Cause I can still smell summer on your skin and I can still remember giving in; wrapped all up in your hips, and in your sheets. Felt great falling.


I love Matt Nathanson. Really.

Oh my God, my liver is crying inside. I drank too much but God damn I had a shit ton of fun.

1. Your coat looked so comfy lying there on the floor like that, with you across the room laughing and in your element.I wanted you to love me like you love them or to be part of your new life. That's okay; you are happy and you still love me, I know that. But I'm watching the old you slip away and it scares me. I have to finally lay everything to rest. I love you and I wish I could thank you in a sufficient way for the way you care and keep in touch and think of me. I wanted you to get out of here like you wanted but it seems that you're still here for a reason. I still want you to get everything you want.

2. You pretend to be fine and you laugh a lot but you don't fool me. I wish you could be what you want to be, what you so obviously are. You could be so happy and free and not give a damn. I love you so much! Do you love you? I wonder that sometimes. I wish you didn't feel like you can only be serious when you're drunk and I wish you weren't unhappy...but I can see it and I can feel it. It hurts that you hurt so hard and the weight of everything you're hiding feels like the weight of the world, even from my point of view. Come on, you at least deserve to be who you are even if it's not who you want to be.

3. We still do that thing where we share glances with each other. I never really found anyone else who does that. So what does that mean? You can't fake that. I could never have foreseen our lives being this way. Are you happy? Stable? Have you changed? Do you still laugh and sing? What do you love or hate or think about all day? What classes are you taking and how is school and what do you want to do with your life? That's too much to catch up on, isn't it? My mom told me that sometimes you just outgrow friendships and that it's healthy and it just happens. That's all I can really fall back on.

4. I'm afraid I've flattered you. Flattered you or frightened you, I don't know. It seems, though, that maybe you think even more now that you are some kind of almighty being. Once we described you to my roommate and she said sarcastically that it sounded like you "have a way with words". The thing is your stupid flattery works. Your simple, boyish, southern charm and all that other bull. I can tell though, that you're masking all your failure and all your anger at life under your excessive drinking and your sad jabs at other people's lives. I'm sad for you, really and truly.

5. Now you have all of me. I have no bargaining chips left, nothing to keep you interested.So, I just wonder how you keep me at your feet; ready, willing, and eager. "It's not the storm before the calm. This is the deep and dying breath." Finality, though, has never come easy to me. Never.

Dear Sarah:
I wrote this once, and after reading your entry, I wanted to share it with you. Granted, I was under an influence when I wrote it, and I am sharing it with you now under the same influence, but I think it's pertinent:

I read once that we're all made of Stardust. That billions of millions of years ago, a hundred thousand stars exploded and eventually made up each and every part of me. And the particles in my right eye might not be from the same star as the particles in my left pinkie toe nail. So I'm walking around, a piece each of one hundred thousand stars vibrating and bouncing around inside my skin, my hair, my eyes, my brain. I am stardust (golden). And so are you, and so is my second cousin twice removed, and princess Diana, and so is the most newborn babe. A hundred thousand diamonds glinting within you, each and every one unique. I wonder if we shine like DayGlo paint on our insides at night. Only with DayGlo, of course, you have to wait for it to soak up a bunch of light to be neon bright liquid light. With your insides, they gather up their strength in the darkness, from your dreams, and during the day they shine with the brilliance of your wild mixed up dreams.
It's like the sparkles in the asphalt on the roads. You think it's not there, but then suddenly it's hit by the light and it shines like a hundred shattered mirrors.

I hope you liked it, Sarah. You don't have to wait to be stardust, because you are.



PS BHolmes, I love you. Call me soon.

I've nothing sweet or profound to say about Christmas. Might be the best Christmas ever: I've never had so many life-changing, life-affirming nights as I have these past few weeks. Last night I wrote a poem and I felt like goddamn Allen Ginsberg. That's enough to make it one of the best months of my life, really.

For Christmas I mostly want to get books and records for myself: Neutral Milk Hotel, some of the Beatles, Matt & Kim, whatever I can get my hands on. I also want to read some Hunter S. Thompson, get some more poetry, that sort of thing. If I've got the money, I'll go to Charlotte and get a simple crescent purple moon tattooed somewhere around my shoulder, maybe.

Anyway, it's nice to be home with my family for Christmas -- A Christmas Story is on, my favorite Christmas movie of all time. It's so funny, and even though I've watched it about 50 times in my life, I'll always love it. My sister and I will share a bed tonight because it's tradition, and in the morning we'll all get up and go to my parents' room before we're allowed in the front room for presents. I'm kind of excited now.

TONIGHT I WROTE A FUCKING ODE.

A FUCKING ODE TO MARIE.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. I'M FUCKING OUT OF MY BATSHIT CRAZY MIND AND I CAN'T GIVE A FUCK.

----------
We'll stay up til the sun rises, it seems.

O, Marie.

Wow, I know that last night's post doesn't really make sense, but what can I say? It's still true.
I've spent the day with my sister, and we've had a lot of fun. She was at Mary's last night and we all laughed and had a lot of fun. Marie was back! And we listened to her music, and she showed me her glitter and her drawings. It was a nice night. But now there are just things I want to say...

I hope you know that in a few years, none of it will matter, and you'll laugh at yourself for ever having felt that way. Really, it's so much better once you let it all go: we torture ourselves into misery and in reality we all deserve better. Anyway, I don't really know you, I just think you're better than that.

I think you're wonderful, and I'm sorry you feel the way you do. I wish I could scoop you up and take away the hurt, because I know it's there. I wish I could hum a song for you and it would all just go away. But I know none of those things will help, and so I guess I can just tell you I love you and that others do, too. That's important to remember at a time like this.

Don't worry, mistakes happen and eventually they just blow away into the wind like dandelions. Just try to drift for a while, stay afloat, and we'll all be there to help. I know that I'm the worst at that, but I can tell it's what you need. Just tell me next time you need me, and I'll try my damnedest to be there, even if you're embarrassed or humiliated or something crazy.

I can see how happy you are and that makes me glad. I think it's wonderful the way you've found a place for yourself in the world, where you feel comfortable and free and I'm sorry I can't always let you be that way. I know that this will be hard for you, but I'll try to make it better. Let's just go for a drive when we can't stand going home and maybe that will make it all worth it.

No one has ever told me before that I'm a good friend. Thank you for telling me that. I didn't know you thought so, and I feel like I owe you even more for even thinking to tell me something like that.

Right now, even though everyone thinks something awful must have happened and neither of us really knows what happened, we both know that it was nothing. I felt no animosity or anger or whatever... anyway, I just thought I should say that nothing really happened, just that it did. And I think we both know that's just the ever-turning ever-changing world we live in. It was kind of fitting, wasn't it? I think we helped each other through a lot, and eventually we just needed things that we couldn't get from one another. That's okay, isn't it? Well, whatever happened, I hope things are working out for you. I wish I could give you a piece of what I've gained in our time apart, and I think you could give me something in return. Maybe one day, when one of us is feeling courageous. Sorry yours was so long, but it felt sort of necessary in the moment.

I don't know your plans, and I think you're a little mixed up about who you are and all, but I still think you're great. I mean, I think you've got your principles, your dreams, your aspirations, convictions, and I think you like to stick to them by way of a sort of identity. I'm sure it will work out, in the way it always seems to for you.

Oh my God, I forgot how fantastic you can be. I really did, but I'm so happy you're back and that I get to spend a little time with you here and there. Thanks for just... being you & being accepting. I know most people don't think it of you, but you really welcome people with open arms in your own way. It's nice. So thanks.

Fwoooooooooo. I just needed to write some of those things down. You know who you are, I'm sure. Does the anonymity bother you? Sometimes I hate when people do this because I always feel a little nervous and guilty when I'm reading them. Like I'm supposed to know who I am, but I'm not really sure if I'm even on the damn list. Anyway, none of these are negative. I'm just feeling really peaceful, and like I've got this moment of clarity right now, sitting on the couch and looking at the light play on the leaves. I really do hope the best for everyone.

Sorry this was so long if you read it.

Well it hit me last night, like an anvil. How I've messed up so royally. I diverged from the plan, I am not the same in your eyes, I can't take any of this back and start over. It shouldn't matter but it does. Now it is official; I will never have what I want. And no matter how much I pretend not to want it...I want it so bad, more than I can remember wanting anything in quite some time.




I'm scared and aching and full of want and teetering on the edge of self-destruction.

Let me just say that maybe if we could all shut up for forty minutes and listen to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, things might work themselves out.

And no I'm not ashamed of posting this at 3:30 in the morning.
And no I don't know if I care anymore.
And no I'm not an artist, or an intellectual, or any of the things I ever planned or wanted to be.

But I know that I felt like crying when I really listened to this. And I think that's enough.

Last night was utterly indescribable. I swore an oath to get a tattoo, which I absolutely plan on doing. A night like that must be recognized and remembered somehow. And I said it then, early on: it is the most ridiculous conversation that's ever happened in the history of the world, but that doesn't really matter. That was so exciting, like every part of my body could feel every little thing that was happening, like we could have talked on and on like that for ever.

Anyway, it was just really amazing.