Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

There's a lot of frightening things in the world
Fear of death
Of heights and spiders
Speaking in public
Fear of open spaces
And fear of closed spaces
(I wonder what would happen if those two fell in love)
There's even a fear of long words
(The word describing it is gigantic, you can look it up)
I'm not afraid of the normal things
I'm not afraid of a zombie apocalypse or vaccines
I'm not afraid thunder or lightning
Of falling or flying
I'm afraid that one day I'll wake up
Run my hands through your hair
And realize it was all a mistake
I'm not afraid of my parents dying
But I'm petrified of my kids living in a world without me in it
I'm afraid one day you'll all hate me because of how cautious I've been
I'm scared the world will wake up one day
And the rest of us won't

Reading poetry books in public places

I can't hang onto happiness
It escapes me constantly
So I carry this book
Waiting for you to come back for it

Oxfords

Clean shoes make me sad
So do the holes they build into jeans now
And t-shirts of aging rock stars beaten with stones to look old and worn
People don't wear their stories on their clothes anymore

Karlstad

I don't know how you put this spell over me
You make me want to melt into the fabric of the couch
And just live amongst the fibres and crumbs
With everything else you don't notice
You pass your fiery gaze across the room
Looking for someone to lavish your attention on
And I just become another piece of furntiture

Trusting by nature

I spoke to you because I wanted a friend
Not even a friend
I just wanted someone I could connect with for just a moment
That under the street lights, we could be alone with our private thoughts together
And of course you took advantage of that
Because why would you be any different from anyone else

Heart leaps to your throat

I want to live in that moment

That moment you look over the edge of a cliff
And there is just your heart racing a mile a minute

That moment you leap forward into frostbitten early morning waters
And there is just the air cutting at your flanks

That moment poised hunched on the starting block
And there is only the silence more deafening than the impending gun

That moment when the music just cuts out
And there is just the energy of the room

That moment when she leaves you with a slight hint
And there is that timid smile on her face

That moment the doctor pauses mid sentence, grim
And there is only that dropping feeling deep in your gut

That moment you're lying in your bed and staring at the ceiling
And there is only nothing

Blurs of Joy

Most people don't get to choose their names. A couple legally change it. That must be the most frightening thought in the world. To think you can go and change your name. And I don't mean your last name. People change their last name all the time, and it's never really changing you. Changing your last name means you're changing family, changing your past. It's for you, sure, but it almost kind of feels like changing your last name is kind of for everyone else's benefit. Kind of like how people use titles like "Doctor" or "Sir" or "Princess" or something. It's adding some more information about you. But your first name. That's you. It's what people call you every day. When someone has any kind of thought about you, in their head, they're adding meaning to the word that is your first name. It's why if you ever meet a Nina you don't like, you will probably never like any other Nina in your life, and you damn sure won't name your kid that either.

I think it's interesting when writers or musicians showcase work from and by themselves, under some clever name. Like Color and City. Or Ziggy Stardust. Or the artist formerly known as Prince. I think more than anything else, they understand that. That a name brings meaning with it. And in turn, the thing it names is defined by that thing. It's a cycle. And if you choose a name that seems odd, or has some literal other meaning, it gives a bit of bias to whatever it is they say and do. So much so that you might be listening to Miley Cyrus' music one night, and realize after all this time, she was singing about something you relate to on a completely personal level. And that realization might feel like it's destroyed you a little bit. Not the realization, but the utter lack of attention you paid before. But you had already formed some other opinion, just because her name used to mean 'Disney'.

'iwrotethisforyou' is someone I admire deeply. I would read some of his work, late at night when I was particularly gloomy, or even optimistic. And wonder and wish that it was really a girl who I had met and amazingly had managed to miss out on in my life, just simply not noticed that I had wronged so hard or left such a deep and lasting impression on. And that she was writing directly to me. That through chance (or really a friend) I would find her, and everything she had ever wanted to say to me, either in love or in anger, or in misery, or in joy, or just to pass the time.

And it wasn't until I read his explanation about who 'you' this was really for, that I started to think about the author as a real person, with a real name and feelings and life events. It both destroyed the old meanings I had for each of his poems, and attached a million new ones.

It's when I realize the name 'iwrotethisforyou' was for someone in his mind, but for me, it really was for me. It was for me and every other person that feels like a ship alone at sea in the eye of a dark storm. It was for everyone that feels like there is no redemption, no saving grace to life or themselves. Its for the people who feel shitty for and about themselves, so that they know not only there's someone else who can feel that way, but can feel better. That you can too.

I think about the choice of, what I feel like is now, my name. What I chose as a whim during a period of inspiration, until recently, was just the name of a blog. Blurs of Joy. It seemed like a clever name for something. And, I felt, elicited a response in the reader's mind that I wanted them to have. To think of me as. When I first started this blog, I think I was more interested in making other people feel a certain way. It's why I ended up emulating 'iwrotethisforyou' a lot, either subconsciously or not. I would read his poetry and think and feel certain things, and days later find myself wishing I could have that kind of profound effect on people, with just the words I write. That I could reach out and connect with people in ways they felt people in their own lives never could. Blurs of Joy was a blog name that implied mystery and happiness. And that's usually how I ended up feeling after reading 'iwrotethisforyou'.

I realize now, as much as I want to connect with people, as much as I want to make them think that I'm clever, that's not the best motivation for writing. That you can only emulate other people for so long before you run out of ideas, and you're left with nothing but yourself in your head. And you're afraid of what people will think of when they see it. If they will think less of that person. If they would think less of me.

I had this fantasy (correction: I HAVE this fantasy) that this blog will take off phenomenally. That I would become famous and popular, and I'd get a book deal, and it would all be under this alias. Blurs of Joy. And then one day I'd be famous enough that I'd pull back the veil and say 'Look! It is really I!' and all my friends would gasp and applaud. And suddenly, all the wonderful and amazing things that were Blurs of Joy would just transfer to my actual name. And now suddenly I would go from being some one dimensional real life character, to being a multi dimensional deep person, whose character is half made up in the minds of the world.

I still have that fantasy, but I am less interested in people finding out who I really am. Because here, I really am Blurs of Joy. I am the man that lives in my bedroom late at night and early in the morning. The man that goes on long drives in the middle of the night, into cold woodland on dirt roads, and watches the stars. The man that is still sitting in loud bars and clubs when everyone else has gotten up for that one last round of shots. I'm not the person that is alive and awake and optimistic and ready for the challenges of life and the warmth of people. Sometimes I am, but not here. Here I am Blurs of Joy, a name that is designed to make you think one thing about me, so that I can be something else entirely. And writing all this. And having you read it all. It's just helping define it a little better. But it's a part of who I am. It is who I am. And as much as he is a bit of a dick to me, Blurs of Joy is a part of my life too.

P.S. This whole entry, and blog really, and even persona, as hipster as that sounds, is dedicated to two people. The first one is Iain Thomas. Not 'iwrotethisforyou', but Iain Thomas, and his beautiful mind for writing so much and prolifically, in a way that always felt comforting to me. And to my friend who knows who she is. And for all the reasons she already knows why. But mostly because she knows me better than any other soul does or will, even if she doesn't know it herself.

Bedroom Philosophers

We have this ability to romanticize ideas
Where we take snippets of our past
And mould them just a little more on each remembering
To warp chance encounters into lost opportunities
Meaningless happenstance into profound realization
Mere seconds into hours of significance
We become old men and women in our souls
With decades of wisdom born from a few moments of misconstrued nothingness

Roald Dahl was the champion of the world, I was nobody

You know, I'm not frightened. It's just that I will miss you all so much. 
    ~ Roald Dahl to his daughter Ophelia on his deathbed

I don't know what I want my last words to be
I've thought about it sometimes
Trying to think what I might say when I have one last opportunity to say anything ever again
I would want it to be important
No, not important
I would want it to be reflective though
I would want to distil the essence of a lifetime, my lifetime, into a single thought or expression
A sentence that starts with the innocence of my youth, and goes on to express the pain and torment and joy and wonder of a lifetime
And ends with a calm acceptance
A sentence that conveys the love I have for those who have had a profound effect on me
And even for those who hurt and damaged me
For they too have helped mould who I am.

I just pray, more than anything else, my last words aren't 'Ow, fuck'.
And yet, those two words would describe my life more than anything else.

Remembered Day

I still remember the way your smile showed both your top and bottom teeth. How you'd squint as you laughed, little lines forming around your eyes. How the silver grey in your eyes glinted a little, even though there was so little light. As if they shone on their own, from deep inside. 

I've never expected to meet someone at a bar that I'd form any kind of connection with. Never a friend, definitely not a woman. I always kind of thought of bars as just facilities to go to with friends. A place where people anonymously mingle, and part ways at the end of the night, back to their own lives apart from each other. 

The bar was a dingy one. I remember the little light they had seemed to be swallowed up by the black floors and tables and walls, everything to hide the wide variety of stains built up over the years. My shoes stuck to the ground with each step, each threatening to suck my shoe right off my foot. The clientele seemed equally slightly dingy: skin a little too sunburned, arms a little too tattooed, hair a little too greasy. 

I don't think others would label me introverted, but it's how I see myself. I don't normally approach strangers, definitely not women as attractive as you were. My friend being highly interested in yours helped I guess. 

I remember being just slightly buzzed, enough that I was relaxed. Slow enough that I felt the attraction before any kind of gripping anxiety or fear could take hold. Just enough that I could be just me, and talk to just you. We spoke like friends of twenty years. You laughed at my shitty jokes and touched my arm. I held your hand as we spoke about our fears. The music pounded away, I could feel the stickiness of a thousand spilled drinks on the couch gluing itself to my pants, but still we spoke, right into each others ears to be heard. 

And as we stood outside, you asked me something. Something that suddenly brought reality crashing down on top of me. I felt like I had been hit by a train. You asked if I wanted to walk you home. For some reason up until that point, this had been a chance encounter, a moment of fleeting serendipity. Something that would end as the final song played, and we would go back to our own lives. But you had felt it. Like I had felt it. This was something a little more than that. You put your hand in mine, not waiting for a response, and turned to take me with you, turning to a street that seemed to stretch endlessly ahead of me. Stretch into a future that seemed a little brighter than the night itself. 

It was the middle of summer, but it felt like the dead of winter. That odd quiet after a fresh snowfall, as if the whole city is under the blankets and asleep, or speaking in whispers. Nothing could touch me. Or you. 

And with a single screech that all shattered. As your friend swooped in, and saved you from me. You had to go home together, you both had an early morning the next day, she didn't have space in her car for another person. The reasons rattled on and on, but it was already over. You were gone. 

I'd be lying if I said not a day goes by that I don't think about you. I don't think about you. Years have gone by since that night. I've gone months without thinking about you at a time. 

I don't know what I hope to accomplish by writing all this. Maybe some closure? Maybe. I doubt you'll ever find this. So much time and space has passed since then, us meeting in a city I don't live in. Not knowing if you've moved away. So much could have happened since then. So much HAS happened since then. 

That night was like any other, and yet...
yet still...
I am waiting for another like that to come again. 
Waiting for your intoxicating laughter
Waiting for your smile, with the tops and bottom teeth all showing.

The highway is my treadmill

The next time you're on the highway, late at night, when there's only a few cars around, try to do this. Match the speed of those cars around you, so that you're all sort of driving in formation. Then, retreat into your mind a little, and squint your eyes a little, so that the dotted lines on the ground blur into a line. And the buildings along the side and in front fade from view. And all you are are three cars on the road, standing perfectly still together, as the world rushes past. I like to think that if you can do that, trick you're mind into thinking you're actually completely still and the world is what's moving beneath you, you'll share a moment with those other drivers. In their cars they will feel a connection with you they have never felt with anyone else. And then you will all go your separate ways again.

Are you even listening?

Forget what might happen
Forget your fears and doubts
Forget about your dreams and desires
Forget about the plans and contingincies
Just see this for what it is
Right now
We already have it all
And we'll never have more than now
And we'll never want less
But we have to get by
Just see this for what it is
And not for what it might be

Big E Little e

Have you ever stopped to think your other half is out there
That they're maybe halfway across the planet
Just waiting for you to show up

Have you ever stopped to think your other half is out there
And it's not the person you're with

Driving back from Waterloo

We used to drive all the time at night. I remember it would always be dark out, and I would open my window all the way, take my seatbelt off, and sit up on my knees, my cheek pressed to the bottom of the window sill in the door. Eyes shut tight as the wind whipped through my hair, and the orange of the street lights would light up the darkness under my lids every few seconds.

With my head sideways, I would pretend I was in a convertible, and then in a rocket ship as we passed between orange stars. I would pretend the songs on the radio were the aliens singing greetings to us as we passed by, sing songy voices in foreign languages I didn't know but sounded so familiar.

I would sometimes scare myself with visions of what those aliens might look like, and I would open my eyes, and see my dad in the drivers seat beside me. My mother in the back seat. She with her eyes closed and asleep. He looking ahead. I don't remember ever looking out in front of the car myself. I remember looking out each side, trying to look up at the moon, looking backwards at all the cars chasing after us as we won the race. I don't remember ever looking forward at where we were going.

I remember just as we got home, I would always sit back down on my seat as we turned the corner to our house. And I would shut my eyes real tight and pretend to be asleep. And my parents would sit for a moment in the car, having some grown up conversation, before getting up and out. And my dad would come to my side and open my door, asking my mom if I was asleep, and I would reply, with eyes still closed and voice bright without a trace of sleep in it "I'm not asleep, I'm only pretending!" and we would all laugh. Every night. I would be so pleased with how clever I was.

These days I'm always the driver. It's what I prefer. I prefer being the person in charge of the destination, the reason my friends and family get to and from places dry and safe. But more than that, for some reason, I like the idea that, late at night as I drive, my friends fall asleep in the passenger seats, and maybe they're really wide awake and dreaming of chasing the stars in spaceships too.

Wearing costumes

I'm tired of following you around
I can't stand the crowds of people always around you
I've had enough of the endless nights in endless bars after endless drinks
I'm done with the fake laughter with fake friends and fake problems
I'm repulsed at the mess you are every morning after
I want to step outside all this
And I want you to see it for what it is
And stand outside with me
And become real people