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You're being duped. It's hard to watch.

Florence

Music is everything: silence, white-noise, speech, vibrations, swift motions, growing apart, growing old. It happens slowly and you wake up with forehead wrinkles. Try not to look so distressed, you're accountable for your choices, and your worry lines.

I get analytics for the pages I manage every week. I'm responsible for far more than I am responsible for myself. I don't have to look closely to see what is happening, and I am sorry. I wish it was more genuine than just feeling sorry for myself. I wish it didn't motivate me to do more.

The family behind me didn't enjoy the recital tonight. Knowing and analyzing 20th Century Music has been like being let in on a big secret. My professors know it too, so when a boy knocks over a half-full glass of water in class, our eyes meet and we all know exactly what it means. Or when an abstract painting inspires 4 movements of music, the correlation is clear.

It wouldn't be difficult to admit that 8:15 AM hurt my head. I started crying because I dreamt you were there, but when I looked back you were gone. "I'm sorry, I'm late for class." We were going to stop with the apologies. I wish I could still feel.

Home

I was 15 and it was raining, or as if I had gotten no sleep. My head was up against an unfamiliar bed frame, staring at an unfamiliar wall with an uncomfortable scuff mark against it. I could have laid down on the mattress, I had time to take a nap, but I wondered if that would be betraying my old house, or my own room, where I would never fall asleep again.

I lived there in that house, so this is the 2nd time I've ever moved. When I lean my head against the wall, I feel safe because I know I'm home.

You are a stranger, but you're a friend of mine.

My fingers are burning from scooping scalding hot food indirectly onto them. I've figured out how to rock a baseball cap. Thank goodness for work this week. Thank goodness for busy hands and awkwardness. I'd rather learn Spanish words for dishes, vegetarian, and cold, than face reality.

I'm running on fumes, listening to Patrick Wolf with my headphones on, wrapped up in my sweatshirt. Still pushing, still trying.

"I saw you fall down the stairs this morning."

"Shit, I thought I got out clean," I responded. Strangers in the dining hall.

My Dear London, Goodnight.

Kemosabe (kiss my ass I bought a boat)

This is why it hurts so bad. I think about the friendships I have with people. While I sat, picking through pasta and string-beans, Nick stayed behind and talked to me while I cried. Tyler has held me, offered to save me, and driven in circles with me way past his bedtime, because I needed him. So when you ask if I need to go, it's true, I need to go. When you ask if anyone else had to do with it, I think Tyler is better, and stronger than that. I just keep going over and over our memories, trying to rectify the warmth they give me, trying to look back and see how wrong I was. How I should have been more patient, even though I was tired from doing my job. How I should have been more understanding. How I should have been a better friend to his friends. All I can do is learn. Learn to be a better friend, a better bandmate, and not drive away the people that mean the most to me. My head hurts.

It's like stubbing your toe. You just want to sit there and wince because it hurts too bad to do anything else.

Brown Lights

You don't look like the little kid who stood around in a circle with us. You're more filled out, more defined, with facial hair and a shaggy head of hair. I don't think I ever really knew you then, or ever. Not even on the couch when the power when out. You taught me how to feel used and broken. Is it supposed to feel as bad the second time around? You never told me. After months of devoting your daydreams to something, how is it supposed to feel when it walks out the door?

A young man in an office chair is snickering somewhere now with vindication on his tongue. I'm scared, and alone but I'll never drink that cup of poison. I'll start again somehow. One phone call and I'm bound to Tennessee.

I have a mental image of returning to the ghost town where I grew up. I'm sitting on my bed with a guitar on my lap, going over my high school memories in my head. I could call my old friends, but they're off living their lives and moving on in every way. I just don't feel finished here yet.

I have failed.

yesterday

The only difference between tomorrow and today is the calender, and I can't let that stand in my way.