So I still dream about you. You pop up in the most bizarre places, at small town birthday parties, and downtown San Francisco, in a bunk bed, in my college roommate’s apartment. One second I’m looking into a new face, dreamt up full of possibility, and then, suddenly, it’s you, and we’re happy again. So happy.
But then the ship hits the iceberg, the zeppelin explodes, the hurricane lands. I wake up in a sweat, wondering where I am, and how I got here. I try to get out of bed, but I’m dizzy with thought and reeling from the hole in my heart, that for a night, was filled again.
Do I slip into your dreams, wearing disguises and running from you, like I do in real life? Like a conspicuous informant, I slink around town, patrolling our old spots, looking for evidence that we were there once, together. And I wonder if you might just show up and defy all odds. Do you wake up in the middle of the night with my name on your tongue, asking yourself how the world changed in an instance, a moment that’s barely describable? Sometimes I don’t want to know the answer.
Like all the truths of my heart, I keep the thought of you hidden way down deep inside, lest someone see me for what I am: a silent hostage to the past, an inept historian who keeps remembering things as I wish they had been, not as they were. Instead, I keep a smile on my face and look forward to slumber.
My Slumbering Heart May 4, 2010
Looking at the world from the bottom of a storm drain February 9, 2010
I’m sitting in a coffee shop directly across from the store where, standing in the dark, swirling night, we touched for the very first time, lips to lips, hand to hand, heart to heart. Where I was certain that I was in love with you, and pretty sure you were in love with me.
Staring at skateboards and trendy t-shirts, we embraced, and the whole world stopped as I looked into your eyes and just knew. We had the future in the palm of our clasped hands, and cupid laid out a perfect, if long, road for us.
Until.
Until we split apart, destroyed by emotions, loving each other so much that we collapsed, we couldn’t handle it any more, too blind to know how to take care of each other any longer. Too afraid, too tired, too much.
I think about you everyday, although I try not to.
The rain falls down, like it did in Seattle, and I’m staring at the site where we first loved, wishing that magically, you’d appear and I would forget everything and lie down in the middle of the wet gray street, singing your name, unafraid and whole. If I stare long enough, will you appear? Will you come back? Will you…
will you?
There’s a speed limit for a reason. October 20, 2009
Sometimes, I miss having a car. Specifically, I miss my Mustang. I know, I know, I’ve said this a million times. But I miss driving down the 101, windows down, ash from my Parliaments flying through the air, music thumping, all alone, able to sing at the top of my lungs and choose the songs I want to hear without caring about someone else. I had it all down – as soon as I hit Calabasas, I put Incubus on, but only “Morning View,” because that is nothing if not a Highway 101 song.
What I really miss about that ride is being with my best friend. Myself. I miss the solitude. I miss ignoring phone calls and singing louder, feeling the sun on my arms, pretending like I knew what love lost felt like, instead of actually knowing.
I feel kind of like a tool for quoting Incubus in a blog. But it’s apropos. Especially the line, “I am only a man.” I’m only human. I make mistakes constantly, a lot of them, and I want off this ride. I want to go back to that innocence of flying down the coast, not really being able to identify with all the songs I love.
I hate the loss of control I have now. Before, I used to be able to put a cd on, and know what was coming next. Instead, I have to deal with bone-crushing songs coming on my ipod when I least expect them, like the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps.”
I don’t want to go home. I want to get in the car, and find my best friend, and sing all the way to Los Angeles and beyond, and leave behind the geography of my faults.
Seven am;
The garbage truck beeps as it backs up
And I start my day thinking about what I’ve thrown away.
Could I push rewind?
The credits traverse, signifying the end
But I missed the best part.
Could we please go back to start?
Forgive my indecision
Then again, Then again, Then again, you’re always first when no one’s on your side
But, then again, a day will come when I want off that ride.
Eleven am,
By now you would think that I would be up
But my bedsheets shade the heat of choices I’ve made
And what did I find?
I never thought I could want someone so much
‘Cause now you’re not here and I’m knee deep in that old fear.
Forgive my indecision… I am only a man.
Then again, Then again, Then again, you’re always first when no one’s on your side
But, then again, a day will come when I want off that ride.
Twelve pm and my dusty telephone rings.
Heavy head up from my pillow, who could it be?
I hope its you.
Then again, you’re always first when no one’s on your side
But, then again, the day has come and I want off that ride.
I was born secular, and inconsolable October 16, 2009
My lips are dry and cracked. Probably because they haven’t been kissed in such a long time. Kissed like they need to be kissed, anyway.
My arms have atrophied. Probably because they haven’t held anyone in so long, at least like they’re capable of holding someone.
I had a good, long hug today. A few, actually. A long distance, over the phone hug, and a furry, tail around the neck hug, and I was happy to get it.
I’m drinking more than I should, alone. But at least Tienda doesn’t judge. I can walk in, buy beer in the middle of the day, and not be questioned about it. Maybe they realize that my heart hurts, and they choose to stay quiet.
My life has flashed before my eyes the past few weeks. I saw Tommy Lasorda last night, and missed my grandma. I have talked to old friends, and missed my old life, as damaged and imperfect as it was. I saw a picture of you today, inadvertantly, and immediately felt the flush of pain wash over me.
Where is God, now, when I could use some God? He works in mysterious ways, I hear. He gives, and then He takes. Was there a reason He gave me him, and took him away?
I would assume. And I suppose that being almost, practically 29 means that I still have some time to figure things out. I was ready to settle, but obviously settling is not something I should do, ever. Maybe I should never be settled. Settling only leads to earthquakes and losing things in the dust.
I wish you, dear reader, could hear the song I’m listening to (“Born Secular” by Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins), because the instruments are beautiful, as are the lyrics.
I sang to my furry little friend, and I think he heard me. I think he enjoyed it. I think he felt my pain, and wrapped his paws around me, assuring me that I am loved. At least by him. If not you, too, dear reader.
Jennifer, Veronica (everything, all of the time) October 14, 2009
[Actual passages out of my journal for the past year...I know, ridiculous, right? What would Jennifer do? Take a shot and move along. What would Veronica do? Take him for all that he's worth, and flick him away with a long, dark painted fingernail. But what does Molly do? Dwell...but I'd like to grow my fingernails long and sharp and scratch it all to hell, leaving my mark, not on some asshole's back, but on the entire world. I think Molly has yet to be determined...don't let the labels fool you, dear reader...)
10/12/08: It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Cutting myself is not enough — I want to slice myself wide open. I did what I had to do, and if there was a reason, it was you.
10/14/08: Did you see me walking by? Did it ever make you cry? What is he thinking? Does he miss me? Does he remember? Does he miss loving me? Does he remember that time at Six Arms?
10/15/08: You broke my heart. Please forgive me my trespasses, and I’ll forgive you yours.
10/18/08: You said you’d always love me. I started looking for excuses.
10/29/08: Why depression and why not me? Why sorrow and why not love?
11/1/08: What’s there to write about when the scars on my legs say it all. The pain rose to the surface, even if I was the one who had to help it out.
11/6/08: I love him so much. Alone is the last place I wanted to be.
11/11/08: Oh, it hurts. It still hurts. SO BAD. Why? Why? Why?
11./18/08: I want to forget him. But I can’t. Because forgetting him is forgetting me.
12/3/08: I loved him, and he broke my heart. All the hurtful, painful fucks aren’t going to fix this heartache. A thousand other fucks won’t erase the memory.
12/10/08: Trying without luck to forget the damage inflicted on me…and trying to ignore the damage I inflicted. But trying hardest of all to walk that line.
12/14/08: It’s your birthday. I miss you. I might still love you. Is there hope for us?
12/18/08: This hurts SO MUCH. Do you know how much this hurts, God? It hurts SO much.
12/26/08: Saw “Benjamin Button” today. And thought, he would like this movie. I hope he gets to see it.
12/28/08: Why didn’t it work? It needed to work. Why didn’t it work? I hate this. I hate this. It’s all a mess. But maybe it’s a mess I can fix.
12/29/08: I’m healing, and it’s hard. But healing takes time. Learning takes time.
1/2/09: I still love him. And I know he still loves me, or he wouldn’t try.
1/5/09: Unfinished. An unfinished life. An unfinished love. He called our love not unrequited, but unresolved. I said unresolved is the wrong word. Unfinished. And we paused. And his voice cracked.
1/6/09: Be here with me, keep me warm, keep me sane, love me as I love me, but more, differently. Keep me safe, and let me keep you safe.
1/9/09: Love is the most important part of life. Because why bother living without love? I don’t know what will happen. I don’t have the answers. But I have love and I have hope and I have honesty.
1/20/09: I love him tremendously, but I cannot lose myself again.
2/2/09: My beautiful boy is back. Molly, Dave loves you. So DON’T fuck up.
2/10/09: I love him. And I’m not scared at all. I trust him. I can give myself to him
3/12/09: Everything all of the time. How I hate you, Thom Yorke. How I hate you.
3/15/09: I miss you. I feel your absence like a phantom limb. Almost four years. Thank God I still have you.
6/3/09: My God. It’s been this long since I’ve written, spurred on by melancholia and the first random song on my sad bastard shuffle: The Engine Driver. How apropos. His depression, even the slightest bit of it, affects me tremendously.
8/16/09: Here I am, expecting just a little bit too much from the wounded…difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed, passed over…but I look right on through, see you naked and oblivious. You don’t. See. Me. This song makes me come and cry. Eyes of a fallen angel, and a tragedy…oh well, oh well.
8/17/09: I feel so alone. How could you love me this way? I’m so fucking sick of dating a lie.
9/11/09: There are so many things to say to you. Namely, I still love you. I sleep in your shirt, using your pillows, wiping my tears over everything. Who do you love? If I were lucky, it’d be me. If I were the better person, I’d leave you alone. But I’m small and selfish and miss you and want all of your time.
9/23/09: Something is wrong. My head is splitting wide open. Is it some sort of existential crisis? (A work of art…a work of art…)
9/25/09: Keep me safe — even if you’re not here anymore. Because I wake up scared, wondering where I am, wanting to be safe.
10/5/09: Everything reminds me of him. Even this. Especially this.
10/6/09: Why would I want him if all he does, if all he remembers of me, all he thinks of me is that I’m trite and immature?
10/7/09: Neither one of us is either thing the other accused us of. We’re both heartbroken and petty.
10/13/09: I miss him. Every single day. I paid the price, I certainly did. I never held you in real life.
These are all passages from my “diary,” the very personal thing that I write the worst of the worst in, from a year ago, when he first began tearing my heart into pieces. You will read these items, and think, Molly, you did it to yourself, you did, and that’s what really hurts.
Sure, I’m a very stupid girl. I don’t, however, believe that I am either “trite” or “immature.” Immature people don’t overdraw their own checking accounts to send the love of their lives money so that he can eat. Trite people don’t actually post their own diaries for the world to read. I am many things, but “trite” and “immature” are not words to describe me.
In fact, even when I don’t feel like loaning things out, I do. Because why do I need money, movies, music, books and so forth, when my friends ask to borrow them? I would give any one of my friends the shirt off my back, I would give them my last four dollars, I would offer up, at the very least, my sofa to sleep on, and I would offer to make them dinner. Even the people that have screwed me over? I take them back, into my loving arms, and forgive them, and apologize for the trespasses I made against them.
But I still suck at a lot of things. Like, expressing my feelings in a cohesive way. Or having the patience to wait for someone to heal. Or having the knowledge to know that they’re not going to heal in my arms. I could’ve sacrificed myself, willingly, waiting for him to find stability. But I did once before. This time, I tried a different tactic. And the heartbreak exploded in my face. At least I know one thing for sure. No one will ever, EVER, love him like I did.
But I am worth loving. And I WILL find someone who knows that, and treats me appropriately. And maybe I won’t have to scratch at the walls, trying to figure out how to deal with someone whose wounds weep more than I ever thought mine could.
Think what you will of me. But I am sitting here, my journal sprawled on my bed, as I type in passages from the depths of my soul. I have been called a lot of things, but I am nothing if not honest and open, and willing to expose myself.
Because I know I’m not the only one. I’m probably not the only one who has ever loved you to the point of destruction, or maybe I am. But no one will ever love you as much as I loved you. I truly believe that in my heart. No one will ever love you as much as I loved you.
But maybe, my dear readers, you’ve felt the same way. Well, as you can see, in the past year, I’ve repeated patterns and ended up worse off than before. Read my story. Heed its lessons. Promise me that my heartbreak has not been in vain. Don’t follow my example. Do better than me. Teach me how to live. Just, whatever you do, don’t live like this.
I’m not the only one, part two September 26, 2009
I wish I just could write you directly.
I can’t, though. It would be harmful…I guess to us both.
Hey. I still love you. Hey. I am still in love with you. Does it matter? Does it matter?
What good is it to have a blog if you can’t ask questions and rue the mistakes you’ve made?
So many…so many that I’ve made.
Just to name a few. Never move for a guy. Should NEVER have moved to Riverside. Who lives in Riverside? Only desperate people. Like me and Paul. Desperate we were.
Why did I leave Seattle? It was MY CHOICE to move to Seattle. Seattle was MINE. It always was. Before it was Paul’s, it was mine. And maybe Brandi brought Dave to Seattle, and maybe Brady and Shannon moved to Seattle, but before all that, someone called Eddie to Seattle. And I don’t care if it was someone connected to Kurt. Cause I really never cared all that much. It’s Eddie’s lyrics that are tattooed on my arms. Eddie. I will always follow you. I will NEVER follow some bullshit guy again. And you, reading my blog, make me some sort of promise, please. Don’t ever follow a guy. I promise you, it’s not worth it. You don’t want to find yourself locked out of a 1-bedroom in Riverside, or alone in Bellingham. Or anything else. You never want to find yourself alone and bored in San Jose. Please…live your own life.
Of course…I am still addicted, my voice is still not heard. My being is still lost between here and there. For someone that drank her twenties away, I am still cogniscent and, well…sad.
In my biography, there is the Upland Library, that has nothing to do with anything, except that when I remember it, I wish I could take you there. But I can’t. Because you left me before I left you, and I’m left with this stupid big old rock that nobody understands but me and other Upland rejects.
I’m not the only one that loves you. I made my family love you, and they probably still do. Love doesn’t end that easily, although we all wish it would.
I’m not the only one (who loves you) September 18, 2009
I love it when you break my heart. You do it so often, I may as well get used to it, huh?
And you know what’s funny? My jealousy. It’s so abject and absurd. What do I care about those other girls? It certainly doesn’t matter anymore.
I erased my myspace, only to want to cut myself a little deeper by listening to the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard, song in part by one girl who was a vision of my jealousy. But it’s somehow comforting. And to distance myself from the real myspace, I borrowed the best alias a girl could – one deceased grandmother who practically has the same birthday and name as me. God bless you, grandma. Thank you for being a party to my demise. Maybe I’ll see you soon.
“I’m not the only one…that loves you…” she sings, a tiny death in my heart, partly because, well, it’s just a beautiful song, and she’s singing about “I don’t know who you’ve been, or who you’ve been with…” and so on and so forth…but a tiny death because…well, shit, because I can’t sing like this. Or can I?
I’m not the only one that loves you. Or am I?
My tears and years certainly don’t love you, rather, they hold things against you, like geography and promises and sketches of people we might have been.
Oh! How funny it is. How truly comical is my life. How incredibly ironic and entertaining and…so funny. SO ironic is my life. That I followed you back to my own insecurities just to be left in the dust once, and then, when I finally find a voice of my own, it is tempered by Jameson, your drink, it sits alone in the dark, smoking Parliaments, listening to this song, of all songs. I’d laugh, but it’s just too sad right now.
It’s funny, ain’t it, how a broken heart just simmers, until maybe all the blood just boils away, and I’m left with the memories of life lost.
Thanks, Margie Lee Davis, for giving me your name. At least, for tonight.
And you, the destroyer of me, well, I’ve got nothing left to say to you…for now.
another siren song (lured to that pillow) January 24, 2009
i can picture her standing on stage, swaying back and forth, a dress with a full skirt flowing around her luminescent skin, her red curls falling over her black lashes, singing about valentines and your mother, while those twins murmur behind her.
i am that girl. secretly, i am her, too. in my head, i am swirling with an antique microphone in hand, delicately dancing to myself, melting my own heart with each small step i take.
my black lashes begin to close, lulled to dreams by a soft voice from a friend who grasps my arm, telling me very quietly to listen to the truths hidden not within her actual words, but within the sounds of the music itself.
she says to me, sometimes the words don’t matter as much as the sound they make coming out of perfectly shaped lips, the hushed tones. she whispers “valentine,” over and over, the echo meaning more than the definition.
so don’t pay any attention to the words i chant into your ears, they’re only words. just listen to the sound of my voice, the music coming from my melted, glowing heart, the melodies of my soul. just watch my lips as they form stars to shine in your eyes, as they gather seashells filled with old songs, my audible ink.
[author's note: i cannot take credit for the phrase "audible ink"--that belongs to my dear, dear friend, dave bloomquist. thank you for lending it to this poem. it completes it.]
“Good Night” Is Never Enough January 8, 2009
good night, she mimics, her throat closing to keep down all the other words she wants to say, words she’s said before, but words she wants to scream at the top of her lungs every living day, in the darkest of nights, when the moon gave up to begin anew, words like a warm savior, cut off by nerves traveling from her brain down to her voice box, the same brain that tells her lips to close after what she echoed.
and after three hours holding a fancy phone to her pretty head, three cups of microwaved hot water, one bag of caffeine-free passionfruit tea, clean flowered sheets, adorable red flannel polka-dot pajamas snug enough to show off her body, glowing pink after a hot shower on a cold winter night, and a wish on a too-far away star, she at last exhales, able to whisper the words her sensible brain wouldn’t exchange aloud, words redundant like a cassette tape, worn and repetitious, but unskipable due to a lack of a fast-forward button, because this isn’t something to be glossed over, but instead rewound and repeated.
so she whispers the words to her long-lost caller, so far away yet almost within reach, like a stuffed animal in one of those damn machines at denny’s, falling in and out of her mechanical claw, so close that she keeps draining her coin purse of quarters, because she won’t give up, she keeps whispering to herself the words she’s said a thousand times, hoping that each breath means something new, something he can handle like a fragile blown glass bell, ringing in a new year, words that trickle down her face like a kiss on a rain-soaked hill, words that promise to keep him safe, if he’ll let them, if he can hold his tin-can up to his ear and feel those words reverberate along the string that connects him to the tin-can she’s holding up to her heart.
because what she really wanted to say was “good morning.”
wonder if i reach you if you don’t listen. January 7, 2009
When I was in Boston, oh, that beautiful city, I bought my first item of what can only be deemed “lingerie” (an interesting item for a single girl to purchase, to be sure).
Kerri found a pair of boyshorts (I hate the P-word) that are grey with deep plum bows on the sides, and a tattoo-esque embroidered heart on the…for lack of a better term…ass, and a beautiful lacy pattern on the front, with a sewed-in tag on the crook of the thigh that says “celebrating yourselves: oddmolly uncorporated.” The edges are trimmed with white lace, and inside, above the embroidered tattoo, is printed the statement: “wonder if i reach you if you don’t listen.”
As if I made them myself, down to the “oddmolly” logo, something I wish I would’ve though of first.
She found them in the sale bin at Anthropologie, so I bought them, marked down from $40 to $10, and tonight, for the first time, I tried them on.
And they’re exquisite.
I stood on my bed to get a better view in my mirror, raised my tank top up to admire how they perch above my ass and sit perky on my ilium. Oh, and they have a drawstring waist. They’re basically begging to be admired, and then pulled off.
I twirled around on my bed, dancing to pretty songs sung by sad bastard girls, unabashidly admiring my body and how adorable my little boyshorts look on me (if nothing else, I have the ass to pull things like this off). I smiled, I posed, and then…I hopped off the bed, took them off, and put on my pajama pants (red with white hearts all over them, cute enough, but dulled down by the Falconer sweatshirt I’m wearing to battle tonight’s lonely draft).
It’s only fun for so long to parade around in my “lingerie” alone. (What really sucks is that I have these new heels that would set off the plum bows perfectly…sigh) Why couldn’t I have found these when I had a willing audience to admire my curves?
Oh, if only your hand was grazing the small of my back again. I can almost still feel it, but like a whisper in the sea, it just gets fainter. If only it was your hand rubbing lotion down my smooth legs, instead of my own. If only it was your body hugging mine at night, instead of the stupid pillow I press against my back to mimic what once was.
It’s bittersweet. Now I can walk confidently down the sidewalk, head up, looking people in the eye. But I won’t run into you on the street or in the champagne aisle at the grocery store. Now I can brazenly strip and appreciate what I have to offer, and dress myself up in pretty things, but the outside world only gets to admire the outside molly. This is a large, empty void of a room, and my music doesn’t come close to filling it. So my catwalks and twirls go unappreciated, even by loud, lovely voices.
At the end of the day, I am surrounded by beauty, most of all, my own, but I don’t have you to share it with. I just have my memories, but they can’t appreciate the person I’ve become, scars and all. My memories are bound to a time and place, like a book is bound to its cover and pages. But the living, breathing me, with blood pumping and cheeks flushed, is wasted on words and websites.
So what do I do? Dance. Keep dancing. Put on my lingerie and dance alone until I collapse.
