Sunday, January 27, 2013

Knowing

It's your smile, the one you got when you walked in and saw me; the sneaky half one, as if you knew that I'd been waiting to see you. What could I do but smile back?

It's your stopping by just to say hello; you might have been leaving, and I might have been hoping for it, and you stopped as if you knew. What could I do but let my hands shake?

It's your knowing that I would do the same; I might not have needed to stop, but I did, and you laughed at my lame joke as if you knew that I was hoping you would. What could I do but be self depreciating?

What could I do but come back again, though I knew it would look suspicious, just because I knew it was the last chance I would get for a while. What can I do but feel that this isn't going to go anywhere?

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Flickering Walls

I used to say that I don't break my promises. But looking back on all the times that have passed, it turns out that I do. They're not the promises I made to you, or to her, or to him - they're the promises I made to myself that are the hardest to keep.

They're rife with pins and needles, pinching and pushing and hurting every which way I turn, reminding me of the work I'm supposed to be putting in. I'm not though. I'm collapsed in four walls of flickering screens that like to play back the blankness of my mind, the white noise of my thoughts, the dreams of you, the dreams of her, and stifle me with a lack of air. But every time my fingers reach out to touch them, or grab a pen to capture strands and weave them into words on a page, they cut to blackness, stopping my air supply, choking me infinitely.

That's why I can't sit in here and write. I can't be in this building, home in other ways, but never this one. When it comes to the life I want, to the things I want to say, to the words that I'm going to see bound in thin cardboard and packaged off to shelves, I have to find them outside somewhere. Anywhere but here. Don't be fooled by the flickering walls; they're as solid as they are tormenting.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Fear

I don't know where it comes from, this low level buzz of anxiety that courses through my chest and makes my stomach lurch. Do other people feel this way? It's like waiting for some kind of doom, and it's incapacitating.

Don't You?

How do you know? How does anyone know? Is there something that can tell you whether it's really true, or whether it's a figment of your imagination?

You like me, don't you? If I were to try guess, I would say yes, but then, I've been wrong before. But never has this happened before, when someone wants to talk to me as much as you do. You continue a conversation when it ought to have finished, and I go on, afraid to let it fizzle out, because it's nice, it's entertaining, and it means I get to snatch a few extra moments with you.

You like me, don't you? That's what this is about? Or is this another straying path from cobblestones to weeds?

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Stupid Resolutions

Every time I resolve to give you up, you're back, there where my eyes can't help but dart to you. I wish I could stop it in those moments, to prove that I can rid myself of my addiction to you.

But the truth is that I don't want to stop. There's something about hanging on to something so unattainable that's appealing, like standing at the edge of a cliff and holding your arms out to fly, knowing that if you really jump, you'll only tumble to the bottom, a heap of broken bones and blood flesh. But all the same, it's nice to feel the wind tug away at you, tempting you forward, even though you're at a stalemate; underneath the temptation is a tough resolution to never let it take you.

So you'll never take me. But I'm going to continue standing on the edge with my arms out, just so I can feel the heartbreaking loneliness and longing that reminds me that you're still there, and that I'm still here. It's breaking to know that you can heal.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

How to Disappoint a Lover

It's the high level of anticipation, the waiting all the time, even in the busiest of moments, of seeing you again soon. Every moment is an agony, a twisted myriad of fantasies, equally as dark as they are happy. It's a smile in the darkness of a bedroom at night. It's a pinnacle of light during a series of unrelenting boring days. It comes.

It arrives. And you're not there. It's a hole in the place where there used to be a heart. 

Acts of Bravery


It's supposed to be an act of bravery, a way of leaping into the unknown, tethered only by your own faith that you will make it. That's what letting go is.

Most times you have to edge up to it, test the waters before you decide not to drown. But sometimes, on rare occasions, everything in your body will tell you that the time is right, and you have no choice but to suck in that last deep breath of air, and let your body relax into the momentum of your jump. While you hang there, suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, you know that nothing could go right. You also know that nothing could go wrong. You've no choice but to let it happen.

An act of bravery is living.

Friday, January 4, 2013

The False Finish

Beginnings, beginnings, beginnings. Why is it that sometimes they feel a lot like endings?

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Smudging

I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I'm lost. It's confusing, this thing we have going on, like it could perhaps be more. But I don't know if that's wishful thinking or whether it's a vibe I'm getting from you. But I know you don't have to start conversations, and yet you do it anyway. You must like talking to me, at least.

Every time, I feel like I leave a little bit of me behind, something for you to chew and savour before you digest it. Each time I hope it means you'll want some more. It appears to be working because you're the one who initiates more of a conversation than we might otherwise have. And it wouldn't be so noticeable if it weren't for your terrible conjunctions from one idea to the next, like you want to keep me there with anything that comes to mind next. Or maybe you do actually care about things you ask me to tell you. Somehow you're rubbing your thumb around my edges, softening me where I was all hard, razor lines. I'm coming off on your fingers, and you're taking part of me with you.

Undecided

Something put a gun to my imagination, pulled the trigger and blew out the fantasies growing there. Now I can't even dream. Can't even relive the old ones.

Who can tell if this is a gift or a terrible punishment?

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Hall of Fame

Sometimes it's the ordinary days that can be the most enjoyable, especially when they're pegged to be extraordinary. Take your pictures and put them all over the walls, leave them hanging in the hallway of your mind to remind you of the times that could have been lost. Create something worth keeping. Do something worth remembering at a time when someone expects you to do something else. Plan something last minute. Mark your hall of fame with ordinary moments that feel extraordinary.