Remember when I told you about that guy in Edinburgh who told me, "In life, when in doubt, just keep moving forward"? You'll get where you need to go as long as you don't stop moving, no matter how slowly you go.

And I'll keep pushing ya along. But you can't fool me. I know you're strong.

Thank you for the forgiveness. I know you didn't mean to attack me, and I'm really sorry I took it that way. I'm glad you see how that perception altered my actions, though, and I know now that you weren't just trying to make me feel guilty. You were doing what needed to happen to move on, and I hope you know that I respect that.

Thanks so much for the post. The blogs are handy for giving each other space while still clearing up important issues. I feel a lot better after that, and I hope you do, too.

Anyway, I hope you have the most fun possible at Warped on Monday, and I hope you have as much fun as one can have on a business trip starting Tuesday. Don't forget to take pictures, and the 4th will be here before ya know it.

And as for the sorry at the end of your post? Forget about it :)

PS: don't forget to pop Riven into your compy sometime :D

One time, in Tokyo, I woke up way before Adam did. About 5am, I'd guess. Thanks a lot, jetlag.

I rolled over in my bed to take a look out the window. I opened my eyes, and all I saw was the painful burst of white; the dull ache inside your eyeballs. So I squinted tight and waited for my eyes to agree with the morning, and dragged myself out of bed.

By the time I cracked the window open, my eyes had accustomed themselves to the light and I could see the morning laying upon Tokyo. The sun cut a knife through the Tokyo's sleep. An alarm bell on a dreaming city. And I'll never forget the smell as long as I live. It was the smell of unrestrained industry like blooming flowers, and buzzing energy like freshly-uncorked champagne.

You always make fun of me for oversleeping. This morning, I got up at about 6am. No idea why. I just got up bright and early. I opened my window up, and the morning lay lightly on the canyons. The birds chirped merrily enough, and the canyons smelled of fresh beginnings like dew on the grass.

What I like about the mornings is it's lack of apology. It sweeps over you and restarts you without asking you to save your work. It's time for a new day when the sun says it is, and that's final. All you can do is let your eyes adjust and smell the morning's story. The air's crisp and all I can smell is a bright, new world.

Hey, don't forget: we're gonna show 'em that the world isn't so serious.

As you're staring into your laptop reading this, you can feel a pair of warm, familiar arms wrap around your waist and draw you close. You look over and you see me smiling, and you can see somewhere in my face that I know exactly what's wrong. I lean in and give you a light kiss on the cheek, and you can feel all the anxiety slipping away from you like running water, like you couldn't hold onto it all if you wanted to, because you know you're loved and you know you always will be.

I'm glad I took today off. because i'm too hurt to function.

Hey there, partner.

I'm sorry I talked to you so diplomatically. It was the sort of thing I played out in my head a billion times to get it just right, and I was never an actor. Just an improvisor. The exact opposite. Diplomacy is how it's been working around my house lately, trying to fix the gaping holes.

I just had a great talk with my dad, and, although there are still some bits and corners to patch up over the weeks, months and years to come with them, I can say that the gashes have been mended, and that my parents and I are ready to be a family again, and we can work on getting what we all want now. He told me that he loves me, and I told that him I love him, too. It was a big step for us both, and I feel good about that.

I can never really describe to you what it was like pacing around nervously for five, six hours, trying to tell you what I wanted to say. When I discovered us on the same page I couldn't help but let the emotions bubble up inside even though there was so much to do with my family.

I feel good about us now. Not because I'm positive that it's going to work romantically like this but because I know we're going to be honest if we feel like one of us needs someone we can see, and because I know, more than anything else in this world, that I'll always be a part of your life, and that I'll always be here to be your best friend and to help you grow. Lovers or not.

I've started every paragraph in this post with "I."

You're a wonderful kid, through and through. We're so different, you and I, but we're so compatible. And the fact of the matter is, I love you more than I could ever tell you.

You'll read the letter I gave you when you get home. I hope you know that I meant every word of what I said in it, and I always will. I need you to know that, no matter what you and I decide to do, I'm gonna think you're stellar, and I have been and will be willing to do just about anything (short of something that hurts you) to make sure that I stay in your life and that you stay in mine, whether we're romantic or just a couple of shooting-star best friends for the world to look up at.

Snorgles galore,
Nick

Hold on tight, and let me work with you. I'm holding onto you with everything I have, and you won't lose me unless you make yourself. I can't tell you enough: we can get through this if we work as a team.

It's been far too long since I've posted.

I can't wait to spend every waking minute with you, enjoy myself under the same moon, beneath the same heavens, pouring out our hearts like paint across the earth.

May we spend our lives up and never look back.

Ta'n festyr çheet orrin ooilley.

“What's your name?” The guards eyes were still and hard like granite as Aderyn's mind flipped through pages of Idarus' history books.

“Ardesheer,” he said. He kept his lips tight. The guard closed his eyes and smirked.

“Yeah? And your brother?”

“Delïr.” Dryston stood still, his wide eyes fixed on the musket, glimmering in the afternoon sun. Aderyn stared still into the granite eyes.

“Ardesheer and Delir, huh? You sure don't look like an Ardesheer. Or a Delïr.” The trees rustled outside. "But what do I know." He spit on the ground. His saliva sank into the wood. "So where's your pops?" the guard asked. "Ardesheer," he added smiling.

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“I dunno, out somewhere.”

Birds chirped happily as the trees rustled. The birds did not care. The birds do not ever care.

“That so,” the guard repeated. He stared for a moment, then marched toward the door, his uniform clacking. Aderyn noticed the curves and curls etched into his coppered armor and the row of red tassels that hung just below his breastplate. Aderyn felt felt a light breeze as the guard passed him, continuing out through the threshold and into wheat field.

I owe it to you to explain what was going on in my head.

I know what you were trying to do with your comment, and I know it wasn't meant to be personal. It just made me question myself and my conduct and that can be confusing. Factor tests, the ISP, the shows I have to do in two hours, APs, and countless other things, and you have an overly-emotional Nick. I really really want you to know that I wasn't trying to huff off at you. I just felt myself getting emotional and I didn't want to break out the silly emotions when you were out with your friends trying to have a good time.

Just know that I love you and it isn't you that made me upset; it was just realizing I did something silly combined with the rest of the stress I've had during this crazy week. I'm really super glad you told me that I was doing something you didn't like, and I hope you'll always tell me if there's anything I'm doing that you'd want me to change.

On a separate note, Adam interpreted your post as being personal too, and he felt a bit confused and attacked. Maybe clarify that you want us to be careful, just like you did to me and I'm sure it'll clear everything up.

I'll wear your pride on my sleeve if you wear mine on yours. But, my ego's big enough as it is, and I don't want it getting out of hand.

You're gonna be free so soon. Just one short week and you'll be released into an unsuspecting world...

You've always been
a trigger with a finger on it
and I hope that I can be
a dry flint in summer
with my hammer cocked
so you can fire a shot
that will sound around the world and back to you.

Yeah, I know you're not perfect. Far from it. But you're the closest thing I've ever met and you're the only thing that's ever made me feel better.

I'll fight for you and with you through everything and, at the end of the day, could I love you more?

you're the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. Don't forget.

"march 07, 2007

GOD, I LOVE YOU.
I love your voice, and your laugh, even your yawns and your coughs...
I love it when I can hear the smile in your voice, and when I can hear you thinking as you speak Japanese.
I love it when you tell me you love me a little quietly. When you call me "darling". When I can('t) hear that pause where we just don't want to hang up. It's so loud that I feel it.
Everytime.
All the little shadows and clots of whatever's going on vanish. I remember what it's like to feel so free. And I think we could talk for hours not even saying one word.

...Now the only thing I need is to actually have you across from me, to match the moving lips and eyes and cheeks and hands and body back to the heart and voice I've come to know so well.

I swear, you're the only thing I need in this world."


i hope you still feel this way. I sure do. I hope you can relax soon. I miss being silly with you, and it hurts me to see you stressed. i'm glad it's spring break so i can use the time to be here for you and maybe help shed some of your tears for you.

i love you more than i can tell you.

Your soul slips out sometimes

Your soul slips out sometimes:

The Specter, Alabama

It just remembers somehow.

That it never had to remember.

That it knew like a whisper from a waking-dream

That sits, flash-baked into your memory,

The party guest that refused to leave.

Like a little kid running away to home,

Sprinting toward its Specter.
Like that, your soul slips out sometimes.

It ran in front of my car one day and stopped and

stared at me with LCD eyes into me and past,

(I swear to God I was blinded, then);

I swerved and missed my exit and

Skidded onto the one I was looking for all along.

We've been contracted, you see,

To build a bed for the world to

Rest its tired eyes and dream.

To create, perhaps, a softer world.

So let's strip our coats of armor off and

Run forever to our Specter,

Shouting at the top of our lungs

That we're alive and we goddamn love it.

I promise we'll never look back.

“Bottle your regrets and throw them out to sea.”

The wind's howling really hard outside and I wish you were here with me. I love you so much.

Hey you.

It feels good to have my mouth back up to the tin can.

I'm seriously so glad that we can communicate now: I was terrified of not being able to know what was going on over there. I'm so glad you're safe and happy.

Your post made me swoon. A lot. I'm REALLY excited to have TV cuddle times with you again, including Garden State, and maybe we can watch Across the Universe again together sometime? You can show me a movie for once!

Thank you for writing, and thank you for caring. Every word means the whole world to me, for real.

Something about airplanes makes me miss you, too. It makes you want a cuddle-buddy, or at least someone to escape with. May you always be my cuddly escape buddy.

Always and forever.

Our faces are promises, now.
Tiny plans coated in silver chloride,
Framed by your shining future and
Mounted on the tip of your Ginsu-knife tongue
To be forever blessed among the
Undying eternities of the present tense.

hey, is this correct?

kaze ga hoho ni natatte,
tori ga hana ni utatte,
hayashi ga boku no mae ni kurihirogeru.
koko wa boku no kichi desu.

Sometimes I wish I could cut you out and paste you here where I can keep a good eye on you (and you can keep one on me.) Anything and everything reminds me of you, and sometimes when other people smile I see you in them; sometimes I hear a voice that sounds like your's; sometimes I hear a word that sounds like your name and I look over every. single. time.

And whenever I see a blue sky I wish you could be under it with me. So I guess that's every day.

I just love you so much.

I can tell when something's bothering you. I just hope it isn't me.

I love you so much, honey.

To my one and only,

I know I have issues with leaving you alone to deal with stuff sometimes (read: I can't leave you alone), but I know you'll be able to get through this all yourself. You're so strong, and I know you don't need any of my help.

I promise I'm not worrying anymore. I'm a bit upset that you're upset (you know how it is), but I'm trying to keep it all down to give you as much space as I can. I'll be here for you every second (i'm SO sorry i couldn't answer my phone today), whether you need me or not.

I love you.

I wonder where you are. i hope you're okay.

i love you.

Someone once told me
That the only words worth saying
Are the ones you never say.

Sometimes, a few unsaid words slither
Right into your ribcage and clasp some ventricle
You didn't know you had (until it stops pumping),
And you have to gasp for air with new-found lungs
Like you're being born again but messier.

I found myself in a new place where gravity
Isn't quite horizontal or vertical, but
You're still perfectly on your feet
And everywhere looks just like home.

Words wriggle their tendrils out and you can
See them coil around the heads of men and unplug
Their hearts from their brains like televisions from walls:
They all trance on, spitting static from blunt tongues
And pretty soon everyone sees white snow like gospel.

Hearts are antennae, you know, and I guess
All bad is just a fuzzy signal after all.