Bleeding Love

I don't feel poetic.  I don't know how I feel.  I all of a sudden just felt really empty.  A deep sadness just creeped in out of nowhere.  I'm not even sure if it was attached to him, but his face was the first thing to flash in my mind.  I made the realization today that I am afraid to close my eyes.  I hate closing my eyes.  I was sitting out on this dock today over by Marina Park, and it was beautiful and tranquil and the perfect place to sit and meditate, but I just couldn't do it.  I got out there, sat down, stared out at the sea and tried so hard to keep my eyes focused on one thing.  I couldn't do it.  I can't fixate, I'm always all over the place.  Maybe I'm afraid if I stop moving, I'll never be able to move again.  I stopped moving when I met Jake.  I closed my eyes for far too long.  And now I have a hard time even blinking.  I sat there listening to the waves, watching them roll in and out, and then I tried so hard to close my eyes so I could soak it all in and delve into my mind and listen to the world and all that, but I just couldn't do it.  I would have my eyes closed for 3 seconds and then have to open them.  And it's always like that.  I never close my eyes in cars, on buses, airplanes, nothing.  I can never fall asleep with other people around.  At sleepovers, I almost always fall asleep last.  I'm just really paranoid, I guess.

I'm still feeling empty.  I don't know where this came from.  I'm gonna try to write right through it.

It's hard for me to face the fact that there is this person out there who knows more about me than probably anyone I know, including my mother, and I don't even talk to him anymore.  He's out there walking around with all my secrets stored up, and I don't even know who he is anymore.  We can't even look at each other.  I saw him yesterday from afar, not even up close, and the wind was immediately knocked out of me.  He didn't even have to look at me.  He didn't even have to acknowledge my existence, and here I was with my head between my knees, panting like a psychopath just trying to catch my breath.  All I see in my mind is every day and night we had together; every car ride, every talk, every phone call, every play, it's all there in my head, and he's there in my head, but my eyes only see this person that I don't even know, who knows all about me, every single detail, because I chose to scream and I made him listen.  I always feel ugly around him because he always made me feel like I wasn't good enough.

When I go running, I picture him running, too.  It turns it into a race and I'm determined to win.  I just for once want to be better than him at something.  He's had two girlfriends since me and countless hook-ups, and I've had none of either.  I'm just too afraid, I guess.  Don't want to get hurt, don't want to get too attached; I run from everyone.

I've become very reserved.  Like, I have a really hard time making friends on my own.  Sure, I mean, I've gained new friends over the years, but it was always through someone else.  I haven't just "made a friend" in a really long time.  So that's scary, cuz I'm leaving for Boulder in like 48 days, where I know NO ONE and will be forced to make new friends, or else be really lonely.  It's just been too hard for me to trust anyone after Jake.  Jake...god, that name doesn't even have a meaning anymore.  It doesn't resonate or anything.  It doesn't seem real.  Maybe that's why I have such a hard time seeing him, because it's like seeing a ghost.  He's just a memory--a figment of my own imagination, if you will.  A dream.

Then why does it still hurt so bad?

Different Colours Made of Tears

inspiration, motivation, cooperation, exasperation, saturation. a video into my past turned into a window into my soul, as i watched memories being made and facts unfold themselves. i didn't remember until just now, i didn't remember until just this second how much i was in love with him, how much i cared. i didn't remember what he looked like, i didn't even remember why i loved him, it was all gone. and then there he is unexpectedly, there is that smirk, that drawl, that long hair and those goddam blue eyes, and suddenly, i remember. i remember what it was that was so captivating, because 3 years later and it's still there. i just couldn't let go. one minute i held the key, next the walls were closed on me. i couldn't just say goodbye. adios. aufwiedersehen. none of that was good enough, instead i clung tightly and dug my fingernails into his arm, just emptying his veins, killing his spirit, ruining what little trust he had. i don't know how he got out. i wish i could get out. i wish i could leave. it's like i just woke up from a terrible dream and i'm not in the same place that i was when i fell asleep, and i have no idea how i got here. i didn't remember the past 3 years until just now. i didn't remember what happened until just now.

i slept for the past 2 days. just constant sleep. i woke up to eat, then went right back to sleeping. i'm tired. i'm always tired, and i don't even know why. for what reason do i have to be tired? the only times i'm not tired is when the moon is out, the city has fallen asleep, and i don't have to hear anyone else in this house make a noise except for my dog who wanders the house hourly. night is my only escape from communication in this godforsaken household, it's the only time where there is no risk of yelling or of fighting or screaming or anger. not with anyone else, anyway. usually i yell and fight and scream and get angry at myself during these few brief hours. i would really like to just sleep till august.

i might not see my best friend till december. i haven't seen her since january. you do the math. how painful is that.

See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me

I used to pray to God when I was in 6th or 7th grade. I'd pray for very selfish reasons like "Make Nick like me" or "Please let me be popular", shit like that. But it was praying all the same, and I really believed there was a God up there listening. I grew out of that for a little while during High School. I found out what Agnostic meant and decided that was what I was. I believed in a God, but not a specific one, and when my first experience with real unrequited love made its appearance, I was back to praying.

By the end of Junior year, I hated God. My life was in pieces, and because I didn't want to just blame myself, I blamed God. I stopped praying, and eventually, I stopped believing. I turned into a full-fledged Atheist, cynicism and all. Even when my prayers were answered in the middle of summer, I stuck to my guns and still did not believe in a God. And I wouldn't for a couple years after that.

I don't know when I finally decided there was some kind of a Divine force again, but I'm guessing it was sometime last fall, or maybe even in the summer. In any case, I was not back to praying, but I was back to believing in something; not necessarily God, or a God, or many Gods, and not exactly Buddha, but I definitely put all my faith into karma. And I started to view the last 3 years of my life as payback for all the manipulative shit I had done to someone in particular. I wore this poor boy down, killed his spirit, and then asked for more. I know everyone thinks he was so horrible to me, but if you heard even half the conversations we had, you would hate me, too. So when I realized I was basically in the doghouse as far as karma goes, I decided I was going to try and put as much kindness out there as I could. I thought that would resolve it. I thought then ideally, I would be, well, saved, for lack of a better word.

But even though I was putting all this kindness out there, I still felt tortured. Things were still not exactly working, my life was still in shambles, and I kept feeling so neglected. Things would still happen to me that just seemed so unnecessary, and I knew it was payback for what I'd done, but it was still just as hurtful. A lot of the things had to do with that poor boy and unfortunate meetings. When he came home for spring break, I ran into him very unexpectedly and it was awful. Not just once, but several times, each more painful than the next. I finally accepted it and by the time he left, it was ok, but I was still shook up and definitely did not want to see him when summer rolled around.

Well, summer has now rolled around, and he is back. I went to my alma mater's graduation the other day and had such a strong feeling that I would see him there. I was extremely alert the whole time, because I knew that once I let my guard down and forgot about it, that would be the moment I would see him. It never happens when you expect it to. So I kept an eye out the entire time, scanning the crowds for him, making sure he wasn't there. And...he wasn't. He hadn't showed. I was in the clear. I went to greet all my friends who'd graduated and took several pictures and finally relaxed. I was invited to a graduation party, but opted to go home instead. I was going to get a ride with my friend Trevor, but then we realized that his car was actually probably further away than my house, so I walked with him a little ways to the corner of Seaward and Poli. As soon as we reached the corner, I looked at the white truck sitting there diagonally waiting to turn onto Seaward and lost all my breath. It was him. We made eye contact, but then I abruptly looked away, hugged Trevor good bye and began walking as fast as I could down Seaward. He turned onto Seaward and drove right past me. I almost threw a fit. I went that entire ceremony without seeing him, there were hundreds of people there and he wasn't one, but then I decide to walk this certain way at this exact moment and I see him. I fucking see him. If I had talked to Toby for another minute, if I had walked a different way, if I'd tripped and fallen, I would've missed him, I would not have seen him, but for some reason those events fell into order and there he was. At the moment I least expected it, there he was.

As soon as that happened, I looked up and cried out, "Are we even yet?!" I was sick of this bullshit. Who does that happen to? No one. I wanted to know if my payback was over, if this madness would end. Cuz I have been giving and giving and giving for quite some time now, just trying to make it all even and balanced, and yet I'm still tortured with that. I walked home as fast as I could with watery eyes, just really wanting to punch something or someone. It was awful.

The next day I went for a walk and thought about the events that had happened the day before. I silently asked Karma if we were even yet, and if so, to give me a sign. The wind actually picked up a little bit at that point, but I didn't know how to interpret that, so I ignored it.

The day after, I was still searching for a sign, still silently asking. I knew it would come to me when I least expected it [as most things do], so I tried really hard to forget about it.

I was talking with Toby later that night and decided to get a small snack. Well, when we visited my Nana on Tuesday, she sent us home with a huge stash of fortune cookies. Since that was all we had in our house basically, that didn't require microwaves or toaster ovens or anything like that, I grabbed one and then went back into my room to finish my conversation with Toby. I opened up the fortune cookie and ate the half that didn't have the fortune in it, wondering if fortune cookies go stale [they do], and then when I was done eating the one side, I pulled out my fortune. This what it read:

"From now on your kindness will lead you to success."

I sat there and smiled and stared at it for about 10 seconds. Toby asked me what was wrong, and I tried to explain this entire story to him, but it's a hard one to tell.

I don't want to say that was my sign from God, but I think it was a sign of some sort, a sign I needed anyway. And the events fit together all too well for it to really be anything else. I always leave a door open for coincidence however, and I don't think I will ever be truly persuaded to lean one way or another. Even when I was "Atheist" I always left a door open for faith.

So that's my story, and that's where I stand.

Who'll Stop The Rain?

My heart hurts. The beat of anger and the beat of hurt are all rolled into one pounding tempo that will not shut the fuck up. I'm chewing on my teeth because my pride has been worn down too thin. I'm always hurt. I always end up hurt by someone, I can't get attached to anyone. They always end up leaving me for another person, another summer, another country, another life. And I'm always alone sitting here wondering what I did wrong. They always change. They always change and don't bring me with them, they leave me behind. I trust and I trust and I trust and then I'm thrown away.

I'm just so tired. I want a break. Please, God, Buddha, Allah, whoever the fuck you are, can I get a goddam break? Can you please just give me something constant that isn't going to rip my heart out at the drop of a hat? Can I please just exist for once? Can the things I want just please want me back?

I have to get out of this town away from everyone.

Smoke Without Fire

We were both outsiders. When things got too loud or too fake, we reached out to each other momentarily to grab onto that reality we both so wonderfully kept intact. He was more real than I was, of course. And I always reached out to him more openly than he ever reached out to me.

He showed me less and less of his real side, though, as the months and years wore on. And as soon as I began to feel comfortable talking about worldly things and inner thought, he closed his doors more tightly and left me out in the cold. I stopped believing in a God, and he didn't care to talk about it. I stopped believing in myself, and he turned the other way. I stopped believing in anything, and he was gone.

That's when the rebellion started, the rebellion against reality and religion and the world altogether. My world became one of nothing, no responsibilities or commitments or rules. I did what I wanted because what else was there to do? I'd been following this dear boy for so long and as soon as he betrayed me, I lost faith in everything and everyone. I couldn't follow anyone, especially teachers and adults. Art became my world, and I used it as an excuse for everything. I was an artist, so I could read T.S. Eliot instead of doing homework, I could paint portraits of Bob Dylan instead of writing essays, and I could do theatre instead of, well, going to class. Because I thought no one could understand my tortured mind. And I still thought that as I was sitting on those hot cement bleachers in the middle of June, watching all my friends receive their diplomas and smiling emphatically. They'd done it. They'd made it. But I, the artist, sat there screaming on the inside knowing this wasn't right.

The work was still bullshit, mind you. The work I refused to do was still bullshit, I will never change my opinion of that. And I still feel that the public school system failed me tremendously, but I know of course it was mostly and namely my fault. I could've just done it. It wasn't like I wasn't smart enough or anything, I just didn't have the motivation or the focus. Reality was too much for me back then. I couldn't deal with it, so I ignored it, made up excuses, I did whatever I could to make it seem like I was in the right, that I was the victim, and that everyone around me was just out to get me. I was very paranoid.

He didn't help. I don't think he intentionally tried to drown me, but he did. I was far too caught up in him to look back or even ahead, so I stayed another year. I stayed to try and salvage whatever was left between us. I skipped out on a whole future just so I could have one more moment with him, one more measly moment, that I never got, mind you, and ended up pushing him further and further and further away, as I drowned and drowned and drowned. I watched as he went through relationship after relationship, love interest after love interest, and every time I would lay awake at night for weeks just wondering what it was that they had that I didn't. Why I was so boring compared to them. Why I wasn't worth it.

I ignored myself for three years, only paying attention to what he was looking for, what he wanted, and paid no attention to myself. I'd never fallen so hard, so fast, and so low. That's when the manipulation started. I would pick fights just so I could reassure myself that he actually cared about me. I started to stage phone calls and get-togethers. I ALWAYS needed to talk to him about SOMETHING. I always had some crisis that he needed to tend to. Needless to say, it wore him out very quick, and though he still might've really cared about me, he couldn't handle it and started to detach himself.

Our reality pact finally broke one night when I rebelled against him and got as drunk as I could get for the first time in my entire life. His birthday was the next weekend, and he'd decided that for his birthday, he would drink for the first time. I was invited, but didn't go. I don't know if it was the booze talking or what, but from what I hear he was pretty bummed I didn't show. He called me that night, wasted out of his mind, rambling about loneliness and how I'm the record that Holden breaks in Catcher in the Rye. He ended up dropping his phone behind his bed and falling asleep minutes afterward. I laughed for a little bit after this conversation, and then cried knowing this was the end of an era. We were no longer outsiders together. We'd crossed the line and already lost each other.

My faith still rested in that boy. My opinion of myself was still taken from what HE thought of me. It was disgusting. He didn't even have to say anything, he could just give me a look and that would be what my day would revolve around. I would analyze it, try to figure out if it was a good look, a bad look, a nice look, a mean look, whatever. If he was unhappy with me, then I was unhappy with me, it didn't matter what else had happened that day. Lots of paintings came out of this. Paintings trying to convey my biggest loss: my first love and half of myself. And for a while I thought I had found my calling, but when the inspiration finally ran dry, I was back to square one. Once there was nothing left to fight about and no reason to contact him, the paintings stopped and everything seemed empty.

We tried being friends and it kind of worked for a little while, but I always ended up caring a lot more about him than he cared about me, or at least that was how I felt. So I pushed him away again. Then a week or so later, I went running back to him, pleading for help and support and advice, trying to get him to turn around, and after hours upon hours of tears and yelling and saying things we both didn't mean, I got him to turn around and help. I got him to talk. And I felt so guilty afterwards, I couldn't even focus on his advice. All I could focus on was how reluctant he was to even be a part of my life. I still did the same thing a week later, though, but this time he didn't budge. He would not turn around and help. So I told him I wished I'd never met him. I didn't mean it of course, but I said it and all he said was ok. We haven't spoken since.

I still think about him all the time. I can't get him out of my head. I don't dare contact him, though, cuz I know that is over, there is no coming back from that, but he is still always in my head, in my dreams, in my nightmares, in my thoughts, in every song I listen to, or every book I read, his voice or his face or his eyes, his goddam eyes that could always see directly into my soul, they're always there. The memory of him will not fade. And I am so scared of seeing him because I'm afraid he'll become a part of my life again, and then there will be a whole new memory to haunt me.

But I know that if I go this whole summer without seeing him, I'm going to be just as disappointed.

Road Block.

I've hit a wall. I apologize. I'm going to take a slight hiatus.

San Francisco Blues II

The trip started out well enough. We arrived an hour early, which gave us just enough time to wander the ornate walls of Union Station, the sweet aroma of coffee leading the way and tempting our weary minds. I was up till 5 am remembering the backhills of my mind and immersing myself in my own San Francisco Blues with the help of dear Kerouac. My mother awoke me in her sing-song way at the beautiful 8 am mark, but I lay in bed for a good half hour, tying up loose ends from the night before. And then it rained and then it stopped, and in between shared laughs and remarks, I focused on my own world changing, covering my glazed over eyes with my 60s Swedish shades.

There's this boy sitting a few seats behind me now, reading some epic work about freedom and truth and if I had the guts and the vigor I would attempt a polite and simple conversation, but instead I sit here hiding behind my Kerouac and these blue velour seat cushions, while Lou Reed puts a spike into my vein. He only brought a guitar and a book with him, and as intriguing as that is for me, I haven't the faintest idea if it is intriguing for him. Maybe he's one of those secret beats, the ones who don't relish in the fact that they may have the key to the universe. I'm not a secret beat; I sit here in my loud Kerouac shirt, reading my goddam Kerouac, writing my own goddam Kerouac, knowing that if asked, my mind would not be able to catch up with my thoughts, and therefore my mouth would be dumb, mute, ignorant, fake. Enough about this boy, he's making me depressed.

My trips to San Francisco always fascinate me. I'm not talking about actually being in San Francisco, I'm talking about the journey up, the always silent, always mystifying journey. I've spent hours just staring out the window organizing thoughts and rhymes, trying to match my life to these surroundings. Most of the landscapes consist of blackened weathered trees, or dry golden feathery grass, or the lost souls of soon-slaughtered cows, and power lines after power lines. Sometimes a river or two, but mainly just desolate nowhere. The baggage compartments keep popping open and my OCD desires telepathic powers so I can close each one or open all of them, one of the other. I'm sitting in a seat that when vacant causes an ultimate ruckus and makes concentration almost impossible. For the whole first half of the trip no one was brave enough to sit in it apparently and it disrupted the minds of those without headphones for the first 3 hours. Lots of windmills, lots and lots of windmills. I honestly can't tell if I am asleep or awake, or confused or focused, but in any case, the weather's hitting me hard with its dark grey clouds, not even revealing some patches of light or hope, and I can feel Kerouac's grip on my heart, soul, and mind tighten as we get nearer and nearer to dear Ol' Francis. It's very reflective of the day Mander and I left San Francis back in January before her ultimate African dream captured her for 4 months and banished me to solitude. I can't complain, though, I think my time alone was meant to let me reflect on the things I learned from dear Amanda, and I got back on track well enough.

And I end here with green rolling hills and a motion sick stomach. My adventures continue in San Francisco, though my life may be separate.