i miss the sweet smell of autumn decay.

so scared of the small representations of you, of them, of feelings that pile up inside the closed drawer, the out of sight shelf, the dark corners of my room. their love haunts me, it's a plague, but it's not, if it's a plague it's one I want to embrace. close my eyes and hold you tight, that letter tickles at my fingertips. read me, remember, regret, reminisce, rejoice, relinquish. the paper may stay tucked away somewhere safe, but the ink remains embedded beneath my skin.

i cannot breathe. i miss you. i can't comprehend that i'm not with you.

those little creases in the corners of your eyes when you smile. they are one of my favourites

it's the space between. there's a delicacy in absence; almost infinite and it passes through hands like water. running. running out. everything gnaws at itself; contradicting itself. happiness brings such heavy sadness in the prettiest of ways. pain and laughter ally themselves hand in hand and everything spins. nothing spins. no preconceived notion of up and down, forward and back, will ever glimpse the lacklustre of the universe's plans, its reality. spurred on by its own past, every new move is exactly that. nothing is predetermined. everything is predetermined, spurred on by the past. stop looking for the directional arrows, they're not capable of leading you to where you want to go. to grow. best to look the other way. while almost  everything screams inevitable, there's hope in the undecided, in the impartial, and it's yet to receive due credit.

flight and height and exasperation and compassion. i am perplexed.
warm nights. cool mornings. autumn leaves. pressed clothes. unkempt hair. sad eyebrows. subtle smiles. mossy roofing tiles. inconspicuous rain puddles. unforeseen declarations. obnoxious laughs. shy chuckles. long awaited tears. everything citrus. unplanned evenings. mechanical pencils. vanilla. bear hugs. philosophical debate. non-philosophical debate. brand new. extraterrestrial life. donna. the aesthetics of dilapidation. soy hot chocolates. faux judgement. small lies. her anorexic smile. the smallest of concerns finds a way of making itself heard. he worries and she shakes. silently screaming. ironically the clichéd melodrama renders itself redundant.

carefully. introspectively. you carve out the phrases too close to your heart.

complain. bitch. moan.

i just ache a lot right now, and i didn't want to say it because i thought maybe it would go away but its not and so this is where i settle. writing it down. maybe explaining it will lead to accepting it?
with my pills i go to sleep and struggle, my collar bones feel as if they're bending and i change position to relieve them only the sudden removal of pressure is like the final straw. i wake up, sore shoulders; they get this feeling in them i'd never experienced before arthritis so i don't know how to explain it. it's like, my arm falls out of place, and while it's gone walk about, a nerve fills the empty space, only then my arm snaps back and the nerve gets caught and it's a sharp, hot pain that lasts until i manage to find the right way to grind my arm back out and get the nerve away. it's not relief though, it's just different. what was sharp and hot turns to dull and heavy, i really have no words to describe it other than that, but after a good half an hour it fades and mutates into the bad growing pains of your teenage years - or maybe toothache, only it's accompanied by this warm sensation. you know when you go to bed with sunburn? not when the blankets rub your skin, it's not that, it's when your body heat seems to be radiating and absorbing, it's that and growing pains. my wrists, knees are similar. parts of my spine feel bruised. when i forget my pills my ankles join in and everything is worse, deeper. it all certainly reminds me why i don't want to live to an old age.
and so i'm taking those pain pills on top of the other things right? the panadol and codeine ones? only you're not supposed to stay on them for long and i think it's got a part to play in my feeling funny sometimes - maybe not, and you mentioned they eventually ruin your stomach and i suppose i sort of figured they would. but what else am i supposed to do, my medication that feels like injecting potent alcohol into my flesh, the one causing me to so easily get bruises and making me susceptible to cancers, is no longer working right, my doctor doesn't seem too concerned and i don't care what those cards in that restaurant say, hope isn't any better.

these words. they stick to the back of my throat. they make me ache. you. you stick to the walls of my heart. so heavy. it has been raining so frequently. i swear it's every day. but it's not the rain i want. there are no pretty skies. the blood from my veins, the marrow from my bones. these words they stick to the back of my throat. i want to shake you out of this. away from this. you. your harshest critic. i fear for you. don't lose what they say. when it's sweet but it's wrong. don't take it for the wrong. maybe the sentence is false. but maybe it's a love that's true. these words. my throat. i can't speak. i couldn't speak. that silence. it wasn't me giving up. i'm going about it all quiet. going about it all wrong. i've never been right. i don't know how. not with this. socially stunted i freeze. i cry so very often. i ache and i bleed and i get lost. but there is fire inside of me and i will defend you. i will love you to forever. you are so very brilliant and so very capable and you will be so very accomplished.

because things are pretty. and people are so very pretty. and it breaks my heart in the best ways.

i hope you're not lying. i hope that smile is real. i hope you're feeling better than ever. i hope you get every pretty thing you deserve. if you're happy then it's okay. with happiness there's still empty but the fear ends. i just want all the remarkable things for you, beautiful. you are to be quietly celebrated in my heart.

how do you write a eulogy for someone still breathing?
i do not know stories of you. i know how you feel in a hug. i know the way your jumpers smell. i know the sound of your voice and how you're hard to understand when you're being funny because your dutch accent takes over. i know the twinkle in your eye when you get it, the way they crinkle slightly at the corners when you're amused, the way you drag your feet and the way your posture changes when you see your wife. forever a gentleman, forever a gentle man. i know the ripple in your laugh and the sound of your sleep. i know your qualia. i know your love. but these observations, they're not meant to be shared the moment you go. they are to be savoured and unaffected by bitter tears. they're to keep my heart warm and my smile bright. i don't know stories, i know small things. i know your favourite slippers and the container you use for your after dinner snacks - particularly peanuts ha. i know how you make your milo and the way you like your whiskey. i know that you love me. i will keep these things safe with me. i will keep you safe with me.

"how did she die?"
"excuse me? i'm sorry, no, she didn't die. but that doesn't make it any less tough. sometimes it's the watching them trying so hard to live that's hardest."

because, forever.

because I said forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever  forever. forever. forever. forever. forever.  forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever  forever. forever. forever. forever. forever.  forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. forever. and I mean forever. and I will never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never. never not mean forever.

at your place, i lay on the couch as you tucked yourself completely away under a blanket on the floor before me. while you were busy hiding yourself, you did your best to leave me bare. questions on questions. deflection on deflection. you like to ask me things you've already found your favourite answer to, questions with connections and anticipation, like my opinion is strong enough to affect reality. it's clear in your voice that these questions count. repeat, explain, explain in another way. i don't know a sensitive way to put a perceivably negative opinion about the fate of our future, especially to someone so hopeful. i don't want to upset you however i won't lie about my thoughts. all i can say is that they are merely thoughts, opinions, and that despite what they may imply to you, i love you and you're important. 

Opa Koster.

always the quiet one. s always spoke before, over, after, for me. at my grandparents she would consume everyone, debating and arguing, telling stories and lies, all as loudly as she could. i would sit and listen like the rest. i remember though, trying to ask questions or share a thought every so often only to be cut off. i would be on my way to discouragement and i'd look to opa. beautiful opa. and he'd look right back at me. not through me to her, not a glance to make me feel included. he'd look at me. he taught me to wink on these occasions. one eye, then the other. it took me a while but i got there. it was, it is, our thing. he makes me feel special. i love him.

it's once, and it's again.

Beckoning me backward.

i need thunder and lightning and torrential rain.
i love you for forever.

you know what i mean? such small words carry such weight. they're weighed down, begrudgingly they leave your tongue, falling flat in front of your hands. your fingers flutter over the letters; hide the lies, hide the truth, hide the misinterpretation. you fumble to find your pace, your trace. you could have a conversation with someone for hours and believe you understand one another, truth is they'll never really know what you mean. words are personal, sentences even more so, but we continue to try. we use gesture and touch in a vain attempt to convey our most honest of feelings but you don't know what i mean, not really.

blue tonight. unsure why. burning and pulsing. embers of something, is it yet to come or has it burnt out? i suppose it's just knots of wrong but i can't place what it's referring to. what have i forgotten, or has something forgotten me? fog will clear, there is rain, day turns to night and things will be fine.

You still cross my mind from time to time and I mostly smile. Still so set on finding out where we went wrong and why. So I retrace our every step with an unsure pen, trying to figure out what my head thinks, but my head just ain't what it used to be and then again, what's the point anyway

I remember you ascending all the stairs up to the balcony to see if you could see me hidden quietly away. And I remember the skin of your fingers, the spot three quarters up I'd always touch when I was out of things to say. You held my hand but you were too afraid to speak. You were too afraid to speak and I could never understand. I remember when you leaned in close to kiss me and I swear not a single force on earth could stop the trembling of my hand.

I remember how you smiled through the smoke in a crowded little coffee house and laughed at all my jokes. And I remember the way that you dressed and how we wasted all the best of us in alcohol and sweat. And I remember when I knew that you'd be leaving, how I barely kept up breathing. And I bet if I had to do it all again, I'd feel the same pain. And I remember panicked circles in the terminal in tears, how I wept to God in fits, I've hated airports ever since.

It must be true what people say that only time can heal the pain and every single day I feel it fade away but I still remember how the distance tricked us, and led us helpless by the wrist into a pit to be devoured. I still remember how we held so strong to this, though we had never really settled on a way out. I still remember the silence and how we'd always find a way to turn and run to our mistakes. I still remember how it all came back together, just to fall apart again. My dear, I hear your voice in mine. I've been alone here, I've been afraid, my dear. I've been at home here, you've been away for years, I've been alone.

I breathed your name into the air. I etched your name into me. I felt my anger swelling. I swam into its sea. I held your name inside my heart but it got buried in my fear. It tore the wiring of my brain, I did my best to keep it clear. So dear, no matter how we part I hold you sweetly in my head and if I do not miss a part of you, a part of me is dead. If I can't love you as a lover, I will love you as a friend. And I will lay a bed before you, keep you safe until the end.

reckless abandon

like no one's watching you.

just boil the kettle and make yourself a drink.
the sprinklers are on, and it seems like rain. the forecast is always wrong. 

vernon

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

your delicate introduction has turned bitter. you are right but your words are wrong. how can words be wrong? as merely tools they have no say in how they are used.
used. a means to an end. they're used.
you express what you want and give little thought to how vital each piece was to your puzzle. what do they really mean? what do you really mean? your words are wrong.

my other blog

idlekind.tumblr.com

"I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something." — Sam, The Two Towers

so disheartening when i think i'm speaking loudly, then the person's like 'jsyk i can't actually hear you, i'm just pretending i can'.

oh.

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”

- David Hume

salty lips and squeaky sand. the ice was sublime.
subtlety and wanting. your eyes grazed my face.
these small steps leave large prints.
not even a moment. 

just please. i can't and it's swallowing me. the bird outside my window is crying and the air is hot and dry. i can see the ground beginning to crack, small fault lines running back and forth, side to side. there is no water. no rain. every breath catches and every blink hurts. i can feel the blood in my veins, like fire. there is no ice. i drank out of a dirty mug today, only realising when it was too late.

i just need it to rain.

i dont want your money. i dont want your gifts. please dont buy me jewellery please dont buy me a hot drink. i dont want expensive things, i dont understand expensive things. i dont understand people who understand expensive things. i dont want your constant companionship or any type of hopeless devotion. maybe just an hour or two on a sunday morning, we can go for a walk - it's free. you can laugh at my jokes because i love to think im funny and you can tell me how my cat looks healthy because you know it's the way to my heart. we can go to a cafe and you can let me buy you a drink because you mentioned that you're thirsty. you can not watch me drink, because you know that it bothers me and you can oblige yet another double standard by allowing me to watch you do the same. you can keep your money to yourself, just give me your stupid chuckles and sly smiles. i really think its better for everyone.

"there is no conception in a man’s mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense.”

-Thomas Hobbes

I just want you happy.

26/1/12 Motivate me

Give me a path and I'll follow it, but I'd be lying if I said I'd make my own.

An idea is never enough for you, but I'm standing on the same spot I have for years and my feet are thick and heavy. I swallow the same words day after day through fear of disappointing you, only now have I discovered those words have turned to lead, seeping down under my skin, poisoning me in every sense.

I can't. Maybe another time. I don't know.