the distance between.

Shadows creep across the yard and an eerie silence floats up and down the street. I sit upon the concrete steps leading up the porch, rum and coke in my right hand, cigarette in her left. A drink, a drag, a drink, a drag. The sun has long been hidden by the earth’s rotation but the air holds the heat of the day. I wear a blue dress that goes past my knees, braless and shoulders exposed. My friends talk and laugh animatedly on the porch but I stare off at the houses and the cars lining the street.

SHE begins to tear up at the memory of a relationship recently ended. A fullness now half empty, a future looking dim. I remember when my own hope for forever became a memory. I learned that only that bastard Time can remedy the hurt that threatens to extinguish the life of her. So I sit helplessly and I stare off and I try to be there by silently understanding. The noise from the porch makes me sick, I move to the grassy lawn and stretch my body upon the green blades to clear my head. Despite the city lights, the little dipper glows dimly in the sky. She, puffy eyed and sniffly, shuffles down to lie beside me. The warm breeze of night gently caresses us both. It doesn’t matter, does it? All moves onward, emotions floating away in the wind. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to protect her from herself.

She tries to be brave. She tries to stay positive but crocodile tears gather in the edges of her eyes and roll silently down her face. She is broken. He stole a piece of her heart when he touched that other girl, when a harmless flirt turned into a night of stress-relieving physicality. I can’t help but feel that I would never do that to her. I could deal with her anger. I could deal with her sensitivity. I could show her love.

I am as still as marble. I can’t touch her even as an act of sympathy. I can’t even make contact with her skin. She says I can stay with her tonight if I don’t want to drive home, but I can’t sleep in her bed. I can’t be that close to her without being close to her.

The fact is this: She chose everything over me. She chose homelessness; she chose a cheater; she chose unemployment; she chose uncertainty. She left me at every turn. She cries beside me and I feel myself empty beside her.

The warm night breeze encircles us and I know she will be whisked away with it in a matter of weeks. I look her in the eyes and, with a glance, try to communicate my love, my sympathy, and my infinite affections for her tiny frame. The moon kisses her hip bones in a way that makes me shiver. I tell her it’s time to go. I tell her that I hope she feels better even though I feel nothing but the dark night air. I tell her to call me if she needs anything, anything at all. I tell her I love her… I tell her goodnight.

forgetting.

Memories are collapsing. The ideal is shattered. I am rebuilding my life.

I was so young when I met you, when you tried to capture me. I thought you were my one. You ushered me to a cage and gave me a pet name. I dallied on the outside, never letting that door swing closed. You never considered my feelings. I allowed you to direct my life. Did I love you? We were in different realms. You lived in the future, in dreams. I live in the present, in moments. Maybe I loved you then. It’s too hard to say now.

I used to think the haziness of memory was frightening and awful. I didn’t want my life to disappear without my consent. Now, though, I am willing to give it up. Let the memories build upon each other. Let sadness cloaked in smiles melt into the oblivion. Let me have the truth of what is left. Let our nights and morning collapse. Let our arguments and kisses fall to pieces. I want nothing to do with our past.

Franklin Park Conservatory, 1PM

(This encounter was not random but it was a missed connection).

I haven’t seen you in ages.

You asked me to visit one of our old haunts together. I nervously accepted. When I opened my door to let you in my house, it was like time collapsed from a year ago to the present. My instinct was to gather you into a hug and give you warm kisses. Instead, we looked at each other awkwardly with a million memories and feelings vibrating between our separate forms.

We spent the afternoon commenting on the colors and patterns of plants, giggling at the bold sexuality of their terrestrial bodies. I hid behind my camera lens and tried not to let you see me blush.

I want to let you know that you redeemed relationships for me. You proved that love is not selfish. There was a connection between us but it was one that missed the mark. You live in a world of apathy and memory while I dwell in one of spirit and presence. We don’t meet in the middle. You are a desert plant, nourished with little, while I have learned to compete for my temperate life.

Stauf’s Coffee, Tuesday 4PM

You waddled in, wearing your white chef’s coat from a local restaurant down the street. Your hair and mustache has long turned white but frames a plump, friendly face. I was sitting down just about to zone out into the  technological haze of my computer and musical selection of the afternoon. You grabbed a seat next to a haggard looking man in a baseball cap with a pony tail.

He remarked about the terrible weather we’ve had this week, a wretched fifty and cloudy after a week of sunshiny 85. You looked at him seriously and in a raspy, deep voice said “It doesn’t matter. Gotta take it day by day.”

A minute later, the rain started pouring on the thirsty plants and my cheeks glowed warm knowing that someone else appreciated the little things.

ZenCha, Wednesday Night: 8:30ish

I know you probably won’t remember this encounter as vividly as I do but that’s okay. I was drinking tea with a friend when I heard you say something that caused me to look up. You were drinking tea across the way with a boy with a red stripe in his hair. Your hair is originally dark but you dyed it a dark red. You were wearing a shirt with a tiger pattern on the front (that you matched your shoes to), grey skinny jeans, and a black zip up jacket.

I just want you to know that you have the perfect laugh. It was absolutely genuine and made me happy to be in your presence (even if not directly). Your dark eyes are very expressive and light up when you speak and when you listen. You know those pictures where something is in focus but the blurry background is what is most interesting about it? I had that experience tonight. I was with my friend but what I was most interested was your image in my periphery.

I wanted to tell you that you are adorable but I couldn’t risk the awkwardness. I wonder if I will ever see you again. If not, thanks for providing a little sunshine on this rainy Wednesday evening.

chance encounters: a project

One rainy Friday, my best friend and I were browsing the personal ads for cheap entertainment. Among offers for relationships, hidden fantasies, and college hookups, I found an ad.

“This is a long shot. You probably will never read this but I have to try. I don’t know where else to post this to find you. 1:15, Friday afternoon, April 22. I was checking out with a can of soda and you were in line paying. We exchanged eye contact a few times and sort of connected. You had a friend come up and talk to you while you were checking out. I would be very interested in meeting you for a coffee sometime.”

While I don’t know who these people are, I wish them luck. What else do we really have to do in this life but try to feel connected to something?

I began to think of all the beautiful moments with strangers I have had in the past. I can recall some that were pursued and then abandoned, some easily forgotten, some that have grown into relationships, and some that still have me wondering ‘what if.’ I want to catalogue some of these moments to keep them and to remind myself that there are chances to take everyday and beauty in unexpected moments.

a crescent or a perfect circle?

In order to feel complete with someone else, you must feel incomplete on your own.

I say fight it.
I say resist the temptation to lose yourself.
I say find home in your own head, not someone’s bed.
I say find stability on your own feet instead of another’s outstretched arms.
I say never settle.
I say fight for yourself and fight for your dignity.
I say learn what your own happiness looks like.

I say what are you? Are you a perfect circle or are you a crescent? I see you waning. Wax a bit this way, beautiful.

midnight wondering.

What a contradiction, night and day. In the daytime, I feel happiness. The sunlight plays with my eyelashes and each individual hair absorbs the warm of the season. The laugh of a good friend. Driving with good music and sharing our lives together. Tonight, I am surrounded by strangers. We are drinking beers as an escape from the awkward interaction of being mere acquaintances. It is now that I crave change and newness, that I wish I could be with someone familiar sharing serious notes of existence instead of sharing banalities about the newest technology or favorite television programs. I cringe at the mention of pop culture and hide in my thoughts, feet curled under my body completely self-contained. I want to escape, escape into the night air, my car, my home, my cigarette smoke floating out the window to prove that nothing is permanent.

I want to be with her constantly. I want my free-spirited friend who loves the smell of dirt and loves the sound of live music, who loves to experience this world. I want her who is inspiring and fresh and new and not he who lives vicariously through sports idols and play-actors in the corporate scheme of bad evening television.

I wonder how many people exist in this life. I wonder how many people watch vines creep up a tree and want to know the intimacy of that relationship. I wonder how many people look at the sky and wonder about the lifetime of the stars and if they are still burning bright in the atmosphere or if we are viewing the projections of the past. I wonder how many people look their best friends in the eye and want to feel the hurt and the joy they experience, to know them like themselves. I wonder how many people go through school for a degree or go to learn and explore and gain perspective outside of themselves.

Night, oh night. You muddle everything. You make everything so clear and so empty. I wish for intimacy in the evening. I wish for connections. I wish people cared about one and another and saw existence for what it was. I wish people didn’t worry about money or technology, but worried about the creative potential of their neighbor. I wish people could sit back and admire the photograph taken in a rare moment of understanding. I wish people could sit down and listen to the beautiful chords rising and falling from their friends with musical talent. I wish people could collaborate and create meaning in their lives and in their world.

I miss Eden who rejects the norm and focuses on the goodness of humanity. I miss Julie who loves and loves and smokes too much and always has her guard up and is too skinny and too beautiful for her own good. I miss people who are into that which cannot be touched, instead of that which can be bought.

I want friends who cook for the sheer pleasure of sharing well-prepared food. I want friends who drink for taste and for the company. I want friends who want to play outside from the first spec of morning light til the dusty sunset of evening and on through the moonlight because the day ended too soon and there is still so much to do and dance through. I want friends who appreciate the color of each other’s eyes and the uniqueness of individual bodies. I want friends who are not afraid of change and of the unknown but who thrive in the midst of chaos because they are able to create unity in the madness.

I wonder if there will ever be a community of people who care about things beyond themselves. I wonder if I will ever feel okay in a room of people. I wonder and I wonder and I swear I will never find what I lack. Until then, eyes open staring at the ceiling, staring at the door, wanting more than anything to be as alone as I feel.

connection

Reading in my bedroom with only a light glow from a lamp illuminating the pages, I escape. Though, after long days of work or study, I am unable to concentrate on the words and I drift off to my thoughts, considering my place in the world at that particular moment. I always feel this hunger for something undefinable and interchangeable. Sometimes it is a moment from my past or the stinging want for the interplay of a true friendship or the opportunity for new love. It always seems to collapse upon the realization that I am alone. Alone in my head, alone in my house, alone with my friends, alone. When I wake up in the morning, it seems those thoughts dissipate only to catch me off guard throughout the day when I am not being anything in particular, just thinking or laying or being quiet. I want to share these feelings, to try to define them. I frame them in words and offer them to a companion. I see them briefly touch my listener only bounce off  to shatter into a million fragments on the floor of my heart.

“No, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object too low. Then one gave it up; then the idea sunk back again. For how could one express that emptiness there? It was one’s body feeling, not one’s mind.” V.W.

blurs.

I am out of focus.

09 March, W. Norwich, Columbus