boxes of paper. 

11/13/04

I’m writing this as I’m thinking so please try to bear with me. I still don’t think you realize just how much you hurt me this past week. While I’ve been sitting alone in my room punching holes in the wall, smoking, drinking, watching sappy romance movies, you’ve been out with him. It’s not the sex that hurt so much it’s every minute you spend with him laughing, walking next to him has been another tiny dagger in my heart. I’ve done nothing these past six months but put all my energy into making you happy please try to give a little of your energy to try and find some way to make me happy. It’s so hard because I love you so much. Every day, ever minute I spend my time dreaming of holding you I dream of spending all my time with you please be with me please find some way to make this right. I love you with everything I have and there will always be a place in my heart for you. Please call me when you read this. 

love always.

Already, now, a distant memory: standing at a sink with your wife, warm soapy water covering our wrists. Perhaps she set her ring on the counter. Perhaps she had forgotten. The fourth of july, blood streaming down your face. You tried to kiss me in the gravel drive belonging to the first man I ever loved. This town gets twisted in on itself. Escape to a home in New Jersey with a woman who will treat you kind. Leave me to do acid on the highway. I will not remember this letter. I will remember mostly the scar on your left arm which no longer can be seen, and the rain that covered us on the beach at night. For whatever it’s worth: the apology of a child.

I return the letter to the envelope, and dried petals crumble in my hands.

Less than 24 hours in suburbia, digging through the drawers of my adolescent bedroom while my troubled brother sleeps. Among pens and rulers and out of date business cards, a folded piece of lined paper written on in pencil:

God, or karmic law, or randomness, please, never let me have an unwanted pregnancy.

love,

Samantha B. Cook

perfectmidnightworld:

“Oh Sister // Ferris Wheel on Fire” by Neutral Milk Hotel // Ferris Wheel on Fire 10” (1995/2011 re-issue)

Walking Wall of Words premiered a previously unreleased track from the forthcoming Neutral Milk Hotel box-set, and it does not disappoint. At this point everyone knows what to expect from Jeff Mangum’s world, so I won’t bother trying to describe it in words that will surely pale in comparison to simply pressing play. 

(listen, order, see) The Walking Wall of Words // NMH Tours, Store, and Charity Info

Jeff Mangum is back. He wrote some of the most beautiful songs of recent years, then sequestered himself away to the nervous breakdowns of a recluse, to emerge only occasionally in a flurry of rumors. He’s recording, he’s touring, he’s releasing songs I’ve loved on horrible bootleg audio for years. Guys, I don’t know if you know how much this means to me. I traveled to a high school auditorium in suburban Massachusetts so see a room of teenagers sing his songs, and it was beautiful. This music is… important to me somehow. Ferris Wheel on Fire is one of those songs I listen to over and over and over again when I’m alone and feel strange.

These nights, I sacrifice sleep to pour my eyes full of the arts of others, a vision of wood and paint and muscle and voice, worked with hands trembling with young love for the world, with full-bodied fears. I give over other hours, many of these few before the dawn, to winnow with my tongue, to rend the air, to struggle into life the ideas that rush me. A hundred pounds of meat and more, crashing to the floor of a train car, sent spinning to press this rib cage against yours. Each night carries its bright promise like a star packed in gelatin, distorting angles and disguising eyes, and the minutes peel the shadows back until the dawn. 

I’m performing tonight at 8:30pm, Human Thread, 18th & Ruble in Pilsen. Come see!

reading descriptions of Punchdrunk’s work makes me excited to be alive.

don’t think I don’t know you. you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and I’m a human from now on. all your dirty tricks disgust me, your flowers and your pretty words are not enough for me. lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and lies will never love you. I see you from afar and my heart does not flicker. the ocean of my heart is no longer blooming– not for you and all your cruelty. go away and never come back. do you hear me, calling into the hail: go away and never come back.

and even when we paint ourselves the most sincere, the counting of the days proves us false.

go to, you are too shrewd.