I try very hard to be good.
At everything.

But often I just want to be happy.
Happiness often feels like the string of a balloon slipping from my fingers.
So close to being captured as I watch it flutter away into the sky.

You came up to Tahoe for the weekend.
I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone as nice and thoughtful as you.
I’ve never felt so cared for.
It made me feel overwhelmed.
Uncomfortable even.
How cared for I felt.
It made me want to push away.

Everything I want.
But I’m squirming in your affection.

I realize I wouldn’t squirm if you pulled away.
If you back burnered me.
If you acted like you didn’t care.

I would instead run towards you.
Trying to be wanted.
To win your affection.

I won and I don’t know how to accept it.
I don’t know how to hold you.
To accept the love I keep trying to earn.

I am sure of you because I’ve never needed perfect moments with you.
I don’t need to stand underneath a mistletoe or fireworks to kiss you.  
I don’t need a romantic evening to want you.
I don’t need a weekend of activities to enjoy   you.
I don’t need a good joke to laugh at you.
I am sure of you because of the way I feel grocery shopping with you.
I am sure of you because of the way I feel cleaning the house with you.
I am sure of you because of the way I feel disagreeing with you.
I am sure of you because of how much I love the mundane things of life with you.

You’re not my cookie cutter guy.
You are rough around the edges.
Your ends refusing a mold.
I can’t put a bow on you.
I can’t make you a party trick at Christmas.
And I kind of love that.

I’ve got to detox you out of my system.
I’m going through withdrawals.
Even though your love was synthetic.

There were only ever two real ones for me.
The rest were just killing time.

Tonight I realized I was never a real for you.
I was just a filler and you were robbing me blind.

Felt sick to my stomach this morning.
It reminded me of you.

We talked on the phone for 6 hours.

You said you always felt safe with me. I admitted I hadn’t found the level of openness or comfort I had with you with anyone else. You admitted the same.

We talked on the phone for 6 hours.

You said that you had been more comfortable and vulnerable with me than any other person besides your childhood best friend.

We talked on the phone for 6 hours.

I admitted I hadn’t been able to match our chemistry with anyone. You admitted the same and said you still often thought of me for inspiration.

We talked on the phone for 6 hours.

I thought I was the one that hadn’t moved on but you were standing still with me.

We talked on the phone for 6 hours.
I normally hate talking on the phone.

I do not have words for you yet.
Can’t sum you up on a few lines.
No rhyme or poem comes to mind.
But I feel like when I do- it will be a good one.

I just watched this movie past lives.

It’s about how childhood sweethearts reconnect in their 20s virtually and then again in person in their 30s when she is married.

It’s the what if movie - what would have happened if she hadn’t left Korea, if things would have been different, would they have ended up together. But they didn’t and she’s married now to someone else and lives in the East Village.

It’s not a movie of lust or affair. She doesn’t do anything wrong. They don’t cross the line.

At the end, he’s getting in the taxi for what they know will be the last time they see each other. And he asks what they will be to each other in their next lives. She says, I don’t know, he agrees and then says “See you there.”

It’s gut wrenching and heart breaking and I feel like that could be me with you if we don’t do this. I don’t want you to be a what if.

I keep cleaning up my apartment.
Thinking it will clean up my brain.

I want to know if you think about getting better for me.
I want to know if you think about me at all.

You’re not my usual type.
You’re larger.
In multiple ways.
Physically, you played football and rugby and look like it.
Mentally, you have strong opinions and care deeply.
Emotionally, you don’t shy away from the hard conversations.
You’re not my usual type.
I wasn’t attracted to you by your jawline or abs.
I was attracted to you First because of your brain.
Second, for the way I felt around you.

I never thought I’d find a snore so comforting.

But it proves to me every moment you’re still laying beside me.

Is there a world where you and I exist together?
It feels like there must be.
Somewhere in the dimensions of reality similar to this one.
In some, I stay in movies.
In some I never leave home.
In one, I’m married to Jason and we raise 7 kids in a Baptist church.
In another I’m an equine vet.
Another, a professional golfer.
And in another -  I am with you in two lawn chairs by a lake, cooking dinner over an open flame as we watch the sun go down & I kiss you good night.

Just not in this one.

I put a hoodie on when I’m high.

I have a hoodie on.
And I’m thinking about you.

Snap memories open up videos from five years ago.
It’s from your birthday in San Fran.
Five years ago today I was so in love with you.
Five years ago I thought you were forever.
Five years later I’m recovering from the heartbreak of another man on your birthday.
I forgot it was your birthday.

Maybe the reason writing is so soothing to me is because I truly am a woman of my word.
I know these letters I write will not be lies.

We kissed to ring in the new year.
You are one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
You brought me breakfast in bed.
I’m scared that you don’t mean the things you say.
I’m not sure if it’s my intuition talking or self-preservation because if I believed what you said.
God if 50% of it was real.
I’d be in way too deep.

I keep thinking if I let myself feel it fully it will eventually stop. Doesn’t it have to eventually stop?

Why is it the deepest, most real feelings are the hardest to write?

Why do I keep backspacing over the truth?

Why is it that with every breakup since
I think of you
I cry at the loss of you

So I must admit, you are not the first man I have written poems about. I know, I’m sorry to burst the bubble but I am in fact a hopeless romantic and have been writing poems in a journal online since I was in high school. The lack of emotion is actually just emotional suppression.

But the funny thing is, with all of the other men, I wrote about them like I started in your entry. Poetic. For me. Somewhat wistful. A romanization or dramatization of events. Full emo.

But what I have never done, is write in this style about a man. Like a journal entry I am assuming you are going to read one day.

I’ve always thought about giving the poems I wrote about my partner to him on our wedding as a gift.

But with others, I never wrote it in a journal entry or note style like they would actually someday read it.

Maybe that was my subconscious or intuition knowing they never would.

I didn’t get it before.
After you -
The sad love song was no longer dramatic.
The broken poet’s words finally made sense.
The things I thought I was immune
Pierced my skin without warning or a fight.
My armor was no match for the blade of heartbreak.

You cannot find what you are seeking in the arms of another.
You cannot cuddle or **** your way into peaceful oblivion.
You have to carve the chair in which you sit.
You have to make it comfortable.
To make it fit you.
Where your legs are not pressed and remain restless.
One where your back does not feel heavy with the weight of your head.
Only you can mold something to suit your bones.

I just remembered one of our first conversations about relationships.

We were on the treeline ski lift and had just passed the chalet bar. I had just finished telling you about how I had broken up with everyone in relationships. Somewhat in a braggy way - like the “I don’t get dumped I dump thing.” (Gross and cringe looking back.)

You responded with “Well that’s not a good thing.”

And I started justifying it and how I struggle with relationships telling you, I just always feel like I’m losing something in a relationship- reducing myself or just possibilities of the future. Like I’m losing freedom. Losing potential.

You responded again “Well that’s also not a good thing.”

Which of course I agreed was bad but had no hope on fixing.

You continued, “A good relationship should feel expansive, not contracting, that just means you have the wrong person.”

Which, I also knew people in healthy relationships feel like it is additive, not subtractive but I didn’t know if that could ever be me. If I’d ever feel like if I wasn’t settling or compromising in one way or another.

I think that’s one of the first ways I realized I was in love with you. I imagined our life together, growing together, and I didn’t feel like I would have to fit myself in a box. It felt like you could take all of the possibilities of me. It felt like the world would get bigger.

I used to think the feeling of magic could only be found in another person.
The rush you get when two souls connect and the world spins slower and everything feels better.
But I’ve started feeling it lately without people.
I’ve started feeling it alone- looking at my life, my plans, my future, without the fantasy of a partner.
Maybe I just didn’t allow myself to see it before.
I had to always project it on someone else.
But it was always here.
Maybe it’s me.

Is the perfect partner an illusion?
Similar to the Easter Bunny.
People talk about him.
Make eggs and decorate in preparation.
But he is not real.
He also, has nothing to do with the actual holiday he represents.

We are told over and over in life to find a partner.
To seek, to prep, to create pretty little things.
But that’s not what it’s about.
Just like the bunny has a much more shallow story than the resurrection of Christ for the Christian faith.

We are shorting ourselves in life hopping after a perfect partner when the true meaning and happiness of this world is derived from something much deeper.
Something bunnies and pastels will not and cannot fill.

You just have to jump! They said.
But I never wanted to free fall-
Until I saw you in the waters below.

I remember sitting on my roof, guitar in hand. Singing songs about love and dreaming about boys I thought I needed. I remember wanting so very badly to be wanted. For him to come over to talk to me.

The fantasy. Where the boy comes over to you because he cannot stay away.

You are irresistible.
You are the only one.
You are different.
Finally.
Someone realized it. Someone saw it. HE saw it. While drinking a chocolate milkshake in that ******* green lettermen’s jacket he wore so well. Sliding in on my side of the booth. My chest and cheeks flush with blood racing to attempt somehow sooth my overloaded brain.

Will life ever get better?
What drug gives you this high?
What experience is this satisfactory?

We all want to be wanted. And the spoiler to the end of this story is, that never changes.

He told me he had this insecure moment.
Where with everyone else he had gone out with if he thought about the idea of getting serious he believed he’d enhance their life, make it better.

And with me, it was the first time he felt like I would be better off without him. That I could find someone better than him.

I told him he shouldn’t discount himself like that.

He said -

“You don’t understand - you have seen the best of me tonight. I don’t think I’ve seen the best of you.”

But I think he’s wrong.
I don’t think I’ve seen the best in him.

The little cove on Sifnos we hiked to and swam for hours.
The back lot filled with pine trees we rode horses on as kids.
The field of blackberries we’d get splinters in picking enough for a homemade cake.
The nook of your arm, my head on your chest and your hand on my back, as we drift off for a Sunday afternoon nap.

He’s just not into you.
You know it to be true.
You know what it feels like when someone loves you.

He’s just not that into you,
You know it to be true.
If he was you wouldn’t be making up excuses of why he didn’t text you.

He’s just not that into you
You know it to be true.
And that’s ok, because you never loved him.

My brain is wasting all of its time on these **** men.
Not worth it’s time or processing power.
I should be using it to build my empire.
I’m never happy after thinking about love interests.
At best, I’m left with an anxious longing.
So why do I put myself in that loop?
I am the happiest, and feel the most alive when I am creating.
Creating new, powerful things.
Growing.
Why do I let myself get distracted by the things that don’t bring me joy.
It’s time for some mental spring cleaning.

Do you want me to love you?
I mean do you actually want THIS love. THIS life.
Because if you want me to love you, truly.
It will be engulfing.
I will love you to depths you have never felt.
It will be perspective shifting.
It will change both of us.

And here’s the thing.
I don’t think you’ve ever been loved properly before.
And I’d like to do just that.

I wonder if I’ll be a mom.
I wonder if I’d be a good one.
I wonder if that mole on my arm should be checked out.
I wonder what I’d look like with lip filler.
I wonder what my friends value about me the most.
I wonder if they all think I’m a good friend.
I wonder what it would take to just force everyone to switch to electric vehicles and if oil money is the only real thing that’s been stopping it.
I wonder what it feels like to bring someone home for Christmas I’m really excited about.
I wonder if I’ll ever have that feeling.

I read a poem that said,

“Find me where happiness doesn’t feel like a false spring.”

I think that’s when you know you’re in love.

You are no longer looking for the storm.
The other shoe to drop.
The reality check.

You’re all in.
Fully abandoning any thought of snow.

Looking for comfort
On the screen of a device that won’t give it to me
Fatigue finally wins

My first takeaway from my trip was that I love Greg and I should tell him.

But is that the right thing to do?

I keep having this vision of him making ***** jokes in the kitchen while cooking and I blurt it out and he gets wide eyed & overwhelmed with the weight of me finally vocalizing what I think we’ve both known for a while.

Am I too much for him? Would I be a burden? Would I keep him from blossoming into the most free and interesting version of himself?

Am I not enough? Do I not want and care about enough of the things he does? Does it matter that I don’t have a strong conviction to compost and fight for the environment like him?

Is me saying, the thing we know and I am pretty sure both feel going to just mess up the whole beautiful dance we’ve been doing the past 2+ years?

Should I take my own advice in my old Greg poem of just seeing where it goes, letting it leave easy if it does instead of fighting for us?

Or is he consciously or subconsciously waiting for me to express my feelings because if he did it, if he were to match me, He would have a lot more on the line than me. Relocating to a new city, changing his plans, making new friends. And I am already here. Grounded with the inability to move for a few years.

Will he be willing to take the leap?
Is it possible that us together could be just as wonderful as I imagine?
Growing together and encouraging each others individual growth.

Relationships and commitments have always made me feel like I’m giving up something.
That I would go from all of these possibilities of me to this limited, reduced version with a more fixed future and outcome.
But with him, I feel like I am expanding.

There surely must be some evolutionary benefit for me constantly assuming the best in people.

I still believe in us.
I still believe we’ll make it.
I catch glimpses of him coming back to me.
I know I can be his home if he’ll let me.

The months I felt the deepest I kept quiet.
I lay in bed and wonder if I’ll ever feel sure again.
If anyone will ever calm my waters that deeply.
Ignite me as much as he did.
How many I love you’s I didn’t say.
Even though I knew he felt it too.

It would have still ended in ruin.
Still here this October night searching for meaning.
I just wish I would have allowed myself to fully burst while it happened.
Right now I’m a malfunctioned firework.
Never truly went off to see beauty in the sky.
And yet, I am here. On the ground. Exploded.

Love comes out so easily sometimes it feels unintentional.
Like boiling water in a *** on the stove.
It just bubbles out of me.
You might think from these poems I’m a hopeless romantic.
One who tosses rocks and windows, says I love you first and does grand gestures.
I don’t.
I don’t share these poems.
I don’t breakdown to love songs.
Most people say I’m intimidating.
The love comes out in every small action.
Giving them the bigger bowl of pasta.
The piece of bread with more garlic.
Remembering their Tuesday plans.
Wanting to understand how they think.
Finding that perfect, thoughtful gift they never asked for but they love.
Really listening when they speak.
Giving an unsolicited head rub just because I’m really good at them - and I like to hear them sigh with relief as they melt into my legs.
Just like the bubbles in the ***, one by one, they boil out of me.
Often, to evaporate.

Thinking about packing makes me realize how much I am going to miss this place.
It feels like a little death leaving what has been home for 5 months.
I’m aware this may be an end to us.
To the winter/spring romance that felt so easy.
To our friend group, the six of us, skiing all day and partying all night at Pete’s.
To the dinners we cooked in this tiny kitchen with two working burners.
To being the big spoon.
To showering together despite the **** water pressure.
To waking up with my head on your chest and feeling so at ease.
I don’t want it to end.
I hope it doesn’t.
But I also won’t try to force anything.
What we have is too good to end in strain.
If it has to end, I’d rather it end as it came.
Easy, out the front door with a smile on our faces as we laugh one last time at one of your dumb ******* jokes.

So even though you have broken my heart, yet again, I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.

I think you were the love that gave me words.

But never bothered to teach me the language.

Someday, someone will speak to me until I’m fluent.

Maybe it’s for the best.
It probably is.
Just letting go of any hope of you.
Even the hope I don’t admit to myself.
I need to shut it all out.
I know logically you are wrong for me.
Now I need it to sink in.

But no one seems to ever be able to tell me. Is it brave to quit or is it brave to stay?

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever love someone the same as they love me.
Will it always be too much or not enough or somewhere in between?
I'm not sure why I have it wrong time and time again.
But I always end up feeling lonely or want them more as just a friend.
Will someone ever love me like I love them?
Will we ever walk down the same path and not have to pretend?
I'm not sure why I have these vices but my grandpa I think had them too. I found poems he wrote on a typewriter, back in '62.
They weren't about love but they rhymed in a way that showed he hurt. If I could only know the memories that lay in his body behind his tobacco smoke-infused shirt.