i was made for summer nights

the pursuit of happiness

i don't know where i belong
i don't know where i went wrong
but i can write a song

---

how to be yourself / how to deal with the world
1. breathe in
2. breathe out
3. don't dwell on bad days. these are unavoidable. forget them and move on
4. be kind to the people around you, whether or not they deserve it, before they have a chance to disappoint you
5. forgive them when they do disappoint you
6. choose carefully who you allow to hurt you
7. don't dwell on how you've been hurt. picking at old wounds won't make them heal any faster
6. do your best, nothing less
5. hope for the best, expect less
11. don't rely on other people to make you happy
12. don't explain yourself to other people expecting them to understand
13. don't feel obligated to explain yourself
14. don't feel that others are obligated to be interested in you
8. don't worry about not being what you aren't
9. forget about impressing other people
11. stop using semicolons
10. focus on being what you are, not what other people expect you to be
11. don't believe everything you hear
13. practice identifying people who recognise and appreciate honesty
14. be honest with these people
15. don't take yourself too seriously. learn to laugh at yourself
16. look for and learn to see the humour in every situation
18. create / adopt / cultivate a set of key principles to live by and live by them
17. take advantage of every opportunity to put others first
11. breathe in
12. breathe out
13. repeat

---

what do you want?
what do i want?
yeah
that's a deep question. um world peace?
what else?
a stable life. a stable job. a wife, two kids.
don't you want to be remembered
nah, not really. i'd like to be good at what i do
you'd make a great housewife

---

 For there he stands, the ambassador from the kingdom of sighs, the chosen favorite of the realm of suffering, the apostle of grief, the silent friend of pain, the unhappy lover of memory, in his memories confounded by the light of hope, in his hope deceived by the shadows of memory. His head hangs heavy, his knees are weak; and yet he seeks no support save in himself. He is faint, and yet how powerful: his eyes seem not to have wept, but to have drunk many tears; and yet there is a fire in them strong enough to destroy the world, but not one splinter of the grief within his breast. He is bent, and yet his youth presages a long life; his lips smile at a world that misunderstands him. Stand up, dear Symparanekromenoi, bow before him, ye witnesses of grief, in this most solemn hour! I hail thee with thy title of honor: The Unhappiest Man!

---

the young sun so high
and calmly dying holds close
the pale skinned blue eyed beauty
who stares down at her endless
feet gently sighing as his lips caress her neck
and cheek. basking in her lover's glory
she begins to glow as he drinks her in
slowly she slides off her dress and
lets it fall around her feet
with one last long strong
fiery kiss the sun
is gone
her skin
is pink

all the places you don't belong

the brooklyn bridge has always 

been good to me.
i heard a woman calling for her son.

Boast not against the branches. 
But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, 
but the root thee.
the cathedrals were all empty;
only shadows, only echoes remained
yet the woman kept calling
calling out her son's name

s a y o n a r a

the word 'goodbye', when you look at it closely, seems like a perfectly harmless word. No sharp edges or harsh sounds - they're all soft consonants - Guh- duh- buh- simple, rudimentary utterances - the innocent cooings of an infant, before a betrayal of cruel R- sounds, sharp T- sounds and harsh S- sounds crowd them out. Examine the vowels. An extra O so you aren't surprised by the D, giving you extra time to prepare yourself, to pat your pockets and clear your throat before the final syllable hits. And then the ending sound, which is of course important, as it is the part that lasts the longest, the final impression, the part that's left echoing in the caverns of your heart as the train departs, as the image fades, as the car pulls away. The 'ah' sound unlocks your jaw and the 'ee' wrestles it into the skeleton of a smile, your mouth compelled to play along in a show of grim joviality. Indeed, everything about this word seems to have been designed to let you down gently.

I don't think there's any one correct way of saying goodbye, but I do think that there are an almost infinite number of ways to screw one up. The word is sometimes shortened to 'bye' in an attempt to hasten the affair, like ripping off a band aid quickly or cauterising an open wound, but this seems to accomplish nothing - apart from introducing a sense of curt abruptness to the ordeal. Some have suspended their use of the word entirely, opting for more pleasant alternatives; 'see you,' 'cya,' 'laters', 'ttyl,' only resorting to the word when all other valedictory remarks have been exhausted. However, there are certain unfortunate occasions where no other word can take its place, where the sting is undeniable, the terrible salt and bite.

It's not the pronunciation or spelling that makes it hard to say. it's not the word itself that's hard to hear - it's what it stands for, what it represents. It's not the taste that's hard to stomach - it's knowing what you've killed to make it. No point sugarcoating a pill if its contents are poison. It is not the sound that is troubling, but the deafening silence that follows.

perfect blue

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” 

---

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.

homeless man falls in love

time to grow up, i guess

誰の姫

this is no time to be dreaming

---

I awoke to the sound of muffled voices from another room, and for a second had no idea where I was. I was utterly lost in time and space. I imagined myself 13 years old again in my childhood bedroom, a million miles away, parents sleeping soundly in the next room, but then where were the voices coming from? Memory kicked in and told me: 'no, that was the past. This was somewhere else.' So where? Was I in the bedroom of my 6th floor apartment, which sprouted like a weed amid the numerous other nearly identical high-rise apartments in a highly developed and still rapidly developing area of prime real estate, down the road from two international schools and an office building cum apartment complex cum shopping mall where a mass of cars would convene everyday and cause a comforting roar of smoke and congestion. But no, that couldn't be it. I had left that behind as well. So then perhaps I had spent the night in my temporary student accommodation, paid for by the university for the duration of my clinical placement. A small but cosy shared flat about a 5 minute walk away from the district hospital. Functional, furbished and terribly well kept - it resembled my halls of residence during my first year at university, minus the camaraderie and fire alarms. But no. The bed was wrong, the air was off. I had to be somewhere else. Finally, my mind returned to my body, stumbling back into the present, which for me was the top floor of a 3 bedroom privately owned student let accommodation. I come back every weekend and recognise it less and less. Having solved the mystery of my current location, I was now ready to open my eyes. Upon doing so, I was simultaneously reassured and disappointed by the cheap reality of my surroundings, drab and dreary, half furbished and full of emptiness. The cold gray light that streamed in through the paper-thin curtains failed to encourage, aroused no delight, promised no warmth. The burning in my throat had subsided and the aching in my head had left. Surveying the lifeless milieu of my room, it seemed only to make me tired again. Just when I get used to this place, it's time to leave. I looked at the clock. 11am. Dylan wouldn't be coming until after 3. There was still time. I set my alarm for 12, pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep.