Notes to the ones I’ve given up
The Man on Fire
I don’t want to think about you, any version of you. I’d rather think of all the beautiful places I could be, all the beautiful things I could be doing, changing, making. All the things that I could be, that I have the power and the strength and will to be if only I weren’t sitting here thinking about you.
Just thinking your name spins me in circles until my thoughts aren’t just derailed, they’re spun in tight webs around whatever sentiment of reality I am holding on to that draws them back to you. Everything else thats wrapped around them is nonsense, a mix of fiction and hyperbole and while there is truth there — there is most definitely truth there — it is buried deep. Pulling it out, digging deep for it comes at the same cost as unearthing any other truth. Opening old wounds and pulling all of this apart hardly seems worth it.
You are not this deep enigma, we are not some mystery that needs solving and unearthing some deep rooted pain is not the way to bring us both salvation. You are, still in so many ways so familiar and tempting but you are not an object to be indulged. You are a person with flaws and those flaws have inflicted pain.
So yes while it does feel like staring down at something so sweet covered in thorns, it is not that at all. It is all thorns. It is more than thorns.
And I’d rather not think about what more it is.
The Man Who Drowned
We don’t really have conversations anymore. Not like we used to, which is sad, because we say the most beautiful things to each other. Our words land in this space, on a screen, waiting to be read in the morning, at the end of a shift, after three weeks in the hospital. Our sentiments wait years to be processed.
When we were young we trespassed into an abandoned tourist trap that was overgrown with weeds and broken glass, and we climbed over fences to get the perfect view from the top. Looking down on the wasted city, the site worth seeing was the neon cross alight as you drove along I-84. I’m sure words were said that went down in our history books but neither of us remember them now. And like the stone sculptures and mosaics, and that cross, we’ve been weathered and torn down all these years later, to have only some of the pieces retouched and replaced.
When I come home to visit, I have to drive past the new cross now. In the darkness of the late night, trapped by overpasses, replaced and refinished, it’s not at all the same yet still not at all changed. Twelve years ago I left you and for twelve years I’ve taken every opportunity to leave you, coming home just for visits but still holding on to all of your words.
We’re not in love anymore but we love too much. We’re not trying to hurt anymore but we hurt too much. We’re not at all the same yet still not at all changed.
The Man Waiting to Explode
Love makes the world go round. Lust makes it stand still.
I can’t tell you about the last time I felt that spark, saw fireworks, was overcome with such warmth and comfort that I just knew that I was heading into something wonderful. I can tell you about the last time I felt excited, giddy, special, flattered, or maybe just a little flushed from the attention of a man who decided he wanted to spend his time with me instead of someone else.
Why no spark? No fireworks? No warmth? Because I don’t believe in magic.
Now that I’m in my thirties, and have accepted that most men I meet will not want to spend much of their time with me.
I’ve come to understand that connection is not a pre-requisite to a fulfilling relationship, it’s a result.
The Man That Isn’t There
