We're going to have wonderful lives, I promise.

Sometimes you love people and you know it will never work, so you put up this barrier that keeps them at a safe distance. Sometimes you love people and know it will never work, but no matter what you do they scale that wall and break your heart. Sometimes you love people and you don't build a barrier because honestly, it isn't worth the labor time. And, sometimes you love people so much you tear down your own wall just for the small hope that they're going to want to come into your kingdom and love you too.

I think it's important to recognize the lessons life has dealt you. Here are a list of mine.
-People will only change when they want to, not when you want them to.
-Just because a relationship didn't work out with you doesn't mean it won't work out with someone else.
-Everyone has exceptions to their rules.
-Half the things you gain that you had previously thought you wanted more than anything, you don't really want once you have them.
-It really does take all kinds of people to make the world spin.
-Everything keeps on happening around you whether you're in the midst of it or holed up in your room somewhere.
-It is better to dance and look like an idiot than to never dance at all, or worse, only watch others dance.
-The friends who let you get into trouble because they know you want to and will protect you while you're in the middle of said trouble, are more important in life than the friends who never want you to do anything that might cause a stir anywhere.
-Sometimes you outgrow people, and that's okay.
-People will never cease to surprise you.
-Sometimes you get hurt. Sometimes your heart breaks. You can't help what other people do to you. You can only change your response.
-Jealousy is a waste of time.
-If you want to eat your feelings, okay, just run an extra mile in the morning.

I'm sure there are more, but I wanted to document these in case I forget them later on.

I am so tired of the boys with the
200 dollar pair of jeans and the
two hundred dollar haircuts who care more about
music, their image, and what comes out of their mouths,
than what goes on inside their own heads.

7x7x7

Grab the 7th book from your bookshelf. Open it up to page 7. Pinpoint the 7th sentence on the page. Begin a poem that begins with that sentence and limit it in length to 7 lines.

But the moment I remember more than any other;
A swatch of light across your face,
Shaded in and out, like a spotlight not quite sure of it’s object.
Your lips might have been quivering,
I do not know,
But I remember this moment, among all the other moments, the best.
It was like I could read you, and this, my favorite line.

lift away.

Don't you ever just ache for the world? Like those moments in your car with the radio playing a song that fits everything you feel so perfectly, and there's one, maybe two, cars in sight, and all the stars are shining despite the city smog. And, the highway signs fly by in flashes of green/yellow/white and all those broken lines separate the traffic like straight rows of white ants marching backward. Your heart starts to hurt, but your soul lifts and you don't know what this feeling is, but it's good and it's bad all at once, and you want -NEED to do something with it, but you don't know how. So, you keep listening to that song and watching the signs go by and you wonder why everything in life isn't so simple and complicated simultaneously, and you want to weep because it's just all so beautiful.

010911

He doesn't look, and, I suppose that it is okay. It is okay for me to just want and know that I'm capable again to see someone, and let that be enough. He might not think of me and that's alright as well. I have him in my thoughts. Most of the time that is plenty. Other times it is not, and still others, too much.

I find it strange (I find me strange) that I live mostly from thought to thought, and in between I manage to insert myself into the world and exist as boldly as I am capable, and then retreat into myself again with just as much intensity. It is like that with him; so much, then none, then a little. I'm not quite sure how to balance anything.

I do not know what it is that intrigues me so. Perhaps all feelings for others begin with a slight touching of souls. Maybe then you spend the rest of your time with them attempting to recapture that moment, sometimes succeeding, but mostly not. It is the 'not' that keeps us wondering and makes us think we are somehow failing at human connection. And, oh, that hurts, so we ache and we retreat. The moments pass and we create this barrier to keep the light of each other from touching. And, then it's a desperation we cannot name.

This longing, it seems to me such a silly, but beautiful game.

To be sure, I am only certain of a few things: the grass is green, but not always; the sky is at its prettiest in the midst of the grayest winter; one day I will die; and one day this will all make sense, even if it is only the realization that it will never make sense.

madness.

How does madness look? Is there a wildness that lingers around the iris of the eye --creeping into the blues or greens or browns to give insanity away? Is it a thing that can be pinpointed? Can it be touched or defined, held or seen? Is it a manner of speaking, the way a person stands --how they slouch their shoulders? Or, is it obvious from what they hold dear?

I believe in madness, in the way a person sees the world; no two could be the same. Where and how one does find faith is individual, a specific type of insanity that serves as an excuse to right our being here.

Is crazy just another way of dealing with existence? Are reality and imagination really separate entities? If I believe in science and you believe in God, what difference is there but the face we give creation?

Madness comes in sizes that vary as much as faces. Little bits of hilarity tucked into our minds, seeping out at times. It leaks like water through a sieve and you could never plug up all of the holes.

And what is it that makes us whole, but the entirety of our minds? And, minds are silly, tricky things. We never embrace them fully. Out of fear of who we are or could be? I don't know.

I have lived the majority of my life living inside my mind and when asked where my thoughts have taken me I waste such time explaining madness away.

I don't believe there could ever be such a reason, such a person, or such an occurrence that could ever convince me that a little bit of crazy could ever be a bad thing.

Everything that happens is from now on.

This year is about the change, the experience, the loves of my life, the friends, the family, the learning, the new things, the wondrous things life can bring me. I'm throwing away the person I always wanted to be and I'm just going to go with me. How I feel, how I dress, and learn, and think, and write, and love.

It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away