book of longing

they gave me a medal for dreaming of you.

I've been spending Christmas falling in and out of sleep. I wish I had a million huge books to read. I wish I had a million things to do, but I've got absolutely nothing. I'm just sitting, dozing, wondering about what I'll do next year. I had a dream when I fell asleep on the couch that an alien cut my hair. He didn't look like an alien, he looked like my hair dresser, but he must have been extra terrestrial because he had four arms and was an exceedingly talented hair stylist. He put one drop of colour on the very top of my head and it coloured my hair with all of the light and depth of the darkest, calmest pool. And then I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing and someone turning on Star Trek downstairs.

I've been reading Leonard Cohen's "Book of Longing" and feeling inspired by poetry that I am unable to emulate.

if you knew how much we loved you
you'd cover up
you wouldn't fuck around
with the passion
that killed three hundred thousand people
at hiroshima
or scooped up rocks from the moon
and crushed them into dust
looking for you
looking for you lost encouragement.

I think that's about God. Or love. Or someone else altogether that we just can't find because of our finite nature -- our tight, unstretched minds.

After a while
You can't tell
If it's missing
A woman
Or needing
A cigarette
And later on
If it's night
Or day
Then suddenly
You know
The time
You get dressed
You go home
You light up
You get married

And our lives could be so simple. We follow our hearts or our desires and then we'd know that life is actually pretty fair because we are here, and we have each other.