XXII

some days, you know, you realize how totally endearing people are. maybe not everyone in the world, or even everyone you know, but there are times and places and spaces where that is so very abundantly clear.

where there's this connectedness and you can pull on one end of your string and on the other end a friend will wave back.

where you realize that even the people you thought were on the edge of your orbit have circled into your sphere and graced you with their light.

it's a nice feeling, to know that people can be good, and are good, and that you are good, too. even if you don't show it. especially if you do.

life as a systematic application of words to screen, paint to surface, blows to body, love to people

i am intoxicatedd with wine shhh & it has gone to my head in silvery spirals. my mouth is all effervescent, like champagne giggles bubbling up from the soles of my feet

funnnnnnnn.

reading entry in the most bored voice ever

03/03

oh. My. god. you are incredibly talented & i will never stop marveling it. i will never get over it.

i want to scream it. i want to shed every bit of light on you. i can see your horizon so big and bright in the future, like a mountainscape, like a big glass ball, all the things you could possibly do so huge and glittering before you!!!! love in spades for u, king. get that bag!

bloody minded, frustrated, persistent, shredded guitar lick playing through my head

writing. always Writing… perhaps i need a place to tuck my bones, a secret corner where they can sleep, polished and gleaming, like a piece of ancient bronze, smooth as a forgotten statue slowly corroding beneath the sea. my eyes, silver inlaid; my lips, my nipples, copper forged in smelt.

i spend hours alone, my thoughts spinning in an endless labyrinth with no quick exit. no string to guide me, no thread to follow back. i am my own white bull, fully intent on goring myself.

i wonder if i will ever learn to stop writing things down, if i’ll ever let my life simply unfurl, without the need to preserve it, to crystallize it. will i ever be the sort to live only in the fleeting blur of photographs, to just be without turning everything into something? focusing on these minute details, these tiny moments—they start to drain me. they build up and forge into those short, hazy dreams that are too full of thought and yet too empty of meaning. after all, don’t we all want to belong to something? i have this terrible habit of turning everything i do into a story and i am always both more and less than i seem.

i lock up my hotel room, put the key in my pocket. it feels like there is something new and soft and green blooming on the horizon and i am coasting, weightless. hello april, i am grateful.

"now i am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again" underlined.

when i love people i write about them. you can tell when i am falling in love by the way i write about someone, it is my ultimate transparency. i read old entries and poems about the people who have come in and out of my life and i wonder how it’s ended up this way. you know how it feels to lose someone you still love? my god. it's awful. i sleep alone these days, you know, even if it's not in my own bed. and i think about how it felt to be next to you and how it was too hot in your room and we kicked off all the blankets and i always wanted to sleep against the wall and just—being surrounded absolutely. i surrounded myself in you, maybe i shouldn't have, i always do this.

i hate being in transit, i hate this vacancy, i hate not being here nor there. i am missing people in all directions, i am suspended, i am poking at a scab; it'll form a scar, have i ever told you about all the nights i spent crying over this keyboard, writing down words like these.  oh yasmin, don't cry, don't dwell, don't linger, don't think about these things in the dark, take down reminders, don't disturb the archaeology of your past, this is done and covered in dust now, don't brush it off. you are going to be alright.

a trial by fire

a broken pattern

the one

i caught a glimpse, but it’s been forgotten

so here we are, again

i’ve got to stop giving. i’ve got to stop being a fool.

take a breath, & move on.

i was talking on the phone in the shower because i didn't want to be overheard, and the softness and stillness of the hotel room felt stifling. i wanted cold, i wanted sharp, i wanted water. i pulled the curtain half-shut and pressed my nose against the cold tile. "are you still there?" i heard you say. i heard the rustle of you in bed, you who i'd woken barely before midnight, you with your sleep-blurred voice; pink mouth, heavy eyes.

"yeah, i'm still here," i said, and turned so i could feel the smooth cool edge of the tile kiss my cheek. i tasted salt, licorice, metal-tang. my lips had begun to crack again, and there was a tiny cut in the middle of my mouth shaped like an open parenthesis, and every time i bit my lower lip i tasted blood.

i slid down the shower wall, awkwardly, my shoulder-blades bumping against the tile, the cut in my mouth stinging from salt and my fingers constantly picking at the dry skin. i pressed a kiss to the tile, experimentally, close-lipped, and in my ear you were murmuring reasonable nothings; not-promises but heres and nows, i love you in this moment, so much in this moment, can i let you know that, understand that, and my words got stuck in my throat and i let time pass.

this guy — best chapel speaker i have ever seen