because your kiss

(your kiss)

is on my list

because your kiss

(your kiss)

i can't resist

because your kiss is on my list...

of the best things in life.

it's like everyone's in some club,

 and i'm not invited.

and yet i don't care.

 but i do.

it's when i don't care that i end up caring.

barb says when i say i don't care that it's not true.

the club wasn't that great to begin with.

 but it was a club.

and for a moment i was in.

and it was great.

and i knew it at the time, too.

i just feel too much about things.

i'm tired of feeling.

i'm tired of people.

i'm tired of the daily grind.

you know, some people are sad and they don't want to live anymore.

like chuck who i see in my dreams though i never knew him well.

who i cried over. if only selfishly.

that's not how i react.

i'm sad because i want to live more.

i feel as if i am being hindered in my liveability.

that might not be a word.

i just want to live more.

fuller.

more real.

closer and more honest.

happier.

i was happier. i've been happier.

and it just isn't working out the way i planned it.

but that isn't true either. i didn't plan it.

i've never planned it.

but i guess i keep hoping for this thing.

and it's thwarted by different things.

it's just the same story every time.

and in the end, because i can't have the life i want 

or the life i feel i'm made to be living,

i end up not desiring a whole lot of life at all.

i'm tired and i'd like to have a nap now.

don't disturb me until the end of this 

stupid hot summer.

forse in un sogne

i love the way a dream

can make me feel

so intangibly close to you

though i haven't seen you

or even heard your voice

    in months.

i must have reached yesterday

some kind of quota

in the time allotted towards

my persistent thoughts surrounding you

to earn the right

to the simple sweet surprise

of having you cast in my dream last night,

and in turn my groggy

shy recollections of it 

this morning.

i was in your kitchen, i think,

talking with your mother

when in you walked, bag-laden,

sandy fauxhawk

blue button-down, bright eyed as always;

and staring into my coffee,

being found by you this way

even in my own dream

off-guard and unsuspecting,

my face burned scarlet.

why is it that writing like this always makes me cry.

a lone.

I am not sure 

if I want 

to speak 

to anyone

ever 

again.

I seem to mess it up.

Continually.

I seem to betray whilst I'm lecturing about integrity and loyalty.

Honor.

These things nobody talks about.

To whom do I owe my loyalty?

To whom can I give my loyalty?

Who will accept it?

Does anyone even want it?

I get so mixed up.

I've gotten so mixed up.

I just want to do the right thing.

Always I am trying so hard to do the right thing.

To not hurt someone that I think is good.

To not hurt anyone.

To protect myself from those whose intentions are sinister.

And to warn the ones who don't know it.

To do good in secret, so nobody knows it was me.

I want to be very good to those that I care about and love.

I find that really, there are so few.

And that they hurt me.

And then I bail.

Unless their last name is the same as mine.

Then I stay and put up with anything.

Things I would never take from anyone else.

I feel alone.

I am intelligent and logical enough to know that I am not. I know that I am not. But I feel it. And maybe this is what I need. But why? Why should I need this? Why have I earned this? 

I don't want it anymore.

I want communion.

I want fellowship.

I want warmth.

I want accountability.

I want to be nurtured.

I want to feel safe.

I want it to be real.

I want to give myself.

I don't want to explain anything. I don't want to have to.

I'm holding back and waiting until it feels right.

Until anything feels right.

Is it normal to want to escape everything?

To disappear and reappear somewhere else?

Someone else.

I'm a stranger.

I've wandered out of the store in someone else's clothes.

Holding someone else's coffee cup.

I don't recognize my vehicle, and my pillowcase smells foreign.

The rest of me must be dwelling happily

somewhere else.

While I inhabit this life here.

Only alone feels right.

Only separation and isolation.

Keeping everything to myself.

As if there's really so much to keep.

I'm small, insignificant.

Losing myself in too many hours of useless work.

Rushing from place to place.

Barely eating.

My coffee grows cold before I can drink it.

Twice a day, and I throw it out.

Too many questions to be answered.

Phone calls to be made.

Pages to be read.

Responsibilities I cannot fulfill.

Though I do nothing but attempt to.

And through this, 

I don't return your phone calls.

I tell you I can't see you anymore.

I've grown irritated with your turn of phrase.

Only alone seems to come naturally.

And yet it feels so terribly wrong.

Goodbye, I've left you for nothing else.

                        just now as I was 

staring into the end of the first 

fireplace fire of the winter,

and the room was dark and cold 

everywhere but the hearth

where I sat, and the only sound

I could hear was that of the fish

tanks babbling on as the guppies 

hovered sleeping near the rocks,

I was brought to another time

in less than an instant, as tends 

to happen to me during some

peaceful solitary activities, and 

the delicate perfectly cylindrical 

dying flame undulating at the underside

of the thinner of two logs reminded 

me of when handwashing

time always would become a game.

with soap being wasted and 

mirrors being splashed and

shirts becoming soaked and

heads hung at the sight of Mom.

one of my favorite things to do

in the kitchen sink was to turn 

the faucet to the exact spot

where the steam was as

solid and clear as an icicle,

before the tiny screen at its mouth

could break it into noisy whitewater.

I'd place one finger in 

the stream and feel its

weight and split it into

two. for long stretches of time 

this kept me occupied.

and I smile thinking of how

silly yet charmingly innocent it is 

that a child can be so amused by

something so small. that a 

stream of water and her finger's 

effect on it make bring her joy.

and then I smile again realizing

that ironically, in all these years of 

alleged cynicism and maturation, 

so little has actually changed.

permanence

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of that which is temporary and that which is permanent. And after all of my thinking, I still cannot get a handle on either.

The main example that got me to write about it was glancing through pictures of my "ex best friend" from high school and the early years of college. We were so very close for over four years. And then halfway through junior year, we had some kind of a falling out, and now we do not even speak anymore. It wasn't a big ugly hairy fight or anything. And six months later, I went to her and tried to speak with her about what had happened and I was unsuccessful in gleaning any kind of explanation from her. The simple truth is that we broke up. It ended. It played itself out, and now it is over. And I just can't understand that. How could I go from being the one that she called with bad news on a Saturday night my sophomore year, who dropped everything from a thousand miles away to sit in the hallway and talk with her, to being someone that lived in the same city with her for three months this summer and only saw her once? How do things end? Why do they? Romantic relationships are fleeting unfortunately. I've come to believe that maybe they will always be. That to find one that isn't is such an anomaly that it may never happen to me or to even to anyone that I know. But friendship is supposed to last. . . isn't it? It's supposed to change and evolve and grow over time. But it isn't just supposed to end.

Maybe there is something flawed in me that believes mistakenly that anything should be anything. I believe human beings are made for permanence. We are eternal beings, and part of the pain of this world is its temporary nature. I know this; believe it to be true. But what good is it if the only thing that is eternal is something that I can't touch or see in front of me? I am not willing to just say that this is how it goes. It doesn't go this way for some people. Some people stay friends their entire lives. Simon & Garfunkel for example. So am I hurt by my friend's inability to handle permanence, or did I do it to us? Did I expect something of her, of our friendship, that was unfair, and therefore caused her to want to escape from me? Or did she just give up? Did she stop loving me? Did we somehow cease to be soul sisters?

And if so, I think I'm with my friend Luke on this one. How could it have any true meaning in the long run if it just. . . ends? There must have been a lot of lies along the way in order to support it, and subsequently let it end, though I suppose it's actually a little different in a platonic friendship. And why am I ok with my romantic relationships being lovely little fleeting vignettes but not my friendships? I think I expect less from men. I don't know why. I have strong vibrant friendships with men that stretch back to kindergarten. (Though come to think of it, I don't talk to him that much anymore either . . .) Middle school at least. But I think the idea of romantic attraction somehow cheapens the friend connection for me. It's like, "oh you only keep track of me because you're hoping one day we might be together and I only keep track of you because I think it might happen, too." And that seems awfully self-serving to me, even if it's mutual.

Maybe it has nothing to do with gender. Maybe I will just always yearn for a connection with another person that I will never actually achieve. I actually believe this as a truth as well: that true communion will only happen in heaven. That we can catch a glimpse of eternity in our families and marriages, but that beyond that, we must wait for heaven. But this is no consolation for me right now today. I look at the relationships I've poured myself into and comparatively, I have very little to show for them. A few letters. Photographs. A forced and intermittent leftover correspondence. Someone with whom I talk every month or so at the very most. People who do not call me, and do not call me back when I call them.

I sound pitiful. I rejoice in the moments of communion that I do have with people that I used to know, and continue to know in three or four hour stints. They are little gems of warmth in my life. And I am thankful for their honesty. I would rather have an honest inconstant friendship than a false reliable one. I guess I'm just coming to the realization that until and unless I find someone that I would like to marry, that those years truly could have been the best of my life. As I get older, more and more of my friends are married, and this limits our friendship potential. And that's ok. I guess. I just wish I didn't feel so let down about it. I wish I didn't miss my best friend so much, and yet harbor such bitterness towards her simultaneously. And I wish that if I could talk to her that it would matter to her that I feel this way. . .