Words From Three Years Ago (Text Version)

words from three years ago

What Doesn’t Happen, Didn’t Exist to Begin With I feel hurt and dishonest, and as if no one was here, or ever even really was to begin with. I’m being pushed, shoved into these off-white cinderblock walls, and my voice is suffocating through the smoke being blown into my face. I can’t speak, and my heart races up to my mouth when I try to defend myself. I’m a walking mat; my personality is wondrous, cynical and wanting more from everyone. My grudges are being held close to my chest, while my anger is being pushed into my stomach, a never-leaving pain. The things I say are never taken seriously, and the ones I consider the closest are always the ones who start to run first. I can’t focus and when I try to say this, I’m turned away and every word that leaves my mouth ends up on the ground. It’s impossible to explain my feelings, to explain the sense of loss I feel more and more every day—the loss of the one I’ve always truly loved, and the loss of myself—, to explain the way I see this life, explain the way I’m hurt. This overwhelming feeling I have throughout the day, and the realizations that I don’t know where I’m going at night. It all drowns me, and the more valium I take, the less sleep I allow myself, the decreasing food inside of me, the lack of passion, of desire, and happiness, they become what makes me up; they all become part of my thin veins and breaking bones. I make myself too numb to cry, and the things in my childhood— the things that made me who I am today—they’re invisible and unreachable. I’m unreachable to myself, more and more as each of my ribs are more prominent. The whiskey burns my heart, tears my stomach, and the cigarillos line my throat with the blackness I always told myself to never fall for. My eyes are worn, my hair disheveled, my skin cracked and my hips sharper. The days slip by as I look at my failings, and the night lasts too long, especially when I keep looking around for him. Expecting him. Each of his movements affects me, and I’m always the one who waits for him to turn, and I’m always the one left behind. Even though my strides are longer and my patience more withering, I’m always the one left behind. My ears, the ones that remember his low voice at night, they’re killing and alienating me. The rambles are the product of twenty-hour days, and the images that make up my mind throughout these hours are the ones of the people I miss the most—the tiny moments, the tiny people I never appreciated, the tiny details that stuck to me: The little things about life that, even as I walk briskly past them, I somehow manage to pick up; the slant of light over the northern lake, the way he tilts his head

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when he’s smoking a cigarette, looking at me. The tone of her voice when she says she won’t wait for me, the hand on the knee of the cheater. The nod from across the room, the glance back at me and the turn away from me, the difference of the way his shoulder blades moved when he walked away compared to when he came up to me… the extra breath taken in between words. All of these are things that hurt me; things that numb me and things that make me want to run away. They’re things I can’t explain, things I think of when I’m ready to leave. I’ve evolved into this person from this place and I’m ready to leave.

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words from three years ago

It’s Not Over I’m sitting in the cold, 23 degrees, thinking about the reasons why we hold certain things up at a higher platform and if it’s us who is, or if it’s the modern society’s mind enveloping ours. I’m hurt by many things, as many people are; I’m hurt by friends, by family, by the ones I barely know but their thoughts are what invade me.

Their thoughts about who I should be, what I should stand for, what I should do with myself. Someone walking away from me right now, the one who I have such high feelings for, that the idea of him shines, hurts me. And then my friends, the ones I go to but don’t come to me, hurt me. I’m in this cold, with this unwanted smoke draped around my shoulders, with this philosophy book and these ideas swarming in my brain. The ones who are walking away, who don’t come to me, they aren’t aware that the other hurt is breaking me more than it should—or should in their minds.

Modern expectations are the ones that focus on our individuality of moving on with ourselves, with our own minds and with only us telling us what to do, where to move to, and they also expect friendships and family to be the most important second to ourselves. Those are the ones that should hurt ourselves the most—ourselves, our friends, our dreams, our families, and then, finally, our love. Here, they expect that our outer shells should be more powerful than our inner shells—our inner shells are what consume us to our extent—our love. The kind that when you feel it, you’re embarrassed to admit it because that’s not what should matter, that’s not what should take a hold of you and become all of who you are. But indeed, it does. It’s the reason my bones feel fragile now, the reason my face unmoving, my sudden bursts of happiness, my starvation and my loneliness, among others. But they don’t see that. So when I walk away, when I smile and say I’ll go now, when I look at them with their boys and their happiness, they assume I’m upset about who they are. About the way they’re acting. But when it comes down to it, I’m upset about my inner shell. They aren’t what make me up—it’s this feeling about someone else that makes me up, which confuses me and heals me and hurts my head. They don’t think about maybe I am what is changing me, and instead of being upset with me, they should think about what is happening. No, there’s nothing they, or even I, can do, and that’s fine. That’s life, things are what they are.

The heat of my mind is wearing off now, and I can’t smell the smoke anymore, and the depth is now becoming shallow, so now, in the middle of a thought, it’s time to just wait here. To just lie

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down in this cold and think of what I have so close to me and think of what I need to change. Change is what I need. Want.

Should have. “I agree we should.” Those words aren’t changing the more I think about them, but I can’t push them away because they have so many different meanings, and they could be polar opposite meanings.

Time’s not over, and it is what it is.

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words from three years ago

Accept Them for Who They Are or Turn Around There are many things we don’t understand, and there are many things we choose to not understand. Our minds are so complex in perspective, and it’s impossible to put someone else in your shoes, so to say. We, as humans, have our own patterns for thinking and reacting toward certain things. When we’re around a group of people for what may seem like a long time, we grow accustomed to their reactions and may even lose sight of what, or who we, ourselves, are. We cling to these people for a sense of feeling– of security, warmth, acceptance–and we end up suffocating ourselves. Why do we cling? Do we even truly like, or appreciate these people, and respect and care for them? If not, why do we continue to use and abuse them? After time, it becomes all we know, and eventually we become afraid of isolating ourselves.

Isolation could very well be the only sense of peace we can achieve within our own minds… to figure out what I want, to know who I am and who the people I want to be surrounded by are. Do these people I’m surrounded by now, do they make me feel better about myself? Do they support me, care for me, appreciate my company and all that I attempt to do for them? Do they realize all the effort I put into the bond, or am I just one of many who are easily disposable? There are many questions we fight ourselves to answer, and many of which we will deny to question in the first place. Many things we don’t want to think about… many things we do to protect ourselves.

What may seem little to us could be the biggest problem or concern to someone we think we care about. How far will we put ourselves to try to understand, or to help that person? Not far at all. We’re more consumed by what we want, or what is easier for us. Try looking at both sides: Even if you can’t fully understand one’s problem, is it still worth it to drop them as a friend? Furthermore, is it right to assume their problem isn’t really a problem at all, and merely an annoyance that you’re sick of dealing with? When it comes to understanding another human’s point of view, we’re never correct. Only they know what they are capable of. Only they can feel what they feel–their hurt and rejection, sadness and anger, all tied up into one. Only they are able to know their limits… you never have the right to take it upon yourself to tell them who they are or how to fix them.

Only they know how to fix themselves. Only they know who they are. Either you accept them for them, or you acknowledge your

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differences and say, “I don’t understand your position, and I can’t deal with it.” Remember that they already have a great deal to handle themselves, alone and for the rest of their lives, and don’t need someone to try to tell them who they are. You’ll always be wrong. We always are.

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words from three years ago

The Start of Who We Are (This is the end of everything we knew, and this is the beginning of who we will become.) I can’t say what will happen, and I can’t make promises about the world. I can’t make promises about me; we’re all spinning, insignificantly, and soon it will be over.

Wavelengths of life and breath and colors, they will come together and we’ll vanish from the thin air we’ll be barely surviving on. We will disarm our hearts and let go of our hopes, because eventually, we’ll realize that everything is capable of being forgotten, lost, and damaged. My voice is already fading, and I heard that yours would last for the rest of your life. I’ll never reach that far (to you). I’ll never be able to fall again, and you’ll never be able to see me fall.

In a strange way, it’s a blessing. In another, it’s an awkward way of saying goodbye—to the wavelengths, of course—to the wavelengths that I connected to you. But when this world vanishes, so will we, and we’ll be lost and everything will change. No, I can’t promise any of that. We could starve forever, or stay recklessly young.

Whichever one you choose, but I don’t promise you anything.

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Limits of Nothing There’s a limit, you know. In life. It’s not blue, or red—well, it could be a mixture of the two. It could be yourself, or the one you love, or both of those as well. The sand is a luxury kind of limit that peeks out from a mysterious land that we can’t really comprehend that creates another one of our limits. We could even call the modern day our own limits, or the past, and argue that what has already been created can’t happen again. No, I don’t particularly agree. Some say our minds, our imagination, and our feelings (emotions) are our personal limit—limits ourselves to the rest of the world. No, something every being, be it in the darkest depth or in the highest sky, has in common. Life itself.

We can’t control when we end. That is our only limit. The most mysterious thing we could ever comprehend, no matter what kind of being we are. We can’t control it, so we’re afraid. Because we think that what we can control creates a sense of security—just knowing is enough for us. Even if we don’t do anything about it, at least it’s something that we know, that we can think about comfortably. But the end of life itself is something that we can never understand. Our limit is what we can’t control.

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words from three years ago

It Always Seems Better From Far Away In Homer’s Illiad, it is stated: “Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” This truly defines the element of life’s moments in the most pure, simplistic, and honest way possible. As humans, we are able to extract ourselves from our bodies in an abstract way. We are able to think of complex systems and we are the only species who are aware of death; we understand it not to its full extent, but we accept the fact of it. Our minds are able to expand outside of ourselves and into the universe, into what’s out there other than ourselves and what we see in front of us. We’re doomed, and we know this. Although, what is “doom?”

The end? Everything has its end—every organism, every planet and star, and things that don’t need oxygen or food to survive.

And because of this, because we are so profusely aware of the idea and concept of death, or the final end to life, we become, then, more aware of our surroundings. We look in every direction, into each detail and seam of our lives. Or we should, anyway. Those who truly value life and also equally value death are the ones who take this in. Each scent and feel and emotion and sound and taste.

Everything about now, in this moment, this atmosphere.

I’m here, in this place, not because I want to be at all, but nonetheless I have come to love it. It wasn’t in my “plan,” or even in my mind. A simple joke, it started out as. And then all of a sudden things began to fall apart, and of all places I end up here.

I would have said that about any place I never intended to go to, but aside the point, I’m okay with this being the place I was pushed into. This experience has allowed me to learn to commit, to stay, to appreciate the time I have and the time I lost. I’ve tied loose ends, or began to, anyway, which is more than I could have said about the past four years. I’ve learned to grow over my fears of home, of family, of commitment. It’s allowed me to take a step back, to reevaluate how I want to live my life. Right now, I’m supposed to be just south of the Alps and North of Milan. I’m supposed to be writing in Italian, waking up right now. Walking downtown as a foreigner in a new home. I’m supposed to be on a train to see the world, to see the places I’ve always thought I was supposed to end up at. I would have walked away from that lawn on June 17th and felt freedom from the one I had held onto for long, and it would have been over. I would have lived a new life and became a different person, a well-rounded and cultured

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person, far from him and everyone I ever knew. I would have seen what this life is made up of, and learned about others’ from everywhere, across the planet. Of all of the places I could be at this very moment, I’m here. I don’t believe in anything; not in signs, not in deity, and I have no faith and I lack religion. I look at proof and I look at feelings. I don’t look at fate, and I hate thinking about what it is. But this place has done something to me to make me stop and look at how different life could be. We’ll never live like this again. In this moment, right now, the shadows of the light in the corner, the diluted yellow and whistling from the window. This new feeling of him coming back and then walking away, and now inching forward again.

This will never be the same. These feelings will fade, and this inbetween atmosphere will come every year, but it’s never the same.

(I long for the future, because right now, this lingering in-between, the cold and the warm, the slush and the mud, is everywhere. I can’t walk without feeling the puddles on my soles, and I can’t keep my eyes off of the ground because of the ice. It’s thawing, though, and I can feel my restlessness inside of me grow more used to this. Every new feeling needs to settle in, and it is. This season is teasing us with warmth, as he is to me. Both will be or has already been taken away soon. And such is life. We grow, we become patient with our wanderlust, and we adapt to new seasons.

When we long for the summer, we have to wait out the winter.

And then the slush. And then the barren grass. But eventually, peace inside of us will come. He will either stay or leave, and with whichever decision he makes, I will, in time, settle into it. It’ll be okay.) Humans are adaptors. We’ve settled on top of mountains and in rainforests, in negative degree weather and soaring desert heat. We are able to change our atmospheres and mentally, we are able to accept this and move on nomadically, settle into new mindsets and homes. It’s natural. We know death. We sense life.

We are young and then we begin to decay as soon as we stop developing. We move on. The details of this idea has changed since our species’ beginning, as the modern world and society has obviously changed the way in how we view life, but the general sense of what makes us human will always stay. The generalization is that our minds are, again, able to expand and move on and accept. Adaptation. Be it our surroundings, ourselves, our hearts— every element in our lives are things that will inevitably change on us, whether we expect it or not. Whether we want it to or whether we fear it. It will happen, and in the end, we’re alone in this. But

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words from three years ago

on the way to finding out what this life is to us, we each have our every day elements of change that we must cope with.

I am beginning to learn to let go of a place I’ve come to love, to leave the people I call my home. The person I’ve always had and may not in the future. There are so many things to let go of that I’ve held onto for so long, and so many that I’ve only just gotten used to, but the time will always come when it’s healthier to leave it behind. We have to do things for ourselves, because we are the only ones in our minds and we have to chase that atmosphere we’re looking for. Even if we’re not looking for anything, or if we don’t really know what we’re looking for, we need to get to the place that will leave us comfortably settled. My restlessness has gotten the best of me, but I’ve embraced it. I’ve been told my entire life that it’s my worst quality. I need to settle down, I need to love and procreate and stay. No, I don’t. I’m fine with moving, seeing, experiencing, of being restless. And that’s what scares me about this place. That I’m comfortable and I am able to see a future. It’s a fear that I should overcome, and yet it only ignites this wanderlust that has always been, and always will be, inside of me. I can’t stay. It hurts to leave, to think of what I’m leaving behind, but it hurts more to stay and always wonder. I can’t disappoint my original intentions, especially if those intentions are what is still the fire inside of me. Keeping me going, the voice in the back of my mind pushing me toward the life I really, truly want. Nostalgia will always catch up to me. I’ll miss who I am now, my flaws and my carelessness and my pain. That’s another part of our humanistic ways—we will look back on the past and miss who we were and we’ll try to hold onto the feelings and emotions we once felt, and we’ll remember the way the people we used to know made us feel. We shouldn’t forget that, because it’s what will ultimately make us who we will become for the rest of our lives. And because of this, we have no definition. We’re learning in each step of our lives, in each moment we move. When we’re over, when we are ending, we think that this is who we were meant to become. I don’t agree. We aren’t meant for anything.

I’m not “meant” to be here, even if it’s for these people or for this person. We wander, adapt, change, move, fall, live. Settle if that’s what you want. We become who we become because it’s who we want to be. There’s no faith in it, just pure science and life. The physical aspects are disconnected to the unexplainable

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emotional, but we’re always who we are, or trying to become, if you have an idea in your mind of who you think you should be or want to be. (Want to be.) There’s only so much we can know, but Homer is right: We never will be here again. In this moment, who we are, what we are right now. It will change. We will forever change, just like the universe around us. (Evolution.)

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words from three years ago

When It Becomes Who You Are I became restless after months of being in the same place, and so I silently went away. The physical pain overcame my eyesight, and I couldn’t see ahead of me anymore. I couldn’t walk to the door, I couldn’t tell what I really wanted and what I wanted merely because it was different. I packed a small bag and I left as soon as possible to push this pain away.

The drive went by quickly, with my terrible Irish coffee in hand, soon left unfinished, and I couldn’t sleep but I stared out at the road. I watched the progression of snow turning into grass for eight hours. I pretended to sleep. I felt a kink in the back of my neck, and my lower back, my legs, I couldn’t feel anything after a while. So I closed my eyes with my earplugs in, suffocating the noises from outside, and I thought. Mostly about what it would feel like again to be able to walk without a limp, without my right ribcage hurting. To sleep without having the painkillers tearing my stomach ruthlessly apart. To sit in one place without the muscles screaming, to write without my hands cramping, to feel the heat and cold of the water in a shower. To feel something besides the pain that took up my mind.

I then thought of a conversation. I was sitting on a chair in an office with blinds similar to the ones in my room. She was in the corner, her pen poised. I was slumped, still feeling the pain.

“Boy trouble?”

No, back trouble. Pain.

“So physical and emotional pain?”

The physical pain is real.

“And not the emotional?”

That’s real, too. It’s just numbed right now because of the physical pain. It kind of trumps that right now.

“It always seems like the greatest loss in the world.”

You make it sound so juvenile.

Oh wait, it is.

Juvenile.

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Always Where I Need To Be What happens when home isn’t home anymore? I stepped out of the car with my bags, the weight crushing my nerves. The heat is overwhelming—the seasons change down here so much more quickly. I struggled to the side door of this strange house, and I couldn’t see the pale green bricks in the dark, but I knew it was different. I opened the door and a hallway of shoes I’ve never seen before, things hanging on walls I’m only starting to see. I walk into a room—unknowing of what room it is—and I set my things down. It’s empty. This new place is silent, but so full of things. I wander around, noticing every hint of difference. The halls up the stairs are winding and it’s a complete maze—finally I find a dark purple room in the back corner, shoved back by tiny hallways and doors. I flick the light on, and it illuminates the boxes strewn around and the queen sized bed that wasn’t mine. I reach into my pocket and I turn on my silver phone, the one I leave when my heart is too anxious to deal with him. I had it off during most of the drive down… I’m tired of waiting for his answers, the ones that rarely arrive anyway. I bet another week to go by without a sound from him. (By now it’s been over a week—nearly two weeks.) There is a new message, however; one from an old friend, one who hadn’t gotten my new number. I call him and I drive my nineteen-year-old Volvo station wagon a few blocks away. I want to be in a place that at least feels familiar.

I park across the street and he’s walking toward me from the driveway. We meet in the middle of the street, a quick pace, a close hug, one that lasts. Movement in our feet twisting, and he grabs my hand and I start walking. I tell him I miss him, and he reminds me of what I don’t have. We sit on the grass and I put on my sweatshirt. It’s colder now, but I’m still able to take my shoes off. It’s mostly awkward, but in the comfortable awkward because that’s how we’ve always been. It’s just who we are, and we’ve been far away but friends for so long. After a couple of hours, he goes back inside and I pick up my shoes and walk over to my car. I drive around these streets I used to know, the ones that made me who I am. These surroundings are like felt…soft, cheap, standard.

The trees are the same, the houses haven’t moved, and everyone is too much how I remember them. I love that and I hate that. I mostly take comfort in it, but then a few days later, I have to get away.

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It’s always a cliché bittersweet feeling, and it gets old and tiring and it makes me want more. More from people, more from life, more from myself. I create expectations because of what I see, what I feel, and it isn’t fair to anyone. I can’t help the chemicals in my brain, or the thirst I have for something else. I’ll never be able to get back to how I used to walk, how I used to be, or laugh.

This is what changes us…leaving and then coming back. I hate the coming back part, but at least it’s somewhere else to go when I’m drained in a place I’m tired of. Where do I want to be? It changes every day, depending on how intense the sun is reflecting off of my window, and depending on how I’m looking at people. It depends on what he says that day, how he walks, how he looks at me. I can’t stand that. The way I’m able to think of what could have been in any situation. How I let the little things and the unknown things grab a hold of me and allow my mind to change depending on him. I allow myself to adapt to what others around me are, to the things they cling to, to the way they talk and how they are toward me. I get used to it and then I expect it. And then they say it’s all me, it’s my problem, it’s my fault, it’s my mind creating these disillusions and it’s my sensitivity to the world that’s breaking me down. We’re too young for this. Too young to be broken down when we’re still growing. It will only stunt our growth, keep us from being who we could have been. Too young to have this pain, the chronic sparks of fire through my legs and my head and my spine, the lack of feeling, I’m too young to not feel this. And too young to feel it. Where do they want us to be? Who is “they,” anyway? Who are we living for, speaking for, walking for? Only we know, ourselves, what we should do.

What we want to do. I need to stop following and I need to stop coming back to the things I need to leave behind. There’s no depth to this. It is what it is. I am where I am. I’m alive and unbalanced but maybe this is what I need. Familiarity to find who I want to be. Go back to start to find yourself, and then jump out of it and leave it behind. Make your mind solid enough so that you are able to jump out of it. So you can leave it behind without wavering, without needing to go back again. I am displaced and nowhere, but soon I’ll find where I want to be.

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The Unanswerable I wake up with the glare of early light across my face from the opposite window. I’m surrounded by white sheets that aren’t mine, and they make my skin itch. My arms are red and my neck hurts.

The sun is barely up, and I move around boxes to get to the second door in the corner of the room, my feet against the soft and stillrisen carpet down the stairs, and I sneak out the side door. It’s still unusually warm and I drive an hour in traffic to wait in a room. I wait for answers to my questions, why my ears effect my brain so much, why they effect my blood and my heart. Why they make me so uneasy and hurt. He gives me drugs and warns me against them, and I nod and I wonder what it’s like to live in a place like this for so long. * I leave and I go back to my new home and lie down on my heating pad, waiting for my next doctor’s appointment.

A friend who I have always called a flake calls me. He asked around for my new phone number, and he wanted me to go see him. My hair is still wet and I bring my husky along with me, and I’m parked across from his house and he gets into my car. He tells me we should stay in touch, and asks when I’m coming back again.

I tell him I don’t know, but maybe soon, because of my back. He smiles and my dog jumps up the front seat when he leaves. I keep all of the windows down and I drive to get my pain fixed, finally.

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A Five-Hour Coffee He couldn’t make all of the pain go away, there was too much, he said. Not much else to do for now, you have to let to nerves heal in place and the spinal fluid run again. I leave a few hours later, and I see someone I haven’t talked to in quite a long time. We meet at a place we used to go to after snowboarding—always just us. A coffee in our boots and snow pants. This coffee lasted longer, though. We revisited the past, and I said aloud so, so many things I’ve been thinking about in the past couple of months. He asks me what I think would have happened if there were ever an “us,” and I just smile at him with sad eyes and explain that friendship is worth more than anything else. He then reminded me of that year, and that summer, when everything came to be and when we lived a block away from each other. Us with our longboards and bare feet and three other friends, meeting at the field, going to another’s house to smoke in his light blue bedroom. The sprinkler in the backyard and the trampoline over it, and he reminded me how awkward I was, how quiet and self-aware I had been. The long nights on top of the dugout, the police flashing their lights at us—the house he worked at, and how all of us would sit with the kids, playing video games and making them food, and when they went out of town, we sat on their roof every day and every night and played guitar. He asked me if I know any other songs.

I tell him I haven’t picked up a guitar since that house. He was surprised, and told me he liked my style—it was a strange, folk-y way of playing. We miss those days, the warmness of not only the air but of our friends.

He commented on how I’ve changed. He smiled when he said that he was happy for me, that the place I’m at now has made me more open. Happier. Then he asked if there’s anyone else in my life, and I only look at him. He guessed it right, and he laughed, and said, after all of these years? He got nearly every question he asked out of me, and sat there, in that empty café, staring at me and my hands tearing apart the silicone cup. He said he could only wish that he could feel the way that I do about someone. I laughed and told him no, it’s weak and juvenile and it messes your mind up. It fills you with things you don’t want and makes the days go by faster and makes you lose touch with everything around you.

He said he was surprised, though, that it was him, because we’re different. I only laugh and say no, the only way we’re different is that he has the energy I lack and I have the ground he needs. He

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agreed. Hours go by, and nothing is spared. The air outside now is chilly as I walk to my car and we talk more and he picks me up off of the ground and we plan on lunch the next day, before I leave. It never happened, but I apologized when I was already on my way north.

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words from three years ago

The Domino Effect You lose touch of what you want. What you feel like you should need, who you should be, what you should think. It becomes a blur, a haze of nothing and the past is the only thing you know, and the present, you can’t even think of it because your vision is warped. The future is out of reach, off of this ground.

I lie in bed, half of my body off the edge, and I look down and think of what could be happening right now. What you could be saying to me, what I could be thinking of, and how different it all would be. If I hadn’t left, if I hadn’t walked away and slammed your door shut, maybe I would’ve been wearing something different. Maybe my microwave wouldn’t be on right now, and my closet would be messy, or my desk neater. Maybe it’d smell of coffee in this room and maybe I wouldn’t be thinking of someone else. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone to those houses and followed them downstairs, with the people and the lights in the corner and everything dark and illuminated. Maybe I wouldn’t have been standing on my toes, looking for you, or maybe I would have left the house earlier, walked back alone, instead of waiting around. If I didn’t leave you, maybe I wouldn’t have seen you there, against the wall on the stairs, with your blue hat and plaid shirt, smelling of smoke. I wouldn’t have gone over to you, placed my hand on your chest as if we were old friends, and smiled, and you wouldn’t have smiled back, or leaned over the people to look at me as I continued to walk away. I wouldn’t have gone back downstairs only to see you again, and I wouldn’t have said anything to you, and your eyes wouldn’t have been lit up at that moment. I wouldn’t have walked away again. If I kept you, if I stayed, if I fought and if only I could have slept in, I wouldn’t have to look for you. I wouldn’t have to want to look back, and I wouldn’t have to go out only in hopes to make it right with you. The chances and the what-ifs are invading and drowning my mind and I can’t help but wonder why you told me you wanted to make it right if you only stood there, against the wall.

The windows are ugly and high up near the ceiling. The sun is coming down, letting off an exhausted burnt yellow against the wall; it’s much more pretty than the fluorescent lights. Lines from the glass create a boring texture on the wall, and I’m distracted from everything that really matters in my life right now. I keep telling myself to not wait for anything. Stop waiting for his next

20

(a narrative)

stop, stop waiting for them to talk to you, stop waiting to get things done. Stop waiting on your present for your future. I hate waiting. For anything. I have always been incredibly inpatient, and these quick noises and hearing of people’s lives moving fast, it’s getting to me. I look up and the sun’s light has disappeared off of the wall, completely. Time is going by too quickly and yet I’m stuck here in the mud, left waiting. Do I really want what I’m waiting for, though? I’ve asked myself this question for two months, ever since I walked out of his room. It’s just not him that’s getting to me—this situation with him has definitely highlighted everything else that’s making me impatient. The air became too still, my blood too jittery, and I can’t sit and think anymore. I can’t wrap my head around the way tidal waves form or how I suddenly crave something. I check my mail every day, waiting for a sign that I can leave. It’s empty. And so I wait, the blocks in my mind falling over, one after the other. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to leave this. I don’t want to think about this.

21

words from three years ago

Have A Nice Storm The next two weeks went by quickly, and I didn’t feel lost, but I felt like something was missing. Again I went home, woke up early, made it to class, and began to check things off of my to-do list. Stretch, read, clean, feel good. I left in the afternoon with the same weight I felt not too long ago (too recently, in my opinion), and the long drive, once again, began. The night was filled with awkward feet and quick glances and I just wanted to sleep. It was cold and I was in pain still and I was standing, and the rest were sitting, and impatience overcame me as I kept pushing buttons on my phone, checking the time, checking to see if she were still coming to get me, and when. Later I arrived “home” to a locked door and stifled sounds, and I ran up the stairs and I got lost, and I couldn’t remember where the light switches were and I couldn’t tell where the rooms began and ended. I tripped over myself and I just wanted to sleep.

My bare shoulders were scattered with goose-bumps as I climbed into my old station wagon in the morning. I drove to a campus I’ve never really had the heart to walk on, and I felt my creativity drift away, just like I am now, writing this. Bland, my mood was, and bland is how I feel. I walked up and down a thousand stairs that day, and many of them I don’t even remember. Awkward introductions filled the first room I went into, and everyone was unmotivated, dazed. They were lounging on every surface of the room, comfortably. Silently and comfortable. I was standing against the wall, my head back, looking out at the windows, and my feet were crossed. My camera bag’s strap dug into my skin.

Finally we left and wandered the streets of people. Peoplewatching, with their newly-dyed hair, their brand new tie-dyed shirts and glasses that they’ve never worn before. They try to make it seems like this is who they are, and they’re here for a reason—for themselves. They aren’t, they’re here to see what’s happening, to act like they’re more relaxed than they really are.

Like they have a better point of view on life than they really do inside. Inside they are tearing themselves apart, worrying about their research papers and how much money they’ll get this week, and when to go buy new shoes. Where to get new highlights, stressing about how pale they look and what they should eat the next day to keep the fat off. They’re wearing headbands of the ugliest colors, made of yarn or wool or leather, but yet they spent

22

(a narrative)

half an hour on their charcoal eye makeup, and the guys, they’re dressed in skater shoes or torn up cloth shoes and bright oversized hoodies, but their bodies are standing and walking in the most awkward ways I’ve ever seen. Their eyes dart, and they smile at the wrong times and their glasses are far too up their nose.

Their skateboards and longboards have no marks on them, the wheels shiny. This is a parade of people who wish their minds could naturally expand—who wish they were made of different elements.

I sit on the ground under a tree, next to people I’ve only just met and a few I’ve known for years, along with some of those aforementioned boys. I lean against a stone wall, and a photographer on the sidewalk stops and crouches next to me, fiddles with his ancient camera, and takes a picture of me. I stared straight ahead, my contacts blurring. I could hear the rain on the leaves, and a man dressed as a zebra fell from the wall right next to me, and darted out from under the tree. “Have a nice storm!” he shouted at us with a non-convincing smile. I looked away and wondered when we were leaving.

I walk into a glass building and follow the people I’m with into a corridor. We stop when we hear violins, and suddenly singing.

In the center of the entry way in the university’s museum is a makeshift black stage and small rows of chairs filled up. A woman, I can barely see her, in a black dress ending at her calves… her voice is like any other opera singer’s, but she has that smile, the confident smile, that just shows that she thinks she’s different.

I laugh, and I can’t contain myself in this haze, and I’m dizzy and my mind is wearing thin. I look back and forth, and as soon as the violins come to a stunning halt, we dart through the stage and up the winding stone stairs on the other side of the lobby. I remember the ceilings were blue. Everything was blue at that point.

I wandered into a room where a plastic wave contained the width from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Projections of photographs, mostly red, it seemed, bounced off of the plastic triangles and onto the front wall. They walked through the wave, and I only stared. What is this? I never got my answer, and I didn’t really care enough to find it out. I only wanted to go, my legs restless, and yet my mind just wanted to sleep. My eyes were closed as I asked what it all meant, but I didn’t want to see the answer. I didn’t want to hear it, and my ears were popped, and I could still hear the ringing of the opera singer’s bland, high voice, echoing

23

words from three years ago

through the tunnels of my ears. Finally we moved, and this room was replaced with Picasso. I stared blankly, unknowingly, and I’ve seen him so much in my lifetime. But I wondered about the emptiness, about what makes them stop. I whispered to a boy who was next to me, “What makes them stop?”

His arms were crossed and his sunglasses were on his head, the white clashing with his bright orange hair. It was blinding at the time. He looked at the piece I was looking at and said he wondered that, too. I continued to talk, and went back to one painting, and it seemed so complete, more complete than anything else in the world. The curves and random colors and lines and circles—I could imagine Pablo, his paintbrush dipped with yellow, poised in his hand, leaning back, and just deciding— there, it’s finished. It’s complete and it’s not perfect to me, but it’ll be perfect to somebody.

I didn’t look for him that day in those crowds, people-watching. I knew he was there, but I never even thought about it until a girl brought him up three days later. After the museum I circled the campus, still following, and I ended up at my car and I drove home, though I don’t remember it. Kanye was on repeat, and my friend was in the backseat, asleep. My sunglasses hurt my head and the rain kept coming and going—make up your mind. I was home and I slept the deepest and shortest units of sleep that I became disoriented. I never thought about him that day. I don’t know what I was thinking about, besides Picasso and opera singers.

But the next night I was back to where I felt more comfortable, and I felt good, and I unpacked in the morning, and my heart was at rest and my breath was steady. I noticed it, though I didn’t think about it. My shoulders felt new, and I stretched and I took out the trash and I wrote. I didn’t realize until two days later that something had clicked on that foggy, rainy day. I don’t know what, but it’s a natural progression. I didn’t force anything, I didn’t force my mind into tricking itself and I never tried to convince myself of something my heart didn’t want to feel. Or wasn’t ready to feel. For once, for the first time in the past seven years, I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t there, and if it was, it was a speck of dust among many others lying around in the back of my mind.

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(a narrative)

I’m not waiting. I’m not sacrificing. I’m moving, living, pain-free, and I’ve got so much more than I wanted. Besides that, but like I had tried to convince myself before, maybe the past is always best where it belongs. Where it is. The past. I’m not saying the words, I’m feeling it, and I believe it. I’m able to wake up in the morning without the aching, physically and emotionally, and I want to take the time to finally paint for myself. It won’t be perfect to someone else, but it’ll be perfect to me.

25

words from three years ago

I came across elements of you in the dust around my bed, the pieces locked away, your signature on a photocopy. I can’t get rid of you, a rigid piece uprooting itself once I think you’re fading. a. your warmth is still against my body, b. your voice echos in my mind, the sound from the hallway, non stop, c. the way your arm curled as you slept, d. your face when you woke, e. the tilt of your head as you asked me questions, prying wondering curious dying to know if I meant it, any of it.

I did. I didn’t say it.

But I want you to know, no matter where we are right now (you down the street walking away, as I’m killing my stomach to let you go), I want you to always know I always meant it.

26

(a narrative)

I could feel the hardened paint against my skull. We went for a drive around this strange place, and we saw the sky like never before, and we came back home, stood in your doorway, waiting to see you again.

The past won’t rest, you say, and you’re too afraid as I push my shoulders against the wall, close my eyes, taking it in, the deepest breaths I’ve ever drowned in.

I remember your head back, your neck stretched and the way your mouth was parted slightly, your eyes are so small. I don’t know why I’m here and there’s not much else to change, but my mind is tired and you’re always turning away.

27

words from three years ago

I can walk away from the bottom of my heart, let it lift me up and take me an ocean away, but I’d never hear the end of it, the way I gave up again.

So all I can do is look back and make sure you’re still here, still uncertain, still wavering, but you’re here, repeating everything I once said.

28

(a narrative)

The past catches up to you, they say, with my dangling feet almost but not really touching the water underneath, the sun slowly falling (but I never noticed that part of the day).

Splinters dug deep like the hurt words I hear today, but they aren’t always the same and they aren’t always like I remember it.

But I know the sand like the back of my hand just like they say in those films, but that was before I ever even held a camera.

I can still feel the cut off shorts I wore and the cool rush of the air through the screens in the early morning, the freshest part of the day. I didn’t think about how anyone would harm me or how many people I wanted to love, or how many shoes I wanted to see or the places I wanted to be. I didn’t notice the clanking of the dishes but it’s a rhythm that I can’t live without; I never noticed that pitter patter on the roof when the summer storms came along, but now it’s a trademark in reliving the memories. The way the blinds made shadows across the wall never caught my eye, but I can imagine it now, so clear right before I went out to the water waiting to muster up the energy to jump, my feet dangling, not touching the water, but now I wish they did.

29

words from three years ago

I recall the smoke in my hair, in my lips, the hum of the fan in the corner. The pen thrown aside, the alcohol in my ribs.

My head is bent back, writing all of the things you made me feel, thinking too much of the past, as you once had.

It was all too much on the surface. We couldn’t dig deeper, I couldn’t even pretend to, just like I couldn’t lick away the smoke, scrub the whiskey from my ribs... it was all on the surface.

I went away, no, I take that back, you did. I take back everything I said, I knew it was true--all of it was too true, too good. And now you invade my dreams, sweats, these streets are bare without you. If you weren’t here, and you are, but you wouldn’t care, (disappointment leads you to who you are).

And now I lie here, awake with the lights off and the air on high, remembering the goosebumps from your house, your stretch in your arm as you shut the window, and now my arms, too warm.

You knew I liked to sleep in the cold.

Out of sight, out of mind, they say, and I still check my old voicemail, half expecting your voice, low and unintelligible, but you were never there on the other end of the line, and you were never here, on the other side of this room.

30

(a narrative)

I had seen you through the door, lying on the hardwood floor, your bones peeking through, your skin so light. I wanted to open the windows, let you breathe a little bit, but I see you’ve got your hair from somewhere else, the heat igniting your brain. You said this is paradise.

I saw the way you wanted out and as I lie down next to you, my lungs swollen, I told you there wasn’t anything else I wanted from you. It’s hard to find what think you’re looking for, especially when it’s not right and your mouth won’t close, words spilling out but only at the darkest hour of the night, and I could see your breath from here, twisting into the molecules you keep inside of yourself.

31

words from three years ago

The frozen ground won’t keep what you hold so tightly, so take that bus to some kind of city, let the buildings push you back and look for the sea you said you loved, an air that won’t heat your soul, another kind of paradise.

You were swallowed into the floorboards, your high getting the best of you, capturing your eyes, shielding your heart, embarking on your lungs. Your shallow breath was too familiar, and you said you knew of places around here that look more beautiful that way.

I smiled and said more of what you were looking for, and now I think of the scars on your shoulder.

Now I realized that you never came home, to your bed and your girl, and I heard you said you didn’t want anything, but you kept her. She loves your shallow lungs, making your voice so deep, and your glazed eyes and your heart in two.

She loves how you fall asleep too easily, and she traces the marks on your body and you take comfort in that. You take comfort in her, but more so in the ground, with your eyes closed and chest barely moving.

-

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(a narrative)

There used to be something I had wanted to ask you. Something I wanted to tell you, things to say. And now I don’t even remember all of those things, the things I chased your heart after. You were afraid of the things I might bring back; the old stories, the old scars, the old hurt between me and you. So you ran, you ignored and you detached yourself from me. But I don’t want to bring any of that back; I suppose now, I just want to say that I want you, in any sort of way. Now I want to tell you I’m sorry, but we’re older, and we’re good. I want to tell you it could be easy and good. That’s all. Nothing more. I just want you in my life, I want to know you again. Start over, but remember what brought us together in the first place.

Someday I hope we’ll be able to stop hurting each other.

33

words from three years ago

You were always where you hated to be, against the wall with perfect lips, smoke curling around your hair. I don’t mean I don’t love you, or any of those things that you do, time’s just too strange to take a hold of, to listen and change. And I told you I didn’t know of anything else that I wanted, along those yellow lines in the dead of the night.

We did those things to fill a void from the past, and your heart murmured inside those locked doors, skipping and holding back, and I said I wasn’t searching for you when you came into my life.

Those old shadows that follow you around, they’re illuminating the light that beams from your eyes. Your touch is lingering on those white walls, lips pursed and the music goes on, the songs you hate. You were always right there, walking into my life, perfect along those yellow lines, in the dead of the night.

34

(a narrative)

There used to be something we couldn’t miss. Something we didn’t want to deny and maybe even forced ourselves to fall into, but with all of these lies that bound us together and all of these stars we’ve stood under, I can’t see why we wouldn’t have wanted to burn out so quickly. You called my name from far away, asked if I wanted you. Your arms around, I felt everything breathe, and like a terrifying mirror, I could see everything I’ve allowed myself to walk away from.

You stood next to me, and I wish I took a picture. I could have sworn I loved you, told you to carry me home. You fell asleep in my arms, your legs unmoving and your breath on my stomach. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. And my heart pounded the entire night, as you looked up and you were so innocent, as if we never shared the words we had. And we felt like we were kids, like we found each other again, and those eyes, I could see them so clearly in the dark and you pondered aloud and my soft voice was carried through yours. You took my face, and held it in place, you were on my right side. Your hand held onto mine, I couldn’t feel a thing, only my heart down into my stomach, can I have you? you do, you do, you do.

You have me.

35

words from three years ago

I sunk away from you, left silently. I hold my tongue, I need to keep track of that. I need to stay quiet and I need to make my mind up, make my heart go forward. Backwards never gets you anywhere but wherever you just came from.

I sat in that white room with the windows, watching every car, and he was sitting next to me. His foot sideways on the table, his fist to his chin. He spun around, talked to me like you wouldn’t.

He smiled the way you couldn’t, and he moved in a different way. I never thought of you in there. I did, but it was never a comparison.

I thought of how I could have someone like him: mature, gentle, nice, charismatic. Good laugh, good voice, good way of looking at someone. Just good. And now I’m comparing: you’re not good.

You are forcefully reckless, naive and confused and unattached but your eyes startle me and the way you held me couldn’t compare to anything. No. You aren’t here. He isn’t either, and it’s not about him and you. It’s about me and what I want out of this year. I want to move forward but I want you. I want Switzerland and I want to jump ahead ten years and I want it to be with you, but we can’t always have what we want, even if I want it this much. You’re out of reach, and we don’t talk, and you ignore everyone and we used each other and we’re drained and selfish and caught in between so many different things. Confused, we all are. Maybe the way I move won’t effect your decisions, or the way my hair lies down my back, or what I do with my hands or walk or look around.

Whether I smile when you happen to be there or not, maybe little things wouldn’t even have anything to do with you, not one bit. I came home to a place that’s not my home, and I wish you could see it. I don’t know why, honestly. Why do I want you here? Why do I care? For you, why do I wait, linger, what’s the point? What have you ever done for me, aside from cause me heartache? There are so many better people out there, so many people I’ve given up on for you. And the sad part is that I would still drop anyone for you, for the chance to... I don’t know what. You’d probably think I’m insane if you saw any of this. I want you to be open with me and tell me what’s in your head.

I got lost

36

(a narrative)

I miss coming home to an open window, staring across from yours, with my heart up to here feeling so fresh and full, new and one and beating and soft. And I miss looking out that window and smiling, because of your voice that was just on my skin, and because of your stomach to the ground and I’m on the counter with my legs crossed. And I only smiled down at you, not saying a word, as usual. I never said a thing, not then and not now, with my window open, my fan now drowning out your voice from the past, with my hair wet, your touch gone, my legs bare.

I miss you.

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words from three years ago

Lately I can’t stop thinking about the warm weather, and how the two hour journey twice a week seems different now. The trees are more bold, standing in between the whiteness of the ground and the grey of the sky–the fog envelopes us and ever since it was eighty degrees outside, I imagined you being here. I’m sitting in the back seat, and I twist around and look out the back window.

The snow covers our perception of time, and the wind pushes the car, but i’m staring back, watching the trees disappear. I absently take another shot of whiskey and I remember our drive home, and the way you took your pulls. Quickly I became tired. Tired of the snow, tired of this drive, tired of thinking about you. Thinking about what if, and thinking of the future, so out of reach. I thought we were closer than this. I stepped back, and maybe I’ll turn around in a little bit. I can’t stand thinking about you anymore. I’m home, now. In my bed. I’m tired of these thoughts.

I fell asleep earlier on my own, without the help of another substance, with my hand around my waist. Subconsciously I roll over, so comfortably without thought of anything. I still think of the summer and the heat. I think of the first time I saw you here and I think of the first time I saw you ten years ago. It’s all the same. It never changes. We lost time, and we’re letting it slip away as we speak (or as we don’t speak, rather). I keep looking over at you and you look up at me. What is this that we’re wasting, that we’re throwing away?

38

(a narrative)

I concentrate on my footsteps, one leading into the other, the sound of the echo, the rubber on the tile. The windows are too reflective, the outside looking in– I can remember your face when you were younger, the restless way you sat.

My hands fit comfortably in my pockets, hiding myself from the glare of the world. My back aches, my hips are tight, and I listen harder as I remember the same feeling four weeks ago, lying still and breathing shallow in your bed, trying to sleep but the pain was comforting, as you wrapped yourself around me.

And I look back at the reflections, I think of how time stands still, nothing changed. Time doesn’t matter, it has no place in between us, and ties last a lifetime, and yet they can be broken in a moment. I think of how I walked away, how I left you standing frozen hurt and angry, and how I walked past you as if we were never anything, and how each day I never forgot and how each moment I never let go, but you never knew that. I bent down and looked at you honestly, I told you how i’ve missed you and your smile, I could never forget it.

I look down, my feet rhythmic, unnerving and unstoppable, and this regret that’s made me who I am, it’s influenced every step, every one of these sounds that are echoing from the tile, and these reflections, I can’t help but realize I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t walked away.

The nights are too long, I keep looking at your words, and they only get more bland as the time goes by. Picturing your door shut, my whiskey breath on yours, I walk away as you had before.

I run up the stairs. The end is coming too quickly, and the door at the end of the hall, it’s there as soon as I think of it.

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words from three years ago

The lights flash by, crowding my bedroom, my home, my walls.

You’re the only one I can imagine, you’re the only one I can see, your eyes in the dark, your mind intwined with mine.

I’m wondering which way to go; toward the high mountains and the snow on the palm trees, so far and unreachable to you, a place I’ve always dreamt about– Or to stay and never wonder what you could have been, always thinking you weren’t just the past as I hold you tight, I’d never let go.

But here we are, stuck in the spot, only a step farther and only a step left to go, but when I wonder if you’d stay until the end, Iremember that you’ve already stepped away, you’re already turning from me.

I could have the eyes of the ocean staring back at me, or I could have yours, small and green and striking, the beating of my veins coming alive. I could have the rush of the world around me, or the rush of your heart beating, and I could be in Egypt or I could be in your car, driving across the state. I could have the rest of my life unknowing, the strings of you in my heart frayed but still holding together, or I could have all of you, your voice and your freckles, your breath and your hands...

Or I could be on a plane fighting my nerves, the aching in my stomach, the restlessness in my shoulders, but I’d be shaking those feelings off in the Red Sea, on the docks of Monaco, on the train to Andermatt, in a palace in Paris, a winery in Bordeaux, lying in the sand in Cairo. I would be living in the way that I’ve always ever wanted to, but it’d be without you, and while I’m swimming and flying and walking through the ornate and garish castles and on the backs of camels and while I’m standing under the Eiffel Tower, I would always always always be wondering what if you were with me, standing here, swimming here, next to me, and I would feel the rush coming up to my ears of the regret I could have stopped.

40

(a narrative)

I’m in the stairwell, the marble floor cold against my thighs. I’m trying not to listen to the words people are saying below me.

I’m trying to think of something else to think about, something that’s not your voice and that’s not these jumbled words that are repeating over and over in my mind. I’m trying to think of what went wrong, the little details that came together in your mind to make you feel this way. I’m trying to remember what I felt, but it was so far away. I was numb and you were great. I was gone, removed from myself and from our house, the one we had so much hope for. Months spent apart, and this was supposed to be the best of us. I was closed in, my heart sinking every morning and every hour and I couldn’t tell my thoughts from my feelings.

In the process of letting myself go, I let you go. I couldn’t tell you this, I couldn’t tell you I was scared and I didn’t know who I was.

I hated the way you were to everyone, I hated how you looked at me, in that light with the bulbs painted yellow and everything was orange to me. Where was I supposed to go, where could I get away, how could I go back to you? Two months were a blur and I can’t remember how I was thinking, how my voice sounded to me, how I felt when I was happy. How I was loving, hating, wreckless with you and everything that we had. I hate talking about you and thinking about you as a person now. Eight months later and I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing, or when you’re sick or when you’re feeling all right. The exciting parts of the day, the little moments of your voice and the homey chuckle, the one that comes from behind your ears and is short and you really mean it. I could hear your content smile and your eyes closed lightly, a little bit, ready to open. A thousand miles away and I still knew you like the back of my hand. Everything else seems so juvenile now. Everything I thought I had before, it was a figment of my imagination, it wasn’t tangible and it was all a dream.

You’re a dream now.

41

words from three years ago

I can’t feel you, I can’t think of you. You’re not in my dreams anymore; I don’t feel the absence of your blurry touch, distorted voice in the time between asleep and awake. I don’t think of you, I don’t feel the need to hold you. I feel a little more empty, only knowing I’ve lost my best friend, but it’s not devistating anymore.

It’s not a collision that I feel inside my stomach every day, it’s not the knot in my lungs or the nerves that travel through my veins sometimes. I’m okay with your presence, because it’s not touching me. A thousand miles away, and it’s like it never happened. You aren’t with me in this stairwell, you don’t hear the echos bouncing off the railings and the marble. The voices below, you aren’t wondering what they’re saying or trying to decipher their tones.

I am. I’m listening to the rythmic noise, the comfort in sound without understanding it. I’m comfortable. I’m comfortable in not understanding us, or what the past eight months have been. I’ll never understand, and now it’s becoming easier to live with.

My thighs have an indentation from the curve of the stairs. It’s a shallow, absent pain that I kind of appreciate while thinking about you. It keeps me grounded. The echos of the empty sounds of foreign words are keeping me here, sitting, without you, comfortable.

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(a narrative)

I know the kind of person I want to be. I want to energized, patient and quiet. I want to not feel angry and not let it all affect me as much as it does, and be able to walk through the streets without my shoulders tensing. I want to walk slower, sit up straight, and be nicer. I want the grudges to be free and to forget things more easily. I want to stop looking back, and I want to stop wanting the future too much. Stay, I want to be the peron who wants to stay, and who would have given you the space you needed, but because of who I am, who I can’t help, I fucked it up.

My impatience got the best of me and I lost every grasp I had, any kind of rope I held onto, I started cutting it, fraying it, and then it snapped. You snapped, and I couldn’t help it.

43

words from three years ago

We’re locked up in between walls, and my hand is on the glass; I can’t stop remembering the way you buried your head into my shoulder, the way you lifted my back from being swallowed into the cracks, the cracks in the wall, the ones I traced in the morning with my trembling hand, a perfect silence, and I could feel you watching me, your slow and lazy eyes.

We fell apart so quickly; we fell over ourselves too late­­— they say it’s never too late, and I miss the cracks in your wall and your hand on mine, tracing them on your back.

44

(a narrative)

I can’t tell the days from each other, all filled with the same numbers and the same sky, the snow running down the concrete.

The window is always closed, and I look across, look for you.

A week ago you kissed me like you meant it, you lean over, you kiss my shoulder and I turn my head back toward you, kiss your ear. You settle in, comfortable, your breath warm, your skin warm, my heart and my nerves warm, softly and comfortably.

45

words from three years ago

The silence you bring gives my mind a numbness that I can’t tear myself away from; the fire you set allows my mind to work in circles, the way I like it best.

I’m tired of this dancing and the pain and warmth you give me, lighting my lungs on fire. I want to be in your smoke and in your mind, I want to let you know I’ll never fully leave. I want to show you all the things I can be and I want you to prove me wrong. I want to listen to your breath in the cold air and help you shovel yourself away from the world. I want long nights to turn into the same day, and know what I really mean to you.

The silence overcomes us, the numbness in my throat, my stomach, my mind, keeps me from breathing. I want to stop making these mistakes of being far from you, and let the silence be still for once.

46

(a narrative)

You: A speck of dust in the sky (that I will always see), a burst of energy, a calm sleeplessness, content in where you are.

A book I start reading and love the idea of finishing it, but I never did. Close enough to touch, but not enough to talk to; Find stability in what makes you move the most; warm reminding me of the raspy voices on the songs you sent me nervous fearless light too far too confusing I can’t even describe you, this doesn’t even describe you at all.

47

words from three years ago

My face feels raw, like the skin was taken away from it.

I touch the corners of my eyes and look at myself, how young I must seem. My face full of flaws will become even more rigid, unclean, filled with signs of age. No longer smooth, like my leg when it was torn apart. The scales on top of the skin that became apparent, forever red and a distorted scar grew in its place. The imperfections that surround me, in my mind and the way I speak and the way I hold myself, my neck hurting and my spine aching, and my slight limp when my leg is sore. They encompasse me, hinder me and make me who I am. The people we want to be aren’t real because we can’t hear their minds.

We can’t see their scars under their skin. My crooked and jagged teeth, my smile that doesn’t make me look like who I think I should look like. The words fleeting me, everything seems fake, tattered, and no one wants to do anything about it. Left alone, I look at my face and I can’t imagine how I used to look, or what I used to see. How I used to feel. How they made me feel is the one thing that’s stuck. It’s stuck in my stomach, in my throat, in the way I hold myself and speak. I wonder too often how they feel.

How they look at themselves and how they can think so highly. Why is their posture like that? Why do they take their strides so effortlessly and why do they speak so fast?

I can’t speak that fast. I can’t think that fast and know what I mean. I can’t know how I feel, really, and I can’t make myself better. I can’t wash it all away off of my face, the flaws from my mind that show through, every imperfection. I can’t smooth out the noises or the bumps or the scales or the scars or the limp or my spine or my teeth.

Raw and full of flaws.

48

(a narrative)

Stop looking back.

Stop trying and thinking and for godssake, stop speaking. The words coming out of your mouth are crumbling, these people don’t know how you feel.

I look away for a second, and I think about how much I want to go to sleep. The soft hum of the fan that you hated, I would love to indulge in that right now. You aren’t here to tell me to not think about it, or tell me to calm down. Your hurt that you disguise as anxiousness isn’t overcoming anymore, like waves swallowing me up and unable to move in your grasp. I can breathe and I can think alone and it’s a strange feeling because I loved you before I learned how to love myself.

I’m trying not to look back but at the same time I’m trying to grasp who I am, and who I was before you, and I can’t. Is that part of me gone, have you really changed me that much in two years? I didn’t know it was possible to let yourself love someone that much, to the point where you lose your own sense of self and awareness. It never occured to me until now, when I’m lost here in the middle of the sand without you lying down next to me, your back burning in the sun. I don’t have you to look back to anymore, to ask you who I am because you knew me more than I knew myself, clearly.

I reread the words I write and I imagine myself as you reading them. I wonder what you would think, if you would think they were about you (they weren’t), and I wish that I had the courage to write about it. I wish I had something to say, but maybe it’s too soon. Maybe you’re still apart of me, or you make me feel sick, because we were more real.

I think of how you would feel, but I can’t. I can’t imagine it because I honestly don’t think you ever will read anything of mine, and that makes me feel all right, if only I knew that for certain. I don’t want you to read any of it.

49

words from three years ago

I don’t want you to think I’m writing about you, or to think that you made such an impact on the way I live. You do, too much, and that’s the problem. I will never see you again, and I never thought that would happen, though in the back of my mind I really did. Every time I woke up with you or I fought with you, I reminded myself that this wouldn’t last so I might as well take it all in while I can. Appreciate you while you’re still mine. I knew you wouldn’t be there eventually, but it crept up too quickly, and I’m still frozen. You uninspire me because I can’t move. You don’t help my mind expand or allow me to discover something, even something about myself. You hinder me and you paralyze me and I can’t talk about you and I can’t write about you and it hurts my lungs and my legs to even think about you.

But you kept me grounded, you allowed me to lose the sense of dreaming and that was what I needed. I didn’t write for a year straight and I loved it. I was too happy to have anything to write about. I was too happy to force something, too caught up in living and learning about you and only you. I cut ties and I felt more free than I had in two years. I was occupied, no need for an outlet anymore.

But now, with my legs crossed and my eyes dry and the taste in my mouth bitter, I hate it. I hate that I lost myself and that I can’t revisit moments without my stomach burning. I hate that you’re able to live well and be okay knowing that I’m not there. Your lack of expression and compassion stumps me and frustrates me and fills me with regret, because I thought I knew you better than that. I thought you knew me better than that. But I can’t imagine who you are anymore, and I can’t imagine that you’ll ever know or read or try. Two years went by without a word from me of any significance, and this is all I have to show for it; looking past you to find my mind again, as you left me uninspired. All I have are memories I can’t physically fathom and two years full of empty pages.

50

(a narrative)

I can still hear myself screaming. My face pulsating, my ears deaf and I’m shaking and I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. I felt like I did all of those years ago, defending myself, alone and frustrated and hurt. I felt the same, in our tiny bedroom, unable to think, unable to move and all I did was hate you and hate us. I wanted to leave and I wanted it to be over and I wanted things to go back, and I had no idea what I was saying and it was all spewing out and my shoulders were numb and my lungs uncontrollable. My voice cracked and I stood, shaking, wanting to erase it, erase this feeling and erase whatever had happened. I was confused most of all, unaware, with the hardwood floors pounding on my feet, on my heels and the ends of my toes. My arms were flush, and I couldn’t look at you. Your tapestry and the poster I drew you stood there, caving in, and I couldn’t stop.

51

words from three years ago

I think of the pieces of you that make you up, confusing them with the whole, with your entire mind.

You’re trying too hard, you aren’t trying enough.

I don’t want to say the things I want to, as I need to for myself but I can’t because of you, because I can’t tear you apart and I can’t see your face that way or hear you drowning.

Your eyes flutter against the plaster on the wall, your head resting, hands dragging along the surface, eyes closed, and I can tell you’re frustrated. Your face is flushed and your eyes are tense, the lids creased, and I can see your teeth, jaw clenched. Fists soon become your hands and I can hear you breathing, calm, you’re safe.

52

(a narrative)

I have this unfading feeling that when you turn around and the world collides, my heart becomes numb and the earth doesn’t move, no, everything goes on, and it’s just me and then there’s you, and all that consumes us is standing right there, stranded for words.

53

words from three years ago

The flashes of feelings pause before our minds and I can’t remember your voice, but I remember walking away, looking back and my heart stopped.

I remember the numbness that spread throughout my body, walking back, and I remember the world in a blur, my eyes were bare and I couldn’t see your freckles but I knew it was you, staring across the table, and through that blur I can still see your eyes looking back at me.

54

(a narrative)

I saw you outside delicately folding your papers, cut off shorts and tied weeds around your small ankles, too small for your body.

Your unwashed hair hung in curls, bare feet on the wood, spent your life with splinters. Daisies hung around the ground, and you carelessly stepped over them over me the sweat dripping from your neck, it shone in the summer light.

Your eyes had years of growth but you’re too young for that, and I saw you snuck a cigar in your pocket, your bare chest is too small to take that in, your ears shouldn’t see that kind of smoke.

The brandy your grandfather loved was left in the back and you say the porch still smells like him. You tear off the weeds from your ankles, say some girl made them for you, a girl down the road. I wanted to pick them up and put them around your wrist; something made with love shouldn’t be torn down so soon.

The sky is grey and you’re standing in the same place, squinting up even though the sun is dying out, the blue looks good on you, I say, and you lazily look at me and opened the screen door, lingering on the tip of your finger, you let it slam shut.

55

words from three years ago

There’s a place we meant to go, scratches we didn’t want to make.

We missed the left turn, always have to turn ourselves backwards, a ride down to somewhere we don’t know, with peach trees and red lights, silver along the boardwalk. Where did we mean to go?

I saw you there with that book and it didn’t even look like one worth reading, but you insisted, sat down and held smoke between your hands, we didn’t want to go this far down south.

The air grows warmer as it gets darker, and it’s so unusual that I forgot where I left you, it’s not like we meant anything. A mistake, a scratch we didn’t want to make, a left turn that was supposed to be a right. Let’s take that step backward, let the peach trees disappear.

56

(a narrative)

Too many things are left to say and we say the least important words out of those. I jump past you around the corner, I smile and hope my dimples show as you look up, and all I can see are your eyes.

I was ready to set them down, the words I had kept for you, in a box on the top shelf, never quite forgotten. I was ready to leave them behind and I was thinking of the change that would soon consume me, and instead, I got pushed back and instead of going east, I went north.

You held me tightly but you’ve probably forgotten about that. I didn’t mean to stay so long, and I could have left a while ago, yet here I am, my bed pushed against the window, so I can sleep in the cold because it reminds me of you and all the things I still have left to say.

57

words from three years ago

We could sit in silence, try to think of words to put together to confess what we’ve both felt; everything we’ve felt but never said, but that’d be a mouthful and we’re too tired for this tonight.

I wish I could take you here so I can show you everything I’ve wanted to say to everyone I’ve ever loved, even to those who wouldn’t listen. So much I’ve wanted to show what’s in my mind, what I’m made of and the materials that stitch me together...I want to show you everything I love about you, everything I’ve ever felt because words just can’t explain the reasons why I love your freckles and your veins and your knuckles, and you can’t see the way you walk, careless but with a purpose, and I want to show you how I love your circles that you make on my back, the soft way you drag your hand through my spine.

I want to tell you to never stop, to never let me go, and to always be here when I wake up. I want to tell you how you change my mind every time I make a move. How I close my eyes and I imagine you here, and I open them and there you are, your eyes staring lazily back at me.

I want to tell you how you dismiss my fears and make me want more, more out of life and I want to tell you how you break my heart every single day and you put it back together with every word you say. I want to tell you that I want you in the passenger seat of my car in the summer, and I want to go on walks with you in the winter.

I want to drive across the state and stay overnight and sleep in before going to back to driving. I want to tell you that I meant to help you fold those blankets and I want to tell you that I didn’t want you to let go of my hand or move away from me. I want to tell you how I loved my feet under yours.

But we sit in silence, trying to come up with these words. They paint a draft of the picture but these words aren’t color, and the color is everything to me. I want to tell you all of the colors that you are to me.

We jumped so high, couldn’t think of a reason to stay attached, and then we moved far away, starved ourselves until we found love, or something we just wanted to believe in.

Our best work is put in a folder amongst those that we hate, and

58

(a narrative)

our hearts grow old and our fragility waning. We grew into stone, moving across the world, we couldn’t remember the streets we grew up in.

We kept looking back... we couldn’t decide who we’d rather be: the ones who cared, who lived the way we were born to, or the ones we forced ourselves to become, just to learn to say we’ve gone away? We don’t know anyone now, not even ourselves. We don’t know what it feels like to lose the one we wanted, or the one we couldn’t walk away from. We put our coats on, drag outside the door, take a hit through your trembling fingers on the steps of a brooklyn walkup. The snow, the brown on your boots, leather and bought from someone you’ll never know, you’re here to prove to yourself that you can walk away from anything.

You’re here to prove to yourself your fragility is replaced with stone, and belief turned to wanderlust, wanderlust of something incomplete for you to come in and fill it with your best work, found amongst your worst.

59

words from three years ago

Remember the things we were supposed to be? The way the light slanted in the corner, a streak down your face and your hair was short, that’s all I can remember. Do you know all the years I thought about it? I admit, think I’m sure of what I want now... maybe now that I don’t have it, whatever it is, but I don’t have you and I guess that’s what it is.

Remember the things we wanted? Compare them to the things you want now, who do you want? The fire in the stone fireplace, a big leather couch, socks and blankets, my arms around you?

Staring when we don’t even have to ask, we look and we know what we want? Is that who we were supposed to be, or who we wanted to be, or who we want now,what we want now, what we know we want...

Remember the lies I told you? If you didn’t know they were lies, then right now, think of everything terrible I told you, think of the things you heard me say that you didn’t want me to say... those were the lies I kick myself over every day, and please know that what we wanted to be before, what we feel like we were supposed to be, I still want, and have for years and will for years to come.

60

(a narrative)

We become in these positions like a fence, dividing someone straight down the middle, and this happens... we find ourselves lost in between and far from the fence, the sun beaming on your shoulders.

61

words from three years ago

Waves of nothing fill my ears, the drums in the background, piercing yet humble; we can smell the rain from the morning, as I see you wander toward us.

You burst in, cascading the tiles and the dirt below, I can feel every grain under my toes. I can’t look away, your awkward eyes and your thin bones...you’re so cold and your smile warm, the way you lean in, breathe, and sit down so I’m not looking up at you anymore.

I lose you in the crowd, but that’s okay, I’m standing still anyway.

The pressure of the people around hits me like a tidal wave; a cliche scene, yet obscure and nothing like anyone could imagine.

We held onto awkward angles of green pieces of wood, as our legs fought to find the rings. We hoisted each other up, up into the trees, studied the horizon, the sounds, the people... every type of atmosphere collided into one.

Then his face appears, sideways, smiling and laughing. He looked familiar, but he was a stranger; petty, mixed with every mistake I’ve ever made. He talked, my eyes wander, as he laid eyes on her, next to me with her feet dangling freely down. He talked past me, to her, as I look at you, so far down, you seemed so small. Your bright shirt gave your sullen face away.

Out of order, a blurry and loud and silent night, your eyes breaking my thought, my sentences weaving through my head, pictured with what was in front of me.

62

(a narrative)

It’s feeling that way again, the heat getting in, the cracks are falling apart as you’re on your knees. Who do you believe in, saying you always have your freedom?

We walk around barefoot to toughen our skin, to feel as if we can’t sleep, and our breath is going out as we jump, close our eyes and you say you don’t have anything, say you don’t believe in anyone.

When we lose our hope, where is there left to turn to; the bad gets in as our organs shut down, you’re shutting down and I can see it in your bones; where do you go to hide when you’re done with it all and you can’t believe in yourself? Where do you go to get that sleep you’re always underand the place that stops your bleeding?

We don’t know who we are anymore, but we’re young and we have new people to find, and along the way we shape our feet to the gravel, and on the way we learn to shut ourselves down, loosen our bones and think of infinity; there’s nothing but freedom within ourselves and there’s nothing we can ever depend on.

63

words from three years ago

A temper like screaming outside a door screen, a lie like it’s on a thin piece of talc, elbows that are so skinny and breakable; they’re all just a part of what you carry on your back.

Geometric shadows are all you care to see, and I’m not one of them—too round, too invisible? You’ve always only liked sharp things, like my hipbones. I remember watching you fall—stumble, rather—back, with your shoulder blades joining together, then out again as you slammed against the pale wall. Maybe it was dark.

The floor was pale, you were pale, the wall was a deep purple, replicating the bruises on my legs.

I stand on my toes, looking over the windowpane, just to see you leave and come back again, to see your face­—your mouth directed toward someone else, but your eyes. Damn those eyes. You held the door open, letting the salty air cast through the house, and I went under your arm, my bare feet feeling the brisk weathered rock— at least they’re something solid to stand on.

I ran home, catching my breath... I hadn’t run so long since I saw you on that roof, a whole season ago. The bottoms of my feet turned pink, my lungs congested and I turn around and thought you had already left.

64

(a narrative)

It’s getting to be that way again. No repetitiveness and nothing else to yell about. My ankles are bare, a permanent mark on one side and you’re looking at your feet, naked on the concrete.

We tilt our heads up as the atmosphere is just changing colors, and stare as we watch our time go by, inch by inch.

Our feet are filled with scattered calluses, like a map with marks of places we dream of going, but there’s not enough darkness in the night to hold onto those thoughts, and we can’t portray our dreams to each other the way we always want to; We look back ahead as the light simmers down, and we reach our destination and make do with what we gave ourselves and we accept how much we’re willing to hurt for moreas we lie down on the ground, as we lie down our lives.

65

words from three years ago

Let me in and let me tell you, let me tell you all the things you couldn’t think. Everyone has something that creates their pain, but can I tell you that you look beautiful when you’re hurt?

Your shoulders are low and Ican’t see your eyes;your hair is short, too short to hide your face; but the lines, sealed and cracked in your skin, they’re the greatest reflection, but they don’t show age, they show your freedom.

You felt alive and you hated sleep, and those lines turned into something else. You’d raise your arms up, over your pale ears and held onto greater things, swung yourself up, ready with hope, with pride, and your laughter, it filled the space.

It filled the space that you now lie in.

66

(a narrative)

Every inch of memory. It plays back in, weaving through my mind, how did this begin?

A slew of tables, disorderly and noisy, your face amongst the backdrop, I can recall a smile. Seasons pass and a year is forgotten; another smile crept its way into my mind, a sheepish glance, a guilty sigh and an annoyance of sounds behind me. I remember laughing, and you remember everything. It suddenly aligns when I think of your face, every detail, every second. The lost or faded moments, they don’t matter anymore. There you were, so close. The closest we’ve ever gotten, and a few more glances, taps, touches, smiles– they came together and they weaved themselves through me and instantly sewed back the missing parts.

You and your memory came together with a single movement.

67

words from three years ago

Trees align matched with the lines of the parting floor.

Everywhere we step, a choice created, a mistake arises and we lie down, lie our souls to the ground and face what we feared, always in our feet and never, never close to our minds.

Lift yourself from the sleep, the sleep that carries you deep and down into yourself. Relieve all of what you can’t think to say, all that you know you know but you can’t, you can’t even face; all the things that push you down, under the soil and under your feet, the solid you’ve always trusted, the trust you’ve always created, the walls being burned out with your temper, a kind of disease, a kind of reassurance, the kind that breaks down your love and your love’s love, soon to be forced, soon to be forgotten.

68

(a narrative)

A foot curves, the toe head first, into a blacktop indentation, the ground sun-warmed, covered with dew from the past night and she’s restless and jumps.

Spinning flashes, memories escaping and there’s so much to say but we don’t know how; where to even go just for a feeling, just to feel the same thing we dreamt of, a harsh emotion that doesn’t seem possible... it slipped away so quickly, but the memory lingers.

His head is back against the wall, shoulder blades bare, he can feel it on his skin, the pressure of the weight of his body and how gravity pushes him down. He’s waiting for the dream-like memory. He’s waiting to be able to feel it again. Just to see if he’s real, if the emotion is possible.

69

words from three years ago

The pressure falls beneath everything we said, and it was raining when we got out. We can’t see what we’re going for, but we know it didn’t mean anything.

We felt it at once, too far and too soon, and we knew it at once that it’s only something to get our minds around, but I knew when you closed the door, everything shook and we couldn’t get it off of us.

Years ahead and the rain hasn’t stopped, but we haven’t spoken since September three years ago, until you saw me across the room and something on our shoulders, they fell right off, the space enclosed and it was all gone, as soon as we felt it, we felt it walking away.

70

(a narrative)

I don’t like your cigarettes or your baggy shirts.

I fell up the stairs, dazed and everywhere.

There was a purple room and your skateboard under the bed.

We played lacrosse and hid in a closet (we were the only ones standing up).

I walked six blocks barefoot to remind myself what your eyes looked like, and then he gave me a ride home on his handlebars.

I looked back at you, and you were walking away with your skateboard (this was before you could drive).

The next day I was standing in your driveway with the sprinklers on and your screen door open.

Inside you opened a package, took your shirt off, went out the door, and I sat on the couch.

Later, he was next to me, leaning against me, and you, you were on the other side of the room.

Even though i was thinking of someone else, I looked at you, and I smiled. The room smelled like smoke and we watched something on the tv and you left. I looked at you from the window, and this is where my mind is messed up– sometime after that you were walking with me, defending me when I denied who I was. Who I think I am.

I didn’t know what you liked back then.

And now I kick myself for not falling up the stairs hard enough.

Soft spoken words scars aligned and words alive.

Melody a kind of peace a kind of love, 71

words from three years ago

something that’s right, something that’s alive, your clenched fists, how you hid your face...

I wanted you to see, see how I can see you and all you wanted to hide, show and tell me the feelings and the rush, your scars in your mind in my mind, you’re the one I want, you said.

You’re the one I want.

72

(a narrative)

A soft goodbye, a useless glance at anything that could have been; against the wall and everything flat, I told you everything you didn’t want to hear, everything I didn’t want to say.

I hear you’re gone and I can’t think, the white walls and deep purple sheets, I told you everything that I never really meant, avoiding something that would last for years.

Hair back and you swore you didn’t mean it, and I can’t help but look back, and you can’t even walk and I’m thinking of how much you hurt, confess my mind, but you wouldn’t listen, my voice invisible and your eyes swelling, this isn’t happening, you told me, the dark purple sheets against the wall, flat, and you’re gone.

73

words from three years ago

We stare straight ahead, and rarely even see what we’re missing or what we’re going through, the feeling of the emotions touched through the air, they’re unnoticed as the sky is colder and colder once again.

Another year passes and I can’t say I know you anymore, and I used to be so proud and you were simple, simple to me and i was complicated, and the last time i saw your name the ground was filled with ice, melt away twice over now and what else do I have to prove to you?

I hide enthralled by who we are today and I watch listen for anything so I can know you again but you’re far from hiding, you’re living and I’m not nearly enough, as I used to be.

74

(a narrative)

How exactly would you like to see this, these waves built up around you...they’re already gone and you don’t swim; what did you intend?

And we can’t wait forever for these days to end, and we can’t get over how much we lost, but we’re carrying so much to waste.

The summer waves building up and haunting us, torturing the sunset of how much we lost along the way. But soon this will be over and we can’t find a way to leave it sooner, but just wait until you fade away and you’ll see just how far we’ll go without you and your waves.

75

words from three years ago

It doesn’t matter. None of it does. Live numbly, safely, with no expectations, no worry, nothing to deny and everything to let go. With openness to the world, yet fogged in myself. Too many questions that fill me up and yet I can’t let any of them out, and I give up and I’m hungry, never satisfied. I can’t stop wanting something from myself and when I get what I was promising, I let it go too easily. Slipped away from my mind, and my emotions blockade the world and even myself. I can’t find the real meaning behind my intentions, because now I don’t want anything. Energy, it’s all energy that everyone ever wants from each other. I’ve lost mine, and I gave it to you and you and you. Ignored, and I’m left crying at beautiful things with no one to read my life, no one to know. It doesn’t matter. I get lost. I gave in, I shut down and I’m drowning, because I expected too much at once. I built my satisfaction up, all of my emotions aligned, brick by brick, too fast. And it came crashing down at once. It doesn’t matter. It will be part of the past, and in the future, apart of the future, you– I’ll still be crying at beautiful things–I want a beautiful life, and I crushed it. And there’s no one to read it, to read about my life, and so therefore it doesn’t really, truly matter. To me, but not to the world. Not to the ones I call my closest, not to the ones I care about. care? I can’t pay attention, so I shouldn’t want to be paid attention to. I would always get proved wrong, you with me, with everything I say, wrong. They don’t know. They don’t care to know, they just say it. They say it, and it doesn’t. Fucking.

Matter. None of it does.

Message inside messages.

(Live with questions, give up satisfied. Stop promising, slip away, blockade the real meaning. I lost you. I drown, expected satisfaction, crash. The past, apart of you, pay attention to prove me wrong.)

76

(a narrative)

We felt the stars surrounding us, as the water crashed in our minds and filling us up with emptiness.

I didn’t know what I wanted, and you didn’t seem to care; meteors, all the bad things outside the world just fill up and close in together, and burst in light that turns into magic.

Questions about the world and where we are, they all rattled the back of my mind and the unbelievable comfort– the world turned foggy and as I stood up to face the water, I turned upside down like the rest of space.

77

words from three years ago

If I could see a million miles away I’d run straight to where you’d be; and if I could speak loud enough for you to hear, loud enough for you to understand and to turn your head, if I could speak loud enough for you to believe me, I’d tell you everything that I never could before.

78

(a narrative)

Lights flash across your face, blinking and holding a thought, right there and stay like that, keep your shoulders to the wall and let me think of something to say, something that will change everything, to change your mind and to change my ways, to stop the time and to stop your anger.

Don’t tell me if there’s anything I’ve done, I think I already know, and if I don’t make sense, don’t hold it against me.

I’m trying to pull you down from where you’ve gone to; just stay how you were, what seems like ages ago, fighting for something so useless, for something that’s grown into so much more.

Just wait, one more moment while I think some more, and just wait until I’m done, I’m finished hiding and turning my back away, but what’s the point, with my mind frantic and you, fragile.

We can’t think any more and time can’t stop, we can’t change a thing and I’ll never change, the time won’t wait and you never had, and what’s grown into more is only the distance, the white water in between us, the fog clouding around and the reasons why we shouldn’t try; I can’t ask for you to wait, and there’s nothing I could say.

79

words from three years ago

To everything I regret and to whatever I missed, to everything in the past, and to what we left alone, I can’t help but wish that you’re the one who’ll burn out, and as we grow more apart, the water surrounding the world, thickening, you’ll always stay where you were.

80

(a narrative)

We think about all that we know and what we can’t escape from, everything we want to see and who to fall out of line for, when our minds become blurred and the only thing we can think about is the first person we laid eyes on.

And as much as I want to stop, I can’t stop breathing, and with everything that I said and the way I left it all behind, and the feeling that makes me up to be who I am without the past, my shoulders became heavy and my mind empty.

81

words from three years ago

Hands shake like a blizzard entering a war.

Your eyes suffer like my heart did before.

And you’re everything I thought I could use, and I’m done using you and I’m sure you’re finished hurting me.

I can’t say I don’t understand, waiting silently the walls covering my ears and my hands shake, with the wind from the glass.

The shadows of the corners loom over the pale dark shades the floor, wood and empty, are too cold for my ice feet. and the window is shaking as the raindrops on the lens show through, making me blurred and the room darker than it appears.

Making it empty.

Pale and dark and it’s only a fake moment caught in the wrong time when we were breaking.

82

(a narrative)

A soft pounding in my head, against my skull and my eyes are blurred against the wind, lost in between what I wanted and what I needed.

A lilac cover for your face, I can’t even remember my name. The mountains are shifting and my feet are cracking, look at the bottom of the ocean and you can see my breath, clear as the moon in a winter storm, just waiting patiently for you to dive in.

I suppose this is the way it’s supposed to go and the memories are all the same but you look so tired, so tired of me and I can’t imagine how you couldn’t.

Force yourself to leave and wait until I’m gone, in the ocean, the windy ocean where I have no name and where you can’t find me.

83

words from three years ago

What was it that you wanted to tell me, you were always secretive in your own right.

You claimed me to be even worse, when I’d wake you up at night, just to hear your voice, and you’d whisper; I could barely make you out, you were outlined in my head and to hear your breath, it satisfied the light beaming in.

The months drag and all I remember is imaging you with your green shoes and the smoke around your eyes, the only thing I could make of you; even your voice seems disclosed these days.

84

(a narrative)

Do you think the prickling sound will ever go away?

And the fog that comes with it, will it stay, like you said you would?

I can feel your glance, in the next room.

I hear his voice, my eyes closing, can’t this be it, all that ever matters?

We try to remember his face, but you can’t think of the last time you saw him, can’t you go away, your face in the doorway, I can still hear his guitar.

85

words from three years ago

The sound of your voice waves crashing, deafening and chilling, the salty breath and the broken heart, swinging and twisting drowning inside and left with no excuse, no excuse for your mistakes, no excuse for the pounding sand, the rocks that tumble and fall underneath, and I’m drowning under you, afraid to know anything else but your salty breath and cold hands.

86

(a narrative)

It finally hit me, the spotlight caving in my eyes, and I can’t seem to think of any more lies, only to tell myself that I admit all my mistakes.

Time can’t wait and neither could you, and idea of everything from the past, it seems to stand still; I have no answers, and you can’t seem to say anything, the ground pounding through my feet, sending waves throughout my mind, I can’t think of anything to say to you now.

87

words from three years ago

I can hear your voice a mile away, a soft and slow kind of sway, and I drag my toes to your room, through the door and up the stairs, my eyes are shut and is it safe to assume, that I’ll see your face in a sort of drown, to see your shoulders winding down, following your arms, back and forth, and your fingers gliding gently, your neck leaning and your eyes, intently closed, wrapped in your mind, the soft delicate sound filling the air.

Your fingers cross as your eyes frown, I lean against the corner, invisible and watching, as your back curves as you turn for the minor c, your feet still and bare, my shoulders aching from the weight of your breath.

The floor is motionless as I take another step toward you, and the morning air seems to be lifeless in a sort of charm that you used to carry.

The cool breeze entwined with the curtains, ruffling and twisting to it’s death, is your only background sound as your hands dance and plead, your mind forceful against your dreams, and you didn’t notice my shadow in front of you.

The grace in your body excludes itself from your tone, and some day I’ll never hear this voice, it will be but a recording of something lost and the exact moments you press the chord, the burst of sound and the light from the windows, I’ll bury my face in those curtains, pleading just as silently as you had, for one last look into your frowning eyes, lips content and neck hung, shoulders aligned and hands gliding, you never noticed my shadow in front of you.

88

(a narrative)

I can draw pictures that say more than what I can, and I’d rather fall and die than live paralyzed, and I can’t count the sky, because my eyes are dying, and I can express what I don’t feel better than what I do.

I wish I could live surrounded by green, and high off the ground; I wish I never knew what time meant, and spend my life recklessly chasing after everything that made me feel awake.

I wish I could learn to be afraid more easily, and I wish I were strong enough to face what I hate.

I want to be able to feel something other than restless, and I want to learn the way everyone thinks.

I can run faster for what I want than for what I need, and I ignore everything I’m close to, and I break anything in my hands, and I wish too much that I can stop writing about anything that has to do with the idea of love, and I wish I could stop trying to believe in it, I want to stop trying to understand why I’m too hard to be convinced.

I can think of reasons why I’m not to be trusted, and I can find ways to disagree with myself.

I can jump fences faster than I can sprint, and I can hurt you harder than what I’d like to believe, but all I want is to be able to be content.

89

words from three years ago

The sun goes down so gently and you’re smiling behind me.

The wind drifts away as you do too, the silence is ignored as we’re caught with a net in our own minds.

You’ve got a feeling that I’m just missing, you’re drifting and I’m looking around in circles.

90

(a narrative)

I don’t know, and you don’t know, and we’re sitting here in this dark room together as the sun is trying to hide through those blinds on the broken windows as the people start to stare and as the people start to float inside and begin to leave, talking so loud.

Your head is spinning as your eyes are looking to the corners of the walls, and you’re sinking into yourself. The smoke is loud and the floor is bright, and I only want to sleep tonight, but your head is dull with the lights down low. They’re whispering over your shouting and your laughter is left unheard. When you walk out and when you sing out, they’ll ask those questions that I don’t want to hear.

So you listen to the sink running fast and I’m sitting on that creaky old chair, but you look at me and you’re standing far away.

The things you said before are left untouched, and I’m fragile and you’re standing so still. Your mind is too still and I’m sinking into myself as the smoke is too loud, and the sky is too shiny with those floating stars, just like the floating people, in and out of the rooms and sky, breathing in and out, too loud for me, don’t stand so close to the door.

91

words from three years ago

The sun’s hiding from us today as we walk away to mess up our minds. We’re jumping the plastic fences just to see who can live faster, and I can’t stop thinking about lying on the grass.

You’re too careless, maybe not enough, but I want to tell you the things I hate, and where I like to go, on top of those houses, playing my guitar for you like any other Sunday.

Fragile summers save us from odd winters.

You don’t understand why I’m walking around I’m walking too slow around this house, and I don’t know where you are but you’re watching me from afar, and I want you to see all the things I love and the things I want to say.

92

(a narrative)

The rain storms are looming, but they’re teasing us, and the way we walk, all the things you said with your pin drop voice and your hand in your hair, it keeps me dreaming and wanting to be more like you. you ask me things I don’t want you to know, and I sit next to you, and move across from you in the darkened light, we’re sitting and our eyes are breaking, smoke in our lungs, I thought I was done with this. you beckoned me back to this house, where everyone is laughing and painting on your face, the colors of the lights, they’re streaming as you’re turning off the lamp and staring at me from across the room, and I don’t want to leave, but their voices are echoing and my mind is racing, racing too slow for you to hear, I don’t want to leave.

93

words from three years ago

The weight lifts off the ground when you’re sleeping, your head filled with orange clouds and my drawings on the purple wall. You’re thinking hard of something, something I want to say to you, but I keep to myself and open the world.

My fingers are cracked and my eyes are sore.

I wanted everything to do with you and you want everything to be what you can.

You say you lift the weight of the world on your shoulders, but you turn around and say to me, that I’m all you’d want to lift up, so I could see the world and all the places that you see, if only you could sleep some more and let the weight lift off the ground if I’m next to you.

94

(a narrative)

6/27 Vienna to Milan The pain blinds me, screaming and your voice inside my head, soothing but in reality you were angry, voice like gravel, but I like remembering it better, when you loved me.

I imagine your hand in mine when I look up to the sky, up at the stones and the ceilings and the statues, the architecture older than our country.

I lean my head against the warm window, the panels digging into my arm, but it doesn’t beat my spine digging into my skull.

I think of you across from me, my feet in your lap, your smile, and I wonder if things would be like that again.

I’m in these beautiful places, thousands of miles away from you, away from your voice and your skin and thousands of light years away from your love, and yet I still think of you here despite who I’m with.

The abandonment sinks in, from you to my mother to my friends and I don’t know how to fix it.

How to fix myself and us and everything that’s wrong with everything, but I don’t even know how to begin.

My spine bites down into my muscles, swelling my skin and my brain and my mind and I’m alone with this, with it all and I wonder if it’s all my fault. You and me and them.

I can’t breathe in, the swelling in my lungs hurt my eyes and I just want to sleep, amongst these mountains flying by and I wish I had the smoke we loved in between my fingers,

95

words from three years ago

filling my head and my eyes and my pain relaxed if only for a moment.

It’s been too long since i’ve felt that and since I’ve felt you and your lack of response is killing me, wanting more and wanting even more to fix it and to hold you surrounded by the smoke the smell and the taste with you.

96

(a narrative)

7/1 Paris to Iceland I can’t seem to keep my pen steady, tracing the lines, in and out and through weaving through the pages and the words lost on them.

I sat in the corner of a palace, trying to draw my feelings about you and they turned into jagged lines, criss crosses and empty spaces and messy words off the page; I ran around paris looking for you, looking for places I might have found you.

I don’t think you’re coming back and I wish I could say I don’t blame you, but I was too late on forigveness while spending my time up here, too far, holding onto what used to be and old emotions, the old anger and the old nights and the words don’t even come to me anymore.

The ground is a grey-white, shadows of the atmosphere, with the moon as a sliver, hanging helplessly and sharply.

The colors never seem to go away as I go back in time, and my eyes are dry, my temples colliding as my head rests on the vibration of movements.

I wanted to write more about you but you were too reachable to make words and the feeling too real to describe and not enough time as it’s all spent on you.

97

words from three years ago

6/20 I know I fucked things up a lot but you did too. And I’m surprised in a way that I’m still even thinking about this and us and how it was before, especially when I’m in all of these beautiful places. I want to be candid only because life is short and I’ve been learning that the hard way, and I also don’t want to make any more mistakes or regrets pertaining to you. You were home to me and I wish I held on more tightly to that and I wish my mind had never lost sight of that--but that was out of our control at the time. Like I said before, the good still outweighs the bad to me, when I think of it; you/us was everything to me and I was the most genuinely happy than I can remember. I know your feelings are gone and it hurts a million times over to think that was ever possible. All I would ever want, I guess, is to start fresh on our own, away from the drama and the past and everything and everyone we let get in between us, and start over as adults and as the people we know we are. It’s so hard to imagine us as totally different people leading totally different lives apart, even though in retrospect two years isn’t that much to spend with someone.

I don’t want to start anew with someone else, and it’s incredibly difficult thinking of being serious with anyone. Not because it’s just easy to go back to the past because that’s all we know, but because I feel like we ended unfairly.

I guess this, in itself, is pretty unfair to say and put on you. I just wanted to explain before I couldn’t… these are some of my feelings but I can’t put most into words, so I”m sorry if this is just weird and random.

I suppose it’s more black and white for you, as you are easily able to have your own life without me yet still talk with me super casually without thinking much about it, but I can’t. So I understand that what I”m saying is uncalled for from your perspective, so whatever you say (or don’t) is okay. If I never speak or hear from you again, I’ll obviously live and it’s fine, but I just can’t be on casual speaking terms with you while we’re seeing other people or even just seeing each other in different ways without any intentions. But like I said, I know your perspective is different, but please try to see it in mine as much as you can, which I thought you would be able to.

98

(a narrative)

Red vintage Schwinn bikes remind me of you. I thought of something else earlier this morning that made me think of you, too, but I’ve already forgotten what it was. Things pop up in life that bring my mind back to the places we were, with the smell and the taste in the back of my throat. The boxes I bought to make our room ours, the Netflix account that I avoid at all costs.

I’ve removed all of the photos of you from my computer, though they’re hidden in my hard drive. Last year I emailed you the list I made that I told you about. I don’t know if you opened it or if you even blinked twice, but a part of me just wanted to remind you.

Remind you that I kept it, that I actually wrote it down and that I want it gone but in your mind. I want it all gone, all erased from my own memory, but I want it burned into yours. Into your skin and your bones, every last thing, and gone from my heart and my soul and my being.

99

words from three years ago

Last night I dreamt of what I subconsciously wanted most from you. I can’t soberly admit it, even still. There were white suits and balloons and your family and a black car and your arms and suddenly feeling all right after so much tension. No spoken words, just feeling your glance from across the yard, surrounded by the people I miss the most, and then you in front of me like how I always knew you. I woke up halfway through and in a daze I told myself to stop... to wake up and not let it go further, but I selfishly and foolishly turned around, dug my shoulder into a pillow and drifted back toward you.

100

(a narrative)

My expectations got the best of me. They changed everything; how we lived, how I saw you, how I loved you. I loved you in times I could have gotten away with leaving you; because I thought you would do the same. You didn’t, and I resent you for that and I always will. I wish I had more self respect so then I wouldn’t be thinking about you. I wouldn’t be writing about you or remembering you; I would be so proud of where I am now (and I usually am), but the sorrow and the pain and the nostalgia swollows me up and tears me down (even still). I wish I could hate you more than I do, and I wish I could say I would never want you again.

Time, it kills you and it repairs you most of all, but it creeps up and can slap you in the skull and make you regret it all. It makes me crave the future, for when my stomach isn’t dropping at the sight of your name anymore, and when I’m happy in my own arms or can find happiness in someone else’s. “Our lust for future comfort is the biggest theif of life” (Joshua Glenn Clark).

I wish I could hate you more.

101

words from three years ago

I wish I didn’t do those things. I wish I didn’t say what I did and I wish I knew what I know now. I wish I appreciated all of the things that I didn’t, or I thought I did but I guess I still feel like I had more in me. I had more love and patience that I could have shown you, but I suppose that’s how it always is. We think more of ourselves after the fact, we think of what we were missing and all the things we could have done, if only if only if only.

I would have never allowed you to let me go.

102

(a narrative)

Venice holds a sore spot in my heart. I slept on the cobblestone next to a canal after roaming the pathways in a haze in the middle of the night, looking for traces of you. Wondering where you were, just a year ago, and the things you saw that made you think of me. I laid down on the steps that you had stood on, walking by in the past without knowing that in a short twelve months I would be in the same spot, without you, the shivering down my spine and ache in my lungs, unable to move or to think of anything other than how I wish I could tell you everything. Separated completely from you, from everyone, vying for the past, yet if you were with me, I wouldn’t have been in Venice in the first place.

103

words from three years ago

“In the end you can’t always choose what to keep. You can only choose how to let it go.”

I read motivational things like this and from the outside, I’m doing everything right. People even say they admire my willpower and the choices that I’ve made. And I tell myself that every day: I’m doing everything right, I’m doing the best I can, I’m reaching so far and I’m getting so far and I can do anything and I don’t need anyone and I’m great by myself, etc etc etc. But as I bought that plane ticket, as I stepped foot in another continent and as I swam in the Mediterranean and slept on boats across the seas and aimlessly walked around nordic cities without a plan, I was shaken. By you, wondering still why, what happened, why.

What am I doing, why aren’t you here, will you ever come back...

Will anything go back, because it was ripped away so quickly and it seems just like yesterday, even still. As I’m diving into these choices, these foolish choices, I’m trying to convince myself that I’m doing it right, but my stomach still drops and my face feels like hot needles and my heart stops at the mention of you. At the thought of you. Of where you are now and why you are living how you are, without me. If time heals all, then time needs to jump ahead and speed along, because after so much of it already, when will this stop? When will I actually feel what everyone is admiring? If I’m doing everything right and if I’m letting go the best way that I can, then why do I still feel like this?

104

(a narrative)

I remember one spring when you were mine, walking through Brooklyn and thinking of how we could have a life there. How there’d be enough space for you and still be where I needed to be.

How you might not hate it as much as you think you would.

But now you’ve followed someone else.

105

words from three years ago

I’m leaving in a few short weeks and I can’t even tell you. You’ll hear it, I’m sure, but you won’t speak to me, you won’t reach out and you won’t care that much. I’ve already faded in the back of your mind, gradually even more so every day, and you mine as well. I’ve vowed to never go back. I can’t let my mind submurse itself down into the depths of that water. I have no one there, only reminents of what you left, those words strewn across the floor and the walls painted with fear. Fear of the future, of who I am without what we were, but I’m remembering every day that I’ll never be the person I used to be (with you or before you). My mind is stretching and becoming better than who I ever was, growing more into myself and more into the world. I think of where I would be right now if things were different. I’d be stuck and I’d have never felt the happiness I did a thousand miles away, or the ocean enveloping my legs as an individual. And individual who isn’t anyone elses but my own.

106

(a narrative)

I’m moving to the middle of nowhere to get away from the feelings left in the pit of my stomach. I’m hoping the icebergs and depths of snow and ice will freeze you out of me, crumble into peices and melt away. I need clarity and I need to be far from you, where we aren’t standing on the same ground and I don’t feel you getting closer, inching your way toward this coast. I want to be isolated and lost and disconnected and only have myself to rely on, myself to cleanse and myself to evolve. The peace of mind that the land once brought me is all I’m craving now, when I’m not waking up from dreams of you. I need to feel whole again without you interfering, your silence breaking my lungs apart and the heavy weight on my spine, the little moments and things that still take me back. I want it to stop, I want to forget and I want to have a day where I am as one hundred percent sure about my direction as you are about losing me. I will get there, with the silence in the air and the wind forcing me to forget and to move forward.

107