I’ll probably never touch you gently enough to feel the ridges of your fingertips. I’ll probably never even try. Gentle means vulnerable, you know? Gentle is weak; it means moderate. Gentle means submission in the face of insult. Gentle means meek, mild, polished like gold stripes on the shoulders of soldiers. I know Aisha wishes I were more of a gentleman and Necole wishes she were more of a man. But then there’s Alex, who says I’m beautiful the way only a boy can be beautiful, and I want to believe it.

you wondered once what made me choose to call all existence divine.
if you could've seen yourself from my angle, you would not have asked.
When Alex pens lines like this, she becomes the writer's writer. Or I do. I don't know who started it.

the morning was easier because i found you at breakfast. now i dream about finding you again on other dawns, and i suddenly look forward to waking.
I would never use the word dawns. When I said she was stubborn, I was projecting and forgetting to pretend I wouldn't spend the rest of my life looking for Emma in other people.

Why do you ask what my staring means? How can you see anything in me but awe and blind affection?

Once upon a time, Christina requested an entry about why I believe there is no god. This isn't that entry. But it does refute a few arguments for the existence of God, so I'm making progress.

The structure of cosmological arguments for the existence of God is based on the understanding that all contingent beings depend on something else for their existence and, usually, that this something else is sufficient for their existence. This means both that a sufficient reason must entail its contingent being and that a contingent being cannot entail itself (Hawthorne, 60). ( Read more... )

References:
Hawthorne, John O'Leary, and Andrew Cortens. "The Principle of Necessary Reason." Faith and Philosophy. 10.1 (1993): 60-7. Print.

Rowe, William L. The Cosmological Argument. 1st. New York: Fordham Univ Pr, 1998. 103-15. Print.

When you wake up at one pm, breakfast is lunch. Breakfast is French fries, even though they aren’t that good. They’re better than cherry gelatin or the way I imagine okra or starving to death. Because I bet starving to death is a lot like Philosophy on Wednesday mornings when the six of us talk cosmological arguments over coffee just to reach the conclusion we’ll never really know. I bet starving’s like the opposite of drowning, but I’ve never done that, either. I think I already know there is no God.

I felt twelve years old again
being so out-of-breath nervous just to
hold her hand.

I have a house for next year. I have a challenging schedule for next semester. I have plans for New Year's. I have Alex, at least for right now.
The world is a beautiful place, and I have no right to feel anything but bliss.

I have nine days to work on a disarming smile.

Read me Miranda July. Draw me timepieces. Color me infatuated.

Note to self: "i think, in love, i'd be like michiko,
just have someone touch my head while i
listen to the small things..."

Our family doctor died in his sleep
the other night. What does that say about
my health?

Playing your game like
Data for your experiment like
Glue for your project like

Analog
Eyelashes
Sweet
Waters
Everything

Before I go anywhere like Australia, I should find someone who will miss me when I'm gone.
Really miss
me.

Sometimes I am a clock without
hands
will never really touch you
but am running out of time
to try, Alex.

Hello, two-bedroom apartment for the Summer. Visit. If you want to participate in some social experiments and video making, visit me: on track to fulfill graduation requirements in two and a half or three years, so I think I'll spend my money studying abroad. International like that.

That. I get it! I get you
and notes saying "Wondering if you could please make me smile" like
I'm happy. Being followed like
bad advice.
Wondering if you could please stop smiling
so much like
that.

"The Bible states in Leviticus 19:27 that 'You shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.'

"Talmudic tradition explains this to mean that a man may not shave his beard with a razor with a single blade, since the cutting action of the blade against the skin 'mars' the beard. Because scissors have two blades, some opinions in halakha (Jewish law) permit their use to trim the beard, as the cutting action comes from contact of the two blades and not the blade against the skin. For this reason, most poskim (Jewish legal deciders) rule that Orthodox Jews may use electric razors to remain cleanshaven, as such shavers cut by trapping the hair between the blades and the metal grating, halakhically a scissor-like action. Some prominent contemporary poskim maintain that electric shavers constitute a razor-like action and consequently prohibit their use."

In addition, if a man chooses to have his beard chewed off by a vicious mountain lion, he may do so only after politely requesting the animal use one tooth at a time. Women are prohibited to grow beards and certainly to engage in scissor-like action, however halakhical.

I found the Valentine's Day card you gave me sleeping inside my German dictionary.
It made me laugh—not just at the joke about superheroes,
but at myself for never noticing the heart-shape quality of your m's or
when you cut your hair.

I lost my watch today.
Well, I know where it is; I just can't get to it.
Time is funny like that.

This is the first time I've ever felt discriminated against .

I know it's a semester away, but I've spent this week shuddering at the idea of living in Lansing again. I need to be in Ann Arbor. I need to keep screenwriting. I need to find out if I can apply my Shipman scholarship to the Spring/Summer term. I'll have Junior standing by Fall 2010. I want to get a Summer job here. I want to study at UNSW in Sydney next Winter. I need Summer year-round; I need sun. I have plans.

A few notes:

1. This is the absolute first draft to the poem I'm slamming Thursday,
2. I'm very open to constructive criticism.
3. The parts in parentheses are for a second person/voice.

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