her-koss-portapros

[her-koss-portapros]

I didn’t expect to cry but I did.

I can’t remember exactly what he said that started it. It may have been the concern I could hear in his voice as I kept sighing. I had nothing to say, and really I couldn’t say anything as I fought tears.

He’s always been the one to ask question after question. He knows me but I don’t know him. I yearn to know him but he doesn’t let me in; this has always been the case. I didn’t know until this afternoon that he wants to have his own architecture firm. I guess we never talked about that in Florence. When we met each other we both had no tattoos. I have one now, he has at least 20. Three years changes so much, and you never realize how much things will change until its over.

I’ve been with people who make me feel next to nothing inside. And then I’ve talked to people who make me feel seen. When I feel seen, something opens up in me. All I can do is truly listen. I feel like a little girl in these moments, desperate for someone to wrap her up and protect her. But I’m an adult, and I have to figure out my own life. And talking to someone a continent away won’t solve my problems, it only validates them. And we probably wouldn’t like each other much anyways if we were face to face. I yearn for excitement - a reason to love living.

I am tired. And I’m depressed when I think of our time together almost three years ago. I don’t miss being that girl, but my heart aches for her. I’d go back and see it all through her eyes again if I could. And if he asked me to get on a plane tomorrow, of course I’d go.

[her-koss-portapros]

it's june and i'm depressed

i told myself that I would give myself the gift of a spoiled summer. spoiled in the sense that i will regularly start to cook for myself again, and i will commit to working out every other day. i decided on this because i recognized that i've been in a weird slump for the past two months. i've been doing good for the most part, but i've been relying heavily on vices and i haven't truly been nourishing my body and mind. i've been keeping myself distracted through the sadness and anger that i feel.

all of this is fine and dandy except today it hit me that it's june. i am now 24. i don't have the means or the plans to leave atlanta. i'm still working a job that sucks the soul out of me, and leaves me feeling hopeless and depressed. i am trying to fill a ego-driven void of validation by entertaining meaningless mental stimulation from men. i drink, i drink some more and then do it all over again the next day.

i can tell myself that i want to do better; i do. and exercising helps, journaling and painting helps, writing helps, cooking helps. but at the end of the day it's summer and i'm so sad. it's fucking june and i'm so sad. i cried for hours tonight; i yearn to sleep for a week straight. i yearn to sleep and then wake up to a different city, a different job, a different mind and a different life.

[her-koss-portapros]

I miss his touch, his eyes, the way he would hold me. I miss familiarity and chivalry and the giggling. I miss the bitching and complaining of daily life. I miss spooning him before I’d turn over to sleep. I miss a lot of things. Simultaneously, I don’t miss a lot of things. I regularly think about the relief I feel to be away from him. We don’t work; we never will.

[her-koss-portapros]

I toe the lines between different stages of grief every day. Some days it’s anger and other days it’s bargaining. Mostly anger I think. The audacity that someone must posses to push you away and then publicly lament to the world is astounding. It’s hateful, it’s rude.

I don’t regret breaking up and I don’t regret the time. But damn, own your feelings? You’re an adult? You are trying to move on; you’re on the apps. I can say “I’m happy for you” and there’s definitely a big part of me that feels this is true. But there’s a hateful part within me simultaneously that wishes for you to face rain everyday. I feel hurt.

The worst part is that he affects me in general. It’s unbearable to know he affects my mood and my thoughts. Who gave him that right? As any other man who has hurt my feelings?

[her-koss-portapros]

Fighting the urge to call you is unbearable. I don’t understand you. I don’t understand why you were so willing to leave, but now you whine. I begged you to take a look at the bigger picture but you didn’t. And if you were a man you’d just call.

[her-koss-portapros]

Every night has been a dream of you. I guess there is nothing to say, but my mind feels like an endless b- roll of things I wish I could tell you.

The pain feels too great to sum into a paragraph or two. A few sentences to look back on and change. I don’t know what to say other than I feel we fucked up. I can’t place where the tide turned. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.

The loneliness in tandem with the grieving is unbearable. These days I’m so lost, I can’t find my way to cry. I am still, disassociated, and numb. I put myself here, therefore I must find a way out. But nothing adds up. I keep coming back to the same conclusions over and over again.

The wind continues to move. We continue to change, I guess. I just don’t want to have to face it.

[her-koss-portapros]

april gratitude

getting to put myself to sleep every night with melatonin and not a beer

heating pad on my stomach even when i'm not bleeding

weird playlists that are private and only for me

eating the same dinner because nobody can tell me otherwise

water through a straw

sunlight on the skin + lots of spf .... freckles coming back

the concept of being on the stairmaster for 20 mins

my hair getting thick and long

a very very squeaky clean apartment

edge of hunger

tears

thinking about how i'm going to rot after work, when i'm still at work

seeing a nice meme about a dog or something

writing through the prozac mind block

iced green tea (unsweetened)

[her-koss-portapros]

untitled

a part of me died when you walked through my door for the last time. i've craved nothing but sleep since waking, and i can't even tell you how i'm feeling. i'm not allowed.

this pain is an intense cloud, or a fog. it's gray and casts a shadow straight through me. i've cried and cried all day.

i can't send you videos or make new playlists with you. i can't ride shotgun in your 4runner with the windows down. i am just a body. a vessel that used to interact with you. and now i have only memories and the tears that pair alongside them. i am left with nothing.

[her-koss-portapros]

og it girl

[her-koss-portapros]

[her-koss-portapros]

things i have to tell myself

it will pass because things always end up passing

wherever you go, there you are

you can find gratitude in the present and look forward to the future in the same breath

i have to create, even when it's bad. especially when it's bad.

i don't always have to identify with the buzzing anxiety in my head. it's a part of me. and me in totality is the sum of that part amongst many other parts.

[her-koss-portapros]

who do you search for?

what dress can I put on to feel 10x better about myself?

What are you trying to say to your 19 year old self?

Why do you still wear that necklace I gave you all those years ago? Did nobody ever tell you to take it off? What’s the lie you tell her about where ya got it?

[her-koss-portapros]

Mom was hot.

[her-koss-portapros]

vignettes from ny

film cameras clicks on the LIRR. me watching you watching me as the sunlight pours through the car. you and i are the only ones.

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teeth sinking into the best cuban sandwich i've ever had, and it's somehow on times square. the lady behind the counter asks if i want cinnamon on my cortadito, and i smile - she already knows the answer. i look at myself through the wall that's just a mirror.

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pacing through the MoMA. you made me mad but i know i'll forgive you because you didn't mean what you said. how can i really be mad when i'm standing in front of my favorite Picasso? I feel joy and I don't even like Picasso.

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it's spitting rain on us as we trudge towards the bull. nathan and i are desperate for a photo. there isn't a soul out on the streets - it is Sunday. we take photos with our eyes squinting.

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i take your photo as you bite into your free hot dog. the beer tastes gross but it was worth the dog. you look so happy amidst such a gross bar. we leave after 20 minutes and i keep shouting to you that "i'm so up right now."

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icy sheets of wind. you explain how it's "not even really that cold." i nod even though i don't really understand how anyone can live here without a large collection of wool scarves. we walk to the javits center and admire the glass before Deb takes us in.

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we laugh at the rockefeller tree having scaffolding all around it. and then we step into St. Patricks where I hold your hand as you cry. you had just bought me a chocolate fish and we almost peed laughing at it. i hold your arm; our heads touch.

[her-koss-portapros]

deadline weeks

the cycle continues, the cogs keep turning, etc.

I have a review coming up and I can't wait to be honest, instead of timid. Being an adult is all about pros and cons really - when do the cons of living in atlanta outweigh the pros? When do I make my next decision? is it worth speaking up for yourself?

I went back to New York and unfortunately I did love it.

"Unfortunately"

because now that means I have to do something about the discontent life I lead here. Although familiar, Atlanta increasingly becomes a place I resent for many reasons. The perfect car and the perfect apartment can't fix it. I used to think the job was perfect, too. interesting how thoughts and emotions evolve.

there are only a few people who genuinely want me to go and experience that for myself which I think is telling. and then there's the problem of my own brain telling me that i'm not talented enough to be successful up there. Even moreso interesting how some thoughts and emotions never evolve...

traveling to new cities this year has been one of the most fulfilling things I could have done for myself. It teaches me, and it gives me something to be hopeful for. a lesson. a burst of happiness. an alteration of how i perceive the world around me.

[her-koss-portapros]

she can't compare, unfortunately

she can try!

[her-koss-portapros]

scaries, the rest.

i make him go away and then i miss him, like usual.

The idea of working tomorrow does make me want to be sick, but there's something to look forward to in a month. There was a time, earlier this year, when I couldn't wait for a month to pass. Now I feel the opposite, yearning for time to slow.

I hate that the light is going away, and I hate that it's getting colder. I don't know if I'm built for any of this, even if it's a cool and grey, perfect Sunday.

___

This time of year reminds me of my old place in O4W. My studio across from the park that I never hung out at. There is something about the air that makes me want to curl up into a ball and turn down every obligation I could possibly have. And what's worse is that in my dreams, I'm stressing about work, the delusion of someone wanting to fire me, the truth that maybe I'm not as intelligent or capable as I see myself sometimes, or as others may see me. It all feels like one big facade on my side; I'm endlessly flitting between who I want to be, who I fear I can never be, and who I used to be.

And what is being comfortable, now? What is it to me? The path to everything ending up being nice and reasonable seems rigged or maybe a delusion of its own. And finding content within these days is the door I will never unlock. Nothing is good enough, and I cannot manage to be happy inside my own mind. Worse of all, it's not even cold enough outside to bundle myself in a trench and feel the chill of this horrible city's descension into a new, all too familiar season. It's as warm as my mind outside.