a poor man's memory

Some days all I can get myself to do is listen to “No Children” by the Mountain Goats on...

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:08:22 -0500

Some days all I can get myself to do is listen to “No Children” by the Mountain Goats on repeat. Today is one of them.

There’s a folder of pictures I can’t open.There’s so many songs that don’t...

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:25:00 -0400

There’s a folder of pictures I can’t open.
There’s so many songs that don’t sound the same.
There’s a number I can’t dial and a message I can’t send.
There’s a restaurant I can’t eat at, not with any friends.
There’s words and names I can only say in my head.
There’s a pair of eyes that belong to you, that I can never look into again.

The arrivals lounge

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:33:10 -0400

A plane landed and a man in a scruffy coat leaned forward and wondered if this was the one. People got off and walked into the large, gleaming white terminal, where they were either met by others (some in tears but everyone smiling) or if no one was there to greet them, they looked around, shrugged, sat down in one of the long rows of aluminum chairs and either listened to music or read a book or just stared off into the distance in the kind of shell shock that normally comes from long distance travel. Several made phone calls. One, for whatever strange reason, tried to go back through the gate, to get back on the plane. Security, gently, held him at bay.

The old man had seen it all before but he didn’t mind waiting. He’d gotten quite good at it. There were exactly 128 chairs in terminal D. The roof had exactly 864 crisscrossing tiles. The planes landed every 11 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. He knew. He’d had enough time to count. He read the paper. It was always the same paper, but each day, there was always a different story about someone he knew on the front page.

Exactly 11 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds later, he was too absorbed in the paper and the lullaby of the announcer coming over the terminal speakers to notice the small, diminutive female form standing next to him.

“Hello.” She said.

He looked up from his paper.

“I think I know you.”

“Yes, I think you do.” He replied.

“You once swapped your last packet of cigarettes for a bicycle, in the middle of the war, then rode it for five hours to see me.”

“I think that was me. I can’t remember. I think we ran a grocery store together. I remember cobblestone streets and a newsagent next door. The children would buy comic books. There was a harbour.”

“I think that happened.”

There was a silence.

“How was your flight?” he finally asked.

“Good. There was some turbulence towards the end but other than that it was fine.”

She rubbed her arms.

“Did you get everything done that you needed to do?”

“Quite a bit. Most of it I think.”

“Well, that’s all you can really ask for.”

“I suppose so. The tea was nice.”

“That’s good then.” He said with a smile.

“Are we supposed to get a taxi now?”

“No, not yet I don’t think.”

“Then what do we do?”

He cleared some space next to him on the aluminum chair then took his coat off and scrunched it up to make a pillow.

“I think we’re meeting someone.”

“Oh. Will we have to wait long?”

“No. Not in the greater scheme of things. They serve tea, just ask for one when the woman comes round with the tray.”

“Is it good?”

“The best you’ve ever tasted.”

By the time the next plane landed, she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.

the blood fills the subway

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:44:18 -0400

All I ever wanted you to do was feel this feeling. Be this way. Exhale the sky.
All you ever did was feel different. Be away. Wash your hands with air.
All I love is a feeling. I still feel this way. I cannot breathe.
I still forget there’s air out there.
I still forget how white hot everything was.
I still forget myself.
There’s nothing wrong with this.
There’s nothing true about this.
There’s nothing.
You were once everything I felt.
You were once everything.
You were, once.
And if love moves like air, then teach me how to dig my nails into the palm of my hand so I can remember what you once felt like.

"We live in a culture that kills artists. Wants them to die. It’s like people who talk poetically or..."

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:51:39 -0400

“We live in a culture that kills artists. Wants them to die. It’s like people who talk poetically or act and express, are totally devalued. Just like women are devalued, and their femininity. Everything with them that brings them the flow, the understanding, the intuition. Not like knowing facts but there’s just understanding things, just somehow. That’s very very extremely devalued. It is the seat of all art, the seat of all artistic expression and I’d say that that is the cabin slave of the world.”

- Jeff Buckley (via moodswingwhiskey)

The Science of the Sky & Physics of the Air

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:31:00 -0400

1a: I’ll hold your hand during the storm, if you promise to sit back and enjoy it.

1b: And I promise you I’ll hold your hand back. I’ll sit back and enjoy it. I’ll laugh at lightning. I’ll giggle at thunder. I’ll drink raindrops. I’ll lean into the wind. I’ll see the sun come out. And one day, I’ll cry for a storm that’s passed, never to come again.

Photo

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:59:08 -0400

"There’s still 7 oceans worth of you here, in the world you left behind. That’s why this..."

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:39:36 -0400

“There’s still 7 oceans worth of you here, in the world you left behind. That’s why this ship is haunted.”

Photo

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:35:30 -0400

sayingimages:

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:35:04 -0400

sayingimages:

Photo

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:46:10 -0400

Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:59:43 -0400

Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images

"Please words. I need you now (the and and you two especially). I need you to tell the truth. To say..."

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:45:46 -0400

“Please words. I need you now (the and and you two especially). I need you to tell the truth. To say things as they are. Don’t be words that I say too fast, words that I have to defend. Please don’t listen to me when I tell you to do the wrong things, be the words you were meant to be. Be honour and fire place and celler door. Be slow and sunrise and sunset. Be a phrase “I know they come again.” No words more than needed, just enough to say what I mean and mean what I say. Please words. Work.”

You never get use to losing someone. You never get use to the feeling of having someone torn from...

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 16:59:00 -0400

You never get use to losing someone.

You never get use to the feeling of having someone torn from you. You never get use to the hole where they use to be in your heart. You never get use to the “falling” feeling you feel when you’re unexpectedly reminded of them. You never get use to the nights where your mind forces you back there and then your chest hurts and you can feel the loss.

You never get use it. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently.

"All the people you see in the street, who would rather wear sunglasses than know where they’re..."

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:54:17 -0400

“All the people you see in the street, who would rather wear sunglasses than know where they’re going, they get put back in the gallery at night, they get covered up for the next day. So they can think that a road is a grey river that’ll take them anywhere, as long as they can float. So they can carry on. There are so few real people in this world. Thank you for being one of them.”

- www.iwrotethisforyou.com

"I do not know how it ends. Just that I miss you, right before it does."

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:42:04 -0400

“I do not know how it ends. Just that I miss you, right before it does.”

Photo

Tue, 31 May 2011 11:01:48 -0400

"Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring..."

Tue, 31 May 2011 10:59:56 -0400

“Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.”

- Mitch Albom (via aeloquence)

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Tue, 31 May 2011 10:59:43 -0400

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Tue, 31 May 2011 10:59:15 -0400