A Fake Memory

A fake memory that only you believe in.

A wish that you make come true - even though it's just a little white lie you tell yourself.

That with this, you're a little closer to your dreams (whispers: not really).

A burning live house, throbbing bass.
Waves of energy rolling from the seats.
I gaze at a benign god.
He gazes at me.
We don't need words.
This time, I can breathe.

You Only Have This One Life To Reach Your Dreams

Sometimes I wonder how true it is that I can never become truly great at something that I'm utterly talentless in.

Don't you sometimes wonder, what would happen if you really did sing non-stop for years and years? Surely with so much practise, you'd be at least better than where you are now? Maybe not world-class, maybe not famous, maybe not enough to win a reality show, but what if? Maybe if you worked hard enough, for long enough, really want it enough - maybe natural talent isn't as important as you think.

Ah, but then you also sometimes get those people that say "even if you believe it, it's not possible".

I don't know. Maybe because I was born with an inborn hatred of advice and should do this, should do that, don't do this, can't do that. But it really irks me to hear that.

Yes, so maybe belief isn't what makes it work. But hours and hours of work and sweat and effort and heart have got to mean something. Don't you think it would be impossible to practice for hours without getting slightly better? How about years? Have you ever heard of someone who sings with all their heart for years and is still no good??

Just refuse it. Your life is down to you anyway. If you want to believe in something, damn well do it and forget whether you should or not, or whether it will yield results. After all, if you believe it hard enough, work hard enough, I think you'll hear a difference in how you sound - even if no one else does. And while that might not be enough to win a show, isn't that enough to secure a little happiness for yourself?

If you think about it, I think the believing that it's possible is also a form of believing in yourself.
A unbridled sense of the world is mine and I can be me.

So yes, I'll probably keep ruining the neighbours lives with my late-afternoon impromptu piano recitals. Probably keep strumming on my guitar and singing in my room even though I know I have the rhythm of a half-tranqed deer.

I don't really want to be a musician.
But sometimes it's nice to just believe that I can.

I like to think that thus far, I've been able to hold on to the wide open expanses of "I can be whatever I want when I'm old" that belongs almost exclusively to children.
So many people grow up and realise that their dreams have fences and insurmountable walls.

But you don't.
Even if its a wild idea with nothing tangible to back it up, just try. Dream a little bit.
Don't worry anymore about it being pointless or impossible.

For all you know, you only have this one life to reach your dreams.

Losing Yourself (But Not In A Romantic Love Song Sort Of Way)

It's not as if "oh, the world sucks."
It's not like "god, I hate my life."
It's a little more like a little plaintive murmur
"it's a little less right than I thought it would be."

Days go past and hours fly by
Measured by unattended places
and "it's all getting harder".

Expectations make the world go round
But you disappoint me
and I'm sure if you knew me
I would disappoint you.

Such words that fall
but there is no sword
no strength, no will

Measure your youth in misguided actions
In misunderstood phrases
be a stereotype
no, stand out.

Fall back on what you have
On your lips, "I'm aiming for more"
But nothing's been done
and you're just an act.

Don't lose it.
What gives you drive
Don't be comfortable.
Don't forget it.

What makes you , you.
What makes the stars in your eyes
light up with hope
And see a future, that's only for you.

Quietly Quietly

Quietly quietly. A passion inward that is unseen. Between shocks of black, blonde, tawny violet, these colors framed by mistake.

Another rotation spins round and round, messages too common to repeat. Instead "bloom and glory forever", and never may they fade.

So many changes, by what name and cause, what river, what ocean, from which they stream, a tragedy by any other name.

Books and books, pages and pages, the scrawls of "your geniuses" and carbon copies. Ideas and hopes to die for.

Star light, star bright, purple towels and black guitars. No shooting ones, but does this by my hand count as a wish? I'll try.

Pages and pages, stacks and stacks, the quiet broken by my laughs and sighs. I'll run to you to find solace and peace, a page to ease my heart.

I'll find myself in "real places", dusty tomes and uneven edges, on a bright screen with foreign letters and in the notes of a screeching guitar.

Because when you grow up, you learn to like who you are.

The Hours, Days, Weeks, Months.

I want to dye my hair purple.

I think I'm wasting too much time. If there was a countdown for one's youth, in the form of a ticking clock, it'd be strapped to my back and I'd be flattened by its weight.

It's like time has been broken into "manageable pieces"; hours, days, weeks, months, but why is it that hours pass like days and days pass like months and the months pass like seconds?
And the years are trickling through the gaps in your fingers.

I want to play music and short-circuit the speakers.

Would you believe I have a book of Emerson's poetry on top of my amp? I like that kind of thing. Juxtapositions.
Next to that, sketchbooks filled with drawings of smoke and profiles, and profiles smoking.

This room is filled with me. The black guitar by the mirror. The chrysanthemum tea cans in a line. The band tshirts folded in perfect stacks.
I know every inch of this place, every contour of every item.
I want more books. I'll stack them on my amp.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm wasting the hours, days, weeks, months. I don't want to ask. I can't handle advice. Times like these, I "look like an only child" don't I?

I'm too stubborn. Won't listen. Don't waste time learning that, learn this. Become an architect. Become a banker. Should be like her. Should be like me. Should learn some philosophy.
Oh how the irony in that last part burns.

I want to run away most nights.

I wish I had wings, but a plane ticket will do. I'd pack just one bag and bring my guitar, like those ridiculous teenage movies. I'll climb out a window (and break my neck), making it to the airport just as my gate closes.

I'd like to migrate like the birds but escape summer entirely. I'll circle the globe clock-wise and go to Zurich on a whim. I don't want to be an architect. Or a banker. Maybe one day I'll learn to whistle.

I'm afraid I'll forget what it's like to be young.

So I write lines every day to remember each hour, day, week, month.
Maybe I should take photos.
I don't want to grow up.

Picture credits: Reita, The GazettE

Organic

Hair bleach and

collarbones

Buses and smoke like

watermelon

Lights on a bridge

where there used to be trees.

[I want to love organic.]

Picture: mine.
"I want to love organic" from Closer - Plastic Tree.

If I Could Be Anyone

If I had a thousand lifetimes to chose from, I would choose this one.

If I had one day to live, I could spend all of eternity remembering each moment.

If I could, I would live a single moment as you, and a lifetime as me.

Just because I'm curious, you see.

Draw Me A Map

Draw me a map to a place I can't name

Forget how and why, we're too young to care, too careless to heed

Take a photograph, to remember each not-line

In twenty-three years, let's look back on our glory days

Send me a message in a bottle, washed out to sea

No one is home, but the thought counts at least

Write me a bedtime story with fairies and wolves

With no good or evil, no plot or lines

And sing me a song with words from a tree.

Meet Me On The Star Ferry

Don't fly me to the moon
But instead, wait with me by the stars

They're just pretty words
But the lights from my window count, right?

A tiny speck
But so what

Let's not give up
But throw our backs into it like Sisyphus.

Meet me on the star ferry
To reach the stars outside my window.

("Meet me on the star ferry" is a nail polish color from OPI lol)

"On The Roof Of A 13-Floor Building, I Closed My Eyes And Talked With God"

Reckless
In a brash and loud and colorful way, that fades when the numbers pile up

But if for example, we were reckless
nothing would change
because we're quiet rebels.

Why is it that I like high places
and the smoke curling from the end of a bad influence.

It's not like I believe in anything

though,
I want to stand on a rooftop
and watch everything move

Maybe I'd find
when
"On the roof of 13-floor building, I closed my eyes and talked with God"
It's just me, talking to myself.

Based on a quotation from
Panorama - Plastic Tree

I'm Falling But I Can't Decide Which Way

I want to reinvent myself again. To hide behind another name.

Sometimes being alone messes with your sensibilities.
But being with others messes with your sense of what you are and who you want to be.
To what end do I want to be who I think I am?

It's that vague feeling of, I'm not quite fine and the world isn't all great - but hey, what's the name of that problem and why is it here at all?

I've broken two picks and I've broken my skin.

I want to record my youth in the sounds of piano keys.
With the notes of the one and only song I can (and want to) play.

If I push the sustain, maybe I can make things last longer here too.

I want a purpose and I think I know what it is.
But it's all down to me and I can't remember who I want you to be.

Let's sit inside while it rains and play until our bones break apart
Only, I can't quite see who you are in this dream and maybe you're not there at all.

But I guess it's ok, if I could switch "normal" off and on.

Find me so I can lose myself.

Picture:

Aoi / The Gazette

Maybe Slightly, Just A Little Bit Wonderful.

You look that way, and you like certain things.
You do reckless things and smoke all the time;
standing almost defiantly in higher spaces [because the out-of-the-way corner you liked got "renovated" away.]

You're kind of awkward sometimes,
I wonder if it's because of the way people sometimes give you funny looks.
I wonder if that's why you sometimes satirize yourself [don't] with that ironic twist of your mouth.
Sometimes I forget that you are, really, rather strange looking.

We're kinda the same.
Only really, we're not.
Because I'm not brave enough to be myself like you are yourself.
So I wear a pick necklace and old-band shirts, while you wear yours on your skin and breathe it out.

People give us funny looks.
Only, they're probably for different reasons.
But you still stand on your perch, with no remorse.
Because you are who you are.

And I think, you are the most interesting person I have ever met.
And that perhaps,
You are maybe slightly, just a little bit wonderful.

Someday, when I get around to it
I'll tell you.
Because I have never met a vegetarian metalhead, with dreadlocks and tattoos, and a masters in Philosophy, who works on questions in pubs, smokes like a chimney, wears a different band shirt every day of the week, and gives out 60/100 because its 2 in the morning and they can't be fucked marking wrong answers any more.

Screw what other people think of you.
You are brilliant.
And mine is the only opinion that matters.

Picture credits: unknown, sorry.

You'll Gather Them When No One Is Looking

It happens, from time to time. Something unpleasant that rips open old memories, or rips open new wounds, that feels like it's slapped you, stinging, across the face.

But that's ok. You have coping mechanisms. Eating ice cream. Watching the birds. Listening to music.

They don't take the pain away, but they can dull it, just a little. Enough for it to be bearable, enough for you to pretend you are ok. They can hold it back just long enough, until you can quietly pick up the pieces when no one is watching you.

And you'll pause over each piece. You'll remember how you laughed on that day, or how you smiled when such and such happened. Sometimes those pieces don't exist yet. But they are still memories, even if they are fairy-stories you made in your mind.

And then, you will quietly, quietly, put the pieces aside, until you have a little pile.

And you'll see that the pile isn't really so big after all. Not all-consuming like you thought it was.
It's such a shame. They were beautiful memories. When did they fade and dull and become so small?

But slowly, you will make progress. Each small piece will be delicately placed in the pile when you are ready. Sometimes you'll pick one up and turn it over in your hands and marvel at the way it used to make you feel.
It doesn't quite feel the same anymore, does it?

But that's ok. You'll gather them slowly, slowly, at your own pace. You'll gather them when no one is looking, and you'll get stronger because those pieces are heavy and painful.

And it will be so quiet that only you will hear the sounds.

Picture:
有村　竜太郎
プラスティック・トゥリー

Dances With Mops In Library Carparks

Our breaths fog the windows of this little red car.
As always, there is licorice and ginger beer, pretzels and cake. Come tomorrow, we'll still find crumbs in our pockets, in the seat, on the roof, in our hair.

It's winter now, and although it's never white where we are, it's ok because we're never warm enough anyway. That's why the heater is on full blast.

We'll play bad dance music on our Ipods - lamenting the loss of the CD player - and reminisce about how we used to dance at night in summer, I would watch, and you would dance with the mops and brooms.

We don't really discuss anything worthwhile. I amuse myself with drawing on the window while you bitch about someone at work. "Yeah, that guy, I hate him too", I agree.

"We're having kinky sex, wish you were here?"
When did I start becoming so perverted?

We never really accomplish anything. At some point, we'll drive to your house, and we'll sit in your living room - at the table that's been there since you were born - and we'll drink tea and eat cake.
Or rather, you'll eat cake, because you know how I can't stomach sugar and you take it away from me before I can eat it anyway.

I'll flip idly through a magazine about something and nothing in particular while your voices drift over my head, and I'll catch pieces of another conversation.
Sometimes I feel like I should join in, but I know you don't mind when I space out.

Someone always starts talking about how they miss summer nights, when we would sit outside and watch fireworks and make a bonfire. A really puny bonfire, I think.
"I like winter more," I add.
"I know you do," you'll say.

Sometimes I'll join in too, and we'll laugh ourselves silly. Anyone else would stare at us, wild gestures and expressions. They wouldn't understand that you have different faces, and these hand gestures are because I've painted my nails with stars. Face 1 is scorn. Face 2 is disapproval. Face 3 is when you laugh like you'll explode.

Sometimes I will sink into a quiet silence. I'll pick at books that are strewn about, or pick at a piece of cake I can't eat. You always take pity on me and make me toast.
Conversation never wavers, even though I drop in and out. It's like we adjust to make room for each other's habits. Habits that we know so well they might as well be our own.

So when you start waving your hands about, I know you're getting frustrated and I'll change the topic.
And when you start flicking your hair with irritation like that, I know you want to go and do something.
And when you start tapping at the table, I know you're probably thinking about someone.

I wonder what habits I have? If I asked you, you probably won't be able to tell me.
But when I look, I notice that there's always something salty in the shopping basket (we spend too much time in Foodtown), you always look at me funny when I say I'm fine and you always say my favourite line:

"That's just who you are."

These are the things I want to remember us by.

So Thin/ Sometime Next Tuesday

He was so thin, the kind of thin that comes from living a reckless life with no heed for taking care of oneself. A life of immediate gratification without any fear or thought of the consequences that come with tomorrow. Wrists and arms that seem to fade to nothing, shoulders that jut out and ribs that slightly show beneath plain t-shirts that no one else could possibly wear - no, own - like that.

And yet still, he slings that guitar around like it weighs nothing with an energy that burns you out the moment you take a breath. So you know that the minute he steps off that bare-yet-hallowed stage, he'll collapse and awaken sometime next tuesday.

But that's not a bad thing, because it means that he throws everything he has at this, at music. Doesn't that make you smile? Make you believe that there are people in this world who care, who believe in their dreams and who have something, anything to live for.

He runs and staggers and dances and sways and god, doesn't everyone look at him like he's some kind of deity? Oh, but isn't that exactly what he is? On this stage, in this crowded noisy, burning live house, with eyes in the crowd blazing with a desire that can't be named, he's basked in a glow that gods crave.

So maybe he's just human any place else, with problems and obstacles and things that just don't work. But not here.

In years to come, I will remember him as the reason I play the guitar, draw eyeliner too thick and paint my bass a purple from my dreams. I will remember him for the way I care about everything and believe in my dreams and how I, small and insignificant as I am, have something to live for.