I don't want an addiction, I just want a drink or a drag. That's all. I just want to crack my knuckles without being growled at. I want to sit as close to someone as I want and lay my head in their lap if I feel like it. I just want to be someone else, sometimes. I just want to confess my love/lust. I just want to hear secrets, I want to know the worst you've done. I hate perfect.

He's nice.

I wouldn't mind holding his hand. Or your hand, or anybody's hand, really. But I don't want to be anything special; I don't want to marry him. I don't want to be a "girlfriend" or a "wife" to anyone, ever. I don't want to be a girl sometimes. So don't get me wrong, I really didn't mean anything. 

He's nice though. He's got a nice laugh and good style. 

I Feel Better

I left my house with my shoes in my hand.

My thoughts were fighting, getting their thrashing limbs tangled together, raising their varying voices to argue over stupid things. Normally these thoughts like to flow and wander and show up in strange towns with nothing but a banjo and a vagrant's beard. They don't brawl. They're not gentlemen, to be sure, but they're peaceful and usually make quite nice company.

But Sunday was a free-for-all. 

"She's not right in the head, she can't be right in the head! It's a choice, who you love. It's a choice, who attracts you. She should listen to them, they always told her what to believe, back when she was one of them." This one thumps the thick black book I've never managed to read cover-to-cover. This one stomps his foot and speaks like the red-faced, roundish men, passionate about their words.

"THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! THEY'LL NEVER GET IT!!" And he won't shut up. And he won't stop screaming. He's heard it one too many times, all the church-goers words like "they deserve to die, they deserve hell, the faggots." He hates them all. He hates Conservatives. He hates my friends. He hates my teachers. He hates God.

"Nobody needs her." He shrugs, a sort of half-hearted gesture accompanied by a sigh and followed by a weak smile, one of those half-smiles, one of those pushover "it's alright" smiles. "What can you do?"

"She don't need nobody either." He stamps out a cigarette. He punches the sulky guy's lights out just because he can. 

I don't know why my thoughts are male.

But anyway. I walked. 

I saw a cat. He stared at me. I stared back. I meowed. He meowed. He went to licking himself. I stared some more, then left. I saw a fisher-boy. Not a man. Just a boy. I waved. He didn't. I saw bees. I ran away. 

Somehow, everything was okay after that. And all my thoughts went back to being hippies.

I went inside of there once, before it was taken over by ivy beasts. It's lonely now, I think.

The bridge makes me think of nice memories with nice people. The lake is too high to go underneath it though...

 I closed my eyes and imagined the paddle boats were steamboats. Like Huckleberry Finn status.

This guy, in his little boat, is probably really happy. I'm going to believe that. 

I'm sitting here thinking about forever and friendship and how the two don't usually work out. I don't want a husband. I don't like that. I don't like "Mrs." But I'd like a friend. Or maybe a dog.

I'm gonna go for a walk.

Note to self.

You're running away again, like always, like you run from everyone when you start to feel unstable. Your own emotion scared you, while you could sense the apathy. You tried to push and make yourself mean something, hatred or love or sadness or anything. 

Nope. SO RUN.

It's okay. The unfounded anger and the guilt and the lump in your throat will go away and you'll be normal again. Stop being pathetic and sorry. 

Library.

I borrowed a book of Bukowski's poems. I am happy about this. Sometimes I like to be disgusted with everything.

And I got two satirical science fiction novels. Because I'm a nerd who also hates society.

And I saw a man in a scarf through the shelves and I wished I could be his friend.

Things:

that I saw today. 

An entire shelf about pirates.

A tiny dog. In the library. 

 This studious guy.

 
 The sun.

The death of a dinosaur shaped bouncy castle.

Small flowers. I really like small flowers.

Also. A sort of round kid jogging along C Street. The homeless man who naps in the library. A lonely dining room chair at the end of a driveway.

Yes, I'm always sorry. But still...

Sometimes I hit send and want to grab the words back. They're already free. So my stomach eats my heart and a billion butterflies, as I wait. I'm not sure what I want. Maybe just a little bit of emotion, just a little something I could use to justify my hurt or just a little something that could hint at what you're thinking...

At the end of the day, I'm sort of a jerk and little more than lonely.

Of course we will be okay.

I've started to stop caring, bit by bit, and even though it's not the same as I wished for, I know we'd never fit each other's holes grown in chests from years of hating ourselves and being lonely.

But something will fit inside someday, or a thousand beautiful, colorful shards of stained glass will fill the space; and I'll be happy.

Bromance?

You're loud and I don't mind it. I just listen and smile. When you go quiet it's something else, though, like you've taken down the wall that was so thick and high you needed to shout to get sound across it.

It's funny how changing in front of someone everyday makes it basically impossible for anything to feel awkward.

You've got red hair and freckles and I think you're pretty. I think you're pretty in your basketball shorts and my t-shirt and with your hair all pulled back. It doesn't matter that you act like a guy or you hate dresses. I think you want to be pretty sometimes, too. Like when you talk about him and the way he made you feel, I can tell you just wanted one person to think you pretty, even when you couldn't.

I appreciate the way you cuddle. I like when you scoot close and lean on me and rest your head on my shoulder and tell me I'm comfy. You're so warm and quiet when you're that close.

I'm not good at cuddling closer; I'm always afraid of being shoved away. I'll brush my feet with yours and tie my legs with yours, but I can't rest my head on your shoulder. So I'm glad you can rest yours on mine. 

You say you're "my man" because sometimes I can't get the clips off of the bar in weight training and you have to do it for me. I normally laugh at that, I like that, it's our joke. Mom was around though, and she already thinks I'm gay enough. I'm sorry I didn't laugh yesterday. I just tightened my smile and changed the subject. I really am sorry for that. 

I'm glad you like being at my house and I'm glad you like my family. 

Impact, maybe.

I was small and he would toss me across the pool over his head, again and again, and I believed he could never get tired because he was grinning and strong and like a superhero. He was a grown man with only sons, but he'd watch me jump on the trampoline and let me sit in his lap; he'd even tickle-scratch my back while I sat there. I was small and I adored him. I liked throwing slobbery tennis balls for his dog. I liked his sons and how one let me watch him play Pokemon Colosseum and the other one let me watch him play Sims. I liked his mom; she was old and Italian and I remember one time she gave me a teddy bear. I liked his look, his full head of black hair and his tan skin; he was different from my dad, he was younger, and darker, and taller. I was small and he was big and I looked up to him.

He disappeared. I didn't understand why back then; I just knew he was gone. I still feel abandoned, sometimes, which I know is silly because he had no responsibility to me. I'm not the kids or wife he let down. And it was all a long time ago, I was only one small girl.

When we saw him in the store tonight, I felt like I wanted to run away. It was uncomfortable and he seemed almost surprised that I had grown. I'm not little anymore, though.

 As far as he goes, there isn't much changed, a bit of silver in his sideburns. He's got a pretty girlfriend and two pretty, tiny kids. I feel like after the adults finished their awkward chatting and we parted ways, he talked to her about us. Maybe I'm just paranoid. They might have gone off and talked about anything else. I'm sure there are much more important things on his mind. 

I don't have a good memory, but I remember him. 

I'm sure I'm the only one left here.

You've become what we hate! So possessive, needy... You've done it again. You suck the life out of everything and starve towards death when it goes to distance and acquaintance. 

Can you take a hint?! 

You're unneeded. And that's okay.

They'll love the memories forever, but soon they'll be through with loving you. When the ship starts sinking, haul overboard, ever an unfaithful Captain. Learn to be alright without them, learn to swim! Don't drown at the changing of every relationship. Love the memories. 

Honesty was best, wasn't it? Honesty shut up the weakness that let you live on in your dependence. Can you learn selflessness? Can you learn to think of others instead of your gasping, clinging, seeking self? Now that you've been honest, there's no going back again, you can't pretend again. 

Care despite the risk, and let it be real and wonderful. It's okay to cry, but there comes a point where you need to stop missing them. You need to stop needing them.

_______________________________________________

You might not be interesting, but you're not worthless. You might not be handsome, but you're not worthless.

If we have to burn.

I like Fahrenheit 451 and Ray Bradbury and the way his writing can knock the air from your chest and tighten your throat, chasing you. I like it when his words scream at you from the page with no prettiness or patience for a slow-moving mind. They wrap you up in tumbling lines of text and refuse to let you go until you can no longer breathe. And once the words have got you lying flat on the ground with useless legs and burning chest, he offers you a glass of something cold and tells you to look at the world again and see that it can be sort of wonderful. I like it a lot.

"A shotgun blast went off in his leg every time he put it down and he thought, you're a fool, a damn fool, an awful fool, an idiot, an awful idiot, a damn idiot, and a fool, a damn fool; look at the mess and where's the mop, look at the mess and what do you do? Pride, dammit, and temper, and you've junked it all, at the very start you vomit on everyone and on yourself. But everything at once, but everything one on top of another, Beatty, the women, Mildred, Clarisse, everything. No excuse, though, no excuse. A fool, a damn fool, go give yourself up!
No, we'll save what we can, we'll do what there is left to do. If we have to burn, let's take a few more with us. Here!"

And also, this reminded me that caring about things is worth it:

“If we listened to our intellect we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go in business because we’d be cynical: 'It’s gonna go wrong.' Or 'She’s going to hurt me...' Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

And... This is exactly how I feel about death:

“Death doesn’t exist. It never did, it never will. But we’ve drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we’ve got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing.”

Let's just blame Monday.

Awesome. Nobody actually loves you and you're unbelievably stupid. Way to suck at life, savanna.

So basically tonight, I guess.

Sometimes I cry. While driving. And yelling. And listening to Emery or something like that.

But hey, could be hormones.

Or I could just be tired of feeling like an idiot. That could be it, maybe.

Either way, I need to get a freaking grip...

I've got pride too, you know. A little bit at least.

Hush.

I wake up sheepish some mornings, remembering how sad I let myself be the day before.

But it could be worse.

There are still trees and cats and other nice things to be happy about.

We'll be okay.
So I'm going to smile again, alright?

Some Days I Go Back There

There are these weird in-between places. Every piece of punctuation is a question mark bounced against my eardrums, distorting the meaning of our reverberating words and sentences until I'm not sure what you or her or I ever meant.

"I love you?"

I feel things slipping away, all the colors running, everything sliding down into the space that surrounds my shrinking, grey, floating island. And I just sit here cross-legged or with my knees drawn up to my chest, humming to the interrogative beat still playing at my eardrums.

"I care?" 

If I let it all fall, I know I can never get anything back. This will go away, if I just keep humming.

"I miss them?"

If I reach out and grasp at something, it could slip from my fingers all the same.

"I should at least try?"

If I caught hold of one fragment or shard or cupped handful of violet, cerulean, mahogany... 

Well, I'm not sure what would happen.

Can you paint the in-between places? Could we rebuild from here?

I would like to be happy. Forever, please.

It feels like summer a little bit.

Lately life has been nice, except for one or two meh things. But mostly, nice.

I enjoyed our ice cream date. I like sharing. Maybe because my mom always told me not to do it when I was a kid; yknow, germs and stuff. But really, I think things are better when they're shared. Like peace tea or fruit salads. (Non-edible things are nice to share, too. Like headphones or chairs.)

I like your neighbors. They're funny and friendly. I like that they said my name. (That's not really important. I just like it.) I'm sort of sorry I like them better than I like him. I'm trying.

Your house doesn't smell bad so you shouldn't worry about it; it smells sort of like fur hugs and fading campfires. That's what I thought of when I was in the car on the ride home, at least.

I don't mind the dog hair, so don't worry about that either. Your dogs are nice.

The moon looked gigantic tonight. I was listening to Saltbreakers which always reminds me of you. Pretty much every song talks about the sea, and the ocean makes me think of you. 

After I'm around you, I feel like I can see things better and hear and feel things better.

I like you. ;3

Sometimes I want to tackle you or yell or something because I'm just so happy we're alive. 

I never wanted to miss you.

 I know it's all going to go to flashbacks and flames.

When we burn out, let our ashes paint the sky dark, let our incoherent screaming smoke signals block out the sun.

I don't want to just smolder to death in the fireplace with a wisp of smoke at a whisper breeze.

I want to burn down the forest, strip the trees, so I feel like we meant something.

The animals will surge ahead the tidal wave of orange and red that singes fur and devours underbrush and pours grey and black into heaven while the angels hold their breath.

Maybe it's too much to ask, but could we at least leave behind scorch marks?

___________________________________________________

And she patted my head. 

I know I'll be okay.

I want to burn alive and wake up in a pile of everything we ruined.

Like a phoenix or something. 

Today

She asked jokingly if I was a liberal.

Like it was some sort of disease.

And I answered yes.

Yes, I sort of am. 

Flying Dreams Leave Us All Lonely

Hummingbirds

We drink until

Our quick hearts burst

Sweet things

Sugar water

Darling, I think you're beautiful

With beautiful bones 

Inside your beautiful body

Sweetheart, I think you're a stunner

Your pretty lashes and

Hidden smile

I can't look you in the eyes anymore

And it's a shame

Hummingbirds

The males tout 

Their fashionable feathers

But we look good 

All plain

We're bad in formal wear

Disasters with updo hair

It doesn't suit our broke out skin 

And natural locks

You look best in 

Shredded jeans so I can see your pale knees

You  look great with your hair all wavy 

And mousy brown

Hummingbirds

We're past drunk

Dive-bombing one another

When flitting

Gets old

You move too fast, too far

I move too fast to nowhere

We could never stay long here

You because you're light and free

Me because I'm scared

We just can't build a nest

With all this wind

Tree branches whip away

Good morning

Hummingbird

Fight the crows

Screaming with witch songs

Good morning

This was all only

A good bad dream