is not skeleton in any form.

Chopin's Nocturne #1 in C#- leaks into the emptiness of this tiny, whitened room that holds my head and my body. But somewhere above is my mind, floating on the harmonies of his bewitching, melancholy passage. I swear i can smell it, taste it, feel its wafting magic invade every second of this moment. His music far surpasses simply the tangible.

The Warsaw native Frederic Chopin is by far my favourite pianist, favourite composer, favourite musician. He is a musical genius needing to be, at the very least, considered by anyone seeking aesthetical experiences. This current nocturne that i am listening to surpasses even the greatest works of - Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schubert - all other musical masters in the same periodic box as Chopin. And it is by no means his greatest composition - not even close.

I wonder what Bach, who some say so strongly influenced Chopin in terms of composition, if given the opportunity, would think of Chopin's music. I wonder if he would realize how his own similar compositions fade in comparison to what Chopin was able to produce years later. I wonder if he would have incredulously realized how much he had missed in structuring his compositions such as he did; how he missed developing a language that, fortunately, Chopin was later able to develop in his place.

That being said, there are definite basis of comparison that would, easily, put Bach as the superior. In terms of aesthetics however, Chopin reigns supreme.

Travels of the Brilliant

2006-09-11T23:26:00.000-05:00

Now here's an absolutely brilliant poet at, arguably, his best:

somewhere i have never travelled
- E.E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

...like i said, complete lyrical brilliance!

Why i am starting to despise flying...

2006-09-01T17:06:00.000-05:00

So today i flew to Winnipeg...landed...and then found out West Jet lost my luggage. Yah, not too impressed. i am starting to really not like domestic airline companies...

A Puppet Motions Only in Response to Stimulus

2006-08-03T01:39:00.000-05:00

The cheese beside me is orange and white and crumbly and probably should be completely moldy by now, but really is not. Or maybe i just did not look close enough: by now my eyes have refocused onto the cucumber melon vitamin e lotion, the small white pencil box, the silver paperclip. Whir, whir, whir. The sound lingers from the fan that devotedly blows cold air upstairs; up the sixth level stairs. It's dark outside, night-time. There are wet looking streaks on the window, sort of sparkly against the black. It must have rained earlier; maybe it still is.

The sudden, shrill ring of the telephone pierces the not-exactly-quiet silence of the room. Two voices saying hello, a few lines of chatter, laughing, two voices saying goodbye. The room resumes its current position, with the addition of a dull, monotonous dial tone pulsating through it now. I feel my hand click the phone back into its place, simultaneously realizing one of the voices was my own.

Strange. i do not even remember moving, much less the words i've just spoken. The thought of figuring out who i was just talking to and what was said vaguely crosses my mind, but then extinguishes itself just as quickly, just as insignificantly. Whir, whir, whir. A moth, a fly, a mosquito circle in the light fixture above, dizzily spinning around and around. My head is dizzy too, but it is not from sickness. The window again. A vehicle passes, its driver probably headed to work. Should be morning by now. Again vaguely, i recall my own work that i have to get to today, my own job that waits neatly in its place for at least a few more hours. There are people to attend to, places to get to, courses to teach.

Whir, whir, whir.

Something is itchy on my back behind my head, and i am slightly aware of the numbness my foot is experiencing from being held in such a locked position for, what must be, a long while. i reach out and let a single finger slip up from my ankle to my thigh, feeling smooth, unbreaking skin the whole way. i stop and let it fall back. Do the same with a strand of hair, with my arm, with my forehead. Reminds me of something, though i am not sure what. Memories do not really exist. They just seem like stories someone must have read to me a long, long time ago, probably when i was really quite young.

Did any of this used to mean anything? Did any of this matter, signify something, become of importance in some way or another? Were they always just such raw motions, or were they ever actual responses to meaningful stimulus?

Bent Yellow

2006-07-31T23:17:00.000-05:00

it wakes
her slumbering body
even before it hits the floor,
even as it seemingly suspends itself
before any echo is ever heard.

it breaks
slivers of bending silver
in the single yellow beam
over the floor,
the down-fallen shards silent a time frame later
waiting to be swept back up
disposed of and left to be thought of as broken.

she only stares at them, unmoving
waiting just the same
defying every command telling her to
clean up the fractured reflecting pieces,
clean it and wash it and fold it
neatly back into place
as it should belong.

such is what stops her:
the reflective pieces reflect her
unblinking eyes that betray her
unblinking state
and fragile soul that barely can hang on
any longer
or, just as much, even simply know how to.

dangling dangerously, fraying.

time passes, the sun sets
rises again
and the wind whispers its
breeze through leaves of gold and brown.

life goes on, an infinite circle.
but even the sun is just fire
and fire can always be doused,
and so the sun too will cease to shine
and the yellow beam no longer be there
to reflect the broken shards that
allow her to really see.

but things don't become whole
just because they cease to be visible.

Whimsically Capturing Moments of Alone

2006-07-19T18:46:00.000-05:00

Solitude
When you have tidied all things for the night,
And while your thoughts are fading to their sleep,
You'll pause a moment in the late firelight,
Too sorrowful to weep.

The large and gentle furniture has stood
In sympathetic silence all the day
With that old kindness of domestic wood;
Nevertheless the haunted room will say:
"Someone must be away."

The little dog rolls over half-awake,
Stretches his paws, yawns, looking up at you,
Wags his tail very slightly for your sake,
That you may feel he is unhappy too.

A distant engine whistles, or the floor
Creaks, or the wandering night-wind bangs a door.

Silence is scattered like a broken glass.
The minutes prick their ears and run about,
Then one by one subside again and pass
Sedately in, monotonously out.

You bend your head and wipe away a tear
Solitude walks one heavy step more near.
- Harold Monro

Writing on Blank Discs

2006-07-17T01:18:00.000-05:00

How long it has been since concrete words, ideas, and thoughts have floated here...suspended themselves in the air of this greying backdrop the way piles of dust in a streak of light do. How long it has been since thoughts and and words and ideas have ceased to be abstract and loaded, to simply be what they are, and carry the meanings that they should. Meanings hoped to be, supposed to be, recognizable, known, understood. Meanings attached to the symbols, or it is not anything. Just words on a page, words in the air, circulating above for a little while, then expelled. Not anything...is that to be less desired than everything, even when it comes with the inevitable damned spilling of feelings? But oh, to remain numb. Frost bite numbs the skin it has poisoned.

How long, how long, how long. i write through the ambiguous and i express through it, and i feel through the endless enigmatic ambiguous... now, should i fear, have i left the ways of thinking in the concrete, in the solid, to have entered and reside in the world of the unknown, the unshown, the unclear. Recently i have not written - have not written...it sounds strange and anxious and out of place even to even see those three words form - out of what i presumed was a lack of substantial inspiration, motivation, emotion, condensation. Heh. Whatever. Such nonsense. i am a writer. Of course i write. i have ceaseless inspiration provided by looking at a blade of dew covered grass, at a kernal of popcorn, at the color blue, from holding a hand, from hearing an "a" quiver on the string of a violin.

So just write. Write, write, write.

Empty. Blank. Empty blank discs. Discs that should contain, that could contain, everything. But
quiet now. It's all understood. There is so much going on inside that i simply cannot grasp a hold of it and express it using modern day, contemporary, 5-vowels, native Canadian English. Or any other spoken language, for that matter. No, even my precious words, my adored written ink, can betray me, shrug shoulders and leave unable to be of assistance this time.

And so sit, and ponder, and let it be. And just try to allow emotion, try to let it be legitimate, acceptable, "ok." Just this once perhaps. What else is there? Infarction. Frost bite kills the skin it has poisoned.

A Wild Rose

2006-06-28T18:22:00.000-05:00

forest-dusted tower of a stem stretching
endless polished arms towards the silver heavens,
folds of virile redness
an arching rose, most compelling of all and
adorned with carmine lust,
but adorned first in thorns, a scarred perfection,
adorned in what will always betray
the precious rose that longs to be beautiful
and label it wild.

Arcane

2006-06-23T19:02:00.000-05:00

happiness, the feeling escapes this yellowed body,
drags along joy and bliss and ecstacy with it;
i know it, because i see the remains stamped into the rusty dirt
i see the crumbles like crusts of bread fed to green ducks in a park,
green ducks in the azure-like ripples of an oval mirror.

but i see the vanishing trendils of loneliness too,
and sadness and hurt and fear;
and in its place, a cold stony nothing,
a vast emptiness that is more chaining, murderous, than any feeling, desirous or not, i used to know:
a human devoid of everything
that gives this world all authority to call it "man," call it "woman," call it "human being;"
a black wasteland of human shell, of nothingness,
as black as the cold, stone feathers of the ravens.

after that nothing
and after there is nothing left to believe in
i find i still believe in something:
crawling towards it, away from it, irrelevant,
(despite how)
each nothing has wrecked each view of this life.

and even though each time i can never see the world the same
there is always something to believe in when there is nothing.

Thick

2006-06-12T19:58:00.000-05:00

vibrance, vibrant, human being, living being
flashes of color dripping wetly overhead
flashes, moments, ah reaching, pulling,
is there such thing as a grasp
floating, floating, invisible evaporation
grey clouds lingering, thickly suspended above
grey, dreary, grey street
grey and stale, grey dismal bell jar
jar of fireflies gone out in smoke
brightly flashing, blinding, so real, so real, surreal
human, human, living, being, human being
human being devoid in greyish mists
mystically encrusted mists, fantasy air
breathe, air-filled lungs, pumping, life
vibrant life stained with grey condensation

Dinner For Two

2006-05-28T04:08:00.000-05:00

I thought I knew what it felt like to see enchantment that night. Enchanted; most people recognize the feeling, but that evening I actually glimpsed it, saw a vision of its magical wings envelope my world for a fraction of time. The world, with its normalcy, was behind me, suspended, and I was immortal in enchantment.
I could swear your face was glowing with excitement; perhaps though, it was only the result of a hundred candles burning in the darkness around where we sat. We sat, alone, at a table isolated at the edge of the waterfront. You had moved the table there during the day, amidst the noise and commotion of the marina, while the boats and seedos incessantly backed into the water, only to emerge again hours later; in and out, in and out, much like the waves that gently lapped against the dock now, completing the calm stillness of that night. At the time, I thought you had to be the most creative person I had ever met. Perhaps, I was just too easily impressed.
You brought take-out, explaining shyly how you were just horrible at cooking, that you would have if you could, but this was the best you could do. I laughed and told you I would not want it any other way, and you smiled and poured two glasses of crimson wine into delicate glasses where it sparkled with the stars.
This is what dinner for two should be, I remembered thinking. All alone, with the glittering magic of the night, the moon, the stars, the candles, silvery, silent, consumed.
It’s funny how you remember certain details after a fact, when they seemed so insignificant at the time; mere background decors, barely noticeable. Eventually they become emblems, symbols that you wish you had seen, sort of overlooked signs.
I remember we both noticed the lighthouse in the distance, glaring its golden light in a single streak across the dark water miles away. It stayed on almost the whole evening, watching us, until it abruptly, unexpectedly, flickered twice and went out. I never imagined you and I could fade as suddenly as that light.

Heaven A or B?

2006-05-27T23:02:00.000-05:00

Complete oblivion. A world in which the past is not only thoroughly forgotten, it is known not to have ever existed. A place and time where the utopian state one finds self in is the only reality ever known, and ever to be known. Utter forgetfulness of past sorrow, pain, joy and various other emotions. Absolute failure to recall towards the life now known. This is a true Heaven.
Heaven is perfect. So then, a perfect world would have no need for a basis of comparison for that perfection. If a past life with imperfections could be remembered in Heaven, then Heaven, as it is known, could not be flawless. It would have blemishes, and even though existing there would seem perfect, reality there would be clouded with thoughts and memories of what life, imperfect life, used to be.
Perfection requires no basis for comparison. It is its own essence; a shining emblem of purity, and immaculately individual. To capture everything perfection, on its own, offers, one would need merely to be exposed to it alone. Reality where everything is perfect, and has always been known to be perfect, is the existence humans are continuously desiring, whether this is recognized or not.
On another level, knowing that, once Heaven is reached, complete oblivion will also be reached, an unbounded hope for this present reality is provided. When grief and sorrow floods a life, full reassurance that the pain will only be momentary occurs. In fact, after this life is over it will not even be remembered. Such a hope leaves individuals with peace when negative circumstances out of, or within, control occur. On the other hand, since joy, to finite minds, is justifiably thought to be closer to perfection than grief, moments of genuine joy in life provide a means for anticipation of something greater. Hope, once again, of the ecstasy of Heaven will bring even more contentment to life. If joy here, in this imperfect life, is pleasurable, how much more so will it be in a perfect world?
It is apparent that in order for Heaven to be truly perfect, everything experienced before arriving there must be eliminated from the mind. The memory is a powerful tool, strong enough to cause emotions in a person long after the circumstance in which the memory was formed in has passed. The past, the present, the future; all three make up the components of reality. The circumstances of the past have a way of haunting the present and the future. An existence of true perfection can only be constructed when no other existence is known. Complete oblivion.

Some Justification

2006-05-22T19:44:00.000-05:00

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."
- Vince Lombardi

And That Is Why

2006-05-17T19:21:00.000-05:00

"Our nature lies in movement...complete calm is death."
-Pascal

Untitled For Now (any suggestions??)

2006-04-16T22:26:00.000-05:00

They dangle thinly on the cadaverous branches across where a girl crosses over
those yellowed memories, fracturable
how he said her shadow casts exquisit, alluring silhouettes on his cream walls
flickering in the orange flames of melting ivory drops.
Somehow the daylight faded though, and the girl fell fast asleep
and when she woke up it was a rare vanishing,
in completely different worlds, gone refined efflorescence
walking on the grains of a red dirt road that unfolds into the horizon
of a heavenly sunset that paints the sky with rocket-stripes,
across where a girl watches white sand slip through cracks of smooth, white fingers.

A Series of Vers Libre

2006-04-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

Of the Sweet Spring Morn (Part III of Dissipations)

I remember swinging on the brown, chestnut-wood steps of swings
In the foggy spring morning, so early, against the lucid body of dawn
And how the sun kept trying to break its way through the
Clouds; so thick, so blanketing, as if protecting it from something
And the birds, oh the birds, singing their dulcet lullabies into thin air,
Elf-like melodies, but your words were eminently sweeter than even the birds.

This Is

2006-04-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

closed, hidden, put far far away,
it was the only thing that ever worked
but he dug, try something new
and told her simple words, but
loaded words
and so she unfolds
and then, in the process...

finds herself bleeding
left with a gaping hole from the arrow she saw all along
piercing more than just that.
she has lost herself
and the only safety she has ever known.

i watch her, watch as she stares at the dripping blood
onto white, weathered skin
i watch as she stares blankly at her pale face in the mirror
silently cold and deathly still, not a sliver of movement any longer
calm. quiet. surrendered.
it is no use screaming and slaying and ripping now.

she'll tell you she knew all along this is what it would come to
she knew not to depend on you.
or rely on you.
or trust in you.
depend. rely. trust.
nothing more than words on a yellow paper.

i want to wipe away all the crimson drops that are puddling on the floor
scrub away the blushing carmine
maybe because maybe if i scrub the floor clean
i can also scrub you clean
you will be completely gone, you will have never existed.

tell me you did not think it would become like this...
but makes no difference, the scrubbing continues
knuckles raw and bleeding my own blood
knees bruised blue and black.

"dear isobel i hope you're well
and what you've done is right
oh it's been such hell, i wish you well
i hope you're safe tonight
it's been a long day coming
and long will it last when it's last day leaving
i'm helping it pass
by loving you more."
- dido

But I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

2006-04-03T21:48:00.000-05:00

what if...
i already have...
everything i think...
i am missing...

On Attending Intelligently to the World

2006-04-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

L.B. Meyer:

But to choose prospective certainty over present insight is both mistaken and misguided. It is mistaken because the search for final, definitive answers is an unattainable goal for those concerned with understanding and explanation. For, since the future is open and influential, it can change our understanding both of past compositions and of past historical events. It is misguided - paradoxically so - because the enduring monuments of scholarship, which have shaped men's minds and beliefs, far from being cautious and circumspect, have been those which illuminated a relationship, a work of art, or a past epoch through a bold, encompassing hypothesis.

Now if only i thought it was really that simple...

All That Glitters

2006-03-21T16:10:00.000-06:00

A Story From The Other Side Of The Tree
"and after he had fought with death and lived through it, and faced utter destruction and hopelessness, and fell with his face in the dirt time and time and time again...
he refused to stay there. he refused to let something or someone else win.
...he still yet had the strength to get up each time, and still had the strength to continue pushing and fighting and wanting, and still had the strength to live...
...he learned then that whatever he wants he just has to fight for, and that eventually, if he wants it badly enough, he will get it. because strength is vital. and nothing is stronger than desire and passion and raw courage and determination...and, in the same way, nothing is weaker or more repulsive then one who is never willing to risk anything - when risk is the only thing holding back. all. there is no honor and there is no strength in one who will not put it all on the line, will not risk everything, for something that is worth even more.
she is up high, watching the entire world.
her heart. it wants to be free.
but she won't be won just by anyone, and she won't belong to just anyone. only the strongest and most courageous and the one who wants it the most and fights for it the most. because then she will know it is true. then she will know it is safe to give. because her heart is the only precious part of her that is only hers to give, and so she will not just hand it to anyone. she would rather live a life completely alone and isolated, then put her heart in a place that was not safe...
On the battle field, only the strongest survive.
And so she sits in her castle, adorned in flowing fabrics that glitter and shine snowblindness as sunbeams catch it, wearing her crown of rubies...and diamonds are strung along her ivory collerbone and drape lower and lower, enveloping her and cradling her...and she watches them all, the knights below, bringing gifts and sacrifices and offereing promises and calling her sweet names...
...and she listens, yes she listens, to all of them and is moved by all of them. but she gives her heart to none of them. because her heart belongs to that one in the field...fighting and slaying and proving himself...not just to her, but proving to himself as well...
It belongs to him. and she sits there quietly, knowing that soon enough he will come for her, and he will sweep her into his valor and his passion and a huge, huge, huge, never-ending adventure. Adventure, adventure, adventure. she craves it more than anything.
she would trade every last one of her rubies and diamonds and jewels for adventure in a second... and for life. her heart belongs to him, because he will bring her to life again."

Chatty Cathy and Patch Adams

2006-03-19T20:40:00.000-06:00

it hit me today how soon Courtney's wedding is!!! so crazy, yet so amazing, i can't even believe. My best friend of so long getting married! Naturally, that lead to alot of reminiscing today. As i often do...as WE often do. i'll just let some pictures speak for themselves. oh, good times...

Whispered

2006-03-12T13:21:00.001-06:00

whispers into the night air

grasping faltingly at nothing to find some strength
when strength is gone
but found none there either

consuming
thin whimsical thoughts floating in circles
airily and with strain

suffocation
under the bell jar
closing, caught, trapped

another whisper
inaudible
a savior if heard
it is stony silence though

lifeless
falls to the ground

i Am in Love with the Rocky Mountains!!

2006-03-08T23:48:00.000-06:00

DAN, TITUS and STEPH'S Snowboarding Roadtrip 2006:

...tons of driving...tons of mountains...tons of snowboarding...tons of visiting...one crazy amazing adrenaline-filled trip!! (worth all dollars and minutes and energy spent!)

Passing

2006-03-03T14:25:00.000-06:00

and at least if i am dying
let me be dying in your arms
because although death is what must happen
maybe it can be lightened just a little
if i am melted into your hold
and as light is slowly suffocated out
of my living day, fading a paler and paler yellow
into grey-blue haziness, and then eventually
an ebony faded dust
let me feel your your ever embrace
let me leave this world with
my hand fitted perfectly in yours

"blank. stare. disbelieving...
...but it is all inside, all inside
something this precious could never be"

Of Rain On Glassy Windows

2006-03-02T18:43:00.000-06:00

Rain slowly crawling down glass
That furnishes this house
This house that is not a home
Not a home, not a home
Just walls and windows and doors
That lead into empty rooms
Empty maybe because no one wanted them filled
Or no one noticed they were not
Since this house is not a home
Not a home, not a home
Drops of water secreting over smooth, reflective sheets
Like legs in a glass of potent ruby red wine
In this, on this, outside this, house
That is not a home, not a home

Love, Love, Love

2006-03-01T15:35:00.000-06:00

CONGRADULATIONS RENEE REINDERS AND WILSON MATTINGLY!!

"The greatest thing you'll ever know, is just to love...and to be loved in return..."

This post is to congradulate an inspiring and beautiful lady, my friend and sister, my roomate of two years - Renee Reinders - on her recent engagement to an equally wonderful man - Wilson Mattingly.

i am incredibly happy for the both of you! You bring so much to each others lives, and also to the lives of everyone else around you. i know anyone who knows either Renee or Wilson, or both of them, will fully agree with this.

....oh. hmmm...i am sensing there might be a little conflict now about all those plans i had "for the three of us." hmmm....about that....

So Soft

2006-02-22T23:25:00.000-06:00

So i wrote this little writing/poem the other day when i was completely out of ideas for an assignment and procrastinating and trying to get all that stuff out of my mind, in hopes that once it was emptied of the random jumbled words and thoughts, something more concrete would come out. Well, it didnt work. But anyhow, i decided to post it. Why? i am not entirely sure. There is nothing special or remarkable or significant about it. It just is. It is just a picture really. i guess i am posting it because it is different from anything i normally write. Apparently, my poems are said to be extremely ambiguous and difficult and dark. Maybe this is less of all of the former.

Poem About The Soft Light Of A Candle

held in its softly licking flames;
flames of fire that curl intricately on the walls,
mesmerizing and captivating with sharp and vaporish glares
of deep red and orange tips, and golden yellowness
and centers of white-blue sapphire;
dancing and teasing, and teasing and taunting
lit and let down beneath the charcoal-gray miasma of smoke
that smother any other light or image or movement out of the room.

Shakin The Bacon

2006-02-18T21:08:00.000-06:00

i spent the weekend at Tyler's in Minnesota. With Mike and Matt as well. Definitely nice to get away from Prov for awhile, see some new scenary. Well, not really - where Tyler lives is not at all very different from where i live here. Even though Tyler tells me that it seems smaller. Other than about one mile (they don't have kilometers over there) where the road was closed in by trees, i didn't really think so. i think Ontario when i think smaller looking scenary. Sorry Ty.

Anyhow, our time in Minnesota was mostly characterized by playing the infamous game of Pass The Pig. This game itself warrants a completely valid reason for writing about our time in Minnesota! If you have never played Pass The Pig understand that you are missing out on a very extreme excitement and adrenaline-filled experience that comes from quite possibly the simplest game invented. i have been searching everywhere to find Pass The Pig since last year, when i was introduced to it, and discovered that it is quite possibly the last piece of essential "gear" that needs to be included on any backpacking (or other) trip from then on. Rachael, Renee, Erick, Alex and Matt - remember backpacking in KILLARNY? Some of the best games of Pass The Pig i have ever played, absolutely halarious. Mind you, just about everything was halarious on that trip after we all went dillusional and crazy after i think the first day! Anyhow, getting back on track, you can imagine my utter disbelief and hysteria upon discovering that not only did Tyler and Matt know the game, but both actually own it!

Suffice it to say, Tyler, Mike, Matt, Nate and myself definitely enjoyed many not-so-quiet rounds of Pass The Pig well into the wee hours of the morning. Ah, this is the good life. Especially watching Mike lose ALL his points three times in one game! And we still were able to watch random funny movies after all that excitement.

i love how the basic, sporadic things in life are always the greatest times. i love how the simplest things in life make up the best memories. i love friendships.

so let me have your hand and all else be forgot
and we'll live frozen in a clockless time for now
because soon i will not feel this anymore
soon knowing this will be gone

Valentine

2006-02-14T01:07:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

i like Valentine's Day. Some people do not. i have always been a fan of it though, not finding it necessary in the least, mind you...but simply enjoying it. There is something simple about it that appeals to me, perhaps something clear and uncomplicated and even a little fabricated that i find attractive. Sometimes i want the fabricated, sometimes i think we all do. Valentine's Day...fabrications...this...it all reminds me of a poem by one of the best writers out there (and a personal favourite), Sylvia Plath:

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk
She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

i also noticed something this year. Those little heart candies with the messages on them? Well they are definitely becoming dirty. This year i had the pleasant surprise of receiving ones that said "why wait," "anytime" and "how much," to name a few. Hah. It was definitely amusing.
have a good one.

What The Earth Will Come To

2006-02-10T14:28:00.000-06:00

'if i can't have this then i am nothing'
said the upturned earth
after it had been shattered by the tempest
and left in pieces
'and living as nothing
is worse than not living'
broken fragments strewn about
caught in the wind now
gone forever, and that was all the earth could take
'dying never feels so good
as when you are becoming something through it'
i think it was true at that moment
perhaps to you simply a
horrid and terrific and desperate thought
who didn't feel what it felt
but i think for that broken earth it was true
and i think for that broken earth it was valid
i think it had good reason to mean what it said
to say that
'dying has never felt so good'
and
'dying has never been so right'
and it stared empty, vacant, and said
'all i can do is sleep
when my reason to stay awake is gone
and i am left as nothing
mock me, mock me, for wasting so much
soon i will be too dead to hear you'

Answers Anyone?

2006-02-01T23:57:00.000-06:00

what do you do when you can't let go
of something that is destroying you?

Cherry Trees

2006-01-23T10:45:00.000-06:00

painted streets and windowed lawns
and cherry trees with salmon feathered petals
and the wind that swirls it all together
i look out over all of it
watching and looking and waiting and not feeling
not out of a lack of feeling, but out of a lack of knowing what to do with those feelings
maybe the liquor bottles help in that process
empty and glassy and spilled on an already stained apartment floor
but my lips never touched it
it was the tragic romantic thing to do
but right then i wasn't that person
why create a heartache scene
when i was never actually able to feel the love
and we'll always hang on to our broken hearts
it's a waste of beauty if i've ever known that
but baby for now do what you have to do
because you know that soon you will let this go
and then baby you will miss this
baby how you will miss this

Can't Let You Have That

2006-01-21T17:12:00.000-06:00

fly away to everywhere
reach and reach and reach
hear the sky! it's calling you
angel pick up your wings

except when it came to you
you never sang that tune to me
that which i valued the most
was what you hated most about me
you are the only one who always tells me
to stop trying to fly higher
to settle down, to stay on the ground, to be like the rest

and of all the unbelievable that i am faced with
it rips me up the most to know this is what you want for me

when normalcy is one of the worst things to me!
but of course you wouldn't know that
you don't know anything about me
all along you only wanted to know me
as what you created me to be in your mind
not for the one i really am

i try soaring, higher, higher...
those chains you put on me weigh me down
chains that always sing to me
plummet down, down, down
and now you're back where you belong

but i don't belong there
i hear a different song than yours
and it tells me that i don't belong there
and no matter how loud you sing you can never drown this one out

and of all the unbelievable that i am faced with
it rips me up the most to know this is what you want for me

Telling

2006-01-20T13:41:00.000-06:00

the walls around my world again
they want me boxed up and folded and put away
neatly in place, like all the rest
brainwashed and walking in the same line
the same tired line, that is walked everyday

and i always wanted when anyone told my story
that it would never take place in that same line
and i always wanted when anyone told my story
that i would be more, though i don't know what

if all it takes is dreaming
then dreams are all i am
and if all it takes is wings
then i have those too

so baby fly away with me
baby fly away with me

Stop This World

2006-01-15T11:17:00.001-06:00

questions, emotions, confusion, not knowing
always looking always looking, but there is nothing more

i want all of it, and then i want none of it

too many feelings, but they can all be missed
none of it really needs to be taken

no more words

falling, hiding, crying, ripping
hurting

please stop this world, i want to get off

Dirty Brown Puddles

2006-01-11T22:54:00.000-06:00

muddy waters flowing over it all
black pavement shiny, blurry now with
dirty wetness
and it stays as it is, and it is going nowhere

maybe seeing beyond an ocean
if this puddle would stream

then make me as still as brown circles

brown circles in the sky
i wait, i wait
but it is all in vain, it is always in vain
and in dreams, dreams that scatter

the very little i hold
to claim as mine
dirty puddles that they all think are washing the ground
but i know different

i was always one to see what no one else saw

You Come To Realize

2006-01-05T23:37:00.000-06:00

Not everything is as it seems. In fact, very little ever is.

All The Best

2005-12-31T11:03:00.000-06:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
:)

Funny Michigan Dinner

2005-12-29T23:21:00.000-06:00

So funny story here.

So my family and i went out to eat dinner tonight in Michigan. We went to this sort of semi-formal buffet type restaurant, where you are supposed to wait to be seated and then, once you are seated, you can help yourself to the buffet and pay at the end. One small detail. My family and i came into the buffet restaurant through a back door instead of the main entrance (yes, it said not to use that door, but being the people we are we ignored it thinking it didnt really matter). That being the case, we failed to notice the incredibly large line of people that was formed at the main entrance, all waiting to be seated and waiting for their turn to eat in the buffet. Apparently, this was a popular dinner choice and we weren't the only ones wanting to eat there! So being oblivious to both the seating requirements as well as the large line of people already waiting to be seated, my family and i simply waltzed right into the dining area of the buffet through the back entrance, grabbed the nearest free and clean table available, and dove right into the buffet line. Leaving an entire line of people waiting for a spot behind us. Hah. We didn't notice the line at the main entrance and all the (angry?) people until well after we were done our meals, at which point we realized how rediculous our mishap was.

Hah, ok so maybe this story isn't as funny as i thought it was. It may have been one of those "you had to be there" stories. My apologies.

Christmas

2005-12-25T22:59:00.000-06:00

So this is Christmas, as the song goes.

i spent awhile trying to think of something profound or meaningful or bold to write about. It seemed like this day deserved it, it seemed like it needed something more. But there is just nothing more than the simple here. But i guess that is ok. Because Christmas really is a simple thing. It's been made complicated by us...but really, it should be very simple.

God lowered himself and came to earth, and even if it did not happen on this exact day, it is still the day we have chosen to celebrate this on, and that is why Christmas exists. Admist the hectic business and brightness and colors of this day, it is easy to forget the point of Christmas. I do it all the time. But then...when the day is about done, and all the gifts are open and family seen, and the house is finally still and silent with floors decorated in piles of colorful papers, bows and presents...then i make myself remember, and i sit in awe for timeless minutes.

God came to earth to save a world that is destroying itself. God - huge, wonderful, and in need of no one...came to live among us, to grow up with us, to experience the same pains and hurts and joys and love that we feel. And ultimately to set us free. Freedom, freedom, freedom. God saved us and gave us a precious and wonderful freedom.

i love the snow at Christmas. It doesn't seem like Christmas to me if there is not white snow. I find it ironic as i watch large and wet white snowflakes drift wordlessly into a serene world of white all around. Ironic because it is more than just our physical world that has been colored white. Know this.

Merry Christmas.

Under the Sparkling Tree on Christmas Eve

2005-12-24T23:55:00.000-06:00

are the stars brightly shining this year?
i am not sure.
they are brighter than before
but not as much as i thought they would have been by now.
i started to put it all away
but realized that i shouldn't, or at least that i really can't bear to.
i can't believe i have lay under the sparkling christmas tree
now in a pentagon.
i was thinking new each time, but never without missing.
never, never without missing.
it's been a long day coming
but i no longer want anything to help it pass.
still, silent, magical, sparkling Christmas Eve and Christmas tree
the atmosphere is perfect enough
but incomplete. always incomplete.
Oh Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining
usually they are not through my eyes.
this year i can't bring myself to check if they are.

i miss you
i love you
my angel

Traces

2005-12-22T01:54:00.000-06:00

like music
holding all glory once bodies are lost in the resonance
it never needed a beginning or end
only a time to capture, and all else is starved

i said try me
and you said we've been past that
since this all started
and so i took your hand
and traced it and wanted to fit mine in it
and then you showed me they were my fingers all along

have we blended that completely

there's something that is not entirely right
i always knew there was something unsettled
even though it was always kept so still and so neat
and i was so careful that it would never be disturbed

i still reach for something that is only you
your palm and nothing else with it
needing it to be more than at any other time

there's something that has become a little too fake
about this sleeping emaciation
something a little too warm about hands held in a fire

Go Back?

2005-12-21T21:30:00.000-06:00

if you could go back and erase what has caused you the greatest pain in your life, would you do it?

i have thought about this for a long time. Then i had a conversation with a friend a couple months back about it. That insight pushed me a bit further. Then i had a very similar conversation with a group of friends just a little while ago. Everyone had some thoughts on it, although i am not sure if in the end we got anywhere.

i'm still thinking about it.

Sometimes i think i have my answer. In those moments when time becomes strangely still and pale and open (i hope you can understand what i mean by time being open) i think i have my answer. And in those moments where i feel like i am looking at myself from the outside, watching my life instead of living it, i am pretty sure i know what i would choose. At those times i would never go back and erase any of it because it has made me a person.

And although it is my greatest weakness, it has in the end given me my greatest strength.

But then there is reality. Then there are the days, most days, where the obscure is no longer, and only bare tangibility surrounds. Those days detesting the strength and shaping, and only wishing the weakness was not there. And doing anything to numb the pain.

Numb the pain that holds me so captive that finds me a freedom and makes me so much greater than i could be without it.

Quote

2005-12-20T13:27:00.000-06:00

"I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken - and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived."
- Margaret Mitchell

one of my favourites.

Noticing A Bit Of Christmas

2005-12-19T21:53:00.000-06:00

i noticed Christmas for the first time this month. Which is a bit sad to me, because i usually like to begin celebrating Christmas incredibly early, so that by the time it is over i really feel like i have experienced Christmas. This year, the Christmas season all seems to be passing in a blur. It scares me when life moves so fast that it becomes a blur. There is so much that i could have experienced...that i may actually have experienced...but it all went so fast that i didn't have much time to notice any of it. i'm not sure how to react when i can see that i am missing what is happening right in front of me.

i walked around downtown Windsor Ontario tonight with my sister. The trees in one section have all been decorated with Christmas lights and Christmas designs, making a sort of Christmas Light Garden, complete with paths that you can walk on winding their way all through the different trees. Lights strung above, below, and all around. You can get right up close to it all, let yourself become surrounded by the sparkling garden. On the other side of the Christmas Light Garden is a skating rink, also decorated with some Christmas lights, and with speakers that play fuzzy Christmas music into the not-so-silent downtown air. We tried skating on the ice for a little while, but it wasn't very fun after about a minute since we were only wearing our shoes, not skates. Besides, we weren't exactly dressed for the cold air either, seeing as how we had just gone hot-tubing.

Looking around it all seemed very cheap to me, very made up, very created. Kind of like a carnival, all the lights and sounds and whirring rides. It all seemed so glitzy, so fabricated. But it made me smile. Because at the same time it was so classic, so sublimely unmarred in its Christmas-ness that i have become so accustomed to. It is true that i am a person who rarely finds anything a city has to offer spectacular. The man-made formulations that make up the entity of a city usually repel me, and even irritate me. Except at Christmas. For some reason at this time of the year, i embrace the fabricated dream world, for all its cheap glitziness. The streetlights illuminating falling snow, the christmas lights decorating every erected building, the christmas music floating out of sidewalk speakers, people hurrying, busy yet peaceful all at once. And silver bells and sleigh bells, and warm roasted almonds being sold by street vendors, and pine trees and angels and stars and glowing nativity scenes outside every catholic church. It all speaks of what Christmas has become, and even though i often wonder about it all...it still means Christmas, the familiar and safe Christmas that i have grown up becoming used to, and relying on.

Safe, familiar, something i can rely on. These words are slowly becoming meaningless to me. Life is showing me more and more that these words are simply what they are: words. So i guess for all its fakeness, i still cling to Christmas because it is something familiar and something safe and something reliable and something concrete and something faithful. i guess we always cling on to fakeness, all sorts of fakeness, for those very reasons.

it was cold.
the blankets, cloaks, mittens couldn't - wouldn't - keep out the cold.
the snow, frozen, lay in icing sheets of white. they were black.
the snow queen had cast her spell.
winter's finger. jack frost.
ice princess.
angel perched eminently on the tree;
in the snow.

The Valley of Dry Bones

2005-12-13T22:46:00.000-06:00

Ezekiel 37:4-5 "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord...I will make breath enter you, and YOU WILL COME TO LIFE!"

Here we live day to day in this wonderful world that God has created, surrounded by life and vitality and God's wonderful, breathing, alive, and truly living creation...yet so often we ourselves are only dry bones in it all. Dead, dry bones. We are surrounded by life - everything else lives - but so often we ourselves fail to live.

We watch a river flow continuously, watch how it praises God with its constant babbling and never-ending song; and we can only sit in shame because we don't even spend a single day praising God, yet the living river spends its enternity.

We watch the rocks and the trees glorify God in reverent stillness, content with merely standing still in the presence of God, moved only by his breath in the wind; and we can only stand in humility because we struggle to spend even an hour in reverent stillness an quiet, yet the living rocks and trees spend a lifetime.

We watch a petal soar in a breeze, dancing and twirling in rhythm to a unheard beat, joyously moving and laughing in utter contentment with being God's own creation; and we can only lower our heads because we would rather sit in our own misery, focused only on the hardships, instead of truly knowing how blessed we are if we just started to live, yet the living petals do this as a destiny.

We watch the stars above us sparkle and shine in the darkened sky, reflecting so wonderously the glory of God, illuminating an entire blackness to mirror God's face; and our hearts can only break because we want all the glory for ourselves, and find it a chore for our lives to reflect God to others, yet the living stars spend an entire existance.

The grass, the dirt, the sun, the stars, the moss, the pebbles, the leaves, the rivers, the mountains - everything is so alive, so beautiful, so breathtaking. Everything around us reflects and speaks of God. And we can only long to be like that; like the creation around us that we never think of as being alive, that we look at as dead surroundings. We think we are the only alive creatures. Yet the entire time we are not at all living but rather dead, dry bones.

We need breath. We need breath to enter our own bones, the bones that have become of us, just like breath has been breathed into the luscious and awesome creation around us. We need to become flesh again, we need to be brought to life. We are useless, non-functioning, dry bones. Dry bones with the potential to become so much more. Take us, renew us, wake us up inside, breathe living breath into our fragile brittleness. Make us alive, make us able to stand up on our feet, let us be creation that is living.

What I Saw Today

2005-12-12T19:21:00.000-06:00

gold plated beams
roaring to the ground below at furious speeds
only to be...

spilled on the snow

i just want to be done, i think
i'm ready to move again
i want to be where that sun
is making crystal diamonds dance
on a sterling blue and white
pearl lake

Better Left Unsaid

2005-12-10T19:24:00.000-06:00

you say it won't come this way
and i saw it the way you saw it
and realized i had picked the best time
to be the worst i could

and am i watching myself from the outside

knowing i let it become trapped
but i will continue to depend on this
though i depend on it regretfully

is looking always enough
maybe sometimes it can't be found
changing it all when it should have stayed
i told you not to want
and you still envy the people who know me

but i will continue to depend on this
though i depend on it regretfully
just for tonight, just for tonight

Shadowland

2005-12-01T21:21:00.000-06:00

she calls it shadowland
because her world has become an outline
and she can no longer say it is anything more
than half of what it used to be
but a different half, like a cut-out figure
like shadows of what used to be there

her body
it gets smaller and smaller and smaller
losing herself into nothing to become everything
forming into a shell of something former
of who she once was
and she cannot remember, but she thinks she may be
a silhouette of who she used to be
in a different land that she has forgotten the way to

but shadowland is where she lives now
stays as it is, keeps all of her there
barely anything now, but what is left
she is caught in profiles
in hallowness, in frames
instead of what everything else displays
and she'll take this fake pacific
if it means that she...
and she'll take each frail breath
if it means that she...

...she doesn't even know what she'll get anymore
but it's like it has stopped mattering
there was a reason once, a long time ago
but she has been in shadowland for so long now
that reasons and elucidations no longer make a difference
she is fixated on this acheived half-existance
trading it all in to be one of the silhouettes

Healing

2005-11-30T17:04:00.000-06:00

healing
the wounds are so deep
he doesn't think it's possible
besides it's been so long
that he's forgotten what it feels like
to be whole
to not be sick
if he stops believing do you stop acting
is that how it works
because if it does he will never be healed
because he doesn't have it in him anymore
he can do nothing to help himself
he has tried many times
and even had that ability before
but it's a new day now
and today he cannot do it anymore
from now on he doesn't have the strength
so this will be it, this is how it ends

and if someone else can save him
then he begs for them to do it soon
because time is slipping
and he doesn't have much distance
so if you can heal him
even when he doesn't believe
then pick up this half of a person
and make him whole

Times Like These

2005-11-29T23:38:00.000-06:00

i don't understand
how something that is so destructive
can also be so crucial to survival
i am not sure if contradictions
are allowed to be a part of my life
but if they are then maybe one day
all of this could make even a little bit of sense

i watch the rain fall down
outside my tired window
and i feel tired too
it's grey and dreary out there
colorless all around
and i wish i knew where the paintbrush was kept
because it just occurred to me that the world
might be alot better if i colored it

but that thought passes too
and besides, i know i probably wouldn't have
actually done it
it was just one of those moments where
i thought it might look very nice
just one of those times where something
so simple became a little more profound
but it left just as quickly as it came
that's all

i wonder if the rain ever wishes
it wasn't stuck in a world of grey
and instead that it was welcomed out
when the shades are out playing
the rain is very beautiful really
i wonder though, does it ever mind
knowing that the sky is crying everytime
it is allowed to be in this world
that it is only the sky's tears

Don't

2005-11-28T18:54:00.000-06:00

Don't think for a moment that you are alone in your pain. Don't even let it cross your mind that no one is there; that you have no choice but to walk through it all by yourself.

You need to see that not one single day goes by where i don't feel your pain as if it was my own.

You are struggling, you are hurting, you are mutilated on the inside even though your face will not stop smiling. A disgusting smile, one that is there not to reflect a happiness, but instead a smile only there to test. To test every person you ever encounter, to see if anyone can see past it, and see a heart and life that is dying on the inside. A smile that is there to become a symbol of the lie you believe; a symbol telling you that everyone will always let you down, and no one will ever take the time to see whats really there.

Don't think that i see that smile as just another smile. Don't think that i don't see what is under. Don't think that i believe the same lie you do, becuase i don't. i never have. i never will.

When a ship is sinking, what is underneath it is what matters. What the waters below it are, and consist of, is what becomes crucial.

You too are sinking, and you are barely surfacing. It's in you on the inside, and i see it all, and you need to know that the i feel the destruction in your life just as much as you do. I'm letting it, because i need you to see something you never have before. It is the only lifeline i can offer you. It's destroying me, just as much as it destroys you. But i let it, because you need to be free.

Once Upon A Dark November

2005-11-26T22:13:00.000-06:00

I went for a walk tonight, in the cold and crisp November night. It was cold, so very cold. But it was so clear, and beginning to become completely barren. It was perfect for November. I don't know what it is about November and me. But there is something about this month. I never feel the way i feel in November any other time. I am not sure i can even explain it. It is depressing and haunting...but at the same time completely inviting and desirable and embracing. It is like the haunting beauty, but less beautiful and more...hallow. November is a very hallow month. Once upon a dark November. That might be precisely it.

The snow is beautiful. When did snow start captivating me? Since i stopped living in the city i suppose. It's enchanting when i walk in a world of powdery, white sparkles, with billions of stars above in a black sky and a full white moon shining almost too brightly, casting beams of pure light onto the earth lacking any colour below. And white snowflakes drop silently to the ground, collecting as a thicker and thicker blanket that sleeps over the ground. And it is so very late out, so there is no one and nothing around. The world is deathly silent, except for my tiny hesitant steps that dare to enter into such a peaceful, beautiful sight. Hesitant lest even one footstep ruin the completely serene and perfect world that envelopes me. It is haunting really, because it is so beautiful.

Prostituted Time

2005-11-25T03:54:00.000-06:00

I can never sleep at night. My body is exhausted, but my mind keeps playing on fast forward as i try for pointless hours to shut it off. I have insomnia. In terms of sleep, tonight was no different from any other wakeful night. But for some reason as i was lying in bed tonight, struggling unsuccessfully as always to find a few hours of precious sleep, i started thinking about the people in my life.

And then i started thinking about the people in my life that really i offer nothing to, but only use to fill up wants in my life, fill up emptiness in my life. i run around looking only for gifts of affirmation from them, the only reason i offer my time. A prostitution of time. Too many people that i only take and take and take from, and offer nothing in return.

Then i started thinking about my God, and how many times i also only use Him. It must be so painful for Him. I must shatter God's heart over and over again, and instead of realizing it i simply continue my life until the next time i can greedily take even more.

i am a whore i do confess
but i put you on just like a wedding dress
and i run down the aisle
i'm a prodigal with no way home
but i put you on just like a ring of gold
and i run down the aisle to you

so could you love this bastard child
though i don't trust you to provide
with one hand in a pot of gold
and with the other in your side
i am so easily satisfied
by the call of lovers less wild
that i would take a little cash
over your very flesh and blood
- Derek Webb

I'm Not Sure How I Got Here

2005-11-24T20:04:00.000-06:00

I am living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I am not exactly sure how i got here, or even why i am here.

I have always found life very strange for me in that way. It sometimes seems like my life is just playing out before me and i, who should be the main character, constantly find myself just chasing after it, wondering what the heck just happened, how i got there, and what to make of it all.

But really, life is not a story about me anyways.

So yes, i now live in Winnipeg...well, outside of the city really i suppose, but no one has heard of my town anyways so i will just leave it as Winnipeg. And like i said, i am not entirely sure why i came here. Oh sure, i know what i am doing here now...its not that i am just wandering the streets, completely oblivious as to how i ever arrived here and what is going on. What i mean is that i do not know why, out of all the places in the world and all the other options i had for my year, i ended up in Manitoba. Going to school at a college that i said i would never attend. Sometimes i just sit there and it blows my mind trying to understand why i ever came. My life is so different this year than it has been for the past two years of my life, and sometimes it just kills me that i am not in the outdoors anymore, that i am not growing and learning and experiencing all the things that came to define me these last years, and came to give my life deeper meaning. Why did i leave? Why didn't i find a new adventure, a new exploration, and new way to find myself in the great outdoors of the world around me.

But i suppose i can say i just trusted. I never felt particularly called to be here, or even at all felt like this was where i should be. If anything, i felt i should be working at a snowboard resort in the Rockies! It just sort of happened, and now that i have been here i am starting to realize it seems like i belong here, that this was the right next step. Even though i still fight it daily, and long to be back where i am most myself. But i dont want to miss out on anything i am supposed to experience here, by constantly looking behind.

And i have seen reasons, although most of the time i ignore them. I ignore them because i keep wanting to think that this can't be it. That way i don't have to commit to being here, that way i dont have to offer myself here. I can fall into the background, i can just be an observor. i don't have to give anything. After all, i am just a foreigner in a land that i was never supposed to find myself in anyways.

But thats all just an appealing fairy tale. It's a creation that i've made believe, so that i can escape from the responsibility i have towards what happens here. And so that i can keep believing that life is a story about me.

My reasons are very evident. Everyday I ask to be shown reasons for being here, and everyday day i end the hours shaking my head, thinking that i am not being shown anything, that i have made a mistake. That i am meant for everything i have left behind and not this. But i am shown - everyday. Everyday there are reasons.

The people. Everyday there are people here that pull down the covers i have strategically placed over my eyes, to remind me that i am here for many somethings, and that it is my duty to know that and take responsibility for it. Pretending there is no truth to this is the only mistake i make in being here.

My past two years are strange, how i still hold so tightly to them. But this was never the intention. It was all meant to equip me, not hold me back. It was meant to teach me and stretch me, so that i can offer more than i could before...not less.

oh my life
is changing everyday
in every possible way
and oh my dreams
its never quite as it seems
never quite as it seems...
...i want more, i want more

and then i open up and see
the person falling here is me
- The Cranberries

In Darkness Tries To Hide

2005-11-23T15:37:00.000-06:00

in darkness she tries to hide
but he will not let her
she covers her face; ashamed, afraid
she just wants him to leave
because if he was gone she would know
she was right
that she is ugly and fat and dispicable
that she could never be loved
that there is nothing about her
for him to love

and so she pulls the blackness around her
and loses herself in the ebony hole
to protect herself from his eyes
and waits silently, willing him to leave her
alone, alone, so alone, just let her be alone
even as tears choke her
and she would give anything for it to not have to be like this,
but so badly wants darkness to swallow her
so that she doesn't have to face any of it anymore

but there is still something there
she looks up, ready to scream and rip because
she's not being allowed the isolation she desperately wants
he's not gone, he keeps waiting
and won't leave her alone,
only lets her pretend she is
and tears stream down his face too now
because he never wanted it to be like this
and she won't see that

she refuses, even as he shows
that he is there, that he loves, he cares
he wants to give something more than the shadows
just as she is

but she prefers the blackness
and darkness is the only thing she trusts

I Heard Something More

2005-11-23T00:22:00.000-06:00

It was not anything special or exciting or new. We simply did what we do all the time. But this time it was different. I am not sure why tonight. I am not sure what made me suddenly realize something that i had never realized before. Maybe it was the way there was no brightness before this. Maybe it was the way we escaped for awhile, and let ourselves be somewhere and something else. Maybe it was everything, maybe it was nothing.

And although we rarely realize it, i think we do anything to make each other laugh. Or, at the very least, smile.

Driving in the car on the way back, i stared into the moving darkness out of the window streaked with dirt beside me, wondering why tonight; what made me suddenly know tonight. And i listened to the voices all around me with their incessant words and laughter. They were saying so much more than anyone else was hearing.

But i heard. I heard endless implications of something that i have forgotten to feel. I heard that i was surrounded by life. Living, breathing life. Life besides my own.

I heard that i am not alone.

Tonight i know. I know that i am surrounded by life, but i just do not know how to stop living as if i am not. I do not know how to let this knowledge enter my life, and free me from my island. i am too comfortable where i am and too scared to be anywhere else. I am completely apart from the life around me, and i miss out on so, so much; it has everthing to offer me.

But at least nothing will ever happen that i did not control. And somehow, that simple promise keeps me going on as i always have.

Even as i slowly stop living.

Porcelain Doll

2005-11-21T11:09:00.000-06:00

tears are streaming
staining the face of the porcelain doll
blending the colours so delicately painted into one
to distort such an image of beauty
once revered
into a haunting disposition
where anything valued has been nullified completely.
striking horror of such an existance
while the fragile face continues to streak
with silent omitted
tears

And So I Run At Night

2005-11-20T10:51:00.000-06:00

Dusk falls over the world in a powdery shadow. The light is slowly suffocated out of the day, taking all colour with it. Then blackness; pure night blackness. Nothing. Empty sky.

Then stars.
Filling the night canvas with millions of tiny, metallic holes.

My breath comes out as smoke in the strikingly cold, dark air. My body is frigid with the coldness, so I move quickly; thinking little, feeling even less. The world seems strangely still, time has somehow stopped. Everything around me is frozen.

Except I move through it. I run and run and run, my only source of freedom I ever feel now. When I run, I am going somewhere away. There is never a known destination, I only know I am leaving here. And that is enough.

I'm in the field now. I have let myself pause along side the rest of my faded world. Complete, swallowing isolation envelopes me wholly. But it gives me comfort. No one has the slightest notion of me being here; no one has any idea. There is the magnificant vast palette all around me, and I have become a tiny, insignificant whisp of a life that no one can see, no one knows, no one or nothing can reach. I am embedded in my surroundings. I am simply a contribution to the scenery; merely the landscape of something better. With or without, it makes no difference. I am nothing.

But it satisfies me entirely. I feel truly myself somehow.

The stars again. How the silver glows of the night can be so beautiful is beyond me. On and on they shine. Reminding me that they will never stop, that they will always sparkle in stark contrast to the rest of the shadowy blackness. Reminding me that I am not like them.

I look ahead, and everything I see seems better than the place I came from. There is so much infront of me, so much that I want to become a part of. Anywhere, my body screams. Just move. Move into the ebony blanket ahead; forward and further and further.

And so I look behind. No, my body is weeping. It is too broken to yell anymore, too scared for words. Too shattered to hope any longer. It cries almost inaudibly into the thin air around me. But it already knows.

I pick up the earth in my hands. The cool, dirty crumbles are trying to tell me something, but I no longer hear. The earth is its own again.

The Circle In The Grey

2005-11-19T15:06:00.000-06:00

a tiny, silvery, tinkle of brightness invades my world
for precious moments, cherished times.
it hits right in the center;
that place where everything else reovolves around,
circling and circling, around and around,
wanting more, daring to hope, risking dream,
spinning, spinning, spinning...

quiet. just for an instant.
let it all resolve.

it is all just as i left it,
just as i thought it was.
it spills out of a sliver of white light
breathe it, breathe it;
inhale all the shiny, iridescent glows that make up
the circle in the grey.
the circle that it all revolves around.