Lie to me

For a second there you gave me hope. You lifted me up, and for one brief flicker of a moment you made me believe again. And then you walked away, as cruel as ever. I fell so abruptly and hit the ground so hard, that my entire being shattered into a million little pieces, each one a reflection of your heart. Do you really love her? Please tell me that it's only a passing whim. Lie to me if you have to.

Image by luminous-luminance

Listening to: Into the Night by Benny Mardones

I can listen no longer in silence

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago… I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant…For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this?” – Captain Wentworth, Persuasion

It is as if nothing ever existed. There were you and me, and then there was emptiness all around. Emptiness can be scary, but if tolerated long enough it comforts, even satisfies. No blissful ups, no heartbreaking downs, no never-ending hopes nor crippling betrayal. As time goes by, you learn to live with yourself, you learn to rely on you and grow happy with your freedom. You think that you are so mature, your heart so strong now that nothing in the world can hurt you as it used to, and more importantly no one.

But one day there comes a storm. A lighting strike illuminates the world around you and you see the things as they are, naked of illusions you’ve created. The reality breaks through the walls of your beloved emptiness and erases the boundaries of your comfort zone, ripping the protective wire you spent so long wrapping around your heart. And there he is, standing in the rain in front of you, and he is the same, and you find yourself utterly unprepared, not strong at all, in fact the weakest thing in the entire world, and it’s as if the last two and a half years apart were never lived. It’s as if you never let him go, as if you never ruined your happiness and his. 

 

I felt my heart skip a few beats and my body shake profusely the minute I heard he was in the country. Memories started flooding my head and the more I remembered, the harder I cried. The room went dark for a second and I had to grab the nearest wall to maintain my balance. Not only have I felt every emotion possible, but I was utterly unprepared to feel so much and so suddenly, and worst of all, I had absolutely no hope of any of these feelings ever being mutual again. I knew he had every right to distance himself. I suspected he’d never forgive me and I have come to terms with losing him, or almost have. I thought I had all the strength in the world, but I had none. I thought I had no love left in me, but I had it all.
 

So I gathered a few bits of courage and wrote to him. I dropped only a couple of lines, asking about his trip, staying neutral in tone and struggling not to give away any signs of my pain. The rest of the day seemed like forever. I heard nothing. I cried more, I drank a bit and I cried again. The following morning I woke up to a note from him. There wasn’t much said, but he responded, and that fact alone made me grow wings and fly through the day. We exchanged a few more words and those words gave me more hope than is probably healthy. I am no Anne, he’ll never be my Captain Wentworth and real life rarely grants us with happy endings. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

Once upon a time

I wrote this a while ago but never found it good enough to post. It's not my best piece of writing but it's an honest one, hence I think it deserves the right to be.

He is no longer in my life. I have worked with others since then, I had better friends since then, I've loved stronger since then, and I laughed, and cried, and lived, and broke hearts, and was left brokenhearted. But an occasional thought of him still brings that bittersweet smile to my face, the one that holds both good memories and bad, neither of which I would want to trade for anything in the world. We grow through our mistakes, our experiences and our feelings; we are shaped by what we love or hate, who we love and why we choose to forget. He was only one part of my world during the two years when our lives intertwined, but a tremendous part nevertheless. We put our time and souls into the work we believed in, and we made a great team, but our feelings got in the way. I'm sure there was love among all the fighting, and enormous friendship that struggled to step over our egos, and the two people trying really hard to overcome what made them human, for the sake of that beautiful goal that they always had in sight.

* * *

I don’t want to think where he is right now; I don’t want to think at all. All I want is to break free, fly away from this place of uncertainty and fear. I don’t know him at all.

He calls at 3 a.m. "to check on me", then again, an hour later, asking me to open the gate. One hug and things are back to normal. What a fool I am.

* * *

We run into a little diner in the slum, the one I know is actually good and safe and all, and giggle while standing at the counter. We talk of feelings for some unknown reason, the distant and abstract ones, and he suddenly tells me he never knew how I felt about him. He says that I never told him nor truly showed it. Is he for real? I'm lost for words, only able to produce a silly smile, trying to shake off the weight hanging above us, to change the subject, to say something, but all I hear is the very loud silence. And the moment passes us by. We get our food and walk out, back into the car, back to work, and I am still lost for words.

I kept thinking why I never told him. It was the perfect chance to let my guards down for once. It was either then and there, or never. And I was too proud to go first, or too scared of what it would do to our work and friendship, or both. So I chose never.

* * *

We walk out on each other. We don’t listen. We don’t apologize. I don’t know how to mend this anymore. I am probably able to, but I’m not sure I want to. I am tired of fighting. These arguments grow stronger every day, their roots reach deeper inside our heads. Every now and then I grow so weary of them I reach for the suitcase, only to push it back under my bed; only to convince myself I can endure these things and grow stronger through them.

* * *

I’m sitting outside; it’s a bit chilly these nights. A cheap cigarette is burning my lungs. Heck with it, every cell of me is on fire. And the sky, the sky is the same everywhere. I miss home, wherever my last home was. I miss my family, and the rain (we haven't had any for what seems like months here), driving in the right lane, coffee shops, my girls, having time to write or to think about myself for once versus everyone around me, and the snow. Come to my home in December, I blurt out one evening, in the midst of a quiet talk in his room. He smiles and asks for five reasons why I want him to go. I don’t feel like reasoning anything, so I walk out.

* * *

We are stuck in traffic on our way downtown, an hour of talking, laughing and singing. He presses the wrong buttons as he tries to roll down the windows, he always does that, making me laugh. He buys peanuts from the boys on the road, without taking the actual peanuts. We throw rhymes back and forth and some poetry is born in the midst of traffic, hawkers, beggars and thieves on the road. There’s an unbeatable energy inside of this tiny car. We can change this place for better, we can help the people and learn from them, but only if we are able to sustain this harmony; if we can respect each other and humble ourselves before the other. If only there were more days like this.

* * *

I feel my heart jammed inside, pumping wildly as if ready to jump out through my mouth. I am pressing the tears back in as they burn the corners of my eyes, my arms numbly folding pieces of clothes into the suitcase.

He’s standing in the doorway, the founder of this drama, the perpetrator of this pain. Out of a moment’s anger, he asked me to leave "if that's what I wished for" just a minute ago, and now my pride overwhelms my reason and pain as he’s securing the door with his tall self, begging me to stay. "You can’t leave, this is your home," he insists. "I didn’t mean it like that. I suggested you take a break from work, not leave this place." The arguments keep pouring.

As part of some self-defense mechanism, my memory seems to be erasing the corners of such days, as I can’t quite remember what it is he said that made me stay after all. I do remember a tight motherly hug and a whisper - please don’t give up on my son.

* * *

What roles do we play in this twisted storyline? Why is it that despite the lowest times we’ve been through, the undeniable truth remains the same? We are around each other 24/7, and we fight half of the time, but we need each other only more each day. It’s as if we share this subtle knowledge of something that is not yet, but has been written. It’s something bigger than us, but not until we manage to completely diminish our egos that it will reveal itself to us.

* * *

We spent months at a time in each other's company, making mistakes and laughing at them, pushing each other to be better, wanting to be better around each other, sharing secrets and dreams, crying on each other's shoulder, being best friends, enemies, lovers... and then one day we peacefully parted ways. I don't want to ever go back, but I will always treasure it as one of those experiences that shaped me into who I am. I will always treasure the memory of him, and of the world he let me be part of, beautiful and miserable at once, filled with tragic past and high hopes for the future, but his world nevertheless. I took the best from it... and I moved on to build my own.

Image credit: *duchesse-2-Guermante

Lovers rock

A gentle screech of the gate tells me you are here, and only the dense shrubs entangled in the darkness of the garden separate us from each other’s arms.

Your face glows in the soft light of a single candle, your eyes are smiling, you carry some food in your hand. I can’t live another second without feeling the warmth of your embrace.

We have a little picnic on the floor, eating pizza, watching movies and staring at each other as if there were no tomorrow. Sadly, there was no tomorrow.

You get up and head across the room, putting on Sade and asking me for a dance. I laugh, but you are serious, you say. And so we dance the night away, and as you hold me tight, I know you truly are my lovers rock.

When I need to be rescued
And I need a place to swim
I have a rock to cling to in the storm
When no one can hear me calling
I have you I can sing to

I wake up in the middle of the night and see you next to me, wide awake, leaning on one elbow and looking me in the eyes. You are not sleeping? – I whisper. I just like watching you sleep, you say. Are you for real? I touch your cheek, give you a smile and drift back into my dreams.

I wake up many months later, in an empty bed thousands of miles away, and I still look for your hand next to mine, for your soft hair on my cheek. I still can’t believe I pushed you away from me, even though it was the only right thing to do. My strength has turned into my weakness.

I am trying to write this book of mine and every time I sit there in a complete silence, attempting to pour my thoughts out on paper, you slowly creep into my head. I try to kick you out, but those bittersweet memories have their way of coming back time after time.

Who am I kidding, your heart was never fully mine. We hurt other people while hurting each other. I never had the guts to tell you this and now I never will, but I am hoping to finally let it go by pouring it out onto a blank page. So here it goes, I loved you madly, even though it never was the right time for us.

And in all this
And in all my life

You are the lovers rock
The rock that I cling to
You're the one
The one I swim to in a storm
Like a lovers rock

Image credit: lanka_ultra
Listening to Sade

Where do you live, Peter?

“Second to the right, and straight on till morning… I'll teach you to jump on the wind's back, and away we go.”

I feel like Wendy right now. You are my Peter Pan, the boy who decided to never grow up. You make faces at me. “Do I look like a ghost?” I giggle and close my eyes, pretending to be scared. You plunge forward at once, trying to pull me after you, off the window overlooking this troubled world. Let’s take a flight, you say, and see where the wind takes us. Let’s see what beauty we can create. You have to trust me, you say. My hand will be here for you when you need it.

I hesitate with one foot floating in the air, another unable to let go of my safe haven. I would love to jump after you, my dreamer, but I am so afraid. What if one day you let go? Will I fall through the darkness, into the world unknown to me? Will I look around and see a crowd of strangers in whose eyes the reflection of war is still flickering? Will I make my way home, up that window, and cry myself to sleep until I have no tears left in me? Or will I stay and carry on the fragile work of peace we have started? Will I be strong enough to one day take that flight on my own?

But you already have, you say, rolling your eyes.

Never this far, I note, sticking out my tongue to taste the rain drops.

You will never grow up either, you say.

I take a deep breath and push the bricks away with the tips of my toes, falling upward.

In my heart, I know I can let go of your hand and do this on my own. But it would be so good to know that someone is there to lean on when I grow weary. After all, it’s not the Neverland we are heading to.


Image credit: Frixin

These months

I open the windows
It’s getting cold in here
Everything’s drying up
And the windows stay open
I used the word I know nothing of
I wanted to save, but I gave
I gave it away
And now
These months
These months are so still
These months
These months are so still

What’s in my head now
Needn’t be seen
Remember I called you
To see how you were
You hadn’t changed
Remember I ran into you in the dark
You hadn’t changed
And now in the leaves that drape the ground
The unwelcoming of your door
There’s a light that sees, I
I don’t think I love you anymore
But these months
These months are so still
These months
These months are so still

And there are times that I think about you
That I think surely still I must love you
Still know you…

~ Asha Ali

* * *

These months I am trying to snooze through an absolute inevitability of every new day without you. These thoughts are scattered across the room, surrounding me as I beg them for only some space, only some freedom to be. I keep organizing physical objects as if their awkward untouchable order will let me gather these emotions into some neat little pile of understanding, while they keep sliding and turning back into the shifting sand of which they were built.

These dreams march into my bed from the times and places where maybe one day I belonged, although it seems to have been a couple of lifetimes ago. These memories carry pain on their shoulders, the kind that fills my mind and leaves my heart empty. It’s only when thinking of you joins in however – or the absence of you right here in this room, where your shadow is needed by this lamp, and your ear by the song I am whispering, and your cheek by the brush of my arm, that accidental one, you know, in the midst of a dream – that I break down, and see the world spin, and lose myself in the dark, and never want to believe in light again. I lack you so much today, I get covered with cold and I drown in the feeling so overwhelming it sucks life out of me. It puts my strength into a shabby bag, the crude one with no holes in it, letting no sun reach my thinking.

I miss you today to the point where I’m determined to never miss you again. I am so tired of loving you, so, so tired. I wish you didn’t infiltrate me all the way to my blood, and dissolve in me, and uplift me to such heights only to drain me dry and leave me empty and throw me down so low, again and again.

I’d live for you, if only you were worth living for.

6 a.m.

I long for other you
Unable to release
This grip
Of fingers turning blue
I act at ease
Then hide to weep
Under my skin
From hand of fate
Its painful scratch
For I have seen
Your falling state
Please stay and catch
Day's quiet cue
Please try to be
For sunrise longer
The other you
Hold on to me
Till I grow stronger
And leave behind
This place
Its dust
My lover’s mind
His fading grace
His lust

Your face
My past

Second chances?

She wants to be like
the water...

I can’t speak. I close my eyes and I glide on a smooth surface. Downstream. I can’t think. I am just lying there, letting the current pull me wherever it chooses. I can’t write. My words are sinking. I can’t fight. It’s as if my hands and my feet are tied with some invisible water bonds, which I can’t resist. I have no will to swim against the tide. I watch the waters get faster, angrier. I watch small rocks lurk out. I am still on the safe side, I can still turn around and swim back, knowing the danger is ahead, knowing I should not let myself rush through these rapids again, knowing there will be pain of falling. Please don’t pull me toward you now that I am almost cured of this pain.

...wish it were simple
But we give up easily

I think I reached a shore at some point, back then, after fighting so hard with the cold of the river. I think I actually sat there for a moment and let the water dry off my face. I heard the quiet music in my head and I sang to it... and danced, and watched the clouds gallop by, and smiled at them... I smiled! But then I saw you swim by and I plunged in again. Am I really going to let go so easily of all that I fought for? I don’t want to feel comforted by your presence. I want to be able to make it on my own. Was this new strength I thought I gained just an illusion? Here I am, not swimming forward, not swimming back. Floating.

You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world
to me...

Why is it so hard to just close my eyes and pretend you are not here? Why is it so hard to listen to reason and decide what’s right to feel? To feel what’s right... What’s right? The thing is, in my mind, I don’t want you back. I just have to negotiate it with my heart somehow. It is tricky, because heart wants reward here and now, it wants redemption for its suffering, it wants a blanket tucked around it, it wants to go to bed cozy. It’s like a child, demanding attention, thinking of itself as the center of the world, not knowing it can’t really see further than today, further than the chest it’s in.

Can you help me?
Can you let me go?
And can you still love me
When you can't see me anymore...

People who saw us last night might have thought we are a happy couple. But that's what they thought back then too, while we were sticking knives into each other’s hearts. Back again? And you really think you can build something steady on a pile of ruins?

I subside to the sound of your voice. My strength withers and I forgive easily. I know what’s right for me, but I don’t seem to be strong enough to act upon it. Maybe not quite yet. I am afraid of the mistakes I am about to make.


Lyrics from Other Side of the World by KT Tunstall

Grey’s the Color of…

Under frowns of clouds
Through the whisper of leaves
I reach out for your mouth
I’m not finding your lips

Knitted sweaters, wet air
Your stretched arms in the rain
You try touching my hair
I fall back through my pain

Words are lost in this weather
Puddles eat your reflection
I feel wind in your blazer
Seeking summer’s affection

Warm time’s over, I hear
Trees are wearing gold
When precisely, my dear
Did our hearts turn so cold?

Love Implied

“Do you know what happens when you hurt people? When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”

– Ammu in Arundhati Roy’s "The God of Small Things"

It was so easy to forget and forgive this weekend. It was so easy to ask and be forgiven. I don’t think there is a reason in the world to close your heart to either one of those. But then again, is there a reason to hurt anyone in the first place?

Leaning forward to give a hug to a friend Saturday night, I heard a single sentence that was deeply carved into my memory.

“Be good to your mothers,” he said quietly to a group of us leaving his place. His mom passed away several days ago.

The whole world changed its colors as I walked back to my car. I wasn’t driving home, I was floating slowly on a helium balloon, looking at the world below from a new angle.

Down under the streetlights, I saw a dark figure with a grudge on her heart. A mean little person who wasn’t good to her parents. Why is it so, I thought, that I will let friends’ mistakes slide so easily, yet I won’t forgive the two people who love me so unconditionally? Is it just me, or do you let this happen to you as well? Do you ever take love for granted? Do you ever let yourself be mean to someone dear to you, thinking a couple of fights won’t change anything where love is implied?

* * *

You said,
“Even in the hardest of times,
No one will erase this kind of friendship
Off the face of the earth.”

I walked through the dance floor Friday night and my eyes, once again, met his. A friend so close and dear to me yet so far away for what seems to have been forever. It was only about a month ago that we stopped talking, running past each other in awkward silence. His eyes would always tell me he still cared. His actions would say otherwise.

His greeting came out of nowhere, followed by a hug. The conversation was flying like a bunch of little flies above our heads, I could hear the buzz but the meaning seemed out of reach. He hurt me with his harsh words last time we spoke… afraid to approach me after that… he didn’t really mean any of it... He didn’t??

…when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday.
If I turn into another
Dig me up from under what is covering
The better part of me.

Once again, he spoke of that implied love, that unbreakable friendship, that tie that is supposedly always there, and I was expected to know that it was... Was I??

However far away, I will always love you
However long I stay, I will always love you
Whatever words I say, I will always love you
I will always love you…

How was I to know? For a moment there, it made me think of my parents again. How do they know that I still love them as much, if I ignore their phone calls for days after an argument? Why do we expect others to know we still love them? If in our hearts we truly do, then any pain we cause is consciously temporary, right? I think this awareness only makes it worse; it gives intention to our actions. Emotion alone can’t be blamed for it all. We’d cool it down and think 10 times before hurting someone if each time the love of that person was at stake. The problem is, we think love will always be there, no matter what we say. There's always a way out, a "sorry" somewhere out there to lean on and "it's ok" to follow, both of them worn out to the extreme, overused.

Look me in the eye,
And ask for forgiveness.
We'll make a pact to never speak that word again.
Yes, you are my friend.

If there were no hurts, there would be no sorries. I think the reason I forgave my friend without a second thought was because my own heart wasn’t clear of guilt, a different kind, yet as strong.

* * *

This might seem like a mix of thoughts about a string of unrelated events but that’s not the case. The thinking they brought was similar and the outcome was one. I called my parents. My mom can never be mad at me for more that five minutes so the negative things were easily left behind. I need to learn her ways as I struggle toward becoming a better person.

I felt the bitterness of what it’s like to live on that implied love for a while, and I didn’t enjoy it for a minute. If there is love, I want to know that it’s there. If everyone always showed that they cared and never implied it, the notion of forgiveness would slowly become obsolete.

Lyrics used in this post:
Incubus - Dig
311 – Love Song
Kvitka Cisyk - Where are you now?

You look, I die

I can write a pile of sentences, reread them and don’t find myself. They are often not good enough. They lack the strength to dig deep, take it out and spill it on paper. Bleeding heart calls for writing in blood and all I see is black ink on a dull white paper. Nonsense. Friday was good and I even believed I was getting better. And then came Saturday. You looked. I died. Again.

I want to take you off
Like summer hat in fall
Throw off your arms like gloves
That wouldn’t keep me warm
No more
Shake drops of voice
Out of my ears
Soaked in the cold
Of ruthless storms
Your words
Wipe off that touch
Out of the creases
Of my palm
You stick to me
Cling to my thinking
Roll down the spine
With drops of sweat
Making me shiver
In aching dreams
Can’t loving die
So I can live
Instead
Wait not just yet
Resists the heart
In which small room
Is filled with charcoals
Blue and orange
And amber
Like your world
I throw them in the fire
Where your ice
Is melted
Your picture out of the corner
Looks into me
I read a smile
In picture’s eyes
Half-closed
Half-opened
Hate never came
Into this room
It never will
My eyes meet yours
Half-closed
Half-opened
Was ever love
Inside your look
Did I misread it
Did I
Just throw your picture in the fire
My shaking hands
Are burnt
But it won’t burn
I cover it with charcoals
They turn to flowers
You still look
Right back into me
Your eyes
Half-closed
Half-opened
Your soul
Half-naked
Half... I’ll never know
And of that look
I die.

The God of Loss

“He tried to hate her.
She’s one of them, he told himself. Just another one of them.
He couldn’t.
She had deep dimples when she smiled. Her eyes were always somewhere else.

“That afternoon, Ammu traveled upwards through a dream in which a cheerful man with one arm held her close by the light of an oil lamp. He had no other arm with which to fight the shadows that flickered around him on the floor.
Shadows that only he could see.
Ridges of muscle on his stomach rose under his skin like divisions on a slab of chocolate.
He held her close, by the light of an oil lamp, and he shone as if he had been polished with a high-wax body polish.
He could do only one thing at a time.
If he held her, he couldn’t kiss her. If he kissed her, he couldn’t see her. If he saw her, he couldn’t feel her.
She could have touched his body lightly with her fingers, and felt his smooth skin turn to gooseflesh. She could have let her fingers stray to the base of his flat stomach. Carelessly, over those burnished chocolate ridges. And left patterned trails of bumpy gooseflesh on his body, like flat chalk on a blackboard, like a swathe of breeze in a paddyfield, like jet streaks in a blue church-sky. She could have so easily done that, but she didn’t. He could have touched her too. But he didn’t, because in the gloom beyond the oil lamp, in the shadows, there were metal folding chairs arranged in a ring and on the chairs there were people, with slanting rhinestone sunglasses, watching. They all held polished violins under their chins, the bows poised at identical angles. They all had their legs crossed, left over right, and all their left legs were shivering.

“If he touched her he couldn’t talk to her, if he loved her he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win.

“The God of Loss.
The God of Small Things.
He left no footprints in sand, no ripples in water, no image in mirrors.”

- from The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

It’s ironic that you lent THIS book to me. It’s ironic that YOU lent this book to me.

It’s a great book. Life is ironic.

Not only good dreams come true, you know. I had so many nightmares about you and they all became a reality. This book of yours brought out a feeling of sad satisfaction in me. Sad, but satisfying.

The part above is so deep in its tragedy yet so beautiful. I reread it many times, receiving a bit of a gentle relief each time. It reminds me of one of those soothing melodies I listen to when riding my bike late in the evening. They blend with the freshness of wind pushing against my face and give me that tickling sensation of a flight above all the insignificant things in the world. They only matter if we choose for them to matter.

The part below is more earthly, but still captivating. It made me think a lot, but not about you any more. It made me look into me. I think it’s better this way, to finally think about me for once.

“In the year she knew him, before they were married, she discovered a little magic in herself, and for a while felt like a blithe genie released from her lamp. She was perhaps too young to realize that what she assumed was her love for Chacko was actually a tentative, timorous acceptance of herself.”

Despite all the pain I felt, I won’t deny that you played a significant part in my life, a role in my world that made me stop abruptly. To think. Although you’ll never know it, you helped me find the sides of me that I haven’t yet discovered. You helped me realized new truths and dig out the truths long forgotten, the ones that were covered with dust somewhere in the deep corner of my conscience, behind the shelves of doubts and stacks of fears. That corner was so dark it took the light out of my dreams. It made me want to postpone them until better times. Until when I’m strong enough. Until later. Lay Ter. But there is now, there’s today and I want to live it to the fullest.

You didn’t politely pat me on the shoulder, asking me whether by any chance I took a wrong route. This isn’t your way. You kicked me hard, pushed me against the wall and slapped me in the face, calling me a fool for not noticing a one-way sign for so long, jumping out of our time, onto your street, slamming my door, never to travel with me again.

I cried as you left, but then I smiled. I started accepting myself more and more each day and I liked it.

You reminded me who I really am and then you set me free. Always look for the positive side of things. They will only matter if we choose for them to matter.

I matter now.

Before Sunrise

I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.

- Celine in Before Sunrise

I was standing outside last night, looking at the man on the moon. An insignificant spot on the face of eternity, he’s larger than us in some ways... smaller in so many others. I was looking at a swallow’s nest over my porch. I’m not sure how long it’s been there but the birds are long gone. They must have flown away to a better place, carrying their dreams on their wings, leaving my porch with an empty nest. My dreamless porch.

I am doing better at times. I think my mind is ready to move on, telling me there’s no reason to cry over someone who doesn’t care. But the pain still wakes me up in the middle of the night, every night.

I look back at this summer. There is a strong temptation to forget certain people, moments or days; but I don’t give in to it. It might be good to not have lived some of those days, but would it be right? I believe our mistakes are there for a reason. They remind us of our human flaws. They help us grow.

I look back at the day of the big fight, when I stood up for your right to take the opposite side and, as a result, lost my friend. There is another painful memory from that night, that of you slamming the car door and walking away. But you know, I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t skip that evening even if I knew what was coming. I wouldn’t try to save my friendship. I wouldn’t stop you from walking away. Because when you caught up with me at a stoplight a minute later, you told me that you loved me. I will eventually forget the tremendous negativity of that night, but I will treasure the fact that you and I were able to leave it all behind so easily, driving away into the night.

I look back even further and I see us in a friend’s garage at 7 a.m. in the morning, after just talking the night away. I see us going through a car wash twice, enjoying the little streams rolling down the windows in this rainless land, lowering the backs of our seats to lay down and listen to some quiet music, savoring the simple bliss of the moment. I see us walking through the farmer’s market closer to noon, without a single hour of sleep the night before but with our reflections still fresh and clear in each other’s eyes. You carrying the fruits for me. Your smile a reflection of a morning sun. I see us in your room, going though your family photographs. Your books. Your paintings. You making hot dogs in the kitchen. Me drinking juice from the bottle. You had no cups. You lying on the floor in an empty room, looking at the sun caught in the texture of my dress as I stand in the doorway. That dress looked tired of your witty remarks over the last 24 hours. I wasn’t. Remember? Us sitting on a staircase in your hallway, speaking about the meaning of life. You handing me a book to take home with me. You waving goodbye to me on my way out, then rushing down the staircase to give me a hug. One perfect hug. My hand shaking behind your back holding the heavy fruits. You releasing me just to ease my burden. Our shadows crossing one last time on the pavement, one unwilling to leave, another unwilling to let go.

That was our own Before Sunrise, wasn’t it. That night was the whole world, the perfect world in which we had lived and breathed each other before the real life began. Before your friends didn’t get along with mine. Before I pushed you away. Before your heart grew cold, unwilling to forgive my fear of love. I think it will take me years to get over that one night, an eternity to forget the perfect fusion of our thoughts, ideas, feelings and dreams.

I don’t want to remember anything else from this summer.

Broken

Sometimes words hide from me when I need them the most. Sometimes I wish I could speak in tears, in looks, in songs… in silence. If you ever listened to my silence, I mean really listened, you’d hear the beat of the loneliest heart in the world. You knew I was vulnerable but you chose to hurt me nevertheless. I get up and I fall again. I lean on walls. The world is spinning. I hear your voice, again and again. In songs...

I wake up, it’s a bad dream,
No one on my side,
I was fighting
But I just feel too tired
to be fighting,
guess I’m not the fighting kind.
Wouldn’t mind it
if you were by my side
But you’re long gone,
yeah you’re long gone now.

It’s Your world, isn’t it. It’s Your freedom, Your fight, Your thirst for Your life. What about My pain? "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed," said Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's fox in the Little Prince. You ran thousands of miles away from responsibility, you ran toward your freedom. I only wish my heart, too, could be free again. I wish it could be untamed.

I need a place
That’s hidden in the deep,
Where lonely angels sing you to your sleep.
The modern world is broken.
I need a place
Where I can make my bed,
A lover’s lap where I can lay my head,
Cos’ now the room is spinning,
The day’s beginning.

I don’t want to live, I don’t want to wake up into this new day. I don’t want to die either, I just want to slowly cease to exist, fade away like your feeling to me, turn into a fox and run. I think you might respect me more as a fox. I won’t have to worry about money as a fox, because that’s what I worry about, right? I probably won’t feel love, because that’s what I’m pushing away, right? In a simple world of foxes I won’t feel lonely any more. I will feel at ease, because I’m sure foxes are so much more human than many-many humans in this world.

I hope you fly free, if that’s what your freedom is all about. I hope you win your other battles, those you actually believe are worth fighting.

Why do I have to fly
over every town up and down the line?
I'll die in the clouds above
and you that I defend, I do not love.

When it rains...

The clouds dragged themselves with a certain difficulty this morning, as if trying to make it home after a night of partying. They struggled to keep their tails above the treetops, slowly pulled west by the wind.

It’s being storming all night and the morning didn’t look like morning at all, I told you as we drove through the wet sleepy city. Distant thunder broke the silence between us, raindrops cut into the windshield like a thousand little needles and the shiny road reflected the streetlights, a wild dance of red and green, and red and green again.

I dropped you off and ran away at 86 per hour. My thoughts were pressing me down to the slippery road, heavy like the clouds over the treetops.

As I sat next to you on the couch last night, I cried inside. I cried because of longing to be with you. I wanted more than anything to hug you or hold your hand but I couldn’t, I had no right. I gave up my right to love you as soon as I chose to follow my reason and silence my heart. I pushed you away pretending to kill my feelings, but all I really did was chase them away into the deepest corners of my heart, making them hide temporarily. They now lurk out in the shape of little flames that burn so painfully. Whom am I fooling?

To my best friend, my dream, my inspiration

We should have never said a word. We spent most of the evening in comforting silence, emerged in our work, feeling a quiet bliss in the air radiating from your art and mine. Your heart and mine.

You swore at me for judging you. You said you love me a minute later and that hurt too, because I felt I didn’t deserve your love.

We won’t remember it as that one night on a curb under a cloudy moon. We won’t remember the quiet music of wind chimes on a dark deck where the only light came from under our eyelashes. We might not even remember working together in a tiny room filled with the air of spray-paint and gentle thoughts. What will stay in mind is how mercilessly we dared to wound each other. Do you still think we aren’t better off keeping some thoughts to ourselves? Forgive me for making your heart bleed. I regret trying to change you in any way, but I also don’t seem to be able to change myself. Where in the world is the way out of this?

I know exactly where you come from and you don’t have to explain a slightest thing to me. I know perfectly well that for every opportunity I was given in life, the door was slammed in front of your face. I made tons of mistakes but I always seemed to get a second chance, even when I least deserved it. You deserve so much more than you were given.

Why does the world put this impassable void between us, these layers of life, this divide that none of us is able to cross? Why is it that our hearts fly over this abyss like two swallows, meeting happily in midair, while our bodies stay put like stones, not moving even to the wind of circumstances? We’ll grow into the ground if we stay, you know.

I don’t want it to be this way. I fall for you over and over again every time I see you or hear your voice. And then I tell you again and again that all I can give is friendship. I quietly despise myself for that. I really can’t think of anything that would give a happy ending to this post. Erykah Badu’s song is all that comes to mind. I guess I’ll see you next lifetime… You know I want to stay around… I guess I’ll see you next lifetime… I’m going to look for you.

I’m going to look for you, my love. I’m going to look after you, too. Hush, no more words, let our hearts sit together in silence.

On the edge between friendship and more

You lie on the edge of the roof, your body stretched on a narrow surface between the short concrete wall and the abyss. You look down, then up at me, then down again. It’s crazy, you say, how it just goes straight to the ground. There are some 12 stories underneath us, and the shoe you were tempted to throw down would have ways to fly.

I trust your words yet I have a strong urge to check it out myself. I lean forward. Careful, I hear from a couple of friends behind, who grab my sleeve as I continue to lean toward the edge. It’s only when my eyes run down the vertical wall below — all the way to the treacherous pavement and the tiny shadows of parked cars and streetlights — that I fully comprehend how high we have climbed and how real the danger of falling is for both of us.

We ran many flights of stairs and climbed some shaky ladders to watch the city lights one night, eager to find adventure on the bleak streets of reality. As I looked down and felt the cool breeze hit my face, the solid roof under my feet started to fade into the unknown, reminding me of my life. I closed my eyes and pictured what would have happened if I leaned too far, the tingly feeling of free fall in my stomach. I’d open my eyes in midair and see you falling right next to me. I’d scream inside, trying to rethink the whole scenario, trying to erase the idea of reaching the ground, because somewhere in the back of my mind, through some inexplicable vision of the future, I knew the landing would be deadly for one of us.

You might say it was your idea to climb up here, but I have to point out you were careful about the ascend, watching your step and mine. I was the one whose walk turned into a sprint as I got excited about reaching the summit. It was me who took you to the edge and it’s me who’s about to take you over it.

Please take the stairs and walk off this roof, down to where we started. Run away from me. Don’t tell me we’ll fly together, because you know neither of us is an angel. Don’t let me pull your sleeve, because I can already see the pavement below.

This meal I can’t share

My face seeks the shelter in my palms,
A weak protection from the storm of uncertainty.
Run away from me!
Stop following me into the darkness,
We are not too far yet for you to be saved.

…Excuse me miss,
What would you like today?

Can I think for a moment?
Why the choices again?
Can I please… No, wait…
I just changed my mind.
Could I first have my confidence back
Followed up by some trust on the side
Could I have some hope for a drink
For desert give me back my beliefs
in me,
in people,
in something higher.

Can I have no ice in my drink?
Why? Can your heart get any colder?

Forgive me.
You chose the worst possible time
To enter my life.
You are pure as tears I shed… just months ago.
I don’t think I am…

Love is what you are all about.
As of today, I don’t believe in love.

Forgive me.
Maybe one day my heart will thaw.
I think one day I will allow it to feel again.
I know one day I’ll be able to look up
And find my reflection in someone’s eyes.
If you are still hanging there,
Maybe they’ll be yours.
That being said… you are free to go,
Escape from me
For I am too dangerous
As of right now.

You are kind, simple and true,
I cannot let you near this poison.

No, you can’t,
This chair is taken
By my thoughts,
This meal I can’t share
Please allow me to have it alone.

Almost there

I didn’t dream about you last night. I haven’t been thinking about you during daytime for a while now, but I was afraid that I wasn’t really getting rid of those thoughts and only suppressing them. I’d fight so hard and you would defeat me again and again by showing up in my dreams.

Well, I had a good nine-hour sleep last night (I barely ever make it over 5 so this was really good), and guess what… You weren’t there!

Is it really time to say good-bye? I still get flashbacks every once in a while but they are minor and they make me angry rather than sad.

I guess I am in a blame setting stage right now. I read it in “Loveshock” by Dr. Stephen Gullo, the tiny book that does miracles when your heart is broken. It might be the reason I am moving past all of this so quickly, it’s much easier to do when you understand all the little emotions you are going through. I found myself leaving that state of constant sadness, distancing myself from everything that happened and critically evaluating things. How foolish could I be? Of course I deserve better!

A recipe to unbreak your heart

Ok, you have to try this if your heart was broken. Travel somewhere. Visit a friend who has been inviting you forever or a sibling whom you saw a year ago or so behind your job-school-whatever else too busy life. I know, we all are busy, but there are weekends, right? No, no trip is too short, my last one was Friday through Sunday and trust me, it works like magic.

Plan a trip a month or so in advance and take that month to get over yourself and cry all you need, but as the trip nears, look forward to it. Set your mind into an adventure mode, plan, pack, make yourself look pretty, it all helps so much!

I got this idea from a movie. Ok, I quote a lot, but I guess that's what you do being a journalist. Sometimes the quotes you see or hear are so relevant to your current state of mind that you can't resist the urge to jot them down. They make you feel warm inside, telling you, “Chin up! You are not the only one going through this!” They are better yet if they offer a solution to a problem, a practical step that actually works.

“I understand feeling as small and as insignificant as humanly possible. And how it can actually ache in places you didn't know you had inside you. And it doesn't matter how many new haircuts you get, or gyms you join, or how many glasses of chardonnay you drink with your girlfriends... you still go to bed every night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong or how you could have misunderstood. And how in the hell for that brief moment you could think that you were that happy. And sometimes you can even convince yourself that he'll see the light and show up at your door. And after all that, however long all that may be, you'll go somewhere new. And you'll meet people who make you feel worthwhile again. And little pieces of your soul will finally come back. And all that fuzzy stuff, those years of your life that you wasted, that will eventually begin to fade.” – Iris (Kate Winslet) in The Holiday movie

I set my mind to good weather, adventure and meeting people who'd make me feel worthwhile. I decided to take the load off my heart and stay cheerful throughout the trip to make sure the people I meet also feel worthwhile around me.

The new place breathes new life into you, it gives you new energy, it makes you feel whole again. It gives you new ideas, something to look forward to. To my surprise, my grief did not come back home with me. I felt as if I came back from a two-week vacation — not a weekend at all — refreshed, strong, eager to experience more of that new independence. A week later, I still feel that. I don’t want to go back to crying. Why would I?

There is a whole world out there ready to embrace you, as soon as you are ready. Pack your bags and leave!

I hope this helps someone else as it helped me. And I hope no one stays heartbroken for a long time, it’s such a dark place to be. Get out of there, and even if you don't travel, do something for a change or treat yourself to something nice, you know you deserve it.