after a strange dream, really a moving collage of memories with you on the fringes, a stack of cards told me it meant an end, a book and a database, all compiled by people i've never met or spoken to, told me personally that it was time to move on. to leave this place, to go to another, or that i'd maybe even arrived someplace new already.
but i miss your driveway.
i could have been a fucking creep so many times, and i came close, believe me. i just wanted to see that tree in front, park across the street, and see you look out the window or open the door. i wanted to know if your car was there, if you even still drive the same car, what you might be doing in your room (and whether it looked the same) or wherever else you might be. it's too much to wonder sometimes, wonder what course of action could have made it so i was meant to be there. but no, i'm a ghost, and you're a shoebox in a dream. you don't want to think about me, and i bet that if you do, you feel the sort of discomfort like passing nausea or an awkward glance from someone with whom you used to share secrets. if you don't believe i ever cared, don't think i really kept those secrets, don't think i treasured those tiny spaces and workings of fingertips and eyelashes, well you should take this (me, here, miles and miles away and even further in time and actions and regrets and everything else filling this distance) to prove you wrong. it is the most comfortable ache i know now (of all the aches that have settled into my heart over this time, most of which have nothing to do with you) to wonder about you, about what could have been, to indulge myself not to forget each dream you appear in (there are sparse now) and to allow myself to believe over this time the products of my unconscious are some universal cue that you've forgiven me, or maybe even that a chance encounter will confirm that, one day.
no, nothing about you is for me anymore, i'm allowed only the memories i chose to keep, and those i didn't soil with foolishness. it's hard to live a life based on what ifs, but for now they are all i have, and i admit, i'm getting better at it.
4.16.2011
12.06.2010
two more dreams since the last one
and it's like i can't move forward in the steps laid out for me, the ones that lead me toward waking up without the echo of your voice in my ears, time after ceaseless time.
the aches i face are beyond unheard sorries and unwanted penances; the principal of so much regret as the basis for my day to day is my downfall and one of the only things that keeps me feeling anything at all.
every dream is a little more than the last, a longer look, an extra word and less hesitation, a more meaningful touch or gesture. lately things are taking a turn for the insincere and bitter, and the colors are nolonger vibrant and beautiful; now, despite hearing your voice preserved like my memory were a jar and spending my waking life reprocessing, again and again, feelings i let (or forced) myself to forget, it's a relief to wake into the same certainty of you not missing me, rather than the confusing arena of my dreams where it seems you want to forgive me, that time is taking its toll in a purely subconscious way.
and if this is true, i don't know what the future holds, and what lonliness and regret will give way to. i don't know what it means that after all this time, i still dream of you enough to keep me wondering what the reality in waking life has to do with those plots as mixed up as my feelings about you (new versus old).
maybe i should not even have feelings about you, and i should keep dreaming to wean myself from the promise of remembering.
maybe it's almost, finally, time to forget, to give up on you like you gave up on me.
the aches i face are beyond unheard sorries and unwanted penances; the principal of so much regret as the basis for my day to day is my downfall and one of the only things that keeps me feeling anything at all.
every dream is a little more than the last, a longer look, an extra word and less hesitation, a more meaningful touch or gesture. lately things are taking a turn for the insincere and bitter, and the colors are nolonger vibrant and beautiful; now, despite hearing your voice preserved like my memory were a jar and spending my waking life reprocessing, again and again, feelings i let (or forced) myself to forget, it's a relief to wake into the same certainty of you not missing me, rather than the confusing arena of my dreams where it seems you want to forgive me, that time is taking its toll in a purely subconscious way.
and if this is true, i don't know what the future holds, and what lonliness and regret will give way to. i don't know what it means that after all this time, i still dream of you enough to keep me wondering what the reality in waking life has to do with those plots as mixed up as my feelings about you (new versus old).
maybe i should not even have feelings about you, and i should keep dreaming to wean myself from the promise of remembering.
maybe it's almost, finally, time to forget, to give up on you like you gave up on me.
12.01.2010
white lies
it doesn't even feel real knowing you tell someone else the secrets that used to belong to the spaces between our respective lips and ears. displaced but not replaced, where do i fit into the picture you never finished erasing before changing your viewpoint and starting over? and it's fine, that you need to make changes and that i don't fit into what makes you happy- because you know i never wanted you unhappy- but it's not fair to appropriate what isn't entirely yours.
all those certain groups of words we fumbled to turn into archetypes of that dynamic, how am i supposed to feel seeing that parts i loaned to the bigger picture hang so far out of my view?
your silence says so much more than civil words ever could. they keep my apologies afloat, keep unspoken goodbyes hanging in the air like breath meeting a world too cold to let it survive; we're passing clouds, indeterminate shapes, we're bitterness-we are angry and it means nothing but ruin if you don't say it out loud.
at night it's worst, and i often feel like even the stars i search for answers can see that something is missing from me; they direct my thoughts to the places it might be hiding, content in your bed like a sleeping lover or underneath like monsters waiting; in hollows and crevices i couldn't have memorized better were they my own.
and it's true that i love you, because love fades and falls away, love gets bruised up and love loses faith and hope, but love doesn't die when it lives in the kind of heart that still remembers the phantom shadow of decoration removed from its walls.
my heart, it beats the same whether you think my name or not, but i can tell that it knows when you do, that it wishes it had words, wishes for ladders to hang them up high enough for us both to, for once, see clearly what it meant to say but never got the chance to.
i think you want me to miss you, as sure as remembering you helps me sleep despite it being a coldly pointed finger at every spot you used to keep warm. i won't forget those instants, how they seemed to wrap themselves in cellophane, tried to prevent the tangles knotted by sharpened corners of the moments we'd rather forget and maybe took too close to heart. those little points of light are beyond regret and guilt, existing only because they do, a reminder of the bright and overwhelming truth it's too late to digest by the time it finally reaches our eyes. i hope she's keeping you warm and that my frantic wishing doesn't disturb your sleep, i hope over these nights your eyes become accustomed to what sentiments i've tucked in the spaces of sky that you can't ignore even with eyes closed, and i think when you finally adjust to that light you'll see that i've been leaving it on for you.
all those certain groups of words we fumbled to turn into archetypes of that dynamic, how am i supposed to feel seeing that parts i loaned to the bigger picture hang so far out of my view?
your silence says so much more than civil words ever could. they keep my apologies afloat, keep unspoken goodbyes hanging in the air like breath meeting a world too cold to let it survive; we're passing clouds, indeterminate shapes, we're bitterness-we are angry and it means nothing but ruin if you don't say it out loud.
at night it's worst, and i often feel like even the stars i search for answers can see that something is missing from me; they direct my thoughts to the places it might be hiding, content in your bed like a sleeping lover or underneath like monsters waiting; in hollows and crevices i couldn't have memorized better were they my own.
and it's true that i love you, because love fades and falls away, love gets bruised up and love loses faith and hope, but love doesn't die when it lives in the kind of heart that still remembers the phantom shadow of decoration removed from its walls.
my heart, it beats the same whether you think my name or not, but i can tell that it knows when you do, that it wishes it had words, wishes for ladders to hang them up high enough for us both to, for once, see clearly what it meant to say but never got the chance to.
i think you want me to miss you, as sure as remembering you helps me sleep despite it being a coldly pointed finger at every spot you used to keep warm. i won't forget those instants, how they seemed to wrap themselves in cellophane, tried to prevent the tangles knotted by sharpened corners of the moments we'd rather forget and maybe took too close to heart. those little points of light are beyond regret and guilt, existing only because they do, a reminder of the bright and overwhelming truth it's too late to digest by the time it finally reaches our eyes. i hope she's keeping you warm and that my frantic wishing doesn't disturb your sleep, i hope over these nights your eyes become accustomed to what sentiments i've tucked in the spaces of sky that you can't ignore even with eyes closed, and i think when you finally adjust to that light you'll see that i've been leaving it on for you.
9.26.2010
at this rate i'll probably never stop dreaming.
dream last night: at siu, wandering around for a party, but parts of the city looked like chinatown, twinkle lights and good luck cats, that sort of thing.
you rolled into town, right next to our car. i saw all your friends, my heart leapt, your profile and that red shirt in my periphery, losing it.
you look at me in the sort of way you don't really look at someone; i try hard not to stare.
i'm not even sure if you're real anymore, i realize i almost forgot what your face looks like.
front porch party, we're there and so are you. you seem wounded and vulnerable, i'm giddy with fear, i feel like you will evaporate.
i hear you telling me i'm wrong, telling me i don't exist and neither do you, telling me nothing at all because your silence is aimed like a flaming arrow in my direction.
i'm sorry, sorry, i'm so sorry.
the words well up like hot springs then dribble out my mouth like a leaky faucet; it will never, ever be enough to be as sorry as i am.
this is only a problem because i could never be more sorry.
not for a second do i forget, awake or asleep, crying or laughing, you're the leftover thought pattern and missing you is becoming the glue that holds everything else together. but the peices, they don't fit so well, having cracked at the edges and gotten mixed up as you cracked them all with those 7 pages, that one sentiment, those final words- leave me alone.
i enter doors, i go up stairs, i'm looking for something that makes it real, makes it make sense, but the lights don't go on and when they do it's no one flipping the switch. in places you're not a frantic emptiness takes over me, and soon i am waking up, tumbling, groping the air for the doorknob that opens to where you are.
half conscious, i know the door is locked, then i am gone altogether.
i keep trying to say goodbye, but i just want you to come back.
one day maybe you will, and maybe i won't blame you for the time you were gone.
i won't.
you rolled into town, right next to our car. i saw all your friends, my heart leapt, your profile and that red shirt in my periphery, losing it.
you look at me in the sort of way you don't really look at someone; i try hard not to stare.
i'm not even sure if you're real anymore, i realize i almost forgot what your face looks like.
front porch party, we're there and so are you. you seem wounded and vulnerable, i'm giddy with fear, i feel like you will evaporate.
i hear you telling me i'm wrong, telling me i don't exist and neither do you, telling me nothing at all because your silence is aimed like a flaming arrow in my direction.
i'm sorry, sorry, i'm so sorry.
the words well up like hot springs then dribble out my mouth like a leaky faucet; it will never, ever be enough to be as sorry as i am.
this is only a problem because i could never be more sorry.
not for a second do i forget, awake or asleep, crying or laughing, you're the leftover thought pattern and missing you is becoming the glue that holds everything else together. but the peices, they don't fit so well, having cracked at the edges and gotten mixed up as you cracked them all with those 7 pages, that one sentiment, those final words- leave me alone.
i enter doors, i go up stairs, i'm looking for something that makes it real, makes it make sense, but the lights don't go on and when they do it's no one flipping the switch. in places you're not a frantic emptiness takes over me, and soon i am waking up, tumbling, groping the air for the doorknob that opens to where you are.
half conscious, i know the door is locked, then i am gone altogether.
i keep trying to say goodbye, but i just want you to come back.
one day maybe you will, and maybe i won't blame you for the time you were gone.
i won't.
9.08.2010
just keep on
pretending the high road doesn't look idyllic from the trench that, yes, i dug, but you yourself flung your being into with such force. it takes a force, alright, to divide what the same souls hated to let part (once).
i boil over and burn at the thought of letting cool a passion that burned red hot, knowing it ends in empty black and memories long stripped of any luster. i started the fire and i passed the torch to you, but on my chance at beating back the heat i tried my best to keep you free from that scalding disappointment. remorse is thankless, gratitude a rare happenstance now, and apologies will never suffice to heal what is ultimately self- inflicted.
i boil over and burn at the thought of letting cool a passion that burned red hot, knowing it ends in empty black and memories long stripped of any luster. i started the fire and i passed the torch to you, but on my chance at beating back the heat i tried my best to keep you free from that scalding disappointment. remorse is thankless, gratitude a rare happenstance now, and apologies will never suffice to heal what is ultimately self- inflicted.
8.03.2010
underpants dance.
it's my birthday today, so i'm dancing in my underpants at midnight, as is my tradition. it occurs to me that i am marginally bummed despite it being my birthday. i don't know why this is, don't have a direction in mind for this post, just felt the need to use it to say.. things. blah bleh bluh.
i am becoming so boring, and also i think i am losing it once and for all. normally it would take weeks for me to work up to the things i now say with abandon to anyone who will listen, and especially to those who won't. i have truly entered a space of not caring what anyone thinks about me, being unapologetic and truly learning to embrace myself for my flaws and mistakes and also for my passions. i've become more in touch with who i am and what i want, and it's turned me into what outwardly looks like a more brash, even more forthright, kind of bitchy, spaced- out version of myself. it would seem that at long last, i truly Do Not Give A Fuck.
and that, dear readers, EFFING RULES. some things:
go and paint a picture. i do not care if you can't paint, i do not care if you've never painted or drawn. paint a picture. it is good for your soul. it's nonverbal communication with the universe. it's motility in verse. it's a bunch of other really cool shit everyone needs to experience.
talk to a stranger. branch out, meet new people, and see how surprisingly easy it is to get lost in others rather that being too lost in yourself to notice others.
tell someone exactly what you think of them, good or bad. if you have grievances to air that are distracting you in your life, get them out. if you have a problem with someone, don't accuse, don't blame, don't confront. just say what you need to say, it doesn't matter what happens from then, because it's all about finding the closure you need, and whatever happens after that isn't even up to you.
BE OPEN. everyone has a different point of view, every single one of us. allow yourself to be completely free of selfishness and let down the guard you keep up to refrain from questioning your position, and just understand. empathize. give a shit.
this is advice from myself, directed at myself, that i need to follow. it's vague, because i have some very nondescript issues hindering my personal growth and i need to take steps to better prepare myself to deal with these situations. i am turning into a weirdo. i don't experience my emotions, i just witness them. by the time i've felt something, it's already gone, and it seems my entire existence as it relates to sensation and perception is a game of cat and mouse, me constantly seeking and being evaded by something lasting and effective, something that will snap me into action and out of this bystander mentality. i feel so good about coming into my own, about exploring my passions, but i feel that something is being lost in the translation. i guess this is a bit of a resolution, a reconciliation, a recognition of the past year and my decision to move forward from it instead of trying to keep recreating it. so here's to you, 18. frankly, you sucked. here goes 19.
i am becoming so boring, and also i think i am losing it once and for all. normally it would take weeks for me to work up to the things i now say with abandon to anyone who will listen, and especially to those who won't. i have truly entered a space of not caring what anyone thinks about me, being unapologetic and truly learning to embrace myself for my flaws and mistakes and also for my passions. i've become more in touch with who i am and what i want, and it's turned me into what outwardly looks like a more brash, even more forthright, kind of bitchy, spaced- out version of myself. it would seem that at long last, i truly Do Not Give A Fuck.
and that, dear readers, EFFING RULES. some things:
go and paint a picture. i do not care if you can't paint, i do not care if you've never painted or drawn. paint a picture. it is good for your soul. it's nonverbal communication with the universe. it's motility in verse. it's a bunch of other really cool shit everyone needs to experience.
talk to a stranger. branch out, meet new people, and see how surprisingly easy it is to get lost in others rather that being too lost in yourself to notice others.
tell someone exactly what you think of them, good or bad. if you have grievances to air that are distracting you in your life, get them out. if you have a problem with someone, don't accuse, don't blame, don't confront. just say what you need to say, it doesn't matter what happens from then, because it's all about finding the closure you need, and whatever happens after that isn't even up to you.
BE OPEN. everyone has a different point of view, every single one of us. allow yourself to be completely free of selfishness and let down the guard you keep up to refrain from questioning your position, and just understand. empathize. give a shit.
this is advice from myself, directed at myself, that i need to follow. it's vague, because i have some very nondescript issues hindering my personal growth and i need to take steps to better prepare myself to deal with these situations. i am turning into a weirdo. i don't experience my emotions, i just witness them. by the time i've felt something, it's already gone, and it seems my entire existence as it relates to sensation and perception is a game of cat and mouse, me constantly seeking and being evaded by something lasting and effective, something that will snap me into action and out of this bystander mentality. i feel so good about coming into my own, about exploring my passions, but i feel that something is being lost in the translation. i guess this is a bit of a resolution, a reconciliation, a recognition of the past year and my decision to move forward from it instead of trying to keep recreating it. so here's to you, 18. frankly, you sucked. here goes 19.
7.18.2010
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