I took Ryan Adams with me on my run this morning in air I could tell was cool, even as my body heated up.
His voice suits a gray sky and a hill full of the good people of Millersburg resting in the ground beneath their monuments.
My obsessions collide. I spend my days chasing words and here a string of them slipped in and snagged on something: "I taught myself how to grow 'Til I was crooked on the outside, inside's caved"
I glanced down at the sleek little machine in my hand as tough "Title, Album, Artist" would tell me anything more about the sad man behind this curtain: this song.
If I can't have my beloved moon on such runs, I'll simulate her as best I can through the music I feed my halloween-head.
Ryan Adams, you glow sad as the moon and that terrifyingly honest lostness of home screams in your harmonica

i think i'm in love with Ryan Adams.

the streets

who will welcome me home tonight
what lonely article of setting and what washed out hint of color
sad reminders i welcome instead of fight
despite the grip i have on my lip with my teeth
pressure-white like knuckles
"come on something, pull up a chair"
"something" the man or "something" the mood
Lord knows i've seen glimpses of you
out in the current
glancing up from my pages
peeking out of the confessional in distracted moments
to see the dancers and drinkers
the thieves and foxes in all their colorful glory
i'll string them as beads around my neck and feel them drum heavily on my collar bone
running turns to spinning. wolf becomes old friend
sing little one, the belligerent Hallelujah of the market place
forget the empty chair at home. It loves you not
watch from painted eyes that catch questions for only a moment then release them to flight
melt wax strings glistening grease for the sun to swallow and cleanse with hot, fevered mercy
the confetti will not stick
open your arms to this sky that is not empty
welcome to your blessed away
your glorious elsewhere home
Hallelujah little one
your God has been awake forever

the rooftop

you won't always have this rooftop
one day you'll find a quiet second to break the din of the followers
and you'll want nothing more

than what is no more

upward

i do a lot of leaving when I'm lonely
drifting from place to place in an attempt to leave before i've created a new location to associate with loneliness: like some stench or virus that follows you and infects a room, driving you out before you've stayed long enough to let it weaken you

i left a lot of places this week
last of all, Anywhere Town, Northern Ohio

I drove "home" with a backpack and a pumpkin in my passenger seat
and the window down so I could let my hand swim in the rush of air

gold and blue
eyes on the upward and the inward for once

for a second
i enjoyed being alone
and smiled to myself at the words
"adventures in solitude"

a real smile too...not the cynical kind that comes in darker times
the smile of a girl who amuses herself
and admits she's found something she likes in her own company

for a moment
and perhaps a moment more

breakdown

i hate that summer's over
i hate that my passenger seat will be empty on my drives back from wooster in the middle of the night
i hate that my fears and insecurities were more accurate than my hopes
I hate that sweet poetry feels so awful when actually lived out
crying in someone's arms in a strange city
arms you can't do a thing with once the grace period is over
I hate that this is the moment you asked "how are you doing? Are you ok?"

I hate that my heart is breakable even when it's armed and prepared

but i love that I still feel like I make pretty good company
and that a clear sky can make me lost for a second

i will find more and more things to love this fall

just watch me


i hate you baltimore. i hate you and the rats on your t-shirts
but i'll probably love you when it's all said and done