The ability to recreate every moment you live and
imbue it with something as unique as "you" itself...

In search of truth

Did I go back and forth

Wandered through mountains

Bathed in rivers sacred

With the pious

Whichever way the blind pointed

With hope and zest me travelled

Every which way I smelled his scent

But round and round is all I went

Wasted lives to know the one who is not

But the feverish pitch of seeking would cease not

What does it take to fathom the ocean

Even fish or whale is clueless of the ocean

It is only the salt that can be ocean

A salt doll I became

Just a plunge made me the ocean.



So all it needs is a plunge.

Earthly intelligence
Love is the apparatus of universal existence
Nothing more, nothing less
All we ever needed to know is already inside of us

Eyes are useful, but sometimes blinding
Spread your forehead open in the name of light
Reality is perception
Perception is you

You are the creator

Dear reader,


It won't be long before they electrocute the trees with candy colored Christmas lights. Soon everything will be gone: memories, glances, the year. Every thing will dissolve into nostalgia and our lives will become more patchwork and less hopeful. Soul-crushingly sweet our smiles will be, as we watch that disguised meteorite crash into our existence.

Her name was Reno. Her dad joked he named her so because she was the result of a gamble gone wrong.

I could see the stitching around her eyes start to falter, as tears slipped out like a young nineteen year-old girl, running out of the back of a double-wide. Away. Away from it all. Leaving her father, the mechanic who could only fix things with his hands. Running through a field as shimmering as her nails, touching the tall grass with her short fingers.

"I'm not trailer trash," she said, "I've just had it rough."

Reno could see things others couldn't see. Frequently she painted wrecked cars, and I asked why, to which she explained, "Some accidents are allowed to be beautiful."

I fell for her the way her jaw drops after one of my inappropriate jokes: quickly and with such joy.

She had the same answer to when I asked if she liked movies and if she missed her mom.

"Of course I do, Josh," she looked at me and smiled, "Hey buck, have you ever seen True Romance?"

A woman after my own heart.

We watched Christian Slater shoot Drexl, and, like a bullet to the chest, she placed her hand over my heart.

"My, oh my, are you sure that rib cage is big enough for that thing, Mr. Haines?"

She looked a little like Patricia Arquette, but identical to Michelle Williams.

"Are you aware that you look like Michelle Williams?"

Reno ran her hands up my legs, across my torso, and held her hands at my jaw,"Are you aware of how good of a person you are, John Mayer?"

"Ah, yeah. I've gotten that since high school."

She smiled, looked down and up at me,"No, the part about you being a good person? ...You're the drawing on my wall."

I didn't know what that meant.

"I had this drawing-so terrible-it was of the sunset on our hill in Welling Valley," she looked into me and down, while smiling,"Anyway, the sun would kiss the grass every evening, and one day I thought I'd draw it and keep it in my room. When every thing got ugly with my daddy's drinking, and when he beat me something awful, I wanted something to remind me that the light sometimes goes away but will always be back another day. You're my light, Josh. You're the next day after nineteen years of cussing and drinking."

We made love on my bed, as, through the window, the sun bathed our bodies. Her body was a sculpture and her voice was as soft as her lips. I was terrified.

Pulling her hair back, she stood at the foot of my bed, naked,"Are you scared of little ole' me? You look as white as a ghost."

"No, I've never felt so alive... You're so ******* beautiful."

Reno and I lain in bed while Parks and Rec played on the television. Her index and ******* walked across my chest and stopped as she asked, "Josh, have you ever been in love?"

I touched my fingers on hers, studying them with my eyes, and then I looked at her, "Yes, once."

"What was it like?"

I thought I'd feel pain but instead I smiled, "Fantastic, fleeting, and always a little out of reach."

She cooed, "I can't wait until I think I love you like nobody else."

"Me too."



Sincerely,


Joshua Haines

Your love is like a caged bird
Beautiful when standing outside looking in
But imprisoning when you are the bird

Black on blue
Eyes like the moon
Fantastic
Delicious, melt-in-your-mouth licorice
Call her sassy, but she sways savvy into your life
Binds your mind and body into one
Barrier destroyer of all dark forces, carrier of light
Pure and innocent, she carresses your mind
Vibration uplifted and intelligence becomes gifted
Quick, yet graceful
One of many doors
That your higher self knocks on

In a dark and distant galaxy-
Upon a new world I seek-
You're healthy and smiling-
because, because, because, because
there is nothing as romantic
as dying on your kitchen floor-
There is nothing romantic
about waiting for you
to come home
from war.

Daughter, daughter
on the wall-
Why'd you let your picture fall?
Killing yourself for instant
pseudo-safety-
Killing yourself for nothing, maybe-
But the gun is still pretend enough
to put into your mouth and bluff
And say that no one can
save you now-
because, because, because, because:

You are your own lover
and you are your own daughter.
And you're left in hot water
but you stay in to try to forget
that you're cold inside.
And you drown yourself
so you can hide.

I'm so happy-
I've masturbated until I can't feel
and that's okay.
My hair is brittle;
the water's iron and so are you-
your love's a mess.
God is angry
because he doesn't have to exist
to be real.

Hipsters ruined liking Wes Anderson-
Bill Hicks was brilliant
and everyone is an intellectual.
Your ideas aren't yours-
your words are mine
and mine are yours.
Writing to be antidepressed,
because singing is for the shore,
for your shore.

Let's pick each other's psychology,
like we're removing clothes
or missing ads,
and get lost in each other's darkness,
because, "I love you,
I suppose.
I suppose."