The night's cold.
Cigarette smoke's silken silhouette
on the steam trail
off my breath.
Defiantly shivering-
no, I will finish it
the cherry- red
down to the last futile drag
and me,
the only living thing
in earshot, breathing on
and godsbedamned
I sit
despite winter's frigid grip
just like snoop dog said-
smoke til the last hit
but I fired and missed
and there's something I missed here
though the air is all clear
and I can't hear anything
but a heartbeat-
beat-
beat-
under the empty stars
I penned these few bars
to keep my hands warm
to make the blood flow-
everything's hallowed and hollow
especially me.

I live alone here.
here is my island
where no man has set foot
but me
and if you’re reading this it means
you found a bottle
and this was inside it.
You see, I have what I
need,
water, fish, and coconuts
the weather is fine,
I lie naked in the sun each and every day,
but I am alone, and dead to all the world.
The only comfort in which I can partake
is these notes-
some of them letters to family and friends whom I’ll never see again
some are descriptions of faces or trees or sunsets I’ve seen
some are just thoughts I want to give to the world
before I eventually die here.
I hope you’re reading this-
because if you are,
it means I didn’t wither in silence
to be washed over by waves
or blown away
in a storm.
You, the reader of this note,
have validated my existence
by confirming that I ever existed at all

and for that I thank you.

I'm a little surprised
It took til now to realize
That I'm a little more than a
Little attracted to crazy.
Maybe crazy isn't the right word
That spark of divine madness-
The muse incarnate.
Sometimes they look very similar
And it takes months to figure out the difference,
In your case I think I just called it close enough.

Crazy beats boring, I suppose.
It overcomplicates things, that's for sure.

I don't know what love is any more
Because I've now discovered that one day you can be in love
And the next day find yourself the cuckolded brunt of a very brutal existential joke.
At any rate, that drug-fueled madness we shared, trying to fix each other so desperately,
Trying to feel something so impetuously,
Whether that was intimacy or just validation,
Collapsed. Go figure.

Madness at its finest,
And it left chaos in its wake.
For me at least. You seemed alright.
And I use the word "alright" very loosely there.

See "Laws of Physics"

1. You will have a body.
2. You will have a mind.
3. You can do whatever you want with either.
4. You will hurt.
5. You will feel joy.
6. Love is not guaranteed, though it is a possibility.
7. You do not owe anyone anything. Although, (see rule 8), people may decide you do.
8. Some people will be more powerful than you. This can mean influence, size, weapons, or intelligence.
9. There are no laws (excepting the Laws of Physics). Although, (see rule 8), people may decide there are.
10. You will not have time to see it all.
11. You cannot choose to whom, or where, you are born.
12. You will die.
13. Any prospective afterlife will not be revealed until after the time of death.

These are the rules. They are entirely non-negotiable. Should you find them agreeable, you are welcome to experience life and all it has to offer. Life is non-refundable. Life cannot be re-sold. Life is without material value.

To proceed, please sign here-


X__________

Pretty (adj):
1. pleasing or attractive to the eye, as by delicacy or gracefulness;
"Pretty" is a word that's been spewed at you since the day you were born,
A social standard set upon you that you had yet to even hear, but it was being used to describe you instantly;
A "pretty little girl", a "pretty face", "pretty eyes", "pretty smile", "pretty outfit",
Did anyone ever stop to wonder if you'd have a pretty soul?
What about the way you could be brought to tears at the thought of shaming homeless people or victims of abuse, how your heart felt like it was ripping out of your chest when you heard about someone who was struggling,
They didn't seem to care that you tested highest in compassion, they just wanted to know where you got your dress from.
As you grew older the adjective turned from an innocent compliment to what seemed like a snide remark,
The word "pretty" began to eat you from the inside out every time it was said
like you should measure your worth in how delicate others find you;
You stopped accepting "pretty" as a compliment when it turned into an adjective that was only associated with girls that were more than average but less than beautiful,
You stopped accepting "pretty" as a compliment when it became an antonym of strong,
like "pretty" girls were things that would break if you talked too loud, as if loving a "pretty" thing could never be synonymous with loving a durable or sturdy or resilient thing.
D.A. Sharp once said
"You weren't meant to be pretty; you were meant to burn down the earth and graffiti the sky. Don't let anyone ever simplify you to just "pretty"."
And so when someone kindly placed the word in a sentence referring to you you learned to automatically put it into quotations because they were just trying to be nice,
They didn't know they were reducing you to outer beauty, that "pretty" seemed less like a compliment the more it was said, like people couldn't figure out another way to describe you,
As if God hadn't already intricately woven the threads of your DNA, as if he hadn't perfectly tinted every hair on your head to be its crisp burnt color or hand painted the irises of your eyes,
No, "pretty" could no longer cut it.
Because you had been made for bigger and better things,
Those "pretty" eyes of yours will one day see things that God hadn't originally intended anyone to have to see, and those "pretty" hands of yours will have to pick up the pieces of a heartache that God had never wanted you to know and put them back together, and those "pretty" lips of yours are the same lips that will stand in front of sin and tell it that you have chosen Jesus.
Because "pretty" is fine,
but you have been fearfully and wonderfully made, a masterpiece of the Creator.

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

I'm nervous.
Like really nervous.
Like shaking like a blender full of gravel nervous.
Like atheist in a foxhole nervous.
Why am I so nervous?
Because I have a nagging thought that soon I might just be the last-next-best-thing that ever happened to you,
Replaced by another, better next-best-thing that blows me out of the water.
Because you might decide I don't have what you really REALLY want.
Because at the end of the day, I'm still convinced that your attraction to me is the product of an elaborate facade.
So yeah. I'm nervous.
Like sweating fifty caliber bullets nervous.
Like ******* cinderblocks nervous.
Like chattering teeth cold sweats nervous.
Like dying young nervous.
Like being forgotten nervous.

And it makes me nervous that you put me on a pedestal
Because from where I stand, I didn't do anything to deserve this
I got drunk at a party and picked up a guitar and here we are almost a year later.

So I'm anxious
I'm distressed
I'm worried and jumpy
But most of all I'm nervous
Nervous because I think
You might one day figure out what I already know:
I'm not that great.
I'm lanky and goofy and kinda dumb sometimes
And I can be just as petty as everyone else
And I'm still pretty convinced you're colossally out of my league
So I'm nervous
Like shake-you-to-your-*******-core nervous

Like really nervous.

Motion makes me homesick, home makes me motion-sick.

I've seen some **** you wouldn't believe in the past month of my young life
I'm happy.
Makes me want more.
I want Guatemala
I want Nepal
I want the States by trains and motorcycles.
I want to make something tall enough to shake hands with god and strong enough to last to the ends of the earth
Or longer.
I want to give the world back all I've taken from it and all the damage I've done.
And then I want to do more.
I want to start a revolution,
live on a farm,
paint a mural,
play a symphony,
shake hands with the Dalai Lama,
write a book,
and be home in time for dinner.
I want to fold a thousand and one oragami cranes and set them free from space and while they float down to Mauritania and Portugal, to Argentina and Cambodia
I want to wish for a reset button.
Not to use right away, but just in case **** gets out of hand.
So we've got a backup plan.
I want to sit in my old age looking down that darkened tunnel and see my own birth pass before my eyes.
I want to embrace infinity without soreness or shortcomings,
without excuses or refusals
I want to watch the universe collapse back in on itself and be part of everything at once.
I want more than I can handle.

I guess that means I'm young.

Sit broken
Sulkin'
Softly weepin' wisps which then
Withdraw themselves from all of this
Fickle
And fiendish
You'd have my arms and legs bound tight
You're sulkin'
Broken
Without remorse, without respite
I'm nervous,
Workless
And functionless in all your eyes
You're girlish
And cutesy
You give them eyes to get replies
I've never-
You've never?
You finish thoughts and work your little fingers down my
Spine

-chorus-
Uproot the weeds inside you
Fine
I'm through with being fruitless and
Surprised
By old attempts to change our ways
Besides
We're newly polished anyways
We're newly painted, off the line

The bitter
And nameless
Are working after hours to reface this
And shame it
It sits and spins and multiplies
With frequence
I feel it
I feed a framework filament fire
And hapless
You're hopeless
I'm hoping on another line-
To find out what's been sanctified
Who sacrificed to tranquilize
And backfired by bullshittin'
So now I'm sleepy saunterin'
To see what life's like on the other side

(Chorus)

-breakdown-
If we cared
We could whisper cloudy whiteness where there
Used to be only filth and flies
I'm sick of sentimentalism
Sick of sinking in
I'm feeling fine.

-chorus-
Uproot the weeds inside you
Fine
I'm through with being fruitless and
Surprised
By old attempts to change our ways
Besides-
We're newly puffed up anyways
I've walked the line from Z to A
We're freshly painted hypocrites
At least this time I won't be so surprised.

-fin-

This is home.
A home full of life.
A home full of music.
The song of voices and laughter fills the walls and floors.
A home full of light.
And this light pours through the windows and drenches the rooms in warm yellows
And passes through the leaves of the trees without and the plants within
And soaks deep into my skin and warms my face
And wakes us in the morning.
Yes, this is home.
Not a house, not a domicile.
Not so simple as a structure to provide shelter from the rain.
It is made of wood and nails,
the floorboards are uneven,
And the silverware in the drawers are all different and span decades of use.
In the summer it is hot,
In the winter it is cold,
And it is old,
But
It is not dead.
For we live here
And we give it life by living in it.
And it gives back by being light.
It is our fortress.
And these walls can keep out exactly as much of the world outside as we want.
Or we can open the doors and windows and let the wind and the leaves and the world rush in.
This is our home.
And it lives;
because we live too.