after learning how to trust, I find there's so little to trust. least of all myself. but wait...

I'm so good at leaving. I'm so good at blaming those who could help me, and at chasing those who hurt me. I'm so good at going the wrong way and making the wrong decision; when I make any at all. I'm so good at putting myself before you but only when I shouldn't. I'm so good at leaving you.

all this time, thinking you're knowing where you're going; after you veer off the road more than once though, you begin to forget which turn was a mistake.

I can't take back yesterday. But I don't want to spend all tomorrow wishing I could either.

and all the jealousy or lies cannot justify my imitating response.

Its funny, how people can't lie with their eyes. we lie with our mouths but our eyes can only tell truth. I see it in my pictures. I see it in your face.

a memory is a very present thing.

gone up.

when all that's before my eyes is a sparkling darkness, cruel and stimulating, the silence - then I know I've come to my own crossroad.

......................................

I wonder how you know about me anymore, beyond space as you are. do you? are you watching over us? or are you right here with us? or are you in our hearts living in each of us? or can we only remember you as you appear, penned in by four silver lines of a picture frame? why can't I understand it? why is it, that as much as love is in my heart for you I am caught up in understanding this. what is it that made people squeeze me tightly while my eyes watered and my nose dribbled on that dark sunny day? what was that occasion? what was it for?

unhappy people think life stretches on. happy people say it is the wink of an eye. so I won't struggle to debate whether it was the right time for you or not, I just hope you were happy.

and miracles say you were. like the things you said and did the week before you left that you would never had said or done before; that was God's hand reaching down from heaven to take you Home.

the communion of saints is more than a monumental decree in ink on the pages of a very old Book. you leaving is like a tear in the fabric of us, our comfortable knowledge pulled out from under our feet - but it has led us a little farther, a little deeper into that stark unknown. heaven; a thing, a place, more real than what we consider to be the most permanent, powerful, and relevant things in our lives. the doorway; an unnatural rip that lets the presence of heaven seep out in sharp golden sand. somehow its easier to believe angels surround my bed at night now. and to believe that you never really left, because you are now with Him who is always with me.

....................................

they say life is a breath.
so breathe...

"what?"
"yes, there will always be people who are too nice and will accomodate those with low self-esteem, and people who are too lazy and will not hold you to higher moral standards than they have for themselves. there will always be someone for you to fall in love with, however shallow, selfish, or dim you are. cheer up."

ugly is beautiful, and shy is bold; the cold silence is an invitation and the shrieking laughter is a call for help. we conquer a world when we use our own eyes.

those moments of lucidity when you're brushing your teeth or staring down a red light at an intersection.

you can't acquire it, and therefore you had it all along. but no frost-bitten adage can coax the life out of a single soul. risk your rationality or die a slave to it.

the repeated assurance that its already in you - or that you already are it - stale, comfortless, perpetually applied by your mother while you wince and turn away and feel no divine presence - new or of previous residence -, instead just a grossly swelled feeling inside your chest.

I waited.
wait.

an unfair revival that leaves you turning.

yes, I look forward to a feeling that far surpasses that of a handsome somebody's number written on my palm - or my number on his. no one will be able to barter it to or from me.

if you've given up fighting by the right rules then you've lost already. go away.

I am so ill-disposed to pride that I fear I'll never be capable of having the right kind of it.

"You think I'm like my dad,"
"You are not your dad,"
"Maybe I will be, maybe I'll be just like him."
"Maybe you'll be better."
- Proof

this is your silver lining. help me make it and stitch the numbered days together.

forgive me when I break my promise and do leave you because I think that will help me change; I only do that because its all I know to do - I do it to myself. I don't know how to fix, I've never tried for fear it won't work - so I leave things.

a year ago I would have given you up because of the pain; but I know now, how foolish that would be; how precious you are even when you don't look it.
the same goes for me.

come up.

Janelle - "God is gracious"

!!!!!Happy 14th Birthday!!!!!!

Now that you're fourteen you may make up new priviledges to go with it, since, there are no actual ones. But that doesn't matter, there's so much to look forward to anyway. :)

I've known you for, 3 years now? 2 1/2? Something like that, but it seems so much longer. I guess it helped that we had mutual friends, but I think we also kinda got along too ;) So much has happened in these 2 1/2-ish years. I've got to know you so well and trust you, I can tell you everything. I've seen you grow and change so much, and find things in yourself and your life that are just amazing. :) I've laughed with you, stayed up to undecent hours talking with you, snorted and giggled with you, drawn on you (lol), mutilated pepper canisters with you (aheeh), had bad hair days with you, and because of you am guilty of long phone bills. I've seen you bubble over the Cottars cds, brush your teeth (with a LIVE tooth brush), wear lovely black dresses like no one else, and sing beautifully at lots of concerts. You're sweet and caring and always there for me. You're beautiful and not just because of your pretty cat eyes or barley-gold wavy hair, but because of Who lives in your heart; and I pray that you will always cling to Him and never doubt His love, presence, or abundance for you. And you've helped me; you've helped me cry and laugh and see things as they are. So babydoll, I hope for all things colourful, sweet, and enchanting for you in this new year. Love.

p.s March Break means big emails.

It's not so much...

Obsessed...

No more blogging for a while.

"Last week I had the strangest dream where everything was exactly how it seemed"

If someone could just rip the knife and pen out of my two hands I'd be much obliged.

There is something counter-conventionally beautiful in this confusion, in this fantastic disaster, that makes me think it should always be this way - always wanting to get out but really wanting to stay and belonging here. But I think I've just gotten used to it.

I do remember everything that happened. But I forget that I've been living for fifteen years. Why does that seem bizarre? Why does it seem like the only tangible thing is the present? Because it feels constant? Because when I look around its the only thing I'm really feeling?

I remember...
I remember lots of things. Listening to rock with my brother and classical at symphonies and thinking music was the gateway to...everything. I remember how everything sparkled and that bubbling simmering sensation that was always just beneath my skin...the glory of living, the glory of Love, the glory of mismatched shoe laces, the glory of wearing pyjama pants out of the house. That was mine.

Now things are different. I'm fifteen, not twelve anymore. I don't play outside - or guitar - or listen to punk rock. My world is no longer in a box of pencil crayons as much as I'd like it to be. I started thinking womanhood was in a skirt or a canister of mascara. I've lost two people I loved and how was I supposed to know what that would be like? Or when. I quit piano. I use an alarm clock to wake up. And I can never go back and it makes me laugh strangely.

"And as I sit here with the blinds shut,
my breath sliding in and out of me,
the static takes over,
the tv screen stretches and fuses
with reality outside that metal frame, but its almost exactly the same."

Its not so much wishing for the past but remembering a time when I had something important.
Obsessed, with the past, because its my strongest concept of time. And death too, a close-up encounter of...something. Or something that's not there anymore. Or...
I thought it would be a dark patch in my life forever more, like a tear-bursting scene in a sad movie that will replay in my head and heart forever. But somehow I've come to peace with it; except when I think of the person him/herself...then I get confused at the memory of their eyes.

And I don't want to talk about how I feel anymore because it all sounds the same.

And stress is the only feeling I can't make into something...presentable.

When I talk about what I want, am I talking about heaven?

Maybe
Maybe
Maybe

The Lady of Shallot
Tennyson

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance --
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right --
The leaves upon her falling light --
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, All the Knights at Camelot; But Lancelot mused a little space He said, "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott."

This is just 8 verses of the original 20. There was a later version written by Tennyson with 19 verses.