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.