01:58 a.m.

slightly scratched with cynicism
I thought of the freckles on your hands and felt nothing but bad for you. there will probably never be another girl that could appreciate them the way I did. or be willing to teach you the things I would have.
you traded one addiction for another. a weakness for a different one. something bad for something worse.
so where do we stand, in this time five months past? I could connect the tracks that led you from me. I could show you the dreams I had that told me this would happen.
but I don't want to. it's not my right.
I don't think I miss you anymore. I went through the list of everything I loved about you and didn't want any of it back.
I used to memorize the way your skin stretched over your skeleton as you lay naked beside me. the way the joints in your fingers flexed captivated me. the freckles on your eyelids and the perfection of your mouth made me woozy. you answered my questions, when you knew what I was asking. you were so tall, but never strong enough to win against me.
now I wonder when you'll wake up again and finally realize your potential.
I hope you let me know when you do.
you mentioned a world of my creation. I think you've already demolished it.
congratulations on your victory. I could never have hoped to do anything so thoroughly.
your pride must know no bounds.

Friday, January 9, 2004

08:53 p.m.

it's not just in his head.
couldn't find the right words, couldn't bring myself to say how I really felt. pumped up my mind with a few dramatics and said, "I hate that I love you."
cried with him in my arms, but I'm not sure if he knew. it hurts, it always does, but I'm not sure I could wish it away even if it was a possibility.
every time he comes back into my life, it sends me into disarray. everything begins to whirl and my mind gets lost in his presence. in old feelings recently acknowledged.
so in a way, I was right. in a way, I was wrong. I love that I love him, too. it makes me feel alive in retrospect, even if, at the time, all the emotions are so overwhelming I feel nothing.
"I hate that I love you."
and he says? :
"I know."
(all the things I've ever wanted to say to you can not be fit into a song. all the things I feel for you can't be formed into words. nothing we do will ever compare to my day dreams. all you are is fine with me, just don't leave me so far behind I can't catch up again.
don't leave me to fifteen.)

Thursday, January 1, 2004

11:21 p.m.

more of the same memories.
it's slow warmth, oozing inside the coldness of my chest. coating my ribcage and dripping to my stomach. it's pain and it's joy, anger, embarassment, love, forgiveness. so many emotions gladly felt, hurtfully given. all these contradictions I willingly feel, just to feel anything.
there have been so many times I've sought an easier way, just to be done with it. wished for the pills I ODed on so I could do it again. wanted a fraction of that security and darkness. a moment where I knew there would be no more dreams.
do you know what it feels like? let me tell you a story, let me paint you a picture.
a bed and warmth that wasn't there, was only felt from inside. a coldness gripped by warmth. darkness with the lights still on, music that even now brings back memories. over four years later and I still remember the sound of it all. the feeling of the carpet on my hands as I crawled to the door. the light finally permeating it all. blurred voices and questions, being pinched, midnight. it's all there, all told, a story that doesn't always feel like my own.
I remember so many things from that time. so many feelings and sensations. I even remember the way a boy I haven't seen since I was 15 smelled. I had such a crush on him.
let's look at another sketch. holding hands with the person I'd convinced myself I were born for. a person I knew would change my life -- even if it didn't end up being the way I thought. changed because I changed. his blue hair and brown eyes, smirk and lip ring. those lines in his face I also can't forget, or his hairy stomach and chest. I still remember the way his eyes seemed to burn as he leered over me and pinned me to the floor. that terrible serious look on his face. apprehension. practically welcoming the beating I thought was going to come, just because it meant he felt something. fear. remember the fear.
all these younger memories that seem to thrive in disenchantment. every new relationship brings them to the front, every year around this time they plague me like moths beating against a lighted window. so pointless, so useless, so needlessly painful. and all I can do is write. all I can do is remember. there is no closure. there will never be closure.
all there is, is this warmth spreading through the coldness of my chest. my numb fingers pounding away at the keyboard because they're too cold to hold a pen. tingling lips, remembered darkness. no tears this time.
and the dreams. always the dreams.
they never go away. no matter how much I drink, no matter how long I stay awake, no matter who I talk to, no matter what I do. they are the constant in all of this.
and I said, "why do I keep myself awake? I don't understand." and he (the one who loves me, not this past thing) replied, "because you stopped cutting yourself."
the truth hurts so much sometimes.

Thursday, December 25, 2003

03:20 a.m.

an unsent letter.
dear you,
I miss you. I love you. I don't know why I feel either of those things, but I do. You won't talk to me anymore. I haven't heard from you since August, but I guess you know that already. I don't know why I can't forget you, or really move on. What we had wasn't much, but for some reason it meant a lot to me.
You were a reason for staying somewhere I hated. Not the only reason, but part of a whole. There is only one other person who has ever been so determined to never talk to me again, and I can't forget him either.
I can't find closure. I think back to when you wanted to break up and just hang out as friends, and I said it was impossible. By the time I would be over you, you'd be leaving for grad school. I guess you took that statement to heart. I wish I could take it back now. I'd like to take back a lot of the things I said and did.
I'm sorry for making you feel secondary in my life. At least, I assume that's how you felt. You never really told me, so I end up assuming a lot of things.
It's not that I want to date you again, I just want to know that you're happy. That you're doing something, that you're really going where you want to be. None of that has to do with me, but once you seemed determined to have me be a part of your life.
Almost every day I walk out to my car, and I look at my windshield wipers just in case you've left a note under them. You haven't, not since that day. I burnt the letters you gave me and I left a picture of you in the Denver International Airport. I don't think you'll ever realize how much you've hurt me.
Silence can say so much more than words. I'm just not sure what you're trying to say with it.
I'm sorry for being overdramatic. I'm sorry for a lot of things. I want to know what to say to make you listen to me. You used to be pretty damn good at it, as I recall. Didn't we used to talk for hours?
I know you won't ever read this. I don't think you even care anymore. I think it's become a case of "out of sight, out of mind." I just wish you hadn't lied to me the day you agreed to call me.
I wish a lot of things hadn't happened.
love,
me.

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

12:51 a.m.

an attempt at honesty
so I fucked people because I have poor self esteem. I don't have any friends I haven't been attracted to at some point in my life. it's been 1453 days since the last time I thought monogamy could work for me. I know the hope was still born, but it existed nonetheless. kept in a jar for me to stare at and pretend it breathed. I wonder if it's still hiding, forgotten in some box that I'll one day open, finding only bones and mold.
scatter the pieces and decipher my future. what am I, anyway? what is happiness, what is love, what is honesty? all these feelings I pile on top of my heart, just to smother the uncomfortable truth.
why have I done it all? was it for the drama, was it to feel wanted? I can't remember many periods of my life that I haven't had a boyfriend or a lover. at least not since I turned 13. what is it about me that attracts people, or pulls me to them? I can't remember the last time I was rebuffed. do I just pick the people that are attracted to me or is it luck?
annoying self-important musings are my forte. at least that's what this journal was specifically created for-- talking about my fractured sense of love.
right now sleep deprivation is one of the main factors keeping me giddy. that and my husband, which is sappy, but true. our problems not withstanding, he generally does treat me better than anyone else ever has and puts up with me all the time.
I'm so fucking tired. my fingers are going numb and my lips are tingling. I think reality has stopped. I remember that feeling.
a change is coming.

Sunday, December 21, 2003

11:18 p.m.

I remember so many things that would be better off forgotten. images of dark rooms and warm blankets, the scent of moist skin and damp hair. fingertips and sweat, whispered words that later mean nothing.
the day he said he loved me, as we lay in bed and I pried it from his lips. I'd felt it, but refused to say it first. then later, crying because of it. because of words, because of what was felt, feeling so good but so trapped. another thing to tie me down, another dream to flutter then die.
and now I can't forget it.
I want to move on, I want to accept, but I keep getting stuck in these memories. freckles and fingers and six foot one, red hair and gesticulations and his amazing mouth, knowledge and vocabulary and weakness.
and weakness.

Friday, December 19, 2003

12:06 a.m.

say a lie enough and it becomes the truth.
times when I'm afraid to look in her eyes for fear she'll see what I'm thinking. if there was a chance I could ever hold her, ever taste her, I'd take it. not for everything, but just for a chance. a moment in her arms, naked and giggling under covers.
but there is no hope. it is a pointless desire, but it won't die. unrequited love, never has it been so bitter.
or maybe it's never been this nature. this facet of cruelty. just another dream to wither into ashes.
another notch. another anger. another letter to never write, another unexpressed emotion.
something else to rage my fists against when I add up the times I let myself want something that I can not have.
it's fine though.
everything is fine.

Thursday, December 18, 2003

11:50 a.m.

rararamble.
it's a beautiful thing and I don't want you to understand. I don't want you to feel the things I've made myself into, or the objects of my desire. I don't want you to never be happy with nothing, I don't want you to think you have to go searching for something you can't find inside yourself or only one other person.
I'd tell a story here if it were appropriate, but I don't want you to know everything. there are so many things I've never tried to explain because I don't own the proper words. the way a certain song will make me arch my back, or part my lips, or press against a doorway just to feel it under my skin. warm pulses in my vulva.
my imagination kills me more than anything. takes my hopes and twists them, then laughs when I fall. every desire its warped playground, fucking with everything and then mixing them with dreams I'll never hope to meet.
and it rips tears from my eyes and reminds me of someone who once said he never cried for sadness, just for things he used to have.
I don't think he ever cried over me.

Monday, December 15, 2003

09:32 p.m.

old poorly told stories.
let me tell you another story that's been overtold.
once upon a time I loved this boy, and he said he loved me too. then one day he said he couldn't be with me anymore because of what I believe. he didn't want to share me with my beliefs. it took him months to realize this.
I couldn't give up, I couldn't let go. one night I drank so much I cried and could finally talk about the things that were bothering me. but he wasn't there to hear them. someone else was, and it wasn't what he wanted either.
so I passed out naked on the bathroom floor. I vomited and couldn't move, could only cry and apologize for not being able to be all the things I always wanted to be. for not being able to feel the appropriate things for the appropriate people. apologizing for feeling too much and feeling too little.
hating myself, knowing that all that night could change was me.
that sadness still sits with me, and the realization that that night didn't help at all except to give me more memories that I'd rather forget. yet I won't ever let it sink into nothing. it just sticks further in me and makes me want to spiral back into it. drink again until I vomit out all the things that bother me, and be numb to everything that hurts me. I understood drunkness and hated myself for it.
and the thing that hurts, what really hurts, is that the knowledge didn't change a thing between me and that boy. the act might have only made things worse. just further unearthed his guilt and drove a slightly larger wedge between us. so that shit I did to myself didn't matter. he left me anyway. but I can't leave him.
and it pains me.

Friday, December 12, 2003

12:27 a.m.

for the millionth time, let's be vague but to the point (sorry for the differing tenses and points of view).
ah, so, looking back on all those relationships, all the boys, the girls, the guilt, the missed chances.. basically it seems like the passionate ones that burnt so fast hurt the most. why? a three year relationship and I feel almost nothing now, except a vague annoyance. but take that one boy, the one who I fell in love with almost immediately, the one that was rocky the whole time through-- the time that was only three months, but the brutal fall. the fall that killed me the most. it was all so short but it's one of the defining moments of my life.
do you want to know what happened?
oh, it was stupidity. that's all. too much hope, too many expectations. I've tried to bleed it out for four years now. do you know that in seventeen days it will be the four year anniversary of our first kiss? we had all these plans, more plans than I've ever made unseen with anyone.
and his words, oh the sweet and amazing things he said. it brings tears to my eyes just to remember. I couldn't tell you most of the things recent people have said to me, but if I had a moment to get inside someone's head, I could transfer every emotion that one ever made me feel. by category, in chronological order.
so it hurts when someone gives you this pure reason to live. a promise that could never live up to its self. a picture and a dream that gets ripped from you. snaps your will in half. and later, when you feel yourself taped back together, you grasp onto the only thing that made sense at the time.
dreams. perfect, beautiful, ideals that were never really your's, but made you believe in something better. something true and otherworldy. a direction in a place that lacked cohesion.
break, fix, break, fix. then the final snap came and the wound just wouldn't heal. there's still something inside, keeping it from closing. no matter how you dig, you just can't find it. and it gets harder and harder to mess around in there. so much scar tissue, so many raw angles. it seems so stupid. so self-explanatory. it's all fucked and should be left alone.
but it just won't go away. and I don't know what to do but remember in the hope that remembering will kill it. no matter how many people I tell, it won't go away and I can't talk about it to anyone that was with me at the time. it seems so old and pointless. embarassing.
above all else, embarassing with my innocence and hope.

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

11:43 p.m.

rah rah rah
oh sweet negativity, where would I be without you?
let me ask you this, why don't I learn from my own mistakes? every relationship I have offers answers to questions that have annoyed me from previous experience. so suddenly I know why that person did that thing in that situation because I'm doing it now. or I realize how so and so felt when I did that to them, because I'm having it done to me.
let me say that I hate people who talk about love in all good tones. the disgusting sap dripping drivel and cooing voices about love forever and true. maybe I'm just bitter. I don't know why. seeing couples pawing each other in public just isn't my idea of a good time -- unless I'm paying them to do it.
all these thoughts, all these melodic words that had drifted into my head. lost. scattered. I hate them for abandoning me, and I hate myself for forgetting them.

Sunday, December 7, 2003

11:42 p.m.

observation
sometimes I think I am given what I ask for just so I can realize that not only is it not what I need, it's also not what I really wanted. how foolish of me.

Thursday, December 4, 2003

04:40 p.m.

more about the past
it seems that the key to knowing a person lies in their past. not just what happened to them, but how they reacted and how they would react to a similar situation now. I can't stand people who don't learn from their mistakes -- maybe because there have been times when I haven't learned from my own.
how about the way that reading my old entries makes me feel like ten different people? how about how I feel now, like every way I've felt about every person I've ever been with has just been all wrapped into one constanty shifting prism of an emotion? how do you deal with that? how am I dealing with that?
same as always. overdramatizing and ignoring.
I've realized it's not that I accept my past, I just end up forgetting it. moving onto the next thing.
that's not the same thing at all, is it.

Wednesday, December 3, 2003

03:33 p.m.

a little confusion
I think it's done.
I think it's finally ending, I feel the change coming. something's broken off inside me and I might be able to just let the past go. my latest heartache will be here in person soon and I'm not sure how I'll take it. sometimes there aren't words adequate to describe what I'm feeling. apprehension, excitement, dread. fear.
no matter where I live, my past will follow. no matter how I try to forget, to let go, to give up, it continues to rear its head at the most inoppurtune times.
a serious conversation in denver that brought me to tears. the inability to talk about someone that I've loved like no other, without reason, to a state of intense betrayal. to never find that spark again, to never want that spark again for fear that it will end the same way.
live your life to never regret and you either end up doing nothing or you burn out on too much. I still can't figure out where I'm going, or to what end.
could someone just point me in the right direction, whatever way that may be?

Wednesday, December 3, 2003

12:08 p.m.

might as well face it..
once you love someone, you never stop. love doesn't die, you can't kill it. it keeps going for as long as you do, for as long as you can feel or breathe. it will diminish, it will dim, it will dwindle into near non-existance, but it never dies.
we ignore it, we fight it, we lie about it, we indulge it, we exaggerate it. it consumes, it creates, it rejuvenates, it hurts.
it hurts.
it's like dying. being held in its clutches, thinking you have a handle on things but knowing you don't. being alright with that. just letting go. giving into it, like a petulent child.
freeing and caging, it's full of contradictions. full of life.
nothing is like being in love. nothing has so much potential to both give and relieve pain. once you feel it, you never forget. you never get over it.
it is always there no matter how hard you try to forget.
and it will never ever let you go.

Monday, December 1, 2003

10:37 a.m.

I'm writing about him more clearly, but mostly clouded.
let's add another notch to the hurt post. let's try to read an article about counter-culture and listen to the words of a distorted punk love song at the same time. let's not be able to focus on any one thing, let's let the exhaustion overcome us.
no, no, I have a better idea. let me tell you a story. once upon a time I was 15 and I was in love, and it was so fucking ridiculous but I didn't know it at the time. let's say I fell in love with my boyfriend's best friend long before I could even admit to myself I had a crush on him. years before.
so seven years later we fucked and now I'm not sure where I stand, except that I feel both closer and further away from him than I ever did before. because it was more than sex, but it was less than that too. everything about us is a contradiction, just like reading about a revolution that has nothing to do with love while listening to a song by that revolution that has everything to do with it.
love has never seemed so simple, never been so complex.

Monday, November 24, 2003

12:04 a.m.

oh.
oh fuck.

I miss you.

Friday, November 21, 2003

12:46 a.m.

mindless ramblings
awake again instead of sleeping. trying hard to feel something that I realize is gone from me. something beautiful in its desperation and sadness. something like belonging, but mostly feels like rain.
there are times I hate the rain.
other times I'd gladly run through it, drenching myself in a downpour of things I don't want to know about. getting soaked in the names of places and people and all the things that are single experiences. things that can never be recreated, no matter how fervently we try.
being replayed would only cheapen the emotion. it's better this way. it's raw, it's right, it's pure pain that can only be exploited through memories, not recreations.
can only be dreamt of, or thought of late at night when we should be sleeping in the warmth, next to the person who loves us.
times when we shouldn't be cold and shivering in the rain.

Friday, November 7, 2003