Since I was five I've wanted to live in a house with a library.  Go ahead, blame it on Beauty & the Beast.  But I've always imagined a room, not even a large room, but just a room with floor-to-ceiling shelving.  When I was a kid I used to bury myself under my dad's books.  I would pull them off all the shelves and lay them around me and on top of me.  I couldn't even read, but I just loved the mystique of words; I knew they contained something special, and that one day I would know exactly what. Till then, I wanted to surround myself with them...and I still do.  It's just a safe place for me, where my spirit can run wild and my mind can drink in some solace.

Confession:  when I imagine Heaven I see two things—endless greenery, and sitting in a library room with comfy chairs and blankets, talking to God and being read to.  I don't know why, but it just seems like the most intimate place to me, I guess because I sometimes see God as an old, quirky grandpa who smokes a pipe and wants to share stories with you because he's always trying to get you to live your own—like C.S. Lewis mixed with Mr. Coreander from The NeverEnding Story or something.

Feel free to roll your eyes, I'm pretty sure you just got a glimpse of the corniest side of me. But, you can't deny the charm of the book-house I discovered on Yahoo!  Not a library mind you, a house.  It's literally constructed so that every space—every room, every wall—serves as shelving.

It's not quite Heaven, but it makes me feel one step closer.

I Walk A Little Faster

Romantics tend to take the world a little harder, and hope for the best anyway.

Landlocked

I once read that every pearl derives from a single irritant of sand.  My only question: which way to the sea?

Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve

I pulled up the neck of my sweater before I knocked on your door today.  The story etched on my skin is not one you want to know.  Even though it traces something beautiful.

So, I buttoned another button before I served you your eggs.  I layered my hair over my shoulders before I hugged you goodbye.  Because I love you, and understand how helpless exposure can make you feel.

But I could not conceal the breath of release that escaped, when I closed the door behind me and could shed what was not my own.  Or suppress the ease of my smiles, when he presses his lips against my raised colors and whispers, "You're healing nicely."

Midnight

Sometimes I wonder how many people stay up at night mulling over the things they didn't do.  Words that went unsaid.  Stories that went unwritten.  Touches that were never embraced.  Hearts that were never shared.

In the mornings, we all get up and look out at a world weighed down by so much pain.  We drive in it, we demand our iced venti bolds from it, we mindlessly kiss it goodbye and rush to side-step another version of it outside our door.  We catch reflections of it in our monitors, staring back at us.

And tonight, I lie awake and I can't help but wonder how much of it has been magnified—how much of it has been perpetuated—because today I was too afraid to let people know I seem them, I am affected by them—by all of it—and care.

And I am overwhelmed.  I never want to lose another minute of sleep because I was too afraid to actively and intimately live.

We will be misunderstood, we will be imposing at times, we will not say the right thing, and we will undoubtedly hurt people.  But I'm beginning to suspect the real truth to be feared is: nothing is as painful and damaging as love withheld.

Yet another reason why I love Cormac McCarthy...

No Country for Old Men - pg 22

Infinite.

Yesterday I veered off my set reading course with much delight and started The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a book Quinn recommended some time ago after we spent an afternoon listening to his Smiths records.  I was laying on the couch drifting in and out of consciousness, blurring Morrissey's dream world with my own when "Asleep" started to play.  I swear, I have never heard something so sweet and melancholy in my life.  I just sat up and listened...and Quinn went to the bookcase and moved it to my designated reading pile.  He knew Charlie and I would get along.

And I don't know why, but yesterday I just felt hungry and pulled it off the shelf.  I honestly think it was the green color.  I needed some lime green in my life.  So I went to my bed, closed the door and a hundred pages later the only way I could coax myself to sleep was to play "Asleep" on repeat.  It loops magnificently.

I once read in Rob Sheffield's, Love Is A Mix Tape, how he made a tape with his dad with nothing but "Hey Jude" on both sides.  I always thought that sounded magical, but couldn't think of many songs that could fade in and out seamlessly into itself like that.   But "Asleep" can.  So I fell asleep to "Asleep."  It's probably the most angsty, teen-ridden thing I've done as an adult.  But it was perfect.  Just a perfect moment.  I hope everyone has a song like that.

Anyways, I finished the book today.  I sat outside, climbed my first anything really, and sat on the island till my legs went numb, trying to read the last words under a melting sherbert glow.  I feel stirred.  I don't know what else to say.  But I feel glad to be me, and I'm thankful for my friends and family, and friends that are family.  And I hope when someone picks up something I write one day, I can make them feel that way, too.