03.02.12

02.25.12

i am lonely again.

but it’s not that i’m really alone. it’s that i’m filled with this insatiable longing for something that comes only in waves. something that will come only in waves throughout my entire life, something i have no right to desire in every passing moment with every fiber of my being. it’s looking around a room full of crowded people and seeing nothing but the microscopic bits of dust that dance through beams of sunlight, hearing nothing but white noise and the sound of my own panicked exasperation. it’s never being satisfied with any interpersonal relationship that is anything less than extraordinary. and sometimes, it’s miserable. because the world is filled with ordinary relationships, with ordinary people who have no trouble pretending that some kind of meaningful connection can be built on petty conversations about cell phones and alcohol and the faults of their peers. sometimes it’s painful to feel that time is wasted when it’s not spent solidifying the most intimate of intellectual, emotional, and physical connections through some kind of mutually experienced personal growth. i have tried pretending for the sake of others. i’ve tried for years. but as i sat last night and watched a silent fog devour the tips of the boston skyline, i realized how consumed i’ve felt. how consumed i will always feel. my aversion to the vapid and my perpetual desire for moments that make my heart pound will always breed equal amounts of misery and ecstasy, and i will inevitably have to endure the wildly unpredictable peaks and troughs with as many shreds of grace and strength as i can repeatedly collect from the bottom my tired heart.

02.10.12

as i walk i find myself reaching out and touching things— fences, buildings, trees— that are more permanent, more present, less vulnerable than i am. too many fragile aspects of my life have dodged between light and shadow so unexpectedly and so often lately that i’m finding it harder and harder to classify my experiences as positive or negative, and it’s hard to tell if things are actually getting better or if i’m simply falling further into destructive old habits and traps that i can’t help setting for myself. i am constantly pushing limits and taking risks that i don’t even want to take because there is something about comfort and stability that i just can’t seem to accept. no matter how painfully i desire to maintain the happiness brought by an experience or a relationship, i always manage to shatter illusions and wreck feelings or drive someone away because that’s what i do, i go too far, i am impulsive and consumed by passion and far too driven by emotion. every last jagged fragment of logic vanishes with whatever good thing i couldn’t save, and then i am lost again, and i am left wondering if i ever wasn’t. i am always left wondering what it is that i’m really looking for.

12.28.10

“you just have to let go,” you said with a smile as you took my hands. and just like that, i let you in. i thought of how i knew exactly what would happen as soon as our eyes met and darted nervously apart the first time i saw you, and now i’ve found that songs in languages i don’t even understand seem to describe my feelings more accurately than any series of words i could piece together. i recognize this feeling all too well and i know exactly where it leads. i know how easy it is to get tangled up in a passionate little bit of heartache and to let everything else just drift by, how tempting it is to dwell on snapshots of the past that are constructed by nothing but delicate touches and parted lips and dead cigarette smoke hanging in the cold air. it’s hard not to look back as i move forward. it’s exhausting to desaturate such a kaleidoscopic image even as i look down to see that the colors are running through my fingers. “you just have to let go.”

11.29.10

there are so many things i want to tell you. i want to tell you about the way your eyes reflected everything i’d been hiding from myself and how the colors in your voice wrapped themselves all around me, tearing down the walls i’d built and leaving me awestruck and defenseless. i want to tell you about the times i’ve collapsed back into patterns woven completely from your words and smiles and the stardust you left behind. i want to show you the city skyline and the way the smog softens all of the tiny yellow lights, i want you to see how small you are and how special it is to see your world shimmering at your feet. i want you to know that you matter, that you’re somehow etched into me like a carving in sand and that all the waves in the world can’t seem to wash you away.

10.07.10

i remember when everything started to change even faster than the leaves that had begun to lose their color. i was a different person then, fragile and fearful and constantly searching for something to hold on to, something to bring the broken pieces of myself back together. but that was before our lives came crashing together from every direction, before we grew restless and nocturnal, before we before we felt limitless as we sat with cigarettes between our fingers and blew our smoke at the pouring rain. i’ve always been the kind of person to open up easily, the kind of person who places faith in the smallest things that seem to offer all kinds of promises. i often think back on that time and how those memories are built around cold weather and quiet dreamy music. the way that part of my life is wrapped up in so many songs and smells and feelings. i found many parts of myself as we all took those first steps together into excitement and chaos and heartbreak and creation, but my heart is still somewhere else, and i am homesick for so many places i’ve never even seen. i am no longer broken, but i am ready to break free.