when i think of heaven
(deliver me in a black-winged bird)
i think of dying
lay me down in a field of flame and heather
render up my body into the burning heart of God in
the belly of a black-winged bird
don't try to bleed me
i've been here before
and i deserve a little more

-adam duritz

They call these the dog days. I think there must be a better word for it out there. Candle wax days or swamp sludge days or hot sweaty sticky nausea headache shit days. Vivid words.

August and Everything After. Years I've owned this album and adored it and never noticed it, that title, how it fits. It is August now and the music matches the month. It melts. It remembers. It longs. It can't forget.

Is there a fine line between sarcasm and negativity or is that simply wishful thinking?

I love Joy, and I always forget how tiresome she can be. It is because I love her that I forget, because she's family. But her streak of negativity is mile-wide at times, and it is so hard to take in large doses.

If the line exists it must be transparent and well-hidden. I can't walk it, myself. I can't join the camp of optimists (and that's a vague, broad term) because I can only see, with them, occasions of closed eyes, and I don't want to be blind to the misery. But I can't be a pessimist, either, it's not me, and it's just as selective in sight. I condemn both and I am both. It's not a line. It's a tightrope. And I can't balance for shit.

I grew up as fully loved as anyone can ever hope to be. By example I was taught compassion and an open mind and to love as fully as I was loved. I have struggled with life, but I have survived. My confidence may be malnourished but I know I'm a good person. I know I have a good heart. I know how deeply and intensely I feel.

I don't know why this wall persists, in spite of it all.

But I have a good heart. I am sometimes bitter and I wish I weren't. I am sometimes blind and I wish I weren't. But mostly, I have a good heart.

Maybe I'm naive. But I have this feeling that, if I just trust that, maybe I'll stay on the rope. That maybe closing my eyes, just for a minute, doesn't have to leave me blind.

This faith thing is still new to me. It's scary, sort of. But I think I like it. Even if it makes me sound like the sort of person I once would've scorned.