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.

essays on love, part 4

It was somewhere between 7:00AM and 2:00PM and I was lying in the bed of a girl I had met the week before.

Simultaneously exhausted and unable to sleep right away, I kept adjusting myself on her mattress in an attempt to get comfortable. I am completely unsure of how much I slept in that span of time. I would feel like I had dozed off for only five minutes before waking back up and tossing and turning for another twenty. Somewhere in that fog of half-sleep I had an incredibly clear vision. It came with a focus and lucidity that punctured the hazy bliss of the past twelve hours. The vision was of my ex-girlfriend. The one I spent every hour of eight months trying to convince that we should get back together. The one every good friend of mine fought their impulses to tell me was no good and a waste of time. The one who couldn't understand why I liked her so much. The one that was a tumor on my brain, a static infatuation and a hopeless grasp for sanity.

The image I had of her was sly. She was standing in front of a dark grey, nondescript brick wall. Her posture conveyed an untrustworthiness that I could feel. What I remember above all else were the details of her face. She was ugly. Ugly in a way that I never noticed, but had to (just had to) have been there all along. Her smile was stained and black with a permanent chasm in her lip where a cigarette would usually sit. Her hair was frayed and pulled back, giving her face a taut, sinister look. Her height had always attracted me, the way it rose so close yet stayed under my gaze, but in that moment I saw her demeanor as cold and repelling. She looked a foreigner; a vagabond in the palace of a king; she knew she didn't belong. In that moment she freed herself from my heart, as she had been dreaming to do. This, now, was my dream.

Milan Kundera quotes, part 1

"I beg you, friend, be happy. I have the vague sense that on your capacity to be happy hangs our only hope."

from the novel Slowness.

essays on love, part 2

We were both very tired. In between the heavy blinks and yawns I felt that we'd been together several years, sharing this apartment, cat and that one framed poster she had on her wall. It was closer to living with someone than I could've imagined possible in the six hours we'd spent alone. Our bodies would have sighed under sheets together, and her whispered 'goodnight' would have sent me rolling over the edge into blissful slumber. I felt at ease, in a new, exciting way. That part of me that has no concept of sustainability just wanted to sit on that couch and watch TV forever.

Instead we realized how late it was around 2:00. While I fumbled with my shoes for as long as possible she moved herself to stand in front of me. We kissed that first date kiss that bursts with a range of emotions: shyness, aggression, confidence, gratitude and melancholy. We walked to the door and the faraway, ethereal world I had misplaced where I lived without her 99% of the time. It felt like fear of being alone that turned us to each other one more time. A deep kiss and a sincere hug that had me believing after I'd left that some of me was still in her arms. As I drove home in a state of transient elation, I dreamed of possible futures to come where I would be welcomed into her world again.

essays on love, part 1

We had planned a pink and brown wedding. We certainly planned a lot of things, and I swear that I never just blindingly nodded my head to her dreams. They were my dreams too. I can safely say that the hardest thing I've ever done was break up with her. Insert joke about it being better to have "loved and lost". Insert heartfelt, nauseatingly optimistic assertion that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Now cross them out and try looking your mistakes in the face. Embrace them, thank them, and love them in the way you never loved your ex-girlfriend. While you still have that love inside you it's obvious that no one has received it.

Where we started is fantastically familiar territory for me, now. The weeks after our first kiss were a barren tundra of unrequited love, begging me with empty promises of satisfaction from strife-ridden devotion. But alas! She was not so scared of my total abandonment of reason. She too believed in song lyrics and christmas decorations. She believed my blind optimism that yes, indeed, love could conquer all. Love could even conquer my own doubts. And let me tell you, dear reader: it can.

From there we spent several blissful years attached to each other's hip. Together we learned a great deal about growing up. Renting an apartment, buying groceries, playing bills, abandoning our friends; sacrificing so many things that we wanted in favor of what the other wanted. We breathed in compromise, unaware of an alternative. Hand in hand we stepped ourselves into the recently discovered shoes of adulthood. We lived together, in so many senses of the word that I felt more at peace when I was with her than when I was alone. We practically became halves of one whole, scarcely able to function independently.

And then we found them: the careers we'd been searching for. So much of our time that was once occupied by whatever jobs we could find in order to make the month's rent was now occupied by the opportunity of a promising future. Career paths. Attractive coworkers. That strange look on someone's face when you mentioned your fiancee and the naggingly suspicious tone when they asked, "how old are you again?"

While the "straw" of a crush which broke the camel's back was exactly the one which I pursued not days after our tear-streaked, tumultuous break-up, there was more to my change of feelings than a pretty face. For the first time since before we'd met, I realized the potential to shape my own future, free from anyone's controlling hand. I started to see just how big the world was. An inkling of life's possibilities was inside me and I could only stare our commitment in the eyes for so long until turning away.

And so I turned. In an admission of failure rife with any underlying embracement of finding inner peace, I emerged from the cocoon of our engagement as a fully formed individual. I didn't need 'us' anymore. Finding love from then on would never be about finding a 'half' to pair perfectly with my own. The concept of yin and yang does not involve two complementary fractions. The happiness of love has nothing to do with submission, complication or pride. You'll know it when you get it but you'll know it even more when you give it.

dry heat

If I had a dial for my senses, right now I would turn them down.
The same biting sensations are returning, eliciting a tired weight at the back of my eyes. Under my skin burns a numb fire of fatigue, and while it begs to be stoked it won't simply run its course. The blind constant want to solve my own discomfort, when release just might really be the answer. But closing my eyes to the world would only subdue for a while the blaze behind my frustration. The knowledge that this is not right. This is not working. I am only looking up at the better before me that knows I've got it in my sights. No sense in stopping now, but it's not a heavy-handed trying: it's a weightless submission to the future that lets me fall softly into it. But the fire inside me won't let me rest. It won't stop my mind from tripping over its own thoughts. The ache is ever present and sometimes I'm not sure how to make it stop. And if I had a dial for my senses, right now I would turn them down.

"Walden" quotes, part 1

"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust."

pensive

I really like the word "pensive", and think of it as a state of being I'd like to achieve. I also apply to it my own, expounded-upon, definition outside of being deep in thought. I add an element of patient excitement that makes me think that's simply how I view life. Every moment I have a sort of wondrous longing for what's coming next. Sometimes that leads to an impatient anxiousness, and the tightrope between paranoid and calm is one that I am always walking from one moment to the next. If this balance is to be the struggle of my life, than perhaps redefining such an enchanting word as "pensive" is the key to my happiness.

When a simple phone call could set in motion a series of events which would bring about an answer to the question I've been posing myself - not necessarily an answer to what I need - the momentary supersedes the long-term. The grounded awareness of strict and unadulterated desire stakes its claim over the impulses of action. My hindsight has developed twenty-four years of looking back all for the benefit of looking ahead to something that will eventually become a rearview thought; a page in my chapters of growing which humbly accept they're nowhere near the end, yet always the most important. My tomorrows ask of themselves not to be worried over. They tell me, "you have more to do today, we'll have our fun when you are ready." To that, I pensively embrace what's in front of me.

reactions

I can't really think of anything wrong with being a reactionary. Some people might imagine it as a disregard for consequences or an ignorance of cause and effect and deem it a dangerous practice. But those are mindsets separate from allowing yourself a little less restriction from the blunt honesty of your thoughts. I know she wasn't faking the look on her face before I caught her off guard; standing at the back of the balcony, barely in sight of the stage. Less than two days prior she had voiced disconcertion over seeing a band she had never heard before. Yet, here she was displaying the kind of genuine smile and unabashed happiness that I could only react to by being practically speechless.

potentional

I'm gonna write about her. I'm gonna do it. There will be quite a lot of blogger.com saved drafts and Moleskine notebook pages of scribbled prose. And yet I'm so cautious about doing it. Like, almost afraid - which I should be, considering the pain I have experienced. Still, it doesn't always feel like defense as much as a steadfast patience. That is something new, and in its own way exciting. The eve is always better than the day, I think. The potential of love's lightness intrigues me more now, and "meeting her in the middle" is a thousand times more fair that the "fair" I've settled for. But I am not writing about her beauty now. I am not expounding for pages on the curls of her smile and soft response of her skin. This is me predicting those pages. This is something we call "potential".

boundless white

I'm lying on the ice rink at my parent's house. It's dark. I'm alone. I was listening to Halloween, Alaska, skating around in the dark, and I laid down on the ice with my arms and legs spread out. As the song I was listening to started to build I just had to sit up. But before I do, I look towards the house and the garage and my car. The boards of the ice rink are high enough that I don't see anything below their edge looking up other than the house, garage and my car. It looks as if on the other side of this ice rink the world just ends.

Like this is all there is. And it's a little scary. To be this isolated.

I know I'm not. I can hear cars driving past me. And of course I know there's a world of things out there, my thoughts are on them; considerably. It's a little more beautiful, but still scary. That the world could end right there on the other side of my car.

As I think these thoughts I'm losing my awareness of the cold. Until I think that, and then I start to feel it. As I sit up I can see now the expanse of snow that is the field that extends behind my parent's house, and it's just so WHITE. So untouched and white. I want to go running - running in the field. Until I lose my breath and just collapse in the snow. It's a boundless, boundless white. I know it wouldn't go forever, but it would go as far as I need it to, and I would just run and run and not think about getting back, and the day to come and tomorrow and next week and next year, anything, I would just be lost in the running. The running through the snow. And maybe I would fall asleep in the snow. I have such a hard time taking naps.

And then I want to be reading a book. I don't care what book. A book I hate. A book that's hard to read through but I'm reading anyway, and I'm not just glancing over the pages and forgetting the story almost as soon as I read it. I'm absorbing it. I'm really absorbing it. And it doesn't matter what it is, just so long as it's becoming part of me. Something I know that I can feel inside of me. And it's not that I don't want it, it's that I don't know how to get it. I don't know how to get more inside of me. I feel overflown with things I don't want. I don't know how to let the right things in. I want love. I want to let love in, and I don't know how. Because every time I try, I try to believe that it's not real. I try to tell myself it's not real. I try to find its flaws and its holes because I want it to be perfect and I know that it's not. And so I think it's not good enough for me. But this field of snow, so white, stretching before me. It's perfect. I just want to fall asleep.

red meat

I've been far removed from my own happiness. Like an ignorant dog so coaxed from its home by the faulty promise of a juicy streak. It was only a mirage - the impression of pleasure in my mind - that I had stumbled upon a solution to my life's great mystery. (Well, I've never liked steaks.) Now I see so plainly how the constant questioning did not truly seek answers as much as it exposed the underlying issue. My happiness belongs to no one. Certainly to no one unwilling to ask my opinion; to share time and space, the fundamentals of a stable relationship. The weight does not come from a touch on the thigh or a planned evening on the horizon. The true foundation is built with calm understanding of thoughts and desires. We are all so generously allowed our own opinions. It is nothing like selfish to be yourself. No peace of mind would ever come from lying to someone, when their interests turn your stomach on end and fill you with an uneasiness akin to shaking your enemy's hand.

That is not to say that no pleasure can be found in a quickening heart and a rush of feeling on the skin. It is a different kind of happiness. I unexpectedly learned how to separate the momentary, the fleeting, from love. Like pieces from different puzzles I then tried to jam them together and pass the resulting hybrid off as pure. It did me so much harm that I am wandering lost in returning it to its rightful place, only after the devoted attachment of the soul. To think I believed any other way would bring me peace of mind. Relief only begins to explain the feeling of being in control of that again! If anything ever came close to regret in my heart, in my past, it would be my own false fidelity.

one and only

We were so happy in this photo when you were talking me up to your friends, like my attachment wasn't so resented, like I was appreciated. Like I was deserved. Maybe in our eyes you can see that we knew we'd be stumbling home and waking up tomorrow when the sun was already setting. The short day was overwhelmed with your apologies to your mother, and I could only listen to one song, which so incredibly reminded me of you. I told you once, and looking at this photo now I don't know if you remember. This is not who I've known since we broke up and I piloted myself into the ground. Every day we seemed to feel like we should spend together was wasted as I believed you might again be the girl in this photo. With a smile I kissed once. Before we fell asleep and woke up further from love.

failure

It was here we sat and talked. Well, you were sitting in this seat, I was on the other side of this corner. All the same, we talked like we've talked before at so many bars. I would've thought, that night, that it was you seeking the countertop and stool setting, but my nerves were being calmed too. I was happy with alcohol in my system, untrusting I am of who it makes me sometimes. And we have had some great memories, at these bars.

I would build a fortress of a relationship with you out of all our empty pint glasses. Our elaborate decoration the clinging of suds on the clear glass, like the thoughts I had that slipped away. The things I had to say but was never given the chance. All of my regrets would be plain to see every time I looked at us. But this monument of leftover good intentions would be impossible to clean. And now what's stopping me from smashing all the false supports keeping us together?

At the very least it's starting over, but it's much more like moving on. You may not deserve my obsessions and niceties, but you do deserve to know an honest man. I don't care about your past enough to not care about your future. But, I don't care enough about your future to not care about my own first. Best intentions are not always enough. Honesty doesn't get you everything you want, only peace of mind. Don't forget that you can make that for yourself, and it would only be your fault to let someone steal it away. The trick is to not stop trying for more.

Even when you fail.