The Fourth Step

When the boy from all of the old poems Sends you a letter saying, “I’ve been clean for six months now, And it’s time to apologise for what my hands did back then,” Strangely, It will not feel like healing, Even if it is true, Even if this letter is the kindest thing this boy has done for you in years, For who among us knows how to swallow such a truth? To know for certain how many things we hoped were honesty Were in fact just whiskey, That every song we danced to that night Were sung by the Hallelujah Junkie Choir. This boy, who always woke up smiling, Showed up at your door with three tomatoes and a mango, Reached those dirty hands into such dark things. How humiliating, And what does it say about you that everything you still call love, He now calls rock bottom? When the boy from all of the old poems sends you a letter saying, “I’m so proud of you, And all the ways you have not died In the years that grew between us,” You will write back, “I’m so proud of you too. Look how clean we have become in the hands of other people. How lucky we are, to have realised love need look nothing like a shot glass, Or a shotgun. - Clementine von Radics

Mouthful Of Forevers

I am not the first person you loved.
You are not the first person I looked at
with a mouthful of forevers. We
have both known loss like the sharp edges
of a knife. We have both lived with lips
more scar tissue than skin. Our love came
unannounced in the middle of the night.
Our love came when we’d given up
on asking love to come. I think
that has to be part
of its miracle.
This is how we heal.
I will kiss you like forgiveness. You
will hold me like I’m hope. Our arms
will bandage and we will press promises
between us like flowers in a book.
I will write sonnets to the salt of sweat
on your skin. I will write novels to the scar
of your nose. I will write a dictionary
of all the words I have used trying
to describe the way it feels to have finally,
finally found you.

And I will not be afraid
of your scars.

I know sometimes
it’s still hard to let me see you
in all your cracked perfection,
but please know:
whether it’s the days you burn
more brilliant than the sun
or the nights you collapse into my lap
your body broken into a thousand questions,
you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I will love you when you are a still day.
I will love you when you are a hurricane.”

- Clementine von Radics

Be Still

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

-T.S. Eliot

On The Radio

This is how it works
It feels a little worse
Than when we drove our hearse
Right through that screaming crowd
While laughing up a storm
Until we were just bone
Until it got so warm
That none of us could sleep
And all the Styrofoam
Began to melt away
We tried to find some worms
To aid in the decay
But none of them were home
Inside their catacomb
A million ancient bees
Began to sting our knees
While we were on our knees
Praying that disease
Would leave the ones we love
And never come again

On the radio
We heard November Rain
That solo's really long
But it's a pretty song
We listened to it twice
'Cause the DJ was asleep

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

And on the radio
You hear November Rain
That solo's awful long
But it's a good refrain
You listen to it twice
'Cause the DJ is asleep
On the radio
(Oh, oh, oh)
On the radio...
 
    - Regina Spektor

On Leaving

“leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses.
you make him call before
he visits. you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong,
they can smell it in the street.”

Marty McConnell - Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

What do I do?

I divide my time between filmmaking, learning and teaching martial arts, writing and motorcycle riding so I don’t like to box myself in one category. I’m a guy who does many things, trying to get the max out of my short time on this planet.

The camera, the motorcycle and my own body are just tools that my brain uses to express itself. I love telling stories and living inside them. I don’t create anything, I experience things. Again and again. The observation or the experience becomes a story and the retelling of it by me becomes a way of living it again. I try to live deeply but, needless to say, I’m lost in my head a lot of the time.

Over the years I have chased truth in all its forms and looked for ways to capture beauty and grace and love and how we as humans experience such things. Whether it’s in a lover’s eyes or the feeling of finishing a great book, there is truth and beauty all around us. It’s so fleeting though, and the great artists have always redefined ways to capture it forever. Until I find my own way, my quest shall continue, and once I find it, I shall do it over and over again until I can’t anymore.

Well, there you go, that’s what I do then, I guess...

Lightness

"It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…"
Aldous Huxley - Island