Met someone today
who doesn't believe in
freedom of speech.
His argument was
that people abuse it
that we say horrible things
and we shouldn't.
He asked me if
someone said that
everyone should die
would I support their right
to say that?
And I said yes.
I would rather
hear what they
thought than have them
kept silent or censored.
He asked me if
****** had the
right to say that
all Jews should die.
I said yes. Not because
I believe in what he's saying,
but because I believe that
I have the right to argue
that point.
He said that we shouldn't
have freedom of speech because
some people could talk for hours
about ridiculous things.
I didn't even want to argue with that.
Of course people say ridiculous things
they're people, they have that right.

Knowing is better than not knowing,
every time.
I would rather have the chance
to say no than simply be told
what to do and not do.

I heard it from the still-winged moth
As he lazed about in candlelight
I heard it from the star-drenched earth
Cradled in the silver night
Your lips in parting whispered it
Your eyes in passing sang
And as the Earth went round the Sun
The galaxies proclaimed
There is no thing that is not alive
No thing that ever was dead
No traveler left forgotten,
No permanent stain of red.

And as the demons at the gate
Shake their blood-soaked hands
And the tortured in the dark do scream
Across the burning lands
There is a still and quiet voice
That comes in the eyes of storms
A voice that's quieter than snow
Yet louder than the cannon booms
And if you listen close, my love,
You'll hear this small still voice
That is carried on the softest wind
And exists by more than choice.

The murderers at the back doors
And the monsters behind the walls
Do beat their war drums louder now
And seek to conquer all
O be not quick to anger, love,
O be not quick to flee
For if you stay and wait a while
And if you listen close to me
There might come a still small voice
Which at once you'll hear
And know the voice of God that says
There is nothing to fear.

The moths by silver candlelight
And stars in their courses exclaim
And the Earth in all its wonder
And o, in all your pain
You know the truth when it is spoken
You know there is no end
For all the stars and universe
For every lover, fighter, friend
There shall be no death that will do us part
There is nothing as can stop my heart.

There are some things you will never see.
But you wish you could. You wish that there were other worlds
Close enough to brush with your fingertips.
You wish that others' dreams, their syntheses of sound,
Would make sense to you. You do not live
In this world of cubicles and blinking lights,
And if you do, you live it a hundred thousand light years away,
On the surface of some other planet.
You're not ever going to grow up. All your life,
You'll keep on imagining worlds beyond the one they swear is real.
You must have your writing because you understand
That life, even this one, is not linear. Life is not
Birth to death, and in between survival.

For now you are surviving.
But you know there is so much more than that.

I think that people are more scared than anything.
They say they're happy or
Pretend everything's alright
And even normal
But I think that when you are alone
You curl up into a ball and try to avoid the universe.
I think that pain scares us
And reality scares us and as a result
We avoid attachment, we avoid things that are real.
The hard things mostly.
I think that the reason we are so distant
And so shallow and distracted
Is that we want to ONLY be happy
All the time - we are terrified of the day when
Someone, anyone - a stranger, a best friend-
Asks if we're alright and we just can't lie
Through our teeth anymore.
And more than that, we are afraid that they
Will hate us or reject us for it - that,
Having recognized us as a broken, bleeding
Human they won't love us or even like us anymore.
We tell lies because we are frightened to death
Of the truth that is ourselves.
We are glued to our lies
With that wicked, freezing fear
That keeps you chained and sweating,
Huddled under blankets
Cursing the monsters in the shadows.
In the end we've created our own monsters,
Built our own prison walls and forged our own chains.
I don't know how to fix you.
I can't even fix myself.
****.

I am pretty sure my heart is breaking.
Things are worse now than ever before.
Everything. Everything is worse.
I think I'm losing my mind.
And people are dying, left and right.
Not just physically, but their minds,
Who they are is being lost, is dying.
And I'm suffering under the pressure
Of the secrets that I keep.

Who would I turn to anyways?
There's no sense in crying into a phone,
And all my friends are away.
My family, their hearts are breaking too.
We're all splintering, leaking.
And you thought you could buy wholeness
But no. The more money you have,
The less of you there is, the more broken you are,
And I am surrounded by the rich.

I am pretty sure my heart is breaking,
And there is no one I can tell.

had a dream a couple nights ago.
was lying in a pool of blood.
and o, god, the pounding in my head!
was bleeding from my head.
could feel the hot sticky blood pouring out.
watched as it pooled about my body.
your body lay twisted across me,
constricting my breathing.
and o, god, the tightness in my chest!
could not shift your remains away.
lay there for a while, dying & unable to die.
moved finally, tried to stand.
standing proved impossible.
freed right hand, touched your face.
noticed hot tears pouring out of closed eyes.
woke up much later, after hours of darkness.
could not forget the dream.

and o, god, the pounding in my head;
o, god, the tightness in my chest.

I wish I could say all the things I think about you
But I can't. There's a social faux pas and besides
How do you put heartache into words
While staring into someone's eyes?
It's easy to say that I love you
From a hundred and two miles away,
But I don't know what I'd do
If I was right there, right now with you
Sitting in your car, screaming along
With bad renditions of 80's love songs
It's all very well to call you on the phone
And tell you that I miss you
That my heart is breaking for you
While alone in my room with the door locked
But if I had to tell it to the world,
I don't know that I could,
I don't think that I would.
I wish I could tell you all the things I think about you
But the problem is I'm not so sure that I mean them.