Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

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.