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.

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.