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

Dreaming with a broken heart

When you're dreaming with a broken heart,
The waking up is the hardest part,
You roll outta bed and down on your knees
And for the moment you can hardly breathe...

- John Mayer

I roll out and I wonder... were you really here?

You were, just the night before, and after two long weeks of excruciating pain that burned my body and engulfed my thoughts every minute of every day, for a moment there I believed we could actually be happy together. Were you really here, holding my hand, or was it just a sweet dream, a short flashback in my crazy imagination... You came back into my life, but how could I be so wrong as to think that you came to stay? We walked on the grass barefoot. You told me about my nose in your paintings. You reminded me once again how you can touch my heart with the simplest things that you say. As I drove to work, the morning sky reminded me of your palette and I wished I could blend in with it, becoming the perfect tone of your skin, the shape of your cheeks when you give me that kind smile of yours or at least a note in one of your favorite melodies, so you could hum me every now and then.

You gave me hope but you wouldn’t let me anywhere near your heart. I felt slowly falling — the wind rushing though my body like the tiny pieces of broken glass — all the way down, to the very bottom of my pain.

Have I pushed you away that far? I wish you knew all the way that I loved you no matter what I did or said. I wish I didn’t do or say the things that made you run away. I’ll go hide my tears behind the rain, wondering how many more nights I will have to die before I can let you go.

Stronger

Are we defined by our choices?

I hope not, or at least not entirely, because some of the choices I made this week embarrass me.

I am trying to find the right way toward my dreams and discover myself along the way, but I take detours too often. I find adventure in them, but I also get lost. I get entangled in a spider web of my feelings, and I choose to turn my reason off at times, the decision that always gets me in trouble. I feel like screaming or hitting myself with something heavy.

I feel as if I’m not someone I want be. How do I find myself? When did I get so lost? Where do I go looking for a better me?

I would like to think that I am not a bad person, I simply made several bad decisions. My heart thought they were good, and I listened. More than anything, I would like to be stronger.

Our ways part here

There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives. - Cyril Connolly

I wish I could take a permanent marker and cross the last couple of days out of my life, leaving only the good memories of us. I wish I could take a highlighter and make the two weeks before that stand out, overshadowing the mistakes you made in the end.

You left for good this morning and I think it’s for better, too. My heart is screaming right now, begging for my absolute attention. It tells me that now is the time to be hurting and feeling sorry for myself. I would much rather listen to my mind though, which tells me it is time to grow stronger. I bury myself in work and I put my heart to sleep.

I won’t be mad at you or judge you in any way, although you did cause me a lot of pain the last two nights. I think you have a potential of becoming a good man, but for now your actions still reveal your youth too much. Don’t apologize to me, I knew what I was signing up for from the very beginning and I saw all your little irresponsible and immature moments along the way but I would let them slide. I did not want to concentrate on anything negative because there were many good things about you to counteract that, and I had my mind set on having two wonderful carefree weeks together.

You have been kind, open-minded and adventurous. You never hid your emotions and you made me feel special in many ways. I wish you organized your life however, and set your priorities straight. I wish you stopped trying to be a crowd-pleaser and thought about what truly makes you happy, acting upon things which you wouldn’t regret an hour later. Maybe then you’d start making the right decisions the first time around.

I had a great time with you, my sweet California boy.
Stop saying sorry and simply remember me instead.

Pain

I am coming back to my senses. Things straighten up. There are only two scenarios of what happens after you fall. You either keep lying there, your face down; with pain, fury, fear and helplessness all combining into an unstoppable source of tears… Or you get up, shake off the pain and start over again. I made my choice. I get up and walk. I did have to go through the worse scenario first to realize it was not for me. It was short – just a couple of days – but it left a pain burn, a strong mark of something I never want to go back to. I don’t even want to remember how nightmarish I felt and what I thought during those days. I don’t want to go back there although somewhere very deep in the back of my mind I want to remember that it is there, so I can stay alert and never repeat my mistakes.

"A nature like yours can turn trouble into good. All this sorrow will give you strength and point you on a higher way. Think of a tree, how it grows around its wounds. If a branch breaks off, it don't stop but keeps reaching towards the light. We must meet misfortune boldly and not suffer it to frighten us. We must act the play out, then live our troubles down." It’s my favorite quote from “The New World” movie; the words that helped me somewhere on my way back up.