emily.

For a while, I've had two Emily's.

One is a fox and the other a girl.

It took five years to get here

and we've passed all the things of the past,

when you'd leave me for parties,

when you begged for the love of 

those who disappeared.

I was always the fallback,

because I didn't much care,

because I'm more calm and easygoing than some,

and I understood when plans changed

or someone else was more exciting than me.

But this time I'm the one ready to let you go.

Because 

I don't think I can take 

your opinions,

your shit,

anymore!

I've changed a lot.

I don't like guns

or men

or god,

and you make jokes

and sideways critical comments about it,

but that all is as much my core

as your self-righteousness is yours.

My fox is

crimson,

passion and art

and sweetness from

nose to chocolate-dipped tail tip.

-- I guess you were right

when you feared she would 

replace you.

But she hasn't really!

She's entirely different.

Not a replacement, but a supplement,

to fill your holes,

to ease the loneliness you've always left

when you tell me you love me.

And she's made me feel new things.

Sure some things hurt but

it's alright.

She's not perfect,

she's just great,

and she's just made me

happy.

Happier.

And she's been the second person

to accept all of me.

That means a lot.

Because sometimes even I

just barely accept me.

I don't think I can bear your constant 

insistence that you won't judge me!

Nothing is normal anymore.

Nothing is okay.

I haven't told you a secret for over a year.

I'm sorry that I've outgrown our

"forever." 

It's scary!

And it was so comfortable! 

In our easy silence,

where we've run out of things to say.

Well I've finally found my words,
but they'll never reach you.

is this romance

i will breathe softly

softly against your skin

all the words i'm too afraid to say out loud

because i am a coward with expectations and

without promises

"stay" and 

"today i love you with all my heart"

they will not reach your ears

but i will mumble them past your lips

and growl them against the arch of your spine

and let them settle into the dips made by your collar bones

if i whisper
if i'm silent
if i scream it

will you hear me

and will you understand

?

when i think about them it hurts.

and so drops my heart down into the space between my hipbones

like a plummeting in an elevator shaft, stomach-flipping gravity
until it hits the basement with a dull resounding thud, all things
skeleton shrapnel and
dead silent.

memorized.

I wake up from a dream, 

it smells like summer,

like you 

and lake water 

and 

--two cigarettes. 

Like my sunblock 

and your deodorant. 

Like tea.

Like the middle of the night,

melon, the beach,

and navy blue.

even i don't want to see myself like this.

He's worried and careful, and he's always been around. He's talked me out of my worst places, when I couldn't see things clearly. He treated me like feather light, rice paper thin things; he saw through the styrofoam walls I'd painted to look steel. He never fell for my bullshit--he rarely even got mad about it.

"I'm fine." I repeat it just like that and he always calls the lie. But I never try harder to pretend.

Of course he yelled at me when he found out what I keep inside the tin box on my shelf. Sure nothing happened, but of course he would worry.

He's worried but I'll never listen, because I'm not invisible to him.

I most like the ones who don't see me, so I can live in perpetual misery.

-------------------------------------

I have never wanted to find someone before, so badly.

Maybe that was because I'd rather be with nobody than with a boy. Maybe I didn't realize how gay and feminist I am. Maybe the power dynamics of gender roles are the biggest turnoff in existence to me.

Maybe I thought friendship was more than enough. Well, maybe it would be, if I could meet other people who thought that way. But realistically, a lot of people want families, especially people I know. Real life blood-related marriage-tied traditional dysfunctional families.

-- But I don't ever want to risk becoming my mom. I don't care much for cooking fancy things or being ladylike or any of that. Cranky in the morning and miserable at night, despite all I've done just the way they told me to. No thanks.

It's not like I can forget, my actually pretty decent family messed me up enough to let me know it's harder to be healthy than it looks. Everyone is screwed, gonna end up with complexes and scars, no matter how hard we try. And in the end blood doesn't fix everything or heal the wounds it left.

Maybe it's because I know she'll go away and I don't have the courage to be any more alone than I am now. Maybe I'm just jealous and scared of that feeling. Or maybe I want to be the first to leave.

Maybe I figured I'd be dead already.

Yup, maybe lots of things. But mostly I guess I want someone to kiss and I want someone who cares and I want to be even, equal with someone.

I'm not tough. I'm lonely and tired and so sick of liking her and worrying him.

Then again I like the despair I've fed for so long. I cling to it a little bit, sometimes. Like when I read Bukowski or make art.

I think maybe I just want to be someone's favorite, too. Instead of always feeling things alone.

I'm not sure what I want, I'm a mess of contradictions.

You know how mothers and boyfriends get disappointed when a girl decides to cut her beautiful hair short?

I get disappointed when she decides to grow it back out long.

Every girl in my grade had long hair and I didn't like hardly any of them.

Emily, remember when you cut it all off the first time? I know you were a bit upset and Clare didn't like it much, but I thought you were the coolest. It was different. I thought it was great.

Yesterday I was listening to the radio and the men were talking about women cutting their hair, as if it were a sin. They made a joke, like, "Now it's like I'm gonna be sleeping with a dude for eight months." And all I wanted to say was "eff you."

Women can be whatever they want to be. They can have short hair or unshaved legs or wear men's clothes and still be women, if that's what they feel like identifying as.

They can have long hair too and there's nothing wrong with that!

But I just think short hair is the best. Maybe it's a queer thing.

plans.

I just want a friend and a cat.
Simple, sounds good.
Everything else is the adventure.

Want to come along?

i think i'll make them into a sweater.

It's not as simple as willing the feelings away.

You're a thread wrapped up in all of me, coiled about my organs and woven between my rib bones, tied on each finger as a reminder of why I fell for you in the first place, when this thread bound my ankles together, caught me by surprise.

I always believed that sexuality and attraction and things were fluid because they are for me. Girls, boys, androgynous people, queer folk. Beards, button-ups, nail polish, sweaters, suspenders, collar bones, undercuts, you. Lots of things slip in and out of my closet of aesthetic interest.

I mean, I used to identify as straight. Things change, right?

Short answer, no.

I have no right to expect that or wish for that, that was really wrong of me. Your identity was never my business to question. It could change one day or it could never change; either way it's YOUR'S, not mine, to worry about and consider.

In reality very few straight-identified (sober) people "experiment." Very few straight-identified people change their minds. Very few people aren't straight-identified. (Tumblr was never an accurate reflection of the reality of things.)

I held onto something impossible for unbelievably long. Partly because I'd hoped that you'd emerge from the cocoon of junior year as a glorious rainbow colored butterfly, like I did. (Actually you're still younger than I was when I decided boys were mostly pretty dull.) And partly because there's never been anyone who's fit into my life and at my side as well as you do, and I thought if I were good enough, I could be the same for you. And I guess also partly because my queer crush on you is just really fucking big and I'm not good at managing my feelings.

But you've found someone you seem to like as much as I like you. And it's not my place to object or interfere or wish or theorize or anything. In order to stop doing those things, it's best to stop liking you that way, in a way that makes me wish for more.

So I'll carefully unwind this thread.

It's not going to be instantaneous, though that would be most convenient. But I realize now that if I tried to tug it all out at once, it would unwind me along with it. I don't want to make a mess of me or become bitter about things or lose my platonic friend-love feelings for you in the process.

I don't have to ruin myself or beat myself up over any of this. We've all got feelings, it's okay. You're nice, and you won't rush me or shove me. Thank you.