Quotes...Al Swearengen

"pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fucking beatings. the world ends when you’re dead. until then, you got more punishment in store. stand it like a man — and give some back."

still my favorite quote ever...

Writes..."Walking Hand In Hand"

"all i say is that i want a woman to walk hand in hand with. that's all i say when people ask me what i want for myself in this life. to not walk alone. to not feel alone. i stand at the edge of nothingness and find myself staring back at myself, a reflection created by my own tears. promises unkept echo in the darkness around me. "you won't be alone", yet i spend my days talking to myself. "i'll always be here", yet i awaken to find no one in my bed. all i have are my memories of what we were. a time when we stood in front of each other, exposed and vulnerable. a single tear ran down her cheek, not from sadness or pain, but from the realization that in that moment we were offering everything we were to one another. when edgar allan poe wrote, "we loved with a love that was more that love", he was talking about me and her. a love more than love. that's the only way to describe it when the words "i love you" seem inadequate. i'd tell her i loved her and she'd said she knew. not because i told her, because she knew. what we shared was more than love. it was love squared or love to the power of..., i don't know, it was just more. it wasn't about words. it wasn't about feelings. it was about knowing. us knowing that what was in each other's hearts. us seeing love in one another's eyes. us experiencing love in one another's touch. every time i placed her hand in my own, every time our lips met, we knew. so i cling to the memories of what we were, crying, though the shadows offer me no comfort. because i still know. i know you never lose what we had once you've had it. neither time or space, them or the next, nothing, allows you to forget, to let go. the cold, untouched sheets masking the spot she used to sleep won't let me let go. my one-sided debate on something i know she'd want to argue about won't let me let go. me writing this right now won't let me let go. and because i'm not letting go i gotta believe that this time and space is only transient. "and in the end when it's all said and done...", we won't be alone cause she'll be walking hand in hand with me."

Writes..."Oleander...Why I'm Here"

"i'm sitting here contemplating life cause i'm a cliché, trying to figure out what the fuck i'm doing here. not here in this city, but here on this earth? i'm rodin's "the thinker", only in a bald black guy not looking like he's taking a number two form. why am i still alive when so many of my contemporaries, so many of my friends have passed on? i don't know. maybe i die in a horrific skydiving accident i'm never gonna attempt. or drown tragically swimming in an ocean i'm never getting in. people tend to say that they have eluded death because god has a plan for them, some thing they're fated for before they die. what if it's not fated for but fated to? fate... destiny... i'm still here because i'm destined for someone that i'm not with and i've been afforded another opportunity to fix that. funny how i just "quantum leaped" into my own life. boy meets girl. boy loves girl. boy loses girl. boy still loves girl. girl finds boy. boy still loves girl. boy... girl... me... her... i'm here to atone for past transgressions and make us good again. maybe even better than before. if god's plan is for me to still be here, that's how i'll spend my time."

Presents..."Everything In Its Right Place" by Radiohead

"everything, everything, everything, everything...
in its right place
in its right place
in its right place
in its right place

yesterday i woke up sucking a lemon
yesterday i woke up sucking a lemon
yesterday i woke up sucking a lemon
yesterday i woke up sucking a lemon

everything, everything, everything...
in its right place
in its right place
in its right place
right place

there are two colours in my head
there are two colours in my head
what, what is that you try to say?
what, what was that you tried to say?
tried to say... tried to say...
tried to say... tried to say... tried to say...

everything, everything, everything...
everything in its right place"

one day...that's the goal.

Writes..."Crying Words Onto Paper"

"i can't even write right now, my tears blur my vision so badly that the sheet of paper in front of me is a blue and white abstract worthy of the louvre. the paper's flooding, i risk drowning every time i attempt to balance wiping my eyes and penning words to it. if only they'd let me, i'd write that i feel feelings and that she feels feelings, we just feel them in our own worlds. so i guess i cry because i can't figure out how to make our worlds, our world."

Presents..."Writers Love" by Nicole Chavers

"i sleep with you right beside me, cause i never know when the write time will come."

Writes..."Epiphany"

"i just had a thought and i'm not gonna turn this into a huge thoreau-like essay. just turning an epiphany into words. the people that i love and hold closest to my heart are the people that believe in love as much and as hard as i do."

Writes..."Nicole Simpson Can't Rap...And Neither Can I...III"

"this pen can only be replaced with a straitjacket
cause if i weren't writing i'd be crazier then the craziest
dude who can't distinguish coke from sugar packets
who can't lift the fog in his mind at its haziest

or the guy tripping on delusions who thought he could fly
like superman as he jumped off the tallest building he found
my words, the bloody conclusion to a lifetime of a guise
what i write hits like the impact of that dude meeting the ground

i have a padded room interior behind an unaffected face
so i write a lot cause insanity is my sanity's wage
'i hate periods and rarely use them, but in this case
it’s the only way to stop myself from bleeding on to the page'"

again, all apologies to "real" rappers, i'm still just fucking around.

thanks to ska for the last two lines. i told y'all she's got skills with a pen. check out her work at http://www/whateveritisletitbe.blogspot.com.

Writes..."Our Anniversary"

"i've always been a sentimental guy. blame my mother for raising me as a hopeless romantic. christianity, judaism, islam, romance, all religions. cause they're all just ideas if they're not what you believe in and what you practice. and i'm a keeper of the faith. so i won't apologize for writing this. i loved a woman once. and she loved me. today is the anniversary of the day we started dating. it's the anniversary of the day i told her i loved her for the first time. it's the anniversary of the day i thought she'd be mine forever. i write this today because i can't forget, because i don't want to forget, that being with her was my heaven and not, my hell. i won't ever forget that."

Presents...Olivia De Berardinis

"today i was looking at my public myspace page and i felt i needed to one of my friends some love here on my blog. i'm not really one for getting starstruck but when she responded to a message i sent her i was geeked. so here's to one of my favorite artists...olivia de berardinis."

Presents...A Single Black Rose

"a single black rose...if there's a more perfect symbol for me, i don't know what it is."

Presents...Drowning

me...now...

Writes..."I'm More Descartes Than Lord Byron"

"i don't write poems. i'm not lord byron. and while i'd love to be able to pen stuff like, "she walks in beauty, like the night...", i don't write that figuratively. i write what i'm thinking."

Writes..."I Love You From Her Lips"

"there's something in the way "i love you" falls from her lips when i'm holding her in my arms. those three words from her are the closest to heaven i'm gonna get."

Writes..."Babies Being Born Wearing Ice Skates"

"i'm standing outside, it's midnight and the wind blowing past my fucking ear is making me shiver. it really is too cold to be out here freezing my ass off for no reason. and looking up at the sky is no reason. and writing this thought is no reason. yet here i am, putting sperm on ice, contemplating life. i bet confucius and socrates never suffered like this for their thoughts. wait, strike that last statement from the record, i remember how socrates died. removing foot from mouth as we speak. so it could be worse, plus if i ever want kids in the future all i have to do is unthaw my scrotum. here's to babies being born wearing ice skates! but back to contemplating life cause now i remember why i am outside. it's always the same thing. why do i always feel so alone? i say i'm an island and people laugh but they don't understand. john donne said, "no man is an island...blah blah some more stuff." well if that's true i must not be a man cause i'm surrounded by an ocean of loneliness. i used to think it was because i'm kinda different and i hadn't met anybody like me. but that can't be it because as unique as i think i am, what i want for myself isn't unique at all. to feel connected to other people and i don't. i mean i'd get it if i was an asshole and people couldn't stand me. but i'm not that big of an asshole. i'm pretty likable. likeable? lickable? whatever, semantics. so what's the reason i'm outside fighting hypothermia, looking up at a million stars and asking myself why i feel this isolated with so many people around? 'cause apparently i'm not socrates or ready for the hemlock. i gotta deal with this solitude. pray about it they'd say if i told them. for?! i can see me now, genuflecting by my bed, "dear lord, please forgive me for being so lame, that in a world you created that almost seven billion people populate, i stand alone both literally and figuratively. amen." cause that's pretty much how that prayer would go. so i don't waste my breath or god's time. writing this plus me telling the story the other day reminded me of something that happened in ninth grade english. we had just read "flowers for algernon" and our teacher passed out papers with outlines of t-shirts on them. our assignment was to design a shirt that would express how insignificant we all were in the grand scheme of things. so i draw a pair of lips and wrote "i suck" on mine. i know, brilliant right?! i thought so. you would not believe how much trouble i got in for that. they say genius is never recognized in its own time. i wonder if confucius or socrates would gotten in trouble like i did. they probably would have been looked at as 14-year-old smartasses just like me. but when i stand outside at night and look at the stars in the infinite sky, i think about the idea for that assignment and realize that nobody's insignificant. everyone has a role. shakespeare said, "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages." it's just that i'm tired of only doing monologues."

Writes..."Time And Space...And Nothing's Changed"

"when we were together i told her i loved her all the time. now we're not together and i still tell her i love her. time's passed, distance's increased but nothing's changed between us. what i feel for her hasn't changed. what i want from her hasn't changed. she once asked how do you tell the person that you've always loved you still have love in your heart for them and i answer that question with a question. why was i surprised that she does? i do. we'll never lose what we had because we'll never lose what we have. and what we have is transcendent. and forever. and ours."

Writes..."Hands To Heaven"

"because of what i wrote the other day a friend told me i needed to start writing about the life i want to create for myself. hmmm... uhhh... hmmm... i guess i'll write this. if i come to get you, if i reach out my hand for you, will you take it? because that's the life i want for myself. done."

Writes..."Love Rap"

"i have a theory on rap these days. have a voice people like to hear and a beat they can move to and it don't matter what you're saying. why am i saying this? somebody snickered when i said i was rapping this one time, like i couldn't pull that shit off(even though i was just joking then). like i'm not hood enough or something. guess what? i'm not hood. but come on man, it's not that hard, is it? i don't know if i got the voice and i know i got no beats but i'm sick with words, so in the next couple days i'm gonna attempt to pen the greatest love rap of all time(i know, hyperbole). something that's gonna kill ll's "i need love" cause that's the song. i'm on it until i'm done or get bored with the idea."

Presents..."Lounge Act" by Nirvana

"truth covered in security.
i can't let you smother me.
i'd like to but it wouldn't work.
trading off and taking turns.
i don't regret a thing.

i've got this friend, you see.
who makes me feel. and i wanted more than i could steal.
i'll arrest myself. and wear a shield.
i'll go out of my way to prove i still smell her on you.

don't tell me what i wanna hear.
afraid of never knowning fear. experience anything you need.
i'll keep fighting jealousy. until it's fucking gone.

truth covered in security.
i can't let you smother me.
i'd like to but it wouldn't work.
trading off and taking turns.
i don't regret a thing.

i've got this friend, you see.
who makes me feel. and i wanted more than i could steal.
i'll arrest myself. and wear a shield.
i'll go out of my way to make you a deal.
we've make a pact to learn from who. even we want. without new rules. we'll share what's lost and what we grew.
they'll go out for their way to prove they still smell her on you.
they still, smell her on you. smell her on you."

one of my favorite songs from my favorite group, these lyrics seem kinda relevant today...

Writes..."Historical And Science Fictions"

"my work's been called "beautiful" and "sad" and "therapeutic". i guess it's all of these things. people like it or they love it or whatever because they understand it. it moves them, it makes them feel something, sometimes brings them to tears. you see, i like to write and since they say, "write what you know", i'm always writing about wanting and heartache. because i know those things and i write them well. and people feel that because desire is just as human as hurt is. but yesterday i told a friend of mine i was tired of writing and while i am, i don't think i told her why exactly. it's because the wanting and heartache i'm writing about these days is based on one of two things: actual past experiences with women i've wanted before or hypothetical future situations with women i've wanted before. noticing a theme here? but i'm not writing this to kick my own ass about who i write about. the women in my past have been quality women. real quality. and i regret no one, just things on my end. my problem is the past and the future aspects of my writing. there are three tenses and i'm tired of writing about the two i've seemingly got no control over. the past is done, the future unknown, so why not write about the present? maybe if i were writing about the present i wouldn't be tired of writing. cause i'm sick of autobiograghies and science fictions. so the next time i write, "she whispered into my ear, sweetness that only she possessed, love that only we felt. when she said, 'i don't ever wanna be without you', her grasp confirmed it.", those words aren't me trying to recall a moment from ten years ago or something i think could happen three years from now. it's something i'm penning in my heart as i hold her."

Writes..."Hands"

"i'm not that complicated a person. this is all i want."

"(my hands) don't want to start again
(my hands) no they don't want to understand
(my hands) they just shake and try to break whatever peace i may find
(my hands) they only agree to hold
(your hands) and they don't want to be without
(your hands) and they will not let me go
no they will not let me go" - leona lewis - "my hands"

"remember, we all stumble, every one of us. that's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand." - emily kimbrough

"basically, the only thing we need is a hand that rests on our own, that wishes it well, that sometimes guides it." - hector bianciotti