moving steady to forget

i get caught up in thinking that things don't exist which i don't write about. they are only true if i remember them. and i will forget someday but maybe i will also read about it. it is about filling out my life. i see the years behind me and they are so formidable. i can't imagine them as true and lived because i don't remember. the more i write here, the more of my life is the truth. the more exists. even the things i don't particularly want to put into words.

a few weeks ago, a wednesday i believe, i was in the coffee shop i've come to frequent over the summer to read. it had been about a month since i left kelly for a while. four weeks, maybe a few days more. i thought it a good time to return but i didn't know what to say. thought it would be better to text, a more restrained conversational setting. we texted a little while i read and i was surprised, as i always am, at how she would tell me how much i mean to her. how she'd say i didn't fuck anything up. how she'd tell me our relationship was unconditional to her. i love that phrase, even if i don't quite understand it from her. i told her i didn't understand her, why she would continue to put up with me like she did. she wrote back that she liked me but she was "totally in love with dave."

as it happened, i saw the entire message without reading it. i looked away from my phone, quiet in my chair. held it in my hand, open. looked back to read it and looked away again. a shock, though it shouldn't have been. i hate that when i leave, especially when she's with him, that i know they will just get closer and closer. and it happened. i sat there.

i read a paragraph or two but closed my book. she texted again, saying "i'm sorry." i sat there. after a while, i discreetly packed up and moved to my car. i sat in the driver's seat facing the highway, the shop in my rearview mirror. sat with the keys in my hand and the sun setting somewhere behind an overpass. watched all the cars pass, the people arriving and leaving, milling around inside, ordering drinks. looked at my key, the little laser-cut pathway through the center. how it matched itself properly on the other side such that it didn't matter how you held it. i didn't say a word. an hour since she texted before i started the car to leave.

that happened. i didn't cry although i felt like it a lot. mostly just in shock. strange how such an abstraction of a girl. such an idea, less a warm body, could do this to me. i didn't speak to her for a week and a half. she would write me once or twice. another text. a message on aim. another a few days later. regrets she'd had. how she hated how she'd done this to us. i agree, it fucking sucks. i'm almost to blaming her instead of me. i know i'm not strong but i know the root of all evil in this post-eden is her and dave. maybe, just maybe, i deserve to be angry.

we spoke some the next weekend, just texting. i sent her a package because i didn't know how not to. she wrote me, asking me how i could send her this, which helps her through finals so much more than dave's "box of goodies" and how could i do this? and how did i know? i wrote her back simply that... you are me. it's not fair she said. hah, yeah. you think? she would vacillate it seemed. simultaneously of the idea that "i want your shoulder" and "we never had a chance." i never knew quite what to think. i hate that feeling.

that was a week and a half ago. she wrote me once asking if i thought we'd ever meet again. i didn't know i said. i thought we deserved it. i didn't mention that any meeting would likely be dictated by circumstances. that i can't see myself visiting her if she's with dave. i don't think i could handle that. she never was online anymore or writing me either. i figured for sure she's gone home. she's with dave and has forgotten all about me. i wrote her one morning. saying that remembering meeting her a few years ago was like trying semi-successfully to recall a dream and that she was so much less than a real living girl to me and that it made me sad. she wrote back simply that it was sad and maybe we'd meet someday. it made me angry. the insincerity was something awful. and maybe i shouldn't accuse her of something like that but i could feel it, immediate and painful. a response from the hip, barely considered and likely shrugged off. we haven't spoken since then.

i didn't mention but i had a dream featuring this pair a few nights ago. i was in a building in nyc. we were going to meet like we'd been dreaming of for a long time. i was nervous and she was in the next room. we were to meet very soon when i heard someone enter her room. it was dave, unexpected. he had people with him. they all retrieved instruments and began to play music. it was an easy guitar melody, like a rhythm to a song that never grew or diminished, in my dream it was simply dave's theme. i hated this and felt beaten again. i tried to escape, left the building and walked around the block but the sound followed me wherever i went. i returned to where i'd started and tried to mingle with people i knew, tried to surround myself in the friends i had, to drown myself in their conversations and attentions. around that time, i sensed people entering. it was kelly and dave, come to meet and mingle. i dropped my eyes, without a word gathered all my things and brushed past them to leave. i never once looked at them or looked back.

one fast move or i'm gone

i've been in bed, mind racing. too many thoughts tonight. i need to mail danielle tomorrow, tell her i miss talking with her, fill her in on all the things we never were able to converse about on the phone. about kelly and our confusion. all the turbulence.

i need to write kelly. i compose letters, lying there. just when it's least convenient to write. i need to send a postcard. maybe not to her house... maybe to nyc. so it can be naked and hopefully without prying eyes. maybe she will just find it when she goes back to the city. lots could change between now and then. lots but likely little.

...

"you're far too ever-present in my life, still. i can refuse to think of you, ignore your name in print, choose to file away our situation until i don't care anymore. but there are too many reminders. i was looking at photography and it sent me dreaming, all plans and ideas. who else would i think of but you? kelly in a darkroom. it's those that hurt the most. the ones that are the most you.

i received in the mail today a record i'd ordered. i sat down when i was alone and opened the package. closed my eyes to crack the case, to smell the disc. it's what i do. there were a few things written on the face. the first, near the bottom, was "fstop music" with a little scribble of a camera. my heart sank.

i regret in a terrible way that i was so tangled up in danielle last spring that i didn't realize how dearly i depended on you. that i didn't understand how much you meant to me (and what you could mean to me) until i started losing you. that i never considered how badly i would miss you when you were gone. but why should i? you were one of the people i had an irrational belief in. no matter what, we would be ok. no matter what, we'd always be close. i don't feel that way anymore. i can hope and pray but i cannot be convinced. i know myself too well.

it scares me and hurts me but i don't know how to replace you. i'm not saying we're through but... we have barely spoken in over a month. i remember when we would talk every single day and i miss it. i know it's usually me but it's also you. you tell me how much i mean to you and you act confused about your relationships but i just don't believe it anymore. what i see is my soft decline in your life. what i know is that dave has slowly superseded me, forced me to the fringes. that when you can have him, there's no room for me.

it scares me because i don't know how to find someone so easy to trust and believe in as you."

a recollection

i'm forcing myself not to look. i came back last night, to kelly. i just haven't heard from her since. expected a message when i woke this morning. thought of it first thing, heart skipped a beat. nice way to start one's day. played it cool to myself, didn't rush getting downstairs. stopped for chapstick like always. and opened the computer to... nothing. she was online even. what a world i live in, waiting for messages online. she was there and then she was gone. i waited all day and she never showed. saw she had returned tonight but still no dice. maybe i should write her? she's probably busy. maybe she is ignoring me as well. i wouldn't blame her. i'm an awful friend. i will write her tomorrow, a text maybe. i can't find any good words right now.

i'm writing by the light of the christmas tree. i love having a tree around. no ornaments on it yet, just strung with lights and sitting off my right hand shoulder like a missile prepped and ready to launch. or a japanese office building half filled, late into the night.

i cut on the fire earlier, pulled over the little red and white checkerboard fabric bench with the wood frame to sit on. it's a layout i use quite frequently, probably every day during the cooler months. i walked over and got some chapstick and noticed it as i was returning. how familiar it all is. checking all the time for a message on the computer. i would have guessed, if you'd asked me six years ago, that i would be better off somehow by now. that i would have grown or changed myself around enough such that i wouldn't still be entertaining such situations. six years ago i would be sitting in the same spot on the same bench. i'd have the door to the sunporch, over on the left, open just so - and held with a chair - such that it would reflect to my eye the computer screen on the porch. it was a beautiful and simple geometrical arrangement. i can't remember when i came up with it but it was brilliant. from the screen, off the glass of the door, to me. i could sit in front of the fire watching television and glance over without getting up to see if jessica had arrived and left me a message. moved on? not quite.

the only other way i would set it up was if she was away and i'd program a sound - always a cow's moo - to sound if she returned. that moo sound will still give me the chills if i hear it. funny how those things stick with you.

i wrote danielle the other night, a long letter going on about my whole situation. about the loneliness and depression and self-loathing that i've become so cozy with. i forgot to mention the martyrdom... how i felt better being away from kelly for such imaginative reasons. like that i couldn't possibly be but a burden to her, one that i'd so graciously relieved her of in my absence. that i could feel - without even talking to her - how i was slipping out of her life. this is the last thing i want, really, but i could tell, somehow, that she was happier without me around. that i knew this without knowing it and it was keeping me away. i forgot to mention all that.

i remember writing a long time ago - freshman year probably - a retrospective about my time with jessica in high school. all my memories of her in one long post. i haven't and am not about to do the same thing with kelly but it reminded me... the first time i spoke to her was on the floor in the lounge of luter dorm at wake while she was talking to ka. i kept stealing the computer or something or telling her what to write and finally she left to run back to her room and told me to talk to kelly for a bit. so i did. she told me that we were like the same person, her and i. she might have even said we'd be perfect for each other, i can't remember. i do remember talking about belle & sebastian. i think i thought it would impress her. i knew she was into music. i still have two files ka forwarded to me, from ben folds' songs for silverman lp. ones she'd played on a record player and recorded for me. i can hear all the crackles and blips. i treated them with reverence back then and still have probably only listened to them once. i remember looking up her picture when i got back to my room and thinking how interesting it was. how i wasn't immediately attracted to her above all others but that she was someone i should get to know. today it's one of my favorite pictures of anyone. ever. things change without telling me.

i think sometimes now about songs she sent me, mixes we make for each other. i stop to consider like i never did before about what if anything they mean. when did she send this? was it during the time she felt so strongly over me? did she choose this song with me in mind? i don't know that i've ever come to any real conclusion over this but i do wonder. i do choose my songs more carefully now.

good luck and goodbye

a letter

i thought about writing tonight. sitting in the bathtub with murakami, wondering about the character he'd written of, his life, my life. i wanted to write like that, to sit out in the world somewhere and write words. i thought that if i couldn't get a real job or get into a real school that i would just write a novel and it would be wonderful. i don't really know why or how that should work but that it would be nice if it would.

i thought of writing here first but got caught up in other things... planning for fantasy soccer, watching television, playing guitar. i was playing beautifully tonight, quiet leaning back against the edge of the table, capo three. mountain goats, bright eyes, josh ritter. once upon a time songs. singing a little bit, quiet. my mother came downstairs saying she couldn't sleep and could i stop. i could. it led me back here, songs in my head.

i didn't feel like writing so much anymore... or i did, just not here. i wanted to write someone. i wanted to look over at my phone and there be a text message waiting for me. no such thing. i thought i would write danielle. she would want to hear all this, or at least would listen. i wanted to write kelly because i miss her so goddamn much. i can't write either of them, much as they mean to me. they are at home with their boyfriends, their chosen ones who aren't me. they don't miss me and i know it. i think that bothers me.

i think the longer i stay away - it's been almost three weeks since i've spoken with kelly... wow - the more i realize that i still think of her all the time. that there's only so transparent she can become, only so little matter that she can vaporize to. her memory, the idea of her, is a puddle that i can't avoid stepping in. i slip and fall in it. i'm surrounded by it. when i leave she evaporates, forms a little raincloud, and drizzles. what i mean is that, as far as i can tell, she won't leave me alone. always follows me around in the background. i'm not sure how much good staying away really does. it certainly does harm. i don't come back because it's almost thanksgiving and although i could really use a friend right now, i can't bring myself to come back when i know she's with him. just can't do it. i hate that.

i know i'm missing her life and i hate that too. this whole absence thing, while she sticks with me, makes me believe to some great extent that i'm just fading from her completely. that because she hasn't written me without reason, hasn't texted or mailed, even though she said she wouldn't because she knew i was leaving for a reason!, that it means somehow that she's forgotten me or figured out how to live without me. i know this. maybe if dave wasn't around it would be a bigger deal to her but then again, if dave wasn't around i'd be there so... so.

danielle's the same way. i know i shouldn't be lonely or sad because of her and mostly i'm not. it's just that with kelly gone i shift towards her and now that rob's there with her, i feel like i've temporarily lost her as well. i can't buy a friend these days. i text and no one writes back. i leave friendly messages and receive nothing in return. it's... unsettling. not encouraging. i feel like a leper sometimes, you know? and i know it's probably not what i think, that there are reasons i can't quite find anyone, that everyone's probably really busy and all... but, being raised in the sciences, i can't ignore the empirical evidence. and the evidence does not look good.

of course, it doesn't help that i've voluntarily cut out two of the best friends i have. i'm sure i don't need to point that out, though. i'm sure the irony is pretty evident to everyone by now.

...

what was it i meant to write to danielle? something about loneliness to be sure. i really don't know if i could write that though. i don't know who i could tell about that. i feel so damn guilty about complaining. saying out loud how i hate myself and how lonely i am makes me, well, hate myself. i'm all too aware that this isn't attractive and if being attractive to someone isn't just the most important thing right now, well i just don't know.

ok, so i'm lonely and insecure and i need someone to explain it all to but the people i can talk to most i've left and i can't talk about it anyway because i feel guilty about being a downer and making myself unattractive in their eyes. vicious cycle, no?

i think what i need most is something new. i know i've said that before. i need some contact, some flesh. even innocently. i miss the feel of another person. the smell, the warmth. i want to share a bed with kelly or danielle more than most anything. i just want to wake up and not be alone. it's hard to start a day alone... almost as hard as it is to spend a day alone or end a day alone.

and yet... somehow i keep going. i keep starting and spending and ending. my worthless life. accomplishing nothing. playing songs on guitar which is basic plagiarism. reading to absorb ideas which aren't mine. writing, and one might say hey! that's original!, but really, i remember senior year high school english class. i remember post-modernism. i know i'm not all that fantastic, all that spectacular. i know that all the characters i use have existed for centuries. i know all the words i use have been written before. i know my ideas aren't original. i know my feelings aren't individual. i know i'm typecast and trite. i know my cosmic worth hasn't been proved anymore than that of a stillborn child. my mark on the world nothing more than a finger smudge on a windshield.

...

encouraging, isn't it? i've got a knack for that.

ahhhh how my basest and most selfish instincts won't leave me alone. i hope they break up, all the couples of the world. i want to be the only guy with a girl. half of the only set. the only want and wanted. the only miss and missed. the only love and loved.

the one and only.

METEORS!

i made a rum and coke tonight for the first time in months. i used pepsi. i poured some rum in a tervis blind but there was only a little left so i dumped it in as well. half a big tumbler of rum... topped it off with pepsi and recycled the bottle. the leonids are tonight. well, the peak is actually tomorrow but it is starting tonight. i will go outside in a little while to see what i can see, maybe attempt some photos if it is wonderful enough.

i discovered earlier this summer that looking at the stars makes me lonely. i think it stemmed partially from taking photos of the stars. photos remind me of kelly, which makes me lonely. i also have a vivid imaginary feeling of looking at the stars with someone. if it's someone, then it's someone special. if it's someone special then it's kelly (or danielle). so i get this feeling of watching the stars with kelly and then i look around and she isn't there and i'm all alone so i feel lonely. all out of nothing. a while back i stood outside watching the orionids and it was much worse. meteor showers are meant to be enjoyed in pairs. eyes searching, fingers pointing at the sky, motioning even though you know that perspective means that your finger won't point to the same place to them as it does to you. only need to move your faces closer for it to work though. don't think it hasn't occurred to me.

but the leonids are tonight and i haven't spoken with kelly in a week and a half and i miss her. i'm texting danielle, which is wonderful but also lackluster with the "without" of something better. is this all i have? texting a few times a week? seems unfair. i told her that. she said she misses me too. i told her how meteor showers make me so sad, so lonely. that i miss people that i never really had, like memories i never made. i know she didn't know what i meant but she told me that my words were so poignant and thoughtful. i wondered what use that was when she was dating another guy... i'm prone to wonder those things.

i wrote amy the other day and it took her a few days to write back but she did. said that she felt like a horse girl (which i thought was hilarious, having known so many of them...) and said that horse girls become nuns someday. i felt like telling her that pretty girls aren't allowed to complain but i haven't. i feel like a horse boy myself. like a leper. it's a tough feeling to swallow.

but i haven't spoken with kelly in a week and a half. well, almost. i hadn't spoken with her in a few days when she wrote me to tell me her hard drive had crashed and that she was sorry for being gone and that she would be back soon. i asked her was it a bad time to tell her i was leaving? and she asked what i meant. i told her i had to take a break from her and she said she was sorry and that she would be here when i returned. i do miss her. i just think about her too often, love her too much. and when i think of her i think of dave and i think of them together and how she loves him and is happy with him and i can't handle that.

when i go away for weeks i stop feeling it so much. i'm happier but mostly from being less sad... if that makes sense. it's not so much the positive as it is less of the negative. i've realized she is like the sunshine, kelly. i can be a person and be happy when the sun is shining on me and be sad when it's cloudy and rainy or i can be fish in the deep sea and never having known the sun, not be worried with it either way. so which is better? fish or human? great happiness/crushing sadness or marginally blissful ignorance?

i wonder why it is that i can't stop thinking of her? i suppose i have partially given up on my juvenile ideas of girls. i find her in song lyrics now... two have been echoing in my mind for a while now:

"one thing i know, it goes like this. when i'm down and out it's you i miss." - sondre lerche

"you'll always hold a place in my heart. loving you, it hurts so much." - blair

i just requested the blair song on wknc today and they played it for me. i looked up at the sky in the truck and said "thank you knc". it's true though. when i'm lonely, it's because of her. when i daydream, it's for her. when i imagine laying on my back porch, bundled up in the frosty air, watching meteors in the sky, it's next to her. we would be lying close enough to touch up and down. body pressure everywhere and it would be lovely. maybe she would tilt her head in the crock of my neck. exploring the mysteries of the universe and each other. that sounds corny and i apologize but it's my imagination. i want to visit worse than anything but i can only see it ending in disaster. there would be the immediate realization that nothing i can do will tear her from dave's grasp and the death of hope would be swift and yet merciless as i would have to spend the entire trip letting it bleed, knowing i have lost but without the opportunity to accept it in dignity and peace. i know that, terrible as it sounds (and is), that even though she is probably my best friend, i couldn't visit her and sleep on the floor. i hate that like i hate a lot of things about our situation and my inability to deal with it. nothing too easy, never too easy.

i don't know when i'll come back to her. part of the reason i left was because she was planning to go back home sometime soon although now i can't particularly remember when that was. i don't want any part of her when she's at home. not when she's with dave. i had enough of that over the summer. the reminders do nothing for my sanity nor my disposition. i hate myself for how i react to these things. how i treat her like something i can't handle even though she's only good to me. how i treat her like a leper, which is how i feel most of the time and i hate it too. i love her and i want to enjoy her like people should enjoy each other. in a fair and just world. i wonder sometimes if this thing which i call bad luck is really something wrong with me.

...

i wonder actually how she is doing. if she thinks of me at all. i know it's vain to wonder such things but i do. it goes in hand with my old well-worn insecurities about loving. wondering if i only love her because she loves me. if... without provocation i would feel the same way tonight about her. but i do wonder if she suffers like i do. i want to tell her sometimes that pretty girls aren't allowed to complain, especially ones with boyfriends. i never do. but i wonder if she thinks of me. if she misses me. she hasn't written me or mailed me or sent me photos while i've been gone but she knows she's supposed to leave me alone. i can't help but think i've gotten myself caught too deep into the situation. if i've let myself go just a little too far, farther than she has. she's told me that she used to want me more than anything else, would have given anything to have been with me. i can't even appreciate that without hearing only the "used to"s and "would have"s. i'm sick like that.

i do wonder what she really thinks of me. i do wonder that if i visited what would happen. the possibility has always been on my mind that i would see her and spend time with her and speak with her and that it just wouldn't be there for me, the spark i mean. maybe not even for her either. and that we would just be great and wonderful friends and that's all and everything would be easier for it. but i do also believe that there's a chance that i could visit and it would be wonderful and i would love her even more but that she would be with dave still and i would just die to get away from the loss. but i still believe deep down that i would feel all those same feelings and she would feel the same way. for some reason love me in the same way. for some reason decide to choose me. and then it would all be worthwhile. i don't really believe that, though. i don't know how i could go on believing something like that.

the pains of being pure at heart

there's nothing really left to say. i'm writing for the first time in months so that's something. still tortured, no worries there. irony is my closest friend. i wrote kelly for the first time in a few hours tonight. i said hi and she said brb. i was going to ask her to cheer me up. i don't wonder why. who else is there? meg went to sleep. danielle? hell, we've never spoken online and it's for the best. i texted her yesterday or the day before about her grandfather and she never wrote back. everyone else? we're hardly friends. kelly is all i have and she is far away. she's all i have and she isn't even mine.

i have told her before how we are cyclical. i never really explained. how i grow used to her, grow close to her, grow happier with the two of us (like puzzle pieces), until one day she will mention dave and cut off the lights. dave. how he makes her really very happy. how hard it is to be apart from him. i won't ever meet dave. he has caused me more personal and immediate and heartfelt pain than anyone else on earth. more than hitler. more than hussein. more than anyone. i am reminded of what i certainly already know. that i'm second choice to everyone outside my family that i hold dearest. the consolation idea that it once was me she wanted more than anyone else. the following knowledge that over the summer, dave took her from me. that i never had a chance and probably never will.

more than anything, it feels like i've been fooled. an immediate shame and embarrassment at finding myself caught again, so unaware. lured into the same trap. found with my heart on my sleeve after i'd promised myself to be guarded, once and for all, same as always.

i thought it would be over by now. that i'd be strong enough to be friends. that just maybe i wouldn't care anymore. i don't particularly understand why she is still so special to me, why i still love her too much. i can't leave. if i left, who would there be?

even as i write, i'm auditing a mix to send her. it's wholly inspired by the deep-reaching effect she's had on me. it's nearly a tribute. anything for irony.

a month or so ago i was taking night pictures of the stars on the porch when i thought about light writing. i'd never tried it. it had been a while since i'd spoken to her then and i didn't know what else to write so i tried over and over and over writing with a keychain led, in the dark, in front of my camera.

"fstop i miss you"

"you are wonderful"

"good luck in nyc"

i will mail prints of those with the mix. i don't know what else to do with them. i think they will make her happy, though. that still matters to me. it's almost like if i make her happy enough i'll win her over. these thoughts taste like hemlock.

still, it feels good to write about it. i feel too guilty most of the time to talk to her about anything of the sort. i don't really want to snow on her parade. certainly she takes some of the blame - honest or not, she does have a tendency to lead me on - but mostly i just curse my luck. i'm probably a broken record anyway.

"if you go your own way, i will go my own way and we'll never speak of this again."

...

a few weeks ago i climbed into the truck and backed out of the driveway, headed to the gym. i noticed, at the back end of a three point turn, there was a bug on my windshield. a little fellow with black legs, shaped like a raindrop or the rear fin of an avant-garde 1930's car. i watched him, thinking he must fly away any second. he never did. i drove off down our street and he stuck there. i turned onto the roadway and crept up to 50 and he stayed glued to the windshield. i was becoming enamored with him. when i stopped at the first light, he started walking horizontally across the glass. i started again and he paused, realigned himself facing the rushing wind, and stayed planted.

i thought this was pretty clever. he'd certainly get blown off facing any other direction. i was pulling for him. at lights he'd walk about a bit before finally facing the wind again when i started off. i probably spent far too much time focused on him instead of the road. i wished he'd never leave. finally, i was pulling into the parking lot of the gym when he took off.

godspeed, little buddy. i'll miss you.

away

i wrote a little while ago (or thought... or both) that kelly had infiltrated my life quite totally. well, it's true. strange little things are happening. monday i was driving home from winston, going down 64 towards cary for a change. i was listening to before these crowded streets since i hadn't in a terribly long time and it was bringing back great swaths of memories. songs i hadn't heard in years and yet knew all the words to without thinking. years and years ago jessica told me that "the stone" was her favorite song on the album and it's always stuck with me because of that. well, that and because it's a particularly spectacular bit of music.

i was doing fine until that song came on. i tried to sing and invariably coughed, tears welled in my eyes, spilled over, and rolled down my cheeks. it was horrible and wonderful. i don't cry unless i'm in the car. during a sputtering and runny chorus, i looked up and was driving past Kelly Dr.

...

today at practice a few student newspaperpeople rolled out of a car and stood at the gate until coach george noticed them. he jogged over, yelling at his golden boy tyler to join him for the interview. once they rejoined the team for drills, the contingent stood watching, the reporters standing by the gate and two photographers wandering together around the outskirts of the field. the photographers were a guy and a girl, the former looking older and more confident and the latter sort of tailing him about, shooting from his hip. i was wandering about as usual, fucking around with loose balls and occasionally filling a few water bottles that looked squeezed-from.

what this all culminates with is that the girl photographer looked eerily like kelly. and i mean this only in the way that i can compare them from photographs and the synthetic/artificial three-dimensional idea that i've compiled from the last few years. but i had to stand and stare a little, always glance a little. i was texting her at the same time and told her. she wrote back and the girl on the field didn't answer her phone, meaning it wasn't a cruel joke. her body, hair, face, posture, clothes... the simple fact that she was standing with a camera to her eye. it all added up to this girl i've been writing for years. kelly surrogate, sent to make my life strange.

...

she still wants me to visit as well. i told her about kelly surrogate and how i should have made friends with her, maybe she'd like me as well. i said that might have been a good idea but that i'd prefer the real thing. she said i should come see her.

this surprises me a little. we have always agreed that time spent together would almost certainly sort things out a little bit. that's a good thing. better or worse, never the same. i always knew as well that i wouldn't quite want to see her as much if she were in a relationship with dave, which is now the case. wouldn't see the draw in going if everything were already decided. shallow as it sounds - we're supposed to be closer than close, yeah? - i don't want to fly to nyc to sleep on her floor. and yet, dave and all, she still wants me to come. friends tell me she's playing a game, trying to play two guys to get the best one but i know better. or... i feel like i do.

i know as well how i feel about it. all these things i forget. how i've really grown used to her photographs but still don't find her as pretty as danielle. how photographs can't really tell something like that anyway. i don't know how we will get on in person. knowing myself, i'd say there's a much greater chance of me being disappointed or just not feeling it quite the way i do here. but i have to know... and i also know that if i felt it, that reassuring spark that i can trust, that she would too. i almost can't conceive of a situation arising where i feel it and she doesn't. maybe i have too much faith in myself but that's how i read it. more likely, i'll not quite feel it and be comforted about the entire situation. won't be so heartbroke and lonely all the time. if she falls for me, i can deal with that. as long as i'm not the one hooked, i'm... well... off the hook.

as for now though, it's all mental exercises. just like much of what we do and say. she still isn't real, remains words on a screen. and it would be nice if that would change someday but someday is such an overused and near-death concept to me that i can't even hardly consider it anymore. it just isn't real.

don't you tell me how to run that race

fuck it, i'm done.

it's over and i've lost. for the first time all summer i'm aware that i've become #2. god, how that hurts. up until now it's been the situation to blame. now i've been usurped by a kid with a sailboat. this wouldn't normally be a big deal. i can deal with unevenly-weighted emotional situations. i have friends who have felt stronger about me than i did them and it was ok. it's fine and understood and not an issue. even the opposite. i love danielle to death but she's dating rob and that's ok because it's always been that way. it's understood and it's ok and we're both comfortable. this isn't ok. rarely ever are my sentiments matched by someone i care so much for. and to have that taken away... no, it's not ok. this changes everything and it's not ok.

what can i do? get angry? be mean? what now?

...

i had a dream just the other night. i've come to appreciate these because they're usually pretty accurate indicators of where i stand. much more stable than my waking state of mind, anyway.

i was visiting pittsburgh and attending a party, looking for people i knew there. the party was held parade-of-homes style in an old and cramped apartment building many floors off the ground. we were drinking and laughing and socializing while being led room to room through sagging doorways and peeling wallpapered of the tiny rooms. reminded me of a derelict urban and empty schonbrunn at the time.

i looked up and happened to see kelly laughing with some other people. she was wearing a cute hat and seemed happy. i turned the other direction and ran into ka, who i was probably trying to visit anyway. we greeted and i said shit, i forgot kelly might be here. she probably shouldn't see me hear, yeah? she agreed and the party was filtered into yet another room. i was wearing an old wfu hat so i moved with the crowd and kept my head down, back to her. i couldn't stop thinking how is it possible she wouldn't find me anyway? so awkward and tall. she never did...

...

friday night i was driving down to the beach with my dad. we had been watching a storm to the east (and ahead) of us all night as we drove and had caught up with it by the time we hit morehead city. crossed the bridge to atlantic beach and turned back to the west on the island. i had a mixtape in and beirut's "no dice" came on. he tried to say this was umm, some of that electronic music that you can dance to... what's the word? in my head i thought of how can i explain how this isn't techno but instead i reached into the backseat and found another, more recent mix. i changed them and sorted to track three, telling him that this was a dance song. black kids' "look at me (when i rock wichoo)" began and i turned up the volume to a level appropriate for a dance song.

the rain fell harder still and lightning occasionally lit the sky. the road, being low-set, was pockmarked with puddles of water both large and small, which were impossible to see with the rain as thick as it was. every few seconds the car would be jerked to one side or the other, myself left hanging on. lightning would strike a mile to our left or straight ahead a bolt would unzip the sky. i commented over the music how i never really saw the lightnings, only understood them and appreciated the after-images when they'd left. a bolt, in time with the music, struck somewhere extremely close and so bright that for the duration of its time i was enveloped, seeing not the road or my windshield or my gauges, the steering wheel, or my hands. every few seconds the car would try to wreck us in puddles. "crisis stop, we're all gonna drop." i knew, knew, for a few seconds that we were going to die.

...

kelly is in nyc so what happens now? she's in a relationship with dave and he's her number one and i'm still her best friend but there's no way i can phrase that where it doesn't feel like a consolation prize. how awful is that? it's only that i'm sick and tired of being the best friend. i love these people with all my heart and they love me back and go fuck their boyfriends.

we were skirting the issue of my companion depression and self-loathing friday over text when she told me that "she likes me and she loves talking to me." which... for the juxtaposition of "like" and "love" would have been a very nice text. as it stands... it's fine and wonderful, just never really what you want to hear. it's "let's be best friends." she told me last night that not too long ago she'd have given anything to be with me. again... not really what you want to hear. maybe then. not now. best friends.

she told dave about me. last monday. i should have pressed for more information but i had other things on my mind. this was bad news. in secret, i had a chance. if they were in a relationship and he didn't know about me, it was because she was hiding me. if she was hiding me, it was because i was important enough to be a disruption for the two of them. by uncovering me, she let me go. they're still together. i told her i could see it happening. her forming ideas, organizing emotions, drawing lines in the sand. she's got it in her head now that it's dave first and that's something i can do nothing about.

but she's in nyc. she's told me many times that she can talk to me like she can't him. so now that he's not around, what happens? likely, i'll continue to let the crazy out and sabotage everything. it's how i am. i can't stop it any more than the tides, not even in the name of love.

let go in small doses

i'm a daydreamer. irretrievable. sat in the bathtub tonight with a new book and got lost every other paragraph. mostly about 9/11. i am on one of the top floors, looking out the window. people are frightened but i'm not. not even sad. maybe happy, a little excited. i find some stationary and a juicy red pen on somebody's abandoned desk and start writing a letter. i never daydreamed what the letter would say, only that it was unafraid and loving and written in red ink. i thought of who it would be addressed to... first thought was kelly but i can't say why. maybe because she will be in nyc? but why not my family or danielle or... i don't know. blue sky breaking and entering the windows. i would seal it in an envelope and address it like a letter. in lieu of a stamp, i would write "airmail!" in all caps and underlined, giddy-like, and it would be the funniest and saddest joke ever. i don't know how the window would open, if i would have to break it or not, but the hole would be large enough. i would probably cross myself as i climbed up into it. i usually do on airplane runways or before long car trips. habit. i think i would smile as i leaped, flying isn't something everyone is allowed to do. smiling at the ground, hoping someone down there would see my face and feel better about everything else that fell around us. i would clutch the envelope to my chest and tuck in an attempt to flip on my back before impact, hoping to preserve the contents. the landing would be a concept, not as much something that happens to me in a way that i can understand, but the logical and physics-defined resolution to my story.

...

i also daydreamed i was visiting kelly, which was also not new at all. i'm curious as to what will happen when she moves to nyc if only because i doubt things between us will change much - unless she meets platoons of new and wonderful art kids (which will almost certainly happen... oh no!) - and i'm curious how things between her and dave will be affected. she's told me that i'm her best guy and that she can talk with me so much better than with him, really. and what matters when distance is (more or less) equally distributed? but they're "in a relationship" and, like most girls i know, that will weigh heavily in minds everywhere. it's an official thing. an accord that cannot disappear but must, through effort and intention, be dissolved. oh well.

and all that is based mostly in reality, which means it has no place in a post about daydreams.

in retrospect, i don't think i really got far with this one anyways. somehow i would have a job and be happy and it would be winter so i could wear coats. i'd arrive somehow and somehow get to her apartments. i think the rest had to do with city streets and cold winds and cameras and holding hands and sex, somehow. through effort and intention, i suppose.

otherwise, i'm sitting in a circle on the floor of the old guys' oaks apartment playing kings with whatever girls were there. darcy would point out that never had she ever had sex and i'd be the only one in the room to put down a finger. discreetly at that. yes, that type of clique. i'd then be grilled, for sure. i'd enjoy it inside but also wouldn't want to talk about it. i don't know what happens next.

...

she's online now and i'm refusing to say hello. this is how i am. difficult. she doesn't know yet how hard she will have to work for us to be close. i'm not happy about it either but at least i'm doing something. just ask joe biden, inaction is action too. i don't know why i do it. maybe i like the attention, not sure. she isn't biting tonight, though. i'm a little surprised but not quite hurt. i can convince myself most short-term situations that i am ok. perfectly ok. this is one of those times.

if anyone knows why i play the games i play, i'd love to know.

...

i've gone away. don't call me, don't write.

is this it?

it has been approximately one week since i spoke with kelly. well, that's all debatable. i texted her last around 7pmish last monday and mailed two postcards which either arrived saturday or, if the post office was feeling particularly malicious, earlier today. she wrote me thursday night (she misses talking to me!) and twice friday night (sorry if she hurt me, tell her and she'll stop talking to me... irony?). actually, in terms of real genuine and loving conversation, it's been probably eleven days or so.

wow. that is a long time for us.

it feels like it too. which worries me really... i lose my direction quite easily. i can't remember why i ever tried to temporarily cut her out. i'm very much concerned that things won't be the same when i come back... although i feel like one long conversation will set us back on track again. but wait, isn't the point for things to change? if we go back to talking and it's the same as before, won't i end up paranoid and painfully lonely, same as before? i don't want that. well, i miss the emotions. these days are filled with small disappointments for me. i realized today that kelly is my one really Good Thing. which, obviously, made me wonder why i'd choose to live without it.

i'm not even sure how successful this whole venture has been. sure i remember why i started. she went to a lake house for a few days with dave. god knows what they did there. i don't want to. much less think about it. i'm not that much better off, if any. i'm still lonely, but in a dull and bored way. how that compares to the rollercoaster pain of her presence is debatable. life is less interesting without her around. i can't decide which path to take either, in trying to change my thought process. do i think about her but consider her "taken" and try to accept that? do i try and not think of her at all? it's damn near impossible, that i've learned. i only think of her when i take a photograph, play my guitar, watch a film, listen to most songs, or lay in bed at night trying to fall asleep. each time i glance at my phone anticipating a text. each time i check my email searching for a message that doesn't come. there was an old country song where the artist mused about how he was handling his woman leaving him, finally admitting that he only thinks of her on "days that end in Y". it's like that.

if it broke my heart when we were talking - the constant reminders of her relationship with dave etc. - it breaks it now because of what i'm doing to her. i know she loves me. i know she doesn't ever intend to hurt me. i know it's just the situation. we'd spoken about it a few weeks ago. i offered to leave for a month or so if she thought the time to focus on dave would be beneficial to their relationship (i was honorable like that... if only for a little while). she said no way, she couldn't live without me like that. she asked if maybe she should leave for a month or so in case i could get past her and not be so hurt anymore. i said no way, i don't want to live without you. and here we have it...

i even tried to vilify her. how cruel can i be? convince myself that she wasn't right for me. not pretty enough... i couldn't ever come up with a satisfactory case against her. or, in any case, i'd have forgotten it by the next song.

so how can this all end? i don't quite know how long to stay away. if i fully bought into the spirit of the exercise - i.e. letting go, changing so that i wouldn't be hurt anymore - it could be a while. months i mean. i've realized in the last week that i'm not going to stop thinking about her for a while. and if i take all this time off and still let myself be hurt by it... what if i only succeed in damaging our relationship? the friendship, i mean. that would be terrible. i suppose i can only trust... i can only have faith in the two of us. i know we're close for a reason. i believe we will be close for a long time. i'm curious to see what happens when she moves to nyc. dave won't be there (well, neither will i... but she keeps asking me to visit). i suppose how things end - or not - between them will determine how things for us go.

in all honesty, i'm not altogether likely to visit if they're dating long distance. in fact, if they ever go far enough as to declare an official relationship, i can't know how i would handle it. i don't suppose i could keep acting the way i do. that's one of the reasons i've been lonely but not hurt. there's a huge void that hasn't been filled. we talked a lot. that's all empty space now. but at least i don't know all the nights she's with dave. ignorance is bliss (or something like it) as they say. what i meant to say last paragraph was that i don't even know how long i should carry on (this charade). another week? a full month? maybe just until i get to the beach this weekend? i feel like it should be an honest effort at changing. how do i ever change? i change much too slowly. can't change, can't let go. i feel like if i give up too soon - especially since she's only known of this plan since saturday or so... i presume - it would just be a failure. and mean to her as well... as if it isn't anyway.

so there's no good way out. no good escapes, no good windows or skylights.

"you're all i need... but maybe some faith would do me good."

nice dream, pieced together

i was angry so i left home. i walk in the door of the anderson household in fictionalized rural kentucky. i think the most interesting part of the dream might be when danielle first sees me but i can't remember. the house is filled with people... family i assume, and their own closer-thans. sisters everywhere. it's not a huge place, just a single level house in the country. i sit with danielle in the kitchen and when the door starts to open i know it's her father and i get up to introduce myself. even though i wasn't eating, when i shake his hand i realize my mouth is filled with peanuts which i crunch and try to speak through, only to say hi hello i'm brooks and i'm here to visit danielle. he seemed pleased with me.

i meet more people in the house, cousins and sisters and maybe a mother. danielle is excited, moreso than i ever remember, and smiling a lot. i have the feeling that rob is in the past and that my showing up at her home indicates some new and official understanding between us. it's a good feeling. we move through the crowded house and to the dining room, which overlooks a long sloping meadow sparsely populated with big old trees. it runs down a few hundred yards to a country lane and continues on down the other side into a forest. the sun is setting and fog is descending in the most mysterious and majestic manner. the entire landscape is awash in a shower of pink and yellow. there are animals grazing and mingling. deer eating some grass near some bears. a few hyenas are laughing and fighting. they are large with enormous heads... blue and black and gray spotted fur. tossing their heads back and trying to bite each other. there's a film crew ostentatiously recording the whole scene from close range. i point out the hyenas and danielle's mother worries out loud. she shuttles the children and the rest of us out of the room saying that if the hyenas saw us watching them, they would certainly attack!

danielle and i sat near the edge of the kitchen beside the stove and watched everyone mill about and the children playing on the floor and held hands perhaps and smiled even. people were beginning to leave. when the house was finally empty, she decided we should leave and walk around for a while, she could show me her favorite part of louisville. we left the house from the kitchen door and walked out and down the driveway to the road. i found us in a small town area, about to cross the street towards some shopping area. there was an incident with a man before we crossed that danielle dealt with although i can't for the life of me remember what happened. we go on across the road and walk past closed storefronts of names and types that elude me. we took a left and strolled past a few more buildings on the right and i saw a structure straight ahead. it was almost a tent... the sort of large covered enclosure you might find housing a public market on an island. no walls, just large wooden beams and awnings.

this area seemed mostly devoted to furniture... couches and sofas and chairs that were five or ten times normal size such that a few people could climb on them and relax at the same time. there were puppies and kittens roaming about for cuddling. we walk inside and towards the center before taking a slight right towards a big chair we can both fit on top of easily. i climb on and she returns around the corner where there was a father sitting on top of a couch reading with his young son beside him. the kid had two furr ball puppies by the collars and danielle wanted one of them to bring back to our chair. whenever she would go near him, though, he would cartoonishly jerk the dogs back close to him. i sat in the chair until i saw her walk around the corner towards me, puppy in hand. the kid stood on the corner with a sad face. we enjoyed the puppy and i looked toward a column in front of us with a computer screen displaying a blog of sorts. it had a name and it seemed that anyone at any of the stations in this tent could anonymously comment or post under topics such as "post a happy thought" or "what are your dreams?" it was filled with pleasant notes from happy, puppy-intoxicated loungers.

i was happy as well. you can imagine which part of the dream is to blame.

<3

we want to pass out in your yards

daydreams at night. i sat in the tub with a book in my hands a few minutes ago and closed my eyes, laid my head back to indulge a quick one. kelly and i, misbehaving. an extension of sorts from a theme of a week ago, a road trip. it would have to go west since we're in the east, she's in the north, and the south is too exhaustively explored. i'd have a job so money wouldn't be a problem. she would find time to take from school and i would take a week off from work. she could fly down and we'd take off on a friday night from winston towards nashville or some other spatter of light on the horizon. i didn't think hard enough to consider whether we would take highways or smaller roads. would the object be to make it as far west as possible or just to move, regardless of direction? we would drive when we wanted to, making ground and seeing whatever we felt for the first four days or so before turning around and heading back a different way.

there would be a tent and a sleeping bag or two in the trunk. we would find campsites when they were around, better to see the stars when outside the sprawling reach of light pollution. take photographs of the stars and of the flickering tongues of fire on each other's faces. when we were near a city, we'd scour the suburbs near sunset and find a suitable neighborhood, begging to pitch a tent in someone's back yard. walk to the door of one suspiciously paranoid american after another, trying to explain how we had nothing to sell, even our religion, that we only wanted whatever they wished to provide, be it food, water, a drink, a shower, or just the shelter of their property for the night. they would struggle to make excuses and we would wave it off, saying that it was fine. we were used to it. that we'd done this since north carolina and that we were usually turned away by five or ten cautious homeowners a night before finding someone willing to place enough trust in two dirty strangers with a volvo and big smiles.

before too long, we would stumble upon an old couple who would take us in. maybe offer us a room, nightcaps included. we'd sit around the living room fireplace with whiskeys and i'd play guitar and they would tell us about the summer of 1967 when the two of them took off and hitchhiked to san francisco just for the hell of it. with others we would gratefully be allowed to park outside the house and pitch a tent under a tree in the back yard. promising we wouldn't so much as look at the house and would be made scarce by 10am the following morning. so we would stumble about in the dark, singing songs to each other, planting stakes and folding plastic sheets in the shadow of the house from the harsh and unnatural light of the streetlamps. assembling poles and snapping clasps, erecting our little house for the next few hours. looking up, waving our arms around, squinting at the stars and scattered clouds and predicting the weather in our haphazard ways. cold enough for two sleeping bags or warm enough for one and a sheet? when we lay down we would close our eyes in accord with the dark or open the air vent and try to find constellations through the white mesh. talk in the dark, telling stories about our own youths, spent hundreds of miles apart. ideas of future plans, wondering how photographs will turn out and where we would be sixteen hours from now. and, when there's nothing else to say, describing to the best of our abilities the layouts of our bedrooms back home, moving each other's hands around in the tent space above our bags to illustrate what we couldn't find in words alone... marveling at the inevitable comparisons of those empty rooms to the tiny one we now fill nearly up.

and when all the new words putter dry, i would find a new rock or stick under my side of the tent that i hadn't noticed before and use this discovery as reason enough to shimmy over closer to the other side of the tent, greeted by giggles stifled to avoid waking the children of the neighborhood. same as every other night.

...

two weekends ago, on the fourth itself, i was riding with my family off the island, out north of beaufort, through the sticks and on a ferry boat, on towards oriental for the annual croaker festival. i was lonely, nose stuck to the backseat window i was bound to, scanning the inland coastal eastern landscape with not a person in sight. i lay in bed that night sorting through the memories, replacing my family and the car with kelly and cameras. there was a sign, wilting from under appreciation, advertising someone's knife, saw, and hatchet sharpening service, doubtlessly operating out of their own tool shed. i'd take it's photo with my imaginary nikon fe-1 with good black and white photo. it seemed suited for shallow depth of field with the meadow and treeline in the background. revealing nothing but the sign and the lonely space it occupied between here and nowhere.

a bit further down the road there sat what appeared to be an old store of some sort. there was a sagging sign above the door, dating from the fifties from the looks of it, advertising pepsi cola and also the country-sounding name of the store, strikingly cheerful even in death. the store itself was nothing more than dried and split wood siding and a roof that was rusted clear through in spots. i would stand in the woods to the right and frame the scene while kelly looked curiously up at the sign or drop the field to near nil and photograph the sign with her in the background, stepping cautiously and silently through the weeds, an anachronism in her own time.

...

then i woke up.

once i wanted to be...

it's buzzing tonight, the world, because of the alcohol i put in my drinks earlier. because of the email, automated and impersonal, kindly letting me know that novant health couldn't offer me employment at forsyth hospital. that i wasn't even invited for an interview. even after the strongly worded letter of recommendation. and the college contact who also held the position. she told me the doctors had received the letter and would call me when interviews start. i'm at the beach for two weeks and i'm the saddest i've been in a long time.

i sat in here earlier drinking with the television on and no phone for a while and couldn't see the black plastic latticework behind the keyboard for the white spots at the junctions.

i need to read and to talk myself silly but she's not here. my vacation is passing quickly. i track it based on our conversations. saturday night we texted until she didn't respond. she left a single message responding to an away that i left up just for her. we didn't talk for the rest of the day and i was lonely. monday i almost messaged her but decided not to. that night we talked for hours and i melted from resolved and honorable and atlas to her world to "letting it be"... wherein i try to be happy with whatever i get. unconcerned for dave or anyone else. nothing more, nothing less. she told me she was going to the camera obscura concert tuesday night with dave. said she felt like a traitor. she texted me once before she fell asleep and i responded with a "<3" and she knew what i meant. we didn't talk tuesday... but she texted me once from the concert. it was a picture of the band on stage and the text "when i told you i didn't love you, it was a lie." that's the last i heard from her. that's my vacation.

...

we set off yesterday morning for the usual intercoastal jaunt down towards swansboro. there were bombs in the sky. the dockmaster told us it was artillery fire over at the marine base up the waterway. you could feel it, like a demolition. i kept expecting it to hit me square in the chest like when the old press box fell but it never did. too far away. just the consistently varied background bursts that you felt in your soul more than heard. tiny explosions that you imagined more than knew. it should have been unsettling but it was horribly comfortable. i saw a wispy plume of black smoke to the east of us on the mainland. maybe i was born for a war zone...

i was lounging leaned back on the stern of the sea-doo as usual as we stole under the highway 58 and towards the town. i looked toward the sound of the bombs and saw lights in the sky. other boats passed but i stared at them. bright, hovering lights over the marine base. flares? planes? i don't know. they dropped slowly towards the earth or stayed still. once i lost one behind the treeline and there was another high up above. eventually they all disappeared and only the shock waves remained.

...

on the way back to the building on 58, we all looked to the north because the sky was dark and the clouds were burnt orange. the fire was acres wide.

every time you close your eyes

a cloud came off the sea tonight like the hand of god, dripping lightning bolts and pushing pink through an atmosphere of unease. it glowed rosy like the source of light itself and seemed to intimate wrath in the ironic way that only water vapor and electricity can. only... there were still children around the pool. and i wasn't afraid.

i texted fstop and told her there's lightning over the ocean and i don't like where we are heading and i don't know quite what to do. and it's all true and honesty is the risk i'm afraid to take. i adore it and especially in these situations where i'm sure it would bear me out as champion but it's too frightning. the hand of god fell dark below the illuminating horizon and dissipated. what i hate is that the honesty is leaving. she's been my best friend and now i can barely talk to her. used to be her i'd come to telling stories about danielle or georgia girl or whomever. complaints, sadness, irony, more. honesty. and it was ok. but now it's her and i can't talk to her about her like i'd talk to her about someone else. there's too much at stake. i'm mostly calculating and deliberate. cold, selfless, and composed. it kills me when she's not around for a day or two and every time i check my phone and it's empty.

i can't tell her this. i can't let her deal with me or protect me from sadness. she must be honest with me, must not rethink her words, must be eager and forthright. in order to prevent her from censoring herself, i censor myself. irony weeps. and i've killed the honest relationship in a quick blow. as if something else could be done.

i saw a picture of them this morning, her and dave. i knew it was real, i knew he was real, and i knew i'd find that picture someday. still a shock to the system though. still not a bright and wheaties way to start my day. the pool of loneliness seeps through my socks and puddles my toes. i do find it hilarious though, how we each have our foils in the other. there's just that glarind difference. she has dave with arms to fall asleep in and a mouth which does business even ignorant of the background music. i've got danielle who, while unbelievably sweet sometimes, is ultimately aloof, far away, and is dating another guy. not quite as jealousy-inspiring as i'd have hoped. still she's there. she texted me tonight without provocation, just to say she hopes i'm having a good day. i found out that i was the first to introduce her to camera obscura and that she's going to a concert soon - and not alone - although she wouldn't tell me with whom. told me she'd be thinking of me even moreso though. i can't decipher the happy from the sad anymore. the intimate from the lonely. i think they breed each other. i told her i didn't like where we were headed and that i don't quite know what to do and she never wrote me back.

last week i had a dream. there was a crowd inside a grade school classroom, all boys and girls my own age but we were grudgingly participating and not questioning why we were there. i saw fstop there, at the peak of our confusion, and she pretended not to see me. i agreed that it was better this way, less complicated, and so i pretended not to see her either. and so the dream ended.

the most poignant thing i remember from that dream is how she looked. it was recent, modern, unlike how she was when she last visited two years ago. i realized only later that this means i fabricated her in my subconscious... an entire person out of photographs. that's the saddest thing.

a few nights ago i did it again. i was wandering around a scantly-lit campus with a group of kids at night, looking for a film screening. when we found the classroom, it was full of giddy people and the chairs were taken so we sat on the floor. i noticed her sitting a chair ahead of me so i said hello and we had a quick, excited, and awkward reuinion. hugging from out respective positions, maybe kissing (i can't remember), and finally just holding hands. her voice was just fine. i fabricated it too.

roughly every ten minutes i glance over to find no new message on my phone. either she's got nothing to say to me or she's lost in her own real world. which means dave.

technology gets the best of me. this isn't the first relationship i've built on text messages and internet conversations. i hope it's the last. i haven't seen this kid in two and a half years but i feel closer to her than most anyone else. she's probably my best friend. and when i get down to the reality of the situation, i realize that what she is not... is a real person. she's not a girl with a big smile and breasts and smells and a striped shirt... she's words on a screen. the only variations are minimal: computer or phone, choose your medium. much like the dreams i've had. i told her a few weeks ago i don't know you at all. really. all the things you learn from being with someone. whether she sleeps on her back or her stomach or her side. what color her eyes are. how many earrings she wears. whether she cries when she listens to music alone in the car. what her favorite flavor of icecream is. the stories behind each scar or whether her freckles make constellations. that is important. and what do i have? words on a page. as for the rest? i've filled in the blanks myself. it makes it tough to have those honest conversations... about the stories and all the bad things. even if it's not directly contradicting any conscious preconceived notion that i hold about her, it challenges each line i've written in with pen... without permission even. that's not fair. it's not fair for me to do that to her and it's not fair now for me to reserve my honesty and true words in order to constantly navigate through every possible unhealthy reaction. most of all, it's not fair that she's so many hundreds of miles away.

i had a daydream while reading a few hours ago. we would take a few weeks off from school, jobs, and take a car and drive west. a wagon so we could fold flat the seats and unfurl sleeping bags and make a bed. we would pay for gas and unperishable food but not much else. drink water. and cameras and film. we would finally shun the dumb unwritten rules of society. we would pull off the road without exits. we would park without white lines. we would climb trees if they looked fun and run through corn fields taking pictures at dusk. we would walk through the deserts and climb mesas and camp. shower together in occasional shady motel bathrooms to conserve water. we would have fun for once in our lives and the only rules are to never read into anything and to never think of the future. jonathan safran foer once wrote "my only regret is how much i believed in the future." we would pretend we were the royalty of carrot flowers and find out what each other's bodies were for. always awkward, never embarrassing. have sex in the backseat or on the side of the road. it would mean everything and nothing at the same time. eventually we would trade film, say goodbye, and return home. nothing lost, only memories (and photographs) gained. and we would learn never to be lonely from each other again.

alone too long

shouldn't leave a lover alone too long lover find another and the lover is gone find yourself alone in the setting sun gonna take a couple years before the next dawn

i don't particularly enjoy posts that aren't happy but sometimes it's most necessary to write when one is down and out. i'm moving slowly tonight, metabolizing the few beers and other food. i feel fat and hate myself for it. campus grounds is quiet... barely any business tonight. i keep closing my eyes and dreaming of sleeping. it's the one thing getting me through the night. i usually enjoy working with diddy a lot but then again, i'm usually less lonely and don't have headphones in and am not this tired.

there's a static unhappy in here. the window's open but no breeze comes in. all but one of the panes of glass on the front door are boarded up with fliers... like there's a hurricane coming. i can see three people from where i'm sitting. one girl in the front room. she has her back to me, reading in a coat. danielle is next to me looking at her computer and fiddling with her mouth and teeth and fingers. and there's myself. right here.

i wonder sometimes why it isn't easier. all these girls i know and have never met, all with boyfriends. how do they end up like that? there's a secret i don't know. will sheff once sang the most perfect words in all of music: "i don't know what notes you want to hear played. i can't think what lines you'd like me to sing or say. not sure what subjects you want mentioned. so pause and add your own intentions right here." it preceded the most perfect moment in all of music. and i love him and agree with him.

i wonder why i can't play a song and she would fall in love. i certainly would... for much less even. an entire mixtape. on a guitar. it's a cosmic joke, myself, my luck, my nature. where did all the single girls go?

it is killing me, not being asleep.

everybody knows

home sounds so good in theory. there's family. familiar places. comfort.

when was it that i moved past this place? it's certainly home, that's for sure. but it's not where i need to be anymore. i love my family but i'm lonely around them. i miss people i don't even know. i notice things now. people getting older. all the trite things we do, everything so predictable. i cringe every time somebody mentions the weather. i sigh when i realize that there's nothing better to talk about. i can't tell whether this is the life i want... domestic and endless.

then again, i suppose my life is as predictable as any. wipp gave me names and i found the girl i've never met. she's a sophomore. psychology major. from virginia. wipp thought she had a boyfriend. that's not surprising, i said. actually, i'd have bet my life on it, i said. she told me yeah, all the good ones are taken and only the losers are single and immediately left. congratulations to her for being so predictably female. still, i can't find any reason to be optimistic.

i had a down moment and texted danielle... told her i was sorry i didn't meet her earlier. (nestled inside, the intentions of meeting her before rob, of enjoying europe with her, of not being so goddamned lonely myself...) in a great moment of cosmic meaning (or no?) my phone vibrated while i was urinating. i knew it was her. she told me she was glad we finally met. it's a curiosity how she seems to care so much about me but can't even hint that she isn't completely enthralled by rob.

i haven't heard from georgia girl in weeks. that's done, i suppose.

i shouldn't end up writing about girls all the time. it just seems to mean the most right now. i've got work, research, interviews, post-exam plans, graduation... everything... and it all seems to fade beneath this cloak of hollowness. somehow, all i've got is nothing. i need to escape.

no one deserves it

tonight is happy. i'm working with danielle (puff diddy) which is always a ton of fun. and there's a girl here...

last week i was working a closing shift when, to my dismay, i found that emily was camped out in the front room. i ignored her but was hoping for some sort of olive branch anyway, a glance or a word... anything. she passed by me twice without looking although god knows that was conscious because i glanced her glancing when i would wander around the main room and she was in her chair in the front. and i'd walk around in a large arc on purpose just to spy an image of her over there. it's been a long time, that's all. they hadn't left when we closed, so i got danielle to go tell them to leave. i lay in the dark back room on a couch until i heard the door shut.

this week it's the opposite. this girl i've never met before (but i want to, oh so badly). i saw her first at a basketball game months ago and had to ask the kids-that-know-kids near me if they'd ever seen her before. none had. we were unique, it seemed, the two of us. she was my special little lost memory. ever since then i've seen her everywhere... walking around campus, in the gym, at seize the quad, now in the coffee shop. she's a pretty girl, a face like one i haven't seen before. great looking body to boot. i asked danielle about her, just wanting to tell her about this situation. she told me the girl used to come in here a lot and that she thought she was in an art class with a friend of ours. so she frequents my coffee shop, goes to the gym, and does art. sounds better and better every second. like georgia girl and finding out she didn't just get drunk and dance with me, she read for pleasure as well.

she's purple to me (can i tell you that you are the purple in me?). i think she was wearing a purple scarf the first time i saw her. blue plaid shirt flannel shirt tonight and jeans without a belt. i wish she'd buy something. i want to get her name off her card and start a conversation. see if it could be accomplished without me coming off creepy or too forward. tradition dictates that she lives in florida and is dating a boy in boston... just for good measure. but i don't know any of that yet ;)

she has a beautiful movement about her. when in the gym, i found her first on the treadmill, then over by the weights sections doing a bit of resistance. she just floats around, alone but very content, almost smiling in my memories.

but i don't know who she is and i don't know how to meet her and i don't know when or where i'll see her again. i can only hope it's soon.

unlucky in love

i won't pretend to understand. there must be so many reasons. i remember riding in her car, a little mazda protege, back freshman year from luter to palmer for a group biology lab project. that was before...

this font is called Georgia and it is one of my favorites. i've been thinking about georgia girl a lot lately, mostly because she refuses to be my friend in an official and awful-modern "facebook" way. kr is my friend that way. she's even writing me back. georgia girl? not so much. it's depressing.

the night after we returned from out trip, i happened to be walking into my room when i got a text message. as i'm used to doing when i'm not particularly expecting to be written, i snuck a look at the name of the sender before reading the words. to my... let's say surprise... it was danielle. i put the phone down and stood in the middle of my room for a minute, collecting myself. it said she missed me. awwww. i got another as i was walking out of the laundry room five minutes later. it said she hoped my cruise was amazing. i almost fell down. i wrote her back about an hour after my original message and that was that. she never responded. don't ask me why.

last night i was tagged in a video someone had thrown up online. it's of one of our last nights in vienna. danielle is at her computer and talking about her boyfriend. she's trying to pull up a picture to show all the girls. telling them how it's his birthday and all. the camera pans to me and the girl behind it asks me what I thought of THAT. i just had this look on my face of... well what the fuck am i supposed to do about it? it hurts to watch.

emily was in the coffee shop tonight. it freaked me out a little bit. i took off my work shirt so i could feel more muscular in a white tee and i did. she walked past me twice and pretended not to notice me. i found myself glancing her way whenever i crossed the floor, though, and often i'd find her looking back. my mojo drained, though, and diddy had to tell them to leave for me. i went and laid on a couch in the dark back room.

is there something i've done to deserve this? i certainly don't claim to understand it. i meet only memories these days. georgia girl was interesting but paranoia grips me tight. i'm relatively convinced she doesn't know my name. i'm pretty solidly convinced she doesn't give a damn about me at all. i can't really blame her. i wrote about her while sitting in a window the last night on the ship but never published it. i think i get too caught up in telling a story and not enough caught up in explaining and exploring the result of all that. which is what i need to do... just not tonight.

georgia girl, danielle, and emily all in the same week. christ jesus.

daydreams

i guess this is why i go to the gym. sitting in the green room alone in a corner. doing nothing and listening to music. there are a couple guys about fifteen feet away at a table eating and talking. look like frat guys in a way. look like they think they own the place, supposed to be privileged, inherited the room when they walked in. one of them's in this sort of blazer with leather elbows. looks real tense, like he's roid-raging. i saw movement earlier and glanced up to see him standing to throw something white across the room. i have no idea if he knows anyone over there or if he just wanted to throw something. looks really tense.

i have never been in a fight before and i'm trying to visualize it. i'm shaking here, daydreaming. twitching. imagining them throwing something at me for no reason at all. i have no idea what i'd do. i skip that part. if it came to a confrontation, i have all reason to believe that things wouldn't go well. i see myself knocked down on my back but he can only hold down one arm to swing with the other. i'd use it to hit him in the mouth. people start holding me down and i'd curl up quick, kicking him in the crotch and throwing him off before legs go over my head to grab someone else in a headlock before i smash them too. there are tons of people in the room and i don't know what, if anything, they would do.

better yet, new situation, they're picking on some other weakling. i see it from across the room and i take off my jacket and sprint, gaining great speed before landing a flying tackle on him right in the middle of the group. different version. he's down over this kid like before and i come at a sprint, even bringing people with me, and instead of tackling him simply land a days-of-yore soccer kick right to the abdomen. i would destroy his ribs. at least three or four broken clean through. he'd be down then, no breath, pained, out. i can see it clear as day and the muscles twitch.

i guess this is why i go to the gym.

i ain't waiting but i'm still holding on...

it's funny. i usually name these posts after some line of a song flitting past but tonight would have been particularly difficult. then, when i'm ready to begin, devendra wails in the most beautiful timbre, "mama, i ain't waiting. no, i ain't waiting but i'm still holding on..." and it was perhaps the most wonderful combination of words ever sung to me. and perfect. perfect too.

i spent tonight at whitney and ali's apartment with sean. they'd picked out a james franco movie, good time max, which i enjoyed but none of the others did. they thought it was too slow, i suppose. or weren't entertained enough. i won't get into it. like most arts, it's a touchy subject with me. i lay there on the bed watching, ali right there at my side. i looked over at sean and whitney once but wish i hadn't. he was laying with his head on her chest and she was scratching his head. i hated them for a second but realized hey... i wouldn't particularly wish myself part of that particular duo... just the thought of them, i suppose. i could more see myself with the creature to my right. much more easily, in fact. but, close as she was to me, she's dating a marine doing fuel work in iraq. it's hard to picture, really. i didn't want to get too close to her but i relaxed my arm down by my side once and it lay against hers. every now and then i'd feel her muscles twitch. lay there and notice things. after the movie was over, there was a push for a game of yahtzee, which i hadn't played in eight years or so. sean got up to turn on a floor lamp. i hid from the light under ali's blanket, or, part of it she wasn't under. and, as she got up off the bed, i lay there with it over my face thinking of how i could smell her in it.

before she left, in the final minutes of dark, she'd lay her head on my shoulder and i'd shift around to do the same. the little creature. the infinite tease.

nothing is unbearable but everything manages to puncture my defenses somehow. nothing washes past or is missed.

every now and then, walking back or wandering around the apartment, i'd entertain the unpleasant idea of danielle. it only gets worse the more effort i invest in discovering which certain truths are the most true and sufferable. i had intended to spend yesterday afternoon with her, enjoying emotional masochism at its finest, learning of christmas vacation and boston and rob and his grandmother. it never happened, though, because she was on a plane. interviewing at tufts (which i can only assume was today). tufts is in boston. this means that danielle is in boston tonight. rob is in boston. it doesn't take much imagination to picture the two of them together this weekend. she's not a late-night girl either. therefore, as we've discovered must be true, at this very instant she's sharing a bed with rob some 750 miles to the northeast of me. that's what wandering leads me to. nearly every time.

danielle, i'm not waiting for you but i'm still holding on...

awful as that is

lovecraft in winston

three rooms and a hallway. i've become so familiar with this place. five if you count the storeroom and the bathroom. i ask what people are thinking. tell me something interesting. tell me something about you i don't know.

i just had a small moment of intense joy. i put on my sweatshirt. i just washed it a couple hours ago. it smelled wonderful and clean. i giggled a little out loud.

i want to ask people: why can't i find love? why is it that everyone perfect i meet is already with some other guy? why's it so hard to meet people i don't know? don't i deserve more than that? it's not something you can easily get by openly conversing about. not a gap so easily traversed. tends to set people back on their heels.

what i mean to say is that this beautiful girl just came and ordered drinks... two of the special recipe i stole from simplyummy. she was here for the very first one, wrote it up on our special board and all. and she's all smiles and kind words. and i have no idea how to meet her. or how to get close to her. or how to go to dinner with her and whatever else there is to do. there's a way to do it... people get together all the time. fear probably has something to say about it. there's abby whom i know more about than anyone else in my golf class. and none of that matters because what i know isn't anything at all. it's what happens when your limited experience of someone is in a constricted social setting. complete with rules and boundaries and small tasks to complete. jokes are there to make and small conversation intervals and not much else. and still, abby is beautiful in a giraffe-ish sort of way. to see her hit a golf ball, i mean. and it's not a bad thing at all, no. she's tall and thin and when she bends over to address the ball it seems like her upper body goes on forever... all hips upward hanging in space. and she's a pretty girl. which leads to me daydreaming about asking her out in a very low-pressure social sort of way. and still, i can already see the look on her face when she searches for an excuse not to. when she wonders why this kid is here again trying to be her partner. i suppose that's a sad thought. if she'd agree, however, i'd be surprised no matter what. i think i'll always be surprised.

that's a risk, though. that's new to me. danielle was something altogether different. her signals were as strong as mine but equally false. well, false i suppose. who knows what she thinks or feels? it doesn't really matter i suppose. she's with rob. what's there to do when someone you love loves someone else? there's no way i want her out of my life even though when she's not here and we're not talking and i can think about other things, i feel better about it. there's always that little spark of emotional masochism that i'm drawn to though, like a fated silver screen actor.

pretty coffee shop girl just walked out the door.

it's why i want to spend time with her, fully prepared to enjoy the hell out of it and expecting two or three painful instances of reality breaking through like a scar of bare canvas in a claude monet painting. those times when i'll lose myself for a little while and be really happy. then something small will remind me hey! she's got a boyfriend. you know she doesn't entertain thoughts of you at all. she's wonderful because she's wonderful, not because you're you. this is all a dream. it's a hologram or a hallucination. she's an escort for the afternoon. these are the temptations of jesus. of adam. you can look but don't touch.

i'm wondering if i should include a song about boston on this mix. going back to boston. i want to but, if not for the merit of the song, probably only to make a statement. she wouldn't understand. see, due to my infinite tact (pfft...) i don't believe she has a reasonable grasp of the gravity of the situation. she doesn't know when it kills me. the worst of it all... she wants to listen to me. wants to be that wonderful friend, just like i want to be for her. i'm all prepared to hear about boston and christmas and rob because it's what i have to do to be close to her. because i care about her more than i care about me. she wants to hear what's bothering me, what makes me sad. but she can't because it's her. it's not a new irony for me and one of my least favorite to be honest. the beautiful arrow through my side asking why the tears? i want to tell her everything so badly but i'm also haunted by the sneaking suspicion that everything i do is a ploy to win her over. i can't shake that idea, most likely because it's true. whenever we go out, i'll be charming and laughing and smiling and asking questions. not like we're normal friends with no attachments, but to win her over. and even though i know it's a failure waiting to happen, a cursed venture from the get go... i can't stop. it will only get worse until i can't see her again. that will be the saddest day of all.

and you're waiting, waiting, hoping, hoping things will turn out fine...

i've gotten into an honest spiral with ali. i can't tell her the things i want to. it's too personal. how do you tell someone that you don't feel close enough to them to talk about anything very important? because you don't feel they invest the proper attention. because it's abundantly clear that only a very few of the population at large are let in. i'm not inside, probably never will be. what is there to do? how do i get out of it now?

brutal, man. brutal.

hell, i won't be found

there's no better music on earth to tell stories to than this.

my stories, though, i suppose, are all the same. the names and places change, not much more. where are all these girls i knew? paris is in vienna (hah... yeah, i'm jealous). there was someone i met last week in golf class. abby, yes. we were doing a drill based on keeping your wrist angled during your downswing wherein the partner would grab the club and keep it upright, letting it slide through their hands as you pulled downwards. she inadvertently made a comment (we had just met!) about going first while she tugged on my club. we both sort of paused and i said i wouldn't even make a joke about that. we laughed about it. i partnered up with her again yesterday... remembered her name because of that joke. she said she was pretty embarrassed about it and had told the story to a couple people over the last week. she's a friendly girl, pretty and tall and blonde and thin. sorority type. knows a few people i do. from canada, although her family lives in singapore. we're both seniors and her father was in the same class as mine at wake in the 70's. we laughed and joked the whole time.

then came the end of the class, to which i'll apply patented over-analysis techniques known only to the most paranoid of us all. we watched videos in a classroom. we were both texting different people... i was one seat ahead of her and to the side. optimism when she used my chair as a footrest followed by pessimism when she left the room without saying anything. i remember glancing back at her when they spoke of swinging inside-out (dorky golfspeak, i suppose) and thinking in that quick instant or two that she was even prettier than before. the class only meets once a week. there's nothing more to say about it.

danielle is a different story. she rises with the sun and breaks my heart every day. i wrote her before christmas but never heard back. oh well... might as well start that awful process of moving on. not so easy, apparently. i was walking on the phone, all sunglasses and sweatpants, in front of the pit and towards the gym wednesday morning. i never saw her coming...

she came up behind me and grabbed my elbow and we hugged fantastically for a second before walking again. she was going to the gym anyway. pretty in that way that you wouldn't have realized until you were used to it. smiles and such. she didn't have to seek me out. especially not now. if it had been me, i'd have pretended not to see her... but that's the difference between us. i got off the phone before we split ways and she lowered the axe. asked me if i was ok. with everything. threw me in the fire. what could i do? i pretended i was. that everything was fine. that i didn't think about her all the time and that it didn't sit like a parasitic grape nut deep inside me... the knowledge that she was here but not with me. that question meant so much. said so much. it says she's still with rob. it says she entertains no daydreams about me but that she cares.

what's the worst thing that could happen? this? the beautiful girl loves someone else but is sweet enough to give the hero no reason on earth not to feel the way he does. the perfect crime. so concerned with my happiness but so unwilling to do anything about it.

ali is dating a marine. she's such a tough nut to crack... i can't get used to it either. saw alli a couple times yesterday... resident polo hottie. (... well, to me anyway) reminiscent of danielle a day before. came up from behind me (this time she was on the phone, though) kicked me on the hip to say hello. i kicked her back. (playground flirting, anyone?) she was talking to her mother... mention that she'd kicked me but said i probably deserve it. (no shit, we're 7... and i don't mind at all) she told her mom it wasn't too hard and i said i thought a butterfly had landed on my hip but i don't think she heard me. we split ways at the back of reynolda but both ended up at the post office, back to back. she was still on the phone. i rolled up a flier and smacked her in the head with it before pretending to be standing there reading it. she smiled at me as she walked out.

who the hell knows? i'll be lonely forever. mark it down. karma or otherwise. i'll be the tallest man on earth. secretive, making lonely music forever. honey, won't you let me in?

dead passengers

maybe this is another start. i want to start writing again. i know i've said that before... well, many times before... but this semester promises to be different. i want to start over almost, even though it's the last few months here. and yet, it's really hard. i still believe what i do. i'm not over danielle at all, although her ostentatious failure to communicate helps solidify the distance between us. doesn't mean i don't think about her all the time. i suppose that story is for another night. i want to believe that i just want her to be happy, even with rob but i don't believe that at all. i suppose all that matters is that she believes it. i should seem like a good person. it's important that i should seem like a good person.

i was driving down I-40 tonight, west. i'll admit i wasn't in the best of places. mentally all wrapped up in some song, some wandering tear afraid to leave my eye (as much as i want to believe i can actually cry...). physically even, a lane over but behind a moving truck. i only noticed it because the roll-up back door had come open, which was odd. dangerous, i realized. their stuff was sitting inches away from the edge of the flat bed and could easily fall out. i imagined for a quick second what would happen if something rolled out and towards my car. none of the quick scenarios ended well for me or the rest of westbound raleigh commuters. i sped up to pass them, thinking only as i did that i should somehow stop beside them, honk, wave, throw my hand out the sunroof and point... just something. before i knew it i was already past and there were cars behind me. i got this sick, heated feeling of being responsible for whatever might happen. visions of those same dumb objects, those personal effects turned weapons, tumbling out the back of the truck. driver none the wiser. cars swerving at 70 miles per hour. pileups. deaths. the intricate details of the end-of-times. this sickness stuck with me for hours. i thought i might die behind the wheel. i was afraid. very afraid.

i spent a long time with julie tonight. she's a sweet kid, easily my favorite from her apartment. whether that's because i'm particularly tired of the other roommates or from her own specific merits isn't up for discussion. she's good to talk to, intelligent... just... and i hate to use this place for any negative personal thoughts towards good people, but if it's a true chronicle of myself, then... well, there's no spark. i'd hate to say this is because i'm not particularly attracted to her. she's blonde (just milquetoast!) (<-- i just wanted to use that word, however true). there's just no spark. i went over this with danielle k. the other day at lunch. there are so few people that i feel that immediate attraction to, and almost never the same ones that would feel the same about me. at least with danielle a., she's so goddamn sweet and understanding that it's hard to tell the difference. worse, actually, as i'm still fallen for her. oh well... point being that it feels sometimes like i don't pay due attention to certainly wonderful normal people because i don't feel that spark. that's fair though... i can't say it's not.

i want to get back into the swing of writing here but no more for tonight. head aches and sleep is important. tomorrow (or today) a better day. always. somedays.