Missing you

The empty bar hangs over a cliff, and in between beer sips and a quiet talk with a couple of friends on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I watch the rain hug the window panes. It goes on like an endless string of silver, only to end a second later, eaten by the angry ocean below. The water drums are complemented by the sad melody of the wind attempting to make shortcuts through the cracks in the roof. A momentary thought of how beautiful this day is crosses my mind.

How are the States treating me, you ask during the long overdue skype chat weeks later. It's easy to get comfortable here and I don't like easy nor comfortable. I miss getting out of my safety zone every day, working to prove myself constantly and deserving the good things that come to me. Just say you miss me, you reply, throwing a few jokes into the mix. Of course I miss you. Every passing moment that is not occupied by my work or my books, or sometimes various petty things society sees as important, I think of you. That is what I want to say, what I mean to say with every fiber of me. But I throw a joke back at you and I don't show even a slightest sign of how much I care. My guards are up. I lose all courage around you. I am terrified of being hurt by you and you alone.

You hope to see me soon, you say during our goodbyes. I can't help but replay that phrase for some fifties time in my head. Do you really? Or are you simply being polite? I gather these crumbs of happiness you've been feeding me lately and I build a castle out of them, avoiding as much as breathing in its direction, afraid it will fall apart before I get the chance to strengthen the walls. I know I've ruined things before, more than once, but I am learning from my mistakes. I will see you in November. And I will prove to you that I deserve you...
so much more than I did two years ago.

Listening to Relax, Take it Easy by Mika

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?

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

Stop

Stop chasing your shadow through dreams that are mine
The other you’s pondering crossing the line
Through nothingness rolling uphill in my sleep
The tracks you are leaving are twenty feet deep
I shiver, I stumble, I’m not in that dream
I run to the places that get what I mean
I crash into people that play it just right
I back out, I burn out, I’m dying tonight.

A little lost

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

How do people say things as pretty? Can I do that... please? Sometimes I think my words sit under this huge rock in the sea that is my thoughts, ideas, feelings and desires. The category five storm needs to happen for them to be thrown out to the surface, spit out by the waters that are too dark otherwise to tell where the sunshine ends and the abyss begins.

Sometimes I think lack of pain kills inspiration. Sometimes I think pain overdose does it too. I find chapters of comedy and tragedy as I try to frantically skip any prosaic pages in life. Slowing down seems to be a sure motivation killer so I run fast, and bump into walls, and get hurt, and get up again, and keep running, and bump into walls...

I jump between extreme thirst for social life and desperate need for solitude. I think we give up part of our freedom the moment we choose to depend on others, be it for attention, time, means to survive, understanding, kindness, affection... But then, if others choose to depend on us, do we fill that gap with some of their freedom? What right does anyone have for anyone else's freedom? Being part of society automatically means being, in one way or another, unfree. Being absolutely free then... means being unsocial? And then there is solitude, which takes away the freedom to be loved.

The only true way to be free as I found it is to be free within. It is that type of freedom that I seek out and fight for and worship.

* * *

As I get tired of this buzzing world I take a stroll to the land of no emotion, but I get too restless on my way there to ever reach the illusionary destination of absolute personal strength. Few days into my "independence" I feel the prose of reality crawling at me like a giant heat wave, leaving no air to breathe, no shade to escape to on the surface so hot it melts dreams.

That’s when I take a big breath and dive deep into my poetry, finding there the only relief and a place of safety.

Sometimes answers are hidden in words. More often, words bring out more questions. Sometimes I wish I had words when none come out. At other times I wish I could just stay silent for hours... days. I think good words are hard to get and it probably only adds to their beauty. Then there are angry words and words that are empty, and I haven’t decided yet which one is worse.

* * *

"Why don’t you go blog about it?" I heard last weekend, and thrown into the heat of an argument, it was meant to sound offensive. I'm afraid "it" just doesn't do it for me, my dear boy. Hey, look who’s stronger now. I am on one of those freedom strolls and you’d better not get in my way. I don’t mean to sound amazon-ish but then again, I am so tired of fighting you. We’ve been barking at each other for so long, it started taking a shape of some sick entertainment. Another round, and we might as well start taking bets. At times, it boiled blood. At this point, it tires me. I am not meant for hatred, I don’t like harsh words given or taken, even if, especially if, they are empty shells thrown one's way to offend rather than convey meaning. I am no angel but let me dwell on it some other time. How are YOU going to find your way through such darkness into which you let your thinking wander, such anger with which you let it out? You can’t make a real difference, you can’t right the wrong if you fail or refuse (which is it?) to draw the line between passion and fury. You can’t be truly kind nor loving when you let your pride guide you, wherever it is you are heading.

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?

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?

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 music in my head

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

– Rob in the High Fidelity movie

I experimented by switching back and forth between sad and cheerful songs and found that upbeat tunes generally make me happier for about three minutes but are often hard to relate to. It is not because I am some kind of a sad little person, I am generally perfectly optimistic. In a way, life reminds me of parents. I love it despite all the crap it gives me. Then why do I keep listening to music that makes me cry?

I think maybe it is because there are so many sides to happiness while the pain of loss is generally one. I think there is a certain threshold of grief after losing a person, a place or a battle that was fought so hard… After crossing that brink of a primary shock, for a while there the pain becomes so strong it blurs the differences of all the initial reasons that hurt… It becomes all-engulfing. Excruciating. So similar to other pains. The melancholic words coming out of the headphones suddenly rhyme so perfectly with emotions… It brings a sense of a pleasant surprise amidst the ocean of sorrow, making you wonder how in the world someone else could put your heartache into their words so perfectly even before your heartache existed. It’s that easy-to-relate factor that makes sadness so listenable. In the words of one dentist I interviewed recently, “our market is essentially based on pain.” I know the producers of sad songs will make sure I stay miserable a bit longer and I know I won’t put up too much of a fight against it. I guess it’s all about the core. As long as you keep it strong, all that wavy stuff like the music in your head won’t really matter in the long run. Like a storm in the sea, it will stir you up and subside. And then comes new happiness, new pain and new music to complement them.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Finding comfort in writing

My life took several unexpected turns recently and I really felt like writing. Yet every time I sat down in front of my laptop, the screen disappeared behind my tears and the immense pain I felt didn't seem to be willing to leave me in the form of words.

It has been a month now although it seems to have happened in a course of just one night, a single nightmare that sent me rolling down the slope of emotions. I haven't been able to stop yet, unable to control my fears, my pain… my life.

You showed up at my door one night to break my heart. In those several words I heard you breaking everything good that we had, crushing our past and our future, pouring a bucket of icy water into the fire of those six short passionate months together that seemed like eternity. That fire was us, and we burned out too quickly.

You came back next day yet I couldn't forgive you. You lost your feelings somewhere along the way and there was no sense to try to mend a tie that was now so weak. I put my ruthless mask on and pushed you away. We both knew it was the right thing to do, and we both still know it.

I didn't realize letting you go from my heart wouldn't be as easy as closing the door behind you. I was strong the first several days because I was mad at you, and determined to stay strong. But days later, my world started falling apart. I tried replacing you with work, taking on more than I could ever handle, with books that I couldn't concentrate on behind the thoughts of you, with friends in whose circle I would end up drunk, getting back home in tears. I watched movies without paying attention to the plot, I listened to the news on the radio and all I could think about was that I wouldn't be able to discuss them with you. Our engaging conversations seem to be the thing that I miss the most, and I'm sure we'll still have those as friends. But then, why does it hurt so bad?

I am trying to let go of my pain today, releasing it through the tips of my fingers, watching it roll gently on the screen, trying to leave it there. I am hoping that the ability to write again is a sign that my heart is starting to recover. Maybe just a little, one step at a time, I will let my demons go.

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.