If you ever want to grasp the weight of your existence just take a moment to realize that more than likely there is someone out there who is happy you woke up this morning, and some who is not.

Pot Luck

I sleep,
but I don't dream anymore,
at least not that I can remember. 

And even when I do, it's so worn,
The zipper undoing what separates fact from fiction,
In a world I just don't belong to anymore.

Simply so many us's to choose from in my memories.
Who will you be today?
Him. You. My everything. Her everything. The one who died.
The one who saved us all...?

I was only spending my time learning what I could love.
I was only trying on capes,
That had promised to make us into super heroes.

We were more pencil than we were ink.
And I was more drunk than sober,
The first time we fell in love.

But the fairy tale is still real.
Albeit, the ending did not go happily ever after,
for me.

And I am suddenly sleeping, or dreaming, or haunted.
And I remember when..

I just let him hold me.
Fell effortlessly into the shape of his arms.
Cradled in the strength of his presence.
I just let him love me.
..Knowing it was temporary.
Seized the day, as it were.

I just let him love me.
Because I had never been closer.
To such a thing.

In the luxury of my stupor I asked him how it felt.
...To be inside someone.
I meant both physically, and mentally.

I was absent when it fell apart,
but I was present for the surrender.
If it's still fair to calculate it in those terms...
If it's still amenable to say what a pleasure it was to lose him.

And no mistake, it was a pleasure to lose him.
Implication there is that at some point,
even just one point,
I had him to lose.

And I had him...

Over and over again.

Drenched, soaked, sore, exhausted- until I was no longer starving.

And then he was gone.
Would he be as good at going as he was coming?

We were only together when we were apart.
Only ourselves when we couldn't see each other

In my timeline there are no minutes.
Just people.
You see...
There's not time enough to live and to write about it.
We have to choose.

I want to learn what it is to truly live,
not just write about 
But if I haven't by now...
It's not that I haven't tried. Just wasn't very good at it.

Tiny comas filling the spaces between choice and surrender.

Now..

The looking up is easy.
Imagining how high....
It's the looking down that seems to serve no purpose,
other than to remind us how high we were.

Maybe that's life being sagacious.
Or maybe it's just random.
Like everything is.

There's nothing left to love now
except how hard it is to make him leave.

I think I've had enough.

Enough of the way you don't love me sometimes, enough of the way you expect too much of me, the way you take everything about me for granted, the way you take and take and take in general.  Enough of the way you only hear half of what I'm saying, if I'm lucky, and only care to respond to half that.  Enough of how everything about you is important, and everything about me is irrelevant.  Enough of how you see me, who you think I am, who you choose to be.

Enough of the loneliness that comes with being your best friend, of the weight that comes from being in love with you, of the way the oxygen sucks itself from the room when you are angry, the way the silence swallows the house when you are sad, the way the everything tiptoes when you are on the verge, the way the world begs for you to love it, the way your life falls all over itself to be easy, every mistake answered with a blessing, every crisis diverted by a miracle.


Enough, that's how much I've had.

And then, that's what there never is.

Enough.

I've made a mess out of living and you never got the chance..

 It's been a while since I thought about you.  I guess life just got busy and it was easy to forget it all for a little while.   But yesterday a conversation with a friend brought you back, and I guess my heart was eager to feel guilty for not feeling guilty enough these days.

My life is so different than I imagined it would be laying on the hill, looking at the clouds, planning out what we'd be when we grew up, back when we had no idea you'd never have the chance.

And all I could think is ...."What have I done...?"
All this time I have had that you never did...and what did I do with it all? 

I've taken a life, lost a life, bulldozed through more.

I've broken a heart, and had mine destroyed.

I've had some things handed to me, and I've worked my ass off for others.

....and the irony is - I lost it all just the same.

I've lied, and I've lived lies, and I've let people lie.

Some of them I hated, and some of them I didn't.

I've told the truth when I shouldn't have, and

I've used truth to hurt people.

To be honest- sometimes I have forgotten which was which. 

I've literally saved a life, and figuratively wished I knew how.

I've prayed in public for people to be happy, and secretly prayed for ruin.

..Sometimes they were the same people.

I've been on top of the world with everything,

and laying on the bathroom floor with nothing...

I've been lost in a crowd of people one minute,

and so alone it aches the next...

I've loved someone else's child as my own, and husband too.

I've been a hypocrite, and a whore.

Worse, I've been my mother.

I have been proud when I should have been ashamed.

I have been happy when it was the farthest thing from what I deserved.

I have fallen so far from grace in the name of love..

But...

I have been blessed.

And 

I have stood for what I believed in,

worked for the greater good,

put my money where my mouth was,

walked the walk..

I've stopped to kiss a crying child,

I've found beauty where others saw nothing,

I've been a mother,  a lover, a friend..

the best I could be.

And I've made the only choices I could live with. 

Even those that seem like burdens now.

....And I realized halfway through this scorecard that what I have done is live.
All this time you've been gone .. I've lived.

My life really did go on without you.  Just like that.  One day turned into three, and into a week, and one day I was voting, and then drinking, and going to college, and seeing the first black President.  It just keeps going on and on and on...  And I don't know if I've done a good job, and I have often assumed you'd be disappointed in me for a lot of what I've done,  but I think you'd be proud that I lived...


See I remember this time we were at Baskin Robbins, and I always got Mint Chocolate Chip in a cup, and it drove you crazy, so you made me try Pistachio ice cream, which you said was the very worst flavor they had,  and I HATED it.   And you said  "What's the point in 31 flavors if all you ever get is the one you know you like...."

So maybe life's not like chocolate, maybe it's like ice cream.  And maybe the bad sucks, but it's just as relevant, and just as real, and just as important as the good in the end.. because it's all life...And what's the point in having all these emotions and choices to make if we only ever get it right?

I bet that's what you'd say. 

I'm sorry Jane.

Jane is a pen name.  Another thing I use to hide behind when I'm supposed to be facing the world.  She provides a layer, a mask, a sense of secrecy in an already anonymous venue.

Jane is just like me, only she isn't.   I love everything about her, and yet everything about her is what I use her to hide about myself.  She's an imaginary friend who's everything you ever wanted to have the courage to be, the friend who never judges you or expects more than you have to give, the friend who catches you when you fall, and loves you just the way you are.  And secretly- through all the love and friendship you hate her for it. You hate her for being her and you for being you.


That's my Jane.

Jane is a way to purge myself of guilt, share my darkest secrets with no consequence and tell jokes without risking being humiliated in no one laughs.   She's all about dodging accountability and explaining nothing to no one.

You see...

Jane does not care what people think, or say, or who they will tell, or what they will do.
Jane does not mind if no one laughs when she makes a joke, or if no one thinks she's charming.
Jane does not get  insecure, she does ever lack confidence,  she does not hesitate.
Jane does not carry any burdens; no baggage, nothing to lose.
Jane does not care if she is alone, or wanted, or needed.

So I use her.

I use her because in the end,
even if Jane Doesnot, I do.

Fuck.

You're sorry.  I get it.  Don't you understand that?

It's not that I don't think you are sorry, it's rather that I don't think you are sorry enough.  In fact it's that I'm not sure you could ever be as sorry as I have decided that you should be.

And no, when I say decided I don't mean it was a choice.  I'm not actually implying  that I sat down and decided there was a specific amount of remorse you should feel, some  certain amount of your life you should change in order to appease me, or a particular  chain of events that must unfold like a video gamebefore the magical door to tomorrow would open and we could move on to the next level, or with the rest of our live.

And no, I don't wake up each morning with a well thought out list of ideas of ways to make you feel guilty, or to make you angry, or to make you miserable. (Though on the bad days, it's a perk, I admit.)  The truth is- I wake up just barley able to find my way out of the night and praying that for just one minute of the day I forget, and you forget, and we pretend.

Pretend what, you ask?  
(You don't, but I wish you would, so I could finally have a reason to say..)

Pretend that it was a year ago.
Pretend that I didn't know that you know what the taste of her lips feel like, the depth of her body..
Pretend that I didn't know that you know what life just almost without me is like, and that it turned out you didn't die, or stop breathing, and that the world went on, at least your world went on, and that there was someone else, and even if it ended- that it was possible that it began at all.

Pretend too that I didn't know what it was like now to sit at home and let you lie because being lied to was somehow better than being left-- and that it wasn't that I wanted to believe you, it was that I wanted you to love me, and I was afraid if I said "Don't do this" you would anyway.   So I just didn't say it, I just didn't say "Stay, don't go to her, whoever she is, just stay and pretend with me"...which I guess from the bathroom floor, hiding from what's left of my pride, drowning in tears, was all that was left of me.  


So when you ask 'when' (When will it be enough, when will it stop, when will it not be about everything, when will I forgive you, when...)  I want to tell you- (but I just can't) that on some days, like today,  I think the answer is "Not ever, at least not as long as I love you".

I just don't think it's possible to smell the back of your neck when you sleep, or feel the brush of your hand as you lead me in a room, or pick up dishes you leave in the bedroom, or clean your hair from the sink and not want to fall to my knees and just cry and hurt- because I don't know who you were to her...but you are everything to me.  And that.. that changed everything.  So when you say "You can't make this about everything"- you're wrong.  It IS about everything.  It's about you.  And me. And the unsettling reality that who I am hinges on the the assumption that you will wake up in the morning and that somewhere in your day you will love me.


The truth is  I don't know if I'll ever be who I was before, but the one thing I do know is that I'll never be her, and sometimes I just hate you for ever making me wish I was.

You just can’t change other people.

You just can’t.
I just wanted everything to be alright.
Sometimes I dared to hope for good.

I just wanted to be happy.
I wanted him to be happy.
A lie.
I wanted him to change and be happy.

Broken promises.
Broken things.
Broken people.
And I grew so tired.
And finally, so numb.


I have to admit that I still grow a little sad when I think about that look in his eyes. The way he used to smile, like nothing had ever been wrong.

Those were the times I thought I could make a difference.

But I couldn’t.

And it is this truth that inspires my heart to break and quietly deaden at the same time.