The Masses

I don't cry. I'm still faking smiles. My eyes don't focus. My hands shake. I'm still not hungry. I am even. But I am not numb. My brain is screaming, laughing, crying, kicking, howling behind a soundproof glass window of medication. I know this noise is there, but I can't hear it all the time. I hear it when I wake up in the morning. Or the middle of the night. I hear it when I'm driving for too long. I hear it when I'm alone while the sun sets.
Nothing can be tied up.
Nothing can be finished.
Just ignored.
Ignore each other.
Ignore our conscience. 
Ignore the heart you stole
And the one you forgot you had.

Defective

I’m driving.

            I’m always driving. I prefer it after midnight. My hand is limp on the steering wheel and my foot is only resting on the gas. I have no direction. Something about streetlights, or headlights, or break lights, or starlight makes me think of every moment of my life simultaneously; like one of those montages in a movie. I’m on some street stopping briefly because a sign told me to. A new song by an old band is playing and it happens.

            They come all at once, not sorted by time or person. Maybe sorted by a feeling I vaguely remember. It was important once I know, but I don’t know how to tell what is or will be important anymore. The drums kick in and it all sounds familiar.

I’m remembering a soft hand squeezing mine in a house I’ll probably never return to; its fingers lacing through mine. I acted like I didn’t care, but it was the first hand I let roam over mine in years. The same soft hand is wrapped around my waist, its owner is wrapped around me and I can’t catch my breath or quiet the sounds coming out of my mouth.

            Then it’s a rough hand pushing down on my pelvis and the same sounds are escaping me. My hands claw for sheets and air. It hurts and it’s fine and it was love. It was love, I’m sure, but it doesn’t feel like I want. I was broken. That’s what we decided.    

            I’m turning into a neighborhood I’ve only been in to turn around and head back the way I came. There was a time I accidentally lit a trashcan on fire with a cigarette that wasn’t done burning. I never leave the cherry unattended anymore. All the nights in the park on that cold metal bench blur together. Every time feels like an epiphany and the right time to have one. Whether it’s the warmth of the tea and my favorite sweatshirt or the sound of her voice when she convinces me I’m not a complete failure, I don’t know. When she leaves it all feels the same and what was said those nights only come back when the streetlights are flickering.

            I shared so many nights with a pair of tired green eyes and cigarette smoke; in the garage, on curbs, in parking lots, in the back of that old truck, on the roof. Then I stared at them like I had so many times and they led me to bed. Like the brown ones, and the blue ones that came first. I loved them all I think. Or I thought I did, which doesn’t make a difference. Those green eyes still burn though. Like that cigarette that never went out. They all do. Whether it’s imagined or sincere. They burn and I can’t stop wondering when it’ll all die down.

           

            The nicotine is stinging my throat and the smoke is caught in my eyes. The mascara’s dried like a child’s Halloween face paint. I haven’t felt so much like myself in months. With all these tears you’d think I felt it all. I just remember though, I don’t feel it at all anymore. 

"You're a Strong Racehorse"

Being that I am now a part time truck driver I have a lot of time to contemplate the state of my life whilst navigating the "open roads" of Stepford-esque housing tracts. Since my life is apparently in a chronic state of chaos that flows more than it ebbs this contemplation is not only a habit of mine, but necessary for survival, and the well being of others, because let's face it, I know it's not easy to be around me all of the time.

Without delving into the details I've talked to death already, my heart has been broken, or at least shaken violently. I'm currently penciling this in as the most painful occurrence, seeing as I can't bring myself to hate the person responsible, or even dislike them a little bit. There are so many excuses, and honest to God reasons, and fears, and insecurities, and patience being ignored running through our small community as of late...and though I have been trying to wade through the mess making sense of it all, because I feel it is my duty.
I can't.
And over the loud clunking of the engine this morning I've realized...I can't.
Stop Kailee. Just stop.

It isn't a secret to me, or you, or anyone maybe, that I try to hold too much in my little hands because I trust myself and no one else. When someone lets go of my hand, yanks it away, I will inevitably break down, fall to my knees in the dramatic fashion I hope captures every pained emotion on my face. I want those expressions etched into your brain. I want you to know all the things I feel, but here's where I'm wrong....
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I keep loving everyone to death. It doesn't matter that my ears, my heart have served as a confessional for more or less everyone I know. It doesn't matter that I could be the brightest light in everyone's life (maybe not brightest, like a consistently warm light, but not too bright, come on I'm still talking about me here...) because my solitude is so fucking dark. I don't know exactly where I lost my way. I know who, and who, and who, and who made me feel like I only mattered or didn't matter in reference to someone else, but I didn't realize how much I believed it.

So you were right. You- my friends, or family, or exboyfriend, or ex-people who weren't ever really my boyfriends. You're right. I need to fix things. I'm not perfect and trust me I'll never let myelf live it down. I will rebuild.

But... I will always be too much.

Too much love.
Too much understanding.
Too much willingness.
Too much strength.
Too much patience.
Too much to say.
Too much to feel.
Too much romance.
Too much imagination.
Always too much love, though, always.

And one day that will be enough.

Familiar

I lost myself somewhere between the bar and the dance floor.
I felt whole held gently in your arms,
with your eyelashes grazing my cheek
I let out that deep breath I'm usually holding,

The song would have to end,
We'd have to bow,
close the curtains on whatever characters we thought we were playing.
Your eyes opened,
I thought they looked brighter

I made my way back to the bar
begging our eyes to re-focus,
our mouths to dry up.
I fished for my keys vowing I'd fall asleep to only empty dreams.

And then you reached for my hand.

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.