Your body is a skeletal frame of roots reinforced with silence and compassion. When your lips part I can see the wings inside of you and when you smile at me I feel warm, like a fire slicing through the stillness of December. When your hand touches my skin it burns for days afterwards, and I grab at my neck searching for red marks where your fingertips had landed. When you're on top of me I see branches sprouting from your temples and they show possibilities that I know you can't yet see. Your arms are quiet tree trunks, planted on my hips, and as they lift me up I wonder in silence why you don't creak under the weight of the thoughts I hold for you. My face turns hot as your fingers untangle my vines and comb through my hair and suddenly I'm gasping for you, for something I'm not sure of. Words spill out of you and I hide my face in your dark tumbling sheets so that I can show as many teeth as I'd like.

Remember?

You bled out for me that night
Your thick, red insides pooled around my feet
And if I felt anything for that reflection of us
I didn't let it show.
I wanted to swallow those words
And sweep all of you that I had broken
Under the bed that we had shared
Tangled, warm
Hundreds of times
Because I knew that none of it
Could ever be returned to you
But instead I choked out
More terrible things
As red and angry as your spilled self.
I wrung out my sweater
It seemed too heavy,
drenched
in you,
And as I let it drip dry
I walked away stained
But felt so, so clean.

Thing

So at first
I thought it was the thing
That would blossom
And bring me to my feet
And coax a sigh from my mouth
"Oh",
I would say
As I pushed through your flesh
And discovered your bones
And the lights buried deep
Within your warm, pink tissues
And the curve of the questions
Within my head
Would slowly stretch
Into a fine, straight point
That left nothing to the imagination.

But instead the curves only curl and divide
And coil very tightly
And my worn and tired hands
Bruise deeply
Slice open
Trying to pull at the knots.
They pull away reluctantly
Left open, empty, bloody, purple.
I just wanted the thing
That I've never really had.

What I really desire the most at this point in my life is someone to go on adventures with me. I want someone who is not afraid of getting sweaty, getting dirty, looking foolish, losing sleep, getting lost, or meeting new people. This desire seems harder to come by lately. I am uncomfortable with the fact that everyone seems content with a pattern of the same people, the same places, the same sleep cycle, and the same routines. I am not opposed to serenity and consistency, I simply desire a healthy variety between routine and spontaneity.
I wake up with stars in my eyes and fall asleep with a dull disappointment pounding against my chest. Where is the excitement that I had envisioned for June through August? I refuse to believe a requirement for thrill is being in a committed and steady relationship only so you have a partner willing to do these things with you.

Sometimes I fear that I'll never find anyone I like enough to settle down with. It's an irrational, striking fear, one that sometimes wakes me up in a panic and cold sweat in the dead of the night. I simply do not care. Not one cell in my body cares enough to put forth effort to be with someone. It's a weary cycle of meeting, coffee, and boredom. You're never going to be exactly what I envision so I refuse to go any further than a one night stand with you, and rarely even that. I shoot down anyone even slightly out of my criteria because of my fear of marriage/commitment/divorce/whatever. I wish desperately for someday to find someone who makes my eyes go cloudy and makes my heart feel light, I want to understand the piety of each persons' perception of the word "you" and I want to feel comfort and security at the thought of this "you". I want a home and children and future with "you" but I fear that I'm too fastidious for this dream. I am so afraid because nothing is ever enough for me.

Looking through my journal only reminds me of how truly disposable moments and feelings can be.

Summer Beginnings

Drunk off whiskey and quiet in the corner, I frequent at parties where I'm given the opportunity to simply observe. Things get hazy and I begin to dance, it's always the same. I've grown older but my habits, my kicks, my routines never seem to falter. I'm enjoying this new summer skin, it's beginning to fit quite nicely. Recognizing the ironic parallels between 11 months ago and now, I smile and take another sip. I look around again and find a familiar face. We walk outside and I'm handed a cigarette, seemingly out of nowhere, which I accept for a couple of drags before handing it back. I lean over the porch and look down at the bottomless stairwell. More time passes-minutes or hours, I can never be sure-and we're walking through the streets hand in hand. I am careless and run through stranger's yards, curiously poking at their belongings as if I have the right, climbing over their swingsets. I am taking off my shoes and walking on the cold cement. I keep dropping the left shoe. Suddenly we are inside and I see the Walt Whitman poetry book next to the bed. In the morning I focus on nothing but the legs overlapping and the sunlight streaming on the sheets. The soft orange sheets. They are really beautiful sheets. And all I can think is, "wow, if only everything were so simple and easy, if only people were always this relaxed and unconcerned".

In the plane over the ocean I could not bring myself away from the window. The city, lit up, seemed so innocent and calm from 30,000 feet in the air. That's what everyone says, isn't it? Yes, I'm sure it is. But the same cliched and old thoughts loop through my mind nevertheless and I think about the filth of the city, the scum and the danger and the violence and the ruined lives of abandoned and broken children. Those awful thoughts seem ridiculous, impossible even, from the sight that I'm seeing from so high up.

Back on earth the ocean was lapping at my feet, and I enjoyed a thoughtless afternoon with a book. I did not think of you, or what the next few months will bring, and I did not wonder if the worry pressing upon me would ever subside. And that was good. I swam deep down to the sandy floor and focused on the muted nothingness, letting my body float for a moment. The clearest my mind has ever been was when my ears were full at the bottom of the gulf. So summer begins and the next step is to box up my life and carry it approximately one hour to the north, where I will be greeted by a new job, beautiful girls, and bottles of wine. I imagine our back yard, one of us lying on the hammock and complaining about heat and the others gathered around the grill with frozen drinks and perplexed expressions, wondering if we know what we're doing, not exclusively referring to the grilling we're attempting but in our lives overall.

I'm not quite sure what has changed in me but it's something really great. I may not conform to the traditional lifestyle of others, but I am happy. I am working hard and playing hard and kissing handsome strangers, and for now it is beautiful and just what I want.

Debridement

He looked so good last night but I knew I couldn't have him. It had been over a month since I saw him last, although the entire stretch of those weeks held an unfathomable amount of late night talks and stupid jokes, I had seemed to forget how intense my attraction for this person (insignificant, immeasurable) was. Tall and lean, dressed simply with his dark hair pulled to the side. He locked eyes with me and gave me a sly smile before turning away. He chose her, who although I feel terrible for thinking these thoughts, seems less than special to me. She is convenient, she is available, she is there. She is just there. But this is not about her. What is this about? The melodrama inside my head, I'm sure. I'm not certain about what I wanted out of what this could have been (maybe nothing, maybe everything), but what I got was a hopeful thought of the warmth of your simple company peeled from the inside of my skull and somehow tossed into the dry dirt. Stripped away like the debridement of something immobile and useless, I turned myself inside out again and shrugged to show how little I cared.

This is the first time I've truly appreciated the rain. Words were too much for me, the talking far too loud. I pulled up my hood and slipped on my worn leather boots covered in filth and liquor. I stepped outside without hesitation and began to walk, head down, watching the puddles run together. I became instantly soaked but for once had no thought or care about it. I stopped at the archway by the market. The path was blocked for construction. I slung my bag around my shoulder, climbed the fence, lept into a rather large puddle, and continued walking towards the union. I kept my eyes low as I walked and made sure to observe the reflection of the street lights as the rain drops rhythmically scattered to the ground. What a perfect thing this weather was for comfort. I had left seeking silence but the sound of the rain was like a warmth that no words would be able to provide me. Finally reaching the double doors, I gripped the wet handles and stepped inside, heading straight for my favorite corner: cushions, seclusion, and brick walls surrounding. Now I write.

It's not that I'm lonely. Well, I am I suppose, in a way. Loneliness is the whole of my being. Loneliness is who I am and who I always will be, and I embrace it like an old friend. But I do not wish to find anyone special. I'm not looking for a completion of myself or an "other half". I just feel as though I'm missing out on exploring the world around me simply because I have no one to do it with. Why is it that the comfort of love has become the final "You Are Here" place mark on the map? I don't understand the satisfaction of a steady, prolonged relationship with another person and I question whether I ever will. I thrive and flourish under the excitement of the unknown, the what-could-happen. It seems everyone around me is content with the answers they've already found and have no interest in asking any more questions. How can this be when my body is buzzing with curiosity?

Haze

I have this daydream, this hazy scene in my head: I walk through the front door of a party and you're there. You're standing there, just across the room, loosely clinging to a beer bottle, leaning against the wall in your leather jacket only partially committed to a conversation with a circle of strangers. You glance up when the door opens. Our eyes meet. You want me. I'm not sure who you're going to be for me or how my emotions will self-destruct for you, but I know I want you too. We move towards each other through the crowd, like a scene from some movie we would both hate. We perch in a corner together the entire night, ignoring all and any others hopeful for some sort of conversation spark with us. You, scanning the room as you speak to me and me, willing my eyes to pierce through your beam of conversational concentration. You invite me out for a cigarette again and again, not because you're craving the nicotine, but because you're looking for an excuse to be alone with me, with nothing but the chill of the wind between our carefully and cautiously thought-out words. I touch your arm lightly between conversation, willing you to remember the night outside of the bar, hoping something different will happen tonight. I watch your lips move as you speak of your passion for your most recently discovered piece of literature, suddenly realizing that I've never wanted to feel anyone's lips pressed against my own more than I do at this very moment. You lean into me and I am lost in your scent. I'm fighting to stay conscious; to laugh when you laugh, to respond when you leave a question hanging in the air, but it's hopeless and I close my eyes and let you engulf me. You lean closer yet and I realize you're looking straight at me now, waiting for something to happen. I step closer and close my eyes again, so ready to be tangled up in you.

The haze disappears.

I am awake and hyper-aware of my utter and complete hopelessness.

I am ankle deep in loneliness.
My steps are heavy
But I am the only one who can really tell
I can feel the weight on my shoulders, looming over me, as it always does.
I go about my day, pretending not to notice.
Things are okay, sometimes.
Good days are not yet tainted
By the imminence.

I am knee deep in loneliness.
The weight has become a constant jabbing
Just to make sure
I haven't forgotten about it
(I haven't).
Laughs, floating around the thick midnight darkness,
Will fade out
And dancing will quickly become nothing more than me and a bottle in the corner
As far away from the world as I can get
Until my leash,
Binding and overwhelming,
Gives me a sharp tug back to reality.

I am waist deep in loneliness.
The weight, growing heavier by the minute,
Is no longer invisible.
It washes over me like a wave
And makes itself known
Hovering like a sinisterly soft grey fog.
My eyes have lost their light
And when I look in the mirror
All I can see are the dark circles
Hollowing me out.

I am neck deep in loneliness.
There is a ringing in my ears
That blares when others' mouths move
Emptying out their own fears
While mine squirm inside me
And nest deep in the lobes of my brain
I have no more fight within myself
So I succumb to the darkness
And let it
Swallow
Me
Whole.

Days

Breakfast,
served with nothing but silence and
lukewarm orange juice,
always felt
hopeful
untouched.
The afternoon would fade in
blurry and dull
3:00 meant walking alone
enamored by the cracks in the pavement
while the harsh January wind bit
relentlessly
at  my face
so much so that I was sure
that when I checked the mirror
above my dingy white sink
I would see gaping holes
where flesh should be

"I may never be happy, but tonight I am content." The words of my favorite author echoed in my head on a constant loop as I crawled into bed at 6:00 am, just as the sun was rising. Staying up until morning with a rum and coke, cold cheese pizza, and friends brought too much attention to the reality I'd been trying to avoid for weeks.  When I am in despair, I always turn to worn pages of Sylvia Plath's writing for comfort. The dull aching in my chest halts and I feel less alone. I feel like I can relate to her more than anyone, and that is a sad thought in itself.

This morning when I woke up my soul felt hollow. It felt half within me and half somewhere else, distorted and stretched to both places like silly putty. Things are not as black-and-white or this-and-that as people seem to believe. There is a lot of distance between both sides of the spectrum, and the effort it takes to reach one end is a rollercoaster of emotional distress. As cliched as I feel thinking things like this, I can't help but believe that I'm on a journey now. My focus is turned completely on my inner self and general well being, something that I don't think has ever happened for me. There are times (listening to Sufjan, walking against the brisk January wind alone, the last ten seconds of consciousness before drifting off to sleep) when I feel a tightness in my throat and tears brimming around my eyes, but I believe that's part of the healing process. My existence often times feels pointless, dreary, and unimportant, and that's something that I'd like to fix.

What would happen if we acted solely on feelings? Let the moment be the moment and nothing more? Give no regard to anything but that impulse? Irrational, maybe. Fulfilling, yes.