Meditations on 2007

1. My room's filled with dozens of shelves all lined with tiny boxes filled with (probably) hundreds of envelopes packed with to-do lists where nothing gets crossed out. All my good intentions and blatant failures packed away in orderly chaos. Circling and crushing me. The past pressing down, squeezing away all hope for the future.
   
   
   
2. All these bridges I've burned could light up this whole fucking city.
   I know I can do better than this.
   
   
   
3. I live for sensations. For experiences. I want to make my life into something that will be remembered. But I don't know how successful I've been in making my life art. There is a kind of empty weariness that comes on when I drink too much and have too many shallow life-altering conversations with strangers.
   
   
   
4. Left. Thud. Right. Thud. Left. Thud.
   This is all there is. Feet slamming against concrete over and over.
   
   
   
5. I want mixtapes, kisses in the rain, poetry and sweet nothings written on flesh, Jimmy Eat World and warm October nights in your car.
   I want all of that, but not from you. I wish there was some way to detach all of those fantastic moments from the reality of you. Some way to transplant those memories in to more fertile, less polluted ground.
   
   
   
6. Deep breath. Hold on tight. Here we go again.

Wish

I wish I could know what it was like to be inside of, completely enveloped by, you. Sometimes when we're lying together, I think it might happen. That if I close my eyes really tight, so tight that everything goes red with bursts of light, and concentrate hard enough, I can melt into you. That my body would just give way and my soul would slide into yours.

Dancer

I should have been a dancer. Or at least that's what everyone says. That I've got the perfect body for it. I -do- look amazing in tights and a leotard. But I'm not a dancer, I can't dance, not one lick. When I tell people this, they get this simultaneous look of pity and disappointment. Like me not being a dancer is a personal affront to God. As if, because I'm not a dancer, my sins won't be forgiven. I'll never go to heaven. All because I don't dance. Sometimes I lie and tell people that I -do- dance. That jazz and tap are my passion. They still look disappointed, but it's good enough to get me through the pearly gates. They say I look more like I'd do ballet. Got a graceful neck and walk- like Audrey Hepburn . She was a failed dancer I say. Did you know that? They stop smiling and walk away.

At least I'll have Audrey to keep me company in Hell.

"You don't taste like anything."
"What? What the hell does that have to do with anything?" I'm gesturing wildly, really that's the only way to describe what I am doing. Arms flailing, hands twitching. She's trying to break up with me again. This happens every couple of months- sometimes we can make it longer. "Taste has nothing to do with me not understanding you, which is what you said this was all about." She did this every time too. Her complaints and reasons for those complaints would shift throughout the discussion until she was just spouting random, unrelated, self-perceived facts.
"No, this conversation is about why I don't want to be with you."
"So, because you don't think I taste like anything, you're trying to leave me?"
"I'm not trying. I am going to leave."
"That's bullshit. You don't make any sense. I mean, do you hear yourself?"
"I'm leaving because of what you not tasting like anything represents to me."
"Represents, eh? This isn't a book. This is our life. But go on, what does it represent in your mind?" She sighed and looked worn-down. I half expected her to disintegrate on the spot.
"Your lack of passion for one."
"Oh, so this is about sex? I told you I would do whatever you wanted. If you want to do a girl together we can..."
"What? No, I don't want to do another girl with you."
"Well then what is it you want? Am I boring you?"
"Yes, you are boring me, but not in bed."
"Well hey, that can be fixed. What kind of things do you want us to do?" This is where the tide always turns. She would start talking more, really opening up. And I'd reassure her- that I loved her, that she was beautiful, that I wasn't going anywhere and that things would get better.
"No, it can't be fixed. You're not what I want and you never will be." And she left. She left her clothes, her toothbrush, her tupperware. She left.