Time Out of Mind

My heart comes with a shut off switch that triggers involuntarily.

One second I'll love you, the next I'll let my mind wander and my heart wander farther.

I'm sorry, I don't mean it. I can't help it.

It's a manufacturing defect.

I have a beautiful exterior, capable of fulfilling all the qualities you desire in a companion.

But my heart, my center, experiences an involuntary shut down after an unpredictable amount of time.

Though before this happens you'll be loved sweeter than you've ever been. You'll hear all the words you've wanted to hear. The imprint on your mind will be everlasting.

You can try to oil the gears. You can try to upload your logic. You can bring all the reason and fury from your mind and heart in an attempt to make this anomaly go away.

But you can't.

I suppose there's always a chance I could overcome it. Perhaps with the help of so many doctors and chemicals.

But try as you might, love me as you might, despite being the best I'll likely ever find, you can't stop the weight of my brain triggering the switch in my heart.

I'm sorry. At least, I think I am -- everything's so hard to figure out.

Feelings are confusing, and your attempts at goading me into feeling are infuriating because I'd like them to work but they don't.

I'm sorry but don't know how to say it.
Scared, but don't know how to show it.

You walked away.
I didn't beg in person.
I save it for the shower, when I can swallow my pride and let God sort out the tears from the water.

You walked away.
I cried but not for long.
I save it for when I'm alone, and the light from the stars bleeds with my bleary vision.

You walked away.
I couldn't do anything to help you.
I still think long and hard, though, about how I can save you from the pain you're in.

I can't walk away.
Your footprints are getting hard to track.
Your image wavers on the horizon, and I'm just waiting for you to look back.

Like home

Let's be honest, things have been screwed up for a long time.
The wounds I have cut beyond the bone, and heal oh so slowly.
I want so bad to find a place where I feel like I belong,
but I'm starting to realize that I've already been there.
The place I've felt like myself, like I could find my home, was always with you.
You feel like home. Like the blue stucco walls and dried out tree steps I grew up with;
like the comfort I found in microwaving my own food or doing my own laundry because my mom wasn't around.
You feel like home. Like the smell of the grass I used to cut, or the feeling of the worn blue couch I spend so many nights of my life waiting for you on.
Someday I'll have another home, but I'll always remember the way you brought me back to where I've been trying to get all along.

Finger dancers

Fingers dancing delicately, like I'm making pictures in the sand.
To the passerby it might look boring, but it's entrancing; writing out words I'll never speak, and that my canvas can't understand.
It's soothing for everyone who's apart of it, bonding in a way that would sound silly if we applied the words.
Watching as tiredness sets in, and the worries of the day meander away with the passing of my hands, I know that this is what makes life worth living, these precious moments shared so nonchalantly.

It's no secret...

It's not a secret that I took the layoffs at 1up very hard. While I know I wasn't the only one, I find that I am the quickest to have it show outwardly. Losing the job at 1up was the end of a long dream I've had in my head. Not only did I lose a job at the only enthusiast press outlet that I felt I could work at, but I was going to lose out on the daily time I got to spend with the people I care about the most.

I'll miss meandering around the floor, bantering with Alice, Tina, Nick, Phil, and Justin.

I'll miss the times when I could steal Alice's guitar and squeeze in a few moments of play to calm my nerves when things were starting to go south.

I'll miss the satisfaction of seeing my own name make it into print.

I'll miss the cold mornings and early evening times that I got to spend walking home in company of people I love.

A lot of good came from the job. Not only did I make money and get myself semi-established in the industry, but I was also able to use it to get a job for friends of mine, taking them out of shitty situations and hopefully placing them in some capacity where they can achieve all the things they were meant to.

It's hard to not be excited with all the potential that's floating around, but I'm scared to death of how I'm going to pay for life here in a month or so. Still, even with all the hardship of job and money, I find myself thinking more about the immaterial things I lack -- and how I'd give most anything for that not to be true. Money can fill the walls of my house and the space in my wallet, but can't do anything about the growing maw I feel in my chest each day when I wake up.

This song, even if you don't like it, says a lot of what I'm feeling.



You're a boomerang...you'll see.

Christmas time

December is always a long month for me. Back in Highschool I lost the first girl I loved in December for the first time. And later, when we got back together when I was in college -- in between which I dated no one -- she left me again in December. I still gave her a Christmas present that year...one that I poured a piece of myself into.

Years later and it's another December. I know the year is based on the same 12 months it was back then, but it always sneaks up on me. If there is some cosmic wheel I'm running for a god's amusement, I'd just like to say it's getting more than a little tiring.

I'm tired of losing the ones I love in December. I'm tired of exchanging words that have some sort of finality to them -- the type of words where I know I'm losing something and I have no control over it.

I'm pouring myself into another Christmas this year, hoping to make a small mark upon your heart before it pulls away for good. And years later, when we're older, someone will look at that heart of yours and see our initials carved into it, along with the year that marked the start of when I was in love with you, and they'll know that someone made an impression upon your life.

I'd give most anything for that to be me, staring back at an aged scar that I put there myself.

I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.

I was wrong

About a lot of things. I thought we were in the same place, but I was asking too much to have you meet in the middle. I'm starting to wonder what else I've interpreted wrong.

I'd give anything to feel those heart strings wrapped around me.

Someday. Perhaps. Probably not.

It's going to be a cold, cold December -- and an even longer year.