Last Words

"... like this was the last day, like these were the last words, like you don't ever want to forget how..."

Paris.

In Paris I learned that the hardest part of writing is getting your ass in the chair. Getting your fingers on the keyboard. Putting pen to paper. 

Every day.

I learned that Paris isn't even a place. Not a city you can just walk or fly to. 

Not a classroom you walk into and routinely put your head to a desk. Paris doesn't even exist. 

Not if you don't want it to. 

I saw a man talk about how sad and how lonely paris could be, smiling widely the entire time, smoking a cigarette. 

Another man spoke of the gritty, godforsaken corners of paris, and how to survive there you need to keep your dreams afloat with the bleeding, broken dreams of others. 

I think that place was called Brooklyn. Or did I dream that? 

Paris was where I came to escape the crowds and harsh weather of other places. And though the rain is much colder there, and the crowds often twice as hostile, the sun shines brighter than anywhere else. 

And, with paris now behind me, I am afraid I may not have the words to describe what happened there. 

I may never have the words. 

But something changed, in paris. Part of me stayed behind, even as I took a piece of paris with me. It appears that, the more you give to this city, the more you are allowed to take away. 

I'll never miss the pieces of myself that I gave. Every pebble I took away from paris, even the ones that lodged in my shoes, is worth more than its weight in gold. 

And every time I hold one of those pebbles, i'll think of that far off place.

And smile, thinking of rain and the city lights.

Thanks, Nelson.

C.G. 

You wouldn't know this about me, but I crack my knuckles when I'm nervous.

I crack my knuckles a lot.

I find myself increasingly unable to smile properly. Don't ask me how that works. I just feel sometimes that my face is the most uncomfortable part of my body, because it's the part that everyone can see in full.

Sometimes it doesn't know which expression to make

I believe i'm just now learning what it means to be a man.

And no, I don't mean playing sports, or driving an expensive car, or paying bills, or walking around shirtless in a Gillette commercial or a Twilight movie. 

I mean smiling, all by myself, alone in a car.

For no reason other than it's morning, I'm headed to work, the roads are empty and the chilly sky is filled with light.

I spend most of my time trying to find a way to get out of my own head. Because If I don't I'll talk myself to death, and suffocate all my self-worth under the weight of my own words. 

 So I fill up as much of my time as I can with music, and the screeching voices from the inside pair up with the ones being piped in from the outside, and depending on the day they'll either do a waltz...

or get in a fistfight. 

And sometimes, when I'm lucky, my brain remembers one of those songs while I sleep, and the lyrics, when heard through the soft, golden membrane of sleep,  hum and resonate in my brain, and become ten times what they were when I was awake. These alien notes then follow me throughout the day, and echo whenever I hear a song or a word that reminds me of their strange, foreign beauty.