live loud. live with bravery, openness. be vulnerable. BE SEEN.

“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the “normal people” as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like “Have a nice day” and “Weather’s awful today, eh?”, you yearn inside to say forbidden things like “Tell me something that makes you cry” or “What do you think deja vu is for?”. Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others…” 

Timothy Leary

how many times is this going to happen before something changes?


i can't wrap my head around it.
i can't understand.
i truly don't see how it's possible.

yesterday as i was ordering groceries,
stocking shelves,
telling a joke or two

there was almost an alternate reality
on the other side of the country
on the other end of humanity

there were children, little humans, experiencing outrageous horror.
there were parents getting a phone call that they never in a million years imagined they would get.




makes me sick
makes me question a path in life


don't try to tell me that these children
these innocent, precious little lives
were somehow "destined" for this ....fate

don't try to tell me this event was sent to these families as a trial.
how dare you

no paycheck

blush too easily:
too often
at any emotional response.
laughter
anger
frustration
flattery
confusion
embarassment

strange crimson phenomenon in my cheeks.
why do you do this and why can't i stop you?

cry too easily:
in public
behind closed doors
in bed
in cars
when singing
when acting
when thinking
when reaching inside my heart
or breaking some wall down
[because contrary to popular belief i have them...]
and it feels literal, crashing

trust too easily:
too fully
others are wary
so why not me?
no apologies
until it makes me feel sorry
but i grovel at my own feet
to ask for forgiveness
for loving so hard that it hurts


wearing my heart on my sleeve
is kinda my day job

you'll have to excuse me but i just saw some breathtaking theatre so obviously i'm thinking and typing

my head is spinning
no
literally
or i guess it's just my brain doing this thing to my eyes so i can't focus


it's actually making me dizzy

but that's not the point
and in the words of tom, let's get to the point.

i'm sitting here and the breaths come in short spurts
paralyzed waist down
because i just can't understand it.

just imagining how much hurt we can feel over one thing. one person. one event.
we have a huge capacity to hurt, and an even bigger capacity to feel pain. but there is a threshold. at some point, it gets to be too much and we do something to change this; we try to take control of the pain. right? the blade can't go any deeper so we pull it out or we just live with it there, accepting its point, its blade in our kidneys. going about our daily routine as if we haven't lost this much blood...

eating lunch and someone says, "oh what's that?" "oh nothing just this knife i've been carrying around."




one minute we're eating some peanut butter on toast and walking by the neighbor's house to pick some flowers and the next minute we're ON THE GROUND IN THE FETAL POSITION because something is missing and it turns out someone walked away with it without leaving a note.
no message, no symbol.
nothing.
NOT EVEN A WARNING!
how dare you!

or maybe 23 something warnings that we chose to ignore or just couldn't see quite clearly (did you send them to the right number? my email has changed...)


but you know what the sickest part is?
you know what's really fucked up?

we do this to each other. humans.
i know you have a heart and you are aware of these easy beats and yet

and yet.



i just wonder is all.
i just want to know how often we balance ourselves out by nourishing our capacity to love.
it's huge. or at least i think so.
even if you didn't mean to hurt someone...because it is unavoidable sometimes because what would this life be with only love and no struggle...

even if you didn't mean to.
do you make up for it?
do we need to?
i don't know.
don't we owe it to ourselves? to humanity?
i think we do.

speak volumes

there's no need to study the technicality of words
for they simply are.
yet here i am.
to be at a loss for words is falling without hope of a hand.
words pack a powerful punch,
they separate us from the wolves.

the words
we say are all
well and good.
well.
not all.
some taste bitter coming out.
but still,
thoughts
turn to
brave
sounds escaping
our mouths.
my favorite things.

but what if
the only thing
that really
counts
is what we
do with them?
saying
the three most famous words
and then
following them
with
gratitude and
a meeting of lips
or eyes
or hands
or understanding.
what if
the only thing
that really matters
is
who
we share
them with?
one channel, two waves.
space filled.
warm reception.

would
all the words
unfollowed
by action
be just a
waste?

or is it just
that the words
need be
open and
covered in
honesty?


i think words are just beautiful as they are.
i breathe better when they're born of me.




"somehow, i thought we would save each other."
"we did."

nature ramble

i needed to be in the mountains today.


it's strange how badly i needed it and how long it took me to get there.
i forget
how truly amazing it feels
to be part of all that.
nature.
teeming with life, with brilliance and the reflection of the sun in my eyes.
just like the water, rippled with the wind kissing its surface.
i forget, but then it dawns on me
that at the end of the day,
the sun is the only reason there is an end of the day.
king of the sky.
i forget that no matter how far away i feel from myself,
i'm made of the same stuff as
these rocks
these trees
this air.
this clean air.
and therefore, i am close by and all around.




these massive giant things shoot into the sky and overpower the city.
tower over humans
and trees
and creatures and
civilization and
really anything that surrounds them.
but when i'm up there,
they surround ME.
they support me.
and we feel the same,
the mountains and me.

some nights

are just too good to be forgotten.

and they're just so so so good when they're happening that it just kinda...displaces you momentarily. makes you forget where you are or what you're doing tomorrow or how you got there or where you're from or really 

who these people are

because 

are YOU the lucky one 

who gets to have these experiences with these smiling, golden, genuine individuals??

yes. yes i am. YES!

and maybe you think to yourself, as you're running up the ramp in the parking garage and climbing over cement barriers and singing too loudly

...and listening to the percussive echoes of your feet and snapping fingers bounce off the walls and into the free night air...

"this is the way things should be. i should feel like this all the time."

we're always searching for happiness,

but it finds us at times like that.

what else is life for?

it's those moments.

i'm sure of it.