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.

Ramblin'

I was staring at it again: pins on a digital atlas in the shape of a running man. An 11 day route out towards the Mid-South and up the East Coast. My fists were shaking with excitement, but of course, I was the only one to feel that way. I-77, I-85, I-95...It's not like I haven't been there before. I just want more.

So I'm back in my head again, postulating whether or not I should just go by myself. Some androgynous human: if the car dies, the car dies. I can keep going.

I could find my pitbull Diesel, and we would get lost 50 miles south of Johnston City. I am as real as wanderlust can be.

Study

Writing lists helps you get things done.

Today I swallowed my fears and walked up to a factory door. I sat in a clear shower stall while they handed me chemicals to smell and showed me colors to identify them with. Just once I want to know what its like to be bitter, or to hold a grudge so innate, I would hurt myself to see it through.

Are we supposed to stay the same our entire lives? I've been practicing because I want to be better, reading cause I want to be smarter, answering phone calls and emails to act responsible, and most of all, moving on.

If you were still alive, and we met, I'm sure we would like each other. You would be able to see the battle raging inside of me. We would drive straight to Saratoga, New York and resolve it. We'd put our guns in the ground, and shake hands like gentlemen. If you were still alive, I am sure you'd understand. Therefore, I think its okay that I'm sad you're gone.

Romance!