remember this

Three Christmases. Two victimized by the relationship, one tormented by its aftermath. Three Christmases burdended by unnecessary tears. Three should-be-happy seasons crushed under the blow of mania and push and pull, a plauging uncertainty and continued hope for the better: the better that showed its head every few weeks but never stayed for more than two consecutive days. It's not your fault, and it's not mine. It's just who you are. I simply wish you would have warned me earlier, or never saw my name, or that I could have been stronger and less tolerant, that I would have understand the weight of what you couldn't allow our love to be. And I wish I'd known earlier the art of walking away.

I bought a card for myself once, a Quotable, because I like reminders that keep me centered. You thought this was silly. But you didn't use that word. You probably said stupid, or laughed and rolled your eyes, but not in a "Oh, I love you and you're cute but weird" kind of way, but something far less endearing. Or maybe this was early in our relationship and you did think it was stupid but cute. I can't remember. It doesn't matter.

One of my friends bought me this for Christmas. It's the quote from the card that I bought for myself however long ago. And when she gave it to me, she didn't know I'd bought the card (and currently don't know where it is, when, of course, I absolutely need to remind myself of those quoted thoughts). But she knew it was something I needed to remember.

What I'm realizing now, in this once-strong, suddenly-and-obnoxiously-weakened state of the break-up, is that you couldn't get out of your head for long enough to really know me. I think you tried, but you failed. I admire your attempt, but I think you could have tried harder. I think you could have done a lot of things differently between you and me, and I'm slowly coming to accept the fact that you didn't, you wouldn't, you won't, and that's how it's supposed to be. I don't wish you any harm, but I don't yet wish you happiness because you crawled into my life with the allure of connection and desire, neither of which could sustain us, but once in, you shrieked apart my reason and my happiness. It was always about you. I get that, now. It was never about me. My needs were nonexistent. I bent into yet-discovered yoga poses to try to make us work, but I failed. I wasn't meant to succeed. Not with you.

So I'm tired of the hurt and the anger, tired of your unjustified reactions and skewed perceptions. I shouldn't expect anything different since that's how it always was: no steady ground. A rock one day, a roll the next, a plateau silver-lining into a brick wall the very next. I want you to understand this: you did this. You did it. I was not the perfect girlfriend, but I never pushed you away with the force and frequency that you did me. Remember that.

truth can get away from us / and all over town

Survival techniques: Think less, move more, DREAM BIG.

I think I've fallen into a trap of disillusionment, where I happily stumble through Thought Patterns that aren't going to get me anywhere because, yeah, pretty sure I gave up on self-fulfilling prophecies. Because the manifestation of my mind's whims and snowstorms arrives when I least expect it so that eliminates the fun factor of predicting my own destiny. Or whatever.

Met GC this past weekend for a necessary catch up session. I also just had a random bloody nose and have blood on my thumbnail, but ok. The talk was good, except GC thinks I have to start pushing forward in a direction that I'm moderately terrified to move into. "Moderately terrified" meaning that of course I want to go there, but A) I don't know how to start, and B) the threat of rejection/problems/complications/reality/mutual feelings scares me. In a good way. Good fear, healthy fear.

I gave my ex a ringtone this morning because as much as I'd like to give her MUTE for a ringtone, I'm just not there yet, which drives me a little crazy, but we all go through these things differently. So I at least want to know if I should bother looking at my Blackberry to see if it's a call I might want to answer. It's usually not. I realized that the only calls I consistently answer are from my mom. I should give my mom a ringtone and put everyone else on MUTE.

Life is pretty much freaking me out: possibility, conflict, the Great Perhaps, whatever love may be, and if I'll ever find out, etc etc. This is the first time, post any break-up, that I've felt myself feel fear about finding someone else. I'm sure it has to do with age, the length of my latest relationship, and the things that were said in that relationship. Words are cheap, though. I'm learning that. Finally, but it's contradictory for me, as a "writer." The concrete image of a word can be cheap, but the velocity behind it is never without cost.

I have to go wash my bloody thumbnail. And wrap presents. And get on with my life.

sound mechanics

So much of who I am and what I've experienced is built around music.

Last week, she said she'd look them up, I said that's ridiculous how about I make you a cd of their music, she said absolutely and i'll find something for you. So I did. And she is.

Tonight, I'm caught up in not wanting to go to sleep. I'm stuck in the fluctuation of semi-flirtation and the collapsing of my still aching heart. I've been sifting thru my iTunes, pulling together a cd for A.M. and tossing songs into a playlist called 1_. I have a feeling I'll be making Her another cd, since this last one was business. & "business" has changed... which at first I was so not happy about, but now, I almost fully believe it's better this way.

I talked to my ex tonight. First time in, oh, a week. As much as I've been trying to avoid/cut off communication with her, she keeps worming in for various reasons. Wait, I lied. I talked to her earlier this week, and it was not pleasant. Tonight was only better in the sense that we weren't yelling at each other. Tonight made me cry. It was a closing of a door, her doing, despite her saying that she loves me very much and she's sorry for everything that's happened, and that she'll never love anyone like she loved me, and there's no one else, and she doesn't want to give her heart to anyone else. I'm not stupid; I know what happens when people move on. She caught me off guard with all of this, and she's Leaving, she said. For an indefinite period of time, to an indefinite place. If we were still together, she said, This Wouldn't Be Happening. This was a rift in our relationship; I never understood this part of her life. I still don't, but I don't have to try anymore. I cried tonight, though, because it was a bigger goodbye than we've ever had previously. And I'm going back and forth between believing her, and wondering if she did this/said this to get me to move on because she's moving on. I suspect the former, actually. It hurt. The whole thing hurt. And even if it is the latter, I really don't want to know, just as she said that she wouldn't write to me because she doesn't want to hear about me moving on.

I don't know what to make of that. Now I really can't wait to leave tomorrow. I have a weekend chock full of people who love me and who can set my head back where it's supposed to be.

All this, and She still swarms over me. Things have only intensified, in a sense, over the past month. She keeps me on my toes in a healthy way, which is a nice change. I'd swear she's flirting with me, but there is the gray area between "straight" women and gay women: sometimes the hets think flirting is safe. I don't necessarily think that She has absolutely no idea that I'm totally into her, but I doubt she comprehends the extent (and length) of my ... into-ness. She doesn't need to know as far as I'm concerned. I'm cool with this friends thing. The flirting, though? I'm not the only person who sees it. And that makes me wonder.

The songs I've thrown into 1_ are some of my favorites, songs I always try to pass onto whomever comes into my life. I've noticed myself being careful, though, because as much as I would love to stack this compilation with subliminal messages, I know better [looking at circumstances, mainly hers, as mine are open aside from my healing heart] than to test my limits like that. Cool & calm. Constant reminder.

I was going somewhere else with this, but I'm tired and lost it.

tipping (edited.)

you have no idea,
but i fucking adore you.
this little competitive thing? only increases the desire.
i was told today that
i light up when i talk about you,
that my eyes get wide, my smile glows.
i'd be lying if i said i didn't know
what that means.
but-- i don't know how you've managed to get so far
under my skin. i thought i had boundaries, i thought
i still had walls. you're in (and i don't know how)
but you don't know (and i don't know how).

catch and fall (edited.)

It's a new month. I desperately need a new perspective.

/ I see nothing but wonderful things here; intellectual equal, anyone?
/ no clear sign of interest other than prolonged stares, especially those of the "You're not talking directly to me, but I'm going to watch you very carefully while you do talk, or listen, or do other things unrelated to me."

:: But, in truth-- I miss her. I don't want to miss her. I don't want to love her any longer, and I would much prefer to NOT feel like I'm regressing as far as this stages of grieving bullshit-mess goes, but truth: I wanted to spend today lying in my bed, crying. Because I somehow have tears left over from Saturday night's salt-drenched outpouring. In a king-sized bed, 5-star hotel, nonetheless. Because of text messages. Mixed signals. Uncertainty. A clever trick. Because goodbye has still been muted beneath outlying context of We Still Love, and We Still Want, but Neither of Us is Going to Outright Give In. Or Make a Move. (I don't know that there's a move to make.)


:: And yet, the entire time we were together, I suffered the crush of intrigue. Outside of us. I must have known better than to focus all of my energy on a suffering craft.

:: The hurt can end now. I'm ready to break free. Into what, onto whom, I don't know, but that doesn't matter. I reach a certain point, post break-up, where I'm able to distract myself with someone else, but I'm not there yet. I don't know when I'll be there. I figure it has to happen eventually.

18

The problem, unstated till now, is how
to live in a damaged body
in a world where pain is meant to be gagged
uncured un-grieved-over The problem is
to connect, without hysterica, the pain
of any one's body with the pain of the body's world
For it is the body's world
they are trying to destroy forever
The best world is the body's world
filled with creatures filled with dread
misshapen so yet the best we have
our raft among the abstract worlds
and how I longed to live on this earth
walking her boundaries never counting the cost


Adrienne Rich, from "Contradictions: Tracking Poems"

because i told you so

i came home with tears slicing my cheeks
and hugged my cat because i'd just left 4
of my friends at the bar. the beer had long ago
worn off, the happy-snapped buzz whittled from me
thanks to time and food and a healthy reminder
of the fact that i have to go to a fucking wedding in 3 days
and i am totally, completely, single.

which, whatever, i don't care about getting married
so to speak.
it's more the idea that i don't have anyone. and when that happens
for the first stark time in 2.5 years
it more than hurts.
so whining aside, i'm fucking sad.
and i'm tired of it.

so i'll focus on the good: i'll think about how i saw Her
twice today. and the first time she stared at me
and the second time, much longer, there was more staring
and one or two maybe even three looks
that weren't just, you know, looks.
and maybe i'm living in a pipe dream
but these little bits will get me through.

something has to. i don't want to cry in bed (again) tonight.
and i don't want to give in.
but i sincerely, truly, really do not want to feel this way any longer.

mixed nausea

every time we talk: i ended up feeling like shit.
but that should come as no surprise, because truthfully
that happened a lot
when we were together. so why would it be any different
now.

you were crying on the phone, and my heart disappeared
from my chest- gone somewhere less familiar, somewhere less
flimsy. i don't even know what you wanted to know
but you were looking for an answer, and i gave you one,
but it wasn't the one you wanted.
because i think you wanted us to work this out.
to be together again.
but i can't even count how many times you've chosen to
break up with me
rather than have an adult conversation with me about whatever
little issue is currently plaguing us. i deserve better than that--
i deserve steadier footing.

i just wish that meant that i could
stop loving you and
stop missing you because you asked
and i answered, in truth. there isn't a lie to tell.
you told me that you picked up and left
and shut your ex out, that you didn't listen to her
when she was fighting for you.
and you wanted to make sure you weren't doing that to me: and you
aren't. but you did run.
it was different, but you ran.

i still don't know what you want(ed).
& i may never know if this could work because
circumstance/distance decimated our weakest spots.
we were too far, never close enough, but saddled down
with a love that didn't want to quit.
it still hasn't quit.
it's just fucked up beyond repair.
i think.

no, what i think is:
you have gone back and forth with me FAR TOO MUCH
and you say you broke up with me because you had to
put your foot down, you had to make a decision to move forward,
and fuck you because that's all i ever tried to do.
i can't handle the see-saw.
i get nauseous too easily.
if i could throw this up to get it out of my sick body,
i wish i would.

the realm of confliction

In one corner: My Best Friend's Wedding
is sizzling across my inherited widescreen tv.
I can't help but to watch even having seen the film
more than twice, at least.
And from the other room: shuffle, from "Edge of Seventeen"
straight into "Real." Appropros, you see, because I've started realizing
I don't know what real is, and by real,
I mean love.
Nearly 3 years in an unstable, unhealthy, unrealistic relationship
does amazingly awful things to your psyche.

I've been told over and over again
to cease all communication, but I unblocked her
and I wrote a three sentence response to a video
she forwarded me earlier this week.
I haven't sacked up the guts
to unfriend on Facebook, but maybe tomorrow.
Or the next day.

I woke up this morning fresh from a dream about her/
us. In it, I'd driven to see her, a surprise, and she had a cake
on her bed, and we made love, no,
we almost fucked,
right on the cake. I took red icing on my finger
and smeared it onto her nipple, my mouth followed
mixing saliva with tenderness and confusion and
red icing. But we stopped, despite her being
spread before me, my mouth already dancing
between her weeping thighs. We stood up
and walked away. And then I found a poster,
a card, in the bottom of her closet, and I kept smacking
the backs of her bare knees, caught between fury
and despair. She told her dad we were back together,
but I was already finding a way to leave. He was happy.
She didn't seem it. I just wanted to go.

When I woke up, I didn't know what the fuck to make of that
except for the reality of it: wanting to go, not knowing how,
hanging on, the obvious connection that always managed to break
itself.
And I had two missed calls this morning, one voicemail
that I later realized was unintentional. Both times she called
she must have known I wouldn't answer, and the voicemail
was long and obviously not meant to be left, as it was choked
with white noise and a cough. I think I just listened
to her falling asleep.

A familiar sound, as I was always awake
when she wasn't.

I don't know why she called.
And there's a good possibility that I don't want to know why she called,
either.
What I do know is this: I keep trying to let go
and I haven't lost my footing yet, but the trail is steep.


In another room, there have been comments
and brief messages, texts and otherwise.
Hardcore nerd flirting, I've been told. I'm a little dense,
though, and I don't know if She realizes that she is,
in fact, and truly finally sort of I think,
flirting.
And how I want that door to creak open.

out/around

I think the biggest struggle is this:
Because of the slight mania, the bipolar, the constant ups and downs,
I don't know what was real.
Were the words real? The promises? The pleas?
I don't think a smile could be fake- not that one,
not the way her eyes crinkled and danced all at once,
or the way her cheeks looked like the might split.
I don't remember how many times I saw that smile,
but obviously it wasn't enough.

from the ground up

A.
things that do not work eventually shake themselves to an end. premeditated, sudden, belabored, abrupt, conscious, un, consequential, and not. there are pieces to retrieve, breaks and contours to smooth and reform. decimation can be beautiful.

B.
two and a half years. maybe a shade less. remember the two-ish months spent "apart" but "apart" is relative because there were phone calls, text messages, letters and notes. promises. pleads. forgiveness and still a shimmer of animosity threading through my being. i know hurt when it drapes itself over me.

C.
and the miles follow me, still. up and down the east coast. where was home? not even my heart ever knew.

D.
the thing is: i always loved you. i fell hard and fast, and we dove into each other with such tremulous passion- you would have thought, anyone would, that there had never been a love so great. but what was great was sickened with a deteriorating disease. and i never knew because love is blind and i can't see for shit anyway.

E.
clearly.

F.
you told me (i remember this day clearly: bravo and usa, park slope, trouble) that you would never do what she had done to me. but you lied. what you did was worse. you knew you were falling apart and you were too selfish to let me go.

G.
and you told me the other night that i was weak for staying with you, weak for loving you through all of that mind-bending-landmine bipolar s&m, weak for hoping and persisting. somehow, i'd thought i was consistent and steady, stable. that's what you want, you know. the very things i am: that is what you want, and you sucked the fucking life out from every conceivable pore of my body but you don't understand-- you didn't kill me.

H.
i am still breathing.

I.
you told me you blamed me for us falling apart, and you just had to put your foot down because you were "losing [your] mind" because i didn't know where i wanted to be next year. this is the second time you've blamed me for losing your mind. remember that time, of course you do, that you called me and ripped me apart for everything you'd always said didn't bother you-- and then i told you i couldn't do this anymore (there was nothing left to give, nothing more to do), and weeks later, you told me you stopped taking your medication because it had wiped out your sex drive, and you didn't want me to complain about not having sex anymore. see that, how you did that? how you always manage to shift the blame onto me because you can't bear to acknowledge or accept your contribution to the colossal amounts of manipulative, hypocritical bullshit that toured us through over two years of what someone may have mistakenly called a relationship?

J.
two days after you blamed me, last week, you started text messaging me. because you know the longer you wait, the stronger i get, the less chance you have of worming back in. the last message you sent me, from thursday afternoon: you have my heart and i hope you know that.

K.
i could have said: "you made it quite clear you don't want to be with me, so why leave your heart with me? obviously i will mistreat it and you will blame me, more, for things that are not my fault." or: "you broke my heart and i hope you know that." or: "fuck off." or: "AND?" or: "take it the fuck back."

L.
i didn't respond.

M.
don't get me wrong: there was beauty between us. there was a connection that wouldn't be ignored, no matter the physical distance, or the emotional (most of the time; i've never mastered the art of dating a self-absorbed robot). there was love there. and i was happy when i knew i had nothing to worry about.

N.
maybe that wasn't often enough. there were other people (and you went back and forth with your understanding of this-- what you said the other night suggests that you're aware they played a part in the downfall of us, but somehow we still see this in completely different ways). there was the distance- which you said was one of the best parts of our relationship (i usually hated it), but suddenly you couldn't handle it. literally overnight: you couldn't handle the distance. there were technicalities, there were personal misfires, there was the simple reality of not having common ground.

O.
the thing is, i miss the fact that i don't have someone. you were never (hardly ever) here, and there was a low emptiness rotting in my stomach because i lived an entirely independent life but had a girlfriend. i understand long distance, but i don't understand being pushed away and shut out so you could, essentially, test the waters-- both of my willingness to stay (weakness, you'd now call it) and your ability or lack thereof to turn off the switch for loving me.

P.
i don't know how you feel now. and i don't know what you're doing. i wish i could stop caring.

Q.
the mania is running from my life, and it's startling to realize that i'm still here. without the chaos, i'm whole. complete. i didn't, and don't, need you. and if this is how you choose to live your life (no forward progress, stagnancy, far-fetched visions of reality, perhaps unknowingly comparing my commitment to shades of bizarro-land around you, on and off of medication, not knowing how to ask for help, wanting someone to be with you to take care of you): i am so not the girl you wanted me to be.

R.
years move on and i don’t deny / the choice i made or your reasons why / but this cluttered heart is the tie that binds / me to the broken new york skyline / we might have had the right idea / but it never got off the ground / we were so close, we were there almost / now I can barely hear the sound / the sun is high, we walk slow / you’ve gone ahead, i’m flying solo / what i crave I would never show / on your birthday one new york ago

over, part II

i don't want to start this day in tears,
no need for a carryover from last night.
it's not that this isn't worth crying over
because the pain is palpable and the anxiety
is stretching my gut to explosive small beads
that bound from interior wall to blood stream,
an overtly familiar ache and swell
that brings zero comfort. but you have to understand
that i have cried entirely too many tears:
warranted and perhaps not (those shaken to creation
by the ping and crash of my mind)
and i know i shouldn't care
but i hope she is crying more.

she hasn't called
or anything, really. and i don't want to confess
that i am surprised/angry/mildly crushed
that she hasn't tried to lure me back. i am pretty certain
i would like to run away from myself.
but a fairy told me last night:
you are going to find someone so good for you. they
are getting ready now in their life too. and everything
happens for a reason.
--and i have no choice but to believe her
because i want to at least hope it's true.

i am simply having trouble understanding
how two weeks ago she talked about us getting married
and three days ago she told me she loved me
and wanted to see me this weekend
and then three nights ago
she told me she wants to start her life with someone
and after us working toward that for two and a half years
with a heart-wrenching 6 hr distance between us
she doesn't see us going anywhere and
it's over.

i knew it was coming.
i wish that meant it hurt less. and i wish that meant
i didn't care.

over, part I

i've never known sadness so infinite, these blossoms of tears
billowing in my eyes, strapped to the heavy ache
of mad-burdened sadness sitting, trembling,
in all of me.
and it is less than 24 hours
since we said goodbye.
i force myself to think: now i can sleep,
no more 6 hr weekend drives, no more ear plugs
never completely blocking out the whine of the tv, and please
no more tears. no more back and forth,
no wicked twisting rolleremotion, no mania,
no loss, no confusion, no more fear and mistrust.
no more of this.
because once upon all the time
i am whole and complete, successful and wise.
our fairytale crumbled after the third packed page,
a story shrieking into scars and wounds
i regret to carry with me. and yet:
i do not regret any measure of the 30 months i spent with you
because you never got around to killing me
which only means
i must now be stronger.

measuring love+loss

the thing about me is that i don't know
when to stop.
case in point:
i am watching "titanic"
and my heart is swollen into my stomach,
this crushing ache of loss that i've never experienced,
loss and debilitating love
that i haven't yet touched.
and when it comes down to it, i will take the love
and leave the loss
because my heart is unsteady
and my brain works too fast
to keep up with my mouth
and everything i am is sometimes
equal to a mirror stuffed with disaster.
and i could turn the tv off
or just change the fucking channel
but, no. i'm sitting here
with tear-stained cheeks-- my own sense of loss
chafing the cinematic overture of disaster.

my soul, it needed to purge.

the boat split in half
and my heart salts its fissures.
she was so tired on the phone earlier- tired from life,
from the weekend, of me (i've no doubt).
she said she didn't want to "sit at home and stew"
but she couldn't tell me what she was stewing over.
and i think it is probably me/us
because we are sickened by the pull of gravity,
just like these black and white moon-beamed bodies
are falling to an ice-capped death--
and there is nothing to hold onto.

if her hand was here
i would take it into mine.
but it's nearly 400 miles away; my hands just finished
working on my grad work for the week,
and hers are resting at a concert.
resting/fidgeting because she cannot
be still.

jack doesn't survive but i
always do.

autumn rising

fall rushes me into nesting mode: these previously
unspoken (unmentioned) urges propelling me toward
coupledom.
which is funny, i think,
because i have another half (i think).
and the pumpkin patch lathered me with dust, dirt
shadowing my face and clouding my eyes but dirt
is not deceptive.

she had unnatural dark red hair
spiked and faltering at the back
like when i had my first stereotypical lesbian haircut
(also an unnatural shade of red,
though mine favored fire engines, not
pomegranates) and didn't realize
i had to style past the top of my head.
black long sleeved shirt
tucked under a dark grey polo. dark jeans.
calm if stoic expression, and eyes that sparkled even from where i sat,
my ass twitching on a bale of hay.
i didn't exactly mean to stare her down
but she reminded me of a woman i loved
ages ago, a woman that i could have stayed with
if she hadn't been unstable, a bitch, and ultimately
sexually incompatible. so when i say that
i didn't mean to stare i actually mean
i did. and she looked back, surrendering to my super lesbionic
power of eye contact, so i looked away because i recently realized
i am coy, or something like it.
i looked back
as she caught my eye and looked away.
i meant to smile but i forgot how.

dirtier still, my blackberry's screen said:
1 missed call, 1 new voicemail.
i guessed who it was.
i was wrong. and i hesitated to listen
because we were supposed to talk two weeks ago
and when time like that passes, with us,
tones shift and claws unfurl.
but: a pet name, a sullen mouth;
call me when you have time.

and i don't have time for anyone but myself.

the weather turns around me. the breeze
swaddles my bare neck, my eyes blink
against the traipsing autumn sun. i felt most alive
surrounded by burnished corn stalks
and tipping pumpkins. it feels strange coming home
to a human-less house despite my inordinate
love for independence. i am almost worried that
i am too independent, too accustom to my own heartbeat
and pillow-strewn bed, that i won't be able to nest
whenever the nesting feels it's time to begin.

and my cat has been sleeping
in the same spot on the end of bed
for four hours.
i wish i, too, could be as complacent
when i stumble over something i love.

what i crave / i will never show

tonight my sin soaked in blue moon,
and my skin trembled beneath smoke-free lights.
i have yet to figure out
what you cannot see in me--
because somehow,
flailing around my relationship missteps: i still
know my value, know who
i am.

but i suppose you are not meant to be,
and it was a simple slip of the tongue, notsomuch
of the freudian sort,
when a.s. called me your name
instead of my own
to get my attention tonight.
a slip, another mistaken misstep,
another nothing added to the already amassed
rolling bobbin, what we are is
unraveling, stripping to nothing more
then we ever were.

because i know it's nothing.

and i don't know why i stay-
because i am afraid to be alone, because
i fear she is the end of it all and i may never find
another female loving female,
because this is absurd and i am already maybe
laughing at myself.

where everything i am is unsteady.
the garbage cans trailing my stride to the curb,
lolling drunkenly on the sidewalk,
my own steps smeared by two beers
and a table full of coworkers that i love,
a job i accept,
and a workplace i've come to abhor.

i took on yahoo
last week. the night of riesling
and a thumb of xanax.
i offered another unecessary apology
and el sotano accepted. and i forget our conversation
but it rings positive in my memory,
rings with more possibility and a shit-ton
of i cannot do this again.

a funny thing.
knowing you deserve more, and better of more,
but being unable to mobilize
and go awol on your memory,
your busted shatters of possibility and hope-
it is enough to stay deployed in the flimsy recesses
of your own troubled mind.

and i was brave / but you didn't know

weeks ago, i went to see melissa ferrick.
and i feel in love with her opening act. it was easy
because she was self-deprecating and had a beautiful voice, lyrics
that flittered past skin-deep, penetrating pieces of fragments of my shattered
everything where nothing
could make sense but sense itself.

tonight is a night, for me, full of riesling and xanax
because i cannot clear my mind but more importantly
my jaw is throbbing and there is no escape
because every time i stop myself from clenching my teeth
i think of you
and then i clench again
and the pattern continues, unlocking all my memories
and all the could-bes and maybe might still becomes.
but i know you don't want me as i want you
and even if you do
the way you hide it could shake me for years (as i guess it
already has), decimate my every caustic sense, the things that
work and the ideas that float. and my skin
floats, my hands are full of helium and i have misplaced
my legs. i don't care past the image of you and me,
the rattled, makeshift escalated chorus of coulds and woulds.

and this is my right now.
this perpetual itching ache, the daggers deflecting my heart,
and the unsteady waiver of my hands, hours later.
because they shook for forty-three minutes after i told you
that we were writing poems in class, and it would be quiet. you were hiding (my
face to yours, our palms barely reaching- we are
so terrifyingly alike that it breaks me apart and rips me into shape-shifting
glued shards of you[me] who this is and who we want to be) and your presence
was visceral, tangible, a veritable shake
to the core, i cannot stop drinking this wine even though
my heart
has returned to my chest's cavity, to its rightful place,
limping back from its sometime residence near my toes.
i cannot tell if my heart:
does it soar or does it fall,
dilating and storming through my body at the mere shock
of seeing you before me.

i do not yet understand
what exactly it is about you-
if it IS something or if this is a magical prelude
i have designed in my psyche, an occupation away
from the dismantling servitude of reality. maybe i write
best when i am drunk on riesling and high on xanax, and maybe i write
just as terribly well when i am trembling in syntax
of maybe-love and could-be more than lust.

i have the right idea
but i cannot whisper its fragments into your ear
because we cannot get close enough to see
what all there is we harbor.

my boat is sanctioned in the deepest of lakes;
your yacht sings solo softly in the saturated sea.
we could meet in the middle, not your ground nor
mine. we could spin, there, ribbons of fairytale
and dip our toes into the dazzling wisps of water.
i could swim in you for days.

you startle my senses.
i have broken pens and letters over this deaf infatuation.
i was told to exorcise you from me. exorcise the demons, you wicked
angel. i laughed today.
and my god, your body. your rounding, warming, malleable form.

i cannot recall my first name because this person at the keyboard
is not who i think i ever am.

i said today that i would make you a powerpoint:
"reasons why you should love me." but love is deceit.
love you, i would. adore you, i would.
the powerpoint would have pictures, and i would write you
a poem.
because the obvious amount of poems that i have already crafted
for you is not obvious, because you don't know of them.
which, i guess, is why i told you today:
"come down. it's quiet. we write."
you didn't come down, and i knew you wouldn't, but it's for the best
because forty-three minutes later:
my hands still shook and my breath still evaded me
as my heart thumped into my ankles
and i wish i could tell you.

this bridge we've built / i don't need it anymore

I have wasted tears, drowned myself in self-pity and explicit confusion. A missed call, missed signal, no sign of entry. An armed robbery of my heart, you palming your words as weapons, such an archaic tactic but one that levels me to angry silence- and tears, those tears. Where you simmer brilliantly in carelessness and arching brick walls, I bend to sadness and melodramatic heartache. Our acid neutrals clashing, burning, fissuring into bloodied drops of mercury, splitting and running off into the desolate corners we avoid.

I know what it is like to be adored, to be obsessed over, to be desired and wanted, even just liked. The exhiliarating ego rush, even if the feelings are less than returned, and the overwhelming sense of want crushed into the words and gestures of someone that isn't the woman I'm with. It's too much, too little, not enough.

I abuse fragments. I don't draw clear boundaries. I overstep lines, reformulate while I'm playing the game and winning/losing; I never win/lose, I always finish. And I am no angel because I don't know how to say: "I have a girlfriend, and I love her." Instead, my grey area speaks for me and says: "I'm unattainable but you should like me anyway because I love to have my ego fed."

And if I never thought my life would catch up with me, trip me and toss me down a flight of splintered stairs, I was disillusioned from the start.

Stand up with a backbone you've whittled from bamboo and snowflakes. Dissolve your spine into salt and sand, brushburn your knees over the fire you started. I can't listen because I watch, and I can't watch because I don't know how to see.

My heart is a bruised icon, a landmine, a landfill, a dumping ground, and a harbor. And you're not getting your hopes up. I got rid of my hopes over a year ago. I just wanted you to know.

be still / anyone can see

I cannot see myself the way that
you see me. And I do not want to, because
I am unfamiliar with the taciturn reactions
and blood-whittled avoidances.
And sadness avoids me where frustration
causes over, tricking through wind eroded
shatters in my skin, shards of emptiness filtering
past photo album inconsistencies.
I can't give up on love
but love has run from me, its nightmare ribbons
trailing through abandoned hallways,
turning over blurred photocopies. If I relied on emotion,
I would cry over the phone, belabor my lingering
insecurities, and aim for sealing the cracks with dried
saliva. But I have lost my tears to something less palpable,
something less worth my time. Where you remain
is a vast horizon, one littered with trepidation
and senseless reprieve, one I cannot reach
nor see.

the answer to each moment must be yes (edited.)

You're a little too far away- and I miss the cracked door, and your smile, and everything. & I wanted to pluck a flower from the thirty fresh colors sitting slightly over my head, take it to you. Just because. The tension and ?sadness?frustration? lacing through your voice make my heart and fingers ache, because my body/heart/everything simply wants to swaddle you and make love with you for hours on end-- make you smile and laugh and raise the wash of flush across your cheeks. 3/5 isn't bad. I guess. I'd even take 4/5, leaving our love making to rise as slowly as it will (though isn't going-on three years slow enough?).

Because today, I made you laugh, and such a simple thing shocked into a (for you) difficult sort of day struck a lightning-red streak of happiness into me. & for once, I wasn't the only one who saw it- that endearingly casual intimacy that parades around us, between us, shrugging me(us?) into queer confusion. "Aren't you two chummy?" [I can think of thirty-two better words, none of which could accurately say what is brewing, boiling over and I don't want to contain it any longer.]

What I'm saying is that I'm crazy about you. Blindingly rocked by each crack of your smile, each lock and tremor of our china blue/icy green connection, the warming luck of the way we stand so close and speak in a manner I can only describe as intimate. My palms lay flat for you, waiting for your touch to slip into mine. You've no (visible) recognition of how we would be, and I sit on the outskirts, tender to every glance and movement, already knowing, continually wanting.

drown out my wanting / drown out my fear

And it was all worth it- the blistering
toes and ankles, the sheen of sweat
veiling my skin, the untameable
flips of longer hair. My piloted sense
of authority twining my irrepressible
free spirit, that daunting, docile creature
twirling below an adopted look of astringency.
Seventy, ninety-odd bodies mashing
through, jonesing for the first breath of fresh air.
You passed to my left, your gaze flickering
across our paths, inches again- you sway so close to me-
and my eyes sought your summer's blue with some unfurled
awareness (proximity, seventh sense, the heart's
wanderings). I saw, you know.
I saw your first and second glances. The tripped-up
gentle whiplash of a moment passing too quickly,
a chance to impress an image into the curiousities
of your memory. One, two. Twice.
I smiled through both, wishing my mouth had a sense
to open on its own. And your beauty trailed me,
seeks me out several hours later. It compounds emotions
and mislabels wanderlust, because we both know and
because we both won't say.

you're something beautiful / a contradiction

I had a healthy dose of Real Friends today, enclosing a few minutes with formerly mentioned not-so-real friends. [Also, those minutes? That's where I made a totally snarky comment directed at the married-friend who is shtupping her lesbian BFF, and my best friend's girlfriend nearly choked on her laughter and it went so over everyone else's heads, but oh so worth it.] SO it's good to see my Real Friends that can hang out without being drunk. Not-So-Real Friends? Yup, in line several times at the beer tent. Cheers.

And I saw AC today. She walked past us, in all her cuteness, and leaned over, smiled, waved. I swooned internally, smiled and waved back. She was "working" ... and I thought about going over to chat, but walked around for a few hours with my friends instead. Eventually, we were standing twentyish feet from where AC was working, and it was hot, and we didn't want to walk anymore, so we stayed there. & commence good friending, as they were delighting me with "She just looked over here. She keeps looking over here" and the like. Which was super, you know, because it's always fun to even think you're being admired/checked out/whatev. But I am a nerd/social-awk of a slight degree, and I was getting nervous just thinking about going to talk to her.

Truth is, I sucked it up. I'm tired of letting opportunities pass by, on any level, because of holding myself back. Out of what? Fear of something good happening? I've done nothing in my life to deserve nothing but shit, but until I start acting in a positive manner and taking little (healthy) risks here and there, nothing's going to change.

I walked right over and gave her a dazzling smile, which was dazzlingly returned (she has an amazing smile, the kind that warms your insides, and she has stellar eyes, incomparable, to match). And we chatted, her opening with: "I keep seeing you everywhere lately!" [Well that's a good thing, yeah?] It was so simple, I wanted to kick myself, repeatedly, in the ass. Totally natural flow, got some good info, opened up, ta-fucking-da. She then offered me a massage (here's where I explain that she is an on-off-again massage therapist, which is how I originally met her // she worked with my sister, and I actually worked there for a bit as well // and she was giving chair massages today, hence the offer), and of course I accepted because A) why would I ever turn one down?, and B) her offer to put her hands all over my neck and back? Um, yes please!

& then there was that. Which was fantastic. Small talk, of course, is hard when your face is smashed into the little face-holder on a massage chair/table. She joked around with me, and I was able to laugh, kind of. Joke/flirt. I think? So dense, here. So terribly dense. Post-massage, she gave me that damn sparkling smile and said, "I hope it was good for you." See, I don't generally fall for lines like that, and I already knew from years ago that AC is a wicked flirt (and she is damn good at it), but it still made me go a little 'Oooh yeah.' Cue more flirty small talk, ending with her saying, "I'm sure I'll see you soon," and a most wonderful tight, few-extra-second hug.

& I may or may not have fallen in love. HAH. Just kidding, really. I may fall easily, but it takes a little more than that.

At any rate, cue the reignition of my little crush on AC. It's a healthy little bugger. The thought of her makes me smile, blah blah blah. Just a crying fucking shame we never went out all those years ago. Who's to say we couldn't now? I mean, obviously, I'd have to formally extricate myself from my girlfriend, who has cut me off of communication with her because I am pms'ing and being "out of control," which just means she's seeing that I'm unhappy with Us but doesn't want to face it. I like that one of my real-friends (ah! the one that I dated a few years ago and now has the girlfriend and I finally did see them today, and it was actually lovely, except said girl and I still maybe feel the attraction, but whatever, tolerable) just said: "Don't let your girlfriend be an asshole to you." And my response: "I'm the asshole now, sadly."

Oh what the fuck am I doing.


[And I forgot about the part when she pushed her sunglasses off of her eyes and onto the top of her head because, she said, she doesn't like talking to people while wearing sunglasses (they or her) because you can't see where they're looking and all of a sudden I realize she cared where we were looking. & when she took off those sunglasses, & there was a maddening airtight lock of stare, I think I remembered why I'd liked her so years ago. Some people I used to know used to tell me that they could get lost in my eyes, and I never understood what they meant, but when she took of the sunglasses and our yellow-green // Caribbean blue recognized each other, I think I felt lost- in the most satisfying, intriguing of ways.]

I wrote down a dream in invisible ink

...it never was mine I'm beginning to think

Tonight I went to see OTR for the first time, and so loved every moment (except for the part when I came home and searched through my iTunes for a good 20 minutes trying to find my favorite song of the night, and came up empty-handed, and then Googled like a fool, and still came up empty). And then I was moronic and bought their new cd on iTunes without first checking with emusic ... and of course emusic has the new cd, which I could have gotten along with 20 other songs in about a week, for $10 total. But, no. I was impatient and acted without researching, a typical move of mine signifying one of my tragic downfalls. Granted, this oversight probably won't kill me. But it does affect my bank account, and after my ten minutes of panic this afternoon that spawned from my procrastination skills and registering for a 500-level class toward my MA that I am not thrilled with but had no choice and then coughed out $1200 (which'll be reimbursed, say, February) to cement my seat in said unthrilling course, I am a little antsy about money. And that'll pass after my next check is automatically deposited. So. Whatever.

OTR's lead singer sounds, when speaking, unnervingly similar to Margo Timmins. Their singing voices are totally different, which I always find odd, how people sound one way when they speak, and another way when they sing. I'm always fascinated by people with British speaking accents who have almost no noticeable accent when singing.

The C.Junkies connection made me think back to when she bought me/us tickets, spur of the moment, to see C.Junkies. I like spur of the moment, especially when it's something that amazing. I'd never seen C.J. before, but I'd loved them for fourish years, and they were one of my Top Bands That I Must See Live. [Currently dominating the list: EBTG.] And she knew that, that I really wanted to see C.J., or at the very least, she remembered me talking about how much I love them. The catch was, she'd made plans with a friend that night... but said she would go do her thing with him, then meet me at the concert.

I should have realized at that point that something was fucked up there. I'd come up for the weekend, and we had approximately 36 hours to spend together. And she was going out with a friend? While I was, what, sitting at home waiting for her to come home... after I'd driven 300+ miles to see her? My density astounds me, still.

So I went to the concert. More accurately, she dropped me off, I went inside, and she drove off to meet her friend. I proceeded to have a few beers, listen to the music, and completely enjoy myself- without her. Which is fine, because I believe in independence within relationships, but now that I really think about it, I don't so much believe in having a long distance relationship and traveling to see your girlfriend but she has other plans... that never involved you. Miraculously, she finds a way to occupy your time, which you appreciate, but while you're standing there wondering when she's joining you, the wheels start turning a little too fast, and maybe things stop connecting and making sense.

She never joined me, she never used the ticket she bought for herself. She picked me up when she was finished, not when I was finished. & I remember her being full of apologies and searching for reassurances. I must have given them to her, probably because I was definitely buzzed. I vaguely remember getting angry later in the night, but stuffing it down because it didn't seem worth it, somehow: I'd gotten to see one of my favorite bands, and truthfully, she wouldn't have enjoyed seeing them with me. So I don't even know if there's anything wrong with this. It still doesn't feel right.

I don't like doing everything by myself, but I've become intensely independent as of late. Tonight, for example, I had two tickets for OTR, and was completely undecided on whether to go alone or drag one of my friends with me (since none of them listen to OTR). I ended up taking my best friend, and she was very appreciative as always, but when I really thought about it, I realized that I would have been okay going by myself. Because I do everything by myself. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't like feeling so unattached to the fact that I do, in fact, have a girlfriend. The balance is off; it's never been on.

I don't know what I'm looking for, because I'm not looking for anything, but I no longer know what to do with what I have.


Today, you stood so close to me that I could have leaned ever so slightly to the left and been tucked into the welcoming space between your extended arm and your warm torso. We spoke, we eye-contacted like bandits when we were one-on-one, and I was able to drink in the details of your profile. I felt the heat from your body when you were standing next to me, so close I didn't know how to react. But, the beauty.


On a totally unrelated note: Thank GOD Nekisa has finally been booted from Shear Genius.

I bet she wanted you all this time

Tonight, I got as far as opening a blank Word Document. The thoughts were there, tangled with the metaphors and deeply imbedded symbolism- all neatly arranged in my head. I already knew, opening the document, what I wanted the first sentence to be.

And then it snapped out of my head. As soon as I typed ", it was all gone. I think that's someone's way of telling me that I shouldn't open this thing, this monolith of "unrequited love", with dialogue. I can accept that; I just didn't have/inspire another idea.

Instead of writing something new, I flipped through some things that I wrote back in 2004, and then started working on again last summer. In that, I found the beginning of a short story that was detailing the state of my relationship last July. & in reading that for the first time since July 2007, I was horrified, scared, and saddended.

Sometimes being strong is overrated. Sometimes accepting defeat is the best thing a person can do.

I think I'm getting closer to figuring these things out.

I'm going to buy back memories / to awaken some old qualities

I've waited for that moment- the one where even when we're standing in a sea of 50+ other people, there's complete silence around us, encapsulating us, buffering us from any/every/thing/one. The one where you're standing right next to me, close enough to speak lowly almost in secret (like we've done before, when my heart was hammering inside my chest but my hand held the pen like a captive, steady and consistent, never waivering). The one where I casually say hello, ask how you are. Smile directly into your eyes because while we don't have a problem with eye contact, we seem unable to move past the stage where we express emotion outside of the locked glances. Keep it simple, easy, just hi how are you.

Easy.

I had that moment today. I had the ability to open my mouth and yank out the words, phrases so fucking casual that I can throw them at complete strangers, but so unnervingly tender when it comes to you. My hand was shaking with the slightest tremor as I scrawled in giant, black block letters. You were still there, right next to me. I couldn't hear anything other than HI HOW ARE YOU spinning in my head. Warp speed. I couldn't open my mouth. You didn't either, because you never do. No, okay, maybe you do, sometimes. & I do, sometimes. But not today. Neither of us, today.

I've always vaguely understood/surmised that you and I are a little bit alike- in that we both spend a lot of time in our heads. That maybe when we don't open our mouths, we might be thinking of saying hi, but we're also thinking of 87 other really important things and then the moment's gone, lost really forever but I don't mean that to be as world-ending as it seems, it just is, because that exact moment will never happen again. Well, I guess it could happen tomorrow. And the next day. But not after that.

What this means is that I have to be the bold one. I have to be the one to force myself to open my mouth, to get past the semi-ridiculous dramatizations debuting on an hourly basis in my head. You probably don't hate me. You probably also don't like me as much as I want you to, but that's negotiable, and that's also okay. I can't articulate what I want, realistically, but I know that I hate the fact that we ignore each other- purposely or otherwise. I don't want you to think that I don't like you. Maybe you don't care as much as I do- I almost know that you don't, because I care about you/this/us inordinately so- but I think [hope] that you care at least a little bit.

And if you don't, then that will be okay too.

I just want to get past this block in my heart. I just want to say hi, and I just want you to know that I wonder how you are.

message to myself:

"the one"
california.
ad.
chis.
great lakes.

everything is bigger than me, even stars, even dreams

Earlier this evening, I was sitting in my favorite courtyard downtown, and we have such a love/hate relationship, me and that courtyard. I love it most in the summer, when the sun is trickling down through the arching tree branches that act like a leaky roof- ineffective but beautiful nonetheless. But then I hate it most in the summer, specifically the first week of August, when it's overrun with locals and visitors and the stale sticky smell of spilled beer clashes with the terribly appetizing odor of all things fried food. & I hate it when these strangers, so foreign, trample through without recognizing an inch of the beauty in that courtyard, and yet I can't hold them responsible because you can barely see the history through the retina-burning colored tents, nor can you take your eyes off of the parade of sometimes horrifyingly clad people weaving over the bricks and around the trees and stray chairs.

I was sitting there, ignoring the pressing crowd around me, filtering through the rinse cycle in my brain. I was thinking about how I'd seen AC again today, how she'd smiled big and waved from across the street, looking dangerously cute as usual, but that's where it ended. & I was thinking about the lesbians, god they were out in droves today. Everywhere. But they weren't cute, and I was feeling disheartened as I always do when I see large groups of unattractive lesbians. It's so common, that train of thought-- "I'm going to be alone forever because the women that I find attractive are either A) horrible for me, or B) seemingly unattainable." So I started to feel pathetic for a hot minute, but then I remembered all of the options I have, like the nervous ability to transfer my skills to a different city, a different state, even a different country.

I have three friends that uprooted their lives, moved respectively to Wisconsin, Virginia/DC, and California. All three moved for professional reasons; two for jobs, one for working on her MBA. All three moved without attachments to any sort of attraction or romance. In fact, two of them moved from my area and both had dated me, at separate times (different years, actually), but neither was involved with me when she moved. The possibilities, for each of them, were limitless. They had no ties of the heart to contend with. They went, and they did. Not surprisingly, all three of them found love in the places that they moved to. They unearthed, uprooted, and discovered. My envy is tangible.

It's especially resonant now because one of those friends, the one who is currently living in California, is in town for a couple of weeks and we're planning on catching up this week. I can already hear what she's going to tell me- nothing I haven't already whispered to myself- about my job, my life, my romantic endeavors, and my unfailing like for the Obscure Object. Because we've had so many similar conversations in the past, even when she was trying to get in my pants, I can hear her tone of voice, hear the exact words she'll say. Comforting and scary. She's usually right. Sometimes I forget about how she asked me to drop everything and move to California with her. Sometimes I forget about how stubborn I can be.

The thoughts have waned now. It's one of my tragic downfalls. I write a novel in my head but can't get it out quick enough, and then it strings into pieces and disappears.

I'll see the Obscure Object tomorrow. I tried to force myself to write today, but I argued with myself. Again. Because I can't yet let go of what's in my head. Because I can't look her in the eye without feeling a porcupine scamper through my lungs. Because I don't even know what's real anymore.

one foot nailed to the ground

Today I ran into an old flame that never caught fire. I didn't think I'd recognize her, and I probably wouldn't have if she hadn't been standing beneath the sign of a building where we both worked (and consequently met/flirted something fierce), and if she hadn't been wearing a shirt with that company's logo. As it was, I did a triple-take before saying to J, "Uhm, isn't that AC?" And it was... probably due to my three whiplash looks in her direction, AC came over--- because she recognized J. Not me- which makes sense because like I said, I wouldn't have recognized her if I'd passed her on the street (it's been a good four+ years since we've really been face to face). So, of course, J felt the need to say to AC, "And you remember _______, right?" Awesome. I was happy to go unnoticed, but oh no. Not in the plans today. Small talk followed, laden with short-scripted details of 'where are you now' and 'how's the family.' It was surprisingly awkward, probably because AC and I never got our act together. Years ago, like I said, the flirting was rampant, and the attraction was obvious. But we never actually found time to explore our connection outside of work. Wasn't meant to be, clearly. Regardless, she has been an always-wonder for me.

She's totally hot, okay. And I am not immune to these things. AC has the most amazing smile, and she is a charmer. But I can't date charmers anymore. I usually discover that's all they've got to offer: charm. & usually a great smile that they then try to use to get them out of trouble. I'm not so much into saving graces anymore.

But today- there wasn't any spark. No butterflies. No unattractive sweating. Just, hey, how are you. I probably came off as aloof, but I am aloof sometimes, and like hell would I want AC to know, at this juncture, that I still entertain the idea of her. Without that spark, though, there's nothing more to wonder about.

Speaking of spark-- or, really, unattractive sweating: yesterday found me in the same room as the Obscure Object, and wonderfully, the air conditioning was nonexistent, and I could feel the sweat accumulating on my face. My FACE. What is this?! Just the sound of her voice makes me a little weak in the knees. That's fucking lame. This doesn't happen to me. Or, okay, it does: and always when I can't make a move to lessen the mystery.

I don't know, don't know, know.

if you could only see the way she __________ me

I realized several minutes ago that I'm not writing because I don't want to put this lingering story into words-- words spread across my computer screen, winding through the intense desire and mind-bending relative impossibility of a love so carefully/unconsciously grown, a love that rips through the most monotonous of every day tasks; the words will draw out the most shadowed recesses of my imagination (which is totally overactive despite this infatuation) and reveal entirely unfamiliar levels of yes/no.

I don't want to write it, because once I do, that'll be reality. The words, wound and bound. Black and white fiction. Fiction. When I write it, I'll have to face the reality that while the feelings are sometimes too real, the hypothetical and tangible situation is nonexistent (outside of the drawn-from-real-life seriously open-ended real-life experiences involving these feelings for this person). It'll be fiction, for real, but just fiction. & I guess there is a part of me that is unwilling to face that.

I was also browsing on Amazon earlier, ISO good reads (and what did I purchase? Cupcake, of course, because I need to know what CC is up to in NYC), and I got a little nervous that my eventual writing is going to be cliche. I don't want to be cliche. I don't want to write another typical lesbian love story. Uh uh, no sir, not my goal. But it's not as if I'm being proactive in any sense of the word. Me and my lofty goals of being a writer slam to the floor when I realize that in the language of a novella, I have to be real. I'm going to have to unearth the demons of unrequited love, because there is still a part of me that believes one writes best about the things one knows... intimately. So maybe it's not all fiction, for me. Fiction interspersed with the nonfiction of the heart.

In fact, speaking of proactive, which I am not, I am sitting here with two browsers open, totaling four tabs and one additional browser window for Solitaire. I also just im'd a friend to point out that simplicity can be lame, "However, I think complexity is sometimes overrated." Which's pretty amusing considering all the talking I've been doing about how a relationship with el sótano would never work because anything between us is completely superficial. Total lack of depth (which, alright, I think I could appreciate for maybe a handful of months at this point because I am exhausted with Deep Connections that only serve to fuck with my mind). Tiresome. All this talk about relationships/love/bullshit is so tiresome. & not a priority, not anymore.

I thought I'd see the Obscure Object today, but I didn't, and part of me was relieved. I never know at which angle my stomach is going to jump, if we'll even acknowledge each other, if my smile/eyes will betray me, or if she'd even notice.

If I write it down, it can be real for someone else's eyes, and maybe, I think, that's real enough.

stop (don't) the beat

I started to write about how I'm having trouble sleeping, which would have segued neatly into the repetitive thought patterns I'm having about A) ending my relationship, B) hating the neatly twisted, lingering what-if with el sótano, C) the impending doom of the beginning of the school year & how it's getting close, and D) the never ending fascination/wonder/tugging of the heartstrings surrounding the Obscure Object. .... and how one of my friends added fuel to the fire yesterday when she informed me that she'd overheard the Obscure Object talking about me. In a totally professional way, but, come on, she could have used 75+ other names/examples/ideas.

I almost just said WHY ME, but that would be a little pathetic, and I'm not playing that card.

I think happiness isn't a goal, it's that life is a journey, not a destination thing. But how could life be a destination? I'm not sure if I'd recognize happiness if it slapped me across the face. I wouldn't, actually, because I am happy, I just have piss-poor "luck in love" and continually end up with women who put on such tremendous airs to get me into their clutches, and then, then the pearly facade erodes and I'm left with a crippling pseudo-replica of whom I thought I was with. And then I get unhappy. Because it's not real. And things that are not real should be boundaried to staying in my head or on paper. So maybe I should not get into relationships until I've been dating someone for, oh I don't know, six years maybe. That should eradicate the possibility of discovering something, once latched into the Relationship, that is totally appalling and impossible to live with. But I guess not, because the Right People are forever evolving, changing, enhancing, and what you experience now is not what you will experience in eleven years. There is always more to learn, and room to grow.

I think, then, that I simply want to be with someone who takes advantage of the room we have in which to grow. Because me + stagnance = disaster.

El sótano told me, back before she started calling me a Liar and getting all fired up about supposed inconsistencies, that she wanted to A) be with me, B) do good by me, and C) have me rub off my better qualities on her so that she could grow as a person. She actually didn't say (C) in those words, because she doesn't speak like that, ever, but she gave me (and our mutual friend) the impression that she wanted to become a better person, and that she wanted to grow. The thing is, as rehashed in discussion yesterday with said mutual friend, while el sótano has the capacity to do these things (we all do, I truly believe that, but the WILL is an entirely different force to reckon with), she won't. Because she is emotionally stunted, and she always gives up before she achieves something intrapersonal and self-beneficial. I don't doubt that she would like to be faithful to me, but we all know she has a very hard time with this because she is not the type who does committment well. And that's fine, but being honest about that is key. She talks a good game, but it's game. And I am a really poor loser when it comes to games.

I've got to rid myself of the illusion of perfection floating before me. It's out of reach, it's probably a blown-up escapist fantasy, and I might not even want it if/when I conquer it. I need to pull a Kelly Taylor and choose me. Because that is probably the only real solution.

The more I want to let it go

I wonder if it's redundant to put honey on my Honey Nut Cheerios. This isn't a critical thought process, but really, the honey in Honey Nut isn't as bold as I want it to be. & I seem to have a slight addiction to honey. It's one of the fucking coolest substances out there- seriously. It's luxuriously thick, so much so that it sinks to the bottom of my bowl and when I scrape my spoon against the underbelly of the ocean of soy milk (alright, it's more like a small pond of soy milk), I unearth clumps of smooth honey. Totally makes my mouth happy, and that's important.

A couple years ago (three? four? : time overlaps anymore and I have a chronological impairment), when I was dating A, two things happened. We fell in love and therefore overlooked everything we ate, AND we began to put honey on everything (excluding ourselves, as far as I can recall, because I don't like being sticky; food + sex is not appealing to me, probably because when I was in high school, I was "hanging out" [he'd never admit we were seeing each other, and we couldn't qualify as dating since we never spent time together outside one of our houses, so apparently we were just Hanging Out] with this boy, the only boy I "dated" that I actually went to high school with, and we were experimenting sexually and once upon a time I do recall chocolate syrup [how cliche, how 1999 of us] being involved, and just, ew, now). The best part of the honey addiction was when we put it on ice cream cake. Hindsight says it was probably sweetness overkill, but thanks to my grandmother, I have an incorrigible sweet tooth. I'd eat ice cream for all 3 meals of the day if I wasn't so influenced by society's heavy-handed food rulebook. A and I did get our terrible eating habits under control, and then I started going to the gym a lot, and then I cut off all my hair, and then we broke up, and she was mad because now that I'd gotten "really hot," she wasn't dating me anymore. We haven't spoken since we broke up, which is strange considering we still live in the same area but because I don't go out much when I know a lot of the gays are out, we never run into each other.

The whole food thing is bothersome, though, because it's always on my mind. I lost my natural curves during a particularly shoddy relationship about five years ago. And admittedly, I really liked the fact that my hips & boobs shrank and finally allowed me to have somewhat of an androgynous body. It didn't last, though, because real life came back/the relationship ended, and all of a sudden, my stomach unclenched and I could eat again. Fast forward to seven months later, and I had my old body back. The curvy, in-your-face-girl body. Since then, I've been trying to shrink my hips. I haven't succeeded, but I have done a fairly excellent job of tightening my quads and calves, as well as honing some pretty kick-ass triceps.

I don't really eat well. I don't care to, because I like being alive, and I like enjoying my life, and therefore I like indulging when I feel the need. I go through spurts where I lack an appetite, and I have weeks where nothing but pizza/ice cream/french fries will quell my appetite. The key to me liking my body has to do with recognizing my limits, the most important of which is realizing when I'm hungry. This is such simple logic, really, but I can understand how people overeat. I eat when I'm bored and when I'm thirsty. Totally not proud of that, but it is what it is, and at least I recognize it. The good news is that I don't eat when I'm upset... I am definitely not an emotional eater. What I forget, sometimes, is that I don't have to eat when I'm not hungry just because all the food authorities tell eager listeners that you need to eat three balanced meals + three light snacks a day. Sometimes I'm not hungry after I eat my fucking Cheerios, okay? Does that mean my metabolism is going to collapse in on itself if I don't eat again until 5pm? NO. Well, actually, I'm !!!! I was going to say I'm right-brained, but the quiz I just took is telling me I'm 65% LEFT-BRAINED. This can't be! Oh shit, I think I'm becoming logical in my late-twenties. That is the suck. I'm losing my creativity/flexibility because I'm not writing. See, no one to blame but myself!

Anyway. All that just to remind myself to do what's right for me, fuck people who tell me what I'm doing is wrong, and eat when I'm hungry and leave it at that.

subtle imperfections / i think i know too much

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/abo/768961969.html

I'd like that. Like, now. I'd need a roommate though, and it'd have to be someone as modestly introverted as I am. And it'd have to not be someone currently in my life who also wants to make the shift to true city life (because this "city/town" that I live in now is pushing the limits of wanting to be bigger than it really is).

Slowly, I'm allowing myself to realize that my tendency of feeling boxed-in and claustrophobic, though bizarrely comforting at times, is unhealthy and can only be remedied by uprooting this life.

I came into this summer with high hopes of: remaining single, keeping my head above water, Figuring Things Out, getting lost in New England (mainly Maine), writing, organizing my life, bettering my soul. It hasn't really panned out to any of those accomplishments, and I didn't think those were lofty goals, really. Totally attainable. But I should have known myself better.

I allowed myself to be lured back into my formerly dismantled relationship; we broke apart for all of 2 months, maybe. I went back in with these outrageous expectations and not even a month later, I'm already disenchanted. Bitter, too, I think. And yet, because I am who I am (a part-time eternal optimist/total closet masochist), I've stayed/persevered and continue to try and make it work. Probably, I A) should not have allowed this to happen, B) should not tough it out, and C) am a slight moron in the heart area.

While I have completed significant beach time, I haven't ventured to Maine, which's completely sad because I haven't been there in ten years. Or eleven? Last time I was there, I had a boyfriend instead of a boifriend (and I've never said that out loud but one of my exes refers to herself as a "boi" so it's only fair that I lump her into that terminology; she'd like it if she wasn't busy sending me text messages about how she hopes I'm happy that I'm a liar, but I've no fucking clue what I'm lying about especially if I haven't spoken to her in three weeks), had long hair, and wore a lot of striped shirts from The Gap. Maine is beautiful and prime for escapism; the kind with brilliant mountains and ankle-numbing wisps of waves. Also, lots of rocks and lobster, but I'm not the seafood type.

I'm not sure what exactly I thought I would Figure Out over the summer (and I love how I keep writing as though the summer is over when it's not even August yet), but it probably had something to do with:
1. The Former Ex, Now Current Again
2. The 5 Years Ago Ex, recently resurrected Something, now thinks I'm a Liar and is a WTF Nothing
3. The Persistent Infatuation/Never Gonna Get It
4. Non-heart/libido things like my job, where else I want to get certified, where I can transfer to finish grad school
5. My Work with the Keyboard/Pen, which has been completely nonexistent since, actually, I shoved off #2 and gave #1 the means to enter stage left

About that #5... I don't know why it's so hard for me to write when I'm feeling mostly normal. And "normal," of course, is such a loose term for semi-okay-not-crushed-&-incapacitated-by-tedious-affairs-of-the-heart-&-libido. My dad is forever telling me that I'm dramatic/a good writer, but he seems incapable of putting together the equation. In order to be a good writer, I have to have a good imagination, which therefore lends an artistic and perhaps exaggerated perspective when dealing with/manipulating data in my everyday life. I'm not dramatic; I simply like to react (usually), embellish (sometimes), and have a wide variety of facial expressions that generally do not include casual/constant smiles. Why I struggle with taking the hideous normalcy of my life and turning it into something creative, I so don't know.

What I can do in these dwindling days of my summer freedom is attack with vengeance the possibilities that are accessible to me. Totally possible. And yet, kind of improbable. Which's lame.

i will show how i take casual & embellish into:

Heartsick is not among my favorite
feelings. Nor is sadness due to the inability
to have the one I want, nor a billowing sheath
of perpetual lovelust wonder.
I gave you my words, scrawled out in the heat
of the night, darkness pressing onto my curved
back and curiousity swallowing my swollen heart.
The envelope skittered onto your desk and I had turned
away before I realized that you had picked it up,
cut it open, absorbed the delicately threaded words (much as
you have done to me without the slightest awareness).
You came after me,
calling my name quietly,
meeting my stationary form in the dusty damp hallway.
You thanked me, a deliriously serious and heartfelt
gaze decorating your face, and our bodies came together
in one sweet casual moment,
fitting perfectly
as I've known and worried they would.

embellishment:

You were hungry, you explained. So hungry, and I came at just the right moment
with a box stocked full of tantilizing treats.
You nearly grabbed the box
from my hands
your skin skimming my own
in your frantic sedentary beline for calories.
Filling a void, again and again,
I've watched you try to close the emptiness.
Your eyes dug into mine,
steady aqua shoving against yellow-green.
I wanted your hunger--
I wanted you to admit your hunger.
I am perceptive, you know this,
and we stalk the white elephant in the room
tripping into lines of vision, sprawling
into purposefully ignorant stares.
Tonight I will drink to the chance,
to the cinematic daydream of us,
to the I can see that murmur from our friend,
to the way you drove your gaze into me this afternoon,
to the off-handed smiles and spin-cycle flushes,
to the delerium brought on by your everything,
to how I anger you, and how you frustrate me,
and I will drink to the drink I hand you
in wind-tossed hope and pure,
heart-seizing possibility.

i'm not in love / so don't forget

I don't want to admit
that I like it when you call me baby.
And I won't tell you
that I smile when your tongue slips
and you call me sweetie.
A week, six months, a year.
Ready or not, we might come
as we did
over, and over, and over again.
I sang you eighties love songs
as my fingers played over the warm ocean between your thighs.
You laughed, the sunlight startled us,
and we remembered everything that's always been wrong
is fucking ---.

Won't you come and stay

No / yes / no

I dreamt of segue and transition, all the things we've lacked for five years. Off/on, pressure points blasted by full throttle passion. Yes/no/yes- you've never made up your mind. I broke the word happy over our restless flesh, the sweat drawing tension on my tattooed back. The word rained down like petulant raindrops; a midday reprieve from thunder-dance and you need space.

Where we pay homage to each verb tense, we rest easily in the past. We did, we were, it was, we had. I was. You were. We aren't.

This is a transference of desire. A repetition of never-could-be. Bad timing. Nothing wrong, and that's what's right/wrong.

I could stay here with you forever and be content.

Your mouth stole my lips, my breath, my wary response. The silence robbed my sarcasm, my witty heart-hidden reply. Your fingers pushing through my hair, small brown eyes shut against the glare of sunshine showering over us. I have no remedy for the sickness that's eaten us, the cataclysmic notion that we could be anything more than what we've already been (disaster).

A gold star, a lick of communication. A first.

I have no strings to bind your hands. You won't let me fuck up.

I saw her this morning, and all I could think of was you.
I can't believe I just admitted that.

transference

We've passed from pleasure into pain,
a trimlined segue weeding through
the realm of improbability where sits
your heart and mine.
I have not conquered fear, and it shifts within me
as our mountains stretch into plateaus,
a dancing tendril of daylight creeping
around our purposeful midnight.
I am split open, wounded
for the ruminations, the overlapping rush hour
repetition mottled against our
every-day easy sensual nothing.

You are my sweetest downfall

Sky blue, a new sparkle - (Danish blue; the color of your eyes in June). 21 months of never recognizing. A quick seven months of prolonged wanderlust, desirious deliberation. Fanatical curiosity. I've never asked because I still don't want to know.

Each rise of rose to your cheeks, each maddening flush of my face. Each cryptically ignored register of proximity. You pulled me in when I wasn't expecting to be acknowledged, my tongue smoothly obliging to the context of the conversation that preceeded my entrance. The recesses of my mind tangled over the elevator kiss, trepidation and I dare, but you strayed and brought the focus to a side of you I've never known.

I mistakenly thought you were a passing fantasy.
I don't understand how I've allowed you to become more than that.

Today, you held my stare for a split second longer than average. In a room full of people. We were too close but not close enough -- always, always. There is fire linked between us and you squash the flame.

Intrinsically, I can't tell you if it's going to be or will always be a what if. My head is a blurred mess of fantasy crossing into our greyed-out reality. Did you understand what you wore today? And did you mean to catch my eye so many times, ride out my gaze while talking to everyone else? Did your eyelashes catch on fire from the inferno shooting from my heart?


You are fucking killing me in the most alluring of ways~

Keep with me forward, all through the night

You've infiltrated this house, leaving
fibers of indecency smattered with lust-
I smell you as I walk through the rooms,
a literal fucking ghost meeting me with each pace. I'd be angry
if it meant we'd fallen in love.
You spat the marriage word again, a familiar
intonation of the much-repeated wish to keep
me, tie me down, not let
anyone else have me. But that's not how you mean it.
You don't want me for love,
we want each other for lust. There would be others,
you explain over your naked torso and my lazy fingertips.
Us, and others. Together and separate, all at once and
never at all. For a moment, I think I could
play house with you:
house with a revolving door for our egos and our libidos,
house with an unspoken but laughed about connection.
We didn't get it together years ago, and we won't get it together
now, but where there is nothing to lose,
there cannot be loss.



(i like what we have become/your hands crushing into me/my tongue scalding over you/our naked breasts to our naked backs/you buy dinner/i buy breakfast)

toss & turn around all of the time

I can't tell if I'd rather
A) Get over you
B) Discover that you want me as much as I want you.


Fucking obcrussions.

I don't know why it's so hard to consider this

I am backlash where you are rounded corners easing into synthetic formations. The desert of my heart is aching for a reprieve, and your side-mouthed words, transpiring over your shoulder, do nothing but flame my fire with both animosity and ambivalence.

"A little over the top, don't you think?"

Maybe. And maybe my attraction to you has always been just that.

What do I do with all these letters I wrote to myself

I know it's not a lost cause (you probably are, you know that?) but it is tangled. Weeds to cut through, sidestep the roots.

I'm having a hard time understanding that it's 7pm.

I slammed my car door shut today and caught a glance thru someone else's window. I thought it was you. Such a visceral thought, a synthetic jolt through my already tense body. The same nose, the same slips of hair shaping the chin. How could she have your nose? It's plagiarism, art-copy, motionless irreducible fallacy. Her hair was short, shaped differently. I've rationalized this in the several hours that have passed. It wasn't your car. It wasn't you. "Why don't you just grab her and kiss her?"

Tying your shoes is easy.

We spun NYC in the palms of our hands and somewhere in the spins of the park your teeth let go of my heart and I haven't seen it since. Off somewhere with my common sense, my practicality, my way of making life work. I Freudian slipped anyone for anyway and I told you this class was going to further instigate my natural inclination to think.too.much.

It's not an accident / you meant to touch me

I'm trying to get past this, you know. I'm trying to let go and forget and not meet your eyes (which is something I've never been good at- not even when it's the mystery of just us and four imposingly warm walls and a gloss of chatter running over, under, all through the mess of unspoken theories and hypothetical feelings). I gave word that I was tired of having these feelings. Sick of the absurd unrequited nature of the propelled-by-lack heart/swell I'd grown of you. And I am sick of it, I'm just not sick of you. I gave word. My word. And the very next day, you drew me back in with such a simple gesture, a natural movement that shouldn't have turned my insides to pulsing warm marbles. The original grip, the surprise gentle slide of a caress reserved for my picture perfect romance (the one where I keep putting you in the role of my Other, my mirror image, my like opposite). But there it was: that prized movement, you against me, so simple as we are but so unnervingly complex (as we are). And not moments later, that dead-lock eye to eye match of wit against authority. A moment tangled between reason and desire. My yen suffered the blow of time and place; my security won again.

It wasn't an accident.You meant to touch me.

IDR and I talked about it/you last night. We were covering Lacan in class, one of my favorites, and the idea of the Lack was at the front of our minds. IDR said my confused want for you is due to what I'm lacking in my life. Of course it is. I mean, it makes sense beyond sense. I don't have what I want, I have something that I thought I wanted and simply cannot handle, and I see in you, crazy maybe, what I want. Need? I don't want to need anything, especially you.

I can't get you out of my head.

We only ever do the same things twice

A slow waking. I wake to sleep and I take my waking slow.

There's no mystery anymore. We dissolved it months ago, put it all on the table and massaged away the ugly remnants of things that should have never been. And so now, the words lie evenly, surrender slowly. We make sense. I know you (how/ time // resolved fascination, and I just do). I like it just as it is.

A lazy day [productively lazy with laundry, grocery shopping, tying up of loose ends, filing taxes, going to read for class] restores the soul.

Our latest conversations sit sweetly in my brain. Nothing more, nothing less. It just is.

I stood my ground this week and was, somehow, subsequently rewarded. Thing is, I'm not a doormat. Maybe I was, in that stifling debilitating "former life," but I've outgrown those roots and settled into something less malleable. One of my whimsical fantasies came to life. Fantasy/wish. Semantics.

Day to day, I watch things fall apart around me. Lack of will, lack of want, overabundance of lack of care. A desire for destruction.

You may never change // I already have.

You're onto me / all over me

I am realigned in fragments of your voice;
the tenacity between us stretches,
bends with breaks and flowswith outsourced rhythm. Undulating,
absconding, rudimentary linguistics
that fail my schema and imagery.
Outside the air bites with ferocity;
inside, my limbs weaken with misplaced
modifiers and the tangle of my heart
within your incisors.

I dedicate a vivid hue

The problem posed:
If xy - 1 = 0, then y=
A) -1/x
B) 0
C) 1/x
D) 1
E) x

Math(you) has/have never been my strong suit,
my forte diminished to synthetic nightmares
coursing through fanatical dreams.
Cyclical words and lack of action.
I vote for D or E,
and it's a fragment of a wish that
still dangles from my frontal lobe.
This mess of mathematical unlikelihood
would be exponentially easier
(our unspoken balance, faltering firepops, integers to syllables)
if you were here.

I've had enough temporary acquisition

VI.
Snap. Focus. Step back, second glance. Tentative click- second guess, click. Erase. Zoom. New lens, wider angle. Zoom. Focus. Refocus. Realign. Pose. Motion. Shadows. Refocus. Snap. Snap. Snap. Setting sun. Focus. Erase. Delete all. Empty. Search. Zoom. Focus. Still.

October
My fingers are stuffed down the front of your jeans and all you can think to say is: "I don't remember where I left my keys." My teeth grip the edge of your shoulder. I can't remember where we began and you can't recall who you are. I fuck you and taste a stranger. Your keys are in my pocket, your fingers are gripping my ass, everyone is leaving and I want to disappear.

Exhume
We ran digital analysis over our late afternoon bodies. Numbers glinted in the awkward sunlight beaming through the blinds. I couldn't add and you laughed through the multiplication of our limbs and digits, identities and secrets. The night I met you, you scribbled a poem on my inner thigh and told me to follow you home. I chased your coattails up W 181st onto Fort Washington Ave. You were a blur of red and black, bursting through parked cars and errant cabs. I watch the movement of life now, gridlocking on the GW Bridge, and wonder when I'll find my way home.

The sweetest sadness in your eyes

She took my hand and we slipped on misplaced starlight, discarded daydreams littering with sonata-ringing wishes. My brain ached from the fusion of our dangerous souls- those perforated egos lined with shark-sharp zippers- that rude clash of tenacity versus clutchingsenselessheartattack. Bare feet, bare arms, bare wrist to your bare forehead. The fever between us ran cold. I never did care why.

Why don't you touch me where I'm rusty / let me stain your hands

Backwoods and dirt, my fingernails bitten and tangled with the weeds that scraped over your mouth. We fought for words and tangoed with illusion; reality was a smeared landscape that trailed us for miles through the twists and curls of state by state, landmark by escaping fuel. We had a thread of dignity left over from months ago. A notion of how it was and what it could be but we couldn't stand together, alone, in What It Is. And I fought you, line against rhythm, joke butting up against pretense. My knuckles skinned to misery and blood-sweat rimmed my clavicles. I busted through a memory of What I Wanted This To Be; my teeth were bared and my ribs cracked open to reveal an unfurling knot holding my heart inside my chest. Together, alone, we sat mesmerized by the shredding reeds and split-end hemp fibers. You smoked my danger, my energy, my last wit. In the glow of your midday high, you told me you loved me and I whispered that I don't.