these are things that I could not tell you;
things that remind me of you when I want nothing more than to forget;
things that have gone wrong;
things that have gone right;
things that will never happen;
things that are your fault,
my fault,
the faults of no one;
these are things that we did not do and will not let go of
she drew in the sand half a heart and spilled wine over the leaves
of summer. driving her car into the seven/eleven she dreamed
of whispering in the ear of a baseball player asking him to
stumble upon her tattoo, a thing not easy in itself to do without
invitation, with half a heart. the dream blue on green,
making yellow in defiance of afternoon sunlight among the thorns
and broken shards of glass without invitation, with half a
heart. she brought him color, and luck of proper wing and sun.
he imagined she loved him despite his illnesses, remembered visits
from her at the asylum on sundays bringing packages of coconut
without invitation, with half a heart. he spends his days asking
only that i never mention her aloud. so i take my box of crayons
and mark over the empty places trying so hard to match the
colors, knowing i will never fool anyone without invitation, with
half a heart.
I really like stories where someone is sick like this.
“ If I love you, one of them cried out,
what would you give up?
There were others before you,
I wanted to say, and you’d be the one
before someone else. Everything, I said.
“ There are rocks deep enough in this earth that no matter what the rupture, they will never see the surface. There is, I think, a fear of love There is a fear of love.
— Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
as Jenna would say: “It’s like a huge fucking OOF all at once, right?” (yep, that’s a direct quote; before this I didn’t know that anyone else said “oof” because people always got confused when I did).
Laura’s posting about this inspired me to actually get my rear in gear and finish it before I start anything else.
Learning this is not as relieving as I thought it might be. It actually has me more concerned about where these interests all came from in the first place.
Talking about this isn’t making me want it less or even helping to figure out why I want it at all. It might even want it more now, now that I’ve explained it so thoroughly and out loud. And god it’s scary and I hate talking about it and I know it’s really all wrong but shit. Maybe it would be easier to just let this happen. Maybe it would be easier to give everything up.
