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

Blame it on summer

Summer to me means a lot of linen, which I love to wear but hate ironing. It also means swimming pools, the smell of sunscreen, colorful flip flops and chatting with girls in one of the sidewalk cafés, enjoying the warm wind’s kisses on our cheeks.

Summer brings an excuse to take random candid photos “just because it’s nice outside” and to stay up late “just to listen to birds chirp at dawn.”

Leaning back leisurely and watching people pass by the coffee house window counts as a viable activity in summer. Sitting inside – be it an office or a home – while the sun is burning holes in the pavement counts as a crime on my heart’s watch.

I blame it on the season when social ties seem to become of utter importance, overshadowing other, more serious (who said?) things in life. I think it is completely the summer’s fault when my heart and mind suddenly decide to walk in opposite directions, pulling me apart persistently, with the heart scoring points toward victory two thirds of the time.

One of these warm summer nights brought a fight between me and you, one of my best friends. I don’t really want to know at this point whether it was our foolish youth running through out veins, a couple of beers or a mere misunderstanding fueled by a thing or two left unsaid. Let’s just blame it on this hot season and the overdose of emotions it throws at us, breaking the weak defense that is out reason.

When I saw you through one of those coffee house windows parking your bike at the curb, I thought it was meant for us to make up today. Why else would summer want us to run into each other like that in a city with abundance of places to go lick our wounds?

I put my pride somewhere deep in the back pocket and I came to you, my hands shaking, trying not to let go of some fair trade sugar I just grabbed. I apologized although I didn’t feel like I deserved your negative attitude. Would you come to my table, I asked, if I didn’t approach you first? No, you said proudly. I felt that you were unfair to me and our friendship and I thought that you, the older one of us two, should have acted more mature. I was angry inside yet I could not afford to lose you. The thought of this summer without you crept into the back of my mind as you were standing in front of me, paying for your coffee. I was scared to death that you’d turn around and walk past me, throwing our friendship away coldheartedly. I pictured bumping into each other awkwardly in little downtown restaurants and trying to share friends most of which we had in common. I saw the boring pool parties without you, that bottle of Sangria I bought to share with you left unopened, tedious shopping trips with other less fashionable friends and not having you on the phone late at night to laugh about our latest girly adventures. I was afraid of not being able to see you across the table from me – like tonight – leaning toward each other to share happenings at work, our sappy memories, grown-up dreams and random things like those few lines from your book on the history of rock.

It would be my last attempt to approach you, I knew, and you must have felt it. Which one is my table, you asked, following me. You accepted my explanation, and deep in my heart I felt that you were sorry too, although you wouldn’t say it. As we walked out onto the sleepy summer street after chatting for hours, you said you wanted to see me tomorrow. You pulled me closer, hugged me and kissed me, and in my mind I answered, “Don’t worry about saying a thing, my friend, because I already know.” I smiled, turned around and felt a touch of that playful warm wind on my face. It felt like summer.