TBT Post #1

Too Young To Fight It
(Circa March 2007)


I had a great idea awhile back..
Hiding my heart.
I hid it between my mattresses so it wouldn't get broken.
(I figured it was safe there)
But every time I brought a girl home she always found a way to break it.

I should have just left it where I had it back in high school.
In an old shoe box.
I had it there for years and no one ever found it.



(But I am...
Still looking for her.
For someone.
For anyone, I'm just not sure she's out there.

I'm not asking for much.
Just somebody who sees the pointlessness in life, and still keeps their purpose in mind. I want somebody who has a tortured soul.. Some of the time.

I want somebody who will either put out for me, or put me out of my misery.
Or maybe just put it all to words and make me say
"You know I never heard it put that way."

I want someone to confuse me.
Somebody who can hold my interest, hold it high and never let it fall.
Someone who can flatten me with a kiss that hits like a fist
Or a sentence that stops me like a brick wall.
Because if you hear me talking, listen to what I'm not saying.
If you read my poems, read what I shouldn't have to write.
Don't ask me to put words to all the spaces between the words you should already know!
In fact if you have to ask, forget it.
Do and you'll regret it.

I'm tired of being the interesting one.
I'm tired of having fun for two.
Just lay yourself on the line and I might lay myself down beside you,
But don't sit behind your eyes and wait for me to surprise you.
I wont.

I just want somebody who can make me scream until it's funny.
Make me smile until I cry.
I want someone who can twist me up in knots and untie me before bed.
I want someone who's not afraid of me or anyone else.
I want someone who's not afraid of themselves..)

Am I asking for too much??

Sometimes, whiskey outshines love

Like a needle on a record, taking parts of you away as it draws sharply and constantly across the heart. Slow descending circles, just to hear a song hidden in the scratches one more time. This is how I sing to you. Close your eyes and listen to the sound as I slide my fingertips across your skin. Every freckle, every scar, every fold and every curve of your body is a note played. This is our song, but one day the song will end. And when it does, I will hum in my sleep, as my fingers twitch from thoughts of you. I will sing the song your body sang, as I sleep, and dream, of you.

"All That is Gold Does Not Glitter"

Can you love someone you just met?
Can a connection between two new people be so perfect
So intense
So great
That there is instantly love!?

Or is what I’m feeling left over emotions from my last relationship?!

Am I just replacing one warm body for the next?
Rolling over love from before and picking up where I left off?!

I want to tell you I love you.
I want to feel more.
I want to kiss you deeper.
I want to hold you just a little closer.
I want to tell you I miss you when I’m not near you.

But truth is..
I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel about you.
I wasn’t expecting to meet someone I could fall in love with.
You have taken me completely by surprise
And yet I can’t help but feel this isn’t brand new at all.
Could we be connected on a cosmic level?
Is it possible that we are from the same star?

I can’t explain it, but I feel safe with you.
I feel comfortable with you.
Yet I am stuck with not knowing how or where you will fit into my life..
Simultaneously filling every waking moment with you!

I don’t know what feelings I can spare
Or what part of my heart is whole enough to hold you.

****
All I know
IS
With you
My soul feels alive
AND
I like
Who I am
When I’m next to you.

How Friendship Works:

Even though I've just met you, I believe we will be friends.
First, I will tell you something about me, then you can tell me something about you, as that, I believe, is how friendship works.

Here is something I believe: I believe that people don't know how people work when they're young and maybe that's why we're so reckless with each other when we're young. I think people think that people come and go, in and out of life and I think that school teaches them that, that life changes in big annual movements, that one year you're this and the next, you're that. But life blends into itself as you get older and you realise, you will watch a few, if not many, of your friends get old. You will watch them lose their minds and their hair. You will watch them get sick and get better. You will watch them succeed and fail. You will watch them get married, get divorced, get pregnant and yes, eventually, you will watch them die. Or they will watch you die.

So this is what I believe friendship means..
And I'm sorry if this has put a heavy burden on you, but you have put the same burden on me.



Now you can tell me something you believe, as it is your turn, and this is how friendship works.

Runner 11

Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal. When the tears threaten to return, so I willfully banish all thoughts from my head and take a few more deep breaths. When I suddenly get dizzy from the panic attack I've just suffered, and I close my eyes, resting my head against the warm leather of my steering wheel. When you realize that loneliness doesn't exist on any single plane of consciousness. It's generally a low throb, barely audible, like the hum of an engine in park, but every so often the demands of the highway call for a burst of acceleration, and the hum becomes a thunderous, elemental roar, and once again you're reminded of what you are running from.


(imissher)

An Unopened Letter to Angela Rose

The people you will fall in love with in your 20's:
You will fall in love with someone who annoys you, whose orgasm face looks and feels pathetic. Despite all of this, there’s something keeping you drawn to them, something that makes you want to protect them from the harsh world. What you fail to realize, however, is that you are the harsh world. You aren't their noble protector — you are someone to be protected from, but it takes a lot of dates, a lot of nights where you question whether or not you are actually a good person, for this to ever resonate with you. When it’s over and whatever love is left is put back in the fridge like a sad plate of leftovers, you will finally understand that you have the power to hurt someone. You can either hurt them or love them and it’s up to you to decide what kind of role you would like to take on in future relationships. What feels more comfortable — being the one who loves more or being the one who’s loved less?

You will fall in love with someone who’s cold and always seemingly pushing you away. When all is said and done, they will be forever known as the one person you couldn’t get to love you. Unfortunately, it will hurt and sting worse than the good ones, the ones that chopped up your meat for you and picked out an eyelash from your eye and were nice to your mother, because love often feels like a game we need to win. And when we lose, when we realize we couldn’t get what we ultimately desired from a person, it makes us feel like a failure and erases all the memories of those who loved us in the past. It’s a permanent smudge on your love resume.

You will fall in love with someone for one night and one night only. They’ll come to you when you need them and be gone in the morning when you don’t. At first, this will make you feel empty and you’ll try to convince yourself that you could’ve loved this person for longer than a night, but you can’t. Some people are just meant to make cameo appearances, some are destined to be a pithy footnote. That’s okay though. Not every person we love has to stick around. Sometimes it’s better to leave while you’re still ahead. Sometimes it’s better to leave before you get unloved.

You will fall in love with the old couple down the street because to you they represent the impossible: a stable, long-lasting love. You’re trying to get someone to like you for more than ten minutes. A monogamous “never get sick of ya” love seems unfathomable. “What’s your secret, sir? Do you just say yes a lot?”

You will fall in love with smells, the good and the bad kind. You will want to wear your lovers shirt because it makes you feel close to them and you’re okay with being that PYSCHO who is legitimately sniffing their shirt in public. You will fall in love with sweat, certain perfumes, the smell of the season in which you fell in love. This particular love smells like fall. It smells like Halloween and a roaring fire and leaves and fog and mist and candy and food and family and whiskey and sex and the lint that collects on sweaters. When it ends, if it ends, you will never experience another fall without thinking of him, her, it. The memories will stick to the ground like a mound of leaves and will only dissipate when the weather drops.

You will fall in love with your friends. Deep, passionate love. You will create a second family with them, a kind of tribe that makes you feel less vulnerable. Sometimes our families can’t love us all the time. Sometimes we’re born into families who don’t know how to love us properly. They do as much as they can but the rest is up to our friends. They can love you all the time, without judgement. At least the good ones can.

This is where I’m supposed to tell you that you will fall in love with The One, a person who isn’t too cold or too nice. Their “O” face is perfectly fine and they’re not afraid to show how much they love you. This person is supposed to wait for us at the end of the twentysomething road as some kind of reward for all the heartache and loneliness. We deserve them. We’ve earned this kind of love.

So fine. You’re going to fall in love with The One. You’re going to fall in love with someone who will make sense beyond college or a job or a particular season. They’ll make sense forever and won’t ever want to leave you behind. I’m telling you this not because it’s true but because it NEEDS to be true. Everyone is entitled to this kind of love, so why not? Have it. It’s yours. Blow out the candles on your 30th birthday, holding their hand, and let out an exhale that’s been waiting for ten years.. (sigh) if only it was that simple.

I have fallin in love with them all. Fallin in love more times than I can count.
I fell in love with an amazing woman, and I hurt her, because I knew I could.
I fell in love with someone I knew would NEVER love me the way I needed to be loved, and I gave up everything for her.
I fell in love with one night of amazing sex, and in the morning we walked away strangers and never saw each other again.
I fell in love with every old couple I saw holing hands, while thinking to myself "I want that"
I fell in love with friends.. all my friends, every single one of them.

What no one tells you is love isn't a check list. Love isn't a race. Love isn't set instructions you follow from the age 19 to 29. I have spent most of my twenties with my heart in pieces, trying to get by from one love to the next. I have given and taken and cried; I have watched them go and never questioned why. Do you know what you really learn in your 20's.. you learn that it's not like the movies. You learn that feelings get hurt, wounds heal, and no matter how broken your heart is, it will keep beating. I am turning 30 in 33 days. I will blow out my candles with family and friends by my side and I will let out an exhale that I've held in for ten years, because at the end of this twentysomething road, I have learned how to love and respect myself enough to hold out for that one love everyone is entitled to.




-Oliver Hart

because you found me and you changed me

I was electrified
I was terrified
I was young and that lonely highway didn't mind.

You were blue eyed and lovedrunk
I was fascinated
I was wide-eyed and willing.

I was whole and now I’m wilting..
But I’m still fascinated
I’m still wide-eyed
I’m still reeling
I’m still pulling at what pleated pieces of you I've got left in the bottom of my pockets

Because you found me and you changed me.

You were summer storms
You were swollen and sunburned, and I followed you where ever your lightening decided to strike.

Sometimes I tell people about you like it doesn't hurt
Like this isn't hard
Like it’s just lint
Just loose change
Some backyard apologies
Some long lost stars we tried to collect in our collarbones once
Some bottom of the ninth summer we forgot by the fall.

We dug our selves a grave
Took everything this world gave
Never regretted a goddamn thing.

We loved like it couldn't break
Even when it did.

Four years. I only had you for four years.
But I did not cry
I did not mind
I was mesmerized
I felt something

It’s gone now, but it comes back in flashes.
You dancing in the kitchen
Getting lost in another state
The tangles in your hair
The long drive from Arizona
The times you let me fall asleep in the space between your shoulder and your neck
When you told me I made you feel safe.

You’re gone now
You've been gone for awhile
But I know I felt something.

I didn't cry because..
I know for the rest of our lives that at least once there was a moment in the middle when we felt something.





Something.

The Sound Of Tears

Sometimes when I'm crying and I have my earbuds in..
I feel like my tears are the loudest tears in the world.

I wonder if anyone else can hear them fall.

i can't unlove you.

Knocking on my door at 2am, asking for a bed to sleep in and warm arms to hold her.

I let her in.

(It felt weird; unfamiliar. It was the first time I’ve held someone in my arms other than “L” ..and it felt wrong.
I tried not to, but I kept comparing her to the only other touch I remember
And..
She didn’t fit in my nook.
Or curl into me the way she used to.
Her warmth wasn’t as warm.
Her touch wasn’t as soft.
Her scent wasn’t the same.

I tried to sleep, but every time I’d close my eyes the inside of my mind would scream.
It was uncomfortable, painful to be next to her.
It was like sleeping on a thousand razors and every move, ever breath, every thought of missing “L” cut deep)

.. The heater kicking on and off. The humming refrigerator. Dropping of ice in the freezer. Ticking of two clocks. Cars driving. Wind blowing. My heart pounding. And screaming thoughts and memories I wished more than ever I could relive. All of these sounds and thoughts I counted over and over.. and over again. Until it was finally time for me to get up for work. I showered, trying to wash it all away. Trying to wash off the feeling of ugly is hard when it’s under the skin.

She was up and waiting when I walked out of the bathroom. I couldn’t look at her, and she didn’t look at me.
We didn’t speak. Not one word to each other.

She was waiting by the door as I put my coat on to leave for the day.. I asked her. Why? Why did you choose my door to knock on?
Without hesitation she replied, “because I was drunk and didn’t want to go home to my boyfriend, because I needed to be held and knew your bed would be empty, and because I knew you wouldn’t expect anything from me if I was in it”

I turned around and locked the door.

(I immediately felt angry and hurt. Did she not know my heart was a fresh wound. I guess it’s easier to ratify using someone when you are the user, not the one being used)

Walking through the parking lot, before going our separate ways, she turned to me and said, “I’m sorry.”

(I didn’t speak. I didn’t blink. No expressions. No emotion..)

I turned and walked away.

She knew I was just out of a long term relationship. She knew how emotionally unstable I was. She knew the one thing I craved and hated was a warm body next to mine in bed. She used me. Emotionally she used me.. and I hated myself for it. It’s not like it was just emotionless sex, and then bye, you’re on your way.. it was more. It was something I wasn’t ready to give. I wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable.. and it cut all the way through.
“L” is still in my heart, still in my soul. Her voice is still my favorite sound, her warm skin on mine is the only normal I know. Her hair between my fingers, her skin under my lips, the way she fit perfectly in my arms.. are all things I close my eyes and can still feel. “L” is just a memory, but I’m not ready to give her up. I’m not ready to move on. I’ve tried letting go, but she’s tethered to my heart.. and I’m not ready to unlove the knots that have tied us together.

This Heart

I've been given up on
and looked down upon

I've been left
and broken

Still
Every morning
I wake up
Wanting to love
And be loved

Forgotten, Forget, FORGETTING, forgot..

I have built a house inside of me
A house built to put moments in
A house for memories
A house for pieces of love
A house for you
A house for us
A house for tears
And a house for the forgotten ones

It started out in the far end corners of my heart
A spot, turned into a pocket
A pocket, stretched out into a box
A box rebuilt into what it is now
Slowly molding its corners into a home
This evolving space has kept secrets, kept love, kept me..
Kept you, safe from time, from the forgetting, and the forgot


Out of sight, out of mind
Until the emptiness creeps in
Until the loneliness takes over
And at that moment, I realize, my heart still has a little break in it
I close my eyes, and go back to this house I have built inside of me
A house built to put moments in
A house for memories
A house for love

And one by one
I pull out reasons to smile
Reasons to laugh
I find love, passed down, and remembered
I find hidden strengths, and courage


Inside, and under, all of these forgotten moments
I remembered who I am, who I was

I am a strong woman
And sometimes I forget that I, too, am beautiful

.. and I smile.

Rebuilding My Lego House

The race is not always to the swift,
But to those who keep on running!!


You talk about walking away, so go ahead, leave..
I'm not going to stop you. I refuse to beg you to stay.
You talk about leaving, so leave.

I'm not going to give up.
With or without you, I'm going to find a way to be happy.
I'd really love to be happy with you, but if I can't be happy with you..
Then I'll find a way to be happy without you.

I will keep going, I will keep living.
Running, walking, or even a slow crawl..
I will move in any way possible
Into the direction of happiness.

The race is not always to the swift,
But to those who NEVER STOP!!

Promise Not To Promise

You say not to worry, I am yours.
You say not to worry, you are mine.
..But what happens when the words you speak are empty.
Filled with want and need for someone other than me.
What happens when time apart means more than time together..?

I can only be me.
Yes at times
I try until my heart wont let me.
And other times
I will just sit there because there are no words..
But my love is constant, honest and loyal.
I can only be me
And sometimes your standards are just out of reach.

You say not to worry, I am yours.
You say not to worry, you are mine
..But what happens when life with me isn’t what you want?!?..

Please, promise..
When I am more than you can take, or want.
Just give me back.
Don’t hold on, just let go.