|oystershell|

BLOOD! WEDDINGS! SEX! PROPOSALS!

mostly great.

yesterday.  i watched two of my friends get married atop a mountain. i decided i'm in like with the guy i've been more than friends with for a few weeks.  and then i bled on him during sex.  well, maybe not on him.  but i did get a nose bleed during sex, which led to antics i won't divulge for the protection of my folks who on occasion read this. 

anyhow, guy said: now that you live off division, i can take the 4 from my doorstep to yours.  it's great!
and i translated this to: we're gettig married.

and then, when we decided to go to bed, he said: i'm kinda tired.  do you mind if we just sleep?
which of course meant: i didn't come over here for sex.  i came over here for you.

and so, as i mentioned, i decided i'm i like.

you are beautiful.  and i am mostly great.

NOW YOU KNOW

i've been in love with a friend of mine for a very long time.  i've never been inclined to mention it.  because it's probably the purest feeling i know.  the kind of love where you don't compare the people you meet and date to him.  because there's just no point.  there is no comparing.  the kind of love where you don't judge him by his mistakes.  because most times you barely even notice them.  you barely see past everything great about him.  the kind of love that you just don't talk about, because it doesn't seem right.

but here i am.  talking about it.  and it doesn't seem right.  but it doesn't feel right not to say it.  even in this quiet way.  maybe i need to say it out loud to understand its limits.  to maybe understand that what makes it pure is its limitations.  it is so quiet and somehow still so loud.  and so inconsequential.

we are just people.  working, talking, moving, making things work and then tearing them apart.  we are just people.  and we are reaching out, wondering what will fall into our hands at any given moment.  we decorate what makes us feel alone or vulnerable or afraid or uncertain.

i don't decorate my feelings.  i work and talk and move and make things work and sometimes tear them apart.  we are just people.

BASE CAMP

we climb.  we climb.  and on occasion, we look down.  as the air thins, as our arms grow tired, as our eyes become weary.  we look down.  with our hearts heavy, we wonder.  will it ever be as good as it was down below?  will we ever be as good as we were down below?  sometimes we get so tired and so weary, and our lungs so desperate, we yearn for the sweet, sweet ground.  the places that we stood, so sure.  so energetic.  so strong and strong-minded.  where there was laughter and board games and neither our furniture nor our feelings felt so traveled and so weathered.  where our stories never started with a pause.  but, we climb.  we ascend.  because we have no choice.  because we have to.  we keep breathing what air we can breathe.  we keep breathing, because we have to.  because beyond the summits there are peaks.  and we hate to hope, because hope is synonomous with fear.  because hope is simply a lack of assurity.  because hope is all we can do.  we hate to hope.  but even when the air is thin, and our arms are tired and our hearts are sore, we hope.  because mostly, hope is all there is. 

i couldn't make eye contact.  i couldn't see beyond folded arms and table ledges.  i couldn't think of anything.  all i could do was miss the comfort and fear that comfort would never come back to me.  that kind of love would never come back to me.  that all those stories and all that laughter and all those board games would be buried there on the mountain.  in the snow.  frozen in time.  found ages later, so rare, that they would be nothing but cause for disbelief.  because it is so hard to come by these days.  they are peaks so out of reach.  they are bigger than hope.  and the fear makes you want to jump.  back down.  into piles of clothes that meant something at some time to someone other than yourself.  the different ways you were seen by someone who was more than just some one.  but we have to keep breathing.  our bodies don't know how to stop.  just as our hearts don't know how to stop pumping blood.  just as we don't know how to stop hoping, even when we hate it deep down into our cores.  we look up and we climb.  we climb.

but i can't escape the fear these days.  that fear.  i miss the ground.  base camp.  base camp.  base camp.

keep. breathing.

THE HAT AND THE SKINNY

sometimes hope is hard to come by.  this is no new news.  i don't believe much in hope.  it seems, these days, i take nothing with more than a grain of salt.  but the symmetry in my new bedroom is hard to ignore.  the glow of its hardwood floors.  the bright blue-green of its walls.  the bar across the street.

hope is hard to come by.  but work is going well.  my friends are doing fine.  spring is finally here.  there is new music and new laughter and new faces.  and i have somehow, actually grown accustom to being broke.  to feeling sometimes brokedown.  and at night, i lay on my back and look up.  all this time, just looking up.  looking up. 

the sun begins to set at nine.  and we all act afool.  and there is so much more laughter and light-heartedness.

VAGABOND

i was a consort, in some modern day romance.  where money was nothing as long as we were getting by.  and the comfort of places on a body were enough to get me by, for days.  now i roam the city streets, skinny arms and legs, eyes moving from face to face.  trying to find a trace of something to believe in.  searching the crowds.  there is comfort in being alone.  there are great moments of absolute bliss.  there is fun to be had, that i am having.  but i am a lover.  i like hair in my hands, and whispers on my neck, and the sound so strange of two people breathing in the night.  i was a consort.  now i'm a vagabond, searching for refuge in the eyes or strangers.  love just seems so far away.  so far away.  so far away.

OUT IN THE PARKING LOT

family brunch with make your own bloody marys.  four square out in the parking lot, all day long.  good music and good times.  and we don't need to be saved, because we're doing just fine.  i'm doing just fine.  and i wish you were here.  here, doing just fine.  there's a lot you don't know, a lot you don't see.  and i feel like a small country a million miles and oceans away.  doing just fine.  and i don't need to be saved, which is good.  we seem to be losing our heroes these days.  i seem to have lost all my heroes.  just me and the foursquare gods, out in the parking lot.  playing along.  playing on.  road rash and beers in the heat.

DANCE PARTIES

hopping fences, running from carnies, eating bacon doughnuts, watching fireworks from balconies, alligator jumbalaya, holding hands and getting slammed against walls in the best possible way.  that's how i spent last night.  that's how most nights should be.  last night was kinda great and stuff.