Sixteen 02.28.10

I have been playing Russian Roulette all day while you coast through my mind.

My right hand, sporting the Quenya scrawl that reveals the Elvish word "Forever" chokes up on the backstrap. The webbing of my hand compresses against it pressing into my tattoo and distorting it, curling it into an unmerciful ripple of tension. My thumb curls down for strength. My itchy trigger finger flexes at the distal joint, wrapping around the cold hard edge of the trigger affording me maximum leverage. I am holding it like small quail, the way the cowboys in days of old would have taught their sons and heirs to hold it. Like a delicate quail sporting the colors of your hair for its wings, I am holding it firmly enough that it can't fly away from my grasp, but not hard enough to bruise its delicate feathers. I slide the hammer back, now my grip changes, it is more forceful. All my fingers but my index curl into a occupied fist. I am preparing for the kick back, I am keeping my breathing low and steady, aiming through the sights at my target. And I squeeze the trigger in a single fluid motion. The empty click of each rough I attempt to fire mocks me, the same way this silence between us mocks my love for you.

I have been trying to find the one bullet that will bring us peace.

I have been trying to find the round which will let you know that I want nothing but the best for you, but that I am sick with longing.

I have been trying to find the lead which will punch out a hole in this darkness and let the light come streaming into this place of blindness.

I have been trying to find the cartridge that will pierce through this wall you have put up between us and show you there is nothing to fear here.

I have been trying to find the slug that will cease this madness between us and let you know that if you want me, I am right here for the taking. There are no mistakes or any wounds to the ego that can be made in this endeavor if you wish to return and truly see I am changed.

I have been trying to find the love letter that will fly home to its target, animating this revolver with the first thundering crack of gunfire and let you know, this was not a warning shot.

Did you know that they sometimes call ammunition "love letters"? And here I thought I was just being metaphorical. Funny that, when the metaphor and reality start to blur. For instance, I re-read Memory Trace today and like a flood all my memories of you came flashing into my mind. Turns out I never could forget anything about you. No, nothing about you has really escaped my vision, my memory, or my heart.

I keep remembering the way you sounded the last time I fucked you. I keep having my vision haunted by your face, contorted in pleasure while you whispered violently and trembled against me. Just as I wrote you in Tailored, as always, you made the word "fuck" sing when you said it. Even in that moment you were too good to be real, I knew, I wasn't even giving you everything I wanted to.

Now my heart aches to hold you once more, to let you know that these arms were made to love you. You can hide, you can try to run away from this, but I know you know somewhere deep inside you it is only a matter of time before we are together again. It is only a matter of time before you will not be able to distract yourself any longer, clouding your vision, keeping you from seeing me pleading for your hand. It is only a matter of time before you understand that I really am taking this seriously, that I am changing for myself and for you in all the right ways. It is only a matter of time before you remember that you said you wanted to use this time to grow as well, and not to revert and withdraw into your pain.

Everyone is commending me on a job well done. Everyone is impressed with my growth thus far. Everyone is loving the change that has been brought about in me. Everyone but you. Because you will not afford yourself eyes to see me clearly yet, you suffer in self imposed darkness. I could enlighten you with one glimpse if you would like. I could show you that there's nothing I want more than for you and I than to be able to communicate again, as we used to, through the majesty of your pen.

Your words haunt me still. Do you remember all the poems you used to write me? A Stroke of Posture is trying to break me down and cause my shoulders to sag with grief. And yet, it is making my posture more confident. It is telling me that there is no possible way you could forget the love you had for me in just 16 days. It is telling me what you have said is true, that you will never replace my throne in your heart. But will you not let me grace it once more? I am not asking for much, truly. I am only asking for some direction from you on how to proceed. I am only asking that you communicate some small sentiment to me so that I may know that you still want me.

Is that such a terrible thing to ask you for? Some minor form of contact? Write to me, I know you have it within you. Remember that is one of the things you said you would work on, how to communicate better? And even if you don't want me, communicate that. Afford me the dignity to know what it is in your heart. I honor you by letting you know all that is in mine, regardless of how it may hurt or "embarrass" me in the future, still I let you know: I have not forgotten you, I have not stopped loving you, I have not stopped wanting you.

Part of me imagines that you find solace in these words, the way I write to you everyday. Meanwhile, I am tortured still by grief, uncertainty, and a growing nagging worry that you despise me. Why else would you keep your heart and mind from me this way? Why else would you keep me from you, without even a shred or a clue of your feelings, your wishes, your hopes and dreams?

Are you afraid of me?

This is a reality that would be too much for me to bear. What cause have I given you reason to fear? This gun in my hand, it is not meant for you. It's meant for the obstacle of fear, ego, and boundary you spread out between us like the length of a firing range. I am so close, at any moment you could beckon me and I would come, I would come and hear all that you have to say to me. I would cherish those words, I would cherish the contact you afforded me, the chance to know you, the chance to discover you.


My feet shift wider into a power stance, the revolver hands listlessly at my side. I drop it in the sand at my feet. There are never enough words I can muster to show you how I want you in my life. There are never enough words that I can load into the barrel of this gun and fire into the ether. There is never enough shooting practice that will prepare me for the one time I pull that trigger and the bullet I knew was in there all along flies free, startling me, because I almost thought there weren't any loaded at all until then.

I have been playing Russian Roulette all day while you coast through my mind for nothing.

I am putting away this revolver in a velvet lined case tonight that bears your name written out in shapes of mother of pearl inlay. I am placing my hand over it as it clicks shut, and a heavy heart is thudding my pulse against its heartwood frame. If you would send me one small glimmer of what you are wanting, as loud but as deafening as a shotgun blast, I will remove each ball of buckshot from the hole in my chest and catalog the letters left there to reveal your message.

Fifteen 02.27.10

I have had the fresh air in my lungs all day and still I am thirsting for it. It has been chill enough to wear a jacket, and my newly shorn hair has been revealing to me that when you expose yourself it sometimes takes getting use to. Just like I have been trying to get used to you not speaking to me, I can only guess at the reasons why. I am trying to get used to the fact that it may be possible you do not love me anymore, that you never will want me again, that you might even hate me somehow. I am also trying to get used to you not being in my life, but never far from my heart. Despite my unanswered fears, I am steadfast in that one thing alone. When everything else about me is changing, that is the one thing that remains constant, I have NEVER stopped loving you. I have NEVER stopped wanting you. I have NEVER thought for a moment about the possibility that you would never again be my muse.

No, you could NEVER stop being my muse. You will always be the thing that inspires me in all ways. You bring about the muse in me to grow, to change, to love myself better, to love others, to trust more, to embrace my life wholeheartedly and display my charisma unsullied by poor self esteem and unhealthy behaviors. You are the thing that inspires me each day to hope, to dream, to make my dreams manifest. I was wandering around before I met you worshiping cheap imitations of you. It is no small wonder they could not keep me inspired, they were not my true love. But now that I found you, and held you and called you mine you have transformed me into a muse-poet. A muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his true love is for him the embodiment of the Muse.

You are my Calliope. You are my epic lasting muse that brings out of me the sweetest lines of poetry I have ever been able to craft. You, whose gold crown blinds me as it sits atop the darkest curls, always a book in hand, a scroll of parchment, a quivering quill. It has been this way from the beginning, and so, it will never end. Even when my mind dried up and I could not summon words easily, all I could think to write about, all I could ever think to pen was you. You are the oldest and the wisest of the muses, and you are proving to be the most assertive in your silence. Do not fear, dearest love, do not fear for an instant that I would ever stop being inspired by you. I could never replace your seat in that throne. I would never be able to resist the allure of your beautiful voice, your eloquence, or your grace. Even years hence, I will still love you this way, the mere thought of you and the world comes alive with a torrent of creativity pouring from me. There are barely enough hours in the day, barely enough mediums for me to use to capture what I am inspired to manufacture when I think of you.

Even now, I am writing you tomes after your departure. I am paying reverence to a muse that no longer graces my waking life, only visiting in dreams. This absence stings in ways unknown and unfathomable. It is beyond pain, it is absence of the divine source. It is a life without the present spark of creativity. Why are you trying to morph into Mneme? Why do you cast me away and try to costume yourself with your sister Melpomène's mask? You know you cannot flee from me now that you have drenched my lips with droughts from your sacred streams. You cannot take back the gift of inspiration once it has been given. I am bound to you, you are my Calliope and I am your Homer. Each word I have written for you becomes another page in my rendition of the Odyssey.

This is my homage to you, my humblest of sacrifices. I have only this heart, and these words you stir within me to give you. I have only my love and devotion that stubbornly refuses to die despite the atrophy you try to induce. I have only these poor meager hands with which to craft you multitudinous works of art, each bearing your grace, each evoking some element of your wonder. They pale miserably when held aloft to your beauty. I do not wish to capture you, to hold you captive. I do not wish to isolate you and keep you as a possession. Rather, I wish to share you with the world and show them truly what inspiration looks like when it walks upon two feet. I want to show them your omnipotent ability to be a catalyst in the lives of others. What better example of these miraculous acts could there be than me? I am your adoring devotee, your humble servant, your unwavering pupil. I wait for your return, undertaking in the meantime a flurry of self transformation, so that when you return I will be reborn as an equal worthy of showing you I can love you in the ways you deserve and desire.

Still, sometimes I believe I am waiting in vain for you. Because I do not know what is in your heart, it sometimes makes it hard for me to hold onto hope. I remember what you have said to me in my darkest hours, about how you do wish to return, but that we should both take this time to grow. Do you remember what you said to me then, I wonder. Whenever I feel weak, whenever I am afraid, your words echo in my heart "I still believe we are meant to be together, just that that is not right now." And I am soothed. I believe in your insight. I too believe, that the Fata have declared we are meant to be together. Still, somethings do change. It is the only constant in this world: change. For so long I have railed against it, as if it was my bitter enemy. Now I see with new eyes, eyes you have opened for me with your rousing touch. I am no longer warring with change, instead I am embracing it as if it were a brother. I am working with it, to hone the tools I will need to work at my advantage. I wonder if you have abandoned hope. I wonder if you feel this is all too late for you and I. I wonder if you are just trying so hard, so very hard, to push me out of your mind, out of your heart with every second. I am sure though, some reminders remain, try as you might to replace me with new poets. I am sure that you are aware I still have love in my heart for your friends.

I know they told you they would be seeing me, I hope that this news did not cause you discomfort or pain. I hope you know that I esteem them as my own friends, and that I would not use them merely to get to you. I have tried to make that abundantly clear to them, and they trust what it is in my heart. I love them, they are remarkable people, and the fact that they have welcomed me into their hearts means I can't simply turn my back on them now. I am bonded to them, I will remain that way. I am sorry if that is difficult for you to bear. I don't imagine you will be prone to flights of jealousy over this, but in case you are, please let your mind be at ease. I do not wish to take them from you, or make an enemy of myself to you by remaining in contact with such good people as they are. I only wish to acknowledge my respect and kinship with them, to display that I care for them, even if you do not care for me any longer. I will not put them in the middle and I will not ask them to choose sides, you have no reason to fear there.

I heard you were worried about running into me today with them. I want you to know, I purposefully asked them to meet me away from your haunts. I have been avoiding those places on purpose. NOT because I do not wish to feel your aura and bask in its light. No, I wish to see you and speak with you again with EVERYTHING in me. But I am respecting your need for space. I am waiting for you to be comfortable enough to invite me back in, instead of invading and inserting myself against your will. I am praying you know, that even if you spoke to me, and honored the wish that we wish to be together again as lovers, I would not yet allow us to become weak and cave into the impulse. I would not allow us to rush back to that place of love until we were both ready to be in it and until you were able to see that I am changing and growing for the better. I would groom that trust slowly, cultivating it as best as I could. I would show you our wish to be together again would not stop the change that is happening, it would not return to the way it was before: broken and ill spent.

I hope you know, that could never happen now. I could never return to that place. I would never betray myself that way. I would never revert into the person I was just a month ago. That person is dead to me now. 15 days seems like nothing, I am sure. But if you doubt it, read these letters. I am changing more and more every day. My every effort is surely focused on growth. I NEVER want to return to that place of isolation and grief. It is a place I was hiding in for so long, a place I was keeping myself prisoner. I am now free of that toxic mindset, I am seeking my fulfillment and my health. I can only hope that you are doing the same.

My dream is that we each use this time as we said we would, to grow and change in ways that are truly healthy for ourselves. I am hoping we are both on that path and that it leads us back to each others hearts. I wish you would know, I will not sway from this task. I wish you would know, I will never yield again to accepting self defeating limits that drive me away from evolving. I wish you would know, I am as adamant about this journey as I am about one day having children. My drive is sure and certain and now that it has begun, it will never ever cease. There is nothing that will quell this determination I have to grow well and surpass my previously imposed limits. There is nothing that will drive me away from becoming better so that I can love you with everything in me the way I am learning to love myself. I will never abandon this quest, it is as I have said my Odyssey.

My muse, my sweet Calliope, grace me with your voice once more. Reach out to me, send me a missive so that I have a window into your heart. I will not take it as a sign of weakness, I will not take it as a sign of total forgiveness. I wish only to know your mind and if your heart still sings with my name within it. Do you still wish to return to me someday? Will I know your grace once more?

Fourteen 02.26.10

As I drove to work this morning, the clouds spread out in chromatic shades of gray over San Mateo. They looked like the lining of the inside of my throat, ripples of tissue that could bring forth sound, and breath. The wind is HOWLING today as if to say what I wish so desperately to say to you, "I miss you."

For the last 3 days, trios of crows have appeared and flown along side my car at the road's edge as I drive. The night before last I was sitting at a stop light waiting to turn. Three of them appeared, two gliding with each other overhead seeming to dance on the wind, the third stayed perched on the street light in front of me, staring at my car. Last night, as I left work, first one then 2 more ink black crows preformed an aerial ballet directly in front of my car as they crossed my path. They have been flying on a soundless wind, against brilliant sunsets like yesterday's sunset as I walked out the door from work. Or rustling in the trees overhead like last night while the moon was haloed in a cloud ring reflecting its luminescence. They have been gliding effortlessly with smooth dagger like feathers of onyx and beady eyes that seem to stare right through me.

This morning was no different, I stood in front of my car waiting to get into the drivers seat and I heard a strange click burring overhead. I looked up and above me on a tree was a single crow. In another tree to the right of it was a pair, their feathers puffed up around them as they withstood the first visages of today's exuberant wind. I stood and stared transfixed, it called twice more into the air at a nameless foe and then, in perfect silent synchronicity they lifted and took flight. They left the branches they vacated trembling in the rising wind. On my way into work, crows swirled around the waving trees along 280. Although they were no longer with me and the spell appeared broken, I knew why they had come. A single crow would give me pause to worry as they signify loss to my pagan ancestors. But a trio…a trio is a symbol, a sign of a good omen that is coming, as if the crows are winging it to me themselves.

By the time I drove past your exit, I saw the clouds overhead and knew the wind would be speaking to you in the words I can not utter. Now the wind is all but animate. It is slamming doors and whistling through cracks in the walls at my work, rattling the large panes of glass that surround me. This wind, it is EPIC, like the kind I imagine whips mercilessly at coastlines before hurricanes descend. It is swelling and bringing down tree branches, scattering leaves violently, and shaking everything with a piercing chilly sigh. Discarded orphaned cherry blossom petals cover the ground like pink snowflakes or pastel confetti. They will soon turn translucent from the rain that is starting to pour.


Today, today it has been 2 weeks since you left.

I miss you with a longing that fills me to the core with a kind of sensation that feels like a hunger pang flowing from my heart. This rain, this torrential downpour, is a reflection of how I am feeling without you with me. I feel the drops washing away the silt and stains from everything it rushes across. I am suddenly wanting to just stand in it, face upturned and let it soak me to the bone. Let this rain baptize me and carry this pain and longing away so that I can remember what is it feels like to kiss you without feeling the hiccup of tears chasing after the memory. My arms feel hollow and ache to hold you. My fingers feel useless without the ability to trace them across your velveteen skin, your brilliant scars.

Speaking of scars, I went to my first therapy session yesterday. Would you like to know how it went? To get here I had to leave work 2 hours earlier than I usually do. I had to completely break my routine. I had to take a freeway I don’t ordinarily in order to make sure I was getting there on time without getting lost like I usually do. I had to gamble with the possibility of traffic and my lack of direction making me miss this. In spit of my fears, I sailed through the glowing yellow sunshine and skipped through the pockets of traffic easily. When I got off the freeway I was jittery, I wanted to be ON TIME to this appointment as it is now SO important to me, so vital and essential to my growth and healing. I was surprised to find that her office is literally a mile from my house, on the very same street. I have walked past here so many time, what a quirk of fate that this should now be the place where I would embark on a personal, mental, emotional, spiritual journey to change my life forever.

I walked into the lobby with my copy of Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s stone and sat, waiting for her as she had instructed me to. I was 10 minutes early. I waited as the sign on her door “in session” mocked my impatience. The words of your therapist echoed in my ears to be more patient, with myself and everything. I sunk further back into the green velvet sofa in the waiting room beneath a still life painting of Native American shaman’s tools and felt my tension sliding out of me. I buried my nose in the pages of this book you love so well. I was reading the scene where Reubus Hagrid appears to Harry on his eleventh birthday at the hut on the rock and the way he changes Harry’s life forever by telling him everything he never knew and then inviting him on a journey to Hogwart’s. The irony of this scene I was reading and the place I was in at that moment was not lost on me. I smiled as I read the story and forgot my worries for a time.

Then she walked into the waiting area and our eyes met. She is an older woman, with curly almost auburn hair. But I had a feeling about this already when she spoke to me on the phone, she sounded older. Good, I thought, I need someone older to help me grow up. I have been so immature and underdeveloped emotionally, the sage point of view of someone who is older and more experienced than me might help me to really slow down, put less pressure on myself and my future, to help me see that I am still so young and full of promise. She shook my hand in a kind but firm way, and then lead me to her office.

As I walked across the threshold, the sunshine outside greeted me through her slightly veiled window. I made an honest but passing remark “the sunshine is so beautiful today,” and heard her soothing voice express she felt the same behind me as the door clicked shut. Inside was a small, but calming space. It is not at all your therapist’s office with the sprawling floor and wide open space between sofas. This was more like a small oasis of calm for me. Inside was a couch, and to its left, two chairs sat abreast a sitting table. In the far left corner of the room next to the window, was a small desk which was neat and tidy. Flanking it was a large bookcase which bore so many books, the amount dazzled me.

I took my place on the sofa, tucking myself into its leftmost seat, leaning on the armrest for support. It was awkward at first, I had so much I wanted to say, but I didn’t know where to start. I had rehearsed this moment so many times in my head, so I would know just what to say, but now that I was in it my mind was blank. No matter, she saved me right off the bat by telling me that she just had a regular appointment time that opened up on Thursdays which works for me with my work schedule and commute in a way I can only describe as a benevolent act of the gods. She asked me, would I like to take that slot? I was holding back the words until she finished her sentence to be polite, as soon as she was done, I took it right away.

And then, we began.

I found that as soon as I began to speak to her, I felt better. This was catharsis. I told her everything I could. I told her about my grandmother passing just 3 months ago, and she told me was sorry to hear that in a way I genuinely believed was heartfelt. I told her about how just 2 weeks ago, I lost the woman I have been in love with and shared my life with for the last 2 years. She wanted to know, what happened between us that our relationship had ended. Battling through tears with a shaky voice I did not recognize as my own, I told her all you had said to me when we spoke that night 2 weeks ago. Even when I cried as I spoke to her and pressed my hand to my chest to quell its pain, I did not stop talking. I am not interesting in hiding these things away anymore and closing them off, I know that I need to talk about them so that I can begin to grow and become more integrated with myself.

I told her what you had said to me about your relationship with your parents and friends being one that was important I should want to share with you, that you felt like I was capable of being mean and nasty and derisive with my behaviors, that I was not treating you as though you were an equal in the relationship and I was trying to pick fights with you and create conflict. I told her how you said I was constantly talking about my past relationships in a way which made you feel threatened and constantly under the microscope. I told her about how I had become a merciless tyrant in the last few weeks of our relationship almost manufacturing conflict all on my own out of thin air. I told her that you felt like I was trying to isolate you from your friends and keep you from being social. And I told her all that you had said about needing to be in the world and experience it on your own to really come to figure out what it was you wanted for your future. I told her how you were kind, and loving, and honest with me even in those moments, and how you have remained that way in my heart.

But it wasn’t as simple as I make it sound. Woven betwixt the bullet points of all you had said to me, I divulged my family background, my history of toxic and codependent relationships, my crippling social anxiety and the habit of lashing out at those I love most when I feel hurt or threatened. I told her about the insights I had gained in just these few short weeks and all the letters I have written to you. I was afraid she would think the letters were unhealthy, she did not. She thought they were a way for me to chart my progress, and experience my emotions so that I could examine them in a way that brought me insight and helped me to learn more about myself.

She was particularly impressed with my willingness and readiness to work on my issues and was really encouraging. She reassured me it is totally possible for me to embrace and make the changes I want to in regards to my behaviors, understanding my emotions, and being able to have a more meaningful relationship with myself and others. I was SO RELIEVED to hear this. Part of my resistance to therapy all along has been a deeply seated fear that I am so broken these things could not be altered. You helped me to see that could change with each and every session you brought me into. I wanted to get well, I just didn’t know where to start. I wanted to ask your therapist after he told me in session that one day there WERE ways to reintegrate me into my family hierarchy and free myself from the stigma of omega, are you really saying it’s possible for me to change? Its possible that there are things I can do that will help me to change all of this? I don’t have to be this way? I wanted to ask him ever since that point, what should I do, how can I change? But I didn’t dare ask him.

I just never felt comfortable embracing it, because I didn’t want to interfere with YOUR care. He was YOUR therapist, a resource for you, I should have gone and gotten my own then…but I think I had to put the pieces together more before I could really dive into this with the motivation I now have mustered. I became really jealous of you having that routine care in the end. I was so upset I couldn’t heal that way, change that way, grow that way you have in even just the last 2 years I have known you. Let alone all the years of trauma before that I was not there to witness, which you have come out of reborn and on a path that will lead you to certain success and happiness. As you grew and went through your metamorphosis, it became abundantly clear I had been stranded on a self imposed plateau. I was stagnant and static. I was holding myself back, but I didn’t realize it yet. I honestly thought that I was doomed to stay this way forever. I was so glad to hear that she believed we could work to alter this cycle of self abuse and it was really possible.

She was compassionate, but seemed able to interject, can you imagine? Anyone interjecting my train of thought has to have some balls I thought as she would speak up and slow my rapid quaking voice to a halt. She would make her remarks about how I must be feeling or what my perception must have been in regards to something I brought up in an organic and insightful way that surprised me. The things she said to me seemed as if she had been granted access to my thoughts and she understood the things I have been feeling and how it has now allowed me to change my point of view and look at myself. She was really right on with a lot of the things she said to me, and I felt like this was good because I need someone that can really get into these issues with me and think about it from a point of view that is objective, grounding, yet sensitive and pragmatic.

Would you like an example of what I am talking about? I found it particularly amusing when I spoke to her about my lasting issues with crippling social anxiety and how I wanted to change this. I told her I was fed up and frustrated with this as I am a social and gregarious person but I struggle with my anxiety, codependent relationships, and self isolation. She asked me to describe what it was like, what I experienced when I am feeling the anxiety. At first I only explained to her how it makes me very anxious and exhibits itself in physical ways: the way I fidget, how I talk too much, how I talk too fast, how I chew at my fingers, and my heart races. But it was when I told her the things the constant voice that races through my head while I am trying to interact with people is saying to me: "Shut up, you're talking too much, you're going to say something stupid, they aren't going to like you, they're going to see you're a loser, you're embarrassing yourself, be quiet, just stop," that she interjected right away jumping up in her seat. She said "WOW! You have a terrifically strong parental voice censoring you! I mean, I may be wrong, but it sounds like a parent in the way it is talking at you, it has a very strong parental tone that's very critical, no wonder you feel that way!" When she said that I was aghast. She was already helping me to see what was happening to me when I was in these situations and just knowing is half the battle to orchestrating change.

But it wasn’t all tales of the big bad wolf she was sure to stress to me was that I don't have to go in and change EVERYTHING, just gut everything about myself and leave nothing. She told me that this wasn't about making me into a bad person who had no good qualities, but to recognize my strengths as well and build those up too. A wave of serenity washed over me in that moment and some guilty places of me I forgot to forgive felt warmth and healing begin to seep into them. She said that we could work together to start making these changes, but that it will happen slowly. She told me that for them to last we had to really approach them slowly, like the tortoise who wins the race, this is slow and steady but sure to succeed. She told me I may find, like I already have been, just ONE change can be a catalyst for many others. She encouraged me in the steps I have been taking and the way I have been thinking so far and her words filled me with a kind of purpose and strength I have been desiring so badly: "You're definitely ready for therapy, I can see you are really thinking a lot about this and want to change."

We had to stop to sign the paperwork and go over all the finite details. It was then I realized as she sat across from me signing contracts: my therapist is left handed. She did not see my smile that spread across my face then for it was gone when she looked back up at me. But just that thought reminded me of you and the way I watched you write so many times. When I walked out of my session with her I felt like a HUGE weight had lifted off my shoulders and I was finally walking on the right path with my feet facing forward. It was still sunny outside and I was soaking up the sunshine as I felt like a haint was lifted off my skin and I could finally feel its warmth again transforming me into a creature of light and hope. I am looking forward to continuing my therapy regularly once a week from now on and every week in my future. The ability to recognize I can heal and that I finally am doing the work to evolve in that way is something so profound I don't know why I didn't embrace this sooner. I am in such a receptive motivated place it's hard not to imagine that any GOOD therapist wouldn't be able to help me towards a world of change and progress right now, and she feels so right. I cannot wait for next Thursday!

In the meantime love, I hope you are also healing. I hope you are learning more about yourself everyday. And I hope you keep growing and changing. I know in the end, it was that, all the change you have gone through and are going through since I met you that caused me to wall up and lash out. That is not meant to assign blame, but just to let you know, that your ability to change and transform yourself shook me to my core. For someone like me, who didn’t know I could change before, you were terrifying. I saw the change as a betrayal and thought with an icy grip constricting on my heart, it would only be a matter of time before you saw that I was nothing compared to you, and that you would leave me.

I was so afraid you would leave me because in so many ways you had already surpassed me. You were getting on the dean’s list in college, something I was and continue to be SO PROUD of you for. You were able to apply yourself to your schooling in ways I had never seen before in ways I was never able to. You were embracing responsibility, you were engaging with your friends, you were discovering more about yourself everyday. You were growing into the woman I always knew you to be. As you “caught up” to me, I became so ridden with fear. Because at this speed, you would pass me by and I would be dragging you down with me in all my failures to grow up and move into a place of independence and health. And there I sat, stupid and arrogant, thinking all a long there was a problem with you and that you were being immature. The problem I realize now, was fully vested in my point of view. I apologize for projecting my insecurities onto you. You are so wonderfully inspiring; I don’t know why I thought to drive you from me with my nasty behavior.

I can only look forward now and realize that with time, I will leave these bad behaviors behind me. That with grooming self awareness, I can embrace change and empower myself to be all of the good things I hold within me while working on the flaws. This is a journey that will never be fully completed, I realize now, this must go on forever, for I am always a work in progress. The fain has blurred all the windows around me making everything look the way my teary eyes saw them the first few days after you left me. I am about to leave now, I am about to go through another transformation twice more today. When you see me again, and I know you will see me again, I will not look the same. I may not even act the same, and I hope this does not frighten you away from me. I hope you will be able to see me with fresh eyes and see that there are still all the good, wonderful, familiar pieces of my core that you fell in love with once upon a time. I won’t discard my ability to care, or love, or laugh, or be insightful and giving. I am hoping, those qualities show through all the more because of the work I am doing to winnow away the flaws and turn them into things that are more manageable and less toxic.

Until then my sweet bird, my thoughts are always with you, and the wind that these crows are reeling through is howling what I wish most to say to you tonight, “I miss you.”

Thirteen 02.25.10

There's a bit of anxiety rolling around in my skull today. It feels like small beads wrapped in tinfoil and tinsel sliding across one of those cheesy stained vibrating beds that you find in motels. You don't know where its been or whats its seen but it sits there willing your curiosity to slide one fat quarter slug into its waiting slot and watch it bark to life. I'm a little bit afraid someone might actually notice that I'm secreting away a racing heart beneath these bruised ribs today. I have an appointment today with a therapist that might actually be able to help me.

She might be able to help me take these pieces I have been deconstructing and put them back together in a way that feels natural and strong and self realized and whole. I have been looking forward to this for fucking weeks. And what if she doesn't work? What then? Well you know what? I'm going to stay open and motivated.

Where there were once walls and no doors, there's a large open spaces filled with light and sound. Where there were once claustrophobic hallways of shame and denial and anger built up brick by brick, there is only a sledgehammer bearing your name and a pile of smoking rubble at my feet. You would think I would be afraid of this when I look around at the devastation. My hands are itching for a shovel. Someone get me a mallet and a chisel. I'm starting with a new foundation and I'm going to build this back up and turn it into a temple. Witness my glorious works of masonry, how I turn battered bricks into smooth shiny cornerstones. And for those bricks that are too rough to flatten out, I'll display them proudly. There are no doors in this temple. Only vaulting ceilings and gentle inviting arches. I am aroused at the prospect of this hard work. And even when I become afraid and doubtful and have moments of hopelessness, my core is determined to succeed in this it carries me through to faith and to action.

It's no wonder I'm a little anxious when I woke up so excited. That Slam night I went to last night changed so many things for me in just the space of a few hours. So many things I can't take back or replace and I'm aching to live this life again. I'm aching to cast away all my troubles and worries and just be. Just be: me. But it's not the me we think we know me to be. Nah, this animal is one of an entirely different breed. I don't wanna be shy and coy and closed off anymore. I don't wanna be cooped up and isolated and building fences so tall they tower over me made out of old tires and barbed wire and dental floss.

No I want to see the horizon.

I want to see what I'm walking towards instead of what I'm hiding from. I'm so tired of this self-imposed bullshit. It's like all this pain and suffering and misery just piled itself up in my liver. I got addicted to that shit. I didn't know there was any other way I COULD be. You showed that. Through your guidance, through your loving embrace. You showed me that strangers might hurt me, but that in their eyes I also might find God's given grace. You showed me that people I don't ordinarily talk to could open up my eyes to things I've never seen. And that places are for exploring and there's a kind of beauty in wandering.

I am slick, racing down to the pavement like rain on a sunny day. I'm revealing rainbows of insight with all the things I look back on. Why have I been wasting my time? Why have I been holding back what's inside of me and longs to be free? Why have I been afraid of people for so long when I know, I'm not fooling anyone when I say I could live without them. PLEASE. I couldn't go a single week without reaching out to touch another soul. That loner thing, it's just not in me. I'm starting to know where this all came from. I'm starting to see the events line up like cards in a Rolodex revealing how I lost my way, lost myself in this misery.

I'm starting to uncover all this mess of tangled twine that will lead to me to the end of this twisted knot. And I am finding out, that I have been a victim to my past, living in it like it's just repeating over and over and over. But in doing that I've become a self fulfilling prophecy. Fuck that, wasn't I the one that said I don't believe there's not a hand I didn't have to play in my own destiny? Why was I squandering it just sliding into atrophy and pretending like I didn't care about being out it in the world? Who the fuck was I kidding fronting that a passion junkie like me wasn't starving for the limelight?

Can I dare to make this dream come true now that I've tasted my true wish? I think so. I don't know if you're listening, and part of me doesn't care but I want you to know...I wish I could be more like you. I wish I could let people in like my heart was a halfway house for the whole fucking world. I wish I could learn to fear less and trust more. I wish I could learn to speak with integrity and passion while displaying sensitivity and love, instead of insults and verbal beatings. Yeah, nothing is the same now. It took you doing this, leaving me, for me to get this now. The blinders are ripped off and the world is not a place I'm afraid to look at.

I want to grow, change, mold myself into my TRUE form and embrace all the parts of me I want to cultivate the most. I'm trying to find the tools and the words and the actions that will lead me down this path, back to myself. I feel like I've never known me, I feel like I'm a total stranger now. Who is this person who's going to get up on a stage and preform despite the stage fright? Who's this chick that looks people in the eye as much as she can now because she wants to let see her? Who's that girl who's tired of saying "I'll try to come," and now just does it? And who the fuck is that girl that wakes up and says "do something new, do all the things you wanted to but didn't, stop making excuses, this is YOUR life LIVE IT?" Yeah that'd be me, the new me, so wide open its ridiculous.

I want to walk up to everyone I see and tell them: I'm in love with a girl that doesn't want to speak to me anymore. I'm fucking crazy in love with her because she showed me that the life I want to lead is SO worth living, and most importantly, that I can live it. This is NOT the impossible dream. It's the first day of the rest of my fucking life and I am going to live it. Yeah, I'm not going lie, there's gonna be down days and sad times and pain. But I'm not gonna let that shit hold me down any longer. I'm not gonna let fear of the unknown temper my spirit and break it down to something weak and frail like spun sugar. Not when I know better, not when I know, you held me in a time of weakness and nurtured me back to life. You brought me broth and warm blankets and soft caresses made of moonlight and a kind of sentimental beauty.

I got strong again, but then I got scared. This was the last leap. The last moment where I ran after you and found a cliff side waiting. Ordinarily I'd say "fuck it." I'd say she abandoned me and retreat into my grief turning you into a thing of misery and pain. I'd let that steel up my heart and turn me into stone so I could be like Medusa and have a fucking excuse to not look people in the eye when they speak to me. But this time, I'm looking at the cliff side and smiling. I'm backing away from it so I can get a running start. I am hurtling myself into the abyss and loving the feeling of soaring that courses through me, instead of the fall I thought was sure to come.

Call me crazy, but I am coming after you. If you thought you could get rid of me that easily, you're wrong. I am in love with you and everything that is right and worth keeping in my heart is telling you, this isn't over yet. You may be wondering to yourself what that means...well...sufficed to say I'm now a bit of a member of the congregation of spontaneity. I can't tell you, or it will ruin the surprise. You'll just have to trust me. You'll just have to know that I'm never far from your heart. You'll have to live with the fact that out here, there's this crazy person who is so enthralled by you I would never leave you fully.

There's a difference between letting you go, and leaving you behind. I'm letting you go, but I'm always going to be RIGHT HERE, RIGHT HERE calling your name in my sleep and grinning like a fucking idiot when I think of your face. People say I'm looking better and they ask me what's changed. I put it to them simply: ME. But more accurately, I'm all aglow with my love for you. I can practically see the silly little Disney blue birds racing around my head. These little pink hearts made of cotton candy and sunshine lift out of me and find their way to you. I know, I know you are eating them with your clever mouth and the tell tale stain of their pink is clinging to your fingers. Don't even try to deny it. I know you still love me the way I love you. So we'll see how long this has to go on for, how long you need to be out in the world wild and free until you realize what you want. Just like I did. It took me thirteen days to realize what I want. And now that I know, I am never looking back.

Twelve 02.24.10

Right now I am thinking about how much I love you, and with every breath in my heart chakrah glows a more brilliant shade of green. It pulses, growing from a bold jade to a brilliant radiant peacock, and I am all but swept away with it. How do I love thee, let me count the ways. You are more beautiful than ever from a distance, did you know that? And even though this is painful to be away from you, I know you are still with me. Such is the connection between us. Such is the nature of our bond, our twinning.

I was reading over the Teachings of Michael today, and I have never been more sure that you are the grounding socially fervent Sage that grounds my anxious artisan soul than I am right at this moment. We're not going to part ways forever, this I know, when I allow the divine to pierce through my pain and bring me clarity. You'll be back, and so will I. You can't alter fate. We were meant to be brought together, and I know this pain is also because, this parting although part of the journey is unnatural. My soul speaks to me in firm but strangely uttered tongues about the cycles I have yet to preform, about the resolve and strength I must have yet to fulfill this goal. And yet, I feel you with me, in me, you are forever linked with me as you always have been. I knew this the moment I met you, I knew then, you are my essence twin.

I was talking about you today, you came up idly as you always do, naturally popping into my conversations. I was not alarmed. It did not cause me pain at all to speak of you, in fact it makes me feel somewhat happier, because with you I can remember SO much love and happiness. It is not at all like the previous times I have had my heart broken and all I could remember was the pain. But I digress, where was I again? Ah yes, I was talking about you. There are strange things that happen in this lifetime. Strange events we cannot describe aside from saying they are merely "coincidental." But coincidence is a word that those who do not see without the veil use to describe the moments when the universe parts and clearly speaks to you with profound but earth shaking subtly. It the distant peal of thunder so low you cannot really hear it, but rather, can feel its vibration move through you. Today I was sent a message from above, another of many.

A sage spirit, a reincarnation of a god from a previous life came to me by way of a such a odd unfurling of events. We have a twisted yet conjoined history in my past, that she should manifest now is a total mystery, the kind which I cannot explain the wonder of it fully. We have known each other since I can remember, but we have woven in and out of each others' lives many times until this moment. This moment was the one when I was beckoned to her wisdom, when she should appear to me and reveal some things by way of a seemingly benign conversation that proved to be all to telling. This was NO accident. This was no mere trick of fate. No, this was someone tapping the hard line and calling me directly. She spoke to me and offered me comfort and mirth in a time of great panic and sadness. And as our words were exchanged, and more than that, but our energy, our soul's knowledge, I was sensing the undeniable tingling waves of energy in my third eye.

All at once it was clear to me, I was calm and the gods spoke. That dream I had the other night with you in it, was no mere wish fulfillment. Just as I have thought ever since I woke from that ultra-vivid dream with a wide wakefulness and a exuberant joy spreading through me, I knew: you had visited me. I don't know if you remember coming, I don't know if you remember what transpired. I can only hope that the core of you truly wished to come and bestow the knowledge that you brang to me in that dream and that is why you appeared out of no where. I remember it vividly with all the trappings of your visit: your scent stinging in my nose it was so strong, your voice and all sounds almost too loud for my ears, the colors and light so blinding I almost squinted were it not for the wonder that kept them peeled open. And when you touched me, it was with your soul's grace. When your breath passed from your lips to my skin, I felt you there, with me. Do you remember what you said? Do you remember reading me your writing from that notebook? "A letter to Morpheus"? A letter to him...I wonder if you have in fact written this letter yet or not.

Perhaps it is not the time yet for those words, I know that all too well, but my how those words tore through me with passion and love and every kind of heaven singing on my wings. You had written me a love letter, but it wasn't at all the kind I had previously received from you, it was one of desperate longingly, healthy vision, and untempered commitment. You were sure, certain, and wild in ways I found myself exhilarated by so much I could only cast aside my fear and supplicate myself at your side, wishing you would go on forever. You were the very image of yourself, confident, flirtatious, and capable of bringing beauty to new levels by finding it in all the world over at a glance, even the ugly barren wastelands of this life. You were eloquent and patient and on fire as you spoke those words. You told me we still had time. You told me you would be back stronger than ever, ready to receive me when I was made well, made better. You told me that you could not imagine your life without me in it. But perhaps, like I said the time for these words has not yet come.

It doesn't matter to me now. I am filled with such abundance of light and peace in this moment that I can feel the gods smiling down on me. I can feel them filling me with this reflection of love and for the first time in a long while I am so certain of these things, I do not wish to move from this space for one single instant. I am yours, always yours. I will be here, seated at my throne in your heart forever. And when you dream, may they be visited by the starry sky spangled wings of your Morpheus. May you let me descend into your hallowed spaces and bring you visions so sweet and pure you will have to bring them to life with your own beautiful tongue and fingers when you wake, jotting them down in your unique lexicon amongst your notebook pages. Let me come to you in sleep and fill you with the resonant sounds of our joyous laughter mingling like we shared in my dream the other night. And let me fill you with a sense of trust that I will no longer make it my mission to lash out and do you harm.

These crystals hover almost soundlessly around me, tinkling like glass wind chimes on the softest of breezes. They send me good energy so that I might be free of pain and see the way clearly. But they carry with it the flaming arrows of my love to your dreams. May you find the messages tethered to the thick boughs which brought them to you, and may you unwind the parchment and see all that I have waiting for you when you return. Steadfast as the Emperor, I am working towards this goal with my every movement. You will know my mind soon. I pray you will receive it openly, with a mind that previous patterns are now irrelevant because of my desire made flesh to change. Until then my sweet all love and abundance to you. All my couriers to carry you these tidings of joy. I will be with you again, your Morpheus, your god of dreams.

Eleven 02.23.10

Here I am again. It's the end of the day. That's when the desperation starts clawing at the inside of my chest. When the realization that you are out there, having fun, moving on, leaving me sinks in. It feels like when you are dreaming, and suddenly you start to fall. You know, it's that lurch in your stomach and the terrifying sensation of speed. Like G forces threatening to rip you open. I am biting back the tears until I can clock out and get the fuck out of this place. At this point of the day it feels like a living nightmare. I have hours to go until I can find sleep and so many things to do it's not going to come easy. I am biting back the tears with every second. I know they are coming, I just need to wait until it's ok for me to release them.

But still, I am alright I suppose. I'm getting really desperate for a doctor. I've called and written so many I'm tired of looking up more names, it just makes me frustrated. Why can't I get better? I just want to get fucking better and I can't even do that right? It's like the universe is pointing a big finger at me and saying "GET BACK IN THAT HOLE YOU CRAWLED OUT OF." But I can only shake my fist and scream at the sky in response. I WILL NOT GO BACK TO THAT PLACE. I WANT TO GET BETTER. So even though the desperation sometimes closes in all around me and I want to give up and go to an unsafe place, I remember what you have taught me about being resilient and buoyant and free. And then I feel better, I feel a little more grounded and calm and like I can do this. Keep just putting one foot in front of the other and soon I'll be much further down the path of growth than I was before.

Anyway...How are you? I miss you so much still. I think about you fondly all the time. I wonder if you are really as happy as you seem, or if it's just an act. Truth: I want you to be happy. I want you to be so happy you can't stand it. If that means I have to be out of your life for good, I accept that. I'd rather have you perversely happy than miserable just because of me and my presence. Still god...I am hoping you speak to me again SOMETIME. I am hoping at least you will agree to see me somewhere in the future. You will won't you? My mother thinks it would be entirely unlike you to turn your back on me, walk out of my life, never speak to me again, never acknowledge that although I can have terribly bad behavior sometimes I am NOT a terrible person. I tend to agree with her.

I think you just need space. I'm giving you it. It seems like I'm not, I'm sure, but I am. I took all the pictures of you and me together, and of you from my face book and put them in the Love is A Verb album. They are under a content lock so that only you and I can see it. It will remain that way until something changes. I also hid your feed. It's NOT that I don't want to know how you are or what you are doing. I do. I just don't want to keep playing out this co-dependent bullshit where it drives me crazy trying to get your attention for the sake of self soothing and self validation. I also do not want to keep invading your space. I want you to have it. Come what may, I will love you, but I want you to have the option to be free as you want and not even have to blink at me until you care to.

I had another friend tell me today that you're not going to come back to me. They wanted to tell me about how "anything worth working out was worth working out together" and all that mess. I couldn't listen. It just made me sick, I couldn't listen. I told them to stop, and they did...but still...I'll admit it's been on my mind. And then, when I told them I was just really looking forward to being able to use this time to change and grow, to find a therapist and get into this hard self work so that I could be happier and healthier they tried to tell me therapy doesn't work. Can you believe that?? They told me some bullshit about how I have to accept the limitations of myself. That some things were just CENTRAL to who I was now and that was how I lash out and act mean. They called it my true nature.

I stood my ground in defiant outspoken defense of the good therapy does, the way that people can change, and how behavior is separate from the person itself. You should have seen me, you might have been PROUD. I have another appointment later this week with a therapist. I am hoping this one sticks and I can get better with them as my teammate on the road to lasting health. Yes, I still get sad. I still get fucking pissed off at myself for everything I did wrong. But I'm starting to feel better in the morning. I'm starting to see that silver lining. I'm starting to know I'm not a BAD person at my core. I am a GOOD fucking person, I just have a lot of work to do on the BAD behaviors that got ingrained in my repertoire along the way.

I really hope you'll let me show you someday how I've changed. If for no other reason than I want you to know how much your influence has had an effect on me. Ugh...All that talk about not being co-dependent with you and I did it again after all didn't I? And I wanted you to be different. I really wanted you to be different, because to me you are so so special. I guess this is the lesson time affords us. I guess this is my 20-20 honing in and giving me hindsight that will help propel me into the future. All I know is, you're in my heart. You're a part of my soul. And I'm going to go do the hard work and remember you like a shining comet that circles my moon. I love you and I want you to be happy. But I also love me and I want to know happiness and solace in my soul. I want to stop torturing myself and move onto a place of healing so that I can be the best for everyone around me. I want to just evolve and expand into the next dimension of my consciousness so that I can be a better woman, partner, artist, daughter, sister, co worker, friend, activist, human being, witch, spirit.

It's that time of day again, but already I'm starting to feel like I'll be alright. Just talking to you, just letting you know how I feel has some merit even if you aren't listening. Even if you never come back, I'll know at least I said these things out loud and made my good intentions REAL by the hard work and effort I am pouring forth at this moment. People keep telling me they think you'd be offended if you knew I was writing this on the internet for "everyone to see." I don't think you would be. I don't think you would be ever. And, I don't care about how it could "embarrass" myself. When I look at it now, I probably will look back on all this and say that it was arduous but so WORTH IT. This journey to self acceptance and transformation is TOO important not to chronicle, not to take notes so that I can revisit it.

I want to tell you something: I'm sorry I leaned on you so much for happiness in our relationship. That was wrong of me. I'm sorry I made you feel isolated. I'm sorry I had so much social anxiety and depression that I bottled myself up, instead of sharing myself with everyone like I REALLY WANT TO. Thanks for showing me people can be wonderful. Thanks for showing me I need them in my life to make me truly happy and that I WANT them there. Thanks for so many lessons Sasha. I owe you so much. I hope, if nothing else you will let me see you face to face someday so that I can say "THANK YOU!" and "I LOVE YOU!" with all my heart.

Anyway....Be well my sweet, be happy and get out there and have fun. Don't cry, don't be sad, don't get down on yourself. And I suppose, don't miss me...just keep moving on. But if you do miss me someday and you want to know how I am doing, want to remember what my voice sounds like and the way the hair falls in my face...please just pick up the phone and and call me. Ask me to coffee, it could be that simple. We can take it all really really slowly like you wanted. I won't expect the invitation to mean I'm back in your good graces. Like I have said before, I know I have to earn back your trust. I'm prepared to do that as long as it takes.

Even if it takes forever.

Ten 02.22.10

I am crying again tonight. I have cried every night since you left me. It takes on a new emotion every night: sorrow, panic, grief, frustration, desperation. Tonight is a deep melancholy that wracks me to my soul. It has wrapped me up in every bit of you I have lost. My chest is heaving and hallowing itself out with every strangled breath why I sob wretched, rocking myself gently without your arms to hold me. Meanwhile, you go about your day seemingly unimpressed by my ghost, hovering around the circle of light you sport like a halo. I try to stay away, really I do, I try to just disappear and not reach out to you. You have to forgive me, there's just all these reminders. There's just all these painfully obvious reminders that you and I share so much. That you have meant so much to me. That you have changed me in so many wonderful ways. Irony, that's what this is now.

After the tailoring was all done, I guess it's fitting that you didn't need me anymore. It makes sense for this miserable tailor to be left on my own, admiring the gleam of my sheers in the dark, whispering how I wish you would come back to me someday and let me love you once more. Ah, the ultimate irony is, I did nothing for you that I set out to do. I couldn't be ephemeral in your life like I wanted, and neither could you. I couldn't be reserved, because you drew my frightened hermit shell crab of a heart out slowly, earning its trust. I couldn't be cold and calloused and ruin you the way others have ruined me. I couldn't even tailor you like I said I would, you did that all on your own, I had NOTHING to do with that. I could only give you my love, my flawed imperfect immature love.

It's a love I'm now left with, to harbor alone, while you move with grace and splendor into a new chapter of your life. It's a leaden kind of feeling that is filling my veins, a sinking feeling like liquid mercury sliding down upright glass. I am sinking with it, further into myself, further into my despair. I wish I could stop. I wish I could pluck out my eyes and tear out my heart and send them to you and be done with it. Because truly, that is where those pieces of me long to be always, with you, away from me and my pain, my loneliness without you. I'm starting to understand the motivation behind Van Gogh sending his ear in the mail. You can have my fingers too while we're at it, and my teeth and my tongue. You could take my tender quivering pieces that only wish for you to touch them. You can have custody of my mind as well, since it is forever thinking of you at every moment. You can just take all the pieces of me until there is nothing left to give. And, I can be like your giving tree, always here, always giving, even when it seems like I have nothing I will muster it for you.

But you do not want me any longer. I have to keep moving, I know that, I'm doing it. But it's so hard not to return to an orbit that my constellation found its home in. I can't help it. We circle each other in the night's sky. Your scales dipping and swaying away from my outstretched claws, my neutered stinger. Yes, I said neutered. For surely there are only stings left for myself within them. No more left for you my sweet-ling. I could never cause you any more pain than I have. I keep moving, I keep calling these doctors, but like you, none of them will have me. There is no room at the Inn for me tonight, and it's with a heavy heavy heart I am turned away from each doorstep. I keep shuffling on, I keep running to the next door, pounding until I get a response. But no one has surfaced yet that will welcome me in. I know this will take time. Just like you and I, it will take time to get better. But I am just so weak when it's the night time. When it's all quiet and there's nothing and no one to distract me, my heart shatters into a thousand pieces all over again.

This is the distinct feeling of my heart breaking, then healing, then breaking again. It is like the slow mend of my tailbone that had to go through the same process to heal. Like that bone, the only bone I have ever broken, when it fuses I am sure my heart will be at a slant. I am sure that it will be tilted just a little further to the left, to the side that favors your dominant hand. So that if you should ever return, and feel like grasping it once more to know it's yours, it will be leaning into your palm's embrace with everything in it. I keep thinking, you will contact me soon. But now I am afraid it will not be for the reasons I had hoped for: not to ask me if I can come to therapy with you to talk about things we are both afraid to touch, not to go to a movie with me, not to just go out to coffee and talk. I keep thinking it will be soon, very soon, that you will contact me just to say "leave me alone." I keep thinking, we may never speak again. The mere thought rips through me like a flaming bullet made of broken glass and nerve gas.

Do you want me to stop writing you these letters?

Do you want me to leave you alone forever?

Do you want me out of your life for good?

The tears keep falling, and Led Zeppelin is doing its best to be cathartic. You should know, I am in love with everything you do just like I always was. My face is growing tight with the saline soaking it. My eyes are growing hot like embers in my skull from all the inflammation. I am sure I look like a wreck to those who see me. All but you. You who do not cast your benevolent glance my way. And why should you? Why would you ever again? When I have been so careless and cold with your love...It makes sense. I am not welcome. I know that. I wish to god I was, I really wish I was.

The pain and pressure in my chest shift and my heart slumps further to the left. It is reaching out to you, sending you love and devotion regardless of whether you want it. It is sending you feelings of healing and care so that you do not suffer needlessly, so that you heal quickly and move to happiness again very very soon. Meanwhile I am still looking for my health, I am picking up the pieces and finding the resources I know will help me put them back together in a way that will make me more healthy in the future. I am still doing my work, I am not completely going to pieces.

I'm not being self destructive or filled with self loathing. I am still resolved to change. I am still resolved to grow. And if I have to carry this broken leftward slanting heart in my ribs forever, pointing to that swallow which reminds me of you with its winsome smile, I'll do it gladly. At least I will have known, that I was able to love and change and be better. To make myself a new and keep the best parts of me. To winnow away the bad parts with work and my stubborn will, my passionate desire to do good. And maybe you will never know the benefits of those acts of evolution. Maybe you will always cast me away and never contact me again, never see me again, never love me again. But I will know I was better because of your love and because of the gift you gave me: sight.

I'm crying tonight, like I have done for every night since you left me. But the crying feels like a merciful release and I'm glad for the expenditure. At least I know, I can still feel. I can still bravely face myself and love myself, flaws and all. I can sit here in the dark with my tears and my heartache and I take these tailor's sheers to the canvas it was always meant to work on: my self. And, maybe someday...some fantastic day in the future, you will see me in your tailored goods, and I in mine and we will compliment each other so gloriously, we won't be able to help but fall in love all over again, and be truly healthy for each other, no longer afraid, no longer mistrusting.

Tarot Reading Nine 02.21.10

"The gamblers have placed their bets and the coin is flipping in the air. However, the grounded person keeps his coins, and his bets, in his pocket."

Authentic OnLine Do-It-Yourself Tarot Readings :: Tarot.com

You'll humor me, but the fool card in this spread was screaming at me to share this. If you'd read it you would see what I mean...

Nine 02.21.10

Pain: it is knifing through me, sudden and sweet. It is turning my heart into a sore burning scrap of muscle. It is stinging in my eyes, letting them swell and redden with each tear drop that falls in an endless procession from my eyes. It is wracking my body with the violent shudders of my sobbing and the low wailing I can't seem to silence no matter how hard I try to. It is making my stomach lurch, threatening to empty its contents all over my feet. It is making my fingers numb with cold and my breath catch in my throat painfully.

You would think I would be used to this by now, but everything is different now. So very different. I'm not at all the same as I have been. Yes, this is pain, and it hurts to high hell in ways I never thought possible. I thought I knew pain like this, thought I'd had it worse off a thousand times before this. Not so. This is pain in a whole new way, like I've been carried to a new spectrum of misery. Everyone tells me it will get better, it will ease with time and distance. Part of me believes them, because I know life will go on; because this is the familiar part for me, the leaving. But the rest of me knows, as long as you are out of my life, some tender parts of me will suffer the neglect. Those pieces of me will mourn and threaten to wither, but I will not allow them to. I will keep it alive, feeding them on my most cherished memories of you:

The way you smelled the first time I met you. Your perfume "O" winding itself into my memory irrevocably.

The way I was so afraid to touch you, but couldn't help myself. Do you remember how my hands trembled? Do you remember feeling how my nerves soothed over as soon as I felt my hands warming on your skin?

The way I looked at you in the sunshine at Pride two years ago and knew I couldn't hold back what my heart had been screaming to you for weeks before that "I love you." I couldn't hold that frightening reality back anymore, even when I tried in vain to bury it with a pint of rum and an empty stomach. I was in love with you and it was beautiful and terrifying at the same time, because I knew, I was still too ill to love you the way I wanted to.

The way you smile when you're flirting with me, like you're going to eat me alive.

The way you silently shake when you are laughing so hard you can't make a sound.

The way you look when you are sleeping: so peaceful, so serene, I just wanted to hold you in my arms forever and watch you like that.

The way you wash your hair, lifting it off your back and letting it fall just so.

The way you clean your glasses, legs usually crossed, and are always asking where your "glasses cleaner cloth" went the same way I am always wondering where my keys are.

The fact that you carry the contents of the whole world in your purse and your bra, pulling odds and ends from them like Marry Poppins or some stage magician.

The way your breasts smell, sweet and richly of your scent, like fire and comfort and warmth and love.

The way you look me in the eye, unafraid of what you will find there, always seeming to marvel at their color, the same way I am marveling at yours.

The way you always have 1,000 books you want to buy when we walk into a bookstore, and god forbid we should walk by a book sale because I know we will need as much arm space as we can muster to cart home your treasures.

The way you make tell stories to people even though I know you could tell them better.

The way you sing along to music in my car, belting it out in your deep dulcet tones. It never mattered if it was classic rock or hip hop or musical theater, your voice was always beautiful, always yearning to be free on the wind.

The way your voice sounds: sweet, light, and luxurious like very dark chocolate.

In spite of this awful pain, still, you are angelic to me. I can barely muster words to describe this sensation. This is the most bittersweet kind of pain I have ever felt. I am still loving you, still so hopelessly in love with you, even though you are letting me go. Meanwhile, I'm doing my best to let you go too. I am doing my best to let you leave me behind and experience your life. I am not having trouble moving forward towards bettering myself.

In fact I am practically sprinting in that direction. I was so blind. I thought I was better, I thought I was better. I had no idea. It took you doing this, leaving me, for me to finally see: I am still unhealthy, I am still in denial, I am still causing myself pain. I'm acutely aware of how immature and arrogant I have been now. I have vowed to change, so that someday somehow I will be able to experience happiness and stability in all the ways I long for; in all the ways you helped me see were possible.

I'm sorry I broke down today and tried to talk to you.

I'm really sorry for that. It was a total moment of weakness, I just panicked and caved into the impulse. I wish I could be better about this for you. I wish I could be less weak, less of a sniveling pain ridden sap. I am trying, I am really really trying my hardest. I promise it will get better. Soon I'll be just a memory to you, and maybe soon, not a memory at all. I am so afraid you will forget all about me, push me out of your mind to move on, that you are never going to come back.
I guess that is the chance I have to take. I have to count on the fact that what you've said to me is true, that I am honoring your request for space and distance, no matter the pain it will cause me.

But I'm hoping, that you will think of me from time to time, and that gorgeous smile will spread across your face like sunbeams through forest branches. I am hoping you remember everything you told me about why you loved me, why you wanted to be with me, why you wanted to live your life with me. And, I hope you are able to answer all the questions you have. I hope you are able to have EVERY experience you are hungering for. I hope you are able to see and be in the world, a thing of love and beauty as you always are. And, I hope, you will contact me from time to time. I hope you will keep me in your life somehow. That you will leave me a way to communicate with you somehow after some time. I hope you will be able to see I am changing, and I hope you will grace me with the gift of being able to see you change too.

I look forward to the day when my children ask me about my true love. I am hoping if you are not their mother, she is no where around to hear me tell them all about you. I am hoping you know, you are the one for me, and I let you get away. I was foolish and arrogant and misguided with your love and I will pay for it dearly until you return. I did mean what I said to you tonight when I contacted you, there are some things I would like to tell you. Some things eventually I would like to give you. Somethings of yours I still have to locate and return to you. I hope that you will let me do all these things, when you are ready.

Eight 02.20.10

The thought occurred to me today, as I read back through my letters to you, that I have already lost you. Could it be, that with time and distance, you will grow to think that I was never good to you? I pray that is not possible. I keep hoping what you have said to me since we parted is true; that you believe we are meant to be together, that you think this is just not the right time.

But, a word ,just a gentle word I will put in your ear if you feel yourself slipping away and forgetting why you loved me ever, why you thought I'd ever be worthy of that love again: come back and read my words to you. All of these words should remind you, I am many things, many flawed and fickle things, but one thing is and was always constant: I love you. Every word here was inspired by you, by your spirit, by your love. And, yes, I am guilty of being stubborn, immature, and hurtful; these words can bear testament to all those things. But I wish you could still keep site of the love I have and have had for you from the moment I met you. Since the very instant you entered my life I have been so profoundly lucky.

Just when I thought all hope was gone, of ever finding someone to share this life with, of finding a soul mate, you showed up and made me reconsider. I know, I have said so many, many times I don't believe in soul mates. Do you know why I have said that over and over and over? It's NOT that I honestly believe that, you changed my mind about that when I slept in your arms the first time. I only kept saying that because I was only protecting myself. Have you figured out, that was just me being fearful that it was true and I'd never be able to hold onto your love and I'd loose you? That I had to keep repeating it over and over to act like that was what I really believed, when every time we spoke about it I fell more and more in line with your way of thinking. If you could have heard what was really in my mind and heart in those moments, if I hadn't been such a smug asshole prick about it, holding onto the pain in my past, you would have known I KNOW you are my soul mate. That is part of my problem I realize, I hold onto my past in an unhealthy way. I act like it is still happening to me now when it's just me repeating it over and over because I don't know how to let go. I'm sorry I kept thrusting my denial onto you, I'm sorry I kept myself from daring to trust my instincts that you were the one for me and I should embrace you fully instead of drawing inside and lashing out at you. I like to think you know me well enough to see through my pretense and bullshit, you have certainly called me out on it enough over the years.

It feels so good to say that: years. I hope that this time is just a minor speed bump in a long unending line of years we spend together in the future. But the small nagging worry remains...Do you remember how I have loved you? There is no acrimony whatsoever in my heart for you. And my love is still so much alive. I tell everyone, I will never stop loving you, and I can see they doubt the words. But I know, I KNOW, I will never stop loving you. I know this because I can FEEL it reflected in every minute movement of my cells, every firework lightening strike of my synapses, every time I meditate I can feel its energy coursing through me and its essence is completely everlasting.

I am reading one of your letters you wrote me, a small e-mail you sent me a year ago before our first anniversary. The words comfort my heart and help me to know, you remember that I love you, that there is something here between us that warrants NOT turning our backs on but opening our arms to. In understand why you need to pull back now, you need time for yourself, and also I damaged your trust in me. I know that, I knew that the moment I let those terrible words slip from my mouth. I can't explain why I have done that. Sent you the wrong messages, told you something I don't even BELIEVE in. I think I got so used to being miserable and in pain for so long, I didn't know any other way to be. I didn't have the courage to break the cycle. I hadn't experienced bliss like this, one worth holding onto, one worth working for, one worth really embracing with as little fear as possible. So even though I am afraid you may look at me and say "she'll never be capable of loving me with the things I need" because you have seen my baser, ugly, vengeful side...I hope you are taking it to the bank that I have not and am not fostering ill will for you anywhere in my soul.

I gave you an empty warning in the car that night when I let you go and told you "I'm going to get nasty." I haven't yet, and I won't ever, not EVER. Your love has been so different for me, so life altering and different than the ones before. I never understood that I could be heartbroken this way and not turn it into a thing of pain and ugliness. Because of the way you let me go, gently, lovingly, still with dignity and respect, I cannot see you any other way than as you are: beautiful. Because you did not lie to me, but rather told me the painful truth that was hard to bear, I cannot lash out at you. Because you still are honoring the truth, instead of caving into weakness and taking me back on impulse, I cannot hate you. I know I have to rebuild your trust in me again. I know I have to grow and change myself to be able to embrace healthy ways of communicating, of letting go of my painful past and no longer letting it stand in the way of my future. I know, I may be saying too many things that contradict all that I have said before. These words now might seem baseless because they seem to come from a foreign mouth. One that is not acrid, biting, condescending, and abusive.

I was such a fool; I can only see that now. I am going to the lumbar yard tomorrow to get some wood. I am going to paint you some pieces. I hope you will not be angry with me when I leave it for you on your doorstep, I am keeping my fingers crossed you will forgive the intrusion. You could throw them away I suppose. You could just trash them and that would be fine. I wouldn't be angry. I would understand that being given gifts by someone like me who has given you PLENTY of reason to be suspicious of Trojan horses is not a reflection on you, but rather on me. My greatest fears are realized, I have infected you with my illness of doubt, of broken trust, of pain. How dare I....If it would make good on all the delusions I have given you, if I could take back that education of pain I honestly wanted to spare you from, I would make my recompense to you by giving you my eyes. My undeserving eyes still sting and bleed shimmering saline rivers at the thought of having lost you.

I was at my friends' house on Thursday night; the ones that live literally around the corner from you. I want you to know, I went to go see them because they are a loving tender couple. I wanted to see that with fresh eyes, unbound by my previous rigid arrogance. I wanted to see their baby and marvel that only two people who really loved each other like that could have created such a luminous ethereal kind of light beaming outwards from their hearts. They were merciful kind to me in the hours I spent speaking to them at their place. They took me in, wounded and weak. They filled me with hope and love and care. And, when I left they sent me with good wishes for my healing. While I was there, I thought of you constantly, but I enjoyed the time I spent with them. Your presence, your proximity, was not one that filled me with fear or upset. Rather it was as comforting as I imagine a mother's embrace is to a newborn infant.

And when I left there, tattered brown coat hanging all about me like a set of broken wings, I did not pass by your house. I made my exit respectfully, hoping my intrusion was not noticed with alarm. The thought did not cross my mind to interrupt your evening. Rather, it was with a heavy heart I drove away knowing that I had said to my friends' the visit before last I would be sure to bring you with me to introduce you to them. I am wishing I still could someday introduce you to them as my partner once more. What supreme bliss would be mine in being able to hold your hand in mine once more, to be able to kiss and caress you, to be able to hold you to me and tell you all the things I now long to tell you.

Empyrean is in your arms with my eyes reflected in your chocolate hazel vision. I am hoping you still have some reminders, some very real reminders, that I love you and that once and again my love was good enough to stay with me, despite my numerous flaws. I am hoping you will see that as I grow and mature, my previous hard shell of arrogance falls away for it has already begun. I am hoping you will beckon me back into your life, will summon me to therapy, will ask anything you require of me to prove my love for you is strong and healthy. Put my mettle to the test, let me show you I can appreciate all that I have yet to make good on, but that I can in fact make good on it.

Lonely pieces of me are crying out for you. Take all the time that you need, I am only praying that this silence is ended soon and we can at least begin to speak again, to try and navigate through hopes and fears to the healing and love I know we still share. I have given you my heart, the most vulnerable piece of me, and it wasn't until now I realized there was never any hope of taking it back, despite my misguided attempts to make real that fruit. For what was given cannot be taken back by force, or will, or request. I have yielded to this knowledge. You have my heart, and I wish for it no other home than your capable and caring hands. I am waiting for you, waiting for you to make contact. You said you are giving the 'sign' and I am only hoping it is meant for me, and that it leads me back to your heart.

Seven 02.19.10

I'm a little fidgety today, I'm not sure why. Today I joined the weight loss clinic, they had to scan my body to visualize its composition. Had to see what to keep and what to work to shed, to discard, to transform. While they scanned me I had to lie still, perfectly still, unmoving. I was bound to the padded platform uncomfortably, an uneasy discomfited feeling pulsing through me, it was a direct contrast to the times I was bound by you all too willingly. Back then I was all fluid snake like movement, your ministrations revealing all the changing colors you swept through my skin, like a blazing sunset.

In spite of your absence now, I am still yours.

I am bound by time instead of black Smith and Weston handcuffs, but you, as always hold the keys; as usual you wear them like second skin. The ability to set me free, truly free, belongs to you. But, I, I prefer to be constricted, at least then I know I am still held by you; still your willing captive. I'm tracking movement with wide eyes, breathing shallow, not even registering reaction to the clicks, hums, and vibrations of this machine. It is such a soulless fusion, not at all the kind I am use to with you. It holds none of the divine allure of your touch, of your breath, the embrace of your essence. Wash over me once more, please, I beg you.

Let me know what it is to touch god while suspended in your embrace. Let me know once more what it is to feel each singular atom in me awaken, lighting up with the siren signal you transmit. Show me the sharp jagged shoreline I could perish against, let me slam against it. So long as I am wrapped in your caress I fear nothing. Remake me with your love, breathe your soul into me as you used to, let me glow with its amaranthine light. I am unafraid of the consequences. This is all the proof I require to know that you and I were fashioned to fit together like a key in the barrel of a lock. This feeling I have even now, of total life stirring arousal at the thought of you, this pulsing in my center, this is how I know I will always be yours.

No one has touched me the way you have, body mind and soul. No one will ever touch me this way again. They may try, and succeed only occasionally, but not one soul will ever speak to mine the way yours did when you solicited the sensation of my skin with your fingertips. Sasha, my love is all around you, I hope it does not cause you undue harm or discomfort. I hope you know, I am not loving you against my better judgment but because of it. I hope you know, that I am embarking in this time to change myself, to better myself, to evolve because I am truly wanting these changes for myself.

It's terribly selfish and shallow, but I pray you are thinking of me too, in some small way untainted by pain. I am sending you all my wishes that you are healing, that you are evolving too, that you are doing well with all your endeavors. But I am praying to the Gods above that you and I return to each other someday when we are ready.

My closest friends and I are all laughing at my expense, since you have permanently altered me in some very serious ways. Again, you will doubt these expressions, to be sure, but they are earnest and heartfelt, and so you must know them. How have I changed in a way that would make me quasi-pathetic to all my friends and worthy of mirth whilst in my misery?? How is it that I can joke that you have "ruined me" for anyone else henceforth??

Well, let me tell you: I love cats now. That I owe to you, and you alone. Before they were an animal I never understood nor truly cared for and they are now one I truly adamantly adore. I know, over the course of the rest of my life, I will assuredly have my own cats now, because of the way you showed me they were so lovable. They are intelligent, cute, and affectionate in their own way. And, yes, I miss your cats. I worry about Milton Mitten Mins and I even miss all the times I did not succumb to the REAL urges I had to bury my face in Ophelia's downy fur lined neck and nuzzle her despite my allergies.

I am now steadfastly a fan of Harry Potter. I won't even deny it. I admit it openly, you hooked me with your unabashed enthusiasm for it. I'm reading the books now...it's not just a way to keep you with me, but a way to really embrace the change you put into me. I can see it now as a great series of stories with rich scenery and multi-dimensional characters. I was being an elitist prick before, depriving myself of the fun and adventure these pages held because of some sense of erudite pride. I was wrong in thinking that way, these are good stories worth reading many, many times over. I am SO SAD that I will not be able to attend the Harry Potter premiere with you. And also, when I saw the commercials for Universal studios new Harry Potter themed area of the park, I wanted to take you there with me RIGHT AWAY. I wanted to interact with you there, your Sirius Black, your Padfoot, your loyal eternally devoted black mutt.

All the things I used to tease you about before I miss...I miss you asking me to watch 90210 every week. Ask me again now, I'll say YES. I miss the way you pick at your fingers until I curl your hand into mine. I miss the look of consternation that flows over your face, wrinkling your brow as your inner wheels turn and churn in an intellectual frenzy of thought. I miss the warm stuffy way your hair smells when you don't shower. I miss the way you smell when you sweat, when you toil. I miss your messy room, each drawer overflowing, bursting at the seems. I miss your congested bookcase that bears testament to your supreme intelligence. I miss the way you worry away your hours over school when you have such a natural aptitude for it. But I love that you worry still, because it means you are striving to do better each moment. You have made me proud of your WHOLE person. And I miss you so much for all these reasons and so many, many more I cannot mention.

Some part of me is praying that this is just time you needed to take and step back. To be able to see things more clearly with my absence and make some decisions, to set some things in motion. I hope you know I am NOT just saying these things to win you over. I hope you know, I am moved to this expression because it's the gods' honest truth and I could NEVER keep the truth from you for long. It pains me too much to keep things from you, I have to joke or tease or prod to cover them up when they start to show through my armor. I have cast the armor off. I am naked to you, I will remain that way, no matter the pain of the slings and arrows that may come. No matter the actions or words you may take to drive me from you in the end, I will remain unguarded to show you, I love you.

I want to tell you something very very important. If you want to be a teacher, I want you to embrace that. I would NEVER EVER EVER dream of keeping you from your passions, your dreams, or your vision. I would applaud you if you wanted to be a teacher. I was only afraid of what the change meant, I thought you were going to leave me. I see that was wrong. My obstinate behavior has driven you from me. I regret every moment of my resistance. Despite this, I hope my truth nature shows through. I love you, I don't care how much money you make, what jobs or careers paths you follow, or where you choose to pour your passions, just so long as you FOLLOW THEM. I think you would make a GREAT teacher. I think whatever you wanted to do, everyone around them would be LUCKY to have you near because they couldn't help but benefit from your presence and encouragement. This world NEEDS people like you in it Sasha, to make all the differences to it it is begging for: more love, more kindness, more compassion, more intelligence, more service to others, more reaching, more growing, more joy. All these things are WORTH teaching and infecting others with. PLEASE DO SO!!!

Take me back, take me with you while you grow and change and live your life. Let me be your partner again. You don't have to do it now, but please, someday, please take me back. Take me to Philly with you, take me to New York, take me around the world with you, holding your hand, fused in your heart. Marry me on Halloween in Louisiana, have my babies one day, and above all grow and let me watch you take shape as I do too in my own ways. Please, I PRAY YOU ARE READING THESE LETTERS, please be reading them. Send me a sign so I know you are receiving what I am saying, if you need more proof to trust me, to love me, to be with me, I can provide it. If you need to see we can be healthy first apart, then so be it. BUT PLEASE let me SHOW YOU we can also build health TOGETHER.

These shackles don't pinch or chafe the way I am used to. The collar around my neck bears your address. Someday soon someone may find this strange stray black dog jaunting about your neighborhood. When they bring me home to you, I hope you'll take me in and not cast me out into the street. In the meantime, these shackles don't hurt, they are comforting, they let me know: I am still yours, I am still willing, I am still so in love with you.

Six 02.18.10

There has been a fog for days now. It is shrouding everything in mystery and uncertainty. Obfuscating and obscuring everything in my path, it lends a palpable air of the unknown to everything it swirls about. This is a fitting reflection. This is a fitting reflection, indeed. The fog hangs suspended, but moves with a sentient quality I cannot explain. As I navigate about my days and nights it reflects the qualities of change - the ambiguity, the apprehension, and the feeling that everything is just nearly out of reach; Hovering outside my grasp until it is right and ready to appear. Suddenly trees unfurl themselves assertively from this phantom blanket of woolen fog. Figures blur, then emerge and retreat. I'm feeling a little like the hedgehog in the famous Russian animator Yuri Norstein's cartoon "The hedgehog and the fog." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRsXU4Q6a0Q)

My days are filled with a healthy mixture of the mundane and the exotic, traffic jams and plane crashes all. Everyday a new strange set of circumstances surrounds me. Signs from the divine to hold out hope come to me in undeniable declarations, I wonder if you are getting the messages too. I am observing the raw daunting novelty of everything. But still, I miss you. I wonder how you are, dancing, spinning out there in the fog? Sometimes I wonder how or why it is you have not contacted me. It's so fucking difficult for me not to contact you...SO ARDUOUS. But I try my best not to do it. I want to show you I can respect what you have requested. I can put your needs above my pain and selfish impulses. I can be strong and not crumble, not crack, not break down. I know I can't force you to love me, to trust me again, I must EARN those gifts back. I am committed to that task and however long it takes. Still, I am human. I wonder after you, care and concern are my cloak and cap. Are you alright? Are you happy? Are you feeling better? Are you healing? Questions fill my mind, questions that will not be answered soon. Questions that will be left to linger in the fog, dissipating as it burns off in the sunshine of untold days, weeks, months until we speak again.

I received the letter from your parents last night...it was so serendipitous. I was having a miserable night, the pain had surfaced again, despite my best efforts to quell it. And I had slipped into the comforting ebony envelope of exhaustion, I have to get my sleep where I can these days. My mother woke me, I don't know how long I had laid there in the dark breathing deeply in slumber, happy for the abyss it provided. There was food, she was trying to lure me with it. I started to rise, but not from my appetite motivating me, because I have no stomach for worldly things as of yet, but out of an earnest desire to keep moving. I was slow and clumsy with fatigue, fumbling out of the bed, until she mentioned the letter. MY eyes shot open, my body coiled like a spring, and I hung in suspended animation disbelieving what she had said. "What?!" I asked breathlessly, "from her???" My mother nodded with solemn mien and lead me out of my room. I rushed past the dinner I did not eat and found the letter in the kitchen. It was in your mother's scrawl, I recognized it instantly, the awkwardly curvy resemblance to your own.

Impatient, I tore it open, the dread and repose sliding all over me in the same moment. The card was a thing of beauty, a total benevolent act of assurance, that I am not sure I deserve. Her words of kindness and compassion soothed my ragged nerves and helped to put my broken heart into a state of further mend. It seemed to me at least, she was thankful for my presence too, that she was also rooting that we would return to each other someday. Despite her words of wanting to have me still reach out to them should I need it in the future, I was filled with a deep longing, a sadness I couldn't disregard. In that moment I knew, I had lost more than you, I had lost my second family. I am praying, praying, praying that we can all do our own self work and grow to come again together once more. I am praying for it with every piece of my soul.

I'm sorry if that makes me selfish. I think about our love and it's peerless. I think about how our love would be if we could both be healthy and have it reflect that mutual health and it's transcendent. Call me selfish then because I am now assiduously bound to my path of growth and healing. But with that in mind, I don't see any reason not to at least humor the possibility that in the future we could be together again. I am only wondering now, do you still feel the same?

So many times I want to contact you and ask you, "Can we just call this what it really is? a break? not a break up? Can't we just agree that we are both out here working weathering this absence, but that we want to return to each other?" But I won't ask you that, you'll have to tell me it, I can't ask you for fear of invading the space I am trying to give you, of wounding the trust I am trying to build by showing I heard you, I understood you, I love you, I am honoring you. But even if I have to wait to hear you say this for months or years I will. Because I am so firm, so resolute that you will return and I KNOW already I will be healthier when you do, because I am already walking my own path to individual health for me. I have my first consultation appointments scheduled with therapists next week. I have spoken with my parents to get them on board with my progress to make it lasting and beneficial for us all. I am joining the weight loss program tomorrow and I'm starting on a 3 month journey of self regeneration. I am working on my art work everyday again, and trying to get more and more advanced with my techniques. I am spending more time in the world, seeing friends, going places, because I was just so stagnant I let it get the better of me, and then I let it get the better of you too.

Please Sasha, please know I don't write these missives to hurt or manipulate you. I want you to know, it's only been a week, I know that...I know that change doesn't happen over night. I know that you have not had the time you need to answer all the questions you have. I know that a week, even though it feels like 50 years in the desert, is nothing. I cannot exhibit long lasting, beneficial, steady change to you in a mere week. But I hope that you can see that I am working on myself, for myself, and that this is the start of something new and wonderful for me. I hope you know that I love you still, so so much. And I hope that you know that while we are out in the fog, I am tending the home fires for your safe return. I am calling to you and hoping that what your mother wrote on the envelope for me is true:

"(S will contact you soon.)"