Purpose.

Am I good?

Humans are such flawed creatures, and aren't I human? I work every day to master myself, to become better than who I am and who I have been, but still. I lose my temper. I speak too quickly. I can't keep up with cleaning, I forget things. I let things slide. I hold onto grudges and anger that I wish I could release.

I built myself this life - I am building this life - so I can be good. I want to be happy while making the world a better place. Some small green spot on the scorched landscape. I worry about the things I leave behind when I die, already. I worry about where the earth is going.

I want a cool green life with sun and hay and strong arms.

I am going in the right direction, but it is far away yet. I have to make choices, and to keep some normalcy, I do not always choose right, and I worry, am I good?

I lay awake until 5 a.m. with a dying kitten, my second in a week. Two small bodies in the freezer. No one else will take them, no one will usher them into death. I feel morbid and sick, this urge to do so. To try everything I can because I know otherwise I will be haunted, and, when that fails, I can provide only comfort. They leave their bodies and I can finally sleep.

Does it make me good?

I look around at my life, a liminal life, preparing to bring me from one version of myself to the next, and I know I chose this so I can do good. But am I doing enough? Are the small acts going to carry me through until I can add more and more?

I chose to leave my job, to buy a house, to start anew, because I was tired of not doing enough good in the world. Dorian was gone, I had no one to be responsible for, no way to take pride in someone else's goodness until I could have my own. I was no longer trying to patch up my life so it could join another's without infecting it. And without that drive, it seemed pointless.

So here I sit, and I watch 80's sitcoms on my laptop at low volume all night, holding dying animals, and wondering if that creature feels any comfort in what I do or if I am simply stubbornly keeping its small body alive for my own selfish need. I wonder if the things I have done have been enough, so far. The hospice and the hopeless cases. A tiny chip at the compassion I want to pour into the world (quietly, lightly, in the secret dark where no one can see how fragile I am).

People say, thank you, and they say, you are strong and caring, and I think, but am I? and how can I be more? and still I am so glad that they say so and wish I did not need to be.

One-Sided Soulmate.

I think the soul in me
recognized the one in you
and I don't know why that scared you
but there's only so much I can do
and I wonder if another life
another way will prove
that what I felt was valid in the shifting and the move
so for this life it's just a brushing
and now that soul has come and gone
but there's more lives that are coming
and this one was just a little wrong.
but I'll live my best and hope
that in another life I'll find
to be rewarded with that love that I
could feel within my mind
and the way my body called you
and the way my blood was yours
I think my soul was ready but his wasn't, yet, of course
or perhaps it's just a childish thought
to smooth the pain of being forgot
I knew a Love but it's passed by
I hope I get another try.

Death.

That moment you realize your love for someone is gone.

Gone.

I wish I could say "just like that," but I loved him so hard, so long, so extremely past when I should have.

But it's gone now.

And I feel...

Whole again.

And somehow empty.

There.

When I turn on my phone after two months of silence... and there he is, worried about me. Does he know I've been missing his easy laughter and silly songs, his questions and excitement and the way he eats with his hands, the way he slept beside me, that wild hair all spread on the pillow?

The timing was wrong. But timing changes.

Out the other side

I don't know if it's the weather breaking, or the sleep, or the much-needed time away from the work but I have crawled out of my depressive grey chrysalis and am fucking renewed. I walk with fucking purpose, I take it all in stride and eat it for strength. I am a fucking warrior queen. I handle the world thrown at me, and I handle it masterfully. I fill my hands with the dirt and I own it.

This, I like to wear.

He's gone, and I feel... nothing. It's so infrequently I feel anything. A brief love affair, a trial. A temporary placement in my life. Sweet enough at the time, but now gone... and there's nothing. No loss, no panic, no regret. If anything I feel strong again, not having to wonder or worry. Not being concerned I don't feel enough.

I wonder what he feels about it, but then, a cloud, it passes, and I don't much care. I think about how many I have left in my wake, sweet honey sugar men, good men, men who tried and who cared and who wanted very much to love me, and I feel... nothing.

More than I did before, I suppose.

Before Dorian, I had no sympathy. I did not understand love at all. I did not understand what they felt.

At least, I tell myself, I let them go. I cut them off. I passed them along before the hurt would be too great.

Some lingering regret, maybe, is all that haunts them now. A vague sense of wonder. A tingle of loss.

I may feel nothing, but I am not cruel.

I would never do to another what he did to me.

But the sun is out, and the things he did to me seem far away. I am relieved. Often after the loss of a lover, I sink down. I swirl into emptiness and missing him.

But the days are warm and bright and I am not missing him. It's not an emptiness, it's a wholeness. Not missing him brings me back to myself.

I am buoyed by the days and some sleep and some adult conversation, and I feel supremely strong and capable. My yard expands into a wilderness and I look at all the things in my life I must learn to tackle, and I am not overwhelmed. I set them into pieces in my mind, sections to approach. I will take them on and I will master them. I will and can become the best version of myself.

I do not want to be who I think I am. I want to be better than who I was.

Such stupid wisdom he's always spouted.

I am responsible for my words. I am responsible for myself.

I am responsible for becoming better, and I will own this world and leave the days around me better than I found them.

That is why I am here. Heartbreak, excess, those are nothing to my mission.

I am an infinitely confusing double-edged sword of intensity (didn't you say?) and I am strong enough to wield it. To wield my own confusing and sharp-edged intensity to build a softer world.

Sunny days

On the days when the storms are quiet and the sun is out, I'm surprised by who I miss most. The one who touched, who danced with me, who goofed and laughed, who quizzed and learned. Mexican music plays in the neighborhood, filtering through the windows, and I wonder where he is now, wandering his home town beneath the mountains, and if he wishes things had been different, too.

Nostaglia

I'm reading a book series I loved, but didn't understand, as a young girl with silly hopes and dreams, who thought she'd be a celebrated author by now, who thought she would be world-traveled and live in nights full of champagne and flirtations.

I read the words as an adult. Quiet. Tired. Stressed. I've chosen a different life than I would have expected. I saw more glamour in my days. Sparkle and glow. Instead I sigh a lot. I nag. I come home to my humble life and I clean. And yet, I am rather happy.

The words the author chooses are beautiful and rich. The characters exotic and unique. The main character, she falls in love with something ugly, who cannot love her back, and yet she goes to war for him.

I cry and cry, silently in my humble mattress on the floor of the loft in the home I bought for only myself, and I understand her now. I did not understand her as a young person, full of so many ideas and sure, sure beyond anything, that once I felt love, it would be reflected back equally.

She loves his dark soul, she saves it, she tolerates his dalliances and his love for others. She, in the ends, walks away.

I weep and drink wine and the words resonate around me in a way they never have.

Another potential love affair dies as quickly as it began, and I feel nothing.

How distressing. To be so numb. To see a fight and to walk away.

The battles I fought for love are long behind me. And stupid of me to fight them. One-sided battles.

I wasn't sure I was ready, and he gave me the words I needed to know. No. I will not fight for this. I will not go through this again.

I am happiest on my own, during those moments I forget how my heart was broken. When I read stories of handsome men who are cold inside and I don't think of him. When I remember I am strong and I will go to war - not for love (wasted), but for good. I am tired every day because I am fighting to make the world better.

Is that not better than love? Is that not a different kind of love, than the one that broke me down into nothing but anxious questing pieces?

I rest now, because there is not enough good in the world, and to me, it is everything to bring it blazing back. He says it is a double-edged sword, my intensity... I burn hot until I am embers.

But then I will burn again, because this world is mine to protect - for the dark souls, for the gold ones, for me and the things I love, and I will not be extinguished by frivolous disappointments.

There will come soft rains

It's pouring pouring, I can't see through the windshield but I don't feel anxious. I think I've used up my anxiety for the next few weeks. It's time to reboot. I drive on, thoughtless, numb, enjoying the smell and the hard thrumming on my window. 

Tears roll down but they're the usual tears, and I'm too tired to pay them any mind. I can't think the big life thoughts today. I can't contemplate love and loss. I loved, I lost. Jesus. It's over. 

New beginnings, new doorways, and here I sit crying in the car. Do I miss being treated like I don't matter?

I don't miss how he treated me; I miss how much I loved him. Despite how he treated me. Isn't that the rub?

I miss being insanely stupidly in love. I never thought it would happen to me. I wish it hadn't.

She asks me about the new one, asks me how I feel, senses me out, and I don't have much to say. I can't feel much for someone else when I'm still caught up on the one that broke me. I'm working on it, though. I tell her like she's my therapist, like I'm sending her a slip to get back to work, like I'm sitting in a meeting after a disastrous business choice. I am working on it. I understand the things I did and felt were not good for me, and I am working on being better. Every day I try to improve.

Every day I just strive to be better. Better than who I was, better than who I expected to be. It falls into place and I become this strange good person who is working hard and building successes, and it doesn't quite feel right, so I just cry at night and try harder. 

It's been a long time now. A long time. I want to be over it. I want to embrace the new things that warm me up - shoulders in the dark, hands in mine, breathing in my ear. 

Jesus. I am afraid. I am caught up and broken still, I've lost sight of who I am. I think I've found me again, and then something changes - the storm rolls in, the radio plays a song, and everything crumbles. 

Jesus. Can I please stop being this broken-hearted girl. 

The swearing becomes a prayer, the longer I say it, the more I mean it. 

The Garden

i wonder if Eve knew
of Lilith before
when she stood
in the lush warm garden
and was tempted.

i wonder if she thought
of Lilith's pale skin
beneath Adam's body,
if the lithe belly of the serpent
creamy in the sunlight
struck a chord.

i wonder if her cage of ribs
ached a little
as she took the fruit and
i wonder if it was the first time
anyone other than Adam
had given her
anything.

i wonder if the air smelled like dirt
the day she decided
to bring him down with her.

and if maybe
hours earlier
she found a strand of black hair
tangled into the grass
on that morning
that someone
other than her man and maker
offered her a choice.

Little touches

My body is sensitive so it will take some time, but some normalcy is coming back into my bones and I feel like myself again. This is hard work and long hours and I wonder if I will be able to manage it, building this life. My faith in myself wanes the more tired I become. I need some rest, and to spend some time beneath open sky.

It is easier to leave the bad memories behind me as new, better ones build over top, and I think maybe I understand why he replaced me so quickly, with someone simpler. A year of feeling gutted, I am starting to forget to be unhappy. He stays near, I never have to chase him. Little touches keep me grounded. Respectful tone and words even when we don't agree--what a concept! Maybe I'm not crazy and angry after all. When someone speaks to me kindly and listens, I do not seem to act like a monster. It still does bother me every day, the monster he made me, but that's just what it was, wasn't it? He tapped into the worst and extorted it. That is not me.

I can listen to the songs I loved that reminded me of him again and soon I will hear only the music. I can and will go to places he took me, and wash his residue away.

I want to be a clean slate, though perhaps that's asking too much. But I do want to be clean, be able to head into the new without dragging with me fear and doubt. I want to hear his words and believe them because he has given me no reason not to. I want to be fully myself again before I let anyone share in me.

I will. I almost am.

Spring rains and breezes are clearing old stale scents and memories from my home and I keep the windows open.

Broken Spring Robins

Robins are nestled near the roads for warmth, and they flee from my car, slowly, heavily, uncertainly. I'm not used to being up so early. They're not used to being here in the cold.

I slow the car and let them fly clumsily away, comrades. I cannot fault them their confusion.

Deer cross the road, still in their winter coats. I let them pass, looking for stragglers. Trying not to think about what this all means for our earth. For our future. I shake my head and look to the bright sun rising.

Small victories. A strange detachment. Has having no phone brought me closer to some? I wonder who I have been alienated from, in the meantime, but... still. I sit with him, and I have so much to say. We let the awkwardness pass, the newness, and touch doesn't feel forced. I wonder what time will bring us. I accidentally slip a hint of the future, and I wonder at myself.

How do people pick themselves up, over and over again?

I realize, as I drive, that he fucked her. Stupid of me. I remember how he told me he kept to himself when we were apart, and then, the photo, the one of them as a group. Non-assuming. I remember how she was texting him as she drove through his town, and I saw it, and I said, she likes you, and he said, yes. I remember, more than anything, how he made me feel like I was so so small for questioning it. I remember how he scolded me sharply for wanting an answer, for wanting reassurance, and how my eyes welled up with tears. I excused myself for the bathroom, and he said, no, kiss me first.

What horrible manipulations. I want to be angry, but I'm trying to let it out of my mind. I'm trying not to be the woman he destroyed. I'm working to not be a broken person holding these hurts against another.

So I shut it out of my brain, in the rosy purple dawn with lovely deer crossing my path, and I pretend it never happened. Even if I wanted an answer now, he would lie. My gut knows the answer.

I shove it all down, all the fear and anxiety, all the overflowing stupid love that was used against me. I let him use me against myself. I let love be a weapon.

Love, I remind gently, mouthing the words in my simple quiet car. Love is not a weapon.

Strangely, there's one I wish I could share this with, but I've made the choice to leave her behind. Love is not a weapon, but it can be used to hurt. I look into the sun creeping up, turning pink and red and bright on the horizon, and I know he will never be happy. Such as he, he will never be happy.

Such as her, I do hope she will be.

Such as me. I can only pray for the best.

Reclaiming

I'm reclaiming things - scent sights and sound
I thought I'd buried in the ground
things that haunted still my mind
I felt that I should leave behind
but I see now there's no sense in blame
you never truly made the claim
and no they were never fully lost
I myself just paid the cost.
So I collect back these things which give me joy
and a lesson which I'll now employ -
nothing's gone one cannot steal
the mind's a trick, loss isn't real
and if I make the choice to fight the theft
I'll find them right where they were left.

Stay

I'm learning passion isn't love
and I'm not so glad I tried it
because it showed the worst in me
and I'm not someone who can hide it
but I picked up all my faces
and I hold them out, palm open.
this life has brought me many places
but I'm slowing down and hopin'
you will see all my blackest truths
and you will not turn hard away
and that I go slow is my proof
I may be hoping you will stay

4-23

The remains of the sun paint the water in roses and yellows, and the cantankerous geese hoot gently and swim in circles, black silhouettes against the sunset. Bats dart through the air, collecting dinner.

It is nice, it is calming, and I forget I'm exhausted, I forget to be chilly for a few minutes.

What a careful navigation of a new person. Finding the new lines. Treading so lightly.

But I am glad of the light movement. I am still easing myself back in, evaluating. I need to be ready to put a terrible love behind me and move forward without dragging haunted pieces into the future.

So we stand quietly a little apart, and watch the birds and the bats, and I am curious about the possibilities, but I am also so tired, and my heart is a little bruised, and so it feels good just to stand there wondering without the pressures of expectation.

The Coldest Soft Person

The dogs are playing a silly game under the deck, popping their heads out at one another and barking, growling, like little soil-covered trolls. I want to muster up some scolding for them  - they're filthy, they're teasing one another and snarling and snapping,they've dug a crevasse where there once was straight lawn - but I know it's an outpouring of energy from being left all day, and it all seems in good fun, so I let it go.

Robins are calling in the trees above the yard so I watch them, rotating through the branches, and wonder, like the dogs, what sort of conversation they are having. I note, also, that somewhere in my life, I learned to differentiate the calls from a robin among those of other birds, and I feel a very vague, very small sense of accomplishment for this small bit of knowledge.

I drink my Michigan wine which tastes very much like grape juice, but I live in wine country now and I want to adapt, and I let the sun slowly move downward. Now and then I get up from the deck and pick up old cigarette butts the previous homeowner cast aside, soft and feathered with age. I've been doing this for months now- they seem to burrow up from the earth as spring comes like buds.

Lucy is in a strange mood, and I wonder if Ryan has set her off. I think she is cured, I have fixed her, until I see her interact with others. She bites at me as I bend, too calm and tired to be angry with her, and, deftly, I watch her moving like I would watch a fly landing on me - hand moves and I snatch her scruff in my hands and flip her onto her back. I sit on her body until her frantic tail calms and the spell has passed, and I return her to the yard, herself again.

What a strange life.

I sit upstairs alone, a kitten down my shirt, its tiny tiny ill voicebox the softest rumbling purr against my skin. Her face is caked with milk and food, crusty and hard; I pick hard pieces of the fur around her eyes where infection has oozed. She is strong today, and comfortable against me, and she's calming me, whether I know it just then or not. I look down at her small closed eyes and my chest wants to swell, but I won't quite let it. I think of all the beautiful little kittens I have loved, who have lain on me just so, who died unexpectedly, or expectedly. I will give it time, and a little piece of love, and see how it progresses, before I let my heart open all the way.

He seems to understand. I am opening up, a little piece at a time, about myself and how I feel, and I am relieved when he doesn't pull away from it.

I am the coldest person in a room of melted ice cream people.

How have I become cold? Or am I just feeling cold by comparison?

And someone, always, must be that person, right? Someone with a mush heart must still make the hard choices.

I remind myself, looking down at the small breathing thing comforted by my heartbeat, curled against me, reliant on me for food and warmth and care, that I may feel so, but I am not cold.

He reminds me that I am not cold. And I admit, it feels good to hear. But part of me says, he is new. Maybe, over time, he will decide that I am cold after all.

As Dorian said.

But Dorian made me cold. Never, before him, were things so black and white in my life. He has changed my perspective. I am not, and I do not think I will ever be again, so forgiving as I was.

The kitten wakes and crawls back to her siblings, and I sit on the floor beside my bed and wonder with a little bit of fear, just who I am now.

PTSD

I'm pushing every boundary right from the get-go. I move things on the table to gauge his reaction, I toss my head and let everything spill out, my attitude is bubbling and overwhelming, my tongue sharp.

He laughs, he absorbs it. His energy feels good, he is curious, interested. Even when I purposefully push him too far, there's no undercurrent like Dorian, no electricity that sets my stomach on edge.

I wonder if it will last.

I don't want to be wondering all the time. I never had to wonder before, I took people at their word and their actions. I promised myself I wouldn't hurt anyone by punishing them for what he did, the terrible things he taught me.

I wonder if I'm ready.

I think I am. My hard edges don't feel so sharp these days, and I miss the feeling of tucking my head into someone, breathing, hiding for a moment from the world. Taking a secret beat for myself.

I hope he is patient.

Open doors

I think I'm finally ready.

We shall see.

I haven't dated since the Good one, the one I thought, oh, this makes up for the last one. This is what it's supposed to be like - minus the lying and cheating and overall mental warfare.

I've had lovely women ask me how I find these good men (this was before, of course, the best one turned out to be an entire complete violent mindfuck wrapped up into a handsome outgoing selfless package - who knew a hotdog was mislabeled as sirloin? I remember a woman asking, is he just the most wonderful boyfriend? and that strange moment I paused and reflected and had to say no, no, he's really not).

You know how, my lovelies? I wait. I screen. I pick and choose.

Even the pretty slim one, the one who made the same mistakes only maybe even worse with the mind-killer, because he loved me (I suppose) and he fucked her, she's said it too- where do I find them.

I find them the same fucking places y'all do, I just work harder. I have more patience. I sit with my god-damn hand in the water wriggling my fingers until they go numb.

Now is the perfect insert for a finger wriggling joke but I'll hold off.

I discard willy-nilly. I trust my gut. I don't give in. And, in the end, there's usually one, maybe even two, who remain in the pool.

So, somehow this feels like a major event. Moving on from the one that did me real damage. Onto the first one since the one that showed me a glimpse at potential. At what love might be. I'll always thank him for showing me that love doesn't have to be a gaping chasm of self-doubt and depression.

Ambitious as fuck, smart, outdoorsy. Cute, at least I think so.

Chemistry? We will see. Probably he's not a manipulative monster out to ruin me, so I just won't be interested. Such is life.

But we'll see. I think he'll benefit me in the long run regardless, based on similar interests and an overall violent striving to make something of ourselves. And, excuse me for saying, but I think I can benefit people in the long run too, if they choose to respect and make use of me.

This feels like a major event.

Ducks are lining up. Things are happening for me. Life is happening for me.

I don't know if love is in the cards. I always thought for me there would be one, and always, for me, there has been one.

I just hope to God I was wrong.

Excuse me for saying, but I'd hate to think I was wasted on him.

I always knew in my gut for me there would just be One.

Time will tell.

4-17

I'm not sure I want Bonnie and Clyde

There are more options than just die or ride

Passion was something, but where did it lead?

I'm left here alone with wounds that still bleed. 

Make me coffee when the dawn comes up and sit by my side on the deck

Let's enjoy silence while bringing in morning while other lovers are making a wreck. 

I'm getting too old to want my heart broken

I want me a man who means what he has spoken

I want peace and comfort, someone on whom I can lean

I want to know where he's going and hear what he's seen. 

I suppose that it's boring to dream up a dream where everything is just what it may seem

but my life has been chaos and I'm ready to find a man who will hold me and soothe my poor mind

Aloneness

The abandoned speedway is covered in sticky grey mud, but the dogs, thrilled to be free, fly over it, and so I will consider the consequences later.

We roam the empty arena, ugly in its design, beautiful in its strange loneliness and its green muck after the rain and snow. 

Last year I was camping and hiking around this time, heartbroken, pretending not to be. Always broken hearted and pretending I'm not hurt. 

Spring is holding off for me, it wants me to be ready. I nearly am. I feel strong and capable today. I enjoy my time alone, I take pleasure in watching my strong happy dogs, and no part of me wishes you beside me. 

I pace the empty bleachers, my shoes caked in mud, and I think about how you would pretend not to be bothered by the mud, but you would be irritated, and your tenseness would wear into me, and I would try to comfort you and you would tell me I was being ridiculous to sense such a thing and I would be hurt and question myself. Always a cycle. A cycle that ended in me doubting myself. You planted the seeds so early. On purpose? What had you planned when you met the girl who didn't love?

It's a very realistic reminder. I remember you tearing your jacket, denting your leather shoe. How angry you are under the surface. 

I wonder if it's easier with her far away, hiding who you are. Or perhaps you're calm with her. But then I wonder why you stayed. 

And then I don't want to wonder about you anymore. I thought to perhaps repair something once important to me, to patch it up, but what will that bring me but more pain. I feel adventurous and bold, here in this forbidden empty place, and I do not want to spiral. 

I feel the loss of my broken phone again, and I wonder if the other one, the Good one, has tried to contact me. He'll be leaving soon. Perhaps he thinks I abandoned him, and our patchwork will be destroyed. That would make me unhappy. But, I am glad we skipped this part, the falling in love and worrying part before he goes away. He would have still chosen to go, and we would have been broken hearted. We were both cowards to not face it, but we learn as we grow. I have learned to guard my heart more carefully. Loving him would have been fun, but we both knew how it would end.

I catch sight of myself in the area windows, bright and reflective, and I look happier than I have for a long time, and maybe even beautiful. I have not felt very beautiful for a long time - men are always using it against me, chipping away at my spirit, grabbing at it and me, possessing, jeering. I am not allowed to admire myself. I am not allowed to exist unless I intend to belong to someone.

I smile at my reflection and take a photo, and I think I look beautiful. 

I sleep hard, despite the silence, despite two dogs pressed tightly into me, despite a slim cat on my neck and whiskers in my nose. I am coming back to myself, and so far, it seems to be sticking. 

The potential for success is close. The potential for love, or, at least, a good friend, is nearby. Lifelines. I will keep swimming toward them no matter how tired my limbs. I have all the means around me to live the life I have always wanted. It is strange, that he changed that vision - for what, a year and a half, off and on? A vision of perfection I honed for nearly 32 years and it was completely thrown aside. I am shocked at myself, but I am getting it back; I know what is right for me. 

I would have, had he let me, been right for him. But he was never right for me. 

4-15

Sing me a song, love, or tell me a story
Of those old days when princes were shrouded in glory
and love was an item so magic and rare
that they fought wars and burned cities o'er taking their share.
Write me a poem or hum me a tune
about swinging long swords and white breasts that are hewn
over treasures and maidens who stood by the side
of great heroes on horses gath'ring courage to ride.
Such great battles were fought that time cannot dim
the words of the splendor of the she that loved him
and I promise to listen and stop up my mind
when I'm wondering what kind of magic I'll find.
Time passes and gold gilds the goriest mark
and turns trauma to passion in the depths of the dark
and the women who stood by the side of these men
I wonder sometimes what their thoughts all have been
and how many were seeking a way to be free
and how many were quiet and yet wild just like me
and if they were given the slightest of rein
if they'd choose to be prizes and cause so much pain
I wonder if they looked at the fields soaked in blood
and the screaming and dying who lay in the mud
and I wish I could ask them, if given the choice,
if their people would pause and heed to their voice,
if they would have wanted to stand where it was that they stood
or if things may have been different if they only could
have been strong on their own feet, and made their own way
I wonder if they would have still chosen to stay.
But I'm sorry, my love, here I'm lost in my head
over stories of romance of heroes long dead.
Here, I'll close up my lips, and I'll listen, I swear,
to these stories of women with shimmering hair
and the men who did love them, at least, so we're told
in these stories of glory and princes of old.

4-14

It was a hail Mary, but I somehow pressed reset.

A reminder, I suppose. The weather has changed, the air smells like dirt and rain, and it makes me think of happier times. I get caught up in nostalgia. I wonder how, though things have changed, I can tap into a few moments when I was happiest. Maybe find the shadow now, find the reality, the echo, but maybe there's still something there I can hold onto.

But the smells play a game, causing me to forget. Brief happiness and such a spiral afterwards.

I pick my mind apart, trying to find the reasoning behind, but there is none. It felt right so I did it. I felt bad and I wanted to find a way to feel good.

Somehow, I feel good.

Logic wars with emotion but for once emotion has cooled slightly.

It never mattered why, it doesn't matter what he tells himself to excuse it. I can never break into his skull and show him, make him feel, what he put me through.

That is who he is. I am ashamed I loved him. But I did.

I will be the mad love that was cruel to him, to all his tales. It doesn't matter. Those who know me know the truth. Including some of those closest to him. I still wonder, does he know that they wanted to keep me? Maybe I was wrong to let them go, let my depression cloud me. Maybe I should have waited until I felt good again. I would so prefer to stay with the people who want to keep me.

The clouds are parting though it's cold and damp outside, and I see a glimpse of something brighter. I see hope and opportunity. I see my hard work falling into place, so fast I can't even keep up with it, and I wonder why I still lay awake long into the night and pick over what went wrong.

Nothing went wrong. He is wrong. He is a sick individual I cannot cure. He can be her problem. He loves her, that's sure, but when it hurts me, I remember him - door open. So you're coming over.

Love does not mean he will be faithful. I have lost nothing. His love is worth so, so little.

I wonder how long this relief will last. It comes and goes so often. I have mourned and struggled for so long, but I have to be gentle on myself. Love, for me, is different, I think. I must handle things differently than others, I must be gentle on them as well. I cannot put it through my lens.

Gentle is not what I am best at.

I hit the worst this week. The worst came at me, it crushed me, and I realized how little control I have over life. I waited to be swept up and blamed and destroyed.

But I was not. I was protected, and trusted, and treated gently. I was given hugs and drinks and told it's not, not, not, your fault. You did all you could. You did it all right.

I am always doing all I can and yet the worst can still happen.

That is life. I did all I could with him and still the worst happened. That does not mean it was my fault. That does not mean I could have given more.

I am glowing from this protection. I have protected myself for so long, I am not used to running for safety. I am not used to being cared for in this way, and it is changing my perspective.

Life is terrifying and unpredictable. Things happen.

We make mistakes but all we can do is our best.

4-13

Bird are popping about between the earth and the trees and the sky, uncertain, just yet, if this spring has come to stay.

Somehow I have found myself an unexpected comfort among the days and the nights that have swarmed up against me lately.

I have made peace. It was not, perhaps, the way I might have envisioned it, but I can't deny the comfort of some little peace.

I am not quite happy for him, but I am at the brink. It would have been a waste of so much suffering, for this to fall to nothing. So many lies and so many tears, what for?

In a sense, it has been worth it. Not for me, by any means. My god. But a small portion of my heart is happy for him. On the brink of happy. And that feels good. It feels like the final stages of mourning.

I can't help but want to get a final jab in, but, hey, that's who I am. I never do go easily, do I? I still have untended hurts.

I remember seeing the first man I loved - or thought I loved, at the time - and his wedding photos, the girl he had chosen over me -- during me. It seemed worthwhile. I am never happy to be overlapped, but to be broken for a reason... that, somehow, is okay. I cried a little for him, and they were happy tears. Strange though. For him I am sure I have been long forgotten.

This week, this month, this year, has been such a spiraling upward and downward torment of optimism and hope, success and failure, pain and loneliness.

But it is evening out. The end is in sight. Early in the year, perhaps. Or perhaps it is just a lull. Like the birds, I am not quite ready to commit to this new opportunity. Perhaps it is a false peace.

I think, honestly, perhaps I have just needed socializing. People to talk to, to vent and confess. I feel much less mad these days. I am not a creature who thrives on keeping things inside.

I wish it had gone another way, a softer way. A forgiving way. A way that may have made smooth cobblestone steps toward understanding, but still, it feels right. I can listen to music again. I have been taking myself back this year, and a brief uncertain reaching out has shown me that I will be okay without him. I am sad, that to him I meant so little and to me he was everything, but, as I trudge day to day on this painful hard life, I acknowledge that it is so for many people.

To me, love was special and treasured.

But it is not so for many people.

Uneven Zen

I'm reaching a level of zen, though it's shaky. Things in my life are back in place, calm and cool, and I can handle them again.

I feel my gut clench and I force it to relax.

This is life and I have to face it.

Maybe, I decided, I have to face him too. His happiness. This new life I keep denying he has. A woman he loves and gives, so easily, the things he denied me. Silly photos and trips. He convinced me it was so much to ask, so to see him, with her, providing them, smiling... these small things he told me were too much.

I can't decide how to deal with it. Immersion therapy is perhaps the one option I haven't tried.

Slam myself with images of him happy without me. God, he was so unhappy with me. I'll never understand why he stayed, and why he let me stay. It wore onto me, this unhappiness. I think we both wanted to be happy but so many walls were up. We threw weapons.

What did she do to take the walls down?

I'll never know,  and I tell my gut to relax. It's just life. Just keep living.

He loved me, that matters. He loved me wrong but he did. He loves her now, that matters. I want to come to terms with it and let it wash over me and away. I wake every day hurt and alone and I am so so tired of pretending he doesn't love her.

My life is my own, my path has veered sharply, but I am taking it with enthusiasm and bravado I don't quite feel. I need to own my choices. I need to calm my stomach and find a less shaky zen.

Confessional Moments

I've listened to Speechless three times, crying and sobbing on the way home, my blood slimmed with alcohol and my victorious attitude somehow entirely deconstructed into misery.

My mind shies away from the current drama. She was right, this slight girl and her brief friendship that, much like my night, imploded in a series of progressively heart-breaking moments. She was right about some things though. Drama surrounds me. Do I create it, unintentionally? If so, how do I quit? I hate it. I hate how it touches me.

Men and their confessional moments, followed so quickly by anger. It's exhausting and I don't welcome it. My walls can't seem to drop at all, without some backlash. I comb through my mind looking for positive examples, for men who have been kind to me, for men or boys who didn't hurt me or strike out, for boys and men I couldn't destroy with a look or a word -- anything healthy. There's very little.

I think of my brother, calling me "honey" in the store, pretending to cozy up beside me as a young, ugly unformed girl -- it was a game, convincing strangers I was his. I think of my father, smiling smugly to himself, informing me in the supermarket that people think I'm his young lover, a half-smile of pride that he could accomplish such a thing.

Sick, sick, sick.

I did not learn until I grew up how sick sick sick my relationships with men have been. I look back at those moment, so many moments where I was not a human, I was not me, I was validation, and I am disgusted beyond comprehension. Cut my thoughts away; I did not need to exist. I was a body, I was a form, a doll used to stroke unhealthy egos.

Even now, it seems, I am not my own entity. I am a measuring stick for self-worth. I am unique, I am strong. To catch me means they are more than they expected, more than they see in the mirror (they knew there was potential hidden).

To fail means I am a bitch.

I think of Dorian, who I wanted to love me, and the walls he and I threw up between each other -- his retreat and my subsequent coldness. Why love when I can't be loved back? Whatever I did to him, whatever strange chemical I put off, it pushed him away, and I responded by retreating. What a glorious painful joke in retrospect, to pull away from the only one I wanted to go all in with.

Although, considering it's been nearly a year now that my heart has been broken, I can't help but be grateful. I don't know how I would have survived. I crank the old stereo up and cry harder, drowning in self pity. I want to lash out so he knows how long I've struggled, I want to exist somehow again to him, even briefly, even if it repulses him, so he can't continue to shunt off his guilt. He broke me entirely and I'm still picking up the pieces. And I'm furious with myself for not being healed.

The rational part of my brain is trying to click on, soothing me, whispering logic and comfort. The rational part of my brain thinks he is sick, and hopes he finds wellness, hopes he is happy. I did love him, after all. Don't we want those we have loved to be happy?

It's a constant war. I am not quite ready yet. Maybe one day. Maybe one day I'll be happy for those who have wronged me, but right now, I feel my largest accomplishment will be neutrality. One day, I will not care. Right now, that feels like enough. To feel nothing, in either direction. A horizon I race toward.

One day I will see him in a store, and maybe I can smile politely. Maybe I'll do nothing, I'll walk away. I won't feel broken, I won't feel lost. I won't wonder why he didn't love me as much as he loves her, when to me he was everything.

These people who are always falling in love, how? How? I want to break into their heads and bodies and understand, because something is different. Like the people who enjoy haunted houses, I can't fully grasp it. How can you enjoy this? How can it pass so quickly? I want to pour us into test tubes and examine the differences under the microscope. I feel like something important eludes me.

It was fun, briefly. It was fun with the second one, the one who was kind to me and touched my leg and kissed me in public. I enjoyed falling in love with him until the moment I did, and felt myself become vulnerable. I hid that love and I buried it and I waited to see what happened, and the moment he showed me he may not be careful with it, I gathered it up and I took it away.

 I can't go through this again. I can't risk it.

And yet I'm lonely. I have accidentally isolated myself with my home and my career, with my flashing burning drive to succeed and make something of myself, this desperate scramble to fulfill my dreams because I'm not sure what else to do with my time right now.

And in that, I've made no room for anyone new.

Maybe this was another wall, in the end.

I want to put myself out there and love, and be loved back, but I hide in my home and I make excuses and I hunt out a future where I am successful because that, I know, I can never regret.

Becoming

It's strange how things are settling.

I think back to the day you left me alone in the orchard. I should have left you then, or the day you chose to do so much without me. I knew then.

I could be so past you by now. I could have skipped an entire lifetime of ruin.

But the dust in the air is finally settling, without her. I knew it would reach this point. I should have left her too. I'm stupid when I love, I suppose.

But I did love her, and that's boring. You didn't, Dorian, so what do I have to offer? How dull and unpoetic to be loved back.

I used to watch her speak and move and wonder sometimes. Why her? She's nothing like me. Was that the point? To fix your errors with someone smoother and sweeter? Why cut the pineapple when you can bite into the peach? Big doe eyes adoring you. I knew we couldn't last. She wanted to cling to loving you, and I wanted to let you go.

You are who you are, though. You're the man who kills spiders, who left me in the orchard, who leaned away from me in photos. Or that's who you are with me. So who were you with her? And her? And who, in the end, does that make you? Are you happy now? Do I ever haunt you in the night?

You didn't want to love me. I'm sorry you did - if I had known how hard it was for you I would have left long ago. Why would I be with someone who doesn't want to love me when I am so in need of love? And so worthy.

But the ripples from your wake are slowly fading, though I drew them out so long. All the things we should have done together that you preferred to do without me, with your brother, with her, instead, I poured all of my resources from the life we could have had and now I have a new life.

And it is calm, and it is what I have always wanted.

It gives me some comfort to know you would have been really happy here, if you had waited, if you had reached out some hand to help me. I hope one day you get a glimpse of this perfection and you are cut through and through knowing I live it without you. Despite you.

I have far to go but the path is straight before me, and I am strong and energized and content and I know I will reach all of my goals. I wanted, once, to share this life with you, but you resented me for it and now I will cling to it selfishly, luxuriating in the peace and adventure of Becoming.