So Perfectly Placed

yumandcoke24:

Today I was walking down through the main area of the campus of my school and I looked up and I saw some clouds - dark ones. I wondered to myself aloud, since no one was there to think I was insane for doing such a thing, “what are you doing here clouds? It was supposed to be perfectly sunny today”. It was actually perfectly sunny today, so it was in fact quite odd too see rain clouds hovering over my head. Even more interesting was there was no one within earshot this occurrence. I was forced to make a judgement on what I was seeing - judgement being either I was the only one, or I wasn’t. Had I wandered into an alternate universe - or hadn’t I?

It is no secret that I am at my most happiest when it rains. I love the dark tranquil atmosphere, and to be honest I just hate to be hot, and sweaty. Perhaps the universe looked down on me on this hot and sunny day, knowing I was facing stress and uncertainty. Maybe it saw me, and for once decided to give me my own personal slice of happiness. With no one around to bother me, I could just simply stand and collect myself - for a brief moment I was a figure in the backdrop of a painting. In reality a storm bristled above me, in this moment though I had managed to escape reality. There was no reality. I had evaporated along with the sunshine, into another place. The clouds parted, as if to say, “one more time now Andrew - with feeling”. I walked on, unsure of what I had just experienced.

Still, I like to think though that somewhere, somehow another person saw what I saw, and that maybe for just a moment as I drifted off, they saw me too. Maybe we will be together in reality someday. Often times I look up at the sky, and I wonder if there is another person who sees exactly what I am seeing too. We have no way of knowing if each experience we have is singular to us as individuals. Are our experiences truly unique, if all the oddball flourishes we experience are really just an illusion.

Sometimes I wonder what is real.

yumandcoke24:

I would pin a red a rose 

to my heart

and give it to you.

If only you would promise

to keep it safe

and give me yours too.

I would die a thousand painful deaths

for only a moment

with you.

I would never ask of you this in return

for I am yours

forever true.

Indebted to you heart,

a slave to your soul.

yumandcoke24:

The interesting thing about writing is that inspiration can come and go as it pleases. It hides in the smallest spaces, and then it jumps out at us. It bludgeons us, and as the blood rushes fast and hard to our heads it finds its got nowhere to go. So, it flows out of us as words, metaphors and imagery. Inspiration is such a fickle beast though. It is quick to heed the call to duty, but it will just as soon go AWOL. Perhaps the words and metaphors that spill onto the paper are this beasts blood. Maybe the beast we know as inspiration gives it’s own life, so our creativity can blossom. So we can find new identity as whatever we want to be through our writing. So we can find new value as people - as human beings. Is there really something that lies dormant inside of us just waiting to be triggered by the world around us, or is it a creature hiding in the shadows, waiting to take it’s final ride to glory? Gutted - its insides forever leaving an impression in our notebooks, and in our minds, captivating us through wordplay seared into our brain tissue.

Or is it just luck? Is it that we simply happened to have a pen and paper handy, as half a phrase manifested itself in our minds?  Nothing more than a roll of the dice. Nothing more than chance.

thefrenemy:

For the most part, I say I dig change, but for the most part, I can be a real fuckin’ liar sometimes. I get upset when my favorite show ends, and I have trouble taking different routes home from the subway. I have parted my hair in the middle for three years. I would say YOLO, but that’s a new phrase and so I won’t say it and stop trying to MAKE ME.

I was thinking about change because it was May, and that always makes me think about how eventually, I would get really hot and would have to shave my thighs and I would have to find a decent pair of sandals soon. This is the kind of change I am familiar with. Easy. Constant. Sweaty. Then I thought about it again because one of my closest friends decided to up and move from New York to Los Angeles, and I liked her for it because it wasn’t easy, and I was jealous of her for that too. There are things I could use in Los Angeles—I thought of at least two specific beards, of double doubles and tacos, and palm trees I’ve never seen. I said no goodbyes and I ate a bite of her cookie and I sat in her empty apartment and I missed her already and I thought

“I wouldn’t be able to do this”

I don’t think I could. There comes a point in your life where you realize how willing you would be to change your life, and for many, that probably isn’t much. For me? I don’t think I could switch cream cheese brands. 

Anyway, shouldn’t you want to change when you’re older? Guess what. You’re OLDER. You should want to do something now.

There is a routine I am comfortable with. Two Splendas and some skim milk. I take my socks off with my feet not my hands. I drink a beer and I stick my sticky hands in some bags of chips and I watch the television. If it’s Friday, I’ll stare off in the corner of a bar I won’t like but will always go to. I’ll decide I’m getting a cold. I text with one finger. I remind myself to buy eggs. I live a life that is always in forward motion but little shift.

There are dreams, vaguely in the distance, that I think about as if they couldn’t happen. As if going left instead of right, or moving to Los Angeles, or taking a deep breath and taking a plunge are the kinds of things fantasy dramas are made of. “I’M 22 I CAN’T CHANGE MY LIFE WHAT AM I SALLY FIELD IN A MELODRAMA?” As if being young suddenly became impossible, like if getting on planes or telling people how I feel or changing my life is the new kind of daydream. Why? Because we get in a place and we wanna stay in a place. Change is difficult. Change isn not what sloths do, or people who want to nap do, or sloths that take naps do.

It take courage. Some people might say it take balls, but fuck that it takes heart, and heart is the hardest. 

I blame my unhappiness or my routine or my disdain on life itself, like everything that happens to me is just baseballs being thrown at me and I don’t have a glove. However, change will come anyway. It’s happening, and it’s gross, and it’s hurtling towards you and you’ve got to get some of it. I remember how comfort and complacency, even if your life is shit, sometimes works as a substitute for “doing fucking SOMETHING.” I just want to say you can always change, and it will suck and also, you can still do it.

What I’m really saying is that change doesn’t always have to be big. It has to be little, and then you’ll get some courage, and then you won’t be 25 and wonder “if only.” You should never have to wonder that, because that’s not fair to you. 

Here’s what I think. I think you should take a different route home. I think you should step out of the box and do something for this one stupid life. I believe you have it in you, and I believe being scared shitless is appropriate. Life is big and stupid and always, always yours. Do something about that.

Remember this: Time will always move on. People will always miss you. People will always be proud of you. 

It’s time to step over to the other side, whatever that means to you.

September will always, always come.

niasea:

Friday, June 21: I saw a good-looking, interesting, intelligent girl in the subway train and, of course, knew I never would see her again unless I said something. But I didn’t really know what to say, and anyway I was dressed in a cruddy old sweatshirt. I mean, wearing a sweatshirt is fine, but I wasn’t wearing it, I just happened to have it on. I could have cited the fantastic odds against our ever having been in the same place at the same time. We both got off at the same stop. Encouraged by fate in action, I asked her for a cigarette and tried to get her to know me, but she pointed out that she was waiting for someone and said good-bye before I was leaving. I said, “I’m writing a book. Look for yourself in it.”

The Strawberry Statement by James Simon Kunen

(Source: barrybonds, via nogreatillusion)