may i cut in?

well, well, well...here we are again.

depression, my old friend. the constant and steady unwanted compadre that follows me throughout happiness and revels in my despair.

why are you such a bitch?

everytime i get just a bit out of your reach, you catch on to my coattails and manage to pull me back safely into your arms. you howl in pain when i find happiness, and seem fulfilled and glowing when i end up weeping in your arms.

your black velvet skin (i hate velvet) is wet with what seems like an endless supply of tears...every time i run out, you rush to refill the reservoir, like my sad sad soul is a brita filter that you use to filter out the good thoughts like the lead in my LA public water.

and, of course, you seem to become a more complex mistress everytime we are re-introduced. what's this now? social anxiety? bitterness? isolation? well, pile it on, lady, we're having a pity party, and no one is invited. you're a mean mean bouncer at the club of my heartache.

and i am putty in your hands

you tell me to push away the things and people who could help me.
and i do.

you tell me to sit alone and avoid human contact.
and i do.

you tell me to be angry...but not too angry because then no one will love me...
and i do.

you tell me to believe you when you say i will never be ok again.
and i do.

i believe all of it. the loneliness, the isolation, the anger, the sadness - oh, the deep, deep sadness - all of it adding up to another dance with the lady in black.

and this time, i don't feel like fighting it.

the war...

i cannot drag myself up from my melancholy.
i cannot peel myself off the floor.
interacting with others hurts my eyes
i feel like i have to squint to see straight.
i want to curl up into myself
and at the same time make myself large enough
to destroy entire cities (picture a sobbing godzilla).

i want to be quiet
but i want to rage.
i don't want to be touched
but i want to fuck
total strangers
who don't know me.
know nothing about me.
(no, i don't give a shit about your dog.)
fuck them wildly and then politely
excuse myself from their presence.
so i can go back to being small and quiet.

i don't want them in my house
or my town.
i want them to make me forget
just for one moment that we were happy
and great
for awhile.
and that once
for once
i wanted for nothing.

i want to throw things and break
windows (and your face)
and hurt everyone.
and i want to stay in this corner with
my chin on my knees
where no one can see or touch
me.

i want to be invisible so i can scream and
no one will know it's me.
i want to disappear into nothing
and forget and that i loved.
that i ever knew what love is.

i want to remove you from the fabric
of my soul
so i will weave over
that fabric.
with meaningless people whose names
i will forget on purpose.
with the regrettable follies of youth
that i never wanted.
with myself - closing myself
in.

it's not there.
but it always is.
i want to hate you forever
but i want you even more.
i don't believe this is something i will
recover from.

i fucking hate you.
why won't you just come home?

routine...

saturday mornings are the hardest.

i'm still trying to find the rhythm of my new life.

i took so much pleasure in the routine we had fallen into...we would sleep in, i would make coffee while you made eggs (because the one thing i cannot cook is eggs...), we would do the thing we always joked about..."nest"...the stupid yuppie shit that i used to make fun of...farmer's markets, wandering around town puttering, holding hands...

so these days, i sleep in if i can (i can't really), and when i wake up - for some stupid reason, my brain hasn't processed the idea that you won't be there next to me - i get that sinking feeling of reality setting in.  i make myself coffee...too much coffee...and i have a cigarette...too many cigarettes...and i set about filling my saturdays...

finding a new rhythm, a new pattern, a pattern for myself, that doesn't involve you.

which is pretty impossible, because you are everywhere and in everything.

our rhythm...the rhythm of our lives together...is over...the sweet little ways and details i loved are gone...i'm done, tapped out, exhausted from the hours of crying, re-building the walls, hoarding the love i have left like gold, pushing everyone away.

my rhythm looks like solitude right now.  avoiding social situations, keeping my own counsel, asking no one for help, letting the anger seep into my bones.  i just want to be alone.  the smiles i force feel so fake on my lips, and i haven't really laughed in a month.

shit.  a month.  a whole fucking month.

my rhythm is in counting days since it happened, counting days until i get to go away.  i have to create my own things to look forward to, since you took away the daily joy i had.  so i'm going on a trip.  by myself.  my own adventure.

my own life.  MY own rhythm.

what more is there to say...

next week marks a month.

a month since we said good-bye.

i'm making my own plans now.  i have gotten through at least 4 non-consecutive days without losing my shit.  i am eating (small) meals.

i am not "ok".  "ok" is not the right word.  neither is "better".  it's a long way to "better".  there are things i cannot do and places i cannot go because they pull me down into your memory and swirl around my eyes and then...

it feels like i am trying to put my bones back into my skin.  it's stretching me in ways i never thought i could go.  it feels foreign.

all of this love that i had building up inside me, all of these feelings and expectations and hopes that i never wanted and never thought i would have...it all came flooding to the surface with you.  and now it is gone, and i all i can think about is what i had, and what i lost.

the capacity for love...i didn't think i had that.  you proved me wrong.  you brought me to life, to my full self.  i thought i was pretty full before...but this was above and beyond what i believed i was capable of.

i thank you for that.

i am folding into myself right now.  feeling very protective of myself and my process.  i don't want to share it with anyone.  i don't want to talk to anyone about it (except for my brand-new therapist...woohoo!)  i want to sit with it, like a new food or a good wine, this strange new feeling and experience, roll it over my tongue, savor the bitter-sweet-chocolate-burnt-coffee-raspberry-rotten milk taste, occasionally test it, poke at it with things like good music and old movies...pick at the scab, if you will, to see if it still hurts.

it does.

for some reason, it surprises me every time.

i'm not rushing out of this.  i cannot stop waiting for you to come home.  i haven't stopped expecting you to be at my apartment when i get home.  at the same time, i know that i cannot continue as i have...taking personal days, never leaving my apartment, sitting in solitude and silence...

i released you.  i had to in order to live.  but i miss you every day.  the thought of having to miss you every day for the rest of my life overwhelms me.  i miss you.

soundtrack o' rancor

great news, sports fans! i've found my anger!

and in honor of crawling off the floor...

1. u +ur hand...pink
2. dialate...ani difranco
3. long way to happy...pink
4. tears dry on their own...amy winehouse
5. irreplaceable...beyonce
6. the rooster...big boi
7. a gentleman caller...cursive
8. let him fly...the dixie chicks
9. try (just a little bit harder)...janis joplin
10. lie to me...johnny lang
11. take a bow...madonna
12. ring the alarm...beyonce
13. something to remember...madonna
14. sweet revenge...the spooks
15. burn...usher
16. new soul...yael naim
17. maps...the yeah yeah yeahs
18. you were mine...the dixie chicks
19. who knew...pink
20. i'm still breathing...katy perry

and for extra emotional torture: come close...common feat. mary j. blige

it would be inaccurate for me to listen to this music and apply their stories to my own. there was no cheating in my relationship. there was no anger. until now. the feelings of abandonment, loss, and fear translate into the end of any relationship.

pulling me up from the ground...

what i opened my email account to find from my BFF:

are you still there?

i'm guessing you went home early.

i'm glad.

i hope you go to yoga

and then go home and lie on the floor

if i was there, i would go to yoga with you

and then go home and watch "waiting for guffman" with you

and i would rub your feet

and we would paint each other's nails

and then i would stay at your house

and eventually it would start to smell like me (stinky)

and not so much like him

i will wait with you, best friend.

i will always wait with you.

i will never leave you.

i love you.

even in the deepest darkness that is consuming me right now, her light shines so freaking bright.

i love you, too best friend.

an open letter to my heart...

dear beloved...

it has been 3 days since we talked. in that conversation, you and i determined that it would be best to not speak or see each other for a while, as it is clearly too painful for me, and thus for you.

we also discussed why i am so insistent on moving forward so fast to "friendship" or "healing".

it is because i feel like i am dying.

it feels like i am waiting to die. because how can there ever be joy again in my heart if i do not have my best friend?

you were my home. now i live on the street, constantly cold, shivering, and afraid.

i cannot work. sleep only tricks me by allowing me to dream of you, and so i do not want it for a companion. even food, which i have so enjoyed for all of my life, has lost it's taste, and when i remember to consume it, it is only because it is a matter of survival. which feels pointless.

for me, the joy is gone.

and perhaps, even if you did come back, the joy would not return. at least, not as it was. at first, i know there would be very little joy. there would be hurt feelings, and guarded hearts, and more tears. and there would be talking. (unlike now) but, maybe, just maybe (and this is the maybe that keeps me from falling so low that i cannot rise in the morning) it would be a different and more potent joy that would be an entirely new experience.

but it is more likely that the joy will not return in any form that bears a resemblance to you. you have gone. and it seems unlikely that your mind will be altered from your current path.

and in the loss of joy, down at the bottom of a barrell where i feel safe - confined and alone - i have a found a spark of anger.

i grew a heart FOR you. i filled that heart with love FOR you. and you took that heart, and cherished it for a time, and exchanged that heart to me with yours. and we made that love feel so powerful and pure that it felt like it actually might be something good that could last forever. but then you took it away and remain resolute that it was not to be forever.

and now i am without that love that fed me. and without the counsel of the most trusted friend i have ever known. and i do not know how to survive being without you...without you. and you threw away the greatest thing that has ever been for either of us (which you have admitted).

and yes, i am angry. and yes, i am sad. and yes, i exist still. and yes, i am "surviving". for what else is there to do?

and now we wait. we have agreed not to speak until you are ready.

in the meantime, i will pick the pieces of you out of the heart, one at a time, until there is nothing but a thick scar, and never again will i allow that part to grow.

always,
me

allowance...

i'll start by getting up each day and taking a shower. i'll put on my clothes and makeup and go to work. or to get my hair done. or to have coffee with a friend.

i'll put my shoes on. i'll keep breathing. i will set small goals everyday.

i will begin to mark the passage of time not by how long it's been since i've seen him (5 days). or how long it's been since i could call myself his girlfriend (12 days).

i will reconnect with friends and community.

i cannot promise that i will not cry every night. i cannot promise that i will not wish every day for him to come back. i cannot know when i will be ready to give him his stuff back, to really know that he is gone.

i can only try. and i can only take it one day at a time.

the pain might lessen. but for now, i will allow myself the time it takes to feel the pain.

in the past, i have always pushed past the pain, put my shoulders back, my chin up and said "what's next?" and what's next has been a new job, or more jobs, or a new town. but i cannot push past this. this is entirely new in and of itself. i cannot ignore that i am mourning, and i cannot be embarassed that i hurt so much that sometimes i think my legs will give out.

i cannot ask the "why" of him. why doesn't he come home? why does the love go away? why does everyone leave? why couldn't he be happy with me?

i am allowing myself to be sad. for the first time.