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.

Sleep

I can't relax.  Ever.  I don't know what it feels like to just exhale and let go.  I'd give anything to let go of this breath I've been holding for more than 29 years, sink down onto the ground, close my eyes and sleep the most beautiful and most peaceful sleep of my life.

I'd like to crumble to the ground next to you sitting under that old oak tree over there.  You've got one leg stretched out and the other bent at the knee.  You see me coming so you reach up and pull me down to you, letting me settle my head there in the space between your stomach and your thigh.  We don't say anything at all.  Your arm comes down to rest across my belly, the warmth of your skin soaking through my t-shirt, spreading to the rest of me until I drift off right there in your lap under that old oak tree.

I'd like a sleep like that. 

Happy Birthday To Me

Look, I'm not really all that excited to be turning 29 again, ok?  So let's not really make a big deal about it.  I mean, I'm super happy I'm still around.  I don't want to go underground anytime soon but I wish this roller coaster would slow the fuck down some.  I feel like this has all happened way too fast and I don't know how we made it around that turn just now or what in the hell we're doing upside down so much of the time but...here we are.

We made it.

Well, I made it at least.  Your birthday isn't for some time yet.  The way things are looking, I won't get to help you celebrate your next decade and that really bums me out.

I'm not sure this situation can ever be cured.

I'm afraid I will have to live the rest of my days with this expansive chasm ripped right down the center of my heart.

I am fully prepared to do just that.  I've been building this bridge, one plank at a time, so I can travel back and forth across it in search of you.  I don't know which side you may show up on so I have to patrol each one all day long.  Don't worry.  I'm not tired.

Anytime you choose.  I'll be here.

I know if you were here you would tell me Happy Birthday so I'll say it silently to myself from you.  I'll pick out a really pretty or salacious poem or piece of writing to gift to myself and I'll read it later tonight when I get home.

A Narrative Of Sorts

You see what happens when you leave me alone with the red wine late at night?  You really shouldn't let me drink so much when you're not around.  I get a little out of control sometimes and start carrying on like I'm some tortured soul that no one understands.

Gross.

Just ignore me, ok?  Honestly, that's all you can really do when I go off on one of my tangents.  I promise to be on my best behavior if you come back.  We can read the newspaper together and clip coupons over coffee and bagels and I will not tell you how the cream cheese reminds me of the snow that fell in 1993 when I lived in that blue house down that dirt road and how it covered everything everywhere and we had never seen snow like that and we went out and made snow angels in it and brought some inside so my mom could make snow ice cream for us.  No.  I will not tell you any of that.  I will read aloud to you a headline about Iran and maybe an interesting obituary and then I will take my leave of you so you can go do your things and I will not disturb you until you need me to disturb you; at which point I will crawl into your lap and disturb the ache in your loins for me until you are completely spent and weightless.

Then I will cook for you and you don't have to do anything at all except sit right here and read your favorite book or play a song for me on the stereo.  I will run my fingers through your hair as I look over your shoulder to see what you're reading and maybe you will put the book down and pull me into your lap and kiss me.  Or maybe you won't.  Maybe I'll lean down and kiss the back of your neck instead.  Or here.  Go sit in your favorite chair.  Maybe you need to close your eyes for a few minutes.  That's ok.  I'll wake you when dinner is ready.

After we eat, you can help me with the dishes if you want.  But you don't have to.  It's been a long day for you and I don't mind taking care of you right now.  You are tired and feeling bad so let me do this, please?  I know you don't feel like it.  You don't feel like doing anything right now.  I understand.

Maybe you'd like to take a walk around the block tonight.  Let me finish up here and we'll go together.  I'll hold onto your hand the whole way there and back and I won't let it go.

I'll never let go of your hand.

I hope your Saturday is beautiful.

If it can't be beautiful, I hope it's bearable.

I Feel You

I rule my life by the thing that beats inside my chest.  Sometimes that makes me a fool.  Sometimes it makes me a sage.  I don't often know which one I will be when I go in any one direction.  I don't much care.

Maybe that means I will  make foolish mistakes even when I'm old enough to know better.

I never want to be old enough to know better.  I want my bones to be old and brittle and thin and near death and even then I will never stop making foolish mistakes that involve my heart.

It means I get hurt.  It means I love too soon and too hard.  It means life is hard for me so much of the time.

I don't care.

It also means radiance.  It also means I receive love too soon and too hard.  It also means life is beautiful for me so much of the time.  I can find meaning and beauty everywhere.  You would not believe it if I told you. You'd die to know the places I find beauty and safety and solace.

You'd also die to know the places I see torture and sin and angst.  In me and in you.  In everyone everywhere. In all the dark spaces between love and indifference.  Oh, that horrible place of indifference.  So many people are stuck in there and I want to tear down the walls and free them all but I can't. 

I love love and I love life even though I am tortured so much of the time.  I would not choose to be untortured ever for no part of any kind of day.

I want this life to torture me.  Spend me.  Chew me up and spit me out, whole or chewed up, it doesn't matter.  Just render me useless.  Use me all the way up until I can't be used anymore.

I wasn't put here to move mountains.  I wasn't put here to invoke change.  I wasn't put here to get people to listen. 

I was put here to feel.

I feel it.  I feel you.  I feel you way down at the bottom of my heart where the blood pools and coagulates.  I feel you everywhere all the time.

I feel you so deep down inside me that I am you.

Whatever It Takes

This is maybe the greatest thing I've seen all day.  God, I love this man.  How is it possible that his voice hasn't aged at all? Like it's still 1987 where he's at.  I don't think his hair has changed at all either.  I've never seen a person age into themselves in a more perfect way.

I would give anything to see him perform.

For comparison and because I adore this song and this video in so many different ways.  What a total hottie he was.  Perfect parts strange and intuitive and sentimental.

I could post videos of The Cure all day long but I'll spare you because I know you can just as easily go look them up yourself.  Do that!  Go check them out Live at Pinkpop 2019.  I just did.  It was amazing.


 Anyway.

What is that saying?

God willing and the creek don't rise?

Have you ever heard that?  It basically means 'if everything goes as planned; if all goes well.'  I've heard it many times throughout my life but I don't think I've ever said it before.

Well, god willing and the creek don't rise I'll be turning 29 again Sunday.

I will be doing one of two things:

Taking Max to see The Harlem Globetrotters or leaving town after his basketball game Saturday morning and spending the night wherever we end up.  Or maybe both.  I guess there's no reason we can't skip town sometime Saturday afternoon and drive around until we land somewhere and also go to the show Sunday.  Sounds like a perfect way to spend another 29th birthday, actually.  I'll keep you posted.  I haven't actually bought the tickets for the Globetrotters yet.  We saw them last year and had courtside seats, which was super fun and I highly recommend paying the extra bucks for the experience.  I've waited too late this year and can't find any available so we won't have that same experience again which is kind of a bummer.

Listen.

I tried really hard to keep the sads out of this post.  How did I do?  Did I come across as upbeat and normal?  That's what I was going for.  I was really trying very hard not to let Debbie Downer out tonight.

I did that for you in case you're having a hard day and are tired of reading about my aching heart.  I mean, can't I get over it already?  How many times am I going to say the same things over and over again?

Honestly?

Forever.

I'll say them forever if that's what it takes.  

The Thought Of You

Today feels like Monday.  Yesterday felt like nothing.

I have the blues.

Are you so tired of my blues?

I'm so tired of them too.  I wish they would go away.

I feel like a caged animal at night when the world sleeps.  Or like right now.  It's that in-between time.  It's not really night yet but the day is finishing up her business and is about to clock-out.  The Gloaming.  That's what I've always heard it called.  I don't like The Gloaming.  I want to like it because I love the idea of it and I love the way it sounds.  The Gloaming.  I don't know why I'm capitalizing it.  It just seems like it deserves to be capitalized; like it deserves that kind of respect. 

Didn't Stephen King write a book about The Gloaming?  I should Google that.  Or DuckDuckGo it?
You know, the first time you mentioned DuckDuckGo, I had no idea what you were talking about.  When you went away, I downloaded it just because.  It was a thing of you and I was grasping at straws to hold on to anything of you.

Remember how I lamented that I was kind of bummed that this was the only version of me I had to give you because our lives had to run their separate courses before we could meet?  About how my face would be changing and evolving pretty soon and filling up with time and wrinkles?  Well.  I will be even less than I am now when you come back around.  I hope you will not be too disappointed in the way age has taken her claim on me.  I try to eat my vegetables and exercise and moisturize my face both day and night but I don't sleep nearly enough and I drink too much red wine too many nights and I worry constantly about everything.  My forehead is starting to crease and the bags under my eyes have their own zip code now.  Oh, and my hands.  Good god, what happens to our hands as we age?  I can't even deal with what they have going on.  They need to seriously chill the fuck out, though.

I hope it will all be acceptable to you.

I realize this sounds vain and I don't really think I'm a vain person.  I just hope you come back before the sea of wrinkles overtakes my face and my body because I have a few things I'd really like to show you and do to you while I still can, you know?

I know you know.  You want to do them to me, too.  Remember how I was gonna coax every last drop of life out of you until there wasn't any left?  Yeah. I still think about that.

I still get weak when I think of you diving under my blanket and scratching all my surfaces, your dishpan hands all over me, your beautiful words falling from your lips as they trace every part of my body.

I still quiver at the thought of you.

The thought of you is everything to me.

Untitled

I'm sorry for the amount of sap in my post yesterday.  I'm sure it's all over you and you need a bath by now.  Maybe it's like that jar of molasses you were playing around with that one time.  Was it molasses or marmalade?  I think it was marmalade but I can't remember exactly,  I just recall that it made a huge mess while you were buttering your toast that morning.  I would go find it but I don't want to open your pages just yet right now.  I can't look at them all the time.  But I think of them constantly.  

Max had his second basketball practice tonight.  His first game is Saturday morning.  His team is The Mustangs.  They're all so adorable.  I can't wait to see them play.  His coach is a bit of an overachiever for this age group, though.  I remember him from last year and was really hoping we wouldn't get him this year.  So, of course, we did.  He was constantly yelling at the refs and his own kid.  I've always felt sorry for the coaches' kids. It must suck so bad to never be able to live up to who your dad thinks you should be because he played basketball that one year when he was a junior and he was really good at it so, of course, his offspring should also be.  Gross.  Why do people project their own bullshit onto their kids?  I'm sure I do it too.  Being a parent is mad hard.  You never know if you're doing it right.  It's kind of a lonely place.  You just hope you're giving them the best of you as much as you can to counteract all the bad that you also can't help but show them.  Believe me when I tell you they understand so much more than you wish they did.  They don't get to stay little long enough.  The world comes looking for them way too soon.

Max is a cool guy.  You would have liked him.  He's smart and hilarious and really good at sports somehow.  He definitely does not get that from me.  He's really tall for his age.  He's almost as tall as me but I can still pick him up.  I can still carry him upstairs to bed when he falls asleep on the couch.  It just about kills me but I do it.  I'm not looking forward to the day when he doesn't fit in my arms anymore. He has horrible taste in music.  Horrible. I'm hoping he'll come around.  He's stubborn as all get out.  He has a really smart mouth that gets him in trouble every single day.  He loves animals but will tell you he doesn't care.  He's sensitive.  Very.  He's afraid of the dark but would not want me to tell you that.  He loves his teacher and school.  His Mimi is probably his favorite person in all the world.  He's kind but he can also be unkind.  He's really a lot of fun and we laugh a lot.  But he also sees me cry and act ridiculous.  I really don't want him to see any of that but it's just the two of us here and I can't hide it from him.  He knows things I wish he didn't.  


What's going on over there on your side of the map?  I wish you could tell me all about it.  There's so much I want to tell you.  More than the things I say to you here.  Just everyday mundane things, really.  I miss your sense of humor.  I miss the way you wrote to me.  I miss the shorthand you'd use sometimes and the symbols that I didn't understand but wouldn't dare tell you I didn't.  I miss the way sometimes your words would go over my head and I'd have to read them again and again.  I miss the way I'd get so excited to see your name in my inbox.

I keep waiting to see it there again. 


I may never stop waiting.

I hope you're ok with that.

Island

I am broken inside my head. 

I'm not depressed.  I'm just sad so much of the time.  I don't know how to not feel all of the things I feel.  I don't know how to not feel hate and love and indifference and compassion and empathy and embarrassment and shame and joy and pity and vengeance and rage and beauty.  Everywhere.  Every single person is walking around with it stirring all about their being, coming off in waves and I can feel it and it makes me feel the way they must feel and I don't want to feel the way they feel.  I only want to feel the way I feel but I don't know how and I don't know what I feel because what I feel is all mixed up in what they feel and I wish I could untangle myself from everyone everywhere and not feel anything at all.  I wish I didn't listen to sad songs and watch sad movies and read sad stories.  I wish for 5 minutes I could not think at all.  I wish I didn't take all the words and dissect them and pick them apart and then try to rearrange them to mean something they were never intended to mean.

I don't want to care anymore.  I don't want to find a tiny baby spider on my windshield while I'm pumping my gas and wonder where its home might be and how far away from its web has it strayed and will it ever get back there again and if I drive off from here will it be able to hang on or will the wind knock it off?  I better try to get it off my windshield then and sit it right here on the ground next to the pump and hope no one comes along and kills its baby life before it's even had a chance to begin. 

A fucking spider.

Why can't I just smush the thing?  Why do I think it has a soul? 

I am a disaster.

I want to be like everyone else with their lists and their schedules and their nightly routines that involve face masks and bed time stories and lights out by 9 because we need 8 full hours of sleep to be our best selves at all times.  I want to wake up at 5 a.m. and run 6 miles on the treadmill, then cook a hearty but nutritious breakfast and walk out of the house with a smile on my face and a hot cup of coffee in my hand, ready to face the day and kill the tiny baby spider that has found itself on the inside of my window now.  Fuck you.  Get out of my immaculate car.  I am immaculate and so is my life.

Except I am not and I never have been and I can't keep up with anyone.  I feel like a tiny island over here.  No one is coming to my island.  It's all of overgrown and broken down and there are no pretty things here.  There are no hammocks to lie in.  There are no fruity cocktails to sip.  There are no cabana boys to slather lotion upon your perfect skin.  There are only fallen coconuts that I can't figure out how to get into and vines upon vines upon vines that hide this tiny little shack that I lay down in each night and count all the stars up above because I have to know how many there are and I can't rest until I've named every single one and I wonder if all the stars up there are the souls of all the baby spiders in the world who never made it past that gas station pump and never got to taste victory in a web it created from its own glorious body.  It was just smushed out and sent up into the atmosphere to hang out amongst the stars.  And that's where I want to go too.  I want to go up there and be a star and look down at the world from above.

The truth is.

I think about everything all the time.  There is never a quiet moment in my head.  That's why I need you to get in your boat and sail over to this island.  Bring your machete.  There are vines upon vines upon vines to cut through before you can get to me inside this tiny little shack that I have built for us where we can lay down on this blanket I've made of palm leaves and gaze at the stars together.  I will tell you all the names I have for them but you can rename some of them if you don't like them.  Here, I know you will know how to open this coconut.  Hold it to my lips while I drink.  I'm so thirsty.  I've been waiting on you to get here.  Now, lay me down gently and crawl on top of me and make love to me until I can't see or think about anything else but the stars above your head and the way you feel inside me.

I don't want to think about anything else right now or maybe ever again.

Everything Still The Same

I finally took the Christmas tree down.  I know.  I'm super late to the party.  Story of my life.

I haven't played a song for you in so many days now.  I wonder how many songs would have been shared between us by now if we were still talking.  I need a break from my songs.  I need you to throw something in the mix.  I've been listening to the same things over and over again.  I have begun to bore myself.  I wonder if you were reading these words if I would also bore you.  Most likely.

I have no idea how any of this reads.  Is it crazy?  Desperate?  Pathetic?  Or is it just sad?  I really don't know and I have no idea how you will react to any of this if you ever come back around.  Maybe I just won't tell you I've been writing to you here and delete it all before you have a chance to look at any of it.   Maybe I'll only tell you about it after you've fallen in love with me and decide you can't live without me and I know this will not make or break us.  Maybe then I'll print it all out for you and present it to you as some kind of token of my devotion to you.  Maybe by then you won't see it as crazy but as endearing.

I'm not crazy, you know.  If you wanted me to go away, I would.  You didn't tell me that, though.  I don't think you want me to go away.  I don't think you wanted to go away from me either.  I wish you didn't feel like you had to.   But you did feel like that and I'm so sorry.


Everything is still the same.

Someone played this today so I'm sharing it with you.  Maybe you've heard it before.  I never have.  You have to follow it all the way through.

Clarifying Post Script

I lied.

Clarifying Post Script Incoming:

It was New Year's Day.  Wednesday morning.  All the company had left the day before.  The house was quiet.  Max and I had just returned from work.  I sat down to write to you because I hadn't really had a chance to in the days before that.  Suddenly, I was overcome with sadness.  I can't describe it any other way than just complete and utter desolation.  It was the beginning of a New Year.  I hadn't talked to you since November 21.  I felt this hopelessness I haven't felt before.  I've been sad but not hopeless.  You were lost to me.  I've been looking for you everywhere and I can't find you anywhere and I don't think I ever will and the reality of that was too much.

I started crying and then I just wrote whatever came out and hit 'publish.' I'm sorry.  I'm sorry if my words were harsh.  If those words hurt you, I will crawl across acres of burning coal to tell you I'm sorry.  It wasn't my intention to lash out at you.  I felt like I couldn't breathe and I was drowning and I was desperate.  I am desperate.  But I am not mad.  Never, not once, have I been mad.  When I said, 'you could have at least told me goodbye,goddammit,' it wasn't an admonishment, just a desperate plea.  Or at least, that's what I thought.  I never want to hurt you and I never will. I would take the utmost care of your mind and your heart and your body if you would let me.  I wish you would let me.

I hope wherever you are and whatever you're doing right now in this moment, you know in some tiny corner of your being that I'm over here thinking about you and sending you all the goodness I have inside me.

I hope it will be enough.

Unexpected Kindness

A customer brought me flowers today.

Pink roses.

He said it was a gift for the new year.  No one has given me flowers in over ten years, maybe longer.

I almost cried.

Sam.

He has this infectious laugh that feels like home.  The first time I met him, I heard him laugh before I ever saw his face.  I knew I was going to love him then.  His laugh feels like an old house that smells faintly of mothballs and cornbread where a western is always playing on the TV and his favorite chair is covered in an afghan his wife made 40 years ago.  His laugh makes you want to sit at the foot of his recliner with a glass of cornbread and milk and watch those westerns with him all day long while his wife knits a scarf for you to take with you before you leave.

I never knew how much I loved pink roses before today.

Shortly after that, the new employee asked me how old I was.  'Old,' I told her.  She persisted.  'I'll never tell you,' I said.  I'm not even sure myself.  I have to think about it and then I have to go dig around for my birth certificate and get my bifocals out to look at the date, then I call my mom or my dad or both just to confirm it's right.

She said, 'you're only about 29 or 30 though, right?'

God bless you.  Here.  Put these bifocals on.  You need them worse than me.

I almost made out with her and gave her a raise all at the same time.

I do NOT look 29 or 30, by the way, so don't go getting excited over there.  

Her people must not age well is all I can figure.


A song playing in the background while I write this to you:

There's a hole in the roof for the stars to fall in
I gather them up for you
Fill up my pockets, start walking again
Bringing these stars to you
 


I wish I could bring all the stars to you.  I'd pull them out of my pocket one at a time to show you how they pale in comparison to you.  You wouldn't believe me if I told you so I'm going to arrange them all in a circle here around you so you'll see.

P.S.  You told me one time, or more than that, that I wasn't allowed to send you 'clarifying' post scripts.  So I'm not going to clarify my words to you yesterday.  I'm going to let them stand because sometimes I feel so heavy with the burden of this loss, I don't know what else to do but let the words spill out of my head.  I hope you will understand.

An Ode to the New Year

I miss you so fucking much I can't stand it  I want you to come back  Please come back  I can't write any more pretty words to you, I don't have any more  I'm desperate  I just want to crawl on my knees and beg  I don't even care how this looks  I don't even care what kind of crazy this is

I can't find you  You're out there and I can't get to you and I'm gonna die waiting on you  I don't want to die waiting on you  What if I die before I get to talk to you again?  Oh my god  That's so fucking tragic  Me and you   We were something  We were something different than has ever been before  You have to know that  I know you know that  You felt it too  Do you still?  You don't know me, you didn't give me a chance  You have no idea how deeply I can love  You can't even comprehend the love I've kept stored in my heart

I waited a whole lifetime for you  Nobody else

I want to run to you and wrap my legs around your waist and bury my face in your neck and cry all the tears I've cried for you since you've been gone and all the tears I haven't cried for you since you've been gone because some days I tell myself you're coming back and I get stupid happy when I believe that so the tears stay inside on those days.  I want to ugly cry all over your stupid sweater until it's ruined and you have to take it off and throw it on the floor and bring me a towel from the bathroom and drag it across my face and ball it up and put in my mouth because I'm on the verge of screaming and everyone will hear and you know I'll be embarrassed so you try to muffle the sound of my anguish  I want my stomach to convulse so rapidly and with such force that I am bent doubled over until I fall to the floor and you scoop me up and sit me on the bed, your legs around me and your arms clenched tight around my stomach to keep my insides from escaping between convulsions.

You could have at least told me goodbye, goddammit  You could have at least said that  Why didn't you say that?  Why did you just leave me here like this  You came in here and breathed all the life back inside my lifeless body until I was floating up there with you and then you just inhaled it all back into you and let me fall back to the ground while you floated on and on and on and away and away back into the nothing that was here before you but now I know you exist somewhere I can't see so the nothing is unbearable now  I can't exist in this nothing anymore and I wish sometimes I had never seen your rainbow because then my fucked up life would just be my own fucked up life and not this thing of broken beauty that was us

Fuck

Come back now  Please What else can I do  How long will I have to suffer  Why do I have to suffer  What did I do  I don't know what I did  Please tell me what I did  I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry

I think I love you

Happy New Year