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  I have pages and pages of unpublished words that I just float out into the nether.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.

.....

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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.