Crushing? Yes. Crushed? Not yet. Wait for it.

Once upon a time my finger hovered over the publish button.

It took strength of will to touch it.

I had allowed my feelings to spill out on the internet before where people could see it, but this was bigger than that.

And I was scared my mom would read it.

She threw everything I had ever written into the fire when I was a teenager. She had read a few things and deemed them pornographic. Ironically I hadn’t had sex yet, but I wanted to.

I am sorry Mom.

This cannot possibly be what you wanted for me.

But it’s what I want. Mostly.

Consolation prize? I am happy. Mostly.

Except right now. I’m contemplating an Aleve/whiskey combo to keep my head from being torn in two.

I have this paranoia about my words looking like verbal vomit on a white blank page.

It’s happening again.

Michael Xavier read something I consider to be subpar and he liked it. Later went on to tell me I have ‘the gift’ I just need discipline. I am trying honey. I am holding onto his words and the rousing choruses of ‘me too’ that occur when I hit the publish button now.

I am a soothsayer, daydreamer and storyteller.

It’s easy to let my mind wander to the past, exhume what I find there and dress it up for viewing.

I gloss over everything with high gloss primer, shellac the shit out of my exes until they shine like diamonds, sand down the edges that used to leave splinters in my fingertips.

“Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.” Chuck Palahniuk

They are just stories, with window dressing and pretty quotes to hide the smell.
It’s easy. But it isn’t safe.

I know what I look like making them look good.

A paint-splattered whore of a girl with a distinct red blood trail from sternum to sleeve. Hearts chosen residence. We’ve talked about this dear heart, it’s not safe. And I look a frightful, flaky mess. Because I am.

In my 42 years on this plane one would think I’d have learned the only thing more dangerous than fluffing up the past. Daydreaming about things yet to come.

I knew it before and I forgot.

Those are the stories trying to split my skull right now. They want out and gone. The plug has been pulled and they can’t live anymore.

Hope sucks.

When someone leaves you experience a loss. Can’t be helped. Connections severed. Conversations lost. The memory of how it felt to be around them starts to fade with no hope of renewal. They occupied a space and it is tangibly empty. There are things left unsaid and undone. It’s messy. And the hardest thing to scrub out is the thing I knew I shouldn’t be doing. Thinking ahead.

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.” Lao Tzu

Today was supposed to be duck and collard greens. Snuggles and a cd I made him. Coconut oil and massages. Lightning sex and more touching and talking. Didn’t seem dangerous at the time to think ahead to Saturday.

Everything felt natural and good.
I didn’t know.

Everyone else fell away.
I let them.

No search parties. Didn’t need anyone else. I felt safe where I was standing.
I wasn’t.

Do you remember the game with the pieces that would pop up and make a mess if you didn’t put them away fast enough?
That was my platform and the timer ran out. In my defense I didn’t hear the ticking, I was too busy listening to music and the things he said. Now there is a mess of plastic shrapnel. I’ll put it away here. Tidy up.

I have that fear gnawing at the pit of my stomach again. Past says it is akin to the fear of my mom reading this. I know the Giant is. He told me.

Over before it started.

He made a choice yesterday, and surprise. It wasn’t me.

In retrospect it would have been easier to sugar coat and swallow had we both stayed in a state of blissful ignorance. But I told him how I felt, deeper than I had let on. I extrapolated how he felt about her, deeper than he let on. The edges are jagged.

Past popped up around midnight, whispered in my ear it was ex-hubby and sisterwife all over again.
One man, two relationships. That’s not how this works.
That, and the whiskey/Aleve combo allowed me to drift off finally.

Real funny Universe.

He made a choice before he asked me, papercut.
Stuck with it when I told him the truth about how I felt about him, flesh wound.

And now he is in here. Navigating my guts.

This is infinitely worse.

He said he would have loved hearing how I felt a week ago.

I said it, here, in this blog. I sent him the link but not until last night. Hazard of being a writer I guess, walking around with all these feelings, getting them out and not putting them where they ought to be. In my defense the last time I tried to tell someone how I felt they ran, and the one before.

It’s only been a month, a week, 3 dates, countless conversations. I said things here I didn’t say to him.

Past dictated it wasn’t time yet. Past also is screaming that it didn’t matter. I didn’t have all the information either, there was more to ‘her’ than he let on. It is the only reasonable explanation. He told me he knows what he is giving up. He doesn’t. He might yet figure it out and that is terrifying.
I think it’s infinitely better to get left by someone who doesn’t know anything. Ego says so anyways. Papercuts versus sucking chest wounds.

I told him he wouldn’t even want to say hi to me after he wandered around in here.

He said challenge accepted.

This isn’t a challenge, this is my life. He scratched the surface and walked.

I am 15 again. I am the culmination of romantic ramblings and musings, pornographic pieces of paper that keep getting misunderstood and thrown away.

I have a whole magical kingdom inside me, a universe barely contained. And wearing the crown is that teenage girl with a head full of stars, who still believes in love and doesn’t have a clue about anything but keeps writing and trying regardless.