When it starts to crack...

Bruises on both my knees...

There's always a siren, singing you to shipwreck. Some of us may be more susceptible than others, but none of us escape its alluring call. It may be with us all our lives, or it may be many years or decades before we find it or stumble upon it in foreign waters. But when it does find us, if we're lucky we're Odysseus tied up to the ship's mast, hearing the song with perfect clarity, but ferried to safety by a crew whose ears have been plugged with beeswax. If we're not lucky at all, we're another sort of sailor stepping off the deck to drown in the sea.

I am the wisdom of the fallen...

How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by such misunderstandings? How many opportunities have you been denied - or, for that matter, awarded - because someone failed to see you properly? How many friends have you lost, how many have you gained, because they glimpsed some element of your personality that shone through for only an instant, and in circumstances you could never reproduce? An illusion of water shimmering at the far bend of a highway.

Maybe from as early as when you're five or six, there's been a whisper going at the back of your head, saying: one day, maybe not so long from now, you'll get to know how it feels. So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you - of how you were brought into this world and why - and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it's a cold moment. It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.

At least we stick together...

Danger, warning, good morning -

is it dark outside or light?

Last night was sordid, 

but we conquered the boredom,

we wanna be cool and liked, 

but you won't see me crawling.

Don't wanna make this awkward,

I'm feeling nauseous,

and I'm seeing four of us,

but we came with five,

and we don't waste time,

we're live or die,

but we choose life.

Can't forget what you can't get back...

What if you were wrong? What if everything you ever believed was a lie? What if you missed your opportunity because you didn't know your worth? What if you settled on familiar, but the universe was trying to give you something better? What if you decided not to go backwards, but forward? What if doing what you have never done before was the answer to everything that didn't make sense? What if the answer wasn't to be found in words, but in action? What if you found the courage to do what you really wanted to do and doing it changed your whole life?

Rescue me while I'm by myself...

A place just for me...

Give up the ghost...

He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices had burst from a side-street a little way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep loud scream that went humming on like the reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It's started! he had thought, though deep down inside he knew it wasn't that big of a deal. He imagined it like a tattoo. It won't hurt, not too much, just a few stitches and it'll be all over. It's really interesting how it's done. You won’t believe where your soul hides. Go on, take a guess. Where do you think it is?

Drown the noise down...

I just want time in a tree,

I need a place just for me.

Somewhere that I can be free,

keep the faith and just be

what you'll be.

My watch has ended...

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, but that is how much failure can hurt you. Yes it's life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember - if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that's where you want to be.

Disappointment's cousin is frustration, the second storm. It happens when things are stuck. Sometimes things take so long that you don't know if you chose the right goal. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. What you need, is a realistic assessment of the time involved - seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result - at least I was learning how to write or even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life - friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign that you took something way too seriously. Nothing is real after all.

Living for each other...

Anxiously he asks; is there a way to safety? Can someone guide me? Is there an escape from threatened destruction?' The answer is a resounding yes. I counsel you: Look to the lighthouse of the universe. There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what its beacon light can rescue. It beckons through the storms of life. It calls, This way to safety; this way to home. And you don't have to be afraid of being happy, thinking that your happiness will be taken away from you. Because when you've had a taste of bliss, it helps you recognize the difference between good and evil. Loving people shows us what heaven is like. They aren't waiting to punish you and you aren't given blessings just for them to be stripped away.

Riding until I can't no more...

I never think before I jump...

The situation had grown worse. He didn't believe it possible. How much worse would things get before they could finally start to get better? Was there no end to this madness? For he finally realized that It's not that we have to quit this life one day, it's how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains. He realized that one day all of those things shall be gone. In a flash of a moment. As if nothing ever actually happened.

You're the only one of you...

I know I never think before I jump,

and that's the kind of life I want.

I know never leave well enough alone,

and trouble's gonna follow where I go.

But one of these things is not like the others,

like a rainbow with all of the colors.

Baby doll, when it comes to a lover,

I promise that you'll never find another like me.

It's poison but tasty...

Feel the air that I breathe...

Shortly afterwards it started raining, very innocently at first, but the sky was packed tight with cloud and gradually the drops grew bigger and heavier, until it was dismal rain that was falling - rain that seemed to fill the entire world with its leaden beat, rain suggestive in its dreariness of everlasting waterfalls between the planets, rain that thatched the heavens with drabness and brooded oppressively over the whole countryside, like a disease, strong in the power of its flat, unvarying monotony, its smothering heaviness, its cold, unrelenting cruelty. 

Smoothly, smoothly it fell, over the whole shire, over the fallen marsh grass, over the troubled lake, the iron-grey gravel flats, the somber mountain above the croft, smudging out every prospect. And the heavy, hopeless, interminable beat wormed its way into every crevice in the house, lay like a pad of cotton wool over the ears, and embraced everything, both near and far, in its compass, like an unromantic story from life itself that has no rhythm and no crescendo, no climax, but which is nevertheless overwhelming in its scope, terrifying in its significance. And at the bottom of this unfathomed ocean of teeming rain sat the little house and its one neurotic writer.