"Snap her up in a butterfly net and pin her down on a photograph album..."

**Two Scraps from some study breaks**

THE DAY: December 10th
THE TIME: 11:36
THE MUSIC: Doubting Thomas
THE MOMENT:Lights Blurrred

Wintertiming walks silently beside me as I walk the street. At the end of this stretch, there is a potential for rest. There are lights on the houses and debts in the wallets; the doors are all closed, but a chimney is no place for God to enter in. Chemicals clear the roads and by morning the black grids line the city once again. We rely merely on empty cardinal direction. There is a force above, frozen deep beneath the surface, compelling my red arrow northward… though I can't bring my hands to leave my pockets. Still, I feel the fire within me. I know this winter brings new chills of the unknown and not-yet loved. I stare into the cloud that has sunken down to swallow the mountains—I will not be overcome again.

THE DAY: December 12th
THE TIME: 1:26 pM
THE MUSIC: I Need You; Faith Hill with Tim McGraw
THE MOMENT: underground in a library

Relief escapes my lungs for what my life has not become. The mysterious future spreads out beneath my running steps. The space behind me ignites, smoking with the beautiful destruction that occurs when completion is the sole thing exhaling from the land. The smoke signals the helicopters of those who are searching for where I’ve gone. Here are the remains. My Father scavenges for what he did not preserve. The drunken boy across the lake never made it back to his own ashes. From my Father's mournful music I learned of trading "cold comfort for change." Let them live on in their own roads. Let mine intertwine with the windings of other’s. Inside of the calm and the urgency, there is hope in the certainty that nothing will defy the sunrise.