I am king...

It's hard to write something meaningful when you feel like you have to. Sometimes I even put so much pressure on myself that I think it might be easier if I stop altogether. It would be easier for sure. But I think I found, albeit far later than most, that the important moments in my life that would even be worth writing about, are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. My story it seems will be measured by these.

Go to war for material to sing...

He tried to live a good life and devote it to be as honest as possible. And he was always quite sure the world would never reward him for his efforts. Such a thought would be the ultimate in self-deluding self-aggrandisement, for why would the world care one iota about him? Now, however, he wondered if he had been wrong. Now, he thought that maybe, just maybe, if you lived a good life, the universe - this cold, cold world - might just reward you, but not in ways he imagined or necessarily wanted. Acceptance, and peace above all, were the accolades. The knowledge that he did at least something worthy throughout his journey. The small things. Not statues or songs in his name. But love in the eyes of those he's fighting for. 

Strange claws scratching at my skin...

I need my golden crown of sorrow, 

my bloody sword to swing.

My empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology.

I am no father, I am no husband, 

I am King.

Something new begins to take...

You are wrong. You are profoundly and disturbingly wrong about a spectacularly large number of things. You accept facts that are not facts, values that are incompatible with each other, and a fair number of truly dumb ideas about how to change the world. If you ever really understood the extent of your wrongness, you would never trust another word you said.

Think of the end when you begin. Though it may not be all that certain, you are sure to get there. Bind yourself to persistence and tenacity, courage and vigor, wisdom and faith, and dare unrelentingly. Life is an adventurous journey and you cannot forever skip mistakes and when you make them, be sure to learn at least something valuable, whether it's about yourself or about he world around you. Have the courage to take different routes to your final destination. The meaning we have given our journey is fabricated on the notion that anything has meaning. But it seems we are slowly finding out, that very little does. Because what are we all chasing? To live, of course. To be unbound from the invisible ropes. Or to be happy in them, at least.

My empty halls to echo...

What else is there to do...

Freedom is a highway...

We are all damaged. We have all been hurt. We have all had to learn painful lessons. We are all recovering from some mistake, loss, betrayal, abuse, injustice or misfortune. It's the great common denominator of the human experience. No one is left out or given a pass. In a sense, all of life is a process of recovery that never ends. We have to find ways to accept and move through the pain and to pick ourselves back up. For each pang of grief, depression, doubt or despair there is an inverse toward renewal coming to us in time. Each tragedy is an announcement that some good will indeed come in time. Be patient with yourself. Or risk losing it all.

If this don't sound mighty good, I beg your pardon...

Well I don't mind the slowdown anymore.

I don't mind the sound of my shoes on your floor,

I don't mind selling out or writing cheesy scripts,

just as long as friends and family read along.

And I don't need more money or a faster car, now

don't need a magazine to call me a superstar, no,

I'm gonna take this little house and make a home,

and then I'll never have to face my nights alone.

Two by land, by air, by sea...

The sea may catch fire, the planets may collide in space, the sun may quench off its heat, but what I understand is that my peace is like a river in my soul; it's surface may wave about in turbulence, but it's bottom is cool and gently calm! And it's true what you might have already thought ... I've been drowning, for awhile now actually. I'd been flailing on the surface since last year, but what I really needed to do to save myself was let myself sink. It struck me that this is why we say to people, "calm down". Because beneath the noise of the pounding, swirling surf is a place where all is quiet and clear. The chaos stills in this deep.

I'll never have to face my nights alone...

Circles around this town...

I wanted to get it all down on paper; a record of what happened, just in case something did happen to me and to try and convince myself that I was not living in a state of permanent delusion. But why should you accept this story as given? It’s just a story. My story. And like all stories, it isn't, in the pure sense of the word, true. It's just my version of the truth. Which means it is, and isn't true at all.

Understanding what it means to die, to sever oneself of the foolish hope for immortality, is what allows us the capability to appreciate simple pleasures and endure whatever hardships living a full life requires. Eternity is beautiful whereas time is unredeemable and problematic. Our faith, our hopes, and our love exist only in points of time. We discover eternity by avoiding the snares of prejudice and mental delusion, using the memory of whole civilizations to understand the past, and employing human consciousness to transcend fluctuations in time. Now we just need to accept it. 

Sand in my boots...

We don't talk about it anymore...

The moments of silence are gone. He runs from them into the rush of unimportant things, so filled is the quiet with the painful whispers of all that goes unspoken. Busy-ness is his drug of choice, numbing his mind just enough to keep him from dwelling on all that he fears he can't change. And the list of those things seems to get bigger with each passing day. Has he become a compilation of coping mechanisms? Has he become his fatigue? Unwilling or unable to cut himself free of this machine he has built, he's dragged in its wake all too quickly toward his. Wherever and whatever that may be. 

The straw in the stack...

I'm the strong one, I'm not nervous,

I'm as tough as the crust of the earth is.

I move mountains, I move churches,

and I glow because I know what my worth is.

I don't ask how hard the work is,

got a rough indestructible surface,

diamonds and platinum, 

I find them, I flatten them,

I take what I'm handed, 

I break what's demanding.

It all fades to black...

He has a wild imagination for a heart, and ink runs through his veins, he'll write you into his story with the typewriter in his brain. His bookshelf is getting crowded with all the stories that he's penned, of all the people who flicked through his pages but closed the book before its end. And there's one pushed to the very back, that sits collecting dust, with its title in his finest writing, 'The One's Who Lost My Trust'. There’s books he's scared to open, and books he doesn't close. Stories of every person he's met stretched out in endless rows. Some people have only one sentence while others once held a main part, thousands of inky footprints that they've left across his heart. You might wonder why he does this, why write of people he once knew? But he hopes that he meant enough to someone of those to write about him too.

Who can say where the road goes...