The street below my second story window is a-glow in the warm light of the street lamp. Each flower that branches from the tree outside is made alive in the light of the moon which shines through a small clearing as if by nature’s own intent. The window screen gives structure to the soft glow of the omnipresent moonlight beaming down to reveal power lines that connect us, despite our distance. Neither screen nor window can stop the moon from exposing half a bed empty, where you should be. My cat sweetly purrs in what I’m sure are exciting dreams as I lay on my stomach to write about a love not yet discovered between us. I see your always colorful eyes inside my mind and I wish to see them now beneath the lids and lashes that so wonderfully cover them as I rest my hand upon your lower back, warm in the summer evening. I long to feel your rhythmic breathing, a soft song consisting only of exhaling and inhaling, and I wish to breathe harmony with you all evening, our legs intertwined and our hearts as one. As you sleep soundly miles away, I blow a kiss out the window as a breeze comes to catch it and carry it to your cheek. Think of me in the morning when you wake, and know that although there is much for us to discover about each other, there is a lifetime to do so and that it starts now. You don’t know what an adventure is to come, and although details escape even me, I am certain that love is thick in the air tonight.
It is a common misconception that having your heart broken is the hardest event to endure. I concede in saying that the pain is great and that there are few things that I would rather experience, but I would be lying if I said that there is nothing worse. Because, in fact, there is a phenomenon that exists to create a deeper pain, while perhaps not as eternal or great in longevity, it remains to be the single most difficult task that in my short life I have yet to encounter.
It would stand to reason for those with a heart worth breaking that existing to be the source of pain and heartbreak for another person would be unbearable— that is to say that the only phenomenon worse than the pain of having your heart broken is to inflict that same pain onto the heart of another.
I almost think that I would rather have my heart broken ten times over than have to utter the words to tell someone that it isn’t working for me. Because I have been broken, and know all there is to know about the extended periods in the fetal position and nights with no sleep, I am hesitant to toss around any sort of sentence that would suggest that my relationship should end.
I would almost go so far as to, at great sacrifice on my part, extend the life of my relationship knowing that my heart isn’t in it. I could argue that I am a lesser being for being willing to do so, and I suppose that there is a selfishness in the act, but when in such a situation, I find that the part I am more willing to see is the part that thinks I am doing the right thing. I don’t admit to have all the answers, and I’m in no way suggesting that in writing this that I’m qualified to assess the basis of pain for any one person, but rather to make a blanket statement with no intent other than to suggest a possible theory of pain and heartbreak as it appears inside my own mind. You are more than welcome to disagree with all that I’m saying. That is your absolute right. It is also my absolute right to suggest such things.
Despite whether or not we agree, I am still in a very real dilemma. There are questions that must be answered. Am I worse to inflict this pain that I have described or to stay in the hopes that with enough conviction I will eventually wish to stay for reasons other than being too scared to leave? Because there is another involved, am I wrong to take the time to make a well-thought out decision at the risk of leading him to believe that I am not having these thoughts? Are these thoughts alone indicators within themselves to say that I shouldn’t be in this relationship? How would I even go about beginning a conversation to say that I am having these thoughts without suggesting undertones that I am looking to end things immediately and permanently? What is love (baby don’t hurt me)?
I don’t feel as if I have any good way to get out of these messes that I make.
There are cases, not far or few between, that in my life seem to occur like a string of Christmas lights, one after another. They are the cases in which feelings of love are felt at two different levels. A companion feels for their other half either more or less affection than is felt for them, and in both cases the end result is the same- a relationship, in whatever stage, must end. Without the two equal parts, one party, or on occasion both parties, are left to deal with the excess of love. It is not as simple as boxing up the remains- it must be dealt with.
Love, while such a universal concept, is truly specific in nature. The love that we have for a single person will never be the same love that we feel for another. It is compartmentalized, and although we may fall in and out of love before finding the love that will last, each time we bring about a new love for each occasion. For me, when love is given it is gone. Not to say that there will never be more where it came from, or that it will ever run out, but rather to say that there are no leftovers.
When, in my subconscious, I allot an amount of love to give away, I do so without ever expecting it to return. Like, if I say “I love my boyfriend twice as much as a stick of butter,” I have given an amount of love. Two months down the road when he realizes that I’m not the person that he thought I was and that he’s bored with our relationship and he’s met someone else that he thinks will treat him better than I can I will not get back those two sticks of butter in love. When, the next day in a coffee shop across town, I meet an aspiring lawyer who accidentally grabs my Venti triple nonfat six-pump extra-hot stirred white mocha while reaching for his Venti nonfat no whip pumpkin spice latte I will give him two (maybe three) very different sticks of Love Butter. Categorically, it is still ‘boyfriend love;’ however, there is now a new boyfriend and the love that I felt for the last will never be the same as the love I am now feeling. Of this I am certain.
When I can find someone willing to give me as much butter as I’m willing to give, we will truly be cooking up a lifetime love.
This is what I miss.
A tire on the pavement on a nameless road.
Of all this, it is this I miss.
—-
The past few weeks have seemed to be (trans)mission impossible.
My hunger for life is matched only by my leaking car’s thirst for fluid.
Disappointment is ubiquitous, I’m sad to report.
.
There is a very real part of me that is afraid to find happiness.
Not to say that I will give up the search,
but rather I feel the uncertainty of who I will be once found.
.
It is the search that keeps me on edge.
When the search is over, what will keep me from becoming complacent?
Certainly it will be my overwhelming need to make others happy as well.
I can’t help but smile in the middle of my existential crisis.
Oh, that word. Existential.
Can I keep my eyes inside my head for five minutes?
No, no. No one wants to be inside my head right now. I promise you that much.
The small things that would possibly seem magical seem like nothing.
They seem like shit, over and over.
Can you begin to imagine loads and loads of shit?
That’s my life. Actually, that’s life.
Not mine, or not just mine.
Everyone is suffering somehow.
If you aren’t suffering a little, you aren’t living.
—-
I am lost in my thoughts at least a million times each day.
I can’t think of a more insane place to be. I wish you all were here.
—-
There is something to be said about trying to write something meaningful. If you can’t gather your own thoughts properly, it will all turn to absolute shit. That’s what keeps happening to me, at least. I almost miss being prompted. If only my life would prompt me.
The problem, I think, is that I keep trying to write with the intention of pleasing everyone. I think that means I’ve lost the whole reason for writing in the first place. I just keep saying to myself, “That person would say that I’m being pathetic” or “people will think that I’m being preachy.” The truth is that I don’t really give two shits about what anyone thinks about my writing. I want readers, sure, but not at the expense of my own creative license.
Even that’s pushing it a little. To say that I have a creative license makes me sound professional. Of everything I’m not, it’s professional. I barely even have a driver’s license. It’s expired. Who am I to say anything about being licensed? Certified, maybe. I think I’m certifiably insane.
I am dead inside thinking of how you’ve loved again since me.
I’ve only ever wanted your love since I lost it, and to have it again would make me complete.
Knowing that all the things you said to me, you did for me, and gave to me were merely of the moment makes me question the eternal qualities of love in such a light as to cast doubt into every crevice. If you were able, so freely, to give love again— does our love even hold any importance to you at all?
I ask you this knowing that, though I have tried, I will never love a man the way that I loved you, and still love you. I’m crazy for you in all the ways I was the day we met, and through the course of our relationship, I have never for a moment stopped.
I made mistakes in nurturing my feelings for you— at one point letting you go. Of all the things I hate to think of, it is this that I hate the most. When again I came for you, you said that you had lost your love for me, and of all things to lose, this is the most valuable to me.
So engraved upon my heart, the love I have for you is something that I can never lose. Though I have tried, I am locked up in my love for you. There is nothing that I can do.
I am terrified that this is what my life has become. I am so distraught thinking that I will always be wherever I am, loving you with no love in return.
Please help me to be somebody else. Please give the love you once had for me a chance to exist again.
I know not any better way to say what I’m feeling than this:
I love you. I will always love you.
Where is the boy in thick-framed glasses reading the Times in periods of leisure?
Where is the boy with the upside down cross tattoo?
He isn’t in church, and he isn’t in the meeting of Alcoholics anonymous.
The boy knows how to handle his liquor.
He isn’t at Hastings reading “Sarcasm for Dummies.”
He’s quick on his feet, and matches only me in wit,
But where is he?
-
Where is the boy with the coffee stained end table in his studio apartment?
Where is the boy in V-neck sweater with just the right amount of chest hair?
He isn’t hiding in the closet.
He’s walking out of it in the most beautiful leather shoes I’ve ever seen.
He’s sun-bathing his perfectly toned body reading Naked by David Sedaris.
He’s paying too much for coffee so that he can stay up late and Skype with me.
-
Where is the boy who quotes Plato as Socrates?
Where is the boy who plays piano when he can’t sleep at night?
Is he playing with my hair in the darkness?
Is he writing, wondering where I am too?
He’s most likely in some thrift store buying a shelf for the best CD collection ever.
He’s probably flashing his one million dollar smile for some girl who doesn’t know.
I’d imagine he’s going on rampages for the Human Rights Campaign.
He’s blogging up a storm, being so perfectly grammatical.
Where is the boy who sends me photos of him and his equally beautiful kitten?
Where is the boy who props up his kitchen table with the New Testament?
Is he singing Fleet Foxes in the shower?
Is he drinking Blue Moon while watching another romantic comedy?
Or is he panning his Instant Queue for some critically-acclaimed psychological thriller?
-
He’s probably maintaining his bank account.
He’s probably hanging his college diploma on the wall in his studio.
Where is the boy who gets embarrassed for characters in movies?
Where is the boy who tells me I’m all he ever wanted?
Show me the boy that organizes his closet by seasons and colors.
Show me the boy who can sing harmony as we hold hands.
Where is the boy who’s iTunes receipt is more than his car payment?
Where is the boy?
Where is the boy?
Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy?
Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy?
Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy?
Where is the boy?
Where is the boy? I think I could love him
Where is the boy? If I could just find him.
Where is the boy?
Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy?
Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy?
Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy? Where is the boy?
There are moments in my day to day that I catch myself wondering ‘why?’ In an almost disappointed and belittling way, I think about what crosses my mind.
I waste so much of my time:
- Wishing things were different.
- Wondering what I can do to change things.
- Wondering why I let things get this way.
- Thinking about the kind of person I want to be.
- Thinking about the kind of life I want to have.
And probably the biggest:
- I waste my time thinking about boys that I’ll never have or never have again.
I’m not a lazy person by nature. I enjoy staying busy, and being productive, but lately I’ve spent a fair amount of time sitting around. Partially because I can, I live a life that only celebrities would call frugal. I eat out with my friends, waste trips to the big city of Little Rock, and spend more on iTunes than some people spend on their cell phone bills. My brother, who lets me live with him rent free, is an enabler to my habits. While I’m eternally grateful for what he’s doing, which is eliminating some of the stress from my life, I’m slowly becoming an adult. I need to be in a place where I can pay my own bills, worry about money problems, and have some purpose for living.
Part of my reason for wanting to become an adult in the way of making my own way is so that I can stop spending so much time inside my own head. My down time is just flat-out pathetic. It isn’t bad to be pensive, and I’m not discouraging thinking of ways to change your life if you’re unhappy (see previous post), but there comes a point in which you have to quit living in a world where simply thinking things will make them happen. I can think about a ham sandwich all day, but I’m not going to eat it unless I make it. …Be right back.
The main reason I wanted to write was to elaborate on how insane I am inside my own head. I don’t think that I’m alone in this, but I am the worst about living in the past. Sometimes it’s thinking of how far I’ve come and other times it’s dwelling on past love. It’s hard for me to say that these are wasteful acts, but under the surface I think they are. There is no denying that remembering the past can have it’s advantages, but there is also no denying that spending too much time thinking about the unchangeable is irresponsible. Simply put, you’re being cheated out of time you could be spending thinking of something worthwhile.
Specifically, why do I spend so much time thinking about how nice it would be to date taken men? Useless. For obvious reasons, I should not be thinking about how cute our apartment would be, or how our cats could have kittens together. It’s not healthy! Everyone has somebody they crush on, but I hope for their own sakes they don’t spend time fantasizing like I do.
I’m not saying that I spend hours on end thinking like this (God forbid you people think I’m crazy or something), but I just wish that I could eradicate all kind of irresponsible thinking. What a would it would be! What free time I would have! How much happier I would be! …There I go again.
Basically, be wary of how you’re living mentally. Go on a mental diet. The same way that you would count your caloric intake, try to keep a measure of how often you spend thinking about the useless shit in your life. I’m hoping that by doing this, I will see a positive change.
Sometimes I wear my shoes to bed. I’ll pretend that I’m too lazy to take them off, or that I just fell asleep with them on, but it’s usually with intent that they remain oh-so-attached to my feet.
Take tonight for example. Am I hoping that someone will call me away from the navy blue sheets and Netflix Instant Queue I so desperately cling to? Not really. Have I had a clairvoyant moment involving robbery and an on-foot chase through the Conway ghetto? Unfortunately, not this evening.
There is a possibility, however, of my running away. On the nights such as this one, with the train rolling by my window, I think of all the places I could go. Not on the train, of course, but metaphorically. It’s popular nowadays to say that ‘it gets better,’ but I really must argue that I’m not convinced. I would like to believe there’s an undertone that encourages you to be a part of the change. If things aren’t going well, it seems impractical to suggest that things will get better simply by hoping so, or believing that they will. It seems more probable that a change in not only attitude, but circumstances would be great start to improving what seems to be displeasing.
This is the positive connotation that I’m trying to give to ‘running away.’ Of course it seems that running away would be coined the easy way out, and I concede that on the surface that is how it appears. I think, though, that people forget about all you leave behind with your problems. The people and places that you love the most can be left behind as well. Your favorite restaurant, best friends, and all the back roads and shortcuts that you’ve known will be only memories once you’re gone. It takes conviction and strength to run so far that you have to start over, and I have respect for those who can.
I’d like to believe that I’m that kind of a person. It’s nice to think I’m capable of leaving who I have been to become someone I want to be. I feel like a prisoner to my depression, a burden to my first love, and a boy caught in the stagnant waters of the Cadron Creek. None of these strike me as very good qualities, and while I may not know what I’m doing with my life, I do know the kind of life I want to have.
In August, I’m going to be running away to Austin, Texas. In a last ditch, free fall effort to come away from an experience with a sense of self worth and happiness, I am taking it upon myself to get out of central Arkansas. There are things about this place that I will always cherish, and people that I will find it difficult to leave. This has been my home for as long as I have been alive, and the fact that I have never ventured to live elsewhere is both telling and horrifying at the same time.
Life is about changing, and no matter what I tell myself, I will never be happy here. The sad realization is that I need to be somewhere that I can disappear. Living where everyone knows me means living where someone has an expectation for what I should become, and in a time where I haven’t the slightest clue what that will one day be, it is a hindrance to my well-being and growth as a human being to stay. The fact that I live in a society that demands my rights be less than theirs is reason enough to leave, but this isn’t just about being gay. This is about being happy.
Maybe you think I’m making a big deal of something fairly normal, and maybe you’re right. People do move every day, but what I’m detailing isn’t simply a change in location. It’s a change in motivation as well as state of mind. I don’t want to be what I’ve become, and that statement in itself is a step in the right direction.
There is no way to tell if what I’m doing is going to be the change that I’m looking for unless I make the effort to find out. I can only dream of being happy for so long before I take the steps to ensure that it happens. That’s what this move is about, and that’s why for the next month I’ll be sleeping with my shoes on.
I know how you feel.
Believe what you want, but I was you before you were.
Broken, violated.
It gets easier to handle, but that is what’s funny about love.
All the time you’ve got won’t heal your hurts unless you allow them to.
But God, in his imaginary- excuse me, infinite- wisdom knows
That every train leaving town has me waving from the back.
Every red light feels like you just missed me.
.
So maybe I know what you’re feeling.
Maybe I’m sorry.
And maybe I was just scared of what it meant to have you love me.
.
But you’ll forgive me because that’s what you do
When you’re in love.
I’m the furthest thing from worthy, but you’ll never know.
.
Take a paintbrush to these walls, dear God.
It is so pure that all my sins are staying inside me.
I’m running a fever on account of a sore throat
But maybe someone is just telling me to shut my mouth and listen
For once.
.
My poetic license should be revoked.
I’m just writing this to make you understand me.
Selfish and rude.
