to various persons, all at once.

eleven: "let's say all the things we never said."

And the one thing, all I ever wanted you to say was “I’m sorry.” Those words alone would’ve changed things but you said yourself that your pride always gets in the way, and the truth is you were never as sorry as I really wanted you to be. Never as sorry as you should’ve been, as you could have been. “I’m sorry” would’ve sunk ships, cracked foundations, refrozen the polar ice-caps, and you had neither the courage nor the will. You didn’t need to say it to be forgiven— you’ve been forgiven for centuries. I forgave you when I realized you were helpless and hopeless and doomed to continue on in the dark without any realization or reparation. I just needed you to say it for both of us.

heyheyhey

I just wanted to remind people that I only have this blog so that I could keep this whole project in one place. If it’s annoying that they’re showing up on your dashboard twice, feel free to unfollow this blog. I still post them on my regular tumblr.

ten: the history of you and me.

What I suppose I resent the most is that you seemed put off when I said it wasn’t going to be easy. And forgive me for overestimating your understanding, but what’s ever been easy? I can remember many things in my lifetime, whether they were mine or someone else’s, but few of them were ever easy. I just don’t understand what sort of world you think we’re living in.

In hindsight, I don’t know how good we really ever were for each other. I didn’t pick you because I thought you had a winning sense of humor, or because I thought we’d get along with each other unspeakably well. You were just the saddest boy of all time, and we had something in common. That’s all. We rubbed elbows in the back seat of my then-best friend’s boyfriend’s car (the first time I’d ever ridden in a boys car, notably) and sang along to the same song (track eight, I think it is. I could probably still hum you the tune; recite the lyrics to you). There wasn’t a moment where I stared deep into your eyes and realized you were the one for me, there was no romantic kiss or hug or anything. I just loved you. I can’t explain it, and I’m glad, because I wouldn’t believe it if I had the words to describe the things my young and bursting heart felt during those months.

I’ve touched you once. Once. I was crying, because I’d found out that I had to move. Crying hysterically. Full-body, shaking, quaking, rosy cheeks, the whole deal. And you got up from behind your sales counter and chased me down the hall. Took my by the shoulder, asked me what was wrong. I told you. I explained what was happening, and how I was out of sorts. How I felt crazy and sad and how I felt like the world was ending, and you basically told me to stop it. Stop crying. And you hugged me. Not an “I’m-in-love-with-you” hug. Not even an “it’ll-be-okay” hug. Just a simple hug. And then you said you had to go, turned around and left. Let me clarify something here: I have touched you once, physically, but I would argue that we’ve touched each other numerous times via the medium of our words.

I can remember dark and late nights spent in beds, on couches, outside, texting you or calling you and feeling miserable, but oh so in love. I can remember the first time we talked— really talked— in two and a half years, and I can remember telling you that I didn’t love you anymore. You obviously knew the truth, but you never made it known. I don’t know if I hate that or love that about you.

Another thing that sticks out in my mind is the first and only time you told me that you loved me- or rather had loved me at one time. You said I was so young, and so bright-eyed. And that’s it! You were the saddest boy in the entire world, and I was happy, young; willing to try and try and try to cheer you up.

You have to know that I’ve thought about doing this for years. Literally. Writing this down— the history of you and me. But I never could. There’s been no end, no conclusion, no epilogue, no resolution. There’s not even one now, but I’m smart enough to know when a door has been closed. (As a note, you should always remember that I am a firm believer in the idea that when one door closes, another opens, but also in the idea that if a door closes, it doesn’t mean the room has disappeared. For as long as I’m living and you’re living just as well, there will be love between us.) Our love, or any love for that matter, is not something that you easily forget about. Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe you don’t feel the same. But I’ve got this energy in my bones that would seem to be telling me otherwise.

(Perhaps it won’t stay up for very long. This is a story I’ve never really been able to write, and one that makes me feel enduringly anxious. I don’t even like it, it just exists. I can never get it right.)

nine: conor.

Once I stayed at a beach house with my family for a weekend and met a boy who was the spitting image of Conor Oberst. After we met I made him a Bright Eyes mix cd and he said he thought the music was beautiful but that he never wanted to see an actual picture of his supposed look-alike because the songs were nice, but also very sad and he didn’t like thinking that there was someone out there who looked so much like him and carried so much sadness around. He left the coast the day before I did, and I found a note on my mom’s windshield that said: “I accept your weights and mine, and any other weight carried within anyone who breathes or has ever taken a breath. I thought about and listened to Conor a lot today, and realized this. Thank you for introducing me to someone a lot more like myself than both of us initially realized.”

eight: I did

I’m still accidentally writing “10” in the boxes where “11” should go, like my fingers and this pen both reject the idea that I exist within a stream of passing time. It feels like just yesterday when you would walk the block and a half to my house and sit out my couch; not too close for comfort, but just close enough for me to feel your warmth.

I don’t know when things got messed up— when I stopped enjoying your company— but I guess somewhere along the line you stopped calling or I stopped answering, or I was always busy or too tired. It’s funny how somethings can snap, crackle and burst with electricity at the exact moment when you begin to marvel at their constancy— their wherewithal. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even think about you, I don’t even remember to. Abracadabra and you are completely erased from my mind. I don’t even see you on the street anymore like I used to. I don’t know if that means you’re not there, or I’m not really looking.

The truth is, I’d go back if I could— at least, if I could somehow cut out the times we shared without bringing along the other things at the same time. If we could just remove one second from a minute and relive that by itself. Hell, I’d go back even further. I’d go back to before the couch-talks, and you living the block one over from mine. I’d go back to the seventeenth summer, to just the four of us with gas money to spare in that bright yellow car.

I’d go back to simultaneously loving and loathing the way we all were living. Regardless of how things went— how they started out with a literal splash, our feet pounding hard and deep into puddles in the midst of that storm, or how they ended with a series of smaller and smaller conversations— you have to know how much I liked you. You have to know how much I’ve always cared in one way or another.

And I’m glad I never kissed you that day I really wanted to, but I’m sorry if I never told you how much I really did enjoy your company and I did care. I’m always repeating myself, but yes, I did care. I did.

seven: question mark fingers.

We swallow sleep in bite-sized chunks, and in the morning we are wakeful— bleary-eyed and wishful. I roll over to the left in the mornings and my eyes meet streaming ribbons of light and you always greet me with “hello, how did you sleep?“s. We exist together, but in separate beds, for just a lingering moment in time. You promised you’d keep me company for the morning, and when we ran out of things to talk about we traded every last one of the secrets we had kept locked away and I felt victory and liberation in knowing that there is exactly one person who trusts me as I trust them. An intrinsic trust, an unspoken one.

It always rains in the mornings, but clears up later on and my hands are always freezing cold, but I swear the way my heart beats quick when we talk could light up an entire cityscape. I feel like that terrible cliché music video where everything’s all slow motion and the focus is hazy ‘round the edges. I keep saving all of our conversations in folders called “histories” and on scraps of paper stuck in my pockets, and dreamt that I told you were an answer in a sea of questions, and that I didn’t know exactly what that meant.

Oh, oh, I would kiss every last one of
your question mark fingers, if I could.

six: ten fifty three and a lot like love.

They sat six banks of tables away from each other and combated the noise of the crowd by speaking with their hands. She, in her rap cap, with the light from the window hugging her silhouette, and him, in the dark corner with his head cocked curiously to the side. And every now and then he would lift himself out of his seat just a little and sneak glances at her, and he didn’t notice that she was doing the same because the glare from the window was too bright on her eyes and his were still locked into the shadow. They just weren’t able to match them up correctly. She’s laughing at the jokes his fingers are telling, and he’s so excited that every once and while he forgets the language and half-smiles, half-shouts to her from across the room. Her coat is buttoned up to her collar, and he’s picking at the hem of his shirt and it’s ten fifty-three in the morning and this all looks a lot like love.

five point one: +I miss you.

(Here are some things I forgot:)

Late at night, if I squeezed myself into the corner of the room and peered out my window, I could see the light on in yours and it always made me feel safe. I used to put the palm of my hand on the glass there, and call you on the phone, and watch for the outline of your hand in the same spot as mine, but just a block away. And on nights when I was lonely, I would tape a piece of paper there- a piece of paper that held no words, but told you “I am here, and I am lonely. Please come over.” You never failed.

So, like I said, I miss being young(er)
and I miss when you used to sit on the roof outside my window
and I miss when you promised me you’d be my best friend forever.
I miss you. I miss you, miss you.

five: I miss you.

I Google-Earthed my old house yesterday and it bothered me to see a different car in the driveway. With fingers like legs, I strolled down the screen- across my cul-de-sac and around the corner to yours- to find your house, and saw that trampoline we used to jump on and your stepfather’s truck still parked out front. I guess some things stay exactly the same.

You used to coax me into trashcans so you could jump over me with your skateboard, and I would always oblige because being one of the guys meant being your number one girl. TJ lived closer to you, but you would always knock on my door first, and I’d wear it like a badge of honor shaped like a smirk.

You had bright eyes and a charming smile and once you almost kissed me on the side of your house, but your mom came out and invited me in for dinner and we never talked about it again. But sometimes, weeks after, you would blush and run your fingers through my hair; it was sweet and quite enough to fill me up.

One summer, I watched your dog while you were out of town, and I would lay across your bed every afternoon and listen to pop-punk bands sing love songs through the static of the radio. I missed you with every word and every chorus repeat. (Here, I’ll admit it: I fed your dog too many treats because I wanted him to like me, and he had two names so I never knew what to call him when he ran down the block barking at stunned garden gnomes.)

You always sat next to me on the bus, and we made jokes about things we didn’t fully understand, and your little sister would always tug on my sweatshirt and ask me if I wanted to kiss you on the lips. When I moved away you promised me you’d take me to prom when we were older. It never happened, but not for lack of trying.

I guess I just miss being young.
And I miss you, I miss you.

four: the prettiest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

»»Unknown man, three rows ahead,

You have the bluest eyes and the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. The only things I know about you are that you like Jeff Buckley and maybe you like to read (or are simply just curious) because you crane your neck to the side and sweep your eyes across the covers of all the books being read around you. There’s a distant sad look in your eye as you stare out the window, but every once and awhile you smile out of the corner of your mouth a little. I do that too!
We’re acquainted now, if only in the sense that we’ve shared the same space multiple times throughout the day. You’ve got dirty fingernails and you play Sudoku when you’re not busy staring out the window or checking and rechecking the bus schedule. You’re right handed, and I know you probably get this a lot, but I’ve just got to tell you, you’ve got the prettiest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. I don’t know who you are, or what you do in your spare time, but you’ve got the brightest, clearest, bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.

x - Unknown girl, three rows back and to the left.

Me: “Excuse me? Sir? I don’t want to sound creepy or anything, but you’ve got really pretty eyes. I think I might have been staring, and I thought I should probably just tell you.”

Him: “(Laughs) that’s really nice of you. Sometimes you’ve just got to get stuff like that out. I understand. Have a really nice day.”