not sure what I'm saying; not sure if I'm saying anything

I have felt utterly disconnected from the people in this town since I returned from Florida. I take comfort in this. I am outside of where I used to be. I don't want approval anymore. I just want to live.
Everyone that I have wanted has gone away. Everyone that wanted me is gone.
I sound melancholy when I write. I feel more introspective than that. I feel like I'm still watching my words. I feel like I'm still trying to find the right thing to say that will bring someone to me.
I don't want to do that anymore. I just want to be honest.
A long time ago I found myself content with the idea that I would be single forever. Of course I immediately entered into a relationship. But that is how you find things; you stop looking.
So how can I believe that I am fine with having no one if somewhere inside of me I don't think it is true?
I have paintings and drawings and sketches and words to prove otherwise. I don't want them anymore. Who will take them? How can I possibly destroy that which has lived in me for so long?
I long. I thirst. I tire. I reach. I am just me. I am me. I am all I will ever have continuously. Let this lesson be learned. Let me know; no matter who comes and goes, I will always have myself.

the colder it gets the more I miss you

This video brings tears to my eyes.
There's some things I still have to say. Or reiterate. Yesterday I told my therapist that I'd been processing things with Pants and I felt ok with them. But riding around my bike in the frigid cold made me think of him. Once I said I wouldn't be able to see him in the winter and he seemed like he was going to cry and told me he wanted to see me.
Or something like that.
I understand what happened and how. I still wish it hadn't, though.
I still miss him so much.
At least it no longer rules my moods.
Goodbye, Pants.

longing I could do without

"How's your love life?"
"Non-existent. Utterly."
"You happy though?"
"Yes."

I said it immediately. No pause. Am I happy? Yes. I saw my therapist today. "You seem very calm." "I'm tired." But it's true. I've been calmer since I came back. I've felt different.
I split myself into sections. Yes, I believe in gradual change. That is natural. Sometimes, though, it is more immediate than that. Sometimes you go away (physically, mentally, spiritually, whateverly) and when you come back things just aren't the same.
"Viva's not my friend anymore. It's ok, though. It doesn't matter. I mean I'm sad, but it's alright."
It doesn't matter like it would have in the past. I've always had a lot of trouble letting go. Was this a long time coming? Sometimes I get tired of the yo-yo of my interactions. Lately if it's over then I'd rather just have it be over.

But every once in a while I see a beautiful person and I ache. It's the cadence of a voice, a look in the eyes, gestures of the hands. It's these desires I can't erase.
And I guess I miss being part of someone.
And I guess I miss sharing my joys and sorrows with someone intricately connected to my life.
And I guess I miss listening to someone's heart beat.
And I guess I miss feeling someone breathe in time with me.
And I guess I miss having what seems to be a sure thing.
And I guess I miss coming home to someone.

I still think about our house in York. How simple things were. My art on the walls. Our fake altar. The computer room. The freezing third-floor bedroom. Creating things without compromising myself or my time. I was so comfortable with him. He was so supportive. When I was with ex-otter, I rarely created. Von and I would make things sometimes, but usually we just hung out.
I want someone to create things with me. I want a collaborator. I want a partner. In crime, in life, in art, in everything.

This is what I think about when I see long slender fingers. This is what I think about when I see work-worn skin. When hands weave pictures in the air, I wish they were sketching them for me.
I want someone to model for me.
I want someone to love.

And it's ok that this will take a long time to find.
No one ever said this shit was easy.

it's more than inside or out

My roommate brought home a copy of the New York Times magazine. The cover story was about anxiety, which I am quite interested in, being an anxious person myself.
Paraphrased, the article discusses the link between nature and nurture when it comes to anxiety. The implication is that there is a genetic predisposition to anxiety which can either be brought out or repressed by environmental factors. Biologically there is some sense in having some members of the population anxious: it increases their awareness of possible threats. It ensures that tasks are carried out.
The greater the intelligence of someone with anxiety, the more likely they are to use positive coping mechanisms. This includes getting to places early, finishing projects early, and being certain to follow instructions.
This knowledge helps me to make sense of questions I've had about myself. If I'm so anti-authoritarian, why do I follow rules so stringently? Why is it important to me for people to accept me though I simultaneously wish to be apart from them? Why am I so weird about looking over instructions again and again?
There are so many things in my life gifted to me by anxiety. So much of my personality and traits revolve around it. My life has been modified to adapt to anxiety.
I don't know where I'm going with this. I don't know who I would be without my anxiety and all the little mechanisms I've created to deal.
I think what I wanted to express is the relief that I'm not alone in this. That and the more I learn about my anxiety and depression, the easier I find it to deal. Knowledge can save me, right?
And if it can't do that, it can at least make things a little easier by helping me to make sense of them.

skeleton dreams

Sunken cheeks. Guess I finally found the right light to highlight them. I hadn't realized how much weight I'd lost until I looked in the library's staff bathroom mirror. Something about the overhead lighting cast deeper shadows than I'm used to seeing.
"Can you tell I've lost weight?"
"Yes."
"Do I look unhealthy?"
"No. Actually, I was scared to see what you'd look like when you came back."
Illnesses do this. They sap your strength and your ability to eat. Being in the sun in Florida and having no access to junk food also helped me shed. The antibiotics made it difficult to eat anything but toast. I feel my ribs now when I rub my side.
But when I look in the mirror at home, things don't look small. I don't look like the skeleton I feel. And there is fear in these newly discovered bones. I don't want to be weak. But part of me wants to keep losing weight. I want to look like nothing. The part that fears gets more terrified when I realize that.
I want to be healthy.
I want to be strong.
I want to have muscle.
But there is also part of me that still longs to conform to that feminine ideal of beauty. The skinny waist and protruding ribs. The sunken cheeks. I feel equal parts revulsion and longing. I want on me what I would find unattractive on someone else. This is more hypocrisy.
I'm not losing myself. I'm finding the person that I've wanted to be. I just have to go through a lot of other people first.

surrogate suffering

The words don't come as easily as they used to. I don't mind. I'd rather not be depressed and not write than have things how they used to be. I can still make art. I can still feel.
Writing has always been about processing. It has been a way to get out what gets stuck inside. I put it out for anyone to see because I want people to pay attention to me. I want them to understand.
I don't think it matters like it used to.
Without heartache, who am I?
Without sadness, who am I?
Without suicide, who am I?
I am me. I am me. I am me.

You are voyeurs. How does it feel to be anonymously reading my heart?
You are not as anonymous as you think.

For every piece of me that you digest, I live on a little longer. You are carrying my story with you. It's not immortality, but it's something like it. Have you delighted in my pain? Have you enjoyed reading about my obsessions? My past romances? My fuck-ups and fucking? What has it been like to read all of this?
I had a sad story once. I had a lot of them. I think that book is ending. What else is there for me to say?
I'm not saying I'll stop writing. I won't. That will never happen.
I just don't have anyone to write about anymore except for me.
I don't have anyone to write for anymore except for me.
And honestly, what I've realized is that my writing has never really been for me. It's been for the people I'm writing about. When there's no one left to write about, there's nothing left to say.

I hope the next story I tell is a happy one.
I hope I figure out how to express joy as well as I expressed my sadness.

If I'm gone from you, then let me be gone. Otherwise, stop being so silent and creepy. Except for paper man. You know the deal.

the light they always talked about

Things go all over the place.
I am spilling out of myself and I don't know how to stop. Hold in my guts, hands to my stomach, trying to pile myself back into my body. Hands on my head, pressing shut the split that is reaching from occipital to forehead and allowing my brain to roam. Get in, what was in, get in and please stay there.
I have been talking to people that go away. I know they go away. I try to talk to them and they disappear. Don't take it personally; I'm just not who they thought I was.
Mostly my life has been settling. I know what I have done. I know there's no way to undo it. I know I have to move on. It feels like I am. Hole in my sternum lets the sun dry out my heart. Hole in my sternum reminds me that I have a heart.

What is whole?

Lately I've been feeling different. Good different. I am actively aware of my lack of depression. This is something that I think the typical person might take for granted. But I feel it like a phantom limb. My phantom feeling. It used to be there but isn't anymore. I get sad, but I don't get despondent. I am disappointed, but I don't despair.
This is new to me.
I don't feel the passionate longing for Pants anymore. I hope that lasts. I can't guarantee that it will, but it's definitely easier these days to not think about him. He feels small to me now. Insignificant. This is a big difference from a week ago, so I am not convinced that this feeling will continue unabated. But I know that eventually it will be the baseline. This will be how he is to me all the time. He will be another memory and nothing more than that.
I have let my illness define me. It's nearly impossible not to do that when it so heavily influences your life constantly. But with this new sensation of not-depressed, maybe I can just be me now instead of a nest of adjectives.
I feel hopeful.
I feel hopeful, and it is wonderful.

you already knew this

Feels like I've been trying to fit myself into a box someone else drew. Talking to a friend tonight, I realized that I've lost myself somewhere along the way. I used to loudly proclaim my awesomeness. I can't remember the last time I did that.
Spent half my life squeezing myself into other peoples' needs and the other half trying to mold them to mine. It just doesn't work that way.
Another friend said that I depend too much on the way other people view me. It's true. I need more self-reliance in that way. Also true.
I'm getting older. It's time to quit with the bullshit. I've been feeling sorry for myself. It isn't working. I've been sick, and I'm getting better, and I want to just be content in that.
This life in Providence is starting to feel like the fake world and the farm in Florida is starting to feel like the real one. In reality both are true. There is no fake. It is all living.

"Solving the simple problems that should be so easy but aren't because i don't know this language well enough to know it's idiosyncrasies" - my friend

Can't find a way to paint this picture so I'm not the villain.
Or at least a selfish ass.
Most of the people that have been the closest to me have left me over the past year. I use people. I must. I use them indiscriminately, and I know it's wrong, but I pretend that it isn't because they don't say anything to me about it. Well, they do, but only after they've left. Or while they are leaving.
I try to pretend it isn't my fault because while I was fucking them they didn't say "HEY NO THIS IS NOT OK." I pride myself in my honesty and how honest the friends that I choose tend to be. But really, is it honest if I'm expecting from them what I myself would not do?
I thought Pants had left, but I realize now that I've just been blocked. He's blocked me, and like other people I have loved, he's left me. This silence is a loud and ringing message. He once said that he doesn't think people really change. I tried to argue. I said that I have changed. I have! But at the core, am I not continuing those same horrible patterns I used to trod when I was 15?
Stop treating people like they exist only to serve you.
This is so difficult. Interacting with people involves dances that I never learned and haven't had much reason to attempt in the past. But now everyone that used to be ok with my clumsy steps has gotten tired of getting their feet stepped on so they've left. And I don't blame them. This is not a "how dare you" it's a "how could I?"
So what do I do now?
I don't believe there's any way for me to repair the relationships that have been torn. I don't say that because I wouldn't want to make the effort. I say that because the people I have hurt are already beyond repair in terms of their dealings with me.
All I can do it learn from this, right? Use the knowledge to help me accept the things I've found to be inexplainable in my previous loss. I understand now. Can I use this information to help me avoid future grievances? Can I cease this ignorant behavior?
I hope so. I have to. I can't go the rest of my life plowing through good people. I can't be ignorant to my own actions.

It feels like things are slowly falling apart again.

friends aren't friends when they're gone without a word

I think that where I am doesn't matter anymore.
I feel so untouched by the drama around me. The drama, in fact, involving me. I just can't muster up the desire to care. I find this to be comforting.
So two of my oldest Providence friends have de-friended me on facebook. Oh well. We hadn't been talking much anyway. And they both smoke cigarettes and I'd just like to avoid that. It's their right to deal with relationships however they want. I understand why they wouldn't want to talk to me about it. I probably wouldn't want to either. What is there to say? "I don't want to be friends anymore." I have friend broken-up with people before. But ... I still have friends that are here for me. Why should I get upset about this? I can't.
And then there are the people that act interested in me, disappear, and then resurface later with a girlfriend. Again, why worry? This shit happens.
How about my friend that fell in love with me that won't hang out with me anymore? That does bother me but there's nothing I can do about it. I loved to cuddle with him and be around him. I liked the attention, I'm not going to lie. But I liked him too. Just not the way he liked me. So that's one less person to worry about too, I guess.
I don't want to feel bitter.
It doesn't matter where I am or where I go. There will always be people that leave. There will always be people that have left. So why does it still hurt? I can't do anything about it that I haven't already done. I can't make anyone do anything. I can't make someone like me.
Are there people out there somewhere that mourn the loss of me?
Oh, I forget that people aren't perfect. Everything isn't my fault. Each relationship, no matter the type, takes a minimum of two people to function. It's hard to accept that someone won't be coming back. The sooner I can, the better.
Let's focus on who's still here instead of who isn't anymore.
This is difficult.
Let's realize that no matter where you go, the ghosts still follow. You can never run fast or far enough.
So let's just deal with what's here.

don't do what I do, don't do what I say

How long, how long? Until I stop wanting you? What if that time never comes? What if you never care again?
I hate your silence and your dead eyes. I miss your voice and your smile. I talk about this all the time. Wait. Let's do that thing where I say exactly what I mean. Let's talk like you.
I frequently find myself missing you, especially when I am alone. You were my last romance and therefore the thing I cling onto when I'm lonely. I want to feel less connected to you. I honestly don't know how the hell this happened. It was sex, then it was more. It was you being so distant from everyone but then allowing me to feel as though I had been let in on the secret of you. I still want to know more. I don't think you will let me, though. I think you are protecting yourself.
I would rip off your armor if you let me. So you don't. Right?
I get inside of people. They figure out my shell, all the buttons to push. But I get to crawl under their defenses and analyze and feel. I feel so many things. I felt so many about you, too.
I can't plead with someone who will not hear. I have no case to state, anyway. Let me in because I wanna? That is selfish. That makes no sense.
I am turning these wheels in my brain. Running a motor that powers nothing. All my steam is puffing out and I am wasted energy. These efforts go nowhere.

I don't know if I can do this. So sick of this pain that comes and goes. Tired of the metaphor my illness has allowed me. There is no such thing as simple. Love me. Tell me that you love me. Let me end this fucking obsession.

My brain loops. Gets caught. Can't move past this. I've started making art about you. I've stared at pictures. Made new layers. On, off, on, off. What the fuck is wrong with me? This isn't the me I've been cultivating. Why can't I stop?
stop
stop
please. stop.

nobody wants this weather. nobody wants this either.

Feeling light-headed and strange. My lips tingled. It's been such a long time since they've done that. I almost forgot what it meant.
I looked at a picture of Pants. Oh god.
This pain in my gut reminds me that I am not well. Pain in my back sings a similar song. The longing in my heart stays quiet, mostly. I don't even check people out anymore. I get dressed up for myself. I wear these layers for my amusement. There is no one left to impress. There is no one in this city to win my heart.
Pain.
Pain in my lower abdomen. Pelvic inflammatory disease. Right, whatever that means.
Luca looks at me intently. Puts her nose right up to me, squints her eyes, and sniffs. She's been attached to me since I got back. I guess I could use it. I feel used to the loneliness. It just doesn't matter as much anymore.
It's nice to have someone love me. Someone that I love too.
My cat.
And I'm so tired of unreciprocated anything. Bear won't be around me now because of how he feels. Pants won't because of how I feel. I am light-headed and my back aches. Gnawing burning in my gut. I realize I am gritting my teeth.
Relax. Just relax.
I know I'll be ok eventually. At least as ok as I ever get. I know I'll be ok it would just be nice to feel it all at once.
I hate being ignored.
I hate being punished for having done nothing wrong.

I sent it to hell but it came back with "no such address"

Another day spent on my illness. not as many hours in the hospital this time.
I have been rather tentatively diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease. they say it is often caused by bacteria that is common in gonorrhea and chlamydia. as far as I know, I do not have either of these. As far as I know, I have never had a sexually transmitted disease/infection.
But what if I did?
I run through the scenarios in my head. How far back do I have to go in terms of partner notification? Since my last check up over the summer? Or must I reach back even further?
and of course, no matter how I look at it, I'd have to notify Pants. I don't give a fuck about telling anyone else. But the thought of having to get in touch with him to say that maybe he has an STD ... fuck, I don't even know who I would have gotten it from.
I wonder how I would do it. Would I write him an email? Would I contact a mutual friend, asking them to have him call me?
I beat back the part of my brain that seeks an excuse to talk to him. I just want this to be over with. All of it. Everything. I don't want this sickness in my body or my heart. I don't want to want someone that treats me the way he did.
His apology helps, yes, but it isn't helpful now. I just want him to hold me. It's all a stupid fantasy. I want to rip it out of me. I can't. I don't know how.
Can I make a picture to express this? Can I find some other way to let this out? I found letters I wrote to him in class. I filed them away. Where do I put them? I burnt everything else. I should burn them too.

Last year I told ex-otter that I could see us meeting at Neutaconkanut Hill and burning things. I said I saw it in the spring or summer. It didn't happen then. I can't see anything now. I have thought about going there. I have thought about having a fire. I have thought about a lot of things, and not done just as many.

Broken pieces. sweep them into the dustpan. there are always more to find later, though. so impossible to get them all at once. all the shards just winking in the light, and there are always more to find.
these memories I forgot to purge. these dreams I held onto for far too long. I can't unhook the barb in my heart. can't get them out of my brain.
who would wish for an STD just for an excuse to contact a former lover? A crazy person, right? Fuck. I don't want chlamydia or gonorrhea. that's just messed up.
But I do want Pants.
Goddamn this wretched heart.

when you fall it's like autumn but maybe I'll just spring up and make you regret the summer

"Going home now?"
When did home become a state of mind and not a place? Wait, I mean when did it just become where I sleep and not where my heart remains?
Heating my apartment with the oven instead of my space heater. Making my space into more than one area; making room for the memories I brought back with me. There's a lot I want to say that I didn't get the chance to articulate. Do you mind if I try? Just for a minute; a paragraph; a moment that won't take a bit of your effort?

When I left it was a break in time. There were finals and stress and that last fucking project. I still have dreams about not writing a paper that was due. I got an A anyway but I don't know how in my head. "Hey, how'd you do in ___'s class?" "A-." "Nice!"
I, i i i i i ---
I left here in a mess, with a mess. I spent the night cleaning up the living room but I left my own room a disaster. This is how we work when we get older. We clean up for the people around us, not for ourselves. Tell me more about how you used to be. Tell me more of what you left behind.
I left here in a mess, stayed up way too late so I could fly away. Spent 8 hours traveling so I could get back to Heaven. I found green and people with beards and sex and love and maybe everything I met there just stayed when I left. Maybe some things you can't leave behind.
The world out there is different from home. My life is grey and sepia-toned. There was green and when the color started to leech out I figured "Why not just be home?" and away I flew, back to real life. Life was getting too real out there in Florida. Too many things from here were seeping into there. Unreciprocated want, competition, illness, and stupid drama. A feverish night changed everything. That was my breaking point, tossing and turning in the hospital, alone for hours.
I had to leave.
I was disappointed because I didn't have an epiphany like I did last year.
I don't want to want anymore. I'm not sure if I do. Everyone I meet ends up being not quite right. Did you know that? How can I get anywhere when everyone else is staying still?
Follow different paths. Try new places. But where ever I go, I am still me. I am still myself. I follow me around like a dog and its tail. I follow me around like a shadow in the afternoon. I am trying to figure out what my comfort is. Here I am in ridiculous dresses. Here I am wearing my utility belt. Here I am with normal hair and I think, "does this even matter anymore?"
I miss the people that used to call me beautiful. I miss the people that loved the way I looked. I miss the people that I'd talk to late into the night and hold until we fell asleep or maybe turned away from just so I wouldn't stay awake. I miss people but in the end it doesn't matter. It doesn't. I like how I look. So fuck the rest of you. Fuck all y'all.

I came home and realized that everywhere is home as long as I'm ok with where I am. I came home and found out it's a state of mind. This isn't home anymore than PA is or FL is. The difference is that this is where my stuff lives. I keep it here because it's where I pay my rent. Anywhere can be home. All that changes is the people.
And I don't want to look anymore for someone that isn't there. I don't want to want what doesn't want me back. I just want to dance by myself and not give a fuck about who is watching.
Look.
I'm me.
And this is all I'll ever be.
I just gotta get used to it. No one's ever told me I couldn't be the person that I am. I've been putting the words in their mouths. I've taken my doubt and attributed it to other people. So tired of my insecurity. Hey. Things are ok and this is what I learned in Florida -- there's always gonna be someone who loves you like there will always be someone who doesn't. So why worry?
In the end it doesn't matter who's on your side as long as there's someone. And if there isn't then you better make sure you believe strongly in what you're defending.
Don't love just to love unless you can handle being alone. Can I box myself off like I've seen these Leos do? Can I ever snare the impossible man? Do I care?
The people that say "hey" you better say "hey" back to because there may be a time when no one will talk to you anymore.
Can I be careful?
Oh baby, I've only ever been myself. I can only be myself. And I don't want to tell me to be anyone else anymore.

do you call this clarification or wishful list-making?

things that don't matter today:
how I think people view me
people that I think don't like me
the cold
where I have been
people that left me behind
the people I left
the times I didn't die
the times I did die
empty eyes
broken hearts
love lost
love left
exes
trust
mistrust
distrust
everything that ever hurt me
love
loose ends
anything left unspoken
pain

things that matter today:
all the places in between

you make it seem so commonplace. so simple.

I don't know what to do with this
now that you're gone.
I want to take it out of me, and hand it to you and say, "please, just take it back. I don't want it anymore." I want to have my hands all bloodied in emotion and I want to wipe them on your shirt. I want to paint you with what you left behind in me. I want to spread my memories on your skin and let them choke your pores.
Starve your body of oxygen
so covered in my ex-bliss
so dissolved by aborted amour
drenched by confusion that still overwhelms me
and the feeling of the loss of you. I want to wrap you in it. I want to make it something tangible that you can hold, so I can send it to you with a note that says, "now you understand."
at night you can sleep beneath it and know everything you meant to me. you can dream the dreams I had when you still let yourself touch me. the dreams that, no matter what I do, I still cannot completely kill.
What will it take to get me over you?
Me seeing you with someone? It seems impossible. I was never seen with you myself.
What about someone liking me more than you did? What about me liking someone more than I liked you? What about time?
You apologized. I wonder if you're sorry for that too.
I think you did it for me, not for you. Because you remembered. I wanted an admission of fault from ex-otter. You gave me one for yourself. But what we neglected was the different situations.
I love you. I love him. I love everyone I have ever loved. Some part of me always will. Tiny shrapnel embedded in my heart. Each piece has a name scratched onto it.
I miss you so much. I even miss the stupid faces you made when we had sex. I miss them because it was the only time you showed true emotion. I loved you in bed because you were genuine. Or when you'd say you were "ti-ti." Or when you'd sing. Or when you'd absent-mindedly rub my head. But one of my favorites was when you tapped my nose and called me cutie.
These fucking memories.
I would pour them out of my head and lay them on your doorstep if that was an option. I want to give them all back to you because right now they only hurt me. Heated needles on my breastbone. A heavy fist atop my sternum.
And in time it all will fade
in time you won't matter
I tell myself these things to feel better
but somewhere, under the words, I taste a lie.

And when you see me again, what will you say?
"Hey."
And how the fuck would I respond?
"Hey."

and all my nonchalance would be a lie.

just past the half-way point

the honeymoon is over, so they say. I am feverish and freezing. There's a pain in my gut I could well do without. I hope I don't throw up.
Winter solstice sex has left me with a urinary tract infection, which I then ignored. I think it's spread from my bladder to my kidneys where it "could cause permanent damage." I hope webmd is wrong. I hope it's something stupid, and easy, that will go away if I continue to ignore it.
Foreign land. This is not my home.
My head burns and my torso aches and I wish I had someone to take care of me. I wish I had someone to sleep with me. I wish I had someone-
Someone.
I am so tired. My body hurts. Things stopped feeling right when the cold crept in. I don't want to be wrong any more. I don't want to exist.
Isn't this what I was trying to get away from? Did I just bring my old self with me?
Where ever you go, there you are.
I mean, duh.

nothing lasts

I don't know what I would say to you if I was given a chance. One last chance? We never know when "last" is. Not in a case like that.
There's "the last time I saw you.." which was in the hallway outside of my apartment. You earnestly said that I would see you again, that I would because you didn't say things like that unless you meant it.
I could say "the last time I loved someone" which was you, in your bedroom; you grasping me and resting your head against my torso. I felt blessed to have you so close to me. I felt blessed by your initiative.
Then I have "the last time I heard from you" which was a text that said "I'm sorry for some of the ways I treated you."
I still wonder which ways you meant; the good or the bad. The kind that made me love you or the kind that made me cry. The things that brought me hope and joy or the things that caused people to use words like "abusive."
The last time I talked about you was yesterday, in the car with Prec. I told her about those things that drew me to you and she said, "Sounds perfect!" Then I mentioned the former drug use and alcoholism and she said something about how you had a long way to go before you could think about a relationship. I know. I know, but I loved you anyway. I loved you and I don't regret it because it brought me further than I could have gone alone.
Out here in the sun in southern Florida it is easy to write these things. I'm so far from the snow and the memory of your touch. There's nothing to remind me of your smile, your laugh, your songs, your scent. There's nothing here to whisper your name to me. Nobody here knows you. Just me.
I said to Prec, "I see the potential in people and I love them for it." She said, "that's dangerous with men because most of them never reach that potential." It's true. I don't know how to change my vision. I don't know how to see as is instead of how could be.
I love people as they were, as they are, as they could be.
I love you for all those things, too.
I want to know how people get to where they are. I want to know what went into the making of you. I want to know who hurt you and how, and how you hurt them back. I like comparisons. I adore before-and-afters.
I don't know how to go forward without looking back.
I can't get over anyone without first reliving every moment I can remember.
I curse my shoddy memory. I praise its ability to forget that which I do not wish to lose.

I lost all the words I wanted to say

Hanging out with Nist, wondering outloud why he doesn't cuddle me. It doesn't matter that much. I just like him and feel comfortable and I could use the physical contact. Let's attempt some honesty. Nothing's going to happen between us.
I've spent too much memory reminiscing about the time I've spent with Pants. I have put too much effort into contemplating my love. There is nothing I can do now that I have not already done. He cut himself out of my life. All that's left is the ghost sensation of him on me and the retinal burn left over from his eyes.
That's what I remember most. His eyes. Something hard about them. Something rare and raw and overwhelming. I loved to watch him watch me. I loved to kneel down in front of him and look up at his face as it tilted down to view me. I loved to love him even though I knew it was bad for me. I loved it because I knew that I could save him if he'd just let me in.
He almost did. He started to. Then he closed the door again.

All the things I wanted to express leaked out of me.
All I have are these dreams.
All I have are feelings.
I want to call him as I huddle under the covers. I want to tell him about my days. I want to hear his voice and his replies. I want him to love me. I want him to care. I miss the effect his caring had on the sound of his voice.

He unfriended me on facebook after I wrote about how I love him (unnamed). He's done with me and I expect it to hurt more than it does. I guess it's just that it wasn't that much of a surprise. Things couldn't continue the way they were going. It was either leave me completely or let me back in.
If he let me back in he risked changing.
I don't think he's ready for that.
I hope I hear from him again someday.
My therapist said it was an abusive relationship.
This is the first time it was me being abused.