Lately - The Helio Sequence

Lately, i don’t think you of you at all
Or wonder what you’re up to or how you’re getting on
I never think of calling you or how things could have been
Or wonder where you sleep at night or whose arms you wake in

I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Lately,

I don’t get lost in daydreams
I never lay awake at night staring in my bed
And i don’t think about your face or anything you’ve said
And i don’t think twice when someone says your name

Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
I never walk alone and think of all the empty words

Or wonder when the day will break or when the tides will turn
And i don’t break down when someone says your name
Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame

I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore.
Lately, i don’t think you of you at all.
Lately, lately, oh lately.

I saw you. That was the least disturbing thing that happened tonight.

Eyes, and laughter, and nothing good, and my stomach feels sick thinking about how easy it is for some people to forget themselves (how easy it is for me to forget myself), and how some people don't make me feel good, at all, ever, and I still hang on and talk and cling in desperation of feeling warm around them, someday. I want to be back to my sunny place with my sunny friends, where we smile all the time, even when we don't feel good.

Your text is all that is getting me through the night, my dear:
"Today the leaves in my driveway were dancing in the wind, so I danced with them. Now I know a new kind of dance. Can't wait to teach you."

sliced papaya

Perhaps I was not meant to be in love. We are taught that this is a sad thing to say, a lonely, "giving up" sort of thing, but it doesn't feel that way, typed on the screen like that. I think it feels automatic to translate this to "Perhaps I don't deserve to be loved, I am not worth being loved" -- bah, humbug. That is not what I mean at all. I simply mean, Perhaps I was not meant to be in love.

Perhaps I will love one day, to the my heart's greatest ability, perhaps I will cherish another the way some people do, when they are happy just to be sitting next to someone. Perhaps one day I will be loved so fully and completely by another that his heart will feel bursty and light whenever he sees me. And perhaps these two things will never occur in the same instance, with the same person. Is it strange to be okay with that?

I am not giving up. I just don't know anymore. I used to be certain that there was someone, someday, somewhere. And maybe there is. I've had glimpses of that, I am sure. I've been holding all the wrong hands and batting my eyelashes at all the wrong people in the process. I know, I can see you now, shaking your head and aching for me to see my own worth! Settle down, I don't mean to devalue myself. I am just wondering. Maybe some are meant to be alone.

I will never lose my desire to be known, that painful aching from my stomach to my heart that wants to be loved and cherished and protected and adored. None of us ever do. But perhaps that desire is not meant to be fulfilled here. Not now.

[My friend told me the delete button is harsh. If it weren't for her saying that today, I may not have published this post. "Sometimes things get, whatever."]

---

Several half-thoughts have done more than cross my mind, but after two hours of sitting idly and forcing text into my brain, I am far from articulate, and all I want is to get this stuff out.

My two worlds are worlds apart. As much as I can imagine one loving the other, appreciating the other, being fascinated and captivated by the other, there will always be an undercurrent of difference, which, if exposed, will cause each world to back away gently, chuckling at the novelty of the other. Money makes a difference. We are all the same struggling being at our core, maybe, but our outer selves can't help but boast themselves through our language, through our attention to...things. I am most me, sitting cross-legged on an air mattress in a room lit by a single blacklight bulb, making animal sounds and playing card games, feeling warm in a cold place, catching light in friends' eyes. Then again, I am most me, surrounded by nice things and nice people in a nice place, with my best friend, being the only ones figuratively walking barefoot and dancing in a context that demands the strictest metaphorical footwear and literal body language. I hope to never forget house creaks and fast food, I hope to always appreciate stucco and shiny shoes.

I waste time compartmentalizing, and don't spend enough time being. I must not let my sometimes accurate perception of things cloud my often mistaken judgment. People are in my life for different reasons. Some of them actively pursue my soul, run wildly into the unknown with me, laugh and cry willingly at the tragic and beautiful state that all of us are in. These are my soulmates. Some of them laugh with me, endlessly, at the trivial (and most joyful!) things in life, and together, we cast away our soul problems all to be content and merry in the simple comfort of the moment. These are my best friends. Some of them will talk to me for hours in gardens, sometimes nodding in acknowledgement of my brief responses to their life-tales, but mostly, trusting and opening and willingly giving me their hearts. These are the ones I am drawn to (sometimes unwillingly), the ones I seek when I should (and still when I shouldn't). I am not sure what that means. (See? The organizing? Terrible.)

When does it end? I will die one day, hopefully roaring (roaring, roaring, roaring), and perhaps they are right. English and Philosophy are self-serving studies (maybe not, but that is how I feel at the moment). I will question, I will read, I will write, I will not contribute much that can be carried beyond me. No advances will be made, no formulas discovered, hell, no answers will ever be known (except perhaps, what words like "cacophony" and "iambic pentameter" mean). Then what? My flight home was more turbulent than usual, and there was a point, before we reached 3000 feet, where I contemplated my own death and was surprisingly okay——perhaps I wasn't meant to experience requited love, perhaps I wasn't meant to do anything more than just cry and smile for 19 years--and it was fine. The moment passed quickly, when a hum from my cell phone reminded me that there is a world I would be leaving behind, and there are people there. I do not think we should fear death as much as we do, but nevertheless, there is nothing more important in life than the people in it. And that should always be cherished.

I love the snow. I love being cold, then warm. I told my friend the other day that I liked my twin bed at school better than mine at home; my full-sized bed seems to unnecessarily emphasize my being alone (not to be confused with loneliness). I did not realize how true it was until I said it. Perhaps this is pathetic, but I have moved past caring about what "pathetic" means a long time ago, but I just let myself fall asleep to TV episodes now; I miss the sound of voices outside my door.

I love being home, I am uncomfortable at home, I am more warm and content than I could ever be. There is no conclusion for me to write; like I said, these thoughts, this writing, it's all self-serving and stupid, and I can't help but write them. Au revoir.

the day!

Thank you, beautiful day!
My only regret for the day is that I can't
sit among the palm branches, skin-drinking sun, eye-sipping the morning's grandeur
run wildly with the campus creatures, staring mischievously into the eyes of passerby
bury myself beneath sand and age, till the sea claims me his under-beach princess (what a fantastic wedding it will be)!

Thank you, beautiful day!
As the world wrinkles its brow, I will grin
with broken teeth and gnarled lip
with shaky hands and callused heels
and say,
"You are welcome to smile with me,
and hold my hand,
bending into the wind,
to run this fantastic race!"

Thank you, beautiful day!

thou art ridiculous sometimes

I want to be awake again, and not stumble over my words so often, and fall in love desperately and fully and completely, and well. Falling in love well...does that exist?

I want my skin to be thinner, now. Interesting, how when it was brittle and see-through, I hurt, but didn't complain, didn't want any of it to change, and...

after having to do away with all the delicacy, I am harder and thicker, and I just want to be dumb again, and innocent, and easily impressed.

Endless sleep, endless exhaustion

Accio, well-rested soul!

"lots of things are fun to me like...

sitting in the passenger seat
and drinking orange juice
and going to the gas station
and seeing Brian at the drive-thru
and putting a stopper in my coffee
and opening doors for people (unless they rush)
and pad thai from Maine
and making waiters(waitresses?) feel confident
and Frank Sinatra
and bedrooms with 70s decor
and pretty blonde friends that play tennis
and coming home to my roommate
and hearing my cool friend sing
and longboarding
and playing music
and hearing stories
and folding scarves
and somersaults
and being the only ones dancing in a room of 500
and cleaning up after assemblies
and staring blankly into spotlights
and laughing out loud (and in my brain)."
giggle, giggle, giggle.

almost complaints

I wish I felt the urgency to finish this draft. I wish I had the energy to read about Japan's rich and tragic and beautiful history for hours. I wish there were more hours in a day. I wish more girls saw their own beauty. I wish more men saw their own strength. I wish I had passion for all of this, I wish these stupid human needs would stop getting in the way.

a new love's in town

Agape.

I love my sweet and beautiful Jesus.
Thank you, for always saving me.

gold, and lots of it

Somewhere between the pulsing static of hallway noise creeping in between doors closing and opening I remembered how wonderful it is to be carefree, and not ignorant or naive, but just free.

Free like rolled up sleeves, rolled off crayon wrappers, rolled on red lipstick
and the words kept spilling out of my ears, but not my mouth or my hands--

For once, studying and memorizing something has made me fall in love with it even more,
and it's awkward.

My inadequacy as a "writer" or "poet" is in part due to my untrained expression, my impulsive vomiting of words, my tendency to regurgitate all-too-familiar imagery with a slightly more grotesque spin in hopes of it becoming tragically beautiful—

but it is also in part due to the life I was blessed with, and for that I am partially thankful, and partially [insert shameful human emotion here]. How sad, and sort of deranged, that I wish I had more to complain about.

I read old notes, old words, and although it is easier now to laugh at my sentiment than it was then, my words seemed harsher, more vibrant, more shocking and delicious...when I missed you.

How sadistic and selfish and strange, to be in this state— to only want you back in my life for the sole purpose of writing about you. 1:16am thoughts are not my favorite...

Don't get me wrong, I have been scratching and scraping to rid whatever of all that grime and gunk you left behind; I have no wish to speak wrongly of you, to write bitterly of who I thought you were,

Rather, I miss that salty, astringent hiss of realizing how much I cared/you didn't because it was easier to write then.

Ah, but I will read this in the morning and realize several things, that are already beginning to dawn on me.

I have never needed you to feel alive, nor have I needed any of 'yous'
I will shrug and move on
I am nearly positive that it will be so much more enjoyable to write about requited love! (Right?)

For now, sighing and grunting is what I've got.

I just re-read part of this and I don't think I believe half of what I've said.
Happy Monday night, Tuesday morning.

i just found this

I’d like to swallow you like a tablecloth
And string your words between my teeth
I’d like to captivate and correlate the blinking of your eyes with mine,
And roll your sleeves up my forearms
Like a five-year old magician.

notes to self

- Do not let pursuit of knowledge temper pursuit of wisdom
- Do not settle with moral decisions, ensure that actions follow
- Listen to the quieter voices
- Dance in the rain—literally and figuratively—as often as possible
- Do not settle for the conditional tense
- Get fed. In every healthy way.

staplegunned

I am so arrogant sometimes. I'm sorry.