please, remember me.

thick.

every day is an ending. each day a beginning. a cycle of hours and titles that we give slots of time. we restrain ourselves. naturally many things have happened over this most famous of restraints. exactly a year ago from today. the flutter in awe of cuff links and liquor glazed eyes. i could tell i loved because i was in pain. i think that therein lies how we know, how we know what our hearts already understand. you'll be in pain. my eyes are constantly tired, my body doesn't move like my mind wants it to. i know the change and i'm making it. it's not for you. it's for myself. a selfish desire that everyone concedes is good. i've stopped trying so hard and everything feels lighter. i've started embracing the daylight, knocking out plaster and papermached windows, scrubbing away grime to let the light filter in. it's a slow process, but i'm making it. i've become more emotional, more in tune with the depth of sorrow, the strains of sadness. it's made me desensitized. today, adam taught me something. he verified what i already felt. i've become more like you. i guess that's what my subconscious wanted, but i hate it. i hate how my hands are lackluster and fumble, how i can never seem to make it worth it. i hate how my heart feels empty, how it longs for something that it can't seem to find. on freshly placed pillows, my head turned towards a wall, my spirit shared a self-reflection that it hadn't intended. i'm impatient, as always, but i know that what awaits will be what i've wanted. nature does nothing in vain, right lewis? call it a spiral, call it a twister, call it a curl of ribbon that i wrapped around a vile of thoughts. it scares me when i start to forget, when i begin to reflect less. gretchen says that my problems are due to that, that constant need to reflect and plan. it's a defense mechanism, admittedly, but it's also my oxygen, how i survive. it hurts that i can't depend on myself. it stings how dependent i have become. right now words are swelling rapidly, acting as a fog, a heavy settling on my forehead. i used to wish for a pen that could tap this fog gently in hieroglyphics on a piece of paper or some blinking cursor. i found that pen. it's a chewed up bic, a topless paper-mate, times new roman. miracles can happen.

he died, i died, she killed herself. those same liquor glazed eyes grew warm to my own, who were new in their blinking fog, a different fog than the one i knew well. i was scared. i still am. i don't want to be that tide. i don't want you to be the moon. i want to be the tiny crabs that we dug up on the beach, wet and snug in their densely packed homes, somehow safe from the pounding of bare feet and water- only a tiny pock marking their addresses. i wonder how they get mail. i'll dig way down to protect myself from the pecking beaks of sea gulls. i'll squirm warm and panicked in the june sun, cupped in the palm of a curious someone who means no harm. misinterpreting their intentions, i'll flip and run, jumping off the cliff of their fingers and landing on my desert. i'll dig again until i find myself alone and shaken, breathing heavily in the darkness of my own tomb.

this is too dark and too deep, too many shades of blue and not enough green. i'm brighter than this, i swear. my fingers enter pillow cases and locks but my mind screams neons and ice water, slicing open the wound that you thought was healed. that was a mistake, but it was a mistake we all need to make. it reminds you that you are human. it reminds you that a year is just a year, that there is no reset button, and that all you can hope for is that you don't forget what you desire. sure i'll make my own resolutions, but a resolution can be made any day, any time, any fraction that you spend during this period of time that we call life. don't forget to listen to yourself. the twilight zone is on. guide yourself along that heavily shaded path, listen to the soft jangle of wind chimes and the scent of honeysuckle.

too much sleep

sleeping with nickels

i find comfort in the familiarity of my head.

it seems that i left it here all along.

the loneliness, too, is welcomed;

here it is a part of life.

so many people

so many cars

so many places to go

but it still feels empty

like the remotes that slide between cushions

and the numbness of legs that have been crossed for too long.

mountains have risen dramatically

where a valley once lay dreaming.

nostalgia and forgetfulness form a union

in a cathedral that's decorated for no one.

their bands overly extravagant

marking a relationship that'll inevitably be lost

simply by their pairing.

friends quote you sin quotation marks.

they seem to have forgotten the words of a year past

their minds and hands wiped clean of everything that

has been engraved on your palms,

written in your cereal.

you too, start to be confused by a past that once was constant.

doubting the spelling of words,

ruining jokes-

the timing seems to be off.

the white watch smiles condescendingly. 

it'll all work out.

you'll listen to the songs that everyone else has deemed noteworthy

similar to the stories of a year that are told repeatedly-

conforming in a seemingly alternative format

but conforming none the less.

you'll choose your doll clothes for the concealed audience

and, standing in the middle of the crowd,

you'll start to feel the creeping disappointment

of someone who's trying too hard 

to be noticed.

better in theory.

i'm done with bags of donated clothes

vs. money that slips easily through fingers

and mysterious holes in pockets.

it's an expressionless pain.

it's sometimes easier 

to start anew

than to try to make things work.

this makes me a failure

and a fatalist simultaneously. 

it's always easier

to start anew

but i'm growing too tired.

bite your tongue.

mimic the silence that you admire.

philosophy of the human being

i'm glad that we're always growing, always changing.

happily i'll return to billy joel records,

questioning the philosophy of desmond hume,

debating about questions we'll never have answers to-

just as long as i'm with you.

after i part ways with the moderate dualists and idealists,

shake hands with aristotle,

giving him my meekest smile,

i'll be on my way back to you.

make sure locke and hurley are ready.

“A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, and make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

fantastical aspirations 

like reading every book in the world

put into perspective 

the small feats that i accomplish day to day.

BIG LETTERS

i've started to fear emotions,

or at least being committed to them.

i used to be a sharp rock

jutting my teeth out of jagged navy waves

barking my opinions

making changes.

now i've become the muted wake

letting everything slide over

letting it pass

letting it be.

exclamations give away your naiveté;

it's overused.

BIG LETTERS show pretend anger;

you're not getting anywhere with it.

and where am i getting with an analysis of typography?

writing resurrects;

dissecting smothers the life,

leaving only ash.

i meant "atrocious."

December 4, 2010

"You will meet an important person who will help you advance professionally."

I think that none of my fortunes come true because I don't eat the cookie.

I feel like that's an incentive (sentive?);

it'll only be granted if you actually consume the cookie.

I can't be sure but I think that's how life works-

You can only receive the benefits if you do the work.

I guess I fail.

PS. My handwriting is terrible. (I'd say the "a" word, but I don't think my drunken mind can handle it.

-Michelle Campbell

Who'd think I'd be here now?

Footnotes:

This was a four thirty am. rambling on a piece of notebook paper ripped from my friend's binder, which I struggled to find in his desk drawers for fifteen minutes. Please note the missing parenthesis, the usage of "who," and my inability to spell "atrocious" and "incentive." I personally like the end remark. It's the only truthful aspect.

draft from: december 3, 2010

i was hoping that you'd have a cooler winter coat.

you know, one that was as impractical as mine.