Sometimes I feel my mind just can't unravel the insanity my heart is coming up with. Most of the time, there's a song that's already done it. Sometimes when I feel like crap I can't find that artist, that album, that song - but sometimes God puts His hand on my mouse and helps me scroll through my music library and find that perfect album, the one that sends shivers down my spine as I realize just how perfectly it says what I'm feeling. And then sometimes I feel better, and sometimes I don't; and sometimes I know what to do, and sometimes I don't; and sometimes I want to scream that one guitar riff in Gone because it's this scream of agony and I just want to throw myself on the ground and weep ... and sometimes I want to croak along with Bono's desperate verse and find, oh please let me find what I'm looking for ...

These are all from U2's 1997 album Pop, and they, along the with the other songs on the album, describe my heart's longings far more accurately than my brain can decipher at the moment.

You can reach, but you can't grab it.
You can't hold it, control it, you can't bag it.

You can push, but you can't direct it -
circulate, regulate, oh no, you cannot connect it.

You know you're chewing bubble gum -
you know what that is but you still want some.
You just can't get enough of that lovey-dovey stuff.

You get confused, but you know it ...
Yeah, you hurt for it, work for it, love,
You don't always show it.

Let go, let's go, discothèque.
Go, go, let go, discothèque.

Looking for the one,
but you know you're somewhere else instead.
You want to be the song,
the song that you hear in your head
Love, love, love, love.

It's not a trick, you can't learn it -
it's the way that you don't pay, that's okay,
'cause you can't earn it ...

You know you're chewing bubble gum,

you know what that is but you still want some -
you just can't get enough of that lovey-dovey stuff.

Let go, let's go, discothèque.
Go, go, go, go, discothèque.

Looking for the one,
but you know you're somewhere else instead.
You want to be the song,
the song that you hear in your head ...
Love, love, love.

But you take what you can get
'cause it's all that you can find.
Oh you know there's something more ...
but tonight, tonight, tonight.
Boom cha, boom cha, discothèque.

Take these hands, they're good for nothing -
You know these hands never worked a day ...
Take these boots, they ain't going nowhere:
You know these boots don't want to stray.

You got my head filled with songs,
You got my shoelaces undone.
Take my shirt, go on, take it off me:
You can tear it up if You can tie me down.

Do you feel loved?
Do You feel loved?
Do you feel loved?

Do You feel loved?

Take the colours of my imagination,
take the scent hanging in the air,
take this tangle of a conversation,
turn it into Your own prayer
with my fingers as You want them
with my nails under Your hide
with my teeth at Your back
and my tongue to tell You the sweetest lies.

Do you feel loved?
Do You feel loved?
And it looks like the sun
but it feels like the rain ... oh ...

Love's a bully, pushing and shoving
in the belly of a woman ...
Heavy rhythm taking over
to stick together a man and a woman,

stick together man and a woman,
stick together ...

And I feel loved ...
Do you feel loved?
Do You feel loved?

And it looks like the sun
but it feels like rain
and there's heat in the sun
to see us through the rain.

Do you feel loved?
Do You feel loved?
Do you feel ...?
Do You feel ...?

Summer stretching on the grass, summer dresses pass ...
In the shade of a willow tree, creeps a-crawling over me,
over me and over you, stuck together with God's glue -
it's gonna get stickier too.
It's been a long hot summer,
let's get under cover ...
Don't try too hard to think ... don't think at all.

I'm not the only one staring at the sun,
afraid of what you'd find if you took a look inside.
I'm not just deaf and dumb, I'm staring at the sun -
not the only one who's happy to go blind.

There's an insect in your ear:
if you scratch it won't disappear.
It's gonna itch and burn and sting ...
Do you wanna see what the scratching brings?
Waves that leave me out of reach,
breaking on your back like a beach ...
Will we ever live in peace?
'Cause those that can't do often have to
and those that can't do often have to preach

to the ones staring at the sun,
afraid of what you'll find if you took a look inside.
Not just deaf and dumb, staring at the sun ...
I'm not the only one who'd rather go blind.

Intransigence is all around,
military's still in town -
armour plated suits and ties;
daddy just won't say goodbye.
Referee won't blow the whistle -
God is good but will He listen?
I'm nearly great but there's something missing:
I left it in the duty free,
oh, though you never really belonged to me.

You're not the only one staring at the sun,
afraid of what you'd find if you stepped back inside.
I'm not sucking my thumb, staring at the sun -
not the only one who's happy to go blind.

She feels the ground is giving way.
but she thinks we're better off that way.
"The more you take, the less you feel;
the less you know the more you believe;
the more you have, the more it takes today."

You gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away,
give it away,
you gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away.

Well, she don't care what it's worth:
she's living like it's the last night on earth,
the last night on earth.

She's not waiting on a saviour to come,
she's at the bus stop
with the News Of The World,
and the sun, sun, here it comes.
She's not waiting for anyone.

You gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away,
give it away,
you gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away.

Well, she don't care what it's worth:
she's living like it's the last night on earth,
the last night on earth.

Slipping away, slip, slide ...
The world turns and we get dizzy
slipping away.

The clock tells her that time is slipping:

minute hands and seconds sticking ...

There's something going on she might be missing.

The world turns and we get dizzy ...

is it spinning for you the way it's

spinning for me?

She's living, living next week now.
You know she's gonna pay you back somehow.
She hasn't been to bed in a week -
she'll be dead soon, then she'll sleep.

You gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away,
give it away,
you gotta give it away,
you gotta give it away.

She already knows it hurts:
she's living like it the last night on earth,
the last night on earth,
last night on earth,
last night.

Jesus, Jesus help me:
I'm alone in this world
and a fucked-up world it is too.

Tell me, tell me the story,
the one about eternity
and the way it's all gonna be.

Wake up, wake up dead man -
wake up, wake up dead man.

Jesus, I'm waiting here, boss:
I know you're looking out for us
but maybe your hands aren't free.

Your Father, He made the world in seven,
He's in charge of heaven.
Will you put a word in for me?

Wake up, wake up dead man,
wake up, wake up dead man.

Listen to the words: they'll tell you what to do.
Listen over the rhythm that's confusing you.
Listen to the reed in the saxophone.
Listen over the hum of the radio.
Listen over the sound of blades in rotation.
Listen through the traffic and circulation.
Listen as hope and peace try to rhyme.
Listen over marching bands playing out their time.

Wake up, wake up dead man,
wake up, wake up dead man.

Jesus, were you just around the corner?
Did You think to try and warn her?
Were You working on something new?
If there's an order in all of this disorder,
is it like a tape recorder?
Can we rewind it just once more?

Wake up, wake up dead man,
wake up, wake up dead man.
Wake up, wake up dead man.

Discothèque, Do You Feel Loved?, Staring at the Sun, Last Night On Earth, and Wake Up Dead Man are all (c) U2, from their 1997 album Pop.

Teetering, teetering, so close to screaming

and I just don't know what to do anymore

So many options, no clear path to anything

I just don't know what I want anymore

Please, oh God help me

I'm lost in the marshlands

of imagination

sweatshop education

every step on my sinking trajectory

feels like I live in my own daytime comedy

breaking the fourth wall and hearing the laugh track

oh, look at the camera 'cause it's just behind me

do I marry this boy?

do I study in Brighton?

do I trust that I'm making good choices on everything?

I know that I'm not and

I know that I never will

I am a sinner

and screaming would just hurt my throat

it would rouse the neighbours

and you know that the last thing I want is to wake them

so I'll just stay quiet

and writhe on the inside

agony over my life and my chosen path

where are You, God?

where do You want me to go?

do You still love and forgive me

through all that I've done?

every corner I've taken

every step away from You

and still You wait

I can run till I drop

I can run, I can't stop

I can think, I can cry,

oh I'll think till I die

it's the one thing I know I can do near half decently

please Lord stop me thinking

I'm overreacting

and how can You love me?

How can You care for me?

I'm crazy, I'm cracking,

I'm screaming, I'm shattering,

I'm scared and I'm helpless

and yet I just won't stop screwing up

blaming myself for the things that I do

'cause there's no one else to blame for them

how can You love a person like me?

so many doors

so many of them open

but it's like I've completely forgotten

how to take the first step

how to choose which door

am I simply petrified of all the doors closing?

how do I walk again

without being afraid of the fall

that I just know is coming

Lord take my feet

and show them the path

teach me how to walk again

'cause I can't do this on my own

Is it the sky today,

the way that the wind's pushing the clouds,
or is it the late day sun
stretching the shadows over the ground,
that brings on these memories
of people and places that I've never seen
and voices so strange and so sweet,
asking me softly, oh yeah ...

Where is my home?

Where is my home?

What makes this person me?
Is it the little town where I was born?
Or maybe it's history,
the faces of family I've never known -

somewhere across the sea
where my great-grandmother left long ago
under a cold crying moon,
looking for something, mm ...

Where is my home?
Where is my home?

Where is my home?

Where is my home?

Where is my home?
The walls of a city,
painted with promises and words so unkind?
Where is my home?
The trees of a country
where autumn came suddenly,
that I'll never find ...

But then there's your face, my dear -
I know I'll never be walking alone.
The love in your eyes makes it clear,
telling me softly, mm ...
This is my home.

This is my home, oh yeah.

This is my home.

This is my home.

I really wish I knew where my home was right now. I feel so drifty lately, unattached to anything. I can reason out several places in this world that could be called my home ... but I just feel like an outsider.

Where is my home? The house I've lived in for over 15 years with my much-loved family? With the other one I love so very much? With my God? There could be arguments built for any of the three answers.

Love has its reasons that reason cannot see.

Perhaps they are all home. Perhaps none of them are home. Perhaps I do not have a home yet. I know I will, someday, somewhere, somehow. It just hurts to be unattached. I want to be attached. I want to be able to breathe deeply and know that I am in my place in the world.

I am not, not right now. I am in between, in limbo. I have places to stay, I have people to be with, I have an eternal Home. All of those are homes in their own ways, but right now I just feel ... disconnected.

How did I get out of this last time? I don't remember.

Where is my home?

The walls of a city,

painted with promises and words so unkind?

Where is my home?

The trees of a country

where autumn came suddenly,

that I'll never find ...

Where is my home?

Where is my home?

Where is my home?

Where is my home?

There's no place like 127.0.0.1.

If only I could make music notes into words.

I can use words.

My fingers are not adapted to music.

They don’t realize he’s alive

No one understands

This is my home.

I’m coming home.

Am I home?

My heart is in my chest, but

In a different way than it normally is.

It is heavy,

I am heavy-hearted.

I am sad.

I realize that what I’m writing is not bestseller material.

At all.

Oh well.

I’ll keep writing anyway.

Maybe something will come of it

Who knows.

I am tired.

I am hungry.

Such mindless, useless details

But maybe someone will pay for this

Somewhere down the line.

Is that what I am now?

Scratching for money, seeking cash

When I don’t really need it?

What do I want money for?

Security?

That means nothing.

Savings?

I suppose.

Later on.

Paragraphs, paragraphs, paragraphs.

Not every sentence is a paragraph, children,

But some paragraphs are sentences.

Aïe.

I’m all shivery.

I miss you.

Yes, you, no, not you – you.

You know who I’m talking about.

The one I want to be with forever and ever.

You are always here, You know that.

You aren’t always here.

I love capital letters.

You can’t tell who I’m talking about, can you.

No, you can’t.

I know.

I know what I’m saying,

Which is a relief,

Because sometimes I really don’t.

Sometimes I really have no idea of what I’m saying

Or what I mean

Or what I want

Or what I need

Or anything like that.

No trust, no certainty

Damned if I do

Damned if I don’t

So do I just try?

But there is no try.

I do what I don’t want to do

And I don’t do what I want to do

But that isn’t always the case.

Why is life full of whys and buts?

There is not nearly enough bass on this laptop.

It’s painful listening to U2 with no bass.

No foundation.

I have a foundation, a base –

I also have a bass. Hee.

They’re not the same person at all,

Which is a good thing in the end.

But oh, I am lonely,

And I am cold,

And you are not here,

But You are.

I’m rambling.

You can probably tell.

There are three yous in this musing –

You, you and you.

Do you know who you are?

Do you know who I am?

Goodbye – you can keep this suit of lights

I’ll be up with the sun

I’m not coming down

I’m not coming down

I’m not coming down

‘Cause I’m already gone

Felt that way all along

Lyrics to Major Tom (Coming Home) are (c) Shiny Toy Guns. Lyrics to Gone are (c) U2.

Rain on me, oh wash the tears away
Water falling from the clouds,
Waterfall from soaking cotton
Gray and dripping, cool and calming
Trembling goosebumps with bright breezes
Salt stinging as the rain falls from my face
Cold, soft – look at the inkblots
What do you see?  What do they mean?
Think, Rorschach – let the black ink
Seep through the neurons, depolarized thought
Feel the pen slide over the nerves, 
Know the difference between
Blots of ink and ink blotted by water
Whether salted or sweet,
From the eternal sky or the window to the soul
Cold rain and warm tears,
Ink sliding from the silver pen,
Reflecting the grey clouds,
The steely heartbreak
Feel the stomach turn, as the Earth turns
On its axis – do you have one?
What is your axis – where do you turn?
And how?  What angle?
The angle of your pen?
The angle of the letters?
Your life is crooked, bent, slanted
Bend in the wind, bend in the rain
The wind blows, and the rain falls
Spine bends, life ends, slant your way through time
Can’t go straight, can’t stop moving
Walking on a tightrope, a tightrope made,
Woven of tears, ink, clouds and rain
Transitory, ethereal, slippery, smooth
How to weave threads of thought
Into context – into rain and tears
The ink, the liquid thought, bridge the
Gap existing between denotation and connotation
Dendrites woven through clouds
Ink woven through rain
Definition is denotation
Connotation is metaphor
Context is all, isn’t it?
Context is almost all?
Context is not all.
Without life, there is no context
Without life or context, there is no point
A point, a line, two dimensions
Only existing in the ideal
The ideal – not the perfect, but 
Based on ideas and principles
A principled man.
Principles written in ink, woven of the 
Same thread we walk on, for do we not
Walk on our principles?
Balance on our principles
Balance on words and thoughts
Balance on tears and love
Love, woven of different thread
Woven of fluffy clouds, cleansing rain
Sun shining, make a rainbow
See the meeting of pain and pleasure
Sorrow and ecstasy, fruit and stone,
Flesh and bone, life inherent
In this woven thread, sewing us together
Or this woven rope, binding us alone
Cut the rope, free the thoughts
Sew the distilled rope into the cloth
Of your life with the silver, slanted pen
Fingers as needles, threaded with nerves
Slipping the iridescent thought-thread
Through the cloth, the clothing
That you wear, choosing to wear the clothes you’ve stitched together – 
Experiences, cut to patterns of time
Sewn together with thoughts
The cloth is the experience
The pattern is the time
The thread is the thoughts
Got it?  Understand?
You sew your clothes, you make your life,
Wear the clothes, however they fit
Stained with blood, washed in tears
Stained with tears, washed with blood
Red or white, red and white
Cleanliness is bloodiness
Drenched in blood like it is rain
Wash your clothing, rinse them out
Inkblots of blood
Blood is life – blood is ink
If blood is ink, blood is woven into 
The thread, the clothing
Blood – pain, pleasure.
Death, birth, life.
You are yourself the clothes
You are sewing yourself together
Live is blood.
Your clothes are life.
Bloody finger-needles, poking and prodding
Inkblots of blood staining the cloth
You sew to yourself
You sew yourself
And yet sometimes it doesn’t hurt
The scars and stains are washed away
Stand in the rain, let it cleanse 
Feel the dried blood, the old life
Slip away among the clouds
Slide down the thread, drop off the rope
Fall onto the earth, water and blood
Blood and water, dripping from you
Everything a blur, you sew without thinking
It’s almost comic.
But why laugh?  Why cry?
The Earth is far below, or you would step
Off.  Where is the other end of the rope
Attached?  To what are you holding on?
Nothing to hold onto, let the rain come down.

I tied myself with wire

To let the horses run free

Playing with the fire

Till the fire played with me

The stone was semi-precious

We were barely conscious

Two souls too smart to be

In the realm of certainty

Even on our wedding day

We set ourselves on fire

Oh God, do not deny her

It's not if I believe in love

But if love believes in me

Oh, believe in me

At the moment of surrender

I folded to my knees

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice me

I've been in every black hole

At the altar of the dark star

My body's now a begging bowl

That's begging to get back

Begging to get back to my heart

To the rhythm of my soul 

To the rhythm of unconsciousness

To the rhythm that yearns 

To be released from control

I was punching in the numbers

At the ATM machine

I could in the reflection

A face staring back at me

At the moment of surrender

A vision over visibility 

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice me

I was speeding on the subway

Through the stations of the cross

Every eye looking every other way

Counting down till the pain would stop

At the moment of surrender

A vision over visibility

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice me

Moment of Surrender, © U2, 2009: No Line on the Horizon

Here I start anew.  En ce moment, je commence.  What do I start?  De quoi agis-je?

I will take my world and convey it: its winds, its seasons, its scents, its self.  There is where I am, but where is here?

Here is where the wind blows diesel exhaust into your nose, cigarette smoke into your hair, Thai spices onto your tongue.  Here is where it shifts the dying leaves one day, one breeze closer to winter, and amuses itself by scattering and regrouping those who have  already given up their lease along the cobbled, indifferent sidewalks.

Here is where the wind slips delicately over the smooth wood of the benches, pushed along by the dusty roofs of cars that pass by.  The wind blows even when no car will run and my hands will never thaw, to remain clutched around my pen's silver petroleum-based form forever.

Hardly a romantic start to the end of the beginning, but that it is such could not be disputed: when will the day come when I will not sit on this bench at all, when to see a car pass would disturb the sense of society, when the wind will blow the leaves into the hair of the walkers and cyclists, going home to a house which will not be livable when the winter rolls in, the wind bringing the snow in feet, not inches?

But this is a start to an end of an end: le début d'une fin d'une fin.  Blood will flow and wind will blow et j'espère que je me sauve.  To be close to those we love is to at once let ourselves be blown in the wind and to stand like a rock against it, for if one chooses the wind of the change they desire, to stand in that wind is to not change at all.

So is this the start of the end of the end, or is it the end of the start of the end, or even the end of the start of the end?   

Who knows, who cares; it will go whether or not we do, for the wind cannot stop the wind, and the leaves are falling.