Dear K,
Should I begin with an apology? Is that necessary? I don't think so. Not for what I said. They were pretty words, and well meant. Maybe with an apology for what follows. This isn't going to be fun, but these letters have never been about fun. They've always been about sharing scrapes and scars and insecurities.
So, I'm sorry. What follows is a swamp of self-pity.
Excuse this indulgence, but it has been made clear to me that I will be alone for a very long time. I have come to terms with this. I like living alone. I like sleeping alone. I work well alone. When I come home at night there is no one to wake. There is no one to endlessly recount my days to. I don't have to fill in someone else on the trivia of my increasingly mediocre existence. I can escape into other lives. I can eat dinner at 9 PM and leave the dishes in the sink. I have become very good at being alone.
I don't need your apologies or sympathy. Don't misunderstand me, I appreciate both, and I am glad for the company, but I won't break down when they aren't offered. I'm glad you replied. But I knew from the moment I thought of that first sentence, I knew how the exchange would end. I knew even when I sent you that drunken ramble what would happen. I knew it all. There was no hope in the words I wrote with drunken fingers. There never could be. We may be star-crossed, but we certainly aren't lovers.
But sometimes K, you have to run into the wall. Sometimes you have to break yourself against reality. Hope is important. What's more, is acting on hope. It is important to leap and fall and bleed.
Can I ask you something in reply?
Why?
And understand that I don't want or need you to have any feelings other than friendship for me. I'm not begging for anything, and I am not pathetic. I simply don't understand this continued response.
I have crafted myself into this person, and no one seems to want it.
Tell me why. There has never been a good enough reason. It is always just that lack of spark. There is something missing.
Someday I would like to know what I am missing,
K
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
a few hours later
Dear K-
I left the café as twilight began to set in, the rain now abated and the air still slightly cooled from its caress. That café was draining me, with the bitter coffee eroding away my insides and leaving me dejected and brooding. But when I left and stepped out into that first breath of twilight, hearing the city bubble before me, my mood lifted. Puddles like pools of liquid mercury were electrified with neon from the display signs of restaurants, bars, and shops, rippling like Technicolor seismographs whenever someone stepped into one. Birds called out to each other from unseen roosts.
As I walked back to my apartment I stopped at a corner and watched the flickering of the “don’t walk” across the street. Two lovers stood entwined beneath it, hands in each other’s pockets, pecking kisses while staring deep into each other’s eyes. It actually made me laugh. Sometimes we look so foolish.
In the twilight I lazily ambled home, enjoying the spring air and the calm. I thought about how I wanted to proceed with my life, and I felt at ease. What a difference a peaceful walk can make to your disposition.
You’ve got to live your life the best way you know how.
-K
I left the café as twilight began to set in, the rain now abated and the air still slightly cooled from its caress. That café was draining me, with the bitter coffee eroding away my insides and leaving me dejected and brooding. But when I left and stepped out into that first breath of twilight, hearing the city bubble before me, my mood lifted. Puddles like pools of liquid mercury were electrified with neon from the display signs of restaurants, bars, and shops, rippling like Technicolor seismographs whenever someone stepped into one. Birds called out to each other from unseen roosts.
As I walked back to my apartment I stopped at a corner and watched the flickering of the “don’t walk” across the street. Two lovers stood entwined beneath it, hands in each other’s pockets, pecking kisses while staring deep into each other’s eyes. It actually made me laugh. Sometimes we look so foolish.
In the twilight I lazily ambled home, enjoying the spring air and the calm. I thought about how I wanted to proceed with my life, and I felt at ease. What a difference a peaceful walk can make to your disposition.
You’ve got to live your life the best way you know how.
-K
clockdial refraction
Dear K-
You told me to get it together. I thought I’d give it a try. When I feel rejected, alone, or bitter, I tend to do what I do best: retreat into my work. I slipped out of clinic early today to establish myself at a café and spend a few hours preparing for the exams to come. So here I am, alone, perched on a stool and watching pedestrians sprint through the rain outside as they get unexpectedly caught in the spring downpour. My notes are spread out before me and I have already pounded through a few lectures. But the productivity isn’t bringing enough satisfaction to fill the stale, hovering dullness that aches within me.
It was good to hear your voice yesterday. The rest of my night progressed rather smoothly, coasting on the enjoyable conversation. Unfortunately, with the heat has returned my insomnia, and I spent most of the night lying awake on starchy sheets listening to the hum of electricity and mulling over the decisions of my life.
I am dragging along. It is frustrating because I know I should hold my head up and realize that things are actually quite good: I am in a prestigious program and working towards a potentially prosperous future career, I am surrounded by friendly people, the weather is warming up and the flowers are starting to bloom. I spent a summer with my heart hooked up to computers with doctors telling me I had only weeks to live- this should seem like no real misfortune in comparison.
But then why do I still feel this way? Am I trying to hold on, trying to keep myself from forgetting what it’s like to feel loved, rather than moving along and shrugging off the disappointment? I’ve made it this far- can I not hold out for one more week? But what if after a week he’s not willing to pick up where the game left off?
Fuck it. I am lucky to be alive. Forget the rest- only remember that I am lucky to be alive.
It’s a beautiful and intricate world we live in today.
-K
You told me to get it together. I thought I’d give it a try. When I feel rejected, alone, or bitter, I tend to do what I do best: retreat into my work. I slipped out of clinic early today to establish myself at a café and spend a few hours preparing for the exams to come. So here I am, alone, perched on a stool and watching pedestrians sprint through the rain outside as they get unexpectedly caught in the spring downpour. My notes are spread out before me and I have already pounded through a few lectures. But the productivity isn’t bringing enough satisfaction to fill the stale, hovering dullness that aches within me.
It was good to hear your voice yesterday. The rest of my night progressed rather smoothly, coasting on the enjoyable conversation. Unfortunately, with the heat has returned my insomnia, and I spent most of the night lying awake on starchy sheets listening to the hum of electricity and mulling over the decisions of my life.
I am dragging along. It is frustrating because I know I should hold my head up and realize that things are actually quite good: I am in a prestigious program and working towards a potentially prosperous future career, I am surrounded by friendly people, the weather is warming up and the flowers are starting to bloom. I spent a summer with my heart hooked up to computers with doctors telling me I had only weeks to live- this should seem like no real misfortune in comparison.
But then why do I still feel this way? Am I trying to hold on, trying to keep myself from forgetting what it’s like to feel loved, rather than moving along and shrugging off the disappointment? I’ve made it this far- can I not hold out for one more week? But what if after a week he’s not willing to pick up where the game left off?
Fuck it. I am lucky to be alive. Forget the rest- only remember that I am lucky to be alive.
It’s a beautiful and intricate world we live in today.
-K
Sunday, March 11, 2012
I Have No Memory
Dear K,
I don't have those moments. I don't have childhood. I spent it on liquor and cigarettes and silence and dumb little things that I thought would fill that little hole called my esophagus, or at least clog it for a minute. There are flashes now and then, there's a field of green and the smell of grass. Cool morning air, and sound and light. Everything gets hazier the harder I focus on them, and I lose the fight and start imagining the time I threw a dart at the wall and spent a week in my room.
I've caught your blues and I've thrown them all around my room. I found a spider in my salad tonight and threw at my television.
I've been in this place for close to 48 hours straight. I left to take the garbage out and that's it. It doesn't seem like the time went anywhere, but where does the smoke go from all the fires around the city? It gets high enough and disappears. There must be some holes up there we just can't find them with our metal wings.
Why is it so lonely in this crowded room? Who are these idiots calling me now? What do they want with me? I'm not that funny. I'm not a creature of light and shadows, I made myself from clay and wasted paper, receipts and cigarette butts, ashes smeared along a wall.
I'm not broken down, I was never really working, just skipping down the hall.
I don't want company, I just want someone to think of me, when they think of all the moments of their life, because I built myself without a memory.
Come on,
Get it together,
K
I don't have those moments. I don't have childhood. I spent it on liquor and cigarettes and silence and dumb little things that I thought would fill that little hole called my esophagus, or at least clog it for a minute. There are flashes now and then, there's a field of green and the smell of grass. Cool morning air, and sound and light. Everything gets hazier the harder I focus on them, and I lose the fight and start imagining the time I threw a dart at the wall and spent a week in my room.
I've caught your blues and I've thrown them all around my room. I found a spider in my salad tonight and threw at my television.
I've been in this place for close to 48 hours straight. I left to take the garbage out and that's it. It doesn't seem like the time went anywhere, but where does the smoke go from all the fires around the city? It gets high enough and disappears. There must be some holes up there we just can't find them with our metal wings.
Why is it so lonely in this crowded room? Who are these idiots calling me now? What do they want with me? I'm not that funny. I'm not a creature of light and shadows, I made myself from clay and wasted paper, receipts and cigarette butts, ashes smeared along a wall.
I'm not broken down, I was never really working, just skipping down the hall.
I don't want company, I just want someone to think of me, when they think of all the moments of their life, because I built myself without a memory.
Come on,
Get it together,
K
Sunday, March 4, 2012
oh my god, it still means a lot to me
Dear K-
It brought a smile to my lips, if nothing else. I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to fall back upon you whenever I stumble and to let you gently chide me for being a foolish little bird and somehow manage to calm my neurotic tics. Sometimes I fall apart a little and the stitches pull too tight and the threads begin give way. But there you are, needle poised ready between two clumsy digits, ready to wet the threads with blood if that be what it takes to set it all right again. Please don’t tell anyone about the bad days. Please don’t tell them that some days I don't think I’m worth much at all.
In the garden of my parents’ house, back when I was young, I remember I would beg my mother to fill the beds with daffodils. I would thumb through the seed catalogs we received in the mail and circle all the varieties I wanted to order to fill the garden. There were miniature daffodils, daffodils of soft white and peach, some of almost neon yellow hues, and even some that looked like scrambled eggs. Come March and April, as soon as I saw the first purple peeping of the crocus, I knew that soon my garden would be aglow.
It made me happy. Everything about them warms me- their cheerful demeanor, their light pollen scent, even the way the frothy sap drips from their thick stalks when I harvested them to fill the vases in my bedroom. Once I even brought a bouquet to school and handed out individual flowers to friends. I don’t think they appreciated it as much as I would have.
Around this time of year, now that I’m older, I think back to my parents’ garden and miss it a little. And you know I don’t often miss anything at all…But the daffodils, these I do miss.
I miss daffodils.
Thank you for being there,
-K
It brought a smile to my lips, if nothing else. I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to fall back upon you whenever I stumble and to let you gently chide me for being a foolish little bird and somehow manage to calm my neurotic tics. Sometimes I fall apart a little and the stitches pull too tight and the threads begin give way. But there you are, needle poised ready between two clumsy digits, ready to wet the threads with blood if that be what it takes to set it all right again. Please don’t tell anyone about the bad days. Please don’t tell them that some days I don't think I’m worth much at all.
In the garden of my parents’ house, back when I was young, I remember I would beg my mother to fill the beds with daffodils. I would thumb through the seed catalogs we received in the mail and circle all the varieties I wanted to order to fill the garden. There were miniature daffodils, daffodils of soft white and peach, some of almost neon yellow hues, and even some that looked like scrambled eggs. Come March and April, as soon as I saw the first purple peeping of the crocus, I knew that soon my garden would be aglow.
It made me happy. Everything about them warms me- their cheerful demeanor, their light pollen scent, even the way the frothy sap drips from their thick stalks when I harvested them to fill the vases in my bedroom. Once I even brought a bouquet to school and handed out individual flowers to friends. I don’t think they appreciated it as much as I would have.
Around this time of year, now that I’m older, I think back to my parents’ garden and miss it a little. And you know I don’t often miss anything at all…But the daffodils, these I do miss.
I miss daffodils.
Thank you for being there,
-K
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)