Scars and stars.

Today a doctor drew a big circle on my foot, the perimeter of this crazy inflammation from a bug bite.

Then, sitting in my room, the pens came out as I labeled everything I could find on myself. I was all circles and arrows.

"Freckle"

"This scar is from a salad spinner"

"Kiss me, I'm Irish"

"Shoulder"

"Bug bite"

The ink sunk into my flesh as my body became a map of my body.

I continue to miss you in all the wrong ways. 

And never learn my lessons.

Easier said than done, your holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

"Find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. Do not judge the universe. " 

Interludes

Our lives are simply lists of moments we wish could last forever.

Everything else is just noise.

I don't believe in the end of the world. I just can't, I guess.

But sometimes I wonder what would happen if we pretended, all the time, that the bombs were already in the air.

Maybe things would go too crazy, but I bet there would be a lot more love, a lot more earnest action and sincere words.

When your whole life flashes before your eyes, you realize that it wasn't that bad, you realize how thankful you should have been.

EDIT: NO, I've changed my mind. Trying to carry such a project out would just be too manipulative, and I cannot judge what life is for, what should be the nature of life. Obviously stress and lack of sleep turn me into Adrian Veidt. (If any of you do not know who I am talking about, I will gladly lend you some books)

I love you all. You are all so perfect, you made life a little bit better.

Thank you.

EDIT: That part still stands.

Vulnerable, lonely and a little cold at one am.

Alone in my bed I pretended you were near to me, as I was grazing my fingers across your chest in a repetitive motion, soft and slow, like waves.

"I need to tell you a secret. But you can't tell anyone, scouts honor", I called out into the dark.

"I'm afraid of dying. I mean, I don't believe in much. I don't believe in beginnings and endings, I don't believe in the past or the future, I don't believe in heaven and earth. All I know is that life is, and that it is precious and holy. The thought of existing outside life, or just ceasing to exist, well I just don't know how to deal with it."

And you ran your hand through my hair

but you had no response.

Just needin' to put it all out there so maybe it'll all get outta my head...

There was this night up in Burlington, I was at a friend's apartment. And we were all just sitting and chilling on their front steps, it started off as a decent night. But there was a bike propped up against the porch, so I borrowed it. Just riding down the street on a spring night, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, every twist or bump on the sidewalk felt so right, the cold wind rang through my hair and through my bones as I went for blocks, occasionally noticing how the stars were out. For a moment, I had convinced myself that I was never going to turn around, take that bike to canada, or new hampshire, wherever these empty streets took me. Why are my favorite moments always associated with the idea of escaping into the unknown, even as I know I'm never going to go through with it. Am I that unhappy with my life? I haven't thought like that for a long time. 

Maybe it's just the idea of possibility, you are presented with one question in the moment. And you get to choose. Free will made so concise and clear as it's just that one moment and that once choice and everything is under your control and within reach.

I have not not been cold for at least 48 hours now and I'm startin' to get sick of it. 

I once heard that "An id is a terrible thing to waste."

...and y'know, the super-ego can be overrated. Trips us up, makes us overanalyze what's only natural.  I think I need a bit more id in my life.

Because, y'know, this life ain't for nothing. Except it kinda is.

There are some trees near the library on campus, I tried climbing them today. People looked at me funny. People do not climb trees or lie on hills watching clouds around these parts apparently. It's honestly really upsetting. 

I always seem to wake up with new cuts and bruises for years now, just about every day and I have scarcly an idea where they come from. To wit, John Updike: "If we keep utterly still we will suffer no wear and tear and will never die."

At least if I'm degenerating that means I'm living. Right?

Tick-tock.

Time's starting to feel worn loose and comfortable

and the clouds are moving so smoothly and quickly, I can't help but to believe in progress.

We think of time, mostly unconciously, as a snowstorm. We catch individual snowflakes, individual moments (no one is identical to any other, as I'm sure you know) and say "This is mine" before it melts in our hand. But this is foolish of us. More like a river, you cannot claim any of it, it slips through your fingers, changing it's path ever so slightly.

And I am the textbook example of a 'young adult', I haven't even been an adult for a year now. And let me tell you, there's no such thing as hope or potential, only the illusion of such.

(Ruling us all is chance and luck and nothingness)

But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes illusions are enough.

And when the sun bursts through the clouds, doesn't it always catch you by surprise?

Keeping it all by my side.

I have this terrible aliment,
called 'accidentally poetic'
Like a close friend who, for all their bluster and swagger, will tell you
that they're scared
in the early hours of the day.
I've had quite a few of those, 
they keep me here and they keep me grounded.
I guess I wouldn't want it any other way.

And whenever I cannot drift off
I don't count sheep
I compose prose
And by morning my words have dissapated
But I'm holding onto these.

I made a new friend 
we went out to the lake
and walked on the water
It was march and it was dark and the wind from the mountains rattled my bones
and set my roamin' spirit loose.
My future was endless
and it was all laid out before me
I could walk to other countries
other states
other lives.
He was afraid of drowning,
so we turned around.

Another friend, I used to think they had all the answers
So busy listening to what I thought they were saying
I didn't even know that they were broken.
That's what they were really saying, after all...

Someone else, and I was someone else too
we had a parking lot
we sat there when it was dark and cold and empty
the pavement stretched before us, it was endless.

Boats on sunny days,
Walking through city streets, more dangerous than we know
taking risks 
jumping ship
roll the dice
take it all back.

So maybe nothing will ever be okay.
Though it's hard to say on days where the sun is shining and you're sitting in the middle of a sidewalk full of children's chalk drawings
Or whenever you make a new friend.

And I'm afraid to die
because I haven't done enough.
I'll never do enough.
Because I'm just
something that's broken
and you can't expect a whole lot from somthing broken.

But just being around to watch the universe happen
well if that isn't something, I can't tell you what is.

And I want to keep it all safe,
but it slips through my fingers
and time passes
and there's no such thing as a fair trial.

Around the grave they say,
"In the midst of life, we are in death"

"In the midst of death, we are in life."
Something we all need to remind ourselves.

On a secret hill, partly under a tree.

I found the perfect spot to watch clouds on campus.

And I have a love-hate relationship with those things too beautiful to put into words.

By which I mean everything.

But sometimes, things like this are enough.

2 am and I may or may not be loosing my mind.

We've each built so much up around us we can't even see one another.

And it's terrifying.

Please, tear down the walls of your own solipsism, it's killing you and it's killing me. Are you really going to let everything you could ever have, hold, want, need and love pass you by?

Bear witness to the world.

Hold my hand.

We're in this together.

And we'll be furious and we'll be inconsolable and we'll be crying until the world is awash (not cleansed, but we can pretend) but most of all we'll be lost.

But we'll be something.

You must understand hate before you can learn to love. And the things you own can't teach you a thing.

I want to see the northern lights before I die, I don't care if their just junk and fire and radon. Because they're something. And they're beautiful, and at millions of years old, maybe they can teach me something.

I need to view the world a new. It needs to be brighter, it needs to be more.

To wit: The fields of space and time must intersect at an infinite number of points to allow everything to happen.

I refuse to give up my obsession with free will. Contemplating it is painful, but the alternative is so much worse.

In your very veins and muscles, all the contradictions of the world quietly crash and converge and it couldn't be more commonplace or more extraordinary. What is right and what is wrong meet and co-mingle in the space between the quarks of the neutrons of the atoms that make up your cells. You yourself are the ultimate truth and you are mostly grey and about 70% water, and you can choose to turn that chaos and that grey into love. You can make the ground disipear, you can rise above it.

I can't sleep because I'm running out of time. When no wind comes to steer you to shore can you find it yourself? What about lighthouses?

My metaphors always get out of hand far too quickly.

We could die for our beliefs, we could live forever. But we're probably wrong. I've seen the truth, maybe not all of it, but bits and pieces, and one things for sure, it ain't worth dying for. Nothing's worth dying for so why do we insist on dying?

Insomnia's getting to me.

Here's the thing about truth. (And life, and the world, and everything)

...What's it worth to yah?

Our values are only values when they're absolute. When you're willing to compromise then it wasn't a value anyways.

Shit what am I saying? I need a hug and I need some sleep...

Good people will die too soon and kids will make dumb choices and someone will find a way to profit from it all, and the universe never takes anything back, we're stuck moving through spacetime at a constant rate, but we can choose the direction.

Right?

I can bail or I can stay.

But I know what I'm going to decide before I decide.

What can I say, it's a value I hold dear, no matter the distress.

I'll be here, under the northern lights, watching the highs and lows of life, more attached and involved than I know is healthy. Please stop by, stick around. You need to see this before you die, it's amazing.

What I know.

Three am
and this is my favorite
when our words are no longer fully formed
our thoughts travel through the short distance between us
and when they meet
instead of cracking and shattering
they just melt into one another

And you should worship the reasons you are here,
not any sort of creator looking down
But the fire
And the fields
And the infinite serendipities
And it's Stunning, those moments you can feel the magic of your own existence.

"An unwavering band of light"
This too shall pass.

Thank you.

We have no choice
but to carry on with our vain strivings
praying for a current of wisdom and compassion
lest the undertow of selfishness and empty theory snatch us up.


When our salty tears taste almost sweet
then, we will know that we are ready.
and perhaps we will never be strong enough to lift up the whole world,
but one day, we will certainly be strong enough to lift up a child.
Just so lucky to be a witness.


We'll be gone so soon but we won't be able to stop
stop praising, stop loving, stop thanking
One by one our organs will give
They'll whisper "Thank you"
Tomorrow or twenty years later.
And when the dust that was once you and I whips through the trees
It will scream graditude, making the wind.
Every heartbeat gasps "I love you"
and even when we're nothing
we were once alive
and that's amazing.

And the story ends with me crying
And you were crying too
When we realized we pieces out of the same puzzle.
Broken apart,
We can never be put back together.


We are the dust we so carefully watch floating through the kitchen.