Goodbye.

Today I feel strong.
I feel funny.
I feel skinny and radiant and full of love for every lost teenage wanna-be aimlessly roaming these high school hallways. The grungy indie boy I used to love smacked me with his elbow in first bell and I didn’t even scowl at him. He hasn’t showered all summer and he wears the same tee shirt twice a week. He smells like old acoustic guitars and Halloween. He is a part of my past just as much as you will be. One day you might nudge me with your elbow and I would not even look your way. I would not remember the way you used to hug me. I would not miss those summer nights or magical fireworks. I would smile, and breathe, and move on.
I have a date this weekend. A first date with a sophomore in college who wants to be a policeman in a bad part of town. He remembers me laughing too loudly in the hallway when he was a senior and wants to know what’s behind these blue eyes. We aren’t expecting forever. We aren’t expecting love. We’re expecting to smile and nod and get to know another heart while watching a baseball game and splashing in the pool. When I said I was moving on,
I meant it.
But today I will meet you for lunch. In a few hours I will be in your car again-for the first time in days, for the last time ever. And the strange thing is, while my stomach churns at the though of smelling your musky promises again, I am not scared. I am not scared of falling back in love with you. I’m not scared of falling at all.
I will listen to what you have to say- apologies, regrets, well-wishes. I will forgive you and then leave you behind. I won’t wince when you call me baby. I won’t give in if you reach for my hand. Even though you don’t deserve it, I will give you this one chance to say goodbye.
Goodbye my brown eyed freckled armed free style rapping Hollister wearing obsessive compulsive liar. Goodbye.

Too Far Gone

The sad thing is
Yesterday I spent hours convincing myself you deserved a second chance. You were sorry. You meant every word of that e mail you sent me at two in the morning.
I was wrong.
I spent hours lying to myself and the people that love me for the sake of avoiding the pain of losing you. But I don’t feel pain now. I think of all the times you touched me and it burns my skin because I now know where your hands had been before I got dropped off at your house. I know whose pony tail was on your wrist next to mine. Some sixteen year old brunette across the street and if I didn’t love life so much I might just be sick. I was ready to meet you on Friday at our favorite pizza place. I was ready to sit across from you and color you purple with forgiveness. I was ready to let you hold me again like you told me you dreamed about. Your dreams are my nightmares. Swearing you loved me while you snuck around with your junior high sweetheart who lied to you too many times to count. I called and told you pizza was off. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear your voice- mumbling apologies and whispering I love you’s and searching for some redemption from a seventeen year old girl you can’t save you. You took advantage of my forgiveness, of my honesty, my easy going love I gave without question. I was there when your college dreams collapsed. I was there when the people you loved left. I stayed behind. I surrendered my summer. But I am not your savior. My forgiveness will not get rid of that guilt. You will have to lie in bed and think about what you lost. I will be sleeping soundly to James Taylor lullabies and Elton John records. I will be spending weekends at festivals. I will be tasting all that freedom again and licking my lips for more because I am rid of your head games. “Dude, I’m just messing with her mind.”
You can’t touch me anymore.
I’m too far gone.

Radiating Love

It’s a new day. My blonde hair is no longer short and choppy and hopeless. Thanks to birthday money and luscious extensions I can flip these long locks over my shoulder and brush them with a passion I forgot I had. Ha. Girls and their hair<3
Yesterday I tried to heal while reading a Buddhist manual for spiritual revolutionaries. I lie on my tummy in a well lit courtyard with an expensive fountain and read about forgiveness, the eightfold path, the four noble truths, cleansing my soul and body and mind and radiating love out into the world. All morning I have been radiating love while I sip this French vanilla coffee that burns my tongue and warms my hands. All morning I have been forgiving you while I close my eyes and breathe deep and count to ten and feel all that suffering fade away. Pain is real,
But I made myself suffer.
I made myself suffer when I put my head on my desk and thought of our first kiss and then our last one. I made myself suffer when I searched the computer frantically with lovesick fingers on the keyboard and forced myself to look at pictures of us before we were broken. I made myself suffer when I refused to see that it is out of my control. Pain may come and go, ease in and out of my universe but I will not avoid it. I will not shut it out or fight it off. I will embrace it, I will love this fucked up human reality of pain because when the pain is gone I am left with confidence and the power of knowing I did not sink to your level. I did not use your secret torments you whispered in my ear late at night when the crickets were outside your window and your friend’s cigarette smoke was filling up your car. I did not lash out at you with blood red words and a mouth full of profanity.
And I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. When you call my best friends and beg for forgiveness they will probably hang up on your monotone mumbling frat boy voice. They will shake their heads and tell me to move on and believe me I will. But I will give you a chance to apologize to my face. To look at me and attempt to shower me in all the sincerity a 19 year old boy is capable of. I will sit across from you and stare you dead in the eye when I tell you that I will not bring you happiness. I will bring you phone calls and butterfly kisses and wrestling in your basement. I will bring you someone to make fun of and tickle and confide in. But until you find out who you are, until you forgive that girl you loved for four years before you even knew my name, until you let go of all that anger that’s flooding your brown eyes and making your fists clench into a tight ball- you will not know happiness. Not with me-
Not with anyone.
And as much as you hurt me darling,
I’m still radiating love.
I want you to be happy.

take your memories, i don't need em.

Back where I started again.
Blonde haired and broken hearted and thank God for best friends who will hold me while I cry my eyes out on an orange shag rug.
Our day started with Buddhist books and cheap Chinese food.
I find sanctuary in a book store and we sat for an hour with our legs crossed while we marveled at all the glossy covered miracles in front of us. We sat in a naturally lit hole-in-the-wall and ate broccoli and chicken for 7.50 with chop sticks we stole from Trader Joes. We planned our futures and laughed at the neon painting of paradise glowing above us. Surrounded by paper bouquets and fresh peas and hungry construction workers, her blue eyes made me calm. They eased my anxiety about that brown haired catastrophe I convinced myself I was in love with. Hours later and I’m bawling again. The radio is broken in her car and the silence is eating me up and making those tears sound like screams. While I was home taking meds and sipping tea and watching too much O.C he was out tasting someone else’s lips. Breaking promises at football games and dance clubs and then swearing we would be okay. That he still loved me.

Driving to his house in all that summer heat and even if it wasn’t 100 degrees I still think I’d be sweating in my Clash vintage tee and low rider jeans. All the makeup in the world couldn’t cover the tear tracks that have been streaming down my face but my eyes never look bluer than when I’ve been crying over the boys I love. He gave me back my Tiffany’s necklace and Guster CD. He gave me back the five page note I wrote him before I flew away to Hawaii. He gave me back my pony tail and flicked the other one on his wrist. “this one isn’t even yours.” It hurt and he knew it and I ran back to that music-less car because I’ll be damned if I let him see me fall apart over him. Him and his Hollister uniform. Him and his stupid raps. Him and his bad taste in movies and distaste for literature and smoky smelling car. Him and his promises and his brown eyes and his tickle-happy fingers. Him and his lies. And his lies. And his lies. I want him to know that today I will cry. I will talk down high school hallways in a pink Indie top and smile, then rush to quiet bathrooms to silently cry in closterphopic stalls. Today I will grieve, not because I miss him. Not because I want his freckled arms around me or his car in my driveway. I will cry because I stayed up all night making him that scrapbook for his birthday. Because I planned sunset skies in a hot air balloon and him in a tuxedo at Homecoming. Because we will never go sledding like he said we would.
But tommorow, tommorow darling boy that thought he'd shatter me, tommorow I will not cry. I will sing those break up songs in the shower and sway my hips when I walk and forget how bad it hurt when you text messaged me at midnight. I will eat lunch with my best friend and dream about weekends of not having to call you. Not having to hear your voice and wonder why it sounds like its dripping with deciet. I will laigh and flirt and smile and wear that pink lip gloss you never liked. I loved it.
tommorow is a new day.