Winter Mourning

I hadn't realised you weren’t coming with me. When you leaned in to kiss me goodbye, I was confused. You were the same, but surprising, somehow. There was a shift only I could perceive. You weren't coming with me today and only I knew what it meant.
As your arms around me loosened, I could feel you slipping away, not just from that moment. I didn’t know how to make you stay like that, how to control you. So I just stood there. Passively, like I did for the two years we loved each other. Passively, the way you hated.

My hands were freezing over the box you gave me, as you walked away. I was holding on to it as if it was you in there. My eyes were full. My heart felt empty. I knew somehow that it would be the last time I saw you. And it was, for 3 turbulent years. 

None the wiser.

It's not who I am. It's just what I pretend to do. Sometimes. 

It's what I claim to enjoy. It's what you know I hate. 

It's my worst nightmare. Or maybe not. 

It's my entire adult life. It's my father's dream for me. 

It's the crutch I lean on when I feel I'm failing everywhere else. 

It's what I call myself. 

It's my ticket out of here. 

It's everything I want to be, but not at all what I am. 

Wisdom - I

When you meet someone truly good, you feel like becoming a better person. A lot of people know this. I didn't. I finally understand what people mean when they say 'he/she brings out the best in me.'

haunted with each hearing of His softly spoken words

Every tear we shed, not in sadness, but in gratitude, understanding and peace beyond it, is Him pursuing us. 

When you cry, when you fall to your knees and rise up out of it renewed - your walk with God begins there. That's when you know, that's how I knew. And there was nothing complicated about it.

Because I love you. In my dreams.

I’m dreaming the wrong dream, the searing one where things aren’t as I’d like them to be. The dream in which there are no answers, only questions. There are no endings, just a continuing fervour that won’t stop and won’t finish and won’t peak. It hurts.

I’ll go deep into the blue, where raindrops are just a harmless blur. Where they’re not cold anymore and I can just about hear them fall on the surface. I’ll go beyond the blue, where the rain stops. I’ll lose myself and think of you. I’ll tell stories, my secrets. I’ll stop hiding, pretending. 

When I resurface, icy drops on my face, tears in my eyes - I’ll even come home to you. Where doors have no locks and we sleep in reckless abandon. Where trust is complete and love is abundant. Home to you, where the air is clean and our voices are alone. Where we never give in, never give up, never let go and never let in. Where we close our minds and our hearts. Where common sense prevails. 

I’m happy in my dream, where things are just so, where we’re in a circle of continuous wanting. Continuous need. Where there is no end, no beginning, and no peak. Where we stay till it hurts. Because that is when I love you the most. 

 

It has been good, you make it better

You make my mornings and my nights. You fill my afternoons with laughter and my evenings with quiet content.  In your manic moods, I find myself. Your unrest calms me, slows me down. You teach me to be more.

For V, who never lies.

I don't know if I have a stand on liars. I don't think I like being lied to, but there are some truths I'd rather not know. And do I lie? Yes. Unfortunately, I do. Do I believe an older person, a mentor, when they say they do not? No. I believe everyone lies. The extent is different, of course. The reasons are different.
Is it okay to lie to protect? I think I believe it is. If the sole result of that lie will be protecting another person, then yes, it's okay. But when we protect, we also cause ignorance. We keep people in the dark. We can't be sure that our lie didn't cause them to take or un-take a decision. There's always that risk.
I don't hate liars. I understand them. It scares me to admit that. Makes me seem wrong. My understanding of why people lie is mostly because they are afraid. Afraid of reactions to the truth. Afraid that the truth will get them in trouble, the truth will bore an audience, the truth will make them seem dull and irrelevant. And then there are lies without reason. Compulsive lies, made up to fill silences, those I do not understand.

He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. Psalms. 

For S, who can't wait.

For the most part, we know right from wrong. Some things, though, are in-between. We love and un-love. We know there are lines that should not be crossed. We know we shouldn't, but we do. We disobey. And we know it's wrong. We get hurt, we come clean, we regret and learn.
Sometimes, we cross a line, without really crossing it. Like we plant a fantasy in someone's mind. We make them imagine. We imagine. We do it to those we know we'll never be with. We let these fools imagine that we'd actually consider loving them. We become the objects of their affection or their fantasies. Or they do it to us. Make us want them. It's a game that everyone plays. Everyone likes being wanted, being thought of. When we can't be desired by someone we desire, we settle for someone else. We get interested in those that really don't interest us. We get our fix.
But if you play with fire, you will get burned. Feigning affection is playing with fire. Letting yourself love the wrong person, is playing with fire.

A relationship on the brink

Some people just want to be miserable. No matter what you do for them or what you say, how you say it. Some people revel in misery, in their own misery, in the ability to blame it on others.
Sure, we all like a little drama sometimes. We enjoy an argument, enjoy someone validating us, reassuring us. But some people live for this. Some people always get the raw end of a deal. You can never make their day. You'll always have left something out, forgotten an invitation, cooked the wrong food, not dressed the part, looked too eager, asked the wrong question, answered with the wrong truth.
I know I'm moody. I know I throw tantrums. I know I crave attention. But I know when other people do it, too. It takes one to know one, after all. I know when I'm the normalizing factor and when the other person is completely out of line. I know too demanding when I see it, I know spoilt. I know unhappy and crabby, just as I know smug and I sure as hell know asshole.
The question is whether to put up with it. I want to, because I love. I love the good in some people, love their company, love the way they know me. I love the chance that something amazing could come of a simple friendship, that I could change the person.
But it makes me crazy. I can't rest, can't relax. Can't stop pacing. I question myself, feeling the need to apologise, the need to undo. I want to set things right and I go overboard. I want to hold on tighter, to make sure we're on the same page.
What I need to feel is the need to delete, to cut off. The need to remove (myself from this warped equation.)  I have all the drama of a bad relationship and none of the make-up sex, none of the accountability, none of the memories. For once, I have the raw end.

The one where there are no words left

''Go after her. Fuck, don't sit there and wait for her to call, go after her because that's what you should do if you love someone, don't wait for them to give you a sign cause it might never come, don't let people happen to you, don't let me happen to you, or her, she's not a fucking television show or tornado. There are people I might have loved had they gotten on the airplane or run down the street after me or called me up drunk at four in the morning because they need to tell me right now and because they cannot regret this and I always thought I'd be the only one doing crazy things for people who would never give enough of a fuck to do it back or to act like idiots or be entirely vulnerable and honest and making someone fall in love with you is easy and flying 3000 miles on four days notice because you can't just sit there and do nothing and breathe into telephones is not everyone's idea of love but it is the way I can recognize it because that is what I do. Go scream it and be with her in meaningful ways because that is beautiful and that is generous and that is what loving someone is, that is raw and that is unguarded, and that is all that is worth anything, really.''

Control - how to

Keep it simple and play it cool.

un-do

I want to erase words that were never written, unthink thoughts, untouch arms and unsee smiles.

It's non-negotiable, this, where I'm at. It's more than I asked for, far more than I can chew. It makes me feel old and tired, as if I've made too many mistakes already, as if I have none left on my account. Makes me feel irredeemable.

It's in your face, just get it already.

My worlds seem to be colliding. I hate when people get jealous. I hate what jealousy can do to a friend or a lover or even just an acquaintance. Sometimes, I know jealousy. It's plain and in your face. I see it for what it is.

Like today, when I told him about him. He was different immediately. He asked me a thousand things. Cross-questioned and questioned. The answers to his questions came fast and easily. Questions, I would have found offensive, if asked by someone else. But he knows the answers deep down and more than knows, he deserves them. But it was jealousy on his part that prompted the questions, maybe even a slight pang of regret. I saw it, I knew it. I felt it. I enjoyed it.

Sometimes though, I can't tell - can't tell why someone acts the way they do, can't tell if they're jealous or just hate me, if they love me or want my love to go away. Like my friend, C. The question of C being jealous of me or anything to do with my life never arose, until today, when someone suggested it.

Today when everything came crashing down on me. When I truly realised how much I depend on C, for his reassurance, his friendship and love. I realised it and showed it to him all in one breath. Showed it with such surety, that he reacted. He closed himself. And someone suggested that he's jealous. I don't believe he is. Is he always happy for me when good things happen to me? I don't believe he is. Doesn't qualify as jealousy. It could just be, and probably is just, a fear of someone or something familiar, moving away to better things - becoming busy with life and just not having the time of day.

I love him. It isn't love like that though, not the kind that comes with lust. I have considered that possibility, looked into it, argued for it and against it. I know it isn't that kind and can never be. It's just a comfortable love, of knowing that I have met my match. Knowing that this is me, in the flesh, just someone else's. I know he gets me, I know I get him. We share the same insecurities often and the realise the same things. Maybe, I'll never admit to this. Maybe, neither will he. I know he knows me and it is a lot like knowing himself.

I hate writing this because I know how it makes me sound. Like I believe I am someone to be envied. I do not believe this, on any count. I know my strengths, fairly well. And I know where I fall short all too well. I don't envy the person I portray myself to be. I don't envy the true me. I wouldn't.

Just jump.

It tires me to wait;

Exhausts me to hope.

Love or un-love.

It’s quietly comfortable,

To share a goal.

It burns to realize the possible answers

My questions to you;

Are for them and those to come

I already know you

I hate the games I have to play;

The power that must be got,

The sureness you are waiting for.

It tires me to wait;

Exhausts me to wonder

Tires me to question;

Exhausts me to plan