40% inspired by photograph

he will rebel against the harshness of the future, if the past will hold against the winds of change.
because it is a daunting concept he is wrestling with...that the past is a moment, and that it cannot be held to exist afterwards. he will cup his hands and carry what he can of it; he will scrawl a note on the back of his hand (so that it doesn't rub off) and enlist its assistance in those subtle equations which govern human memory and hourglass sands. he will embody his past, not run from it, not neglect its reflection. he will use it as a comforter, on top of his comforter, on chilly evenings. what else could thought be composed of?

time cannot govern the confines of truth, of hard things which refused to be washed away by eons of subtle rain. a true friendship weathers ages and ages passing, without a word of exchange or a glance to be caught. it's the nature of the thing, because it defines and tailors both ends, bends them towards one another even when circumstance does not. such is why matches has friends, good friends, that he can have not seen for any number of years but still, the thing will remain. the principle, the binding force, the understanding.

still, there is something to be said for the past, if the future cannot contain it, cannot embrace it simultaneous with whatever the present holds. if things cannot be precisely repeated, then they have unique properties, rarity, perceived value. they exist in juxtaposition to that which they are not, to wit: a lesser moment. they are, they are, and who is who to stop them. you? you have a thousand different selves that you could be, and choose at this moment which is what is here, now. brown cow? no, silly, but that was a fragment of past trickling in. it defines, it associates; it has burrowed and becomes like seeding plants, percolating with vitality through into new iterations, new echoes. good album name. good governor of action.

how tragic that the transposition of the past into the present, into future, can be robbed from us; hooded, blinded, dumbstruck! that a child could be taken from a family; that a wife could be erased from an unattainably-perfect coupling...o, caprices of the world. in garden state, they spoke of a family as being a collection of people who remembered the same imaginary place, the same 'home'. chilling concept, removed and distant. but for parents, how true that concept must ring for children spreading their wings~ one mustn't stifle, mustn't confine, and yet inevitably the unity of a family dissolves as they are eddied into different pools of life. they can still be in touch, still be familial, but the thing, the circumstance, the group in unison against outside infringement (not against, necessarily, but you catch the meaning), six heads in cordiality over a dinner table, over a board game, around a fireplace....that thing is gone. how meshed a parent must become in that blissfully nurturing environment, only to have it swept away inevitably and likely much sooner than one would welcome after a complacency nuzzles itself in.

and yet there are connections, pathways, harmonies. associations. there are things we possess that are steeled against change, and these make all the difference. the past is alive if it is chosen to be remembered, or if it is cared about enough to make choice into an abstraction, at best. we can define who we are; we do, and in doing so define who we become. "the choices i make now, will follow me through life" ~braille. but to remember is a certain carrying over; a breadbasket full of faded photographs. the difficulty comes in transitioning a remembrance into a continuation, an actuality; forging a connection on the current lines of transmission. and that, is a very important distinction, matches is finding.

today matters.

"and glow,
glow,
melt and flow,
eviscerate your fragile frame,
and spill it out in the ragged floor,
a thousand different versions of yourself,

and if the old gods still offend,
they got nothing left on which you depend,
so enlist every ounce
of your bright blood,
and off with their heads"
~ the shins - sleeping lessons