The house that I grew up in
went up for sale today.
The house I lived in
from ages eight to eighteen.
The house I wrote my first songs in.
The house I had endless sleepovers in with my childhood friends.
It was in this place that I grew
(And wilted)
And grew
(And wilted).
That house is a land mine of memories. So many ghosts.
Ghosts of my uncle playing guitar in the living room.
Ghosts of my mother at three am telling me between drunken slurs how irresponsible I am for forgetting to turn off the basement light.
Ghosts of my parents friends coming over to “jam”.
Ghosts of me singing old jazz tunes with my grandfather as he played the grand piano.
The music, the laughter.
The drugs, the alcohol.
The screaming the yelling
The trying the crying.
The endless fighting.
The hopelessness and then
The hope.
The loneliness that never left me
Even when I left the house.
The late night hysterical phone calls to my first ever boyfriend,
who brought me about as much comfort as my mascara stained pillowcase.

The house that I grew up in went up for sale today.
The for sale sign is on the lawn.


I guess a home
Really has nothing to do with a house
After all.
Or at least that’s what I keep
Telling myself.

struggling to accept
that in moments like these
all i can do for you
is pray.

you came to me at a time in my life
when i needed it the most,
for it was literal life or death,
though neither of us
really knew that then.
i didn't know what hit me until later on,
when you mailed me your journal and trusted me
with the deepest darkest terrifyingly beautiful parts
of you. when i gave you endless warnings about how
difficult i am to have around and you put your hands
in the air and said
i don't care. i love you. i'm choosing to stay.
it was like i was waiting all my life to have someone
say those words and actually mean them.
you meant them.
i have, to this day, never met anyone
so completely compassionate, sensitive, intriguing, magnetic, inspiring,
funny, self aware, hopeful, wise, intelligent,
unconditionally loving, and forgiving
as you.
i often find it difficult to write
about you because i become so frustrated when
i attempt to come up with the right words
to accurately capture
how much i love you.
let me just say: there are no words for this.
words words words
i need words to describe
how everlastingly thankful i am to have met you,
how you have taught me more about what it means
to be a woman than my own mother,
how God heals me through your love and undying
support.
how i've regained so much of my self worth by having you
around, reminding me who i am
and how important it is to remember who you are,
each and every day.
this is not like any other love i have ever known.
this is pure,
this is real,
this is rare.
distance is the only thing that separates us,
but even that fails to keep us apart.
i miss you i miss you i miss you
i love you i love you i love you
you are the most precious creature i have ever
had the privilege to know.
*i will see you soon, love.

it started with me wanting you
to love me
which lead me to wanting you
to save me
which lead me to wanting you
to leave me
which lead me to wanting you
to touch me
which lead me to wanting you
to use me
which lead me to wanting you
to comfort me
which lead me to wanting you
to stop
loving, saving, leaving, touching, using, comforting
me
which lead me to wanting you
to never contact me again.

these desires repeated themselves
more times than i can count
and in the end,
i ran in circles knowing full well
you would never kick the habit
of chasing my tail.

we were silly magnets with each other.
there will always be a place for you in my heart
but some things just have to stop,
for good.

the summer passed me by
as quick as the spider that runs
across my bedroom floor when i
can't sleep at night.
catch me if you can it says,
reminding me of the
inevitable.
summer is like that,
it comes and you watch your friends
leave and you hug them and
you fill in the spaces of silence
inside the margins of your notebook
knowing full well that writing the same
sentence over and over does not make
the time pass any faster. but you don't care.
then they come home and sit you down and say,
"want to see the pictures i took on my trip?"
and you always say yes
when you always mean no
and you smile and you tell them
how nice of a time it looked like they had.
and when they ask you how your summer was,
you shrug and say "good"
when really you mean
uneventful, restless, fleeting,
unmemorable.
lonely.
you want to tell them about the two weeks
you spent home alone sleeping on the couch,
watching Disney movies,
you want to tell them how paralyzed you were
by lack of affection and touch and
laughter.
you want to tell them how the heat only
amplified that gaping hole, confirming
your sinking suspicions of always feeling like
you were missing something.
you want to tell them to slow down,
to listen.
you want to tell them how scared you are,
now that summer is over.
you want them to confess to you
how terrified they are, too.
you want to reach into their eyes and find
a river of undeniable resilience
that might sustain you for the next four months,
up until you leave this city.
you want them to spend the night with you
just so you can remember what it feels like
to be held, even if it's only for one night.
summer's almost gone,
despite the remaining heat and humidity.
you challenge the night with one-sided conversations
with yourself in the dark,
even though you know
that is the last place you could ever find
some clarity.
you count the backpacks on the children
and the number of minutes it takes
for a traffic jam to subside.
summer's almost gone,
and you are running out of places
to hide.

yes, i remember
meeting you, your candle, extended
i lighted it without you even having to
ask.

you miss that, don't you?
you miss that spark?
you deemed me an angel guiding you
through a never-ending tunnel
of self perpetuating fear and loathing
and dis ease.

yes, what we had was real.  

but i couldn't save you, and even though
i tried, i didn't in the end.
no one could.

but

i was there for you
when no one else was
we were both starving
people, then.

i hardly remember who i was, really.
i was fragmented and lonely and sad
but i was given hope upon meeting you,
and all i knew
was that i loved you
and that seemed to be enough.

but it wasn't, as i learned
the hard way. years have passed
and you contact me every now and then,
out of the blue, as if to remind me
of a person i once knew.

there are some people
you will always know
they become a part of you,
the people that hurt you,
the people that loved you,
the people that left you - haven't
actually left you.

the last time i heard from you,
you said it would be the last time
i would ever hear from you
and there was
a strange peace i felt in that.

because

certain wounds eventually stop
reopening, certain theatres eventually
end up closing,
certain seeds eventually
need some sowing.

always hoping for the best
and expecting the worst,
i see the sadness in everything,
but i also the the beauty,
which is why
i laugh too hard, i cry too easily,
you will find yourself always asking me
either "what's the matter?" or
"what's so funny?"
and i will find silly answers for both
that will never suffice because
i never have any.
i am looking for them just as carelessly
as you.

and i think we both know
that you don't mean it when you say
"see you soon"
because how soon is now?
it's always later than sooner
for most things, anyway.
it's hard not to spend a lifetime
waiting wasting wondering
when something extraordinary is going to
come along, when you will stop feeling
like dry eraser remnants sprinkled across
an old writer's desk,
when you confront the fact
that you've always only ever been
a big and lonely mess
of please love me, please leave me, please show me
how to start being more and stop
being less.