epiphany.

i sat on my worn black sofa and strummed the few chords that i know. i smiled and sang and appreciated the ridiculousness and utter madness of being. there was a man picking a beautiful acoustic song in the background, on my half-defunct stereo.

i appreciate things that are broken. my coffeecup handles. the high e on my guitar. my cell phone charger. the people i love. it's the broken things that inspire me to create alternatives. to live amongst the broken without regret.

i am a grand observer. i look upon everything with a sparkling disconnect. i once believed in perfection. i felt it possible to know everything. as a child, i attempted to read my world book encyclopedias from a-z. it bored me. i don't want to be an encyclopedia. i find joy in things i fail to retain. i enjoy conversing with those who believe they are the missing volume, but only because i know (somewhere inside), that they are tragically misinformed.

if like attracts like, and i'm convinced it does, then i am charming. i am broken.

i cheer for the underdog. i fall in love with puzzles with the final piece lost behind the same black sofa upon which i sit.

i fell asleep last night longing for the arms of someone beside me to hold me together, but i am only human. and to be human is to desire that dust-laden missing piece.

i propped my guitar against the wall and hummed the song i had just written. the lyrics, true and simple, failed to make it to the page. it may have been beautiful. it may have been perfect. but i am not perfect. i am broken. and i appreciate the broken things.

silence in stereo.

I love the way their mouths move, speechless. Slow-motion sunburned hands gripping lukewarm mugs of hot cocoa to warm the chill of the beach in February. The music has drowned out the verbal communication and it’s a respite for me.
I sip a Stella, adjust my headphones and stare at an unevenly spackled wall the color of nutella and marshmallows mixed.
It smells of coffee and, sometimes, cigarettes. The door is open. A table sits in the doorway. There are free papers and flyers for South Beach Waxing Co. and a burlesque show that I attended at one point with an old friend of mine. It was void of sex appeal, but the attempts at lewd Santa characters were more than laughable. I lost one of my favorite black and white earrings on the floor that night. I also left my friend to go to the deli across the street and sneak a turkey sandwich and a free bag of chips. I sat in an empty doorway and shared them both with a homeless man I recognized from my daily walks to and from work.
Everything around here is going out of business. The dim sum restaurant, the veggie hot dog stand, the local record store. I have yet to become frightened. I tend to succeed in the face of immense suffering.