Every five years or so I look back on my life

.... and have a good laugh.

From 7.21.05:

I want: to shave my head, to cover my arms with ink, to further diminish my curves, to wear my glasses more often, to cut my wardrobe in half, to finish school, to get a job at an accepting alternative type high school where I am free to be who I want to be no matter what the day or month, to write and be successful with my craft.

And I will.


I penned that during the summer before my final year of undergrad work, while I was in a dying relationship with a woman I rarely see, and never speak to, now. I was working in a bookstore, which had its perks. I was fumbling through a world I didn't really fit into. At that time, I think I had about 3 tattoos.

I still want more, I still want to "cover my arms with ink."

I never shaved my head... the hair has grown, been chopped off twice, grown again, and now is short. And that's my comfort. For the moment, anyway. It's me. For now, I think.

I never got rid of my curves. I probably never will. These hips are here to stay, jutting as they are at times. I still don't love my curves, but I do love my body. 90% of the time, anyway, mostly.

I want lasik, not glasses.

I could be on an episode of Hoarders for the amount of t-shirts I own. And I'm not ashamed.

I finished school, quite well, and got that job teaching high school. But: this is not an alternative, terribly accepting place of employment. It's accepting enough, but I'm not protected, and truth be told, this is not the job I want for the rest of my working life. It's not even the job I aim to have in five years. In 8-9 short-ish months, I will be finished with my MA in English and then... then I can begin to find a new path.

Don't get me started on the writing. And how unbelievably it leaves me.



There is just so much more I want to be.

(never again)

my girlfriend wants me to write in black and white
stray the obtuse to another universe
and i don't know if i can, but
i told her i'd try.

you see
the thing is
the problem exists
or the conflict permeates
i don't like to see you in permanent colors
i much prefer the shades
the maybes
the whatevers and the
i don't really know if that happened,
the
i don't know if you really exist.

in my world, here/now
you fall from gravity
disperse into foreign, untouchable lands.
i prefer it that way
after spending years entrenched in your solitude
your whims and disastrous mess
of a world:
a world i still think isn't concrete, isn't
real.

i said goodbye to you
when i told you "enough"
when i realized your lies and exclusions
far outweighed any semblance of truth you could muster.
because i guess that's the catch
your reality isn't real
which defeats the purpose of real-ity anyway.

if you want my truth, i can deliver it:
yes, i loved you.
yes, i believed in us.
yes, i tried to fix you.
yes, i realize, now, how fucking stupid i was.

ownership.
you were never mine.
you could never untangle yourself from the demons,
from the temptations, from the want
of others.
you taught me to self-exist
to not depend
to look at you through eyes clouded with regret.
you taught me
to leave.

what we had was disaster
imprinted with tiny stamps of affection
blistering fragments of love
or something like it.
i don't believe in perfect
and hadn't before you
so this mess you left me with
didn't make me believe
less or more
or at all.

sure, you loved me
in the way that only you could love.
not with your hands or mouth,
not even with your heart,
but with some fractured piece of your mind
that was bloodied and bent.
you wanted to love me.
i get that.
clearly.
and i loved you with most of my heart
except for that piece that was reserved for another.
it was love, okay. i accept.

but that is love
i wouldn't wish on anyone.

i tried to save you
in saving us.
i wanted to breathe life back into you
or make you see the world
the way i wanted to see it.
i wanted you
to be whole
and you couldn't do it.
that's fine -- i accept.
but, just for the record:
you didn't have to drag me through that with you.
i would have been fine,
better,
without it.
without you.

i wish i could write, now,
in this haze of blue moon,
what i loved about you but all i can think of
is your smile.
and how rare it was, so of course
when i actually saw it, in its realness,
i loved it.

i don't hate you, just so you know
but you don't
and i don't care much either way.
you broke these fantasy bones
tempered my optimism
and you made me weak.
but you and i
in our last goodbye
were finite
and i was free.

chris pureka would say
you were a lesson in losing
and lesson in letting go.
i wish i had known that
in june of 2006
or august of 2006 (i was blind then).
the decembers, always the decembers.

you see:
i don't know what was true.
your lies
and exclusions
exemptions
counteract any act of kindness
or love.
with you,
i don't know what was real
so it's easiest to simply say:
nothing
was real.

and yet you rest in me
this dark, troubled muse.
we bounce together
struggle against our mouths
you want to say no
and i keep saying
yes, yes, yes.
yes, breathe,
yes, release.
there is no space for you inside, here.
yes, let go.
yes.

and then, there was:

what happened to passion

what happened to my desire to do this thing well,

this thing that pays,

that keeps me moving m-f,

that puts me in the direct line of fight

sometimes fire

i end up so exposed

and raw to the bone.

and passion (when outside these walls

wild and full and pure beauty)

is a misnomer

or i just haven't found it

here.

yesterday my girlfriend

(because she is secretly a lawyer)

made me see sides i didn't want to see

or think about

because obviously of course

she asked me questions

i've already asked myself.

i don't have the answers, really

now or ever

but really

i don't remember why i chose this

other than for my love of language

words

stories

hypotheses

theories

long-winded tall-tongued whirl-shake discussion.

i like symbolism, too.

and symbolically my presence here

is death, i think.

i am not fulfilled.

i am not moving forward.

i am entirely stagnant and impatient

save for those brilliant moments

the ones that re-root me

and answer "why?" with "yes."

when i get the urge to escape

wanting to run away

buy a farm

live in a tree

pack my cats (and my girl) and go

it's clear:

i need change.

so i dream of the west coast

of beginnings and continuations

of a slate unmarred by

a reign of unholy terror

sandwiched between attack dogs

and cannons too loose to trust.

i think maybe that is the worst part

that i have nowhere to go, here.

they have taught me to trust no one, not

a one of them.

largely because

they don't appear to trust me.

i have to be professional

in 45 small minutes

i have to buck up

slap a smile on

get my shit together

and be who i am

while being who they want me to be.

in a trickle of honesty

i don't know how i'm going to pull that off

it's too early in the year to cry

over such petty, bullshitty things.

or miscommunications.

or an intended-to-be helpful chat.

i tell my people

to suck it up

and move on.

they don't always listen

and apparently

neither do i.

I want to be the fire you need

Epiphany last night: I haven't been the "aggressor" in a very long time. It's no wonder, then, why my assertive nature has been lying dormant, tucked down in order to save itself from rejection. Etc.

I round it off and say that I've had four serious, long term, "monogamous*" relationships with women. I qualify serious with the in-love factor; there are two other women that I consider ex-girlfriends, but I was never in love with either of them. And there have been dalliances, but again, regardless of the nature of those blips on my radar, they never became serious.

So! My first girlfriend- we got together when I was growing into my own gay skin. I was 20. She was six years older than me, and obviously far more experienced than I was. But that never stopped me with her. Hands down, that was the relationship in which I was most assertive, even aggressive, and I felt so unbelievably confident-- despite the fact that I, at first, really had no idea what I was doing. She provided a lot of firsts for me- I don't know that I did any of the same for her. But the bones of this: I was fearless, with her.

Why? BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE ANY LESBIAN BAGGAGE WEIGHING ME DOWN!

Enter my next girlfriend: El sotano. She is the most sexually aggressive woman I have ever been with; I have serious doubts that I could ever find anyone quite like that ever again. (I suppose that's why we've continued to fuck here and there over the years since we- so justly- parted.) I never had to do a damn thing, initiation-wise. I became very, very accustom to her assertiveness and watched my own start to fade into the background. Of course, there's an explosion of other pieces that go along with this sexual union, and that helps to explain my lack of assertion- she had another girlfriend for a good part of our time together. Ah, yes. I didn't know how to handle that at the age of 22, 23.

After that came a string of not-much-at-all (those 2 semi-serious relationships fall into this time frame), and then came A. I don't have a nickname for her; I rarely mention her. But we spent about 9 months in a relationship that progressed so sweetly, so non-aggressively. I remember initiating here and there, being perhaps a little assertive, but we were so not a match when it came to the bedroom. I oh so fondly recall her saying to me: "You don't have to fuck me like a jackhammer." Awesome! Yeah, so not a match. But again... my assertion was sleeping.

This leads us through another bout of random, semi-sexual encounters. Then comes Great Lakes. She dominated my life for the better part of three years- and I've been completely free of her for nine months. What remains is this fucking block I have with my assertive nature. Great Lakes mutilated that. Totally fucking destroyed it. I was told that I could not initiate sex- and then, many months later, when I voiced my annoyance with the fact that we were not having any sex to speak of, she blamed me. For not taking charge. This is just a shiny little glimpse into the utter bullshit that circled around our every waking moment together. I was never on steady ground with her- mentally, vocally, and certainly not sexually. When there was sex, it was pretty good, but that's what crazy people are good at: fucking. It was a major control issue with her. And within her issues, I totally lost my ability to be A) forthcoming (sexually), and B) assertive (in any way you can imagine).

Now, the healing. I did a lot of that over the summer. I dated quite effectively and did my thing, whatever. I was entirely conscious of everything I did. I dated C for a while and knew it wasn't going anywhere. Sexually- so not a match. I was relying on her to be assertive, and apparently she's not. I wanted to be taken care of, I think. I wanted someone to provide for me all the things that were so severely lacking in my previous relationship. I didn't want to be in control.

It's been a few months since I stopped seeing C. It's given me a chance to continue to claw back to the roots of who I am- and last night, it finally hit me. I was so much fucking happier when I had a heavy hand with control and when I was more assertive. So what the FUCK am I waiting for?

What's going on now is... well, it's interesting. It's a very -be here now / stay in the moment- kind of thing. & it's fun. & sexy. & it makes me smirk, a lot, because it's under most people's radar.

Part of it is almost demanding me to be assertive. I've been doing a fair job with that, I think, and it's helping me to reclaim that part of me I so miss. I've had to realize that there's very little threat of rejection, now. And that commands me to let go of that nagging fear and just go with it... which, again, I've been doing. It's hard, though! Being the non-assertive piece of a (oh fuck, what can I call this... hmm...) fuck-pair (hah!) is SO much easier than being the assertive piece. But if I'm not assertive, I'm sure as shit not going to get what I want, and I was an incredibly patient, hint-dropping factor in this equation for quite some time. There's no reason for my patience now. My caution, yes, and consideration. But patience? Uhm, no. I see no room for it.

What needs to increase is my level of assertion/aggression. Not anger-aggression. More like sexy-hot-fuck aggression. That want has been voiced. I'm still working my thoughts- certainly not my feelings- around this. It's hard to instantly turn that dormant part of myself back on, full volume. So I'm slinking in. She's doing her part, too, which surprised me at first but I so obviously fuckin' love it. It's been a long time since a single sentence has made desire so thoroughly flood through my body. And that very much helps with ye olde nagging fear of Rejection. The little bits- words, notions, suggestions- are helping me steel up, stand taller, drop the past and focus on here & now. It's working.

We're learning~



*monogamous in theory, of course. Not always in practice. ALL ARE TO BLAME!

Dear 2009:

I am leaving you with a lot of feelings.

Some resolved, some freshly scratched open. Some aired out and blown into the fall and swirl of any day's breeze. Some tucked beneath my ribs, pushing against my heart, growing... sleeping... wandering. Pacing. Aglow. Some: still, untended, brittle at the core. & some have rushed up and out to hang in the air like a haze you don't exactly want to see through.

I already know two things. 1) This could be wickedly long, and 2) parts will be unceremoniously vague while others are clear to the point.

FEELINGS: Despondent. Heartbroken. Confused. Gradients of Sadness & Anger. [All resolved]
Perhaps the biggest chunk of 2009 was The Great Letting Go. Consider the break in November 2008- ripe and explosive before a string of holidays. Perfect! Tack on six months of back and forth, do we don't we, we really fucking should not, but maybe we almost could... until, finally, my backbone recalled itself and said: Fucking no, goodbye. Cue a week's worth of downward spiral including one extreme hallucination and terribly restless nights that led to sleeping on my desk at work. Most definitively not my finest hours, that week. Or, really, the first six months of 2009 = some of the roughest blurs of my 2009-life.

(That is what happens when you give three years of your life to someone who perhaps means well but truly cannot give you any shape of what you need because she is too consumed with her own demons.)

FEELINGS: Bright Spot. Intrigue. Want. [Tucked down for months]
In the middle of The Great Letting Go of 2009, there was February. Mixed messages. Music. The kind of held eye contact that makes your palms sweat. Suggestion. Intoxicated flirting. Growing awareness of the simplest connections. Plain & simple curiosity. I knew I wanted her and didn't have the words or actions to show it outside of a wine-induced comment that fluttered then shot from my ribs, out my mouth, into the air, into her ears.

FEELINGS: Achievement. Forward-motion. Validation. Total Awesomeness. [FINALLY]
March took me to Tampa. Tampa took me to USF. Kate Bornstein. Gender/Sex skews. FC, SW, LP. A very healthy & happy few days of relaxation with B&L. On a whim, my submission "for fun" turned into presentation & future publication. It also catapulted me into reassessing my future in the education world, and where I want to go. I still don't know where I want to go, or how I want to get there, but without this experience, I don't know that I'd have the motivation to change course.

FEELINGS: China blue. Want. [Tucked down for months]
Minutes. Literally, minutes. Less than five. It was the quickest reminder of "Oh, right... want." Thank you, end of May. Circles, and circles, circles again. Circles, and circles, got to stop spinning

FEELINGS: Possibility. Curiosity. Want? Hope. [Here & gone]
Enter several women. My ins & outs of March-September. I thought I wanted each of them more than I actually did. Call it healing, call it fooling myself, call it Time. If I had been ready, for any of them, I imagine it would have happened. I count 5. If we tack on the currently-unresponded-to-email I received today, make it 6. As I type, 2 more linger in the backdrop. I have learned to push like a professional... pusher. There are times when I want to beat myself up over this, but I have learned that it's not happening with these women because I don't want it to. Not a one of them is who I want to be with on any level outside of friendship. I tried. I did. I was entirely aware of what I was doing and how I was feeling. I've been honest and cognizant. But you can't create a spark when your match won't ignite.

FEELINGS: Freedom. The Wander. Love, Life, Living. [Continuing ad infinitum~]
The Summer of 2009 was one of the best summers I have ever had. Point blank; there's no fancy way to phrase that. I was spontaneous, happy, unbridled, and hungry for life. Rehoboth (recall the bruise on my spine from the railing on the deck). Dewey Beach. San Diego. Pine Island. Richmond. Outerbanks. I lived my life. I got an incredible tan, did not work out as much as I should, read books, whittled time away by staring at nature. It was perfection, and I absolutely did not want it to end.

FEELINGS: Rapture. [Tucked]
It had been months, and at first glance, every muscle tightened and I dared myself to look away. But I couldn't. A few weeks later, time was on my side, and while the fire glowed and the marshmallows and sticks burned, I reveled in the simplicity of good friends. My want stayed safely inside. It was the best place for it.

FEELINGS: Absence. Second-guessing. The Final Push in Letting Go. [Resolved]
Fall has never been much on my side. 2009 was no different. Fall beats me up, chews around, spits me out in pieces that I'm left to string together in a semblance of The Real Me. I survive fall. This fall, I pushed so many people away. I just wanted to be alone. Quite honestly, much of October and November are a blur of going through the motions (however, I did run my first 5k somewhere in there) and a few too many Friday-after-school beers. I entered this strange period of self-loathing and didn't want much to do with anything or anyone. There were Bright Spots tangled amid other bouts of confusion, but overall, fall failed me. Or I failed it.

I'm glad it's winter.

FEELINGS: Spinal. Guttural. Rushes to the head. [Loved & Over but Present]
I have a dirty habit of not getting mad, of not feeling or directing my anger. This was pointed out to me somewhere in 2009, probably in its early stages. I got mad about the fact that I don't get mad. How meta. Despite my overabundance of them, I love feelings. To realize that I was not capitalizing on the most powerful of feelings was a good kick in the ass. In November or December, I got really fucking mad. And I unleashed. I do not like it when people do not listen to me, but only hear me. You need to fucking listen to my words. Someone didn't, and someone heard all about it. The surge of anger was tipping my nerves into sunshine, and I felt so goddamn alive. There was no holding back; every last bit came out.

It was the first time I'd yelled in probably years. Perhaps some of the anger was misdirected [Great Lakes never got yelled at, and if anyone should bear the fire of my ire, it would be her but that is a lost cause of imperceptible proportions] but most of it was justified. Weeks later, the same person pissed me off, and my spine straightened. It was fucking amazing, and I am never bending again.

FEELINGS: Gratitude. Safety. Love. Stomach-aching Laughter. [Endless~]
One thing that has been made perfectly clear to me throughout 2009 is that I have amazing people in my life. My family is entirely supportive & loving of all my pitfalls and strengths, and my friends are saints for putting up with my over-thinking bullshit. Having been untangled from a controlling relationship, my freedom to do whatever with whomever (and not have to lie about it in order to avoid a fight) has taken over. My internal hermithood may never evaporate, but I don't think I've ever been this social in my life. And the truth is... I enjoy it. Granted, it makes the lay-low-at-home days that much more meaningful. I do not ever again want to lose sight of the goodness that exists in my life. It can be enhanced, absolutely, but I have no reason to not be happy with what I have. That feeling, that recognition-- irreplaceable.

FEELINGS: Peace. Appreciation. Clarity? Hope. [Here... hopefully to stay]
Continuing from the Gratitude, I think it's important to express the feeling of peace I am at with my life. I've not felt peaceful in years. Part of that is due to my constant interaction with women. Dating, relationships, dalliances, whatever. By the beginning of December 2009, I was wholly unattached and very much at peace with it. Am I willing to explore something with someone? Absolutely. Just don't disturb my peace~

FEELINGS: Want. Surprise. Comfort. Warmth. Curiosity. Release. Hot. [...processing]
Truth: I did not expect to end 2009 in this way. My patience had taken over the best of me.

When you are with me, I tend to lose focus. My tongue takes its own trek with words, and my mind flows over and above the conversation dribbling between us. But I was on par that night. The previous two? Not so much. But that night, yes, I was exactly where I wanted to be. It appears that you were, too. Thank you, winter.

It's a want that has tightened my nerve-endings for quite some time. Fulfilling that want... I don't know that I have the words, but perhaps this will do for now: the strongest memory is my mouth, your mouth, moving together, your head lifting ever so from the pillow. One of my hands in your hair. The other hand meeting your hand, your fingers lacing through mine. That is the image cemented in my mind. There are many other sweeps of recall from that night, and you already know I remember everything (though I admit: parts of conversation are hazy), and I could go on with descriptions and images but I don't want to. I want this tucked beneath my ribs with the surges & sparks that follow the memories. I want to keep it safe. Honestly: I don't know how to write it. I do know that you are fucking beautiful, and my want continues.

FEELINGS: Closure. [AMAZING!]
2009 was, kindly, a learning experience. To emerge from the year without new battle wounds is a huge achievement. I've healed, processed, moved forward. I know myself, now, better than I have in a very long time. And I'm comfortable with who I am. I don't put up with bullshit or crazy. I take care of me on a daily basis. I breathe deeply and completely. While I may never stop over thinking, I at least have learned to better compartmentalize my wayward thought processes. I don't feel the need for anything, but I continue to want. My priorities are (relatively) clear. I have had these incredible bursts of awareness & happiness amid the general peace of my life. I am well.


So, thanks 2009, for all the feelings. You've given me a lot to work with. & as I write this, 2010 looms less than 12 hours away. I'm ready for it; I know it will be good to me as long as I am good to it.

this is you- me- lonely

I wonder when my walls will tumble down. Is it something I have to manufacture? Do I need to climb them, scale them to their uppermost perches, in order to rip them down, sheet by sheet of startlingly thick glass?

That's me: you can see me. Anyone can, if they look hard enough. My eyes hide nothing, which is why I fix my gaze on a wall when I'm speaking from my roots. We can all look for as long as we'd like, but you can't touch. You can't get in.

Even if you think you're in, because you think you do, you have to realize that you're not. Yes, I tell you a lot. Yes, I let you see me cry. Yes, you read between my scribbled lines. But you don't always hear me, and that's because I don't speak loudly enough.

The matter of want is still plauging me, twenty-four hours later. I don't know why I'm so fixated on this. (Even my Obscure Object had something to say about it. I'm not sold on her musings, but she is right, in the way that I almost don't want her to be right. So I'll say that she is right in some ways. Not entirely.) I just said, not fifteen minutes ago, that I don't know what I want. I was lying, sort of.

I don't know how I feel about falling in love (again). I love a lot, it's true. Right now, I'm spreading my love like a fucking virus. Sometimes it's a silent sweeper, other times it's a warming fever. [can you hear me?] But being in love? No thanks. It's just not what I want right now. I like feeling steady and self-centered (at least I can admit that I know I am self-centered). I don't want to worry about how someone else feels. I mostly like my life just the way it is. I do feel at peace, I am happy.

Seriously, I just think far too much for my own good. I can't even continue this tangent because my brain has overlapped and my thoughts are too tangled to bother to work through.

Give me clear skies; I'll tell you a story

Here's something I've apparently just realized: The Obscure Object is kind of a bitch.

Her tone is my least favorite thing about her. Written, spoken, inferred with a look: it is either completely difficult to decipher, or flat-out bitchariffic. I can think of three recent & specific examples of this, and I don't particularly care to regurgitate them here. This is something I needed to realize, though.

Maybe it's me overreacting (because I never do that), but I pick up on tone much better than I do body language. And she and I have, in the past, misread each other's written tones. She's one- if not the only person- of a few people I have that habit with.

I over analyze, yes, and over-think. The perplexion and confusion and hidden/not-so-hidden possibilities don't help calm this over-ing. The fact that I can't seem to have a simple conversation with her doesn't help. Not knowing, knowing too much, failing to see how I can properly communicate this: not helpful.

I don't know where this leaves me, but I also don't know that I care.


I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
-Amy Lowell, "The Letter"

Where do we go from here

One of my coworkers ran into me in the hall today. She was on the wrong floor; I rarely see her otherwise, but always, always enjoy our stream-of-consciousness conversations.

When she saw me today, and after she realized she'd gone up an extra flight of stairs, she said: "You know, you should really be on tv."

From there, we talked about vocabulary, lexicon-flexing, teaching English, expressions, immersion, Middlesex, homosexuality, ES classes, epiphanies, influence, change, growth, Dr. Ruth, and so on. I so thoroughly love those conversations, the kinds that spread over landscape and grey matter without effort. Complete ease, unsuspecting flow.

As we parted ways, she turned and called over her shoulder: "So what are you going to be when you grow up?"

Without hesitation (there may have been a slightly abashed shrug, because for as much as I like to talk about myself, I worry that people A) don't take me seriously, and B) see me differently than I see myself because, yes, I can be dense/a little slow on the uptake/silly-excited about the most minute things/and occasionally I think I don't show my intelligence simply because I don't want to) I said: "Finish my masters. Get my PhD. Go teach college level. From there... wherever it all takes me."

And write. Sometimes, all I want to do is write. It's just that the words get stuck on my ribs, stuck in my fingertips, smeared around my teeth and tongue and nothing comes out the way I expect it to. But, I write.

And I write because I generally can't form sense with my voice.

Part of this, all of this, is because of my dirty habit called Over-Thinking. I place too much value in not only the things that people say to me, but also the way that they say them. I pay more attention to tone than I do to body language. It's easier; I hear more than I see. Maybe I pay too much attention. Or maybe I don't pay enough.

impromptu art

The thoughts that we most want to desert us

are the very thoughts that spin, twist,

warp and presuppose judicial thought:

they are the pieces that wreck loose and

unnecessarily. Sense thrusts

where objection smears, where the endangered foreplay

of awkward moments courses over every

pore, every sharpened breath.

I want you more than lines can conceal

and my mind fails to leave this alone. There are few

reroutes, less than six detours to take

and I am left awash in the swell of wonder:

can you hear me?

But love is an afterthought, I think, it seems.

Spatial attraction rips through these cranial torrents

and I think I cannot speak simply

because simplicity escapes me. Simple is not always

easy.

Of course if you were easy:

I wouldn't want you this way.

Where the brainstorm trails, you wander after

and there is always room for your hand in mine,

or: there would be

if I knew how to tell you.

love was- entire excellently steep

I do my best writing in the car. The road palmed flat before me, windows down rushing in the brink of fall air, words and sounds fleeing from the speakers: maybe it's because I feel free, there, untamed and entirely capable of going wherever, however I want. I rarely do, except for that one time in Florida.

My mind produces more thought than what should be humanly possible. I prefer it over mental stagnancy, but when I can't morph the thoughts into written sense, the struggle overwhelms itself. Today, I was thinking in linear bursts.

Tonight, I had a head-on collision with my filing cabinet.

I was looking for artifacts to take to grad class tomorrow night (stages of my literacy history: I chose my first book- written in Grade One, my second book- written in Grade Seven, though my About-The-Author states/lies that this is actually my fifth book [I lied a lot as a kid; I apologized to my mom about this tonight and she said: "Finally"], and a paper from my senior year of English, where I scored a 3 for writing and 5 for format). I wasn't looking for anything else- I never consciously am- but my hands soon grew heavy with Love & Memories and The Weight of It All.

The Weight of It All is everything non-romantic in my past. Featured, tonight, was The Master Poet, or: one of the most influential people that's ever been in my life, Len Roberts. He passed in the spring of 2007, but not before I was able to workshop with him for a handful of months. It was pure chance, that opportunity, and I still am not sure how I lucked into it. It was there and then that I met G.C. and happened into a few whirlwinds that would eventually reroute my life in ways that, at the time, I didn't imagine possible. I tugged the red folder from my filing cabinet, and out spilled marked and unmarked poems, an envelope, and a few packets. I once wrote a poem titled "Most Days," and I can't remember why it is so named, but Len's comments are what struck me tonight. Three years ago, it wouldn't have made sense to me. Tonight, I understand what he meant by writing "*Rimbaud" in the margin, and "surreal" near the top. Rimbaud. Rimbaud! That's fucking crazy! Now that I've studied Rimbaud, along with Baudelaire, I'm a little shocked/stoked that Len scrawled that very name in the margin of my poem.

Not fifteen minutes later, I found a box of school supplies from my first year of teaching. Sitting on top was a bright orange folder with a Dodge Poetry Festival, 2006 label on it. I have no recollection of receiving this folder; I went to the 2008 festival and have my red folder, but I wasn't at the 2006. I have no idea where I got the folder from, but: I opened it tonight, and the first handout on the right hand side of the folder is of Len Roberts, poems and bio. I had no idea (did I? I can't remember, now) that he read at Dodge that year, or ever. When I went to Dodge last fall, Len was heavy on my mind. I accredited to the simplistic connection of poetry-poet, but apparently the depth of thought runs deeper.

I also happened upon some Love & Memories tonight, and I felt nothing. I thought about removing the rubber band from the stack of France correspondence, but decided I didn't feel like rehashing all of that. I did read a piece of notebook paper littered with red pen that remarked on my traveling to see her, and how I meant "so very much" to her, and that she wasn't going to get mushy in the note; she would save that for the weekend. I don't know when it's from, but I'm thinking the winter of 2007, pre-2008, pre-first significant break-up. It doesn't matter. I read it and put it away.

I don't regret any of it, for the record.
It's become a part of what's happened in my life.
It just is.
Perhaps it just was.
I don't want love like that.

The Obscure Object jolted me out of... something... this weekend. She with the words- I love when it comes out of nowhere. I love when she comes out of nowhere (she always has). I love the taste of chance and happenstance and possibility. I very much like the idea of her finally starting to not just listen, but hear.

this may be interesting only to me

I just hit a new level of letting go: I realized that I don't want her- in any capacity.

I don't even yearn for one last demon-dusted sexual encounter. And I always, always craved sex with her. I can understand, now, that one of the reasons I craved it so much with her was because it was so infrequent. I was absolutely, 100%, wildly attracted to her (and this was a feature in my problem in letting go of her, post break-up). Would I still be, if she were to cross my path now or in the future? I imagine so. Sexual attraction goes a long way for me. Whether or not I want to act on it is a different story.

Truthfully, I haven't "wanted" her for months. That stopped somewhere at the end of spring, and I was filled with a sense of relief in no longer wanting her back as my girlfriend. Once I began to allow myself to see all that had actually gone on in our relationship- once I recognized and labeled my hurt- once I allowed myself to realize that she is surely not the only woman that will ever want me in any capacity- it got easier. There was a shift that ebbed within me throughout the summer: and this summer, it was made entirely of healing, experience, and forward movement. I wouldn't trade a moment of it.

She is gone from my life, and has been been since May. While she still merges into my dreams on occasion, my waking thoughts are focused on other things, other people, other curiosities. I no longer care what she's doing, or who she's doing it with (and I haven't cared about those things for a while). I'm healthier, so much happier, and confident.

The letting go: it has always been difficult for me. I just went through it over the last two weeks with C. It was hard to walk away from that for the simple fact that I knew she wanted me. It's an undeniably good feeling to know that someone likes you. But I wasn't there- and that wasn't fair to either one of us.

With Great Lakes, I never felt safe. I only ever felt wanted in her stretches of needy-mania (typically the pre-self-destructive stages, not the stages of solitude and every other breed of mania that threaded through her) and in the rare sexual encounter. We never had solid ground, and we never found ourselves on the same page. I think, in some ways, the unsteady ride is what kept me hanging on- I wanted to believe it could, and would, get better, and I wanted to be there to see it happen. I always saw so much potential for us.

But potential-- that isn't anything to build a life off of. The here & now is infinitely more important. This isn't to say I don't believe that things can't get better in relationships, whether romantic or otherwise. The measure of betterness comes with the terrain that these "things" are built upon. No one should ever spend so much time being unhappy, uncertain, full of love but with nowhere to direct it.

And the truth is, I cannot fathom driving myself open-eyed into another long-distance relationship. So much of the time that made up my last 3-years-long relationship was spent apart from one another. Had we been closer together, I imagine we would have self-combusted much earlier than we did. Or maybe things would have been different (I doubt that). But I know now that when I enter my next relationship, I want a stronger sense of normalcy, and a much shorter commute to see one another.

Other than that, I don't know what I want. I think that's become fairly obvious over the last month or so. I know what I don't want, and in my case, I think that's more important than its counterpart. Do I want someone who gives as much as I do? Absolutely. Do I want mutually unbridled attraction and adoration? For sure. I want a safe body to lean upon, to rouse from sleep, to nudge into the morning. I want a brain as fueled as, if not more than, mine. I want compassion and respect and laughter and understanding and release and reprieve and excitement and learning and the desire/action to move forward-- together. I want more.

And do I want my Obscure Object? Yes, without a single doubt, I do.

all you really want is to be here with me

Love is foreign anymore. It used to come in sweeps complete with rushes of infallability and tiny rips of inadequacy but now, now it's wandering elsewhere. I don't want it to come home anytime soon, and if it does, I plan on being away and/or deaf to the persistent knocks against every tendon in my heart-swollen body.

I wish I could say with finality: I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE. But I'm afraid of lying because I hear it's a disease; I lied a lot when I was a kid, too young to understand the tangles of my own tongue. My mind lies to me, sometimes, but I can't envision reality because I swear it evades me. Kind of like lost stars on a blinking night sky: they move without wind or reason, and I can't touch them no matter how high I reach. My arms have never been long enough, my chest has never been big enough for my whims of infatuation.

Mostly I remember your skin overlapping my own, your mouth crushing mine, words firing between grasps and whispers of nightmares. You were most loving when you were half asleep. You couldn't think, then, with your brain stuffed with sleep. Words came easily, promises flowed without second thought. I love you, I want you, there is no one but you, I've never loved like this.

On the kitchen floor, with the serrations and seeds surrounding us, we aimed for the perfect photogenic kiss. We always disagreed on the best shot. All I ever wanted to do was broadcast our love.

And now, my dreams have bloomed into making out with Melissa Ferrick, which is completely weird but admittedly not a bad dream to have (two nights in a row, nonetheless). You don't need to trail me in my night visions. You are always there in the daylight, shimmers spread over my radar though I've tried again and again to turn off my signal, to shut down, unplug, abscond.

I've never been good at letting go. Never. When I fall, I fall without limits and boundaries. I don't know how to make myself stop. Maybe, I think, this could be a good thing, someday, when I'm ready and when my heart won't need to seal itself up months, years later to edge into the healing (again). And I know what the fear is. I don't know how to believe that there is someone(s) who will not force me to lock my heart and swallow the key. I don't know how to think that love may not always end up hurting me, and that someone(s) might be worthy of letting in.

So I stumble about with my hands taped to my shoulders, arms crossed, heart blocked. I can't breathe in this collapsing makeshift shelter; I wish I'd learned along the way how to run, how to fly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.