I wrote this in my head, in the car..

I thought I would write it down for posterity's sake.

I tell him, "You need a break."
and I can hear the silent resignation
in the tangled lines through which we speak.
A heaving sigh. Me holding my breath in fear.
"Death will be my break." he tells me, in earnest.
And I pour endlessly, as we pour tea
when we keep the grieving company.
I ask you, "From what is there to return to
when we are speaking of death?"

mm

cherished friends, i'm sorry for being so absent
a lot is up.

i find it takes a great deal of effort and energy to do this, but i hope to be able to return to you all soon.

x,
m.m

Things are a big goolash of good and bad right now.

I really want to tell you all the good, and it is coming. I seem to be really occupied at present, but I thought i would pass on the message that sometimes-all is well.

what is it about honesty, exactly, that makes it so difficult? what is about being completely honest to that one person that makes my mouth go dry, the feeling that reminds me of all those days spent home from elementary school watching court tv and sitting there, head resting on the hard arm of the couch-vomit bucket at my feet and covered in a blanket that wasn't doing me any good because it was covering maybe a sixteenth of me if i was lucky.
what is it about honesty that makes my legs shake? that makes me feel like i'm going to need that vomit bucket (which stores potatoes at all other times). what is it that makes me feel like i should really be sitting on the floor, back poker straight against the wall?
what is it about honesty that makes me pour my heart out to you, night after night? i don't mind, but i just wonder: am i really that bad inside that i need to feel all of this?

just accept it, matthew, you're finally meeting yourself for the first time and it's not somebody you have let become familiar with and you're sitting on a bench, facing away from each other. the body language is sending out a hilarious message to all the gawkers. it will take time, but you will love yourself. you will take yourself into your embrace because you decided that you can hug people and not die. you can let somebody in.

In the past three or four weeks I have learned more about friendship from itself than I have learned in my 17 years of being alive.
I feel so disconnected from the concept of friendship, and feel more in tune with the fact that friends are like fixtures in your house, furniture. Chairs, tables, lamps, doors—stationary things but can be moved if desired.

People may say to you whatever they want, to say, "Who are you?" does not require learning a new language (although it may seem like it—when you realize how shocked you are at the statement)
I mean, if I wanted, I could say that to each and every one of you right now. This very second.
I could say worse and probably be on worse terms with most of you.
I don't.
But somebody felt the need to do so to me.

Who am I?

Don't you find static things boring, static? We need to focus on the things that aren't boring, that aren't static. We need to focus on things that happen gradually, that have stages—things that grow along the way or have a natural ebb and flow.
When I write this, and I think about organic things I'm thinking specifically about people. The timeline of a relationship.
In these parts, there is a fishing shack and quite simply, it describes itself. It is a shack. There are the essentials: floorboards, boards supporting the roof, a bed. But the bed has become a storage area, and the floor has too. Were this Paris Hilton or Britney Spears' shack, it would be called a floordrobe. But in this case there were boots on the floor, various scraps. A painful sight.
How do we get to this point? How do we get to making a sign that has 3 parts: there is a toilet bowl in the center, above the toilet is a sign that reads, "LIBERALS" to the left of the "LIBERALS" sign there was a sign that read "JOBS?", to the right of the "LIBERALS" sign, a sign that read "LIES!"
When you lifted up the toilet seat cover, there was a shattered mirror. You see yourself.
I see all of this, all of it. I wonder, how does one get here?
How does my Mother get to telling me she doesn't know if she can "go on" and I know the framework for everything. I know what our tablecloth is like, and I know what the boards of this house are like but it's not as if the battle isn't even on both sides. Both hands are doing the same thing, they mirror each other.
I don't know how people get to these states, I wish I knew.
I know the outward symbols, but the inward symbols burn in a more destructive way—like real fire. The outward symbols are just the soot.

for good friends,

when you're having that neon-lit "crisis moment"
remember that you are in the middle of it,
and ask yourself,
"what is it like in the middle of a hurricane?"

i sit adjacent to the man who prefers to let the piles of paper gather, until the wind takes them to their final destination: the floor.
i clean up after myself, but that's a character trait.
some people just don't have it.
and, some things are just meant to be.

nostalgia puts me back some steps.
this whole night, i thought it was 2006.
it may as well be.
nothing has changed.