For me, beauty comes from things that are loosely held.

Looking at them too long alters them,

Sitting with them too long ruins them,

Better to show the rough stuff of life than to crush a dream by the weight of my closed fist.

Better to miss a comma or semicolon than a true feeling.

Better to mix metaphors than to lose them entirely.

When I was young, I caught what I thought were butterflies, probably moths, in the schoolyard.

I was told that if their dust rubbed off they would die.

So I held them in my sweating palm as gently as I could, feeling the flapping thing struggle against the walls of my fingers.

They all died anyway.

The pill bugs would die too.

Everything died, regardless of how gingerly I handled them because they had simply stayed in my hands too long

But before they died, I had accomplished something and it was beautiful.

If I could just let go, they could thrive, but I spent too long with them.

I've spent too long with my own thoughts and they're dying.

Some books are hard to read and cut you on the way down.
Some books make you wish to burn the inside of your ribcage out.
But those same books teach you some things you didn't know,
and those somethings make you change in ways you didn't think you could.
Some books break you into disparate pieces and put you back together in a new way.
Some books heal you in a way you didn't know you were injured.
But those same books are hard to pick up and easy to put down.
Some books have been calling out to you from other people's bookshelves their whole lives.
Some books have been given to you as an investment.
But those same books will live in silence if you never open them; too afraid of paper cuts to learn.

Make peace with never knowing,
make peace with never going,
to the places, you pledged your life to.

There is this plant on the patio that overgrows itself every once in awhile and dies.
Beautiful flowers, but far too many.
Over-growing without thinking about the consequences.
Four million or so flowers blooming all at once and one little porcelain *** to hold them all.
It came naturally.

Oh dear.
I fear I've made a history of myself.
All the paperwork is blowing in the wind.
Don't look at all my personal transactions.
Don't look at the mess I've made of my short life.
I've thought twice about the whole lot of it.
I've made amendments to every one of my thoughts and I don't trade in them anymore.
I've made memories I wish expunged from the record of existence.

Sometimes I wonder why you love me.
I used to think it was my own selfishness begging the question forward.
But today I wonder because when I get on a roll
(and I do, often)
I can start seeing the impatience develop in the corners of your eye.
I don't know if it's always been,
or if just now it's become obvious to me,
but I can see it beginning to irritate you.
All my highfalutin recitations of my latest reading.
All of my internal cross-examination.
All of the stones I turn over and over in my hand - at you.
It's getting a bit much.

But you see I'm just too chock-full of existence
and you are the only vessel to pour it into.
I crave novelty and I can see that you,
instead,
crave peace.
You've watched the world worry over itself for long enough and you want to rest.
I never let you rest.

So then comes the questions again,
why is it you love me?
I am so restless and so curious and so mean.

Sometimes you wake up and your plans for the week have burned down.
You find the owners of the buildings got into a fistfight,
blaming each other for its destruction and were arrested.
I guess that means we can check it off the list of things to say goodbye to.
Time to renegotiate and go for something like that hole in the wall pizza joint with all the awards on the wall.
Time to kayak on the only part of the LA River that isn't concrete.