Magic 8

     I think we're constantly searching for answers that don't exist yet. That has to be why there's a Magic 8 Ball online. So at the push of a button we can see some predetermined answer, and if we don't like it, we push again.
     We push too hard sometimes. We push so we don't fall apart. We push the pieces we want to fit into puzzles they weren't meant for. We push through. We push for. We push ourselves around. We are so consumed with the end, the goal, that we lose sight of all the beautiful things quietly residing in the deepest places of our hearts. Wrapped safely in memories of cigarettes, swimming pools, dry heat.
     Some things that are old are dissolving. Some things that are old are going through a metamorphosis we could have predicted had we been paying more attention. And they will grow, they will turn into things more real than we have known. They will be tangible.
     We will be patient.
     We will submerge ourselves, or perhaps test the water with our fingertips. We'll feel the heat on our faces slowly warm the chill in our hearts.
     And it will all be ok.

To Whom It May Concern:

The girl is disappearing and you have to let her go. 
You should have let her quietly slip into the shadowy corners of your memory years ago when you started on this path it seems you will follow for as long as you both shall live. Perhaps it is not sadness you feel, or guilt, or loss. Perhaps you can't wrap the words around the tip if your tongue. Perhaps it's just that old habits die hard, but you don't want to watch her drowning anymore. No one does. Not even her, and she can't breathe properly while you hold on with the firmest fleeting grasp. 


The calendar has replenished itself, as it does,  with blank pages, filled with days and days of endless trial and error, and trial. And you will succeed, and she will exist beyond your comprehension as she has always been meant to do. And while you may try to search through the pages to find a note that will predict the next sideways glance or crooked smile you cannot find it now, though you must know it will come. And while the pit of your stomach burns with a longing you don't understand, for a glimpse of a memory that was unfairly dragged into the present, you will have created a present more overwhelmingly beautiful than you could have done trying to hang on to this girl. 


So let her disappear. Let her breathe. And lastly, don't criticize how she treads water. Because if you truly let her go you must trust that she will make it to shore on her own, and that if you ever become concerned that she didn't, all you have to do is ask. 

Solitaire

I try to hold all the cards and never show them. Because if you saw them they'd be scattered, out of order. I keep them facing inward because it always seems easier to know I'm if winning or losing in private. It's a secret I tell to just about anyone who will listen, but I keep my lips locked tight while we're playing.
My hands are too small to hold them all. I can't do it anymore. I'm working up the courage to lay some on the table before you.


I hope that you can make them add up into some combination that makes sense to us both.

The sun is out,

I had a lot written down in poorly formed metaphors I thought might hide the things I'm feeling well enough for me not to feel self conscious,

but fuck it.

I've been smiling more lately than I have in the past 4 years. That's not an exaggeration. I am excited about things. I'm in love with all of this.

...but

After every fit of giggles or quiet smiles to myself there is a familiar heaviness. And I hate you for that.

Update. I guess.

So, I have internet...
A guy about my age angrily came to my door to perform what would become a 2 and half hour service that would eventually consist of killing various bugs outside of my house, a sing along, story time, 3 cigarette breaks, and finally plugging in the right cable so that I can blog like a normal person. 


This is Nashville. 


I have seen fireflies and lightning bolts. Real ones. 
Real nature. 
Real beauty.
I've felt real fear. 
I've lost and then found myself at least 5 times daily. 
I've done more loads of laundry than I can count. 
I've painted my nails 7 different colors. 
I've wash the same glass every day for 2 weeks. 
I have had some of the best conversations on a porch with people close to me,
and on the phone with those that are far away. 


I want to be in two places at once all of the time. 
But only so I can let the people I miss know that I miss them. 
There are nights that should have lasted longer. 
Beds I wish I'd never left. 
Eyes whose gaze I wish I could hold. Because I would. I fucking would.


But this is distance. 


And it's real.