I want a night out.  I want to go out and listen to music and drink too much and kiss too many people and crawl home with my dress torn and my lipstick smeared and I don’t give a damn who sees me fall out of the cab and onto my front lawn at 2 in the morning or 7:30 in the morning while the school buses are passing by and the dads are throwing their briefcases onto their front seat for their long commute into the city; their wives staring at them stupidly from the kitchen window.  I don’t care if they see me there; face down in the damp grass, the sprinklers cleansing me of the night; my dress hiked up above my hips, one side of my panties stuck in the crack of my ass.  I want to crawl on all fours across my lawn and scrape my knees on the sidewalk as I try to lift myself up my front steps and open the door, throwing myself across the threshold of the entrance; collapsing there half in and half out of that life out there and this life in here. 

I hope my bloody knees stain the carpet in this front room and I hope the scars are as magnigicent and as huge as all the life out there that I’ve spent in here.

I want to lay there all day until the sun moves its way across the length of my house and I find myself in the shadows again.  Then, I want get up like I was never down and wash the old night off of me; get dressed again for right now.  I want to open my front door and walk smoothly down my sidewalk into an awaiting cab.  I’ll sneak off into this night and take as many lovers as will have me before there are no takers at all.  I want to be wretched and dirty and filthy and vile  and radiant and magnificent and on fire and I want to do it as much and for as long as this old body can stand.

One.

Do you remember when I sent you that poem by Kim Addonizio and you said you had met her and had an autographed copy of one of her books?

Of course you remember.  I don’t even know why I asked.

My Heart

Kim Addonizio

That Mississippi chicken shack.
That initial-scarred tabletop,
that tiny little dance floor to the left of the band.
That kiosk at the mall selling caramels and kitsch.
That tollbooth with its white-plastic-gloved worker
handing you your change.
That phone booth with the receiver ripped out.
That dressing room in the fetish boutique,
those curtains and mirrors.
That funhouse, that horror, that soundtrack of screams.
That putti-filled heaven raining gilt from the ceiling.
That haven for truckers, that bottomless cup.
That biome. That wilderness preserve.
That landing strip with no runway lights
where you are aiming your plane,
imagining a voice in the tower,
imagining a tower.

Well.

I’m still hovering here in the darkness
Aiming my heart at your tower.

Your voice is all I can hear.

Two.

This song keeps showing up.

I don’t know what it means.

But I wish you’d come down and see me again.

I could have loved you.

Maybe I already did.

Perhaps I still do.


 

Sam died this morning.

I’m glad I took a picture of the roses he gave me.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. 

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.