Okay

Wow, I can't believe it's been over two months since my last post. The drama has continued, and I think now ended. It's taken strength on my part, but I think I'm finally healing. Almost a month ago I received an e-mail from her telling me that she was pregnant. This was unsettling to me for various reasons. As harsh as it sounds and as cold as it might make me, I wasn't happy. I couldn't be happy, not after everything I knew. So I didn't respond. She got understandably upset by my lack of response, but I knew even if I tried to fake excitement it would be taken wrong and just end up like most of our arguments, with us fighting and no end in sight. I just needed some time to process it all, especially with the uncertainty of my own life lately. My silence and her lack of patience has now resulted in what I guess is the end. She seems to have cut me out of her life. In a sick way I'm almost glad things happened this way with her turning her back on me. It would seem like now we're even and now I truly can move on with my life. For now, then, this blog will be suspended. But not withttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif
Add Imagehout one last post. This is a poem I wrote months ago while trying to recover from too many drinks the night before. I've recently revised it.

OKAY

Okay, so shut up a minute and let me think for fuck’s sake.
Everything I’m trying to say sounds pretentious and I hate it.
I hate that I can’t express myself.
What is it I want to say? What do I need to say?
Are they the same?
What am I trying to say?

I know, how very romantic of me, I’m sure.
I find my comfort in song titles and sitcoms, Paula Abdul
and Ann Curry. She hugged me once,
I think she thought I was a homeless retard.
I had been outside Rockefeller Center since 5am
when it was still dark outside on the morning
Today was first extended to three hours.

See, here’s where I have problems. I get so far in and then freeze.
Maybe it’s my hangover. I think my blood is still running a little thin.
I can’t decide if I’m hot or cold.
I can’t decide if I should make myself throw up to feel better or
if maybe in an hour or two I’ll forget this ever happened.

And here’s where I want to take a nap. Maybe not forever,
but certainly for an hour or two.
I want to take off my glasses and let
the world go fuzzy so I don’t have to pay
attention. I so easily lose interest.

Who cares? What makes me better
than the guy sitting next to me in theatre 7?
We both have buttered popcorn and paid
our $5 to see Stranger Than Fiction.
I’m sure that someone feels the same way about him
that someone feel about me. I can’t say I understand that.

Jesus Christ, why do I have so many questions?
Do I not want the answers? Are they even being offered?
Sometimes rubbing my eyes helps my weariness. But not today
so I better focus on rehydrating instead.
Why does this water taste like oranges? My coffee smells like hydrogen peroxide.
This is what I’m thinking. Sweet mercy, it’s only 10:30 in the morning.
I’ll get a good momentum going and then have no idea what the hell I’m doing.
How do I end this? I want to more than anything.

What am I even talking about? Is this about the movie? Or drinks? Or lunch?
Maybe I should do this every day. Ugh, I can’t even imagine.
I can’t even stand writing it, who would be able to stand reading it?
Have I already lost you? Where to now? If you’ve made it this far,
I’ll let you pick a title. I can’t be fucking bothered.

Blue Ruin

Wow, it's been a wild ride these last couple months. I had a wonderful birthday month in August before turning 30 on the 23rd. A few weeks later I was fired from my job. The next week I was on vacation and since then my life has been consumed with finding a new career. I've never been fired before. The experience at first left me in shock. Then I was angry. Then I saw it as a blessing in disguise. I hadn't been too happy at my job. Overworked, underappreciated, annoyed with the monotony...I wasn't going anywhere else in the company and lately I was just not being challenged enough. As bitter as I was and still am about how it all went down, it was at the same time quite possibly one of the best things to happen in my life. Sure I've been stressing a bit about money. But there's more important things than that and this search for a new career using my background and skills has made me see that. I'm moving on to better things one way or another. My supportive friends have me excited about some changes to be made and our shared enthusiasm has me thirsty for what lies ahead.
Needless to say she hasn't really been a big concern. And this poem here is likely the last poem about us. I've been working on it for months. At this point my interest in our relationship has hit an all time low. I can't help it, I finally have to be selfish and just do what's best for me.


BLUE RUIN

I’m all over the place.
The freedom distracts me and I can’t focus on what’s in front of me.
What is it that I can’t let go?
I’m back to hating all my words.

I never thought it would be possible for me not to love you.
I love you and then I hate you, different parts of you
that make me hate myself for not being the fantasy you hoped for.
I cannot swallow in front of you.
My jaw stiffens.
My teeth tighten.
I bite my tongue.
I sit here in a pool of my own sweat wondering what I’m doing.
My glasses fog up and I can’t focus on what’s in front of me.
I see all your potential and then I see you afraid to say no to anyone but me.
How many times?
All you could say says so much.
I write like a poet trapped
in this empty space you’ve helped me create
surrounded by silent prayers.
I’ve already used up all my best lines.

I read the words you write and I wonder
if you understand what I’m reading.
You found me because you can’t forget me
while I can’t forget our stolen lies of being in love with love.
There is no point.
Your only interest in me is my interest in you.
Now we only have what’s left in front of us.
If I’m not here I’m not worth it.
You know what I want to say
but you have no idea what I’m thinking.

The reality becomes my nightmare and the past resurfaces.
The pain I escape spills into my dreams,
the truth following me wherever I go.
Am I afraid I’ll lose something by losing you?
I never know why you think I don’t need you.
Maybe you’ve finally convinced me that I don’t.
I’m ready to wake up and see what it is I won’t leave behind.

In A Relationship

So weeks will go by and I don't hear from her. Then when I do, it's either "Hey, I'll be out for happy hour" or "This is the worst week of my life." I'm not sure if the problem is I'm trying to give more than she wants or if she's really just not sure what she wants. Either way, in the weeks between our tedious e-mail conversations I've come to realize that this isn't what I thought it was. She's not who I'm in love with. The person I'm in love with, if she had rejected me like this, would not go on treating me the way I'm currently being treated (in a way I can't even describe). I kept thinking along those lines and I realize that I've actually rejected myself. And now it feels like the real healing begins.


IN A RELATIONSHIP

Despite what you think, this is who I am.
And despite my ideas, that is who you are.
You said I lost my romantic when the opposite is true.
In the time we were apart I idealized you
into something you aren’t, something you never were.
I was blinded by what my mind had imagined,
someone I wanted,
someone who would give me that amazing love.
That someone no longer exists, perhaps never existed.

My creation rejects me.
You say it’s grotesque.
I’ve disappointed myself more than anything.
I dressed you up in dreams and then woke up
when you came knocking.
It’s too late for me. But not for us.

It is grotesque that I’ll still let you break my heart.
Because you have and you do and you will.
I know that so there’s nothing to worry about.
No one could make me forget if I’m still remembering.

I sort through memories wondering what any of us deserve.
I deal with it all in a conversation that might never end
because I can see the glory.
What we become can only be our design.
I still think it’s beautiful.

Letters

The reason we stopped talking, as she likes to always remind me, is because of a letter I wrote to her. I honestly don't remember what exactly I said, but I have an idea. Things had just gotten to a point with us where we were doing more harm than good to each other, or at least we were about to. I couldn't face her, I knew I couldn't tell her to her face that I could no longer be her friend. So I did what some might consider the most cowardly thing ever. I keep thinking about the letter, trying to remember exactly what I said.


LETTERS

I should have been the one to find you.
I wanted to. I drove by your old house,
thought about what I would say but never had the right words.
I never thought I could heal the damage.
I think about these grand gestures I wanted to make,
inspired conversations I wanted to have.
But I don’t think they would make a difference.
I really have no right to be here.

After all the tormented pain you still smell the same.
It still makes me feel the same. I’ve always wanted my second chance.
How beautiful that you’ve almost given it to me.

I had good reasons for making bad decisions.
I was never knowingly selfish in the way I treated you.
But all you can think of is the letter.
I wrote you hundreds and you only remember one,
the one I can’t recall that I’m sure is tattooed across your broken heart.
What else could I do? It’s what we both needed.
At the time the wrong reasons were right.
You were happier with others than you thought you could be with me.
Don’t you understand yet why I did what I did?

If I had kept writing this would just be even more pathetic.
That’s why I stopped.
I bleed in words only tapping into human emotion instead of yours.
Your interpretations were never right.

I didn’t want you to feel like I felt.
But every time I try not to hurt you I hurt you even more.
We’re hurting each other with the pain the other avoided.
How beautiful that you must now do to me what I did to you.

I make myself cry with your words.
You don’t have this power over someone and not use it.
I knowingly make stupid choices now that it doesn’t matter
where I am or where you go
because you’ll always have the best part of me that you will allow.
How beautiful that this is where we’ve chosen to ended.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER

Your silence is my answer. I’m just another one of your fools.
I went from bad to good and back again.
It would be so much easier if you hated me. I almost wish you did.
Hostility fills each three week void.
I should be the one having a nervous breakdown,
I shouldn’t be the one causing yours.
I’m trying beyond my means to keep it together.

I became what I thought you wanted me to be.
Or maybe I became what I thought you were
or what I wanted you to be.
I’ve always wanted your approval, that’s no secret.
I would do what I had to without question, but that was a long time ago.
You don’t want people to change for you. But they do.
And you surrender yourself as well so no one will leave.
Forget all that. No more disappointment.
I want your acceptance for who I’ve become.
And I want you to love me for it.

I feel like everything I say hurts you.
Is this why I didn’t speak before?
I used to be able to make you happy without trying.
Now I can’t and I’m trying as hard as I know how.
Would you still want me without our past?
Isn’t that what usually drives people apart?
I have to get used to things that aren’t constants.
I want to help carry the burden I helped create.
You’re hiding, being the outsider to an impossible situation,
keeping your distance from this uncontrollable mistake.

And the weird dreams begin.
I wake up and I love you even more. I want to call in sick.
I want to continue the dream because at least there
you are always beside me.
I keep going back knowing there’s a look that should be mine.

Lonely Believer

It took me a week to write this. I notice now I almost have too much to say and it takes me longer to sort through it and make my thoughts coherent. I started with three pages and ended up with the one below.

LONELY BELIEVER

I don’t know why I ask so many questions
when you never answer any of them.
Once again I find myself giving it to you,
giving up myself for you.

You wrote through the pain before.
On your own. So you’ve told me
you forgave me. I never did.
Do you know what a decade of being
the lonely believer can do to a person?
If I’m the only one who believes is it still the truth?
I need the time to get where you are,
to get over the cocky confidence confronting me.
I’m on my way to knowing I’m a fool to have ever believed
things would have some black & white movie ending.
So I’m doing this, working through my emotions
and sharing every word so you can be happy,
so you can have what I want.
But if you’re not satisfied then what am I doing this for?
Is my needing what you need?
You’re a part of me I’ll never have.
Maybe I just want it back.
I’ll go back to myself, the self you ask for
if you’re so sure that’s what you want.
I was foolish to think you’d never leave that adolescence.
Somehow you were expecting the same of me.
I’ve become my own worst enemy by letting myself go on.
I eat alone. I drink alone. I write alone.
Once again you get what you want from me.
And you wonder why I walked away,
and now why I’m still always chasing.
What is it you want to hear me say?
Because I keep saying the wrong thing.
I should probably be ashamed of all my trying.
You see right through me, don’t you?

You want to be better than I was,
endure more pain than I would.
Are you letting me help you thinking it will help me?
Before you understood me without a word.
Now I’m saying everything and you still can’t understand.
I think you’ve kept a piece of me all these years.
And you have, I see my copies of Into The Wild
and the letters of Sylvia Plath on your bookcase,
tangible things left behind as visual reminders.
They must have left you unfulfilled.

I’m drawn in by the gravity of you,
asking for something I thought you already gave me,
something I should have already offered you.
Maybe I was better off not knowing.
But I have to go on believing something.
I just haven’t figured out what.

Preemptive Dreams

I was thinking about our last encounter and then read The Myth Of You And Me by Leah Stewart. It inspired me to write this.


PREEMPTIVE DREAMS

I see myself reflected in your tears.
I don’t like what I see, how you currently see me.
It’s like you don’t even trust me with myself.
Why do I feel like you don’t even want to understand me now?

The life I’ve grown into without you
has left me with only one true dream from the past.
Have I idealized it all too much here on my own?
What I have now keeps me grounded, stops me from dreaming
those silly dreams, kicks me in the head and slaps me across the face.

Life happened and I settled
into a happiness that wasn’t what I dreamed of ten years ago.
Life happened and you needed
your dreams to get you through. I understand why you’re still dreaming.

I’ve been to the edge of self-destruction.
I wasn’t sure I’d make it back.
But I did, somehow found the strength within myself.
So why do I now feel like you feel like I need your salvation
from a life that saved me more than destroyed me?
I don’t think you realize my sacrifice.

You were the one who taught me to dream.
Now you’re telling me I have to be practical.
But my practicality is what repulses you, what crushes your dreams.
Could I be any more confused?

I remember you wishing you could marry me or put me in your pocket,
things you said when you thought I was sleeping.
Maybe I slept through it all and what I think happened
was never more than some fantastic dream.

We’ll never be right back there.

It’s not the guilt that won’t let me go.
It’s you. It’s me. It’s what you told me was necessary.
Now you want to leave. Or have you already?
What good have I ever been for you? It all makes sense.
I look for you to understand as we sink into this common pain.

You’ve already written one story.
How would you tell this one?

You remain the one person I want to convince
even though you’re the one person who shouldn’t need convincing.
You want me to prove something to you
that I just don’t want to, something I shouldn’t have to.
And I won’t. If you can’t trust that this is what I want
then you never really knew me.
What I continued to love about you is still here.
If your reasons for loving me are gone,
then there is no reason.