summer 2012, a prologue

All the sun to look forward to, and drugs. What stung so strongly as failure, now where my eyes close to warmth and purpose. The uselessness of an afternoon in the grass, or a gin drink. Love in passing clouds. Reverb and flip-flops. The cold of my fingers at work and plans that might follow through. The rhythm of a repetition that we can't hold onto. Blankets of chilly nights under the stars. What I might look forward to, or what might scare me, and a colored infinity where they meet. What I draw with you by my side. All the universe that exists between us which I can't help but continue to explore. The thoughts I learn are wrong as clouds become bunnies above our heads. And we whisper to each other falling asleep. Or bike to the farmer's market in the morning.

essays on love, a table of contents

4. - Not How To Be Nice To People (obsession)
The blog post she'll never know I was reading. That virus way she replicates sometimes in my head. Or the bacteria way she infects. Something gross and applicable. Chalk it up to nausea, the pause of maybe being sick. The parties we pass out at alone. Well, not together.

5. - Lying Liars Who Lie (stimulation)
The way I rub my eyes with my thumb and lower index finger. All sorts of details that were so lost in her overly-air-conditioned bedroom. Always adjusting my steps around her, I never found solid ground. But still I could press into my face for thoughts to come pouring out. All the confusion I could find in one summer.

3. - What To Do With You (hope)
The most that timidity could hope for in cold weather. Checklists and great ideas lacking in initiative. The tea we never drank and what I would call trying. Such unbalanced scales, though she laid so wonderfully flat.

1. - An Engagement (respect)
The creak of floorboards. All of two people that you could fit in one tiny room. What could be easily overlooked and the moments where mistakes were only launching boards for something stronger. The Autumn colors we dressed ourselves in to stand back to back and find a future far away.

2. - A Life Of Possibilities (honesty)
The tiniest of promises that an eye can be full of. What spring air means to a 3:00 AM drive home. And all of the the wonder that could be found in a first date that's too much for two people. Not what died shortly after.

essays on love, an epilogue

"It was never my choice" screams the blind hand of loss. To see the dawn of any morning other than the fog. The full eye of melancholy. The refresh of again. What new sun shines past the footnotes and explanations. Over whatever road came into view, and the dirt. The backwards route of getting lost. And the uselessness. For all it taught me will be water in my life. Change as a Christmas card. Reminders in the soup, of somewhere I once knew. Not another story, or the way I felt it needed shoving. My own two hands, and tales of lines I knew were best, and afraid. Wouldn't it be adaptable to put myself into a chair? Always hearing history, when I listen. Icicles are another page in a tome of my world. No two pages alike, no sentiment unseen. There, as needles drip languid for awakening. And the spit of being done. Whatever I lined my bed with, it's making me uncomfortable. Where sleep sees me under. The promise of my insults, that slowed so freely, and lovingly. And gave you strength against me, the wrongs which were under every breath. Wooden floors, which called me to them. Always driving, always driving, always driving. Silence of age. The tiny drawings lead to something. We're all creations.

essays on love, part 5

What alcohol will do is allow for an ex-girlfriend to speak to me when really both of us would rather inhabit opposite sides of the planet. An obituary on my 79th birthday would be enough contact for her to make with me. When I'm sober. Somewhere where we don't have the same favorite bar and mutual friends. But I'll admit, as a product of forgiveness, I enjoyed talking with her. Today I can see many of her intentions in ways I wasn't privy to when we were dating.

She came up to me between turns playing pool with her friends. She had an "I know I don't belong here - and neither do you" look on her face. She asked me a favor. She asked me to not write about her in my blog anymore. I paused for a moment to think about what she could've been referencing. Beers hadn't blinded me to remembering what I'd possibly said about her. I just didn't care anymore. In the past several months I had moved on, and thoughts of her had dwindled down to nothing, or turned themselves into self-observation. I didn't hate her. I hated the person I had become when I was with her. Her presence in my mind was only an afterimage of the mistakes I had made and needed to learn from. When she began calling and texting me, only hours after we'd broken up, I knew that all I could've gained from her attention was far, far behind me.

Such a calm distaste I felt then. I wanted so badly to trust her smile and kind words, but some things even the blind can see when they're willing. Here is someone who claimed to have let me know them. Here is someone I'd convinced myself I loved. Here is love's potential for illusion, and illusion's potential for persuasion, and persuasion's potential for faith, and faith's potential for fear.

A vacation gave me insight to forgiveness: loving even the things that hurt you and knowing they cannot cause you pain unless you let them. When I read back over the blog post which had sent her over to me, I laughed and knew that she couldn't have read into the meaning with which I wrote. The only thing I can do for us now is the opposite of what she asked. I am writing about her. I am thinking aloud to the world with an absence of fear. Choose hate if you must, because there's certainly meaning in a strong emotion like that, and it's nothing that comes from someone else. It always comes from within.

How I'm capable of so many threads of thought, deep and meaningful in their own individual ways. It could be that no avenue matters more, and would head in a direction I am destined to travel. No, I think that is not some magical answer hanging like the stars over every planet of thought in the universe of possibility. The stars are energy. My own fear keeps me reaching in so many directions. I now know that each force of gravity could pull on me and my potential could nestle, for a time, into comfortable recognition. So I struggle between sustainability and an assertion that no one thing need hold me for too long. I am like a magnet stabilizing, and as such I know there must be a point of attraction! But now happiness is the exertion of thought and effort as wholly as possible in every direction imaginable. The fear of overexertion is the imbalance of energy in a particular direction - whether too much or too little.

last night I penned our first poem
it was in thoughts after my laptop died
and I'd resigned to turning in my mind

there was no ink
it was fleeting hazy thoughts
inspirations becoming dreams
that composed our first poem

it was wonderful metaphors
and peaceful imagery
I was not scheming to construct
an instrument for ensnaring you

I was only celebrating:
tiny party balloons
which floated me to sleep

essays on love, part 3

Giving trust to someone you wish to receive it from should not be so difficult. There is a difference between knowing how you feel about someone and living that emotion. I remember the Saturday afternoons I spent in tense anticipation of having dinner with her. I remember the build up to Friday evenings and the let down when she would pause, kiss me quick, and turn out the door without a hint of looking back. I remember the text message admission that she didn't want "any of this" or to see "anyone right now". What sort of foundation is that for honesty?

When I ran into her a month after breaking up, I was overcome with a realization that I missed her. Her response when I told her was that she didn't know what to do with me, but she really didn't know what to do with herself. I had stood in calm appreciation of the beauty of her face, unable to express however I was thinking. Her dark hair and glasses were prettier than I could've painted, given a brush and the talent to do so. And she was mine, though looking back it's more of a fisherman's tale than a believable reality. Our courtship was a challenge, trying to crack the shell of her defensive, distant attitude. It took me too long to ask, 'what could I stand for?'

She texted me about a month ago, saying that "(she) was an idiot for pushing (me) away." She had not realized our issue was her refusal to open herself up. I turned to the girl I was sitting next to and read her the text. I was not afraid to say, "I don't want her back." When the two of them met recently, I knew a happiness in standing next to someone that she never provided me. When she asked me how I was doing, I absolutely froze. There was no way I knew how to convey to her how great my life had been since I began forgetting her.