But you, you just know, you just do

Nothing is unfolding as it should, my body feels corroded. I want a new one. Sometimes I feel as if I were stuck in a grave, unmoving – sheltered by nothing but aching flesh and bone. Is everything else useless? My soul feels unfinished but perhaps it is time to call it quits. If I die I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Haven’t I died before? Isn’t it the living part that is the hardest of all? I’m so tired of crying myself to sleep. I hate these nights where my brain is helpless, and my body restless. I can feel myself drowning.

a note of survival

The moon is almost full again, pregnant with fury. I wait each month for it’s madness, blinding the darken sky with it’s wondrous gaze. My hands are shaking and my eyes are swollen as I write this. I caught myself in the mirror this morning and stared, pressing the palms of my hands to the counter, rushing closer and closer to that mirrored image. Could my eyes be this swollen from all those burning tears? It has been so long since I cried for anything, for anyone in such a way. I was not sure I had the capacity to care so much. I thought this heart of mine was dead to such feelings, succumbed to a coldness - a strict loneliness. It is untrue I suppose. I sleep with ‘Steppenwolf’ beside my bed, before it laid in bed with me, next to my extra pillows - shifting in the night as I did. Perhaps it is the closest I will ever come to being with you - of you.

I feel hollow inside today. I even found refuge in a closed public bathroom where I cried feverishly, thinking of all the things I may never get to do with you. It occurred to me that it is probably true that you do not feel for me what I have always felt for you. I do not think we could be separated for so long if this were requited. I feel so much it’s spellbinding, and I surely cannot compete with the past that I was never in, or a love I never knew - nor even that of orange skin and golden hair. For my love affair with you is so unnatural it could be warranted as crazy. But didn’t people fall in love years ago, centuries ago just by gazes, letters, and simply complexities of nature? Are we not such old souls that we would fall into complex habits?

without love i won't survive

The moon is still full and pregnant in my dream, dancing across the sky as it did in my reality only a week or so ago. It’s harmonized with the baby child wrapped in blankets beside me. What a dream. I make a horrible mother. She is brown skinned with deep chocolate eyes, and tiny fingers staring up at me. I listen to her heart beat silently, and shake her to make sure she is still alive. This baby child has shown up in my dreams before, the night before but that dream is not as cross as this one. I leave her alone, in a humongous house and expect nothing to happen to her. Guilt riddles me as I awake from this madness. The house I lived in full of emptiness and the land before it flooded with not enough space, houses upon each other as if they were shields from the outside world.

Apparently these sort of dreams (which I’ve never had until now) are significant. Most often I have dreamt of being pregnant but not of an actual baby. In a way I have been in a deep, dark, scary place for some time, and perhaps it is time my dreams reflect that. The neglect of oneself rearing it’s ugly head into my subconscious. Lately I’ve been feeling spoon fed of ideas I’d like to construct and then I find myself complacent, even lethargic. I have rubbed myself wrong this year and there is so little solace inside myself. I am haunted by my own insanity, by the madness that has often surrounded me. I hate my body but this is not new for I’ve struggled with this hatred since adolescence although never developed the disorders many women my age did at the peak of fashion mags in the nineties showing heroin chic chicks like Kate Moss wrapped in skin and bones. I was thinner then though, my metabolism quicker to wrap everything up and wash it away – I walked longer.

I’ve been avoiding work emails, and phone calls. Why do I do this? It’s almost as if I cannot stand the idea of pressing myself to the camera lens right now. I am too raw at least it feels this way. If it is not for a friend I cannot bear my soul for green paper that I will throw away anyway on something stupid, and whimsical. I want to break away from the heartbreak that has haunted me these years, shed my skin and start anew. Strange that most recently a man told me it was obvious that I was a woman who had had her heart savaged. Is it that obvious? Do I wear the scar on the outside as readily as it is on the inside? Some people see me better than others. Although someone very close to me told me that I do not seem okay. What does this even mean anymore?

Once had, barely forgotten. I am always fascinated by people who had not seemed to genuinely be in love – for then would you desire someone else? I do not want the kind of love that is shared. I wish I could be that way. I have tried so hard to shape my romanticism into something other than what I am. I suppress everything though as if I were a bottle nipped shut by a cork. How do people recover from the tenderness of true love? I wish I could wrap my head around my heart and turn it’s strangeness into logic. Is it true even when it ends?

the end

I can shut out the noise of the city sometimes, walking the back streets to the lower east side, getting lost in my own footsteps. I walk in the street, along parked cars. I think of him, but perhaps this has just been as natural to me as breathing for the past three years. I suppose admitting this may help me move on from it finally.

I sought out a psychic last night, leave it to me to only engage in these specific acts when I am suffering from the loss of love. The last time I sought someone out of a more in tune nature was several years ago after a lover of mine and I had split after living together. We’d known each other since high school, and the loss seemed monumental at the time. I have loved many people, and have been quite surprised by my capacity to love but only been in love with two people. I suppose I wanted desperately to be in love with Jae this year for that would cure me of my undying love for him. It would change my sexuality again, rearrange itself since he awakened in me a passion for a man I’d never felt before. It was only logical I return to women afterward.

The pain attributing to my overwhelming craziness this year. She didn’t say what I wanted to hear of course, which was that he could love me again. I suppose I wanted affirmation on whether or not to fight for him, but what I received was a firm no. At least she was kind about telling me the truth, and not necessarily something I wanted to hear. That isn’t true though. I wanted to hear what could be the truth because someone outside of my world had to tell me. Not only that but she told me that he never gave me his heart completely, which must be of some truth as otherwise he would have not been so swayed when his family got involved in the demise of our relationship.

It is the end and I can only accept it with a tight fist, a palm on the doorknob - an empty stare and a loud thump behind me followed by a thud. There is hope though, as always as life would be tedious without it. She did say there would be someone I would literally run into in and around March - to keep my eyes open. Who knows, maybe my next love is waiting around the corner somewhere. For now I’ll supply myself with all the golden love I’ve been giving everyone else.

slumdog

The first time I saw ‘slumdog millionaire’ I wrote this 02/08/09:

He says we can live on love. It’s a dynamic and endless theme – love, love, love without food or water we could live on love. I’ve always thought this, wouldn’t your body confine itself to the knowledge, your brain working to remind your stomach it was full of everything else. Consumed by the power, and overwhelming sensation of it, when you have nothing this notion is so much better than the alternative – having nothing with no one. The problems of our childhood melt away like shadows in the night, monsters ridden and bound together elsewhere in our memories. Sure, we could live on love. Our thirst for anything else would be redefined.



The second time this evening I wrote this:

It occurred to me that few people fight for love. The mere substance of it bounces away into the sheer depth of the night, the darkness swaying only apathy. How can love be such an easy word? Flexible in it’s ground, the way it rolls off the tongue. Some love is destiny, ripped from the headlines of your heart and soul. I could be foolish in saying so but I just do not think so. I would rather fight, with blood stained limbs – and a damaged heart than give up entirely on it altogether. Yes. I have not forgotten for one moment, and the reflection of real love lingers like an extra limb, another heart protruding in my chest.

kings and queens

Some people are born with the ability to be cruel. They may not even be consciously aware of it but it thrives inside of them at the core, like some disrupted volcano about to burst. I cringe inside, battling the war of my own mind and the crippling sense of another. I certainly wish I hadn’t taken that psychology class years ago that began to define my way of dealing with certain personalities, even when I truly once devoured the personality till I was raw with hunger. I let myself believe in the most impossible things, especially when someone gives me hope that it can exist. It is true that we are all separated by the selfish and the unselfish. I had never seen it that way till a friend pointed it out. Sad since him and I seem to be in a boat of self exploration and at times pity. I used to think I was too sensitive, and in ways I may be but the truth is some people are just cruel.

I cannot listen to the reports about Afghanistan as effortlessly as I was this summer because the closer the date comes to Will’s death the more I distance myself. Every soldier that dies reminds me of him. While walking the other day I saw a man in camouflage and I gasped. I wonder when I will stop seeing these men as a reminder of my own scars. I do not mean to look at them that way. It is just that I cannot help it. The only men I’ve loved wore a uniform and once you’ve suffered the mind fuck of wondering if your lover will come home alive, or in a body bag it changes you. My mind is not the same as other women. Awaiting a phone call at three in the morning just so you can hear the persons voice for a second or two. The way I used to cry after every hang up, and muffle my tears in a pillow. This has been on my mind so frequently lately, and I wonder if Luke thinks of me at all. It was only last year that we still wander into each other’s minds and hearts. I suppose in ways every woman I have been with this year was just another way of distancing myself from the all time heartbreaks. Finding love and losing it. Always having love and watching it slip away to a deep dark grave.

In the end Jae, Sal, Dana they were all things to fill me up and let me down but real love is so unforgettable.

There's an emptiness inside her

The curve of the trees bark, the limbs turning into bright yellow leaves reminds me of a scarf tugged around a dark skinned neck. I’m always attracted to the deep crimson colored leaves, the ones as bright as fire. Perhaps it is the phoenix in me. I love the way it balances against a bright blue sky, perched there – popping out as some 3D motion picture. In college I used to walk the paths that held the most leaves, and let them cascade over my boots. Always with my head down, watching their movements I could have cared less about actual interaction with another human being. I’ve never quite fit anywhere, except in the arts. All the education I’ve had has simply prepared me more for life, but not actual work in anything else. I used to drag myself into the bathroom down the hall from a history class and cry on my cell phone to my best friend at the time. I hate those rooms with false lighting, and the girl across from me throwing me a dirty look because her guy friend flirted with me.

Why have I always felt like I’m suffocating? It’s always the walls closing in, the sky wrestling against me. I once wanted to tattoo a bird on my shoulder, but maybe wings would be better. The longer I stay in New York the more stuck I feel. I hate this feeling because I’m not sure where it began, or how to stop it. I wish I could adventure into my brain and pull out the insanity that guides me, the rough spots that mutilate me. I joke that I am an alien awaiting my mother ship but there is an emptiness inside of me that has been there forever. I miss my lover who used to tell me I was like fire but that romance has been long gone, although its misery is so intertwined in my work I can see its absence everywhere. Someone once told me I had too many lovers, although it couldn’t be more untrue. I have slept with many people but loved few. Unfortunately when I love it is permanent. This may not be unfortunate except that love is never forgotten for me even if it is in the sense of friendship. All love easily consumes me, becomes a ribbon connecting my heart and soul together – my physical self only being the vessel to hold it all.

There are many connections in my life I have not completely understood. I hate to say I regret anything but in retrospect I wish I had been more open to my relationship with Christi. It is probably this relationship that has had the most impact on me. Odd to say that it was in fact the one that made me colder since it is the one where I loved the most, and almost perversely unconditionally. She never did quite love me the same way although she professed that she did and there is a certain amount of proof that she loves me, and always will it was not enough. How can a sliver of what I felt have been enough? Four years struck a harder and thicker core with me. My soul is just a bit more evolved than most people I have loved. I am not quite as afraid of falling, or jumping. I figure life is going to hurt you. When I do come off as cold it is only because I am warming up on the inside.

you don't have to wait

I miss the ocean the way it licks the land, reaching for a place on dry land. I used to thrive most by the sea but have not seen it in so long. Months. I’ve contemplated wandering the coney island beach with boots on, mingling on the boardwalk and looking afar over the sand to the deep coral blue ocean in the distance. Perhaps I will make a small journey soon, ride the train out and out till I get there, and write in a marble notebook serenely taking it in. I am not happy with this Fall. It leaves everything to be desired. The weather has been unseasonably cold, and dark.

A tentative lover and I strolled through central park last week on an ugly day. Leafs scattered along the grass, couples walking hand in hand, strange men causing a stir. The clouds awaited to burst open when we lay in bed at night. I laughed myself awkwardly to sleep, a slave to my fears. Once you allow a tiny crack to surface the land you lived in, and inhabited changes. The alarms tick differently, your heart sways to a another beat. Only I am not sure how one recovers from the past, even when the past is presented to you as the now.

forever strange

I pass by his grave by accident Monday and my heart seems to plunge into the cusp of my ovaries, and up to the cave of my chest before I catch my breath. Strange he has been on my mind a lot lately, awakening to nightmares of his death. Sometimes it is as if it just happened. Then there are words, and strange exclamations I’d only briefly crossed in those days following his body’s collapse to a darkened world. Death changes you. It’s subtle at first as if you’ve morphed into a twin, two people in the same body until each side of you is just as a coin. Those who stay unaffected by that of a lover’s death, or a death in general frighten me. I still feel quite fragile in this sense especially since before his death I was considered to be an ice queen (now maybe it is worse). Funny since I’ve never quite felt that way. I thought of that lover today, my mind dragging up the past like a long quilted blanket running through the stitches with my finger tips. I have not loved many men, but those I took in as lovers were special to me. They were delicate. I suppose as humans we cannot help but be attracted to what we see in ourselves in those reflected upon us.

I came across a dress I used to wear in high school, when he was alive and would flag me down in the hallway – calling out my name in that condescending way to drive me crazy. I threw it onto the floor, and gritted my teeth. When does the anger dissipate? I’m afraid his death has ruined me romantically for anyone else. It is anger over the loss, over his obedience to condition. Why didn’t he tell me? He sought me out every day for months, his mind cradling the idea of reuniting in his desperate state. I know partly why he stayed away but it brings me such little comfort, and now the weather is changing – every time this happens I sway to the memories we shared. A cloud of smoke in the air, a triangle of love curved by all of us involved – a rush of my hands on a doorknob to find him in bed with someone he did not love. I was pressed for evidence to make me hate him, so that I could not love him anymore. He really should have hated me for my betrayal was far bigger than his. I was only seventeen but had already lived a life full of complete and utter insanity. I was far older than my age, even if my brain was not fully developed – living with two men who loved me, and each other was a mess.

At least I had his love, maybe I still have it. I do feel sometimes that he is with me, surrounding me. I miss him though, for someone who died at his age will forever be a loss. He should have succeeded in impregnating a woman, having children as wild and tempestuous as him. He was magical. I may attempt to cross his grave again with purple roses but it already feels so cold, and so close to that date I will never forget – and I don’t think I’m strong enough to not fall onto the dirty ground. I wonder how he felt about being buried, if he thought of it at all. Was his death on his mind at the end as I imagine? At fourteen I only knew him as the boy with the house across the street from the school, at fifteen he was mine and for ten years we spun a web.

gone gone gone

(I wrote this in DC)

I disposed of her last night, and it felt good. I don’t know for sure why I use this word dispose but it was as if I were putting out the trash. Why must someone who obviously does not care very much for me cause me so much pain, when there are so many people who love me? It just did not feel right anymore. I have to clean up the mess I made, and deleting her from everything felt like freedom. I do not even desire very much to attend any of the clubs she may linger at. I despise her desire to connect with me when she knows she has been menacing. It is disgusting. I cannot believe I fathomed being with this woman. I feel awakened. That restless feeling does not exist as it did. This trip to DC was exactly what I needed. I love modeling. I had forgotten, wrestled with ideas of never doing it again but now that seems so foolish. All I needed was to touch my spirit again, and see that the real love inside of me is my creative self. Once the creative self is fulfilled everything else beats to it’s rhythm. I have missed you soul. I have missed you heart. I have missed you strength. I want to cry for everything I have been missing, but I feel like me again and for that I am more grateful than anything.

you're not a freak

I want a baby. I was reiterating this all day. Later I realized this particular feeling was a link to my desire to birth a new creation of myself. I have been at such a loss this year, wandering aimlessly with my heart exposed like some wounded sparrow. I am abuzz with the idea of traveling again staying in New York this long has been unhealthy especially with no goal or destination. I love this city, the way it breathes, eats, swallows but occasionally I found myself contemplating its suicide inside of me. The memories that swarm all over me everywhere my feet walked, my legs scratched, my hands touched. I suppose once you feel love you can’t help but keep its memory alive. I expect life will change dramatically and for the better in 2010. I need some stability that does not drive me mad. I’ve decided without much thought just a simple twist of fate that I will dedicate myself full time to a volunteer program that pays (not a lot but enough) to work with Arab families in New York city. Maybe this will fulfill all those hearty desires I have for love. I know there is some synchronicity in it coming to this but I cannot model forever, and be happy. I wish it were possible but I feel my love for it wanes. It has a way of reawakening and this destined trip to a little down the east coast may win my heart over again but I cannot depend on its awakening. These things happen or they don’t. I only know I need more to satisfy my heart and soul.

one last night

The beach behind her is one I’m familiar with, and my heart skips a thousand beats. My own engine begins to rev, my bones breaking open. I’m suddenly sobbing in front of this computer screen where her smile is so wide and bright that I’m not sure what I long for more the beach or her. I thought I was over this, but I suppose I reopened the wound myself. It probably is that she seems so unaffected by our departure from one another’s lives that brings this rush of stabbing pain in my heart. I want so desperately to be over it, to forget this longing I feel for her. That distinct pining that waves between me like the ocean she just left behind. Those moments of happiness were just dreams, weren’t they? My body in bright wool colors pressed against her, shoving her along a wall with my lips at the forefront - leaning over to kiss her before we parted. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her. What a fool I feel like for falling for this woman who will never desire me as I have desired her. The pain she has caused has already been so deep, and yet I can’t seem to entirely cut the cord. I am addicted to the moments of awareness, even our last encounter brought strange feelings of loss for each of us. I haven’t cried over her many times, maybe because I understood early on this would hurt me and so I kept myself together tightly by yarn and needles. I crawl back into bed, with my knees to my chest and sob some more for what I’ve lost, for what never was and for never being able to share my feelings for her - with her. One day I may consider the idea of writing it all down for her eyes to see, but only when I know I am strong enough that any response would not drive a stealthy stake into my already broken heart.

It would be better if I thought that she did not care for me at all, that I never crossed her mind. It is worse when you know for sure that you do encounter this persons mind even as a memory at some point even if briefly. Oddly enough on a day where I would stumble across my undead feelings for her she would text message me then try to engage in a conversation, even if we were both short and stand offish in our responses it was something that shook me. If only she understood all the pain she had caused me. Jae. Jae. Jae. I used to say her name with an edge of beauty, temptation now whenever I utter it - it feels so brittle against my tongue, my lips pouring out with a shade of ugliness.

beating like a hammer

I bury my heart in the ground, not forever and only romantically. It simply does not suit me in that sense anymore. I’ve decided I can be romantic in other areas of my life, with my work and writing especially but with lovers it just doesn’t sit right. Everything I wrote in the past few days were about a lover I’d recently taken who despite both our obvious efforts not to get serious quickly ended up in several abrupt sexual encounters – that emerged as more as time wore on. I even met her children oddly enough, and found myself in her sons bedroom talking about cars, and having a blanket strewn over me. She already knew how easily I attach to children but subjected me to this involvement anyway. Her desire for me distorted her responsibilities and my desire to be wanted reflected my mistakes.

I still lust for Jae a little even though our last encounter was brief, and she saw me with this new lover. Her eyes stung with a distinct misery. I wasn’t sure though, as I kept looking at her through the crowd wondering, and waiting for something magical even mysterious to happen. In my heart I know I wanted her to declare some undying love for me. It has been said I carry my emotions in my eyes, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that my lover tugged at me saying “you two had a thing.” I suppose this wouldn’t have been obvious were my heart not still pining for something surprising to happen. I hope she thinks of me in that far away place, if only because it is where I have always felt at home. I imagine her dusting sand off her legs at night, the shimmer of the moon caressing her tan brown skin. The sound of the waves dancing in her ears, while she thinks. She is always thinking, and for a moment I cannot help but hope that she is not so cruel as to not think of me. I haven’t let myself think of this too much but tonight the thoughts come in and out if only because I have disconnected from the lover in my life who will most likely reconnect. They can never stay away for too long, even if she is stuck on finding something wrong with me.

My hearts still feels quite fragile and I am working on breathing new life into it but working through the extremity of this summer will take time for all these women began to mingle as one in my memory. It is as if I have loved them all, over and over again. I weaved a wicked web for myself, and unweaving its decline is the hardest thing of all. There are so many things I wish to forget such as my ex exclaiming that I am a cold hearted bitch. She is crazy though and I never did in fact love her, even though she desperately wanted me to. I cannot believe I had to swat her away at a party, nearly punching her in the face. The number three is a charm isn’t it? That must mean my dating misery is over. I cannot wait to runaway to California and I’m not afraid to call it running away, sometimes your heart needs to escape everything you know in order to build a new heart to sustain you for a little while – till you let that heart open again.

it's always the same

The full moon is wide and awake, and like an animal I feel as if I should howl at it. Admire its coming but wish away its madness. I always feel like a bubbling up balloon when the moon is wrung with that fiery glow in the evenings. I am already feeling restless, but this seems to be a common theme with me lately. The bright stretch of sky doesn’t ignite its usual existence of pleasure on my soul. I do actually feel an ugly sickening desire for this moons warped gaze. I am stepping on gravel with four inch heels, my hands wavering against my sides. The evening is cool, crisp with the demise of summer and the start of fall. No I want to scream do not take those brief humid skin bleeding days away from me just yet. Led Zeppelin plays on my ipod and my hips sway to Robert Plant’s voice and Jimmy Page’s guitar. She is sitting on a stool at the bar and I am late. I already recognize her stance, the way she bows her head while playing with her phone but I suppose this is not so uncommon when I am sleeping with someone – their motions become almost like a second nature to my own. Our bodies have come together in moments of desire but tonight I know I will not sleep with her.

I’m so consciously aware of how and when her feelings for me change over dinner that I draw in a quick breath as if I am drowning. My words get stung in the back of my throat, hard to come up in between my lips and finish the story of my lost love. I trickle down the years of Christi and I like reciting some descriptive poem. I even later break into short words of a poem I once wrote after we’d been separated for months but she came back to claim me as her own. I can tell my date is fascinated by this, by how strong willed my love is when it is alive and well. Unfortunately not everyone loves like me. I’ve learned this in all the hard old fashioned ways by having my heart ripped, and gutted for my loved ones to see. It is not my lovers fault in some ways as they never quite had the capacity in them to love as much as I can even though in the end I always feel as if I have just been had, or fooled. I can roll into the story of Christi and I so easily that I only later realize the candle at the dinner table has gone out when before I found my hand roaming near its heated blaze. I was intrigued by its ambiance.

She grips my hand in hers, her caramel skin contrasting with my snow white skin. I can’t tell if our hands fit as I am even more unwilling to give anything about me away right now – in this moment. It is only because I can see in her eyes that she desires me more than she had even an hour ago. Women especially crave the reckoning of love (even if it later drives them mad), and this one is so jaded and cynical about it that in some way I almost feel she has fallen under my spell when that switch goes off in her brain. She has never been loved as I love this is obvious by the descriptive emotions on her face. It is not that I was trying to reel her in – in fact the evening before I was trying to spin her out. I am turned off that she cheated in her last relationship, and it does not seem uncommon that these women exist but I could never betray someone I loved in such a demonic way. I would rather scrape my own heart out and feed it to the dogs. I say this in less words so that she knows I cannot condone such behavior even if she can. It seems silly to me what made her fall out of love with her ex because as an adult I still feel that love should be coveted when it appears in ones life.

Later while fastened to her hip, her big brown eyes fluttering to look at me she asks me ‘will you hurt me?’ and I catch my breath again. Who is this before me? She appears the same stoic, rational woman I first engaged with on that wild evening of longing for me (for my other lost love) but she is different inside. I almost want to explode, swing myself away from her and never look back but I’m fascinated by this change in her. It is just this about me that keeps me there, other peoples emotions have always cast an alarming interest to me, perhaps because I feel so different from everyone else. I’m obnoxious and cruel because I know I cannot love her even if this isn’t what she is questioning. I know that my love and affection take more time than others. As my best friend and I say we are not serial lovers. I do not give my heart away without a grand fight to keep it stored inside my chest. Yes I am a romantic fool but only when it comes to that, when it comes to a hammer slowly breaking down those most glorious walls I have built so high. She does not know me, and least of all understand me. I am not even sure she wants to. There is a part of me that wants to protect her even though she is years, and years older than me she strikes me as a vulnerable bird caught in a nest that is slowly unraveling.

dirty tick

I used to pine for love in such a structurally visceral way that every inch of my body ached for it. A slice of the devil courting me into a lustful affair of no inhibitions. My eyes full of wet tears, and wonder. These things were so wonderfully innocent, broken in parts of nonsense and yet my heart seemed to adjust to the rhythm like nothing else. I miss these days of innocent record, the way my heart reacted to a simple word or a sound - my pulse vibrating in my wrist. I enjoyed the mimic of pain and hunger Jae reminded me of, the discord of emotions that strung wildly inside of me. Strange how one becomes addicted to the actual act of being in love even if it is not the same love. Our minds can play the tricks on us so that we cannot see it as anything but. I should copy my heart and post it to both their chests and attach a cord to each side, and wrap it around their pristine waists.

I am destructive today, tonight - the weather marking an deep dark hole scathing itself in my heart. I laugh crazily so when I see that a garbage can is on fire, smoke spewing forth slowly but surely - yes so surely that the woman in front of me stops to a halt to stare. I cannot bother to look too long. There is enough fire in my heart to sustain me forever right now - forever is now. My heels are like the sound of a drums when stroked with sticks, and I bundle my anger into tight red fists, my fingernails painted that metallic blue that now reminds me of her apology - her desire to be right - to be okay. I wish I did not hate her so much, for it would show me that I never cared at all. It is apathy I wish for, the bright stem of apathy - no feelings at all of discomfort just a bright shiny glow of oddity. I could punch her in the face, but I suppose this might satisfy her - another acknowledgement that I cared enough to be angry.

Tomorrow I shall ignore her, ignore her until she becomes a ghost to me. Isn’t this what she has done to me? Reminded me of my other ghost who does not speak to me. How can I have fallen for two women so similar? Shouldn’t I have run in the polar opposite direction? I suppose had I not missed what Christi represented to me I would not have let myself get to deep in this sea in the first place. This sea, this sea of ugliness. It is a shame really since all that could have succeeded even briefly in beauty is restored to ashes. I can’t stand her last words, but they are what she wanted to leave on and they are not too different from Christi’s. I make jokes of her projection but I’d lie if I said I wasn’t shocked. I was disgusted when she began to grip me with words that held no meaning. I hope I will never write of her again but I enjoyed the desperation she made me feel because it reminded me of love. It reminded me of Christi who it is obvious I still pine for. I walk the streets with her memory. I am her memory.

It is not her I wish to erase though, it is this - this (Jae) I’d flick a match to (not literally of course). It isn’t wasted time I suppose because that would be downing my emotions, feelings - thoughts but I am still angry I let it continue this long. Long enough for me to realize my true feelings, and then to watch them wash away in some abandoned box in the sea. If only she knew what she had gotten rid of it in her deliberate selfishness I wonder if she’d been so blind and stupid. Probably for women often desire, or think they desire women like me but do not know what to do with me when I come barreling into their worlds. I make them assess, change. I never thought of these things as bad but I suppose this is why I spend so much of my time alone, and in love for if the people I loved so much could actually sustain me for all the time I have loved them it is possible they would have left sooner

you want him you got him

I think I may be slightly in love with her although I don’t know how this is even possible, as love has never struck me like this. Maybe it is just a powerful and even violent degree of lust? I expected so readily not to hear from her, and in a way as painful as the idea felt it gave me some sort of comfort to think this torture would end. It is true I have as much control over this situation as she does, but I cannot walk away or dismiss things as easily as she can. Maybe it is because my life has been a constant stream of seasons (events) and I cannot fathom her being a season and not a lifetime. I wonder if I will look back on these writings and feel frightened or even pity for my former, lustful self. Her latest message affected me so much that in the middle of dinner I simply stopped speaking to my mother who hadn’t seen me in a few days. A close friend constantly tells me that she will not disappear but I rarely take this idea to heart, as she has dismissed me for months before seemingly dismissing me from her system as easily as yesterday’s underwear. It is worse since I described certain events that had happened to me as a child, and then to think that she avoided me at this party because she couldn’t explain her mood to me is such an ugly, and devoid of emotion cop out. I still feel like this pathetic, wimpy little girl and I know I am not this person but I have no idea why this woman pursues me so religiously, and yet does not want to be with me. I was the storm she wanted to live through, the woman she wanted to run away with. Were all these things lies? Did I manifest our connection like some lonely soul who is in dire need of a a body to protect her from the cold winter nights? I cannot think of myself as that pitiful since my options have never been all too slim. I want to tell her I’ve slept with someone, and I wonder if this will make her feel less than what she already feels or doesn’t feel for me and the thrill of causing her any sensation of pain lingers inside of me momentarily that I contemplate throwing the fact out there just as some brutal test, another declaration of how little she means to me (which is untrue as I would drop anyone and anything to be with her).

Her initial message was spread with an apology for Sunday, for this obvious disregard for me. I told her that I am invisible to her, some lanky ghost she barely sees which she denied - and maybe there is truth in both sides for it is obvious that she thinks of me even if briefly in a guilt stricken sort of way. I am desperate enough to take this attention for now but this cannot sustain me for much longer. I haven’t cried over this, not in the traditional cry my eyes out sort of way. I haven’t watched sullen movies to get my emotions out although I did watch ‘walk the line’ recently and became grief stricken enough to cry slightly for my loves lost and the one I cannot seem to have. I even told Jae once I would wait for her, wait till she was ready to be with me - but this is useless as she already left me once and to my surprise to be with someone else. I only learned this recently as I’d never expected it nor anticipated such an odd betrayal of emotions. I would never had continued to pine for her at those initial stages of loss if I had known she wasn’t contemplating the loss as much as I was. Although she never said a word about it, all those times we ran into each other. I do not even know where this woman falls into the timeline but it does not seem fair to hold it completely against her as I ended up dating Sal out of loneliness. On the short topic of crying I let myself cry this evening, not for long but my mind began to wander sadly to these places that she brings me in my mind. Rejection linked with abandonment are prominent here, and I almost feel like the rain is a blessing to disguise my tears.

I walk home, brushing my feet along the sidewalk and think about sex with this other woman, a much older woman and it was wonderful but it lacked the passion I need in order to survive in anything. I won’t forget her, nor ignore her but I fear my heart is taken and what is one to do when that is so obviously the case? I wonder if Jae saw me leave with this woman, for I was too drunk to remember not that it should matter since she gets some sort of pleasure out of my misery. I wouldn’t be surprised if I bedded more women in this state of mind, although I’ve never considered myself that type of woman I feel like the farther away I get from these feelings the easier it will be to say goodbye. My mom was kind enough to put in her two cents tonight but I still cannot help but feel foolish. Why am I reliving these foot steps Christi perfected for me years ago? It is obvious I am learning but I still don’t understand this let go process, especially when my heart has not had the challenge of attesting to all these feelings. At least with Christi even though I discovered later on how much I loved her, I’d had years of expressing everything I felt even if we did not end up as the lovers I had always thought we could be. This feels worse because there is a future not yet discovered, one that exists in some far off place and yet does not exist for me here. I am even beginning to think I am a bad lover although no one has said such a thing I can’t seem to keep my brain from thinking of her. Maybe it is that I don’t feel I am at my best unless I have genuine feelings for the woman.

tell mr campbel madison square garden is dead

It could be that the August heat is getting to me, my mind wandering off in directions that appear a bit insane or simply wild. I wasn’t surprised when I decided late at night that I would meet an old friend for a drink. I have to get out of my head sometimes, break the vicious cycle of thinking about both these women so constantly. I can feel the bubbling of an eruption about to ignite - and when I feel this it is only a matter of a time before I burst open. The seams breaking to unleash a pile of muted flesh, and a sliver of a broken heart. It is at these times I know I am at my strongest and weakest. Alcohol can either help, or make the madness worse. Once again I feel ignored, as if I am some repelling creature that has no contemplation in her mind, in both their minds. How can I waste my time caring so much for women who so obviously do not deserve a single thought in my head or heart?

Once Jae and I speed closer to a shared intimacy, one where our childhoods are brought up as if we are old and trusted friends she always backs off. I am reliving the moments of when I finally told Christi I loved her after years of her pursuit. It is the fact that rejection seems so evident here, the pure unadulterated ignorance that rips me up inside. I can stand for more, anything other than this would do - would be understandable but when she connects with me and slithers off once again only proving that our intimacy must be of a false nature when it does happen for how does she abandon it so quickly? I even told her about my father this week, a story I save for close and trusted friends, and she became angry expressing that he didn’t even deserve to have me in his life - to hear me laugh. How can someone feel so openly aware of caring for me yet abandon me just when the connection begins to peak again. I know in my heart this is a test for me, that she is not worth it. What does she have to offer me that keeps me from abandoning her myself? Yet the anger and frustration broke last night and I picked up my purse, grabbed the keys to my second home and hopped on the subway declaring that for the evening I would forget.

On Sunday I feel rather pathetic when I run into her outside of this summer lesbian party, where she always is apparently in the same black tee shirt and jeans. I remind her later that I have shirts waiting for her, but these things don’t matter so much as I have no intention of meeting up with her so she can have these items I bought her. She barely acknowledges me, which isn’t uncommon for her. Her mood swings run rampant and grossly. Later I tell a friend I wish I could erase her, and I get drunk when I notice she is only feet away from me. Why is this community so tight, so full of the same women everywhere? As soon as the second shot of gin washes down I am full of temptation. Does she care for me at all? I don’t catch her glancing at me once, and I know it is her mere snub of me that hurts the most. If I knew in some respect that I mattered I probably would not care so much. I disgust myself when I stalk her to the bar, and catch her while she walks through the dance floor. Her friends must think I am an obsessive child, after their friend like some sort of vulture but she made this all possible - had she not given me slivers of hope I would have dismissed her with the flick of a hand.

I will finish off by taking the path away

Sometimes I imagine my life in sequences, split screens, edited and conversations drowned by the cut in of a song. The sand is quilted in between my toes, and I remember summers where my heart stood still, and snippets of those conversations took place at sunset when the air chilled and the waves moved to a different rhythm. It isn’t surprising that my mind began to speed on Sunday, after seeing everything relating to my life now and then. I used to cut out photos of beautiful women, clothes, shoes from fashion magazines and plaster my painted walls with them. I can remember jumping up and down, bellowing out ‘wonderwall’ on my bed before I was expected at school in the mornings. I named a Barbie doll I had in earlier years Cindy after Cindy Crawford, the resemblance I always thought was uncanny. Had matel planned it that way? That I should project my child girl crush on a famous model onto my own Barbie doll? I didn’t discover that Cindy’s resemblance to Gia would fascinate me till I was in my late teens, and devouring information about the beautiful yet deceased super model who alas was a lesbian herself.

I awoke this morning to read a strip of text messages, and then attempt to plummet back to sleep with no such luck. I began to run through Fall fashion in my head – maybe my mind felt inspired by sifting through numerous fashion magazines this week or it could be that the ‘model and muse’ exhibit is still refreshing itself in my memory – replaying itself over and over again. I am still in awe of the John Galliano dresses shaped like overflowing cupcakes of fabric. The way my body stopped immediately to admire them, and how I couldn’t help but notice how some observers seemed to pass them by. I wish I had seen this exhibit sooner, put aside the time to really sift through all the imagery, and fabrics – old magazine clippings dating back to the 1930’s where a five foot four model was all the rage. It seems black is in a wild come back stage this coming season, although as a New Yorker I don’t think it ever often leaves. Many of us are stuck in our black sweaters and leggings with slick boots to compliment them.

I always anticipate the Fall after the rush of the summer heat dissipates. I am not sure it will go away as quickly as it has it in the past as this summer has proven to be a bit of an oddity. I look forward to packing away most of summer clothes, forgetting about the memories some of those pieces created all on their own and whipping out my Fall and Winter clothing. These thoughts always make me feel like such a girl as I obsessively begin to think of wearing my old vintage coat bought at a thrift store I frequent for $10. It is still to me the most beautiful coat I own – others are there to simply keep me warm and toasty but this one is there to make me feel other worldly. It occurs to me now that I have not spent one day this summer in Central Park although I planned multiple dates around this the weather seemed to always get in the way. I am sure it is bright and green by now.

I began this summer in a relationship I didn’t desire. I only think of her now when she calls, or texts and I do not answer either. I do not think it was meant to last as everyone says she was my rebound from Jae. At the time I couldn’t fully admit this to myself, as admitting it seemed to give her power in hurting me. My feelings and strength not strong enough to hold her rejection even though it felt like a morbid rejection since even though she seemed to let me go she continued to haunt me in numerous ways. It is only coincidence I ended up with Sal that evening and became so drunk after running into Jae that I fell down on the street outside Henrietta’s and in a rush to forget her bedded Sal. It isn’t the first time I’ve tried to forget a possible love by being with someone else, only it was the first time I ended up in a relationship because of it. I never saw myself as in a relationship with Sal anyway since I did not love her. I am sure karma has a plan for me on this one as I feel I have to be paid for giving this young woman false hope that we had any future at all. I won’t lie now. I was biting time, attempting to forget the all consuming passion I so deeply desire.

Although I should have left sooner, and I was so slick and conniving that one evening Jae began text messaging me, writing me long and mysterious messages while I was on a date with Sal. I took note of where Jae was and made sure I would be there too. I am not even disgusted with myself for doing this. I couldn’t fight the urge to be around her, even if I was with someone else. That evening was weird, and telling. Jae struck up a conversation with a woman behind me, and they began to dance close to me so close that my back would often hit this woman whose name I actually do know (who is married to a man but I wasn’t about to tell Jae that). I was reminded of high school this evening, the way you crush on someone so badly but how they are so aware they begin to taunt you. A few times she walked past me, grabbing my waist so tightly that our abs touched, and others she would twine her fingers with mine, and pull. I feel like crying as I write this, out of pure frustration – how can someone be so cruel? Did she not know it was cruel at the time? That my desire for her still overpowered me, that I would have left Sal that evening to be with her had she simply asked. I felt my heart plunge to my feet when she kissed this married woman behind me, a sickening feeling tore at my insides.

I wish I could expunge her from my system but even Sunday when she spoke to that not so attractive blonde I became jealous, wanting to scrape the poor woman’s eyes out with a spoon. Later she had told me she cared for this woman but couldn’t be with her either although I don’t know why she would want to be with her when I am so readily available (not to toot my own horn). I felt like punching her in the face especially since I took note of how she looked at this woman, and it was not as she looks at me. I wish I didn’t care about this, why does it bother me so much? I wish I could accept that she did not want me, as Christi once told me in a fit of anger that she did not love me anymore although it hurt it made it easier for me to move ahead in some respect. I need those declarations no matter how painful they are. I cannot move ahead unless I know for sure the person feels nothing for me otherwise I am always attached to them in some suspended link of space. She must sense this about me as she does play off it. I hadn’t spoken to her in months until she popped up again with some stupid random message, and when I didn’t reply she became insulted and I couldn’t stand that she would be offended by me even though she has already hurt me. She says while staring at me, head down, eyes wide that I am so sensitive, and passionate she worries for me maybe it is her she worries for more for if she actually gave herself to me she’d have to break down that stupid façade that is so fucking obvious.

there must be some kind of way out of here

Dreams unleash possibilities, even those rendered as nightmares. I quaked in earlier days under a spell of distorted medication but it wasn’t pleasurable. It wasn’t as if I was seeing ghosts of a lover past, or hallucinating myself into magical places. My emotional well being was curled up in a ball, in the fist of my heart I could feel my soul dripping away into madness. I swept my skin over the past like a lonely woman of a desperate heart club, wanting to grab onto anything that I could remain still for. But is stillness necessary in life, just as patience? I am not a still person, not planted in the ground, or destined for soil. My soul is that of a gypsy and when submerged in a drowning pool of depression my thoughts began to wander to a places I didn’t know existed inside of me. While drunk I slipped onto the subway, staring gingerly into space and laughing - my hair curled into tiny tendrils. There is something familiar about the splinter of yellow, and orange lights and although the anxiety that had been plaguing me, even the anger began to swell I let my thoughts be consumed by drunkenness and the idea of meeting a new lover.

There is no love in my life except that of a river of ghosts. I will never forget that line from an deep, dark middle eastern movie where the woman says, ‘my heart is like a train at every stop someone gets on, and off’. On Monday I am crazed for my desire for Jae, my mind cannot think of anything else although these feelings were bound to make a headway at some point they evolve like an volcano about to explode. I am on the verge of screaming when we begin to argue while I am standing on an outdoor subway platform. I wonder if she knows that she has manipulated me, been unable to let me go and yet unable to pull me in. this isn’t an abnormal pattern for me. I did this for years after all, and loved that woman through all the madness of our hearts (even still). It is true I would not have cared as deeply had that drug the doctor so readily prescribed even saying that it was my friend (what a mysterious joke) had not been in my system. She tells me she wants me, that she is attracted to me, that I am an amazing catch but that she cannot be with me now. This is destined to be our story, and maybe I should be more hopeful but it shouldn’t be this hard to connect, to come together. What you can’t shake is sometimes destined to simply be nothing. I learned at an early, and even unforgivable young age that despite your desire, and pull towards someone whether you were intertwined in another life holds no meaning to whether your story will conclude in this life.

I’ve never had one of those straight and narrow paths like some people who go through life without an ounce of discord. We all have stories, of course and recently I discussed with a friend who has been through many of the same things as myself why it is that we seem so unafraid of those normal things others are so bothered and frightened by. I can tell Jae I want her without much fear about it because I have already suffered the worst sort of pain. I did in a chilly way ask if she was attracted to me, and she looked at me with ravenous eyes and said ‘I think you’re gorgeous’ but this isn’t enough - not for me. I should plow our story into the ground now before it erupts into another heartbreak. I have an unabashedly obsessive nature. I won’t even pretend that my passion cannot make headway into other emotions, and feelings. I have thrown lamps, phones, bottles, crashed walls with my fist. I suppose it is that initial feeling that is hardest to shake since I only had experienced it once before when I was fifteen - but that should have been my warning to stay away. We are destined to repeat our mistakes until we get them right.

I wonder though if it is that I am still so in love with Christi that I have projected all my left over feelings for her onto Jae because they’re resemblances are beyond the physical - even their behavior is what is of a comfortable nature to me. In a diner in the mid twenties on the east side my mom looked up at me and said ‘you are still in love with Christi’. it wasn’t a question, it was simply an observation but my heart stopped, and tears welled in my eyes. Do we ever learn how to get over a love that felt so grand and yet still felt so unconsummated between all the lies and miscommunication? I know my love for her could still set fire to us, if only I felt she could be with me. I know that our love affair is dead, especially now that she will not speak to me. I do not think we have gone this long without speaking since our initial breakup, and I suppose it is for the best as she has hurt me so many times maybe this will open the door to a new love, and less heartbreak. I do not know if my love for her will ever be trumped as I could never tire of her. I do feel a conscious hatred for her, and her brutal and brave honesty in telling me that I am her other half, and yet being unable again to be with me - but this seems to be my destiny with women like this. Is ten years of love turned to a drain when it no longer runs like a deep, and sounding river?

I imagine my story with Jae with similar resentment already. As I see our story played out in my mind the moment we met, like a flash of negatives framed by fractions of light - playing like an old movie with twisted words, and brief and then hungry kisses. A passion of moments that is or is not destined to play out in our reality - but as I once tried to explain this to her it sounded quite inadequate to what I had already seen. Maybe these were just dreams long past, a life that was lived in another universe, another time. It is her distance that draws me and contains me. I cannot pull her towards me if she does not desire me with as much longing as I desire her, and in the end my resentment would ruin us anyway. This much I am already aware of. Why doesn’t this stop me? I said Monday to her in a matter of fact way that I would not stop pursuing her until I felt I had quenched my desire, and as pushed as her ego may have gotten it is my own selfishness that speaks. I will not give up until it is no longer a part of my thoughts. It does not mean that she is everything but she takes a key place. I will pursue my other options as my reality senses Jae and I will not be together for ages, maybe years, maybe never. I do not understand these people as I am so open to love, to giving it that I am always willing to accept that their love may not be as great as my own - but I can live with that. That seems to be the curse of people who feel much, and who dive into the ocean of the unknown or is it all already known?