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.