Next thing you know...

Well, my dear guardian angels, in the shipwreck of life - for life it seems, has become an eternal shipwreck of my hopes - I cast into the sea my useless encumbrance, that is all, and I remain with my own will, disposed to live perfectly disjointed, and consequently free.

Did he understand, as those interminable minutes ticked by, that being alone is not the same as being lonely? That being alone is neutral state. Is it possible? That which is around him does not affect his mood; his mood affects that which is around him. Is it true? Could he have possibly appreciated the subjective nature of loneliness, which is something that exists only in the mind, not in the world, and, like a virus, is unable to survive without a willing host?

Dancing with my eyes closed...

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. It's not breathlessness, it's not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. 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 art and a fortunate accident. And after all these years, as the dust has been blown away, I find that roots that grow between us underground, and all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches. I find that we are one tree and not two.

My tiny desk...

Step by step, from town to town...

Spider-boy, king of thieves,

weave your little webs of opacity.

My blisters made your crown,

trick me once, trick me twice,

don't you know that love isn't the only price?

It's coming back around.

I come from the trenches...

I pictured this year a little bit different...

I made spasmodic efforts to work, assuring myself that once I began working I would forget. The difficulty was in beginning. There was a feeling of weakness, a sort of powerlessness now, as though I were about to be ill but was never quite ill enough, as though I were about to come down with something I did not quite come down with. I wondered, what was it that all my life I had so carefully guarded myself against? What was it that I had felt so threatened me? My suffering, which seemed to me to be a strict consequence of having shielded myself so long, appeared to me as a kind of punishment, and this moment, which I was now enduring, as something which had been delayed for half a lifetime. 

I was experiencing, apparently, an obscure crisis of some kind. My world acquired a tendency to crumble as easily as a soda cracker. I found myself horribly susceptible to random awkward encounters, the fantasises that defied even my shaky sense of logic, songs played late at night over lonely thoughts. It became particularly dangerous for me to start conversations that would imply the smallest amount of dissension. I had become excessively tender to all the more obvious evidences of the frailness of existence; I was capable of dissolving at the least kind word, and self-pity, in inexhaustible doses, lay close to my outraged surface. I moved painfully, an ambulatory case, mysteriously injured. But no more. I am done, because in fact, there is no crisis, besides the voices in my head. 

I know things will get better...

It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

With all my heart...

About to go to war...

You live in my dream state,

relocate my fantasy.

I stay in reality,

and any time I count sheep,

that's the only time we make up,

you exist behind my eyelids,

now, I don't wanna wake up.

Somebody who can open these gates...

When nothing goes my way, when all attempts fail, when the darkest clouds in the sky seem bent on hovering over me while everyone with whom I come into contact flashes a nasty scowl, I find some comfort in the thought of a fresh tomorrow. I’ll try even when the odds are overwhelmingly against me. But I will make sure strings will be pulled, bridges will be burned, and the worst of pandora’s box will see light of day. Because I don't take take for granted that I get the opportunity to try again. To try again and fail better. 

I see the look on your face...

I'll be the rubber band...

Nothing was irrevocable; everything was within reach. He could make promises to himself and to other people and there would be all the time in the world to keep them. He could stay up all night and make mistakes, and none of it would count.

I saw my life branching out before me like a green fig tree. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple blob, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous writer and another fig was a brilliant politician, and another fig was Karr, the amazing gamer, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was the lawyer and editor and a pack of other lovers, and beyond these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

Carry me away...

Someone to help me sleep...

He broke. He began to cry, trying to hide his face in the shelter of his arms, for he could not find the strength to turn over. One of the other men, the sick old one, came and sat on the side of the cot and patted his shoulder. He raised his head with his frail hand, looked him in the eyes and said: hope for this. Hope for the infinite opportunity and oppression present in every single moment. Hope for the suffering that comes with freedom. For the pain that comes from happiness. For the wisdom that comes from ignorance. For the power that comes from surrender. And then act despite it.

Only wild open plains...

Oh river, come and carry me,

until I return to stone,

brave winged spirit, guide us home.

Don't slip away, stray with me,

forever like sand and the ocean,

don't slip away.

And life will lose all its meaning...

I thought at the time it happened that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe. That was when I also realised how difficult it is to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. To cross a bridge when it's been burnt down. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. I doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; I am lighting matches in vain under every green tree.