empty chords

Dear K-

I know your ghosts. We are haunted by the same shadows of loneliness and doubt, the pathetic uncertainty that we’ll ever be loved by anyone who we love as much. Someday we will die. Will there be someone at our side, someone with whom we have grown old? What if there is nothing but a dark, bleak emptiness and my emergency contact is someone I hardly even know?

We’ve lost. We’ve lost again and again. You left your pain in Missouri, I left mine abroad. Let’s face it: we’re not the luckiest when it comes to succeeding in love, no matter how much anyone tells us we deserve better. We can paint it up and try to disguise it anyway we please- with pretty words smattered upon a yellowing page, with pints of whiskey and cheap cigarettes, by burying ourselves in our work and proving that we can be good at something…but in the end there’s still that emptiness. The whiskey can’t wash it all away- I still remember how it feels to fall asleep in someone’s arms and feel comforted by the knowledge that you’ll wake up to their smile in the morning. Maybe you’ll go get breakfast. Maybe you’ll stay in bed all morning and waste away the day. Who cares?

But what now, when I lay alone and don’t have the comfort of anyone? Perhaps I’m still in denial, expecting an apologetic phone call or an invitation to dinner. I check the phone. I check the mail. But I’m still alone. Phone lies dormant, dead, on the windowsill. Mail is nothing but bills and advertisements for the local grocer.

Don’t mistake me. This has happened before, which is perhaps why it makes me feel so ashamed and disgusted with myself. But it also brings the experience of knowing this will pass. For now I can only get along the best I know how, trying not to think of what I’ve lost. But we’re always going to be reminded, aren’t we?

Try not to regret. We’re the better for all our mistakes and missteps, as painful as they may be. Perhaps we will never obtain the promise that has been made to us since we were children. But I’d rather not think of that for now.

Regret nothing.
-K

Every God Damned Minute.

Dear K,

This is not about what happened tonight. This is about what happened last night. Last year. The year before that, and most of the ones I can remember before that.

I talked on the phone to her for an hour and a half. The whole time I thought about what could have been. I loved her. She was my moon, my stars, my oceans of fire. I set my days in her orbit. I set my nights down beside her.

All the pretty words I wrote. The tragic tears of ink I shed. The hurt the joy and the pain. I'm lost without them now. I cut those things out of my heart. I cut her out of my life. Now, here I am in my little river town, and I'm not sure about tomorrow, or the day after that, or the one that follows.

I used to be so certain. I was a rock of faith. I had this love and even though it hurt me and cut me, I knew it was there and it would always be there. Then I woke up and moved away, and cut that part of myself off, and left it to die in Missouri.

I miss that part of myself. I miss that desperation. That pointless agony. The longing the ache.
I'm not sure I would undo what I did. Even if I could.

The truth is I loved her more because she didn't love me. I loved the tragedy. The everyday sorrow of it. I felt like I was young Werther.

But that's all gone now. It's blown away out of me. Soon I will forget.

But yeah it was worth it.

Every minute,

K

what was our love worth if it was something we could gamble

dear k-

sometimes we fall out of sync with the momentum visualized in our mind. hopefully by now you've found your breath and managed to slip back into the appropriate current. if not, then i wish you a thorough if not speedy recovery.

i'm still killing days, walking around the city on a pendulum between satisfying productivity and crippling loneliness. some days come easier than others, but the slew of mixed signals and doubt do nothing to ease the passing of the hours. i don't like to analyze excerpts of speech and rerun conversations in my head, but if i'm given contradictory sentiments that leave me doubting my interpretations then i really don't have a choice. it's painful and humiliating and it's a shame.

in a month i'll be moving to a new apartment. i'm living alone next year. in all honesty i am actually very excited about the prospect, although i fear that if i am given too much time living by myself i am only going to make myself miserable. i want to go out in this city and make new friends. i want to create a social network independent of my studies. but you know that such interactions do not come with ease to me, and so i will most likely remain hovering on my fire escape and listening to the summer sounds of the city.

try to feel better, friend. hopefully you will be your irksome, perpetually merry self in no time.

what was it worth,
-k

Dear K,

Today I am sick. Today I am under the ocean. Today I am not where I am supposed to be, and this body isn't working right. Today I wish I was a cyborg in Japan. Today I want to be in a story. Today I don't want to breath. Today I have taken two baths. Today I have slept for 16 hours. Today I moved my car and ate white rice.

Tomorrow I hope the wind calms down. Tomorrow I hope I can feel the sun for a little while.

Sometimes this timeline doesn't suit me,

K

a task

Dear K-

I feel miserable inside and out. but you gave me a task...so here is the beginning.

1. I have long, slender fingers.
2. I have the annoying ability to remember everything that transpires when I am drunk. It is both a blessing and a curse.
3. Sometimes I can be fairly sociable.
4. I can drink whiskey neat...and I like it.
5. I have never stabbed someone or tried to stab someone.
6. I try to keep reasonably fit.
7. I appreciate a good cup of black coffee and greasy spoon diners.
8. Sometimes I eat fruit.
9. I don't eat meat.
10. I've never let myself be pigeonholed into a cliche appearance- when I get complacent with my routine I add something new and try to change everything I can.
11. I do not use computer lingo or shorthand unless I am being ironic. I find it cheap and disgraceful.

...that is all I can come up with at the moment.

-K

Dear K,

In response:

NOPE.

I am perfect.
I am a bright brilliant shining star of humanity.
I am the joy of nations.
I am the thunderous laughter that shakes mountains.
I am the rain in spring, the sun in summer.
I am starlight and moonbeams.
I am a towering fortress.
I am an open plain.
I am clouds.
I am trees.
I am grass.
I am leaves.
I am wind.
I am rust.
I am fire.
I am dust.
I am that which you cannot take.
I am given freely for all to eat.
I am the second coming.
I am modest.

The world doesn't wait for me, and I will not wait for it.
I am a small insignificant drop.
I am a blink, a blip, a sigh, a wisp.
I am an illusion.
I have no time left to weep.
I will spend the rest of my life laughing, or die trying.
I am bold.
I am brave.
I am strong.
I am true.

I don't care that you hate yourself sometimes.
I don't care that you think so lowly of yourself you cry.
I don't care that you can't love me, I love myself enough for two.
I don't care that you're sad and think you're broken.

You are not. You are fine, and young and strong.
So buck the fuck up and move your shit along.
(but really take like maybe two weeks, because it really sucks to put all that time and effort into a relationship, and then be told it isn't a relationship)

But after those two weeks, sing some fucking happy songs,

K.

OUT.

we are two unloveable entities

dear k-

somedays i don't like who i am at all.

i didn't cry until now, when i decided to write you back. i made it through the whole day, but i can't do it anymore. i could no longer pretend that i wasn't hurt.

reading your letter cuts deep. i know now how you feel. i am never good enough. it doesn't matter how many people tell me i'm smart, pretty, funny, whatever- fuck it. it's either not true or just a waste of time. i am a waste of space. i toll out tireless amounts of emotion, effort, and attention and what do i always receive in return?

emptiness.

do i present myself as someone who doesn't need affection? why do i seem to effortlessly manage to find the relationships where the opposite party never wishes to return my investments?

how hard these words fall upon my ears at 3 am, with their slow drunken drawl, so matter of fact as if it were simply recounting the weather report for the next day: "i don't think i want to date anyone. you're great, but i don't know about dating. i don't know."

give me a fucking reason. tell me why this didn't come up 6 months prior. don't invite me over in the middle of the night and then suddenly stumble upon this realization. don't act surprised when i seem "serious" and "grumpy" afterwards.

i am so sorry. i am so sorry. i know how it feels. i cannot give you any better reason than what every single one of them give me. i just don't know. it's okay if you want to hate me for it. i don't hate them, but mostly i just feel disappointment in myself.

i don't like myself some days.

will i someday look back on this and have no regrets?
-k