Pussywillow

Tonight for the first time in four years I told a boy that I was falling in love with him, and I even meant it. There are many ways of concluding this, but as history and experience have suggested the best way to measure love is to evaluate one’s feeling around the person. And around him, I feel like the most important, smartest, prettiest girl in history. And though previous lovers naturally lead to skepticisms, I feel totally confident in my feelings.

He stated earlier that he holds back saying things because he doesn’t want to scare me off, I told him that the first three months of any relationship are the greatest because of those feelings which he is afraid to express, and so he should communicate them. As naïve as they may be. And then I reminded him that there won’t be a ‘first three months’ to our relationship ever again after this so we should live it up. 

Time Takes Time

36 years-old and the sweet dream of playing the poet in the sonnet of my life has lost its airy nature. I have realized that I spend a lot of time planning. Despite the usual (budget, work, random beauty secret of the week) I then plan a time to be happy. And it never comes. It’s very waiting for Godot. And I’m very much sitting atop that fictional hill and thinking that something better will come along any moment and fix everything. What was that thing about carpe diem, again? 

Download Spirals

I met a boy named D* who lives in Prescott, AZ. He is funny and smart and laughs at my jokes and he’s cute. I think. That’s the only thing, I have to go by the pictures. Internet dating…where can it all go? All I know is that we’ve talked on the phone every night for a month and I’m not bored. That’s good enough for me. It’s the newness I love. My newness. Let's wait till my novelty wears off, but until then...let's carpe the fuck out of this diem. 

His Verb Tense is Present

He held my hand, and while letting it go advised me to write a poem. A boy who likes my poetry…amazing. “You are magic,” I once wrote in a letter which I never intended to give him. Because what came after that sentence was sabotage.

He was the first person to hold my hand in this way. He was infatuated with every finger and made sure not to miss a single nail-scrape with our respective digits along the way. Holden Caulfield once said that you can tell a lot about a person (or was it a relationship?) by how they hold your hand.  I think he was talking about Jane.

While he affectionately—although obsessively—took heed of the tactile prowess of each knuckle, I gently took my hand away. Thinking about the letter. Thinking I should give it to him. I took my hand away before I could notice the perfect fit of our hands…enough to make Ronin angry for dying before sculpting this perfect fit. These nails are knives and my hand, when departing his, cut a little of his hand. “That’ll scab nicely,” I reassured him.

He smiled. And I realized the toxicity of giving that letter. What was once my Shakespearian truth isn’t any longer: “where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles.” This isn’t mine anymore. They don’t cut, they heal. In his world of linguistic genius, he would shudder at this syntax. But somehow I doubt it, for he told me never to doubt myself.  So, at least for today, he will not be recognized as a ‘was’. He is an ‘is’. I may get used to it…maybe.

Carpe This Fucking Diem

My nerves have been unmanageable when I think about revealing a certain message to the boyfriend. I believe I am falling in love with him. Why would I be afraid to say this to him? I mean, I could die tomorrow and he would hypothetically never know. Maybe his response to the words scares me. This is, however, the elixir of life. Falling in love is what makes it worthwhile to think of being 80 years old and not having stuck a bullet in your head. Maybe I’m just not ready. Bullshit. I’m just scared. Carpe diem, carpe diem, carpe diem.  Blerg.

Big Fun

For the first time in years I considered putting a bullet in my head. I mean this metaphorically, of course; really, I’m just talking about killing myself.  Then I remember something I wrote in high school. It wasn’t important at the time or profound, but it ended up summing up my thoughts exactly: “I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to drive”.  The extremist sometimes becomes the problem-solver who sometimes becomes the drunk. It’s about control either way. 

What is Love?

Sometimes it feels as though I’m one of the horny guys from ‘Night at the Roxbury’. As if the whole of my existence or at least the goal of the night is to have a throw with someone. Anyone. It makes me wonder, though. Do the boys make the night or do I? Is the success of the night contingent on this attention from men? At 2am I called two boys about after hours and was let down. But the mornings with these boys are imminent and this is when self-reflection prevails. So perhaps it is best my night at the Roxbury was unfulfilling. 

Ani

He told me I was beautiful, then asked if I believed him. “It depends,” I responded “do you mean it”? He did, and there were no doubts in my mind.

My penmanship has regressed to that of a very organized middle school student. I suppose, like this imaginary tween, I too am changing every day. Mutually exclusive of my recently transformed font is that way in which I perceive my surroundings. They are new, yet the same. The point of view is new…that ‘s the secret to it. I read a lot about this in literary handbooks which I deemed futile at the time, but now I live the definition. Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right, and this beauty which was once haunting now captivates me in a newly painted world. One that, strangely, never actually changed. 

Network

"You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays"

Mr. Lyon and Signs

My room is surrounded with water that I don’t drink. Bottles that won’t think and that I won’t drink.  The 2:1 ratio of hydrogen to oxygen is supposed to be good for me. My high school chemistry teacher once referred to water as “the ultimate solvent”. So why can’t it solve anything right now? This teacher also had a picture of his wife swimming in a hotel pool with Ozzy Osbourne, so maybe I shouldn’t count on his judgment.

I often adopt new theories or idioms to live by. I try and I fail. Ironically, they make me feel worse. But why scramble to find a life motto? What exactly do I need to take guardianship over in order to help me? A proverb can only go so far.

Maybe a good friend…fair and, yet, invisible friend. I turn to you, and how I would cry…and your smile would turn to bite. In the spirit of self-healing, since wisdom and companionship have failed, I turn [appropriately] to myself. But, the pain and confusion reigns. What am I looking for? A new speed or mode. Modes are simply that—same in the Persian ‘mod’—a transient thing. Suggesting the universality of languages. And that I’m really confused.

Some of the water bottles are halfway empty [I know]. I’ll keep drinking to see if it helps. If it ultimately solves as the teacher said. I’ll hold on while I can muster the energy to grip the bottle. 

The Cold Floor Kids

This disconnect is hard to explain. It isn’t familiar or irritating. It isn’t offering any cold comfort nor is it pulling me into a vortex of self-destruction. It’s just an unmagnetic feeling taken over me in relation to everything: writing, breathing, fucking, laughing…

This could be due to the absence of a real hobby, a real love, a real reason. I just know that I sit on this kitchen floor and debate what to do next. I attempt living by the refrigerator-poetry I have affixed to the door: you are only as deep as the depth of your interests. 

Where’s the proverb and wisdom about the ones with no interests? Forever in search for the poem telling me that it’s ok to feel nothing.

Jigsaw

He told me that he liked me because of the happy sound in his voice—apparently I put it there, and he appreciates that. “You bring me quite a bit of happiness,” he admitted. He is totally the puzzle piece. He fits. His sense of humor and conversation make sense. Even I can’t complain…well….

And while this may be read many years from now through the eyes of ‘The ex-girlfriend,’ his girlfriend is writing things now. Why this constant battle with pessimism? Because it’s all I know. But , pessimism is for the weak. It’s too easy. I’ll try and enjoy the beauty in all this while ignoring the searing expiration date stamped across our dynamic in neon-ink.