Untitled

"I could have been better. I'm sorry I'm broken. I should have tried harder. I will be different. I will be better. For you, I'll try."

And you cry.

Sometimes you lie and you hope this isn't one of those times.

"You are spoiled, useless, ineffective, weak, stupid."

And you cry harder.

Recovery isn't an end, it's a process. 

"How can you expect anyone to love you, to know you and to appreciate you, when you don't love, appreciate or know yourself?"

And you cover your face with you hands in shame and indignation. Looking for the words that will make everything ok. 

We always hurt the ones we love, usually we hurt ourselves first.

Vodka Quiet.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be better."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"Then why won't you love me?"

"I tried. There isn't any reason why I shouldn't love you. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"I hate you." 

"I hope that's true. It would make tomorrow easier for you."

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It was quiet. It was getting quieter with each drink.
It was getting vodka quiet.

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"Did you ever love me? When did you love me?"

"I loved you when we would drive and you would hold my hand. I felt close with you. I loved you then."

"That's stupid, what is that? Who are you? What kind of person loves someone when they are driving!"

"You asked me, I tried to answer."

"No, no you didn't answer. You are a selfish bitch. What do you think love is? It isn't some abstract lofty idea, it isn't in any fucking book, it isn't found in anything intellectual, it's a feeling, a feeling. You still have feelings don't you? Don't answer that. I don't care. I don't care anymore. I am the best thing that will ever happen to you. You won't regret this now, but one day you will. I hope it fucking breaks your heart."

"There is nothing wrong with you."

"I know! of course I know that, I'm not the idiot. You are the idiot!"

"I know."

"You picked the perfect fucking time to tell me, I really wanted to see this movie and now I can't. Just because you aren't emotional doesn't mean you aren't feeling something. You aren't who I would ever see myself with. I'm glad it's over. You aren't even my type, I don't know why I ever asked you out in the first place."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you aren't. Don't say that. Because you aren't."

"I'm not sorry."


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Leaving takes a lot longer than it seems like it would.

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"Is this why you brought your own car? You knew this whole time you were going to pull this shit?"

"Yes."

"You are a fucking bitch."

"I'm leaving."

"You're not going to say anything else? Just leave?"

"Yes. I stopped having anything to say to you months ago. You just didn't notice."

"So fucking profound! You really think you're something special don't you? You're not different, you aren't special, you aren't "above" anything. What are you even doing with your life? You have no direction, nothing. You aren't anything, you're a fucking loser. And you know it."

"Bye. Take care."

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Vodka quiet.

I curl up on the couch. I play music loudly and get very drunk.


I'm not much, but I'm all I've got.

Daydreams

His mother killed herself after he was born.

She was the result of a failed abortion.

Needless to say, the fetal position was never very consoling to either of them.

He played Gymnopedie No.1 and she cried. It was the collection of subtle movements that caught her breath, held her captive, frightened and excited her all at once.

She wrote him letters after he went to sleep and slipped them in his jacket pocket that was hung neatly on the door, so he wouldn't forget it when he left in the morning.

He read the notes as he took the morning train to work.

And during the day she thought of all the lovely parakeets they would own over the years. She brushed her hair and named them one by one. She walked around the lake and thought of the children they would have. A boy, maybe a girl - maybe both. She smiled, what a thought. How much happiness could one heart contain.

"Can we atleast be friends?"

"We were never friends."

I was just attractive enough to make things complicated.

I would say I'm barely attractive.

Cute but not beautiful.

I always had a very good way of speaking to people.
A way that made them feel safe.
A way that made them care for me.

I was the puppy you fed at night.
The track you let play through because it isn't horrible and you know the next track is better.
The body that you held closest for a moment.


The blurry eyed intensity at 4 am was always my best look.


I am the one you have until you get married to someone else.

untitled

"Do you think if I wanted you for my own, I would encourage you to fuck other men?"

"No, I guess not. So you wouldn't date me, but you would fuck me?"

"Of course I would fuck you. I dream about fucking you, kissing you, touching you."




When I was in grade school I wrote a note to Christian. I put it on his desk after lunch. The note said:

I like you. If you like me, meet me by the third tree, the tree without any leaves, in the playground.

At 2:15 p.m. I rushed to the tree. I stood under the tree quietly and waited for him to like me.

He never showed up.

In my mind I thought of a million reasons why he hadn't shown up. And finally settled on the notion that he had never received the note. If he had read my note, he would have shown up. I was convinced.


I have never been comfortable with rejection.


So I live in my dream world. I make up scenarios and fantasies. I pretend not to want, not to need, not to feel too much, not to ask anything, expecting nothing.

The truth is, my heart is broken. There is nothing that can change that. No one that can fix it.

I will go on falling in love from a distance, where it is in my control. I will continue having sex with men I don't love or particularly like.




When I was 7 I had a fish, I prepared the fish tank, decorated the fish environment, named the fish, made a place on my shelf where I could see the fish. One day the fish tank was missing. I asked my mother what happened to it. She told me she had removed the tank a week earlier. When I asked her why, she said, because the fish had died.

Biography of a different kind

I hold my breath, I try to think of something else. The doctor says it’s not pain, only pressure.

“You’re going to feel a lot of pressure…”

And I'm thinking about when I stayed in the hospital with my grandfather. I met his nurses and doctors. 

In that hospital room I made up songs and drew pictures. The hospital smell clung to my clothes. And seeped into my skin.

It was in these moments, I told my grandfather not to die. With the sincere honesty of a child I told him,

“You can’t die, not yet, you have to wait until I do something great.”

And with a gesture I didn’t fully understand, he held my hand and smiled.

That complete acceptance, it’s rare.

This is pain, the agony and finality of loss.

He had grown up during the depression. He began working when he was 6 years old selling newspapers and roofing. His father had left his mother with 7 children. He survived 2 wars. When my mom told him she was thinking of adopting a baby, he looked at her and said, "Bring her home."

For 6 months I had no name.

The nurses called me “The Little Princess”. The doctors didn’t think I would survive.

Don’t waste a name on something that won’t live.

I was the princess of a kingdom of the weak and the wounded.

The heiress to a fortune of misfortune.

My lungs breathed in spite of, my heart pumped in urgency.

They tell me, that when he saw me for the first time, he held picked up my hand and said,

“She’s got a lot of growing to do.”

There are many things that are incomplete and eroded in my memories.

He named me Lola, because I was too small for a longer name.

2011

I was 12 when I went to my first funeral. My Aunt Terry had died while her friend Maribelle was visiting her. Maribelle said she and Terry were talking. Terry leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Maribelle sat in silence. She thought Terry had fallen asleep. She approached Terry and tried to wake her up, discovering she was dead she changed Terry's socks and vacuumed the living room. She removed my Aunts glasses and put them in the glass container. She washed the dishes and prayed a rosary. Afterwards she called my mom and then called 911. Maribelle knew my Aunt had a DNR, but under the law, paramedics have to attempt CPR etc, even with a DNR in place. 

I went to the hospital along with my mom, sister, grandma and aunt Kathy. I didn't know my aunt Terry had died. The doctor asked my mom, grandma and aunt Kathy into another room, my mom didn't want to leave my sister and I in the waiting room, so we accompanied them.

The doctor said my aunt was unable to be revived and was dead. My sister began to cry and my mom held her close. My aunt Kathy was holding onto my grandmother and crying. I sat there, unsure of what to do. I decided it would be silly to cry. I looked at the doctor, and asked, "What do we do now?"

Whenever a new year comes around I think about people I've lost. I think about them and try to figure out what I learned about myself from them. My aunt Terry liked me, she gave me candy and was always quizzing me on my spelling. She let me help her wash clothes and made us hot chocolate. She was extremely catholic and her house always smelled like church. 

Never new

We were dancing. It was amazing. We were sharing a bottle of rum and talking about Puerto Rico. He asked if I wanted to see the view from his room. I laughed and handed him the bottle. We listened to different kinds of music and had conversations I can't remember. He touched my face gently and whispered in my ear, "I want to kiss you."

I told him no.

We kept talking, laughing. 

Tired from dancing we were sitting next to one another on the carpet. We talked about what we would eat for our last meal if we were on death row. Where we would go if we had a magic carpet. What animal we would like to be reincarnated as. We talked about God and zombies. 

He put his arm around me and brought his face closer to mine. He said, "I've never kissed you. I want to know what it feels like."

I said no.

The kiss wasn't about me. 

It wasn't we, it was "I". It was all about his "I". His selfish, reckless, arrogant and thoughtless "I".

We had been best friends for 15 yrs. 

He only wanted to kiss me because I am what he has never and would never have the courage to be. Alone.

I would rather fail than to live a life that is comfortable and safe. 

He is in a mediocre relationship, with a 9-5 job, a house mortgage and a car payment. It's rare that I am disgusted with someone. After the second  no, he got upset, angry, annoyed and left. I called, he didn't answer. I sent him a text, he didn't reply. I'm disappointed and hurt. 

He was my best friend. The person who held me break up after break up. The person who picked me up break down after break down. The one person I trusted with every stupid dream and hope I ever had. I'm the one who encouraged him and told him he could be anything. I'm the one who was there when he was unsure and scared. There was a time when I would have kissed him back, there was a time when I probably would have asked him to kiss me. But we make choices in life, and he is in a relationship, he is locked inside a whole like that he can't walk away from. My heart is breaking, and there isn't anyone here. Not anymore. 

Happy New Year.