In My Dream

In my dream I am crawling
My limbs are stiff but strong, arms packed with smooth, firm muscle overtaking my shoulders and neck
My fingernails are caked with dirt and blood and something yellow but I carry myself on
Amused but not surprised by my strength.
I have a purpose, and my body stands warm against the steady breeze
I can smell you
I can taste you on the smooth of my long, twisted tongue
My mouth is dripping and my teeth are clenching
You are nowhere around, not buried in the dirt or blowing among the trees
But I know I can feel you.
I open my eyes and I crawl across the covers to your still, pale body
Your skin is like marble and I carefully trace the small bodies of water that hold your pooling blood
My nails are clean and my arms are thin
And I am cold without your warmth
I slip the weight of you onto my hands and you fall through like rain water
I am digging into the mattress, turning over pillows, ripping through the bed sheets.

I could never really hold onto you,
Even in my dream.

I Could've Stayed With You

I could've stayed with you.

I could have dried out and shrunk up, like fresh grass plucked from the dirt by some toddler's chubby hands, thrown onto the cement and forgotten, easily, as the next distraction came.
I could have fallen under the weight of you, the weight of us, that only I could feel and believe in and hold up.
I could have rested quietly, small, at the foot of the bed while I waited for your eyes to fall on my half-eaten heart.
I could have grown stale from not being sealed up properly, the cheap plastic only loosely fitting my untouched flesh, when you forgot about me
Forgot about me at stop lights that last a little too long for eyes to meet and lips to touch
Forgot about me across from you at the diner while your black coffee and yellow eggs went cold
Forgot about me while the words and the air were still moving from my lungs and heart and mind and mouth.

Thank God I didn't stay with you.

Women Are Permeable

She carried herself with a meek sense of confidence that somehow seemed to surprise her conversation partners when her mouth remained tightly shut, straight teeth like bricks holding  in the words floating around her throat. Her shoulders were dusted with freckles, marking careless summers in a field somewhere, where the hot sun and company's laughter made her forget to utilize a tree every once in a while. Her long legs appeared to permanently house old, scattered bruises nestled deep within her paper skin, and exactly three mosquito bites that told anyone who noticed them "I stayed outside just the right amount". Her heedful heart beat cautiously in her chest, with great concern for a sudden and dramatic burst of emotion that might force stagnant blood out of the holes that had been so carefully stitched back up.

She, like most women, was permeable.

A man sees me across the room
He will drink me in with his eyes
and shape my insides into something he thinks might save him
And I will exhale my insecurities
Waiting for gravity to unhinge my chest
And bear to him my fragile bones.
His eyes will peel back
His face will sink in
His heart will set low
And his mouth will open and sing to me the disappointment he feels
In the long limbs and messy hair that let the light out too soon.

Loving You...When You're You

Fingers mindlessly playing together and I carry this secret with me
Across the street,
Through the farmer's market,
Your fingers whispering stories to my skin
Time slides across the sunny skyline
Like melting butter across a pan
I am squinting into the sun to see you
But I forgot that you are the sun.
Your voice is true and deep
And I want to wrap myself in the warmth of your words.
"I love you" tastes like the strawberry jam
They are selling from the cracked glass jars
Carefully placed on the crooked table-
It seems a little silly
And sounds a little creaky
But from across the black hot parking lot,
It looks like a secret between two smiling mouths.

Two Years

"Tomorrow I am going to make an appointment with a counselor". I penned this in my journal almost exactly two years ago. I remember this moment well. I was living in the dorms, it was a late week night and my roommate was in her loft, exhaling heavily indicating that she was deep into sleep. I was suppressing sobs and feeling helpless. This was a low point in my life, although I can't quite remember why. I had spent the early evening walking around alone in the rain, with my hood up and my heart heavy as I passed smiling faces, laughing and running together to someplace dry and warm. There have been a lot of similar moments since that one, wet and cold. Standing, walking, biking, driving alone - feeling like I'm standing behind some fogged up, murky window looking out at bright, crisp, and clear happiness. "Simple and happy - what is that, and will I ever have it?" Something else that has appeared in my journal over and over.

What happened after that night of dark thoughts and hopeless feelings? Why did I never make that appointment? I can't quite remember the next morning. I imagine myself waking up to the natural light of the sun, enjoying the crunch of snow under my boots while wrapped up to my neck in warmth, eating a warm and filling breakfast, chatting with my friends, and convincing myself that I was okay. I wonder how many times I've done that over the last two years?

I am often times frightened of my own dark thoughts. They are starting to swallow me whole, chewing up and spitting back out my relationships and future. When I reflect back on my writings, I am shocked at how long it took me to connect the dots. Denial is a powerful, blinding thing - but now it's time to take back my happiness and whatever else has run away since then.

Loving You...In Your Depressive State

What happened to your eyes?
They've gone away for a while.
Words pour from my mouth excitedly
In anticipation of seeing you again.
But my face is clean, cold glass to you
And my words are rocks falling hard.
"I love you", I say, tender and quiet.
You mirror my words but the sound is muffled
Because I'm watching the shadow loom over your face
I'm watching the heaviness weigh you to the ground.
I grab at your hands but your veins turn black
And I watch in horror as the poison trickles downwards,
Thick and hot.
I'm trying to breathe you in,
But when you exhale ash fills my mouth.
I choke on my words trying to find you
But I can hear the bones in us both grating to dust.
What happened to your eyes?
I used to feel you moving.
I can't remember the last time you've stirred.

Re: My Need to Write More

Time since I've written anything: weeks.
Time since I've written here: days.

My need for writing is growing stronger than ever. Sometimes I feel like I ache for it. I complaint about my time restraints: no time to myself, no time to relax, not seeing my boyfriend for seven consecutive days. But I do manage to find time for things that won't ever matter in the long run. I clock seconds and minutes just scrolling mindlessly, quickly, through social media in intermittent spurts. It's time to give that up, save those precious seconds of my day, for writing and releasing myself with my words.

Starting now.

I Need To Let This Out

I need to let this out (I'd like to scream it at the top of the tallest mountain, but I'll take what I can get): I am very much in love with the most genuine, considerate, and intelligent person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I've never wanted a person to be a part of my future more. And now, for some self meditation and some late night yoga. I'll be back soon, blogger. It's been a while, but I'm still here. Just quiet.

Commitment

While distracted by the trials of everyday life, I grew. I've grown into someone suddenly sure of things. Mostly sure, at least. I am happy about this. I am tired of loud parties and possibilities for affection from handsome strangers in dark corners. The dark corners now seem more bleak than mysterious and the handsome strangers now seem more daunting than exciting. I've mapped a road in my head and I as I run my fingers over the skin of this map, I trace things I desire in a partner: intelligence, humor, fair taste, those things that everyone lists because they feel that it is safe. "Is this me?", I wonder from the corner of the flashing lights and the sweating bodies and the stale smell of beer. How pathetic it was to have an internal relationship crisis in the middle of a party. I was sick of it and I was tired and I wanted to lie down. I wanted to fall asleep at 10 pm so that I could wake up early to the smell of coffee and feel the sun warming the sheets of my bed as I read before work or school or responsibilities. I went from needing attention from men I barely knew to having enough confidence in myself to let it be and move on. I wanted to prepare for the next part of my life.

I have been seeing Kevin for three months. And I'm not sure how to talk to people about it. Three months ago I was alone (for the most part) and denying any desire for anything serious. "What I'm serious about is my education", I would tell myself. In my mind, a relationship and my schooling could not co-exist. That's what I would tell myself. Now that I am waist-deep in this thing, this wonderful, unbelievably comfortable thing, I wonder why I was trying so hard to push away what I never knew was coming. Is it healthy to force something when you're too bothered to invest or even care? No, of course not. But I'm ecstatic that this person came marching so unexpectedly into my life. Men have come and gone in the past few months, and I want so desperately to articulate how much Kevin means to me compared to all the others (for a start, he makes me refer to everyone else I've ever felt anything for as just "others"). I still remember the day we met so clearly. He's gone from the stranger across from me at the coffee shop, passionately scribbling notes about his students, to the man humming Etta James in his boxers while making me breakfast. He holds his cat close to his chest when he's reading and he starts my car before I leave while I'm still in bed. He is attentive and neat and considerate. He orders extra pizza when he knows my friends will be around. He wants more than what the world can provide him at ease and he wants to make changes. He is passionate about the political state of the world and wants to write things, eye-opening things. He inspires and pushes me to write more myself. We read in bed together. We discuss the news together. I have spent the last four days straight living with him in his apartment. This is more time than I've ever spent with anyone. Even sleep has become something that we share, something that's no longer just my own.

I'm trickling down a path of excitement and anxiousness that makes my stomach lurch. I care for him greatly and have finally put myself in a place that has made me vulnerable. I'm proud of myself for finally taking a step forward, but everyone bone in my body is begging my to inch back. It's his move and I'm desperately hoping we begin to walk in place.

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.