Lover, you should have come over

He pouts. And shuffles around on my step. I don't want to go, he says. His cap is perched at an odd angle on top of his head, he's a walking ad for some beer company I've never heard of but I think he looks sad, and cute, and scruffy and handsome like he always has. But I tell him he looks homeless.
I let him hold the cat. It's interesting how we humans are so quick to say I love you to animals, but to other people, we hold back as long as we can. At least I know I do. I have almost as many problems saying it as I do hearing it. He pets the cat and the wind blows spray from the icy drizzle and it hits my face, and cuts through this coat and I am cold, and barefoot. I realize then that it's four in the morning and I'm outside in the rain in December. The things you do for the ones...well, you know.

He wants to come in. I tell him I don't trust him, but he smiles and says you don't trust yourself and he's so right. I don't trust myself. So he stands there, and I make him tell me he misses me. That's an easy thing to say. I'm not sure why we always want other people to tell us the things we already know. He should be thankful that with me, he never has to say a word. I remember that it got old. More than that. It tore me up. Why was I was so happy? and yet, I feel that absence and I'm really not sure why...because things are really good. Maybe I do need to be needed.

Somehow we're back in the same conversation we've had for months. Because its not harmless, I say. I know, he says. It's not for me either. We can't be lovers and we can't be friends, and we're not enemies, its grey area but I don't mind. It's smoke, its there in the air we breathe. And I can't get it out of my head, the way he looked at me. Like sometimes I wore him down, with honesty and he says he's being shitty and wants a place to land and I tell him to go find some bar maid to warm his bed. But it's like he's trying to see through me. I know he knocks on this door for a reason. Same old story I guess. He comes to hear what I always tell him. Like going home, like having your mum tell you how special you are, even when you get lost and become an adult and suddenly realize its not really true, you're actually sort of evil and sometimes you really suck.

And it dawns on me that we'll never be safe here. I think that's part of why I have to go. I have to leave some of this behind, like I always do. I always move somewhere else and hope I can become a different person. I've been told it doesn't work like that though. Always me, lost in a memory.

I look around, hazy window with the world ripping by. I think I'm leaving a little bit of my soul behind, in a trail like fireflies that burn bright through the dark until they snuff out. It's a buzz and you always show up and its so easy, to stop fighting sometimes and just live. Maybe its the beer but I let go. I just let my resolve fall, and maybe you like that, its good because I fight you, but you win sometimes too. I climb on your back and you walk me all the way home. And it's familiar; and its good. 

Sometimes a man must awake to find really, he has no one.

It's never over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Giu0vGllUE

Memory, Insomnia

I remember those times
We'd be breaking up
You'd be breaking my heart
And in the middle of my tears
You'd make a crazy face
Like a mother
Playing peekaboo with her baby
And everything was supposed to be alright
If only it was so easy
We'd say.
I'd forgotten things like that
But lately
They keep me up at night
Rising up from the depths of me
I imagine
The kind of man
You would've been
And you say I should call
Sometimes
When its late
I want to but
It still breaks my heart.

Abandon pace, she said, This is the rest, she said, this is what's left.

It's hard to believe it's her.


Looking up from the bustle of the street, I stop to marvel at a blimp wobbling precariously across the sky, and see her. She's staring out the her window, I can see her from a block over; she's like a beacon shining through the break between buildings. Standing there with her fingertips against the class, she's was breathing mist onto the single pane just a few floors up from this hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean joint, yeah that's right, the kind that's so small you might miss if you don't already know it's there. So as my gaze alights upon her figure, I stop dead in my tracks. Life continues around me, people are walking by, going about their business and heading...wherever. Me, her captive audience...recognition dawning. I turn slowly to face her, suddenly a moth drawn to a flickering light in the dead of night, and I start walking through some empty alleyway, and steam is hissing from vents of grungy basement apartments and it's floating upwards, diffusing in the icy morning air. My shoes shuffle old newspapers as I move towards her, avoiding sagging trash bags, half full of their deflated contents, sullenly laid to rest there and forgotten. But my eyes never leave her. Tunnel vision obscures my own awkwardness, and I move faster and faster, till I burst from that alleyway like a child from the hazy womb that has been my existence ever since she disappeared.

So I stand there, now at the base of this old brick building, connected to some other brick building, connected to every other building ever. I wonder if anything ever stood alone in the city, and I'm looking up because she's still there, drawing pictures in the condensation and smiling to herself. I bet she's laughing too, that little laugh. God, to hear it now.

I scan the ground floor for a door or stairs or something, and this pudgy lady at the Mediterranean place is looking at me with forlorn, basset hound eyes as she unfolds foil wrapping and shovels gyro into her mouth, and its so funny how people look like they got eaten up by fat suits and how sometimes its so obvious they're hiding under there; for some reason I just want to unzip her like Tyra Banks and unleash the tall gorgeous model inside, because I'm in that good of a mood.

What if she's been standing there for years? Has she been waiting for me?

All of a sudden I realize I'm grinning like an idiot and there's newspaper stuck to my shoe, and this lady's probably staring at my disheveled appearance and thinking she's about to be attacked by a maniacal homeless. And there's nothing left to do but laugh, and I don't care, and I'm already gone, moving towards the red door on the left that I hope leads up to some stairs, which will lead up to another set of stairs, which I hope lead to a hallway, and then to a door that exuberantly proclaims "Sam's Apartment!" and just...opens to a girl I pray still finds it in her heart to love me, no tolerate me, as I get on my knees and beg her forgiveness for ever leaving her side.

As I reach for the handle, my heart's beating out of my chest because I've never been this alive, charged and riled up, and all my little cells are screaming all hands on deck! and pushing the blood through my veins and eating little proteins and handing cortisol envelopes to each other and probably calling for maintenance because I am literally breaking apart from the years of tension that's just built up since she's been gone. All I can think of is how, how do I get up there and be next to her.
And what the hell will feel like.
And what does that mean for me now, because clearly my life is over. Things will never, ever, be the same.

Now that I found her.

I barrel through the door, my feet are taking steps up winding stairs while my brain is playing catch up, and I'm not looking where I'm going when I round another corner and BAM! Body meets body. I take a step back into thin air, and in that faltering moment of falling backwards, I see her face. Blurred brunette. 

I must have blacked out for a split second, because I'm on my ass, peeling paint flakes falling like ashes around me, after skidding gracefully to a rest, my back up against the wall. I look up, and she's still on the stairs, holding the banister and looking my way. Focus eyes. Looking concerned. I open my mouth, and muster a weak "Sam..." She cocks her head slightly, sighs out air through pursed lips and it rustles the short hairs around her face...She's wearing red. I'm absorbing her. I'm going in and out. She narrows her eyes, checking me out, and says "...In the flesh." and I pass out.

you might be the best advice I ever took

Today my neighbor and his 3 year old washed my car while I was working on my paper. It was really dirty. I am lucky to be so well loved.

You might be the best advice I ever took. I think too far ahead and you say, for an optimist that's a pretty negative thing to say. Oh, you are so right. And you might be exactly what I need. I think you make me more honest, and you make me love myself because you love me so much. You might be the only person I feel safe with. Are we the way I want to go? You think I'm saving you, but I woke up into the freshness of the autumn morning and I felt whole, and big and happy. So I'm not gonna look down this time. I think you keep me young, and we're going up, babe.

And I don't feel like ever getting well

What makes you think
We get any more than a little while?
All of us
What if things
Only burn fast and bright for you
The rest of us
Left to die by your side?

Into the Woods

 

 

And suddenly, to be was not enough. How I longed for it. Whether it was for something more, or just something else, I could not tell. But I wanted to know it. I wanted to get lost in the woods and never be found. I wanted to fade away as easily as I had been once become, into the softness of a morning rain, into the fragmented light that peered through the needled pines...to disintegrate so that the bits of me would become a part of everything in this place. I had never seen something so beautiful.

L.B.'s Big Blue Eyes

And looking at her, seeing him in her...his nose, his smile. She loved him so. For the pieces of him that were in her. For the part of her that was so clearly a part of him.

Making it Out.

I appreciate
That you see through me
and you don't spare my feelings
when you say, you could have tried harder
calling me out
bruising my ego
exposed
its hard not to falter in that kind of spotlight
And if we're being honest I think
I'd rather be underestimated
afforded the element of surprise when
excuses fall away, wrapping paper on Christmas morning
It's hard to fight, no straight lines
so I laugh
because I know
my words are wasted on you.
You stood on the lattice of your convictions
and built a house
And I stand at the edge of mine
with a tent on my back
looking in, looking out.
I know you're on top now
But I still like the coal miner in you
writing poems on scraps of paper
coughing up dust
I know what you keep is a reminder from where you came
up, up from the very bottom of the earth
I know that first gasp of air, rays of perfect sunlight
like stepping out of a hospital after a long night
Ah
so fucking sweet. Just making it out.

As I remain.

Its 6 oclock. I shift in the chair. Maybe it was a squirm. I couldn't quite tell. I place a nervous hand on her shoulder, breath surprisingly steady. Be calm, my heart. Something has clicked in me, the excitement, the butterflies, tell me this is exactly where I am supposed to be. I let go. These are the moment that make me feel alive.
I start a conversation, and she keeps it rolling, bless her. Every time the door opens a new face enters, doing something necessary. We laugh about that. We wait, triage 3, and the hours pass. The contractions come every 5 minutes, and she breaths through them like a pro. Its just us in that room, my hand in her hand, the other on her shoulder. I explain the forms, we talk about what ifs, we talk about Africa, we talk about America. We talk about family. In that space, she opens...she says what if it was not for you, what would I do? How would I get here, would I wait for the bus? Would they send me home? She tells me about coming here. About life, and being a refugee. For eighteen years, this woman wore this title like a scarlet A branded across her chest, and it owned her. Forced from her home country, and rejected by another...considered with no more thought than one gives to the dried dirt on the carpet. Without identity. And now...American woman...what does that mean? And who are you, we don't know each other, and you do more than my family ever has. How can I thank you for that? How can this be? It is she who teaches me...We are the same, I tell her. This is how it should always be. A tear slips down her cheek...I will show them, we will take a picture and send it back, they will see what they said could not be done. They will see me. 
Finally, we move to a room, around 9 pm. She tells me to rest. That she'll wake me with a scream. I smile, and tell her to rest. I stay by her side, and watch the drip of the IV, and the antibiotics, and the pit. Nobody tells you that birth in a hospital is like being an unlucky bug, caught in a spiderweb, and ever time you look up, the predator is ever closer, beady eyes bearing down, eight limbs twitching.
We fall into a rhythm, every three minutes our hands meet, we squeeze and breath out the contraction. In between she falls back, eyes closed, and I apply cold cloths to her forehead and chest. How long, Brenda? I cannot know that. Guess, she says. 11. 12. 1. 2. I think two, I say. She hisses, distastefully. I smile, and pray to god I am right. I was being generous.
Every time I look at the clock, it seems an hour has passed. I keep one eye on her face and the other checking the monitor. We are every two and a half minutes apart. Every two minutes apart. The nurse comes in to check. Finally, eight centimeters. Its 1 am. Now is the hardest part, I tell her. Think of your family, you are bringing home a sister. And breathe. Breathe it out. Good breaths, good job. You can do it. I know I can, I know I can, I know I can. She prays to God, she says she is suffering. She looks me in the eyes and tells me that its never been like this before, its never been like this. This hurts. I know I say, breathe it out. We struggle through the next two hours. There is a midwife who comes in, and helps keep her calm. She has a commanding way about her, and I learn so much in those brief visits. She checks again. We are still 8 cm. It is a lot to ask, in that moment, to turn to a woman who is out of her mind, who is in and out, and say, work harder. 2 more centimeters. This thing has lost all meaning, where are we, she says why me?

4am.
The nurses get ready. We push. We breathe. Repeat. They say there might be a shoulder. There might be an odd position. Its a full moon, and the unit is full. These women are in and out, souls are entering this world, safe under their careful watch. I am so grateful for their presence. I cannot feel anything. My experience pales in comparison to hers. I am secondary.
5am.
I know what they're doing. They mess with the tools on the table, and I look away. They teach us to say something here. But I can't. It's a decision I don't regret. This had to happen, and she would have fought it. But I cannot watch. Every so often she opens her eyes to find mine, and says baby? I am here. One hand on her shoulder, and I have been all night. Again I say not yet. So close.
You were born at 5:36 am. Little body, big cone head. Big head. Ten fingers, ten toes. She's perfect, I say, look what you made. But its bad over here. Repairs are tough. She begs. It is hard to be here. I look her in the eyes and say I am here. I am here. It is hard to watch this. So much beauty on my right, so much pain on my left. She surrenders then. She says yes to meds, and slips away before she sees her baby, before she can hold her close and take her to the breast. Before she goes, she looks my way and whispers, I love you.

And then there is me. I sit. I breathe.
There is no plan. There cannot be. You cannot know. Accept that.
For one sweet hour, she slept. I let her have it. And as the sun rose over Georgia, I hold you, because I know your mother would have wanted you to be held...I feed you your first meal, from a bottle, and hold you close to my heart. Look into your eyes and tell you that you are loved. I have no right. I am not your mother...but she would have wanted you to know love in these early hours. Would have wanted you to feel safe. The nurse asks me if I am related to her. I want to say yes. We are sisters. Just as you an I are sisters. But to do so would be presumptuous. So I smile, and shake my head.


Sometimes being a doula is about relief. Sometimes it's about knowing when to say no, or when to surrender, and say yes. I have found that sometimes, its about bearing witness to the great suffering, the great magic, that are coupled together this way, and the greatness of the people who you are lucky enough to stand beside, if only for a split second in the expanse of the universe...suffering and magic, in birth, as in life. I was not in control, but I saw. I was there. I fought alongside her, into the wee hours of the morning, I counted the minutes. I prayed by her bedside. I felt her frustration. So clear, I learned again that we are not always called to understand, to internalize, to sympathize or alleviate. Just to be present.

So I remained. And I always will.

What it seems.

I don't think I want to have fun anymore.

We are so different. I have a preoccupation with the past and dying

you have a death wish and a habit of living in the moment. " ".

22 didn't look like this yesterday. What it means for me isn't what it means for you.

Its abundantly clear that you don't have my best interests at heart. In the quiet clarity of that morning light, we went back to being us. Life between 3am and 7am doesn't really count. You're a good time, but you're not really mine, and I think I'm over that. I don't want to have fun anymore.

The Big Leagues.

I call you a liar and say get off my front porch. Somehow, two hours later, your kiss lands on my shoulder. This is a language I speak. I am surprised, that of all things, you are a man who keeps promises? you make so few. We were terrible communicators, tight lipped and at the mercy of our own convictions. You're keeping me up, figurative turns to literal. You say all the wrong things, strung out, pieces flailing. Quit coming over here, just to go mad and fall apart. It's disarming. 

I think I'm starting to get it. You're so god damn mean to yourself. We meet some girl on the patio of some bar in some place in the city. You say she's an old friend. I think that means you fucked, albeit a long time ago. She's nice but she calls me a poor little cotton swaddle or something. You laugh, but you look at me to see if I caught it. Her, calling me a baby. I did, but I let it go. I jump on the back of your bike and we go.

Everyone's always so apt to point that out. They say it like it's an insult and tell me it's a compliment. Maybe I am a baby. But like I said, I don't know you. I just know 42.

that "and now what" feeling

Its a gorgeous day but I don't want to get up. Some days I just want to watch tv and hide. Hide from the world, and who I am and my so called problems. Part of me hates me for it. The juxtaposition of the maniac and the recluse, gemini cancer. I could say the stars did it but its in my biology...here's the dirty truth. Sometimes the girls in my family just don't get up. We get low, for a little while, we'll get back up I think, but its not just me.
I've taken to saying out loud my feelings into the emptiness of my apartment...the quietness of my car...Its an effort to start saying them at all. I miss you. The flickering streetlights of this neighborhood at two am know darker secrets than I ever told you. Healing is a funny thing. It's a beautiful word with beautiful connotations but I'm finding the process is almost ugly. Twisted. There is nothing strong about healing, nothing stoic. This slow unwind is uncomfortable, and hardly gratifying at times. I am still many things I believe myself to be. Strong and stoic are qualities I adopted by default. Because somebody had to keep it together. And now I just come off as cold. Icy and unspoken, breath a foggy mist on a single window pane. I start talking and my brain screams, my mouth becomes the vacuum trying desperately to suck back in the words I just let out...trying to rewind. I worry that if you're dead...If I let you be dead...I'll be dead too. Healing is hard because it means letting go, not only of what has happened, or who happened, but who they made you. Who you are because they happened. Who you have been being. 
I'm starting to see myself. 

Gone Fishing

Sometimes you are so reckless. Hey, little wonder. Like a record on repeat, the same song plays over and over, and you keep listening and making the same mistake every time. I'm pretty sure you've got a temper on you...one you never showed me. I never incited it. I'm pretty sure you walk through this life cold, cold skin, cold smile...the heat that keeps you alive comes from inside. And your focus, like a magnifying glass on the unlucky leaf that has caught your attention, keeps that flame burning, fire sign.

Am I too blame? No, not really. But I, like a woman, played with your head. Unintentionally. I am the one that dangled the bait right above your head, and you couldn't take it. You've been caught too many times before.
You knew something you believed I did not. That my honesty, however poignant, however true, was fleeting. You know that the truth morphs in time. You knew I am a butterfly, today something, tomorrow something else. I felt that, when I told you to go and you stayed. You should have gone, you should have run. You knew you would. But for a moment, you stayed, and like always, I knew what you could never say. That the only part left to catch had been caught. It just wasn't enough anymore. Somewhere along the line, you promised never to taste the bait again. And there was nothing I could ever do about it.

There is no hook, no line, no sinker. There is you on that side, and me on mine. You said this was non-negotiable. You said you knew better. But you...somewhere out there...laughing at a bar. Drinking with these people you call friends, sometimes your thoughts rest on me. You drive home at 5 in the morning, fumbling for your keys, wearing this big buffer now that keeps you hazy. You think you need to be hazy for a while. And what do I know anyway. You're just doing what you've always done. How did this happen, how did we end up hurting each other...do what you want. But I know what you're up to.

7:40 is morning not night

These apologies are getting old...I don't understand why you think its easier to say you're sorry than to do the right thing. I keep looking for your eyes, waiting for a flicker of recognition...only when I least expect it does it appear. How do we move forward now, we're both so backward looking...I appreciate the moments when our eyes meet. At the very least our tension is honest.

We Put the Never in Never.

This ain't the end, this is self preservation.
Pretty boy looks. Vain, and cocky. You had your pick in high school. I called you soldier but it was I who fought so hard for you. You want to know what I remember? I wore a turquoise cami with a yellow tank top when we walked around the lake, and I told you I was a republican, just to see your face grimace. Our first kiss. Publix sugar cookies, Jimmy Eat World-Hear You Me, the greenway. You interrupted me while I was talking and kissed me. I was so stunned I went right on with our conversation like nothing happened. Burgundy shirt, alpine in kahuna. Hair so long you said I looked like Eve, as we messed around on empty soccer fields at night, always looking for a rare place alone. The first time we went out you locked your keys inside your car at the movies, and we walked to the convenient store to buy a hangar, and spent a few good hours bending it in the right shape to snag the keyring. The next time we went out, you did the same thing.
I remember our long walks. I remember watching every scrubs episode that summer, and when I gave you that link, it was the first time you ever said you loved me. Not seriously, and not taken so. But the first. The second time, you meant. And I said thank you, like in the movies. It broke you, but it wasn't really fair. It was only a month. You were always leaving me. I learned quickly that the second a man seems most in love, most interested in me, is the second before he leaves.
We spent those next 18 months meeting secretly. Talking all the time. You loved me, you left me. That time on the concrete block next to the cow trough in the fields behind Holy Trinity. The first time you told me you heard voices. Just your name, in an empty hallway. We breathed each other in, felt the energy electrify between us. You stole me a candy bar from the gas station. Dark chocolate milky way.
I kept tabs on you, always. I taught you how to drink. I felt like such a bad ass, teaching boys to shoot whisky in a house that wasn't ours. We found time alone wherever we could. How I regret that now. Isn't it crazy how we introduce people to things we later hate that they do?
You got me high the first time. I fought so hard to stay in reality. We walked around in the woods, hiding in our paranoia. I saw a pterodactyl, hanging from the trees. You sat alone in the empty stands at my high school graduation. I was so sick. I left there so fast there's only one picture of me from that day, stepping off the stage. Just to be with you.
I used to sneak into your window to spend the night. My world collapsed around me, and you offered to be my safety net. My family. That summer we fell in love. Apathy Eulogy-Impetuous Me. Firehouse subs. I was so covered in bruises. Matt and Kim- Daylight. And then we both left. Again. College. The last day of summer, we started a tradition. Bacardi. You grew up, and so did I. But we couldn't be without each other. We were on and off again, and you cried when you had to go home. Owl city-Fireflies You cried when I left you. Kid Cudi-Up up and away. Say Anything- Cemetery. I visited Orlando. And that's when I really saw it. The rest is crystal clear.

I don't think you remember. Runs, barefoot, Waculla Springs, sunburns. That alligator in the park. The time Charlie went missing. The time we made Charlie armor. Fireworks. That horrible cake we made. That awesome Thai food we made. That rainstorm we watched. Walking through the mall in matching outfits. You bought a pretzel. The colony. That abandoned house we walked to. The guy with the camera we talked to. How about that summer we lived together. I never loved anyone so hard. I knew...I knew, I couldn't have you. You made it impossible. But you loved me too. Smoothies. The projector. That time in the hotel where I surprised you, butt naked. The dog park. Every. Single. Day. That field in south Florida, we drove to the lake edge, remember...getting caught?

There are a lot of things left out. A lot of thoughts. Like holding your hand in the hospital. Drawing pictures. Like slipping you medication when you were too messed up to take it. Like hiding from you under the desk. Like the baseball bat. Like South park. Like your graduation night. Like how we'd fight. Things we don't talk about.

I thought maybe you'd react differently this time, but I am coming to see, you're the ant in the amber. Time goes on, I grow older, but you stay the same. It doesn't matter if we're not "friends", C, we never were. You'll never go away, and neither will I. We're just a couple of stupid kids throwing a ball back and forth, just to see who drops it first...

Clarification:

That is all.

The Rule Is, There Are No Rules

Its alright.
This time it's just a slip, sliding down
our loose ends hang in ribbons
Some words have lost all meaning...
Like I'm sorry. Like I love you.
I always knew,
when it comes to you,
actions speak louder.
I know how these things work.
It's not my first time.
But you knew I felt for you.

Now here we are,
marionettes in the puppet show,
cut the bread,
pour the wine...
strings attached to a smile that's not mine.
But I always knew,
when it comes to you,
actions speak louder
actions speak louder
actions speak louder
actions speak...

Thoughts on validating, negating, and sarcasm

Lately I've been thinking a lot about validation and negation, and how these two simple concepts affect our interactions with other people. Sometimes I get too focused on finding a solution, giving advice, or providing the "right" answer to other people's problems, and bogged down when that kind of advice doesn't stick. It goes back to something I wrote earlier. We are not called to fix each other, only to understand one another. While it is easier said than done, part of this is really examining what it is to speak and act from a space of love. What does love really look like, what does it mean? And how does feeling invalidated affect our feelings of being unloved?
Validation itself is pretty simple. You feel a certain way? Yes, you do. That simple act of speaking and being heard, of having your emotions recognized, says so much more than words of advice or superficial solutions. Sometimes problems don't always have to have answers. Validation says "I see you, your well being matters to me, I am here for you." And that might be all someone needs from you. In fact, it might be all any of us need from each other when we are upset. With our feeling recognized, we are brought closer to one another, and in the restorative calm true peace or compromise can be found.
I recently went on a family trip, and I got to thinking how parents have a tendency to regress their children back into a state of adolescence. As someone whose been out of the house for nearly 5 years, I am perfectly capable of caring for myself and tending to the responsibilities that I've taken on. And my parents know that. And yet, on the first day, I was asked if I had brought dog food for my dog on a long weekend. There was something so negating about this question, and for a split second it stopped me in my tracks. OF COURSE I BROUGHT DOG FOOD. The idea that I had somehow forgotten pegs me as someone who is perpetually irresponsible, forgetful, or not conscious of others' needs. Which is not me at all. Do they even know me? It brought up a well of emotions relative to my experience in their household. I can't remember quite how I responded...I think I just said yes.  But it got me thinking.
My parents have raised three very capable children to young adults...and one thing we have in common is we all tend to be extremely sarcastic when mom and dad are around. And I think this has to do with validation and negation. Sarcasm tend to be our response when our parents say something that is invalidating to our current state of independence. Like "Did you bring dog food?" actually sounds like "I am skeptical about your ability to take care of another life because I do not feel you are a capable adult." And that can be quite an insulting thing to say, and in fact, quite different from the intention of the question in the first place. A better question could be "Where is the dog food? I'd like to give the dog a snack." It relays the true intention without negating a person's sense of self-confidence. I think we respond with sarcasm because we are continually being negated, although unintentionally. Sarcasm can feel insulting, but it arises as a response to a statement or question was already perceived as insulting.
I think we have to become more aware of how our words, validating and negating, illicit reactions from one another. It is so important to communicate well with the people around you, and even subtle changes can bring each other closer, tear down walls, and relay our true intentions more clearly. If we don't, we are left doling out clever put-downs and sarcastic comments that aren't indicative of how we truly feel about each other. It's something we should all work on, and I believe that being conscious and validating can truly break down barriers and make people feel far more at ease with each other...and make for lasting, beneficial relationships :)

Home.

You said, "don't get too comfortable there." You never had to say "so you don't end up like me."

My worst fear.

We move closer to downtown, buy a loft on the second floor of a crumbling brick building, the kind with exposed wooden beams, original floors, white-washed brick walls and a deck that grows ivy like an arbor overhead. The first thing I do is hang strings of twinkling lights from those rafters. I get you a video camera for your birthday. You smile and say thank you, but you hold my hand later and that means more to me than any words could. You let me be close to you, and I can't explain the way it fills me up, the kind of warmth that comes, not necessarily from being wanted, but actually appreciated.
We waste time in each other's company, sometimes saying nothing, laying on the floor listening to music. Finding figures in the plaster of the ceiling. Swapping jokes and cleverness. I make breakfast in the morning, putting life into lines and shelves and pockets, and you make fun of me for listening to n.p.r. and formulating plans I'll never keep. You've always been far cooler than I, getting on by the skin of your teeth sometimes, always with a smile. I am indebted to you, for the easy way you've pushed my mind into rethinking everything. A mental renaissance, electric. It's times like this I know you're amazing. You do your own thing and you don't need me much at all. Sometimes I think you only ask for help to make me feel useful, and help me gain some perspective. I force you to paint the kitchen yellow, and you paint everything else blue. I set up a corner for painting with an easel and a vintage drafting table, and sometimes I come home and you've drawn something, doodled your way into my creative realm. If you don't show me, I don't let myself look.
A lot of the time I feel like there is something you want to say, something you'd like to tell me or ways you'd like to touch me, affection, and you don't. But I know. I just know, and that's all there is. I force myself to touch you, to show you that I love you, I want so desperately to beat the odds...I'm cold and you're timid. I'll spend my lifetime showing you it's ok to love me back.
Some nights you don't come home. I make excuses for it but it tears me up. I pretend to believe every word you say, and once upon a time maybe I would've, but you're the one who taught me: question everything. This disgusting thing happens sometimes, where I hear my voice saying your words, and that's how I know you've gotten up inside of me. You break my heart but you'll never leave me, and I love too hard to let you go.
I know what you say about me. You can't go, you don't have a choice, I'm too nice. You don't want to be another man who fails me. This is just your life now, and that's that. You lay on the tracks, tied down by your own loyalty, and wait for the train to run you over.

But I'll never fucking let it.

I worry I'll grow sallow and old next to you, consumed by my own bitterness in anger that rots me to the core. I don't want to be a person who's children grow to hate her, but that's all we know because that's all we've been shown. I worry I'll grow cynical in your shadow, that as the years pass I open my mouth to make a suggestion but you shout a twisted retort that makes me think twice about ever opening my mouth again. I worry you'll hate me for loving you, for trapping you with things in a time when you were lost, I worry you think it's lucky you'll die before me, because there's nothing left to lose by my side. I worry that someday I'll wonder where the time has gone, that I'll live in the light of better days and try my best to be invisible, so you'll have no excuse but to continue pretending I'm not there, pretending not to see me.

Deja Vu

And suddenly, our little world is divided up: those of us that went back, and those of us that never quite could.

I just realized this next year is going to be really interesting. Pretty soon everyone is going to have to shed their greek life shells and become real people...I wonder where they will go. Funny how time flies, how the years treat us differently. If I think too hard on it, my chest begins to ache. My soul still mourns something I've lost. Still dwells, if only for a moment.
I see a pattern in myself, a desperate need to keep moving. The commitments of life are sometimes more than I can bear, all of our souls...bound by material things. I see that I do want a companion in all of this. But I also see how happy I can make myself when I am alone, and sometimes that seems like enough.

I guess I've realized that we'll always keep loving each other if we never speak of it. It can always be everything I had ever wanted, I can still have hope without ruining your potential. Isn't that frightening? Holding in my hand such a sweet fruit and never daring to taste...but is it so wrong to take this time to wonder how it came to fall right here into my hand? But really if I had my way, I'd smother you with love. So you'd never have to question it.

Toast.

I still have

this dumb feeling

you're something special

but that stung.

Voice Over.

Lately all this is starting to fade...like dusty haze and heat waves on a hot road in summer. I start thinking about life and love and living, and one thing seems to pick itself outta the mass...I think back to when you said I've figured it out, I've figured it all out and I didn't even know it. You didn't know how much that terrified me did you? You don't know how much everything does.

People always look at me and want to tell me what they think, and I guess I've decided its gotta be some kind of curse...people look me up and down and tell me how I look. People look at me all the time. Like somehow I invited all this shit. Like somehow I asked for their opinion. You're so young. You're so pretty, I love you.

I live alone. Sometimes I don't want to be seen.

Lately none of this seems to matter so much...I realize if I have time I'm gonna take it. It seems like so much right now. I know that won't last. People say your twenties are for being stupid...I smile a little when they say that. I wonder why people think I wanna spend my time being stupid. The way I see it the stakes are higher now but things ain't much different than being a kid was...it's all fun and games till someone gets pregnant or dies...Go live your life, be stupid! I'm too smart to be stupid. Always have been, that's why it's been so difficult. I always knew I saw things different. The stupidest things I ever did were listening to other people...doin what they said I wanted. What they wanted.

Figured it out huh? I just can't get your voice outta my head. If I have time, I know a few experiences I'd like to have. That's it isn't it? I'm holding the reins but the horse has a mind of its own. And I know it can feel me on its back. I think at some point we all chose this...like rides in an amusement park...like, hey, lets try Life...you don't know where you'll start or where you'll end up but it's just a cosmic blip, and you can't take anything with you but you get it all when you come back...in the end you laugh and say well that was something...if I get time, there are a few experiences I'd like to have. I think about buying some land in the country...raising a few animals. I'd like to have kids. If I'm lucky I'll fall in love, but Daddy I don't think I'll ever love again the way we talked about...I know too much now. Not in a bad way. People say I'm young, and that's good. When you look at things the way I do everything seems a bit like a business arrangement. I'll hold on to the control I have, and surrender to what I don't...

You ever think, if it all was taken away from you...if you were born into a different body, same soul, knowin nothing...could you ever find yourself again? Could you leave clues for yourself to find, clues that transgress the boundaries of your own body? What truly speaks to your soul...is there anything you could do now to call yourself home again someday?

To act in love

Misty, grey morning. I pull myself from a dream as unpleasant as the reality to which I wake. I set out, not ten steps, before I deem this day unworthy, the sinking feeling in my chest a match step for step for skies on the brink of collapse...tumult, mouth open wide, seconds before the wail. I inhale, trying to find relief in this humid blanket. Runners running. Boys and girls walk in time with each other, fingers laced, absorbing each other and buzzing, melding together into single units. I look, silent and detached, accepting what I cannot control, succumbing to routine. I only wish to act in love. 
Pup's always so excited for the day, I could learn a little from his exuberance. He expects only the best from me, and forgives the worst. He never fails to hold the bar high even when I fail to measure up. Its that kind of love I want you to know, that kind of engulfing patience and sweetness that I cannot abandon, I wish to show to you. Each day, you fail to measure up, but I wake up every morning expecting things to be different, anticipating only the best, forgiving yesterday.
Familiar pressure, a tightness in my chest. I know how this goes. Why I hang on? Belief, faith, because I know no other way. I will always hope for you, I will always shelter you. No matter which direction you take, no matter where you plan to go, I will only show you love and hold you fondly in the recesses of my mind. I will always be grateful that you opened up the world a little wider for me, so that I could share your space and come to know what you know. Palm outstretched, if you want to fly, then fly. I won't keep you from where you need to go. It's not in my nature.

Prayer.

I am happy here. So happy that I can make fun of the reasons my life isn't perfect because they don't matter. I am happy. Please, let me stay so lucky.