unrequited love.

There is that one stretch of highway, miles long, and no matter how many times my tires race it, or my feet pace it, it doesn’t answer. Maybe it’s because I still find myself trying to articulate the question. out loud. to myself. when I think no one’s watching, and no one’s around to see me furrow my brow.  I try to form the words and I find my tongue heavy, and stuck to my palate, and they just won’t come.

I miss the feeling of unrequited love. I miss the feeling of wanting someone so bad it hurts. Or rather, I miss the hopeful feeling that goes along with it, that only exists before the first kisses and the last embrace.

Time, the proverbial healer, really fucked me on this one. It’s like I’ve had to trick myself into believing that you don’t exist. I know you are out there, somewhere, in that place you chose, so far away from me. In a life, so different from the one I live.  But I had to choose to only see  a one-dimensional version of you- a photo in an album, a postcard with a half-assed signature, a life-size, fleshless, bloodless, cardboard cut-out version of you.  

But then lately, it’s all come back to me in swells and rushes. In dreams. In insomnia. In restlessness and restfulness. In strange places. In my mind.

You were the first man that I had a real school girl’s crush on. In the most innocent, lovely, simple, even juvenille way.
I wanted you to like me, and think I was pretty.
I wanted you to notice me, and pick me first when we played dodgeball.
That was part of it. After spending so much time in a “grown-up” world, I somehow had forgotten how much holding someone’s hand could mean. how much a first kiss could take your breath away.

And then there was how much you fit my silly ideal description of what a man should be right down to the last detail. Not just physically. I mean you were tall, and dark, and handsome- not in a pretty way, but in a rugged, rough around the edges way.  And you were so strong, and bigger than me, yet somehow a vulnerability emanated from you. In a way that made me feel like only I was special enough to see it. In a way that made me allow myself to let you see mine.  It was like your being such a man, just made me want to be a lady. and oddly enough, I enjoyed it. Sand and glass, you and me. You polished me, and made me smoother, and softer, and more delicate, but also more fragile. You refined me, and defined me in ways that you still don’t know.

you still don’t know.

to whom it may concern:

I should be worried about you right now. I should be thinking about the facts at hand…the distance, the pressure, the pace, the possiblities, the lies and the unadulterated truth. my mind should be racing between calling you, or texting you, or waiting… a day, or two, or twelve. I should be consumed by you…

but I’m not.

all I can think about is the smell of the air blowing through my office window. and vanilla frozen custard dipped in toasted coconut from the freeze. and the beach. and bleachers at wrigley. and how hot vegas is in 105 degree weather. and fall-off-the-bone ribs. and the way the red white and blue fireworks reflect on to lake michigan on the 4th of july. and how beautiful the open road looks under a glaring sun, just glimmering with sights and scenes of americana unknown, yet somehow still foreign and exotic. and fairs with cotton candy and ferris wheels. and cold, cold beer on a boat cruising through the chain. and my birthday.

I truly think that people who live in year-round warm climates cannot possibly understand the feeling that is summer. because it is a feeling, and not just a season. it is nostalgia. it is aphrodesia. it is a three month long, hot, torrid, passionate fling with life. and I love it more than just about anything.

lately on several occasions I’ve recalled those nights I used to spend at the barn. the tailgates down, the bonfires, the strawberry wine, and skinny dipping, and what it meant to be 17 and completely carefree, and have the entire world at my fingertips. to be wanted in ways that I didn’t even understand, and to want nothing. I think it’s time to get back to that. it’s time to get back to that summer.

That summer, I wrote this:

we spoke like two loves of long ago
but with a certain bitterness emanating and diffusing,
from and between the two of us.
amidst the calculated content of our conversation
all that I can recall

are the two a.m. escapades,
so young, throwing beer cans at trains,
crushing quarters smooth on the steel tracks,
and running back to your house breathlessly
with the ghostly whistles ringing in our ears
growing more faint and haunt in the distance.

the sticky summer air
that made our clothes cling
sweetly to our bodies
moist with sweat.
the tops of trees aflame,
sacrifices in our worship to the pregnant august sun.
your index finger wandering slowly along my lower back,
arching in efforts to escape.

the night the eight of us
removed our clothes, and our skin,
bare to each other, and the world, and the freeway,
and everyone else disappeared for some moments
and we made love to each other in our minds.
we swam by starlight, and streetlight,
and savored all the simplicity of shadow
and sunrise, and knew
we were losing ourselves.

Do I dare ask if our thoughts are still connected?

the spring sucks

you in.

with all of it’s moisture, and fragrant blooming, and warm cloudy days that turn to rainy sun, and all it’s contradiction, and it’s perpetual feeling of promise. Like there is something coming. Like the change in the season and the change in the weather is bound to bring some other change. The change that I’ve been searching for… or rather just waiting to stumble across.

I speak to you after not having seen you in years. And it is cordial, and brief, and we talk about the way things are, the way things have been. And you have the life I dream of. You have your sweetheart, and your country, and your discipline, and your autonomy, and a measured level of success.  And it was all a mistake of sorts.  It was all just something that happened for you.

It hits me that, that is it.
I want to find it, but I don’t want to look.
I think mostly just because I’m scared of what is actually there.
I want to be taken, but I don’t know to where, and I don’t know by whom, and I’m not sure that it matters.
To everywhere and nowhere, and all the places in between, that are exactly the same as this one, with the same characters, just different names.

Is it that I’m helpless, or hopeless, or just that I’ve lost all hope?
When the heart searches for contentment, where is it supposed to look?
How do you know that you’ve found what you’re looking for once you find it?

But it worked for you, so why can’t it work for me?
And why should I look, when I can just wait for it to find me? They say you’ll never find it if you do.
I want to stare it in the face. I want to look at it the way you’ve seen it, but from my own angle, and know it just the same.

The Way Things Are.

how do you put into words that everything someone thinks about you is wrong?

how do you redraw yourself from the beginning?

how do you make them understand that just because you seem distant and shatterproof, doesn’t mean that they can treat you like you don’t care, or like they don’t?

I wouldnt know what to do with another chance…if you gave it to me

somedays I just want you to grab me by my face and tell me that you absolutely know for sure without a doubt that I am the one that you want. I want you to be a man. I want you to be the strong one so that for once I don’t have to be. I want you to convince me that I need you. Not because I need convincing that I need you, but because I need convincing that I need you. Because I have spent so many years, not needing anyone. And after spending so much time self-sufficient it just doesn’t seem reasonable that it could ever be any other way. I think I’ve completely forgotten how to depend on anyone else. I think about it sometimes, but in the abstract, “I wonder what that is like” way.

I couldn’t take the embrace of a real romance…it’d race right through me

I want you to understand that what you’re asking of me is not something I can take lightly. Because I can not take matters of the heart lightly anymore. I am not 16. I am not invincible. I am not that little girl that is in love with the idea of love. I mean, to a certain extent, I suppose she is still trapped in me somewhere.  But, I can’t give myself away like I used to. I can’t just let everyone in, like my heart is a one-ticket ride. I know the hurt all too well. I want to let go. I want to love like this is my only life, because it is, but I just can’t. I need some stabilty, and some structure, and someone to hold my hand through the whole goddamn thing, because the only thing that I can’t do on my own, is not be alone.

I’m much better off the way things are…Much much better off, better by far, by far

extra ordinary.

i work (some more). i hate (my job). i eat (a lot).  i sleep (alone). i run (sporadically). i breathe (asthmatically). i think (too much). i write (everything).  i laugh (obnoxiously). i talk (too loud). i drink (too heavily and frequently). i question (myself, almost daily). i ramble (on and on and on). i am confused.
i am stuck (in this routine). stuck in this extra ordinary place where all of this just is what it is. nothing more. nothing more at all.

a long time ago I swore to myself that this wasn’t the life I chose. that I chose something greater and bigger for myself. I told myself that I am stronger. but I am not, and really, it is. it is exactly what I chose. every step of the way.
I still don’t think that I have ever fought for anything. ever. I don’t think I have ever wanted anything bad enough to fight for. I don’t think I’ve ever truly challenged myself. I think that pretty much, for the majority of my life anyway, I have just taken everything as it comes. I don’t think I’ve ever really loved anyone.  I think I just wait for good things to happen and am perpetually disappointed.

disappointed by my confusion. the confusion of wanting everything all at once, and wanting absolutely nothing at all. the confusion of wanting to feel all of life’s feelings intensely but settling for apathy, and complacence. 

disappointed by my lack of passion for the things that matter. or maybe not. maybe they matter to me. so that’s all that matters. but maybe so many people have been telling me for so long that they are the wrong things to matter that I’ve started to believe them.

disappointed by your lack of passion for me. disappointed that your ideas about love and life and how they fit together and mine are different. that I am a hopeless romantic but that I am way too proud and way too insecure to actually go through with love.  and still disappointed that I haven’t felt a feeling strongly, other than restlessness and discontent in so long that I bite my nails until they bleed.

disappointed in the chasm between the human being I wish I was and the one I am. the compassionate and selfless friend-philanthropist-girlfriend-giver-christian-volunteer soul that just doesn’t exist in me.

so I am humbled. because I was an arrogant little shit. I never realized how much more difficult it is to find yourself and your place in this world when you sever your ties to your roots. everything is so much harder alone.  without someone to bear your burden for just a little bit. without someone who has to care all the time because they are blood. there is so much of you both in me. there is so much of your humor, and your logic, and your analytical mind, and your stubborness, and your warm-heartedness (at times), and your twinkling eyes, and your half-smiling soul that show through your rough-exterior, and mine.  and there is so much of your insecurity, and indecision, and emotional lunacy, and confusion, and chaotic mind, and unconditional love for all the wrong things that I just can’t deny is inherent in me, and that I can’t get rid of as much as I try.  but we’ve chosen to channel our best and brightest and deepest and darkest facets into different things. or rather, I’m not sure where I’ve chosen to channel mine yet. and you can’t be here to help me figure it out. ever again. and it hurts. it hurts so much it aches. and I forgive you. because I know you don’t have a choice. but it doesn’t make my task at hand any easier.

brave little toaster.

at what point can we put our pride aside, lay it on the line, and just accept that if our egos get a little bruised along the way it was worth it to buy the ticket and take the ride? and at what point can we just let go of the emotional baggage of our 50 year old hearts, and just admit that we don’t want to live our lives bitter, and jaded, and cynical, and alone?

because I saw the way you looked at me that night I told you that you didn’t care, and I see it behind your eyes when you’re running scared. you’re there. you’re on that threshold at the edge of the precipice, thinking about taking the plunge, but wondering if I mean to make good on all my promises. wondering how much it will hurt when I disappoint you, as I inevitably will. well I’ll tell you now that it doesn’t matter at all.

I would love the chance to disappoint you. because if I did in fact disappoint you, like you already have me, that would mean that you would have to give enough of yourself to me that you would feel any hurt at all. that would mean mustering enough bravado that you let go and place your heart in my hands. and of course it will hurt at some point. that’s just what happens when you really care about something, someone, anything.  because nothing is perfect, particularly not people and particularly not me.  but I would at least try for you. for your attention, and your respect, and your admiration. I would try to make it easy, and spontaneous, and sexy.  fuck, I would even be faithful.

baby, I could be good to you. I could be good for you. I could be all those things that are lyrics in a song that paint a scene. I want to. but I want you to figure it the fuck out. because I’m not going to sell myself to you like a used appliance, or a car loan, even if I am an amazingly brave little toaster, or maybe even a little red corvette.  I know what I could do for you. but if you can’t realize it and take a risk, then you don’t deserve it

today I am dreaming…

of a perfect morning. 
a morning of overcast, a pretty shade of pale and gentle breeze blowing through an open window and across our faces and into our morning breath mouths.
buried under many blankets  trapping our warmth.
a morning with no alarm clocks, and no punch clocks,
no wake up calls, and no calls in.
no calls at all.
just many perfect lazy moments strung together
like pearls on string.
slipping in and out of  consciousness and dreamworld, and finally resting in that elysian place where the two melt.

until the music is over

somewhere on the cosmic map
of space and time
there are planets orbiting
and star signs aligning
around a simple truth

a. simple. truth.

somehow I am time traveling
back to a place, wondering what
this world is like
and what I need to do
to be a part of it
before it passes me by
or before the sickness overtakes
and I’m laying there in bed

and it’s all flying so fast
past the windows of the houses
and the passengers on the train
and the lenses of the man on his way,
to wherever he is going.
spinning like a giant carousel
in time
to that music
and I can’t get off, but I want
to. but it won’t let me
until the music is over.

so here I am, with air
filled lungs, and blood
shot eyes, and ink
stained hands, just searching
searching.

and you look at me like maybe
I’m the answer
like it is all together in me
and there is some focus behind
these roving, restless eyes
instead of this racing and vulnerability.

as if I am supposed to know the way,
the way to the end,
the way all of this works
for you and me.
and I just don’t. I want
to. but, it won’t let me
until the music is over.

trust fate (?)

fate

/feɪft/ [feyt] noun

–noun

1.	something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.

2.	the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.

3.	that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate.

4.	a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate.

5.	death, destruction, or ruin.

6.	the Fates, Classical Mythology. the three goddesses of destiny, known to the Greeks as the Moerae and to the Romans as the Parcae.

I was raised to believe in free will. I was raised to believe that hard work, and determination, and goals, and lists, and planning is what makes things happen. I was raised to believe that the idea of fate is a cop out. That the life you want to live, is the life you have to create. No one, person, or entity is going to make it happen for you. That’s what I was raised to believe.

I got onto a tangent about this with a friend last weekend. He tattooed Trust Fate on the inside of his upper arms. My only reply was that I don’t think I really believe in fate. Why? The only thing that I could come up with, really, was that there is just as much physical proof to support the belief that everything happens because it is destined to, as there is to believe that everything happens purely out of coincidence, or as a result of what you make of it. And I was raised to believe the latter.

but, I really started thinking about it.
thinking about where all of this had gotten me.
thinking about how nothing ever turns out the way I plan. ever.
thinking about how just when I think I’ve figured anything out, everything manages to find a way to unravel on me.
thinking about how some of the things that I’ve worked the hardest on, tasks, goals, relationships- have failed anyway.
thinking about a million mistakes I’ve made that could’ve turned out so much worse than they actually did.

and it just makes me wonder…if I really had anything to do with it.

part of me feels like, deep down, if I was actually solely responsible for all of it, it would’ve turned out way, way worse.

like all of the time I’ve spent anguishing over decisions, and stressing about what to do, and analyzing all the angles should’ve been spent elsewhere, because maybe none of it matters anyway…because that’s what I’ve done for the last 23 years, and I don’t know that it’s helped at all. I think maybe the only thing that it’s given me is a chronic and severe pain between my shoulder blades, and frequent headaches right behind my eyes.

So I’m toying with the idea of going with his approach. Just to see how it works, just for awhile.

witching hour

upstairs
the lights are dimmed
to chaste but insinuating
silhouettes adjacent

pink hues of silk
transform honesty
and make the conscience linger
for an instant

too late
for children’s bedtimes
or painted finalities
elicited stroke by stroke

so lie
bare beneath the curtains
exhaling exposed and
concave