Serve up a salad of laughs.

Spray tomato sauce all over the build-a-bear man because he said so.

Run fast over a slippery surface and shout "purple cranes".

Spill coffee on your brand new pant legs and cheer with great joy. Pick up a stack of papers and make them into a house for a family of frogs.

Tickle a frat boy, jump over a bongo drum, listen to a Larry, overturn a lamp post for no other reason other than you feel like doing it and life is short, your last breathe could come at any moment and if it was not filled with fun than what was life lived for.

The question stuck in the air. I couldn't figure it out. "How... do you do it?" How do I do what?

The chill from her fingers set into me. It was as though my very bones were icing over. Suddenly, everything was dark. There! A light in the distance! It inched closer and closer until I could see! But what I saw was strange. I wasn't looking through my eyes anymore. I know because there I was, in front of me. It wasn't long before I realized I was seeing through the eyes of this perfect, tortured girl.

She - or I - watched me. Walking through the halls with a couple of friends, talking to a boy in study hall, smiling at a text from my mom.

"How... do you do it?"

Genuine relationships. This is what she was seeing. I never saw myself as popular or important, but I could connect with people. I hated her perfection. How could I have been so blind? So cold? Like the cold now leaving my bones.

When I came to, the crowd was gone. The only two left were she and I. Out of absolute impulse I lunged forward and hugged her tight, just wanting to comfort her! To let her know I understood!

It was then that I realized I had just been involved in some sort of... Magical, spiritual, third eye kind of something. I leapt back.

As a child I had no conceivable idea of what life would be like on my own. I imagined it as a freeing experience, that I'd travel the world and create my own adventures. My own legend. Yet in today's modern day and age, dreams like those are far beyond reach. Though like any dream one must believe to achieve. Life throws you through radical changes, revolutionizing the very idea of what one's idea of life was. My life is consistently being revolutionized, my heart beating it's tireless rhythm, keeping me alive, making me endure all the sorrows, and all the glories life has given me. I've spent so much time with just me and my solitary heart that it feels almost foreign to be so in love as I am. So convinced I was that the weight of the world had to rest on my shoulders and mine alone. I knew love once before, yet I was the only one who knew it, my emotions toyed with by a child. Yet now I find an unrequited joy to know the love I know now. With someone who's heart has tread along an equally if not more arduous journey than mine. When her beautiful brilliantly blue eyes stare into mine I see an understanding. Such a mature understanding of the complexity of life, the painful sorrows and the joyous intermittent moments we all share. And in those eyes I see a reflection of the same yearning. The need to be loved, to be sacred in the eyes of another. If she only knew just how sacred she really was to me. When we lay together my heart becomes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of divinity I feel laying next to her. Each breath I take, I take a little deeper when I'm with her, each sorrow fades away as she kisses me, and every dream I've ever had...comes alive when she's by my side. Together she and I journey, growing with one another; changing one another.

There are so many of us

We have to take turns

To say "Hello!" to the sand

That every one time in a year

We can meet the new seashells and rocks

And greet the old ones

But then, after that one second,

We have to go back down

Into the deep, dark

Blueish sea

Until the next swift second.

We all ask to be peaceful, but the reality is we often will not be.

While you are busy not being full of peace, remember that you are capable of it, that your heart is an instrument tuned especially for the task.

Are you to be staring at a dark horizon, waiting for the proof of the beauty in a sunrise that must be seen to be known?

Or do you already trust in that beauty to come, whenever it may come, even if gor whatever reason it never does.

That trust is second nature to the peaceable.

There was a man who ruled the night sky. People called him terrible, because he threw away the stars. But still he saved up star by star; shaped them and made them shine; and then he would throw them across the sky. He loved how they glistened as they fell, with their fiery trail, even though he knew everyone thought it was crazy, and rude to the stars. He knew that one day they would appreciate what he did. So when you see a shooting star, think of how beautiful it is. Because a man once defied everyone and everything he knew to show you that beauty, to show us all the beauty. Life's too short to ignore anything beautiful.

Uh, er, well...

You see, I just, uh

Tend to

Er, um...

I just, er, sorta

I mean I...

Um, er, uh...

Fumble with my, uh, words.

Hey. Me here, again. Listen, look. Remember when I called you a few hours earlier drunk? I'm even drunker. Gotta tell you, man... listen... here's the deal. Seriously. I know I've been drinking since five yesterday and all that happy horse shit, but I've been writing some of my best shit, I think. Maybe even comparable to Bill Shields. You know what I mean, fucker. Not saying I'm as good. You know what? Fuck you. Anyway, love you bro, and I wanted to call and tell you I've been re-reading your shit, and the jail book is fucking beautiful, but with Flotsam, you could've at least put a pimple on John Edmonds' ass. He's too perfect. No one fucking lives like that. Come on, dude. Hey, remember when you crashed at our pad in Long Beach and my old lady blew up at you in the kitchen? I was actually in bed laughing my ass off. Glad I'm on my own and that fuckin' bullshit's all behind me, holy fuck. But yeah, man, been writing a lot, back at it. Feels fucking great. Wanna come up there and hang with you mid-October, man. Alright. I should get my head down, I guess. Oh. Been reading your new shit, too. Glad to see your sentences haven't fuckin' lengthened with success. Don't go soft, motherfucker, hit them even harder. Love you, bro. Fuckin' neighbor next door is up and getting ready for work. You oughtta see this puke. Turtle face motherfucker. He doesn't like me. But that road goes both ways. Alright, night, fucker. Call me.