Once Upon A Time

I spent the last two hours writing to you. 

It's long and drawn out and I'm not going to post it here.  It was an attempt to make sense of the last year of my life.  But after I wrote it and tied it up all nice and pretty with a shiny red bow, I realized I wasn't really interested in making sense of the last year of my life.  

Why bother?   

Why do we feel the need to make sense of things?

Sometimes things just don't make sense. 

You can find an answer or a reason for anything but it's not always the right answer or the real reason.  It's just a thing we latch onto to make ourselves feel better.  

To ease our load just a little bit.  

The truth is, I'm not interested in easing this load yet.

When the load eases so do my memories and thoughts of you. 

 

Maybe none of it was real for you.

Maybe you made the whole thing up.

 

I didn't.

 

It was real to me.

I loved you.

And that's all that truly matters in the story of my life.

 

Stephanie loved Noah.

Once Upon A Time.

 

Love Letters to Stephanie

 Dear Stephanie,

It's me, Stephanie.

I've been reading your blog over the last year and.....Whoa, Sister.

You're a bit of a mess aren't you?  Maybe a little ship wrecked?  Train wrecked? I-don't-remember-how-I-got-here-wrecked?

How many more years in a row are you gonna welcome the new year with the 'ol achey breaky heart?  Hmmm?

Got anybody lined up to do the honors come December?

Listen, I need to let you know something that apparently everyone EXCEPT YOU already knows.  It's going to change your life, maybe even save it.  

It's what everyone your age is doing now so you need to do it too.

Okay, here goes.

 

Stephanie.

Don't put your eggs in one basket.

That way when someone is done with you, you will have scattered your eggs around to several different baskets and you can just chill in one of those for a while.  

This will prevent you from giving too many Fucks.  Giving too many Fucks causes you to feel things.  Feeling things causes you to give your Fucks to people who might actually deserve them.  

But listen, you don't have that kind of time.

You're old as shit now and your birthday is in 6 days and you better not even pretend to turn 29 again because, BIIITCH! ain't nobody falling for that now.  Just be honest  with yourself for once in your life and put 36 candles on the cake this year.  For fucks sake, Stephanie.  Everyone already knows you'll be turning 36 anyway.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY go put your eggs in as many baskets as possible!

Like RIGHT NOW!!!! YESTERDAY EVEN!!!

Look, I don't know who this mysterious person is that you're gonna eventually want to give all your Fucks to but you need to at least be operating at your Max Basket Capacity so you'll have a way better chance at recognizing him when he shows up.  Max Basket Capacity varies for everyone.  Some people are able to operate upwards of 10 or more baskets at one time.  Others can only handle 5 or less.  Since you're a rookie and don't know your MBC (that's Max Basket Capacity), I'm gonna suggest you start big.  You can always narrow it down later.  

NOOOOO, Stephanie.  This is purely math and science here.  Get outta English Lit and walk your ass back across the hall.  

Listen, it doesn't matter if they catch feelings for you, Stephanie.  You are not giving them any of your Fucks, remember?  Right.  So fuck 'em!  That's not your problem.  They'll have to figure out how to cope after you're done with them.  Because YOU WILL be done with them eventually.  They'll learn.  It's not your job to teach them. 

 Repeat after me:  Fuck 'em!  

They're just human beings with feelings and emotions, blah, blah, freaking blah they haven't learned to regulate yet because they haven't taken all the personality and love tests we've taken or gone to hardly any TED talks or webinars or zoom conferences where EXPERTS, Stephanie, EXPERTS tell us what to feel and then  how and when to feel it. 

STEPHANIE  

STEPHANIE 

STEPHANIE

They haven't even set up their Boundary Box!  They don't even have one!  They're just out there -  all willy-nilly and EXPOSED for everyone and anyone.  

THE AUDACITY!!!

Please tell me you have a Boundary Box, Stephanie.  It's the box we keep ourselves in until we get ready to give our Fucks to someone.  No one, and I do mean NO ONE, is allowed inside the Boundary Box.  In fact, if you're a pro like me, you will have a Boundary Box inside a Boundary Box inside another Boundary Box, kinda like those Chinese nesting dolls.  

Listen.  This is important:

The Basket Eggs are allowed to approach the Boundary Box but must never attempt to infiltrate it even a tiny bit.  If that is to happen, you must go NO CONTACT immediately.  Right away.  No questions or explanations are needed for the vile and filthy person who would even think about getting inside your Boundary Box.  

GHOST THEM, STEPHANIE!!!!  It's the only way.  They are EVIL.  They will try to make you feel things for them!  They will try to make you give them all your Fucks!!!!  

Do Not Fall For Their Manipulation Tactics!  

Walk Away Walk Away Walk Away 

Then RUN, bitch!

As fast as you can!

There IS a better egg in one of those baskets and you deserve that egg, Stephanie!

DO NOT settle for just any Basket Egg.  

But absolutely DO let them entertain you until you have found your GOLDEN basket egg.  It makes them feel important and when they feel good they're more fun to be around.  

Win/Win.

No, Stephanie.  They'll be fine!  They're just crying right now but they'll get over it.  Remember?  Fuck 'em!

Repeat after me:  Fuck 'em!  

STEPHANIE!  I'm telling you right now that giving them even half a Fuck will cause you to feel something and feeling something will cause an avalanche of all your Fucks and then you will love them unconditionally forever and ever amen until the end of time because that is what you do and I am tired of saying hello to all the January's of all the years with a broken goddamn heart because you can not stay inside your Boundary Box!

Stop flopping around in the mud puddle and come look at these potted plants from the Home Depot and then bake cookies and sip tea and talk about your crafts and your kids like the rest of the middle aged ladies do!  God!

LYLAS,

Stephanie

 

P.S.  BIIITCH!! We all know you're not turning 36 in 6 days either and if you don't lock yourself up in that boundary box, I'm going to expose you!

 

 

Dear Stephanie,

Hey, it's me, Stephanie!

What's up, ho?  

What the hell did I just read?  You sound a bit unhinged.

Look, I've got this ok?

I have it on good authority that I am a REAL BAD BITCH.  As such, I can handle our shit.  

I'm sorry but you're gonna have to sit this one out, sis. I appreciate your Fucks and MCBs and BBs and the really sage advice about treating people like shit so I can get what I want but that's not really how we operate, is it?  I mean, we didn't make it all the way to 37 (you got me) with our heart still tender and malleable by being a total douchebag, did we?

We didn't.  And I don't intend to make it another 37 years by being one either.

So calm the fuck down already.

We're going to keep right on loving people who may or may not also love us back and then we're going to write about it here on this blog after we have fallen all the way off the cliff, just like the 16 year olds we never grew out of would do.  After a few months of total despair and heartache, we'll find love again.  Or we won't.  In which case this blog will sit dormant for another 10 years.  Maybe forever. 

Or. 

Or, Stephanie.  There's always an 'or.'  Maybe, just maybe, someone will eventually love us back the way we love them and then we can rename our blog "UntangledOrder."

You just never know.  The future is alive with possibilities.

But, in the meantime, you and I will work on neglecting and killing potted plants from the Home Depot, burning the baked cookies, staring at the crafts that we bought but don't give two shits to actually try and, most importantly, avoiding the other old ladies that don't look like us because NO WAY WE LOOK THAT OLD, sister.

Now, let's go listen to Em's new album and try to say the words along with him. That fool is never gonna stop rapping. And we'll never stop listening.

Stephanie, we are beautiful and transparent.

Probably from all that time we spent splashing around in the mud puddles when we were 36, almost 37.

We've got this.

LYLAS,

Stephanie

P.S.  HO, if you tell anyone how old I actually am, I am going to stuff you inside your boundary box inside the other boundary box inside the other boundary box so you can't ever get out and then I can really spread all my Fucks around!  

You can't even imagine how many Fucks I have!  

So very many Fucks.

Fucks for Everyone

Fucks for Days

Fucks Forever

Fucks Unlimited

.................

A Dignified Queen, I Am Not

Every single day I think of you and every single day I think of some different thing I did or didn't do while we were together that made you think "hmmm, you know what?  FUCK THIS."

Because obviously it was a big Fuck This from you.

Right?

What's that stupid shit they love to throw around all over Reddit?

If it's not a HELL YES it's a HELL NO.

I guess it wasn't a HELL YES for you then.

I go back and forth between being sad and heartbroken to angry and confused.  I don't know which place I'm supposed to dwell in until I don't think about you anymore because I've stopped caring one way or the other if I was a HELL YES or a FUCK THIS.

I want to ask you how come you couldn't love me but I don't dare because that is considered weak and pathetic and I'm supposed to know that I'm a QUEEN who doesn't need answers because obviously it's your loss only and 

this one is my absolute favorite:  IT'S NOT ME, IT'S YOU.  

But also, there's this thing called DIGNITY and apparently I'm supposed to want to possess it and therefore can not go flailing about all out of control (who makes these fucking rules!) because that will look bad to the person who broke my heart (you) and I am supposed to want them to RESPECT me later on down the road when they're with someone who is NOT ME!

DIGNITY!

Have some motherfucking dignity, Stephanie.  Make her your bitch  and walk around town with her tattooed across your forehead so everyone will know that when your heart breaks in half you do not fall down or even stumble.  

Why?  

BECAUSE YOU ARE DIGNIFIED! 
AND A QUEEN!  

And when that man asked you to take your final bow for him, you curtsied all the way across the stage like the good little girl you've always been and let him go gently into that good night, back from whence he came.  

Good Day, SIR.

That's how someone with DIGNITY behaves when her heart shatters. 

 

What a load of absolute molasses!!!

 

But, Stephanie! TWENTY SEVEN people on this one post on the internet said it's true and there was also an article on Medium written by an accountant who almost majored in psychology but didn't and she said it was true too.  Plus, there's this sad old woman who writes this pathetic blog about how much she loves all the men who don't love her and she said it's true too....

Wait....

No, she didn't.  

She definitely didn't say it was true.

She says all the things that no one really wants to hear because we've all convinced ourselves that we are gods and goddesses and anyone who thinks otherwise was simply just too dull to bathe in the beauty of our light so they need to GET GONE.  We have bigger fish to fry than to worry about a thing like self-reflection.  FUCK THAT.  The only person who needs to do any kind of self-reflecting is the absolute moron who could have possibly taken a pass on you, Queen.  There is obviously something wrong with him.

It's not you, Stephanie.  Of course it isn't you.  

He only thought you were amazing for a whole year before he met you in person.

Do you think it was your chin?  Or  that you wore too many clothes?  Maybe you should have let your titties hang out more?

But seriously.

What the fuck did I really think was going to go down when you met me?  I mean, the week before you said "This feels more like a dead end than a new beginning because it would be an insurmountable challenge for you to move to Corn City and I don't want to move to Loserville so....."

I will tell you what I thought.  Honestly and Sincerely.  From the bottom of my overflowing heart.

I really and truly thought we'd fall madly in love.

Or, at the very least, we'd like each other so much that we'd want to see each other again.

That's what I thought.

FUCK ME SIXTEEN WAYS TO FOREVER, I never imagined it would be a one and done.  Totally did not see that freight train barreling right on through the station.  I guess I was too busy looking at you and laughing when we stared at that map of Mobile on the wall of that little house we stayed in.

 

I was really hoping I'd see you again sometime....

 

I'd give you back my whole heart if I could rewind time to that day in October when you left your apartment up there to drive down here.  I wish when you locked your door behind you, you were just on your way to the market and not on your way to me.  Then your name would still light up my phone and your voice would still be in my head.

 

I miss you.

 

I hope 2021 is everything you need it to be.

 

 

Unraveling

JANUARY 1

2021

I don't peddle sunshine.
That's the first thing you need to know about me.
If you're here looking for a dose of dopamine,

please exit stage left.

Or
take a seat.

Maybe a dopamine rush is not really what you're looking for anyway.

Maybe you want to be entertained in some other way. 

Some dark horse,
some black night,
some stale bread,
some congealed soup left on the kitchen table for one too many days in a row now.

Maybe that's the kind of rush you're after

Maybe that's the thrill you're seeking.

Check underneath that coffee pot over on the counter. 
I bet you'll find last weeks coffee grounds still under there. 
Don't open the pantry door unless you want to see yesterdays trash still on the floor. 
It fell out when the trash can overflowed and we didn't bother picking it up. 
That makes too much sense, you see. 
And we don't make sense around here. 

We're feral.

We're all the way up in the mess and we don't bother dusting that dirt of our shoulders like Jay-Z told us to do.

Nah.

We wear that shit like a mother fucking badge.

We take it with us out into the world when we open the front door and let the sunshine all the way in to every corner of our unmade house.

Our unmade house.
Our unmade beds.
Our unmade lives.

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.