it's easy to love.

you just have to let everything go,

and it all starts working.

as we grow older

the magic of christmas fades

maybe we all get jaded a bit

but it's also because we learn

that generosity shouldn't be confined

to a single day.

There are Many Names for Home

Photo and Title: Matthew McPheeters

home is the other end

of the ropes we tied

to each other.

'scuse me, I think you dropped this.

just leave it.

looks pretty important.

like I said, just leave it.

if you're not going to take it, then I will.

fine. I hated it anyway.

*opens it up*

w-what are you doing?

thought you didn't want it...

but those are...my secrets.

secrets aren't meant to be kept.

I don't exist

where We come from.

you count your regrets

and number your days

below the surface,

below your skin,

where everything you fear

can't reach you

but those numbers

are the hidden cracks

and seams in your walls.

one day they'll topple

and we won't be there

to hold them up.

and what if everything happened,

the pain and the joy,

just so one moment could happen

that would make it all worth it

except that moment hasn't happened yet,

and you have no clue when it will be,

or if it will happen.

would you still want to take it all back?

you were with me

when you were sleeping,

dreaming of the place

you are now.

you were with me

when you left

quicker than my heart could keep up with.

when all my whens became ifs

and all my ifs became memories

of all the dreams i once had.

you were still with me.

and I'm sorry I had to see it

to believe it.

you tell me

that i'll forget you

in ten years or so.

but i know.

it would take more than time

to forget your sweet scent

and the skin it comes from

to forget what your face feels like

when its feeling what my face feels like,

to forget the little symbolic things that we keep

to remind each other of the us that happened.

so no,

I won't forget you

but now that you mention it
i'm kinda worried

that you'll be the one

to forget me.

the glass floor swallows you,

while the sun's wide open mouth

licks the water right off your face.

sure, you never asked to be clean

but you always needed it

we just had to show you.

don't worry.

i promise you'll be happy in the end.

cross my heart,

caus now you cannot die.

You can't catch

dry tears.

it was the darkest drought in history.

we knew we'd really messed up

when we started seeing clouds across the sky

for days and weeks on end,

but the most curious thing

is that it never rained.

they were like the steel cladding of a diving bell,

fit for this ever-sinking vessel we call earth.

and we were along for the ride.

there are thousands of people around you

who would say the most beautiful things

with words that could change the world

were anyone listening.

this

is a mess

this is an aching bubble

the air inside getting hotter and hotter

but for some reason

the bubble never bursts

this is my heart

though it may not look like it.

what you see on the street

is just a man who talks for a living

but when i come home,

my God how i think.

this is my job

i work for the man who eats his fellow man

from the tables of death.

he justifies his cannibalism telling us,

"it's just how the game is played"

when he's the one making the rules,

we can't hope for anything but the day we are set free.

and when this is finished

you and i will come home,

we'll say grace,

we'll say goodnight.

and all anyone will know of us

is that we did our best

to survive.

but you and i will know

how we loved.

you think your voice means nothing

but when your voice joins thousands more

they become one voice.

indivisible, impenetrable.

you're so nice to all the people who don't deserve it.

and apathetic to all the people who do.

life isn't a disney movie

or any movie, really

life isn't a story you read

life isn't some idea in your head

life is nothing

until you make it something

you have to live the story

if you want to tell it.

and i just wanted to tell you

the reason i can't stay

sometimes it takes a villain

to save the day

we saw what we had become:

victims of our own self-interest,

pacing the earth, searching for priceless gifts,

no longer given.

we babbled on to strangers

in words that only made sense

in the insane tongue with which they were spoken;

the language of people who were more afraid of the truth

than the darkness in which they lived.

by the time the candles reached us

we had forgotten what our eyes were for.

the flame glowed warm against all our faces.

and the light was a home we never had.

a home with each other.

the sun is setting.

and It's such a familiar feeling.

when the warm goes away

and it's just you and the moon for comfort.

stop telling the world what it needs or doesn't need.

the last thing it needs right now is direction.

all your words

were the notes that i read

on five lines,

a requiem of blue

you made just for me.

they moved my hands,

the knife, my baton.

and the blood marched forth,

my own red army choir

singing a grand coup d'vivre.

the seats remain silent,

invisible in the limelight.

and you, the brilliant composer

of such luscious tragedy.

you are nowhere to be found.

pick a time

once every day.

to look up at the sky.

it's the biggest white board you could imagine.

when i tell you we miss you

every time you visit

it means we stopped being friends

when you left us.

who do you think you are?

you think life is some kind of game?

why yes. isn't it?

I mean, you've been keeping score this whole time.

there are no secrets,

only silent lies.

when their hearts become ill

and they don't know why,

let them know,

it's okay not to know the answer.

that you'll still be there to fight alongside them

'til their demons have retreated.

you know that place?

where we can all fly

and make peace from our pieces?

let's go back there sometime...

...i'll call you

it's not the philosophy that you've developed

and crafted into your mind

that makes you smart.

it's the philosophy you make

together, with all the world

that truly matters in the end.

what they didn't realize

is that fighting

is not the same as killing.

people think i'm successful

because i have a good job

but you're the one who got me here alive

and now you're gone.

i think i've failed.

if you're thinking of dying,

remember.

there are millions of people

just like you

who need someone

just like you.

when death makes no sense,

love.

i told myself,
"what the hell am i doing? this is wrong. so very wrong."

i came back to you and fought.

for the first time in my life.

and for the first time in my life,

i did something right.

and for the first time in your life,

you smiled.

they say that first impressions

are everything.

but last impressions

are what they bring

to the grave.

the guardians were made

for the weak to lean on.

and the rocks were made,

for the soil to rest.

and all the reach of the sky

was crafted

in blue and white threads

for you to be free

if only you seek it.

let the world play.

it's earned its break.

love is when we don't have to say

"i love you"

because we already know.

the horizon spoke in colors

as the sun laid down to rest.

and the moon came out to guide us

with all her splendid guests.

the wind was whispers, cool and calm,

its stories, ours to keep.

the sea, a perfect cradle

for you and i to sleep.

remember that last goodbye

all those years ago?

when you left a scar

that people still ask me about?

you missed.

he calculated

how high he needed to put it

so she couldn't reach.

how much time he had

so she wouldn't suspect

the way he should phrase things

to convince her otherwise

but she knew about it

all along.

love is a lens

that sees it all.

when the doctor gave me two years to live,

i smiled.

puzzled, he asked,

"you aren't afraid of death?"

i told him,

"are you kidding me?

now i get to live!"

and as i held you,

waiting for the sound

of your goodbye,

you undid

my whole life plan

with a simple question:

"if this is life,

and life is short,

then what are we waiting for?"

and then you told me how you felt,

and it wasn't a dream anymore.

if you're trying,

you're trying too hard

and as the planes draw lines across the sky

and the dust particles dance across the room,

i'll lie here and think of you

til i can't think no more.

so the question is

if you fell
and there was no one to catch you.

would you still land?

i think of you

much more than you imagine.

if you've seen it all before

you're doing it wrong.

if you knew,

you would never have gone.

but you didn't know.

you lived.

and there we stood
and heard the thunder
of cities turning to dust.

but this place was left.

we had become the world.
guilty, but free.

"i think i figured out what's been bothering me."

"...oh?" her eyes still glazed from the TV.

"whenever i take up your time,

you kick me out of your life."

"..."

"i thought you might want to know,

before i leave."

"..."

"did you know already?"

"...what?"

"..."

"wait, what should i already know?"

"...nevermind."

the hard part isn't missing you.

that's easy

the hard part is knowing

that you left without saying goodbye

and when you took off

you brought enough fuel to last the night

packed food and water,

enough to sustain you 'til you adapted

but you never once thought about home,

about us,

about me.

so i guess the hardest part then,

is knowing that i had my chance the whole time,

and never took it.

next in line

and if you took a closer look

you would see

that we are not dead

we speak

as a testament

to the blood

of your brothers, sisters, cousins,

mothers, fathers, friends, and co-workers,

that fought for your right

to continue the tradition

of suffering.

you call it a mental disorder.

i call it everything that i'm glad to be.

you'd better not break my heart

caus if you turn into a monster and eat it,

it'll taste just as bad as it felt

and you'll be sorry.

it's not so much about how they were that matters in the end

it's about how they left you.

you can do so much better than [ ]

you have [ ] now

no,

[ ] could do much better than me

[ ] has [ ] now

but both of us are still full

of empty.

there's this list i have

of romantic things to say

and witty little quotes to pull from my sleeve.

but it's an awful long lie.

so i threw it away.

i find that it's much easier to speak

when you have a reason.

a spirit motivated by love:

such is unstoppable.

the part i hate most about crying

is that it only happens when i'm alone.

you're here

and all that you've messed up,

everything you've done to hurt yourself,

to hurt me,

it all doesn't really matter anymore.

because you came back.

so i'll be okay

as long as you're still here.

why love yourself?

because a true smile

is worth a thousand fake laughs.

because you owe your ideas

to a world that's waiting.

because, dammit, i love you.

shouldn't that be enough?

i wish i could cry

but i don't have a reason

ellipses are the scariest

little packages

of bad news

if you're feeling trapped inside yourself,

let your mind wander off.

you could love a kid from far away,
and ten a month is all you'd pay.

love her caus she makes you seem
like love is truly what you mean.

and how you'd realize when you're sad
that love is what you never had,

that caring isn't love, alone.


it takes a heart to leave a home.

if what you see around you is all a lie,

then what is the truth?

you have hands

pulsing with omnipotence,

and a heart

pounding with courage,

to fear the world you live in.

that is when you die.

if you could say every word

exactly how you wanted to say it,

you wouldn't need to write.

whenever i see that building,

smell those flowers,

read your letter,

i live the whole thing all over again.

you are my own private purgatory.

there was a time

when i never thought we'd be friends again

when the pain overtook the bond in all its mess of sound.

the pain is gone now.

thank you for waiting.

and then. the silence was broken.

and the words began to bubble and hiss and ooze out from every crack in the ground.

and they crawled up the walls and made faces on the ceilings.

"we are words", they said."we have come to redeem you. to let all of them know you are here."

and i told them, "i know nothing of you. but already, there's this feeling. i need you."

"you will learn and it will hurt until you've realized that they feel just like you. we will be here for them and for you."

"will the pain be for long?"

"it will always be with you. but you will thank us later. they always do."

and so i cursed the words

until i learned

what they really meant.

and i was thankful

despite the pain.

you cannot begin to put it together

if you cannot see the pieces.

you can read all the words you want

but it doesn't change

your fear to live them.

being you is hard

but i bet you're the only one who could do it

there is an us

so much more powerful

than one could ever dream

i've never felt so lonely

as i do when i'm with you

you've arrived

so while you're laying asleep at night thinking of you

i'm laying awake at night thinking of you too

and wondering if you'll ever return the favor.