It’s been a while…

and I still wonder how you’ve been… what you’ve been up to. Does your mailbox still have that dent in it from that one night so long ago when the world was ours and we didn’t care? When we would have thrown it all away for a smoke and a quick fix in the back of your car? We lived on chump change and cigarettes. We lived for holding hands and each other. I will never forget the way you would rub your thumb so gently on my wrist, as if you were afraid to break me. I hate winter but I will always look back fondly upon those cold nights so long ago when we would slide onto your leather seats and you’d rest one hand on my knee, the other on the steering wheel. The heater wouldn’t even kick in until I was long past home, but I didn’t care. I still had the warmth of our late night encounter on my mind and that was enough. Do you remember that night when you asked me to kiss you while driving me home and I said no? It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you to keep me safe, I always felt safe when I was around you, but it was because in that instant I realized we were young and stupid and could easily end just like that. Those cars headed our way, steered by the faceless, didn’t care about us or the happiness that we had yet to share. But then I saw the lights flicker across your temple and jawline and cheekbone at fleeting intervals that seemed to last hours, not mere seconds. And I kissed you anyways, didn’t I? For a moment I felt on top of the world. I miss the days when things were enough.

2 am on a Friday night three and a half months too late

I feel good. For the first time in what feels like way too long, I feel free.

I feel free from over thinking things that should be forgotten if I ever hope to move on. I feel free from remembering how goddamn beautiful your smile was and how it lit up your entire face whenever you’d generously grace me with it’s presence. Free from reliving all our moments together, starting at the beginning. Free from You. Free… free… free.

I’m not going to waste my time going into painstaking detail about this You I speak of… I’ll call him ‘Y.’ It doesn’t matter anymore. We weren’t together, we weren’t official, we weren’t in love. Heck, were we even friends? We weren’t a thing, but we weren’t a nothing either. We were most definitely a something. Whatever the hell that means.

But to make a long story short: we met and had our relatively short run of getting to know each other and then a lot of fucking… inter dispersed with some real, tender moments shared between the two of us. And then we ended, but not by choice. Someone else, albeit with the best intentions, had a drunk hand in that. I apologized a few times (never in person or even over the phone although I tried… just a message and a missed phone call followed by a text) but never heard back.

He stopped talking to me. If that’s how it was to end then so be it… but it would have been nice to hear something, anything, back from him just to know that we were as okay as we could be… to get a little bit of that closure that I’m always missing out on. To know that he was fucking alive for Christ’s sake. But no response.

I’ve been over everything that’s happened, all of it, many times in my head. I can’t blame him for never responding. But then at times I can and I do. Other times I blame myself. I definitely blame the outsider in this situation because it is directly their fault after all… but I’m not mad at them. So really, I don’t blame them at all. They’re not the one on the receiving end of my anger or sadness – I am.

This all ended back in March. The weekend of St. Patty’s day, actually. So it’s been roughly three and a half months since I’ve seen or heard from him. At the time I was at college and I’ve been back home for summer, so I’d have no chance of running into him now anyways because he lives back in my college town.

But then two weekends ago I got a text from an unknown number.

I was at a party and I yelled out to the general vicinity, “Who the fuckkkk is this texting me?!” Or something equally as classy. A friend informed me shortly that according to the phone number’s area code it was a number from my college town. My heart skipped a beat and I could feel my face tensing up and my body getting all tingly as I let a small feeling of happiness take over.

I knew who it was right away. I’d deleted his number months ago because I didn’t want to do anything I’d regret as I’m wont to drunk text. But here he was texting me. Even though he’d been the one to stop talking to me.

I was excited and curious and happy for a short lived 5 minutes at most. These feelings soon dissolved and transformed into anger.

Who the hell did he think he was? Texting me after all these months as if we were totally fine? It’d been months since I’d heard from him… months of trying to distract myself from remembering him. Why now?

I had done a decent job of keeping myself busy when I was back at school but only because I was busy. I had schoolwork and finals and barely any alone time as is typical of dorm life. So I was okay… or at least I did a good job of holding myself together for everyone else’s sake including my own.

But then I came home for summer and slowly my unresolved feelings and lack of closure let it all surface again and despite having a job and doing other things, I couldn’t escape it. My mind wouldn’t let me. When I lay in bed at night my mind wandered and found him. And so I’ve been silently unhappy.

But then he texted me and I should have been ecstatic. It was what I’d wanted after all, right? Just to hear something from him…

But then I realized it was 2 am on a Friday night. I knew he’d been out to the bars with his friends and speculated that he was drunk… it certainly seemed like it judging from my past dealings with his drunk texts (he’s surprisingly coherent… although he’s wont to send the same message more than once).

And even if he was being honest when he said he was sober it didn’t change the fact that it was 2 am on a Friday night three and a half months too late. What on earth could have made him think of me? What exactly did he want from me now?

I found myself getting indignant the more and more I talked to him… but I couldn’t stop either. He couldn’t even answer me when I asked him multiple times why he was texting me. And then he fucking asked me to send him a picture.

Excuse me? Who the fuck do you think you are? Just… fuck you.

He kept feeding me bullshit such as “missing you” and “thought you might want to talk to me” and “when are you back?” And despite my saying no to sending him a pic, that didn’t stop him from asking me three more times.

Guess now I know what he really wanted.

But now that I’ve finally heard from him… I’m over it. His texts only managed to leave me feeling insulted and offended. He never even texted me after that to apologize or at least to pretend he wasn’t only after one thing and one thing only. But that’s okay.

That’s okay because ever since then I don’t think about him nearly as much. And when I do, it’s okay. I’m okay. I’m just looking back fondly on some good memories for what they were – lovely times that are now in the past. It’s as if all it took was to hear from him once more since that’s what I never got in the first place. Unfortunately, hearing from him cast him in an unfortunate light – he just seems like an ass now.

And so I am free.

I’m not saying that I won’t see him again when I go back. I know myself better then that by now. Honestly, I probably will end up seeing him again when he asks me to. I don’t know what that means or how I’ll feel then or what will happen.

I only know that right now I am free and I only have him to thank for that. So, thank you – truly and gratefully.

The Invitation

You studied me in the dark.

I could feel your eyes boring into my skull

daring me to turn towards you.

 

“I don’t think you can stay here tonight,” you said.

I’d been gazing off into the unadulterated darkness

following the silhouettes of unknown things with my eyes.

 

Empty picture frames leaned against the wall,

a knocked over lamp lay on its side.

A mountain of dirty sheets and blankets and clothes

that loomed tall,

jeering at me from your closet.

 

They had known the intimate design of your body

and felt its warmth far more than I ever had.

 

This was the first time I’d been invited into your room,

after all.

 

“Come on,” you said.

taking back your arms and getting ready to go.

 

As you slipped back into your shoes you were already withdrawing.

I knew that by the time we walked out the front door

you would be back to your old, impenetrable self.

 

It hadn’t been my idea to stay in the first place,

so why did I feel as if I’d lost something?

Dear self: Sit that fat ass down and write

Alright. So I made this wordpress because I wanted to get back into writing… get my groove back you could say.

(If you can ignore that terrible attempt at being somewhat funny then please do read on).

Anyways, I’ve been making way too many excuses about why I haven’t been writing at all lately.

Saying it’s because I have work all the time and I’m tired just doesn’t cut it anymore now that prom season’s over and I can literally hear crickets now that the hordes of customers in the form of previous classmates no longer swarm to the Men’s Wearhouse I work at this summer. But really. I only work part time and my hours have been cut so I only work around 20ish hours a week give or take… which is only 3 or 4 days. Which is nothing.

I’d honestly rather be working instead of having too much time on my hands to be unproductively lounging around my house, getting fat or trying to convince people to actually hang out with my bad self.

And it’s not for lack of things to say either because believe me I have plenty of things racing through my head at all times, good and bad, that I want to get out and write down… but then I don’t. So what the hell is that?

I know a part of it is just pure laziness. But I also know a large part of it is intimidation. I want to write but I want to like what I write and therein lays the problem. I’m intimidated by an empty, white blank page (insert lyrics of the Mumford & Sons song of the same name here). I guess it could be worse… I could be intimidated by bees or my misery inducing thoughts or the ghosts of my past… oh wait.

I took an intro to creative writing class this past semester at school (that’s another story in and of itself) and I learned some useful things that I actually took to heart. Or at least made a mental note to take to heart. I learned that the most important step in writing and wanting to becoming a better writer was a simple one – just write.

I know that sounds incredibly obvious and stupid. But you just have to write. Everyday. No matter what it is (lists of things to do, love letters, hate letters, brown nosing emails to your professors, whatever) you just need to get into the habit.

Writers, or people in general, are intimidated by other writers. By the books and novels and poems and writings of other people that are already out there. They’re intimidated because they think that writers just sit down and are able to immediately call into existence beautifully constructed sentences and story lines as easily as we mere mortals stir our coffees in the mornings. But this isn’t the case and it certainly isn’t true.

Writers have to work for it. They have to go through endless drafts and revisions in order to finally get that perfect book or paragraph or fucking sentence that can evoke the right emotions or express their innermost thoughts that can’t be put into words as accurately as possible. It takes time – days, weeks, years.

And most importantly, it takes sitting that fucking ass down and getting down to business. Just. Write.

I meant to make this post a short one where I apologized for not writing and saying how I was going to post something old just to show how sorry I really was. But then it became this long winded rant like post. So, see? Just making myself sit down and at least semi-concentrate really did make it easier.

Once you start writing it gets a little less scary every time. Once you start writing you may find that it gets hard to stop.

…..But I really was serious about posting something old that is hopefully semi decent, so stay tuned.

My sarcasm should probably calm the fuck down… or not.

I’m very sarcastic.

No, I’m not a bitch. I know that was probably the first thing that popped into your head when you read that. But no really, I swear I’m not a bitch. I’m actually a very nice person but my sarcasm can sometimes get out of control.

Anyone who knows me even semi-well knows this. This is especially true for my closest friends because they’re the ones who have to deal with my onslaught of cynicism, ridicule and general contempt for everyone and everything on a daily basis (sucks to be them).

Alright let’s get something straight here – I don’t actually hate everything and I definitely don’t hate anyone. I do, however, get easily fed up with peoples’ general stupidity and my cynicism and bitterness are just things that have built up over time. It’s something I can’t really help at this point in my life, as they’ve grown out of my past experiences… and I guess I just always had it in me in the first place.

I’m usually not super sarcastic when I first meet people… or at least I try not to be because I’ve learned by now that this just scares people off and leads to them placing me under the category of ‘bitch’ or ‘intimidating’ which is yet another way of saying ‘this girl is a major biatchhhh.’

I also unfortunately had to learn this the hard way. Take for example my roommate this past year when I was just a wee college freshman… my roommate didn’t understand the concept of sarcasm (I’m not entirely sure how she went 19 years of her life without ever running into someone sarcastic but whatever… she’s from Jersey) and thought everything that came out of my mouth was serious for a good month. Of course, she told me this months later when we’d already become good friends but I still felt terrible. I can’t believe she thought every little snarky side comment or saucy remark from me was true!

As she later told me, she was intimidated the fuck out of her mind and was a little scared of me and as a result was scared to really talk or even say that much in fear of my remarks which I probably thought were funny. Damn, I never knew I could have that kind of effect on people. Well, ok, I only vaguely knew. But in all honesty, I think a lot of the shit that comes out of my mouth, especially when I’m being sarcastic, is funny. Not haha over the top funny but in a dry manner – I guess that’s just my brand of humor, although I do admit that the sarcasm can be a bit much at times.

God, I hate to talk about myself so much especially since I shy away from doing so in real life… but hey this is my blog, and if I can’t talk about myself an inordinate amount here, where the fuck else can I?

Anyways, I bring up the issue of sarcasm because one of my coworkers, KD, told me today “it’s a little bitchy to be honest” when I asked her if she really thought I was being mean or serious when I thought I was just joking around (joking around to me involves a lot of sarcasm).

Well, okay then. She doesn’t actually believe I’m being serious or mean… she just thinks I’m a bitch. Fucking great.

“Is it just a comfort thing? Is that how you show you’re comfortable around people?”

Uhm. Bitch, you don’t know my life.

I’m not entirely sure why her comment bothered me so much but, like most things, I just turned it around into a joke and laughed at it. I’m not really sure why she decided to call me out on my sarcasm since I don’t feel like I acted any differently then I normally do. Yes, now that I know her better and am more ‘comfortable’ around her, I probably am a lot more sarcastic then I was at first. But to my credit I did warn my coworkers about my sarcasm when I first started working almost 4 weeks ago because they’d told me I was so friendly and bubbly and approachable which isn’t untrue (bet they don’t think that now).

True, I was in a bad mood at work yesterday but I was fine today. Actually, it was KD who was in a pretty shit mood today and being bitchy. And not in a joke-y I’m overly sarcastic way but in an actual lousy funk. I’m really not sure why I’m bothered by what she said since she’s self described as ‘moody’ and gets easily annoyed by our coworkers/customers so much more then I ever do. This is also the same girl that told me she’d made a previous coworker (the one who quit a few weeks ago making it possible for me to secure this job hollaaaa) cry. As she said today, she can be ‘a real bitch.’

I guess I’m honestly just tired of people who don’t even know me writing me off as a bitch because they don’t ‘get’ my sense of humor or sarcasm. I’m not saying that everyone thinks this or I’d probably hate myself even more by now, dear lord. But I feel like enough people do for me to be concerned (any number of people is enough people in this case) especially since I’ve always believed that people who act like bitches are, for the most part, bitches.

But I guess I can’t please everyone, right? And that shouldn’t be my job anyways. I should be myself and if that person is a bitch, then I should embrace it, no?

So basically this little writing exercise probably made me out to be a bigger bitch then I’m even close to being and made it seem like I care too much about what others (such as bothersome coworkers) think.

Excellent – my intentions exactly.

So much self loathing right now.

A word on horoscopes… and intimacy?

I’m an Aries. As the first sign of the zodiac, we like winning and coming in on top. We fiery individuals crave equal parts attention and alone time. We’re social butterflies, but hate it when people get too clingy or needy and we’re stubborn to a fault… imagine a ram butting its head over and over against a brick wall when there’s easily an entrance just a few feet further down the line. At our best we are passionate, independent, and daring. At our worst we are temperamental, reckless and self-involved.

All of this is according to a quick Google search I did but it pretty much fits me to a tee. I like getting attention (hey, who doesn’t?) but I value my me time just as much. I can’t stand when people get clingy – it’s a major turn off. I’m ambitious and competitive in things I care about but I put myself into a lot of unnecessary situations where I’m bound to get hurt (psychically, emotionally, etc.).

When it comes down to it, I don’t know how much I really believe in the whole horoscopes thing. I feel most of it could apply to any general reader and if you read something that you want to believe about yourself you’ll probably end up making that connection anyways no matter how big the stretch. But with that being said, I’ve always believed in it when applied to myself. A little backwards, I know. Trust me, I know. 

I bring up horoscopes now because about a week ago my friend was reading zodiac facts on twitter and came across one that basically said “Aries are heart breakers.” I scoffed at this of course. “Please, looking at the facts (and the past) I’m pretty sure I’m not the one who did any heart breaking,” I said. Which is perfectly true. I’ve never been in love or even close, but I’m usually always the one who gets hurt in all of the romantic or unromantic ‘things’ I get myself tangled in.

“Well, wait. I can kinda see how that’s true even for you,” said my best friend G. Um, what? Please explain further because I have no idea what kind of fucking alternate universe you’re living in right now.

According to her it’s because of the way I’m afraid to be vulnerable and intimate with people. Which is true and always has been, but I’ve changed a lot in just the past year. I like being intimate. I crave it, actually. But then I realized that’s a lot different then really being vulnerable.

I’ve laid in bed completely naked with someone who I was curious about and interested in but not in love with after sex. Sex in and of itself can be very intimate of course, but in this case it wasn’t really. Like I said, we weren’t in love. I don’t even know how much in ‘like’ we were if at all. But we just talked.

To me, this was the intimate part and I felt very vulnerable then and maybe I was. But looking back at that ‘thing’ and all of my ‘things’ with people in the past I feel like I’ve always been holding back. I’m myself and don’t try to be anyone different, but I still feel like I’m acting or putting on airs. I have a wall up without even trying… I don’t know how big of one it is, but it’s big enough to matter.

I would analyze it more like most other things about myself… but it’s hard when I can’t fully explain it or find the right words to even try.

So while it may be true that I’ve never broken any hearts, the fact that I can’t get rid of this always present wall.. that I’m always holding back… these things can be dangerous. To the other party or as it usually goes… to myself.

The Last Night

Maybe it’s ironic the last time I saw you two nights before you were drunk. That after downing shots and guzzling liquor, you thought of me and wanted me then. All I got out of it were your drunken texts and calls. You got pieces of me. You got satisfaction. You got your dick sucked for over an hour.

I got bruises. Four of them that formed a ring: two on my collarbones, two on my shoulders. That was the testimony to my night. But the only one I could explain was the bite mark on my shoulder that had bloomed into a flower like contusion. You got to use me, bend my body to your will. I was glad to do it.

Maybe it’s ironic that two nights before, you fell asleep. You didn’t mean to, you were supposed to drive me home. I remember looking at the clock on your TV, it was 6:38. It had been four hours of you, you, you. You taking whatever you wanted violently… bed shaking, legs quaking, chest heaving. Me bending backwards, forwards, over the bed for you. Your hands guiding me.

Until finally I said enough. You were supposed to take me home; it’d never been this late before. Close, but never this late. You fell asleep with your back turned towards me. I regretted de-spooning myself from you… regretted getting up and pulling your arms from around me. Regretted moving my arm out from under your head. But you didn’t try again. You fell asleep with your back turned towards me.

I tried to take up as little room as possible. I was cold, but the blanket was under you. Curled up, I became so small. I used myself for warmth when really it was your warmth I wanted. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is waking up. You asked me if I was ready to go. It was 8:20.

I looked like pure shit. My hair was a mess of tangles… we had tried to smooth it out the night before with your gay roommate’s brush but that did no good. My make up was all gone because you had fucked it all off the night before. Mere hours ago, really.

We rode in silence. “I don’t want to go to work,” you said. It started in 20 minutes and I didn’t feel sorry. “Do you have class today?”

“Just one,” I answered. It started in less then an hour. “But I feel like I won’t go.”

All this polite conversation – useless.

When you pulled up and stopped your car, I turned to you not knowing what to expect. I did this every time. But this time you kissed me. Four times. On my cheek, down the side of my face. God, that smile. I could forget myself completely with that smile. I could let it screw me over, not just screw me.