I am done with clowns. I’m done looking at pictures. I’m tired of feeling like I’m forgetting something. Maybe I’m just forgetting someone.
Or maybe I’m just growing up.

So, you’ll know where to find me. Hanging out by the adult books. Kissing by cars. Pouring the cheap beer down the drain, and reaching for something a little more established.

A better version of you?
No, a better version of me.

i want to look at your face as i listen to the epic beats in 30 paces or less

i want to freeze frame your face as the music washes over me

and i shake my head back and forth, back and forth, hair swinging side to side

and i dance alone, the radio pumping, your face frozen in time.

if i could only…sing a little song…if i could only…get you to sing along…

if i could only…hold your face…if i could only…negate this space…

i ended up where i started, where i went wrong. who knew they’d be one and the same? who knew that everyone looks like you anyway?

and everytime i go to suck someone’s blood, there you are, as if you had never left. where i started, and where i ended.

oh, your beautiful face, just staring back. a smirk, your only expression. but this time, you don’t see me. you don’t even know me. and the guitar plays on.

one by one, etc. shoes, etc. what happened, etc. well, you were disbarred. i got schooled. little kids shout “yay” in the background, completely unaware of our failures. these are the fibers of our life.

your face, your face, your face. it’s like i’m on a conveyor belt, ending up where i started, where i went wrong, going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. and it’s your face i see in every mirror, every reflection, every magazine article, every time i close my eyes, and every time i meet someone new. it’s always you, always and forever you.

so what do i do? swing my head back and forth, and turn the music up louder, hair flying about.

I hovered. Like a ghost with too much time on my hands and too few places to haunt, I watched.
I watched you change, in my mind, from the person you were to the person I wanted you to be, and I cemented you into place, frozen in carbonite, a vision of what could have been.

And I blamed myself.

I slept.
And when I woke, I slept some more.
And when I slept more than possible, more than I could have ever imagined a person could sleep, I sighed–
and slept some more.

I’m like a reverse shape-shifter; I shifted you into what I thought you could become, and you blinked, telling me that I was incorrect in my assumptions.
You would not be mine.
In any way, shape, or form.

So I did what any tiny ghoul would do, and ran.

I changed my identity, I chose a new face, I picked a new name, and found a new occupation. I became someone you never would have recognized.
Someone you would have stopped and stared at, someone luminous on the outside.
While the inside bit and tore, like the real me could break through and say…something.

Each day I sigh, I lose myself for a moment, closing my eyes against the pain, and pop back up for air in my brave new world.

La la la la la lies.

Vicariously, I am a wonderful person.

Sometimes I want to apologize to you, you know, for the haunting. Sometimes I want to tell you I’m sorry for burning you on the stake. Sometimes I want to grab the gun I pointed at your head and turn it on myself, hoping that the silver bullet inside will actually do something, like wake me up.
Wake you up.
Wake me up.

I tried, anyhow. But now I stay silent, I stay in place, and I try not to hurt anyone else. I try not to get hurt.
Come on, my scars have faded.

And so I listen to all of our dusty old music and remember

nothing. Nothing at all.

I wish I
was the star
you wished upon
[just once again]

I wish you
would look
for me/deep inside me
[to see what I see/to see what I want]

then i blink, shake the dust out of my eyes, and look at where my feet are, touching solid red soil, like my heart always has.

There aren’t enough shots of whiskey to make you disappear.

An entire pack of Parliament Lights aren’t enough to make me forget your voice.
Your laugh.
Your smile.
Your soul.

Instead, I’m haunted by the memories of you. Like a monster that won’t let me sleep, you creep in to my life and remind me of what I’m missing.
You.

I miss you more than you could imagine. And yet I hold you accountable for all that you said, and all that you never followed through on. All I can remember are the empty promises.

Like, when you told me that you wanted me to be your wife.
Like, when you gave me your promise ring, a promise that someday soon that ring would signify more.
Like, when you said you’d never let me go again. Like when you said you’d protect me from everyone, even yourself.

Well, you let me down.

All the promises you made, you broke.

And I forgave you most of them.  Like when we lived in Seattle and it was so, so hard, I still forgave you the difficulties and nursed you back to health.
Like when we lost each other in NorCal and you came crawling back to me, I picked you up willingly, and accepted every promise and apology you had to give. And I believed you, just like I should have. You deserved my belief and my love.
Until.

Until, until, until.

Until you broke my heart with all of your broken promises, and now, I am just a broken person.

I’m not even the sort of person you’d want to know anymore. I’m just tired and pathetic, a piece of trash that you left behind.

You may have broken my heart, but what you left me with is a shard so broken, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.
In a way, you got out, you got lucky, because although you may have turned me into the broken, sad girl that I am, you don’t have to deal with the aftermath.

I am no longer your problem; I am just the problem you created. And lucky for you, you got out when you did.

Just because I let him go doesn’t mean I stopped loving him.

I let him go, at long last.

But the ghosts never seem to go away, do they?

More and more, I feel like I’m really drowning, real drowning, not fake movie drowning. I’m not screaming or flailing my arms; instead, I’m sinking below the water line, and all I can concentrate on is breathing. I don’t call for help, I’m not sending out an S.O.S., I’m just trying to save myself from a cold, dark spiral. I’m trying to tread water, but the sea envelopes me, and it’s almost soothing to just give up and go to sleep.

Sometimes I feel brainwashed, but I’m not sure who did the brainwashing–him, or me, or a bigger picture. Sometimes I am an automaton, smiling and standing up straight because it’s what you do. I want, I need, I want, I need–these things become replaced by I can’ts. Sometimes, though, I am myself, and I do strange things like dance alone or watch bad t.v. or act like a Santa Cruz hippie, and I am unconcerned with what you think.

I am trying harder. At all things. To go home. To stay alive. To be myself, and not hide my tattoos. To be myself and smoke my Parliament Lights and drink my Newcastles. To be myself and kiss him hard against the wall. To be myself and not justify my actions and decisions. Mostly I’m just trying to breathe.

One day, I will tie up my belongings in my kerchief and stick out my thumb, and float through the fog and waves until I reach my golden castle, where I can just be, all by myself.

Dear Diary, like the Travis song, you know, they remind me of you even though it’s only because I wrote a poem, to you, based on one of their song titles, “Writing to Reach You.” I’d listen to “Dear Diary” right now, but the truth is? I don’t really like Travis all that much. The band, that is. My brother Travis? Love him. My sister Jasmine? Well, I ain’t gonna go to jail over it.

Dear Diary, things are SO different now. I mean, here I am, back again, back in my childhood bedroom, back in Redlands, but things are SO different. I don’t go to the Falconer and meet hot boys with mohawks. Instead, I date my friends’ friends and smoke crack on the weekends. I stopped drinking and lost weight, bleached the shit out of my hair, and bought a growler at Hanger 24 tonight, and got blown off by Medieval Times. Yeah, ok.

I mean, I used to live in Seattle. I had to wear a parka to go outside and smoke a cigarette. Now I “don’t smoke.” But really, I will probably go outside for one in a minute, because it’s fucking hot up in this bitch. Thanks, Yucaipa. Godspeed.

Dear Diary. Sometimes, I’m quite popular. Sometimes, I kiss lotsa boys at one time, and I run into kids I had threesomes with. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of myself. My new self, and I’m like, damn. I would totally fuck me. I mean, really. This platinum hair? Amazing. These curves? Wow. These lips? Shit, boy, you’re lucky I just talk to you. Imagine what else I could be doing. Uh-huh, yeah, her. God. Damn. I’m. Hot.

But Dear Diary, really? I have to look in a mirror to recognize who I am now, on the outside, because inside, I’m just a chubby little brunette kid with crooked teeth and HUGE glasses and I read books all day. No one will ever kiss me.

Dear Diary. I was in love, once. Well, it never faded. I am still in love. With a boy who won’t speak to me. I suppose he’s not in love with me anymore. Maybe he never was. I don’t know. All I know is, I can remember the EXACT SECOND I fell in love with him. His back was to me, waiting at the bar to get his whiskey rocks. That was a monumental moment in time. Lincoln’s death? Means nothing to me. 9-11? Yeah, I know where I was. Kennedy and the pink suit? So fucking what. The most important moment in my life is when he turned his back to me and ordered a drink, and I knew I was in love. Take what you will from that little allegory. That little metaphor. That little tear falling down my cheek. Yeah, it’s fucking hot in here.

Dear Diary! I know! My friends are tired of the same old story. I ask the same question, I tell the same sob story. They ask me what I loved about him, and I say, his dick. They say, no really, and I say, well…

I don’t know. When you love someone so fiercely, how can you narrow it down to a few traits? You know what I love? That mole, on the right side of his face, on his temple, right by his hairline. That one mole sums up my entire being, much like the mole on Graci’s neck should be explanation enough for why we all love that tiny little girl more than the heavens. I think her mommy would agree–sometimes the entire planet, God and everything, can be contained in one little brown dot.

I mean, what do you love about a person? Well, I love that he’s not a serial killer, but I don’t love that he won’t speak to me. I love that Heather used to drive a Mercury Cougar, but I don’t not love her because she doesn’t anymore. I love that he made me laugh, but I can’t remember how. Amazingly, I can remember how the lines at the corners of his eyes could carve rivers when he smiled, but I don’t know how I made him smile. If I knew anything, I wouldn’t be up at 1 in the morning writing, I’d be in his nook, safe and sound.

Dear Diary. That’s what I hate about everyone else. I don’t feel safe and sound in their nooks. I was in a nook the other night, and I wanted to leave it immediately and run up the highway until the air smelled salty. Instead, I rolled over and cried silently. And secretly hated the boy snoring next to me.

Dear Diary. I saw his picture tonight, and wanted to punch something. Him, preferably. Then cradle his head in my arms and stroke his hair, focusing on that one random spot that grows a dark patch in an otherwise glorious mane of gingery whatever. The last time I had sex, the guy wasn’t like him, all perfect lines and cleaned up. When he was done, he didn’t make a peep, didn’t bask in the moment, didn’t shine at me, didn’t remind me of Roman statues and Greek victories. He didn’t make me wonder what I had done to deserve this. He just made me wonder how I could escape.

Dear Diary. He won’t speak to me. I go about things the wrong way, sure, but I’m human, and I need to be loved. Just like everybody else does. But I want to be loved by this one specific boy, The One That Got Away. The One That Broke My Heart. The One That Fucking Left Me.

Dear Diary. I am so fucking sad. And so fucking broken. So, Diary, fix me. Fix this. Take me back to the day where we ate hipster pizza in hipster fucking Oakland, and fucking fix me. Or fix me a fucking fix so I stop feeling this fucking pain.

Slamming into buildings along Pike and Pine, we lingered, thinking that night just might extend itself for us, tender times until we had to say good-bye. Desperate calls turned into a hunger that could only be sated by your breath, as though I was on the edge of starvation and you were breaking your bread for me. See, I remember that. I can almost still feel that pain, in the pit of my heart, in the corners of my eyes, a love like creation, seven days building into something sublime and unspeakably beautiful.

Then the flood came.

The flood still roars, waves tumbling over me yet, as I struggle to raise my head above the aqua line, treading water, but barely. As though all my beloved possessions were resting on the bottom of a torrent too overwhelmingly massive to comprehend, as though my wedding ring was lost at the deepest abyss, without hope for recovery. That’s how I feel, to this day.

August to August, dust to dust. I suppose I should never have expected too much from you or any other human being, but hope smothered all thoughts and I loomed, unsuspecting, settling down for a long winter’s love. Only to be swept away by currents, still caught in the backwater swirling at the edge of the earth. Crying out your name in my sleep, raising my hand for rescue, only to suck in deep breaths of water, lungs flooded by tears and such.

I wrote you for a long time, long missives of apologies, intricate details of my soul, without response. Are you gone, my love, drowned as well? Did you get my letters etched in the stars, that one, that one is Orion, but that one, that one, that shining one, right there, that was us, that was my letter to you. Did you hear me, or did my voice dim away like that star? Can you remember what I sound like? More importantly, can I remember what you sound like?

Our great love, our Genesis, is fading away. I remember where your tattoos are, but I cannot remember what they say. Your moles, I remember them, but couldn’t locate them on a paper map of your form. The lines on your face are smoothing out in my mind, as though you’re aging backwards, and I can recall the texture of your hair, but I cannot recall the scent. Worst of all, I can see your body in my mind’s eye, but I cannot feel you. I reach out to you, but your body vanishes under my hand, and all I’m left with is the nothingness of air. You’re turning into a hypothetical before my very eyes.

And yet, I’m still here. The tokens you gave me are packed away, your letters stashed in boxes, our photographs gone. All those little notes you wrote me and hid around my heart have crumpled, and the best I have of you, the very best, the proof that you did indeed exist, is a folded grocery list, once forgotten in an old purse. I take it out once a week and reread the story of our life together: bread, milk, beer, chicken and so on, a tale of domestic bliss wrought in the lines of the ordinary.

And here is where I cry the most, because it is the most beautiful story I’ve ever heard, the most precious gift you could have ever given to me, the greatest love ever told. That forgotten grocery list signifies my whole life—the purest, simplest love, lost and left in an old purse.

Except I never discarded that grocery list. I just discarded you.