So Long as They Fall in Love

Hoping the author doesn't mind, I'd like to share a few snippets of poems from the collection The Last Cigarette on Earth by Benjamin Alire Saenz. They are all better in context.

(The non-text photographs are all unaltered and unfiltered; it started with a few accidental shots taken as I was setting the camera down, then repeating the process until I had enough to complete the post.)

Where is all your caring? All your compassion? In the large
Cracks and crevices between the caring and not caring--
That's where you live. That's your permanent address.

What ever happened to the dark?
He walks into the kitchen, the light on the clock
of Mr. Coffee assaulting him. Night has become nothing
more than a metaphor. There is no real darkness--save
the darkness of the heart. Maybe that's darkness
enough. Joseph Conrad got it right.

A student writes to him and asks: you know about anger.
You conjure that so well. Is there any happiness? Or joy?

How can he find his innocence again?
How can he conjure joy in such a world as this?

You want to repent of all your stupidities. You have said this to
yourself before. You start listing your stupidities. You stop yourself.
You have made this list before.

I do not
understand what is meant by living but I am beginning to believe
that it is related to the word dying. Maybe I'll do some of that today.
A little dying never killed anyone. Dying is fine--but dead?--well,
that's another thing altogether. Maybe today, I'll begin to learn
to spell Salvation--and learn too that it isn't something that's
supposed to happen after I'm dead.

Keep telling yourself this: my life is as lovely as the morning dew.
There's a thought. Or tell yourself this: Shit! I have wasted
Most of my life hating myself. Thoughts that cross the mind
Have a logic all their own. Let's not bring logic into this.

Today, I am going to walk around
with my camera in my hand. I dreamed barbed wire and birds.
I dreamed a sky full of rainclouds. I am going in search
of my dreams. I am again in search of that perfect moment.
How pedestrian. I am as common as everyone else. Rejoice!
Maybe the perfect moment is already alive somewhere inside me.
Maybe I am full of light. Maybe I am full of darkness. I don't care
about the pain. I don't care what my eyes fall in love with--
So long as they fall in love.

He listened to the news on the
radio. Israel was bombing the hell out of Gaza. Bombs into Israel.
Bombs into Gaza. He is fucking sick of all the killing. He doesn't
give a damn anymore whose God anyone believes in. Wouldn't it be
lovely to worship human beings? Then there would be no reason
to kill, to punish, to torture, no reason to make another woman,
another man suffer a world without tenderness.

And finally this: I see you walking

down a road. I am walking on the same road.
I will look for you.
I will look for you. God
has no face but yours. God
has no face but mine.