Category: love

and so it’s ending.

none of this is new. I’ve simply held on too long once again.

so he read that last entry in my journal, lying beside the bed, he told me– what did he say about it? nothing that seems to make any difference.

I hate being slow to let go. I hate being the kind of person who goes more than halfway and then more and more and more in an effort– a foolish, losing, vain effort– to make up the distance between.

it’s unacceptable to be so little valued by my lover. to receive no welcome signs or tokens or gestures of affection– and then to try to compensate for it.

how the hell did I get here?

it’s simply not acceptable— the only word that works– to adore someone else so much you don’t take care of yourself.

the crashy parts of the roller coaster are exceeding the bits in the sun and speed. it is entirely untenable, and it is is ending, and I hate that.

I hate him for squandering me. for failing to meet me in the marvelous… but apparently he is not there, simply does not feel it as I do– that’s a hard fact, no one’s intention, just the way it is.

L had it right: I am the cup of coffee.
the only choice I have is to unpour myself for him.

I fucking hate being here. I cannot believe heartbreak again. I am so tired– sick— of trying and failing.

I had a moment in the the stunning warmth when I thought, oh my god. finally. there you are.
I thought, everything is fine, manageable.
I felt some sort of grateful perspective– the give and take of being in relationship, being in it together– for almost five minutes. and then on and off with diminishing returns. is that the way it is? perpetual xeno’s paradox?

this life is a pain in the ass.

my fortieth year.
who do I think I’ve been fooling?
what is the purpose of all this brittle optimism and bravado?
it’s a cruel ride.

I don’t know if someone malicious sits at the controls and enjoys the spectacle… I do not enjoy the spectacle.

maybe there really are lots of gods, including the ones who fuck your shit up for sheer amusement.

another alternative is a pseudo-scientific version: methodic conducting of experiments, observing our reactions under different types of pleasure and duress.

another way it could be… is completely meaningless. that’s the one that terrifies me. nihilism. I can’t deal with that worldview– that it all just happens for no particular reasons or intention whatsoever.

I simply cannot believe that consciousness and the ability to question were given to us for no purpose. there doesn’t seem to be any evolutionary value to that that I can see– maybe there is one, and I just can’t make it out.

from my perspective, consciousness implies and entails consciousness– intention, will. toward some purpose. that I’m supposed to keep knocking around in this life and to listen more carefully– act with greater intention and energy and openness– that I learn not to squander myself for a few moments of feeling– or tasting or smelling– good.

that I learn how to advocate for myself more faithfully and powerfully and beautifully.

I am not happy with N.

I feel like I’m at the point of wanting to take my toys and go home. as much as I like him, it’s not enough to make up for his persistent lack of effort and attention. I need to be more foregrounded than this. maybe what I ask for is a lot. maybe it is more than anyone could deliver and/or maybe it will mean that I’ll spend the majority of my life alone. so be it.

if I am with someone, I want to be with that person– not randomly, casually, occasionally the site of his touching down only to take off again. if that is the pattern, there would need to be a lot more carrier pigeons from the air.

I’m not a priority. I’m not the center, only peripheral, one of several options.

fuck that. I do not want it. I do not, apparently, want free love. if this is his version of building toward something, it doesn’t work for me. I am feeling no building, only eroding– what I felt for him initially is being eaten away by absence and neglect. it’s not something that simply, spontaneously persists with little or no effort or care. it requires attention and reciprocity.

maybe I’m foolish to draw this line in the sand– but I’m not getting what I need– and the frustration and irritation are outweighing the pleasure.

I’m tired of being the one who asks over and over again, and I do not want to do it anymore. I would rather have nothing.

in the clear-headed, sound light of day I can say: it isn’t enough, and it’s making me more unhappy than happy– and it’s time to end it. as much as that will break my heart. I am out on the cliff by myself– and I’m stepping back inside.

—

I have no patience for people who fail to step up.

yesterday I left my computer at work by accident, and I feel as a result quite peaceful and free at home, here with my journal. it’s all too easy to fill life up with noise and activity– and what suffers is the inner voice, the channel of knowing the self and what’s real. but life is like that– inconsistent and chaotic– some times are lived more actively out in the world, busier, flashing, louder. I’ve had my share of quiet– and it’s something I need to hearken back to when I’m feeling too scattered and diffuse.

N is the biggest event, cause of much of this motion. three weeks. he’s glorious and troubling and addictive, like dark candy– and he has this lightness as well, this sweetness that just gleams out of him so spontaneously and unselfconsciously and generously– I love how dynamic he is– I love it– and he scares me a bit– his manic potential– he is so altogether unharnessed by himself– it’s one of the things I adore about him– particularly after having known other men– males– who were altogether too controlled or comfortable. he is not comfortable.

I am the one in this equation who is all fluff and flannel and horizontal– and I could tear myself up about the fears that this contrast makes arise– lack of sustainability, that this is inherently a brilliant, short-term connection– I don’t feel like that. I feel with him a much deeper recognition– a potential– but there is a cautionary voice that reminds me of how things naturally flow and move where they need to move.

I’m afraid I’m tempermentally a premature mourner, trying, kind of pitifully, to bank myself against future or imagined losses. as if it helped at all. in fact there’s the possibility it damages being entirely available and present in the moment.

there is such a compulsion to hold on in me– it’s quite dire and daunting, and I guess I’m trying to reason with that somewhat. it hasn’t really done me a lot of favors in the past– tendency to hang onto the wrong things, rather. I let a lot pass right out of my ken– friends, places, family, responsibilities– but there’s this deathgrip on the painfully ruptured relationships.

worrying and worrying them– like a sore place on my tongue I press against the edges of my teeth time and time again. and why? until eventually the thrill of pain is gone, sapped by time. why persist with this? mere masochism? somehow that seems too… simplistic, and unmeaningful. I must do it for some reason. is it simply to feel something, anything, intensely? that sounds more right– weighing all the emotional contents of my pockets, sifting them for what is heaviest, sharpest, most startling– and then spending my energy on that. interesting.

actually, I can’t quite see anything I disagree with in this practice– it’s honest and real and poetic.

I remember the precise look you gave and the way you put emphasis on which exact words. I could write it, like music, with accents and phrasing notations– and do what with it? music for whom? why write it, what use even remembering? no use. use not the point. just something you sit with, that humbles you. because after the other person picks up and moves on– the lover, friend, whatever– after the connection is severed, the tendril hangs until it atrophies. lots of people feel a ghost limb all their lives. others train themselves to see the air that sits there and move through it, unobstructed. I keep thinking of photographic double-exposure, three-dimensional chess, avant-garde film, club sandwiches, british buses, ladies’ bathrooms with mirrors set reflecting mirrors to infinity…

vanity talcum powder that itself seemed to pull through those mirrors from another decade– so still, so expensively appointed, the very room persisting from another era, a nicer one, in the classic sense. and when I was in there, running the silver-handled hairbrush through baby-fine, staticky hair or dousing the air with sneezy powder, it was as if I too stood inside a different time– an imaginary, tidy world where I could pretend for that moment to belong.

I can feel myself pulling in, shuttering, closing down. I don’t want to go anywhere, see anyone, do anything. I just want him to get here.