I don’t know what it is. But. I stumble upon people who share incredible pieces of their lives with me, and many of them, I only see for a couple hours (or less). They soon become swallowed whole by the world and I never see them again. And, there I am, left with a small fracture of who they are and I wonder why they tell me these things in the first place.

Dave: A counter-cultural 20-something poet from a suburb outside of Houston. Along the way of stop-and-go Austin traffic, he tells me about the love of his life, a blind performance poet living in St. Louis. She performs her work, without ever seeing the reaction of an audience. She is an Atheist Muslim, who writes about the neo-empirical forms of race-relations and identity.  We talk about court-ship and expression of love. He believes that people’s expression of love should not just be through sex, as he sees it only as a momentary act of pleasure. He believes the most intimate moments two people can share is complete honesty, openness and vulnerability. He then tells me that this woman he loves, will never love him back. At this point, we are at our destination, I smile and he steps out of my car and I drive away.

Tantra-Zawadi: A fierce woman who lives in Brooklyn. I spent the morning attending a workshop on multi-media artistic expression that she took part in. Tantra is an advocate for HIV/AIDS awareness, and travels throughout the country reading her poetry, screening her movie and advocating for HIV/AIDS prevention.

And, this guy:

Who, after his performance, told me that the only reason he really writes is because it is the only thing that makes sense to him surrounded by chaos.