I can't help but wonder what you will remember of me.
That's every man's fate, isn't it?
To become a scrap of detail that snags or escapes a stranger's memory,
Stuck in a grate in the floor where it fluttered, discarded,
Or lodged in a permanent frame, dusted off every so often
to be a reference point
or to be a defining moment.
It isn't up to us how we are remembered -
- what is a rainbow to the blind but a refreshing mist on the skin?
And that's why we obsess: we have no control,
hard as we try, contour, conceal, and coordinate.
And that never stops us from trying.
But for a moment, consider this superpower that others will never have:
You can remember them.
You can't escape yourself, but you can remember them.
Will you remember them kindly? Will distaste be tattooed in your mind?
The things that are going to happen will happen.
And we can act according to how we want to be remembered.
But we cannot change it.
But our remembrance cannot be changed either.
It's a little spiteful optimism, isn't it?

I have found,
You can endure anything,
If you have to.

At first,
You think that you can’t make it until the next minute,
But,
Suddenly,
The next minute is upon you,
            then the next,
                     and the next.

At an agonizingly slow rate,
Those minutes will turn into years.

This is how you survive.

We are so quick to blame the familiar.
Once fault is laid,
then the matter may as well be settled,
and it becomes someone else’s responsibility
to atone for our faults.
After all, there is nothing so unfamiliar to a man
as his own self.

Growing old is gracefully (or not)
accepting the passage of time.
Generally speaking,
you have no choice.

Growing up is being slapped
in the face with the understanding
that you must be the hero
you have been waiting on
your entire life.

Growing up and growing old -
there's a difference,
but both will break your heart.

If I ever to do anything to excess,
I hope that it will be kindness
And not its antithesis.

-“Tell me a secret”
-I love you. “I don’t have any.”

I've told this lie before.
Every time, you believed me.

It seems that the universe
Exacts a curious revenge.

As our hearts are broken,
We are being repaid for
Every single heart we
Shattered.

You see,
Revenge is a comfort
When we are in the right,
But what if we're not?

Pain plus pain equals agony,
Not happiness.

Pain has an infinite life cycle.
You will fall before it yields.

See her? With the impeccable taste in fashion?
She's top of her class in calculus. You probably didn't know that.
See him? With the fearless glint in his eye?
He's studying science, but he has the soul of a poet. Tests lie.
See her? Buried behind a stack of books nine tall and three deep?
She's terrified that she'll get a B, because, to her, that's failing.
See him? Museum-quality doodles and red ink decorate his papers.
He'll be president one day, if he can find something that he loves.
See me? No, actually you probably don't see me. Why would you?
I've managed to dangle from the rim of the outskirts of life so far.
Someone once told me that seeing gifts is a gift itself. Maybe it's true.
But, didn't they ever tell you that geniuses doubt themselves, too?
That we doubt ourselves most of all?

You wonder why you feel chained to your life - trapped in your circumstances. You just want to go, and you don’t know why.

I know why. The answer is easy when you’re not the question.

It’s because something long ago and far away has gotten its roots into your bones and you know - you just know - it will never let go.

The struggle
of being
a modern day prophet
is that you are ******
to see all of the things
that others can’t
and you can never
explain them
to anyone else
so no one else
understands
why you’re so sad.

Maybe there's no stopping it -
The anthem of the bored and lonely.
Muted melodies of drumming fingertips
And repetitive rhythms of eyes tracing
The same paths along cracked ceilings.

The same dregs in the *** for three days.
My phone battery's been dead for two.
We're all just looking for something.
And you can't find it in a ceiling.
But that doesn't stop us from looking.

People don't bare their souls-
but books do.
And-just for a little while-
when I'm buried neck deep in their spines,
I don't feel so lonely anymore.