We were best friends
We broke up
things are ugly
Our friends have picked sides
not because they were forced but because they weren't really my friends to begin with

You couldn't decide
Couldn't be friends
Couldn't be lovers
Couldn't handle me in your life at all

"If you are out, I will not be"
"Sorry doesn't fix anything. Us not seeing one another anymore does."

You have spun yourself as the good guy.
And they will call you mature.
You've handled this the best way you could.
Sometimes things just don't work out.
It wasn't your fault.
These things just happen
Sometimes

I will be crazy
Or unstable
Or just need to try harder to move past it.
I will be the bad guy.

I will stand drunk here in my apartment as you stick your drunken tongue down my throat
And your drunken fingers inside me

And I will wait for the morning to come so you can blame me
blame alcohol
blame anything except your lack of self
self respect, self worth, self control

Again.

I got butterflies hearing it
You got drunk and told me in a smokey bar
Earnestly, clumsily, but in the dearest way
You don't remember
You weren't quite ready
It wasn't how you wanted to do it

So we pretend you haven't told me yet.

I've wanted to tell you in so many smokey bars
On street corners when we're walking
In bed in the early morning
In the shower, suds covered, soaked and laughing
In my kitchen, dancing and spinning me around
On grocery trips and in speeding cars.

You haven't told me yet
But I'm bursting to tell you again

You're in or you're out.
Make the choice.
Decide.
I'm here, with an open heart,
willing to set aside my baggage and travel this unexplored road unburdened by my past.
I'd love for you to join me.

"I'm home."
My whole plan for the night has changed.
"Let me throw on some real clothes and makeup"
"You don't need makeup"
"Oh the makeup isn't for you. The makeup is so I can deal with reflective surfaces."
I am there in less than a half hour.
You wrap me in a hug.
It's as if some sort of missing gear drops into place in that moment.
So many things are said in that one embrace.
Did it look that way to the casual observer? Or did it look like an average hug between friends?
There were no casual observers.
We're in a bar.
Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.
You drink yours with Coke.
Mine has honey and is on the rocks.
"Are you two talking? Seeing one another?"
In unison: "No. Just friends."
Did anyone smell the lie before I recognized it?
My leg rests against yours.
You text me to communicate thoughts over the others' heads.
"Are you okay? I know he's a bit much. We can leave?"
"I'm fine. He's fine. Do you want to leave?"
We're leaving to join friends at a house.
We route through an ally to visit your brother's first.
You're in front of me. Beside me. around me. Kissing me. My lips remember things from years ago I'd told myself to forget happened. I shove you away. Confused. In shock. Dumbstruck. Awestruck.
"Wha...wher...where did that come from?"
"Oh. I see how it is. I'm sorry. Maybe I misread."
"No. Just...wha..."
I don't remember what else I said to you. Only what I felt. What I still feel. Shock. Relief. Awe. Joy. Disbelief.
I didn't shove you away because I wanted you away. I wanted to pull you in, ******* your hair in my needy hands and communicate to you things I've never had the guts to speak; wrap every inch of me around you and show you what my life had been without you; what it could be with you. I shoved you away because this is not what we do. We do not cross that line. We do not open that box. We do not acknowledge this...whatever this is. We ignore and deny. Even still, I didn't shove aside your next kiss. Or the next.

I live to see you look at me like I'm the most beautiful creature you've ever laid eyes on.
You brush my hair behind my ear gently and run your fingers along my cheek.
"You have the most beautiful ears.
Ears are such a strange thing to love about a person, but I do love them.
I love your ears. Little, delicate pixie ears.
My tiny manic pixie dream girl."
I live to hear that I'm yours.
I live to hear you say anything really

I'm drinking good coffee and eating good foods and watching fires burn low and gazing at crisp, clear, sparkly night skies.

And you aren't!

I'm reading books. I'm watching films. I'm listening to new music. I'm learning new things. I'm meeting new people and growing, growing, growing.

And you're not!

I'm creating art works and planning and writing and going new places and exploring new things. I am walking up city side walks and down country roads and hiking up old trails and seeing ruins.

And you are not.

I wish you were here with me; doing these things.

**** you. You aren't.

Have you ever been Cinderella at the ball?
Have you ever stood there so completely in awe of the impossible wonderful you're experiencing?
Have you ever had to leave the ball so no one sees your riches turn to rags
Return to the drudgery of a reality full of tyrants and sycophants;
Thinking that you'll be okay going back to being just you after the clock strikes midnight?
How do you go back?
How do you ever taste anything the same again?
How do you learn to not ache for that kind of love; that kind of beauty?
How do you go back to living as a scullery maid?
How do you go back to the cold hearth alone?
Do you tell yourself you never deserved it?
Do you tell yourself it wasn't real?
Do you tell yourself the prince never cared?
Do you just sit alone by your hearth, covered in the day's cinders and hope beyond hope that it wasn't all in your head?

It took me 10 years to let you in. 10 years to allow you to look at me and truly see me. 10 years for me to let you look at the piece of me I've never gotten back. That piece is yours. Hell, all of me is yours if you want it. I don't know if I can bear to be anyone else's now, knowing what I know; how things could be. And this is why it took 10 years. I've always been afraid that once I tried you I wouldn't have a taste for anything else. I let you in completely. No walls. No pretenses. No pretending I didn't. Now what?

These places feel strange.
They smell
Wrong.
I dare not taste them.
I want my home back:
The familiar smell
Arms which feel like comfort
A face which looks at mine and sees me
Not my skin or my hair or my eyes
But me:
My soul.
I want to come home.
When can I come home?

You're my other.
You understand.
You engage.
You listen and mull things over and discuss.
You let me run
and you run with me.
You don't just let me run and wait for me to come back.
You run next to me.
You exhilarate me.
You allow me to breathe.
You breathe for me when I can't breathe for myself.
I miss you terribly.

Don't really know when it's okay to talk to you
Is it okay to talk to you?
You only answer at certain times
Maybe you're just busy
Maybe you have nothing to talk about
I want to talk to you about everything though.
I want to tell you about my day
About my classes
My lack of art this week
My professors
My classmates
My job
Veronica's dog.
I feel like I would be a bother if I did that.
So I try to say nothing.

There's a sweet spot
between the crazy passion of a newly begun fire
and the embers of a fire which someone has tried to extinguish.
During that nice slow burn there is bliss to be found.
There is beauty and warmth.
As long as you keep feeding it and respecting it, it won't go away.
You can keep that fire nice and controlled
warm for you for a lifetime.
Or you can douse it with cold water, hope it goes out,
try to pretend you never had a fire to begin with;
convince yourself that you were going to get burned if you kept enjoying its warmth.

" I just felt the need to tell you
you're beautiful."
Why did you feel that need?
Do I strike you as someone who doesn't know,
who isn't told often,
who is looking for your attention?
Did you need to force me to pay attention to your energy?
Did I invite your attention by entering your visual space?
Was I asking for it?

"Your boyfriend,
you probably have one of those,
is a very lucky man.
You're gorgeous."
Is that so?
I don't have one.
Haven't in years.
Why didn't you ask my name
my occupation
my dreams?

"You're very attractive.
You probably have a great man in your life."
I don't.
No man.
Great or otherwise.
If I were ugly would I be less deserving of great?
What would you say makes a great man?
How do you know I belong with one?

"You're very lucky to be here with her.
She's the cutest girl in the room."
I am not his property.
You sound like you're offering a compliment on his dog.
I am not a dog or a thing to be complimented.
Did he groom me this way?
Have you even heard me speak?

I am not the summation of my experiences with men.
I am not the totality of my beauty or outward traits.
I am not property
I am not a token
I am not a symbol of worth.

I am a woman
with a voice
talents
feelings
wants
needs

I am a full life.
I am a woman.

I'm so ******* cold.
Cold outside.
Cold inside.
Literally.
Metaphorically.
Cold.
My nose runs.
I quiver.
My soul aches.
I hunch up.
Try to hide under covers.
Summer is over.
Winters do not suit me.

Do not presume to tell me what is good for me
How I'm feeling
What I want
What I need
While I may not always know
I know you know less
When I say I can handle something
I can
When I say I want something
I do
Don't you dare try to control my life from afar with your words or lack there of

Today I am sadness
Today the world is too much
I am angst
I am worry
I am holding back tears
Today I am unrequited
Today I am longing
I am concern
I am need
I am just going through the motions
Today I am confused
Today I am a headache
I am a heartache
I am weighed upon

Do you know what it's like to rewire your brain?
To lie to yourself for years about something?
Because that lie is easier to understand than what you know in your gut?
Because you can't explain what you know?
Because it's easier to lie to yourself so well that even you believe it than it is to acknowledge that you are terrified and lost and alone and that you don't know when that's going to stop?

I knew this was going to happen
It was never a question of if
Only when
Knew it the first night

I stepped into your embrace
"God it's good to see you."
We got drinks.
We left together.
I was still trying to fight myself.
I thought you'd be gone in a day...a week...a month at most.
That's why I pushed you away in the alley.

This. Raw. Open. Angst. Sadness.
Where I am now.
I was afraid of it.
I was afraid of letting you in.
Of letting you see me.
Of letting you have me.
Of letting myself have you.
I was afraid of losing you.

Then I was afraid of what not having you would do.
Of ignoring you, pushing this back into a box trying to convince myself of things I know aren't true:

"We're better apart,"
"You don't love me,"
"I'm the only one who sees this;
feels this;
fights with this"

Scared of regretting more than I already did
My only regrets belong to you.

I let go.
I dove in.
I swam.
You sat on the shore.
You watched.
You left.
I knew you were going to.
You said you would.

I didn't go my whole life without swimming.

Calm.
There's a resounding calm over me.
The day was long.
You're not here.
But that's not to say you won't be again.
This hot toddy is perfection.
The only thing that could make it better is your company.
I miss you, but not painfully today.
Today I miss you comfortably;
In a way that says I'm adjusting to whatever this is.

Deliriously happy.
"You look like you won something;
Some sort of prize."

I did.

I won the only prize I've ever given a **** about:

A place in your life.

You cannot keep him afloat.
No one can.
You'll drown yourself if you try.
Keep yourself afloat.
Do things for you.
Make you happy.
Tell him about them.
Include him if he'll be included.
Talk to him.
Talk to him about simple things;
About beautiful things;
About curious things;
About mundane things.
Let him know you're there and floating next to him
That you will help him float if he needs it
But don't you dare drown yourself holding him above the water while you can't breathe.

Understanding.
Safety.
Comfort.
Home.
I sleep better when you're here.
I feel better when you're touching me.
Even just a brush against your leg or your back behind me as I roll over.
You are what I crave the second anything is wrong
and the second anything is right.
You are a comfort I didn't think it possible to have.
I don't know what I give you that keeps you here, but I'm glad of it.
Please stay.

We toss and turn in separate beds
Fighting separate battles
with separate packs of demons.
I'll fight yours if you fight mine
I'll toss when you toss and turn when you turn.
You're right in saying I'd try to take care of you if you let me.
I absolutely would.
I'd remake the world to make you okay.

I surrender.
I'm done fighting it.
I'm done attempting to reason with it.
I'm done attempting to figure out how to manipulate the situation to get anything new or different.
I'm done stressing about how to be
or how to change it.
I'm done worrying about whether or not it's okay.
I love you.
That's it. That's all.
I'm letting go and trusting you with that.
For better or for worse.

You don't talk
I'm afraid I've done wrong;
afraid you've changed your mind; afraid you will change your mind still. I'm afraid.
My past. Your past. Our history.
It makes me afraid.

I miss you.
Not *******.
I miss
You.
I miss your smile when I have a hard time waking up.
I miss you teasing me about my inability to go a day without spilling food on myself.
I miss knowing what you're thinking about; all ten things.
I miss the way we never walk in step.
I miss your wolffish grin when you're about to say something ****.
I miss the way you look at me and actually see who I am.
I miss talking to you after work until you fall asleep in my passenger seat; trying to stay awake but failing in spite of yourself.
I miss the way your hair sticks up eight different directions in the morning like a super Sayan
I miss conversations around the clock.
I miss your worries and your fears;
Your concern
Your empathy
Your laugh.
I miss you.

I feel bound.
*******.
Caged.
This lack of action
Lack of knowing
Sitting tight
Waiting for you to return to me
Ties me in knots.
Turns me inside out.
Fills me with fury and fear and upset.
And need.

It's not feasible for me to depend on you to wrap me up and protect me from the world as much as I would like that to be so.

I can't come curl up on your lap every time the world takes a swing at me.

I can't call you in the middle of every busy day to whine that people are irritating.

I can't expect you to be there every night to hear me vent or emote about my day.

I can't depend on your comfort. I need to depend on me.

Still, I'm sitting here trying to calm down

And I ******* miss you.

I want you.
I do.
I want to sleep next to you.
I want to have morning coffee with you.
I want to tell you about the stupid things that happen during my day.
I want to cook dinner with you.
I want to shower the day off with you and stroke your hair as you relax before bed.
I want to talk deep into the night with my cheek resting in the supple skin where your neck meets your shoulder.
I want to kiss your bearded jaw line and fall asleep nestled against you; fit around you
where I belong.

You're a different place.
It's understanding.
It's home.
It's pure bliss.

I choke back tears that I know are irrational.
You scared me.
Knowing, imagining what I would feel to no longer know you existed somewhere was a terrifying thought experiment.

You're unsure your potential is worth keeping around.
You love life enough to leave it and protect everyone from you.
**** your protection. You know how I feel about that.
"Everything will be okay"?
"It always is"?
Nothing in me will feel okay until I can wrap my arms around you and feel you again.

I have so much to give.
So much to offer.
And no where to put it
It's this constant feeling
Like I know what I am, what I want, what I need
and there's nothing to do with it right now.
I'm waiting to stumble upon someone with the same needs and wants
and massive soul with too much to give.
I'm waiting on someone to wake up and live life as much as I do;
to just have this huge energy that wants to play and mingle with my massive soul and huge energy.
Do you reach a time where people suddenly love life?
Do people start to feel more alive
or do they stay mostly dead
I don't want to feel dead.
My vulnerable open loud insides need people with the same guts.
I need people who feel familiar;
people who love loudly and often.

There once was a time when I thought that if we just spent time together and tried on one another that we'd find we were ill fit for one another;

that we would move on rather than sit around in ill fitted clothing.

What I didn't account for is you becoming my favorite thing to wear.

You don't fit improperly at all, rather you're the most comfortable thing I've ever worn.

If people were to be created in pairs
or halves,
he is my other.
He is complimentary.
Designed for me.
Fit for me.
We are a matched set.
He is my kind.
And I am his.

You didn't say, "Come here and stop being so scornful, you stubborn little woman."

So I didn't say, "Why should I?"

And You didn't say, "Because I love you."

And I didn't put aside my fears and doubts to bury myself in your arms and say, "I know."

And You never held me while I cried happy tears of relief as I added, "I love you too."

Some meals you tire of before they're finished.
You push your plate away
the taste ash in your mouth
finished with even the idea of that flavor gracing your pallet again.

Some meals you devoir wantonly until there's nothing left.
They leave you hungry still.
You are forced to go find more to eat
another meal to fill you up better; more completely.

Some meals you nurse as long as you can.
They are savored tiny bite by tiny bite
you hoping to drag out the pleasure as long as you can
not wanting it to end.

Some meals you make as often as possible.
They become your favorite
delicious and effortless.
You eat them often without regret of calories or regard for consequences.

We’re sitting on a hill. We’re listening to someone over the age of 40 introduce a band he says is lyrically good. I half-heartedly cheer when they take the stage. He looks at me, eyes twinkling and says,

“No, no, no. Like you mean it.”

“But....fine. Wooooo!”

“Come on. Like you mean it!” he chides, grinning. I relent and attempt to cheer ‘like I mean it.'

I let out an enthusiastic, “WOOOOOO hahahaha !”

I’m laughing as I cheer, finding that meaning it is fun. It’s invigorating. Being here with him, meaning it is perfectly fine. It’s been so long since I’ve had fun; so long since I’ve felt alive.

Feeling alive is meaning it. It’s just going, doing, feeling. It’s giving someone a door through those walls I’ve so carefully crafted. It’s the horrible hangover you get when you realize you’ve had too much ‘meaning it.' It’s living in the moment. Isn’t life just a compilation of moments anyway? Always mean it.

I’m a boredom buster
I’m a midnight snack
I’m a pointless drive
I’m an occasional drink to calm the nerves
I’m here nor there
I’m not going to be in the future
Why dwell on the past?

She’s not the kind of girl you put on your “roster” or decide to only see sometimes. The universe isn’t going to throw her at you twice. She’s the kind of girl you lock down as soon as you can. That’s the problem. You know that. You sense it; even if you aren’t ready or can’t give her what she needs. You try. And you fail. Inevitably she gets spooked and you lose her anyway.

She doesn’t need you. She doesn’t need me, or you, or him. Never has and never will. She wants you. She wants you and she isn’t afraid to tell you that; to show you that. She’s not someone you can game; or a game you can play. She doesn’t play.

She takes her love seriously with a side of whimsy. She wants it all and she wants it now. Play with her and she’ll get tired. She'll walk away. She’ll try to poke and **** you in the right direction, but if you take too long you’ll lose her. She knows what she wants and she knows what you want. She knows it better than you do. That’s why you want her. That’s why you want nothing to do with her.

I have days where I laugh for no reason;
absolutely everything amuses me to no end.

I have days where nothing makes me happy;
not hugs, not food, not running, not you.

I have days where everyone is irritating;
I try to tell people. They irritate me too.

I laugh too much. At all the wrong times.
I’m moody. I’m a pain in the ***. I'm going to hurt you.

This whole thing is up to you:

I’ll sleep with you
because I like to.
I’ll wait and see where it goes
because I think you’re worth waiting for.
I’ll be around
because I don’t know how to be anything else

I like you very much,
but I hate acting like it.
I hold back and act aloof
I’m terrified of falling for you
I’m afraid of showing I care about you
I’m afraid you won’t care as much.
It feels like stupidity to admit I want to be with you without knowing how you feel

I like ***, but I also love just sleeping with you wrapped around me.
I sleep better with someone in my bed.
I think you’re gorgeous when you’re fast asleep.
I talk in my sleep, but you do too.

I’m impulsive, but I overthink things.
I’m sensible about most things.
I feel like I’m not being sensible about you.
You don’t know what you want with me
and somehow this is okay.

Seems like yesterday I was 17.
I was a different girl in every way.
I know who I am now and what I’m worth
I think you’ve known from the start.

It creates me.
It controls me.

It frees me.
It motivates me.

It stunts me.
It protects me.

It defines me.

It destroys me.