"Love is alright for those who can handle the psychic overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss." 

yeah, i agree with that. i just don't know if i should stay. it's nothing, but it's also everything.

sitting on my deck, i hear the star-shaped wind chime singing as birds flock around the adjacent bird feeder. my dog does not like this so he promptly howls toward them, scattering them wildly. it's a beautiful summer day. i am twenty years old.

a bird perches warily on my roof, looking down at the bird feeder guarded by my silly dog. i think about love and i feel glad. i store this moment in my thoughts because peace is a fickle luxury that i must enjoy whenever it reveals itself.

INTERVIEWER: What is your definition of love?

BUKOWSKI: Love is kinda like you know when you see a fog in the morning when you wake up before the sun comes out? It's just there a little while, then it burns away.

INTERVIEWER: Really?

BUKOWSKI: Absolutely.

INTERVIEWER: It burns away?

BUKOWSKI: Yeah. Quickly. Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality. 

bukowski said that love is a fog, but i disagree. love is a lighthouse, as dumb as that sounds. i mean all kinds of love, too. love doesn't burn away. the lighthouse can't disappear, but you can lose sight of it if you're not where you're supposed to be. the question to ask is: are you where you want to be? because that's where you're supposed to be.

love is the first daylight of reality, only of the reality you desire, cutting through the muddy fog of existence.

he loves me

it feels like the first spoonful of ice cream, a soft bed after a long day, the smell of warm rain

my heart swells to three times its size when i see him comin' round and i don't mind if he's feelin' grinchy as long as i can be there to make him smile

these sentences don't stop because i don't want a happy ending

there's nothing happy about an ending

i'll take happily ever after

the architecture of my mind is crumbling. in some ways, i feel set free. i am nothin but a shadow among silhouettes. i think about being cut off from consciousness. i wonder what it would be like to look in my dog's eyes or hear my mom's humming or smell rain for the last time. i think about losing it all, peeling off my skin and dissipating into the universe.

one day, it'll all be gone.

that's the truth behind all things beautiful.

god, i love you but i don't trust you. you, with your dark eyes that i cannot comprehend. this is supposed to be a love letter, but i can't write about love right now. i love you, but i feel like a ghost caught in a storm. i depend on other people for my survival yet i feel sick to my stomach when i hear them talk. i hear them want and need and i can't deliver. i see beauty and it makes me sick because i also see truth. and like cold water breaking on smooth rocks, i feel waves of understanding. there is a certain pleasure in understanding, though it doesn't satisfy. that's my fault.

i lost my hunger for knowledge,

and everything else.