They'll wake up today to the papers that say, "Oh well. He was swerving, they were swerving, much too late."

Mary by Noah And The Whale

Oh the cold wet wind blew over the heather
You wrote Charlie and Mary for forever
On the back of a rock
That you picked up on the way
And in that perfect moment
I nearly ruined it
By saying I love you
And nearly meaning it
But you know I would never waste those words
Oh when I last saw Mary
She lied and said it was her birthday
Oh when I last saw Mary
She lied and said it was her birthday

But then she
Tried to kiss me
And I said Don't Bother
You know we don't really love one another
And there's no use
In burning out this flame
Oh but then things changed in a way I couldn't predict
She said I love you and it suddenly clicked
That she was only saying what she wanted me to hear
And I said
Please don't lie to me Mary
And I said
Please don't lie to me Mary

I said
Please don't lie
Oh it makes me cry in bed
I said
Please don't lie
Oh it makes me cry in bed
I said
Please don't lie
Oh it makes me cry in bed
And she said
Shut your mouth
You don't know what you're talking about
Oh she said
Shut your mouth
You don't know what you're talking about

I set my soul to sleep beneath your shoes

You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me, then,
And we'll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
Open to me!
For I will show you the places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!
I'll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I'll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.

You are tired (I think) by e.e. cummings

Out of my bed and onto playing russian roulette

Some soothing music by Two Sheds

And it ended up lasting much longer than I had previously imagined, and it elapsed much slower than I could have ever expected

Leaving the party

Evil urges

Merry Christmas

And the kitchen floor makes me sad, and the carpet on the floor rolls up, and the chair at my side walks on

You've taken over my mind. You've raped my thoughts with your image viruses then sold me fake cures for your own disease. Your words and pictures scream orders at me like angry prison wardens. When I cover my ears, your voices echo in my head. I hate you. When I see your billboards, your talk shows, your rock concerts and your factories, when I see the work of your twisted libidos, I want to kill you. I want to set fires, plant bombs, derail trains. I want to smash your buildings and tear at your bodies until the skin of my hands is worn to the bone. I am filled with a rage that burns my eyes.

I don't want to feel this way. You have done this to me. These feelings are the fruits of your multi-billion dollar sowing. And I am not alone. There are others like me out here. Every suicide, every madman, every man and woman who gets a gun and just starts shooting -- these are your illegitimate children. They don't all know what they are doing. All they know is hate for the invisible walls which you have raised around them, hate for the narrow path you have tried to make them walk. And the innocent pay in blood for your negligence.

Remember this: My mind is big. The more you try to push me down and make me small, the greater the pressure inside me becomes. The greater the pressure, the greater the chance of an explosion. There was once a time when I felt love, but now I feel only hate and anger, and fear at what I might do. And you can tell me to "BE HAPPY," but I know that you really mean "BE QUIET".

Believe me, I want to be happy. You stand in my way.

Found in a bathroom

Final countdown

Something Good by Utah Saints

Atlas

Now only a few more to go

Skhizein by Jérémy Clapin

You say I want to know all about the day we show how to make us say, "Music kills identity."

The Tyranny of Lowtide and Longouts by Me Succeeds

Anything much sweeter than you would make me die

I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.

John Green

Just not soon enough

David Foldvari

He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—"The horror! The horror!"

...I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men -- men I tell you.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Moonlight Sonata

The Alps with Ludwig van Beethoven

Everytime I try to walk away something makes me turn around

Men are disturbed, not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.

Epictetus

I fought for each breath for as long as I could

Vivian by Delta Spirit

Winter passing

Some say, death is the easy way and I think they're right.
Cause nights tick by like a long week except when you stop by.
And I know that tryin' gets nothing done and I see you're about dry.
Cause nothing gets you high, you're poor the day you die,
And alcohol it only makes you tired.
But seein' you feels good, and it's always understood
That anything much sweeter would make me die.

Death is the Easy Way by My Morning Jacket

His tombstone does not bear his name

When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men -- and a discharge for loving one.

Leonard Matlovich, a gay Vietnam War veteran

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn't like.

Will Rogers

Even if we don't we'll know

Community Service Announcement by Jonathan Boulet

Man is but a worm

Human eyes are so
obsessed with clarity. What
if truth is a blur?

News From Nowhere

"Act in such a way that you treat humanity... always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end."

You were reading Atlas Shrugged: I must admit, I was impressed,
(But how would I explore your mind while staring at your breasts?)
You were spinning candy dramas woven into cotton dreams,
Sharp as a bloody nail file, and as sweet as beaten cream,
Still, I felt angelic assets hidden there beneath your seems.

We drank a box of Peter Vella, fell into the night.
The others drifted off to bed. You whispered “I don’t bite.”
I covered you with kisses and you covered up my eyes,
So I wouldn’t see the pit you hid so snug between your sighs,
You let me lick your lilies while you spread your pretty lies.

I wound myself in your embrace—you fit me to a T.
Only it was lowercase, a shadeless, barren tree.
Your halo was a noose that you would hang from every day,
Your wings were lined with razor blades to slice my soul away.
You shed your robes and wore a thong to put it on display.

You prodded me for fantasies, I whispered in your ear
That I would be your Arthur and you’d be my Guenevere.
I lifted up the lid of your forgotten wishing well,
And felt a flame that made no light, but burned as hot as hell.
I tried to see the bottom but I leaned too far and fell.

For fifty months I tumbled, after forty I was numb.
My Guenevere had shark’s teeth, and I had turned to chum.
While you were getting furniture, I was getting bills.
While you were racked with laughter, I was getting chills.
While I was bursting blood vessels, you were popping pills.

Something stank in Denmark but it all remained a riddle,
Till you rode off with Lancelot and left me Lance-a-little.
So I’ll sit here in my tower and I’ll cry myself to sleep,
I tried to buy you heaven but the price was just too steep.
You left me here with nothing and it’s nothing that I’ll keep.

An angel made a monster out of loneliness and lust,
I knew that you had issues—it’s yourself that you don’t trust.
There is one final lesson here on which I can depend:
Not just alphabetically does lover follows friend.
To you I was a means; for me this is the end.

A Means to an End

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger

One fine day
About midnight
Two dead soldiers
Got in a fight.
Back to back
They faced each other.
Drew their swords
And shot each other.
A deaf policeman
Heard the noise.
Came out and
Killed the two dead boys.
If you don't believe
This lie it's true.
Ask the blindman
He saw it too

One Fine Day

Let me remind you how I wish he was here

My world is now harsh. No longer is it safe and clean, like a child left untouched -- one nobody ever played with.

Sometimes an event takes place that changes the way you see things forever. You will never look at someone the same way after such an event.

I cry as I write this but I'm not afraid to admit it. I hear the words "it's not fair" rise up again and again in my head but I find no satisfaction when they settle - nothing is fair, this is a fact; nothing ever will be fair.

I remember thinking after I heard the news, "All is lost - all is lost. I have lost everything. Nothing more matters." But what you shared with me before you left was the first step; I hear your last words still echo to me... "I'm not dead yet." I think I'll be able to make a few more steps before I see you again.

Of all the people to exist, you are the last to deserve such a fate. The amount of good you have created is measureless - the lives you have changed are endless. I will never forget the immeasurable bounds of knowledge you have taught me - the wisdom you have shared. Your ideals, your grounds, your stances - everything has stuck with me. Every day I've ever spent with you I spent with open ears, trying to capture and understand as much of your vast brilliance as I could. I promise you this: I will share what you have taught me with everyone I meet in my life that means something to me.

You have been more than a figure to me - you have been everything. I cannot name a decision of mine that can't be led directly back to you. For this, I owe you everything.

I can only hope to become a fraction of the man you are.

It is useless, we will die

His head down

When you find a man
Who transforms
Every part of you
Into poetry,
Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,
When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
Of bathing and adorning you
With poetry,
I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,
It is not important
That you belong to me or him
But that you belong to poetry.

Translation by Bassam K. Frangieh and Clementina R. Brown

In all that dark

No Country For Old Men by the Coen Brothers - Final Scene

Loretta
...How'd you sleep?


Bell
I don't know. Had dreams.


Loretta
Well you got time for 'em now. Any-
thing interesting?


Bell
Well they always is to the party
concerned.


Loretta
Ed Tom, I'll be polite.


Bell
Okay. Two of 'em. Both had my father.
It's peculiar. I'm older now'n he
ever was by twenty years. So in a sen-
se he's the younger man. Anyway, first
one I don't remember so well but it
was about money and I think I lost it.

The second one, it was like we was
both back in older times and I was on
horseback goin through the mountains
of a night.

...Goin through this pass in the moun-
tains. It was cold and there was snow
on the ground and he rode past me
and kept on goin. Never said nothin
goin by. He just rode on past and he
had his blanket wrapped around him and
his head down...

...and when he rode past I seen he
was carryin fire in a horn the way
people used to do and I could see the
horn from the light inside of it.
About the color of the moon. And in
the dream I knew that he was goin on
ahead and that he was fixin to make a
fire somewhere out there in allthat
dark and all that cold, and I knew
that whenever I got there he would be
there.

...Then I woke up.

And I could replace you with older pictures of you, from back when you looked happy.

Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens,
Bears have cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.

The Guppy by Ogden Nash

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

Walt Whitman

I'd give up most things today for those moments in my past again

A razor company once invited George Bernard Shaw to shave his famous beard. He responded with a postcard:

Gentlemen:

I shall never shave, for the same reason that I started a beard, and for the reason my father started his. I remember standing at his side, when I was five, while he was shaving for the last time. “Father,” I asked, “Why do you shave?” He stood there for a full minute and finally looked down at me. “Why the hell do I?” he said.

– GBS

"Make me young, make me young, make me young," he cries. "No, no -- take me back, instead... oh God, take me back..." His mind would often change.

Comment ça va?

Cord grain crunch

I woke up thirsty - it's hard to go back, you know

The Cove by Louie Psihoyos

This is why this life must stay

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Comprehend, my friend; learning is no longer enough

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust more dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold and dark and dreary.
It rains and the wind is never weary.
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past.
And youth's fond hopes fall thick in the blast.
And my life is dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart and cease repining
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining
Thy fate is the common fate of all
Into each life some rain must fall
Some days must be dark and dreary.

The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

New girl

Just Like by Beat Dis

So where can I find this place?

You have probably lied to yourself your whole life anyways

Forever's Not So Long by Shawn Morrison

Will we die?

Lemonade by Erik Proulx

We aren't who we say we are

My Apokalips

We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale.

It's been built.

Louie Evans, King of Boston

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly

Let Yourself Feel by Esteban Diácono

There were some ducks and swans and it was complicated

Gentlemen Broncos by Jared Hess

Red for the blood I'd spill to own it

Who gives his heart away too easily must have a heart
under his heart.

James Richardson

The heart under your heart
is not the one you share
so readily so full of pleasantry
& tenderness

it is a single blackberry
at the heart of a bramble
or else some larger fruit
heavy the size of a fist

it is full of things
you have never shared with me
broken engagements bruises
& baking dishes

the scars on top of scars
of sixteen thousand pinpricks
the melody you want so much to carry
& always fear black fear

or so I imagine you have never shown me
& how could I expect you to
I also have a heart beneath my heart
perhaps you have seen or guessed

it is a beach at night
where the waves lap & the wind hisses
over a bank of thin
translucent orange & yellow jingle shells

on the far side of the harbor
the lighthouse beacon
shivers across the black water
& someone stands there waiting

The Heart Under Your Heart by Craig Arnold

Rekindle my dwindling faith in humanity

Fantastic Mr. Fox by Wes Anderson

How you think I made this?

Where is the long way?

Tunnel Rat by Raf Reyntjens

I can still hear you, even through your whispers

You're one of the people who has left Plato's cave and can never return because of your knowledge of what it means to be human... You're blessed/cursed with the understanding of society.

C.H.

Maybe you were right

A Hole In The Sky

I am a mirror

Ten Things I Have Learned About The Sea by Lorenzo Fonda

And maybe you'd say, "I remember that boy..."

Blue Skies (The First Days of Spring film trailer) by Noah and the Whale

Thanks, thief, for the lesson

you
no faces
no faces at all
laughing at nothing
let me tell you
i have drunk in skidrow rooms with imbecile winos
whose cause was better
whose eyes still held some light whose voices retained some sensibility
and when the morning came
we were sick but not ill
poor but not deluded
and we stretched in our beds
and rose in the late afternoon
like millionaires

Millionairesby Charles Bukowski

If you have problems why don't you go solve them?

Tell me how, do I
Get to know you
You untie me as if I were a shoelace
You let out all I can hold between my buttons
With you I get nothing

Even if, I gave
You a mountain
On a bad day you don't think your are at the top of it
Then how can I change that
When it's in your fundament
You can't take a compliment

Take a rest with me
After a long day
Foots on the table
Don't take them down down down
Don't take them down

Is it your parents?
Or just the past
Or just the past

If you, should reach
What you aim for
Don't kid yourself to blame for
What's obviously not your fault
Then laugh this away
You won't get to hear
What I really have to say

What I see is not
What you think I see
And what I think
Is not what you think I think
I know me
But you don't know me
'Cause I don't know you

But...

Take a rest with me
After a long day
Don't take them down down down
Don't take them down

Is it your parents
Or just the past
Or just the past

Just The Past by Peter Bjorn and John

This is not how we planned it

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other form of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart

And this is it

Tour de France 2009

Thinking about tomorrow won't change how I feel today

Your absence has gone through me like thread though a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

W.S. Merwin

I seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination.

This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?

Private Witt, The Thin Red Line


Journey to the Line by Hans Zimmer

And all morning I woke up

Lisa and I made a fort that summer,
Way back behind the houses and the garden
With the rhubarb patch at the end:
Way out where the folks couldn’t see us.

We were full of great ideas.
We imagined scenarios in which our fathers
Would be slain in their suits by flocks
Of wild geese, and we dreamed up equally absurd

And violent films, or TV shows—most of which
Have now been filmed, or have happened
In real life. I guess we had our fingers on the pulse
Of the New Horizon, though lots of others did too;

But every generation thinks it’s the Lost Generation,
And we were bored. By August, me and Lisa’d
Taken to smoking her mother’s cigarettes,
Long and tarry and smelly, and Lisa could blow

Smoke rings. I couldn’t. She’d put one up there,
And say, "Don’t let it die a virgin!" and we’d stick
Our cigarettes through it like cocks, and giggle.

And then she’d kiss me,
Pressing me down into the rhubarb and my pulse
Would quicken: desire, the might-be of getting

Caught, the horizon I saw from my pinned-down side
Spanning out in frontiers of pinks and off-pinks.
Now, I can hardly remember the details of all that,

Only that I didn’t let it die a virgin,
In any case,
And to this day I associate the scents

Of cigarette smoke and sex—those and chlorine,
Of us swimming and laughing in the neighbor’s pool
Before going in, with the sun going down,

Trying to get it all off.

Don’t Let It Die a Virgin by Kevin McGowin

When we should be closest, part of me is still so alone

every so often
i can hardly
remember the sound
of your voice
or the awkward
rhythm
in your
walk
i'm losing you
all over
again

abstraction by w.c. pelon

When I die it will be the day when every one of my wrongs will be made right

William Saroyan said, "I ruined my
life by marrying the same woman
twice."

there will always be something
to ruin our lives,
William,
it all depends upon
what or which
finds us
first,
we are always
ripe and ready
to be
taken.

ruined lives are
normal
both for the wise
and
others.

it is only when
that life
ruined
becomes ours
we realize
then
that the suicides, the
drunkards, the mad, the
jailed, the dopers
and etc. etc.
are just as common
a part of existence
as the gladiola, the
rainbow
the
hurricane
and nothing
left
on the kitchen
shelf.

Ruin by Charles Bukowski

And when you know how few things there are worth knowing I suppose anyone who tries could forget

You're mostly what I think about and I'm proud

I sang to you and the moon
But only the moon remembers.
I sang
O reckless free-hearted
free-throated rythms,
Even the moon remembers them
And is kind to me.

I Sang by Carl Sandburg

Did anyone hear me cry there, through a toilet stall divider? I swear I care

Stalker's my whole style
And if I get caught I'll
Deny, deny, deny

Today you're 25
I made you something fine
It's in the palm of my new hand
It's out
You're mostly what I think about and
I'm proud
I've been coasting on this singles route
But I still hear your name
In wedding bells
Will I look better or will I look the same
Rotting in hell
You're the only proper noun I need
Hurry
My copper crown's gone green
Pull me, pull me on out of this tree
I'm stuck up a branch waiting
Clearly caught between
Two things unclear to me

Are you a female young messiah
For stowaways in dugouts
And are you what church folk mean
By the good news
Pulling plastic bags off heads
Or are you giving me a dirty look
In the rear view
Clicking the button on your u-ha pen
Don't pretend you didn't see me
Coming round the bend
On my fixie with the chopped corns turned in
Trailing behind your biodiesel bends

Stalker's my whole style
And if I get caught I'll
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny
Deny, deny, deny

25 carved with a butter knife
On the palm of my new hand
It's out
You're mostly what I think about

Simeon's Dilemma by Why?

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland trailer

I can't remember starting, and I'm never done.

There was a boy
A very strange, enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far, over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day,
One magic day he passed my way
While we spoke of many things
Fools and Kings
This he said to me

The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.

Nature Boy by Eden Ahbez

On days like this, I would like to just disappear

The man, his gaze. He paid with cash. I thought, together we could break the system. To break something alone is desperation, but to break things together --
What I miss most is not what you'd expect. I miss falling asleep atop the covers and him waking me up, his body bizarre.
Now I only wake up for a glass of water. Better after midnight, half awake, less distracted. I empty the glass and immediately refill it. I sip. I sip. I'm awake. Water is just water after all.

Water Water Water Cash by Tim Jones-Yelvington

Things we cannot hear, shall not hear, want not to hear, will never hear.

The street is ill lit by the shadows of inner city buildings and the lack of working roadside lampposts. Two young adults are waiting on the street curb, across from a bus stop. They sit a significant distance away from each other, but not enough for one of them to raise verbal concern. Clearly, they are two, but not at this moment. They sit on large duffel bags, their feet dangling in the street. The traffic is calm where they sit -- an occasional car finds them with it's headlights but loses them in the darkness soon after as it passes. Another couple, barely seen in the far distance, appear only as silhouettes as they wave gestures at each other. The moon rises and becomes visible between some of the buildings. The night's cold begins to fill the air.
"Another day spent," the girl sitting on her bag tells the man, on his. Her eyes follow along the cracks of the broken pieces of asphalt in the street.

He glances upward towards her, looking for eye contact. When contact is not found, he responds, "There are better ways to go about looking at it."

The crack ends. She sighs. "Like how? Anyway, was it worth the trade?" she questions.

On his own trail of thought, he ponders, Maybe it's just another day where something hasn't gone wrong. His eyes wander, his mind now comforted by this thought. He readjusts the bag, once a fitting seat, now making him uncomfortable. He's rather uncomfortable. With wit, he exclaims: "There is a trade for everything and everything is worth the trade."

A personal philosophy of his. He's known for his philosophies, although his actions are often hypocritical of them. He believes in all of his philosophies. Once the pride of his apparent richness of thought dissipates, he realizes he wasn't really sure what she meant. "What trade?" he asks, looking up at her again.

Her eyes meet his. Prepared for the question, she begins to express a thought she clearly has been sitting on for some time. "A trade for a more accomplishing day -- a more accomplishing life. A day where you take risks. Taking a chance on some things rather than just sitting around on the sidelines playing it safe."

Looking down, he ponders this for a moment. She feels reassured on her position by his silence, knowing she's talking to a man dedicated to thought, and continues. "Sure, things can go wrong. Things will go wrong. But that's what life's about. Making a point to get out there and try. Think of the great things that could happen!"

He imagines only the things that could go wrong. With a specific bad thing in mind, he thinks to himself, Yeah, this day was definitely better than that. He believes it. This conversation seems to bore him. This isn't anything he hasn't heard before, or at least, he imagines, he hasn't read before.

Their conversation is disrupted by an approaching car. His eyes follow it. As the car passes them by and gets lost in the night, as have all the others, the moon moves higher into the sky partially hiding itself behind a flickering lamppost. A once silent argument taking place down the street by two silhouettes is now faintly audible. His eyes, having lost the car, follow the sound and find the two silhouetted figures making gestures. He makes an attempt to listen in, but cannot make out a word. The cold creeps in a little further. He adjusts his seat, again. She sits still.

He respects her argument and keeps silent, waiting for her to continue. And as expected by him, with no response, she follows in confidence: "Just think. The things that could become, even today!" There is a slight pause between her last words and this next thought that overcomes her: The things that I could become. Her eyes now array, her mind clearly lost in these thoughts. She is beautiful in this moment.

Unaware of her beauty, he begins to think less of her. He thinks of her a little dull to wish for such things, such simple things. Regardless, he continues to entertain the thought. What's the point? he asks himself. What day will come, he continues, when it would actually be worth it to take those risks? His mind is not lost, unlike hers. He knows exactly where his is going. He believes it.
His eyes find cracks left by broken asphalt in the street. Following the path of them, he concludes, It'll have to be one hell of a day. He believes it.
A bitter chill from a breeze finds its way through the maze made by the city buildings and passes him. He shivers and pulls his jacket tighter. She doesn't seem to notice the cold. Suddenly, she blinks rapidly and looks around -- her eyes had been open and staring in a single direction for a while now from being lost and deep in thought. His eyes meet the end of the crack. He sighs. He adjusts the bags beneath him. He is so uncomfortable. Another car finds them and loses them. The distance between the two stays constant. The moon moves a little higher in the sky, escaping from behind the dying lamppost. The night creeps on.

The Argument of the Distance Between Us and the Argument Taking Place Down the Street by Two Silhouettes by Calvin

I'm always looking for the sun

When the wind picked up the fire spread
And the grapevines seemed left for dead
And the Northern sky looked like the end of days
The end of days

The wake-up call to a rented room
Sounded like an alarm of impending doom
To warn us it's only a matter of time
Before we all burn

Before we all burn
Before we all burn
Before we all burn

We bought some wine and some paper cups
Near your daughters school when we picked her up
And drove to a cemetery on a hill
On a hill

And we watched the plumes paint the sky gray
But she laughed and danced through the field of graves
And there I knew it would be alright
That everything would be alright

Would be alright
Would be alright
Would be alright

And the news reports on the radio
Said it was getting worse
As the ocean air fanned the flames
But I couldn't think
Of anywhere I would of rather been
To watch it all burn away

To burn away

And the firemen worked in double shifts
With prayers for rain on their lips
And they knew it was only a matter of time

Grapevine Fires by Death Cab For Cutie

You don't have to move on to let go

You get the car
I'll get the night off
You'll get the chance to take the world apart and figure out how it works
Don't let me know what you find out

I need a car
You need a guide
Who needs a map
If I don't die or worse I'm gonna need a nap
At best I'll be asleep when you get back

I wanna see it when you find out what comets, stars, and moons are all about
I wanna see their faces turn to backs of heads and slowly get smaller
I wanna see it now
I wanna see it now

I want specifics on the general idea
I wanna think what I should know
Want you to do me what to show
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see movies of my dreams
I wanna see it when you get stoned on a cloudy breezy desert afternoon
I wanna see it untame itself and break its owner
I wanna see it now
I wanna see it now

Car by Built To Spill

God I hope that turns out to be true

And he takes, and he takes, and he takes

We only get one chance
Gotta make it last
We can make things last
Only get one laugh
Make it last
We can make things last
Make it last

Crazy dreams and nightmare screams
Seems like nothing is what it seems
I was walking with you last night
I was walking with you last night

Let me go, let me go, let me go
Rejection
This is reconnection

I've lost my friend
Didn't get to say goodbye
Only get one life

We can make things better
We can make things work
We have to make things work
We can make things better
We have to make things work
We can make things work

Reconnection by Alpen

"Go ahead and shoot," I told her. "I'm already dead inside anyway."

he spoke to mice and sparrows
and his hair was white at the age of 16.
his father beat him every day and his mother
lit candles in the church.
his grandmother came while the boy slept
and prayed for the devil to let loose his hold upon
him
while his mother listened and cried over the
bible.

he didn't seem to notice young girls
he didn't seem to notice the games boys played
there wasn't much he seemed to notice
he just didn't seem interested.

he had a very large, ugly mouth and the teeth
stuck out
and his eyes were small and lusterless.
his shoulders were slumped and his back was bent
like an old man's.

he lived in our neighborhood.
we talked about him when we got bored and then
went on to more interesting things.
he seldom left his house. we would have liked to
torture him
but his father
who was a huge and terrible man
tortured him for
us.

one day the boy died. at 17 he was still a
boy. a death in a small neighborhood is noted with
alacrity, and then forgotten 3 or 4 days
later.

but the death of this boy seemed to stay with us
all. we kept talking about it
in our boy-men's voices
at 6 p.m. just before dark
just before dinner.

and whenever I drive through that neighborhood now
decades later
I still think of his death
while having forgotten all the other deaths
and everything else that happened
then.

death of an idiot by Charles Bukowski

Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does

Well it's been a long time, long time now
Since I've seen you smile
And I'll gamble away my fright
And I'll gamble away my time
And in a year, a year or so
This will slip into the sea
Well it's been a long time, long time now
Since I've seen you smile

Nobody raise their voices
Just another night to mourn to
Nobody raise their voices
Just another night to mourn to

Nantes by Beirut

This is the single most important thought of our days

Check out the rest over here.

The appearance of a man

I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me.

Daniel 4:5

And although I am leader of this country: blue, because I'd still have sad days

Courage and horror stand side by side,
say the gods who
dole out fates. Like the one they give
the massage therapist
raped in her office by a
stranger off the street.
Raped face-down
on her table, in dimness and
lavender oil. No, this is yours, say
the gods,
handing off
a profusion of fall days in Boston, when
the boy you loved
was dying. Each morning
on your way to see him you cut a bouquet
of cosmos from
the front steps of
a brownstone.
The other, not yours,
is braver than yours, how
it ends —
the therapist feared she would die
hating him and began to chant,
and the panicked rapist ran, not knowing
she was chanting the
Buddhist prayer
for compassion.
And did you sing for your enemies?
No.
The gods are busy.
The cosmos are lavender,
rose, tangled and
orange,
replacing themselves in what
seems hours.

Courage and Horror Stand Side by Side by Katrina Vandenberg

That's what I figured out the cat in the street meant

I don't know how a human can trust anyone.

Jesus Christ

Here, it never snowed. Afterwards it did

Everybody makes mistakes
But I feel alright when I come undone
You are not making me wait
But it seems alright as long as something's happening
I try to make you late
But you fighting me off like a fire does
You try making me wait
But it feels alright as long as something's happening

Get your payments from the nation
For your trials and tribulations

You try to make me wait
You come around when it's come undone
Everybody makes you late
And it's never you because you're always thinking
I try making you wait
And give you me some like you give it good
Everybody makes mistakes
But it seems it's mine that always keep on stinging

Get your payments from the nation
For your trials and tribulations

You try making me wait
But you come undone when you come undone
Everybody makes mistakes
But it's always mine that seem to keep on sticking

Get your payments from the nation
For your trials and tribulations

Tribulations by LCD Soundsystem

Sweet for my sweet and sugar for my honey

I broke free on a Saturday morning
I put the pedal to the floor
headed north on mills avenue
and listened to the engine roar

my broken house behind me
and good things ahead
a girl named Cathy
wants a little of my time
six cylinders underneath the hood
crashing and kicking
aha!
listen to the engine whine

I am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
I am going to make it though this year
if it kills me

I played video games in a drunken haze
I was seventeen years young
hurt my knuckles punching the machines
the taste of scotch rich on my tongue

and then Cathy showed up
and we hung out
trading swigs from a bottle
all bitter and clean
locking eyes
holding hands
twin high maintenance machines

I am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
I am going to make it though this year
if it kills me

I drove home in the California dusk
I could feel the alcohol inside of me hum
pictured the look on my stepfather's face
ready for the bad things to come
I down shifted
as I pulled into the driveway
the motor screaming out
stuck in second gear
the scene ends badly
as you might imagine
in a cavalcade of anger and fear

there will be feasting and dancing
in Jerusalem next year

I am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
I am going to make it though this year
if it kills me

This Year by The Mountain Goats

The long long lonely

Oh my love, in the barrel of a gun.
We're the girl girl girls, with the golden son.
Oh my love. Nothing's gonna stop us now except the long long lonely.
Nothing's gonna stop us now, not the long long lonely. Oh My love.

Symphony 1 In The Barrel of a Gun by Emily Wells

We don't know anything and we'll call it quits. Carefully, carefully.

Heart of a Hunter Poem 85

Whatever we've said, friends, we're saying still -- such as it was, such as it is, such as it will be.

For a second there I thought you disappeared
It rains a lot this time of year
And we both go together if one falls down
I talk out loud like you’re still around
And I miss you
I’m going back home to the west coast
I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase
I love you
Standin all alone in a black coat
I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast

And if you shake her heart enough she will appear
Tonight I think I’ll be stayin here
And you never did like this town
I talk out loud like you’re still around

No nooo!

And I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast
I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase
I love you
Standin all alone in a black coat
I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast

So pack up the bags to beat back the clock
Do I let her sleep or should I wake her up
You said
We both go together if one falls down
Yeah right, heh
I talk out loud like you’re still around

No noo!

And i miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast
I wish you woulda put yourself in my suitcase
I love you
Standing all alone in a black coat
I miss you
I’m goin back home to the west coast

West Coast by Coconut Records

She said that it hadn't happened exactly that way, but that nothing ever did.

Today you were far away
and I didn't ask you why
What could I say
I was far away
You just walked away
and I just watched you
What could I say

How close am I to losing you

Tonight you just close your eyes
and I just watch you
slip away

How close am I to losing you

Hey, are you awake
Yeah I'm right here
Well can I ask you about today

How close am I to losing you
How close am I to losing

About Today by The National

It hit me suddenly like a shock - everything was not as it was supposed to be.

I don't want to feel like I don't have a future.
I don't want to feel like it's an end of a summer.
Let's not fall back to sleep like we used to.
I don't want to wake up knowing I don't have a future.

Impossible. Your love is something I cannot remember.

I don't want to spend another day in this city.
I woke up thirsty, it's hard to go back you know.
Let's not fall back to sleep like we used to, do you remember?
I don't want to wake up knowing I don't have a future.

Impossible. Your love is something I cannot remember.
And there's a first time and a second time, you've got to hold on.
Did you know it could happen to you?
Your love is something I cannot remember.

I don't want to see the same pictures all over.
And I've been standing on the same spot now since it's been over.
'Cause someone promised me a new chance, yes you promised.
I don't want to wake up knowing I don't have a future.

Impossible. Your love is something I cannot remember.
And there's a first time and a second time, you've got to hold on.
Did you know it could happen to you?
Your love is something I cannot remember.

You are just like your mother, I'm just the same as the others.
Do you believe everything they write in all those magazines?
Stay out of love until you're ready, stay out of it 'cause it scares you.
You'll still find your love outside the public library.

I know it could happen to you.

Impossible by the Shout Out Louds

How can you appreciate someone for who they are until you really know them?

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not,
is a fool: shun him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not,
is ignorant: teach him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows,
is asleep: wake him.
He who knows and knows that he knows,
is a wise man: follow him.

Persian proverb

Don't let the post-Holden world get you down

Up All Night by French Horn Rebellion

On the rain-slick precipice of darkness

At Eternity's Gate or On the Threshold of Eternity by Vincent Van Gogh

As wandering on and on in a great forest with no thought of return, it is at that moment you are a perfectly rational being; you learn purposelessness

There was a young man who said, "Though
It seems that I know that I know.
What I would like to see
Is the I that knows me
When I know that I know that I know."

Quote from The Religion of No-Religion by Alan Watts

Pensive

He does not suffer from drought,
nor from loneliness
when he travels the arid lands.
The camel simply understands
the oasis is there.

And when he rests, he has arrived.

He Does Not Suffer by Hugo J.K. de Vries

People is crazy

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Chill by Anomaly SGE

I wonder if it would have mattered

We cut the legs off of our pants
Threw our shoes into the ocean
Sit back and wave through the daylight
Sit back and wave through the daylight

Slip and slide on subway grates
These shoes are poor mans ice skates
Fall through like change in the daylight
Fall through like change in the daylight

I miss yellow lines in my roads
Some color on monochrome
Maybe I'll paint them in myself
Maybe I'll paint them in myself

These sidewalks liquid then stone
Building walls and an old pay phone
It rings like all through the daylight
It rings like all through the daylight

And in the daylight we can hitchhike to Maine
I hope that someday I'll see without these frames
And in the daylight I don't pick up my phone
'cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home

I have five clocks in my life
And only one has the time right
I'll just unplug it for today
I'll just unplug it for today

Open hydrant rolled down windows
This car might make a good old boat
And float down grand street in daylight
And float down grand street in daylight

And with just half of a sunburn
New yellow lines that I earned
Step back and here comes the night time
Step back and here comes the night time

And in the daylight we can hitchhike to Maine
I hope that someday I'll see without these frames
And in the daylight I don't pick up my phone
'cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home

Daylight by Matt & Kim

As London Bridge burns down, Brixton's burning up

Uncle by Adam Elliot

I'm sentimental - oh no I mean I’m said to be mental

wake up, love
undress yourself from my skin
put on the sun and let our dreaming rest
come watch the world rise

wake up, love
and be unbalance on the edge with me
of our sagging, remembering bed
come slip on your shoes

wake up, love
and help me sort this tangle of belongings
our thoughts half in day, half still in night
come kiss me full of sustenance

wake up, love
and meet me at the opened door
before the scent of you leaves my hands and hair
come walk with me into this life

wake up, love by Tobin James Mueller

The meaning of life is love

Here’s a fact: Some people want to live more
Than others do. Some can withstand any horror

While others will easily surrender
To thirst, hunger, and extremes of weather.

In Utah, one man carried another
Man on his back like a conjoined brother

And crossed twenty-five miles of desert
To safety. Can you imagine the hurt?

Do you think you could be that good and strong?
Yes, yes, you think, but you’re probably wrong.

Survivorman by Sherman Alexie

Everything is interesting

Young Man Falling by Martin De Thurah

Nothing I do matters if I do it without you

Menage a trois

My first class left a little early. He came in, hesitant. I need for someone look my grammar, he said, holding out a sheet of paper the color of old mushrooms. His hand was dirty, his coat, his clothes. You teacher? he asked. You could help me with the English? I nodded. I am plumer an electricin, his paper began. Sometime I like my work but is dangerus. Very busy putting heavy pipe.

I wrote in missing words, corrected the spelling, made him read it aloud. Sonetines, he read. I stopped him, made him say sometimes, hum the mmmm. He practiced humming then asked if he could stay in the room to copy his paper over. He wrote slowly, keeping his eyes on the words, as if they might slip away. Midway, without looking up, he asked if I’d read Heningway.

Hemmmingway, I said. Mmmm.

Mmmm. He smiled, or half smiled, hiding bad teeth. He’d read the one about the man with the fish, read it in Spanish. Did I like teach literature, he asked. I loved to teach it, I said, stressing the to. I was a poet, I added. I loved Neruda; did he know Neruda?

Both hands flew to his heart. His smile forgot to hide his teeth. And he gave me Neruda, the last of the twenty love poems, his voice rising, his face like the old man’s when he feels the fish take, feels the line running, running, taut, sure, his.

The Lesson by Lynne Knight

Like a DQ Blizzard

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?

When the last living thing
Has died on account of us,
How poetical it would be
If Earth could say,
In a voice floating up
Perhaps
From the floor
Of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done.
People did not like it here."

The last lines that Kurt Vonnegut wrote, in his last book.

Work on your posture, I hear her eyes tell me

As you crawl into your corner, I sit awake

What beautiful stillness.
This is not
what I had expected. I have already seen you succumb
to kaleidoscopic chemical trips that took you
through nights of astral planes
and sidereal views. This is different,

so unlike what I have come to accept,
your stories,
how hallucinatory helicopters heave
up your bed night after night, great
mandible monsters nudging the plastic crucifix
hung on your bare wall.
Elevated within an engine hum, you confessed

to wondering if the door was closed
or if you might roll out, a sleeping bag
unraveling past tiny stars, admitted
there might be some small comfort
in the thought of nothingness
in the air,
and then demonstrated, spiraling
downward --
howl of wind drawing your cheeks
into hollow shadows, your eyes
into small black bones, your skin
taut against your skull
as if searching for darkness, tiny roots, dry dirt --
how to throw your arms out to the ground rushing up
to meet you. Only to land like this.
Perfectly, like a bubble that's landed intact
on the floor. I was afraid to touch you.

In The Language of Illness by Gary Kuhlmann

Maybe it's the softness of her hair

His eyes shone with unusual brilliancy, and he was full of vivacity on his liberation.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.


O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.


My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

Are you lovesick for it all?

Maybe I'll discover things I don't want to know about myself

Newspaper Blackout Poems

This is not a love song

Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman

Without a trust or flaming fields am I too dumb to refine?

Remember when you were seventeen, you goin' crazy, you know what I mean. It wasn't that long ago.

That's how it starts.
We go back to your house.
We check the charts,
And start to figure it out.

And if it's crowded, all the better,
because we know we're gonna be up late.
But if you're worried about the weather
then you picked the wrong place to stay.
That's how it starts.

And so it starts.
You switch the engine on.
We set controls for the heart of the sun,
one of the ways we show our age.

And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up
and I still don't wanna stagger home.
Then it's the memory of our betters
that are keeping us on our feet.

You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan,
and the next five years trying to be with your friends again.

You're talking 45 turns just as fast as you can,
yeah, I know it gets tired, but it's better when we pretend.

It comes apart,
the way it does in bad films.
Except in parts,
when the moral kicks in.

Oh when we're running out of the drugs
and the conversation's winding away.
I wouldn't trade one stupid decision
for another five years of lies.

You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can,
and the next ten people who are trying to be belied.
When you're blowing eighty-five days in the middle of this,
Yeah, I know it gets tired only wearing on friends tonight.

So tell the truth.
Oh, this could be the last time.
So when we go,
like a sail's force into the night

And if I made a fool, if I made a fool, if I made a fool
on the road, there's always this.
And if I'm sewn into submission,
I can still come home to this.

And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand,
you leave conceit on the plane or review what you said.
When you're drunk and the kids leave impossible tasks
you think over and over, hey, I finally did.

Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand,
you look concerted on yourself your ridiculous prop.
You forgot what you meant when you read what you said,
and you always knew you were tired, but then,
where are your friends tonight?

Where are your friends tonight?
Where are your friends tonight?

If I could see all my friends tonight,
If I could see all my friends tonight,
If I could see all my friends tonight,
If I could see all my friends tonight.

All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem

All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.

his feet were torn
by his skateboard
ripped jeans to shorts
won't do no chores

i'm so bored
yeah i'm so bored

skin like dirt
christian death shirt
sun kissed and curved
those guys were jerks

i'm so bored
life's a chore

his feet were torn
by his skate board
ripped jeans to shorts
those guys were jerks

i'm so bored
yeah i'm so bored

So Bored by Wavves covered by Anamanaguchi

We couldn't stop staring at the sky; how the stars seemed to list as we listed, as though they, too, had lost their teacups, their beds.

They told me you had been to her

They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him;
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.

He sent them word I had not gone.
(We know it to be true.)
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?

I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.

My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him and ourselves and it.

Don't let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.

The White Rabbit's Verses by Lewis Carroll

And miles to go before I sleep

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Gosh things are awfully confusing

After you've been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what's your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do

sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up
a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you
lying together in completely relaxed positions
like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.

You tell them your story, or as much of your story
as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, until the oh
is just an audible breath, and then of course

there's some interruption. Slow room service comes up
with a bowl of melting ice cubes, or one of you rises to pee
and gaze at himself with mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.
And then, the first thing you know, before you've had time
to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story,
they're telling you their life story, exactly as they'd intended to all
along,

and you're saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming
no more than an audible sigh,
as the elevator, halfway down the corridor and a turn to the left,
draws one last, long, deep breath of exhaustion
and stops breathing forever. Then?

Well, one of you falls asleep
and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth,
and that's how people burn to death in hotel rooms.

Life Story by Tennessee Williams