and this is not a case of lust, you see
it's not a matter of you versus me...

..but my experiment is not getting us anywhere.

its wonderful how you can slip right back....roof-basement-chai. we could live and die this way.

it's that time of year again, ladies...

take me down to the paradise city
where the grass is green
and the girls are pretty
take me home
(Oh, won't you please take me home..)

just an urchin livin' under the street
i'm a hard case that's tough to beat
i'm your charity case
so buy me somethin' to eat
i'll pay you at another time
take it to the end of the line

rags to riches
or so they say
you gotta
keep pushin' for the fortune and fame
you know it's, it's all a gamble
when it's just a game
you treat it like a capital crime
everybody's doin' their time


strapped in the chair of the city's gas chamber
why I'm here, I can't quite remember
the surgoen general say's it's hazardous to breathe
i'd have another cigarette
but I can't see
tell me that you're gonna believe

take me down to the paradise city
where the grass is green
and the girls are pretty
take me home
(Oh, won't you please take me home..)

so far away...

capitain America's been torn apart
now he's a court jester
with a broken heart
he said turn me around
and take me back to the start
i must be losing my mind
"Are you blind?!"
i've seen it all a million times

take me down to the paradise city
where the grass is green
and the girls are pretty
take me home
(Oh, won't you please take me home..)

i want to go
i want to know
oh, won't you please take me home?

i want to see
oh, look at me
oh, won't you please take me home

take me down to the paradise city
where the grass is green
and the girls are pretty
take me home
(Oh, won't you please take me home)

Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

Take me down
Oh yeah
Beat me down
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to see
Oh, look at me
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to see
Boy, I'm gonna be mean
Oh, oh take me home

Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to go
I want to know
Oh, won't you please take me hooooooome
Baby...

paradise city
guns 'n roses

i remember when they told me about the first one. we were eating dinner when they took him aside and tore his life out from inside him. i still don't know if it was more painful watching his face or knowing i'd never see hers crack open in that grin she seemed to keep just for me.
the second's hand was in mine when they told me, and it changed right there from a hand into skin and flesh and bone. cold.
by the third i was an old hand at it. phone, twelve thousand miles apart. i think i just nodded.
the fourth was a nudge in the middle of the night, and in silence i showered and prepared to dance to that old tune again.

it seems like it's an eternal coming and going, enter, stage right, exit stage left. we're in a perpetual state of motion, of fluidity, where we don't just exist from one moment to the next, we flow.

"immortality is all i seek."

funny, i could've sworn you used to listen to the chords below the skin of thoughts lost in translation.

time makes fools of us all, and for those of us who already pride ourself on being foolish, i'm not quite sure where we've got to go.

any minute now i'm expecting all hell to break loose..

you can run away in the blink of an eye, disappear through the cut, but everytime you do you're taking a little bit more. sometimes..sometimes all you really need to do is to be able to close your eyes and float, without arms reaching, without eyes pleading, without voices whispering, because some nights you'll wake up to the thought that none of those live here anymore.

but.

when your fingers are limp and lifeless, who'll hold you then?

breathe in. breathe out.

i've heard there was a secret chord
that david played, and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you?
it goes like this
the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall, the major lift
the baffled king composing hallelujah

hallelujah, hallelujah,
hallelujah, hallelujah.

your faith was strong but you needed proof
you saw her bathing on the roof
her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to a kitchen chair
she broke your throne, she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah

hallelujah, hallelujah,
hallelujah, hallelujah.

maybe i have been here before
i know this room, i've walked this floor
i used to live alone before i knew you
i've seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken
hallelujah.

hallelujah, hallelujah,
hallelujah, hallelujah.

there was a time you let me know
what's real and going on below
but now you never show it to me, do you?
and remember when i moved in you
the holy dark was moving too
and every breath we drew was hallelujah

hallelujah hallelujah
hallelujah hallelujah.

maybe there's a God above
and all i ever learned from love
was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
and it's not a cry you can hear at night
it's not somebody who's seen the light
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

hallelujah, hallelujah
hallelujah, hallelujah...

Hallelujah
Rufus Wainwright/Leonard Cohen/Jeff Buckley

rain and red brick.

somewhere there's a landing with a sliver of moonlight that divides the light from the dark on nights when you feel like the cold could freeze your soul and you'd shatter the moment you moved.

wicked game is either a burning piece of retribution after a particularly scalding encounter with love (lust?), or a terrifyingly real essay on the condition of human love. Because if you're going to stand there in the pouring rain, with a bouquet in your hand and the ink of that poem you wrote going all runny on you telling me that this kind of love doesn't always involve an element of lust, then i reserve the right to sit on my porch, drink chai, and smirk at you.

there's something about that word...wicked. if evil is a mind bent out of shape, then the wicked are actually twisted in some sort of wire hanger orgy of right angular wrongness.

it's strange what desire will make foolish people do...

the jury's still out. but it does make you want to sit there and listen to it over and over and over again..

almost forgot: prado, driving to hot n spicy, pakola, 3am, at a particularly appropriate moment in life, the universe, and everything.

kody sat down on the avenue
he tapped his feet,
to the humming of the highway
he watched the light shine down on the broken glass,
and thought
i don’t got no reasons, yet
there it is and there it was
it was clear to all of us
we kept this hat of broken dreams
and we pulled them out, when we needed them
around.

so please hand me the bottle,
i think i’m lonely now
and please give me direction,
i think the hurt set in
and i don’t feel nothing

there’s a squeak hinge down on the back gate
it lets us know if he comes around
i don’t sleep that good anyway
if you’ve never heard that silence, it’s a
god awful sound

i don’t feel nothing, no i don’t feel nothing
there’s nothing to feel good about here

don’t much get down to the avenue
i could drive,
but it takes so much to get there
don’t get off all the broken glass,
the cadillac scene,
well
i’ve seen a lot of good things die and i’m
in an over emotional way..

kody
matchbox twenty

funny how words can take you back to suffocating heat through the window, a/c always broken, driving past the sindhi muslim chowk, haiders, fantasizing about mango milk shakes, turn right, take it past the bridge, halfway there, you've got two more songs before you arrive, close your eyes.

this album is history. the notes carry heavier meaning..and up until this evening i didn't even know what each song was called, but i'd swear they were the soundtrack to my life.

i think that the truth is going to hurt
and i dont know why you couldn't just stand with me,
couldn't stand to be near me,
when my face don't seem to want to shine..cause its a little bit dirty,
well don't just stand there.
say nice things to me.
cause ive been cheated, ive been wronged
you, you don't know me,
well i can't change that.
-
she said it's cold outside, and she hands me a raincoat,
she's always worried about things like that.
she said its all going to end, and it might as well be my fault.
she only sleeps when its raining,
and she screams, and her voice is strained..
she says baby..its 3am, i must be lonely,
she says baby...i can't help but be scared of it all sometimes.

the clock on the wall has been stuck at 3 for days & days
-
i wonder what it’s like to be the rainmaker,
i wonder what it’s like to know that i made the rain,
i’d store it in boxes with little yellow tags on everyone,
and you can come and see them when i’m
done,
when i’m done.

i wonder what it’s like to be a super hero,
i wonder where i’d go if i could fly around downtown,
from some other planet, i get this funky high on yellow sun
boy i bet my friends will be
stunned,
they’re stunned.

straight up, what did you hope to learn about here
if i were someone else, would this all fall apart
strange, where were you, when we started this gig,
i wish the real world, would just stop hassling me
-

[ oh my god, what a fabulous room!
are all these your guitars?
this place is bigger than our apartment.
uh, could I have a drink of water?
you want some? huh?
oh wow! look at this tub!
wanna take a bath?
what're you watching?
hello?
are you feeling ok? ]

day after day,
our love turns gray,
like the skin on a dying man.
and night after night,
we pretend it's all right,
but I have grown older,
and you have grown colder,
and nothing is very much fun, anymore.
and I can feel,
one of all my turns coming on.
i feel,
cold as a razor blade,
tight as a tourniquet,
dry as a funeral drum.

run to the bedroom,
in the suitcase on the left,
you'll find my favorite axe.
don't look so frightened,
this is just a passing phase,
one of my bad days.

would you like to watch tv?
or get between the sheets?
or contemplate a silent freeway?
would you like something to eat?
would you like to learn to fly? -- would you?
would you like to see me try?
ooohh. no!
would you like to call the cops?
do you think it's time I stopped?
why are you running away?

One of My Turns
PF

one day i'm going to be an artist. one day i'm going to change the world. watch. one day it won't be about the mortal i. one day this will get better. faith.

oh sometimes i feel like a dog on a chain
people are pulling, but i still remain
invincible.

he dined on my face
and spit on my back
what a tangled web you weave
theres all kinds of people
but people are unkind
forget about them
just dont lose your mind

take, take what you want to take
and try to leave me alone,
'cause i was here before you,
and i'll be here when you're gone.

oh do what you can
to get in my way
i watch you as you fall.
ill just stand back and bite my tongue,
and watch you become
invisible.

smiling as i watch you fail,
just love how we grew,
'cause you'll fall by the wayside,
while i might just be a star.

take, take what you want to take
and try to leave me alone,
'cause i was here before you,
and i'll be here when you're gone.

oh why have you followed me, my little man?
only speak when i tell you can,
don't even dare to look in my eyes,
you'll crumble where you stand.

'cause i was here before you,
and i'll be here when you're gone.
invincible..

invincible
boondock saints soundtrack

<you're trying to go back, to make yourself part of some bigger picture you've never seen. to make this worthwhile, somehow. why you walk this road, i'll never know, and sometimes i don't think you do, either. you'll be bent and broken if you don't whisper to yourself every night, won't you? it's all a big game, and you've been cracking too many jokes lately...the thin veneer is going to give one day, i'll have to pick up the pieces. why do you do this?>

and sometimes it feels like i'm fighting a war, where even surviving through each day is a hero's tale in itself (i'll tell you, someday), and that, of all things, puts me to bed each night.
except that if i'm fighting a war, then everyone is...but what makes this real? perhaps you only realize you're fighting when you start losing.
was never cut out for this..i'm a defective model. watch, i'll be recalled in a second, vanish from before your eyes. a figment of your collective imaginations. i don't really exist.
somewhere, somehow, there is a reason in a collection of madness that drives the cogs in this machine. and somewhere, somehow, i'm lying face down in the mud of a battleground no-one's ever seen before.

good night.

here's a couple of shorter ones for you..

he was walking down the street (any old street in any old town), thinking how much he liked strawberries. they were perfect, really. and so engrossed, he stumbled along with a silly halfsmile on his face. he passed another man, muttering to himself under his breath. for a moment he wondered what and why, but resolving not to let this, of all things, ruin an otherwise perfectly idyllic afternoon, he resolutely thought of strawberries.
somewhere, something was ringing. it came from the phone booth. strawberries forgotten, he picked it up.

she sat in the back of the class, tapping her worn old pencil mercilessly against the desk. nothing was coming, nothing was going..everything was in a state of stasis..just being. it was as if the world had grown weary, finally, and decided to stop for a moment and catch its breath, before continuing again down to wherever it thought it was going. dust hung in the sunlight, dancing to it's own tune. her handbag suddenly buzzed, and her hand lazily fumbled its way inside to escape.

-

always looking for the next way out, even when you think you've got it figured out. we all want that deus ex machina to drop suddenly from nowhere, and take us somewhere..it doesn't matter where. it may not be any better, any worse than where you are today, but it'll be different, and you always take that risk. you have faith, atleast, in change.

peace is when you don't even hear the ringing anymore.

"either get busy living, or get busy dying."

the shawshank redemption, one of the classics.

it's like its this big adventure, right? and you're constantly getting surprised by the things you do and the people you meet, the places you go and the things you do. just a big adventure.
yea..but this is your life. don't throw it away like this..
who's throwing? i'm living...and the interesting thing about that is in order to do it right you need to feel. feel up, down, all around...live with intensity, and don't hold back. throw yourself at whatever you're climbing today. hey, if it doesn't work out, atleast you learned something. it's alright to be wrong sometimes, as long as you can say that, even if just for a moment, you felt alive.
you use a lot of commas.
i want you, here with me, seeing the things i see...can't see why you've got to be on the other side of the moon, staring abjectly into space letting me get on with it.
you realize that you could end up a complete waste.
absolutely. thats the risk we run. but atleast i'll have had my adventure getting there. nothing ever ends. there is no thread, no words, no epilogue, no final whispers into unfeeling hearts, no period at the end of this sentence remember that, if you remember nothing else

degrees of separation

its cold outside, she said, but i know you won't come in. do you want me to make you a cup, she asked tentatively. he'd already turned away, having said what he'd wanted to say, heard what she couldnt. half way up the twisted stony path he stopped for a moment.
yes?
nothing, he said, hurriedly. i thought i left something inside. its right here.
what is it?
but he had already turned the corner.

he had left something inside, but he knew that if he went back to get it he'd never leave. he'd be stuck in there, with the door plainly in sight but endlessly running around in a maze he'd helped her construct in the otherwise defunct second bedroom of the apartment. it had been fun, he remembered, deciding where to put the walls, and then spending weeks, months busily sawing away, the hours slipping by like nothing while the hands were working. that project had ended, ofcourse. they'd thought of making a loft next, nice place for a couple of beds and a tv, which they later re-arranged to be just a single rather large mattress and bunch of throw cushions for company. things had been simpler when they were busy marking off layers of the sky as their own.

a gust of air jerked him back to time. it was cold outside.

*

do you know what we're really looking for, she asked suddenly, propping herself up on her elbow that sunday morning months ago.
warmth, he mumbled, and grabbed at the blanket she'd dislodged.
oh come on...how long can you lie there?
all day, honey...watch me. but..just to show you my dedication to our cause, i will get up, now, and answer your question.
magnanimous of you.
isn't it?, sleep seeping away from his eyes. now what was it you wanted? that's right...what we're really looking for. now if i were the popular culturalist, i'd say what you realllly want right now is a house out in the hamptons, with a bmw parked outside. you want to be free, you want to cut yourself from the rest of the world, and just be, and every sinew in your body is trying to get you there at every moment.
but you're not, then?
no, 'course not. popular culturalists are necessarily children of a culture i don't particularly agree with. he grinned, here, that particular smile that arched across his face revealing only slightly crooked teeth, but a serenity you could dive into.
so what do you think, then, oh smartass?
me? i don't know, shrugging. maybe all i'm really looking for is peace. maybe that's all anyone's looking for, really. but how do you define peace? it's not just one thing..and its so fragile..so transient, you hardly even notice its there before it suddenly isn't. blink, and you missed it.
mm, i know. we're always so busy running around from A to B to C through to X, even if we do hit peace somewhere in the middle its hardly for long enough to notice. we don't settle, anymore...no-one wants to settle. we want to keep moving, to keep 'evolving', to play our own little part in the rat race out there.
even if we don't know it, eh?
even if we don't know it, we are the shiny (not yet finished) product of humanity, and we've got to prove that we're worth the title. and so we run.
further than has been done before, just to show we're better. it's so competitive..where does peace fit into any of that? it's like our way of life has structured itself around dangling a piece of cheese in front of our noses, enticing us to yet greater depths, providing fuel you couldn't match, but we never really get there, do we? I mean if we're to fulfill our roles in the evolutionary ladder we can hardly just sit still, can we? and when we run, we hope that by achieving something we may someday be able to sit down and rest for a while, but it never quite works out that day, does it? when you start running, you keep running. to stop now would be murder.
murder?
you'd be killing yourself, and everything you've done, by resting on what you've got. if a human being is measured by his worth in terms of how far and long he can run as compared to anyone else, stopping is quitting, and quitting is akin to shooting oneself. you no longer exist in the race..the human race.
sounds gruesome. why do you always make everything seem so hopeless?
hardly hopeless, love. come here, i'll show you something.
she rolled over to his side of the bed, and he shook the covers free and put his arms around her, enclosing her completely. they were nose to nose.
look into my eyes. what do you see?
her face cracked into a grin. what kind of overly dramatic question is that? i feel like i should say something like 'i see everything', or something equally absurd.
what do you see?
i see..me. my reflection..and i see..hmm..i can't put my finger on it. you're..you're happy aren't you?
what do you feel?
warm.
that's all the peace you need, sometimes.

-

what i'm really in love with, he said, is your stomach.
oh really?
yes..its beautiful. perfect.
great..so many in the world, and i had to find one with a gastroenterological fetish.
smile. let me explain this to you, then. come 'ere. now sit next to me. right. notice how my arm fits perfectly around that waist? its amazing.
i suppose now would be the time i tell you that i'm in love with your arm, she grinned.
funny how we pick body parts.

they sat there, still, for hours without words or movement or drifting silences, in an elongated moment of intensity.

yea, it is funny. sometimes i wonder if its just the stomach that you need, she confessed, finally.
only as much as you need the arm.
but what happens if, one day, you don't need a stomach?
everythings based on need..we do what we need to, whatever it is, with whomever it is. maybe it's just time, maybe its just circumstance, maybe this..all this, that tree, this ladybug who's about to jump to the next leaf, maybe they're all just a sort of constructed reality based on a need felt by a human being. maybe you don't even exist at all. maybe i'm just a figment of
your imagination. maybe even both of our imaginations, giving each other what they need when they need it.
you didn't answer my question.
didn't i?

-

i don't love you, you know, she said, hands on hips, with that particular look on her face with lips pursed that let him know that this wasn't a drill.
don't you?
no. because we knew what love was, once, and i don't know where you are anymore. where were you?
out.
on the one hand i don't want to take your escapes away from you, and on the other as an escape i feel i've a right to know if you're going to run away from here, so that i can atleast pack.
im not running away. i just need to be away, sometimes. how can you escape from an escape?
you can't. not unless you stop using it.
there's that. he paused. so you don't love me?
no. i can't. not like this. you should know that better than anyone.
i don't belong to you, you know..you and i both know that we need our space.
theres a difference between walking away and running away. ive grown accustomed to walking from you.
im not running away.
liar.
are you leaving?
where would i go? i live here.

-

i can't breathe, he said to her once, out on the porch.
what's wrong?
nothing.
liar.
that smile, again. don't worry. i'll be fine. you said you were going to head out in a few minutes..take my car, your left front doesnt have enough air in it.

it wasn't as much fun as i'd thought, she said. but the band was great. met up with some great people.
cool..knew you'd have fun.
yeah. you coming to bed, or are you going to sit out here all night?
i'll be up in a while.
whats wrong?
nothing.
liar.

how was your reverie, oh king of the dramatic loners?
same as ever, queen.
good night.
'night.

-

could you keep it down?, she said, head poking through the gap between door and wall. i'm trying to talk to a friend of mine, and he can't hear me over the music.
that alright?
a little lower.
can't go any lower..i start losing my place in the song.
well then i guess you can't go any lower. we'll be done in a while, you can practice in the living room, then.
his fingers were already moving around the board.

-

i wish you wouldn't do that, she said.
do what?, hanging his coat on the rack.
go out on your own so much. you know how dangerous you can be.
i can handle it.
oh i'm sure. you'll handle everything perfectly.
what's that supposed to mean?
nothing.
liar.
don't kill yourself.
hardly what i'm doing. look at my face, if you don't believe my lips. do i look like i'm going to slip over an edge?
sometimes i can't tell anymore, it would seem.
guess not, he said, bounding upstairs.

she didnt come to bed till he was already asleep that night. an old friend called, and they caught up.

-
the thing is, he said, that life's like this big..nothing. theres nothing quite like life, is there?
nothing quite fits, no. it's like a jigsaw, different pieces from different places.
except that with a jigsaw you know what it is you're constructing.
and hence its not quite like a jigsaw, either. quod erad demostradum.
you're really proud of knowing what that stands for, aren't you?
'course.
this isn't any old jigsaw, though..it's huge, for one.
well yea..it's a little intricate, if thats what you're getting at, but then what'd you expect? you're trying to describe something that most of the time you shouldn't be worrying about.
just keep building, don't worry about it, eh?
exactly..why do you insist on dissecting it? do you really need a 'theory'?
'need' is always a strong word. but it's nice to have something to fall back on when you feel its falling all around you, isn't it? and its hardly as if anyone lives without his or her own personal little theory about the way things work. the real conflicts, the conflicts of self, arise when we find something that we can't explain in any terms. the human being is a very egocentric creature, you realise. it must feel that it has a certain degree of knowledge over a situation. knowledge, ofcourse, doesn't always equate to control, but it's a start. and what's the most paralysing feeling you've ever felt?
she bit her lip. helplessness.
exactly. when you're helpless you just have no idea what's going on, and you don't know if theres anything you can do to change things.
well that isn't exactly true. you can more or less understand what's going on in a situation and still be helpless. what if you were being tortured, and i were locked in this room and couldn't get out, but i knew you were being hurt in there? i'd be helpless, but i'd know what was going on.
yes, but your lack of knowledge now moves over to a more active dimension.
translate.
you don't know if theres anything you can do. you don't know how to do what you want, which is, presumably, to stop me from being tortured. a stretch of presumption, ill grant you, but there it is. he smiled.
yes, quite the stretch, egocentric creature, she said, and grinned. so what you're saying is that everyone comes up with their belief system, morals, everything, based on what they consider to be their theory of life.
exactly. its all about being able to explain things. we want to be able to tell what, why, when, where. naturally curious, even naturally egomaniacal, to an extent.
except that theres no such thing as 'natural', ofcourse. it's all a social construction of reality based on the society that surrounds us.
be that as it may, the society does still exist around us, and so the social
construction holds.
so your rules won't work on an island community of koala bear worshipping community-based hunter/gatherers?
precisely.
nifty.
don't you think?
now there's a loaded question.
well someone's in quite the mood tonight. well i'm headed off. need to get outside.
want me to come along?
if you'd like.
that means no, doesnt it?
smile.

-

one night he came home to an empty house. mustve got tired of waiting, he thought, and went around each room checking, just to make sure. that's what happens when you push people too hard, he added to himself, as he played the blues piece he'd been working out in his head all week.
you're getting better, she said.
didn't hear you come in over my noise. where were you?
out.
hope you enjoyed yourself.
we did.

he started playing again, then. she sat and listened a while.
finally, he stopped midway through a scale he had just gotten down.
i get so tired, sometimes, he said, and put his arms around her, enclosing her.
i know..it's alright. she didn't move, or resist.
you're cold, he said.
i know.

-