I’ve been staring at this blank page for two days now.

Make that three.

I keep typing words and then deleting them before they even become sentences.  I don’t need punctuation.  The words don’t stack up long enough to require periods or question marks and definitely not exclamation points.

They just begin.

They never end.

What does that even mean?  It means I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know how many different ways I can keep saying the same thing.

Do you know I sit here at this table most days or nights and I write these things to you?  Did you know I used to sit at this little island in my kitchen on a brown wooden stool and write my emails to you?  After you went away, I couldn’t sit there any more.

Maybe I’ll never sit there again.

I don’t know.

You’re not coming back.  That much is obvious. 

And I’m not going away but I can’t keep writing here.

I’ve had this song on repeat for the past several days.  Like a week straight.   I can’t stop listening to it in my car when I’m finally alone, after I’ve dropped Max off at school and am driving to work.  Or in the afternoons when I’m running around to different places.  My car is still my favorite place to listen to music.  I don’t have the luxury of putting in ear phones and tuning out the world when I’m at home. My car is my alone time.  That’s why I get to Max’s school 30 minutes early in the afternoons.  It’s the only part of my day that I’m truly alone and no one can reach me.  Well, they can reach me but I can’t do anything about it if they need me because I’m boxed in between a bunch of other cars and I can’t get out.  (Obviously, if there was an emergency I’d find a way out.)  Sometimes I listen to music while I wait, sometimes I read, sometimes I play a game, sometimes I take a nap.  Sometimes I stare off into space and think about all the things I’ve wanted to think about all day.  Never ever ever ever do I talk on my phone or text.  I think about you a lot sometimes while I’m sitting there.  I used to read your emails while I waited.  It was always one of the highlights of my day.  Especially when they were extra juicy.  I felt naughty and that felt good.

Honestly, I’ve been at a loss for words lately.  I open a word document and I stare at it for a while and then I just close it.  I’ve wanted to write here to you but I don’t know what to say anymore.  You already know all the things inside my heart.  At least, I think you do.  Did I leave something out?  I can’t bring myself to go back and read any of the stuff I’ve written to you over these last couple of months.  I don’t want to know what I’ve said.  I’m sure it’s been too much at times and not enough at others.   

Anyway, be well.

My door is open anytime you want to walk back through it.

I’m really struggling lately.

I didn’t want to tell you this because I don’t want you to worry.

This rope I’ve got tied around me while I dangle over the edge of this canyon is starting to fray and I don’t know how much longer it will hold.

I should have brought reinforcements but I didn’t know.

I didn’t know you may not be coming back.  It never occurred to me you might just stay down there.  Out of my reach.

I’m sorry.

I don’t know why any of this happened or why I wasn’t even worth a Fuck You.

I’d take a Fuck You over this nothing.

And I’m not trying to make you feel bad or guilty but if you had any idea how much I still think of you, how you still make my insides tremble and my eyes glaze over, you’d gladly give me that Fuck You on a silver platter and present it to me on your hands and knees so that I may take it and gain the strength to move on from you.

Except I don’t really want to move on from you.

I may be the dumbest person you’ve never met.  I may be the dumbest person I’ve ever met.

Who pines away for someone they’ve never known and only shared a couple of months of conversation with?  Honestly.

Who resurrects a dead blog to write to said person on an almost daily basis?

I am completely pathetic and ashamed of myself and yet I can’t seem to stop coming here.
My heart still beats for you.  When will it stop?

I feel hopeless and tired.

Anyway, here’s Solsbury Hill because I fucking love this song and I don’t even know what the fuck it means.  Every time I hear it, I’m transported to a place I’ve never even fucking been.

Today is not Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
His birthday was Wednesday, January 15 and he would have turned 91.
I don’t understand why we don’t celebrate him on his actual birthday.
I guess the long weekend is more important than his contribution and sacrifice.

This is a good essay:
http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/
The publication appears to now be defunct but I remember reading that years ago and it’s still relevant.

I donated to Bernie’s campaign (not because of that essay).
Don’t act surprised.  You already knew I was a bleeding heart.

I could not love this more:
https://twitter.com/chicagotribune/status/701034173524537345/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E701034173524537345&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F4231439%2Fbernie-sanders-arrest-photo-civil-rights%2F

I want to read  Travels with Charley again even though they say it isn’t true.
That Steinbeck mostly slept in hotel rooms instead of in his camper;
that he didn’t actually meet the people he said he met at the times he said he met them.
I don’t understand why we would be surprised by this.
Isn’t the nature of being a writer that you are fluent in the art of embellishment and humanity?
I’d like to see someone else carve out a slice of life and present it the way Steinbeck did.

I’m tired and it’s cold outside.
Max has a migraine. 

I miss you.
I hope you are finding happiness.

My coffee maker is finally making himself at home.  I’m so glad.  I was worried about him for a while there but he’s coming around.  He talks to me while he brews now.  Quietly at first and then with rising madness.  Just the way I like it.  It starts out innocent enough but soon goes rogue in all the right ways.  I love him.  I hope he’ll stick around for a few years or longer.

It’s Sunday morning and I’ve not even brushed my teeth yet.  If you were here, I would have already done that.  But you aren’t here.  And there may never be a person here to kiss in the morning.  Suddenly, that feels very tragic.  I’d like a person to kiss in the morning. 

I’ve never even kissed you in the afternoon.  I’ve never even kissed you at all. 

I’d still like to kiss you in the morning.

I cooked bacon, eggs and grits for Max just now.  We’re having a late breakfast because it’s Sunday and who gets in a hurry on Sunday?  He requested hot sauce on his eggs because he’s seen me do that.  Do you like hot sauce on your eggs?  I do sometimes.  Not always.  How do you take your eggs anyway?  I’d cook them any way you like them.  You already know that, though.

I’m having a hard time finding words lately.  I guess that’s probably a good thing since I have a tendency to say too much too soon and at all the wrong times.  If you’ve read any of this, I’m sure you must find me unhinged. 

Perhaps I am. 

Perhaps I am not.  

Perhaps your light is just so bright that I can still see it. 

The days keep piling up between us. 
It’s been more days than I know what to do with.  I keep looking at them, trying to hold them all in my hands but they keep falling out, spilling over. 

I scoop them up but there’s too many of them now. 
They don’t fit. 

I will sew a burlap sack to hold them all in, then. 
I will keep all the days between us in there and carry it on my back across the map until I reach your doorstep.

I will hold them out to you so you’ll see I never let go of any of them;
you were always in every single one of my days.

Do you still think of me?
Or am I but a distant memory that never took shape?

I come home wasted and spent, falling out of the backseat of a cab at 7:30 in the morning and onto my lawn just as the sprinklers come on, my dress hiked up around my waist, one side of my panties stuck in the crack of my ass; crawling on all fours across my lawn; scraping my knees on the sidewalk as I pull myself up the steps and hurl myself over the entrance of my front door; lying there all day half in and half out of this life in here and that life out there.

First of all, we don’t even have cabs around here.
Second of all, I don’t use sprinklers on my lawn; and
Third, I don’t wear panties half the time.

But GODDAMN

Sometimes I want to embrace this train wreck inside me and just yell YES COMPLETELY WRECK ME LET’S SEE WHAT THAT WILL LOOK LIKE !!!!

It would look a lot like me coming home at 7:30 in the morning and falling headfirst onto my lawn out of the backseat of a cab.

Only the sprinklers would jam and I would asphyxiate there in the greenish/brown blades of grass while the sun baked my exposed right ass cheek a crimson red.

And that’s where I’d eventually be found.

THAT IS THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

THE END.

On Love
By Kahlil Gibran

I can’t relax.  Ever.  I don’t know what it feels like to just exhale and let go.  I’d give anything to let go of this breath I’ve been holding for more than 29 years, sink down onto the ground, close my eyes and sleep the most beautiful and most peaceful sleep of my life.

I’d like to crumble to the ground next to you sitting under that old oak tree over there.  You’ve got one leg stretched out and the other bent at the knee.  You see me coming so you reach up and pull me down to you, letting me settle my head there in the space between your stomach and your thigh.  We don’t say anything at all.  Your arm comes down to rest across my belly, the warmth of your skin soaking through my t-shirt, spreading to the rest of me until I drift off right there in your lap under that old oak tree.

I’d like a sleep like that.

Look, I’m not really all that excited to be turning 29 again, ok?  So let’s not really make a big deal about it.  I mean, I’m super happy I’m still around.  I don’t want to go underground anytime soon but I wish this roller coaster would slow the fuck down some.  I feel like this has all happened way too fast and I don’t know how we made it around that turn just now or what in the hell we’re doing upside down so much of the time but…here we are.

We made it.

Well, I made it at least.  Your birthday isn’t for some time yet.  The way things are looking, I won’t get to help you celebrate your next decade and that really bums me out.

I’m not sure this situation can ever be cured.

I’m afraid I will have to live the rest of my days with this expansive chasm ripped right down the center of my heart.

I am fully prepared to do just that.  I’ve been building this bridge, one plank at a time, so I can travel back and forth across it in search of you.  I don’t know which side you may show up on so I have to patrol each one all day long.  Don’t worry.  I’m not tired.

Anytime you choose.  I’ll be here.

I know if you were here you would tell me Happy Birthday so I’ll say it silently to myself from you.  I’ll pick out a really pretty or salacious poem or piece of writing to gift to myself and I’ll read it later tonight when I get home.