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.