A Letter To Anyone I've Ever Hurt

Dear You,

Which is it?  Did I leave or did I give up?  Did I yell or did I cry?  Did you end up packing up the way I felt and throwing it across your shoulder as you walked out the door?  

Because here is what I remember:

I don't know who hurt who.

Call me a victim, a mortar (not the pestle) and hope that I understand.  But I don't because from experience, I am the one that hurts. 

I used to think that people came into your life to bless you.  Now I am not so sure.  Because the people in my life that I thought Fate had flown in and delivered Himself, turned out to be the ones that held the code to entire chapters of my pain.  And try as I might, they are rather long excerpts.

I love and trust too easily.  I wish I was like him, who could just turn it on and off like a tap.  He doesn't feel the same?  Turn the light out and feel nothing. 

And I have all these thoughts I can't control either.  Like maybe there was something I should have read you, because all I can do is write when you leave me.  

What am I doing?

I thought I was writing this letter to apologize. 

So, let me do just that.  

I am so sorry. 

I am a flawed human.  I shouldn't have hurt you like I did, even if you deserved it.  Because in my darkest moments, you are my own personal demon disguised as my closest friend.  And I loved you.  And I hated you.  So, I threw things up in the air to try and watch them blow away.  I cried the whole time.  

I shouldn't have said what I did.  And I shouldn't have done what I said.  But here it is, all laid out like a fucking map:

If I hurt you, it was because I loved you too much. 

Gentry  

    

Are You Leaving Too?

I could tell you a million things.

I could tell you I am sad and that I don't know what I am doing sitting in a blindingly bright hallway, crisscrossed legs with a laptop balancing and all these thoughts in my head and tears in my eyes that I can't seem to shake.

I'd tell you that maybe me heart does have a hole in it, because why else would it hurt so much?

Is there a surgeon to fix this type of loneliness? 

If you asked me for a reason, I would tell you that I have one, I just am unsure of what it is.  And maybe there isn't a reason, but wouldn't it be easier if there was?

I could tell you that my life just got harder but not because of any physical reason that you could see, but just because I felt like the weight I slept with on my shoulders was making me far too sore to blink.  

And I'd tell you that maybe I'd had enough, at least for a little while. 

I talked to him, thinking that there were maybe breaks to be had, in between all the pain and the heartbreak that I'd felt.  That maybe there were times when steady things were happening, even if only for a few days, but he said he'd never seen such a thing.  There is always pain, no matter the routine and no matter the amount of college credits you thought would make you and your parents happy.  

There is always pain.  

There is always pain.

And my expectations don't line up with my reality.  

I don't wake up in the morning feeling the same, I wake up feeling much differently.  Can anyone ever wake up the same way, with the same aspect on how your life isn't like a fairy-tale, but instead a nightmare?  Vice-versa? 

I woke up this morning feeling like maybe it wouldn't snow.

But it did.

I woke up thinking that maybe today would be different, finally.  That after all the things that I piled on, only from the thoughts of my past, haunting me as I slept, that the reality of my current situation wouldn't seem so bad.  But it is.  Because I am not who I wanted to be.  I wanted to be this beautiful girl with fantastic dreams and she would accomplish them.  This girl that denied there was darkness creeping around every corner and feeling that the weight on her shoulders was something to be brushed off.  

But I am not. 

And I cannot.

If you asked me for a reason, I would say, "It's snowing."  

If you told me you loved me, this very second, I wouldn't believe you.  Lies are told best in the dark of night.  

And I feel this soul crushing loneliness, but who have I to tell?

~Fin~

I looked at the clock and the seconds ticked away.

I lost him every minute of the day.

And all it took was a glance to tell I'm not okay.  

I'm not.

And I'd be okay if the sun didn't rise anyway.

You see, I thought that I was mighty but the truth is: I'm scared. 

If You Love A Boy Like Mine

In an hours conversation, he will say the following:

"You can only end terrorism if you preach love." 

"Tell some white lies, but don't live a lie."

"Trying to be someone else is like a dog trying to meow.  I just want to bark, what the hell?" 

"The world is here and I'm here with the world."

"They live by a code of law that someone else put together."  

"Don't feel guilty for leaving it because it's beautiful." 

"I don't take religion so seriously, but I do take being a kind person very seriously." 

"You're selling yourself short."

"Just be a genuine human being."

You see, I thought it impossible to fall in love with the same person twice, but I was wrong.  It's possible and not only that, but I love him more this time around.

VaCuUm

Maybe I sat in class too long, because even words are getting old.

There is no good way to tell you I’m leaving, but maybe even then, you wouldn’t know what I said.  Je ne sais pas? 

I wandered around our apartment and wondered if I should take a picture.  Homes are only solid if you stay in them.  I’ve got 18 tick marks on my wrist, with two states and people lost along the way.  It wasn’t a massacre, but it was bloody just the same.  Is it ever kind when you pick up and go? 

I didn’t get homesick until I went home.  It was seeing how the wall paper was replaced and the smile on the face of my mother made me wonder if I was an addition or a rendition.  I’m not the newest version, not the 9.1 updated on her Iphone.  My phone’s been broken, but they wouldn’t have called anyway. 

I call when I can.  Isn’t that what a college kid is supposed to do?  But maybe I’m the mother, waiting for someone to call and the rest is just undiscovered.  I guess I thought that moving out would prove a point.  I didn’t think it would mean moving on. 

So, I’ll waste more time on Etsy.  Heaven knows, I should be writing my paper instead of self-destructing.  I don’t have enough bills to wipe my tears.  We had a cleaning inspection and I forgot to put my heart in the drawer.  It’s probably left on the floor from when I threw it there last night.  If we fail, I’ll tell them I couldn’t pick up the pieces, because they’re too spread out.

Use a vacuum, they’d say. 

I checked the bag.  It’s already filled with the bullshit I found and threw under my bed.  My roommate told me to clean it up.

If there was a vacuum to clean up sorrow, then hell, I’d save up my money and expedite it to me.  Two days, at minimum.  I could guarantee a pass and a better roommate.  Because we can hang up polaroids and stay up until 4 am.  We could gain 10 pounds and take a dance class to work it off.  We can skip every class at least once a week and fail one of the ones we actually liked. 

But my heart is bruised.  Is it possible to scar from a distance?  I didn’t want you to move on without me, but I guess you have your own cleaning to do.         

Letter To One: High School Hellcat

Dearest High School Hellcat, 

It's been half a year.  Six months, just shy of seven. Do you know that?  Do you realize that?  Do you care about that?  I haven't seen you since the day of our graduation, at least I don't think so.  You left over the summer and I left when you returned.  And then you left again.  Life moves like the tide I would suppose, except instead of moving backward as evenly as forward, the tide only moves up the sand.  I wrote a couple songs and called it good.  It, you ask?  It's a sort of drawer in my heart with things I filled that had to do with you.  I called it good and shut it.  I even thought I locked it. 

There are a lot of things I remember.  Maybe I conjured up some and maybe some were real.  Who knows, with the mind always playing tricks on us.  I used to write you letters I'd never send, but they always sounded so angry with you.  So mad that you hadn't loved me back, or so hurt that you weren't what I thought you were.  But I'm not mad anymore.  I probably understand now, at least more so than I did then.  

I don't think of you as often as I did.  Senior year was hell because I tried (and failed) to not think of you.  But you had always been there, just a constant presence in my head like a memory I couldn't, and wouldn't escape from.  There are passing moments when I remember the way I liked your hair when it was long or how around this time last year, you were Bender, running through the halls to see me with your fist in the air.  I don't remember loving you more than I did then. 

But this is all past tense, isn't it?  Damn, the past was tense.  I wasn't the girl I am now.  I think you'd like this version better.  The new 9.0.2 update or something.  

The minute high school ended, I was happier.  I got music going, I met someone else.  Zane Perry Callahan is quite the character and I actually think you'd get along swell.  He can make just about anyone laugh and has a beard that's overly impressive.  And I love him.  He's what I've needed, I suppose. 

Tonight, I looked up on the Internet how long it takes for the average human to fall asleep.  I can't fall asleep in seven minutes, but that is what it said.  I don't think I've done that since I was five years old without a care in the world or Bat Manors to listen to.  That's why tonight, I thought about you.

I listened to Bat Manors all day.  I love them and I think I am going to buy Literally Weird in vinyl.  I'd like the sound of them on my record player throughout the apartment.  Maybe if we ever get the chance, we could listen to it together.  

I still don't understand a lot of things.  I used to be this girl with good intentions, but that changed with the girl out of high school.  I don't have bad intentions now, or maybe I do, but I don't know where God is or whether or not He will hear me if I asked for help.  I've made mistakes, although I see them as blessings in disguise.  I don't believe that if there is a God, that He would punish you for the way you see the world.  And right now, I see it as clear.  

When I loved you, it was anything but.  

I still have regrets; things I should've told you.  Things I shouldn't have said.  I wished that I could've moved on sooner so that we could've been friends, like the type that stay in touch after high school.  I miss having you as my friend for one thing.  I miss a lot of things.  

But they're just things.  And the ache in my chest I had whenever I saw you in the halls can still be felt sometimes.  I guess loving you was the purest form of pain I'd ever felt.  It's distinctive and can be located through crowds, but only by me.  Tonight, I can feel it.  Acute as ever, the ache in my chest.  It made me worry for a moment that I still had feelings for you.  

Of course I do.  According to The Notebook, no one ever truly forgets their first love.  

And you were mine.  So thank you.  I'm a woman now, with bad intentions and a sloppy love life that isn't all due to you.  And I love it.  Every chaotic second and brutal minute, I am happy now with who I am.  Flaws and breakage, all the things they would warn me about in high school; how college was the only way to make a life for yourself....I couldn't be happier mistaking my way through it all.  

Gentry

P.S--I once almost bought you a Slow Club vinyl.  

P.P.S--I almost did today and sent it anonymously until I realized I have to ask someone for your address and they might tell you.  

P.P.P.S--I still might buy it. 

San Francisco Super-moon

I guess when I thought I wanted religion, I wanted a God that thought the change on the street was better than nothing.  Optimistic, positive.  Ringing affirmative.  

When it comes to teaching things you don't know about, the best way to go is to pretend.  That way no one suspects that the chocolate covered lies that truly spill out of your mouth.  But believe me when I say, this ain't no fondue.  

When I decided it wasn't for me, I didn't tell anyone.  If I was a superhero, I'd be "The Girl that Knows How To Save Face".  I have a persona that is excellent and a personality to match.  I met a boy with a beard whom my dad calls a 'wonder' and I guess that means he likes him.  I love him, which is weird.  The last boy I loved decided love didn't exist.  

I want to travel to San Francisco and share a bed with a boy who could possibly be lying to me.  I don't think he is, but what do I know.  When you call the name "Naive" in class, I'm the first to raise my palm and say, "Here!"  

Religion and icons and idols and lies and nature and naive and gorgeous to some people.  Do I have to quit on Jesus Christ if I want to play music and travel the world?

I've lived for far too long in a population that contradicts itself and far too little in the actuality of the modern world.  I don't care to "get with the times".  I don't care to sell myself short.  

What do I care about, you ask?

Not much, I could say.  I could tell you that maybe the sun sets on the other side, but the moon stays up all night.  Tonight, the clouds covered it even though it was a Super-moon.  "It's orange," my step mother texted and I didn't have the heart to tell her it was black to me.  God could be orange, and I could be missing my step.  

But I care. 

I'll lie a little more to keep you around, even if for just a little while.  I'll keep my wants from the prying eyes for a few more months at the most.  

Maybe when Christmas rolls around, I could tell the truth. 

It'd be a Christlike Christmas after all. 

Maybe when New Years comes.

We all love a good twelve o'clock surprise.  

Or maybe I'll take off to San Francisco and tell the Golden Gate bridge around Easter. 

Who can judge on the day of the Lord's birth? 

I could stay silent.  I could stay silent.  

I could never tell.  I could never tell. 

Ringing affirmative:

I won't ever tell.