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.