everythingismaintainedbylight

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

For a long while I have been Not Great! And that is obviously it's own dilemma. I tell myself "I'm depressed but it's because of my circumstances, if I can get out of it then I will be okay." But. Recently. I woke from a dream and had a realization. The dream itself was unimportant. What remained was this: I am numb. I do not feel anything as I once did. Not joy, happiness, sadness, despair. I am stuck under the ice, unable to break through to the surface. In my dreams I felt deep loss, aching, that soul consuming panic. And upon waking i found i couldn't fathom the experience. That was always the tell-tale when things were getting bad again, that distance between emotion and feeling. So what is this now, that I've been living with this numbness for so long without even realizing?

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

It's June and it finally feels like it, all the summer heat hitting at once. I spent the morning at a strawberry festival with my childhood best friend. When I got home, I put in the AC, and turned on all the fans. I keep the lights off until it's dark outside, I love the ambient lighting that fills my apartment. I've spent the rest of the day half undressed, sprawled out, the cats accompanying me. Days like today are what I imagined of life, even when nothing else is. This is where I want to be.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

Do you remember the days I'd call for no discernable reason? Maybe just to hear your voice, for you to hear mine. When did that stop? I wonder what the last call was, what bullshit we exchanged, without ever knowing it'd be the last time.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

I miss the overtired excited blur of an anticipated concert. I miss the over bright, overcast mornings spent in a tourist town. I miss the long neon sleepless nights one after another. I miss knowing who I was and what I want. I miss my home. I miss my lavender walls and old bed. I miss being so in love with life. I miss growing green things underneath my own two hands. I miss making plans. I miss the momentary confidence of being young and drunk and surrounded by friends. I miss the feeling of coming home to sleep in the center of my empty bed, and not knowing what it felt like to feel the missing body next to me. Will it come back, all of this? This curious passion for life? Can it?

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

I miss the overtired excited blur of an anticipated concert. I miss the over bright, overcast mornings spent in a tourist town. I miss the long neon sleepless nights one after another. I miss knowing who I was and what I want. I miss my home. I miss my lavender walls and old bed. I miss being so in love with life. I miss growing green things underneath my own two hands. I miss making plans. I miss the momentary confidence of being young and drunk and surrounded by friends. I miss the feeling of coming home to sleep in the center of my empty bed, and not knowing what it felt like to feel the missing body next to me. Will it come back, all of this? This curious passion for life? Can it?

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

You have shown me an ounce of kindness and now we are intertwined forever.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

I only ever wanted to be with you. I constantly think about one of the first days we spent back together. It was cold but the sun seemed brighter. We went to McDonald's for breakfast and your hand held mine the whole drive and it felt supreme, pristine. We went inside and I asked you about some drink. I got pancakes. We ate in the sunny restaurant and everything felt so good, so vivid, like this was the first day of my life and I was suddenly seeing in color. It's nothing to write about, I know, it's so mundane and simple and milquetoast. But I remember the sun, the brightness of the morning, the warmth of your hand, the color of your eyes, the hope that filled every molecule that buzzed with excitement that this was us and we were together and we were forever. Will you take me to McDonald's? Will you hold my hand? I still look for that glint in your eyes that told me you loved me before your words even could. I miss that. I miss your voice saying it too.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

It's 5am and I'm settling in for bed, after doing some household tasks and taking the piling trash out to the curb, finally showering the dreadfully hot day away. My head is killing me and I know the migraines coming. I wish I was sitting on a beach front somewhere seaside, over indulging in salt water Taffy sticking my teeth together and making my hands sticky. I wish you loved me still. I wish I made better choices, stood up for myself in the past when chances were at my feet for taking. But instead I'm here. I know I have more time, the future, all the world out in front of me but. Right in this moment I'm too tired to even think of all the work that needs to be done to get going. For now, I am here, I am still here. That is enough.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

I wish I could've kept the flowers you brought me alive. It's been years and I still feel guilt at my over watering, my drowning, I always give too much. I wish I could have cultivated the care needed to keep you in love with me.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

Being honest with myself: I miss you. We don't have a future together. You're not the person I fell in love with and planned a life with. But there is love remaining. Your presence brings me comfort still. I can acknowledge the future I wanted isn't viable, but still, I want you around. I want to fall asleep next to you. I want you to wash my hair. I want you to tell me the things no one else knows, I want to be the first to know. I know things won't be the way they were, I'm not asking for that, not wishing for it. I'm wondering what shape we can make now.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

June 15th 2024

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

June 2nd 2024

Strawberry festival, book barn, spice club

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

("I exist in two places: here and where you are")

Suzanne Buffam, "Vanishing Interior"

Sufjan Stevens, "The Only Thing"

Rene Ricard, "And Then I Tried"

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

Being in your arms is like seeing the light on at home as you drive by in the dark. Comfort, warmth, familiarity awaits.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]

Maybe, foolishly, I slept in your bed last night. I'd been out with my friends. I came home and you were in bed and I said goodnight. I showered and processed and tried to go to sleep in my own bed but I felt this big loneliness. The same that's been here, yes, but it was all I could feel. I heemed and hawed but conceded to my need. I went to your room and woke you asking "do you mind if I sleep with you for tonight?" And your soft reply "no". So I expected the format which we spent the last couple months: parallel forms each on their own side of the equator. But you shifted and lifted your blanket and welcomed me. Each time we woke, turned, you made sure to hold me. You opened your arms to cradle me like you did when I was the sun. And maybe, I know, this was foolish. Giving myself false hope of reignition. But in that vast empty night, left from loving faces and warm bodies, I missed your skin. I missed the warmth of you and the softness and the give of your skin against mine. I've never felt the awe people claim from church, or the grandness of nature, I've never been struck silent with marvel. But I was last night in your arms.

[everythingismaintainedbylight]