February

I have become the kind of lady who buys herself flowers on the weekend.

circling back

late at night is when i forget your feelings.

the edited version

you make me want to not coast and you see all these things in me that i kind of already hoped were true and truly in me. and you're so kind, gentle, thoughtful, and the people around you are so incredibly fond of you; i sort of wouldn't believe it if i hadn't seen it, how well you live. you're so gosh darn hopeful and i find it totally fascinating if a little bit scary because there's something overwhelmingly huge about all the positive energy - it won't fit in my head, not even close. but here you are and you're so very present, so impeccably sincere, and then at the same time just the tiniest bit delightfully insane.

most

i went to bed at six pm because i couldn't keep my eyes open and then i woke up at eleven pm and ate some nutella toast and around the same time i realised that there are more important things like kindness and thoughtfulness and compassion and energy and optimism and just this kind of lovely indefatigable earnestness.

upon reflection

dinner dates please.

an easter miracle

you're starting to seem like a lifetime away! and jesus is just so close, so incredibly risen.

edit: also, i'm so much more me without you, and i can't for the life of me work out what i was thinking when i imagined it otherwise. also, i've realised that i fell in love with the wrong friend. and that's really quite a shame because now it's very done.

developing images at the local store.

you're both really fun! now for some straight talking please.

Welcome to the Window

It's all up to you, my friend.
It might be what you always wanted but
You might not recognise it
Straight away.
You see?

Close and lips and
Cheeks heavily brushed
Blushed, touched but
It's not quite real or it's in fuzzy focus
At least.

For my part? Nobody knows
Except the King and he's worrying about
Other things and that's
Good for the world,
Which likes generally to turn.

I have so many conversations.
I spill and speak. And
It's hard to make out the register
Of these date-stamped improvisations.
You know?

There are makeshift moments that my eyes
Distort behind the scenes.
I can't say where will and wont
come in in all of this.
It's probably nothing.

answer yes or no.

my lists have changed! this is an interesting new development. referable to my own anxieties or...? always a bit of that, though i try to ask God to make me want, and then walk, the most holy and selfless route. do half-prayers really count though? the not-quite ones that seem to barely rise as high as the ceiling. regardless it's fun to have something on the go and to feel what i imagine to be an average amount of joy when i open my eyes after another (sleepless! always too sleepless) night.

right?

needs to stop caring needs to stop caring needs to stop. ok? oh for someone to not blow it - would be nice, wouldn't it? and, well, i probably need to make something change so my insides are less raw, etc. there's a peculiar grief in leaving home and picturing yourself as less alone than you really end up being, or than you really are in that all-of-life ultimate sense. (don't i know it.) actually, it's probably me - the ruining everything, that is. or it's just the whole universe and the person holding it together, except he doesn't ruin things as a matter of course so yeah i guess not which means - i don't know. that fanciness and niceness and kind of profundity to the everyday that comes with things that work out or are in the process of working out is what i think i want. for kicks. i would also like to sleep for several days, so good night.

A parable for the two of us, lately speaking

"Now they were different people as they started back. Four times they had driven along the shore road today, each time a different pair. Curiosity, sadness, and desire were behind them now; this was a true returning - to themselves and all their past and future and the encroaching presence of tomorrow. He asked her to sit close in the car, and she did, but they did not seem close, because for that you have to seem to be growing closer. Nothing stands still."
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1941), The Last Tycoon (London: Penguin, 2011), p.114.

freaken hell.

why do i still care? what the hell is wrong with me? jesus, take this away from me forever. i truly, completely, absolutely wish that i'd never met him.

Friday Night

my days are full but my nights are empty.
i walked out to put the garbage in the bin and i wished you would drive up, playing out the romantic gesture that used to always seem just around the corner, just off the sidewalk, just outside my house. and not because i 'deserved' it, whatever on earth that means, but because you had to, you loved to; you couldn't not.

sufjan stevens - i walked

i walked
because you walked
but i won't probably get very far

kate nash, the nicest thing

I wish I was your favourite girl.

I wish you couldn't figure me out, but you'd always want to know what I was about.

I was I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep.

Basically I wish that you loved me.

I wish we could see if we could be something.

Me too.

From my Sunday addiction.

i asked for you.

have you ever prayed a one-off prayer? one that you really feel and need to send out of your heart, but one that you won't repeat? because even though you really feel it you're scared to invest too much in it by making it a private liturgy.

it felt audacious but very right to tell God what i want. and now it feels right to leave it to him and to breathe. i have a beautiful freedom in Jesus - every freedom, in fact, except the freedom to deny righteousness. i feel more calm than i should about all the complicated tomorrows, and i have a funny feeling that this stillness might be the rest and repentance Jesus has been longing to give me. i hope he holds me to it.

The Weekend Fall-out (or, Psalm 13)

Sometimes it's not right to read all the way to the end of the Psalm.

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and everyday have sorrow in my heart?

Sometimes it takes a long time to be able to read to the end of the Psalm. Because sometimes the hope rings hollow.

Chemistry.

"Louisa sang as she came over the crest of the hill from the white folks' kitchen. Her skin was the colour of oak leaves on young trees in fall. Her breasts, firm and up-pointed like ripe acorns. And her singing had the low murmur of winds in fig tress. Bob Stone, younger son of the people she worked for, loved her. By the way the world reckons things, he had won her. By measure of that warm glow which came into her mind at thought of him, he had won her. [...] A strange stir was in her."

Jean Toomer, Cane (1923), New York: Perennial Classic, 1969, pp.51-52.

Note to self.

EVERYONE ALWAYS CHANGES.
EVEN A FEW MONTHS IS TOO LONG TO KEEP THE FEELING.
NOT ENOUGH.
DOING GOOD DOESN'T USUALLY PAY OFF.