let's let the wisps roll away

I miss them like it matters. Miss them like it'll change anything.
Dreamed about ex-otter last night and felt all the old disappointments. I blocked him on facebook. I don't want the chance to know him. I don't want to feel tempted.
Searched for pictures of Pants again. I hate it when I do that.
Went to California's website. It's a message board. I'd joined 5 years ago, then forgot about it. I don't think it matters. I don't feel much for him anymore. I just hate the way everyone else treated me after he dumped me.
There are still times when memories, sudden pangs, nearly drive me to tears. There are still times that I wonder how things would have been if I'd just stayed. If I was someone else.
No, it doesn't matter.
Melancholy, you used to be my closest friend. We had so much in common. Now I just want you to go away. I want you to leave.
I like the life that I am building for myself. I like that it doesn't involve you.
People say "so I hear you're in love" and I smile and say "yes."
People say I deserve this.
I may finally agree.

He repeats back to me "we're so well suited for each other."
And I miss everything about him in the four days in between.

resistance is furtive

This is the wave I must ride every time. It's the crashing of the last person that I loved wearing against the certainty of the one that I'm with now. It isn't working. I am gradually opening up to Shiny, telling him about things that have happened. They don't matter as much as they used to. I am not defined by my pain. I have better things to do with my time now.
I feel like I've become someone new. I feel a little raw but in the way that something newly hatched would be raw. Tender. I am vulnerable but not defenseless. This feeling has been slowly growing and I like it. I like it so much.
Even though I get these spots of panic or pain about people that have hurt me in the past, they don't last. They fade. Their hooks slide over the smooth surface of my heart and find nothing to hold onto. They scrape but draw no blood. Tiny sharp pricks that quickly heal with little memory.
An ache that slowly calms itself.
A hollowness that can be filled.
It's been a while since I felt that emptiness in my chest. I still have scars but they don't throb the way they used to.
Is this the passage of time?
Is this another step forward towards who I've been hoping I could become?
In this moment, it is. This moment will pass. But another like it may come again.
It hurts less every time. It gets easier to move on.

I wait for the day when these feelings are so infrequent that their acceptance is as swift as their appearance.

I have been assimilating you all.

it isn't where I thought he'd be but this is where I wanted

Feeling a little lost right now. My head's not quite attached. On the way to work, I had to pull a nail from my tire and patch the tube as the sky slowly darkened. I'd planned to be ten minutes early; instead I was ten minutes late. Still, I got to work before the rain got me.
Didn't go to class today. Not sure what I spent the day doing. I've been stressed so it was nice to have a little time to craft and clean and watch movies, but maybe my priorities got skewed. I'm excited about seeing Shiny tomorrow. I keep getting phantoms of his scent.
baking bread. muffins.

Pants found me today on an internet dating site. the same one where I met Shiny. Pants didn't write to me but I saw that he'd looked at my profile. I wonder if it was an accident. I blocked him and disabled my account. I don't need it anymore. I don't want him to have access to me. I don't want to have access to him.
But what bothered me the most was that in the "looking for" section, he said "short-term dating, long-term dating." It made me hate him. It hurt. It hurt because when I wanted him, he wouldn't have me. Now he's looking for what I could give. It's too late though. I've found someone better.
So why does it still hurt?
I don't want to be with him anymore. Shiny is better for me on so many levels. Every level.
So why does it still hurt?
I don't know.

This is a lack of control.

playing tricks with myself

I thought I was over this -- then the sun in my eyes and glance at a bench. A stare at the person sitting there with his bike. Heart in my throat and strangling.
I sat down. I read. I fretted. I panicked. After ten minutes I talked myself into submission. Realization. Understanding.
After I felt better, I took another cautionary glance and realized that it wasn't him at all.

this is knowledge. this is silence. this is breathing. where are you?

"what are you thinking about?" "you." "what about me?"
I think you got your mouth full of me just to avoid talking. I think you moan for my benefit. I think you're scared of something just because you haven't gotten used to it. I think you murmur meows so you don't have to say it.
Eat fruit.
I hear emotion in your voice all the time even though I complain about the opposite. I don't always trust my instincts. I want to be blatantly told so I can tell if my senses are properly calibrated. What if I'm wrong? I don't think I am, but what if? What if the thing you were thinking and feeling about me wasn't really what I thought it was?
It was, but what if it wasn't? I get confused sometimes. And I'm not sure if what I feel is mine or someone else's.
Not sure if what I feel is your's or residual.
Kiss me.
I don't want to doubt. There's no reason, right?
I don't want to doubt. I want to know.
Is this connection?
Can you feel it?
I didn't know how well I knew me
until you came along.
I didn't know how little I knew
until you didn't tell me.

fuckin' cranky

PMSing and I don't give a fuck about anyone. This is the time when ex-otter and I would have the most fights. Close myself off. Didn't call Shiny last night and he didn't even try to get a hold of me. No call or email. Fuck this.
I'm not fair and this isn't fair and I don't want to carry every relationship on my back until I feel the burden and set it down --
only to find it doesn't follow me anyway.
bleh.
I build these situations around me and then get angry when I discover I am trapped.
And my therapist has said in the past -- are you sure you're not just making up reasons?
I am always looking for my escape. No one tries to keep me.
That doesn't make me want to stay.

it's just something we made up

All my good balanced by the sorrow. All my happy balanced by these chemicals. My serotonin. My prozac. My wellbutrin.
"Are you staying?" He said "I don't think so" with that intonation particular to him. It means "no" but he's too polite to just come out and say it. Polite? What is polite?
I think sometimes that being polite is finding a roundabout way to say what someone doesn't want to hear. Is that it?
I mean, it's something like that. In certain situations. Why do I always sound angry or sad when I write?
I dreamt so much of sex this weekend. Mostly with girls. It must be spring. Four girls and I in a shower together. That's never even happened. The most I've managed simultaneously is two. And I'm monogamous now. Mono means one.
I still miss pussy, though. The warm wetness. The taste of it. The softness and squirming legs and breast beneath my fingers. I miss girl. I miss kissing and touching and breathing and moaning and hearing it all come back to me. I liked being ridden. Von and I would scissor our legs together and it always amazed me how well it worked. But when I am with girls, I miss boys and when I'm with boys, I miss girls. So I dream. I dream like I did this weekend.
What do I do with this frustration?

oh I don't know

thick in the library. the air is heavy, weighs on my head, makes it ache ache ache. 4am reached out to grab me last night and I found myself consumed with inconsequential thoughts. costumes, sex, guilt. guilt. called Bones today -- it's her birthday. I've feared this for months. she said she's changed and I believe it. I still feel like a jerk.
heart is weird today. emotions all twisted, and the beat isn't right. feels out of rhythm. what is rhythm? another way to measure time.
4/4 3/4 2/4 5/7 5/16, who cares. it's all the same to me. means nothing.
I hurt today. get all twisted up trying to figure out where I am. time's not moving right. I fear tomorrow and with no good reason. I wish I could blame this on hormones. how about just blaming the weather?
there is nothing to fear from tomorrow. I will see Shiny and he will hold me and we will kiss and I will write two papers that will be done for Monday and everything will be fine. right?
right.
I know this will pass. and I'll stop grinding my teeth. and I'll be able to sleep. and my ears will feel normal. and life will go on.
sometimes the situation just kills me.

it's a word I didn't know I knew

Caution. What is caution? He said, "Don't you feel weird getting attached when you also feel like I'll suddenly realize I made a mistake and never see you again?" And yeah, I do, but that's my caution. He worries I'll leave but his type of attachment may differ. I want him with me all the time. I want to lay on his chest and close my eyes and feel him breathe beneath me.
This is the ocean.
There are tides coming in. There's an undertow. There's the ever-present reality that if you go too far then you could drown. There are tides going out, stranding shells and rocks and things that would rather stay hidden by the water. There's salty hair and the sand still found months later from that one day.
And the sun.
I remember laying in the sun until I felt like I was boiling. There was no choice; either die or jump into the water. So black and white. So either/or. I have softened my decisions, but the driving force remains: this or that. Here or there. Now or later. There is no and. There is no nor. There is no both.
I was someone who would jump right in. I didn't like the gradual adjustment. I'd rather get the shock over with all at once, dip my head right under, open my eyes and let the water burn me. Once it was done, it was over. There was no long and drawn-out procedure. Just finished.
I am not like that as much anymore. I get scared now. I take my time. Not always, of course; sometimes it starts as one and ends up as another. Sometimes I think I have it all figured out and then I realize I'm being pulled under and I don't know where my beach blanket is and I can't see my spot on the sand anymore and my feet aren't touching anything just cutting water with my legs like scissors through paper. Don't panic. Don't rush. Take deep breaths. Let the water rock you back to shore.
Ride it in, right?
Caution. What is caution? All I know is experience. The whole point of caution is not to. The whole point of caution is to wait.
I have always been so impatient.

my name isn't your's.

stood on the steps, cold concrete beneath my feet. leaned against the support and watched him ride away. saw him turn, light winking on his bike frame. he moved out of view and I went inside and buried myself in happenstance.
where do we go when we leave each others' sight? who tells us where to go? I've started watching him as much as I possibly can. how does he know when I'm looking? how does he know to open his eyes?
he calls me "lovely" all the time. he calls me sir and says I'm pretty. I think he's pretty too.
I mumble things into his chest that sound like "mmbhbmm" and he mimics them back to me. my brain is forming the words even if my lips don't. I can't say it though. I feel it and won't let myself say it because he has to say it first.
and it hasn't been that long since we started this, anyway.
and it hasn't been that long since I gave myself up to never meeting someone like him.
and it hasn't been that long since I watched him ride away. An hour. one hour.

and I couldn't think of anything to say.
two hours. backdated.
let's pass the time.
I can do this, and I can do it without melancholy.

I don't know.

I had a dream that Pants said he missed me.
I don't feel like being melancholy.
Shiny and I had our first ... our first what? It wasn't an argument or a fight or even a disagreement. I was just upset, and told him, and we talked, and it was fine. I still cried, but it wasn't much.
It doesn't feel like I'm going to be 29 in a few days.
Sometimes these days don't even feel like they're happening.
My brain has been foggy lately. I can't hold onto things for very long. Why am I tired? How can I possibly be tired?
Some days I don't even know where I am. Some days I don't know what I'm doing. Some days I get so overwhelmed that I can't imagine things ever making sense. Some days I hurt and hurt and when I cry it doesn't do anything but shame me. Some days I feel so alone that I ...
I'm not alone. Rinse, repeat.
I don't know why I let myself forget these things. But I can't pretend like everything's happy just like I can't pretend that I'm melancholy and sad.
These are disjointed for a reason.
I don't know why I can't get my feet on the ground.