sharp knife: an autobiography in four parts

time tick tick ticks after me / my mp3 is out of juice / i wrote a song for you but what's the use / how did we get knocked so loose, knocked so loose?


and for some reason i can write pages and pages of thoughts, fluid and flowing out of my fingers and into the keys; useless words that i can't turn in for a grade, words that won't add up to twelve annotated pages about things i could care less about. but when it comes to matters of the mind, matters of the heart, there's no limit, there's no word count, there's no stopping me; i'm rolling down a hill with too much memento and it won't stop until the crash at the end, when i'm out of breath, lying on the ground with pieces of grass in my hair, looking up to survey the damage. it's the calm not before the storm but after, the deep breath after i can finally rest my hands and read the feverish words that crawl across the page.


well nature has its own rules / like gravity crushing me / lately it's a little hard for me to see / lately it's a little hard for me to believe / and we should all just go along / and it all would be so easy / if we could just say, "let it be" / but that's not me


you think you know yourself and then the world knocks you down and laughs in your face; sometimes it's a chuckle, a giggle, an inside joke where for once you're not on the outside. and then without warning you're knocked into the outside, knocked down to the ground and everything you thought you knew is completely different. seeing things from the other side, "waist high in the world." the only thing that's comforting is that you don't have to wonder anymore who will be there when it's all said and done, because you've been there, done that, gotten the t-shirt. once you know, it's a lot easier to deal. it's a lot easier to love the ones who care and forget about the ones that don't. and even though there are times when it feels like all you're doing is kicking and screaming, you're kicking the world in the face and screaming that hey, i'm still here. i'm still here.


and i think there's a reason / at least there's a sign / and all that we call chaos / i will say it's by design


all my life i always felt like i never really had a way with words. whenever i speak i talk like i'm tripping, clumsy feet falling over sentences and phrases and hey, it's hard to always get it right. but give me a pen, give me the keys, and i'll give you something someone can understand, someone can feel, someone can love. people have told me i've moved them, i've made them cry, i'm amazing - all these things i never really thought anyone would believe about me, much less i myself. i guess somewhere between all those words i found a way to make people love me. somewhere between the fourth grade stories and the middle school journals and the high school poems and the college ramblings i found a way to love myself too.


so new friend can you hear this? / can we return to fearless? / merry pranksters one and all / and walk that devil down the hall


in the end i'm never really sure what i've wanted to say. in the end i'm still making it up as i go along. in the end i read over everything i've said and laugh at myself because who really knows what they're talking about, anyways? but what i do know is that i have life, i have love, and i have words to call my own. no one can take my words away from me. and i've been writing for years and i'm writing now and i'll keep writing even after this is all a distant memory. and when it's all behind me, when we can dance again and run again and jump fences again and do everything we always loved to do - i'll come and write it down. because that's who i am, that's what i do, and i'm still here to do it. i'm not afraid anymore.

sunny then raining, but it's all right

and i know that's it's so cliche
to tell you that every day
i spend with you is the new best day of my life

and i'm racking my brain for a new and improved way
to let you know you're more to me than what i know how to say
you're ok with the way this is going to be
'cause this is going to be the best thing we've ever seen

if anyone could make me a better person you could
all i gotta say is i must've done something good
you came along one day and you rearranged my life
all i gotta say is i must've done something right




sometime i forget that i have so many things to be thankful for.

why don't you just say so

and all the color drains out from the corners of the world and the cold creeps in, unwelcome and unwanted. stuck on a track that goes in circles and circles and circles. want to go somewhere to hide and never come back. want to disappear. want to sleep. want to forget.

this is the best thing

the story of you and me has always been a conversation, and i don't think we'll ever run out of things to talk about.

solid ground below or a hand to hold or hell to pay

some days are harder than others. some days -- when i hit the wall for the thousandth time, or when watch people crane their heads to stare at me, or when i let myself think too hard about the things i miss -- i just want to throw everything down and cry and cry and cry. some days i just want to curl up around my pillow and sleep forever. but something keeps me pushing through, holding on. i don't know what it is. i don't know if it's stubbornness, or wanting to prove something, or those seconds when things are so normal i forget about everything. maybe it's none of those things. maybe it's all of those things. maybe it's sheer memories of friends and summer and love and all the times when things were great and the weather was warm and i could fling my arms up and spin around and around. i don't know. what i do know is that i'm still here, and you're still here, and neither of us are going anywhere. maybe that's it.

and the four right chords can make me cry

i guess the big thing about life is that you never really know what is going to happen. things that you can seem so sure of at one point can turn into something you sigh, or laugh, or just shake your head about years later. so many times i go back and think, who would've known? sometimes the once-upon-a-times don't have the happily-ever-afters. then again, sometimes the simplest beginnings that you'd never think twice about turn out to have the fairytale endings. a lot of times i think about buildups and letdowns and things that just spring out at you from nowhere. about how many people there are on this earth and how maybe it's not just chance that you happen to run into "the one." i have always been an idealist; i have never been cynical about love like a lot of my friends. not that they don't have any reason to be cynical (because the world can give all of us enough reason to think that), but for some reason i have always believed in love and finding someone, if not "the one."

even back when i was in high school and never had anyone, for some reason i never thought i would end up alone. and maybe that's it-- still believing even long after you're due to be cynical. i had finally come to terms with it, and right after that happened i found someone. it didn't work out and i think we're both better off for it, but for a while i wouldn't sworn my life on it. and the funny thing is, part of my reluctance for it to come to its end was because of the beginning, and how magical it all felt when i had finally found someone for the first time. but that's life: it didn't work out like the stories said it should. like we all say it should. but then life came in and turned things around when i least expected it, and i found myself on a couch with a boy at 5am, grinning like an idiot, in the midst of a conversation that we couldn't bring ourselves to end.

and i guess i'm not like everyone else. and reading this or listening to me is not going to make any difference in the mind of anyone who is hurt or fed up or sick of it or just plain cynical. in the end, my life and my experiences only matter to me; and in the end, i am happy. and even more importantly, i never knew happiness until i was truly there. i guess it's one of those things you can't express, or force, or prove. you just have to know.

you don't need to go out there and prove to the world that you're happy. if you really are, the world will already know, too.

gifts and curses

i was there when the bomb dropped, and the light that came from another world lit up our faces, blinding us as we tried to do a thousand things at once. i was there when the wall fell, i was there when the ship sank and the band played on. i was there when the soldier kissed that woman in the street, i was there when the bell tolled and we could hear the wheelbarrow rolling and the sound of trudging feet. i was there at every tragedy and every comedy.

i was there thinking faster than i could write, even though i was never really there at all.

the loudest thing in my head

sometimes songs will take me back to the smell of grass as it peeks out again for the first time after winter, or the pavement when it's warm on bare feet, or sipping beer in the backyard knowing it's a matter of hours until you're sunburnt. sometimes i go back to days where it gets dark at 10pm and fireflies come out in droves, sparkling for a split second before fading away. days where the only thing that mattered was getting to work on time and getting off work early. tank tops and shorts. sleeping in 'till forever. a tub of sherbet on the hottest day you could think of. tossing off the sheets at night because it's just too warm. hopping trains planes and cars. watching the sun set over chicago. bars and birthdays. the fog outside on the fourth of july. feeling like it'll never end. hoping it never really will.

and all the stars and boulevards

Just push me 'til I have to fly
I've shed my skin, my scars
Take me deep out past the lights
Where nothing dims these stars
Nothing dims these stars

I wanna feel the car crash
I wanna feel the capsize
I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop
'Til I'm satisfied
I wanna feel the car crash
'Cause I'm dyin' on the inside
I wanna let go and know
That I'll be alright, alright