bare branches

whipped by ice gales

eventually feel the breath

of spring

before hiding behind

dresses of leaves

just in time

for the arrival of birds

who prefer their perches

done up and well-coiffed

How Does It Feel

Palahniuk

Why is it that more often than not, I find Chuck Palahniuk's words to be the closest to absolute truth that I've ever found in a book (of any kind)? He's been quoted as saying, "My goal is to create a metaphor that changes our reality by charming people into considering their world in a different way." And while I don't feel "charmed" by Palahniuk's writings, I do feel like it's changed my reality - in that he says things that I agree with, before I even think them, or realize I'm thinking them. (Does that make sense?) 

Par exemple:

"The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person." Invisible Monsters

"We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace." Diary

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known." Invisible Monsters

"The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create." Choke

"We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens." Fight Club

"In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display." Rant

"No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close." -Invisible Monsters

"That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version." Stranger than Fiction

"Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against."

"Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poorly - all these make for great stories."

"What we don't understand we can make mean anything."

"Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education."

I can read and re-read his stories over and over, every single time picking out a new favorite quotation or passage. Unlike other authors I loved in high school and revisit with disappointment (coughsalingercough), Palahniuk does me right every time. I can only hope that one day someone will read my words and feel even an inkling of what I feel for Palahniuk; they'll read and think "why, that's exactly what I've always felt, but I've never been able to put it that eloquently before". 

Wait, why am I on facebook again?

i'd offer you my hand

but letting go would hurt too much

and letting go is eventual

so instead i'll imagine the warmth

and i'll imagine that is enough

even though we both know it isn't

but imaginations wont hurt me

as much as your hand

letting go of mine

to find someone else's

Skins

Okay call me Miss Late to the Game but I just started watching Skins.

And I'm in love.

Yet another reason the UK > the US, I'd say.

Especially this scene, which now I can't stop thinking of whenever I hear "Alice Practice":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar7QXqz0ZSI

It starts off with loud and perfect music then just evolves 

into the heartbreaking embrace with clutching and silent understanding.

HBO: Def Poetry

Watched this, as well as other Def Poetry slams, during my senior seminar
on performative autobiographies last spring.
"I wanna hear a poem where ideas kiss similes so deeply that metaphors get jealous."
Loved it then, love it still.