You think (you think) forgetful, you blink
never the same river twice.


The One common substance in the universe, the pith of atoms, quarks, unraveled string theory: all is fire. Change is what he meant but you can certainly appreciate Heraclitus's flare for the dramatics.

I woke up this morning and realized that I'm different than I used to be. My hands pressed on the steering wheel, humming third eye blind, still wearing the strapless purple dress from the wave of New Years Eve parties... And I miss what I was, and it frightens me what I am. Recently there was a night where my friend, drunk and depressed over some recent things in his life he felt like were his fault, was so proud, so proud of the slivers all over his arms from the knife he found in the kitchen. And he cut, cut, cut himself because he felt that he needed to be punished, he needed to feel pain for who he was. And those deep, thin lacerations spidered up his arms and all over my soul. He kept telling me not to cry but I was so angry with him, and so angry at pain that I couldn't. We tried to put him to sleep but I saw him doing pushups long after, over and over again. So many precise, crimson streaks like prison bars and red ink stains. He had been so proud of what he did until I yelled at him and pushed him and just cried.

Never the same river

Things can be so breathtakingly beautiful and obliteratingly cruel. In the movie American Beauty one boy stares in the face of a dead man and you see his eyes glaze over in fascination, because he sees something terribly wonderful. And I wonder who we are, you know? To be capable of feeling and inflicting and vindicating and exulting. Grace, mercy, hope...these things may be freely given, but they must be claimed. Harder that it might sound, I think.

(Fire and rivers and you)