The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
-Albert Camus

"Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t. But that isn’t it, exactly. The condemner and the condemned. The executioner; the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank you, thank you, God."

"So the universe is not quite as you thought it was.
You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe."
-Isaac Asimov

is it just me or is the sky falling piece by piece

soon, soon, soon, soon, soon
but why not now?

I'm sorry you can't see the desert in my eyes but I've always loved the heat

"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself king of infinite space,
were it not I had bad dreams."

I'm ready. Any day now, we can begin.

well, why the hell not?

I would love to have some silence, some time away from myself

I haven't exactly found someone like me, here,
I don't think- they're too dreamy, off in the clouds
those over there are so cynical, why
do they lie all the time? They would rather be indoors
they would like to avoid depth but wonder why they're restless
these ones are too dark, so pained- everything's a struggle
there is no 'I'm okay', but always, 'Why? Are you, really?'
these want to escape but don't, really
I've met girls with no imagination and boys with no depth
I love people, I do, I know they're all valuable-
but a part of me is looking for someone that I haven't met yet.

my life is so open in front of me.

Shut up. Shut up. I'll never be like her to you. Shut up.
You have no idea what the *******'re talking about.
Shut the **** up. Will you please just leave me alone?
Shut the **** up. Please. Please *******.

Wake up! Wake up! There's someone who needs you.
Wake up! They deserve you.

God is in love with me. What does that mean?

The best people in life are free.

if you seek to avoid every pain in this life
you have some growing up to do
and sorry, hate to break it to you-
but it's going to hurt.

if we've worked for ourselves, we haven't become anybody
where we go depends on who we're fighting for.

you have to choose to act with love, every single day
but you can't choose to feel it.

what is it about my thoughts that I don't want to be alone with?

I am an archer but I never liked the idea of shooting from afar

people think I'm kidding when I say I want to be married
but I cannot wait to settle down
to wake up next to someone for the rest of my life
to go do things together, constantly
to never be afraid, and to belong to each other-
there's nothing more beautiful, it's exactly what
people, us humans, were made for- in fields and bridges
we were made to be together
buying houses and sleeping in cars and spending eternity
with each other, in richer and in poorer
in sickness and in health, just us,
just like Mr. R said- I don't know what she'll be like
in ten years, I don't know what I'll be like
in ten years, but I know we'll still be there.
It'll still be us.

"When was the last time someone ran their fingers through the knots in your soul?"

"I can have relationships with all women because my body and heart belongs to one of them."

I have 88 days now to remember who I am
and as I walked outside this morning, I smelled it.

all the songs we listen to tell us
"I just love them so much and if I just
love them enough and just write this song
then everything will work out and they'll love me too"
but that's not how it works, love is not a serenade
love is a relationship, a partnership and something
that isn't rehearsed or dramatic, it's a duet
of terrible voices as they try to harmonize and fail
but laugh, and dance together, and people who
are too uncomfortable to say what they feel
it can never be perfect, but it is musical, I think
just not what we expect- and we have to train ourselves
and relearn what it means to be a human person
we've been taught wrong. forget it. it's not what you think.

art doesn't have to be beautiful, it has to make you feel something

"Hating is easy. It's loving that's hard."

“So go love someone that wants to love you back. Whoever that lad is will be one lucky person.”
― Alisa Mullen

"Many people die of thirst but the Irish are born with one."

“Katie shook her head in dismay. “I thought being poor was the worst thing that could happen to a girl.”

“No, Katie,” the countess said in a clear voice. “The worst thing is to be in love with one man and have to marry another.”

“Some men never recover from education.”
― Oliver St. John Gogarty

“The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.”

“Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.”
― James Joyce

“To be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart."

you can't google the lessons you can learn from other people.

I felt a weight lift off of me
when I realized that what is most important about me
is not this. It is not my grades, it's not my intelligence, it's not what I do within these walls
what's most important about me is more than that
my life is more than this.

I never knew you as the quiet one, because you weren't, not to me
never much wanted to 'dig beneath your surface' or 'solve your puzzles'
because the answers were just waiting to be found, instinctively
I always saw someone imperfect, someone that I just
wanted next to me, someone whose gold eyes I could look in
and be amazed, every time, I always just saw you,
I think when everyone else saw who you were supposed to be
I saw who you were, and that's what made me different, to you
that's what made you fall for me but that's also what made our friendship
fall apart, so quickly- you saw me too and that's when you realized maybe you shouldn't have me.

you can try to swim the sea
you can try to hold the breeze
but say goodbye to you and me
you can try with skin and bones
but you will end up all alone
you can try to hide the sun
but say goodbye to everyone

I can't believe what God has done
I'm not strong enough
but I think he is, that's why he gave himself to us.

everybody's watching a game of chess
and I think I am staring at the board
focusing hard enough that I can make the pieces move
but not really, and I'd like to pretend everybody's watching
I'd like to put it on live television, I'd like an arena
but it's just me, and there is no opponent,
and there aren't even any pieces, and I think
I should stand up and go home, and not feel sorry for myself
the air outside the arena is cleaner anyway-
the trees greener- because outside, I mean nothing
and because of that, I am free to be everything.

it's like casting a rod into the reeds
I know it's going to land there, every single time
and when it does, I just watch it and mourn its entrapment for a while
only to cast it into a different patch of reeds and change nothing.

I could be perfect, you know.

if you're scared, just keep your eyes on me.

we're all messes

hold my hand

I feel like the whole rest of the world is asleep

midnight moved across the people's park
and I fled the fire like a spinning spark
up onto a porch in the dark
she was waiting right there for me

a coffee shop, not the kind they usually write about-
not the dark furtiveness of hope and cigarettes
no one in here is broken- at least- no one except for me
at least- we all think that, already- about ourselves-
but this is no places for dickinsons, all I can see in front of me
is two girls who look like they could be in love
in some other way, in some other universe
and all I see to my right is two girls older and wiser than those ahead
who're a little more broken, and a little more untrusting
and in the booth, there, girls who have marked their computers
their bodies, too, with their identities, splattered across
the outside world because they don't have it in their heart
who is that? staring out the window, not even on her phone
is she waiting for someone? who is it? is she thinking about ***?
Is she thinking about love? I am. Is she sad? she has her hand over
her face, I still don't know why I love you so much-
my music throbs in my ears, this is the holy grail of places
free wifi and people who are exactly like me
I look different than I am, do they, too? who are you?
why don't we tell each other? if we don't, we might as well give up
it's done, game over. we're through.

reminds her of the missing piece of innocence she lost