the only thing i wish.

i will never wish upon whoever stumbles across these words to have to feel it the way i feel it. i believe that my writing has found its end. i look back at the last 4 years and throughout my words i think it is easiest to find the one thread that i hoped to keep everything together: love. i dont know if you respect me or if you laugh at my words but i do know i have been honest to myself with each typed word and that's all that really matters in my heart. ive tried my best and i have everything i could need except the one thing i've always wanted the most. i don't know what that means for me but i do know that i cannot continue writing in the hopes that i will become something more than what i am right now. the fact is that i've worked hard on myself these last 4 years for the singular purpose of becoming something i could be proud of but the quiet truth is that i hoped that i would find someone else along the way that might be equally as proud. instead, i feel as though my words have found a way to sabotage me and my brutal honesty in my poems and in my free-thinking-blogging has left me alone. i have two college degrees and success in my career... too many friends to count that love me and are there for me and a family that loves me deeply and yet i have no one to see the me inside and love me without hurting me deeply. i don't know where this leaves me but this last round has left me breathless. anxiety attacks. missing work. not eating for so many days in a row i didn't even know it was possible. it leaves me crying in front of every single family member and friend i have ever known. i don't want their sympathy nor do i want much of anything except what i thought was finally coming my way... someone that loved me enough to see all of me and give me the world through a calm touch, a soft smile, a laugh, naked in bed. but i am the fool of fools. i have fallen into 4 boys now. opened up to 4 boys now and i can't help but feel like a slut. i am the 28 year old used up version of something my 20 year old self would gasp at. i have done things in this last month that i am not proud of but still find myself continuing simply to numb out the pain. he is gone. he no longer needs my time, my love, or anything in between. i am a foreign memory of something i'm not even sure. i used to believe in taking the high road in life and digging deeper but after it all, i can't even think of what i should have done. i thought i was honest. i thought i played it safe. i thought i was cautious.

and my sweet beautiful soft faithful loving puppy is gone. in a box in the ground surrounded by red rose petals and no matter how much i try to pretend that they are still soft i know that they have started to curl up and harden around him. he went from being amazing.. to dying in my arms in a few days and my loss is severe. my loss is mind-numbing. my loss is over-whelming. i thought i knew enough after my experiences and growth to be able to survive this but i do give up. levi, you win. your death consumed me. i had you since i was 12 and you were the only thing that was consistent for me... and geoff, you win. even though i know you don't even think about it... you win. you can have my heart and my soul and my smiles and my determination to be better than all those boys out there that fuck strangers and are liars and leave you high and dry because i am no longer better than that. 4 out of 7 days a week, i have intense dreams that you are in my bed and that levi is rolling around on the floor and then i wake up and fall into a million pieces. how the gods of dreams are fucking with my head. i think about you so much i would do anything to be away from it and i await the day that you don't consume my thoughts with the fun we had, the sex i thought you only wanted from me, the kisses, the laughter, the times you went farther than any boy ever had and did little things for me day to day.

my 4 months of loss and my 40 days of mind numbing pain have taken me somewhere not safe. i am packing up my apartment and moving because i see you both here. the only boy i ever let in my bed and the dog that made this my home. its been 15 days and i have yet to move his things. they are in the exact same place. and of course its strange to me how much i feel it. why i can't let it go... but i think people are special and i think its hard to find deep connections and i thought i believed in real true devoted love. but now i feel ashamed to be around my friends. i feel ashamed that i'm not able to be more evenly keeled and capable of happiness. i can't keep track of the men fucking you each week. one here and two there. i stop counting... it's just too much way too soon.

its all just ramblings now. it doesn't even connect the way it used to. my writing used to be intense enough that it even inspired me. but that is not now and i'm done trying to figure it all out. my eyes, my throat, my mind, my heart are so very exhausted.

(when i was 18 until i was 22 i loved him while he cheated on me and hit me and verbally assaulted me. while he did cocaine in the apartment i paid for him and the friendships i lost and the family i deserted. i chased him across 4 states. he fucked boys while fucking me and he lied lied lied. he took pictures and sold them for money. he hurt me deeply... yet i stayed faithful and tried and tried and tried

(when i was 22 until i was 26 i loved him while he secretly chatted with boys online and i have the years of emails to prove it. i still read them to remind myself when i start to think of him as safe. he deserted me for work and friends and left me alone 5 states from everyone and everything i gave up to be with him... yet i stayed faithful and i tried and tried and tried

(when i was 26 i bought an apartment. i asked all the questions. i thought it through. i said we can take it slow we dont have to rush but he assured me and i walked a foreign city alone for hours and left alone and came home alone and the weeks turned into months

(when i was 28 i met a boy... and its too much to write about...

its too much of a coincidence for me not to be playing some role in this. i surrender. its my fault. don't feel sorry for me... just dont fuck people over. dont tell them you love them with your words and then confuse them with your actions.

if i could say one thing it is this: real love is big enough to see us as we are. it loves us and doesn't judge, it takes the road that is not always easy and it is honest. it is pure and basic and whole. it is light and funny and deep and passionate. it has no expectations and sees the best in people. it is self-sacrificing and assertive. it is the breath that holds my bones together. it gives kindness not only to strangers but the people in our lives when they need us most but love is only love when we act on it. i hope that if you read this... that you act on love. its the only thing i wish.

unlocking your future.

an old classmate found me online that i haven't seen in 13 years. we weren't close but when you spend 10 years together in the same room in the same class in the same small school... you know each other whether you want to or not. i immediately asked her out for drinks because i know that those people that hold your past are sometimes the greatest opportunity for unlocking your future. we met up on monday. it was rainy and could be akward but what is there to be akward about? it's been so long i don't even know how to function as that boy that she knew. in her i saw this mirror. last time we talked i was 15, shy, awkward, and scared of any attention focused on me for greater than a couple of seconds at time. but that night, i asked her dozens of questions, genuinely curious where her life has taken her and offering up anything she wanted to know. the second half of your twenties are fascinating because you never know exactly what someone is up to... at my age you can have a family, a divorce, traveled the world, success in your career, you could have had 5 lifes by now. she told me she has a 4 year old and that last year she found out her husband was fucking another woman. after i offered her my sincerest sympathies i asked about her parents. she informed me that 3 months after her own husband's affair, her mother found out that her father was fucking some girl half his age. what a beautiful thing after 27 years of marriage. and this sort of thing doesn't shock me anymore and i tell her that men truly are assholes and i barely claim my gender most days. i wonder who these women are that spread their legs for these married men (i wonder what it takes to be twice removed) and i wonder why these married men feel like there was no way out - why they felt trapped because instead of having an honest talk - they put their dicks inside someone else without any real understanding for the months and years that will follow for these women as they enter the abyss. because we find out. we always find out. and only these women will be able to pull themselves out of this break-neck reaction these men have so quickly disregarded in their general direction.

i'm sitting across the table from her. the boy that used spend 5 minutes thinking about the words i would speak for fear of them not being funny enough, not being important enough to hold anyone's attention. i'm not really picking up on it until later but i'm sitting here with no regard for anything. some people will tell you that everyone goes through this... everyone gets more comfortable in their skin... everyone matures. the truth is that not everyone does and i clearly saw myself for what i was supposed to be: inferior, timid, a follower and it wasn't enough to make me happy. the person sitting across from her that is laughing, and conversing, and cursing like a sailor is very much the person i have created... the person i want to be and it's an amazing reminder to know that i'm the result of myself... that this is an amazing place to be... that anything is possible... that the best is yet to come.

and she's beautiful because she's not the same person either... she's in her own now. she is beautiful not because its natural... not because she's the model type but because she is so unique and i can pick up on that and see it right away... and we eat indian food and drink indian beer and everything is just like it should be.

too intense to mediate.

we collided a long time ago and it's hard to remember the exacts details surrounding it but i remember it being too intense to mediate. it was what it was and the only thing to do was to leave it right there in the back pocket of my brain. i didn't have to know your name to really know you. at the end of it, i knew you better than most people that know your name. how it all came together felt safest to me and i couldn't offer anything more. it wasn't mine to give. those minutes upon hours upon days were intense. no pressure. no plan. and somehow you knew when and how. i've never talked about it but yeah it comes to mind and there's no shame in it. it's why i'm not prone to jealousy. we're all fully loaded when it comes to experiences and memories. all i have ever really cared about was intentions and actions. when we were wrapped around each other it felt like love but i sent those words packing the minute they tried to enter my mind. my hands pushing your wrists against the wall. my back against the mirror. the ice cold tile under my skin was the only thing keeping me conscious. deep sleep soon following the way it used to follow when i was 19 in a sun drenched apartment with a dry throat, chapped lips, unable to resist the sex coma. boys always want to know my name. my number. my everything. so i act aloof. i play any card to keep it where it needs to be... and even now i'm right where i need to be with who i need to be here with but we cannot deny our past because it brings us front and center for where we want to go and for who we have become.

all for his gain.

I designed a logo last week for a company that came to me in desperate need of something quick. I told him that I could squeeze him in but I needed to complete the entire thing to his approval within two weeks because of other clients I had current commitments to. Two weeks became 51 days total which included 15 emails and a total of 29 designs/redesigns until every pixel was perfect… and it was indeed a beautiful logo. I even gave him a discount because I was designing double logos for him at once… which eventually turned into one single logo and I didn’t charge him full price. After all this time he tells me he is pleased with the end product. He then tells me that he needs it in a file format that I don’t work with because it makes my designs look less than what they are. He immediately asks for a full refund and unleashes a furry of hell via email. It throws me… because he had never once mentioned this kind of file format before… because I had worked so hard and so much longer than anyone else would have to deliver him exactly what he needed… because it made me second guess myself (which I am learning is a sin.) I could refund his money and tell him I apologize for any inconvenience. I could refund half is money and tell him that we can call it even or… or I could confront this motherfucking situation for what it really is… my work and sweat all for his gain. I wrote him something professional because I’m good at that and told him that the logo was his and I would not be refunding his money to him and that this is a decision I will not be swayed on. I knew if he took me to court that I would win without a fight. He wrote me back minutes later telling me that he had already “hired” someone else who supplied him what he needed… that I was second rate… yada yada…. I knew it was the end of it so I clicked it off because I didn’t need his words running through my mind. I did my job and I did it a 110%.

And tonight, in traffic, a vehicle drives right in front of me with… my 6 day old logo, all big and bright, plastered on the side of his vehicle. You see, that motherfucker, intended to use the design all along. He saw a way out and was more than happy to have me create something for him and try to steal it for free so that he could grow his clientele with a swanky new look. And this only confirmed that people out there don’t always live like I live and that you better believe there will be people that will take you and leave you with nothing… simply because they can… and you can either be liked or you can know that you are good enough… that you did what you were supposed to and you’re not going to fucking move because what matters most… is your self-respect.