08:03 p.m.

a slight comment
last night I dreamt about the first girl I ever kissed.
Found myself sporadically thinking of her throughout the day, yet couldn't figure out why. then I remembered bits of the dream.
funny how that works.

Thursday, November 29, 2001

08:55 p.m.

another fake story.
Dinner of a dream, to forget.
I ate it fondly, bitterly, constantly. Lasted for weeks, that dream. Years. Now it's stale and molding, but I just can't throw it away.
Once it was so important to me. My life.
All memories.
He forced it down, deep inside of me. I choked for weeks. Months.

Years.

Monday, November 26, 2001

07:13 p.m.

still dreaming.
I almost drove by your house today.
I heard you were home - a mutual friend told me at work. I hadn't seen her in a year, at least. Same as you, I guess.
But I was driving home, 6pm, thinking about everything. Trying not to think about how you used to feel in my arms, the way your hair smelled, how we used to kiss. How comfortable you felt with me. I thought about it anyway, just to make myself cry.
In the end, I couldn't stand the apprehension. I knew it would come to nothing. I turned left where I should have turned right and headed to my original destination.
You probably wouldn't have been home anyway. All the sweaty palms I suffered would have been for nothing.
Or, worse yet, he would have been there.
The original melodrama. I miss him more.
But whisper it .. I don't want anyone to overhear.
Whisper how happy you were with him before you went off to school. Whisper how you've tried to make it work. I don't even know if you're still together. I don't even care.
It wouldn't change anything, anyway.
At least.. that's what I tell myself. It wouldn't matter. And I don't care. And it wouldn't change a thing.

Friday, November 23, 2001

07:25 p.m.

doing it all over again.
tell yourself you're happy - see how far you go. Find someone to say you make them happy - see how long it lasts. See how long your own joy lasts until you get bored with it.
Two years ago this month I was in love - imagine that. Me, in love. As though that were not a frequent occurence. In the pursuit for attention, I fall in love with so many. Two years ago was different though, I swear it was. It was destiny. It was right.
Only it was actually so very very wrong.
Yet, I can't put it behind me. Or I do, but I keep turning back, picking it up, and sticking my head in it. Kinda gross. Kind of unnecessary and stupid. But I can't. stop.
so I fuck up my life now because Ifucked up my life then. It's stupid and it's immature and I can't help it.
so hello sadness, hello dreams. let's liven up the lack of life by spitting into it some seeds.
I wonder what they'll grow up into.
interesting dreams.

Friday, November 2, 2001

06:50 p.m.

I can't help it.
I still think you're beautiful, despite everything you've done.
The rhythm in your voice still carries through.
Compassion was never a strong suit, but when apparent, how beautiful it was.
How touching.
I was.
I still think you're beautiful, even though you nearly killed me. Saved me once to put me back, even keel I know.
I couldn't draw you for so long, it hurt to even think. It touches me sometimes in that subtle way - like broken glass in callouses, a scratch on a scar.
I still miss you when I think of it, despite the pain you caused. It wasn't fun, just necessary. Maybe the other way around.
And everywhere I look, your face. In everything I do, your precense. Someone take this all away so I can really live. I know it's all my fault.
Because
We all take responsibility for our lives the moment we are born. Every decision made we make alone. We may be interconnected in every way, dependent on each other to exist -- but responsibility is something we must reconcile. We all decide for ourselves the outcome of our lives.
I chose him.
The feeling, it seems, was not mutual.
so
I think it's fucking beautiful, the way you carried on. The bitterness that sunk me seems to have dissipated, polluting other rivers. The remanents of it chide at my mind, but only on occassion.
Hello, occassion.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001

03:28 p.m.

more pointless hopes.
Maybe someday I'll be able to look back over everything and see some thread of comprehension. I know he thought I would forget him, and in thinking that he's become engrained in my mind. I don't want to forget. Everything fades so rapidly in memory, it would be a waste to just erase it all.
So I say : what is the point of conditional love? Why even attempt to dabble in what you can't give yourself fully to? All the promises we told ourselves, we whispered to each other without thinking we would break them .. why? Just another way to feel without commitment, trust without the work. So purposefully I was searching that I took anything handed to me.
Mostly I was desperate, reaching out and grabbing all that screamed intellect and emotion. Confusion cut in and gloved my fingers as I key-stroked, clothing any beauty in a weird mask of misunderstanding. I never managed to understand. I don't think I ever will. So good at melodrama I forgot where the real emotions stopped and the emptiness began.
I would believe if beliefs could bring anything tangible. They haven't yet. I'd apologize if I knew what I was sorry for. Confusion? Communication? Conditionality?
Is that enough?

Sunday, August 12, 2001

01:11 p.m.

The Accidental Love Game!
Sometimes the sky turns purple, the air becomes electric, people all move to dry land - but it doesn't rain. Just as often it will pour from a bright blue, sunny sky. Both have happened to me. I've thought I was in love because it seemed appropriate at the time and also have fallen in love without ever thinking it was an option.
I happen to be currently residing in the latter.
It's a little disconcerting to be completely enamored with someone who is so completely different from you on a surface level. Yet we agree on non-conformity and refuse to label each other. Mutual respect, acceptance, love. I've never had it better with anyone. I don't doubt the love, I am merely confused by its arrival.
Is it true that you don't get what you want until you stop looking for it? How is that possible? How important can something be to you if you are not in active pursuit of it? Am I pulling lies from no where? Does this make sense?
No. I'd finally given up on finding someone - I still don't want anyone - I'd given up on love and relationships and sex and pretty much everything that involved interaction with another human outside of monetary terms, when boom, hello, how's it going, love just smacked me up alongside the head.
Not fucking fair.
I have no intentions of staying in this area any longer than is totally necessary. Neither does he. We have no intentions of going away anywhere together. So what's the point? Why accidently cultivate some sort of grand wonderful emotion if it's just going to end up rotting in our brains months from now, as we sit alone and dejected, pining for what we had, far away from each other? It seems like something of a waste to me. It doesn't make sense.
I don't believe in fate. I believe in structure, despite my equal belief in chaos. But most importantly, fate and destiny do not exist. They can't. It makes no sense. So why this? What's the point? What is this balancing? Where's the logic?
And when will I figure it out?

Sunday, August 12, 2001

08:32 p.m.

Sometimes the question is more important than the answer.
The basis of comparison is great. So many questions that I asked, still kept unanswered. I refuse to try again. I refuse to ask again; to not be answered. It isn't fair.

If it were fair, I wouldn't mind. If the entire situation could make sense in my pulverized brain, I would not mind. It's been nearly two years since the events started that led to my fatal fall. The obvious events, at least. I will not trace back every hairline fracture to reach the giant explosion that was my demise. I would barely reach what I perceived to be the beginning before realizing there was more that I had missed. Such is the way with events -- we never find the true beginning. So is chaos. So is love.

Monday, July 2, 2001

08:25 p.m.

The facts.
I like them because they're unattainable.
Whether it's because of a significant other, sexual orientation, or their own personal beliefs -- I like them because there's no way they can like me back.
I chase and chase and chase and on the off-chance that I do win this person's affections, I usually leave them almost immediately.
It hurts. It hurts me, it hurts them, it hurts anyone involved. How do I break out of this? How does anyone? Can I just stop?
No, I don't think I can.
I can't think of advice for anyone else in my situation, so I certainly can't think of any remedies.
So I chase and chase and chase. And on the off-chance that I catch someone's eye, I run rapidly in the other direction. I do not want to hurt another person or be hurt as I have done before. This cycle
must end.

Thursday, June 21, 2001

03:33 p.m.

Summertime.
Just a few more days until the official realization of Summer. Where I am now, however, the heat and hormones tell me it has already come.
Spring brought a general feeling of "come on, come on." Summer is pickier, though just as wanton. My closest friend becomes my lover in the summer, unlike the spring where I just pick semi-strangers for my release.
In Spring, it's a sweaty night of selfishness. Summer lets a person completely indulge in someone else for mutual pleasure. The end results when compared may look the same but are actually quite different. Closer. This is not a time for crushes anymore. What starts with a kiss may seem to end with a more sexual encounter, though in reality it goes much further than that. The friendship grows closer, rather that putting distance between the two. An unspoken decision to put more emphasis on the emotional and mental rather than the physical usually helps in such occurences. We stayed up all night to talk about nothing, with or without the touching.
Is this the truth? It is the Summer. I've found the seasons have a direct impact on my emotions. Do I follow that? Do I fight it? Doesn't it make sense that my relationships last within a season? Should I make documentation of it?
I'm very curious to see what the Autumn will bring.
Curious indeed.

Sunday, June 17, 2001

03:08 p.m.

just the randomness.
Does it matter if I never see him again? I can't say. I couldn't tell. Who would notice? Would we know? How can you talk in indefinites when we live in a finite universe?
So, yes, it would matter if I were to live my life wondering if he would stumble randomly back into my presence. Maybe it would bother me if I never saw his hands again and the way he held his camera and told me how to move. told me to pretend to do things I would not have thought to do myself. how can we talk infinitely if I never hear his voice?
And, and, and this boy. He put his head on mine and cried when we talked about his father. I said I was sorry I was so short, as it made for difficult comfort, but he claimed he didn't care. He was probably right. I sat him down and cradled his head and he put his arms around me and cried.
I didn't feel much of anything, other than confusion about what to feel.
a few days later I went to sign some papers to start work where he works and our manager and his coworker told me that he talks about me all the time. What do I do? I don't know. I don't even know what I feel. Just that I don't want to feel anything about it. There are other fish I must be frying, despite my lack of eating them. There are other people I want to hold. Ones less likely to be nearby.
And indefinitely, I wonder.

Monday, May 21, 2001

09:29 p.m.

lying for the sake of it.
I've never been much for it. lately I've realized how easy it would be to make up total fabrications about my life and myself. how easy it would be to fudge everything.
it frightens me. I haven't done it. too much to remember. "so are you moving to chicago alone, or do you have a boyfriend?" she asked me today. I answered "alone" but it would have been just as easy to make up some imaginary wonder man (or girl, the fact that she assumed I was straight is a sign of the difference between our ages) with whom I would live out my life in peace and splendor. yeah. right.
my romantic head would never allow such things to transpire. happiness? ha! I scoff! but I feel it so consistently in the spring, just below the muck that rides around inside, collected from the dose of daily living which I receive frequently. daily, in fact. it wears me down as it wears all others, though in spring I am somehow more resilient. this spring, at least.
I think it is the green green grass and the budding trees. it makes me feel alive and beautiful. as though I were part of it all.
if I could be truly, that would probably perfectly describe happiness. content. joy.

Saturday, April 21, 2001

07:02 p.m.

pointless ponderings.
when he thinks of her, alone, at home, in his car, wherever he may be when thoughts of her appear, what is it that he thinks? does he ponder the texture of her lips and finger tips, or how her open palms might feel as they glide across his skin?
I can only compare his thoughts to the things I think when I find my mind wandering his way. wandering and wondering and slicing me with paper thin pain that cannot be seen but hurts for days.
everytime I think of him, i htink of him thinking of her and feel my heart, that feeling thing, begin to shrivel more until it is small as the printed version that I colored and just as meager.
so instead I write poetry in my head that disintegrates by the time I get near any place worthwhile of writing. I plan elaborate portraits of him in my head that I hope I'll never work on because it means I'd just have to add it to the growing pile of those I wanted to love.
there is a pain just beneath each of my breasts - the left one like a throbbing knife, the right one paper deep. I don't know what causes them, I only wish that they would stop. I do not question their presence, only the remedy. who cares from whence these things come, as long as they leave?
like the thoughts I have of him, which I know are not ever-lasting. they will stay until I find another place to pin them. but of he? what does he think when he thinks of her?
"jennifer, when will you dance for me?"

Friday, April 20, 2001

09:48 p.m.

oh god.
I could so easily be in love. It wouldn't take much at all at this point and time. unfortunately, it would be totally conditional. "as long as it is spring, I will love you."
"beyond that, you actually have to work for it."
"beyond myself, I must see you as you are and not as a release for my romantic notions and sex drive."
"become more than what my libido craves. more than what my heart desires."
today everything makes little bits of me twitch. my heart, my mind, my loins. the greenness of the grass makes my eyes water with memories. the smell of the laundry detergent brought with it a flood of rememberance. it's incredibly good that I haven't met anyone around here that's interested in me because with the way my emotions are torturing me, I'd be on them so fast they'd have no time to ask my name.
so hello world. it's a good thing I try very hard most of the time not to believe in fate, because I'd think that those damn triplets had something out for me.

Thursday, April 19, 2001

10:25 p.m.

another thought.
there was something I wanted to say about the way he made me feel, but I can't describe it. It's like comparing an ocean's breeze to that on flat farmyards. They should be the same, as they are only moving air, but feel so different in complete ways. They are different creatures born of the same mother.
All the things I could use to compare the two come into being in describing my memory. his smell and touch, the strange lightness in my chest which came from merely being near him. his voice. the way he waved the first time I saw him, as he leaned against his car with the door open, eating chips. I loved him in that moment, because he was so at ease. the moment made everything in me jump, like from the sudden gentle jab of a live cattle prod.
but I won't talk to him now because it's only been hurting me. I refuse to lead myself in games with no seen conclusion. it hurts in a different way, because I love to talk to him so much. I love the way he thinks and his battered intensitiy. I love his pain. but I do not love mine.
I refuse to feed it any further. not in this way. not when I can easily stop it.
though those memories come back. the ones of our brief encounter. traipsing about as he walked steadily, straight, paying me no mind. not really laughing, just barely talking, as I tried to kiss him. the intimacy he denied me, I can understand. he always had someone else in his heart. someone I could never be. someone I would not want to be, because she drives him insane. I hate her kind, though not her specifically. no wonder he would not succumb to my suggestions. she had him all along.
and me? I never will. funny though, how the people I have short trysts with end up dictating the people I look for in long term romances. I do not love him, just certain things about him that I will never find in anyone else, no matter how long and how hard I search.
that hurts too, because it will undoubtably remind me of him if I ever do find it. another failure, chalked up to different kinds of breezes. I could never be a type other than what I am no matter how many times I change location.
and he will only ever want the girls that put him down.
go figure.

Wednesday, April 18, 2001

04:20 p.m.

not quite the place for a conversation.
[this transcribed from an online conversation]
him: hey cocheese
me: hi. you were in my dream last night
him: oh man. did it piss you off? cuz ya couldn't sleep
me: no, I slept fine. too much, actually. 12 hours
him: oh. hrm. i had a wicked time sleeping last night because i was thinking about someone, i was talking in my sleep too. i woke up at 3 in the morning to slap myself
me: thinking about jennifer, or whatever her name is?
him: yep
me: what do you think when you think about her?
him: she called me after you left
me: oh?
him: it was very strange. she wanted me to 'read to her.' weird huh?
me: I wrote about you. I didn't go to bed fr a while after we got off the phone
him: really? wrote about me?
me: yeah, I guess she likes you too, huh. or she jsut likes using you to boost her ego.
him: maybe the latter
me: girls are fuckheads like that. using people to make themselves feel better.
him: i'm not in her league
me: *sigh*
him: oh man, sigh what?
me: it really sounds like she just uses you. and you let her. I don't understand.
him: yea, if she's using me, then she's walking all over me. but thats typical for people to do to me
me: grr. people can't do anything to you unless you let them.
him: did i tell you about an old girlfriend that called me up to make me call her back so she could find her cordless phone?
me: no. ha.
him: yep.
me: the epitome of your love
him: i'm a tool.get this. i even did jennifer's homwork one night when she left her bag in my car
me: christ, steve.
him: i know. that was the tooliest thing i think i've ever done
me: she drives around with you so she can be near someone who totally worships her in every way
him: ...or i drive with her. it's 50/50. man, she's a freaky driver
me: probably to impress you further ..
him: this isn't impress caliber.it's just a tad wreckless
me: hm ..
him: look i'm almost you
me: I don't see why you'd want to try : )
him: beep beep
me: mm.
him: oh yea?
me: I should stop talking to you.
him: kinda like last night?
me: kind of. but in a more permanent way.
him: you don't want to talk to me anymore?
me: because I don't feel like being tooled with. and Idon't feel like hurting myself repeatedly like I am right now.
him: because of jennifer?
me: jennifer helps.
him: hrm
me: I can't talk to someone who so freely allows themself to be abused.
him: oh...
me: and pines for their abuser. and complains about being abused, but does nothing to stop it. and I realized that that's all I'm doing. and I don't want to anymre.
him: umm
him: ok
him: fine
and then he left.

Wednesday, April 18, 2001

11:45 p.m.

short story.
he asked me why I smelled the way I did / I told him it was from the dreams I'd had / he didn't believe me / and I don't blame him / I had lied / I'd had no dreams / there was no he / only me / questioning myself / and doing a poor job of it.

Tuesday, April 17, 2001

11:10 p.m.

hypocrisy runs rampant in these parts.
I don't know why I like him. I listen to him talk about some girl he likes, listen to him talk about what he doesn't like about her, and I say, "So why do you like her?" and he can't tell me. He talks about how she makes him feel inferior, how intelligent she is, how she's a pre-med student, how the fact that she's a stripper makes him incredibly jealous. She's older, she's wiser, she's insanely beautiful. "If I could treat you like shit then you'd love me forever" comes to mind when I hear about the girls he's fallen so steadfastly for. He likes the wiser ones that put him down. I cannot compare. I don't even try. It's useless. There is nothing in me that he could want. I'd say it isn't fair, but I'm certain that it is. This is how life keeps its balance.
It's a shame I end up on the side that must balance out the good. I admit it isn't all bad, but when it comes to love and romance, it frequently is. but I complain too much.
this boy, he is sad. I ask why he tortures himself and he denies such knowledge. even I can admit I don't do myself justice. I try not to keep myself blind, blinded as I am by my feelings and memories. He accused me of keeping myself sad, yet I see the same trait in his dealings with life. I try not to understand pointed hypocrisy, though I've indulged in it myself. I do, even now, in my strange friendship with him. I question why he likes a girl that just toys with him, but doesn't he do the same with me? I don't know.
I try not to think about it. I guess that could be his excuse as well. though more than likely it would be, "who cares?" His new mantra. "Who cares?" indeed.
It's a shame that I do, and a further shame that I am ashamed to let him know because I know the mocking laugh would follow. HIs mocking of himself, and therefore of me. Yet again I know it must be fair. It's how I keep sane, thinking of the balance life must hold. a strange balance, a pendulum. it finds both extremes, and all points between, but with a longer pause at either side. rarely staying in the middle.
the good.
the bad.
the boring.

Tuesday, April 17, 2001

08:38 p.m.

reminiscing on odder times.
I got a crush on him because we fucked. I didn't know him, just a day or two of wandering, briefly touching on each other's coincidence. and yet those few minutes bonded me to him in a way I would have been better off without. Just another damn name to add to a fucking list.
I liked him so much. he barely talked to me. I was just a body; a recepticle. like I'd been before, in the pursuit of something else. lust was much too easy to reach. too easy to succumb to. and . so .. frequently, I did. and was saddened afterwards, as my emotions held onto that brief contact. they just moved on. I stopped counting consistently how many times it happened. Less than a dozen, more than a handful. they fucked me and were fine with leaving it at that. I was not.
but relationships cannot be one-sided, and I always lost.
always.

Tuesday, April 17, 2001

11:56 p.m.

hats off to wishing.
I wanted to tell stories in hopes that he would hear, but I'm caught again empty-handed, holding air. Somehow I imagined he might find me and it made a part of me inside blossom. Only now the secrets that we whisper are secondary to what we give to other people. He his heart and me my body. It is strange how we might gladly trade such things to each other. I would gladly give my body for his heart. I would give it to him if it meant he might feel something real for me other than lust. However, this is a win-lose situation and I occupy the second choice. It is my decision, it must be, since it is happening.
We all choose the places that we go, even when it feels out of control. it's a frightening process, that of taking responsibility for one's self. I'm not too good at it yet as I can tell from my failed future plans. Sometimes it's fun to play the victim of destiny, though it's always just a game. In the end we all decide for ourselves what occurs. disillusion is a complicated foyer, one that many enter willingly. it's easier that way. isn't that what life is about, trying to find an easier way? it never works though. I've tried it too. I've seen the results.
the human mind is constantly fallable. it tells stories itself, we call them memories. they lie. we all are constantly in a state of lying to each other, though more importantly, of lying to ourselves. there is no way around it. no one is able to be totally objective to their own lives. to do so would be destruction of that which makes us human. that which makes us animal. it helps us survive. lies. deceit. animals are always using tricks to fool other animals into leaving them alone; allowing them to live until the next predator comes along. all we are are animals in clothing, usually with less hair.
I wanted to tell these stories so he may read them and agree. I wanted to show him I understood. he won't ever think I do and everytime I talk to him I shrink.
it is another way to fool myself. another lie to tell. thinking he might care to know that I care. because I do.

Sunday, April 15, 2001

04:15 a.m.

tonight.
phone sex with a stranger. he's had a crush on me for a year now. he's dating a girl where he lives in california. I'll probably never meet him.
he says the things people say between pants of masturbatory pleasure. mutual usage of each other. walking down stairs to hang up the phone and my thighs rub moistly together, damp from double orgasm. he could be so good.
sometimes he sings, when we just talk. it's so beautiful. he called on my birthday and crooned out that faithful song I'd heard twice already. it was better than the others. it was not done from familial obligation. it was beautiful.
I listen to the songs he's sent me, think of his voice before and after orgasm. it's all so melodic. so worth hearing. I don't mind too much that I may never meet him. california's killed me before. I don't have much of a crush on him, he just fulfills a need safely, and sweetly, with great class.
he seems to know just when I need it. 3am and the phone rings. we whisper hello as I trot upstairs to disrobe. it's so beautiful. so weak.
I am closer than I think to being nothing. he helps me think otherwise. says something about beautiful and sexy and I try to believe. sometimes it works.
other times I just pretend, and in pretending, become.
I am.

Sunday, April 15, 2001

11:46 p.m.

tuesday night/wednesday morning
we sat on the couch in the living room, and as the night progressed into definite morning, we wrapped ourselves in each other's arms. "wouldn't it be nice to fall asleep like this every night?" he asked, and I heard the drunkeness in his voice. It made me uncomfortable and wary, yet I could not disagree.
We slipped in and out of consciousness, me from sleep deprivation and he from alcohol. Finally I woke to his head on my shoulder; his hair tickling my face. I had to scratch my cheek, but to scratch meant disturbing his sleep. Finally the itching won, I moved my arm, and he woke up. In the process of resituating our limbs, his arm ended up draped across my shoulders, his hand on my breast. I didn't move it.
It was at this point my head began to chant, "this is the end of the fun flirty innocent friendship." My lips had touched his neck countless times before, and now as his hands began to move across my body, I opened my mouth onto his neck in many lingering kisses.
the proximity of his housemate in the next room finally led him to stand and pick me up and carry me, honeymoon style, into his bedroom. "How sober are you?" I whispered into his ear. "Pretty fucking sober," he replied, and I heard the truth of the statement in his voice. I didn't stop him from setting me on his bed. I only encouraged the following activity.
at first I caught wiffs of alcohol on his breath as hovered over my body, working to disrobe me. I could barely see in the darkness of his 4am room. After a while I no longer smelled the alcohol as he breathed near me, frequently bestowing kisses on my eager lips. I smelled myself in his mouth and on his tongue. all alcohol and influences were gone, and I very nearly gave myself entirely to him. almost. I stopped just short of it, my hand in place to defer him.
all the while my mind brought up memories of a boy I'd fallen for gracelessly several days ago, wondering why he hadn't done these things to me. wondering if I was doing them now to put him out of my mind. but he did not leave my brain for the entire evening, or morning, even when I woke with this new boy, in his bed, arms again intertwined.
bodies naked, warm, moist, almost satisfied. when we woke wednesday morning, we did it all again, only faster.

Saturday, April 14, 2001

04:20 p.m.

I can't hear you when you're whispering.
and all you do is shout. I only hear you, all the time, at all times, in every time I try to think for myself. I hear you.
my eardrums are bleeding and my heart is aching. the fingers I once coveted are clawing and my eyes are closed. yet the sun shines through my eyelids and leaves strange blotches of color on my retinas. I am burnt. you are running. I don't know where to go. I don't know what I've done.
you won't tell me.

Friday, April 13, 2001

08:16 p.m.

sitting outside, wrapped in a blanket.
watching the sun set behind the trees. strange how the sky turns such a brilliant shade of blue just before it all goes dark. the pink and clouds looked like reclining people, reaching out to nothing, immersed in their own selves.
though it's possible that's just how I feel about myself today. tonight. always. right now.
above all, I can't understand how I was never so aware of the spring. maybe I'm in sync with it right now. all the changes with everything in my life. I'm pretty much going back into life as it was ten months ago. It is a little frightening. back full circle. three hundred sixty degrees. only this time my expectations are completely different. I know I can't succeed now when before I was certain I could. I'm going into this knowing I will fail. It rather puts a damper on things.

sometimes I forget to hold back. I found a collage I started making months ago. I started crying. I saw a picture of the last person I truly was in love with. A picture from when I loved him, and I gasped outloud and felt the tears start to sting. I couldn't help it. I hadn't seen any pictures from that period in so long. I rolled it back up and tossed it aside after looking more at the other pictures. I didn't want to read any of what I had written on it. I frequently misrepresent myself. I can't help it.
the rootbeer I just drank had been sitting in the glass in a small puddle for several hours. the warmth brought a flat and thick quality to it. I choked. almost. strange sensation of needing to cough without actually doing it. warmth and a scratchiness.
even the coolness now of a new drink does not take away the scratch. I don't htink anything will. maybe it's been there all along and I just didn't notice.
weird how that can happen.

Thursday, April 12, 2001

05:26 p.m.

he told me that two halves make a whole.
Somehow I believed him at the time, though in retrospect I should not have.
I changed my shoes and socks in connecticut on the way to new jersey. They were wet from the snow we'd walked through in the woods to get the huge split rock. He took pictures of me, though honestly I can say it would not have mattered if there had been no film. I almost wish there hadn't been. I didn't need a camera to remember his face and the way his eyes caught the light sometimes so I could see the green inside. Sometimes I was scared to look.
His smile always seemed mocking, though not to any outside source. The way his shoulders hunched made me ache a little inside, in that maternal way that sometimes springs from unknown sources. Part of me that tells me to hold onto broken boys until they can stop laughing angrily. the part that always gets me into heart-wise trouble and fucks constantly with my emotions. It is my true weakness. Appeal to my loving and kindness and I am forever your's.
I hated holding him though I loved it immensely. I wanted his arms around me and his head somewhere near my own, so perhaps our heartbeats would somehow manage to mingle and make an electric current that would tell him to love me.
but two halves don't always make a whole. I feel the brokenness inside myself and I know he feels his own when he bleeds and makes himself go insane. his photography and writing takes away the pieces he wishes he still had. My writing just bleeds out the parts I can't feel anymore. I am intact, just broken in ways I can't repair alone. but no one can bear me long enough to help. I can't even let them get close. when I do they just look and touch the wound, then leave me to hurt more.
and I let them, because at least for a little while I was being touched. I could almost believe it would last, though inside it never does. it just falls away and I am left with only me and more self-induced scars.

Thursday, April 12, 2001