olive juice (revised)

Okay, very revised.

I’m an idiot. We all tend to let emotions and the here-and-now rule us, but not the good emotions, or the good choices. Sometimes it takes sleeping on it–even if it’s only a few hours before work–to make you realize just how good you’ve got it. By you I mean me, and by good I mean fantastic.

I feel the need to apologize to myself for being someone completely different five or six hours ago. It’s a damn pendulum and there’s no stopping it, but I keep stepping in the path. Oh well. Here’s to a day of realization.

olive juice (watch your lips)

Mayday Parade ‘Three Cheers for Five Years’

I feel like I could do something great, or cataclysmic. I can’t decide, and I can’t see it coming either. I can, however, be honest. Sometimes, that’s a boon and a curse, but I’m still breathing. I’m also rambling. It’s the still awake talking. I’ve had a mentally stimulating and harmful conversation with Auto.

Here I am moving at mach speed and I fucking break-test. Why? WHY??! I don’t know. I’m sick and dizzy. There is nothing conclusive about the things I do or say, so it’s pointless for me to go on.

But I will. Of course. Ad nauseum. I’ll throw some ambiguity in the mix for good measure.

I used to silently beg to hear it said. I would just sit, and stare to my right, waiting, watching, smiling, all so patiently, hoping, praying for those words to form. I wanted it so much I formed all the tears I had, and eventually, I gave up. I was lonely, I was broken, I was dehydrated. You know all this.

Now, nine hours away (no longer nine minutes), I almost hear it. Well, I almost read it. But we all know almostonly counts in horse shoes. I’ve never had that open and honest conversation before tonight, and here it is too little too late. I taste a hint of bitterness, accusation, and frustration. It’s mostly covered by an extra serving of lonely drunkenness. Still, I felt the meaning and honesty behind the words.

Like it matters now, but I felt a twinge of hope on the other end. I don’t understand it, especially with the distance. One part of me wants to ask ‘how could you? after everything, why now? why when I’m happy, and why when you’ve left?’ I asked in a round-about way, and got the immediate answer I knew I would. I left first. Can you blame me?

It’s not fair. I sound like a petualant child I know. I was watching a new favourite show of mine, How I Met Your Mother, and Lily worries a reunion with her estranged fiance’s family will be more shame and scorn than she can bear. She found love, but she walked away from it to make sure she’d played out everything she may have walked away from. She realizes it’s immaterial in comparison to the love she had, and she comes running back, lonely, pathetic, foolish.

I may look like her, but I don’t want to make the same mistakes. It happens all the time, but it doesn’t always end happily ever after so they can get another season on air.

There’s a lot of pressure, and though I don’t mind a disapproving shake of the head, I’d prefer to avoid judgement. There’s no contest between a former lover and the potential love of my life. In each and every way, Auto does not even show up in a measures of affection, fidelity, honour, or trust. He is however, that spark–every fire starts with something. Is that all it is? Should I question it, wonder, or let it slip through my fingers?

As with everything in my current events, I believe I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

Mother may I take three steps back?

the gift

Jimmy Eat World ‘The World You Love’
Joshua Radin ‘Today’

We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

So I have. I would spare the overflow of shock, awe, and out-of-character enthusiasm, but I lack the restraint. My ambitions to stay quiet have thrust me in the forefront of every need, wish and desire, past, present, and future tense, fulfilled. Words fill my head and mouth, but they are broken and shoddy in sharp contrast to the emotion I carry. At first, the new feelings were a frightening discovery; it was something my insurmountable difficult nature would not, could not allow. It was a stone around my neck always, and everything flowed past me as I stood, stagnant and alone. Now, I’ve been shaken alive, and all that was bottled up before was let loose and travels through every synapse with feverish pace and intensity, triggering a gush of words in a foreign tongue–a love-struck tone. I cannot apologize for my reversal. In rare and blasphemous form, I admit this is akin to being baptised–the recognition of an eternal gift.

I can breathe. And I remember what it feels like to feel alive.

witnessing

The Solids ‘Across the Overpass’

‘It is better for you not to know this than to know it.’  –Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

There is a great difference between the past and the present and all I can think is and, and, and…

and I’ve been converted.

cold-feeling nights in August

bored there is nothing to do cannot sleep cannot concentrate on anything concrete just frustration and time tick tick ticking driving me crazy now what to do to let it pass without noticing but ah there right there that old bargain book hanging at the back of the shelf it’s one of those magic eight ball answer things and here I am all up in arms about nothing in particular and everything it would be nice to have some relief like an enveloping warmth here I am like a jackass fingering the pages and concentrating for once thank god about my choices the worth measuring up self reliance and all the things I left behind and what left me behind too shit I just want to know if I am headed in the right direction it makes me tired fuck I am so tired all the time I’m really concentrating now like a maniac oops slipped and hit the floor opened up

‘Be still’ –Ode to Neptune

whew

parting gift

The Verve ‘Bittersweet Symphony’
Mayday Parade ‘One Man Drinking Games’
Kottonmouth Kings ‘Positive Vibes’
CKY ‘Don’t Hold Your Breath’
Keane ‘A Bad Dream’
Just Jack ‘Eye To Eye’

No ‘goodbye forever’. There was a quick hi-and-bye as always, and though my phone lit up from my sister’s prying worries, I ignored them, and I ignored my common sense. Not that I did anything wrong, dirty, stupid…I didn’t. I’m only saying anyone with a good head on their shoulders would have inflicted some harm and walked away. I have no capacity to do so, to anyone.

All words form ’see you soon’, but all eyes burning on my body say ‘that’s it’.

And I’m fine. That’s all I needed, all I asked for. I got that, and the vase in the corner.

south for the winter

Barenaked Ladies ‘Off The Hook’

‘See how it worked out?‘ he stated, as a question. I hate when he does that, I never know what to think.

I don’t. I see how we rode it out like a hurricane, and as logically follows, nothing was the same afterward. It’s like saying your house was lost, but you needed a new one anyway. Nothing made sense. Thank God it’s over.

Auto is moving to Tennessee. He’d mentioned it before, in a grand speech and justification one night back in May. It was filled with reasons for leading me on, for holding onto me without touching me at all, and for stealing my heart without regret, or reciprocal affect. Somewhere in there was a poorly constructed, distant plan for picking back up on school. Southern Adventist University, brace yourself.

I wondered aloud if he’d have told me had I not run into him. He apologized. I’d heard enough.

‘I didn’t think it would matter.’
‘Martyrdom doesn’t become you.’
‘It wouldn’t make a difference, and what does it really matter now?’
‘It’s just polite. Not your strong suit. And anyway, you’re the one who shoved me aside. You gave me some sloppy excuse about school. You could have just said you were scared.’
‘It was mutually beneficial–would you have fallen so fast if I hadn’t been the way I was to you?’
‘So now I owe you more than I already gave you?’
‘I’d expect a wedding invitation. One last goodbye, eh? Even though you’d have followed me anywhere.’
‘Don’t act like you hate me. Or cheeky. It doesn’t fit you.’
‘Turnabout is fair play.’
‘Good luck’
‘Same to you.’
‘I don’t need it.’

a certain and unexpected redemption

‘A silver lining of clouds shines on people Jesus couldn’t save.’

Everyone has that silver lining, the person who pulls you up from the bottom and forces you to breathe again. There is nothing more demeaning but self-actualizing than being saved. It brings you back to reality, gives a sense of time and purpose, and makes you wonder how you ever did without that little cloud in the first place. It’s also great for shade.

past/present/future

I’m listening to an old mix while I finish another design for Dor’s back or arm, he hasn’t decided yet. It’s a crystal ball, and it’s going to look permanently fucking amazing. He’s asked me before to sign my name at the bottom, but there’s something about emblazoned proof on his skin that feels unnecessary. He’s covered in my name, I guess you could say, there’s no need to mark it down literally. Right when I finish, that song comes on, and I wish I was a movie. I’d have a damn good soundtrack.

Third Eye Blind ‘Crystal Baller’

I’m trying to decide what I want to reflect in the ball or should I leave it blank, mysterious? My pencil switches above the paper in little jerks of indecision.

Somehow my mind wanders back to the airport. I’m seeing Dor off back home, and insisting my home is right here. I see Auto, and I think I see M. Really? This would be his destination from Iraq, and this would be the time he’d come home to all of them. I hear my name, and turn around. There is Nelson. There is Amy and their new son. Fuck high school, you can never leave it behind. I waive, and turn back to the painted man at my right. I say I’ll come by for the exhibition (which won, by the way), and the whole have a safe flight bit. Of course, where there’s Nel, there’s Ry. Oh my steroid popping past…  How the hell does everyone end up in the same place at the same time? I turn to Mum and her eyes reflect my ‘let’s get out of here’.

What a day.

I throw a mushroom cloud in that crystal ball, and toss it in the mail. The song is on repeat in my head, but I don’t feel much of it anymore. He calls me a few days later, loving my usual attitude and outlook. In a week, he’ll have certain disaster pricked into his skin, and he’s somehow already begging me for another tattoo. One at a time, I’d say, but when have I ever followed that myself?

more than I asked for

Keane ‘Hamburg Song’

It’s interesting how people first around each other will carefully dance around all the bubbles of personal space, careful not to leave things, careful to notice. An extended stay at the house ends with eradicating proof of existence, and belongings in the house. You pack up like you’re preparing for flight. As time goes, you’d think the little things would stand out, an annoyance and a foreign item in a land and sea of familiar, personal shit.

All the other people knew, and followed the rules. There was a riot in my head when I found something left behind, and the mistake was never made again. Now, I move through my flat, noticing the spare toothbrush, the solution and tee shirt on the dresser………

There. There it is…a smile, and a flood of memories. It’s happened, I’ve caved, turned inside out. I am exposed and all my insides show who I am, and who I always wanted but fought to be.

Thank you.