And I watch you through this lens
Which, for a minute, makes us friends
You smile, and you laugh, and so do I
filler!
And I play with my own hair
Pretending your hands are there
But the arrow comes, it’s pointing to goodbye
filler!
And you stand there, slim and tall
So I sit here feeling small
Seeing that these words won’t meet your ears
filler!
And so what if you don’t know?
Because that facade is all for show
I’ll believe this untill your face appears
You’re texting him again
or tweeting or skyping or
whatever it is now
filler!
And he’s saying things
“I love you”
He’s groping you between the asterisks
filler!
You let him in
You open your gates and accept the coming flood
filler!
You spill honesty
from your turbo-speed thumbs
trying to pin him down
to hold the restless beast
filler!
He loves the game not
the player whose secrets and weaknesses
are spread before him
filler!
He is just like the ones that came before
the ones you swore never again
filler!
He can paint a prettier lie
but that does not make him better
filler!
And you deserve something better
Underneath the canopy, underneath the sky,
Above the earth I walk upon, this is where I cry.
Not for the weight of everything, not for my heavy soul,
Nor for the rainclouds in my heart does weeping take control.
It’s for the road that never ends, the opportunity,
The chances that are yet to come, all overwhelming me,
That I let sobs escape my lungs, and choke up all my air.
The future that I stand behind could be very fair,
It could be unfair, just as well; it could my end,
And in the face of what may be, I feel my body bend.
Underneath the canopy, underneath the sky,
My future may begin to flourish, or else it may die.
Left to Right: Chad Blashford (drums), Evan West (vocals, guitar), and Mookie Clouse (vocals, guitar).
It’s about time I introduced you all to my favorite band.
New Hollow performed wonderfully when I saw them a few weeks ago. Even though I knew very few of the songs they played, as many are yet unreleased,the concert enthralled me the whole time. They are very talented and very enthusiastic on stage. Their live performance was just as good as any studio recording, a feat not many bands can attest to.
After the show, I had the unique privilege of meeting them. I brought all of my CD’s, and Mookie, Evan, and Chad obliged me by signing them. They were very friendly and willing to talk, a pleasant surprise.
This was definitely among the best nights of my life. Meeting them was on my bucket list, but I never thought that dream would ever come true. And now there are pictures to prove that it did.
Signed shirt and 5 CD’s (one was signed years ago, but I felt like it needed to be included).
They play a sort of classic-rock-inspired pop rock––hard enough that it made my whole body move with the bass line, but soft enough that it didn’t give my (very) faint head an ache.
Three of their singles have peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Sales Chart, and they’ve beat out artists such as Lady Gaga, Passenger, American Authors, and A Great Big World. They have a contract with Epic Records, and with any luck they’ll have an album out soon.
Give them your ears for just a few minutes. I can assure you, you won’t regret it.
Ciao for now,
Mikki
It’s a strange sensation when someone you barely know
(knew)
dies.
filler!
Because you never spoke
and you never said hi
and you barely even saw each other in passing.
filler!
Once you read all the stories
and warm wishes and prayers
for the family,
all the RIPs,
and all the I’ll miss you
and I love you,
it strikes you that they were only a little older than you are,
and you’ve barely started your own life.
filler!
Your day-to-day won’t change much.
filler!
But in your inner eye
you witness people you care about
weeping for the ache.
And you find yourself
doing the same.
fille
Because there is one less happy life on this earth,
and that is a terrible loss indeed.
There’s this feeling you get
when you’re in the passenger seat––
or driving,
you’re usually driving,
and I’m the passenger––
and, as you’re waiting for the light to turn,
you start to listen
to the ticking of your car’s turn signal,
and then you notice a car in front of you
or in front of you to the left, or a few cars ahead,
with its own lights flashing in perfect alignment with the ticks,
and for a moment,
just that moment,
the universe falls into sync
and everything seems to move
in rhythm with the ticking,
much to your satisfaction.
filler!
And then,
after that moment ends,
the illusion is up,
and you see that the lights
were a little too fast or
too slow, and they never fell together in the first place,
and then the world around you collapses back
into the chaos
that has been so overwhelming
just a second ago.
filler!
That’s how we are now;
we’re falling out of sync.
Cute is underrated.
filler!
I think this when I see you
in a dark green shirt, and a pair of jeans,
your hair perfect as anything.
It’s not overt,
but that’s just it.
filler!
Beautiful and dark and mysterious
are not to be unappreciated
(nor should they be overlooked)
but cute goes undetected,
often when it deserves the attention
most of all.
And even though you’re just a lovely blur
in the corner of my eye,
and I can only strain to see you
without staring
(for the time being at least),
your cute is a diamond ray
cast off the ocean waves
of standardly sexy
and commonly stunning.
filler!
Cute is both precious
and unbreakable.
filler!
Cute is the sequin
we should all care for more.
Everything is moving faster
now than ever before.
It used to take weeks to build up
this sort of sentiment,
much less acknowledge it.
There used to be denial,
oppression, forced
and feigned ignorance,
no spare courage left to linger
in his blue eyes or the dance of his black hair,
and now all of that has been
defeated,
within the first day.
It seems I have conquered my own senses
for my own purposes,
as if this isn’t something
to be ashamed of
or embarrassed about;
almost as if
no permission needs to be begged,
and no fight
has to be fought
against my pent-up, squared-off,
sectioned and quarantined heart.
It appears that I can
allow myself
the small pleasure
of noticing the vivacious beauty
of his toothy smile
without feeling the worse for it.
mikkiaaron 