hello, my name is christopher.

the truth of the matter is that i just don't understand. all those words that you said to me, i've tried to deconstruct them and i've tried to understand what you meant by them and so far, i can only comprehend what i think you meant. perhaps it's as far as i'll get.

everyone else either deeply understands our condition or they're merely faking it. if they do happen to understand, why can't I? they're not even involved in it and they get it. am I that blind? where i can't see what's in front of me? am i that old already? i have to confess though; from all of the phone calls that i've made to you in the past, for all the letters that still reside in my desk drawer, and for all of my apologies..

they are all true.

i pretend to be alright in the sunlight, and i pretend to thrive under clouds. you know... when the water floods to earth as if to escape some chamber that i has been held up in for ages? it flees to earth as quickly as i do from your line of sight.

in a few days i'm going to board a plane, and i'm sure that as i step across that gap between the jet and its walkway i'm going to be scared. i will be frightened but i will also be more than eager to get as far away from this place to see where i might live for the next 4 years of my little life. funny how i was dying to come home to you months ago. but you'll probably never see that part of me again. that part of me that rushed into your arms in front of camille's home. the part that held you for what felt like minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years. god i held you so tightly. i can still remember you looking at me from the top of her porch. just staring at me in silence wondering if it was really me, as if i had been lost forever. as if you'd seen my face in the crowd a million times and had learned not to get your hopes up. but it was me, and you ran. you ran so quickly to my arms. god i missed you.

you will most likely never read this, as it isn't quite intended for you to read. except for that last part about us seeing each other for the first time in a measly 7 days. however, if you do manage to trace its content i'm sure you will be a bit confused. you might even tell yourself to disregard it because you're over me.  but do we ever really get over anyone? or do we simply make our best effort in forgetting them? i've come to terms with the idea that i won't ever get over you, or have you again. it's okay if you can't do it either. we don't have to be in love, or love simply love each other. just don't beat yourself up about it. i've stopped. for the most part.

i keep looking for something to hold onto. something stronger than strong, and all the while i tell myself that i'm simply not cut out for this but yet i still continue to look. i'll keep looking and searching and rummaging through the packs of people hailing taxi cabs and yelling obscenities at television screens because their quarter back just missed the big kick. i don't know if i'll ever find someone. perhaps someone who is a cumulative of everyone i've ever loved? is that too much to ask for? maybe. maybe i just watched too many disney movies as a kid.

it's okay i keep telling myself. but i'm sure that like you, i have found out that most of the time it's not okay. i reach at straws and look desperate, but at times i just can't help myself. i'm so feeble at times, wanting love so badly but when i pull back i realize that there isn't a chance in hell that i could handle love.

you told me yourself that you loved me. you told me that you were in love with me. it made me feel so grown up. i knew you meant it. i had to ask if you regretted it, and you said no. it was such a surprise to me that night on the beach. it was one of our more cinematic moments as i recall. i was holding you in the sand. if my memory serves me correctly, we had been kissing a bit. you looked at me and told me, "i hope this doesn't creep you out or anything". how could it? i was so in love with you. i'd been waiting forever to hear it from your lips. you were so afraid i wouldn't feel the same. i didn't say anything for a moment, purely because i wanted to soak in the words. you approached love so strangely. 

then i hurt you.

let me tell you, as much as intentional as it seemed, i did not. it was not easy to watch myself destroy what we had built. and truth be told, i have absolutely no reasoning for it which i suppose in a way would make me insane. i'm so sorry that i hurt you. and i know that because of what i've done it will be more than difficult for you to ever trust someone new. 

i'm sorry.

you spoke to me tonight. you started up a conversation with me on the internet and we talked for a while. we spoke about current events in both of our lives and we hinted at things that happened while we dated. i liked it. maybe because i haven't talked to you in a month or two. i've lost track. but you did tell me that if we both end up going to school on the east coast, boston to be exact, that i would hit you up in 2011. that scared me. partly because you invited me to call, but also because it will be 2011. we will be adults.

it's the little things cathy. these small things that i blow out of proportion, subconsciously on purpose in order to keep the big things at bay.

don't be afraid. i'll be there, even after i hurt you.

i just hope that someday you'll see me there.

i love you.

this has been me not understanding

i can count her ribs, from our kitchenette window

the past blanketed me while the present dove into my ears eyes and mouth. the regulars with their cool shoes lined up at the door waiting, making small talk. i'd only been there twice and that time was equally as frightening... but for a different reason. if only i could have photographed that momentous occasion. that time when i vomited stories about myself onto the windshield in hopes of avoiding silence replaying the oxygen in the car. audio streamed through my speakers but i wasn't exactly listening. i was more distracted by the memories of car accidents swimming from lips into my ears and paddling up my to my conscious. damn... the city looked beautiful reflected in all that rush hour traffic. horns honking, blinkers flashing, and cameras snapping shots of amusing street signs.

"it should be on the left" 

sure enough.

"she sell. retail. by the CVS. Pharmacy"

i put the old record on the phonograph and let it skip around. she skipped around it. the lights galloped along; they came and went while December did the same. the lanes soon became nothing but chambers. homes for their diesel guzzling inhabitants. every once in a while, the autos could find a loose brick or two in the wall and manage to escape, but only into another home across the way. sooner than not... i was stopping in the street and saying goodnight. stopping in the street and saying goodnight. it won't happen again.

will it?

"art is meant to be seen. not felt. not heard. it's just paint. they're just words.

and fingers are for feeling, fists are for beating, scabs are for healing. and blood is for bleeding."

i'm not even good at being me anymore. there are times in life when that is more than true to everyone. and at other times, life is so spontaneous and original it's almost too much to handle. without both ends of the spectrum life is dull and painful. minds baffle me. how people assume, how they think, and how they come to conclusions. some conclusions so drastically different from the truth or from what's plainly evident. as i lay back on my teenaged bed, covered in sheets that have been eaten by moths these thoughts float through my head. they raise their sails and drift through one ear and out the other, sometimes being picked apart by my brain on the way through. the static of the television in the background is comforting as it is what i've become accustomed to at night. the static lulls me to sleep. today i drove through the marina in a car that has been in one piece much longer than it's driver. its wheels creek against the axle at with every turn that it takes. i suppose there isn't any real point to this post other than that it shows off what comes and goes from me. i try to be honest, and sometimes i even try to be cryptic but either way it's all simply things that i think about. simple things. so, so simple. at all points in time i am consumed with love. i look for it every day and i fail to find it over and over. however, by no way does that mean i'll stop looking. it's something that ultimately i want. if you know me as a person, you know that it's one thing that i'm all about. love makes me happy. love makes people happy. why wouldn't you want to be happy? because love can break you as well. you would think that a person would be turned off from something that continues to hurt them, but in the context of love humans do not learn. curious how only humans can display love. how they stay together for extended periods of time even though the relationship isn't based on sex. we could quite possibly be the only species to participate in this game. is love a legitimate emotion?

oh yes, it rains in southern california.

i can't stand it here. lately all i see is notifications of the universe mocking me. moments, scenes, galleries all featuring the art that is reopening wounds. i've done what i can to minimize the unraveling of stitches, but for some stupid reason i stretch in a way the doctor told me not to and the thread comes out and i'm exposed again. smoke stacks will always be my home though. polluted skies filled with filth. the world hates it, but to me it's comforting. i'd love to make a new home, but i hate that i'm going to leave this one even if it is over a year away. a year means nothing in the span of the universe. the earth took millions of years to develop livable conditions. the bottom line is, i'm scared. my fright is nowhere near the level of seniors though, i can imagine. some people i've forced myself to stop caring about, mostly because i can't stand to keep myself inside in their lives and them in mine any longer because of all the silly things i involve myself with. also, i think it's a dose of the real world. not many people hang out with their ex's. (i don't think) it's easier to move on by means of forgetting. don't you think? some people that don't know me approach me and think i can sing, or that i've taken lessons. the only way i know is singing along with radio disney on a 20 minute commute to torrance every morning. it's what i do. i take what i've done, what i do, and what i will do and put them into verse. and i sing them to people, in hope i suppose that someone will hear the words and feel unprecedented empathy. maybe someone will know exactly how i feel and will be able to speak with me and to me. perhaps, that's what i'm looking for as an ultimate conclusion. someone to speak to me. "the world is moving everywhere but here." isn't that the truth? that's what it always seems. but i'm living the dream. i'm getting decent grades in an above standard high school in beautiful southern california where we all live next to movie stars, playing in a rock band where i get to sing to peoples faces with sun glasses on so they can't see the shame lurking behind my eyelids. beautiful southern california.

we bleed...audio blood

trapped like rats in a box, we all scream. we scream more than bloody murder at the top of our lungs. we don't blare words as yelps for help, but as a communal cry. bestiality emerges from emaciated teenagers as synergetic tones seep through the pores of one hundred something poor confused pubescent beings. these tones gather on the floor and splash around onto laces and hightops as feet fly from solid ground to weightlessness and back again. the lights swivel as if operated by an intoxicated primate. shining light onto faces that we all adore. faces that we only long to throw words at and receive a sentence or two in return. these faces screech familiar phrases at us and we scream back in unison. we say "hey!" and we say it like we fucking mean it. no... we scream it.

hurdles holes and leaps

every day is something new in this place. but this place is nothing new every day.  every day i find myself jumping gaps that no one person can hope to leap over. and at the peak of every jump, i look down and remember what its like to fall short of a leap. every single time i get a running start. i make sure that everything looks okay, and then i begin to sprint. the gravel crumbles beneath my sneakers and it gets caught in my waffle iron grip.  somehow my feet know how many steps they have left before the edge of the gorge rushes to meet them. i put one leg forward as i crouch down to quickly spring back upward. before i know what's happened, i'm soaring over a super massive hole and hoping with everything in me that both of my sneakers will find solid ground again. i can clear my first couple of jumps without any trouble. as time flings me over these holes, they become increasingly larger. and soon enough it comes to my feet slipping and sliding on those little black rocks, struggling to push myself back up onto level ground. and here it comes once more. time and time again, i find an enormous black hole in front of me. a hole that i have had a part in digging. i proceed with a little more caution than i do with all my other jumps. i look around and see everyone begging me to "go for it!" instructing me on how to do it. i should listen to them. but who do i listen to? who's advice do i take? forget it. "i'll do this on my own accord" i tell myself. i begin to run and their advice pummels me from all directions. their shouts run through the air almost as fast as i do. they try to catch up with me and grasp at my scruff and shoulders. i manage to evade their sweaty, uninformed clutches. i make it to the edge of this cavernous problem and leap. i jump as hard and as far as i can. i fly like never before and leave al of their screams and taunts at the other side of the canyon. "i can do this!" escapes me at the top of my lungs. for some reason though, my eyes make their way to my feet and in turn the black emptiness below me. my engines seize up... there must be something caught in them. an insult must have broken a wing. i know as much of what is going to happen as you do. i spiral down in some sad spell. i try to flap my treacherous wings. i beat them faster and faster but i only fall farther and farther. this is it. i turn my head to the advice that has stopped. everything is quiet. the only sound is the air ruffling my feathers. all of their lonely eyes stare into my love sick ovals colored yellow and blue. they stare at me. they stare a gaze that reveals their apathy. i want to mouth to them "help"... but my lips are trembling far too much much to even remotely resemble the word love. as i fall, i soon meet them and we are at eye level. they don't shout to me... but they speak softly at me. they tell me that "we are not sorry. you do not deserve love." do i?

Nick was right.

im pushing against this current that is so damn heavy. because my chest sinks and my heart has now made itself known in my throat, everyday it gets harder to breathe. why is i that ones heart grows heavy at the sign of heartbreak, be it yours or theirs? why is it that you get dizzy and begin to see spots when your heartbreak is within the distance of shouting? why is it that we reminisce to no end when we break? and oh how fragile we all are. isn't it funny how the majority of us end up forgetting the plans we make when we're children? the ones that we turn our backs on... as if they are some disgusting childhood fantasy that each and every one of us is ashamed to admit to. i know that i've gone through all of these torments and although i am truly ashamed to admit it, i know that i have tormented others with these. i ask Nick why it is that we are all borne ceaselessly into the past. Questions, Comments, Concerns. they all find a way to my cerebellum and yet i continue to make the same stupid mistakes.

my footsteps travel south without my knowledge. they make their way to southern France where the two of us ventured without ever leaving the united states. where shadows crashed, and exploded into a thousand shades of uncertainty. they became what we really wanted to be. what i want to be. but i too hold onto passed years. i clutch at these people, places, things...i grip these nouns in my arms and refuse to let them go. they're locked up in boxes below my mattress... in memories that i will never share... in scars that i won't ever explain. they show themselves to the world in rain drops.lovenotes.syllables.freeways.keys.ivory.coincidence... didn't i notice that you both kept your money in the same box?

and there it was. staring me in the face. it was if anything, overly stocked. i couldn't remember its name for the life of me and then all of a sudden, there it was. two copies serving as eyes looking straight at me. straight through me. i picked it up and flipped recklessly through my the pages, my hands shaking. i made a fruitless attempt to find those digital words. to what? live some piece of my past again? to be persuaded to buy it so i could let it sit in front of me on my desk and stare at me like it did in the bookstore? no... i let it go. i let it go like i could never let this go. a post rummaged book now resides on that bookshelf somewhere in our southern France. as i puttered through the rows and aisles of white pages stained with black ink, i found it miraculous that they were once free. free of attachments and free of the binding that keeps them involved with other pages. but at one point or another they found themselves to be printed with ink. splats and splotches that in some strange way form words. words that give meaning to our lives and help us to exist and coexist. words that we clench in fist. those words that helped us learn those words. and so, the utmost obviousness reveals itself in the fact that without having something, we would never know it. without my words, you would never know that my nights blend together. aside from a night or two ago when i drove. i drove like i had never done so before. i drove North this time. and of course what was in my way but symbolism. it jumped out at me while i changed lanes and soon enough... i found myself at her front door. i didn't have the heart. i could have knocked. i could have asked. i went home.

Nick was right.