in progress

It’s been a strange 3 years
It’s been a longer 6 months
And we’re back at the beginning like we // never left that spot

You’re silence is heavy
This distance, farther than it’s ever been
And I can’t keep telling myself that we’ll meet again

The harder you’ve pushed
The more I’ve stood my ground
Up against a hurricane that spits venom and flame

But I’m growing weary
I won’t break, I’ll just bend
So we keep going in circles as if this never will end

(c)
You’ve made me / try harder than I’ve ever tried
You’ve taught me patience that only a saint could apply
Now here I am walking down this road alone again
And I can’t keep telling myself that I’ll see you again

I never asked you to stick around
It was only a suggestion
If the 3rd times not a charm you’d think that I’d learn my lesson

I never tried to clip your wings
you only pinned them yourself
Convincing (that man in the mirror/all your grey matter) that I was somebody else

I’ve counted the sleepless nights
Listening to the clock ticking away
Trying to make sense of why you thought it dangerous to stay

Push came to shove
Doors slammed and the locks changed
So we sit here in the quiet while you finish out your games

(c)
You’ve made me / try harder than I’ve ever tried
You’ve taught me patience that only a saint could apply
Now here I am walking down this road alone again
And I can’t keep telling myself that I’ll see you again

(b)
I’m still here counting stars
Down by the train tracks
Watching all these lives & steel pass by
Should you ever come back

I’m sitting under the power lines
Hoping this message finds it’s way
Passing time under these power lines
Watching the neon fade to gray

(c)
You’ve made me / try harder than I’ve ever tried
You’ve taught me patience that only a saint could apply
Now here I am walking down this road alone
And this time, it’s fine

I’ve never been good at breakups. I’m better now than I used to be, but it’s not easier. Maybe I’m just quieter about them now. No point in whinging about the hurt knowing full well the risks you’ve willingly assumed, right?

I’m emotive in a way, but I hate for people to know about it. It’s a pride thing. So I usually just bludgeon paper with my favourite pen for ages or smash at these keys until little by little I bury my feelings down far enough where I can’t feel them all the time. That, or keep myself insanely busy so that I barely have time to breathe, let alone think about my life and the important pieces missing from it. The latter is far less sustainable.

My stuffed panda who spends each night with me has caught more tears than I’d like to admit. He’s also been flung across the room into a wall more times than I’m proud of.

I’d like to think I’m decently pragmatic about these types of things. On the outside at least. Usually on the inside I’m walking a very thin line between a full blown panic attack and going on a homicidal rampage and wanting to punch life in it’s provebrial face. I’ve met this situation with far more apathy and grace than previously. However, it still keeps me up into the late hours of the night/morning, so I must not be as ambivalent about it as I like to tell myself I am.

“Everybody owns a thing a person leaves behind when they leave us, and we’re all familiar with the way that thing morphs into something sacred and symbolic.” – Jozen

There are pieces of you everywhere now. Some of them, most of them, you gave me. Some of them, one thing, I took; You might have actually given it to me but I can’t figure out if it was an accident or not.

The first thing you ever gave me was a wine bottle on which you’d taken great care in writing my name in big graffiti letters spotted with bubbles and drips. You only did one “S”, explaining to me that graffiti is stupid when you have double letters because one always ends up looking better than the other. Because you’re completely OCD like me, this made sense. And I was happy to have my own little nickname from you, one that I wouldn’t come to share with your dog later on. We weren’t dating when you made it for me, in fact, we’d never met each other in person at that point in time.

We’d skype for hours upon hours and you’d sit there with your paint pens drawing and periodically showing me the progress when you got over having your tortured artist ‘I hate everything I create’ moments. I loved it, I still do. It may not be your best work, but it’s special to me.

Every time I move, which is more than I’d like to admit, I carefully pack it and make sure no heavy boxes end up on top of it, or nothing gets close enough to scratch any paint off, because I doubt I can make any special requests from you at this point in time. I’d then proudly display the bottle again when I unpack in my new place. It was my attempt in commissioning artwork from you for free, and, because you thought I was pretty, you obliged.

The second thing you gave me was a stuffed panda, which was actually the first thing, because it was the first tangible object that I touched aside from you that had to do with you. I have it here next to me right now like I always do. It’s been loved almost beyond recognition of being a panda. It’s white fur has yellowed and it’s no longer silky soft like it was when you surprised me with it in the front seat of your car at the DC airport. You told me once that I should wash it and I looked at you like you were crazy. So, no, I haven’t washed it. That’d be like exchanging it for a new one that wasn’t from you. So it sits here yellowed, tatty looking and loved day in and day out.

Then there was that lucky cat. We went to the mall, because that’s where you go to eat when you live in the county on the East Coast as far as I know. Ruby Tuesday’s or something fancy along those lines. There was a line so we’d put our names down to wait. You said you wanted to go look for a hat, or underwear, or a shirt. Something boring and errand-y. So I stayed put to make sure we got a table. You strolled up 15 minutes later with that look on your face; the look a 1st grader gives when he’s about to give the girl he likes a present, or punch her; half giddy and half disgusted. Begrudgingly happy with yourself. You held out your hand and mumbled “I got you this,” as you shoved the cat into mine (Just like when you practically threw my christmas present at my face that one year). It was little and yellow sitting with one paw raised and a cheeky smile on a coiled spring. A dashboard ornament.

I’ve yet to put it on a car, my thought process being that of ‘what if I get a new car and then have to rip the sticky part off and it wont stick on the new one?’, so it sits on my desk bobbing around gently when I type. Sometimes I pick it up and fawn over it for a little before putting it down just before I get too sad. It was quite possibly the nicest gift you’ve ever given me because there wasn’t any reason behind it other than you simply saw something that made you think of me.

I kept waiting for the moment for you to delete me, again. In every sense of the word. I don’t know why you didn’t sooner. You’re so good at pretending that I don’t exist and that I never have, and that in the unlikely event that I actually had, that it was of little or no concern to you. Like I’m some stranger you shrugged off on the street and kept carrying on with your day. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that.

I don’t get sad anymore. Not in the quintessential sense of the word. I just feel more dead inside. Like I can’t be bothered to feel anything because it’s all too much effort. Instead, it’s just this overwhelming heaviness that grips my chest, and forces me to fake a smile in the company of others. I resign myself to feeling like a fucking idiot and being to pack up all the pieces I had gotten out to put back together until you’d strewn them about again.

Missing someone is like being sick. It’s worse in the morning and at night.

It’s hard to figure out what to do with yourself when you’re trapped in a tiny room with someone who clearly does not want you there any longer. The silence becomes deafening and the unspoken animosity being directed from one side of the room to the mattress begins to feel heavy and suffocating, pushing on my chest more and more until I can barely breathe. No amount of sinking into the bed could help me disappear any faster as I prayed for another storm to hit and cut all the power so the darkness could consume me and we could pretend to have to go to sleep. So we could pretend that there were better and more important things to do than be in each others company, though you didn’t seem to have to pretend. So we could pretend I didn’t fly across the country to see you. And so I could pretend I wasn’t fighting back tears and rejection that cut so deep it must have been visible to anyone but you.

I don’t remember you turning out the light. I don’t remember you crawling into bed or how you got to there from the chair in the first place. I remember feeling disgusting and how I could hear loudly through your thoughts that you were angry and had no interest in wrapping me up in your arms like you had done the night before. So I curled up on my side of the bed and starred at the wall until I was too exhausted from holding my breath and staying motionless that I gave into my final disappearing act.

You woke me up in the middle of the night when you pressed the back of your body into mine. You were warm and soft and I thought things might be okay. Then you woke up and left for work and I haven’t seen you since…….

It’s not safe to stay around the one that knows you best
Even though in the darkest hour she helps get the demons off your chest

And it’s not wise to let your guard down to the gentlest of tigers
Even though she’ll use those claws for you when it gets down to the wire

The passion, the sex, the fire and the spark
using all you’ve built to find your way in the dark

but it’s better to leave the ones you love first
before they leave you in the middle of the night
better to see it coming
than to take it from the blind side

the darkness is your friend, she’ll help you mend your troubled mind
when you walk away from all the answers to your questions and that girl you left behind

So pop another pill and let it numb the noises inside your chest
stare blankly into that glowing box and just forget about all the rest

There’s noises outside the window, close the blinds and don’t let them in
There’s something floating around in your head but you don’t know where to begin

It’s easier when you don’t have to see her, pretending it’s all a game
It’s easier when she can’t bring you any closer to this flame

So keep control and only let the bell toll when you’ve had enough
Don’t let the naked skin or that girl within be the one who calls your bluff

that pretty paper doll you kept pushing too close to the matches
wondering why now all you have left is ashes