Save Myself

I wake up to a name I haven’t seen in years. 

My blood runs cold and I have to catch my breath.

It’s like reliving one of the worst fights of my life over again.

Three words with no meaning make me roll my eyes.

I’m older now, I know that things have changed.

I see words they wish they had said to me.

Evil words and nasty thoughts and broken hearts.

It’s too much and I have to walk away.

Because they’re like poison and I have to save myself.

Puzzle Pieces in My Pocket

Words stretch across my chest and try to fill the holes in my heart.
They don't reach.
Lyrics of songs pour in and fill me up until my eyes start to leak.
They won't stop. 
It's a never ending fountain of flood waters.
I hold my breath.
I will it to stop.
I pretend it's okay.
But it's not okay.
The songs hurt like knives and the memories plague me and I can't stop thinking about you.
About all of you.
About every soul that pushed me to my breaking point.
And then pushed a little more until I broke.
Now I'm in pieces, and I was never any good at puzzles.
The pieces of me are all mixed up.
Some of them still want you, still love you, still need you.
Some of them hate you, and hate me, and hate what we had.
Some of them feel lost in a sea, unsure of where they stand.
And me?
I can't find them all, all the broken parts.
And I don't know how to fix them, how to stick them back together.
So I gather up what I can find and I shove them in my back pocket, like that might help me heal.
But it doesn't and I don't think it will.

Why I Write

We were asked in class a few days ago to say why we write and why our writing matters to us.  I don't like verbally sharing my feelings so I said something mildly sarcastic and non-emotional, but I kind of regret that now.  Because I feel like it's such an important question to answer.  My feelings about this topic are a little messy, so forgive any messy explanation to follow.

I write because I want to change how people view femininity.  I've grown up in a society where feminism is growing.  And that's awesome, because women should never be treated as less human or less worthy than men.  BUT I think in some cases it becomes so fanatical that it kind of works against itself and it pushes women back into the corner we're fighting so hard to get out of.  For example, my love of glitter and Starbucks and love stories and Taylor Swift music now makes me "basic" and "girly" when it should just make me who I am.  I write to challenge this idea that a "strong woman" can't also love kittens and glitter and princesses.  I write because I think a strong girl doesn't have to be the underdog, or the "Katniss", or the "pretty-in-a-nerdy-way" girl that fights through the ranks.  I think a strong girl can be anyone.  I think she can be me; she can be in the middle of the popularity pyramid, relatively smart but not a genius, and mildly outgoing.  I write so that we can have more of the middle and less of the polar extremities.  Don't get me wrong, I ADORE Katniss and the entire Hunger Games series, but I don't think that's the only kind of "strong woman" out there.

I write because I believe in the complexity of people.  I don't believe in stereotypes.  I've written here before about my old friends who used to call me by my hair color instead of my name, and that just sickens me.  I write because I want to show girls out there that they can love skateboarding AND tutus AND their favorite color can be pink. I want to show them you don't have to pick one part of yourself and that you can love it all.  I write because I want to create characters who are walking contradictions, just like people are, because I believe in that so much more than I believe in stereotypes.  I want to show people that you can love Disney Princess movies, and your room can be pink and you can love glitter, all while you kick tail at Call of Duty and drive a loud truck and jam out to Van Halen.

There are so many opinions out there on what a woman is, and what it means to be strong, and what feminism is, and it's honestly too much for me.  I write to challenge all of those few points that say we have to be all one thing or we are less of something else, because that's simply not true.  I write to show the world how I can be all the little mixed up parts of myself that don't match but that make me unique.

Moonlit Secrets

Moonlight trickles through the window and warms the soul like whiskey as the stars wink, daring us to tell our secrets; and we do.
They bubble up from the wells of our souls and spring forward into the space between us until we're breathless and lost in our words.
Nighttime loosens the tongue and coaxes forth the darkest thoughts.
They leap from our brains and through our mouths and hang between us like dirty chandeliers.
Instead of tucking them away quietly, and pretending they didn't escape, we watch the way the light glitters off of them and we hang more in the air.
The glint of our truest thoughts is different in the softer, paler light of the moon.
They don't seem so dangerous hanging there between us like that.
They seem more delicate, more genuine, more unique.
We close our eyes on them before the sun comes up so we don't have to watch them transform from darkly beautiful antiques to the monstrosity that the sunlight makes of them.
And then we wait until the horizon has gone dark to pull them out and stare at them again, in the glow of the moon, giving into the coxing of the stars.

It's Easier With Strangers

It's so much easier knowing where we stand with strangers.
There aren't so many words passed between us.
So many secrets slipped back and forth like currency.
So many glances that could be confused for looks.
With strangers, there's no question of where you stand because you don't stand there long enough to care.
You don't count the miles between your hearts to the nearest inch.
You don't count the days that start to stretch between you or the seconds of silence that linger on the phone line.
With strangers, you can just let go.
And with everyone else, you're left wondering and holding on and overthinking everything.

A Letter I'll Never Send (#1)

Dear ***,
I miss you.  I miss you so much it hurts.  I used to tell myself that it wasn't you I was missing, it was just the feeling you gave me of being wanted. I guess that's true to an extent, but today for the first time in a long time, I just miss you too.  I don't know how it's possible for my heart to ache for you this much after so long but it does.  It's been so long but I still look for your car on the road and your name in my phone.  And I know it's not healthy for me to miss you like this and to want you after all the things that have happened.  But I still don't know how not to.
Some days, I wish we'd never met and that my first heartbreak would have come from someone I was less attached to so I wouldn't have a scar this big.  And some days, like today, when I wake up from a dream like the one I had last night, I just want to hug you.  And I wish there wasn't this ocean of pain and unequal feeling between us.  I've spent virtually my whole young adult life drowning in that sea just trying to get to you but the tides are never on my side.  It seems like sometimes you're swimming out to get to me too and then a riptide just jerks you away.  But most of the time it seems like you just sit on the shore and watch me struggle.
I guess that's what makes this so hard for me.  I can see now that I have way more invested in this concept of "us" than you ever have or ever will but I want it anyway.
When I met you, I wanted to save you.  I wanted to be the reason you smiled everyday, but I don't want that anymore.  Now I feel like I'm falling down the same sinkhole that I wanted to rescue you from and all I want now is for us to sink together.  I'm not the same shiny-faced, optimistic girl you met back then.  I don't even know what I am now honestly.  I just know that I'm a lot more like you than you ever realized.  I used to idealize our situation and glamorize the mess we made, but now I see it for what it is.  I know it's a mess.  I know it's toxic.  I know it's a disaster zone.  But now that I've gotten used to the burn of the fires and to the poison in the smoke and to living in the rubble, I'm not looking for a way out.  I'm looking for a partner.  A kindred soul.  Another survivor.  I'm looking for you.  Because some incredible person could come in and offer me a mansion and happily ever after, but if you were an option, I'd pick living in the ashes with you every time.
Forever yours-M

Just Beneath the Skin

It's there, just beneath the skin.
Poison in my blood, just waiting.
Every loss is like an injection, just a little more.
It waits so long, just long enough.
Until it starts to burn, just deep enough that I can't cut it out.
It's there, just beneath the skin.
Killing me, just slow enough to live.
Just enough pain that I can't ignore it.
It's embedded in me by now, just beneath the skin.

My Favorite Color is Blue

My favorite color is blue.  Coincidentally, so are his eyes.  They are, in fact, my favorite shade of blue.  Just enough green to cause you uncertainty when calling it blue.  And bright enough to make you want to soak in the color until it fills your lungs and you drown in it.  It’s a calm color that makes you think of sunny days and clear skies and crystal oceans.  And sometimes it makes me think of him until my heart beats out of sync and my eyes sting.  My favorite color is blue but it doesn’t feel quite the same anymore. 

I realize this is a little dramatic for being about the color blue, but it’s not just a color for me anymore.  It’s a word and a person and a look and a feeling all at once.

Have you ever met someone that wakes you up?  Like, you think you’ve been awake and alive all this time, but then they show up and you realize that you’ve been sleep walking for 19 years?  And once you wake up, you can’t go back to being the zombie you once were, and you don’t want to.

Well I met my wake-up call a long time ago.  He didn’t wake me up though until about two years ago and it’s been a mess ever since.  I know, you expected it would’ve been magic, and it was, until it wasn’t.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

To understand the story I’m about to tell you, I need you to do something.  I need you to close your eyes (metaphorically of course because there are more instructions for you to read with opened eyes), so do that first and then search for the one thing you’d die without.  I’m not talking about air or food or water or even literal death.  I’m talking about that one thing you need, that vital part of yourself that makes perfect sense even if you’re the only one who gets it.  Maybe it’s art.  Or making music.  Or listening to a specific song.  Or Harry Potter.  Find that one thing from the outside world that fits in your soul like a puzzle piece and completes you.  Do you have it yet?  I do.  I’ve had mine since I was 17.  It’s writing.  Stories, poems, crappy songs.  Stringing words together like beads and making something beautiful that other people want to experience.  Writing is my missing piece.  It completes me.

So, you have yours right?  Well you know how there’s something about that thing that makes it feel like it belongs to you?  Like no one else can ever truly understand it the way you do because it’s yours?  I know.  I thought so too.  Until I met him.

Finding someone who has the same “soul-puzzle-piece-thing” as you is terrifying.  And intoxicating.  And magical.  And weird.  It’s a lot to process.  You feel totally understood and completely vulnerable at the same time.  I know I did.  Writing was never something I shared with other people.  I waited until I had something thoughtful and polished and complete before I let anyone look at it.  Even after I put it up for someone to see, through email or on my blog, I didn’t want to talk about it.  I’m only good with words I can erase or scratch out, not ones that are permanent when they pop out of my mouth.  And I like ideas and edits on paper where they can’t cut me the way the look on someone’s face can.

So anyway, I finished a thoughtful, polished, complete project and posted it online.  And that’s when he showed up.  And he understood the maddening itch to pick up a pen.  He understood the schizophrenia of characters talking in your head all day.  He understood the scenes playing on the back of your eyelids every time you close your eyes.  He.  Understood. Me.  I felt like all my life, I’d been living on an island all alone and suddenly this other person was there too and I felt the world shift.  I knew it was one of those moments that changes everything.

For consistency sake, just so you know, blue is still just a color at this point in the story.  But that’s about to change.

We talked about writing for a few messages before we exchanged numbers and set plans to talk more over coffee.  And it was easy.  There are just some people who run on the same frequency as you, ya know?  And we did.  As soon as we started talking, it just made sense.  It was easy, like we were made to talk to each other about writing.

And then we met for coffee and we sat for hours poring over my manuscript.  I wasn’t really nervous at all, which was surprising given the fact that I was then dealing with a real person with real thoughts about something I wrote.  That whole earlier thing about not being good with verbal words and facial expression?  It melted away as we sat there.  He saw things in my writing and in me that I didn’t even know were there.  He had ideas and praises and criticisms and they all felt so valid because I knew that he, unlike anyone else I knew, understood the need to tell the stories running around in my head.

He had a project too.  Unlike me, he was brave enough to talk in concepts and share half-finished scribbles and sketches.  And somehow, it became second nature to talk to him about it whenever it came to mind, which was often.  We slipped into a friendship so easily that I’m not actually sure either of us noticed.  I don’t even remember when it became a “thing” for us to send random quotes or pictures or ideas to each other.  I don’t remember a time when his project wasn’t something he consulted me about.

We all have people like that, I think.  People we never expected that slip into our lives and become a habit.  People who fit so well that we can’t remember them not being part of us.

Somehow, coffee became more regular and a concept became a story and two people became friends.  Suddenly, I was awake in a world where someone got me in a way I didn’t know was possible.  And somehow, over that span of time, I got brave too.  Or maybe I just finally felt safe.  Is it still bravery if you do something scary when it feels safe?  Probably not.  Either way, I moved into a space with him where I, the queen of “thoughtful, polished, and complete,” began to show him ideas and beginnings rather than pieces.  I, queen of “written criticism so I don’t have to see your face”, began asking for help and clarity and validation.

Maybe that’s when blue stopped being a color.

When talking about writing became writing together.

When my work and his work stopped being separate entities and became our work.

Maybe that’s where it all went wrong.

When I attended a personal event that had nothing to do with words on paper.

When I met a family that so mirrored my own, I was stunned into awkward silence.

Maybe blue stopped being a color the night we almost got lost speeding down the highway and we talked a little too much about ourselves and not enough about the words.

Even then, blue didn’t hurt the way it does now.  That moment, in that truck, it was more than a color, but it wasn’t a memory yet.  It was a person I felt the world with.  It was a feeling of being known.  It started to hurt when I didn’t get to drown in it anymore and when the habit to lean on each other suddenly didn’t feel right.

Imagine finding your matching “soul-puzzle-piece” person and then having them torn out of you with no explanation.  The color blue would hurt you too.  Breathing would hurt you.  Hell, everything would hurt.

So imagine losing that, and not knowing why and not wanting to get out of bed or do anything at all, especially not your “soul-puzzle-piece-thing”.  And imagine grappling for some explanation, some reason why you got left behind and finding nothing. 

Wondering how it would feel?  It sucks.  But more than that, it feels like falling down the rabbit hole and watching the world you know and all light disappear with nothing to hold onto.  And there’s not a magic world of wonder at the bottom.  Or a rabbit with a pocket watch.  Or a disappearing cat.  The bottom is dirt and rocks and darkness.  The fall is scary.  The landing hurts every inch of your body and makes you not want to open your eyes.  Because when you do, all you know is that nothing is the way it should be.  Because if you open your eyes, you’ll be alone with no idea how to get back home.

I stayed at the bottom for a long time.  You would too, trust me.  And most days, my whole body aches with exhaustion just from breathing.  It took me a long time to pick up a pen and not feel drained immediately.  Some days, I still can’t put words on paper.  And then there are days like today where putting words on paper is all I can think about.  Days like today when words are the only thing holding me together and flowing out of me uncontrollably.  Days like this, the words come whether I want them to or not.  They’ll either spill onto paper or they’ll spill over the edge and onto my cheeks.  Sometimes, I’m not strong enough to make the choice because sometimes my very bones ache with missing and the color blue that isn’t just a color stabs into me with every breath.

Maybe no one will understand this last part.

Maybe you’ve found your matching “soul-puzzle-piece” person and are living happily together, so you can’t relate to this last part, because to you, there’s a color that’s a home too.

Or maybe you didn’t understand any of this but you’re still hoping to get something out of it.

The problem is, I didn’t write this for the millions of you that might or might not understand it.  I wrote it for me.  And for the one person out there that I think might understand.  The one person who lived all of this with me and might know what went wrong.  The one person who might know the other side of this story.  And it turns out I’m not brave at all, so I can’t show him this.

I Love You.

I still love you so much it hurts.
My chest aches like my heart is being torn apart with each beat.
It's been six years and your name still scares the hell out of me.
It's been six years and I'd still drop my world to live in yours.
I try to say I hate you and all that comes out is
"I love you"
I try to blame you for this pain and these fractures and it falls out,
"I love you"
I try to forget you and my heart beats out an irregular beat,
"I love you"
Your name is a curse and a question and an accusation and a promise all in one syllable.
Your name, one I never knew I'd spend so much time caring about or waiting to hear or thinking over and over in my head.
Now look at me.
Pitiful.
Sad.
Twenty two and still loving you.
Wanting you.
Needing you.
Twenty two and not a day past sixteen.
Heartbroken and wrecked and all I can say through the tears and the pain is I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I don't say it enough.  I never did.
I love you.
I say it too much.
I love you.
I don't want to.
I love you.

Shards and Secrets

My secrets are shards of metal, collecting in my chest.
The edges are jagged and sharp.
They slice away at me with every breath.
You're like a magnet, one look and they come to you.
They're drawn to the surface with a single look from your face.
I can't keep them in.
They shred my throat as I try to swallow them down.
They tear away at my inner cheeks as they spill out of my mouth.
The blood pools red beneath us as you ask and the shards fall out in answer.
Telling you my stories is tearing me apart.
But I knew they would end me, and better they kill me quickly while they spill than kill me slowly while they settle in my heart.

Fractions

There are an infinite number of halves in any whole.

They just keep going until the pieces are too small to see and the denominators are too big to fathom.

I seem to give my heart away in fractions like that; in halves.

Losing just as much each time, left with less and less.

The first half of my whole heart went to a boy I met at sixteen.  

He still has that massive piece of my heart in his hand, and from time to time he likes to pull the strings and watch me dance.

I was left with half of myself to protect, but I just kept giving it away.

Half of that half went to the friends I left behind.

And I was left with a fourth of the whole I started with.

Half of that fourth went with to the friends who left me.

And I was left with such a small piece, I thought nothing would ever hurt again.

Until half of that piece walked away with blue eyes that still make me cry.

And here I am, left with the halves of halves that no one wanted.  

That no one bothered to take.

The fraction of me that is left is too small to fill the void in my chest.

The sinews of my heart are worn thin and stretched too far out and I fear the pain, like the halves, is destined to go on into infinity with me.

Burning

My bones are burning, I swear.
And my heart is full of ice.
I fall between the valley of numb and high of much too much alive.
My hands shake with unresolved feeling.
My brain is null and void.
I stare and shudder and try to forget and remember all the more.
My stomach turns, I might be sick.
My head feels full of air.
I count down from eight, too many times, but every time you're there.

Just Talking

I could try to write really beautiful words about how things are going for me right now, but my heart is just too tired.  I just need to talk.  Or type.  Whatever.  Graduation is coming up, right around the corner and real life is staring me in the face.  It's completely terrifying to be honest.  I've wanted to graduate for so long but now that it's here, it's pretty scary.
And someone I care about is hurting right now.  It hurts me to see him going through something like that.  I was scared he would do something stupid (don't worry, he's fine) and it sent me on an emotional tumble down memory lane.
I keep falling into complicated relationships and friendships with people who are emotionally unstable.  I don't mind.  I like to fix things, and when I'm surrounded by broken people I can distract myself from my own problems.  That's the trouble though, isn't it?  That I have my own issues.  My own frailties.  My own tragedies.  As much as I want to fix everyone else, as much as I want to save them, they always take me down with them in the end.
I don't remember the last time I trusted someone.  And I don't remember the last time I didn't feel like I was drowning in loneliness and despair.  I can come up for air for a while, and I'm pretty good at faking it but these last few days have been a mess.  I can't stop crying and I just want to be alone.  But the thing is, being alone only makes things worse.  It makes it easier to cry and harder to open up.  What I need to do is push through and pretend to be happy again so maybe I can fool myself into believing it for a while.  But I just can't.  My whole body feels tired and I just can't muster up the strength to fake it right now.  Maybe in a few days, maybe next week. Maybe never.  I don't know.  I just don't want to fake it anymore.  I want to actually be happy.  I want to actually trust people.  I want to have a list of friends that isn't only two people long.  And I want my heart to stop aching in my chest.
And most of all, right now, I just want someone to listen.  So thank you, to the lost person who stumbled across my blog.  Thank you to whoever slows down to read this.  Thank you for being someone I can talk to without having to see your face.

Waves

I can go days without thinking of the things that broke me.
Smiles come easy and the moments linger long and slow and sweet like honey on my lips.
The sun comes up, and I have this feeling that it's shining just for me, just to show me the world.\
Laughter bubbles up from some place within me, unbidden and easy and free.
It's a place I wish that I could stay in.

In seconds, it comes crashing down.
One word, one face, one thought, and it all falls apart like a card house blown to bits.
The memories suffocate me and settle in my lungs; tar, sticking to everything and blocking out the air.
The world falls away like ash scattered in a breeze and all I can see is the blur of unshed tears.
I refuse to cry there, anywhere.
I refuse to cry at all.
The losses form a lump in my throat until swallowing feels suspiciously like sobbing and breathing is too close to gasping for life.
I hold it down, try to drown it in the latent anger that died out long ago.
Instead, I throw pain into the all consuming grief and the feeling grows, swelling in my chest until I have to close my eyes to keep the waves inside.
I fall for days at a time, stuck beneath a tide of loss that I can't find my way out of.
I simply have to float until the waves slow down and the water recedes, leaving me heaving on a desolate, numb strip of reality.

Highway Highs

I drove down the highway laughing today.
I turned the radio up and rolled my window down until it felt like my body was soaring the same way my soul was.
As the wind blew in, the tension in my chest blew out and I could finally breathe again.
It was like the world was laughing with me, the very essence of nature echoing the joy in my very bones.
I could've driven off like that into the sunset and never looked back.
I would have if my roots here weren't so deep.
I still might one day, when there's no one waiting for me at home and there's no responsibility beckoning me back.
The feeling followed me inside, even after the wind was gone and the music had stopped.
It swirls within my heart now, light, bursting with energy and enthusiasm.
I feel like a little girl, reckless and free in the brightest and most honest sense, spinning in glittering rays of sunshine and full of the innocent, naive hope that the sun will never go down.