real-time

Jet ‘Look What You’ve Done’

It was just a few moments ago, I was washing my face before bed. I sighed deeply, splashing the warm water over my face, trying to wash away the day, trying to wash him away with it. I finished, blotting my face dry, but he was still there, all the baggage, the questions, the worries, the silence.

I failed. I keep swearing I’m taking it day by day, but at the end of the day, I’m more confused and heart-sick than twenty-four hours worth. Instead, I’ve been taking it day by cumulative day, letting the situation get bigger than I could have imagined. When will I say enough is enough, and let it all go down the drain?

catch phrases

My newest favourite thing to say ‘I’m aware of that’.

It covers almost everything, saves face, makes you feel better, and offers vague details. That and a pint of gin will get you a good night’s sleep. If it won’t, pass me the bottle and tell me something I’m so aware of. Chances are it’s the same thing, and in that case, get used to saying ‘told you so’.

overtones

General ideas, getting the gist of a situation is good enough–implications of insignificance are unnecessary, but you never know when someone can fly off the handle and expect too much out of something you get nothing at all from. After all, that sounds reasonable, right? Only someone fool-hearty enough to accept that slap in the face would come back for more.

cold turkey

The Lucy Nation ‘Alright’

Could I do it? Could I just take a deep breath and stop, cut myself off right then and there? I throw my head back now and chuckle thinking about it. All the composure and polite smiles, all the ’sure, yeah I’m fine’s in the world can’t cover the addiction. It’s less addiction and more withdraw though. Hell, I can’t even not mention him to one person in one phone call, per request. There’s a level of disgust no one should have for themselves, and it’s in the red.

Why is it we can’t just walk away? How many people live on this damn place……there has to be someone to take the spot, something to give me the fix I need, some way to forget the past…right? All the self control I’ve used, I’m afraid of myself–that I couldn’t force myself this time to square my shoulders and raise a polite, expressionless face.

Like real, material things, do we only come with a certain supply of emotion, of restraint, of energy, before it’s just gone for good? Where is all my say-goodbye-and-go I had so much of? It hasn’t been that long.

Quite enough on that subject. In compliance with the good ol’ days, I’ll hush and sweep it under the rug–no one seems to like him, or me about him. I may be drowning, but if you close your eyes, all you can hear me say is ‘everything is beautiful and nothing hurts’.

classifications

Where do we all fit in? We’re always trying, even the non-conformists want to be in the category of not fitting into categories. Like everything else, you’re fucked either way. Our own worst critic, we’re constantly pushing ourselves into molds, fitting into stereotypes, and adjusting to expectations. It’s normal enough we sometimes don’t even realize we’re doing it.

My only grievance is when we do it to other people. And we all do, don’t think you’re the exception. I hate myself for categorizing someone, but I’ll shove the guy from the cell phone kiosk who always stares at my rear when I walk by into the creepy category. I’ll put Auto’s ex girlfriend into the bitch slot even though I’ve never met her. Sad that I do it? Sure. Actively harmful? No. It’s when you put someone in their place, even if they belong there, and it hurts them that draws my attention.

My sister’s boyfriend puts her in the ‘traditional obedient woman’ section when she’s much too strong-willed to take that up. This causes some tension at best, given she’s also relatively agreeable, but it’s no less volatile. My other sibling D just doesn’t take any bullshit. It’s scary sometimes, but my admiration grows the better her life becomes sans bullshit and misery. Go for it, sis.

Something else to tag on here–are we in any way related to this judgement? Is it something we do, or are time and circumstance simply details that make it easier and less noticeable to write someone off as whatever you see them as?

After how many failed relationships where nothing seemed to go wrong, I’ve got to wonder if it’s a societal standard, chance and fate I seem to frequent more often than feasible, or is that just the way I am? If the last is the case, how did that come about? I’m forgiving, understanding, and maybe expect a bit too much from what’s a good thing…but…

If ‘it’s not me it’s you’ is true, then what makes it okay to let all your frustrations and worries cumulate, take form, and put me up on a shelf until your mind clears, or you’re lonely enough to blow the dust off and bring me back to (your) life? Time after time, why is acceptable to look past me the person for me the thing–the thing you can take up at whatever convenience. How exactly did I wind up being disposable?

green eyes; direction p.3

Everything behind them amounts to a few pivotal details. Simply put, these are my reasons.

A kid who grew up knowing you best, shared everything with you, but doesn’t share a release you’re oddly jealous of, gone, right then and there. A plane flight away from home, a pale-faced little girl is grasping the only thing she could, but there’s no life left in him. Ever.

 

‘Stones and bones, snow and frost, seeds and beans and polliwogs, paths and twigs, assorted kisses, we all know who Charlotte misses’. I heard it first from my own father before I’d tagged any importance to the words, and long before I read them in a book.

 Aside from that, it might have something to do with a boy. My sweet American solider didn’t come back to me. They gave his mother the folded flag, but she gave it to me. She said I’d have had it, if he’d gotten home in time to put the ring on my finger. He got swallowed up in sand and crossfire instead. This is what war is. My D, he was the replacement I needed, a way to fill a gap, and empty I forgot it was after he wasn’t there.

This is the way it went. As dramatic as it is, a true outpouring of emotion in the throws of young love, and loss.

Having someone in a lab coat walk in, apologize for being so booked up before he tells you that silly ol’ biopsy came back has an effect on a person. Keeping it quiet, deciding, letting it pull at all the corners of my mind could have showed through.

A mother’s love compares to none in compassion, devotion, and understanding. I wish I could understand the emotions. Something in the stiff embraces, the rage-faced early memories, hiding in the closet, or the reflexive ‘I fell’  makes anything else awkward and hard to translate.

Questions…answers…an essay, an explaination, maybe even a justification. Those pale green eyes are rightly so with so much ocean water behind them. Dammed up, rest assured the level will never break and flood over. Much past that, I heard if you run long enough you come full circle to where you started.

It’s getting cold in here.

directions, part two

The first time she saw him, there were no fireworks, no trumpets, no pomp and circumstance. The first phone call was odd, how concerned he was, how confused she was. In the dog-days of summer, she was still so frozen over it’d take more than a few chips to reach the centre. She tossed it off and continued her late-afternoon stroll to her sister’s.

The first night she was with him, well, it wasn’t that way. An adventure, she thought, some fun outing with a friend in familiar territory. Gosh, she missed the lake and all memories attached. There should have been music in the background, like a soundtrack, for perfect moments like those. She wasn’t sure if lying on their backs, staring at the stars as the darkness thickened around them constituted a first kiss, but she hoped so. Oddly at the time, but true to the relationship that followed that night, it didn’t end the way she thought it should.

When he drove off the last time, staring at her up on the stoop, she didn’t see any fireworks, hear any music (not even in the background). There was nothing, the silence deafening. Go on, she thought, get out of here. She never told him how distasteful he was just then, but it overwhelmed the pain enough for her to walk back inside and shut the door on him. There were still calls and wistful conversations, tears, trips to the past, dreams which ended in more tears, but there was no more him. There was a memory of a reflection in the hallway mirror at his old flat, his arms around her, her face leaning into his chest, both smiling, and in the right mood she can close her eyes and almost be back there.

Regretably, no one can live the rest of their life with closed eyes. She tried to kill the pain, roll it up, stash it, and act like it’d never happened, no questions asked. He stormed in the most quiet, subtle way anyone can storm into a life, and proceeded to take offense to her silence. He asked questions, pried, cajoled, begged, and whatever else emotional strength could afford, but it was wasted. The blows, the loss, and the fake smiles followed her around, stripped her down. No matter how strong he was, the weight of the past was too heavy. When they told her it could get worse, she nodded, and kept going. Breaking down? Oh no, though the weight became too much for her to want to stand on her own. A crack lead to a chasm, and she needed someone to lean on. Just then, he gave up, got up, turned around, and walked away.

direction back out of the past

Simply put, it wasn’t fair. Love wasn’t, she thought. It’s not so bad the first time and all–it’s grand really, and the pain is expected. You’re told, warned, cautioned, as if you should never begin to love, and I began to believe they were right all along, whoever ‘they’ were. It’s the second time that’s a double-edged sword.

It’s being fully immersed, drowning in the throws of that second real love, and wondering if you’ll ever break the surface, but not really caring. Knowing better–yet throwing caution to the wind and taking the pain and fear in in one long, sucking breath–is what blinds you to your past. One day unexpectedly, if you’re lucky and damned at the same time, you’ll discover the reality of all the used-to’s. Maybe you won’t run across him in an awkward way, out with the new girlfriend you don’t understand why he loves. Maybe he’ll just pop up nowhere and you’ll realize how you really will always love him. They’re not always just words–that feeling you get when someone’s held a bit of you for ransom and you’ll never get it back. No amount of money replaces memories, or the misty, dizzying feeling of being completely overwhelmed by emotions, lust and fear all at the same time. It was real. It was…is?…was love. It isn’t fair.

play-pretend

Paolo Nutini ‘Rewind’

Here’s my problem. If it’s a secret, that’s okay. If it’s another girl, that’s alright. If it’s some other form of deception, guilt, or hiding, I’ll accept it, even with little time and thought. That’s not really my problem (just a flaw). The truth is I’d overlook anything for another evening, night, next morning. I’ll give up anything for the feeling of being loved. Never mind what it is, or isn’t.

who are you?

It’s personal. A sister of mine over-analyzing my writing. She’s summed up all my rants, questions, topics of reason to a singular phrase. It’s personal. Well, alright. No argument there, but the tone crawled under my skin and stayed there.

The same evening the question was begged of me ’so, who are you?’ I’ll take the hit on that as well, seeing as the tone of those words were acusatory as well. I’ll tell you. I’m in that mum state that filters out all the obscenity and long, hard sighs. Through all the raised brows and under-my-breath curses, only a polite grimace and shrug showed through. Ah, well.

To get it off my chest. And for future and possible discovery…

I am the scarf-wearing, music-obsessed, horn-rimmed glasses girl. So where I work we pop the mannequins collars, big deal. Try as I might to not care what everyone sees and thinks, I won’t break it down on a sun-bathed sidewalk for fear of being discovered, and stared at. My body image dilemma is far-fetched, and perfected by now, much unlike what I see in the mirror. I am ordinary. My skin burns in the sun, I have a few freckles, and the length of all my red hair is definately not worth all the trouble. Yes, I take time with myself for boys, err, guys (men? nah, not yet), and I sometimes feel it’s left unnoticed, pointless, and hypocritical. If I’m quiet, I don’t want to be asked about my shitty problems, basically because I won’t reciprocate. My problems peak the shitty-scale, why would I want to know about yours too. I’m not in love with you. That alligator charm necklace is nothing, but means everything, and the silver numeral ring means more. The product of the most anti-social traits of both my parents, I’m determined to fit my square-peg personality into the round-hole of the rest of my life. How’s that working for me? Poorly. Getting bored easily is, well, so easily done, but I’m scared of trying new things. It gives me heartburn. Everywhere. I think it’s a big flaw in human nature to listen to terrible music when you’re in a terrible way. By terrible I mean sad/angry/angst. Worrying is a sport. It’s no fun but I can’t help it, and I’m usually correct in feeling that way in the very end. My musical taste varies, like my moods, like a metronome, like the way you shake your leg til it jiggles the table and someone gets annoyed enough to ask you to stop, and you didn’t even realize you were doing it. It’s more of a silent, frustrating, unworkable code I follow, and less of who, when it comes to the ‘ are you?’ part.