transitions

Evanescence ‘You’

I enjoyed a beautiful Spring. I shared a confused Autumn. I basked in the elation of Winter. Each season showed all the colours as representations of tumulus emotion, and each was a rainbow of love and joy, of pain and misunderstanding.

I have not yet experienced Summer. Never had opportunities for stuffy nights outside, trips to the lake, or sun-in-the-eyes photographs.

In the boundless negativity I suffocate myself, I take pause. I hesitate, afraid, tenative to dream big. Hope is not a luxury afforded when wrapped in the absence of security. Follow me? It’s a smothering, overwhelming feeling of being quite bare.

Maybe just maybe I muse, perhaps he’s just waiting for me to turn to him and demand to be his, to ask for the assurance and consistency which is obviously lacking. Maybe just maybe he’s settled into the perfect position of calling on a sweet little girl who’ll lean over to kiss him without making him move even an inch.

reign or abdicate?

Joshua Radin ‘The Fear You Won’t Fall’

Why can’t I be all ‘thanks for the memories’? I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve, contrary to outward personality traits, and popular belief. What you get isn’t always what you see…you’re just not looking hard enough. I’m expected to go along with the silent plan, smile, nod, and undress on cue. I give exactly what I always have without protest, but I give more than just that urge for a midnight cigarette. The trouble is, you only see what you want, and I’m left feeling naked fully clothed.

I’d blend in so well in this wintry weather–the ice queen has neglected her monarcy. The question is, step down, or take over the safe, cold place I should never have left.

a quiet determination

Gwen Stefani ‘The Sweet Escape’

Not so quiet if I’m expounding on it, eh? On the walk back from the school this morning, my mind drifted past the music from my headphones and settled into the worn spot of my inadequacies. In a day and age where you really can have everything you want, what’s stopping me? It seems foolish now, but as I paced my steps down the sidewalk, noticed a turned head or two, I mentally gathered myself to be exactly what he wants. I’ve seen the baffled and embarassed reaction to my everything-and-more approach, but if he forgot who I was and saw me again, would he turn his head. Wanting me and wanting me are different. The satisfaction of his gratitude and the surprise at his spontaneous displays of affection are relieving, comforting, but knowing I fall short elsewhere, disquieting. The way I get around, the physique I could have, the order I might have, all if I were determined, are the superficial details I’m almost positive he doesn’t judge me over. I’m still enough silly-girl to believe that everything I want and everything I am would be enough, and allow me to step up and ask questions, confident if he withdrew from me again, that I was all he could have asked for and more. I’ll say I’m doing it for myself. It may very well end that way, regardless.

good enough (?)

Linkin Park ‘In The End’

It’s both a question and a statement. What you say when you’re in a hurry, and what you wonder about the outfit you picked out for a date. It should never apply to strictly you, though. Am I good enough? Should there really be an answer to that? I run the risk of sounding childish were I to say ‘it’s not fair’.

The more I let out on the car-ride home from Baltimore, the more I realized only certain people will actually answer it. Choose to. One type of person will only speak the phrase as a statement, and the other perpetually ask it. I am the latter. If only I’d learn not to give, to smile and nod, to say yes when you’re really screaming no, and to feel guilty for wanting to say no. Who’s with me? More of you than you’d believe. I don’t advocate being cold and compassion-less, but in the end, if it won’t matter, won’t change the answer of ‘good enough?’, why put yourself through it? For a higher cause? No. For a backwards, desperate way to try and change the outcome of not just feeling, but being inadequate. It’s time to say it without the question mark. Good enough. Now walk away.

mannequin and a display of affection

Butch Walker ‘Cigarette Lighter Love Song’ 

I wondered aloud to Miss B if that someone I’ve been hanging on with was still attracted to me, or me minus a few articles of clothing. The memory does wonders but also betrays. Her answer was a personal ad. No, not so much Diane Lane a’la Must Love Dogs, but more of an openness than my usual approach of staying wholly mum. We’ll figure out the details of showing him later, she said, but explained to write myself up as I am, in personal ad format. ‘It’s who you are without candles and condoms, sweetie’. To my target audience:

SWF, 22. Enjoys good rock music, car talk, and Animal Planet. Doesn’t take long walks on the beach and in fact, thinks that’s phony as hell, and can’t even swim. Unconventional and erratic, little patience, shorter memory, and an affinity for the spontaneous. Small town, but loves being lost somewhere much bigger than usual. Easy-going, easily bruised, and wants to meet your Mom. Won’t cave on the first date, but makes it worthwhile in the long run. ‘Thinking of You’ is most moments and not just words in a greeting card. Favourites are Autumn, blue, hugs, and green tea with citrus. Organized but always falling apart in an amusing way. Loves to laugh, and be laughed at. Given less than half a chance, would think you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Call her, she’s been waiting.

I reread it a few hours later. No wonder I’m suffocating with indifference. Then again, mental video clips may do me more justice…perhaps all the talking and honesty I’ve been avoiding are merely necessary to jog the memory and gently remind him of why I caught his eye in the window. Something I displayed drew him without hesitation before, and nothing more than another trip window shopping is what I’m asking for.

wake up

The sun is beaming down on me. Even when you’re cold, it’s an amazingly warm, enveloping sensation like sloppy kisses. It’s cold because it’s only May, and the first day the lake is open. I asked him to come back in February and he said ‘of course’. Of course. I wasn’t sure if we’d still be stumbling around in the dark by the time the water was ‘fine, come on in’ but we are. I can only attribute this to luck, pity, intimacy without attachment, and my tight lipped smile and nod. It’s fool-proof for keeping up ‘friends’ and driving me absolutely mad. Back to business.

He’s here and I couldn’t be happier. I’m prancing around with Emma in the water, like last year, trying, begging for someone else in our party to get in the fucking water! They all laugh at me, but the woman in the sand with her five kids scowls at me, eyeing my suit from last year. What a tart, she thinks. I know I need a bigger top too, lady, but they’re not yours so stop looking at them. I slip and fall, coming back up to cough and splutter. They all laugh at me, again. It’s not just the sun beaming now. This is what I live for.

Posing for photos, I’m shivering (half out of the water), clasping his wet skin, arms around his chest, one of his draped around one of my hips. Flash. I look up adoringly at him. Flash. He looks at me and returns the happy face, then asks ‘what?’ as if being in his arms couldn’t possibly bring even the weakest of favourable reactions. Flash. I open my mouth to say it. To just stop right there in the middle of the weather and ruin the day, fill the air with shock and awkward silences. I say ‘nothing…’ and smile bigger, mockingly. Flash. I push at him, trying to knock him down in the water. I fall myself. Flash. He’s laughing at me and I come back up for air, and lose it right away in a kiss I didn’t have to ask for this time. Flash. My favourite thing in the world right now. Flash. My sister stand on the beach snapping photos of us, like she shares my fear that I’ll wake up one day randomly, unexpectedly, soon, and find I have lost him again. She providing a service. So is he, without knowing it; I’m getting an ulcer worrying, and I’m sadly the happiest I’ve ever been.

I wake up. Time to get ready for work. It’s raining outside.

Conscience

Cold ‘Sad Happy’

If you died tomorrow, hell, if you died right. now. how would you be remembered? Unabridged? Abbreviated? And don’t give me the bullshit about how you lived every day like it was your last, fast and fun, freely, with no regrets. You’d be full of it. If you had to watch your last rites and paid respects, you’d see a room full of what-ifs, should-haves, and if-onlys.

It doesn’t matter entirely what you say. We’ll all form our opinion on you based more on the things we see, and what we want to see. An interpretation, an adaptation of your life. Choose wisely–it’s based on fact after all. It’s the lighting and the camera angle that make eyes dart and pupils dialate, not the script.

Olive juice looks just as beautiful as I love you mouthed from across the room. Who would ever know the difference? Caught it a downward spiral, the end seems closer and scarier, the friction of fighting for days unburying your conscience. Why wait? If it’s the movements and motions we all see rather than the words, or the lack of them, follow them through with a bit of truth. Truths aren’t just spoken terms, they’re embeded (hidden?) in what you do.

Before you positon yourself on your mark, and speak on the cue, wouldn’t it be fair to make sure you’re acting the part you really want to play? In addition, is it so much to ask to have the blind fold removed before the show begins? Not everyone likes surprises. You may thank yourself one day, if you had to watch tears for you that you never deserved.

‘bullet proof loneliness’

The Exies ‘Tired of You’ 

My word. It is three am. Why? Really. Why can’t time stop so I can have an unlimited supply of minutes to escape work, life, unrequitted love, stress, confusion, and just sit on my bed with laptop on and ipod on shuffle letting everything I want to get away from flood and drowned me. It’s a flawless plan for going stark-raving mad. Considering my brain’s refusal to shut down for a normal eight, hell, for a decent six hours of sleep, the plan is being executed flawlessly.

In relationship news, some may politely argue my brain has already shut down. The third of March closes in faster and faster–an anniversary with no significance except to me. If I dare mention it, I may get an obligatory ‘huh. a whole year, already. you’re right.’ I may also get an awkward silence and a trip to the kitchen for another beer and the opportunity to wash the moment off. Over-reacting? Tell me after all this time of avoidance, polite refusals, intoxicated interest, and open, convenient ways to kill the feeling of being alone you’d feel any less solitary and disposable yourself. Correct me.

Tell me, too, that this isn’t why I can’t sleep. Life is looking up. I feel more established and foolishly hopeful–everything will be okay. What a way to end the night–because everyone knows false hope is good for the psyche.

feeling the weight

Liz Phair ‘Everything to Me’ 

Even the bags under my eyes feel heavy. I am tired, I am wholly unfocused; distractable and a bit flighty. My recent passionate obsession with glazed eyes fixed open until 4am may have share the blame, but I wonder if it’s not something more significant. Is it something that needs to be fulfilled? Couldn’t be late-night urges, I fix those with coffee or Auto.

There’s an unsatisfying undertone to the days. I’m the channel no one watches on television–the black and white thrust in a technicolour surrounding. There’s a fumbling awkwardness to the words and motions that come spilling out. With everything–the new job, the better pay, the whatever is different but definately good with Auto (for lack of a tangible definition), I should be happier. Ungrateful? At times, but this is something more than too little appreciation.

Shouldn’t we all be happier with what we have? Perhaps if we weren’t so busy looking for what’s missing, we wouldn’t feel so lost.

feeding the habit or quitting the addiction

 Fall Out Boy ‘The Pros and Cons of Breathing’

It’s gone. The rush. It’s safe to say I’ve only ever been in love once. What a relief. I’ll never have to go back to the memory of M and ask why I did what I did, and wonder if it had any effect on what we had. I don’t have to be caught off guard by a pop-up memory of being wrapped in his arms, taking in each others’ scent and skin, both so far from home. I can be free of worrying if I had to be torn from his best friend Auto in order to share what I did with him, or if I had to experience another short-lived broken romance to realize Auto all over again.

Telling myself over and over it’ll be okay soon worked this time. I haven’t yet locked eyes with him again, haven’t hugged him again, given a polite your-best-friend’s-girl smile, haven’t stayed up late laughing and talking, haven’t stared off in a fleeting moment of weakness and fantasy. What I can say is the pit in my stomach, the intense questions, the choice, is gone. My little pieces of contact aren’t reason to turn my reason and reasons upside down, trying to figure out why he never called.

Thinking back on the summer, I feel I am entitled, no matter how happy I feel next to Auto at night, to want a short trip back in time. I felt him across the signals and waves late at night, I remembered all the details, heard his laughter even when he was tired and quiet. Every song I heard was about him, him and me, and the guilt, the awkwardness and the connections to Auto were gone. Auto had his addiction to her and I had open arms to fill and be filled. It was drawn out beautifully, up to the epic trip that, though disatrous, did in fact have a happy ending.

In the end my mind was made up for me, and for the best? This shouldn’t end in a question mark but perhaps taking pause even for the briefest moment is forgiveable. Who is really in front of me when I turn around is a another question I don’t have an answer for.

Yet?