I want you to hear these words without being spoken and I want you to feel them without any syllables. It is when we go to such lengths to feel the pressure of death in our lungs, the muscle strain in our chests, the pull and stretch of our limbs, to scorch holes in our retinas and shatter our eardrums, a most sacred movement of cells and waves, bringing them one by one never to end a screaming breath, for once one stops another begins. Let me feel the sting upon my tongue never cease, let a constant flow define this motion indescribably, infinitely, cry--without which my bones would crumble. I feel a collapse first, a purging, come to nothing but sound and sight and taste, we were once most certainly empty can we be filled? Give me a resounding note. Let it echo in all directions come back to the center, my center.
Let me never come to cinders without burning, let me never come to silence without singing, allow me never to climb without falling, let me never come upon happiness without tears, let me never become empty before loving, give me no knowledge without wisdom, never will I be fulfilled without hunger, let me never come to darkness before light, and let me never come to an end without a beginning.

Somethings about the desert I can't get out of my head. The dry smell of the cold wind rushing across the brush and brambles. The infinite dark space out west, punctuated only slightly by rows of distant civilization. Away from town, you can see the stars, so sharp and clear. The way you can see a single car slow at a stop sign ten miles away. The tiny red lights of the windmills on the mountains.
Such space and distance unknown.
Those sunsets, in the summer? Even a beach or mountain sunset cannot compare. This vast emptiness just fills with colour. You can drive and drive, endless vanishing points. So barren but so incredibly beautiful.
And the powerlines, they march across the desert floor. Like sentries. When you're far enough away from the city you can hear nothing but the tiniest buzzing, and the smallest sound of the breeze through the wires.
You can just walk, through the tumbleweeds. Through the joshua trees. Through the tiny footprints of rabbits and coyotes. Through cans and paper and picture frames, abandoned walls and remnants of people's lives.
Nothing can touch it.
I used to say I hated it. In the heat, sometimes, miserable, I do.
But I love it so much.

When you're walking down the street and you see a stranger and there is something about their air and pattern of movement that makes you believe, for a moment, that you already know a little bit about who they are inside, you're thinking, if only I knew what to say to them, their response would confirm this thought. The only thing about encounters with those kind of strangers is that they're so fleeting, like trying to catch smoke, and you're never a fast enough thinker to come up with what to say to them before the traffic signal changes or they jump on the bus or their friend shows up or they turn the corner, never to be seen again.

I wish someone actually cared.
I wish someone would hold me until I fall asleep so I don't have bad dreams.
I wish someone would make me think, that I am not as ugly as I feel.
I just wish someone loved me.
I wish I did not feel so stupid saying this.

One day soon, I hope, we'll all learn to stop being intimidated by the beauty in the people we love, and learn to realise and embrace our own. Every one of us is beautiful for the things we are and the things we are not, and no envy of each other will change us into those things we wish we were. We surround ourselves with and love the people who are an embodiment of all that we are not and together--we are one.

It wasn't what I expected and at the same time everything I expected.
I won't lie and say I wasn't worried, because I was. Then again that's a fault of mine: I don't have enough faith in people.
The trees and the mountains--they never change, and they take my breath away everytime, no matter who is in the mix. I dream so differently there.
It's sometimes so hard to feel that beauty in the presence of others you don't connect with, but as long as you are nearby everything is okay. I know you'll always be around and that you care so much. I felt like you were the only one who did care at all.
Sometimes I would look at you with your three friends you've known so long and feel apart, but at the same time know you and I share a connection that they don't.
It was sort of strange, in a way, when I couldn't think of what to say, just walked off alone instead. I wish I was better at speaking up when I need to but I was trying to dwell on the feeling of being where I was instead of letting it upset me like it does now.
But the taste of avocados and American Spirits, the smell of citronella and woodsmoke, and walking away down a forest trail arms linked with my very best friend, the one person who I just know is feeling the same thing without ever needing any words to say so--that will follow me, and the thought makes me smile.

IN WHICH
Melody discovers The Transformation in two parts:

Sometimes I write a lot and othertimes, not at all. Sometimes I feel my head and heart so full, from thoughts, from a song, from a wordless, heartbreaking landscape on a long drive. Sometimes I feel myself so empty, dull, and lifeless from not being brave enough to let myself make mistakes. There is an order to everything, and the past year I've recognised The Catalyst, The Transformation, The Purging! Tiny steps in between, like a diagram, an outline. You feel them come and progress but never really realise them until they are behind you, where you should realise them. It is okay to change, it is okay, to evolve. Every change is something that is supposed to happen. Every moment changes us, every encounter, every tiny human vibration. Sometimes I feel incredibly intimidated by the beautiful, independent, open people around me and I feel myself weak and pale in comparison. But for now? knowing I've found safety in another person--
for now, that is enough.
As for me letting myself make mistakes and being braver and stronger in myself--
I am always just learning as I go.

It's a wonderful day spring, april 24. And I felt myself wasting away most of it--I slept until 10, I left for work at 11:30 in my dad's great rumbling truck because my tiny beetle is in the shop again and I see a biker cycling around my neighbourhood as I leave and wish I was her, free to bike all day in the sun. It was a waste, 3 1/2 hours, very slow day, they sent me home early. Delight.
I spent the next 5, 6 hours in my room with the window wide open and music playing--The Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes, Feist, Elliott Smith, Gastr Del Sol, Leona Naess? I cleaned and cleaned by which I mean what I did not put in bags with intention to donate, I threw away. Spring cleaning at it's finest, end materialism of 2008! I tried this time, not only to get rid of things I don't want, but get rid of things I don't need. That is a lot. I could be moving out tomorrow with the way I behaved this afternoon. I left some things, my pets, my cds, books, movies, instruments, cameras...
I still feel like I haven't gotten rid of enough.
The trashcan is full and so is the back of the truck--I will go to Salvation Army in the morning.
It was nearly 11 by the time I finished, and vaccumed and cleaned the tanks and scrubbed the walls and the desktops. It feels bare and it feels empty and it feels free and there's more room to breathe. Going to sleep the first night after rearranging or emptying is a strange feeling but I will like it.
After putting the last bag, the last box, the last shelf, the last knick knack in the back of the truck I started walking out into the still darkness of the neighbourhood, the air still too cold to be quite summer but warm enough to feel comfortable. I lit my pipe carefully, just as Robert showed me. Short walks always turn into long walks for me--I spend so much time driving away from my neighbourhood that I've forgotten what it looks like just to wander around it. By the time I got back to my house my parents had gone to bed. I sat behind the trailer in the driveway and dumped out the ash, tapping. Put in a pipe cleaner, scrape some of the ash back inside and shake it around. I blew the rest of it into the grass--no one will know I was there. In a moment I heard a train. Usually it is too loud for some reason or another to hear it, 6 miles away but tonight was loud and clear, it sounded. I found myself wishing it would come and carry me home.

Même lorsque nous sommes loin de chaque autre, même lorsque nous sommes tristes ou fâchés ou bouleversés ou mal compris--je suis toujours avec toi. Si jamais t'avais besoin de moi, tu sais que je serais là. Dans un battement de coeur. N'oubliez pas jamais cela, ma belle amie. Tu es mon meilleur amie, pour toujours. Rien n'est susceptible de changer cela. J'ai la confiance dans celle, plus que toute autre chose dans ma vie. Parfois je suis ainsi intimidé par tout que tu es parce que tu es si futée et belle et extraordinaire -- tu es l'incorporation de tout que je souhaite que j'aie été. En même temps, ce n'est pas tellement une jalousie comme admiration vraie, et chaque jour où je pense à comme je reconnaissant suis avoir si une personne étonnante amour-moi et appeler-moi leur meilleur amie. Tu es ma paix et sécurité, et je t'aime plus que n'importe quoi en ce monde. Parfois je m'inquiète dans ce que je mets tout mon amour est mon meilleur amie. D'autres fois, je m'inquiète pas parce que je sais que c'est en sécurité là. Sans toi, je mourrais.

We got there early; there was still a huge line.
But we all filed in, college students, scene kids, english teachers, football players, librarians.
And there he was. 87, behind a table, signing books.
I still can't believe he was really there.
Everyone waited in line, they bought t-shirts, they came in with their fresh new copies of Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man still in their Barnes & Noble bags--they all grabbed seats, but we stood in the back, leaning against a windowsill. It was inside a Greek Orthodox church with a fancy name. There were chandeliers and frilly dinner chairs instead of pews.
When he got onstage everyone was quiet. There he was, 87.
I still can't believe he was really there.
He started speaking, slowly at first, but more and more as he continued. He spoke just like he writes. He looked so frail, in this wheelchair, but his voice never faltered, and he held his arms out to all of us as he talked about love and Mars and being born and typewriters. He looked so old and ancient, like a willow tree, but the way he shaped his words you knew he was really such a young man in an old body--or he could've been all ages at once; he was infinite.
I've never been to an author lecture before, I didn't know what to expect. Truthfully I feared he'd turn out to be one of those who just stands tall on the podium talking about their own work for an hour. But it wasn't like that at all. He just told these stories, because that's what he is, a storyteller. He'd say '70 years ago' or 'when I was 17' or 'after I got married'--a time machine. He told us of tiniest little encounters that made him write this story or that story. He talked of love. About how our loves chase us, how our loves fuel other people's loves. He spoke to all of us, or at least he spoke to me. 'Tonight,' he said, 'when you go home, look up at the ceiling and ask yourself what it is you love, and form yourself above you.'
The whole time he spoke, it was sort of the same trance as seeing Explosions in the Sky. I stared at that single man on the stage so hard that everything else in my field of vision was just fog, and when I closed my eyes, his figure would still be right there, an afterimage.
And suddenly it was over, he'd said what he'd come to tell us, and whether we did anything with it or not was up to us.
I got in line with the rest of that crowd with my old yellow copy of Dandelion Wine. We got closer and closer, and then he was right there. I handed him my book, I looked him in the eyes. I walked around and asked if he'd take a picture with me. I can't remember exactly what he said, but his eyes crinkled as he smiled at me. He leaned his great head against mine as the picture was taken. Then he signed my book, his old hands were shaking. I said, thank you so much. I couldn't get anything else out. And then we left, and I was just thinking of how he was going to sign all those people's books with his old hands shaking.

I can feel I can feel I can feel.
I thought it had left me but it's coming back in gasps and heartbeats.
The drive in the snowglobe and pumping our veins with caffeine and music and nicotine and conversation brought me back to the beauty of the world, I know it.
In the crowd no one around us moved, it seemed like--no one felt it.
But with you, my friend, your arm around my shoulders as the bass drum vibrated in my chest, I realise I can feel things with you that I can't feel with anyone else. I was either going to float away into space or crash onto the floor but I had your strength and beauty next to me as we had the same energy as if we were one person. I felt the least lonely I've ever felt in front of those four sweet musicians from Texas. You've become the shoulder I can always lean on to connect me back to humanity.
And everything else was gone.

J'avais vécue en hiver, si mort, si froid, et seulement en ce moment je commence à se réveiller. J'avais vécu du travail au travail dans un froid foncé. J'ai presque oubliée de me ressentir humain. Je pense que j'avais oubliée de me ressentir. Aujourd'hui je recherche et les collines sont vertes et orange. Les odeurs d'air douces avec un printemps éveillé, et je ressens trop chauds dans ce chandail. Les jours entre le travail à la compagnie et la sûreté d'une amie ont été la seule chose pour maintenir ma santé d'esprit. Un jour très bientôt, les choses changeront. Je sens la vie revenir à moi en souffles courts. Je ne sais pas si c'est la pensée de ce week-end, voyant cette bande qui me donne la vie, ou pouvant voir ma soeur, dont parfois je manque tellement, ou l'anticipation de quelques jours dans les montagnes en juin, ou si c'est la pensée d'éloigner de cet endroit avec ma meilleur amie, mais il y a un espoir et une lumière même dans mon plus foncé des pensées. Peut-être il y a un espoir et une lumière de mon plus foncé des pensées. Je sais que les choses meurent, ainsi d'autres choses peuvent vivre. Il y a un printemps qui se réveille, et j'espère et ressens qu'il n'est pas simplement sur l'extérieur, dans le monde.

J'espère qu'il est dans moi aussi.

Sometimes, love is when you realise that you've built a home inside of somebody outside yourself, and you know it's gonna be safe there always.

February always ends so quickly because it's such a disappointing month. No one really likes february.

There's this place I dream of, and it's always different but it's always the same. There's always trees. Lots and lots of trees. A deep, dark forest that's green and endless. There's always water. A lake or stream or waterfalls. It's usually cloudy. And there's always mountains. The air breathes differently, it's sharp and clear. It's so lost and far and it haunts me while it gives me peace because I know it exists, beyond daydreams or unconscious ones. When I'm there I know I'm safe, and there's no one else, I'm so so alone, so lonely, so sad and so happy I could just cry. I'm free from convention and ugliness. I can read or write or spend all day in a little cabin beating on a piano or a drum set and watching the bruises appear on my limbs. Sometimes I surround myself with such castles of noise I could go deaf, absorbing it all into my pores. I play and I sing, and no one will ever hear it, no one can ever hear it, I never see another person again, because I'm so hidden, because they'll never find me here. Sometimes I cook and clean. Sometimes I walk and walk all day and sleep in shadows under the trees. There's all these animals, but they don't fear me. Sometimes I swim underwater in a lake for hours. Sometimes I take all these pictures and develop them one by one as if computers never existed. I never see anyone again. I'm lost, I'm free, and I never have to explain myself again.

I wake up and I have this overwhelming fear that I'm going to end up there, like that.
I wake up and I have this overwhelming hope that I'm going to end up there, like that.

Pourrait je t'aime encore?
Pourriez-vous m'aimer?
Pourriez-vous vous ressentir comme la maison, comme mon plus chère amie?
Seriez-vous autour?
C'est la musique qui fait des personnes tomber dans l'amour.
Peut-être ce n'est pas vous.
Peut-être je veux juste aimer quelqu'un.
Et il y avait de vous toujours.

Merde, merde, je n'ai pas voulu vous faire pour tomber dans l'amour avec moi, je n'ai pas voulu que vous tombassiez amoureuse de moi. Je souhaite que je pourrais me cacher bon encore, mis de nouveau dans l'endroit secret duquel je suis venu de sorte que vous ayez pu aller comme si vous ne m'avez jamais connu. Je me suis ressenti si étrange, si laide. Vous devez vous arrêter, je vous décevrez seulement. Vous devez le laisser mourir, ou il vous détruira juste comme il m'a détruit par le passé. J'ai juste voulu pousser ma tête dans mes bras et tomber endormi. Au lieu de cela, il y avait l'épaule d'une amie. Parfois les mots d'une amie sont la chose le plus précieux au monde, particulièrement quand sont exactement ils ce que vous avez besoin d'entendre, et quand elles sont des vérités.
Vous serez bien, coûte que coûte.
Et je le crois.

I wish that truly beautiful people never had to feel ugly just because most of the world has their eyes closed.
I hope mine are always open.

This is the most beautiful friendship I've ever known.

I love it when the sky leans close, the clouds dark and cool like a blanket.
It feels so safe, safer than anything in the world.
Such a cold environment to put such a warm feeling in my chest.
The vapour fills the valleys and quiets the landscape,
the trees and powerlines come through the fog like ghosts and leave just as gently.
To be sped along the roads in gray and green or sat under the limbs in complete silence,
it's a kinder moment in the face of anything heartbreaking or debilitating.

-I wish I didn't feel like a disappointment to my family, I wish I wasn't invisible, and I wish that even in the middle of the room with all of them I didn't feel like I'm looking from the outside in.
I wish I wasn't so ungrateful, I wish I wasn't different, I wish I fit.
-I wish it didn't matter so much, I wish they felt like home as much as you do.
I wish I didn't need you so much, I wish you didn't need me so little.
I wish I could tell you everything I want to tell you.
I hope you know just how much I love you.
I wish that this feeling in my veins, the weight of the iron in my blood didn't make my heart sink so easily,
I wish things didn't fall apart so easily.
-I wish you were around, not 2000 miles away in the midst of a fabulous new life.
I wish I had as many things to tell you about as you do me.
I hope you know how much I miss you, and how important it's been to grow up with you.
-I wish that you and I weren't pretending, hiding behind smiles when everything's changed.
I wish nothing ever changed, I hope everything changes.
I wish I could just let it die.
-I wish that you were here, so I could fall asleep in the comfort of another unconscious energy nearby,
and so I'm not left alone to let these darkest thoughts destroy me.
I wish I felt like doing something else, anything else than lying here forever, mismatched in slumber.
I wish I had a river I could skate away on.