309.

Snowing : Damp Feathers

Does there come a point in time when you stop hoping and wishing for someone you love to change? It seems that I spend a lot of time thinking about the future and the kind of person I hope for you to become. When will I stop comparing how I feel with you to how I feel with other people? There is this hold over me that I can't seem to break free from.

True you are a misunderstanding that I misjudged when I misused you, but blinding light (a swollen eye) is not the type of thing I deny. Though you aren't so gently noticed, I genuinely tried to warn you that my hearts like a ball of twine. It takes a little time to unwind. Come closer. He can't be the one you want all the time.

308.

Cheap Girls : Something That I Need

Dear Ability to Make Smart Decisions,
Please let me make smart decisions. Right now, it's really hard to make my heart in sync with my brain.

The words I say, they don't mean anything, and I don't want to hear it at all. But someone's gotta do what the others, they will not do. It looks like we rose just to fall. You said you saw something when you saw me standing on east side steps. Looking for something to make more of nothing like before is coming round again. Some say I look shook up or just abandon. Hey will you just make the call? To a couple blocks away where we both know that all the right ones stay. They've got something that I need but they aren't the sharing type. And you know I take it all too seriously when you sit right back, start fucking with me. We both got something to say for the sake of saying something. I should just start writing down half of the things that you say because these last few weeks have been a complete and total blur. What's the chance of me getting wrapped up and carried out to sea? I've got a motive if you've got an answer. I'm sorry, I just had to call.

307.

Lemuria : It's Not a Lie, It's a Secret

I never thought I could say I feel relieved to not have you in my life, but I am. You're going to drown in your own selfish lifestyle and behavior. You're going to continue having friends and lovers that don't really care about you. Someday when you're old and there's no one there to take care of you, you'll regret how you've treated me.

I also never thought I'd meet someone else so soon. Even if this doesn't work out, I feel so much better. I need to start surrounding myself with people who love and care about me unconditionally, and not just whenever it is convenient. I need to start focusing on myself again.

Let's fog up some more windows, clutter up in the back of your rusty car. I'm a little nervous, I haven't done this in quite awhile. There's a lot of inches, receiving all those wonderful kisses. Things are falling right into place. I think I've been kissing all those things I've been missing. I think I've been missing everything moving slow.

306.

Iron Chic : Every Town Has an Elm Street

I have this feeling in my stomach that won't go away. I can't sleep at night. I just want to get back to normal. I've always known that both Cincinnati and Chicago would be my homes. Lately when I've been in Cincinnati I feel like I'm going back to a place full of both good and bad memories. Any sort of memory is killing me.

You took the first fucking chance to get out of town. I'm cool with that but I still want you around. I wouldn't say I'm stuck here but that's irrelevant because you're free and clear. But don't sweat it. I'm just saying I couldn't really make a case for staying. I don't think I'm wrong, I don't think you're wrong. In the worst fucking case we could lose ourselves, each of us in a personal hell. We can take the heartache as we stumble our way through our old mistakes. And I get it, I don't regret it. I just want to be the one who said it. Right or wrong it's different when you're gone. We made a hell of a mess out of this poor town. We've been given the chance to spread it around. We do things the hard way. We all fall apart at our own pace. Ugly bedrooms, bred bad habits made it hard to see through all the static. Does it ever end? It never fucking ends. We saw it coming from a thousand miles away. It's a brand new day and we all find our way. Home is where the heart stays when the heart strays. Home is where we are today.

Shits/Giggles

i'm anxious, i think i'll be alright
and i'm wasted but i'm not gonna waste the night
maybe i'll go outside, maybe get a life
making stupid faces
i'm begging the question
and wasting the answers
just for the fuck of it
i'm staring x-rays, i can see whats inside
i'm weightless but i'm not gonna wait all night
desperate places call for more desperate measures
we're destined for failure
playing our parts in it
i'm braced for the ending
i'm through pretending now
like i'd been from the start of it

The World's Greatest Detective

do we think about the lives we've led
or where we'll go when we are dead?
of course we do
do we pack it in and hedge our bets
or believe, every now and then
that we made the best of it?
do we live for a paycheck?
would we pay for a new life?
spend all our days in a world that is plagued
by motivations that are selfish at best
lock our hopes up in our head
and hope that we can forget

Don't Tell Me Stupid, Don't Show Me Fuck You

i can't stand the cold, it cuts to the bone
and you can't wear good intentions
what's plan B for mice and men
when your best laid plans have shit the bed?
we'll survive on the lies we're fed
because you can't eat promises
will we even live to see the end?
posters and peeling paint
the walls, the floors they all seem the same
any difference feels insignificant
will we even live to see the end?
it's an arrangement that tends to disappoint
we're not mis-informed we just miss the point
the silence grows, turn on the stereo
anything to break the tension

(I Never Get) Winded

these are the risks i take, this is the life i chose
and if i make mistakes at least they are my own
there is no fate but what we make
and in the end we all terminate
if we try and make our time worthwhile
then we've done alright
the lights are out the doors are closed
the end of the show the end of the road
we can pretend that we don't know
but we know

In One Ear

is the song worth singing
when there's no one listening?
you know the words
you know they hurt
but you know they're right
when you got the urge
you thought you were the first
but you will never be first at anything
are your ears still ringing?
are the wounds still stinging?
you know the words
you know every verse
you know what's right
that's what makes this worse
so fucking absurd
you have never been so sure about anything

Timecop

remember when time was all we had?
no care for the sand in the hourglass
each new night was another shot
to stake our claim on a parking lot
remember when friends we're all we'd need?
day followed the night and we'd let it lead
in the basement
on the pavement
we couldn't conceive of an end to it
but it's not like that anymore
re-group, re-calculate
rushing in was our first mistake
re-think, re-calibrate
set our sights on something bigger
(maybe move on to better things)
remember the pain of growing up?
it may have hurt but it sure was fun
it made us who we are now
it gave us a mystery to figure out
this is what we waited for
these days not much has changed
except how we feel and whats at stake
but we are still the same
should we chose to linger
or move on to better things

Steel Wall Method

i cant explain it, it came to me in a dream
can you keep a secret? it's my greatest weakness
i never really know whats impossible
i've fucked up before
i cant really say that i wont fuck up anymore
(i don't really have a choice)
it doesn't matter anyway, free will will be the end of me
it will be the end of me
the feeling's nameless, it changes me while i sleep
i've fucked up before
i cant really say that i wont fuck up anymore
(i don't really have a choice)
but it doesn't matter anyway
free will will be the end of me
it will be the end of me
can you keep a secret? it's my greatest weakness
i never learned how to be responsible
i've fucked up before
i cant really say that i wont fuck up anymore
(i don't really have a choice)
but it doesn't matter anyway
free will will be the end of me
it will be the end of me

Sensitive Dependence

a little blood in the water but thats all it too
a talking snake in the garden now all hell's breaking loose
if you could open your eyes you'd fucking see for yourself
the simple truth of it is we let them take our future
and fuck it to death
we are aware of what they are saying, no one cares if it's true
the light at the end of the tunnel is a rope that ends in a noose
we could put an end to the lies that we've been telling ourselves
just know that we're part of it now
if we don't keep moving we'll be eaten alive
are we strong enough to take a long hard look right at the guts?
roll our shirt sleeves up and get to the heart of what's hurting us
put a price on life and we're buying it
but the cost is high and who's paying for that?
maybe we can get rich off them
maybe it's just a means to an end
like trying to breathe underwater it hurts and it don't work
ache for the sake of a dollar and all that it's worth
would you just roll your eyes and put an end to yourself
if you found truth of it was that we're as much to blame as anyone else?

Cry-Baby

there's a shiver running down my spine
i've got half a mind to break the laws of space and time
(and one day we'll scream it)
right here from the the top of the world
(someday we'll mean it)
you can see my house from here
we've seen better days
when all is said and done we can't complain
there's a song thats running through my mind
there's a range of things i think about but cant define
(and one day we'll scream it)
when we take over the world
(someday we'll mean it)
we can ruin everything

305.

RVIVR: Real Mean

I'm getting on much better now. Maybe you ignoring all of my attempts at communication is actually good for me. I've never been good at letting people go and you just seem to not really care at all. It is just strange to think that our downward spiral came out of nowhere and one day we're waking up next to each other, and the next we're not even speaking.

Now I just need my motivation back.

I read back over things that I wrote three years ago and I'm ten years older. Time moves fast and time moves slow. Before you told me that I'd fucked up worse than none before, you whispered that I was a better person than you. I disagreed then, don't anymore. And what's the use? I know that you're just sore to lose. Cause I was never half as bad as you were bad to me. Being real not being mean. You tried to twist it. I tried to fix it more than you could ever know. To do things to be your friend and make it right. To find a thread that I could start to sew. You're old enough to know the difference between being real and being mean.

304.

Kind of Like Spitting: Who Cares How Much

It's strange to think that you can live your entire life without someone or even feeling like something is missing. Then that someone walks in and out of your life and you can't possibly think of how to continue on without them.

I haven't talked to you in two weeks and it's starting to feel like months. I'm sure everyone thinks that it is for the best but I have yet to have this epiphany. For the past two weeks I've had nightmares accompanied by good dreams of you. You stand at the end of this long hallway and when I get to you, you ask me what took me so long. Or you hand me letters you've written to me on receipts or scrap pieces of paper. They say how much you love me and that you want things to work. Or you're just there, like we've never been separated at all.

Who cares how much I need that face in my life? Who cares how much I want to hang around? Who cares how much I need that look in my life? Who cares how much I want you around? Who cares how much we argue at night? Who cares how much comfort I feel sleeping on the right? Who cares how much one breast sags from the other? Who cares how much I'll miss this something? And I need something for this headache for this backache, and I need something for this headache for this back break. Who cares how much you cry? You could fill a bucket with your sorrow from eye to eye.

303.

Modest Mouse: Whenever You Breathe Out, I Breathe In

I push you away so that you can realize how you've been treating me. Instead I think you've realized you don't care.

My mind is always somewhere else, usually replaying happy scenes over and over in my head. I've had some very cryptic dreams lately that have made me want to study latent dreaming even more.

I want my life back.

Hey, haven't seen you around in a while. I didn't go to work for a month. I didn't leave my bed for eight days straight. I haven't hung out with anyone 'cause if I did, I'd have nothing to say. I didn't feel angry or depressed. I didn't feel anything at all. I didn't want to go to bed and I didn't want to stay up late. When you're living your life, well, that's the price you pay. Whenever I breathe out, you're breathing it in. Whenever I breathe out, you take it in again. I'm feeling this positive/negative, positive/negative.

302.

Letting you go will be the hardest thing I will have to do in a really long time.

301.

We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It’s easy. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person who you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real—but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.

— Chuck Klosterman ; Killing Yourself to Live

300.

Photograph by Duane Michals

"This photograph is my proof there was that afternoon when things were still good between us, and she embraced me, and we were so happy. It did happen. She did love me. Look see for yourself!"

You're not mine. I have no control over your inhibitions and decisions. This scares me more than when I was your girlfriend. I have never been a jealous girl or one to jump to conclusions. Now I find myself being both on a regular basis. Fix me.

299.

Merchant Ships : Emo Song

I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record. I'm the champion of making the same mistakes twice, sometimes more than that. Except right now I don't feel like I'm making mistakes. I feel like I'm living and letting my heart make all the decisions. If loving is living, then I'm living to the fullest, regardless of if that leads me to more weeks of not being able to eat or sleep without night terrors. Everything that was said and done this weekend felt so incredibly right so how can it be so incredibly wrong? It's not. I'm living. Hearing "I love you" at the end of the night and at the beginning of each day is enough for me, even if that means we're still a long way away from making things right again.

We're strangers! We're playing twenty questions, we're fucking, falling in love, we're fucking falling apart. Soon we're just strangers with history. I keep looking at the life around me, it's so full of you and it won't seem to leave me alone. I tried to run away, but you beat me to it. I can't keep pretending that you're still the same, I'm too anxious to exist but I must say, thanks for the last two years, I couldn't of asked for a better time. My only regret is that has to end, tears in my eyes, tears in my mouth. I've cried more than a man should, but I think that it's okay, forever's not something that we will ever have. "Suck it up baby boy." No, I know, I'll be OK, give me a few months to forget your name. I never asked you to leave.

298.

Small Brown Bike : Like a Future With No Friend

I'm not used to being in front of the camera, but lately I've been modeling for my Studio I classmates. Somehow they are making me somewhat photogenic. I suppose that's what a good photographer is supposed to be able to do.

I'm going back to Cincinnati tomorrow night. You haven't been talking to me at all lately. I guess sending this letter is the only thing I can do now.

Remember when you said that things would never change? You liar. Because these days things in my life, they don't stay the same. You changer. Driving (at you). Thinking (of you). Tears scream down my face. Trying (for you). Talking (to you). An incoherent mess. Pulled up to your place with a script fully prepared. I'm acting. You stared with no applause. A broken leg review. I'm failing. (Failing with you) A drawer full of nothing, except old birthdays and business cards. And photos that seem like history. A history worth nothing. Like a future with no friend.

Photographs by Elle Harrer

297.

Paul Baribeau : Last Time

Another weekend in Cincinnati is approaching. Basically every two to three weekends I'm in Cincinnati. It makes shooting easier, but doesn't really help the moving on process. Hopefully I will get out of this funk I am in and will start enjoying life again.

You're here for a reason. You're living and breathing. And if you keep on trying someday you'll find out why. If I love you and miss you because I probably haven't seen you in a long, long time. Just don't let it be the last time you come into my life. Maybe all this rock'n'rollin' adds up to nothing but right now it's the only thing that keeps me going. And this road leads home if I turn the car around but for now I gotta keep on moving. Just don't let it be the last time you come into my life. I could write you a letter but I don't know where to send it. Hope it's better where you're headed than wherever you are. Everywhere I go everyone I know comes with wonder how many more I can fit inside this crowded, crazy heart. Just don't let it be the last time you come into my life.

296.

I Hate Myself : Song For All The Young Casanovas And Casnovettes

Hello, gaping hole in my heart. I don't feel like myself anymore. So much for optimism.

I suggest you only ever tell lies because once you tell the truth they'll break your heart. Don't ever look them in the eyes because those eyes are gonna rip your heart apart. I recommend you keep your distance, because once you get too close , you'll lose control. Don't ever fall in love; just stay buried in your lonely hole. Take it from experience: desperate acts are ridiculous. Don't ever tell the truth, because the ones you love will do the same to you.

295.

Pedro the Lion : Of Minor Prophets and Their Prostitute Wives

I wrote you another letter. I'm still deciding on whether I should send it or not. Maybe when I won't be seeing you for awhile and you can think about what I have to say. I'm feeling even more stupid as the days go by that you don't talk to me.

All the time you were burning my letters you were only acting the part. You think without me you'll get on much better but you don't even know your own heart. Come home, darling. Come home quickly. Come home, darling. All is forgiven, so come home quickly. I treated you as if you were a princess. You treated me like a cop. I gave you boundaries to save you from certain death dangling from the end of the rope. Come home, darling. Come home quickly. Come home, darling. All is forgiven, so come home quickly. But your still playing for a love you'll never find outside of these arms of mine. The whole town is one step behind you with the hang man on call. They've got the judge and you're convicted without a plea . Darling, they will listen to me.

294.

A girl told me about her long distance relationship that worked for almost all of her freshman year. They broke up over spring break but spent the summer and weekends sleeping together. I know that that is what I'm settling for and I know that in the long run, it's just hurting me more. I wish I wasn't settling and I wish I didn't always replay him drunkenly telling me he is still love with me. Drunken words are sober thoughts, right? I don't feel any pain now because just waking up next to him is enough for me right now. I'd rather be close to him than reject any contact. I hate that every day I try to imagine my life if I had stayed in Cincinnati. I imagine that nothing would have changed and that I would be happy. I hate that I think that because I am where I'm supposed to be. I'm in the place that I pushed to get to for four years. I'm in the place that will help me get to where I want to be. I know that the place we'll end up won't be the same place. Until the day that we no longer speak and I no longer wake up in his bed in the morning, is the day this will all hit me harder than I had imagined and I'm allowing that to happen.

I'm not unhappy. I'm not satisfied. I'm in this in between place that is a world of confusion and indifference.

293.

Paul Baribeau : How Could That Be True

Here I am; in my new apartment that I have with my best friend, starting my sophomore year of college at the best fit school for me. Yet I still feel like a part of me is missing because you are not around to share this excitement, you're not there for me to call and talk about all the things going on in our lives. I'm disappointed in the fact that I put so much of myself and my efforts into having a relationship with you, and you could not even try for me. Sometimes I think that maybe we are just in too different of places in our lives and maybe one day when we're on the same wave, we can be together again. The stupid girl in me evaluates every conversation and situation trying to make the best of it all and above all make sense of it all. I told you that I regretted you, but in actuality I do not. I do not regret falling in love with you or caring about you; those are things that I will never apologize for.

It was here that we shared one of the best days together.

Limestone Rock Quarry; Peebles, OH.

Give me all your your reckless kisses. Give me all your sleepless nights. You keep calling me up. You say that you love me but how could that be true? How could that be true? Give me all your desperate weekends. Give me all your pointless fights. You got me all messed up now. You say that you love me but how could that be true? How could that be true? I had a bad feeling about tonight but I've got a bad feeling for most of my life. Give me all your boring secrets. Give me all your stupid lies. And now I'm all torn up. You say that you love me but how could that be true? How could that be true?

292.

291.

Jets to Brazil : Perfecting Loneliness

My world is shattering again.

I'm a long list with no time. Sunset panic on the street, sugar and lightbulbs, the milk of kindness is behind us now. With all those stones in your coat, did you think I wouldn't know? The tea leaves of trashed streets, dirty needlesand sweets. Zero to heaven in seven, a lifetime, a nanosecond. All the sand in your glass is going by so fast. The radio is playing our tune. I love it, could you turn it down? The thought of you crying in my room. I miss you, could you come around sometime? When the nigh comes down, the world becomes a room under the microscope with a labcoat and glue. I'm fixing this hole with everything I knew. The music is making my head split. I love it, could you turn it off? The thought of you is tearing me in two. I miss you, could you come around sometime? Sometime? This list is what went right; your name is written twice. We live like astronauts and our missions never cross. The stakes are high, we're standing by. There used to be a hundred ways to put my arms around you; every one seemed new, natural, and true. Perfecting loneliness 'till nothing's holding us. Consider Earth: we could be the first.

290.

So many unexpected things have come from this summer. I never expected to throw away feelings and respect for someone who had a hold over me for so long. I never expected to realize who are my real friends and who are just conveniences. I especially never expected to fall in love. A long distance relationship was something I told myself I was never going to have, now I'm finding myself trying to figure out how to make one work.