bread and butter

cheering with a stranger for nothing in particular,

and too disowned to know you're never alone.

but there it stands: a breathing end

counting seventy times back again.

i think i heard the birds calling

your name

in the quietest moment of the daytime

when i'd forgotten about you.

if i could write lovely things about you all day

i guess i'd spend my time wondering if you really existed

or if

i was in love with the honest things that weren't

about you; the things we hold onto anyway

because it reminds us that

love is more than just a verb

and maybe then that

it's there if we're patient and...

maybe still...

a whole lotta nothin

it's a shattering feeling, but not leaving me feeling broken. it's a shattering feeling like... like the earth or the sky or my self broke open and i can finally get it.

it's something.

it followed when i realized "this is something everyone's doing right now and i can't do this". but who is everyone?

more later.

It's a Draw

it's a toss up really. a draw would mean both sides would have given a good fight.

oh you make lists, too?

things i absolutely have to do today:

1) finish my homework

2) go grocery shopping

3) put my belongings where they belong

4) do the dishes

5) buy film for that camera i fell in love with and then fell out of love with and then fell in love with again

6) follow up on those people i bothered about hiring me.

what? you don't make lists?

oh lord have mercy on my soul

"she's the devil."

i had no idea what she meant, mostly because it'd been a long time since i'd had a belief that involved a satan in a personified form. theology does that to you i guess... or maybe it doesn't, but it did that to me. "she's the devil," she kept saying, like maybe i would begin to believe it if she said it more. i didn't, but i loved her all the same. if there's any evil forces in my life, they're the ones that creep up on me when i don't have enough sleep, when it's early in the morning, and i can feel a hangover coming on. it would be the things that sneak up on me in my weakest hours when i'm certain all that's connecting this moment to the next is my chain smoking and the coffee brewing.

nobody is the devil and

g-d didn't put shackles on our feet, they sang.

no, we do that ourselves.

no. she's not the devil. nobody is. if there's something evil in this world it's our inability to let our instincts kick in. it's the thing that forces us to think too much and not at all. it's the thing that reasons we'll feel better in the morning when we know we won't. it's the fear you build up and never want to let go of because you're afraid there might be nothing left when you release it. it's the walls you build up when you're afraid to believe in something greater than yourself. it's everything you use to hold yourself back, but it's something you make up... not something that's forced upon you.

for me. for now anyway.

these things are manmade, and so is it...

it's the brokenness of our universe at best,

but it's still something we can make and shape and change.

g-d didn't put cuffs on our hands either, i heard.

diet

i'm pretty damn broke.

i'm on this college diet called "buy what's cheap and hope it works", and i'm pretty sure most middle-class twenty-somethings go through it when their thirst for knowledge overrides their hunger for decent nutrition. i go grocery shopping enough to make sure i'm getting enough fruits and vegetables, and i'm learning enough to know i'll care more about where my food's coming from once i can earn enough money to support my concerns. i'm on a diet called "i don't care about anything physically because my mental stability is all that matters". it weans you off the bullshit and makes you think about what actually matters.

you practice it in high school - everything is either so damn important or nothing at all, and the tragedy is that nothing's really that important most of the time unless your adulthood breaches itself on you prematurely and you have to care about adult things before you understand why or how.
and i'm on this diet called "i don't give a shit about you anymore" and it involved feigning interest. i'm slowly weaning myself off caring about anything involving you. breaking it down, i don't know why i still give a shit. i really really don't. half the time i feel like i'm just feigning my care because it's downright in my nature to care about every damn thing. and i do. just not this... or at least i don't want to... badly enough that i just don't care one way or the other what the shit happens. or how the hell i act. or anything. i don't have any way of measuring my progress or knowing whether or not this is worth occupying my precious living-waking minutes, but... hell... if something bigger comes along (and that's not saying much because there's so much more to this world than me or it) i'll have a tougher skin and a better attitude. i'll be able to navigate my concerns in a more constructive manner. i can't tell whether i actually give a shit or i'm pretending so badly so that i don't have to think about anything else, but at this point it's a diet of the mind.

cut out what doesn't matter.

the tragedy of twenty-something is that everything matters.

one hundred truths for every one lost in the cave

i think i know what i want and that scares me...

...because what if it's not what i want at all?

have i conditioned myself to think i want something?

have i convinced myself i don't actually want the things i do?

time flies

let us remember this moment in time

that i was writing about liberation

and feared the morning.

let us remember the moment

i ate cold chili from a tupperware

contemplating my next move on something

that always feels next to impossible,

and the irony that

i'd just discovered oppression is not a response of divine things,

but rather a reaction of people by people

and i was only moments ago frustrated

with something i feel i cannot escape or change.

enlightenment and deliverance comes in all forms,

creatively.

here, through tupperware and cold chili.

sea of words//cortez cortez

it was a combination of everything: music to live for, a crusty venue i'd been existing off of since i was in high school, good company, probably more to drink than i should've had, the city, the nighttime, and a thousand bodies pressed up against the stage to feel and smell and breathe the music.

it was good. really good. not like the "my spirits are lifted" good but like.... "today is the sort of day that's worth living a few more times through, and it's gonna fuel my spirits for a long time" good. good like fresh coffee. good like the sun and the rain all at once.

really good.

"nothing can go wrong" good.

but the sea of words tumbled out as soon as i started getting tired and comfortable and they just... ran far and long and off without me. it was like watching a movie in a dream in really slow motion--- the kind of dream where you try and get up and leave but your feet move too slow. i opened my mouth and the words tumbled out, and i could hear them move faster than my brain could stop them.

the night ended in a terrible argument and honestly? that didn't even matter. all i was hung up on the following morning was the fact that i admitted it.

i downed a few glasses of water mulling over what i'd said. maybe nobody heard. maybe they didn't remember. maybe we can just go on pretending i didn't say anything. i filled my glass again - things were still good... they always are if you let them be.

everything changed since i was eighteen except for that and i had to go on and admit it.

mother of mercy.

more later.

i am in love

i am in love

right the hell now

with this music.

Go Ahead:

ask me what i believe in.

i'm ill, not sick.

"this is bullshit" i thought to myself. i'd been lying in bed for three or four day, only getting up to make the occasional peanut butter and jelly or when i thought i was going crazy and needed air. i'd been sick, but i'd been wondering if maybe i was on the downhill roll toward being depressed.

bullshit.

i don't have time to be sick OR depressed.

it's hard to explain of you haven't really experienced it. being depressed i mean. it's like any other illness, it comes out of nowhere and sort of sucks you dry. it's exhausting being in it but it's exhausting trying to pull yourself out of it, and even though people say "just snap out of it"... you.... can't. either way, i didn't have time for any of it, i had a shit ton of deadlines to make and i didn't have time to be sick. or depressed.

dammit.

i walked to school a few times just to pretend i was okay. do you ever do that? just try and pretend you're fine even though it's obvious nothing's alright? i could feel my eyes bloodshot from allergies and sinus infections, my nose was running and raw from blowing it every other minute, my whole body ached.

"i'll just pretend i'm fine," i told myself. who the hell doesn't do that, right? i got dressed, put on make up, packed my backpack and went to emerald city smoothie. perfect. energy boost, vitamin c, and some protein: just what i need. i'd be fine in no time!

"i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm terrific!" i kept telling myself, "i'll just trick myself into feeling better! this is gonna be easy!" after i finished my smoothie i realized drinking it had worn me out. always stubborn to admit when anything's wrong, i kept trying to remind myself everything would be okay soon. "i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm going to make all my deadlines for homework! i can do this!"

i finally made it to the school library and got to the stairwell- i ALWAYS take the stairs over the elevator. i looked at all of them and all of a sudden i felt like i was in one of those really bad dreams where you're trapped running up or down stairs forever, and it's really a pain-in-the-ass sort of nightmare.

they all are.

"this is bullshit. i'm sick and there's nothing i can do to pretend i'm not."

soup&salad

since i'd moved out, we'd made a point to have dinner together at least once a week, but she'd been gone down to the city i'd left pieces of my heart all over, and so it'd become less frequent than either of us had hoped.

we were splitting something pretty normal: salad and chicken noodle soup. neither of us really had the energy for much creativity, and we were more focused on just existing off of each other. it's been pretty rough for all of us.

"those girls were always so condescending, weren't they..." she said, more an observation than a question. it was true. i'd been mulling over a friend's birthday this weekend and was bouncing my thoughts off of her. i love my friend dearly, but i'd always got the impression a friend of hers looked down at me because i never treated high school like a grand competition. pettiness aside, my friend was the most important thing, so i'd decided to go. screw what other people think.

"yeah, kinda. i don't know. they liked to compare grades in high school and this person was always really shocked when i did well." it was true. how can high school girls be so mean? it's been ages since high school, but i was more than certain some things wouldn't change... why do people hold on to bullshit things like that? life's not a competition, and as the great words of baz luhrmann, "in the end it's only with yourself."

"you know..." i started, "...theres a kid in my theology class that seems pretty shocked when i turn in homework."

"why? you're pretty smart, you just always put yourself down." truth. when i was younger i was shipped around the state so i could take tests and be tested for my "intelligence". i blew everyone out of the goddamned water every time, but it just never seemed important if i wasn't doing anything with it... like helping people or changing the world or something.

"it's my attitude."

"what do you mean? i mean i know, but..."

"i just.... i'd rather people think i don't give a shit than know that there's things in my life i can't handle that are a million times more important." another truth - my life has always been like this. i basically sabotaged my grades my senior year of high school when my best friend was raped... how do you help someone through that? that was the first time i realized life can be (and often is) more important than a gpa. when a friend took his life two years ago..... even though we'd only recently made amends i still dropped out of school for a while to figure out how to deal and be the support for our best friend (there's never a way to "deal" with these things by the way).

and now.... now things are really bad, and i'd really rather everyone just think i have an attitude than know my world is falling apart.

she knew exactly what i was talking about.

more later.

jcs

i love this. i mean seriously, someone looked at this and said "dammit, if there is a heaven it's going to be full of dancing women and judas". i know it's corny but in a lot of regards i think jesus christ superstar is a pretty theologically sound movie.
happy easter:

love,
your favorite theology student

her voice///i die every time.

open letter

oh, you know who you are,

you promised me you wouldn't. do you remember those car rides? there were two of them. the first one was when we were driving home from fred meyers to the tree house. we were behind a school bus and i missed the turn (like i always did). you told me about him, you grew up with him, and then you lost him. i was young and i didn't know much about anything but i made you promise me you would never do that. the second one was in the parking lot of fred meyers a year and a half later. all i could say was "i remember you told me about him" and you promised me you wouldn't do it.

i'm not going to say you're the reason i don't trust anyone who holds promises: there's plenty better candidates for that. no. not you. hardly. we got along so well, we just didn't work. it's funny because i do the same damn thing now that i used to accuse you of doing. i fall off the face of the planet when i'm batshit terrified of the world. it's exhausting isn't it?

we had a lot in common.

we love her.

you see what i did there? you were always good at picking up on my subtleties because i dropped them so infrequently and deliberately. but you see what i did with that? that statement is intentionally remaining in the present.

the action of loving from both of us continues.

i don't know if talking to a ghost makes me batshit crazy, but i don't think there's any way to deal with this. i hardly knew you as well as she did and this is fucking tearing me up. i can't imagine how she's doing. i'm not writing this to push any blame on you, i'm just saying. i can't imagine. i guess i don't know where any of the three of us are with this, hardly either of you.

you know the funny thing? you're still alive with the glory of love.

love preserves everything.

this is not the end...

-me

speak easy

don't get too excited, i won't vlog much i just felt like talking instead of writing today. i don't particularly like listening to myself talk, but i needed to keep some sort of consistency with my thoughts/writing/creative outlet.

cheers!

more later.

simple questions

"hey! how have you been?"

when has a simple question ever received a simple answer?

"alive with the glory of love"

quoted from one of my favorite song writers, max bemis.

there's even a video to go along:

still writers block.

tons of hw.

more later, i promise i promise.

i feel like i've been all over the place

trying to capture all the words i let go

running around like they've been cast into the wind

before i set them all free.

to whom do i belong?

"who do you talk to?"

the words cut through everything and hit the floor deliberately. he always spoke with intention, even the times he wasn't sure what he was getting to. i'd spent the last three months working with him to try and put a talk together, and i'd taken pride in orchestrating a lot of the event... i wasn't about to answer, answering would mean that i was asking for help, and how much sense would that make if i'm the one who's supposed to be giving the help? then again, i hear pride's a sin.

"who do you talk to?"

he asked again. i was a mess. i had been for about the last two weeks, and i'd done a damn good job keeping it from everyone.... because honestly? i wasn't there for me, and nobody needed to hear what i was going through. as far as i've been concerned, a good leader is strong even when they feel they're breaking. i wasn't about to give in to my weaknesses, especially in front of my team.

who do i talk to? the question hit me hard. i can't even remember if i answered it.... chances are good i didn't. it hit me in the gut. it was too close to home. i don't talk to anyone anymore.

oh.

sure.

i talk a lot, and i talk a lot about things that aren't extremely important, and hell when i'm two or three down at a bar i can talk theology all night. but who do i talk to? the only answer i had was a brutal reality check:

i only "talk" to my therapist these days. more specifically, every other week on wednesday mornings. it's easier. for now.

i get into the most intimate details of my life, and over the last six months i've had them all twisted and thrown back at me. humiliating. when did people stop thinking logically or with care? i have nothing left to give in speaking, family and friends alike. everything's been used. i'm spent.

that's not to say that life is any less beautiful, and i've run out of love, but the very precious words that carry my thoughts have been torn up and cast out and..... if i can't keep anything lovely for myself, what then will my words hold? if my words are taken from me, then to whom do they belong? to whom do i belong?

2323232323

happy birthday to me :)

so damn fabulous

brushin my teeth.