Smiling As The Rocks And Oceans Cover Us.

Dear K,

This is all going to be terribly disconnected.
Treat it like a poem.
I wish somebody had said that to me when I was little.
That would be a good way to live your life.
Like a poem.
I guess.

I know I'll be happy someday. I know I'm not right now. I broke up with her. I ended my longest relationship. There were very real reasons, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. I'm lying in bed. I've been staring up at my ceiling fan feeling so sorry for myself for the last two hours.

I created an OKCupid account and deleted it before it was completely set up. I did the same with Tinder. I know now that those things don't work for me.

I want a romance. I want to be ready for a romance.

I'm not ready.

It's going to take me some time to get ready.

I want to make sure that I love myself before I love somebody else.

Look, this whole thing is going to end. Your life. My life. The world's ability to support life. Everything is going to end. We're going to do. That is not up for debate. There is no negotiating around that. Everything ends.

I told her as quick as I could that I thought we should break up. She was expecting it because I had talked to my sisters that day. She was worried about me talking to my sisters. She was worried that they would convince me to break up with her. They didn't convince me, my mind was already made up. It was my gut that did it.

Everything ends, but still moments are suspended. I imagine the past as frozen echoes that are still there. You and I are still drinking on a porch in Kirksville, Missouri somewhere back there.
Somewhere back there I'm still stroking her hair and breathing in the smell. I'm still holding her hand as we walk. I'm still grabbing at her belt loops and pulling her in to kiss me. I'm still telling myself that her middle name is Forever.

That's how it was in my phone.

I looked through pictures I took from our relationship tonight.

That was a mistake.

All of the good times have flooded back into me.

My pillow is soaking up what makes it down my cheek.

God I miss her. I just want to talk to her. I just want to go back, not forever, but just for the night.

Then I think to myself how lucky I am to feel all of these things and the pain lessens. Pain can be turned to joy, it happens, sometimes.

I called an old friend from college tonight. One I used to put on a pillar and call it love. We talked for an hour and a half until I threw up. I think it was a combination of bad tea, cigarettes, and old unrequited feelings that I should have dealt with a long time ago. Somethings never get back in their box.

I need to be kinder to myself.

You need to be kinder to yourself.

You've always been nice to me, turn some of that back on yourself.

You know why I titled this "Smiling As The Rocks Cover Us" ?

Because someday the mountains will crumble. Someday you'll be buried in the dirt. Someday I'll be buried in the dirt. Our lips will melt away, eaten and consumed.

We'll Be Smiling As The Rocks And Oceans Cover Us,
Because It Was So Good To Have Lived,
K