Holding on to nothing

He won’t tell me. So I pretend. That our reasons are the same, or at least close. It’s possible he can’t tell me. Because he doesn’t know. And sometimes, I must admit, I don’t know either.

How we got to here. From there.

I want to tell him, "I’m yours," thinking it might not be so obvious. Like, "I’m dreaming," or "I’m nowhere," or "I’m nothing." The games we play to guess what we already know. Like sitting in the dark, waiting for the electricity to come back on. Making up inane questions to fill the voids. Tickles of confession coughed from the back of our insecurity.

It's hard to describe what I want. Other than everything that is lacking. The sweep of warm fingers over cold skin. The stampede of anxious hours as I try to tame them. We have no future. I have no place in his past. But anything else becomes loneliness demanding my full attention.

I know who he is. On the inside. I’m not waiting for him to be someone else. I wouldn't try to dissolve the layers of emotions between us. But the emptiness keeps falling into my hands, until I am incapable of holding on to anything.

Closer

I want to say, “It just happened.” And I guess I could say that and it wouldn’t be a lie. Because it did happen. From no matter where I stand. Hard candy in a shiny wrapper I never should have touched. But now that it’s undone, I can’t put it back.

I’ve never claimed to be a good person. Thinking that tomorrow can be my friend. Never considering all the beds it has to abandon before it finds these sheets upon which to rest. As if time were not real, and life not just a train wreck waiting to happen.

Sirens in the distance, but I don’t care. Collecting pieces of a puzzle as I find them, with no idea of what the final picture is going to be.

I flirt with danger and it flirts back. Pull a pebble from a mountain and I think I’ve done no harm, but that is how it starts. Like a street with no lines down the middle to tell me what side I should be on or even which direction I should go.

It doesn't seem to matter where it starts, only where it leads. Even the softest fabric will burn my skin if I struggle against it long enough. I want to be closer, but I suspect I’m already as close as I can get.

Numbers

I was given the key to room 111.
On the way home, I took route 222 for a ways.
At 4:44, my phone rang.

I’m sure, somewhere, along the way, there were three 3s waiting for me to notice them. I feel like I have failed.

Maybe next time.

On the road again

I have to go to Baltimore, or right outside Baltimore. For work. Tomorrow. Everything these days is so work related. Survival, existence, long term plans, tomorrow. Constantly tracing the road maps under my skin. So I don’t lose my way.

I used to like my job. I don’t think I do anymore. The thought of having to get out of bed is paralyzing some mornings. Of just getting started. I secretly wish and fear, that I might die in my sleep. Curled up and warm under the covers. It never happens.

I used to like my life. I don’t think I do anymore. A broken screen door banging in the wind. Opening loudly; closing louder yet. The sounds of places I can never go to again. It's not like I’m trying. To be this way. More like pretending I know what to do. People in my life like stitches. Temporary friends that dissolve and leave me with nothing. Except a few more scars.

There are some pieces that fit. But there are so many pieces that don’t. Anymore. And it’s not like I can hide them. Sweep them under the couch. The sun shines, but I’m still shivering. Strangers with their colorless crayons, trying to draw me warm. My shoes always too loose, making me stumble no matter how slowly I run.

But life isn't pointing at me. It doesn't even know I exist. In the way stars always seem closer when the moon is full. Emphasizing how little I matter.

More empty than any bleeding heart can ever understand.

So many pieces

I told him that I thought I’d be better off alone. He replied that we all feel that way sometimes. When life hits that switch on the blender and it all turns to puree. How much simpler it would be to offer my warm problems to loneliness.

Our paths were meant to cross. I know this now. And yet sometimes it still feels like an accident. That I could have missed him, by seconds. It makes me shiver. To think about how it all comes down to the little things. The tiny pieces that make up everything. How we take them for granted. Like sunshine and raindrops. Like plants and animals. Questions waiting so patiently for their answers.

It’s funny. How sometimes he just agrees with me. So easily. How he holds the key to every lock. And how other times he has to fumble and dig. The solution to the puzzle somewhere, if only he could remember where he put it. The frustration more about his inability to understand. Eventually he comes up empty. But it doesn’t matter. It’s only one piece.

And I have so many pieces for him to try again with.

For the moment

The spontaneity needed for clothes to hit the floor. The possibility of disappointment in every touch. The threat of abandonment in every hug. The heart a lonely lab rat in the maze of every kiss. How it all feels like home no matter where I am.

I hear it in the simple songs that I can never forget. Abstract art never seen the same way twice. Strengths and weaknesses wrestling for control. And sometimes it doesn’t matter which pins the other to the mat. I count to three, but it’s not over.

Never happy

Pressing the up buttons, but I’m still going down. This elevator only seems to travel in one direction. I listen, as much as I’m able. I hear, but it’s all just whispers. Like leaves slowly budding on trees. It’s hard to tell what’s real in all this silence.

I wake up with tickles of confessions in the back of my throat. Wanting so much to follow my footprints back to the places where I’ve been. But I’m so warm under the covers. My tears soaking into the pillow. My heart still believing there will be a happy ending. White knights and sunsets and gallant steeds.

But this is not a fairy tale. My prince’s kiss will not wake me from my nightmare. My past and present conferring in secret meetings. Weighing all the options before making their decisions known. This prison called happiness. Like stairs with no steps yet still I try to climb. Because it’s not about what has happened. It’s about what never will.

Watching the cold wind carry it all away now. I have everything; I have nothing.

Holding

It comes, it goes. Like a favorite shirt that must be declared a rag. Like basic addition. One plus one equals two. And yet I still have a problem with the answer.

It’s emotions and feelings and all those things that make us who we are. It’s pain, and fear, and happiness, and sadness. It’s what makes us fragile or strong. It’s what keeps us together. It’s basic subtraction. One minus one equals zero.

Let the sleeping dog lie. Let the squeaky wheel have its grease. Let the road be paved with good intentions. Eventually it will take us home. And we can look back if we wish. There’s nothing stopping us.

Perhaps the house of cards wishes to fall. But just to be safe, I’m going to keep holding my breath.

Never enough

It’s easier to cry these days. Than to laugh or smile or nod. The sound of everything lost pressed to my ear like a seashell. But there’s no ocean. There’s just forever. The future in its torn parachute feigning flight with its fall.

Pennies heavy in my palm from a thousand misplaced wishes. Still not enough to buy anything with. Being hungry is easy. Satisfaction is the hard part. Where to go, what to eat. Everyone waiting for my decision. As the hollow spaces fill up with bad poetry. Sweeping up forgotten moments for rainy days that never come. Staring up at stars I can no longer name. Wishing this connection could be enough.

My back yard - Binghamton, NY

“Not in my back yard,” people say. No pig farms, no nuclear power plants, no shootings.

But it happened, just the other day, in my back yard.

A man, pushed too far. Teased and taunted and poked one too many times. He went over the edge and took a lot of people with him. 13 to be exact. Innocent people as they are being described. But not to him. To him they represented pain, and suffering, and the reason he went over the edge.

“Not in my back yard.”

But in my mind it was only a matter of time. So many people constant pushing, pushing, pushing.

Actions have consequences.

We pretend we know, but we don’t really. Because we keep pushing. Until someone goes over the edge. And only then do we stop. Long enough to shake our heads and feel sad for the victims and their families. For the innocent.

But never for the shooter. For the one we pushed over the edge.

Because things like this just don’t happen.

“Not in my back yard.”

I'm back

Had to do some work related traveling, but I'm back. I'll write something profound one of these days.