i had lunch with phil today, and i asked him, how do you know if he's the One?

he said something like the following:

"
well, love is like all things in life. the hardest thing to do is to Keep It Simple, even though it's the best thing for it. it's so easy for love to get complicated, when really we should focus on keeping it simple.

you know the person is the One if you want to be around them all the time. if, when they aren't there, you say to yourself, "this would be much better if he were around." if they are there, they make things so much more fun.

i have a friend who always goes on and on about how unsure she is about the man she is with. he's somewhere, she is elsewhere, and neither of them want to move. they both come up with excuses, like, no, i need to be here because of X, Y, and Z, why don't YOU come here?

and in the end, if he and she were the Ones for each other, the answer would be simple. nothing is more important than that love they have for each other. nothing would stand in the way. it'd be simple, I would be wherever You are.

that's how you know you've met the One.
"

that thing you do that bothers me, i wonder why you do it, because we see each other all the time

same as that thing i need (writing to me), you wonder why i need it, because we see each other all the time

boy and girl
that's what we are

i will move through you like wildfire through the trees

email to S, january 8th 2010

-


today i'm a melon, ripe and brewing
dressed in rind of golden beige

i feel cold, and refrigerated, but sweet on the inside

seeds still inside, rock hard and soft at the same exact time
turning and teething and hopeful and young, innocent like the flesh that digs into my tongue

i feel my entire body condense
in shades of purple and awareness
release, release like cables
and strung along like the cars along them

what's appreciation anyways? october anniversaries and wintry embraces,

i know who we are deep inside, we're old enough to know now but not too old to change

pick me, pick me
i'm ripening still

phil says,
there's a very easy way to tell if you are meant to do something. if, during and after you do it, you feel more energized, then it was meant to be. if you feel the opposite, then your heart is not in the right place and you should not be doing the thing you're doing.

sometimes i inhale more deeply in hopes of locking in the memory of the moment

So this was the happy ending to all the difficult times I had been through, and whenever I remembered my life in Europe, I would end with the story of a man passionately in love with me, and who would always be mine, because I had visited his soul.

Ah, Ralf, you have no idea how much I love you. I think that perhaps we always fall in love the very first instant we see the man of our dreams, even though, at the time, reason may be telling us otherwise, and we may fight against that instinct, hoping against hope that we won’t win, until there comes a point when we allow ourselves to be vanquished by our feelings. That happened on the night when I walked barefoot in the park, cold and in pain, but knowing how much you loved me.

Yes, I love you very much, as I have never loved another man, and that is precisely why I am leaving, because, if I stayed, the dream would become reality, the desire to possess, to want your life to be mine…in short, all the things that transform love into slavery. It’s best left like this–a dream.

–From Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coehlo

there are so many ways to know you are loved

why do we look for just those few?

I HAVE TO BE OKAY WITH ERASING BEFORE I CAN BEGIN WRITING AGAIN

"I admitted a lot of my own hidden secrets to myself this year.
I think light has filled in all those volcanic gashes." - traci