just below

Its bubbling just below the surface, so shallow its amazing that no one can see. Assuming anyone is looking to begin with.  It hurts to see he isnt looking, especially not at me.  I have to smother it, make sure it doesnt break the surface. 

This wound is so old and yet feels so fresh every time. I stand in this church and I mourn him still...22 years later. I try so hard to remain in the present to be supportive, be aware, be respectful to this man, to this family, but I'm 13 again and none of it feels real...again.  Like I'll wake up and everything will just be a dream. I go through the motions and I say all the right things but I dont feel real and my mind is not here.

I dont think I've ever learned how to mourn and it becomes more and more apparent every time I become trapped in those moments and those memories again.  It pulls me under as I try so hard to be the life support for everyone else. 

What happens if I cant keep fighting? If I cant keep us all above water?

And it seems so inviting to stop trying, to give in. And the waves of loss, regret, worry, fear, anger just push harder as they feel my fight fade. 

In case of emergency, ignore

I'm drowning slowly in the ocean of unanswered questions with no vest.  And they watch from the shore yelling directives that are as unnerving and impractical as the floaties they tossed on shore for me in case of emergency. And im spinning spinning spinning looking for direction or a hand to lead to safety, sanity, support to no avail. I drift out further, the shore a mere memory soon and my leaders long since gone. They cannot see and I have to wonder if they ever recognized my struggle or if maybe they were just taking in the view.  

The office was built on a cracking foundation and each step forward also entails several swift blows to the remaining supports. I have bent under the pressure and have watched several smaller beams give way, but held fast and strong in pursuit of what is right, what is necessary, what is true. But their multicolored glasses see not the cracks or severity of the damage but only the sparkling potential that will crumble just as swiftly when the last of us give way.

The dust will settle and they still will not see as they sweep us all under that rug that is so easy to distract, to ignore and eventually throw away.

My Audience

Set the scene for the audience
open my mouth to divulge my heart
Cue the music to this feeling
If I can decide where to start.

I have hidden in the shadows
Terrified that I may get caught
Hoping he won't notice this
Too scared to reveal the plot.

I've only released the edited version
Ensuring I carefully limit what he knows
If he knew the writer behind these pages
Would he still love the girl he chose?

Cue the mood music and careful lighting
Hide my intentions behind curtain calls
Distract him with the tiniest of truths
And hope the illusion never falls.

I feel paralyzed by these crippling fears
That i mislabeled this from the start
Im muted in silence by the realization
That he may not see beauty in my art.

The production changes without warning
And i briefly pray that he will go
But i desire so deeply to be seen
That i can no longer stop the show.

The script is spoken in full unedited glory
Reveals me in my darkest creative design
He sits in torturous uncharacteristic silence
Drinks in my words as if they are wine.

And the curtain falls
And the music fades away
And all that is left of me
Lies in tatters and disarray.

I cannot even look him in the eye
More than anything it is rejection I fear
But much to my surprise he smiles broadly
And quickly wipes away my tear.

And applause fills the enormous theater
Appearing to rise from each and every seat
But they sit empty, row upon row
And he is the only one on his feet.

My audience
My muse
My love
It's you.

It's taken me a long time to realize that I never let him all the way in. And now 9 years, a marriage, a child, and what feels like a lifetime later I wonder if it may be too late. Will he still love me when he sees these broken verses? Or will he feel deceived?

Beautiful burden

I'm not sure where to begin. I'm not the girl that used to fill these pages anymore. I look back and I remember these moments, I remember these words and the more I read the more I came feel those same... pangs.  But they feel different somehow. Like I'm reading someone else's past. And it is hard to describe how I'm feeling about it. Like I've lost someone important. Like I'm grieving. And I hate to even admit this but there are moments, tiny moments, where I miss it.  I miss the depths that those feelings reached. And I wonder...and I fear mostly...whether I have lost something I never took the time to cherish correctly.  As I have grown and matured and achieved so many things that I did not even know I wanted I miss the need for these pages, for this special kind of cathartic release.

I fell in love with that boy that I was so scared to let in...and he did not judge me. 

I let go of that boy that I was unsure I ever could...and I was able to breathe in a way I had not since we first met.

I finished school and I got the dream job...and i didn't fail.  I've been working for 5 years in a field that I am passionate about. I'm doing what I always hoped that I could. I'm helping people...changing the world one day at a time.

That boy that i finally let in got down on one knee and asked a question I was unsure anyone would ever ask...and I said yes. We got married and we have built a beautiful home.

And one day I made the decision that I was ready for more.  I'm a mother to a staggeringly independent tiny human that I cannot imagine ever living without.

The love that I experience now is new. And each day I wake up and I go about my day I don't feel like I need this anymore. I feel like just living is enough.

But there are moments. Tiny lapses in confidence and calm when I realize that my passion has been lost. Great art comes from pain. And my life when I was young was dependent upon that pain. It was expected. It made me who I was. And somewhere along the way I learned that suffering was the fuel for my writing. And I began to have a sick sort of relationship with it. Self sabotaging and angsty, but such a beautiful burden.

And when I sit down to write without it I cannot help but notice that it is mundane. That I cannot have both creativity and peace, or that maybe if I can it is not the creativity that I used to burn so deeply for. And the pain returns, just briefly enough for me to reflect on this.

Will I ever stop expecting the worst to happen...ever stop relishing in my disappointments and my doubts...ever stop waiting for a reason to run? Because even as I write this I recognize that is exactly what I'm missing.  I don't miss that look in his eyes when he realizes I'm not enough...or the crack in someone's voice when they prepare me for bad news...or that glance from a stranger that conveys both sympathy and disgust for my sadness. 

I miss those moments when I was pushed so far and so hard that I had no choice but to keep moving, keep fighting and show them that I would never give up. I miss having an opportunity to run and show myself what I could do.  The moments where I was tested and I came out wounded but no longer afraid. And I fear I will live my entire life holding my breath and waiting for that feeling to return.

But as I prepare for my evening discussing dinner prep and bedtime routines I feel...content.  and it hurts to admit that I miss the beautiful chaos that I grew to expect.

He is enough. They are enough. I am enough.

But can I sacrifice this?

1487

One thousand
four hundred
eighty seven days
since my words have felt
... worthy.
Since the words have felt
...clear. 
Since the words have felt
...necessary. 

I've thought of putting pen to paper
or fingers to keyboard
or phone so many times.
They havent quite felt
...ready. 
and as I type them now they still aren't
...enough.

I perpetually find myself here.
It used to heal me.
It used to free me.
It used to feel so constructive
to tear myself to pieces
to move on.
Now it stings.
Now it tears. 

One thousand
Four hundred
Eighty
Seven
Reasons to keep giving up.

I'm afraid that this part of me
got left behind.
Im afraid that everything that I used to have to battle this darkness has been lost.
And that now that it creeps in farther
I will be lost again.
And maybe even this time
...completely.

Will he see?
Can he?

My mouth opens,
but the darkness inside
has never ever
let me scream.

But, he saw me
...Once.

One thousand
Four Hundred.
Eighty
Six
Days ago.

Will it be enough to hear these silent screams?
Will he save me before i succumb
to the darkness that has been lurking for all this time waiting for this day to come.

I will always end up here.
And these words
will never quite be enough
for him.

Not even
And especially not on
Day
One thousand
Four hundred
Eighty
Seven
... and counting.

The unforgiveable destruction of illusion

Some days my heart aches in ways that are difficult to describe...difficult to even admit.  I stare at the ring on my finger and I feel so many conflicting emotions that it becomes overwhelming.  Love, unquestionable love and desire.  Hope, for happiness and comfort.  But also a deep and ever-present darkness...anxiety, worry, despair. 

I have stood here before.  Not here, it was very different.  I was...naive, gullible, innocent.  He was...deceptive, calculating, cold.  As more time passes the memory fades, both in importance and clarity.  I don't love him anymore.  I wasn't sure that would be possible back then. I was sure that kind of love was...inescapable.  That the poison would linger, that his thorned vines would continue to tangle...to strangle...and I would never be free.  Yet here I stand, "free". And yet I am caged, not by him or even his memory.  I now realize that the real prison was made by me.

He changed me.  What he did to me cut so deeply, so suddenly that I cannot pretend to be untouched, that I have somehow overcome the trauma.  He abandoned me.  He made me question my self-worth.  He showed me that people lie, and people manipulate, and that all people do not have good intent.  He tore apart everything I believed in and everything that I thought I knew was true.  And the hardest part is not what he did, but that I let him.

A lot changed after this.  Everything I believed in, everything I thought I wanted...it wasn't true anymore.  And a few years went on, and as much as I could I healed.  I dusted myself off, I stood on my own and I kept going.  And a big part of me believed that I had truly healed, that I was okay.

I see now that I am not.  I see the darkness within this sparkling symbol of love, of commitment, of promise.  And that crack in my heart pangs.  It whispers, it worries.

I'm not good enough.
I don't deserve this.
He can't love me.
I'll ruin it.
He'll give up on me.
I'll lose him.
...I'll never be what he needs.

And sometimes I feel like my soul is screaming at him...warning him.  Telling him that he has made an impossible promise.  Because he can't love me.  Not like that, not forever.  Because a long time ago someone broke forever for me.  He shattered it, and he left the pieces scattered... splintered... torn.

Is it wrong to want closure?  I have moved past love, and hate, and even regret. I am exactly where I want to be, but I am terrified that if I don't say some things out loud, if I don't get get some answers, that my heart may betray me.  Because this busted heart...it is so good at running.  So bent on escaping the inevitable.  Run before he leaves you. Run before he forgets he cares.  Run before he sees the fractures, the flaws, the tears. 

But I am so tired of running...

Why did I stop believing in forever? Why did I begin to question whether I could ever be loved, protected, respected?  Why did I give up on that white picket fence, bringing life into the world and for once feeling what family meant...real family? 

He asked me if I wanted to have children the other day...and I didn't answer. I couldn't...because all I could see was another's face that day at the jewelry store when he asked me to look at rings and joked about what we would name our babies.  I saw the illusion of hope in his eyes, and I remembered how it felt to be surprised...And also how it felt when the curtain fell and the truth was all that remained.  It all came back...the hurt, the pain, the disappointment, the disbelief, the doubt.  So, I in turn created an illusion, a distraction.  And I didn't tell him the truth.  The truth that I often doubt that others can love me, that I deserve to be a wife, a mother.  He made me fear love.  And while I can forgive what he did to me, that is something I cannot forget, something that I believe may be unforgettable.

And I think what upsets me the most is that I can't find the strength to share this with him. That I don't feel like there is a way to adequately describe these feelings and flashbacks that attack without warning.  I don't even see him anymore...not really. I see those emotionless eyes as he told me that he didn't love me, that maybe he never did and that he probably never could. I hear him tell me that he chose to share his bed with another because he knew that was the only thing that would push me far enough away.  I hear him chuckle heartlessly as I began to cry. And I watch myself almost in slow motion beg him to stay and feel the stabbing pain of being thrown at the wall and lose my breath as I watch him raise his fist at me.  And the emptiness consumes every piece of my mind as I am forced over and over again to accept that I broke every promise I ever made myself by allowing him to remain in my life after all of this.  My nightmare is more about how much respect I lost for myself than it is about what he did. 

The bruises have healed. The scars from the cuts have faded. But that feeling that I was not enough lingers...buried deep it festers and with just the right push it reemerges. Swallowing me whole and bringing me right back there. To that apartment. Bleeding and bruised and more alone than I've ever been.

But as I continue to look deeper at this diamond on my hand and I force myself to look at the man that was brave enough to offer it to me I know this is different. I know that this is real. The thoughts are so conflicting that I feel ripped in two. One half screaming at me to run, to save myself from more hurt. The other pleading for me to stay, to save me from myself. And this is all boiling under the surface as he smiles at me and asks me about my day. The unseen battle. The unknown war. And I smile and I tell him about my day and the screams they settle to mere whispers for at least another day.

And I try to believe that one day I might feel worthy of the love I see shining in the eyes of a boy that I know I may never deserve.

She often looks back and wonders when and how her life ended up like this.  As if there will be one glaring and obvious moment that changed it all.  Knowing full well that the truth is that she changes everyday, that we all do. 

She is a well-educated and intelligent woman.  And yet, she will not give up on the most unrealistic and fictional dream of them all.  She is smarter than she is allowing herself to be, but this is due entirely to the size and functionality of her heart.  She knows full well that her heart is not her emotional center (or anyone's for that matter), that this is merely a symbol and long-standing fiction.  But she does not give up.  She can't.  Because her heart hurts, and she cannot for the life of her figure out why.

She lives an honest life.  She works a 9 to 5 job, and in her own little way she does what she has always wished she could do, she changes the world.  She pays her bills, and cares for her dog, and she loves him.  And yet something is missing, something more than she has always known was not there.  She has lost a lot, but none of those losses explain the overwhelming sense of emptiness, of incompleteness anymore.  She has moved on and she has forgiven many, let go of so much anger and so much regret.  And yet she feels the pangs, the reverberations of the past.

She said once that she was a completer, that she was someone that made others whole.  She sees now that she may have gotten some of that wrong.  She lost...loses... pieces, so many pieces, along the way.  She lives on inside of their souls, those incomplete and broken souls.  And now as time passes she understands the price that she must pay for this.  The completer is both a blessing and a curse.  For she feels their pain, their loss, their regret and vengeance each second of each day.  And it has changed her, slowly, one soul at a time.

Looking back she cannot see it, the moment it all changed, for it never happened all at once.  It just was, and is, and will be. (Forever and) Always.  She feels for them, instead of them, so they don't have to.

So maybe she's not broken, or empty, or lonely.  She feels all of this, all at once, and it is nearly incapacitating, overwhelming, heartbreaking.  And some days she wonders if she can go on, but she knows that she will.  Because this is her life, and this is her purpose, and if she was not this then really what would she be?

A 20-something girl that could have saved the world.

She will be the same person she has always been, or she will die trying.  Die happy and at peace knowing that she never gave up, not on herself, and not on the world.

Because everyone knows this world could use a bit of saving.

Some days are harder than others to keep going, to keep believing.  The thoughts are harder to shut down, the feelings are impossible to overcome.  Today was one of those days.  One of those days when everything was more real.  The pain that surrounded her was more intense, almost pulsing with its own heartbeat.  My body was so in tune with the universe and with others that I lost myself for a moment.  One moment.  And it all came crashing down.  She finds it hard to describe...and even harder to prove to herself why she should continue to try.

When the lies come full circle

Somewhere along the way she lost something that she cannot place.  She can feel the deep pang for this unknown thing, but she cannot identify it anymore than she can find it.  She has gained so much recently that it is unsettling how empty and alone she feels.  She has grown so much, and yet she does not know whether this growth is an accomplishment, or a curse.  She fears many things, and feels so much loss.  The ripples of her past are growing to be waves of regret, tsunamis of misunderstanding.

Looking back there are many events that led her to become the girl that she is now.  She has lost so much.  She finds it hard to believe that anything in her life can be consistent, that anyone would be willing to stay.  People always leave...and the wreckage they leave behind is nearly insurmountable.  She has picked up her own pieces so many times that she is sure she no longer resembles that girl that she used to be.  She is saddened to leave so many versions of herself behind.

And yet she is not.  That girl that she used to be, the many versions that have existed along the way, they were lost.  She does not remember a time in her life that she was not lost.  So as she stands on solid ground for the first time it is unfamiliar.  She does not trust the feeling that she will not fall.  But she is grounded by much more than she has ever experienced.

She has love.  Honest love.  But she is unsure if she can believe him.  He seems different, but then again didn't they all?  She knows that her past has marked her.  She is aware of the exact moments that have caused her to doubt this.  And there are moments, times when his eyes shift, or when his smile twists in just the right wrong way.  And she is taken right back, back to that moment.  She sees another's eyes, and she feels everything she thought she had let go of so long ago.

The truth is that it still hurts.  It might always hurt.  It may never change.  And as time goes on he is less accepting of the flaws.  He understood in the beginning, but he has reached a point where it is not an excuse anymore.  He will not accept that she is damaged anymore.  She is terrified, unsure.  She does not know what to do because she cannot change this.  She has tried so hard to leave that in her past, those feelings, that abuse.  But as she types this she knows she never will.

If we are honest he ruined her.  She will always hold on too tight.  She will always fall too hard.  She will always wonder.  Wonder if there is not a monster behind those beautiful eyes.  She does not have a problem loving, but she will never trust that those eyes will not quickly and quietly turn.  She may never believe that she is enough.  And she will never allow him deep enough inside her heart to crack it.  If she could, if he could look into that chamber, if he could see who she truly is, would he stay? 

When she was 18 she fell. Fell hard and fell fast, and surrendered everything she had inside of her heart and inside of her soul to a boy.  And for years she believed she had something that no one else could ever or would ever understand. She thought she was lucky, that they had that one in a million first love that would last forever.  And then he shed his lies, and he broke her. No wound compares to the scars that remain on her spirit.  Her wings are blackened, and they are tattered and they hold tight and protectively around the pieces of her heart that he left behind.

She lost so much more than a boy the day he walked away.  She lost direction and she lost faith, in herself and also in the world.  Years later she has not found her way back.  And she wonders if maybe she had her love.  She wonders if her epic love was wasted.  But more than anything she wonders if she will get another chance, if this is her chance and she is simply too broken to let him in.

He loves her. But he has never seen what she hides.  So life has come full circle and it is she that must shed her lies.  And she fears that look in his eyes when she breaks him just the same.

She has woken up from the haze and realized that she has run again.  Run out of reasons, and finally out of breath.  She blames the world for how she is feeling, believes that it has given up on her, ripped everything that was meaningful away.  And when she spins it that way it feels better.  It is still almost incapacitating when she forgets to fight it, but it feels better, better than it would if she were to tell the truth.

She was never good at truth.  She looks them in the eyes and she mirrors her two favorite deceptions...either the person they want her to be, or the person that puts that image to shame.  She is either everything you've ever wanted, or everything thing you wish she was not.  But what she guards most protectively is the truth. 

The truth that she's afraid of who she is.  Of where she's going, but mostly of what she has left behind.  She ran away from reality a long time ago and it was at a point in her life when it was easy.  He friends were growing up and moving away, and she stayed.  Stayed not because it was easy, but because it was the hardest choice she thought she could make.  To stay, when every fiber of her being wanted to run.  Run away from him, and tub away from life and everyone and everything that reminded her of him.  She stayed, but somehow she also still managed to run.

As she grows both up and also more in love with another each day she realizes just how far she has drifted from those she once was so close to.  So far that she is not sure how to get back, or if it even matters if she were to try.  But her heart hurts some days, knowing that she does not know them anymore, that she might not ever again know them the way she did.  And she is lonely, lonelier than she imagined was possible.

And it is getting much harder to lie.  It gets harder each day to smile.  To laugh.  Without also starting to cry... and her illusions fail her, for the first time.  But there is no one left to notice.

So I run, because it's really the only thing I've ever been good at, or felt comfortable with.  And maybe if I'm lucky I'll find something to bring me back.  You can never really go back, and the friends you had in high school aren't really your friends for life, but as I lay here I see their faces.  I hear the promises we made, and part of me still believes.  Part of me wonders if I wandered back to that swing set, or that pier if they might be waiting.  Smiling, ten years later.  Because friendship just changes meaning as we grow. It changes shape, and it gets much much harder, but it's always there.

Sometimes you just have to have faith and run in the right direction...

J-L

If running were a competition she'd hold the record

Her tears are dried now, her breathing has calmed.  She feels that pang in her chest still though, and her eyes sting with pain, with acknowledgment.  She knows, but refuses to believe it.  She knows that she is standing about a thousand paces ahead of where she should have known to turn around. To let go, again.  She wonders if maybe she wasn't built for a life with another. And the tears they fall anew.  Recognizing that she's sure. Sure that she's too broken to make it, but too wounded to make the journey back.  And she's caught in the same battle she loses every time.  She feels the overwhelming urge to run.  Run away from him and back to...back to what she's unsure.  Back to the boys that are as incapable of love, but also of hurting her? Back to the life that was okay for today and tomorrow and that's all that mattered? She knows that is not enough, but is also quite aware that she is unhappy with the place she has ended up again.  She's lost, and again she's alone.  He's all she has, but what if he's not enough?  What if no one ever will be?

She fears that she will always end up here, sad, alone, tired, and running before she has even gotten herself up off the ground.  Her lungs burn and her heart is being out of her chest.  She is unsure if she can quell the urge to flee.  The water it calls to her, as if all will be well if she returns to the shore.  To the only place that will ever be home to her.  This time he will not find her, he will not even know to look.  This girl grew up and moved on, but ten years later she reacts to sadness the same.  But no one that knew her then knows her now.  If she could drown this feeling she would.  But the only way she knows how could ruin everything.

and she so desperately wants to care, but she fears it will not matter until it is much too late and she has gone much too far. 

If only he knew it was time to save her, maybe she'd survive, maybe she'd want to.  Maybe she wouldn't still want to run...

To the boy with all the luck, from the girl that didn't believe in it

My heart hurts.  Deep pangs, to remind me of what I have lost, of what I have given up.  I cannot make this pretty today.  It is dark, and it is lonely, and I only have myself to blame.  We make choices everyday.  A thousand mindless and inconsequential choices, and within these there hides the few that matter.  The few that we needed to make with care, that were lost within the rest.  I should have seen it.  I never should have let him go.  I should have fought for him.  But I did not, I do not.  So I am to blame.

But I miss him.  I miss my best friend that somehow made the entire world make more sense.  Our relationship was all wrong and it was weird, but life is weird.  And we make it work.  So why can't we make it work?

I'm the girl that believes in the world, and he's the boy that relied solely upon luck.  So here I am hoping, wishing for luck.  Hoping that life is not this cruel.  Hoping that the world gives him back.  Please come back.

The key to her story and his heart

When she looks back on today a million miles from this place and everyone and everything it holds she will remember only a fraction of what truly happened. It will be muted and misrepresented by every future event. Maybe the grass won't seem as green as it is, and the sky will be blue instead of this unique shade of gray that should have foretold the importance, the change that was bubbling on the horizon. His intentions might be darker, her purpose less carefully planned.  She won't remember that she chose to wear that dress for him, or that it took her seven hours and nineteen minutes to decide on the right shoes and shade of eyeshadow.  And it won't matter anymore that she was six minutes late, a fact that today was nearly earth shattering, catastrophic.  The details...most of them will be lost, some to time, but also some for the purposes of pure self preservation.

What will remain is only a ghost of the truth, a flawed recollection of the most important and most devastating evening of her life.  He does not stand nervously fiddling with something in his jacket pocket in their favorite spot. His hands are not sweaty and his disheveled hair gives nothing away. He waits at a nondescript park bench, annoyed and time stricken.  She does not lose her breath at the sight of him, enticed by his rugged appearance, and the sense that something important was going to happen did not literally crackle in the air. 

If she were able to rewind, go back to this exact moment, she would marvel at the fact that she forgot the most important parts of that day.  But each day she loses a little more, moves a little farther away from the girl she used to be and the things that were important.  She will not recall the way that he looked at her, or the sharp intake of breath he took when he held her face.  She will not know that she radiated beauty, her eyes bluer in the gray, happiness amplifying every perfect feature he already saw in her.  Instead she wonders why he won't let her touch him, remembers the distance he kept.  She won't remember stepping back, or know that he watched her eyes darken, harden, and eventually set.

All she sees is this boy that was supposed to meet her at the park, this boy that she had known most of her life, couldn't even look her in the eyes.  She doesn't know she shook her head, and wrung her hands and backed away.  Or that the horrifying look on her face was the caused by a paralyzing fear that she was wrong about this boy's intentions, rather than the result of anything he had actually done.  Here they teetered on on the edge of many things...love, friendship, hate, repulsion, sanity...a future together.

And if she could go back and watch it happen again she would see.  She would see that it was his face that fell in disappointment as she walked away, shaking her head, and whispering "no...".  A no that was laced with devastation and the incorrect notion that this boy had led her here to break her heart.  She remembers instead that he left her there, broken and crying...even after the rain began to pour. 

It's funny how perceptions flaw memories so indefinitely.  It did not even rain that day, and that gray sky that she thought was blue? It actually got bluer.  And that boy that broke her heart, that first boy to ever do so, was fiddling with a key in his pocket.  A key to a house that he bought for her, for them.  Because it had taken one crazy night with his best friend under the stars to not only show him that he loved her, but that he needed her to survive.

Each heart here was broken.  And it only took a moment to change their path, their destiny.  If she could rewind she'd watch him crumple to the ground as she ran, see the tears stream down his face, and marvel at the fact that his eyes seemed to glow as the sky brightened.  She would see him take the key out of his pocket and toss it on the ground in disgust and pain.  And if she cared to watch a bit longer she would see that he picked that key back up and set it on their bench with a note.  A note that she never looked for and never found. 

"I think I've loved you since the first day I saw you here.  We were 7, and I was digging for worms after the rain to go fishing with my dad, and when you walked up you told me that was the coolest thing you had ever seen.  I didn't know what love was then.  12 years later I'm not sure if I do even now, but I do know that I need you.  I need you here with me, always.  I know you deserve better, but I want to give you everything I have.  So here is your key...to my heart and our future.  This is why I brought you here today. I was always waiting for you and I didn't even know it.  But run first and live your life and if you don't find what you're looking for I will still be here, and this key will still be yours"

He found the note against the rail of his fence a few days later, wrongly assuming she had found it, but still left him.  And that key sat right where he had left it when he returned.  And his heart shattered, sure of the fact that she had no intentions of ever returning.  And if she could have seen it she would know.  She would know that that note and that key remained in his pocket always.  A feint reminder of her, and the fact that he loved somebody once, still loved her today.  But she could not see this.

She did the only thing that she knew how to do; she ran.  As far away from this place and as fast as she could.  She told herself she could never go back, never look back, because if she did she'd let him break her heart all over again.  The memory twisting and darkening already.

Years later she would return, exhausted with her journey and the lack of something she could not quite place.  And she sat next to a stranger at the bar.  A drunken stranger telling the story of a girl that had left him behind so many years before.  She would listen, and she would agree.  But she would never see that the man also held in his pocket a note and a key.  And a place in his heart that he still kept solely for her.

She still did not see.  She did not see those eyes hidden beneath his ballcap that would have given him away.  She did not notice that at some point his breath caught in his throat when he finally looked at her, saw her for who she was.  She was too focused on avoiding the man that broke her heart that she paid no attention to this rugged and disheveled man that sat next to her. 

She did not notice when he left, but moments later tried to catch him because he forgot his key on a napkin that was not a napkin but a note upon further review...notes actually. The first was rather simple, kind of sleazy out of context.

"5424 birch road, blue farmhouse white fence...I'm still waiting"

And then a familiar note, one yellowed with age and almost torn at the folds that had been opened and closed so many times.

And her clouded memory began to unravel, readjust.  And 10 years after that day she finally saw it.  And she ran again, but with a different purpose this time.

A letter to the boy that I let go, and the best friend I could never keep

Life is funny sometimes.  So cyclical and cynical.  I have come to realize that this is my addiction, the feeling that I get from releasing everything that I have inside out in to the universe.  Usually I just need to be rid of whatever is inside, but today is different.  Today this post is for him.  This is for the boy that I knew I could never love enough to keep, but just enough to hurt so badly I could not let him go.  I hope you find this someday, and I hope that you care enough to tell me that you heard me. 

It has been months since we were supposed to meet for lunch and you just never showed up.  I wrote to you after angry for the fact that you had done something that was so out of character that I just could not understand it.  I was angry, but forgiving because I think I already knew then that I was toxic.  I knew that I was the one thing that poisoned your ability to be happy.  I told you that I would respect the fact that you could not be around me, or that you shouldn't be, and oh how I have tried.  I have tried to forget you.  But then I end up back here, and for some reason there you are.  You nudge my brain as my fingers touch this keyboard and I want to reach out.  I want to tell you so many things.  The words are burning holes within my chest, and I am losing my sanity and myself in the process. 

I do not love you, I do not want to spend my life with you, and I do not regret the fact that we stopped the never-ending cycle of whatever it was that we were doing.  But I do miss you.  The more days that go by without a call, or a text, or even a message, the harder it is for me.  You were my best friend.  You were the only person in the entire world that knew me completely and still accepted me.  So when I come here, to this place that I seek when I need to figure something out, I miss you more.  This white screen and blinking cursor are not enough.  I need you to tell me I'm not crazy.  I need you to tell me everything will be okay.  I need you to let me cry on your shoulder.

I took you for granted, that is one thing that I am sure of.  I was a terrible person to you, and I guess I understand why you do not want to be in my life now.  I took everything you gave, and I did not respect it enough until it was gone.  I was embarrassed of what we had, because in all honesty I did not know what it was.  Honesty and acceptance to that degree, and at our young age, bred a feral and unyielding attraction that was not easily tempered, and in the end that is what also ruined our ability to connect.  We were a unique duo then, but we have both since grown up and found true and lasting love. 

I think that knowledge is what hurts the most.  I always thought that there would come a day when we were both happy enough and secure enough in our own love lives that we could be friends again.  I thought that if we found a place where there was no threat of attraction that we could have the good parts of our relationship back, but as more time passes I fear that I never will.  So here is a list of everything that I've wanted to tell you in no particular order and without holding back:

I heard that you are going to be a daddy, and I am so happy for you.  I saw the announcement and my eyes literally filled with tears, because I know that this is something that you have wanted for a long time.  I know that you will be an amazing dad, and that that baby will never have to worry a day in his life because he has you watching over him.  I wish more than anything that I could tell you that.  Love him or her with everything you have and cherish every second.  And leave some memories behind for them, leave something in writing and take a million pictures, because you never know how long you'll get with them.  Life is unpredictable, and I know what it's like to have an amazing dad, but I also know what it is like to lose him.  Maybe this seems dark, or that I am assuming you will have a short life, but you always told me you would.  You always told me you thought you were going to die young, so if you do leave a piece of yourself for that child that will continue to grow and take the best of his/her daddy with them.

I have also had some revelations of my own.  As you know I am quite independent and strong-willed, but I have seen this slowly breaking.  I have found a man that I feel like I can spend the rest of this life with.  He is smart and charming and loving, and sometimes when he looks at me I can see him get lost.  He gets that look that someone gets when they are reading a book that they can just immerse themselves in.  He gets lost in me, and I lose myself for a moment too.  He has a temper, but he's only hard on himself.  This is upsetting only because I do not know what to do to fix it, and it scares me, but for him and never for myself.  I promised you and myself that I would never let someone hurt me again, and I know that he never would.  He would never raise a hand to me.  And he makes me want all that sappy shit that I tried to tell myself I never wanted or never needed.  I want the wedding and the white picket fence and the three children playing with the dog inside it.  I want it so badly, and I want it now.  That scares me too.  It scares me that I know I'm not ready for that, but that I want it anyway.

I miss you because I'm not sure what books to read anymore.  I miss being able to just sit there and tell you about the book I was reading, or hear your version of one that I should read.  And I miss stupid movie recommendations.  I'm so lost on Netflix that I've rewatched every episode of Bones at least ten times.

I go out of my way to drive past your work when I'm in the area just so I can try to get a glimpse of you to see that you're ok.  Yes, that makes me crazy.  The compulsion is sometimes alarming, and the disappointment is even more so when you are not standing outside waiting and waving to show me everything is fine.  I sound like some love crazed teenager, but I just worry and wonder about you.  Are you eating okay?  Are you happy?  Have you quit smoking yet? God it's ridiculous and frustrating.

And finally, do you regret me?  I know that I hurt you more than I ever helped you, and I took you for granted and I let you down, but was it still worth it?  Do you miss the friendship that we had as much as I do?  Do you ever wish that you could just go back and change things so that we never crossed the line?  Wish that we had done things differently in the beginning so that maybe we could still talk from time to time now?  Because I do.  I miss my friend, and I fear that he does not miss me.  I fear that you finally woke up and saw me through eyes that were not clouded by love, and realized that you didn't like what you saw anymore.  I would understand if this is so, but it would also hurt. 

I'm not really sure what I'm trying to get out of this long-winded and ridiculous rant.  In the end, I just want you to know that I miss you.  I miss my friend, and I miss your view of the world.  It didn't always make sense to me, but it was unique.  You are a special person and I want you to know that I finally realized that.  You are the best friend I could ever hope to find, and I am saddened by the fact that my antics while depressed and single have caused me to lose something so amazing. 

All I want is a cup of coffee, a slice of pie, and a talk with my best friend.  I want to know you're okay, and to show you that I'm finally okay too. 

Hoping and praying that my message gets through but preparing for the worst,
J-L

Judgment...forever my (inner) enemy

I feel as if I need to broach a subject from a point of view I am not comfortable nor well versed in.  As a writer of this blog I have always imagined myself as the writer of this story that is my life. The storyteller of what this life is and how it feels from the mind of a single, inconsequential face in the crowd. I am a person just like you, whoever you are, wherever you are.

Today I am not. Today I am the author of this blog, the person behind the artistic, and even sometimes poetic, voice that speaks through these pages. 

As this person I need to explain to those of you that stumble upon this blog that something I am very passionate about is the truth, and acceptance.  I have become aware of an individual that may or may not have stolen my words from these pages. I, like many of you, judged him at first, thought only someone  that does not respect another does this.  Someone has revealed to me that this information may have been misconstrued.  As I pondered this possibility I realized that it did not matter.  It doesn't matter if that person passed my words off as theirs or not because, in truth, he still passed them on.  He shared those words with so many that it somehow led to the creation of a webpage about what he did that can be found on Google.  That's right, google. The girl next door from nowhere America is sparking a revolution against plagiarism...I'll admit it's a bit exciting. 

But I'm getting away from the point.  I began this blog in order to show the world what it is through my eyes, in order to change it.  If people can see life from enough points of view maybe they will someday accept them all.  Equality and respect and knowledge and truth, this is what matters.  Not what was said or who said it or how they pronounced the words.  Someone stopped to take a moment to make me see that this person has brought all of you to me, and me to you.  For that I am grateful, and also nervous that I am speaking to a much larger audience than I was aware.  I ask of you only one thing: respect each other and the fact that we are all different and unique, in the most amazing and indefinable ways.

If you take nothing from these pages, please carry with you a value for the message it conveys.

J-L

True love and growing up

Somewhere along the way I lost who I was and what I stood for.  I unknowingly and of no one's fault but my own allowed my life to become something different than it should be.  And you might ask how I know what my life should be, because how can anyone know what that is?  Maybe I don't know, but what I do know is that where I ended up was absolutely, with no question or even slight pause, not where I should be.  Lost in a world of chaos, and floating in a sea of would'ves and should'ves, but didn'ts.  I allowed my life to become meaningless, void of all creativity and insight.  My words used to mean everything to me, and at some point I lost not only my passion for those words, but my will to voice them.  I grew embarrassed of the writer in me, and scared of where those words were taking me.  And so I let them go, slowly, but surely as well.

Today, I realized that I am unhappy of where my life has taken me.  I'm happy with the people in my life, even though I have lost touch with some along the way, but I am not yet happy with myself.  Without my words I fear that I will not survive in this world.  And so, this is me and everything I could not hold in today.

The rain would not let up today, it poured with a ferocity I have not seen in many years.  It did not pour in vengeance, but in retribution.  Retribution for the sins that I had still at that moment denied.  My father used to say that it would take a hurricane and a quarter to wash away the sins he had committed.  I caught myself smiling at the thought.  The thought that this was my hurricane and a quarter, but that it might take a hurricane and a half with all the wrong I had done to get here.  In my head I was standing on the edge of the pier, taunting the waves to wash me away with them.  I was begging and pleading them to take me, to just let me go.  And when I was sure that they would and that epic wave was building I finally found the will to fight back.  The will to write about it, rather than let it take me in.

I think we all finally reach a point where we find that we have, no matter our dedication to prevent it, grown up.  We reach a point in our lives where we need more to live for than ourselves.  I have experienced many things in this life, and learned many lessons, but those that are most important cannot be achieved until I can live not for me, but for a family of my own.  A lot of my friends are getting engaged, or married, or having babies and I thought I was fine living to the beat of my own drum pace, no matter how slow it was in regards to the rest, but I was wrong.  I want everything that they have so badly, and so suddenly that I am unsure what to do.  Am I really ready to become a wife, a mother?  Can I truly dedicate my life to bringing life in to this world?  I mean it is creation at it's most purest sense.  Could I possibly bring a writer in to this world, someone that could make much more sense with a far better vocabulary?

And love.  Ever the enemy cloaked as her best friend.  Could he be different?  Could he truly be the one that she has waited all her life for?  Cosmic, and exciting, and oftentimes frustrating as hell?  She fears that she has found something worth that much, that she has stumbled rather haphazardly and unintentionally on "the one", and that she will screw it up.  She has found many before him, but never made the right choices, or followed the right path.  How does she know that this is different?  How does she know that he will not hurt her too?  And does it even matter when she has made it so far in to his life and in to his heart?  Her heart beats best with him, but does not seem to have trouble beating on its own.  Is that what love is, when you grow up, I mean?  Does love stop being that earth-shattering and life-changing moment, and turn in to the moment that you simply like best?  Comfortable and meaningful, but not as...exciting or bold.  Is true love simply the only other person in the world that makes you the best you there is?

I am getting off topic, and metaphorically out of breath.  All I ask is that someone breathe life into me, and into this.  Before the pages begin to wither, and my body becomes cold. 

Straight to video regrets

Lights. Camera. Actions speak much louder than his words.  Backdrop is perfect, props are in place, but he hasn’t memorized the lines I’ve written for us.  This relationship isn’t the love story that the big screen envisions, nor is the sick and twisted angst that the writer intended.  We are boring versions of our television ready selves.  My hair is messed up, my makeup is never right and his intentions are dull, but still darkening.  The fairytale becomes the horror story we all knew it would.  If he could see the skeletons in my closet he would probably be amused with my naivety, and I shudder to think of what dirty little secrets he’s hiding behind those closed doors (and his even more stubbornly bolted heart).  We are perfectly imperfect, but too star struck to care.

Cue the violin, or maybe the tambourine is more appropriate, almost comical and taken just about as seriously as we were in our best moments.  Strip away the fantasy and you are left with two awkward twenty-something broken souls pleading for a more promising start.

We’re begging for a rewrite and selling our souls for a second chance, but drowning in the lack of responses on our behalf.  No one believes in us even half as much as we believed in ourselves in the beginning, and even now we don’t believe in ourselves enough to keep afloat.  Cut. Print. Straight to video.

And we become the dollar rental sitting dusty on the shelf, waiting to mean something to some daring movie lover.  Someone like us.  Someone that’s hair is a little messed up, or makeup isn’t quite right, or has holes in the wrong places in his jeans.  That’s the kind of person that will rent us, maybe find meaning, and then probably lose us within the trunk of their 90’s beater, and forget that we even existed.  But maybe, just maybe he’ll think of us later, maybe he’ll even become a writer, or even a filmmaker, and one day maybe our story will be told right.

Until then, here’s to the bad acting, the terrifying soundtrack, and the straight to video version of ourselves that might just drown in hate mail before we ever make it big.

The difference between praying and being preyed upon, and letting go of both.

If she could go back she would, rewind all the mistakes and all of the lies, and go back to that place.  That place where friendship was all that mattered and love was just a mystery, a promise whispered in the dark that no one would ever mean.  She’d go back there, and she’d do everything differently.  It was her worst moment, her lowest.  In retrospect, she has no idea why she did what she did, maybe because she was tempting the fates, ready to lose it all because she didn’t think life meant anything without him.  For a split second she allowed herself to be selfish, to take what another so willingly offered.  He loved her, had always loved her, was happy that the stupid bastard had left her behind.  What had he been thinking? How could he not know what he was missing? Who wouldn’t see the beauty that he’d seen every day for years, but had chosen not to act on.  She was weak, and he preyed, as she prayed that another would forgive her.  Different types of pr(a/e)ying, and she had chosen the wrong connotation.

To think I’m still a writer is as delusional as it is to think that I could ever go back there, that I could ever rewind time and change the one mistake I am the least proud of.  I’ve always been a smart person, cautious to the point of detriment, but that day I was not.  It only took one day, a couple hours actually, to change the entire course of my life.  To change the people in it, and the hope that I had for something beautiful.  When I was growing up I was obsessed with a forbidden love, hoping that if I loved someone I could not have that I would never be hurt.  I loved my best friend, and eventually my roommate, my best friend’s boyfriend, and my boyfriend’s best friend (all different roles he played at different times of my life, some simultaneously).  I brought him in to my life and I kept him there, so that I could find comfort in the familiar, and that fact that I would never have to be alone, because even if everyone else left I’d always have him.  It’s kinda funny in retrospect that it is because of him that I lost everything else that I had.  At the time I’m not sure I knew I was doing it, even now I wonder if I was that person.  I don’t think that was everything.  I felt like if I gave up on him, that he’d give up on him too, that if I wasn’t there he wouldn’t have any reason to be.  Four years later I see that it isn’t true.  He could survive without me, and me without him.  But without her, I’m not me.  Losing a best friend is like losing a part of yourself, the part you liked best.  I told myself I loved him so long that I never knew I was loving someone that never existed.  He was my boy next door, my what if, and could have been, but never should have happened in the end.  My happy ending twisted into my condemnation.  I loved them all and I lost them all at once, because I wasn’t afraid to lose anything, but afraid to lose any of it at the same time.

But then we make it to the point where I question if I’d be where I am today without all of these decisions.  Would I be here, with a man that treats me right and a family that I love, and friends that are there when it matters?  Everything has consequences, and I guess this is where mine have taken me.  It’s hard not to look back, to want to rewind and go back to those days that were easy and those lives that were carefree.  We loved each other because we could then, we all loved each other because it was easy and we survived because we realized it would not always be that way.  I’m not sure I won, or that there is anything that actually even constitutes as winning, but I survived.  I survived the loss, and the embarrassment and the mistakes that I made back then.  I’m not proud of them, and I still regret much of it, but I cannot change it.  I can only learn from it.

And I’ve learned that you can never know someone, not completely.  That you can spend each day with someone and if they choose to, they can still hide who they are from you.  It takes a certain type of human being to do this, a very manipulative and cold-hearted one, but they exist.  Leeches is probably the best possible description.  They take and take and take what they need and then they rip you off and run away.  Maybe we all made mistakes back then.  I like to think that he thinks back sometimes and regrets what he did too, not that he left, but what he did.  I can’t help but wonder if he does, how he feels, what n if he ever thinks… how it could have been.

But could have been’s simply lead to more regrets that my life is not made for tv, and can’t be rewound or rewritten. Ugh. You can’t trade in the middle if you still want to get to the end though.  And I’m happy, I’m ready to let it all go, but I wonder if I can ever get some of what I let go of back, if there ever will be a day that she’ll see me for more than the villain in her love story, her best friend turned enemy, turned stranger.  It’s sad to say that, stranger, but it’s the truth. 

So I guess we get to a place where we have to let go, of everything and just keep going forward.  Maybe it was all meant to happen like this because together we could not, or would not have ever found happiness.  We were too close, too wound around each other that none of us could see clearly until the rest of us were gone.  Maybe when we get to the point where we choose, what we want and who we want it with, things will be different and our lives will magically fall back together.  I mean we fell together didn’t we?  It all just kind of happened and we were together everyday, sharing everything and doing everything together.  If I believe in fate, it is only because of this.

And she hits rewind, but realizes that she can’t go back far enough to make a difference, or that maybe she shouldn’t.  She sees what she could lose if she went back, with no guarantees if she would change it for the better, or if it would have just ended up worse anyway.  And she’s caught within a moment in the past that she did not expect.  A moment she barely remembered.  She sat in the sand with her toes in the lake, jeans rolled up to her thighs and sandals in her hand.  She often came here to clear her head.  Things made so much more sense when the waves were crashing in, and the worries were farther away.  It was somewhere between losing them, and finding her place somewhere else.  A loneliness permeated the air around her, but she was not frightened, just lost.  She saw a group of kids walking down the pier, kids that could have been them a couple years ago, kids that would be them some years down the line.  She heard them giggle, heard them laugh and dare each other to dive in to the freezing water.  Only one did, long after the others had gone home.  It made her wonder why the young girl had done it.  She saved all of her courage and she jumped into that water with no caution and no regret, and no one would ever know.  No one but the girl silently watching from the beach a hundred feet away that she didn’t even know was there.  She looked triumphant as she wrapped in her sweatshirt and started her journey home.  It hit me that she waited because she didn’t do it for the rest of them, for the approval, or the bragging rights, she did it because she could, and because she didn’t need anything but the knowledge that she had done it.  She reminded her of herself, years and years before any of this love stuff mattered.  When she was just a girl, walking with her friends on the pier trying to figure out who she was and what she stood for. She stood for something more back then, back when the waves stole all of her cares away.  In that moment, things didn’t really feel so hopeless.  That girl, although she would never know, that girl that could have been her, gave her hope.  She might have even imagined the entire event, getting lost within the world of no consequence in which that girl still could live.  But that moment is what turned it all around for her, that is the moment in which she found her hope to continue on in this world.  So maybe she couldn’t change what she had done, but maybe, just maybe she could let it all go…again.

My fingers have not itched with such regret, or ferocity in some time. The message is clear, and yet the words are illusive.  it's like a puzzle with its pieces scattered across the dirty floor.  They're there, if i have the desire and motivation to look.  But the fear paralyzes me before i can touch the pen to paper, one what if condemning my fate.  What if it's not the answer i had hoped? Do i want to know?

(The forever unfinished draft of my goodbye letter to you... because I can't imagine loving anywhere else)

Sometimes it only takes a very small, even inconsequential event to shatter this fragile joke of an existence that I call my life.  The counselor in training that surprise surprise, needs a fucking counselor.  How I'm feeling is something that I'm not even sure I can explain, or that I want to, but the feelings that are beginning to boil up within me are quite dangerous, and unfortunately the path of the destruction is infinite, putting all those I cherish in the crosshairs of a rifle that they don't even know exists to begin with.  The more I type the less I make sense, the less I make sense the more I worry, and the more I worry the worse this is going to get. 

This is what I do.  No matter the circumstances, I end up exactly here.  Torn between the fact that I love (him), and the fact that it's just not enough.  For me?  For him?  For...ever?  I don't know.  The feeling is the same though, the same as it was in the past, and just as inconvenient.  Has he finally lost my attention, as I feared he would from day one, or am I just being dramatic?  Is there truly something wrong here or am I creating this... need for something more?

I love him.  I can't even sleep without him next to me.  I love the way that he caresses my arm while we're sleeping and drags me closer to him.  He nuzzles me.  I didn't even know what that word meant until he came into my life.  He laughs at my jokes and calls me on my bullshit.  He's perfect.  In a way that I never will be.  Because as much as I love this man, as much as I want to spend the rest of my life with something deep inside of me has already decided that he will not be that guy.  That he can't be.

So am I running because the psych(ot)ic in me knows that I'll eventually get hurt?  Am I running to save myself from whatever heartache I will meet in the future?  Or am I running to save him from... this?

I've never been more scared or felt more alone in my life.

To describe what is going on inside of me is not only frightening but ill advised.  It's like someone is choking me, pushing on my chest in such a threatening way that my immediate response is to push back... hard and quick so whoever is there will be caught off guard and unaware of my retaliation.  My mind wanders to find someone to listen, someone that will understand, but t(he)y doesn't care.  I'm not a cheater; I'm not a liar; I wouldn't dare.  And who am I trying to convince?  The pull to escape figuratively, turns physical, and the need just intensifies.  Where does a girl go when everyone has given up on her, and the only one that still cares doesn't have a clue who you are, what you're feeling, or how crazy this is about to get?

How can he love me if I haven't even let him get to know me?

And this is why I have yet to find real love, intense, ever-lasting no questions asked love.  I just want to be safe, and it's hard to admit but the only arms that I want around me right now are the ones that I know will not hurt me, because I don't have to care.  He can't hurt me if I don't care.