4.29.2011

it's never been like that, it's never been like that

Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of H., but H. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbor, but my neighbor. For don't we often make this mistake as regards people who are still alive — who are with us in the same room? Talking and acting not to the man himself but to the picture — almost the precis — we've made of him in our own minds? And he has to depart from it pretty widely before we even notice the fact. In real life — that's one way it differs from novels — his words and acts are, if we observe closely, hardly ever quite "in character", that is, in what we call his character. There's always a card in his hand that we didn't know about...My reason for assuming that I do this to other people is the fact that so often I find them obviously doing it to me. We all think we've got one another taped. — A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

Mamihlapinatapai

"Mamihlapinatapai: A look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin."

I don't know how to cross that border. I wouldn't want to, either.

You say "Hi" loud enough to be heard over the headphones I'm always wearing whenever I walk in. I never say anything back, barely capable of twisting my facial features into something as close to a smile as I can manage. I turn into the bookshelves, hoping that a wall of titles can save me from making eye contact.

The whole thing plays out before it even starts. It happens in that space between heartbeats when I turn the corner, trying to rush out, and you are right there. "When I bump you an accident's a truth gate", Tare sings, and I back away, afraid to hear the truth.

Last time, you and I both turned away. I don't know if it was just you, or if it was mostly me (I always assume that it is), but I tug bitterly at books I want, hiding them all over the store and then walking away. Why start something you can't finish, I tell myself as I push open the door.

4.28.2011

why can't you just tell the truth?

I reach for your hand but let it go in the same instant. Everything is wrong here.


In my mind, you never look me in the eye, always down and to the side. It used to be because you were shy, afraid of not impressing me. Eventually it was because we just weren't capable of seeing each other as we were, so afraid to look over and discover that the person next to us was only human, as that would take away our excuse to hold the other person responsible for happiness.


Things haven't changed in a year, they won't change any time soon. Things don't always get better, you tell me. You don't deserve to have anything better, you add.


I might miss my friend, but I don't miss this. I don't miss how you tried to pass the cruel things you'd say off as all just "a joke", as if I weren't smart enough to tell the difference between humor and cruelty. I don't miss the way you took everything I said and turned it against me, I don't miss feeling responsible for you.


I don't miss you. And it hurts the most that you never gave me anything to miss, but I still feel as if it's my fault.


You scream that I'm a liar, but why can't you just tell the truth?

4.25.2011

i don't want to be free

I like arm's length. At arm's length, there is no disappointment. At arm's length, you can't see the scars from when I literally tear myself apart. At arm's length, I'm not responsible for anyone.


Don't ask me to love you, don't tell me I can do no wrong. I don't want unconditional love. I want boundaries, I want to know that I've actually earned something worth having.


The fact is, I'm not perfect. And I don't want to be.

4.19.2011

i can't write a metaphor, but we're going to be okay

I don't know how to write a happy story. It could be because it always feels like bragging, but more likely it is because the only times I come close to happiness, the feeling is more akin to triumphant anger than to anything more familiar.


I heard that men seem more masculine when their head is raised, while women look more feminine when their face is lowered. Exactly when are we supposed to make eye contact, then? My own head finds it difficult to navigate these hemispheres of masculinity and femininity. The top of my head drops down to the pavement, but my chin refuses to give in, it raises itself above all of the hateful things in my chest. The result is like a ship slowly sinking.


The smell of your car tells me that nothing has changed, that nothing ever changes. The characters can change but we're still the same, waiting to make the same mistakes. I smile, content with the familiarity, reckless about what comes next. I wonder how we can take our mistakes and make them into second chances, but I just get impatient.

4.14.2011

derek

I'll be honest. I have no desire to write these days. Things have changed for me; I've left the house every day for four months. I've held a full time job, and I'm doing well in school. For the most part, the frustration and depression that fueled much of what I'd posted in the last year has been replaced by an extremely busy schedule.


I wouldn't rule out any posts completely, but I would say that anything I might post will be decidedly different from the ones preceding it. Less seriousness and more day-to-day. Hopefully people will still stick with me.

4.08.2011

108

I am saving my words. The ones that I share should have meaning; I begrudgingly spare as few words as I can to those around me, to the point that people become angry. They can sense that I feel as if I am wasting my meanings on them.

These days are short, they pass by quickly, they take away the pieces of me that I can barely hold together. I stitch myself back together at night, only to be torn apart again through the course of the day. The parts of myself that I wish to fleece off, like a heavy coat from that "winter of our discontent", they hang on me shabbily, while the small parts of me, the tiny feeling inside that I can be strong for myself, that I can fall in love again, that my heart is not made of glass, a cold fragile thing that shatters and cuts everything around it, is easily crushed again and again, yet strangely never destroyed, so that I can feel that same crushing pain the next day and the day after that.

There is no "book" — which, in a moment of honesty and being half-asleep, was revealed to be a desire to validate my self-pity. It may not be for the sake of honesty, or for the sake of forgiveness, it is not a goodbye, it is not for validation. I am trying to be useful.



On separate note, I am simultaneously excited for and dreading the start of the Spring Quarter, when I will be starting school again. This will coincide with my working full time (accomplished by the fact that I will be taking online courses). I will appreciate the opportunity to consume my life with more natural ambitions, but at the same time I know how tapped out I shall feel, as if my very soul is being drained, or rather, is being numbed to the point of silence.