OD

You give me an injection of care, a dose just big enough to last a day. But like any other drug, the one you are giving me can be unsafe. You give too much sometimes, deliberately or not; you overdose me. “You sleep babe. I arrived safe,” my phone is beeping through the wall of mosquito netting. I can’t sleep. My mind is high on you, and this overdose gives me cravings. I’m dreading the withdrawal that is looming from around the corner. I’d rather not have any, than have so much and lose it all. And then an old saying comes to mind. “Don’t think about it being over. Be happy while it lasts.”

Image credit: Eliara

111

10:30 a.m.

“Was it 110 or 111?” You ask, taking the backpack off my shoulder, stretching your arm in front of me, saving my life once again from the madness of traffic. I keep forgetting that they arrive from the opposite side here.

“It’s 111,” I say, unable to conceal a smile. “You almost remembered.”

A screeching noise behind us announces a 111 coming to a stop just a moment later. I try to say good bye, but the man hanging out of the door grabs my things and rushes me in. They don’t wait here. I jump inside, waving at you.

“Call me when you get home!” you shout.

I don’t think this one even came to a complete stop. I was rushed. I couldn’t have said a proper bye... Or could I? I should have waited for the next one. I should have hugged you. For one long hour, you will be thinking that I am ungrateful. But then I will get home and call you, and you will know that I care.

8 a.m.

I wake up and hear you breathing. A quick thought rushes through my head. Will you be different today? How will you act now that the music, friends and sambucas are gone? I turn your way and see you blink a little, as if trying to see me better, you eyelids heavy from the sleep. You roll closer and get your feet entangled in mine. No, you are not different, I tell myself as I lay my head on your arm.

“You will be late to...” I whisper.

“Don’t worry about it,” you interrupt me. So I stop worrying. Now it’s just you and me and a little bit of sunlight peeking through the window. I smile as I recall shopping for blinds with you last weekend, failing to find them.

You suggest breakfast at that cozy coffee shop down the road. I get up and do my hair. You get up and do some quick cleaning. We meet in the doorway of your kitchen and share an orange. There is no tension between us, nothing superficial. Being around you is easy.

You order scrambled eggs and I get apple pie. You joke about the pie as you check your e-mails. I grab a newspaper and a minute later we are laughing at local politics. I don’t know why I remember these details so clearly, while I am supposed to remember another time and another company... I guess nothing is “supposed” to be, unless we make it be.

“Just drop me at the bus station downtown,” I say.

“What happened to the Junction?” You ask.

“The Junction is too far and you are late as it is.”

“No, I am not dropping you at the station; it is not the safest place. I wouldn’t want you alone downtown.”

I shut up and sit there feeling cared for as we are off to the Junction. You park and walk me across the street.

“Was it 110 or 111?”

Image credit: V3Nr3VeNG3

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

Not in love

“Most affections are habits or duties we lack the courage to end.”
~ Henry Millon De Montherlant

I stopped a breath short of loving him in a room where love was no longer present. Only a hint of it has remained, not in his look but in the little heart drawn on my window, long time ago, with someone else’s finger. His attempt of a touch was cold, it was late, it wasn’t sincere. I shivered. Sobriety was filling me up with every new hour of dawn. No matter how hard I held on to Saturday night, Sunday morning was dragging me into its empty stomach, into another time, another room. I choked on the air thick with things unsaid. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, I realized all of a sudden that I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to say.

So I let him go.

There goes the story of the night I found out that broken heart doesn’t mix well with tequila, but also discovered the strength in me I didn’t know I had.

I am now free.

* * *

Once in a house on a hill
A boy got angry
He broke into my heart
For a day and a night
I stayed beside him
Until I had no hope
So I came down the hill
Of course I was hurt
But then I started to think
It shouldn't hurt me to be free
It's what I really need
To pull myself together
But if it's so good being free
Would you mind telling me
Why I don't know what to do with myself…

~ Emiliana Torrini

* * *

To me, the image in this post symbolizes freedom. It’s hard to explain and might be even harder to relate to, because no two images are alike as perceived by two minds. I think uniqueness is not cherished enough. I think the gift of it can be most truly appreciated when we’re hastily poured onto canvas of life, mixed with other shades and brush strokes, spilled over blankness of fixed misconceptions and covered with layers of floating understandings. When engulfed by such vortex of existence, blending in means disappearing behind brighter colors of others, dissolving into nothingness. When stirred by trouble, it is our own inner tone, the color of that dream, the melody floating over this thought, the feeling evoked by yesterday’s rain, the way to lovingly wrinkle one’s nose in anger … the only one and impossible to repeat in a million years … that helps us survive.

What do you see?

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.

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?