Friends

He says we're just friends and I choke on the breath I've been holding.
Smile-my brain tells me-and I comply.
My heart is short-circuiting.
He would appreciate the metaphor, but we're just friends now.
That's all.
I inhale caffeine like oxygen because it's sweeter than the bitter taste left in my mouth when I replay his words.
They echo over and over and they hurt and numb me and make me cold.
Even when he asked before, it was a miscommunication.
That's all I ever do-miscommunicate.
I wait too long and I hope too high and I use all the wrong words.
Always friends, never more.
Always a step behind the curve.
He says we're just friends-just so I know-and I swallow my pride like a mouthful of nails.
I nod, despite the sloshing in my head and the ring in my ears.
But never a ring on my hand.
Because I'm easy to talk to but not the girl you want to date.
Because I'm just your friend-in case someone misunderstood the way we joke.
I guess it's easy to misunderstand.
I did.
I always do.
But we're just friends and I laugh because it's fine.
It's always fine.
That's just what friends do.

Fragile Hope

I hold hope in my hand like a fragile, hand-blown glass piece.
Sculpted by each moment, stretched by every memory.

I am clumsy so I grip it tight.
Spider-web cracks, cracks threatening to come through.

I loosen my grip and it teeters in my hand.
Ground far below, hands too slow.

Is this what hope feels like?
Too fragile to touch, too delicate to let go?

If I drop it, surely it will break.
If I keep it, surely I will hold it too tight.
Broken either way.

Hope.

Fragile.

In my hand and falling to the floor.
The only thing I have left.

Another Letter I'll Never Send (#2)

Dear *****,

It's been a while.  Years actually.  Every time I drive through your town though, I think of you and wonder where you are and what you're up to.

In a sea of bad ideas and worse people, you were good.  You were always good.  Good to me, good to be around, good to follow.  You were always good.

Some of my favorite memories have your name written all over them and my best years are the ones where we were close.  I'm not quite sure what happened to us.  College I guess.  It has a tendency to expand your world so wide that you lose touch with people, even the ones you love.

When my world fell apart, you were there for me, and I probably never thanked you for that.  I've always been bad at saying thank you when someone's seen me vulnerable and stayed.

I remember sitting across from you on the beach and watching you text someone and I had this moment where I was acutely aware that you were in my life and I was happy.  It still makes me smile.  I still laugh about temporary tattoos of pop stars and hats that look suspiciously like UFOs.

I used to write you notes all the time, I'm sure it was annoying, but it helped me feel like you were still there even when you weren't.  I kept the note you wrote back after I begged you and begged you to write me one.  I taped it in a scrapbook and I hope I always remember when you gave it to me via someone else because I was overjoyed.

Remember when I was so distracted by blue eyes across the yard, that I walked into a glass door?  You never let me live it down.  I swear sometimes I can still remember how you laugh, the way it sounds like a surprise to you every single time.  That sound is getting harder to remember though. I guess that's what time does.  It blurs the lines and changes the sounds.

I miss you.  I guess all I'm trying to say is that I miss you.  I miss you and I miss us and I can't tell you how grateful I am to have known you.  Who knows, maybe one day the stars will align, and our paths will cross again.  I look forward to that day, even if it never comes.

Yours Always- M

Wished for Nightmares

People always say "be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it."
I wished, and I got, and all too soon, I regretted.
It's been months and the memory of it still makes me feel something twisted.
I want to scream at him to tell the truth.
I want to hide my face and forget him.
I want to sit in a quiet spot and whisper all these things to him and see how he reacts.
Because the memory of getting what I want is all consuming-like the vines that grow in Georgia.
It's out of place, but it's taking over.
It wraps itself so tight around my heart that I'm numb and covered in it.
It weaves in and out of my head until the ground beneath me is tinted green through the leaves.
It's been months but the memory has taken root in my chest and it winds itself around my rib-cage until I can't think straight and my breath feels shallow and painful.
And his name hurts like a thorn as it gets stuck in my throat.
I stopped wishing after him, after the wishes came true and turned into nightmares and now I feel like Sleeping Beauty awake in the castle but trapped by the thorns.

A History of Broken-ness

I have a history of broken-ness and I'm tired. 
My head is tired.  My heart is tired.  I'm tired to the bone and I'm tired of being tired. 
I want to find love and happiness and connection, but it seems like so much work I'm exhausted before it ever begins.  I feel like a vase that's been dropped on the floor and shattered and put back together over and over again.  The first drop was bad but the pieces were big and easy to find and it took time, but I got put back together.  Then someone set me on the edge of a table and pushed.  And I broke.  And I put myself together again.  And I broke.  And again, again, again, until there was no way for all the tiny pieces to be found.  I'm a marbled mess of pieces and edges and glue and tape, and he set me right back on the edge.  I can feel myself tipping at the slightest breath of wind.  It takes everything in me to stay upright and stay together and stay off the ground.  It takes everything in me to stay whole.  And if I break again, I can't say I'll survive. 
I can't say I'd have enough energy or concern to put myself together again.  Not after everything else.  Not after him.  I keep thinking of all these things I want and being too tired to get them or to fight for them.  I swear I could sleep for a month and I'd still be tired, maybe because being tired isn't the real problem.  Maybe because it feels like something deep down inside me is so broken that I don't even care anymore.  I've fixed so many things and I've healed so much that I never imagined I would be able to, but I'm not better.  There are problems that started so early on that still plague me.  Problems with how I see myself.  With how other people have told me to see myself.  Problems with reality and how I hate that it exists.  I'm reading a book and the girl said she writes to disappear.  To shut it all off.  And I think that's the truest thing I've ever read.  I have a lot of reasons for writing but mostly, I write because it tunes out reality and it turns me off and it brings something unreal to life.  It helps me melt into the ground and stop existing.  And that scares me.  The fact that I want to melt into the ground scares me.  The girl I was when I was little never wanted this life.  That girl wanted to be the star of the show and be bigger than life and remembered forever.  This girl I am now...she just wants to be invisible because when people see her, she gets hurt.  And when he looked in my eyes, I was waiting for the hurt.  I still am.  The silence of the other end of the phone is it's own kind of hurt.

To The One Who Feels Like Air

Everything about him is warm and solid and easy.  And I want it.  But I can never tell if I want him, or just what he feels like.  He holds my hand and plays with my hair and makes me laugh and it feels safe and I'm not afraid of it.  When I'm with other people, my blood pressure goes so high that the room starts to spin.  With him, my feet are on the ground and my soul is in my body and my heart is going the right speed.  Maybe that's not the feeling to chase.  Maybe that's just how I'm supposed to feel with everyone.  But I don't.  I don't feel safe with other people.  I don't feel whole or warm or right.  I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.  I feel like my soul is too big for my body and it's pushing against me, trying to escape.  And then he puts his hand on my arm and my soul shrinks back down to the right size and I can take a full breath again.  Is that love?  Feeling like there's nothing wrong with what you are beside someone else?  Or am I the only crazy person who feels like I might float away on the slightest breeze?  Sometimes I think he feels the same way and we're both just clawing at the space between us to keep our feet on the ground.  There's no reason for us to hold hands when we sit in the floor or to hug every five seconds or to poke and hit and touch but we do.  We do it all the time and it's the only thing I have to hold onto sometimes.  It's the only thing that connects me back to the moment. 
I've spent a long time teaching myself how to reconnect with reality.  I count in eights.  I sign the alphabet.  I dissect the world around me with all five senses.  I pick a color and I find it everywhere that I can.  I ration my breaths.  But when he's around, I don't have to do that, I just have to reach out.  Sometimes, it's like he knows and he reaches for me before I can do it myself.  I don't now what that means for us.  Maybe it means we're supposed to pull our heads out of the clouds and be together.  Maybe not.  Maybe I'm just learning what safe feels like and right now, he's the only safe thing I have.  Maybe we're somewhere in between and we haven't found our landing spot yet.  Not knowing makes it hard when he's not around and my mind wanders and my imagination takes over.  Not knowing makes it hard when he's right there and we're constantly reaching for each other.  Not knowing makes it hard in the moments when the world feels way too big for me to function in alone and in the moments when this town feels so small that I fear I'll use up all the oxygen it has.  I don't think I want to be with him, it's more that being with him seems easy and I wish that it felt like that with a few more people.  I don't think I want him, but I want it to be this easy with the people I do want.  I don't know when the idea of breathing became synonymous with his name.  I don't know when the idea of phone calls became normal or when the separate "he" and "I" became the together "us".  I don't know when the tides shifted or when he became part of who I am.  Maybe when we spilled our pain out in the middle of the night and realized that we were both choking on the same brand of poison.  Maybe the next morning when we awkwardly and honestly talked about how rare that feeling was.  Maybe that's when I felt safe for the first time.  Regardless of when or how or why, the fact remains that he is my safe place.  I think of him and my hands stop shaking.  I think of him and my breathing slows down.  I think of him and all the fear that swirls up into a tornado slows down and settles.  I don't have that with anyone else and I don't know what it means, all I know is that it's one of the only things keeping me going these days and I don't want to lose it.  Or him.

Diagnosis: Feelings

Feelings are like this cough that won't leave my lungs.  They rattle around inside of me and clog up my throat.  They tear at me when they come tumbling out without warning or permission.  They burn and they sting and I try to shallow my breathing so they don't catch me off guard.

They settled in like a bad cold so many years ago and then the people came in like weather, changing the climate of my life so I could never truly get well.  I was sick so long the first time, that I forgot what it felt like to be well.  He came in and out, hot and cold, and gave me a long bought of pneumonia and bronchitis and the flu one after another.  They all hurt.  They all felt like death.  They all left me with wet eyes and a throat raw from choking on my feelings.  They left hollows in my cheeks and bags under my eyes and made my chest ache with every fragile breath.

Days and weeks and years passed and finally, I didn't shake so badly when I inhaled.  I met someone who felt like clear air.  Like summertime and deep breaths that didn't hurt.  He felt like breathing after holding your breath for a long time.  And when he left, the cold came in so quick I didn't have time to find a jacket.  I just caught a new cold.  Not so bad as the one before, but the cough lingered for months.  It game me headaches and made me stay in bed and hide from the world.  The world was sickness, that's all I learned from him.  That, and the fact that even things that feel like medicine can make you sick.

When the feelings that felt like sickness finally slipped away, I opened the windows and pulled the curtains back.  My heart was clean but it was empty.  It was lonely and sterile with a smell like pain that made it feel like a hospital hallway.

I didn't know it was coming the last time.  The feelings and their germs snuck up on me when I was least expecting it.  All it took were dark eyes and soft words and they were there in my lungs and I've been coughing for days.  It's an ugly, uneven cough that sounds rough and painful and weak.  It sounds bad but I feel worse.  I feel empty one second and like I'm drowning the next.  I feel so tired, I wish I could quit my job and sleep for the next two months.  I want to sleep until I forget him and I feel better or until he remembers and the truth knocks the sickness right out of me.

Because this cough is lodged in my lungs and the feelings are stuck in my chest and I can't breathe or think or sleep or move.  I want my life back, even if it means wandering the sterile halls of my hospital-clean heart all alone for a while.  I'd take clean sanitized air over this rattle in my chest and the scratch of my throat.

The Thing Is...

The thing is, if you asked me if I love you, I'd probably lie.  I'd grit my teeth and look away and force out a "no" and try to change the subject.

The thing is, even if I said yes it wouldn't matter.  There would still be too much swimming in the ocean in between us that we could never overcome.

The thing is, the way you hold my hand makes me dizzy with hope.  The way you put your hand in my hair and rest your head on my shoulder gives me goosebumps.

The thing is, I try to forget the way you say my name and I can't.  The way you hug me and the things you say stick in my head and replay on a loop that makes me miss you until I can't breathe.

The thing is, I know that it will never work.  But that doesn't stop me from wanting it and from wanting you and from hoping you might want me too even though I know you won't.

Icarus

Every one talks about the fall of Icarus as though he was always in the sky and then one day he flew too high and fell. 
But what I like to see is his escape. 
Yes he was reckless, no he didn't listen, but would you?
Imagine spending your life trapped in a maze and finally breaking free. 
Would you honesty say that your first thought would be caution?
Mine would be freedom.
I like the hope of Icarus, the fact that he reveled in the freedom and he flew to the sun and dove toward the sea. 
I imagine Icarus free, shouting with joy and flying higher than he should because he was stuck for so long and doing lazy loops in the sky.
I like the joy that freedom must have brought him before he fell. 
Maybe because I have spent my life in a maze and I am finally making my own wings. 
Maybe because after being trapped, the exhilaration of flight is intoxicating and I'm ready to fly. 
So you mourn Icarus in the fall but I salute him in the flight. 
One day, I'll have wings of my own and I'll be free and I pray you'll salute me in my escape, even if I fall.

Know

Take me to book stores and let me get lost in the words.  Let me fall back through time into different worlds and countries and places I long to call home. 
Hold my hand when I laugh and hold me tight when I cry and keep your hand on me somehow, someway all of the other days. 
Listen to my stories, because they're endless and they're crazy and they're a part of me, intrinsically. 
Tell me about your day and your life and your feelings because I want to know you better than I know myself. 
Watch movies we've seen a dozen times with me because I love the characters and the action and the story and all of it together makes me feel alive. 
Drive fast with the windows down and let me blare my old songs on your radio and sing at the top of my lungs and put my head on your shoulder while you show my your songs too. 
Dance with me in the kitchen at 2 am and in the afternoon and to the music in commercials and anytime we want just because we feel like it. 
Know that when I feel too much, which happens often, it'll spill over and tears will wet my cheeks but it's not your job to prevent that.  Let it happen and don't be afraid of it, just stay beside me as I dry them up. 
Know that late at night, the mood and the night sky are crushingly heavy and sometimes I might need you to tell me you love me even though I should know that already. 
Know that my heart will be all yours, all in, from the moment you reach out your hand and that it's been shattered a dozen times before. 
Know that when I tell you I love you, it's not out of habit or convenience, but because I mean it down to my toes and you are my world and I need to say the words out loud to make sure you know the truth