Seven Year Itch

I cannot forgive you,
The man who has hurt me. 
But I can forgive the child that was 
      Before you became this monster. 
He was innocent once.
Before we all grew up and started trying to kill each other
     And loved and adventured without fear of a THE END.

You sang hypnotically to my soul
     And I ran because I saw that you were bleeding and needed me.
There was so much red I stopped being able to see straight.
I knew that you were going to be one for the books.
I have fallen and gotten scraped from time to time,
     But you simply gutted me.
In what feels like seconds you had me drowning 
     In your hypnotic confusion.

The words you spoon fed me were holy.
Not like religion as you had hoped, 
     But like Swiss cheese.
I still nailed myself to a cross made out of apologies anyway.
I know I'm nothing to you.
I'm a fucking plagiaristic copy of every other being 
     You spewed invisible promises at.
I'm still finding myself wanting answers to this myth of yours.
You were always more beautiful as a stranger.
Are you sick or just from Hell?

One of these days I will forgive myself for falling in love
     With someone who never existed in the first place.
In minutes I was ripped from my happy place by you.
And somehow thought I'd be fine,
And just grateful that I made it out of your sickness alive.
Bright sides...
     There'd be no art if your rose colored glasses 
          Weren't kaleidoscopes in disguise.

I keep wondering why I'm not telling myself 
     That I'm going to be alright.
I'm reaching,
     But there are not arms for me to find solace in.
There is something about this new found silence that now has me more scared 
     Of being alive than of dying.
I am an escaped hostage who can't find her way home 
     Standing in her own living room.

I was always the brave one.
         The warrior.
If you know what's good for you,
     You'd drop the act and do the right thing.
You should have killed me.
As always it was half-assed 
     And still managed to rip everything I am out of my soul.
I'm still in here somewhere.
What will you do when you find that your discarded pawn 
          Was really the queen you were searching for?
I still find beauty in your "almost".

Mid-Morning Observation

I'm messy when I'm human.
I mistake puddles for oceans and before I know it, 
I'm having a drunken one night stand or changing my hair or rearranging furniture and deep cleaning my closets or starting a new project that I'll never finish in an attempt to disinfect my feelings that are crawling under my skin like the sand worm in Beetlejuice in an effort to get you off of my mind.
I need a new escape plan.

My dog will watch intently while he decides whether or not you are worthy of putting your hands on him.  
This could take minutes or it could take months;  
but he will never rush to his decision.  
Once he has chosen you, 
he'll spend every moment in your presence reminding you of his love and demanding yours.
He is the smartest 9 year old I have ever met. 
I want to be more like him.
I on the other hand,
seem to be a big dumb dog who is stupid excited for a belly rub every time that way you look at me crosses my mind.
Mind shut off, 
not caring how vulnerable I've just made myself.
Foreign, alienated.  
Invigorated, yet settled.

None of the physics-defying devices that I've crafted over and over in my mind have been able to outrun those who have left my life. 
I don't miss most of them.
Chronically allergic to human relationships.
That's what I've always described this "thing" that goes on inside of me as.
I've never lost a limb; 
but I bet that's exactly what losing you would feel like.

Museum

I used to believe in signs.                         Perhaps I still do, but I don't go looking anymore.  

Words I thought were painted vividly are showing themselves to me but they're as muddled as braille.                  Honestly!                                          Constantly wishing and hoping...

If the Gods wish for me to read riddles, I wish that they would please take my permission and not hold back when they hit me with "Hello" square in the face.

There's a strange reassurance in your existence that helps remind me of mine - as if being here and loving you has begun to make me real.

I'll let you into my brain.                 Walk amongst my favorite memories,   safeguarded behind ropes and glass.          I won't let you touch them.                The broken little girl I have let you see isn't the one you're touching when you lay your hands on me.                                The heart you're watching beat behind the gilded sign is too damaged to ever be whole again.                                Remember, you're here on a free day pass.   A view like this isn't going to last long.           I'll show you a glimpse of who I am and shutter the doors because I saw that you weren't paying attention.                    I will recount all of my favorite memories; not that you have any interest in getting to know who I am.                  You are a visitor, only welcome to listen.
It's not like I can't live without you.                I've done that already.          It's just that suddenly being without you feels unnatural.                           I've never been willing to pull the sun out of the sky for anyone.

Memories are meant for visitation not for residency.                                   I never wanted to be loved.                 It's just that being in the same room as your presence hits me in a place within that tells me I could have fallen in love with you with my eyes closed.                            The memory of the sparkle in your eye that you had watching me when you thought I didn't see you has made a home in my mind.         It was as if something inside of you had caught fire.                                   It was as beautiful as it was unsettling.

Carefully pay attention to the signs that read "Do not touch" and "For safety reasons, stay inside of this line".  I wish you had brought a sledgehammer.

So, about last night.....

PICTURE IT:

When you're physically sick because of all of the insanity and there      is one thing in the world that would make it all go away for a      little while because you really suck at stress.  
And that "thing" is actually a person.  
And you've never needed anyone.  
Not ever. 
And for some screwed up reason that has yet to be defined, 
they do something to your soul you've never experienced yet             feel like you've waited for your entire life. 
And you don't understand certain behavior and it all defies logic to      you.
Things have been going on that have caused you to almost give up on this person entirely.
You restarted your dating website profile last week in an effort to patch over the hole their existence left in your mind.
Why not?
They won't commit to you.
Even if you don't want to, 
you're certainly free to do as you damn well please.
And you so don't want to.
You chat a bit.
Get hit on a bit.
Get asked out.
But your heart isn't in it anymore.
You know exactly who and what you want and nothing else is going to         do anymore.  
Patience and time;  
a new-found mantra that strangles you because you have anything but.
Because you're already in a heightened emotional state, 
     everything else is horrible too - including him.
A fact that is recognized after you proceed to lose your shit            entirely.
And you put your foot down that come Hell or high water you're going      to see them and get what you need.
Maybe he really was just as busy as he said he was.
Maybe he really is just the douche bag you think in your head that         he is. 
And yet, you canceled a date that you had set up so you could see him. 
It turns out to be way more than you expected...
          emotionally. 
You two say things to each other that have need to be said. 
You clarify that you aren't an option.
He clarified that you are wrong about what you said.
He also clarified that he is in no rush for anything.
You find yourself no longer feeling that cuddling feels more like            you're a hostage than it does comfort. 
It's actually quite nice and you even allow yourself to relax a bit.
You bond over politics and the debate on TV.
And then you fidget because you realize this and it starts feeling       like a hostage situation.
They tell you that you make them happy just being around them.
You spend the night in each other's arms.
The entire night.
And it's wonderful.
And you freak out inside.
And your brain is stuck in this peaceful, 
     floating space between La La Land and Pure Joy.
Then the vision hits you like a fork in the eyeball:
     What appears to be a tiny, black plastic hair elastic on the         bedroom floor.
After they told you that he hasn't had any other women there.
But it's the same type of elastic that you used in your daughter's        hair - only hers are rainbow shades.
Bullshit is called.
And the walls around your heart fly right back up 
     - filled with holes like Swiss cheese where they were napalmed      by the floaty space you were just in.
And you turn into this fact finding weirdo you don't even recognize.
You start feeling feelings.
A whole shitload of them all at once. 
An Olympic sized swimming pool full of allllll the feelings.
Right out there in the open.
And then you jump out of it spewing the weirdest shit out of your facehole....
it was like an out of body experience.  
You're more grossed out by the sensation of being a human being more      than the fact that you possibly feel things that you shouldn't      be.
He just goes on with no fucks given.
Wants to know "What my problem is".
"It's probably the housekeeper's".
Such is life.
He has no idea where it came from.
Thanks you for saving his cat's lives because they would have eaten      it.
You start spewing things out of your mouth that you have thought but      vowed (until you were angry) that you weren't going to say.
Now that you've calmed down and think back on it, you don't even          know who that chick was.
You get dressed in a hurry with "Maybe you should choke on it, d-        bag" dancing through your deranged head.
You get home.
You cool off a little.
You go "say anything" on him.
As if I haven't done enough of that already.

**Note:  When I'm sorry for doing or saying something, I have this odd tendency to over-admit to being wrong.  Like, I have to explain the root of the problem and my thinking behind it, so they understand where I'm coming from like it makes the apology more real; or something.  I don't even understand it myself, to be totally honest.  For lack of a better term, I get verbal diarrhea.

And then there was this:

There is a small possibility that I am a dickhead.

I was at work.  

Yes, I made it there without harming anything or anyone.  

I was even in a better mood.

I was minding my own business, and my friend E. from work comes over to chat before her shift like she always does.  

We've been talking about "him" since the beginning of things.

She's married.

She helps me understand men a little better and sometimes talks me off of the so-called homicidal ledge.

I tell her about last night. 

Then I tell her about this morning.

Halfway through my description of the elastic, she asks, 

     "Was it black?"

Dumbfounded as to how she could know this, I respond yes.

She smiles her gentle, motherly, "You're an idiot" smile that she         gives so well.

"It very well could have been an elastic that comes on a cord when you buy something that holds it together.  My husband is notorious for leaving them all over the house."

And there you have it;  I think we may have made a few passersby worried by the fit of laughter and stupidity that we melted into.