Thursday, July 21, 2011

Numb

There are so many reasons to be happy right now.
I can think of them
but I cannot seem
to force
the happiness.

Monday, July 18, 2011

This I Know

All I want is to feel love and share love and find that same love returned to me with overwhelming truth.

I am absolutely terrified that this will never happen. Six years into my own history of spreading the contents of my heart, I have found that the scars left behind far outweigh most of the infectious energy and beautiful, simplistic affection with which my best relationships were filled.

As soon as each pair of me and him breaks, I lose another tiny sliver of myself, bits and pieces of me that take far longer to heal than they do to splinter. I am in a constant process of recovery, one that I worry will never cease. Every time I near a mended version of myself - as close to my original, innocent, and blissfully naïve self as I can reasonably expect to return - I am somehow swept back into this ever-deepening whirlpool of romance and risk and (or so my fears convince me) eventual pain.

At the same time, I believe adamantly that not every person's experience is so excruciating. I have friends in relationships with staggering constancy and commitment. I know that kind of unconditional, devoted love is possible.

I just do not know why some people have a much more difficult time tracking it down. What makes one person easier to cheat on than another? Surely having the unfortunate ability to claim oneself as a victim of infidelity is not uncommon, though if the sanctity of the word "love" meant to everyone anything at all, affairs would never occur. Still, I cannot help but wonder what it is about me that has allowed three men, on four different occasions, to so surreptitiously seek the company of another while still promising sweet, despicable nothings to their blind, all too trusting girlfriend.

It is a weakness to trust too easily but still more of a weakness to withhold trust completely. Where is the middle ground? Would adjusting my level of faith in others achieve anything, or would nothing at all change?

I have said "I love you" to more than one person, and the triad of words is not one that I use loosely. I live and breathe each and every syllable:
"I," me, the broken girl with an injured spirit
"love," so totally and with abandon
"you," whoever that wonderful boy may be.

I have said "I love you" multiple times and despite reciprocity of the phrase - despite seeming reciprocity through actions and feelings and intrinsic connections - I am always the last to love. His love has always expired, has always run dry well before my own has even begun to plateau.

I leave every relationship, or, more correctly, am left at the end of every relationship, with love to spare, more and more and more to give, and no one willing to receive my gift genuinely.

Even now I am bursting with love, so very much of it that sometimes I do honestly feel like I might explode. Over the years, bruises have piled themselves on top of each other, my body becoming simultaneously immune to the shock yet more sensitive with each additional blow.

Now I love silently. I allow my love to pulse within me, through my veins, through my arteries, leaving my heart and returning once more, always, to my heart and only mine. The hardest truth I know right now is that my greatest love, my most beautiful, my most painful, my most honest, is also the most hopeless love I have ever harbored.

I love and love and love. For years now I have held this love quietly within me. Every fiber of my being wishes to scream out exactly how I feel, and yet every time the opportunity finds me, something convinces me otherwise.

I know he knows and while an unspoken understanding might and should make this heavy burden easier to bear, there exists a distinct unwillingness to even approach the love floating, more so straining, to find equilibrium between me and him.

I love you. Will you ever let me tell you?

dry valves


Is it possible to run out of love?
In some ways I feel completely drained of it.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Monday, July 11, 2011

At the end of every day












this is how I want to feel.

ninety-eight percent

My blood is warm
in two very different ways.

Rationalize this:
why I should not
tell you
I love you.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Kibo

Today a giraffe kissed me three times. It was the most amazing moment of my life.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

west, wild.

Ahhh I am loving my family vacation! I have so many pictures and I cannot wait to upload them to my computer so that I can share them. We have seen so many amazing, beautiful things. We drove up to Utah last weekend and hiked both Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. We have been in Flagstaff, Arizona since Tuesday and I love it here! This is our third trip to the state and it has yet to get old. Yesterday we went to see the Grand Canyon; the last two times we visited Arizona, we came in February and the cloud cover over the G.C. was too thick to see anything. So we were so excited to finally check it out. It was breathtaking and so huge! Of the three canyons we visited, though, I have to say that Zion was by far my favorite - the colors were just brilliant.

Today I bought a beautiful piece of Navajo jewelry in Oak Creek Canyon, just outside of Sedona. It's a stunning sterling silver band with an oval stone set on top - Mediterranean coral. SO BEAUTIFUL! I love it, I love it, I love it. The woman who helped me pick out my ring was named Brenda and she was so gorgeous and sweet. We talked for a bit and she asked where I go to school and when I told her, she told me that she actually used to live in Northampton! Small world, right? :)

Tomorrow we are spending the day around Flagstaff, and then on Sunday we are visiting a wildlife reserve. I cannot waitttttttttt!