i wish i could read him as easily as you will read this post...

He inspires me to "just be".
He is my favourite to be near when there is nothing in particular going on.
He is small in body but gigantic in presence, and yet somehow not at all overpowering.
Just present.
Aware... alive.
Sometimes he sits and cries.
Sometimes everything is not ok. And he's ok with that - things not being ok.
He's the first person i've met that really epitomizes that line "can you sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to fix it or fade it." from The Invitation by Oriahe Mountain Dreamer.
He challenges me to do that.
He shares his pain with me, without expecting me to come up with a solution.
Without wanting that at all.
He gives me that gift.
He is beautiful and loving.
I feel like a 'we' but in this healthy way that i've never experienced before.
A 'we' that nourishes and fulfills an "I".
He never comforts me with lies or contradictions.
He asks me questions about what i say, about how i feel, about what that means.
He challenges my negative habits but respects my choices.
I have broken so many things in people.
I have crossed lines and been dishonest to get what i thought i wanted.
And i have been treated the same.
But not with him.
Getting to be this intimate, beautiful part of his life is my absolute pleasure/gift.
And getting to have honest, full access to me is his.
I feel our bond growing every day, even in the face of my own insecurities and i suppose his.
He is so deep in my heart that he can see things i have never even explored, i'm sure.
He is so deep that there is nothing hidden from him.
He is so deep that he could crush me with a heavy breath.
And i keep expecting it.
And it never happens.
I suppose the way we exist cannot continue forever.
I suppose time will change it, shift it, mould it, like it does everything.
But regardless, he has made me harder by making me softer.
Made me stronger by opening my fists.
Made me happier by letting me cry.
And changed my life with his hands on either side of my face and an "i love you" on his lips.

a noose, an oven and a dozen lilies

i met him in the afternoon.
i fell in love with his angular features and his dazzling smile immediately.
he had musicians hands, but he didn't play; instead he traced them down my jawline, skin on skin until i thought i would die.
he had a laughter that lilted, i can still hear it if i think back hard enough.
we were so young, in so many ways.
i can't remember the way he kissed, only that it became familiar far too quickly.
i trusted him much too easily... and he shattered my heart.
he turned cruel then, when he was done with me
and i saw that his angles were hiding a second face.
he infuriated me to apathy.
there was nothing to say, nothing to scream about.
it just was.
he was the second person i ever locked out of my life at that time.
the silence felt powerful.
and i think sometimes back to that time and who i was then.
how indignant i was then.
how utterly horrified at how i'd been treated.
having no idea that so much worse was yet to come and none of it having to do with him.

don't read my diaries, tori spelling!

we laugh every day

Put peach in the mix

"she glows in a room, its impossible not to be positive around her" i've heard someone say.
her personality is pure summer, bright and shiny, sometimes burning hot and intense.
she's a butterfly.
i misjudged her i think.
i filed her in my mind with the people i consider fickle.
but in retrospect, i think that i did her a disservice.
she's not fluttery and flaky,
she's honest and alive, trying to suck the nectar out of every minute.
she's young and care-free but simultaneously wise and focussed.
yes, i was mistaken.
what i thought were flighty, temporary visits in my life were really expeditions to find where best to land.

sticky sweet

she touched me from across the street the very first time i saw her.
on the outside we are complicated, on the inside its all so very, very simple.
we are stuck on people's lips like cheap lipgloss, but we let them spit their poison on their own sidewalk.
we are not niave.
we are not fighting for power.
we are not trying to win.
we are not using each other.
she smells like clean laundry.
she tastes like butterscotch.
i haven't been in her presence in 9 months, but i remember.
and i will never forget
the ways that she has touched me from so far away.

One For Old Snaggle-Tooth

by charles bukowski

I know a woman
who keeps buying puzzles
chinese
puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order.
she works it out
mathematically
she solves all her
puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimately
in a better world.
her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeless
coveralls over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I consider her
eccentricities -
like soaking eggshells in water
(to feed the plants so that
they'd get calcium).
but finally when I think of her
life
and compare it to other lives
more dazzling,
original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
she has had some terrible times,
times when maybe I should have
helped her more
for she is the mother of my only
child
and we were once great lovers,
but she has come through
like I said
she has hurt fewer people than
anybody I know,
and if you look at it like that,
well,
she has created a better world.
she has won.

Frances, this poem is foryou.

Introduction

I am often found lamenting about the people in my life, either in loving, outrageous or incredulous ways. I believe so strongly that it is the people that we allow into our lives that affect us, change us and make us who we ultimately are.

I think often about how people have influenced my life, their colourful characters marching across the blank canvas of my future, leaving their mark. I don't think there is a day that goes by that I don't throw my arms in the air and say "I love these people" or "What's wrong with people?" or "These people make me crazy!"

I have met some of the most incredible people ever, also some of the most boring, some of the most nerdy, some of the most ridiculous and some of the most difficult! People make my life. Their stories sustain me. So I have decided to make a blog dedicated to the people that I interact with.

There won't be any names here, you will only get the pleasure of reading about them the way I see them through my eyes. To share my perspective for a moment and to see how I am affected by the people in my neighbourhood and beyond. All kinds of people, who affect me in negative, confusing, inspiring, sickening, delicious, positive and most importantly in loving ways... because as walt whitman said "i no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe that I deserved my friends"