The First Taste

How do I tell you I love you?  What language do you understand?

I'd speak it to you if only I knew.

I know it's absurd,

unheard of.

I know it's pathetic,

this silly rhetoric

 

How do I tell you I love you when you're so far away from me now?

You're gone, baby.  

I don't know if you'll ever be back.  

And these declarations of love I want to give to you seem like pathetic attempts at holding you.

I don't want to hold you.

 

I can't hold you.

You wouldn't let me if I tried.

I wouldn't want you if I did.

 

Love is never holding. 

Love is a release.

It's a letting go, 

a protrusion,

never an intrusion

but often a recess.

 

I'd be your recess.  

I'd be your place to lay down when the road got too weary.  

I'd be your pot of soup on a cold, dark winters night.  

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

I did not struggle in your web.

It was always my aim to get caught. 

 

The Last Chapter

 It's 7:19 a.m.

Saturday.

I've been awake since 2:22 a.m.  

I've read and re-read the messages we sent yesterday seventy two million times already and will likely read them seventy two million more before I can accept this dark, new reality I have to prepare myself to live in after an entire year of living in your light.  

That's the pits.  

And it will be the pits for an unknown amount of time until my heart and my brain align and resurrect themselves into an even more beautiful version of me.

That's what will happen.

And I will shine just a little bit brighter and my glow will radiate just a little more warmth. 

I will love harder and faster and truer.

Love makes us better.  Never worse.

You made me better.

I didn't want to tell you goodbye.  I tried very hard not to have to.  I wanted to keep you around, floating in my atmosphere forever.  I could have done that.  I wanted to do that.  

But it was so hard.  

It hurt so much.  

The non existent conversations with you, that before had been so filled with life and humor and love, became unbearable.  I knew you were over it before the week even began but I tried to hold on for dear life. I clung to every sign of hope I thought I saw in your words until I realized those weren't signs of hope at all.  They were just the dying embers of our burning ship, the one we accidentally set fire to the week we met.

You on a life boat over there and me on a life boat over here, each of us drifting to a separate island, our eyes strained against the dying of the light and the distance between us until we each disappeared from view.

 An image of you just now:

There's a room covered in white canvas drop cloths.  There are several buckets of paint lined up in the middle of the floor.  I'm standing just out of frame.  You walk in, kneel down in front of one of the cans of paint and before you open it, you look up at me with a grin and a slight nod of your head and say "You ready?"  You open all the cans and stand up.  "We don't need a paint brush." We each grab a can of paint and splash all the colors all over those white canvas drop cloths until they are radiant and beautiful.  And we laugh.  And we are covered in paint.  And you look over at me and raise your eyebrows and say the only word there is to say.  

"Yeah?"

Yeah, Noah. 

Those white canvas drop cloths are me.  

I was tired and empty.

Stripped bare.

You knew what to do.

Noah,

You said it wasn't a conscious decision to drift away from me.

I believe you.

Love leads and you follow.  You held on to me as long as you could and gave me a safe space to explore a side of myself that I never knew existed. 

"I wish every woman could be lucky enough to experience you."  I remember telling you that on more than one occasion.

I hope she treasures you for the gift you are. 

Thank you, Noah.

From the bottom of my aching but grateful heart.

I will always love you.

I miss you.

I sat down to write something to you but something else came out instead.  So, this is my second attempt at getting all this stuff out of me that I can't keep inside.  It takes up all the spaces that are vacant inside me, like hot lava flowing from a volcano and pooling in all the cracks on the ground.  That's what the stuff inside me feels like and then I have to get it out.  Sometimes I cry to release it.  Sometimes I'm angry and I yell.  Sometimes I write to you here.  I have pages and pages of unpublished words that I just float out into the nether.  They hang around out there or around here but at least they're not in here any longer.  I never know how much time I'll have before the hot lava stuff starts pooling up again.

It always starts pooling up again.

 

It's the bad-gunky.  And this is my blood-bool.

 

Maybe I should rename my blog "STEPHANIE'S BLOOD-BOOL."  

It has a nice ring to it. 

 

 

CLEAN SLATES

I really can't believe I spent several months writing things to you here in the hopes you would read them and come back.  

Wait.

That's not true.  

I really CAN believe I spent several months writing things to you here in the hopes you would read them and come back.

That's who I am.

Did you ever read any of it?

Are you dead?

Do you know I still check my email every single day, multiple times a day, to see if your name will appear in my inbox?

Gerard.

And the fake last name you gave me because the president of France died on that same day you sent me the first email so you took his last name as your own.

I didn't know that then.

It was only after you left that I figured it out.

Remember that one time you were sick with the flu (I wonder if it was actually Covid) and in the hospital and I didn't hear from you for several days?

Yeah.  I thought you were dead.

I called every hospital google told me was around you and gave them your name and your fake last name.  Only I didn't know at the time that your last name was fake so every time the person on the other end of the line said "No, we do not have a patient here by that name" I breathed a huge sigh of relief. 

And here is where the old me would say something like "God, I was such a dumbass."

But I'm not going to say that this time because I'm not such a dumbass.

Listen.

I don't hate you or anything and I'd forgive you in a millisecond if you came back around.  Actually, I don't have to forgive you because I already have.  I don't not forgive people for anything ever.  Unless you hurt Max, then I might have to kill you.  But you never hurt Max so your slate is clean with me.

A clean slate.

That's what I would give you because that's what I would give anyone.

Well, not Max's dad.  I ran out of clean slates to give him.  I was giving him one about every other day towards the end and probably from the beginning too.  He'd scribble all over it immediately and hand it back to me like some 6 year olds artwork hanging in the hallway of the school.  Except the hallway was in my heart and I hung all his slates there for far too long.

But you?  You deserve another one.  

Most people do.

So here.  Take it, ok?

And then you can get back to telling me about Una and Robinson Jeffers and if you ever finished that book about the silent film actresses you were writing.  I'd really like to know. 

 

But...

Maybe you’re dead? 

Well.

If you're not dead, you should come back around so I can make you a hot plate of fries and feed them to you while I straddle your lap in the kitchen.

And.

If you are dead, I hope there's some sort of afterlife and you're drinking Jameson while listening to punk music and reading poetry in bed with a sexy ghost.  Maybe you'll think of me from time to time.

 

Either way, I mostly just came here to say

You're rad.

Like super rad.

And I'm still out here.  

I really hope you're still out there too.

DEAR DIARY

DEAR DIARY,

Remember that one time I stumbled across that boy on Reddit and I sent him a message about filling up pages of notebooks with all the things that stir in my soul and then burning those pages in barrels on the beach because I was obsessed with that song 'smoke signals' by Phoebe Bridgers?  

And I thought there was no way he'd write back.

But he did.

He wrote back.

And then we wrote to each other again and again until he called me one Wednesday night at 8:30 and I stood in my kitchen, my heart thumping in my chest, his voice in my ear, thick - like the molasses in that jar on the shelf of my pantry.

And he kept calling.  

For some reason, he kept calling.

And then I got to meet him!

And I was so scared!  

My heart was thumping in my chest, his voice was in my ear - thick like the molasses in that jar - only this time not on the phone but in a bed 

in some remodeled fire station 

on a street named Mobile.

.....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I read one time on Reddit that when you make a dating profile it is sometimes helpful, and also a little fun, to list three things about yourself; two that are true and one that is not.  The idea is that your potential suitor will have a blast guessing which thing about you is not true. 

And that is one reason out of 964 that I don't have a dating profile.

I'm not doing that.

I'm never going to do that.

But if I were going to do that, here are the three things I'd list:

• I enjoy human liver smothered in gravy over the regular beef liver smothered in gravy.

• I asked the insanely ripped uncle of a friend to help me get in shape over the course of a summer before I went on a date with this man from the internet.  He  promised me he could get me ripped too.  And he didn't lie.  I was super fly be the time the date happened.

• While on that date, I reverted to a 16 year old girl and ugly cried during a game of disc golf so JuJu's hard work of running football fields and turning over giant tires was a complete waste. I feel bad for him but he doesn't know yet so I need you to keep that on the down low.
  

Can you guess which one is not true?  

If so, hit me up.  

We might be forever.  

I promise not to eat your liver until after you've fallen in love with me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Summer of You

I lost myself for you this summer.    

"Stephanie, I want to rip your clothes off.  I want to fuck you hard and make you cum on my cock over and over again. But the only reason I want to do that is because of you.  When I rip your clothes off, I'm not just exposing your breasts and thighs.  No, it's everything.  The way you lay in bed with Max when he doesn't feel good.  And the way you talk to him.  The way you show him how to love and be kind.  The way you admit when you're wrong.  I'm ripping off your clothes to take everything you are in."

 

I wanted your hands on my body.  

I wanted your hands on every part of my body.

I wanted your hands inside my body. 

I wanted your hands all over me. 

And when you put those hands on my body, I wanted to feel them. I did not want to  think about them.  I did not want to think about the way my flesh underneath them might feel just a little too soft.

I only wanted to feel everything you'd promised me I'd feel.

 

So yeah.

I got a little lost for you this summer.

 

But I don't think anyone could blame me, really. 

Goddammit Diane. Signed, The Internet.

There are 36 trillion self help books and everyone on the internet has read them all.

BUT WAIT 

THERE'S MORE!

Not only have they read them,

they have applied them and adopted them and molded them 

into the very fiber of their being 

so that when they go out into the wild and interact with other humans who have also read the 36 trillion self help books, they will know how to behave precisely so as not to show any, or maybe just not too much, emotion because

That 

Is 

A

Giant 

Red 

Flag or a GRF

and we don't wave those fuckers around here, you guuuys.  

We bury them six feet underground 

and plant rows of daisies and begonias and tulips on top of the fresh dirt so that when a motherfucker comes along and stumbles upon us, they will only smell the roses, as it were, 

and not the dank shit that is the very reason

for the vibrancy of their leaves.

 

Everyone is doing this now 

so you need to do it too 

because it's just unheard of to be 41 years old 

and still have unresolved issues from your past because 

THERAPY, Diane! 

GET THERAPY 

and work all those kinks right the fuck out because after talking to our therapist for 26 years, we are finally ready to give ourselves to someone but we can't give ourselves to you until you go to THERAPY because you are just a little too emotional and we are 41 years old for gods sake!  

God, Diane.  You're so fucking yesterday.

 

But 

 

you're also super hot

and hilarious 

and you give the best head 

and you're fun in the bedroom 

and we laugh constantly 

and something about you just feels so goddamn familiar. 

And your tits!  They're just the right amount of perky and sag for a 41 year old mom.  They're kinda perfect, Diane.  

In fact, you're kinda perfect,Diane.

 

But only just kinda.

 

That shit you pulled at that park in Mobile CANCELS OUT your generosity and kindness and overall hotness. 

Get yourself together now Diane and DO NOT UGLY CRY AT PICNIC TABLES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMNED PARK!

You are embarrassing yourself

And everyone else on the internet who does yoga at 6 a.m. and drinks hot lemon water for breakfast and laughs at appropriate jokes only and has a rich and full life and who does not actually need us at all (being needed is so 1950 now, Diane) because their life is so full of wonder and joy and enriching things like museums and enlightenment. 

 

What   do   you   even   mean   that

the light shining off this crevice in his forehead 

reminds you of that canyon 

you went down in 

when you were 14 

and  it was so dark, so dark, so dark

except for that tiny shaft of light 

peeking through at the top.  

 

FUCK, DIANE!

That's so fucking weird! 

 

Now

PLEASE CONSULT THIS SELF HELP APP  WE, THE INTERNET, HAVE DOWNLOADED AND PUT ON THE HOME SCREEN OF YOUR PHONE WHILE YOU WERE CRYING IN THE SHOWER.

You're kind of a psycho, Diane.

Kind of like for real, Diane.

 

But god you're so pretty! 

And you're so funny.  

And you're so sweet.  

And you liked that Indian food you had never tried 

and you climb fire towers in the middle of the forest when it's raining

and you rub our arms when we're not expecting you to 

and you play with our beard 

and scratch our head 

and you put your arms around us just because 

and we've never had a woman feel so soft and so warm.

 

 

Fuck, Diane.

Can't you just get it together for now?  

He came all the way down here 

from all the way up there.

Diane?

Why'd you have to go and drive across four states for him?

Didn't your brothers ever tell you not to do a thing like that?

Didn't your daddy ever tell you a man who wants you will come and get you?

Didn't your mama ever tell you to hide your crazy?

Diane?

He almost 

Sort of

Could have

Wanted to

Love you.

Diane.  

He maybe

Sort of

Can

But won't

Ever

Love you again.

 

Because 

Everyone on the internet has read all 36 trillion self help books and have applied them and adopted them and molded them into the very fiber of their being.

And we don't live here in this space where lines get blurred

and greens give way to browns in the same square of grass 

and ketchup clumps at the top of the bottle and we  don't wipe it off 

and t-shirts get torn from that splinter of wood on the picnic table 

and everyone is a walking disaster all done up in their Sunday best and when they take those dresses off there are tears in the stockings underneath and sweat stains on the armpits of their slips.  

 

No, Diane.

 

We live on the internet where we behave precisely 

and choose our words carefully 

and time our responses perfectly.  

We live on the internet where we've all been in therapy for the past 26 years and are finally ready to give ourselves to someone who has also tied up all their loose ends and cut off all the frayed edges.  

We are just sitting here waiting for our perfect match.

 

We thought it was going to be you, Diane.

 

But that shit you pulled at that park in Mobile.......

GODDAMMIT DIANE

 

One Hundred Forty Hours

We were two for one hundred forty hours

give or take

subtract the hours you slept

you're down to one hundred four hours now

give or take 

subtract the hours i slept

i'm somewhere around one hundred twenty

give or take

you picked my towel up from off the floor

not once 

but twice

the slight nod of your head

when you told that man 'thank you'

i wanted to take my towel off for you then

let it fall back to the floor

of course, i wasn't in a towel 

we were in my car

and you didn't notice

the desire that dripped 

like the ice cream down the sides of those cones

we licked and licked

on that red bench 

the same color as my nose

from crying all that morning

and most of that day

"well where can this go"

and

"someone will get hurt"

this street we took from 'hello' to 'goodbye' 

long and winding

partly uphill

the road signs all overgrown

and

you the navigator

and

i the helmsman

going up and up

to that fire tower we weren't supposed to climb

but did 

and that other one back there in the forest somewhere

a notebook with our names written together

blue ink

the only evidence

that we ever existed anywhere

together

for one hundred forty hours

give or take

Past the Guard Rails

 Hey.

It's Saturday morning and I woke up thinking about the times you used to call me sometimes in the morning and want to start my day with a release and how I could never get off that way on the phone with you even though you were really good at talking to me like that.  I always loved hearing you tell me all the things you were going to do to me and all the ways I was going to open up to you.  

But I didn't need the release you promised.  

You were always the release.

And so I wanted you to know this because I want you to understand that I don't regret driving to see you last Saturday.  I know I'm supposed to and I tried to carry that regret with me all week because I thought it was a thing I was supposed to wear.  

It wasn't.

I carry a lot of things with me to all the places I go and some of them weigh me down in ways you could not ever imagine.  

But not love.

Love has never weighed me down.

I know it's supposed to.  I'm supposed to stop giving my heart to people and strangers so freely and openly and close up these avenues.  Or at least turn off the neon vacancy sign that flashes all morning and all night.

But I'm never going to.

It's not who I am.

Who I am is past the guardrails now.

 

I can't not be her.

I don't even know how to try.

And so.  I'm foolish and ridiculous and impulsive and passionate.

But I'm not angry or bitter or broken or desperate.

And I'm not ever going to guard my heart or play by a set of rules that the world says are appropriate or acceptable.

Maybe that means I will end up alone and destroyed but I will also be beautiful and defined and whole and I would not choose to live this life any other way.

So.

I'm taking this cloak of shame from around my shoulders and I'm not ever putting it back on.

I'm standing naked and unabashed with my heart beating and bleeding on the outside of my chest.

And I'm giving myself freely and without debt to anyone who chooses to have me for however long they need me.

 And this is where I'll live.  

Forever until I'm dust. 

 

What else is there really?

 

Noah.  Thank you.  You were radiant.  You were divine.  

You are brilliant, bold, beautiful.

I love you.

 

The Real Bitch

Bad Bitch. 

The Real Bitch.

Those are compliments of the highest order and I was given them just this afternoon.

Well, maybe not Bad Bitch.  That's future me.  That's for sometime in the next thirty minutes or three days or 3 months when I realize my worth and start wielding the powers that have lain dormant inside me for 29 plus years.  Once that happens, I'm going to be a BAD BITCH.  

And I'm going to know it.  

And then I'm going to own it.

 

At least that's what a chorus of beautiful women told me when I recounted to them the story of Noah and Stephanie.  

First, they laughed uncontrollably..  I have a way with words, you see.  Especially around people I'm comfortable with.  I know how to tell a good story and embellish it with facial expressions.  You may not know that about me.  I don't expect you to.  I stand in the shadows and let other people's lights shine most of the time. 

I had a roommate in college who used to tell me I was the 'real deal' all the time.  She came to visit me when I first moved to Atlanta.  She met my then boyfriend and before we parted ways in the hallway of the hotel she was staying in, she yelled to him "That's the real deal bitch right there.  Don't ever forget that."  

I had not heard that phrase spoken to me again until this afternoon.

 It came after the laughter and the incredulity had subsided a bit.  

"You're the real bitch.  Not just a real bitch but the real bitch."

And then, "When you own yourself, you're going to be a bad bitch, Ms. Stephanie."

 

What do they know that I don't?  What did my roommate know a lifetime ago that I never understood?

There's a story in here about Noah but I don't know if I have the words to write it.  I can only come at this from my own point of view and I'm not sure that's good enough.  I think it deserves more.

He deserves more than the scratched and dented, blurry and faded, point of view that these glasses I've been wearing for way to long will offer.

But I will try.

 

Yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to save a word document to my google drive folder.  It was a story I wrote in college and I wanted to send it to Noah.  I'm not sure why as I've never shared any of my writing with him.  I suspect it's probably a feeble attempt at holding his interest in me for just a little bit longer.  There is space here for me to admit that.  I'm not ashamed of it.  I fully and completely own the blood that bleeds and seeps from the cavities of my heart and does not slow down for anyone or anything.

While I was in my google drive folder, I looked around to see if I could find any lost treasures I may have forgotten about.  You know, pictures or poetry or odd musings I had scribbled down.  At the very top of the list was a document titled "Stephanie's Great Adventure."  What is this?  I open it and it's a packing list that Noah had started for us for our bikepacking trip.  Of course I had seen the list.  I remember when he sent it to me.  I thought it was so cute and thoughtful.  

But I had never seen the title of it.  

It punched me right in the gut.

"Stephanie's Great Adventure"

 

The adventure that never was.  

 

The bike that I accidentally on purpose forgot to bring when I met him last weekend in Montgomery.  The look that flashed across his eyes when he asked me where my bike was and I told him I forgot it.  The tiny little cloud that took up space in his pupils but quickly vanished in the millisecond it took him to digest and accept this news.

He does that.  

Noah does that.  

 

It's a thing of beauty to watch his brain rework and regroup and not miss a single step in the whole process of regeneration.  He makes a new plan.  The old plan is yesterday and we don't dwell in yesterdays here.  We live right here in the now.  Today.  8:36:15 p.m. on a Friday night in the doorway of this bedroom in this old fire station they've turned into a retreat on a street named Mobile in Montgomery, Alabama.  All we are is right now.  This instant. His hands on my shoulders, the heat from them seeping through the jean jacket and t-shirt I'm wearing underneath.  The understanding and acceptance in his eyes when I say "I'm sorry" and he says "It's ok."

It's ok.

It's ok.

It's ok.

Except 

It's not ok

Because ok is not a state I've ever existed in for more than 23 seconds.   Only he doesn't know this about me and he believes his ok is enough to make me understand that we don't dwell in yesterdays here.  We live right here in the now. 8:37:42 p.m. on a Friday night in the doorway of this bedroom in this old fire station.

Soon, in only seconds, we'll live on top of the bed in that bedroom.  That will be our moment then.  It will give way to another moment and then another until that revelation in the doorway won't have big enough wings to fly or hurt us.  Except.  I will stumble over it on my way to the bathroom at 9:17:04 p.m. on that same Friday night and I will pick it up on my way back and tuck it away down at the bottom of my suitcase and spend the next 5 days sewing wings for it from scraps of conversation, looks I can't decipher, touches I want but don't ask for, words I hear through a filter so their meaning gets muffled.  The wings will grow big enough to give the revelation the flight it's so desperately seeking and it will fly around me then; a part of my right here and right now forever.

 But I don't know that at 9:17:03 p.m. and so I roll over and run my hand through his beard and wonder how I ended up here with this man next to me in this bed.  

I'm happy.

Really happy.

But I can't live in the happiness forever and I know this.  So I take the winged revelation out of its suitcase on Wednesday morning and bring it with me to the park where we play disc golf.  It only needs a few more stitches now and it will fly.  I know I should take it to the edge of the lake and place it there on the water and watch it drift off towards the middle until an alligator comes along and snatches it for dinner.  Noah would like that.  He's been wanting to see an alligator.  

But I don't do any of that.  

I finish her wings before we've even had a slice of the pizza Noah has ordered for us.  She's flying so high and so free now and I know it's over for me. She's a part of me now.  

 

You accidentally on purpose forgot the bike.  

He went to a lot of trouble.

He drove a really long way.

You sabotaged everything.

You have no respect for anyone.

That was so rude.

He made plans .

You devalued his time and energy.

Her voice in my head is all I can hear.  Noah is trying to get through but she flaps her wings in double time when he speaks.  

It will all fall apart soon.

I'm helpless to stop it.

I know what I have to do.  

I have to crash and burn to get rid of her. 

That's the only way.

Her ashes smoldering there 

in the wreckage of the crash 

release the clarity she's held captive. 

Clarity.

Clarity.

 

I can see clearly now.

But it's too late.

 

It's always too late.

 

 

 

 

Metamorphosis

The days are going fast now.  So fast I look in the mirror and I see the fading light of my design casting shadows across my face.  I'm still here inside, though.  This girl.  This little, young, adolescent, preteen, early 20's girl.  She still lives here.  But her face... her face is changing.  It's morphing and seguing into this unrecognizable shadow of the girl.  The reflection in the mirror is not the reflection in my soul and I wonder if the face knows?  Does the face know I can't relate to it?  Does it know it's a stranger to me?  The face... the face becomes it's own entity while my mind tries to catch up.  It can't.

The face, the body, the joints, the back...they change.  So hard and so fast.  But the soul.  The soul is relentless in its endeavor to remain in its most reverant state  Pure and open.

Growing older is a virtue.  Becoming wiser is a gift for which we are not entitled and few receive.  But no one told me when I was 22 and in love with the night and the aging jazz pianist at 54 and Berry that one day I would lose the ability to care.  To really care about a thing.  That someday my passions would be displaced by the utter harshness of life and that I would feel absolute desolation at the lack of joy life sometimes brings.  Oh, please don't get me wrong.  There is joy.   There is plenty of joy everyday.  But it is not the same joy of my youth when I conquered my days with nary a thought beyond the night and the stars or this beautiful person I am sitting beside at this dive bar who is offering up little gems of his soul for me to devour before we part ways.  There is no more excitement about spending the day in leisure and not knowing or caring even what the afternoon might bring, maybe a movie, maybe a nap in my bed with a good book, maybe a study session at the library for an exam, maybe work.

Your vision, it changes as you grow older.  All of the parts are still there that make up who you intrinsically are but the stuff on the inside, it changes.  It just does.  It is as inevitable as the sun rising and setting.  You can't continue to see life through the same lenses you wore when you were 25.  You need new glasses.  Your vision changes.  If you are lucky, it changes for the better and creates in you a unique perspecitve on which to view your new world. 

If you are unlucky, you go in mourning for the you that is no more.

Descent

Being a mom is hard as all hell.  There's no way around that fact.  You never feel like you're doing it right.  There's no handbook.  We're all coming at it from our own broken places.  We swear to ourselves when we hold those tiny hands in ours that we are not going to break our children the way our parents broke us.  And we don't for a while.  Life is easy when they're little.  Sure, you're tired all the time but it's so goddamn rewarding watching them discover the world.  It's euphoric.  Your life is complete.  You don't need anything else but this amazing little person who holds onto you so tightly while they navigate the world.  You are their center of gravity and nothing feels better than that.  You teach them all the things you want them to know like love and kindness and forgiveness.  And they believe you!  You know everything, mama.  You're the absolute best.  You and your babe are all nice and secure in this cocoon of love you've worked so hard to knit together.  You've made sure to secure it as tightly as possible so the outside can't get in.  You don't want the outside to get in.  Not yet.  Not until you've built his foundation out of steel so that when the world tries to break him, because they're going to try to break him, they won't be able to.  He will be unbreakable and he will know all the love and goodness and he will walk out into the world and the world will not hurt him or bend him.

But then.

Before you've had a chance to add all the extra layers you want to add, that little boy starts scratching at the cocoon.  Just a little at a time.  He starts to notice things.  He sees you now when you cry and he wants to know why. He hears the change in the tone of your voice and he understands what it means now.  He sees you slam the pantry door when you're angry and pretty soon he slams doors too.  You try to tell him, mama is wrong for doing that, that's not how we deal with anger.  But then you do it again and so does he. 

And you never wanted him to see the things you saw 
when you were a kid 
so you swore he never would.  

But then,


It's 3 in the morning
you saw him texting her on his phone 
and it's 3:05 in the goddamn morning 
and you're laying right beside him and his kid is in the other room
For fucks sake!
Why is he texting her at 3:10 in the goddamn morning?!
He tells you he's leaving and you beg, 
plead, 
yell,
demand that he doesn't;
not because you want him to stay
you were planning to jump ship yourself later when the kid was stronger;
but because you have worked so hard nobody knows how hard you've worked
to create this life for this kid and you've been holding it all together for so long
HOW DARE YOU get to decide when.
You
emotionally
physically
spiritually
BANKRUPT MOTHER FUCKER.

I wish to god I'd never laid eyes on you;
except i did lay eyes on you and I got the kid out of the deal 
so THANKS FOR THAT.
Sincerely,
and from the bottom of my heart.

But I sold my goddamn soul 
for too many long years
trying to fix you;
you let me do everything 
without even an offer of help.
I put you through school,
took care of all of the things,
bills, 
laundry, 
yard work,
dishes.
you still couldn't pass the fucking test.
I don't even care anymore. 


but you fucking broke me that night 
when the kid woke up and saw ME
his mama, his best mama
pleading and sobbing
in the middle of the hallway floor.
and the fear in his eyes when he looked at me....
oh god. 
The fear in his eyes. 
Of me. 
The fear of the only world he's ever known
Crumbling
all down around him

I blame you
and I'll hate you forever
That shit is going to stain his soul
So FUCK YOU
Sincerely,
and from the bottom of my heart

And now

There's a hole in the cocoon
and he's got both legs out.  
You (mama) are frantically trying to sew it back up 
but he's seen things now
and he knows more than he should 
and it's all your fault, mama.  
You thought the world was going to break him, mama
You stupid fucking bitch, mama.
You broke him, mama.  
 
you did that.  
you broke him.  

You swore you never would
So FUCK YOU
Sincerely,
and from the bottom of your own shitty heart

And now it's a Monday morning before Christmas and you are yelling at him about an orange and green shirt and you're not worth the fucking foundation you thought you were so carefully constructing.  You don't deserve to be the guardian of his soul.  

But you're all he's got and you're so tired

And you won't know until he grows up
if you've fucked everything up or not.

Hot Dish

Last night I called you a 'hot dish' and waited for 10 uncomfortable minutes for you to text back.

It was torture.

What the hell is a hot dish?

Word Hippo said it was an acceptble version of hottie.

Sometimes I embarrass myself.

Hottie is what you call me

but you don't know that I've got lines around my eyes

and they don't disappear when my smile does.

You don't know

there's a tiny spider web of broken blood vessels

and they live on the left side of my nose

You don't know 

that Max weighed almost 10 pounds at birth 

and left me with lines across my stomach

that will never go away.

Wretched Splendor

I want a night out.  I want to go out and listen to music and drink too much and kiss too many people and crawl home with my dress torn and my lipstick smeared and I don't give a damn who sees me fall out of the cab and onto my front lawn at 2 in the morning or 7:30 in the morning while the school buses are passing by and the dads are throwing their briefcases onto their front seat for their long commute into the city; their wives staring at them stupidly from the kitchen window.  I don't care if they see me there; face down in the damp grass, the sprinklers cleansing me of the night; my dress hiked up above my hips, one side of my panties stuck in the crack of my ass.  I want to crawl on all fours across my lawn and scrape my knees on the sidewalk as I try to lift myself up my front steps and open the door, throwing myself across the threshold of the entrance; collapsing there half in and half out of that life out there and this life in here. 

I hope my bloody knees stain the carpet in this front room and I hope the scars are as magnigicent and as huge as all the life out there that I've spent in here.

I want to lay there all day until the sun moves its way across the length of my house and I find myself in the shadows again.  Then, I want get up like I was never down and wash the old night off of me; get dressed again for right now.  I want to open my front door and walk smoothly down my sidewalk into an awaiting cab.  I'll sneak off into this night and take as many lovers as will have me before there are no takers at all.  I want to be wretched and dirty and filthy and vile  and radiant and magnificent and on fire and I want to do it as much and for as long as this old body can stand.

Dear Gerard: An Ongoing Love Letter

One.

Do you remember when I sent you that poem by Kim Addonizio and you said you had met her and had an autographed copy of one of her books?

Of course you remember.  I don't even know why I asked.

My Heart

Kim Addonizio

That Mississippi chicken shack.
That initial-scarred tabletop,
that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.
That kiosk at the mall selling caramels and kitsch.
That tollbooth with its white-plastic-gloved worker
handing you your change.
That phone booth with the receiver ripped out.
That dressing room in the fetish boutique,
those curtains and mirrors.
That funhouse, that horror, that soundtrack of screams.
That putti-filled heaven raining gilt from the ceiling.
That haven for truckers, that bottomless cup.
That biome. That wilderness preserve.
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.

Well.

I'm still hovering here in the darkness
Aiming my heart at your tower.

Your voice is all I can hear.


Two.

This song keeps showing up.

I don't know what it means.

But I wish you'd come down and see me again.


I could have loved you.

Maybe I already did.

Perhaps I still do.


 

Sam

Sam died this morning.

I'm glad I took a picture of the roses he gave me.

 

Samuel Earl Evans.

I don't even know how old you were, Sam.  I don't even know if you had any children.  I only know you had the most contagious laugh and these giant, gnarled knuckles that always got in your way and sometimes you could be ornery as all get out but you still found a reason to laugh.  I'll miss opening your orange juice bottles for you and bringing you your plate while you sat at the bar because sometimes, not very often, that was as far as you could make it.

Mostly I'll miss hearing you laugh, Sam. You have no idea how much I loved your laugh.  I don't think it's ever possible for anyone to ever know how much we mean to them and maybe that's the way it was with you.  You have no idea how much you meant to me.  You have no idea how much your mere presence gave me joy.  I looked forward to the days you walked in the door.  I'm going to miss you and it's not because of anything you did or didn't do. 

It's because you were you, Sam.  

Thank You.

 

Brilliance

I've been thinking about this a lot. 

What is it?  

I forgot. 

But it's been on my mind.  

A lot.  

Like all the time, 24/7, constantly, non-stop, and without fail.

I can't tell you what it is because I don't really know.  

It's always just in there.  

Inside my brain.  

Maybe inside my heart.  

Maybe inside my fingertips.  

Maybe in the very air I breathe.

It's life.  

It's dust.  

It's nothing.  

It's everything.  

It's all of the things and it's none of the things.  

It's the sum and the difference of us.

I've been around long enough to know some things I shouldn't and to not know some things I should.  A lot of the former but mostly the latter.




I've given up on the idea of us.

I hope you find your happiness.  Truly and from the bottom of my soul.  Thank you for talking to me.


For N:

You seem like you might exist on a higher plane than me and I don't know what to do with that because I've never met another person as evolved as I like to think I am and if that sounds vain then that wasn't my intention but people are mean and cruel and selfish.  But not you.  You are none of those things.  You are the opposite of all of that.  

Thank you.  You don't even know what you did.  I've never fully told you the story of me but you somehow see things anyway and I can't figure out how you do that.    

You are brilliant, bold, beautiful.

And I love watching you shine there in the light.

You are just a boy made of clay.  That's what you like to tell me when your brilliance blinds me.

You are so much more than clay.  

It

I need to find someone to give this to.

Do you want it?

What is it, anyway?

I don't really know.

But surely someone wants it.

Right?

Someone out there wants the thing I have.

I want their thing too.

(No, not that "thing."

Well, ok.  Yeah.  I want that too.

Eventually.)
 

I've been looking around trying to find someone like you to give my it to but I haven't run across any more you's out there.  Why is that?  I mean, surely there are others like you, right?  I can't find them.  Where do they hang out?

I've been looking around town.

They're not here.

Conversation is a lost art.  There are too many LOLs and emojis and not enough punctuation or thought.  And every music recommendation is Hall & Oates or CCR.  Both of which I adore but are you listening to anything new?  Do you have any new artists you like?  What happens when you become a certain age that you only listen to the music from your youth?  I love it and I love old music, obviously.  But I don't want you to send me links to "Proud Mary" or "Maneater."  If we're going back in time, hit me with something obscure that I've likely never heard.  I want to hear something other than radio hits.  All I can imagine is some aging bastard swaying his hips around the camp fire with a Bud Light in his hand and belting out "Livin' on a Prayer" while his teenage daughter cringes and rolls her eyes.  "Livin' on a Prayer" is awesome but we've all heard it a million times.  Come on.  Give me something else.  Anything.  Guess what I get when I ask?   Garth fucking Brooks.  Bye.

I don't know why this is important to me.  But it is.  I want to listen to music while I cook dinner and while I'm riding in the car or lying in bed on a Sunday morning and I don't want to hear Top 40 hits from the past 40 years.  Please.  There's a time and place for those.  But those times and places are not on a Sunday morning after we've made each other forget about the day, or Wednesday evening after Max has gone to bed and there's this new song I want to play for you, or Saturday afternoon when we're in the kitchen together planning a feast for the evening, or some gloomy day when we're riding in the car going nowhere at all.

I want to listen to books on long car rides.  I want you to read to me sometimes at night before bed.  I want to turn off the TV and sit in the silence with you.  I want to show you things I write and I know you'll tell me honestly if they're any good and I won't be upset because it's you and I'm me.  I want to  laugh at inappropriate jokes and everything stupid.  I want to laugh for no reason at all.  I want to feel safe.  I don't want things to matter as much as time.  I want to sleep on the ground with you (ok, maybe an air mattress) and look at the stars in some far off place we've driven to.

Mostly, I just want to wash the dishes and take walks with someone who talks to me about things I've never heard of while he's rinsing or holding my hand on our stroll.

Maybe that's too much to ask for in one person.

I'll keep looking, I guess.  I've been looking my whole life anyway.

Here's a cute pic of Hank and Skittles.

I sent that to my sister.  She said "Why does Hank look like he has fake legs?"  I LOL'd and sent her some emojis.  LOL.  But seriously, they do look fake!  They're 100 percent his legs, though.



And a song.  Have I shared this before?  I kind of dig this kid and this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hir3IfKuglk

An Open Door

I've had this song on repeat for the past several days.  Like a week straight.   I can't stop listening to it in my car when I'm finally alone, after I've dropped Max off at school and am driving to work.  Or in the afternoons when I'm running around to different places.  My car is still my favorite place to listen to music.  I don't have the luxury of putting in ear phones and tuning out the world when I'm at home. My car is my alone time.  That's why I get to Max's school 30 minutes early in the afternoons.  It's the only part of my day that I'm truly alone and no one can reach me.  Well, they can reach me but I can't do anything about it if they need me because I'm boxed in between a bunch of other cars and I can't get out.  (Obviously, if there was an emergency I'd find a way out.)  Sometimes I listen to music while I wait, sometimes I read, sometimes I play a game, sometimes I take a nap.  Sometimes I stare off into space and think about all the things I've wanted to think about all day.  Never ever ever ever do I talk on my phone or text.  I think about you a lot sometimes while I'm sitting there.  I used to read your emails while I waited.  It was always one of the highlights of my day.  Especially when they were extra juicy.  I felt naughty and that felt good.

Honestly, I've been at a loss for words lately.  I open a word document and I stare at it for a while and then I just close it.  I've wanted to write here to you but I don't know what to say anymore.  You already know all the things inside my heart.  At least, I think you do.  Did I leave something out?  I can't bring myself to go back and read any of the stuff I've written to you over these last couple of months.  I don't want to know what I've said.  I'm sure it's been too much at times and not enough at others.   

Anyway, be well.

My door is open anytime you want to walk back through it.

Hey.

Hey.

I'm really struggling lately.

I didn't want to tell you this because I don't want you to worry.

This rope I've got tied around me while I dangle over the edge of this canyon is starting to fray and I don't know how much longer it will hold.

I should have brought reinforcements but I didn't know.

I didn't know you may not be coming back.  It never occurred to me you might just stay down there.  Out of my reach.

I'm sorry.

I don't know why any of this happened or why I wasn't even worth a Fuck You.

I'd take a Fuck You over this nothing.

And I'm not trying to make you feel bad or guilty but if you had any idea how much I still think of you, how you still make my insides tremble and my eyes glaze over, you'd gladly give me that Fuck You on a silver platter and present it to me on your hands and knees so that I may take it and gain the strength to move on from you.

Except I don't really want to move on from you.

I may be the dumbest person you've never met.  I may be the dumbest person I've ever met.

Who pines away for someone they've never known and only shared a couple of months of conversation with?  Honestly.

Who resurrects a dead blog to write to said person on an almost daily basis?

I am completely pathetic and ashamed of myself and yet I can't seem to stop coming here.
My heart still beats for you.  When will it stop?

I feel hopeless and tired.

Anyway, here's Solsbury Hill because I fucking love this song and I don't even know what the fuck it means.  Every time I hear it, I'm transported to a place I've never even fucking been.

Some Things But Mostly Nothing

Today is not Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
His birthday was Wednesday, January 15 and he would have turned 91.
I don't understand why we don't celebrate him on his actual birthday.
I guess the long weekend is more important than his contribution and sacrifice.

This is a good essay:
http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/
The publication appears to now be defunct but I remember reading that years ago and it's still relevant.

I donated to Bernie's campaign (not because of that essay).
Don't act surprised.  You already knew I was a bleeding heart.

I could not love this more:
https://twitter.com/chicagotribune/status/701034173524537345/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E701034173524537345&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F4231439%2Fbernie-sanders-arrest-photo-civil-rights%2F



I want to read  Travels with Charley again even though they say it isn't true.
That Steinbeck mostly slept in hotel rooms instead of in his camper;
that he didn't actually meet the people he said he met at the times he said he met them.
I don't understand why we would be surprised by this.
Isn't the nature of being a writer that you are fluent in the art of embellishment and humanity?
I'd like to see someone else carve out a slice of life and present it the way Steinbeck did.


I'm tired and it's cold outside.
Max has a migraine. 

  
I miss you.
I hope you are finding happiness.

Sunday Morning

My coffee maker is finally making himself at home.  I'm so glad.  I was worried about him for a while there but he's coming around.  He talks to me while he brews now.  Quietly at first and then with rising madness.  Just the way I like it.  It starts out innocent enough but soon goes rogue in all the right ways.  I love him.  I hope he'll stick around for a few years or longer.

It's Sunday morning and I've not even brushed my teeth yet.  If you were here, I would have already done that.  But you aren't here.  And there may never be a person here to kiss in the morning.  Suddenly, that feels very tragic.  I'd like a person to kiss in the morning. 

I've never even kissed you in the afternoon.  I've never even kissed you at all. 

I'd still like to kiss you in the morning.

I cooked bacon, eggs and grits for Max just now.  We're having a late breakfast because it's Sunday and who gets in a hurry on Sunday?  He requested hot sauce on his eggs because he's seen me do that.  Do you like hot sauce on your eggs?  I do sometimes.  Not always.  How do you take your eggs anyway?  I'd cook them any way you like them.  You already know that, though.

I'm having a hard time finding words lately.  I guess that's probably a good thing since I have a tendency to say too much too soon and at all the wrong times.  If you've read any of this, I'm sure you must find me unhinged. 

Perhaps I am. 

Perhaps I am not.  

Perhaps your light is just so bright that I can still see it. 

The Distance Between Days

The days keep piling up between us. 
It's been more days than I know what to do with.  I keep looking at them, trying to hold them all in my hands but they keep falling out, spilling over. 

I scoop them up but there's too many of them now. 
They don't fit. 

I will sew a burlap sack to hold them all in, then. 
I will keep all the days between us in there and carry it on my back across the map until I reach your doorstep.

I will hold them out to you so you'll see I never let go of any of them;
you were always in every single one of my days.




Do you still think of me?
Or am I but a distant memory that never took shape?

The Story of My Life

I come home wasted and spent, falling out of the backseat of a cab at 7:30 in the morning and onto my lawn just as the sprinklers come on, my dress hiked up around my waist, one side of my panties stuck in the crack of my ass; crawling on all fours across my lawn; scraping my knees on the sidewalk as I pull myself up the steps and hurl myself over the entrance of my front door; lying there all day half in and half out of this life in here and that life out there.




First of all, we don't even have cabs around here.
Second of all, I don't use sprinklers on my lawn; and
Third, I don't wear panties half the time.


But GODDAMN


Sometimes I want to embrace this train wreck inside me and just yell YES COMPLETELY WRECK ME LET'S SEE WHAT THAT WILL LOOK LIKE !!!!

It would look a lot like me coming home at 7:30 in the morning and falling headfirst onto my lawn out of the backseat of a cab.

Only the sprinklers would jam and I would asphyxiate there in the greenish/brown blades of grass while the sun baked my exposed right ass cheek a crimson red.




And that's where I'd eventually be found.


THAT IS THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

THE END.

On Love

On Love
By Kahlil Gibran

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.

     And he raised his head and looked upon

the people, and there fell a stillness upon

them. And with a great voice he said:

     When love beckons to you, follow him,

     Though his ways are hard and steep.

     And when his wings enfold you yield to

him,

     Though the sword hidden among his

pinions may wound you.

     And when he speaks to you believe in

him,

     Though his voice may shatter your dreams

as the north wind lays waste the garden.

     For even as love crowns you so shall he

crucify you. Even as he is for your growth

so is he for your pruning.

     Even as he ascends to your height and

caresses your tenderest branches that quiver

in the sun,

     So shall he descend to your roots and

shake them in their clinging to the earth.

                                       •

     Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto

himself.

     He threshes you to make you naked.

     He sifts you to free you from your husks.

     He grinds you to whiteness.

     He kneads you until you are pliant;

     And then he assigns you to his sacred

fire, that you may become sacred bread for

God’s sacred feast.

     All these things shall love do unto you

that you may know the secrets of your

heart, and in that knowledge become a

fragment of Life’s heart.

     But if in your fear you would seek only

love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

     Then it is better for you that you cover

your nakedness and pass out of love’s

threshing-floor,

     Into the seasonless world where you

shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,

and weep, but not all of your tears.

                                      •

     Love gives naught but itself and takes

naught but from itself.

     Love possesses not nor would it be

possessed;

     For love is sufficient unto love.

     When you love you should not say,

“God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am

in the heart of God.”

     And think not you can direct the course

of love, for love, if it finds you worthy,

directs your course.

     Love has no other desire but to fulfil

itself.

     But if you love and must needs have

desires, let these be your desires:

     To melt and be like a running brook

that sings its melody to the night.

     To know the pain of too much tenderness.

     To be wounded by your own under-

standing of love;

     And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

     To wake at dawn with a winged heart

and give thanks for another day of loving;

     To rest at the noon hour and meditate

love’s ecstasy;

     To return home at eventide with grati-

tude;

     And then to sleep with a prayer for the

beloved in your heart and a song of praise

upon your lips.