With a brush and ink

I paint a lake

Some times all it takes

Is a walk around the lake

To ease your mind

All it takes

Is a walk 

'Round the lake

Late at night

I'll stay up and write

A book about my life...

...So no one would ever make

All of my mistakes

Well, I've made my loved ones cry right in front of my eyes

And I've spent so long hurting

In such a short life

But I'm moving on

My heart is grown

I'm moving on

Yes, I'm moving on

My heart is grown

I'm moving on

Sometimes it's all it takes

Is a walk around the lake

Oh, and sometimes it's all it takes

Is a walk

'Round the lake

Half past nowhere

alone

in the crumbling

tower of myself

stumbling in this the

darkest

hour

the last gamble has been

lost

as I

reach

for

bone

silence.

As the mountains melt together with the sunrise

You tell me about the time

When you turned yourself into a stranger,

And all the chemicals were dancing in your blood

When you dear suddenly felt seasick.

Because you thought all lies were revealed.

And the thing that I felt when you told me

About that house with that singing weathervane

Oh, determined heart please translate it!

These cryptic messages hidden in between,

Her moon and her sky and her oceans

Cause I don't seem to understand them anymore.

Now the bachelor seems to wind up in the corner.

And his army of lovers they have left.

And the breakman is obviously sleeping.

Cause this train is going faster than light.

I sit on the edge of a cataclysmic abyss

Straddling the horizon

As sand dissipates under my feet

And I dream of falling

Show me

Show me how it’s done

This tired face too pale

These tired feet don’t know where they are headed

Show me

Show me how it’s done

This troubled mind needs rest

This aching heart needs more than you can offer

I’m playing with a dangerous flame again

And i’m happy as I can be when you are gone

I’m playing with a dangerous flame again

And i’m happy as I can be when you are gone, gone, gone, gone

Show me

Show me how it’s done

This tired face too pale

These tired feet don’t know where they are headed

Show me

Show me how it’s done

Invisible wars

You and I

Still acting like we’re strangers

I’m playing with a dangerous flame again

I think i’m happy as I can be when you are gone

I’m playing with a dangerous flame again

And i’m happy as I can be when you are gone

I’m playing with a dangerous flame again

And i’m happy as I can be when you are gone, gone, gone, gone

Have you ever felt like you were on auto pilot? 

Watching from behind your own eyes. 

Not feeling or hearing a thing. 

Everything purely isn’t from habit and ritual. 

You watch as the world passes by without compassion. 

Screaming loudly but no one hears.

Muffled by your own pain reaching out silently 

for someone to understand and help you cope. 

Like throwing a ball in the air and expecting someone to catch, 

you fall with no where to land. 

Nothing to soften the harsh blow. 

The damage is too far gone. 

Now Im numb beyond anything I thought possible. 

There is no heart that beats in my chest, 

it has been replaced with the cancer of pain. 

Slowly eating me alive. 

Everything carries a darkness, 

all roads leading to somewhere depressing and full of pain. 

Words bleed from my finger tip trying to find some solitude 

in pouring out how I feel. 

Someone has to ease this pain.

You covinence yourself to live each day to the fullest,

Following out the cliche of your own experience.

You hide your fear from your family and tell your friends one truth,

"the prognosis is relatively good."

The others you don't say.

Sometimes the heaviness of hope gets to you

And what you need most is to feel the purity of fear

To let it burn out the details of your day to day life.

You live in this underworld, 

You now let yourself know, 

Here with fear and with a loss

That cannot be compensated.

You know this is a private underworld

And that to talk of it too much might destroy something, 

But sometimes hope's burden is too much,

And what you crave more than some sign of perpetual life

Is the clarity to say things as they really are.

Keep climbing into my head without knockin'

And you fix yourself there like a map pin

On this ghost of this street where i'm livin'

I'm in a chrysalis and i'm snowed in

Darling, darling that dam's gonna give

It's inevitable the way that you live

Bottles in brown paper and a mouth that slurs

All the shit that it stirs

Let that dogwood blossom

There'll be hell to pay in heaven

For you take every street home

What happens when you're into deep to break

Loneliness keeps you constantly awake

What happens when the passage of time appears 

You see yourself as a child and it brings you to tears

You say that you're troubled and you always have been

Uncomfortable in your own skin

So you contemplate the riverbed

Turn off the dark thoughts in your head

Darling, darling that dam's gonna give

It's inevitable the way that you live

Bottles in brown paper and a mouth that slurs

All the shit that it stirs

Let that dogwood blossom

There'll be hell to pay in heaven

For you take every street home

Today, I’m writing from a hospital bed in Seattle. I’m in the bone marrow transplant unit, where this week I’ve undergone intensive chemotherapy treatments in anticipation of receiving stem cells. In the year since my diagnosis, I’ve struggled to hold onto a sense of who I am while I watch the person in the mirror change.

Looking back, I call the first month after my diagnosis “the cancer bubble” because I wasn’t showing obvious signs of my disease. I looked about the same — maybe a little more tired and pale than usual, but a stranger could never have guessed that I carried a secret, deep in my bones.

In the oncology ward, I still felt invisible, flying under the radar with my mouse hair. In the waiting room at my second appointment, a man with a sleeveless shirt and a bandanna covering his hairless head leaned in toward my father, who’s been bald since the ’80s, and raised his fist in the air: “Live strong, brother,” he said. Later, my dad and I had a good laugh about the mix-up — it helped ease our tight nerves for a moment. But I remember also feeling slighted, as though my terrible new disease wasn’t being acknowledged.

I remember my first day of chemo as if it were yesterday. Within a few weeks, my waist had shrunk to a double zero — the size it was when I was in the sixth grade. My cheek bones jutting out. Rings under my eyes. Skin the color of chalk. And then there was my hair. My long, wavy hair — the same unruly locks I’d spent countless hours fussing over in front of a bathroom mirror — soon to be gone.

When I finally returned home after my five-week hospitalisation, I could feel the stares of strangers on my bald head and thinning eyebrows. Everywhere I went, cancer spoke for me before I could say the first word. Once, I even overheard a child asking her mother why there was did that boy have no hair.

Cancer had given me a reverse celebrity status: all the attention for something you didn’t want to be known for. I had crossed over into a new land, the land of Patient. And with every step I was feeling less like Zack.

Now, here in the bone marrow unit, where I’m required to be in isolation to prevent infections, I’m surrounded 24/7 by the gaze of people who, first and foremost, are concerned with what I have — not necessarily who I am. Doctors in face masks stand over my hospital bed, peering down at me. Eyes and ties. And white lab coats. Voices without mouths discuss me as if I weren’t in the room. They give the Patient a hospital gown. The Patient is talked at, looked at, probed, prodded and whispered about. But after all, it’s their job to see me as Patient. The goal is to cure the Patient so he can return to being himself. But until then, it’s hard not to feel like just a body.

As Patient, you cede control of a lot of your life to others — to your nurses and doctors, to their decisions and schedules. I’m thankful for their care — where would I be without it? But anyone who’s been in the role of Patient can attest to the way it changes how you see yourself.

As I wait for my cure, I’m still a Patient. And while it’s been only a year, I can hardly remember what not being one is like.

The cancerous cell

Turns a page and then another page.

It can't put the book down. It reads

Faster and faster. It will read

Through the night until the story 

Is finished. The doctor says

Don't worry, we have ways to cure

Its obsession, stop it from going on, turn

It towards a different ending, its own.

The book of your body won't be

Read in a single night, in a few

Months, in a year. It will go on and on

Like an epic, until it has exhausted

Itself, and all possibilities, with its 

Knowledge, until it has taken in 

Enough worlds to become a universe.

Every time I look at you it hurts

Lover, lover, lover you are

Guiding us out of the woods

Lover, lover, lover you are

Are a north star, burning

She shifts her weight to the other foot

Asks me how deep I'd like the cut

Sharpening her words

He kicks out the door wedge

And walks her to the ledge

Points out to the ocean

I hear that you're living in, that house out by the lake

Things that fall together, just as easily break

I'm not looking back though

Lover, lover, lover you are

Guiding us out of the woods

Lover, lover, lover you are

Are a north star, burning

We wrestle with the tide

'Til there was nowhere to hide

Laid bare on the rocks

Things came into focus sharp

With the morning came a spark

That lit the fuse for sorrow

I hear that you're living in, that house out by the lake

Somewhere down the road, beside you I wish to wake

I'm not looking back though

Lover, lover, lover you are

Guiding us out of the woods

Lover, lover, lover, you are

Are a north star, lover

Lay your head, on the river bed

The tears we shed, gonna burst the bank

Lover, lover, lover you are

Guiding us out the woods

Lover, lover, lover you are

Guiding us out of the woods

Lover, lover, lover you are

Are a north star, turning

When she told me

On that morning

In the hospital 

How beautiful I was, 

Lit from the inside,

I whispered back,

"I only became beautiful

When I began to die."

The sound of nurses, 

Some with wings, 

Some thumped and banged,

Attentive, tuned, listening for the god,

The doctor, the savior,

The brisk clip of his footstep,

The bevy at his heels.

He did not look at me

But fussed around the bed,

That high altar where I lay 

In pain, waiting, waiting, for reports.

Under this roof of rectangular things: the motorized bed; electrical outlets; metallic IV machines, clicking and humming - the only things oddly shaped are the people hanging from bags of chemotherapy. The bed ridden person must push a red button for a nurse to come: "Nurse, I can't breathe. Nurse, I have anger. Nurse, let me die." In the bathroom, where urine is carefully measured, a beaded string can be pulled for help, the spaced plastic beads like a cheap childhood rosary. There'd be surprisingly little to watch from the sky. Nurses run in and out. Patients are patients or not. Doctors are caring or not (even a hello will cost seventy five dollars). The hallways are oval., like a high school track. The nurses go on rounds and wake you with anti-fungal mouth medications, racks of test tubes and blood pressure cuffs. The thermometer beeps when it decides your temperature. You never get used to the way veins constrict during pressure checks; never get used to the endless line of needles: blood oxygen pricks on hands, IVs inserted  into arm and chest, blood drawings inside elbows, huge bone marrow needles in the hip bones. ( "next time you stick that stake in me, damn well make sure I'm unconscious.") You might as well be an appliance plugged to the wall, each five days of chemotherapy. Move, the alarms go off. Unplug yourself; alarms go off. The chemotherapy drips, clicks, hums into veins. The anti nauseas fog you up. Thirty days in the bone marrow unit and you never leave the room. You study the crack in the hospital ceiling, the one that looked like a rabbit; play with the blue paper mask the nurse gives you. You turn the mask into a tent, a bedpan, a bow tie, a beret, a moth, a kidney. You could starve yourself; put a photo of your loved one by the bed. Once a day, the nurse unhooks you from the IV to shower, covers your chest with plastic wrap, then leaves. You always take longer than you need in the water - stay under its pulse; rinse off the strange chemical smells you emit. And after you step out, drying slowly, and peeling the plastic from under arm and over nipple, you try to cover the hospital's smell with baby powder, change to a fresh white gown. You could walk to the bed, call the nurse, say I'm ready to be re-hooked now, but never do. There are whole minutes when you keep the door closed and walk to every corner of the room, not connected to anything.

I have never loved someone the way I love you

I have never seen a smile like yours

And if you grow up to be queen, or clown, or pauper

I will say you are my favorite one in town

I have never held a hand so soft and sacred

When I see you laugh, I know heaven's key

And when I grow to be a poppy in the graveyard

I will send you all my love upon the breeze

And if the breeze won't blow your way, I will be the sun

And if the sun won't shine your way, I will be the rain

And if the rain won't wash away all your aches and pains

I will find some other way to tell you you're okay

You're okay 

Out of that sterilised chamber: the butterfly

Doors swung open and I stepped into air

That six weeks earlier could have killed me.

I'm worried that thinking about cancer,

Writing about cancer, will start cancer

Growing again inside me. 

Where is that sweet void, 

Where in the wide heavens,

Could it be hiding?

There's a painter who stares at miles of white all around

Each colour he's dreamed is lost in thought and can't be found

Takes a walk through his head to ask his friends if they'd come out

Come out from your shells, come chat with me and walk around...

What's stopping us?

Wake up from your sleep, they're only dreams not solid ground...

You'd keep your eyes closed if you had known what i have found

Can you blame me for not wanting both feet on the ground 

While you follow routine and waste your days i am in the clouds, 

Raining down

Who are you darling to turn me to stone?

You open my eyes but break all my bones,

Now you want to be together after so many years alone?

Sing a song of sweetnes or a melody of hope,

When a lump leaves my pants and lands in my throat,

How can two hands be tied without any rope.

Now Im always away,

But its you Im thinking of,

I was walking around stoned before your sobering love.

Now I had a dream for your soft paper hands,

The left one would carry my wedding band,

The right one would always be reaching for the man...

This is no home, though it may be your house,

There was many of times I'd rather slept than kiss your mouth,

And I figured we can make it if I can figure you out...

Now Im always away,

But its you Im thinking of,

I was walking around stoned before your sobering love.

My true love has left me,

I sigh and I slouch,

Up to the fridge then back to the couch,

I want to believe but theres so much doubt

I told you then, when we was just teens,

I'd rather be in your heart, 

Then be in your jeans.

I guess I always am, but only in dreams.

Now Im always away,

But its you Im thinking of,

I was walking around stoned before your sobering love.

If I ever stayed, I'd thank the lord above,

For turning my heart back toward a drunken love.

If I dream in darkness 

Would I sleep to die? 

Erase the silence 

There is no need for it 

Cause I am swallowed from 

The sound of my screaming.

Without a soul 

Without a thought I know that I’m going to die here 

Don’t let me die here in the darkness 

There must be something more 

Erase my life 

There is nothing left of me 

I’m burning in the blacken ashes of nothingness 

In the end 

I noticed how I long 

For the deep sleep dream

Of silence.

Until we have brushed up against mortality, life seems boundless. Cancer sometimes cures this strange nearsightedness, this dance of hesitations. By exposing life's brevity, a diagnosis of cancer can restore life's true flavour. 

A few weeks after my diagnosis, I had the odd feeling a veil had been lifted that until then had dimmed my sight. One Sunday afternoon, in the small, sunny room of your apartment, I was lounging opposite to you. Focused and peaceful, you were lying on the couch bathing in the afternoon sun. For the first time, I saw you as you  were, without wondering whether I should prefer someone else. I simply saw the lock of hair that slipped gracefully forward when you leaned your head, the delicacy of your fingers gently grasping the pages of the paper. I was surprised that I had never noticed how touching the slightest contractions of your jaw could be when you had trouble organising your week ahead. I suddenly saw you as yourself, apart from any questions and doubt. Your presence became incredibly moving. Simply being allowed to witness that moment came to me as an immense privilege. 

Try to picture lying there,

Helpless deep in pain

Try to picture dying there

Chasing all your fears in vain

Try to picture dreaming deep

Dreaming in a hospital bed

Try to picture not waking from sleep

While visions of life run through your head

Try to picture all the days

You'd walk with pain and such

Try to picture all the ways

How the pain could hurt this much

Try to picture being me

And striving for each day

Try to picture, just try to see

Not knowing if you'd die today.

I have seen hell and it is white.

It is subtypes and stages,

Grades and genetic markers.

It is diagnosis and prognosis,

Treatments and maintenance.

It is side effects and meds,

Apologies and regrets.

It is hospitals and doctors,

Anaesthesiologists and radiologists.

It is lists and prescriptions,

Therapies and positive thinking.

It is waiting rooms and lab tests,

CT scans and MRIs.

It is what we call healthcare,

And the emotional wasteland that is leftover.

I have seen hell and it is white.

Oh, how will death arrive?

As soft and smooth as silk, 

Coaxing my soul to follow

On that short sweet walk? 

Or will death arrive like thunder,

Like a frightening storm at sea,

Roaring, raving and angry,

Grabbing my soul from me?

Will death be a lovers hand

Smoothing o'er my brow? 

Or is it fierce and frightening,

Like lions on the prowl?

Oh, how will death arrive?

As thunder during rain?

Or might I look on death

As a friend to end my pain?

Cancer goes hand in hand with waiting — waiting for doctors, test results, appointments, and most importantly, waiting for better days.

Since I was diagnosed last June, I’ve been waiting for a bone marrow transplant, a risky procedure — and my only hope for a cure. Today my friends are busy starting their lives, but at 21, I am worried that mine might end before it has really begun.

My disease was high-risk and advanced when it was discovered. I was bedridden, suffering from painful mouth sores that made talking and eating very difficult, and I had frequent infections because my immune system was compromised.

Since the diagnosis, my life has been a slow emergency, my world a waiting room. Each month I do a round of chemotherapy, and then the doctors examine my bone marrow to determine if I’m ready for transplant. “Not yet,” they keep telling me, “just a few more rounds.” And so I wait.

Living with a life-threatening disease can make you feel like a second-class citizen in the land of time. Disease infects not only your body but your relationship to the past, present and future. Thinking about the past used to stir nostalgia, but now it mostly magnifies all that is no longer. When mortality hangs in the balance, daydreaming about the future, one of life’s most delicious activities when you are young, can be a frightening exercise.

And even the present feels uncertain. Recently, my doctors surprised me by setting a tentative date for transplant in early April. But a few days later, they changed their minds and set a new date. Now we are back to the original plan.

There is a reason they call the start date of a bone marrow transplant “Day Zero.” Your immune system is wiped out with heavy-duty chemotherapy and replaced by a foundation of healthy stem cells. Among cancer patients, a bone marrow transplant is considered a rebirth, a second birthday. But only if it works. The alternative is something that shadows my thoughts these days.

As the date of my transplant approaches, I find myself thinking about the phrase “carpe diem.” Before my diagnosis, it had always felt a bit clichéd, a phrase used in the movies or college graduation speeches. But now that my transplant date nears, I feel a new sense of urgency to seize the day.

For me, the weeks before my transplant feel like a carpe diem countdown, a quantifiable number of days in which I feel like I have to make the most out of everything I do. But when you have cancer, the pressure of how best to spend this time can be a recipe for panic. Although distraction can be a godsend, too much distraction begins to feel like denial. The other end of the spectrum is an obsessive “all cancer, all the time” line of thinking.

The more I try to inject meaning into every moment, the more I feel too self-conscious and overstressed to actually enjoy those moments. Even making dinner plans with friends takes on absurd proportions. What makes the most meaningful meal? Is it unforgettable food? The quality of the conversation? My mind is racing. Tick tock, tick tock.

Cancer has shocked and terrorised me into a wakefulness that I didn’t know existed. Now every decision, every moment feels both meaningful and fleeting.

As Horace, the Roman poet who coined the phrase “carpe diem,” wrote, “Dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas” — “While we speak, envious time will have already fled.” Tick tock.

Sing me to sleep 

Sing me to sleep 

I'm tired and I 

I want to go to bed 

Sing me to sleep 

Sing me to sleep 

And then leave me alone 

Don't try to wake me in the morning 

'Cause I will be gone 

Don't feel bad for me 

I want you to know 

Deep in the cell of my heart 

I will feel so glad to go 

Sing me to sleep 

Sing me to sleep 

I don't want to wake up 

On my own anymore 

Sing to me 

Sing to me

I don’t want to wake up 

On my own any more

Don't feel bad for me 

I want you to know 

Deep in the cell of my heart 

I really want to go 

There is another world 

There is a better world 

Well, there must be 

Well, there must be 

Bye bye

The Smiths

Snow

I can't believe we have to go

I'm trying hard to stay awake

But my eyes don't want to know

Snow

I see your body in the gray

The lights are getting clear

From the frozen cityscape

Snow

Her face is no longer smooth,

It is lined by time.
Although she doesn’t look the same, she is still that dear mother of mine.
She has always given of herself to me, 

Nothing was I ever denied. 

She laughed when I laughed, 

She comforted me when I cried. 

There is no one like her, 

I don’t think there will ever be. 

No one means as much to me, as she.
For the things that make her the most beautiful, 

Are the things she has inside. 

Your words and your tears, they're pearls of gold, and I'll take them with me.

Im sick of losing

My patience

Out of time

Lacking rhythm

Barely conscious

Feeling weaker

As I stumble around

Get out of my mind

In the morning 

Rests the paper

Heavy snow fall

Wakes my neighbours

The alarm calls

I clean out my eyes

Feeling nauseous

As the world spins around

Get out of my mind

Soon I'll be the wind and the water and the sun. And, above all, the sparkle in the eyes of the one you loved. You see, that's my soul. What I've made of myself, which already lives everywhere and will always live on.

You are a bowl of petals, and this, an awful wind.

We were just kids 

With visions and hearts that coincide 

Climb aboard our ship 

We're going whether or not that you like...

We sailed across the sea 

Aimlessly, no direction or timeline 

The shore we'd come to find 

We'd seen before, never spoke or shared a word 

No need, your true thoughts can't be heard

They're too beautiful for words...

Don't follow roads paved in gold

They will only let you down

What's the fun when you can't share what you've found

Years to build, in a second it's brought down

No one will comfort me 

Will know me 

Or what's going on inside 

A vacant hole will remain that way for life

To remind me where the both of you once lied

I've learned more from this 

Than anything I have read in my whole life 

I bet you both laugh at that line...

I miss the feel of it 

Your touch, your kiss weighs heavy on my mind

Our moment forever sealed in time 

Our secret as much yours as is mine 

All logic we have surely left defied 

I will hold you 'til I die

I thought I found in her face - so calm and beautiful - that total, unconditional love that I had never known. She became the rock on which I built my life as a young adult. When I was alone and shut my eyes, her image appeared in front of me and I felt her presence. Part of her entered me and lived in my body. 

To say "I love you," Yanomami Indians of the Amazon say, "Ya pihi irakema," meaning "I have been contaminated by your being" - a part of you has entered me, and it lives and grows.

Pronounce the word "cancer" and it's enough to arouse the fear of death. Fear paralyses. That's its nature.

When we find out our lives are seriously endangered, we often experience this strange paralysis of the body and mind. But the disease won't pass us by. Fear blocks our life force at the time when we need it most. 

Learning to fight cancer consists of learning to nourish the life in us. But it's not necessarily a fight against death. To carry through this apprenticeship is to touch the essence of life, to find a completeness and peace that make it more beautiful. Death may be a part of that success. Some people live their life without appreciating its true value. Others live their death with such richness, such dignity, that it seems like an exceptional accomplishment and gives meaning to everything they have experienced. And in preparing for death in this way, we sometimes release the energy needed to live.

Stones that I

Carry around

Every stones

A story

It weighs me down

But there is gold

Hidden by rock and sand

I have to search

A little

Harder now

Sharp as a marble

These stones keep my feet on the ground

All this experience

Weighs me down

But there is gold

Hidden by rock and sand

I have to search

A little

Harder now

But there is gold

Hidden by rock and sand

I have to search

A little

Harder now

I spent my time watchin' the spaces that have grown between us.

And I cut my mind on second best or the scars that come with the greeness.

And I gave my eyes to the boredom, still the seabed wouldn't let me in,

And I tried my best to embrace the darkness in which I swim.

Oh the darkness in which I swim.

I'm walkin' back down this mountain

with the strength of a turnin' tide

Oh the winds so soft on my skin,

The sun so hard upon my side.

Oh lookin' out at this happiness,

I search for between the sheets.

Oh feelin' blind and realize,

All I was searchin' for was me.

Ooo all I was searchin' for was me.

Keep your head up, keep your heart strong.

No, no, no, no.

Keep your mind set, keep your hair long.

Oh my darlin' keep your head up, keep your heart strong.

Oh no no, keep your mind set in your ways, keep your hair,

Keep your hair long.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same,

Oh eyes like wild flowers, with your demons of changes.

I saw a friend of mine the other day,

And he told me that my eyes were gleamin'.

Oh I said I had been away, and he knew,

Oh he knew the depths I was meanin'.

And it felt so good to see his face,

Or the comfort invested in my soul.

Oh to feel the warmth of a smile,

When he said "I'm happy to have you home."

Ooh I'm happy to have ya home.

And I showed my body to the sea again,

And I laughed at her for bein' so cruel.

And I left these broken bottles, and empty cooridors.

And I walked right on through.

And I never, I never dream of you.

Oh honey I never, I never dream of you.

Yeah, keep your head up, keep your heart strong.

Oh, No, no, no, no.

Keep your mind set, keep you hair long.

Oh my my darlin', keep your head up, keep you heart strong.

No no no keep your mind set in your ways, keep your hair, keep your hair long.

'Cause I'll always remember you the same.

Oh eyes are wild flowers with your demons of change.

May you find happiness there,

May all your hopes all turn out right.

Ooh may you find happiness there,

May you find warmth in the middle of the night.

Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end? 

Does it remain a terrible thought?

And my love is yours but your love's not mine

So I'll go but we know I'll see you down the line

And we'll hate what we've lost but we'll love what we find

And I'm feeling fine, we've made it to the coastline

I wanna see those eyes

That you gave me that night

So inquisitive

They call it danger love because it's hard to leave

So addicting and so in-between

And my tender heart, and your tender heart

And our tender heart, is in danger

And there's nothing as sweet

As when you're learning to speak to me

But with no sound and speech, darling

Just a feeling

I wanna see those eyes

I wanna see those eyes

They call it danger love because it's hard to leave

So addicting and so in-between

And my tender heart, and your tender heart

And our tender heart, is in danger

And my tender heart, and my tender heart

And my tender heart, is in danger (and my tender)

To believe is to know that

Every day is a new beginning.

Is to trust that miracles happen,

And dreams really do come true.

To believe is to see angels

Dancing among the clouds,

To know the wonder of a stardust sky

And the wisdom of the man in the moon.

To believe is to know the value of a nurturing heart,

The innocence of a child's eyes

And the beauty of an aging hand,

For it is through their teachings we learn to love.

To believe is to find the strength

And courage that lies within us

When it's time to pick up 

The pieces and begin again.

To believe is to know 

We are not alone,

That life is a gift 

And this is our time to cherish it.

To believe is to know 

That wonderful surprises are just 

Waiting to happen,

And all our hopes and dreams are within reach.

If only we believe. 

You have learned how to die right

Because from the very beginning

You were chosen

To 

Simply

Disappear

In its shadow, life suddenly takes on an intensity, resonance, and savor we may never have know before. Of course, when the time comes, we feel the despair of taking leave, much as we would in saying farewell to someone we loved, knowing we would never see them again. Most of us dread that sadness. But, in the end, wouldn't it be worse to leave without having tasted life's full flavour? Wouldn't it be far worse to have no reason to be sad at that moment of parting?

I'm gonna lay down my heavy load

Down by the riverside...

Ain't gonna study war no more.

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield 

Down by the riverside...

Ain't gonna study war no more.

I love you as certain dark things are loved, 

Secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, 

I love you simply, without problems or pride: 

I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

But this, in which there is no I or you, 

So intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, 

So intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

I cant be at your beckon call,

Your love so slow and heavy,

Its like a southern drawl

And it dont seem worth your time

If the two of us ain't one of a kind.

I wont be another turn

To gather up and use what you learn.

And of course he's always on your mind

You should hold him dear

Leave his love behind

Cause you cant call it moving on,

If all I do, is make you feel so wrong.

I wont be another turn

To gather up and use what you learn

If always a man might love,

Loving to laugh to do and to give?

I know that it could take some time

Go be with him, but then be mine...

Love is worth fighting for

Through the pain

Through the heart break

Through the lonely nights

Through all the tears

Through the nights you never thought you'd live through

Through the loss

Through the lies

Love is worth it

You're Single Because You Dont Make Permanent Decisions On 

Temporary Feelings.

And I knew from the first time we met... you would be kinda hard to forget.

I define love as the most unpredictable, confusing, frustrated, tragic, incredible thing that has ever existed. We're all so drawn to it over and over again no matter how many times it hurts us because regardless of how deeply we can be wounded by love, there's always the idea and hope that love has the power to heal wounds. It's just something that everybody runs around chasing and nobody really knows why we keep chasing it, but that is the fun of it.                          

"I didn't know what else to say." Perhaps saying something wasn't the point.

You were just too young and just too smart,

the perfect candidate for a broken heart.

Loved you then

Love you still

Always have

Always will

The funny thing about love is that;

You never know how hard you’re falling until

You hit the ground.

You've made your decision

Now get up and leave

The familiar sting of the woodcutter's swing to the tree

I'll fall in the forest

To elbows and knees

And it won't make a sound

Since there's no one around here to see

I was prepared to love you

And never expect anything of you

If the spirit has left you baby

Don't lie to yourself

Put them old records on

And admit that it's gone somewhere else

Just because we're beasts of blame by nature

Doesn't mean that you should carry it again

It's a question of needs and not rosary beads in the end

I was prepared to love you

And never expect anything of you

And there's no patron saint of sudden restraint

Baby there ain't no sword in a lake

Just a funeral wake

You are the coldest star in the sky

Only I couldn't see it, I was blind

And in comes the black night

Calling your name since you were born

Only I couldn't hear it

I was empty as a drum

I was prepared to love you

And never expect anything of you

And there's no patron saint of sudden restraint

Baby there ain't no sword in a lake

There ain't no sword in a lake

There ain't no sword in a lake

Just a funeral wake

They say if you love someone

You have to let them go. But I can't seem to let this go...

'Loved' isn't a word;

There is no past to love. If you love someone, you always will,

No matter what they put you through that's just life.

Touch my face, wipe my cheek.

Talk to her, go to sleep.

Dream of nothing, wake up tired.

Talk to no one, not today.

I feel like drifting now.

I’m going to drift into your eye.

One of the great mysteries of chemotherapy is that sometimes you can make tumors melt away and have very little effect on survival time. The link between somatic resistance and disease progression, even from a purely oncological point of view, is still very hard to tease apart. 

Sunset sings the sweetest tune

Just the song he wrote for his true love in bloom

I held you dear since the dawn of time

You know it's true that for you I shine

Going up, you're coming down 

I'm only hoping some day you'll turn around

Cause I'd be shining and then you'll see

Who could love you more than me?

How I wish you felt the same

I'm jealous of the wolves when they howl out your name

I send my love bouncing from star to star

So it can find you wherever you are

I'm going up, you're coming down 

I'm only hoping some day you'll turn around

Cause I'd be shining and then you'll see

Who could love you more than me?

Ah who could love you more than me

No one could love you more than me

You'll never find the right person, until you let go of the wrong one.

I might have erased your texts

But I will never forget what you wrote .

I might have unfriended you ,

But I will never forget your pictures .

We might have stopped talking ,

But I will never forget your voice .

We might have ignored each other ,

But I will never forget your face .

We might have stopped hugging ,

But I will never forget how you smell .

Anything we did , I will never forget .

You can't change your situation. The only thing that you can change is how you choose to deal with it.

Statistics are information, not condemnation. The objective, when you have cancer and want to combat fatality, is to make sure you find yourself in the long tail of the curve. 

On the threshold of death, one can still save one's life...

You've made your decision

Now get up and leave

The familiar sting of the woodcutter's swing to the tree

I'll fall in the forest

To elbows and knees

And it won't make a sound

Since there's no one around here to see

I was prepared to love you

And never expect anything of you

If the spirit has left you baby

Don't lie to yourself

Put them old records on

And admit that it's gone somewhere else

Just because we're beasts of blame by nature

Doesn't mean that you should carry it again

It's a question of needs and not rosary beads in the end

I was prepared to love you

And never expect anything of you

And there's no patron saint of sudden restraint

Baby there ain't no sword in a lake

Just a funeral wake

You are the coldest star in the sky

Only I couldn't see it, I was blind

And in comes the black night

Calling your name since you were born

Only I couldn't hear it

I was empty as a drum

I was prepared to love you

And never expect anything of you

And there's no patron saint of sudden restraint

Baby there ain't no sword in a lake

There ain't no sword in a lake

There ain't no sword in a lake

Just a funeral wake

If You Keep On Believing,

The Dreams That You Wish Will Come True. 

You dont feel the way i do, or care the way i do.. so give me a reason why i should care anymore.. 

Tried so long. Tried so hard. All for you. 

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let us down, probably will. You'll have your heart broken and you'll break others' hearts. You'll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them, and you'll cry because time is flying by. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, forgive freely, and love like you've never been hurt. Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances. You just have to live life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off, speak out, dance in the pouring rain, hold someone's hand, comfort a friend, fall asleep watching the sun come up, stay up late, be a flirt, and smile until your face hurts. Don't be afraid to take chances or fall in love and most of all, live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back.

Some days there won't be a song in your heart.  Sing anyway.

During chemo, you're more tired than you've ever been.  It's like a cloud passing over the sun, and suddenly you're out. You find that you're stronger than you've ever been.  You're clear.  Your mortality is at optimal distance, not up so close that it obscures everything else, but close enough to give you depth perception.  Previously, it has taken you weeks, months, or years to discover the meaning of an experience.  Now it's instantaneous.

Here's a random idea,

Just out of the blue.

How about you fall for me,

As hard as I fell for you?

One feels that the past stays the way you left it, whereas the present is in constant movement; it's unstable all around you.

God that was strange to see you again

Introduced by a friend of a friend

Smiled and said 'yes I think we've met before'

In that instant it started to pour,

Captured a taxi despite all the rain

We drove in silence across Pont Champlain

And all of the time you thought I was sad

I was trying to remember your name...

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin

Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in

Now you're outside me

You see all the beauty

Repent all your sin

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose

I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose

I'll write you a postcard

I'll send you the news

From a house down the road from real love...

Live through this, and you won't look back...

Live through this, and you won't look back...

Live through this, and you won't look back...

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave

You were what I wanted

I gave what I gave

I'm not sorry I met you

I'm not sorry it's over

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save

I'm not sorry there's nothing to save... 

To live in the heart you leave behind is not to die.

Why should they know their fate? 

Since sorrow never comes too late, 

And happiness too swiftly flies. 

Thought would destroy their paradise. 

No more; where ignorance is bliss, 

'Tis folly to be wise.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

Take my hand.

That's all I ask of you.

Its Crazy right? 

To love someone who hurt you.

Its crazier to think..

Someone who hurt you,
Loves you

For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Life's feelings are ephemeral. So is life.  We're here one minute, and then we're gone the next. I should know that better than anybody. If you keep living trying to protect yourself, nothing is ever gonna touch you.

There comes a time in life,

When you have to let go of

All the pointless drama

And the people who create it,

And surround yourself with people that make

You laugh so hard

That you forget the bad

And focus solely on the good.

After all, life is too short to be

Anything but happy.

To believe is to know that

Everyday is a new beginning.

Is to trust that miracles happen,

And dreams really come true.

To believe is too see angels

Dancing among the clouds.

To know the wonder of a stardust sky

And the wisdom of the man in the moon.

To believe is to know the value of a nurturing heart.

The innocence of a child's eyes

And the beauty of an ageing hand, 

For it is through their teachings we

Learn to love.

To believe is to find the strength

And courage that lies within us.

When it comes time to pick up

The pieces and begin again.

To believe is to know 

We are not alone.

That life is a gift

And this is our time to cherish it.

To believe is to know

That wonderful surprises are just

Waiting to happen,

And all our hopes are 

Within reach.

If only we believe

A kiss doesn't mean anything if it's dishonest...

As a patient, i don't count the days, I make the days count.

"You can never connect on a deeper level if you idolise someone - you don't see the real person."

Some people come into our lives and gently go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same.

No matter who weaves in and out of your life, regardless of the quality of those deep friendships and familyships, I'm the only common denominator at this point who's been with me the whole time. And there's this sense of trying to make sense of the ultimate solitude. It's not a negative or even a positive. It's just a fact. 

"We die as we live"

In the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures for in the due of little things the heart finds it’s morning and is refreshed...

Disease has a way of invading your social space, forcing your hand. Will you tell your family and close friends only? What about acquaintances and work mates? Will you share your diagnosis on Facebook? Who knew cancer needed a social consultant?

I’ve struggled with the awkwardness of cancer ever since my diagnosis back in June. When I told people my news, some people froze, falling silent. One person immediately began telling a story of an aunt who had died from a brain tumour. “Will you lose your hair?” someone blurted out. “Are you going to die?”.

Breaking the news of my diagnosis felt like an existential game show in which people rushed to buzz in with the first thought that came to mind.

I admit to sometimes being hurt by the way my friends have reacted to my news. Some didn’t write or call at all. Those who did often sounded uncomfortable and distant. I needed their support, and I wondered where they were.

When I was first in the hospital, some of my visitors seemed so intent on not upsetting me that they avoided the topic of cancer altogether. Others just couldn’t seem to find any words. When two uni friends came to visit, I watched their faces fall as they took in the sight of my bald head and sunken cheekbones. The last time we’d seen each other was in class. An awkward silence ensued, and I sensed it was up to me to take the initiative. I took a deep breath: “So, can you believe how weird I look without any hair?”

But in the year since my diagnosis, my feelings of hurt have given way to understanding. How can I expect anyone to produce the perfect, reflexive response to such sudden and unpleasant news? Cancer can catch even the best of us off guard. Sometimes the emotions come pouring out. Sometimes they stay locked inside. I’ve realised that it’s nearly impossible to summon the “right” words while simultaneously processing the news that someone you love has a life-threatening illness. I find myself counseling my friends and family that there is no perfect thing to say — but that they just have to say something.

And I admit to making my own mistakes. Mums cousin Brad had a stage 4 Glioma. As he described how the cancer had spread to his abdominal region and lungs, I clammed up. I said a few rote phrases and fled as soon as I could. I didn’t call him again for several months.

Over the course of those months, I thought of him often. I had repeated conversations, at the dinner table, about what Brad must be going through and how badly I wanted to help. My feelings were genuine, I even remember drafting and redrafting a letter to him. But I couldn’t find the right words. In the end, I never sent it. I was scared. Frozen. To him, it must have seemed as if I just didn’t care.

My own cancer experience has taught me that the most comforting words from friends have often been both the simplest and the most honest. 

When feelings of abandonment and betrayal arise with a soul mate, they do not last. Once soul mates achieve an ultimate level of symbiosis and serenity with each other, it remains forever.

We recognise a soul mate by the supreme level of comfort and security we feel with that person. That doesn't mean that there aren't issues that remain to be ironed out. Rather, it means we know intuitively that we can resolve issues with our soul mate without losing her love and respect.

It's such a pleasure to have touched your heart... Xz

Death is a companion for all of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we are aware of it or not, and it's not necessarily a terrible thing. 

Why do people have to die?

To make life important.

A storm approaches. It is still over the horizon, but there is lightning in the air. Are either of them aware of the gathering turbulence? Can they feel the crackle of electricity in the wind? Or are they aware of only the power that they generate between themselves?

The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable. That's the burden. Like wings, they have weight, we feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us. Burdens that allow us to fly...

People say you only live once. But people are as wrong about that as they are about everything.

You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering, that's the sad truth. Maybe they'll break your heart, maybe you'll break their heart and never be able to look at your self in the same way. Those are the risks.

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life. 

A soulmate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various times and places over lifetimes. We are attracted to another person at a soul level not because that person is our unique complement, but because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves.

Shadow of doubt 

Clouds over my mind 

Make my decision 

I need more time 

Disease in my head 

Feelings toward you 

Skin so soft 

Eyes so blue 

Cloud over my head 

Holds back my luck 

Drained of affection 

I pay for a fuck 

I'd tell you I miss you
But I don't know how.
I've never heard silence this loud.

Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day.

Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course?

Each of us has such a bank. It's name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.

Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose.

It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day.

If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against "tomorrow."

You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!

The clock is running!! Make the most of today.

To realise the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

To realise the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realise the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realise the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realise the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who just missed a train.

To realise the value of ONE SECOND, ask someone who just avoided an accident.

To realise the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal at the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with. And remember time waits for no one.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why its called the present. 

I thought i was the one protecting you, but I'm  the one who needs protecting. Protecting from what.

Protecting from you. 

You don't have my kind of open heart. 

The definition if insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. 

Well let's go for a different outcome then.

You know when you talk to older couples, who have been in love for 30 or 40 or 50 years. It's always the guy who says I KNEW.

I knew right from the beginning. I'm that guy. I know.

Love throws up everything that it is not...

A tear comes to mind, when I think of you 

And remember the time when our friendship was new. 

A gentle smile centered on your face, 

And I knew that then was the time and place, 

To kiss you, I did and felt a tick back in my heart. 

I thought we'd be forever and never part, 

But now we have come to a fork in the road, 

Where we must no longer carry each other's load, 

Let the burden off our shoulders and not leave a scar, 

For the paths we are taking are very far apart. 

I will remember always the places we went, 

And cherish forever the time we've spent. 

So now is the time where I say goodbye, 

Spend one last minute lost in your eyes. 

As much as I know that we can't stay, 

I hope our paths will cross again some other day....

I hope you know how lucky you are...

We walked it for 414 days, with broken eyes and salted ears, complaining 'bout the weather like we ever had a choice. Through all the noise and self abuse, I waited for my fill of truth. Oh I'm terrified I'll achieve nothing at all

One year ago, I asked my hairdresser to cut off my hair. It was a pre-emptive strike. A few days later I would be admitted to the oncology unit at POW to undergo chemotherapy. Everyone knows that chemo takes your hair. I wanted to take control of what I could before the poison did its damage. But I left the hair salon in tears.

When I was given a cancer diagnosis at the age of 21, sitting in a doctor’s office, the room fell silent for 30 seconds, or maybe it was three minutes. Then I managed to blurt out two questions: Was I going to make it through this? My doctor told me that I was “high risk.” I would need to begin treatment immediately. The second thing I asked was whether I was going to lose my hair.

As I tried to prepare for my first round of chemo, I scoured the Internet, read the pamphlets my doctor had given me and paged through the cancer books that friends and relatives had dropped off at the house. I was still catching up on the basic details of my disease, its treatment and its prognosis. I had no idea how to prepare for the havoc it would wreak on my appearance — the part of the cancer experience that the world can see.

As the Gatorade-red poison made its way into my veins, my body began to morph within the first week. Many of my physical transformations — new surgical scars, drastic weight loss, chronic mouth sores and (maybe worst of all) infertility — were invisible to the world, the silent imprint of disease. With all of these things going on, I was surprised to find myself preoccupied by one of the more temporary side effects of chemo: the impending loss of my hair.

On balance with battling my disease, worrying about hair loss seemed petty. It’s only hair, I kept telling myself. It would grow back. But I couldn’t shake the idea that soon, everywhere I went, baldness would be my dominant (or at least most noticeable) physical trait. When you’re bald, cancer leads. Everything else follows. While much of what a cancer patient experiences is deeply personal, losing your hair is an undeniably public affair.

For the first few weeks after I lost my hair last year, I avoided going out in public. The mirror can be an onerous thing to a cancer patient, and I no longer recognised myself. Maybe I could wait it out behind the shuttered windows of my bedroom, I thought. I wanted to avoid the stares from strangers — even if most of them were just out of curiosity. I never expected cancer to make me so self-conscious.

Chemotherapy is a swift, sure stylist. Seeking inspiration and solidarity, I tried reading popular books about cancer that I found in the self-help section of Berkelouw. Many of the books sought to recast cancer as an empowering experience, even something that could be “sexy” or “cool.” But I couldn’t connect with that kind of upbeat gospel. Maybe it was too soon. I felt unsexy. I felt uncool.

I hid beneath hats and scarves, which I’d built a collection of since getting out of the hospital. But even hats felt like “cancer clothes.”

When she stares at your mouth

Kiss her

When she pushes you or hits you like a dummy cause she thinks shes

Stronger than you

Grab her and don't let go

When she starts cursing at you trying to act all tough,

Kiss her and tell her you love her

When she's quiet,

Ask her whats wrong

When she ignores you,

Give her your attention

When she pulls away,

Pull her back

When you see her at her worst,

Tell her she's beautiful

When you see her start crying,

Just hold her and don't say a word

When you see her walking,

Sneak up and hug her waist from behind

When she's scared,

Protect her

When she steals your favorite hoodie,

Let her keep it and sleep with it for a night

When she teases you,

Tease her back and make her laugh

When she doesn't answer for a long time,

Reassure her that everything is okay

When she looks at you with doubt,

Back yourself up

When she says that she loves you,

She really does more than you can understand

When she grabs at your hands,

Hold her's and play with her fingers

When she bumps into you,

Bump into her back and make her laugh

When she tells you a secret,

Keep it safe and untold

When she looks at you in your eyes,

Don't look away until she does

When she says it's over,

She still wants you to be hers

When she reposts this bulletin,

She wants you to read it

Stay on the phone with her,

Even if she's not saying anything

When she's mad,

Hug her tight and don't let go

When she says she's ok don't believe it,

Talk with her because ten years later she'll remember you

Call her at 12:00am on her birthday,

To tell her you love her

Treat her like she's all that matters to you

Stay up all night with her when she's sick

Watch her favorite movie with her or her favorite show even if you think it's stupid

Give her the world.

Let her wear your clothes

When she's bored and sad,

Hang out with her

Let her know she's important.

Don't talk about other girls around her

Kiss her in the pouring rain

When she runs up to you crying, the first thing you say is:

"Whose ass am I kicking baby?"