It’s true that all the men you knew were dealers
who said they were through with dealing
Every time you gave them shelter
I know that kind of man
It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender
who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.

And then sweeping up the jokers that he left behind
you find he did not leave you very much not even laughter
Like any dealer he was watching for the card
that is so high and wild
he’ll never need to deal another
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger
He was just some Joseph looking for a manger.

And then leaning on your window sill
he’ll say one day you caused his will
to weaken with your love and warmth and shelter
And then taking from his wallet
an old schedule of trains, he’ll say
I told you when I came I was a stranger
I told you when I came I was a stranger.

But now another stranger seems
to want you to ignore his dreams
as though they were the burden of some other
O you’ve seen that man before
his golden arm dispatching cards
but now it’s rusted from the elbows to the finger
And he wants to trade the game he plays for shelter
Yes he wants to trade the game he knows for shelter.

Ah you hate to watch another tired man
lay down his hand
like he was giving up the holy game of poker
And while he talks his dreams to sleep
you notice there’s a highway
that is curling up like smoke above his shoulder
and suddenly you feel a littlt older

You tell him to come in sit down
but something makes you turn around
The door is open you can’t close your shelter
You try the handle of the road
It opens do not be afraid
It’s you my love, you who are the stranger
It’s you my love, you who are the stranger.

Well, I’ve been waiting, I was sure
we’d meet between the trains we’re waiting for
I think it’s time to board another
Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter
When he talks like this
you don’t know what he’s after
When he speaks like this,
you don’t know what he’s after.

Let’s meet tomorrow if you choose
upon the shore, beneath the bridge
that they are building on some endless river
Then he leaves the platform
for the sleeping car that’s warm
You realize, he’s only advertising one more shelter
And it comes to you, he never was a stranger
And you say ok the bridge or someplace later.

– Cohen, The Stranger Song

Recently it is as if I have been swallowed up by a little blacker cloud that carried me up and took me away. I don’t know if I can ever be happy again. Even in crowds, with others, I feel that loneliness, and books or even cats don’t make me as happy anymore. I don’t admit it much, but I have lost quite a bit of interest in life.

It is a scary feeling, knowing this at 24, and wondering how long it will last. Or whether it is preferable to stay up on the cloud, connected by string, on the path of forgetting everything.

The sky, the scenes are sliced, I remember strange, fluted details of things. I sometimes think whether it is clinical or something which was inevitable – (grace was due to be sad when april came, evermore) and I try to conceal things and remember once again insignificant thoughts.

I see old faces in my life…

And yet I think with disinterest of social interaction. It seems as though the emptiness is best satisfactory alone, with someone it worsens, and I crave for time alone. I am not sure what I am waiting for. This is the moment of waiting by the streetlight, of not knowing what time the next ride will come.

I feel like a child with an inner, troublesome life.

from london with love, Kara VanderBijl (for 8/24)
WHEN IN LONDON, I DID NOT MIND THE GAPS—

Threw caution to the wind, drew yellow lines
with the scuffed soles of ballerina flats.
Only saw rain—when they said it’d be fine.
If the arrow pointed left, I looked right
Wanted badly to get lost in Harrod’s—
And couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried.
(I feigned to forget English—I swear it.)
But misreading the signs was not enough.
I saw your smile in the puddles, your kiss
was in the brown ale—those cards never bluff.
You were why I had left and what I missed.
You were that city—that corner—that street,
in which to forget we ever did meet.