Upside down like an hourglass...

You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything ... or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain. So as I stand before you, having walked that long road to freedom. I have tried my best not to falter along the way, though I have surely made many missteps. I have discovered that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills above the horizon. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for chasing ones dream comes with responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended - not ended at all.

Bleed within my love...

Beyond the ocean size, I'm unaware,

locked out the other side,

like I was never there.

They said the boat had sailed.

I'd left them there,

oh how the wind would wail -

like I was never there.

I wonder what's mine...

He drove amid pouring rain and, turning his head, he glanced out at the bleak brown buildings of the projects that stretched for blocks along the drive. Something inside him sank at the sight of all that sameness, and he suddenly felt defeated. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. In the past year, he'd started experiencing these moments of desperate emptiness, as if nothing really mattered, nothing was ever going to change, there was nothing new. Meanwhile, time was marching on, and all that was happening to him was that he was getting older and smaller, and one day he would be no bigger than a dot, and then he would simply disappear. All his life, he'd been striving and striving to become this thing that was himself - the entity that was Jean Karr. And then, one morning, time had caught up with him and he had woken up and realised that he was there. He had arrived at his destination, and he had everything he'd worked so hard for: he should have been thrilled. But instead, he felt tired. Like all those things belonged to someone else.

The rhythms of the shooting stars...

When it's only a game...

As the culmination of the last year comes to its precipice, I find that I have perhaps chosen the wrong people to bear the weight of my dreams, and I have learned that when in pursuit of my desires, I am my only true ally, for no one else can see the path I so vividly manifest every time I close my eyes. "Here goes nothing", I think as I prepare for one final jaunt. "Be gentle", I pray as I fall from the sky and plummet towards the rock hard concrete. If nothing, it was fun. It was fun to dream of a world where my inner most creativity finds a voice within the harsh realities of existence. But alas, one has no choice but to admit defeat when it's staring you right in the face; no other way than to retreat, and hope to set sail another day.

Looking from a window above...

It's getting harder to stay...

Looking from a window above,

it's like a story of love -

can you hear me?

Came back only yesterday,

I'm moving farther away,

want you near me.

All I needed was the love you gave,

all I needed for another day.

And all I ever knew,

only you.

These stolen moments...

As the time came to finally unveil what I've been working this past year on, I couldn't help but turn to someone who has been with me from the start. I expected him to be harsh and real, but what I got was so much more gut-wrenching. He was not overly critical or hateful. He was simply ... disappointed. And with that single let down look, he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound, then from my eyes, my ears, my mouth. It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being a disappointment soaked the grass, the bricks of the path and the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout, and it was in that very moment, I realised that the stars were once and for all taken from my reach.

Falling from grace...

Give me to the world...

Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. Being content has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand. Maybe the truth is, there's a little bit of loser in all of us. Being happy isn't having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it's about stringing together all the little things.

It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder - or impossible - to lose. So as I stand on the brink of something great, of something I cannot quite put my finger on, I look back at the road that brought me here. I think of the times I thought I was through, of the times when it seemed that nothing I do holds any meaning, any sway with the gods above. I picture the agony I once held so dear, for which I believed there was no cure, yet it was as simple as writing these words. One does not grow, because of want. One grows because of need. Something so inherently wrong, that you have no choice but to find newer meanings and newer fields to reap. Something brighter than the stars, something that can lead you home.

Scared of crowded places...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm not sure who the first person was who said that, but as far as my writing and life goes, it's the sentence that best explains my most tragic flaw. Staying exactly the same for as long as possible, standing perfectly still - it feels safer somehow, more manageable. And if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar. So you choose the road already travelled and it doesn't seem that bad. Then, despite all odds, comes the day, when we finally do change. And it's not like an earthquake or an explosion, where all of a sudden we're this different person. I think it's smaller than that. The kind of thing most people wouldn't even notice unless they looked at us really close. Which, thank the universe, they never do. But you notice it. Inside you that change feels like a world of difference. And you hope this is it. This is the person you get to be forever, that you'll never have to change again.

Desert plain, ocean wave...

Flash back to a year ago,

count stacks, fifty-two ago.

All the hope, drop down like a domino,

but we let it go on and on.

Back to the world where we can see,

echo strong, river deep, concrete hazy. 

Won’t you take a ride with me? 

It’s easy come never go,

please make way for telephones.

Call me crazy, call me slow -

go hang up, but won’t you take a ride with me?

Seconds, minutes, hours, lifetimes...

All I ever wanted was to live a life where I could be me, and be okay with that. At my core, I don't really have need for material possessions, money or even close friends with me on my journey. I never understood people very well anyway. All I need is my writing and the chance to be the creator of my own world, my own reality. I crave the open road and new beginnings every day. Because I am not a Sunday morning inside four walls with clean sheets and organised drawers. I am the hurricane setting fire to the forests at night when no one else is alive or awake. I live in my own flames - sometimes burning too bright and too wild to make things last and so I run. Run far and wide until my bones ache and my lungs split and it feels good - so good indeed.

Hands up for a miracle...

We can get high, we can get low...

In the name of love...

I have decided that it's high time I told you about the new person in my life. I'm not really sure why I kept him to myself for so long. I guess I was trying not to repeat the mistakes of my last foyer into the clutches of the heart, yet as I've learned, doing something because of past loss, is just as bad as not doing it for the same reason. As long as what has transpired holds any sway on your present decisions, you aren't actually free, and god knows I haven't made it easy for myself - refusing to lose sight of who came before. If nothing else, it is to remind myself that love is possible even in the darkest of times, between the most unlikely pairings. So here it goes; Awhile back I've met someone ...

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to have sex every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an inconceivable piece of art and an unfortunate accident - one that is bound to lead you somewhere - bound to lead you everywhere.