Les Amants

"I thought I called for you," he said.

She smiled, to herself, because he always just says the first half of the sayings.
She smiled, basking in the balance and, for a fleeting moment, realized that maybe that balance is the only thing you can count on.

29

I want to be one of those people who can talk to the sky and think that someone is listening. As much as I'll agree with those of you who do, and believe that you believe, I don't know that I do. Even if I did, I don't know that it would help.

Because for all the talking and looking for signs the facts remain:
There won't be any new pictures.
My hair was a stupid color the last time he saw me, though he said nothing, standard.
I feel like I didn't do enough in time.
I hope he was proud.
I hope we were friends.

The clouds parted for a minute and I want to blame it on something I can't see and don't feel, but instead I'll attribute it to the wind speeds and keep pulling myself back to Earth; steel myself against everyone's shaky voice, and hide my own under blankets of smoke.

Puberty (abandoning all the rules of writing and making sense)

These feel less like growing pains the older we get and more just like pain. 
Why haven't these things been dealt with?  
Why do I still feel these debilitating pangs I felt so frequently when we were younger?
Screaming at the top of my breath because I can't let anyone hear the sound I'd make if I could articulate whatever this is going on inside me. 
The, ridiculous, self loathing; so intricately built and sturdy, indestructible, I fear. 
The worst case scenario scenes playing on a loop while I try to keep whatever life I stitched together with my shaky hands from tearing apart. I don't even know for sure if anyone is threatening it with scissors. 
I let myself feel too safe. 
Too comfortable.
It's terrifying. 
So, we prepare. 
We used to call each other for help with these things. Don't you feel like it's gotten old? Like we're just talking to ourselves, and we've already tried to hard to pull each other out of the mess, the quicksand that's never as bad as we think? Our lives keep happening in different time zones. And maybe this is just life. Maybe this is it. Maybe we'll always need the pep talks. And maybe everything will always be generally more down than up. Is this what it's like to be an adult? To feel like we did in high school, but with bills to pay, and live in boyfriends, and jobs, and no Christmas break, no breaks ever from anything?
I know, just stop. We're better than this.  
We'll get our shit together. 
Let's just blame it on the moon, my sunshine...

Because...

The thing they don't tell you about death is that when it's not happening to you it's not your whole life that flashes before your eyes; it's your whole life, plus your whole future without that person that flashes before you in a moment of crippling worry and regret. It's a terrifying realization of what everyone's life looks like the day after.

It's the piece of birthday cake that will be left over every year. It's the inside jokes your boyfriend didn't get to hear. It's the things your grandma can't reach in the cabinets, and your mother's bated breath when she checks the mail every day. It's the cereal you never want to eat again. It's the pictures we didn't know would be the last. It's the words you can't remember if you said, or if you said them how you meant to. It's the weddings, and the graduations, and the visits home that were too late. It's all the things you never thought you should remember flooding your brain in the last torturous moments before sleep every night. It's the distance. It's the immeasurable distance you can never bridge. It's that there can never be a real good-bye, and you didn't want to say it anyway.

I said a lot of words last week. I said a lot of things that might have helped, that made people stop crying. I said things that I knew I was supposed to say. I forced out some optimism and spirituality buried deep down somewhere, but the truth is I said a lot of things I can't stand by. I feel like a big fake, a liar. Because for all the things I said convincingly I'm not convinced.

I'm heartbroken, and angry, and scared.

I feel like there's a torn seam in whatever fabric that I consist of. I feel a surge of pressure to hold everyone in the arc of my small hands; hold them all close before the flood of mortality washes us all away. I feel like I need to say, do, be more. I feel like I can never be enough. I can't keep them all safe.

Every night I go to sleep replaying the way my mother sounded, and I wake up wondering when the next call will be.

I know it'll all get easier, or vaguer, or buried under the inconsequential things we all revert back to. But the reality is this is not the first, or the last time. This will happen again and again until mercifully I might go before I have to endure another one of these things. That's the hardest thing I guess, knowing that no matter how much I convince myself there's peace, and "it was meant to be" and all the bullshit we hear in the movies, it'll come again. Another phone call, another last minute trip, another week of staring off into darkness hoping ghosts are real and being haunted by their absence.


http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Cletus-Harris&lc=2241&pid=171465535&mid=6020307

Spiders and Cervical Cancer: Fears of the past hour

The night before last a spider apparently repelled from the ceiling, landed on my face, and then bit me on and around my eyes. So, in addition to looking like I had an allergic reaction to Botox I am terrified that there is perhaps a spider living in my eye, or that laid eggs in my eye.

I keep thinking of that Un Chien Anadalou movie where there are bugs coming out of that guy's hand. I think they're ants. Look it up.

So, I'm probably fine, but every article I looked up told me to call the Poison Control Center. I probably won't because I just want to take a nap after work.

Speaking of poison, apparently that Gardasil vaccine that's supposed to make you not get HPV and/or cancer is killing people and/or paralyzing them, which is super great to know because my sister was going to get her second shot soon.
So basically, I saved her life.

More unsettling is that I already had all of those shots and I'm still alive, but now all unexplained weirdness I feel will be attributed to Gardasil. Or I'll blame it on that time I stole something from "some unnamed store" just for fun. I've been waiting on the universe to get me back for that one.  I don't know what to believe ever on the internet because everyone is so dramatic all the time. So maybe I saved her life. Or maybe it's fine and I'm just perpetuating propaganda. I don't know.
Make your own decisions.

Have a good day,
Love,
 the sleepiest, swollenest girl in the world.