burns

black bean soup, cafe con leche, swirled espresso, the egg pan, sunshine, no umbrella, new suede shoes in the rain, them so happy together, his absence, his endless parade of plans with others, fuck, fuck, fuck me.

,

the cuban restuarant we ambled into was perfect. free of hustle and bustle, we ate european style. the minutes stretched into hours and there was no where we had to be, which I love, and we enjoyed everything. my friend smelled the cigar smoke from the back, and we thought that was perfect. the flan was cold and smooth and it relieved some of the flash burning that my tongue endured from the cafe con leche.

;

I have hated for so long. I wonder what it will take for me to love again. I don't trust them, the men. They can tell. I look like a frightened animal in a stand-off, stuck between running and wondering if I don't move long enough they'll go away. He doesn't mean to hurt me, but he's too selfish not to, so we tousle and in the end, it will be a devastation that I gave myself away one more time. I wish that it could be different, but he's not different, neither am I.

[the cat]

I enter through the back door, that I know will be open, so I don't have to ring the bell at the front door, so I won't scare him under the bed and into fervent unapproachable hiding. He sleeps during the day, so I expect I might rouse him from the couch cushions, but before I can find him, he wanders into the kitchen from somewhere at the sound of my voice.

I wonder, can it be, does he recognize my voice, does he know me? he leaps onto the table to get a closer view and smell my purse, and he seems to be watching me, his ears seem to be straining to listen to my voice, and I love him. Seeing him again reminded me how very much I loved him. Sometimes when there was no one I could relate to, he was there for me and I would pet him, he would purr and there was love between us.

it was like no time had passed, and we two were in our own world of enjoyment and pleasure, me from his timid exploration of my feet and him for the scratching along his spine which I know he loves. Every time I see him I wonder if I will ever see him again. Yet, I have no right to ask to see him more.

[the man I love]

ditto.

"

if only it was as simple as with the cat. if only I could be so understanding when it came to him.

small joys

sitting across from my impending future

another reason to run, run, run far away from clark st:

She is a woman who looks weathered, her freckles have multiplied into large dark brown spots we call mega freckles, and she's got the freckles everywhere, and that is not all.

the wrinkles. the teeth. the hair. the body. the saggy skin under her arms. the pull on her earlobes from her earrrings. all of it is one big disgusting mess. and she thinks she is gorgeous. and if I continue to be a lazy slob, I will most certainly resemble her.

Except for the words coming out of her mouth, you would think she was sixty years old. I have no idea how old she actually is, but the age she purports to be, the age she pretends to be is my age. She is mentally stuck somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, but she is deluded. Seriously, the most delusional person I have ever spoken with.

Sitting there, her and I, in a place neither of us belongs, we looked like tourists, obtuse tourists, who had ambled into a restaurant merely based on the review in our guide book, and what's worse is that no one said what I'm sure was on their minds, that we looked like a mother and daughter out on the town, that we did and did not match at the same moment, that we did not belong there.

I was about as uncomfortable in my own skin as I was in high school, an itch arose in random places, my nose was running, I was anxious, could not sit still,

could not even stay for her offer of free drinks, that's how damn uncomfortable I was.

my hasty exit was awkward, and uncertain, and odd. but better that than sit with her til darkness crept into our eyes and my tongue loosened and said all the the things no one else ever says but that I always seem to.

forgive my absence...

I wish that I could say it was the working or the being busy or the freaky hot weather or some combination, but it's not. Part of it is that I find myself sitting in front of this screen and I literally cannot think of an enticing thing to say. Sometimes I think I'll write about one of my stock issues or a random topic, but then it always feels empty. Sometimes I get tired of writing about the things that I am passionate about because I want them to be understood and when they are misunderstood it is hard to keep writing.

Lately, I've been silent for two different reasons. The first is very superficial. Like a piece of clothing I can change, it wanders into my thoughts and conversations and sets up camp, but it is easily abolished or abandoned, but it is a clingy fucker: guilt. I get asked about my writing and the only "writing" I'm doing is right here in this blog. Some of my best blog writing happened in the last month (at least in my opinion) and it was just that, blog writing. It may as well have been chewed up gum on the sidewalk.

The other thing that traps the words in my head is him. [the love of my lifetime] I want to talk about him, but I can't. I want to delight about him, but I can't. I want to be stark raving lunatic mad and bitch about him, but I won't. But oftentimes, when I find myself home and alone, him enters my mind and won't go away, and all those other trifling thoughts about potential entries fall away and there is that unimpenetrable sadness mixed with hopeful glee and I just won't. I can't spoil him and I can't ruin him anymore. Him is a secret for me and no one else. No one else understands what happens between us anyway and I'm tired of trying to explain him anymore.

just know this: no matter what happens between us: he is mine and I am his.

For a long time I did not believe it, but now I see, that will never change.

pilsen love!

Nature Versus Nurture

after all this time

why is it that in the folds and creases of my heart I find a piece of grit so small and unimportant yet it rubs at me incessantly and has spoiled one of my most tender and heartfelt nicknames for the love of my lifetime?

that bitch. that fucking fun sponge. that fucking haplessly eager bitch.

a postcard: addressed to him.

and yet, why not his full name? why the endearment that I so often spoke?

funny thing is, it seems so harmless, so casually appropriate, so just fine. it's only under my lens that it becomes distorted and vile. it is his name after all, just a variation, a nothing. I bet he didn't even notice. If I had done it, he would have smiled at the thing I always said, the way I lingered over the syllables, teasing out the "r's" and he would have known I had done it on purpose with the intent of making him smile.

entertaining the possibility that I may have said it so often that it became ingrained in the minds of those around us seems too banal. I want to hate her. And so I will. Give me fresh hate and I will seethe.

"driven and derided by vanity"

I have to dye my hair...yet again.

Every time I look in the mirror, all I see are the gray hairs.

I have to get to sleep so that I can wake up early and dye my hair.

Humans are fucking weird.

Not again...

this weekend:

the apartment: dishes, floors, clothes and sheets, all of it shaken out, brushed off, washed. usually when this happens, it means that I have grown tired and disgusted of the mess I'm in. this time around it was a signal of rising out of the muck. also, a concession to the orderliness my mind prefers.

the mess of a man: I noticed a man in a cab yelling and it was him, the one who always wears a green shirt, the drunken mess I cannot greet. He was angry about some cab related offense; angry enough to spit at the partition. he spat again after slamming the door, his voice both lurid and frightening, and I found myself giddy and lightly running away.

anthony: the only college boy I liked when I was in college, who I discovered to my dismay and relief (as to why he never spoke to me) had a very awkward stuttering problem, stood on Michigan avenue with a clipboard trying to ask shoppers and tourists if they had a minute for something, but he did not ask me. His eyes flicked over my face and he moved on to the people behind me. I had a secret smile. I wondered if he chose the job as a way of getting over his stuttering, which I think is more of a social anxiety than an impediment.

my first sox game of the season: came with no warning, I had plans and then suddenly, I had the delicious opportunity to watch a game on a beautiful night. It was soured by the fact that my phone died and I couldn't invite more people to join us. It was a perfect experience except the Sox lost.

walter: and I have been spending a lot of time together and it makes me wonder if that same comraderie exists between the love of my lifetime and the girls he spends time with, if it is that same enjoyment without the necessity of sexual advances. I have never really had a close male friend before.

the city: wanted to meet and talk about the absence of our friendship, but I just couldn't.

currently reading: The Dubliners by James Joyce. If I had known that it was notated, I might not have bought it. Every other line has some corresponding footnote to decipher the meaning or relay the cultural (and usually dated) reference. The footnotes are all in the back of the book. Rather than flip back and forth, I just try to sort out the meaning through context and if I'm really confused, I'll check the reference. Also, I sometimes read the list of notations all at once at the end and find that I tend to deduce fairly well, with the exception of one or two things that I was off the mark about. I don't understand how someone can read a book and then check out something they don't understand, as in whip out a dictionary or a scholarly reference. I never see anyone stopping a movie to look up a word or check something on the internet. But maybe I just have a weird relationship to reading. Anyhow, I've been enjoying the brief short stories. They are dialogue heavy, which I like.

the love of my lifetime: I have longed for him all weekend to no avail. it is no wonder I cannot trust him. he is never there when I want him to be. I receive the morsels of his attentions while others get his whole wondrous being. he will arrive soon so we can do what we do best together: sleep.

siena: saturday marked the beginning of a fourteen day stretch of work. I can't imagine how frazzled I'll be in the end.

the smoking: is still not an issue, despite visits to bars, being just as stressed at work, dealing with awkwardnesses. on tuesday it'll be five weeks of non-smoking.

there is no sense to make of this

he stands before me, two parts nostalgia, one part reality

the reality isn't pretty and is represented by three earrings in one ear. silver, gleaming, not a match for the rest of him, they stand out--which is exactly what he wants, I suppose, so that just when you think you've figured him out, he is not what you expected. but they are not surprising in a good way. they are just silly. and weird. and kinda obnoxious.

in a small bowl mix wet ingredients: tears, beers, sweat, and lake water. Mix well.

I am crying, I am drinking, I am hot, we are at the beach by my apartment and it is perfect, and it almost drowns the tears.

add sand to taste.

my bed is full of sand, I woke up with it gritting between my teeth, a fine layer has settled on my hardwood floors and my feet are smoother after a barefoot walk, just like my life is smoother with him back in it. [until it isn't.]

is it possible to change our receipe? that the things we were are not the same, that the lives we were constantly in motion against are gone, that it can just be him and me, is it possible to have what we could not? we sometimes got it right and it was good. but mostly we got it wrong.

forlorned by his departure, I wondered if it was really over. I never imagined it could begin again so easily and I would be so glad.

seduced by his smells, I find them trapped in my bedsheets and want more of him.

after hours beaching

this is why I will always love him.

unnecessary roughness

it's now or never

like the next phrase of a well known song, like the next step in someone's walk, like the pinched face of a child prior to its screams of pain,

the anticipation of his call was there, like that, and that it did not come for so long was appalling, I kept trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, but there was nothing, I had simply stuck up for myself in an already crumbling situation, and his foundation was too shaky to stand on and he wouldn't stop shaking, so I stood there, waiting for something to fall, but nothing happened for almost nearly a month...

of course, by now, I had given up, I had begun to subtract myself from him, to lessen the sting of his absence.

: deleted his number. didn't cry every time I passed the cemetery. no one asked about him and I spoke not of him. and more importantly, I made no move to infringe, no effort to bring forth the rest of the song, the step, the cries, the chunks of ceiling.

I let him go. I said my peace/piece and let him go.

that we loved each other for so long and so terribly, it made no difference. he owes me nothing. and I owe him nothing. I will honor him as a human being in the world, but other than that, our past makes no difference to me. so if it was space he needed--and clearly it was--I let him have it, but not without that constant ache, that throb of wondering, that absence bearing some sort of calamity in my life, because what else would I be without calamity...

[of course, the timing of this could not have been worse, with the quitting smoking and the mood swings and the rest of life happening, but there is probably never a "good" time to quit smoking...]

and yet, I did not spend each night lingering over his memories or trying to sort out the differences between us, I found rest where I could, love and happiness in my friends and family, and poured myself in my work.

but still, I could not erase the sting of his absence, the loss of him, and that is what makes me wonder, that is what makes me wish that he could be all the things I wish for and need, but I know it, I need no convincing that he's not the guy for me.

even so, I feel a sense of gladness I have not felt in these past four weeks, a sense of completion, a sense of restoration.

smiled about:

the opening theme song for firefly heard through the ceiling.

a text conversation with a fifteen year old girl who texts random numbers when bored.

product love.

finished reading a novel in a twenty four hour period.

hearing the extra guitar line meant for discerning ears.

the city got in to singapore.

we are two of the same.

the shock of physical unbalance

I spent the morning delighted that once again, despite all the circumstances evidently against me, I managed to wake up and maintain a fairly good demeanor. Since I quit smoking, this has been difficult, but finally I felt like I was not only back to the superficially optimistic happy go lucky state I enjoy, I was actually happy to be alert and functional.

Even customers made note of the improvement in my mood, and my least favorite customer's early arrival could not even bring me down.

around eleven however, a tingle began, up where the teeth meet the jaw, and it quickly escalated into a throbbing that felt like each of my teeth were being tugged out of their sockets. At first I assumed my rush to leave the apartment without brushing was the culprit, but then the ache expanded outward to my cheekbones and along the bridge of my nose and out around my eye sockets.

for about ten minutes, the pain was so unbearable I couldn't speak, tears came into my eyes, and I let them stream down my face.

It's been a while since I had a migraine. The last one was not too long ago, and I remember that my vision was riddled with psychedellic spots--which did not appear today--but it also completely turned my day upside down; it commands your every move, usually a desperate: you must sleep now.

so I went home and took a nap and now the migraine has become a headache, but the toothy pain is still there, and I will try to remember that sometimes my body and my mind don't get along.