I love this song...

DOG PROBLEMS, by The Format

Don't you dare speak for someone you don't know.
They'll feel it in the back of their throat.
We know I can't construct a poem
Cause words like girls get bored and run
C'est la vie, I say "I've got so many better things"
I've got nothing, you should see me,
I smoke myself to sleep.

And blame postmodern things I can't relate,
Like summer camp and coastal states.
Like alcohol and coffee beans.
Dance floors and magazines.
I think its safe to say I've only got myself to blame
But boys in swooping haircuts are bringing me down,
Taking pictures of themselves.

And so I walk the web in search of love,
But always seem to end up stuck.
I'm finding flaws in everyone.
I've reached the point where all I want,
Is to sleep around in hopes that I will catch back up.
We are parallel lines we’re running in circles,
We're never meant to cross.

I'm at a loss, you were my tangerine,
My pussycat, my trampoline.
Now alls I get are wincing cheeks,
And dog problems, I signed a lease.
Thinking my heart belonged at 93rd and park.
Instead I broke a girl’s heart,
And flew back to Phoenix to finish the year as it started.

Can you hear me?
Are you listening?
This is the sound of my heart breaking.
And I hope it's entertaining,
Cause for me it’s a bitch.
Was it worth it?
When you slept with him?
Did you get it all out of your system?

I am a man
Holding it all
I couldn’t breathe
Coming across
I didn’t know
I couldn’t give up

B is for believing you'd always be here for me.
E is for everything, even when we see it though.
C, c is for seeing through you, you are a fake, which brings me to
A because, because, you always run away.

I never finish phrases, I misspell.
Open arms are prison cells.
When I said, "I hate what I've become"
I lied, I hated who I was.
So when you start to wonder 'bout the pain in my throat,
Then don't you ever, no never, ever, speak for someone you don't know.

I love you in fiction

I long to create the beauty and passion I see inside my reflective soul. It flutters inside me--the deepest hope--and yet it is too delicate to be released into the wilderness of the public. I can see vast, empty plains stretched out colorless and desolate under the star-encrusted blue. The midnight air envelops me in aloneness, in the sense that my heart beats for desires, the objects of which do not exist...perhaps not yet, perhaps not ever.

My soul stretches outward for this sense of romanticism that never had any root in reality. I was alone in the understanding that my dreams were real and that my heart could be opened to reveal the fulfillment of some deep longing. I am unable to move beyond the sensibility of my own disappointment and all of my faculties shrink from the creation of characters when I cannot suspend my belief that true love and deeply imaginative qualities could exist outside of my own head. And how could an audience believe what the creator does not believe in?

Now what? I ask myself. Can I create my passion in words for my readers' passing glimpse into my soul? But there is only one reader who needs a glimpse into my deepest heart, and yet I exist only in the depths of my own soul and see nothing but emptiness and hear nothing but the echo of my own voice reverberating off the distant walls of my universe. I have loved many, indeed. Tiny pieces of each love are now permanently embedded in the soft flesh of my interior, cutting me still and crusting over to make them part of my walls.

But you...

You inspire all my loves, and you healed me from every heartbreak and took me prisoner in the depths of your own soul. Through so many years I've collected all the pieces of you that I could never have in you, so I found them in other people. I can never have you; you belong perpetually anywhere but with me. It is not my choice to take you for my own, but in truth, you already do belong to me. The embodiment of my very earliest dreams stands before me now and flits away again another moment later.

I love you, everything that forms the make-up of your being, and my collection of all your pieces is like a hopeless puzzle that could never be recreated. Your fragments pile like crumbled remnants in a flimsy shoebox within my heart, lying at the foot of a shrine that awaits your presence. The other loves come filing through, their admission often a trick of the eye, a note of their laughter, the tone of an admiring phrase, a quirk in their humor, the love of a book, the knot of a tie, the twinkle of an eye...anything that implies "you" in the "themness." But it never works, because they are never you, and I can't seem to give you up...not "you" merely in the essential pieces of your nature, but you yourself, all of you together as a whole man. You're all I've ever wanted.

Your fear of loneliness is the very thing that keeps me from you; you hold yourself away in your own world, barring me from it. Don't you know I would hold you forever, would keep your loneliness away? Your kisses still tingle on my lips, and your arms still warm me even when they are gone from me. You are always leaving, but you always remain in my heart. Other love is often a distraction, an attempt to replace what is irreplaceable. I run around in circles chasing after dreams, but my dreams are always running ahead of me and just out of reach.

It seems as though we exist in parallel universes, for we are together in another life, I know. The depth of my love for you shows me the intricacies of our subterranean connections. I long for you and yet I possess you; you reach for me but I am already yours--always. We meet eyes in understanding of the depth and impossibility of our love. We are approach and retreat, like the waves of the sea. When it's time for your approach, it's my time for retreat, and when it's my time to crash on the shore like a fierce wave, the shore is no where to be found. Once in a while, like the rise of a tide in the storm we meet, for a desperate moment amid the surf, and then it ends. I wonder with a sigh if our time will ever come, or if we are doomed to failure like the black and stormy seas.

One night, one quiet night, a storm rose on the calm seas and the surface was disturbed. You spoke your thoughts, and you laid your heart against mine. I loved you, with all the passion of years, and I poured my love upon you; you received it and you returned it. I can still feel your fingers in my hair, your arms around my body, your hands against my skin, your lips against my mouth. I can feel the abandon with which you kissed me, the tenderness in the touch of your lips upon my throat, and then I feel nothing but the burn inside my chest that reminds me it was real.

It ended like it never began, with only a tiny glint of "I'm sorry, not now," in your eyes. And so I let it go, but not without sadness, and not without the wrenching pain of removing something inextricably bound to me.

Although you are gone again, I still hold you in my dreams, remembering the sweetness of your sleeping head upon my shoulder and my lips upon your brow.

Soon, I will move toward other loves, when I find pieces of you worth pursuing, and when you want me, I'll be gone again. Why must it always be so backward when in our hearts we always want each other. For some unknown reason we always deny ourselves. I'll be living on your kisses for a while...and I do not expect to find a new you. There is no replacement.

And still you will live with me in my heart, in the pieces of you I find in others, and in the pages of my books.

First Post of 2010

Sickness gets in my way. I have had this anemia for months now and I can't seem to feel much better. I am tired all the time, a little weak, still have random heart racing, and still having some trouble concentrating. Now, my throat hurts and I have a headache. I think I'm getting some random flu (or my world-famous tonsilitis) on top of everything else. And on my birthday too. Great! The autumn/winter of illness has really started to interfere with my lifestyle...

I shouldn't complain too much though. God has been really good to me in spite of the bad things I've had to go through this year. There has been a purpose in all of it, even though some things have not seemed to make sense when they happened. I am thankful for some of even the most difficult things because I have learned a lot. It's easier to look back and say that I learned than it is to register what I am learning while I am going through something. It's like walking through a blizzard and marveling about the size of the drifts, the glitter of the flakes, their intricate beauty...the more common thought is about the cold toes and the difficulty walking and breathing. Maybe eventually, looking back, it's possible to see the beauty, and especially the joy of making it through the storm.

I am optimistic about this year, but right now I don't know what I want or expect. I am cautious about trusting, cautious about loving, cautious about hoping too much when my experience shows me lately that nothing happens as planned. But I am nonetheless excited to see what God has in store for me. He knows me well--better than I know myself--and I hope that He understands the parts of my hopes and dreams that don't even make sense to me. I believe He can make my dreams come true, and He is equally able to remove some dreams and give me new ones, which He did several times in the past year, so all I have to do is trust in His guidance and provision for me. He is better at all of this "taking care" of people than I am. I wouldn't even be capable of guessing what's best for me; I always think I know and then God gently shows me otherwise. (Sometimes when I'm really stubborn, His directing isn't quite as gentle as I'd like, but He makes His purpose known.)

Last year was difficult. Almost disastrous sometimes. But I am better because of it. "Better" as in stronger...and I feel like there are some things I have improved upon, but I'm afraid to say what they are because that will be the most likely way of getting people to disagree and point out my faults!

Eventually I'd like to find the person God has in store for me (if such a thing is real) and get married and have a home and have children even (though that idea takes some getting used to) because the idea of moving further than this alone seems scary to me. I know I can do it though, if God really doesn't have such a future for me, and He will give me the strength to do what I need to do in this world. I am sad that things have not gone as I had hoped, but from this point on, everything is blind. All the plans I had for myself have exhausted, and the rest will be a surprise (not that everything hasn't already been a surprise to begin with!) I'm actually a little excited about the prospect of this adventure; the One planning is a good guide, and that's all that matters.

It's my 25th birthday, and I'm sick, exhausted, and a little bit frustrated after a difficult year followed by further challenges... In spite of that, I am looking ahead now with hope. I have hope for this year, and hope for the years that will come after. There is much to look forward to, and much to let go of--not necessarily to forget, but rather to bury away for possible future excavations. Who can know what life will bring? Only the Lord knows what is best, and He should be trusted with every worry and fear and hope and dream because He alone can save us.



"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

nothing is happy anymore

unexplainable feelings

nervousness
anxiety
fear
...mistakes...

unexplained feelings

silence
silence
silence

speaking

backstabbing
regret
friendlessness
frustration
pain

heartbreak

crying
unrequited love
abandonment
loss

unhappiness
bitter tears

spite
jealousy
judgment
unfaithful

faithless

rejection
solitary
wandering
lost
...despair

darkness
grief
death

...

light?
hope?
a promise a future joy?

happiness?
friendship?
love?
eternity?

...

waiting.

Photography

Michelle is going to help me purchase a camera soon. I have decided it's time for me to go back to my photography because I love it and miss it so much! I have lots of ideas, and I have been taking pictures, but since my Canon Rebel is a manual, it takes a lot of work to get my photos online for sharing. My new camera will be a digital Rebel and I will begin posting almost as much as Michelle soon--though my pictures won't be as good as hers, that's for sure!

For anyone who's interested in watching the progress, ask me for my username and see my photo uploads fly!

...this should be a healthy competition...especially since I live with a photography expert and it used to be my major as well! I'm looking forward to this.

Never to Be Undone

I had a long talk the other night with some good old friends (people who have known me longer than almost anyone else I know!) and the conversation was really interesting and revealing. It was both fun and encouraging to share views and experiences, even if we did just discover that life is equally disheartening, at times, in all directions.

We talked about how strange it is that there are few good Christians in the world, at least Christians who maintain a public desire for purity. So many Christians are content to just slip right into the ways of the world. I don't call myself innocent on this count myself, in all ways. It's easy to be deceived by some people and to fall into the traps that are laid in sin. Sometimes people can be that conniving and deceptive, and sometimes even Christians can be that stupid, whether it comes by the help of others or not.

The part that bothers me is the bragging and unrepentant attitudes. We are so quick to judge other people for their wrongdoing, but so many of us are already too far gone to even consider what we might be doing wrong in our own lives. We all make stupid decisions and create through our errors and instead we think only about what we can gain out of the things that we do.
We create disasters for ourselves, but we cannot seem to learn from those mistakes and stop making them. We don't realize what we may have destroyed
But...what are we losing as a result of our errors?

I have to wonder sometimes...

"What if I missed you, you got caught in the sun; what if I did something never to be undone?" -- Course of Nature

This has been a lifelong fear of mine and yet I walked myself right into some of these set traps as if I had forgotten...

Relationship Schmreelashunshiphs...And the latter word is what most of us end up feeling like at the end...

I have been thinking quite seriously of late about the way in which we, as human beings, and young ones at that, tend to engage in the relating process...and I have come to the conclusion that it is rather an unpleasant business that we make of it.

Please allow me to note, for the sake of clarification, that this post is coming from a notoriously hopeless romantic, and therefore if presented in the negative should be seriously considered without a write off! Don't take me at face value only. I have a'plenty to say...

Alright, first of all, I have not been in a relationship continually since I have been an adult, but I have been in several relationships since I reached the age of 18 (and none that counted before that, which is a really good thing, in my opinion...I got to have a strong foundation of Crystalism before entering myself into the state of being a half of a whole).

I have come to the conclusion that singleness is a refreshing thing right now. I don't know when I got to the point where I was confident and comfortable being myself, but I am glad that I have fully arrived at that place. I am burdened by loneliness at times (I do tend to be a very social person, when it comes to emotions...sometimes I want to share my feelings with someone else). It's not that I am incapable of love right now--I am in love, always perpetually in love, it seems--but at the moment I have found that being alone is the way to create in myself a certain strength of character that I have long desired and only slightly achieved throughout my periods of relational attachment. And yet, I realize that I have learned a lot about myself because of those very relationships as well...Life is truly a grand period of self-realization and new revelations of things that have always existed are constantly surfacing.

Right now, I am comfortable being alone, not because I don't feel loneliness, or don't want companionship, or do not feel love for someone, but because I am interested in pursuing this path right now, interested in seeing what I can learn about me for a while. Who am I, what do I want, me, me, me...but isn't a form of selfishness a good thing, once in a while? I am not trying to exclude anyone, but that is the exact reason why being technically alone is probably for the best right now. I'm actually optimistic about it right now, and it surprises me, because I generally love companionship to the utmost. But at this point, my friends can surround me and have been giving me new life through their loving support.

Now it's time to be both sides of a whole, and perhaps undivided as well. I think I am almost learning to find what I would want in a partner--if ever I should have one. I have learned the importance of growing with someone, not changing someone or being changed by someone...relationships should be complementary, not controlling. I realize, now that I look back, that there are probably several really great guys I passed up because of not understanding what relationships were all about at the time, and probably some really great people who just didn't work with me so the failure was inevitable. (It calls to mind the MuteMath song, Lost Year, which says, "At least now we know something we can't become..." It is a good realization when one comes to it: some things just don't work between two people and it's not something to feel wretched about...just accept, treat each other with respect, and move on.)

I don't really know what I want...that's why I'm better off not wanting or doing anything right now. Too much pain, too much frustration, too much of too much this year...I need a break from love for a while.

Disclaimer:
No, this post is not directed toward anyone but me; consider it a self-reminder.