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The image of myself
in the eyes of others
is paralyzing.
What if I don’t live up
to what they think I am.
I couldn’t take the disappointment.

I’ve never been much for new year’s resolutions. In fact, I used to detest them. I think that comes from my aversion to things that other people like. You know how that goes, everyone’s doing it so I need to find some reason its ridiculous. I used to think that separated me from the pack, but I think it just makes you an asshole. Just like what you like and let the rest figure itself out.

However, in lieu of any proper resolution I always find the new year a natural time to look back and reflect on what’s changed in my life. For me this has been especially easy because I had some major events happen in the last few years that gives me a very specific timeline to examine.

Over a year and a half ago I moved cities for a job. I had very few connections here in town. At the time my brother and his girlfriend (now fiancée) were living here, but within 6 months of my arrival they were off to take a sabbatical in France for a year.

Continue reading “Beautiful, weird, complicated human beings.”

I’ve been sitting around my apartment all day, since I woke up at 9:22AM, avoiding the very thing I am doing right now, writing.

Desperate for distractions I’ve made two cups of coffee with my new aeropress and grinder (which were delicious by the way). I’ve spent hours needlessly scrolling over pages of the internet that I don’t care to read. I unsubscribed from a bunch of emails then did some laundry. I signed up for a surf lesson at West Edmonton Mall, made soup (well, I warmed up a can of soup), and picked up then put down my ukulele, repeatedly.

I’m listless and I’m restless. And realistically, for me, exactly what I should be doing is writing. It helps.

Continue reading “Desperate for Distraction”

I can feel myself perched precariously on the edge of a cliff. I’m facing north, carefully balancing on the arches of my soles. The rocks under my feet, rugged, sharp protrusions formed out of the lost wilderness into now towering beasts.

The wind beats at my back. I lean into it. The cool throbbing breeze comes in waves, whipping around me in a whirlwind. Shadows form across the ridges and behind the sparse pines where the sun cannot see. The crips mountain air tumbles my hair obscuring my view. Still I lean into the wind, refusing to cease.

It would be easy enough to fall forwards, just give in. ‘Let the wind take you,’ I think. But I don’t. Instead I waver, back and forth. Stuck somewhere between where I want to be and where things seem to be taking me.

Problem is, forwards seems easy; as if giving up were easy. Forward feels like life defeat and peace in one fell swoop.

If I let go, if I tumble over this edge I don’t know if I could climb back out. I don’t know if I’d want to. That’s the problem with here and there, you can’t know if there is a place you can’t escape until you have firmly planted your feet on there’s soil.

So, I waver and wonder and puzzle and toil over things unknown. Because what else is there?

By Charles Bukowski

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

Continue reading “Roll the Dice”

It’s all real.

---

Heroine

I find myself addicted
To the smile in your eye.
To the laughter on your lips.
I find myself addicted
To the wit that whips your tongue.
To the way you walk away.

I find myself addicted
To the way you make me want.
To the crushing of my heart.
I find myself addicted
To the weakness and the pain.
To the way you walk away.

I find myself addicted.
To the heroine in my veins.

---

And then she knew

It washed over me all at once. It was such a funny thing, such a simple moment when I suddenly knew. And I knew as if I’d always known. It was knowing that the sky was blue, but finally noticing it for the first time. A flashbulb burst, illuminating everything I’d never understood.

It wasn’t even a special moment. You weren’t even there. It was a Monday. I was dropping off my dry cleaning.

And there it was.

Simple. Obvious. Subtle. It wasn’t passionate, lust filled, jealous. I just knew I could trust you and you could trust me.

It was warmth and ease. It was trust and space.

It was love.

---

NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART

By W.B.Yeats

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

---

John Keats Love Letter to Fanny Brawne – 13 October, 1819

You have ravish’d me away by a Power I cannot resist: and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavoured often “to reason against the reasons of my Love.” I can do that no more – the pain would be too great – My Love is selfish – I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.

-Haruki Murakami