i hope i never figure out who broke your heart

I hope I never figure out
Who broke your heart
And if I do, if I do
I’d spend all night losing sleep
I’d spend the night and I’d lose my mind
I’d spend the night and I’d lose my mind
I’d spend all night losing sleep

atnspsa,

These lyrics make me think of you. I want to get to the bottom of what Karen Armstrong would call* the mystery at the centre of your being. I want your mystery. I want to know who broke your heart, or if you’ve never got it broken the way you’ve broken mine.

I think you’re too good to not have had your heart broken yet. I think you’re too distinct to not have had it broken.

But I know that if I know it’ll get me nowhere. I will be no better off knowing what makes you you because rationality turns to bullshit when you’re trying to understand someone. Maybe I can say, hey, A happened to you and that’s why you treated me like that. Or that week B happened so you smiled at me. Or tomorrow it’s C-day so you’ll laugh and tell me what you think is the truth. But that won’t mean anything. Initially I thought the mystery of a person — once you know it — is gone forever, dissipated. But how can it go like that? It can’t. We like writing things, people off. Once we think we’ve got to their core, we feel, okay, well, my job here’s done, I understand.

I hope I never figure out what makes you you because if I think I do then I don’t. I’m no better off, just have extra “knowledge” saddled on to me. I don’t want to figure anything out. If you tell me, if you think it’ll make it easier for me to know something about you, if you think it’ll give me some insight, by all means, go ahead… but jeesus, I hope I never figure a single thing out about you. Not by clues or nail polish or shoes or anything (I’ve got some really bad writer habits which would coincide with a stalker’s habits I suppose: noticing people I like, and little things about them. It used to be interesting but I’m giving it up).

N

*I don’t know why that term stuck in my head…probably because my lit teacher repeated it later and it sounded MUCH MORE LYRICAL without the religious context

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BTW HI THERE GUYS! IF YOU READ THIS BLOG YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW THAT I INTEND TO MOVE IT SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE. I SHALL START THE TRANSITION BY ANNOYING YOU GUYS EVERY TIME I POST ABOUT THE  FACT THAT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY SUBSCRIBE TO MY OTHER BLOG WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY THIS SAME BLOG, ONLY ON BLOGGER.

screwed up

dear self

[i just thought about it; this belongs on a post-it in a prominent place]

STOP FALLING IN LOVE WITH PEOPLE. IT’S NOT OKAY. IT IS UNHEALTHY AND ONLY CAUSES YOU PAIN. FIND A BETTER ACTIVITY, SAY COMING UP WITH BRILLIANT STORIES AND/OR BLOG IDEAS TO ENTERTAIN THE GOOD CYBERCITIZENS OF THE INT3RN@TS.

stopdoingunhealthythingstoyourselfstopdoingunhealthythingstoyourself

stopstopstopstop

damn it.

anotherloveletter #2

I’ve been thinking about you and since I can’t stop I will write you another letter. Maybe I can tire myself out just writing one letter after another, who knows. Maybe this will just get worse. It doesn’t matter either way just now, I’m tired of thinking about things and how they turn out so I will write you this letter and throw it to the winds or the ocean or however you see the internet, and maybe some time after I’ll pull it back and re-read it and toss it again.

I’m working on this play I thought of today. Not actually writing it right now, just thinking about it. It feels nice to sometimes hold things in, even things you’re raring to share, just so you can enjoy them some. I have stories to tell you that I won’t tell anyone else, I’ve saved up little jokes and clever things you’d like so I can tell you when we see each other. I’ll send you the play when it’s done, it’s about the idea of history and past selves.

***

Writing letters reminds me of Florentino Ariza and the guy in The Notebook, which I think sounds too much like Love in the Time of Cholera. Maybe I’m like one of those guys. I’m trying to work out how I feel about that and I’m drawing a blank. I can be anyone, you know, and that bothers me. That’s why I’m writing that story about history because it’s troubling me a lot, it troubles me a lot, the idea of identity. Kundera’s outlined it wonderfully in his well-titled book Identity — there you go, another book that involves letters.

Ah, I wanna re-read it. It’s really good. So, anyway — identity. I thought of a story idea related to that too, but then I realized that that story idea is basically my life.

So I won’t be writing it, but feeling the effects of it anyway.

***

anotherloveletter

You,

You, you crazyamazingwonderful person. This is for you, to you:

Let me tell you about inadequacy: it’s something I feel a lot, it’s something I fear a lot. I don’t talk about it. I don’t talk about a lot of things, I leave them unsaid or leave cryptic indecipherable hints about them. Mostly they just translate into sarcasm or bitterness on my part. That’s why I’m the way I am. I have a lot of unhappy inside.

I wouldn’t tell this to anyone but you. I can write it down, I can let a million strangers read it, but wouldn’t say it to anyone’s face. I can see myself and you, and I can see myself telling you all this. Right now, I can, and that’s important. At different times of the day I think different things –

Mostly I daydream about you. It keeps me out of trouble, you know, thinking of you. Last week I ended up collapsing, the center that had held for months just gave way, just like that, and I thought seriously about killing myself then. It’s not been this bad for a while; even December wasn’t this bad, and neither was July, I think. I’ve been pretty clean. But I think it was the combined effect of all those things coming together. What I didn’t think in July I thought about last week.

There’s still things I haven’t thought about.

Last week, I thought of going to you and telling you about July. But I can’t talk to anyone, I can’t open up my mouth and utter the words, can’t even fucking type them all out. I tried once with Simmy but it wasn’t the right time and now things are…well, mostly back to square one. My mind goes to dark places, and when it does it goes to July first.

so, like I was saying — last week. I couldn’t think of a reason to live and I thought, If Mount Holyoke goes out of the picture, I don’t know what I will do — and I just sat there on the floor feeling shitty with my head splitting and I just thought of you a lot and it helped.

The reason I don’t see myself telling you all these things is because I like you so much. Because if I say these things then what if you don’t like me anymore. What if you don’t think I’m cool. What if you see through me and see that I’m just a depressed teenager, nothing more, nothing special (which is how it is), and what if that leads to disenchantment. And then what? I lose what I have with you, and losing that might just ruin me at this point in time. And so I don’t want to tell you things about me though they are the really important parts, things that are secrets and make up my world, not because I lack faith in you or your ability to understand or whatever, but just because I think you’ll grow bored with what I really have to offer.

I will never be enough for you, and I know it, and I get that.

You’re awesome. Know that. I thought of a way to put you down in words, and realized that basically you do whatever the hell you want. You have no fear. You’re beautiful, insane and free. Just watching you speak, just watching you think, inspires me. It’s weird but that’s how it is. Someday I will tell you about this, in real life, just so you know that I celebrate your existence. I want you to be like this forever, please be like this forever.

I will come back for you, that is if you stay. I will come back for you. Even if I end up living at the bottom of the friggin ocean in an experimental underwater city, I will take some time to get back to you, to write to you, to see you.

I don’t know anyone quite like you.

N