Stagnant

Treading water in an empty room,

And picking apart

The dust from the tiny collisions

Between this week and last.

Each investment tightly knit

With intentions to

Host formal conventions

Introducing me to myself

 

Because all night I’ve been fighting

The first things that come to mind

Pulses and bruises,

Whatever she chooses

Writes another song for a peeling wall.

And all day I’ve been trying

The first things I come to find

Footsteps and missteps

Modestly forget

What the hell has been going on.

 

Making familiarities with the melancholy

And prize-fighting thoughts

Assure nothing but a billboard

Aside a mingled highway.

So pull me out

And dust me off

Introduce me to myself.

 

Ripping pages from an old book

And finding that

Each page bleeds into the next

Cataloguing anything but movement

And anything but change

So open my eyes

And shake my hand

Introduce me to change.

 

Because all month I’ve been waiting

For the first light to catch my eye,

Insulin insulates,

But memory forsakes

Whatever high this ghost train might bring

And most of this year I’ve been thinking

Of used words to sell and find

A middleman to make sense

Of parables

And spiritual fills

Have You Seen Me Lately?

I always feel obligated to write on nights such as these, namely nights where I haven't much to do. This, of course, inevitably leads to thinking or at least the pursuit of.

And here's to falling short of that.

2008. I guess there's a certain ring to it, but I've yet to hear anything mind-altering or at least refreshing. It's nice to be back in SLo, but I feel like I'm living in a memory. I'm excited to reconnect with old friends (well, recently old friends) and meet new ones, but I guess I can join the chorus of Death Cab for Cutie and other countless bands ranting about the monotony of new years and the facade of it all. 

I'll stop now.

I don't quite know where I'm heading with this. In fact I don't know why I'm writing at all. Maybe I'm hoping that this brief blog will reveal some inner yearning for this year, or more especially, some thing that I should be pursuing this quarter.

But I'm kind of excited against all of the monotony, because I feel like I really finally am heading back into the lifestyle used to love so much. Maybe not as much a lifestyle as it is a mindset, but the point is, maybe the cliche "new years bring new beginnings" could actually be true for me this time. This break, as dull and lame and work heavy at an occupation I was getting extremely tired of, could, quite likely, have held everything I needed to get "back on track" so to speak. I feel like my desire to serve has been reignited, and for the first time in four years, I really have no mental baggage to hold onto. I feel like I can finally rest and confront the more pressuring and uncomfortable philosophies both in the world and within myself without feeling I'm putting on some persona, or even worse, I'm being compared to the very Grant stereotype I established in high school. I'm clean, for the first time, and I have never been happier because of it. My spiritual life is coming full circle, and though I still hold very close to my heart the "black sheep Christian" tag and I listen to the angsty mewithoutYou and still get scared when I'm walking in Rite-Aid and creepy Greg from Intervarsity calls and reminds me why for the past few years I've been so uncomfortable sharing my faith, for some reason, I feel like I'm starting to own it again. 

I don't know. It's a new year, and I know its going to bring new challenges, new people, and new philosophies in my life, and I am so incredibly excited for it. 

Whatever the young-ins are using these days to say goodbye,

Grant.

(and if you wanted to know, apparently the "new" hip word in the works is biddy... as in biznitch or bitch, but I'll always prefer hello)