Move Along - All American Rejects

Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking
When you fall everyone stands <-days are wasted thinking this... either because it's false or because it's useless
Another day and you've had your fill of sinking
With the life held in your <-whose life? the speaker's, or someone else's?
Hands are shaking cold
These hands are meant to hold <-if only you could see...

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone <-especially when your hope is gone...
Move along, move along just to make it through <-can do, will do, must do
Move along
Move along

So a day when you've lost yourself completely
Could be a night when your life ends <-so be careful or you'll lose more than just yourself
Such a heart that will lead you to deceiving
All the pain held in your
Hands are shaking cold
Your hands are mine to hold <-are they?

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)

When everything is wrong we move along <-if, then
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
When everything is wrong, we move along
Along, along, along

When all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through [x3]

(Move along) (Go on, go on, go on, go on)
Right back what is wrong
We move along

Still, I Love You

As I lay in bed, the clock strikes noon.
Have I really been here all morning?
A dull ache throbs throughout my entire body.
My head spins - I feel like I'm going to throw up.

Maybe it was when you gave that blank stare.
when you said "that's nice,"
after I bared my soul and said "I still love you."
Maybe it was when you walked off with him.

You said you had to do this thing.
To find out if he was right.
You thought you might do better.
While I was only doing my best.

If I wrote about tears, they'd call me emotive.
A tag that unjustly drains credibility.
But what else is there to write about
When tears are all that I have to give?

I said that I still loved you.
And I meant every word.
If that's all I have to give, so be it.
I'll give until from weakness, I give out.

A Small Brown Package

I'm staring at a small brown package, maybe 12" x 9" x 1".

It's messily labeled, something that's always bothered me about packaging. Of course, you can't expect care to go into the arbitrary when there's money to be made. That, to me, is unfortunate. I'm not going to go into a tangent about the economy, but believe me when I say that I could.

The USPS label covers up a word, leaving only "amaz," a fragment of Amazon. A smaller yellow label bears a postage verification along with my zipcode. Altogether, there are four barcodes - three on labels, one on the actual packaging.

Red marker says "Christmas gift - don't open me" in my roommate's handwriting. But the package is not from my roommate. It's from somebody else.

The back of the package is much more pleasing to the eye. On it are simply the Amazon logo (which I just now realized is not an eyeless smile, but an arrow) and three small triangular arrows before "PULL TAB TO OPEN." I'd like to open it, but that's not in the spirit of the holiday.

Of course, part of me says "open it anyway. You create your own spirit." And I'm a hair's breadth from complying. It could be simple curiosity. It could be elation. It could be out of a misguided attempt to silence my own imagination.

It could be because this gift is from one of the most important people in my life.

I reeeeeeeally want to open it.

Whispers

I hear the whispers of a gentler soul. They come to me as indistinguishable noise, the rustling of leaves, the echoes of a wind long past. They are the breaths of an unspeakable name, yet a name that is familiar. I hear them in the rain as it ends its downward journey. I hear them in the lovingly empty spaces of music. I hear them through the eyes, and hands, and mouth. And though indistinguishable as far as language may be concerned, I know what it is that this gentler soul has to tell me, for the soul is mine, and the whispers too. They are longing for me, weeping for me, reaching for my hand in a barely lit blackness.

If I was a lesser man, maybe I would turn away. Maybe I would choose to follow vanity, or pleasure. Maybe. But I'm about to make the greatest comeback in the history of mankind. I can't afford not to. How can we turn aside from things that need doing, questions that need answering?

So the whispers of a gentler soul become the battle cry of a man named Me.

Check This Out

When all is said and done
and the lights go out
I sleep well
knowing that I'm happy
with the person that I am
that's pretty hard to beat