Feel it in my bones

There was never a tomorrow to begin with, only ever the one moment at a time, one foot through one pant leg as the other one was already one foot out the door- but it was never a bad thing, really. It only feels bad these days, when thinking of how easy that would have been, to just sit down and say, hey what about this, just forever. And I don't think it would have made me happy the same way, but it would have made me. I think sometimes about my refusal to write, when I know I could take things seriously, but I am armed with hurtfulness. This is maybe my gift. I am still trying to figure out what it would mean to be gifted, just in general. Leslie is always saying that, "just in general" and its always applicable. I'm still searching for my catch phrase, feeling like it is more of a catch all of the things one doesn't want to bother saying, something for me like, I'm never going to be quite good enough so how about I just do as much as I can and worry about inadequacy and that way we never have to talk about how you aren't exactly ever giving me the credit i deserve. And this I mean just in general, not you or you or even YOU, but just for everybody kind of and I feel like I'm dissolving or disproving or disarming my mentors by making us all softer because quite honestly thats the world I would love to live in, always apologizing and hugging and maybe lots of crying and lots of warm soup all the time and happiness too of course, and trembling close to you and soft laughter, or no laughter just constant fake stories that crack us up after the joke has been over and I just don't know what the difference is really sometimes. You're far away now like the way I talk about my dad being drunk. It's funny how we remember things and funny how I have a hard time remembering anything at all. Sometimes I just miss coming home to the sound of Matt screaming old cowboy music and how soft it felt to have a sort of brother and how even in the lonely moments I was not very lonely in that house, ever. Me and the cats and the cockroaches and our Matthew and it was like a real family abandoned by our psychologically upset mother who is really just another girl our age who wears very nice dresses and I love that heart, the heart in that home and those memories and all our visitors and especially one or two very important visitors and the cold cold air that killed Steve's snake and nailing blankets across doorways without doors and the way it sounded when I remember living quietly. I'm happy now or something closer to it. I am thinking of this and thinking of making good food and thinking of being someone's mother without having to take care of anyone or much of anything at all. I want you to know that no matter how much it doesn't seem like it, i'm always up to something, always writing something, always carving poems into the sand that you won't pay attention to and I am always filling my pockets up with rocks and I am always going to love the way it sounds when I am close to the ocean, asking for waves and depth and the promise that tomorrow sure as hell won't be any easier if it comes at all. I just wanted to say that in the morning when the sunlight crept through flimsy haunted windows, there was you and me becoming something before I ever met you, long before you came to California, long before I creeped your livejournal or watched your fingers dance along guitar strings, long before your hair grew longer, long before leaning on tree stumps in the backwoods of a Lawrenceville I'd never been to before you, long before you figured out that this wasn't about anyone in particular, it was just me, a little girl version of the same girl now, crossing her fingers and walking across the street to see if her friend was playing dead or really was dead, wondering why I could never be so brave. A flair for the dramatics and a kiss on the cheek. Just tuck me in. I'm tired now...

It's not your fault if they can't love you.

"Blessings! Blessings on you, one and all! I blessed the trees, the birds, the dogs, the cats, I blessed the flowers, the pomegranates, the thorny cactus, I blessed men and women everywhere, no matter on which side of the fence they happen to be. This is how I like to begin each day."

-Henry Miller

Wild lilac and lovely lupin and driving to the point where the signs finally say we are there, yet and Big Sur is here and where Bibles are printed in neon jackets with members only scratched out on the horizon because my mom always told me growing up that God doesn't care what you wear to church because he sees you naked in the shower. The last time I dipped my toes into the crystal ocean, I gave forgiveness a big hug and told it how sorry I was and let my new polka dot bikini be my blessing shouting out to God that I love Him and I listen to gangster rap because it makes me feel anointed and I cry often when I am alone because it is when I feel most affectionate with words and it is overwhelming to know exactly how you will die without knowing any gypsies to fool you into thinking otherwise. I will tell you this: I may never know how to let you love me, but I will share my pizza with you, and I will always ask you what you want, and I will always keep trying to figure out how to spell my name in stars so you will always look up and know you don't need loneliness and I will always want to hug you so big that your last heartbreak forgives itself and I will love you so much that God may be proud of me and I will thank him for teaching me that it is blessings all of it blessings and i will thank them each for their contribution to my spectacular formation of loving and i will raise my hands to the sky to thank the boys who loved me because I am sure now that I want to love you if you will let me. They asked me between stories about the Holocaust and being 21 if I was going to marry you and I felt overwhelmed by sadness and swordfish. Irregularly aware of why people make harsh divorces I just don't know if I am your one, but I am one at least, at least one year of knowing you were important and you only sometimes telling me otherwise. With words, I am better if written. With words, I am clumsy. With you, I am sure, sometimes. I look out the window after fish and hear my favorite song buzzing through the wrong voice and I see you glowing at me from the tip of the airplane's wing and I am lost in eternity with you, I am dancing naked alone with you, I am reading Harry Potter for the first time with you, I am drinking an entire bottle of Simply Orange: No pulp with added calcium because of you, I am crying on my birthday with my ex boyfriend because of you, I am delicately arranged silverware at a grandmother's birthday table with you, I am everybody's least favorite Beatle because of you. I am happening in outer space to the rhythm of something dirty and patient somehow. I am loving you even if I am the only one because at the end of the earth, I will be unending like God's love, like hard days, like sky fall, like breathing, like miracle, like all the good things etched in a kitten card in poor handwriting. I will be there in the earth unending loving the way you say the name you've given me.

I feel good about the way it sounds to exhale.

don't look at me that way

Drawn curtains and hoping to hear of someone else's heartbreak and using the same letters to spell different words over and over again until the letters dance up and form something incredible and I think about all the things you say every time you say anything at all and I think about how I don't know how to do it again. I don't know how to escape you sometimes but I remember that I have been here before, similarly, just not as much. When Sam was tutoring me on triangles, he said the way I think about things in crooked, and thinking about triangles, I'm not sure I trust myself enough to let go of straight lines. I don't know how to draw and being this terrible at math, I know I will always be alone. I think about how long it took for my heart to break yours and how uncomfortable it can be when ventricles become triangular or something different from what I expected at all. There's this thing I do when I'm crying in front of somebody I love where I can't look them or myself in the eyes and I wonder who I get that from. I wonder who taught you how to love and how to unlove and if you only unlove and never quite fall out of it, how old does that make our devastation? Is this math? is this a problem? is this something adult or something more like holding hands on swing sets?

When the fog clears, I promise I will have the answer.