what is this.

It must be love because otherwise I wouldn't miss him so much.
It must be love because otherwise my heart wouldn't twist when he enters my memory.
It must be love because otherwise I wouldn't want so badly to hear from him.
It must be love, love, love.

Wasted love.

If it isn't love, then why did finding him online almost give me a panic attack?
If it isn't love, then why do I still look for him?
If it isn't love, why do I miss his body?
If it isn't love, why do I miss his voice?
If it isn't love, why do I was to cry right now?

I don't know what to do. This is why I came to Florida. To escape him. But I just push myself back in the water. I just jump right in again.

"Welcome back to Facebook." I doubt I'll be there for long. I'm already just looking at him.

a simple list for you to follow

Here is where I am:
Homestead, FL
hungry
heart-sick
love-sick
not home-sick
dried hands
dirty nails
damp socks
smelly
smiling
content with this decision
curious about what will happen next
wondering if my letter made it to Prov
wondering if I'll ever know
missing Pants
missing Nist, apprehensively
glad that I am here
grateful I am here
in disbelief that I am here
relieved to be away.

don't forget. let's never forget.

I need a new nickname for a person I met. For people I have met.
This farm.
Let's call him Nist.
Nist is wwoofing on another farm in FL. His boss comes to our farm a lot, so Nist has been to our farm a lot. So I started inviting him along to things I was doing. This is what I have found out: He is--
-a leo
-left-handed
-vegetarian
-rides bicycles
-non-smoker
-hilarious
-adventurous

Yesterday he came over to the farm just as I was getting ready to leave to find a beach. So we hung out for a bit, then gathered our bikes for an adventure. His bike had problems so he borrowed one of the farm ones. Its brakes were messed up and I messed them up more trying to fix them (but now I know what needs to be done so I think I could fix them for real!). We went to his farm and had a huge lunch/dinner thing with his boss and some of his friends. It was great. Later, Nist told me that I "handle him a lot better than I do." Which was pretty cool, I think.
We went to a park neither of us had visited, jumped some fences and made it onto a beach. We went swimming. We went places we weren't supposed to go. We psyched each other out like we were going to get caught. We made fun of each other. We talked.
I told him about Dru and ex-otter, because he asked why this past year had been so bad. When do I get to stop bringing them up? 2010, maybe?
We went back to his farm and ate corn on the cob and sorbet. His boss's friend set off a lot of fireworks which we watched and tried to capture via photography. We both tried to play digiridoo, which did not go well. Then I rode home in the dark which is a thing that is not done in Homestead FL.
When I got home, I called him to say I was not dead. He laughed.

It was the best Christmas I've had in a very long time.
But here's the thing: as much as it sounds like we have fun, he doesn't seem interested in me. I got horribly jealous on Christmas eve because a girl from another farm kept getting in between Nist and I. Physically and intentionally. I tried to explain things to him, but he feigned ignorance. Are boys really that stupid? Are they really that unobservant? I recall Pants. He wasn't. I know he wasn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure he noticed everything. Maybe more than was good for him.
I have a lot of fun with Nist and that's worth it. I started wondering if I'm really attracted to anyone right now anyway. He is attractive and he fits my little cookie cutter. I've lost my passionate adoration for people, though. I remember feeling unable to keep myself from someone. I guess the last time I felt that was with ex-otter. Maybe with Saw. That started long before we ever met, though. Three years.
So have I moved from feeling to logic in the people I want to love? Am I pretending to feel things that have no roots in my heart? I suspect that there is still very little that can penetrate to my center. Maybe that's why it's been so hard to let go of Pants. I let him in enough to feel when he went away.

love isn't love if it's actually pain

A cool day today, for Florida. Maybe it was 70. I have no concept of temperature. Maybe it was 65. Nice in the sun, a little cool in the shade.
Wearing socks and shoes feels strange after a few days of only flip-flops. Went on a longish bike ride today with two of the interns. It was wonderful. It was what I needed.
I thought of Pants today when I was weeding. I think about him a lot; more than I'd like to admit. A song came on my ipod that seemed right: "conditional" by the Burden Brothers. "You know I love you even when you try to run away. But I don't want to chase you anymore. So if you have to go away then I won't make you stay. Just lie awake and listen for the door."
Ha, who could make Pants do anything? I couldn't even make him talk to me.
I realized that I would have done anything for him. All he ever had to do was ask me. He dominated me without even trying and I would gladly put myself under his thumb again. Is this an abusive relationship? I make excuses for his behavior and would willingly run back.
He is so strong on the outside. That's what makes his inner sensitivity even more attractive. I love him. What do I do?
Go to Florida. Work on the farm. Take a month away from things. I bet he doesn't even know I'm gone.
So what now?
I feel so different now than I did a year ago. The contrast is amazing to me. I know I'm stronger now but I would be dead if I hadn't become so.
I can have my life ripped away from me and still stagger around until the wound scabs and heals. I am all scar now. I am keloid. I am a caterpillar under your skin.

I realized some things today. Some things I've now forgotten. Hopefully they will come back to me. Hopefully they stayed somewhere inside.

it's an update, but not much of one

I had such dreams last night, as the rain pounded on the barn roof. I dreamt of Pants, and ex-husband, and Viva. Pants and ex-husband were kind to me. Viva was not. She told me exactly what she thought of me, so I replied with the same.
I can't remember much of what happened.
I want to stop thinking about Pants, you know? I'm sure I've mentioned that already. I wrote him a letter, addressed it, stamped it, and then purposefully left it in the pouch on the back of the seat in front of me on the plane. I want to see what happens.
I'm so tired right now. I'll try to nap, but I don't think it will do any good.
It's been raining all day but it's ok because all the work we've had to do today has been indoors.
I love this farm. It has a completely different feeling this year than before.

so tired; soon sleeping

Two automobiles, two trains, one bus, one plane (not in that order) and 8 hours later ... and I'm at Bee Heaven Farm. That counts the time I left my house until the time that I arrived.
Immediate comfort.
On the plane from RI to FL, I started writing letters to a new person that I've named "Pomme." This person does not exist yet. I made them up so that I would have someone to pine over instead of continuing to fret over Pants. I think this is ok, even if it sounds a little twisted. I don't want to talk about Pants anymore. I don't want to think about him anymore. If this is over, I want it to be over.
Do you know how many months we were playing these games? Something like 4. Maybe 5. I'm not sure.
I need to be strong for myself and not want him. I need to be strong and give up on him. I need to put a steel cage around my heart and let no one inside until they've earned the right. Until they've shown they can be trusted.
I trusted Pants before I loved him. Why?
I miss him. I hate it. I don't want to mention it again.

it's just apples for me now

Leaving tomorrow. I need to be awake in four hours. More like a nap than a night's slumber.
Should make things interesting.
Started crying as I packed. What am I running away from this time? What am I trying to forget?
I don't know, I don't know, someone tell me.
I'm so tired and lost and hungry.
Let tomorrow go smoothly.
Let all my love come back to its senses.
Let all my lovers see what they are missing.

say it 'til you believe it

kept you around like an addict's last hit. just there in case I need it. like my girlfriend and her last cigarette hidden on top of the refrigerator.
deleted your number, your name, your address. tried to clean you out of my pores. luckily you gave me nothing solid; just one comic; hidden among a series of others.
wrote a letter I'm not sending. holding true to my word. can't do things anymore just because I want to. see, I'm learning. see, I can change.
see, I'm not who I was anymore.
baby.
call me baby again.
just like in my dreams.
call me baby like you used to.

my truth

I wanted to say, "I'm not sorry for anything. I was only ever myself."
I want to be angry but instead I am sad.
My heart aches. Surprise.
I never learn.
I love.

I can't believe I don't even know what love is anymore

"that's as single as it gets." Yeah. No sex, no dating. Not seeing anyone. At all.
I'm so tired of fucking just to feel close to someone. It feels good but afterwards I am empty. At the time it's wonderful and for a while after I may glow, but when I look back on it it's all empty. Except for when I think about Pants.
I love him. I must. If I didn't, I don't think I'd think about him the way that I do. I wouldn't miss him like this. Hell, I would not have needed to get rid of his phone number and leave facebook because I would not have cared enough. When Steel and I split, I didn't need to do any of that. I don't think I loved him much. Not like this. Not with this passion. Pants is different. And he's gone.
Soon I will be gone too.
I wrote him today. Four lines:

Thanks for the apology.
I deleted your number again.
Gonna respect your wishes.
take care.

Now every time I get a new email I think it could be from him. What's at the heart of things here? Does it matter? I don't know.
"I've been so despondent. This past year has been hell."
I bet ex-otter thinks I'm doing fine. I hate him for this hurt I still feel. I hate myself for feeling it. And I hate layering emotion on top of emotion; person on person; love on love. It's never simple. It's never just one person. I'm never ok with being alone.
I'm so tired today.
At night I hold my heating pad and think of Pants' bed.
At night I rub my head into the pillows and think of Pants' back to me.
I don't cry anymore, though. Not to sleep. Not in bed.
But I dream about him.
I don't know how the fuck this happened. I don't know who I am. I don't know where I belong. I never have. Now it's just harder because I'm alone.

Please come back.
Please come to me, and be with me, and be there.

Wishful thinking.
I am so scared to hope for anything.

don't forget the roses in neuroses

feels like I'm missing something.
feels like I've not left the house or done anything fun for more than an hour in the past two weeks.
feels like I'm letting people down.
feels like I'm missing someone.

Today I felt afraid of death. I kept my head above water. Today I finished a sculpture that would nicely complement the paintings I used to make (me ripping out my own heart, etc). Today I realized that I've trashed the entire apartment in one way or another. Today I realized I have my work cut out for me. I canceled a date I wasn't excited about anyway. I thought about Pants. I cried. I wanted to cry more but couldn't figure out how to start.
Steel drove me to an art store today. He's so fucking hard-headed. He won't listen to anything anyone tells him; especially me. I want to fuck him. I want him to shut the hell up. Neither of these things are going to happen.
Today I realized I'm not sure how long it's been since I had sex or who the last person was. I'm glad. It's about time.
I still want him, you know. Pants. I still get the urge to send him pictures of the things I make. He never responded to them. I think I just want someone to share in my accomplishments. Someone of whom I can be proud. Someone to share my life; to let me share their's. That wasn't Pants. Don't think it could ever be him.

I
can't
wait
to leave.

I can't wait to be away. Absence. Goodbye.

round and round and FINALS

If he asked me to leave him alone, why couldn't he have left me alone?
Since his apology yesterday, I've been steadily weakening.
I'm so glad I got rid of his number immediately.
I'm so glad I'm going away.

analysis 14% complete .... processing ... please wait. abort, retry, fail?

These hours after the fact and I wonder: which ways that he treated me?
What if he meant that he was sorry for being nice to me; for helping me to feel loved? What if he regretted the sweet things he said to me? What about his songs, and his massages, and his stories?
I don't think that's what he meant. I think he's sorry for being mean to me because he was so nice.
And here I said I wasn't going to analyze his reasoning.
Old habits.
Yeah, some things don't change.

you are corrosive and I am eroding and soon there will be nothing left.

"I'm sorry for the ways I sometimes treated you."
First I said, "who is this?" because I had deleted your number. But I knew who it was. I knew immediately. No one else would word a sentence so carefully.
Then I texted back your name. With a period at the end of it. Like this. I started a load of laundry, I talked to my roommate, and then I decided that it wasn't enough.

And that's when I cleansed my phone of you.

I deleted your apology from my phone. Then I deleted my response. Then I deleted the number from my message log. You leave no trace.
I don't feel like analyzing why you would choose now to say this. I can come up with a half dozen reasons so quickly, and if I thought longer I'm sure I could make it to a dozen. I don't want to think about why, why now, what you hope to accomplish, or anything along those lines. It amazes me how fucking smart you can be but how dumb you keep yourself.
Dumb. Words. Dumb. Actions. Dumb.
I love you and I let you take advantage of it.
No.
My first instinct was to reply to the text with that. Just "no."
I am going away on Thursday. I will be gone for just over one month. I was looking forward to not hearing from you, to eradicating you from my mind and emotions. You have some kind of sixth sense that allows you to pick the time when I am starting to feel strong enough to put you aside. That's when you pop back up again. You are asking me to chase you.
No.
You hurt me.
I let you.
I can't let it happen again.

run run run

bloody hands. my fingers smell like cunt. bled in my dreams last night right onto my sheets. I've been thinking of Florida every moment I'm awake. I've been thinking of escape.
last year I ran from a different pain. this one still aches but not deadly. last year it was run or die. this year I just need to get away.
away from drama
away from Pants
away from substances
away from providence.
yeah, away from expectations and obligations and everything that binds. blinds.
away, away, away, from who I've been.
I can't wait to fly away.

still don't know, and what if I never do?

I've always had a problem with guilt. Feeling it, ascribing it, using it, having it used on me. It's always been important to me to figure out who is at fault for something. Or who is to be recognized for having done something. These are the foundations of the way I have lived my life.
It's bullshit.
When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter who did what, or when, or why. It's been done. All that's left is to catch up. All that's left is damage control.
It doesn't matter why my old friends won't talk to me. It doesn't matter why the people I love go away. It doesn't matter that I have been a tugboat to most of my ex-partners. It doesn't matter. It's done. It's over.
These are the things people keep trying to help me learn. Do you know how difficult it is to turn your entire life inside out? I am tired of saying violent things and acting in violent ways. I don't want to threaten anyone anymore. I didn't want to do it in the first place; I didn't even know I was..
I'm about to leave for a month. Did you know that every single thing I've done in the past year has been a struggle? Did you know that everything I've done has been to turn myself around?
I remember Pants saying that people don't change. It made me angry. I have changed. I have changed so much. Yeah, there are things that don't go away. But the me a year ago wouldn't recognize the me now.
I have trouble recognizing the me a year ago. I don't like to remember it. I don't want to remember the pain. The three months straight of crying myself to sleep. I don't want to remember any of it, but if I forget it then I'm bound to repeat it.
Tired of cycles.
Tired of blame, and guilt, and desired explanations.
Tired of wanting and needing apologies.
I really want to let go.
I just don't know how. I'm not even sure what it is I'm holding onto.

just missing more people that don't exist

Fairy tales were made for the same reason religions were: to explain away the shit that no one understands. They give false hope and describe some supreme ideal that is entirely unattainable. There is no heaven. There is no happily ever after.
Tell me stories about love that lasts. Tell me about implicit trust. Tell me about someone who doesn't leave. Someone that will fight for you.
I don't think these things exist. I used to. I feel like I have to keep destroying the strands of hope that appear because if I let them cling to one another then they'll only get bigger and stronger and tie me down to an imaginary future that I can never achieve.
I have been looking for magic. For instant sparks. I've been looking for answers. There aren't any. That implies there's a question. What's my question?
I'm not sick of Providence. I'm sick of myself. I'm sick of being lonely. I don't even mean that I should date someone (not that I can find anyone anyway). I just don't understand why I am so lonely. I don't understand why other people's actions, or inaction, hurt me so much. How can I matter to anyone when they don't matter to me?
This has been a year of painful revelations. This has been one of the worst years of my life, and some of my years have really fucking sucked. I know I'll look back on it as a period of growth but I can't imagine that it will ever not hurt.
Growing pains, right? Fuck that.
When I came back from North Carolina this summer, it felt so good to be back in Providence. I was happy to do things by myself and to be alone. That sensation has disappeared. I don't know when it left. Perhaps it gradually drained away. Loneliness has a way of creeping up like that.
I am so embarrassed by my actions and reactions.
I never get used to it.
I will never proudly be crazy.

I'm the cause of my pain

My hands are numb. I am rethinking everything.
Let's string unrelated sentences together. Let's see who notices.
Two people texted me this morning saying, "WHERE ARE YOU?!" I missed class again. I stayed home to do art. I felt motivated. I went to my therapy appointment.
"Pants asked me to leave him alone." And then my therapist and I started yelling at each other.
This has never happened before, in the four years that I've been seeing her.
After a while it came out that she was trying to get me to see the patterns in my interactions with the people with whom I am romantically involved. I threaten them. I threatened Pants because he wasn't responding to me. "He didn't reply to your other emails. Wasn't that enough for you to realize he wanted you to leave him alone?" NO IT WAS NOT YOU DO NOT KNOW HIM
But when she pointed out my pattern, I began to cry at the truth of it. When she told me that I'd been withdrawing for the past six months, the tears dripped off my chin. When she said that I was distancing myself, I nodded. And when she mentioned my loneliness and the intensity it lays upon my interactions. When I came home and talked to my roommate in between sobs, she agreed. "Now that you mention it, I have noticed how uncomfortable you've been around crowds." Ok, it's not just the anxiety. It's the rejection.
And this is so hard to accept. This is all I ask for in my life; for people to be open and honest with me. This is what I need. This is what I love. But what do I do with the knowledge that I am so lonely that I've begun to cut myself off from the people around me? My loneliness keeps me lonely.
I'm leaving for a month soon. I'm escaping. What will happen?
How do I break patterns?
How do I fill myself, now that I know how empty I am?

Some days I'm amazed I manage to make it through to night. Some mornings I'm amazed I wake up at all.
Apparently I project a confidence that fools people into thinking I'm fun. Apparently I don't believe this about myself any more.

Where the fuck do I go from here?
I have nothing to hold onto. No lovers, no partners, no best friends. Most of my oldest, closest friends are gone from me now.
I want to be content. Content without content; how original.

clarity

He's so polite. "Please leave me alone."
That's all I needed to know.

Why did it take so long to say it?

you don't know what fair is. unfortunately, neither do I.

Watching heterosexual porn, thinking about Pants as I watch a girl on top reach orgasm. I remember when I used to do that, riding him in his old apartment. That's when things were less complicated; when he would text me and ask what I was doing. Usually late late at night. And I would inevitably go riding to him.
Sometimes I'd get dressed up for him. He liked it. He ripped my fishnet shirt to pieces. He fumbled with my corset. Sometimes I'd straddle his face and make him ask for my pussy. Sometimes I'd tie him down. Sometimes I'd beat him.
Things change.
He went through a rough patch, and I made myself available. I saw him break down and it made me love him. My friend told me that I'm "kind but difficult" and that is true. Pants became something more to me than a fuck, and he let me under his skin a little. He let me inside. He asked me to stay. When I said I wouldn't be able to see him as much in the winter and he'd need to let me drive, he said, "ok."
But now it's winter and he's gone. He didn't let me take the wheel. I don't know what happened and he won't tell me.
Once I sobbed because he mocked my statement, "everyone goes away." But now he's done it too. I said, "I'm just waiting for you to leave," but I was hoping he wouldn't. What was that? Self-fulfilling prophecy?
I haven't cried in a few days. I guess I had this coming.
I wrote to him three days ago. If I don't hear from him by Wednesday, I'm writing him off.
Which part of "reply" did he not understand?

I don't know who you are.

I have replaced my facebook updates with a website. I think it works out better for me. After all, the only person I wrote my statuses for was Pants. Nobody reads the other website; so really it's perfect. There are correlations, but mostly it's just single sentences sent from my phone; things that I feel the need to express. It's creepy. I would be completely freaked out by it if I knew it was referring to me. Maybe I'm a creep. I prefer the term "romantic." I love being in love, and having someone upon which to heap my adoration. I like feeling inspired to write, and draw, and paint, and sing, and dance.
Unfortunately, when that is unrequited, I just come off as a big ole creep.

My friend had this to say about me: "I feel like you still think that there is some right way to go about forming a relationship and that if one approach doesn't work then you shouldn't try it again, when forming relationships is dynamic from person to person."
And it's true.
We are not static people.
We can change.
I believe in compromise.
I have changed so much over the past year --

One year ago today I died. I have had to build myself back up from the ground level. I've rearranged the pieces so they fit together differently now. There are holes in new areas but where there once were gaps there is now solidity.
I feel alright about this anniversary. This may be the only time I think of it. I hope so.
Certain things still hurt me. Today in one of my social work classes, we were talking about termination (as in ceasing to see a client). We discussed the different ways of terminating relationships whether it's a romantic one, a friendship, or professional. We talked about people who just cease communication. Like Pants. People who run away. Like ex-otter.
Look. I don't want to judge the way people do things, but it's hard for me not to when I'm the one who gets hurt by the action. Or inaction.

I can't make anyone do anything. I don't want to make anyone do anything just because I want it. My desires still shine through, though. I can't hide them.
I am supposed to trust that people will do what is best for themselves. I think it's more that people will do what will best serve themselves.

so what if I still miss you? someday it'll be you missing me.

I've got this

strange feeling

today.

It's a winter feeling, balled up and blossoming in my chest. I haven't been sleeping well (takes a long time to fall asleep, toss and turn, 5am wake up, sleep again for a few more hours). I've been trying to eat but sometimes it's hard to remember.
It's a lightness in my chest, like rising anxiety but the wrong emotion. I am making a genogram for a social work class. I am looking at connections. I am adding exes' new lovers. I am giving us broken lines to show the disconnect.
"So you were married?"
"Yeah."
"Me too. Married then divorced. Married then divorced. Married."
"So you're still married now?"
"Yeah, but it's heading the same way as the others."
Don't let that be me. I walked in the cold to get soup for a classmate. While I was out there I realized how much I've adored riding my bike these past two days. I love being bundled up and breathing out steam. My body functions better. My muscles aren't as tired. Why is this? I heave and heave and I thought I'd fall over from lack of oxygen but instead I pushed a little harder and made it to the top. I coasted down. I loved it.

So I missed some school last week. Today my professor responded to an email I sent: "As for "slipping through the cracks," I want to be sure you don't, so...stop it."
Stop it.
Don't you see, that's what I'm trying to do?
Writing down names of people I've never known; uncles and an aunt I've never met; entire families that I don't talk to anymore ... this is the feeling that wells up in my chest. Entire branches of my life have been broken off. Can they grow back?
My family unit now consists of me, one roommate, and our cat. I am content with that arrangement.

I don't think I need anyone else.

Lupe eats the miles

"Today was great weather for biking!" I enthusiastically told my roommate as I peeled off my layers. Her response was an incredulous, "Really?"
"Well, yeah, for cold weather biking. I got to wear layers and didn't overheat."
"Oh, I was walking and it was so cold! I guess biking would be different."
"Yeah, with the right gear it's awesome. I went so fast!"

Flying down Atwells from Mt. Pleasant, heading towards the intersection of River. I keep glancing behind me to make sure no cars are following, but I think doing that is more dangerous than not at that speed. My light shows me glimpses of potholes and crags in the road. I dodge them like exes at a punk rock show. Sometimes we connect, but mostly ... it's hit or miss. I tend to miss.
I can't believe how fast I feel. It's past 10pm on a Sunday. I just finished an 8 hour shift at the library, plus an hour and a half of paper-writing. I was short by a page. I needed perfection.
As I speed past the intersection at Atwells and Cutler, I wonder, "What if that car were to turn in front of me because they think I'm going slower than I actually am?" I can imagine the impact. I do this every ride, at least once. I see twisted metal and broken bones. Rubber and skin. Oil and blood. And the car doesn't turn, I barely slow down, and the road rattles between my thighs.
I have them clenched around the frame, acting as shock absorbers. I'm in a slight crouch so I don't rattle my brain. Providence has terrible roads. Providence likes to be a hard city. You don't live here if you want easy living. This is where every interaction is a struggle. Every bike ride could be your last. I've never been hit but I can feel the impact in my gut and through my head. I've never been hit but man, can I empathize.
Turning from River, making that stupid U-turn onto Westminster. One of the metal bike-part flowerpots is smashed on the road. I am angry and sad simultaneously. Why do people destroy art? I know the person that made them. If someone demolished something beautiful, something public that I had labored over, I would be devastated. It seems unfair. I ride by and up the hill.
Under the overpass. My light is the only way to see the patchwork road. A spiteful car passes close, too close, to me. I don't retaliate. I just ride. That's what I do now. I ride.

I wish I had a microphone so I could dictate my journey. It's only 20 minutes, but it's my time. It's when I get to be alone. The cars are obstacles, not people. Tonight I was reminded of SCUBA diving. With my hood up, all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing as the air rushed past my covered ears. It was peaceful. Underwater, the only sound is that of your regulator. In. Out. Harsh yet smooth. My breathing is labored whenever I ride and I wonder, "How can I be out of shape? I've made this ride almost every day for 16 months. Am I sick?" It feels good to make the turn onto Messer. It feels good to escape the obstacles of Westminster.

Poetry runs through my head as I ride. It jumbles. I never get it right later when I finally have the chance to write. I say, "I am cleansing my emotional palate. Something sharp and stinging still lays on top, but beneath it is bitter." I want to put the pickled ginger in my brain. I want to erase the past few years.
I am cleansing my emotional palate. I can still taste you, and underneath you the old flavors of past lovers. Bitter. I have tasted barely anything other than bitter for the past year. It feels like a good time to start over.
I am cleansing my emotional palate. Too long I've been scared to eat anything else for fear of forgetting these flavors. I don't need to hang on. Letting go frightens me, but I hear that's what I need. That and patience.

Wasabi on the tip of my tongue. I am empty now. There is nothing left to taste. Rice wine and vinegar.

I gobble the miles and shit them out, memories for someone else to hold.
Memories to dispose.

Then I remember another thought: "I want to open you up and crawl inside you like a pre-pubescent japanese boy would do to a gigantic mecha-warrior. I want to caress your dials and buttons, pull your levers, find out what makes you work. I want to see through your eyes and I want others to tremble at our union. I want us to be powerful, and beautiful, and terrible, and silent.
I want you to rust all around me.
I want to save the world with you and never let anyone know it was us.
I want to open you up and crawl inside and take comfort in your presence.
Our death would level city blocks."

I bet my love could do that now.

relearning what we taught ourselves; relearning what we'll soon forget

"so how do you feel about things now?"
"I just don't care."
"What do you mean?"
"There's nothing I can do to change the situation, so I just don't care. I stop caring."

Oh Anu, how easily you explain the way so many would like to be. How do you stop caring? I've never grasped that. I can't let go of anything, anyone, anytime. People suggest it as a course of action as though it were something I did on purpose.
I don't actually like being sad. I don't like aching. I don't like feeling guilty, or wrong, or mean, or angry. I don't really want to hurt people, it's just so hard not to when they have hurt me.
But I'm getting better. I'm not the person that I used to be. I can halt.
I pause.
That is an interesting buddhist concept. My favorites have been to imagine that, because of reincarnation, there is the possibility that you could have been anyone's mother or they could have been your's. Do you know how easily that diffuses things? Of course, it does depend on your mother ...
This other idea is that of pausing. When you are feeling a strong emotion, just pause. Reflect. Just a moment. But breaking the flow helps so much. Pause. Breathe. Regroup.
For some of us the stream is redirected for just a moment before the blockage sinks. I imagine a gutter over run by rain water. A stick becomes jammed in a drain and the water parts as it passes around it. The flow is redirected,but then the stick sinks down again, and the water goes where it wants. It is the space it's given. Water will fill anything. Water will go anywhere.

This is me, interrupting my process.
Pause.
I miss-
Pause.
-you.

Sometimes it's just enough to keep from going crazy.
Sometimes it's enough to keep the tears at bay.
Today I woke up and did not regret it. Today I woke up and felt that I had slept.

the clock just says what the rest of us are thinking

I wanted to kill myself today. I've missed my morning classes for the past three days. I wake up and fall asleep and when I reawaken, class has already started. At first I thought it was from smoking pot, but I haven't smoked in a couple days and I still couldn't wake up this morning.
I ran out of one of my medications. I went to get it refilled yesterday and found out that I'd maxed out my insurance. Again. So my $15 med jumped to $300. I cried.
A guy that has been jerking me around finally said he's seeing someone else and does that make him terrible? "You're an asshole," I replied. "Don't contact me again."
I miss Pants. I went to take his wheel back to him today. Initially I was planning on taking it into his work. I went to the tea place across from his work and sipped on peppermint yerba mate. I was there for an hour before I could decide what to do. I tied the wheel to his bike. I walked past the entrance to his work and couldn't bring myself to enter. So I left and visited a friend instead, which is where I've been now for over four hours. So I hope Pants isn't mad that I tied a wheel to his bike frame. I don't know how I feel right now. I want to die.

I've berated friends lately, and lost people that I cared about, and haven't been able to sleep but then I sleep too much. I've cried every day. I know this isn't just one thing. I know it's the stress of pre-finals, and working longer, and more papers, and feeling fucking useless, and feeling like there's something wrong with me, and getting tired of the way people look at me, of being scared, of being tired, of everything and everything and who the fuck do I talk to about it?
I wanted that person to be Pants. I can't stop myself from wanting. I can't make the logic stick.
Is this over? Are things over? Pants, are we over?
Someone in Providence has been reading this site and I don't know who it is.
Speak up.
You never know how much time you have left. That's what I keep trying to explain to people. Why don't they ever believe me?

don't come back to me, just come back

I had dreams last night about people I could have done without remembering. People like Saw and Buttercup and Pants. People I have loved that do not talk to me now. People that make me wonder, "what happened?" Regrets.
What do they regret about me? I know there must be things. I know I know I know. How could there not be? How could it rip me up inside and not effect them? I don't think that's how it works. We are not separate people. Those that I have loved and love still feel me. I still feel them too.
Why do I so happily give people second chances? Why do I give those chances to people who do not return the favor?
Who am I now?
Who are they?

How can I possibly go the rest of my life never hearing from them again?
I know.
It's not my choice anymore.

il n'est pas finis et tu me manque toujours

backdated two days ago

I started crying again. Wait. Did I ever stop?
It's become a nightly ritual when I am alone. A few days ago I just curled myself up on the kitchen floor and let the tears consume me. I thought, "What if my roommate came home now? What if she had someone with her? Am I insane?" I don't know. I hate thinking about how uncomfortable she would have been. But she just as likely would have come to my side and comforted me.
I miss Pants. I do. I deleted his number from my phone, and made him less visible to my online eye.
This doesn't end.

if only

Q: How do you survive suicide?

It's easy.

A: You just don't die.

laminating lamentation -- let's make it last forever

Today I sat in my social work class and listened to the people around me discuss addiction.
Today I sat in my social work class and fought back tears.
Today I missed the people in my life that have been addicts. That have been directly affected by addiction. I have been affected. Effected. There is an effect. It effects a change.
Today I hated ex-otter.
Today I missed Pants.
Yeah. Like that's anything new.

One week from today and it will be a year since I let ex-otter break me. A year since a big part of me died. If I could meet the me from one year ago, what would I think of myself? If we could meet, how would we react to each other?

and these are the things that break me.
and these are the things that hurt.
last night I closed my bedroom door and sobbed to no one.
every night lately I've been crying over nothing.
shut them out.
shut me in.
more and more I begin to understand why people leave me.
and I hate myself.
and I hate other people.
and I hate these situations.
I hate and hate and hate and then I cry because of all the people that aren't around anymore. all the people that left me and the people that I left.

Pants.
What the fuck.
I just wanted to know you, and have you know me.

How did things get so twisted?

paraphrasal jigsaw perusement

I said, "you win."
"I'm deleting your number and I won't contact you anymore."

Is this a power thing? Ultimately, all relationships are about power. But is this a more insidious one? Does it creep? Has it infiltrated my brain and smoothed itself inside my skull in such a way that it has infused everything with its doubt?
Pants. I don't know how to do this. You give me mixed signals and it can't be blamed on drug use or alcohol. You say you can't be around me, then you say I will hear from you, then you tell me not to abandon you, then you say you believe me when I say I want to hurt you. I am capable of it. You tell parts of stories but I'm always left feeling as though I'm missing something vital. I have all these pieces of you but I can't put them together because I don't know the picture it's supposed to make. I'm not even sure where to start.

songs: ohia -- captain badass

departure and worry
and worry and worry
still shake me
resistance failed
resistance failed.
and friendship failed
and friendship failed.
as lovers we did not fail
as lovers we did not fail.
brown eyes,
your pulse is getting hotter
brown eyes,
your pulse is getting quicker
quote captain badass
"I am setting your heart on fire
so when you leave me I will burn on in your soul"
you won't have to think twice
if it's love you will know.
we get no second chance in this life
we get no second chance in this life
so a hot pulse is alright
it's alright
so a quick pulse is alright
it's alright
so a hot kiss is alright
it's alright
so a long kiss is alright
it's alright
so a long night is alright
it's alright
and all night is alright
it's alright
there ain't no contest
against the final day
we'll rise above us
either way
we're either greeted by life or its reverse
then each day greeted by fortune or its reverse
will you stand up for your one chance?
will you stand up for love?
we get no second chance in this life
we get no second chance in this life
you won't have to think twice
if it's love you will know

(I need to stop listening to songs: ohia. All I do is think about Pants and wallow in the beauty of the song mingled with my sadness at their truth)

stop playing, start flying

He calls me baby like it means something.
at least, he used to.
would he still hold my head against his chest and rest his chin atop my hair? would he still look at me like I meant something to him? if the situation presented itself, would he cry again? He broke down, but now his pieces are all hidden under the rug. he swept them under there when I wasn't looking. now I just hear "crunch crunch crunch" while he ignores the tell-tale sounds.
I don't walk over him. I walk around him, gradually closing the circle. hoping he doesn't notice me inch closer and closer. he does. he always does. and then I'm on the edge again, wondering how anyone can ever get inside.
Is this important because I can't have it?
Doesn't he know that the easiest way to get rid of me is to give in and just let me get bored?
The more he struggles, the stronger I want him.
I am the web and he is the fly. He writhes and I encase him further. The question is, who will win? Will he break free or will I completely restrain him? What if I'm wrong? What if I am the fly and he is a spider-less web? I'd be caught with no purpose, just left to rot and wither.
Neither of these appeals much to me.
What was that about power?

creepy or caring?

I am getting better at being friends with boys without fucking them.
Beard and I have been hanging out. He was my sanctuary last night from a rowdy house. I slept on his couch with two cats and when I woke in the morning he gave me tea. I still want him. But I don't show it anymore. Not consciously, at least.
I slept on his couch wearing a t-shirt, boxer briefs, and thigh-high socks held up by a garter belt. I think he wants me too but can't let himself have me. I think he's hung up on his ex. I think this is ok because now we get to just hang out and see what happens. No expectations. Just friends.
I have to remember not to lean on him too much. I have to remember my other friends, too. I get caught up so easily in just one person. I need to remember to see others. I need to realize my friends are wide-spread and each contributes to my point of view. I need to keep myself well-rounded. I need diversity.

Last night I called my dad. We talked for an hour. I'm not sure if we've ever talked that long about anything real. By real I mean "relevant" and "interesting" and "insightful." For once I think it's ok that I tend to date people similar to my dad, because I finally got to see who my dad is. I grew up with him in throes of PTSD. He was diagnosed 10 years ago. A severe case, from Viet Nam. Throughout my childhood, my mom warned my siblings and I against ever waking him or startling him. I don't remember him freaking out much, but he probably did. I don't remember ever tapping him on the shoulder. Is this why I tend to let my voice alert people first? Is it from my dad and from growing up with horses? I don't know. Talk first, approach, keep a distance, reach out, connect. But once I know someone, I tackle first and talk later. Where did that come from?
My dad remembers things differently. His vision is a little clearer now, but you can't undo thoughts from twenty years ago. He says it's good I'm self-aware, that it's powerful. It is something he's recently gained. His wife doesn't let him put up a shell. She cracks through it. I wonder if I could do that with Pants? The problem is that first he has to let me get close enough.
I saw him yesterday, by chance. He came over and we talked in the stairway. There is a wall all around him. A few days ago I texted him to say, "you are a brick wall built around a soap bubble." He is so fragile within. I can feel it. He's so fragile that he's terrified if anyone breaks through then he will be lost. He'll just pop. He doesn't see it that way, but I can feel it. His eyes are hard.
I miss having sex with him because that was the only time he would let down his guard.
I am unsure of what I'm doing. Mostly I feel fine. I feel better than I did before. I'm not sure if this is unhealthy. If I'm not certain, does that ensure that it is?

who fixes the tinker?

Could I run out of sadness for a while?
Can I be complete and single?
These are not new things for me; I remember them from years ago. Nine years ago, before I met ex-husband. Nine years ago, when I felt strong in my solitude. Nine years ago. Am I even remembering correctly?
Yesterday was a landmark day for me. It was the ten year anniversary of my suicide attempt. Most years I read old journal entries to see where I was each year. This year I didn't do that. This year I focused more on it being my mom's birthday than I did on what else it signifies. Another year of life. I got some support from friends. That's all I can ask for, right? It is enough. I barely cried.
This is what I've been working towards. I survived it on my own, physically. I didn't have anyone to call and cry to. I didn't have anyone to lean on. There was only me, and some text, and people saying how their life has been enriched by my living.
I get so tired of making myself feel sad. I feel a pressure on the back of my skull. The side of my brain. There are these feelings that want me to hurt. I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to be dark and sad and angry. I want to be content. Can I be content?
Most of all, I want to not want.
Just let me be. Can I survive?
Let me be, and find out on my own.

when are I

I keep feeling like I'm looking for someone to miss. I'm looking for someone to feel sad about. I'm looking for a reason to cry.
Why?
When I heard from ex-otter, it felt like the bond between us hardened and finally snapped. The truth was in the air, the oxygen caused a reaction, the barb rusted and broke. I'm still pulling strands from the hole, but the final status is this: he is gone.
Yes, I ache and am empty, but it's a cleaner wound now. I think it can heal. The dirt and debris, shrapnel and shards have all been cleansed from the blood. My body can perform its function. My skin can knit; my muscles regrow.
This almost a year after the fact.
That bullshit people say about how it takes half the time the relationship lasted for you to get over someone is just that: bullshit. We were together for 18 months. It's taken me 11 to feel like I might have my footing. I'm leaving room for doubt. After all, I haven't seen him since February. I have no idea what face-to-face will be. I figure it will knock me back a few steps, but until then I am closer to alright.
I don't want to miss someone just because I'm used to it. I don't want to make myself blow things up bigger than they are. The situation is already stretched thin enough.
I don't want to pile emotion on Pants just because I'm used to feeling it for someone. How much of what I feel is genuine, and how much is habit? I don't know. I thought I'd be scared to find out, but I'm not. Not as much as I used to be, at least.
How much of me is me and how much is who I used to be?
How much of him is him and how much is what I remember?
How much of him is him and how much is what I want him to be?

these are moments when my head is full of smoke

I thought, "I'm used to not being beautiful," but I know it's a fucking lie.
I am beautiful. I am myself. And I am confused by how many people do not see the former nor respect the latter.
For some reason, I found myself thinking of ex-otter. Maybe because he was with me when I first started my job at the library. My heart ached a little. He would bring me lunch sometimes. I got him a library card. It expired in July.

Last night Pants and I had a text conversation that lasted longer than one back-and-forth. He answered me nearly immediately. This doesn't happen often with him. Today I wrote to him at 11am and still haven't heard back. Not surprising, but as always disappointing. I don't have anything to say, anyway. Nothing he really needs to know. I just like to talk to him.
I'd call him if he'd want to talk. But if I start down that road, I'll end up at a dead end again; like last time. I tread a thin line here. He is always on the verge of wanting me, but can't seem to spill over into it when we're not physically together. I try hard to be patient. I do. I try so hard. More now than ever before, I think.
I try to be patient while I wait to hear from Pants. I try not to wait for him; to not think about it; but I can't help it. He is in my head. I can feel him and smell him and taste him. I want him.
It feels nice to want. It feels nice to not get the immediate gratification. I must remember this. I would like more time with him, but it isn't my call. Our schedules are too different; he is too private.

I want to be patient.
I want to just be.

moments of clari/ty/fication

I have been hanging out with Beard again. This time we are platonic. As we watched a movie last night, I longed to rest my head on his shoulder but I felt it would send the wrong message. I like him, but not how I like Pants. I still think he is ideal for me, but since I got that letter from ex-otter, I just don't feel the need to be with anyone.
That's how I got to see Pants again.
That's how I stopped flirting.
I don't want to be with anyone. I want to be alone. I like to see Pants. I like the intimacy we share in person. I love him, I do, but it's a slow burn. It simmers. I am not an inferno like before; I am tempered and patient. I think. I could be.
I like Beard and I want him to be my friend. I am feeling less and less like I need acknowledgment through sex. I am feeling less and less like I need to be attractive to feel good about myself. I hope this lasts. I'm sure I will have some back-sliding. But right now I am relatively content.
I told my therapist that I feel lost when I don't have someone to like. I don't know where to focus my energy. I have defined myself through my relationships. I have never wanted to do that, and yet I have. The thing about being close to Pants is that his main hobbies involve pushing himself very hard when riding his bicycle, and reading. These are two things I'd like to do anyway. And I find myself looking to him for inspiration. I think this is good, as long as I can keep myself from getting too caught up. As long as I am aware. Can I do that? Can I keep myself sane, and safe, and embrace new-found patience?

This isn't a miracle. This isn't a cure. It's a realization. I want peace. I am tired of turmoil. I want to be more than who I am right now. I want to be able to look back and be proud of myself.

I laid down in the shower to soften my skin. I kept my mouth above water. I peeled the hardness from my fingers. I didn't want to die. I was barely tempted.

first contact

Fuck you.
ex-otter wrote to me, asking for his brother's hat back and letting me know that he found a pair of my socks and one of my shirts. Fuck you. And then said he guessed I didn't want to hear from him because I hadn't written.
I am so angry.

Fuck you, asshole. Don't blame the lack of communication on me. YOU left ME. YOU broke off communication. YOU started dating someone almost immediately. YOU didn't read or reply to any of the emails I sent before. Why would I even bother writing? I don't want to wonder if you'll write back. I don't want to wonder if you'll fucking read what I have said.
I can't believe you would write after 11 months and just now say that you've found a pair of my socks and my shirt. I hate you. My heart sunk inside itself when I saw that you had written me. I was hoping it would be something important: something about dru; an apology for all the shit I have gone through over the past year; not this petty shit. I have survived just fine the past year without the fucking socks and shirt. I hate you for treating me like I am so inconsequential. Like all that I am to you now is some stuff you forgot to give back to me a year ago.
I hate you not contacting me early. I hate you for missing the suicidal grief I have been in for the past year. I hate you for not taking responsibility for your actions. For saying I didn't contact you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.

This hurts so much. More than I thought it would. I was looking through my bookshelf's cabinet earlier today and found his number written on a scrap of paper. I ripped it up and threw it away.
Fuck him for treating me like I didn't matter.
Fuck him for continuing to do so.

I just cried so hard that my throat is sore.
I am glad there is no one here to hold me. I am glad I am alone. This may be the first time I've ever felt this way. At least since he left me.

Maybe that's what you call progress.

I hate him.

these are common subjects for me these days

Confusion on confusion. He wants me but will not have me. I ask for directness and he says, "I like you and I'm trying to be careful, alright?" Why didn't he just say that in the first place?
Last night I found my meditation in the bottom of my claw-foot bathtub. During the day, when I am sad, I think about the coming shower and the peace I find with the rising water. I finally understand trance music. I almost understand addiction.
How can I give this up? Can I make it healthy, instead of the tiny thing I keep around to justify how dead I feel? When I walk alone at night, I keep my fear at bay by thinking, "I'm suicidal. What do I have to lose?" Nothing. Kill me. You're just speeding the inevitable. You're just doing me a favor. You will make my death tragic in an entirely different way. You make my death personally acceptable.

Last night I entered the school of Social Work building. I had on paint and plaster-dust covered jeans, my ratty patched hoodie, my bike helmet with the decrepit hood underneath, and my oh-so-adorable shoes. As I walked the halls with my bicycle, trying to find the office I needed to drop off my field study application, I passed a woman sitting in the comfy cul-de-sac. The office I needed had no external mail box, so I started walking back towards the staff boxes, passing the woman again. This time she said, rather harshly, "Are you looking for someone?"
I don't need to tell any more of this story. Social work is supposed to be, yes, about assisting people. Part of assisting people is reserving your own judgment. At least pretend that you don't find them repulsive. At least pretend that you care what they are saying.
There I was, fellow social work student, being accosted because I looked different. SURPRISE. I wonder how she'll do with other minorities. I bet she works with geriatrics. I hope she doesn't want to work with teens.
So here I am, judging this person that judged me. Because it hurts. It hurts that people are always so surprised when they hear what my major is. I used to delight in shocking people but that hasn't been my goal in years. These are the times when I hate myself. These are the times that I hate everyone else.
Of course she was nicer, though not much, when she heard I was a student. Common ground, I suppose.

But all I wanted to do was get home and lay down in the shower.
I didn't necessarily want to die last night. I just didn't want to feel.
Isn't that the goal of meditation?

this doesn't mean to you what it means to me

today, it was apathy that saved me
apathy and hunger
when you're under water, everything feels better
dullness in my ears
small sounds become bigger
the world is a steady drum
one that I can handle.
when half my face is under water, I am soothed
open my eyes and see a world distorted
half under
half over
same place
different vision.
and I think,
"once suicide was blood,
then it was pills
when did it become water?"
I don't care, I don't care, I don't care.
today it was apathy that saved me
I couldn't feel enough to keep my head down.
today it was hunger that saved me
just the normal kind.
nothing special.

this wasn't a poem so much as it was
a lot of incomplete sentences.
I think I can relate.

Why does having my meds switched make me feel like a failure?
Hello Prozac.

did you get it?

Aching back; not as sore as the hole in my chest. Aching back and I cling to it just to have something else to focus on. Something other than him; something I know will go away without me even noticing.
But he didn't leave quietly or with drama. I didn't push him away without a word. We gave each other chances; we gave each other choices but in the end there was no meeting place. It was power versus power and I couldn't remain impotent any longer. He is attracted to strong women but didn't want me to show my strength.

I miss that voice, and the songs he'd sing. I miss the warmth of his covers and the feel of his arms. I miss the comfort in his bed, his kisses, his eyes. I miss watching him, and fighting him, and his intensity. His intensity.
The sex before he loved me was so different from how it ended up.

Oh, can I touch you again? What would it be like to see you again? Would you go back to cold and closed? Or would you bloom under my fingers; would you rest your head on my shoulder? Would you place your lips in the hollow between my breasts and make me whole again, just for a little bit?
How did you understand so much without telling me? How did you notice?

Ache in my back matches my chest; they throb together. I want him. It's a different kind of pain; different loss. Can I have him back someday? Can someone bring him to me?
I mailed him a letter. I drew patterns on a sticker. I wrote in different colors.
I regret nothing.

just "broke up" with pants, who I really wasn't dating anyway.
just cried.
at least now I don't have to wonder if I'll hear from him. Really, I just want to hear from him.

m,my feet aren't my own anymore

I have started to test myself.
How far can I go without committing suicide?
I take showers, long showers. I curl up in the bottom of the bathtub and let the water pool around me. My body creates a barrier. The water slowly rises, filling one ear, distorting the sound of water hitting water; porcelain tapping out rhythm. I get lost in the drumming. It sounds like music, like something someone in Providence would play. Noise. Beauty.
I open my eyes and see a world divided. One arm under water, one arm above. One eye under water, one eye above. Half blurry, half clear. Water rises.

How far can I go?

Water begins to pour into one nostril. I wait as long as I can. I deal with the discomfort, that swimming-pool memory of diving underwater with nothing to hold my nose closed. I think, "maybe tonight is the night I can relax enough to die." I think, "I bet if I got high enough, I could do this and not care about drowning. I would like it. It would just be another sensation to notice."
The water is comforting. The stillness of my body reminds me of ten years ago. It feels like I am giving myself up to the inevitable. I can finally stop fighting. I won't have to worry about anything else. I can be in gentle darkness, soothing, caressing, blind and weightless. It would be home.

Instead, I sit up. I let the water drain. I get on my knees and touch my forehead to the bathtub. I let the death wash off of me. I get up. I turn off. I get out.

And I wonder who knows about my disease? Who knows I'm suicidal? I've only told my therapist. I said I could keep myself safe. It gets harder and harder each time, but I won't stop doing it. I love the sense of peace I get when the water starts to take me. I love the warmth. I love the sound. I love the feeling.

Who reads this and says nothing? If the roles were reversed, what would I say? This is too big for any one person. This is just me, and mine, and what can I do to deal with it?
I keep going. I keep living. I struggle to stay on top of things. Sometimes I succeed. What else can I do? I'm in therapy. I take medication. What more can I do but commit myself to a mental institution? I still remember how that was ten years ago. I don't want to go back yet.
I think I'll end up there eventually, but I can't go back yet.
I'd have to get so much worse before it would be worth it.

what do you do with a sober heart at 3 in the afternoon?

"This could be good for you." Like Steel was good for me? No, I'm being serious. Steel was good for me. He knocked out my need for control. Well, my overwhelming need for control; I still want to know what's going on. Pants is very different. He has all the power. He reminds me a little of California. He reminds me of ten years ago.
He has opened up to me. He feels precious to me. I want to be something special to him. I want to be different. He is attracted to me. All of me. Not just my physical appearance. Not like most of the men that won't even glance my way. I am too strong for them? Or do I just appear to be strong?
That has been my worry lately. Pants said, "I like strong, independent women." What if I am neither of those things? Honestly, I want someone that I can see all the time. This is why he could be good for me; I can't get what I want and what I am used to having. I have to be patient. I have to wait.

Pants, like Wizard, distinguishes "love" from "in love." I have a wordless understanding of this. On a base level, I get it. But my brain can't quite comprehend. I have loved so many people. Was I even in love with any of them? I think ex-otter came the closest, and I was too damaged to make it positive. I was too damaged to even realize it until he was gone.
Is that the kind of love you can fall out of? You can fall in it, out of it, etc. Maybe mine is more lasting? "In love" sounds so fickle. I love. I do not "in love." I verb. I am active. Being in love sounds like something that happens to you. Loving is something you do. Is being in love something that can burn you up? Is it that fiery thing that consumes, leaving nothing but ashes once it's over? Is it what starts wars; carries feuds; justifies vengeance; destroys lives? It sounds terrifying to me. I don't know how people even get to that point.
I have loved. I have loved to the point of self-destruction. I've gotten high, and drunk, and cut, and slept, and kept myself awake all night. I've starved, eaten, exercised, and laid around all day. I've cried. I've screamed. I've curled into a ball and sobbed uncontrollably. I've climbed trees and buried my face in the grass. I have loved, and if that is love, then what is being in love?
And why do I want it so badly?

Love seems like something you can choose to do.
Being in love is something that happens. Not passive, just unable to be forced or found by searching.
"Love is what you think it is." The problem is that I'm not sure what I think it is anymore.
Gonna be a long time before I get the chance to know it.

who decides where the train tracks lay?

Therapist wants to see me twice next week. she says "this time of year," or "this week" or something. This time last year I was in Eugene, OR with ex-otter. There was no Halloween last year. There was a bar and me silently watching as ex-otter and his cousin screamed at the sky. His cousin threw up by the railroad tracks. I got high for the first time that night. Or was it the night before? Details fade, but the general memory does not.
I loved Eugene. We went to the hot springs in the mountain and sat naked in the water. I'd never done that before. He has pictures of me, of all of us individually, sitting naked at the bottom of a waterfall. I wonder what he did with all those pictures. I wonder if he's thinking about me. I wonder if he hates me the way that I hate him. I don't think so. He has no reason.

I don't know where to go with this melancholy. Finally told my therapist that I've been suicidal for the past couple weeks. She asked if I needed to go to the hospital. No. I can keep myself safe.
I told her that I think my "relationship" with Pants may not have long-term potential because he's allergic to cats. She said, "Luca comes first." And I said, "Yes. She is always there for me. She isn't moody. She forgives me instantly. She loves me. She's affectionate with me. She has never emotionally hurt me. I love her." I said I want a monogamous relationship. I don't want to tell Pants that because he might stop seeing me. She said maybe seeing him could be good for me, because I am not in control. I might learn something.

I think I am clinging still to old habits, old ideas, old me. How do I let go?
What if I fall in love?

What if he falls in love with me?

"don't know if I can make it through another winter in this town"

Pants said, "you still love this guy.
"I mean you're still in love with him."
And I get confused and say, "I don't stop loving anyone." I pause, unsure how to continue. "I mean, he isn't who he used to be."
Pants starts to say something. "You're in love with the idea-"
"No. I don't know who he is now."

I love who he was, at some point.
A year ago today I was at his parents' house with him, powerless. Looking up flight times and prices so he and I could go to Eugene OR and find out what happened to his dead brother. Put things in order. You know, like trying to put back together a glass you just shattered.
Yeah. I miss him. Yeah, I still love him. I probably am still in love with him. I never know how to properly articulate the kind of pain I've discovered because of this situation. Suck the yolk from an egg and what's left is my chest.

The nights are the hardest.
I don't want to go home.
I can't bear to be alone.

And yet I remain.

caring trumps suicide

chest pains; a new one. there's beard burn on my chest below the hollow part that aches. it's from Pants. he rubs my heart until I moan.
I cried in the shower again today. it's been a year since dru died. tomorrow it will be a year since I got the text from ex-otter saying, "my brother is dead."
I don't know what I feel right now. pain, and numbness. confusion. sorrow. regret. anger. helplessness. definitely helpless.
I want to sob but I can't. even laying in the shower, letting the water fill the bottom of the bathtub, thinking again about dying... it was hard to cry.
I want someone to hold me.
I can't do this alone.

I have been feeling remorse. I have been thinking a lot about my ex-husband. I have been wishing I'd been kinder. I have been thinking, "right person, wrong time." I am sensing a theme.
I tried to explain to Pants that you can't just have all the right elements and expect things to work. there must be an order to it. I don't think I explained it very well.
I've been painting again.
I miss ex-otter. I miss ex-husband. I miss von. I feel so out of control right now. Again, a passenger in my own life. a slave to past decisions.
"we are all products of our environment." how many times have I said that lately?

public problems today are the result of public policy yesterday. that's what my policy analysis professor taught us. but that is life too. the decisions we make today to "fix" problems will create our future problems. right? unless you deal with the root of things. What is my root?
where am I growing?

ache in my chest, rash just below from Pant's scruff as he labored to fill the space that was left behind one year ago.
"it never stops."
"it always hurts."

no wonder I think so much about dying.

if I'm not a yo-yo, why do I keep coming back?

If I were the one outside of this situation, I would be aghast at my behavior.
On again, off again, like a jacket on a spring day. Always on the verge of comfortable, but can't quite reach it. Always almost ready. Then I get pushed back. I say some wise thing, and then stop talking. Two days later, he comes back.

And I say, "ok."

Is this my self-esteem talking? Is this my doubt? My what-if function kicked into overdrive?
Dear Self, what the fuck are you doing? Let me just weight out some of this guy's negatives:
anti-social. seriously anti-social. good luck with going anywhere, ever.
non-communicative. let's just forget that communication is one of the most important things to you. Ever.
needlessly mysterious. yeah, he just won't tell you things. no reason. like his age. he rarely answers questions directly and when he does it's usually with absolutely no elaboration. unless he feels like just launching into a story unbidden.
no PDAs. ok, you don't really like being affectionate in public either, but come on! holding hands. cuddles. etc. he means no touching at all, it seems. What are you, a secret?
everything is on his terms. communication, hang out, everything. his house, his time, his rules.
allergic to cats. let's pretend that all this other shit gets worked out (compromises, patience, etc). He's still allergic to Luca. doesn't that mean this relationship has no long-term potential? Luca has saved you so many times. She loves you and loves to show it.
can't come to your house. he'll die. awesome. that means you get to be the one always going across town. great.
"sorry babe, I won't be the thing you want." won't.
moody. no clarification needed.

how about good things?
comics
vegan
bicycles: riding them, fixing them, etc.
no car
incredibly intelligent
no drinking, smoking, or drug use
funny
fucking weird
can be very sweet
honest?
damaged. someone to relate to.

I don't know what this means. Gonna see him tonight for the first time in a week.
I guess we'll figure it out then.

never will; if never is

dear Pants,
This is the letter I would send if I thought it would make any difference.
I don't think how I acted last night is the reason you're saying goodbye. I think I am, however. Not because of anything I've done, but because of how you could feel about me. You want to be around me. You want me. But you want to be able to close me off in between times. I don't do that. However, you never gave me the chance to understand.
If we had talked, you would have realized how willing I am to compromise. You, on the other hand, are completely unwilling. Maybe this is how I've seemed to people in the past. However, I am not ready yet to let you go. I had a taste of us and found it delicious. We aren't done with each other. There is so much more to learn.
I think I'll take six steps back and gradually work towards you again. I think if I wait a week without words, wait for you to settle in, then maybe you'd be more receptive to me.
I want you. You need me. You don't want that. You like me, more than you want to right now. Or maybe ever.

gradual observation

There are times when I am so used to being treated poorly that it comes as a surprise when people are immediately and genuinely nice to me. When I am looked at as a person instead of an oddity, I am not entirely sure how to respond. It always feels so good.
"What's your major?" "Social work." "HA! Really!" What is that supposed to mean?
I am getting so used to people I'm attracted to being uninterested that when there's finally a mutual attraction, I have no idea what to do. I come on too strong. Well, I come on too strong for them. I have started feeling like I'm doing something wrong. I am wrong. I am not right. I am incorrect. I have started to believe that I am the problem. The error is within me.
I don't like feeling this way.

what, me?

I wait for you. I make this more dramatic than it needs to be. If we weren't brought up on movies and television, would our relationships be more honest? Would you communicate? Would I calm down?
This has always been my problem, right? I get so excited about people that it overwhelms and pushes them away. I want to apologize constantly; but why say sorry for who I am? I cannot be what I am not. Why pretend to be someone else?

I don't know what to do with this. I've said that so many times before. What do I do, what do I do? Be me. Live. Go on. Don't worry. Remember the things in life that are constant. Embrace the known.
I want to relax. I don't know how. I want to be patient. I don't know how. I am riding solo on this roller coaster and there's no one to put on the brakes.
I don't know how to stop.
And I can't find anyone who will ride with me.

these are my shoes; those are your shoes

I don't know how I look when I can't see me. I don't know what my face does, how my body moves. It is this thing that I am so intimately entwined with; yet have no idea how I actually appear.
And this is the big joke about life. We can only ever be ourselves and not know what that means to other people. We can only ever see out of our own eyes. We will never know what we look like when no one's watching. We will never know the extent of our own beauty.

I tell him that he's beautiful. He denies it. I say, "an opinion can't be wrong. You are beautiful to me." He put his head on my shoulder, on my chest, in my lap. He touched me. For the first time since we started hanging out, we didn't have sex that night. We held each other through the night. I was drawn to his warmth. I pulled the blanket over my head to keep away the cold. I woke up to his twitching and stroked his back. As long as I was touching him, he was still. When I tried to turn away, he shook again.
I did not tell him this.
I read a story once where the narrator spoke of peeling the layers of skin off someone; like an onion. The person inside came out new and soft and vulnerable. It was a painful process, releasing the person from their cage of flesh. But this is what I want to do to him. I want to peel aside the layers and find out who he is underneath. I want to break the curse. I want to love him.
And I want him to love me in return.

When he calls me "sweetheart," "baby," "babe" or shortens my name, it makes my heart jump and my lungs constrict.
I am not sure what to do with this. Equal parts say, "tell him" and "you'll frighten him." I hate these games. I think he could be very bad for me. I think he could be very good for me. I think I could learn patience.

Sometimes it feels like I'm making myself worry just because I'm so used to it.
I want to let it go.

maybe baby, what you need could be me

Heart is going over-time. Feels like it's gonna jam out of my chest; haven't really felt this way since dru died and ex-otter left me. so consistent. so frightening.
I haven't slept enough. Can't sleep beside pants, no matter how hard I try. I just wake up and wake up and wake up and wake up. Now my body is shutting down and my heart's trying to keep it functioning. Now I gotta suit up and ride in the frigid rain and make it beat harder. What if I pass out? What if I don't make it?
This is stupid. I miss pants. I want to go over to his house. I don't want to go home; I don't want to go to dinner. I just want to lay down with him and read comics. I want to know what it's like to be around him when it's not a booty call and there is no crisis.
I want to know what it's going to be like to date him. If that's what I'm doing. I think that's what we're doing.
He said that he liked me. He compared my style to exes of his. What is my style? Dyke? "Whenever I see an attractive girl and find out she isn't a lesbian, I think 'what a loss.'" I mean, that's another woman that has to deal with men.
I think I worry out of habit. Inside, I'm not so concerned. If I could just get enough sleep; if I could sleep soundly beside him; if he could come over to my house; things would be different.
If that, then this.
It doesn't matter. What I have is what I have and I'll take what I can get. I said, "I don't trust anything easy. If things fall too easily into place, I just wait for them to fall apart." I make my life into trial and error. I make my life into hardships. I want to work for everything; yet I want it all just handed to me.
I want everything with reciprocation.

Every time I see him, it's a compliment.

my repetition is your salvation; your salvation aches

Melancholy; fills up the spaces in between.
the spaces in between
the places in between
and all the spots you don't fill up,
the places in between.

melancholy; sleeplessness; hunger; desire. I don't know where you fit in. I don't know who I am.
the places in between right now, make me watertight and numb. fill me in with india ink. let's cut out the negative space.
you make comments that make things obvious. don't act like you don't know. you wanted me to figure it out; now all I smell is you.
these moments from here to there, when you are home and so am I. but I know where I am. where are you? what are you? you are everything you act like you aren't. you are things that you cannot hide from me. I feel the emptiness and pain. I feel everything.
you pushed yourself into my arms and I could feel you seep into my chest. the empty place over my breastbone. you filled up all those cracks. will you now freeze and burst my heart?
the places in between become everything. my solidness turned into negative space. turn the picture over. what do you see now?
no medication, no love, no heart, no hope. you have self-destructed and no one can save you. you expect it though. who would save you?
the places in between us. the people in between. who would kiss you? who would fuck you? who would love you, without me?
the people in between us. the people in between.
repetition
I miss the way you smell. I miss the way your mouth tastes. I want to feel your body. I want you in my arms. I want you to kiss my head. I want your hands against my face. your tongue and fingers and legs and feet.
I want to watch you fall apart.

the blindfolded leading the bound

I can see my feet, but I don't know where I'm standing.
Last night, Pants broke down and I got to see him as human. He asked me to stay over. He called me "baby" and "lover." Things got personal.

So what the fuck do I do now?

I don't know what this means. Was last night a fluke? Is he going to be locked again? I feel unconcerned and still, but also terrified. I have other things I need to address. School and work and friendships. Why get hung up on this?
Everything is still on his terms, even when he hands me control.
Everything hinges on his feelings; his actions; his desires.
I wish this bothered me more. Honestly? Right now I'm really enjoying the uncertainty.

This is new.

open hands, closed eyes

Tonight when I left, Pants said, "Thanks for coming over. Ride safe." But he sounded sincere. I think he cares. He told me a lot of things tonight. Things I didn't ask to know. I watched him stare at the ceiling as he talked, laying on his back in the bed. I curled beside him with my toes on his leg, my eyes tracing his profile.
When we went into the kitchen, he said he doesn't hate people. He doesn't let them in. He won't get close to them. "I understand." I mean, I do. "For some reason, I trust you." I had told him about dru. I've told other people about dru. But with Pants, I don't know. I want to open up my ribcage and let him inside.
That's not what he wants, though. I can feel something else about him. He wants me. I don't know why he talks to me after we fuck. I don't know why we have these moments. I don't know where this is going. I thought I was done with him.
But no one fits inside me the way that he does.
No one lets me dominate like he does; no one can equally dominate me. He lets me feel strong. He is wild. He is open. He is animalistic in a way that I've desired but had not met. I don't know what to do with this.
Oh.
I didn't mention his eyes. They frighten yet entrance me. His pupils are always huge. They once flashed red when we were wrestling and it was terrifying. The iris is blue, but not blue-grey like my eyes. Not pale blue or dark blue. More like the blue of a sapphire. Pure, translucent, deep. They are so beautiful. Simultaneously, I am scared to look too closely. He doesn't guard himself as well when we have sex. I don't know what I'll see then.
I like to catch him watching me.
"I don't like to think about things."
Well. I do.

how can I do this alone?

I have been crying in the shower.

I turn the water on hot and lay down in the tub. I sob, fetal position. Or I sit up with my arms wrapped around my legs and I rest my head on my knees. Sometimes I lay on my back and let the water massage my torso. But crying; always crying. Or that thing between sobs, when you can't catch your breath. It's like hiccuping backwards.
I keep waiting for the pressure in my breastbone to abate. It doesn't. It feels like there's a latch that needs to be lifted but I can't find it. I am so fucking sad and I have no idea what to do about it. When I am breaking down in the shower, I start making my suicide plans. I think "it is possible to drown in an inch of water." I wonder if I could keep my head there. I wonder if I could let my lungs fill. I wonder if I'd find some desire to live, if I attempted suicide again. I wonder if that's an addiction people have. Consecutive attempted suicides as a rush; as a way to feel alive. Try to die so you want to live.
I don't do it, though. I don't do it because I wouldn't want my roommate to find me. I don't want to hurt her. That is what's keeping me from dying right now. The thought of the pain it would cause my roommate. I don't worry about my family or my friends. I think about my roommate.
I think about jumping off the Point Street bridge. I consider the logistics. I wonder what pills I have that I could use to overdose. I wouldn't want to do THAT unless it killed me. I tried that avenue before and it was unpleasant to shit out charcoal for a week.
I can't slit my wrists. I wouldn't be strong enough. I hate the sight of blood. And I know I wouldn't cut deep enough.
Don't want to hang myself. Then someone would have to cut me down. And where would I do it anyway? Not the apartment. Maybe an abandoned building? It would be a while before anyone found me. I would be ok with that.
There are household items that are poisonous. That would be ok. I have thought about throwing myself off overpasses, but I wouldn't want to take people with me when I die. In my utter selfishness, I can still consider others. Does that mean there is hope for me?

I'm not going to kill myself. I'm getting to the point where every day that I survive is a small victory for me. I need that, because right now I feel like a failure in my own life. I feel like everything I do could be done in a better way. I feel stupid, and slow; like I'm missing something that everyone else can see. I am lonely. I am frightened. I feel used.
That's why I was crying tonight. I have been letting people use me. I let them use my body so I can feel close to someone for a while. I enjoy it too, but in the end they don't want me. They want my body.
I can't differentiate between the two so easily. A person is inseparable from their body. Right?

What is it about me that drives people away?

this time, this year

Today my therapist looked back in her notes to find out what went on with me this time last year. After several years of listening to me, she knows my patterns. She knows this is ten years since my suicide attempt and almost a year since AJ died. She remembered; she asked. I wonder if any one else I know would make those connections. I wonder if anyone can care independent of my reminders.
These are the things I frequently wonder. Who will love me? Who can care? Ex-husband was the only one who could remember these things. Four years! It still gets me sad when I talk about it. I feel like I failed.

Winter is coming. I am trying to cleanse my life of the emotional detritus I've accumulated this year. Much of it is tied up in people; people like Con and gij and wizard and vew and Pants. People that pretend to be there, then disappear. I am not a convenience. I am not here to use and then forget.
The rejections build upon themselves like calcium deposits. The time passes; pressure mounts. Where is the pearl in the center of all this? When I finally open my shell, will there be anything to show for all this irritation?

I am so tired. I want to relax. "Why don't you do something like you did last winter? You really enjoyed working on the farm." I say yes, but no. Maybe a new place. Somewhere warm, but not where I wanted to die. Somewhere without memory.
I have enough now; no need to revisit.

let what be?

The Beard was everything I wanted. You know. On paper.
Leo, vegan, bicyclist, bearded, 29, hairy, fit, sarcastic but not scathing, adventurous. We'd both been to an industrial part of China and felt similarly negative about it (unlike Wizard, who had been to a residential area and loved it). We met online, agreed to meet. We chatted, then I went to work. I was buzzing. He was great. He loved cats, had an awesome apartment with 2 other people, and seemed gentle and grounded. And he was honest, so honest.
That evening he sent me a text saying he was restless and wanted to get a beer. Lucky me, I was already in a bar and had wanted to invite him but (for once) didn't want to seem too forward. He came. We talked. It was awesome.
He walked me home and I invited him in to meet my cat. We played with her. There was a little flirty stuff going on. We started cuddling, then making out, then grinding. He picked me up and I wrapped my feet around his sexy bicyclist calves and watched us in the mirror. I couldn't believe this was happening. He was fantastic.
We said sweet things to each other. I walked him out. "You're exciting," I told him. "You are too," he replied. Smile. "When can I see you again?" I asked shyly, again trying to not be forward. "Definitely before Saturday." It was Wednesday.
Friday came. I had been sending him some texts in the meantime and he responded. We met for burritos on Friday. Then we went to a puppet show. He was completely different than previously. It was as though someone had turned a switch and now I got to see the cold, detached side of him.
The evening went on. We visited a playground. We talked. I cried and cried and cried. "I know how I present myself, but I'm actually heartless."
"I just wanted friendship."
"I should take down that profile, I don't even know why I have it up."
"You don't even know who I am. I have those attributes you want, but that doesn't make up me."
And I say: "Why the fuck are you on a dating website if you don't want to date?"
and "I am so fucking sick of this happening."

Then there's conflicting info from a friend about how the Beard had been looking for someone to date and etc etc etc and it doesn't matter.
It doesn't fucking matter.

What matters is that I am still thinking about him, weeks after the fact, after only having been around him 3 times. My roommate says, "some people stick with you." "But I only hung out with him 3 times!" "Maybe that's why."
And I think about Wizard.
And I wonder where everyone has gone that I once loved.
And sometimes I wonder what's wrong with me, and sometimes I wonder what's wrong with everyone else.
And I had a bad week so I cut out everyone. I cut out all the extraneous people. I cut them out and I stopped trying to look like someone I'm not. And now I feel a little lost. And now I miss the Beard; the Beard I don't even know.
I wonder how Wizard is. I wonder if he misses me like I miss him. I think he's cold too. I think he's as dead inside as Pants is.
There are all these little threads of people in my life that I keep picking at. Just when I'm convinced I've ripped them all out, I find another one. It isn't over; it's never over; it will never be over. This will pass, then that will pass, then the next thing passes too.
How is it that nothing lasts, but at the same time nothing ends?

I still fall in love with everyone.

I think that is one of those strength/weakness things.

more thoughts in the process

I don't know where I am. Do you?
Another year almost gone. Feels like I spent half of it out of my mind. Feels like I spent half of it trying to catch up to last year.
Every year I say that I'll make this one better than the last. Every birthday I promise myself that I can start over. I try to grab so many opportunities to make immediate change. I am trying to remember how I felt when I got back from Florida in January. A friend met me with food at the train station. We took a cab to my house. I felt serene and I spoke of these changes. It was premature enlightenment. Am I going to make it through this winter? My second one alone. Thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.
I think of last christmas. Desolation, emptiness, dozens of drawings, hours of loneliness. I think of all the self-help books I stole to try to get ex-otter back. I remember being in the gorgeous Florida sun on a beautiful farm. And I remember how strange it felt to have that warmth and beauty around me as I screamed my pain into the grass when I found out about ex-otter and deafgirl.
Tree. Suicide fear. Calling my mom. Sobbing uncontrollably. Calling my insurance agency to make sure hospitalization for suicide watch would be covered. I have done so many things to try to get over these feelings and actions. Letters that I folded into phoenixes and burnt; drawings that I burnt; words that I ripped up; phone calls; more therapy; more medication; sex; celibacy; a fling of a relationship; movies; meditation; rose quartz; acupuncture; talking; not talking; sad songs; happy songs; hitchhiking; reconnecting; disconnecting; dancing; sleeping; laughing; crying; new friends; old friends; speaking to the dead; ignoring the dead; worry dolls; visualization; reiki; trash talk; well-wishing; panic attacks; anxiety attacks; creating new memories by visiting places we used to go; ignoring old memories by avoiding the places we used to go; hanging with your friends; avoiding your friends; asking about you; asking people not to talk about you; new crushes; old crushes; and more and more and more. What have I not tried? What else can I possibly do to rid my life of you?
I am entering the dark season. The shorter the day, the more depressed I become. Our last memories feel so strained, with the one burst of joy in Oregon being tinged by death. I wish I'd taken more care with my words. I wish you'd been more aware. It's too late now. Can I use this knowledge for the future? Can I not make these mistakes again?
I am so scared of who I have become. Have I ever known myself? How can I continue to strip away my defenses, but remain hardened to the discomfort of others? I have realized that the majority of people are not prepared to hear what goes on in my head. I have realized that most people aren't even honest enough to admit what is going on in their own heads.

I suppose the hardest lesson has been realizing that people don't want me. Also, that I am not independent. I need people. I need to be around them, and love them, and loved by them. I don't like being alone. I need to share myself with someone, and I want that returned. Yet, I have to get used to being alone. It's been months. Why is this so hard to learn?
I don't want to be cold, and hard, and distant. I want to be warm, and loving, and peaceful. I want to connect.
But it's so hard for me to trust motives because most of the time I don't think people are even aware that they have them.

it's not just autumn anymore

I am so fucking lonely, and I hate it.
That is an obvious statement. Who likes being alone? I don't feel desperate; I feel despondent. I want attention. I don't know how to get it.
I throw myself at people like it's gonna make them want me. It doesn't. I don't know how to relax. I don't know how to live without pushing. I don't know how to interact.
This is all so new to me. When I was younger, people liked an assertive/aggressive female-bodied person. Now that I'm older, it seems that I'm to sit back and let the people come to me. But I can't do that. I see what I want and I make moves to take it. This is how my world works. See, want, achieve. But for the past months it's more like see, want, fail.
How do I fall?
I am slow motion tumbling, gathering dust and leaves in my hair. I am comically flailing, trying to stop my descent. I feel the pain moments before it hits. It spreads, pinpointing the most sensitive areas. When I finally reach bottom, I am scraped, bruised, and bleeding. I cannot stop myself from falling; I have to let it run its natural course. I have to wait it out so the wounds can heal and I can fall again.
But that's not how it goes. I don't learn. I keep throwing myself over the edge and then act surprised when I can't stop. I can't fly. I am not invincible. Nothing is there to catch. No one will grab my hand. There is nothing soft to land on. There are rocks, and trees, and ragged ground. There is life, and reality, and death.

Repeat after me.
I have no control over the actions of others.
I have no control over the desires of others.
I have no control over the thoughts of others.
I have no control over the needs of others.
I have no control over other people.
I have no control.
I have no control.
I have no control.

On the flip-side, this also means no one can control me.

an unfinished journey

When things were good, ex-otter used to look at me in disbelief and ask, "where did you come from?" At first I didn't understand. Once upon a time he was so enamored with me. So in love. So unable to believe that not only had the universe managed to create me, it also saw fit to bring me to him.
It had been so long since I thought of him asking me that. He stopped after a while, probably when he ceased to view me as a gift. For some reason it came back to me at 2am as I stood on my steps. I did not cry. I felt that I should, I felt it would be right, but it seemed pointless. Something of Pants was rubbing off on me. Maybe something positive.

After seeing Pants tonight, I felt the need to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Specifically the part where it's talking about "the high water mark." For some reason it really reminded me of him. I don't love him, but I frequently want him. I want to talk to him. I want to crack him open. I want him to feel something for me.

"Everything is always on your terms," I commented to him.
"I can't let you drive."
"Why not?"
"I don't want to go where you want to go."

There is the basis of our conflict. I told him that, as long as he keeps asking me to, I will continue coming to him when he calls me. "At least," I added, "until I find someone to date."
"Are you a monogamist?"
"No." I haven't been in the past, mostly. "Did you know I was married?" He sounded thoughtful when he replied in the affirmative. "We were together for four years and had a non-monogamous relationship that entire time." Not like that matters. It was a breach of trust that tore us apart-- on both sides. Would we have stayed together as long as we had if we'd been monogamous? Would we still be together if we'd been monogamous? There is no way to know the answer. At this point in time, eight years after it all started, there is no point in conjecture.
And honestly, that isn't even me anymore. What if I do need monogamy now? "It depends on the person and the relationship," I amended. And truly, it does.

I have a strange trust when it comes to Pants. I trust his memory. I trust him to not hurt me intentionally. I trust him to not do what he does not want to do. I don't trust that I'll hear from him again. Each interaction could be our last. I don't trust his reactions to comments or observations that I make. I don't trust him not to mock me. In some ways he is very respectful. I can not yet describe how he is not; only that I feel he isn't.
"You aren't enlightened. You're detached." He generally stays quiet when I say these things.
I want to crawl into his brain and sleep among the folds. I want to feel the buzz of thoughts envelope me. I want to find the feelings and release them. Is he the giant whose heart has been replaced by a wasp's nest? Where does his real heart live? How can life be worth living when you feel nothing?
"I like fucking you because it's the only time you're present. Other times, like now, you're just distant." And, like always, no response. When there is, each word is carefully picked. Even his tone is robotic. Yet, I hear more than what he says. This is common for anyone that I've spent intimate time with. Anyone that has shared anything with me.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to love him. Unrequited, unacknowledged. Unappreciated. When was the last time he felt something for someone? When was the last time he desired beyond the physical?

I will not be the one to lead him from his coldness. I'm not convinced that anyone will. I have no idea what his life is when we are not together. Never before 11pm, only once through the night. It was easier when I did not want him.
But it's better now that I do.

I hope this does not keep me from something real.

This is the letter I would write, if letter writing were still an option.

Dear ex-otter,

Tonight, as an assignment for one of my social work classes, I went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. It was incredible. The people there were warm and welcoming. They gave hugs, not handshakes, and everyone wanted to make sure I was ok. When they asked how I was, they wanted a real answer. People spoke openly and honestly. There was an emphasis on acceptance without guilt; taking one day at a time; responsibility; allowing life to happen.
Ex-otter. It made me miss you so much.
And AJ, I thought so often of AJ. I wondered how he would have been at such a meeting. I imagined you accompanying him for support. I could see you standing up and talking and directing attention to yourself like you always did. And AJ left in your shadow. The little brother.
You have no idea what it's like to be the youngest just as I have no idea what it's like to be the oldest. We could have learned so much more from each other. Our relationship wasn't over when you ended it; when AJ died.

What if AJ had gone to and stuck with such a program? Would he have OD'd that night? Would he be dead now? Would you still have left me? What if, ex-otter, what if?
The warmth. The love. The acceptance. The self-reflection. The responsibility. The spirituality. Could this have changed all of our lives?

You were in my dream last night. You and two of our mutual acquaintances, as well as a girl named Sara (no 'h') took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. Or Mt Rushmore. I saw pictures of you sleeping in the back seat of a car, and at first I seethed because I thought deafgirl was with you. I felt much better when I realized she wasn't. Later I saw you, and your hair was bad. So bad. It was about an inch on top, then you had a bluntly cut mullet in the back. I mocked you incessantly and frequently mentioned how bad your hair was. You didn't really care. I think this is how it would have been in real life too. You didn't hear anything that wasn't what you believed. When you did allow something to flit past, you got angry.

Ex-otter, I don't know how to describe this feeling I have. I don't want you, but I want so badly to let you know about this experience. I want you to go to an NA meeting. Once an addict, always an addict. I tried to tell you that. I don't think you ever really heard. Drug use is suicide, whether you're conscious of it or not.
Oh, and I need someone so badly right now but all I have is me. I don't really miss you anymore. But at the same time I do.
I wish we could talk about AJ. I wish I could talk to you about how angry I get whenever I have to shelve a book about deaf culture or deaf people. I wish I could talk to you about anything at all. There is still this confusion in my chest. I am still waiting for someone to touch it how you could. Still waiting for a new scar to love.

I don't think you think of me often. I think you've buried me and it's gonna be a long time until I re-surface. I think you will regret how all this happened; but you can always plead temporary insanity. Death can do that, right?
There is still some great loss within me. Sometimes crying can fill it up a little; loosen the strings. I miss feeling like my life could continue with no problem because I would always have someone there beside me. I am so lonely. And scared. The winter is coming. A month 'til it'll be a year since he died. Two months 'til it'll be a year since you left me. What am I gonna do? Will it be a celebration? Will I hear from you?

I want to say I don't know what to do, but that's become such a lie. Such a phrase uttered in times of sadness. I know what to do. It's take one day at a time, and if I can't make that, then just get through five minutes. That's what they said tonight at NA.

Look, I hope you're doing ok. But honestly? I don't think you are. I can still feel you, even though we're so separate now. I believe in my intuition. It's going to be a long time before you can move on; provided you ever do. I hope you realize that when you're ready to do so, you can reach out to me. You have such potential, ex-otter. I wish we could have seen it through. Those times can never come back and yeah; we won't be together again.
And can we ever help each other? Only if you apologize. Only if you open your eyes.

Goodbye.
Love,

scuffy