thereisntenoughspace

[thereisntenoughspace]

[thereisntenoughspace]

i’m terrified it won’t be as fulfilling for someone to love me as it will be for me to love them

i have to keep reminding myself to unclench my jaw.

[thereisntenoughspace]

hey

hey friend

dont kill yourself tonight ok

you have a really pretty smile and i know its not always easy to manage one but itd be a bummer if we never had the chance to see it ever again

youre really important and you matter a lot so stay safe and try and have a nice sleep

[thereisntenoughspace]

the trees that used to line my street

[thereisntenoughspace]

i just want someone to bear witness to my life. i want to know it’s not just days passing but that im living in them. someone has to watch. someone has to be there, someone has to witness my life happening or else how do i know im alive in it?

[thereisntenoughspace]

the trade.

[thereisntenoughspace]

to the stranger in the building across the street:

is it art or is it just the sun in your window the way your shadow floats on your wall while you sweep your floor?

can you see me too?

do my shadows dance for you?

[thereisntenoughspace]

you’d be so jealous if you knew all the love i have to give to someone else now.

it would fill you with vicious envy to know you won’t be loved by me.

anyway.

see you soon.

[thereisntenoughspace]

every sidewalk i’ve ever walked is peppered with your name

i’m telling everyone who walks near me all about you.

[thereisntenoughspace]

he says “i’m afraid to be a burden to people”

i don’t know how to tell him that i can tell.

how do i gently say i can see this fear sitting in him and pulling puppet strings on his wants and needs on his true desires and deepest yearnings.

i don’t know how to tell him i want it all.

i can’t articulate how the full weight of him will be a burden but it’s one i truly want. i can’t describe how great the need to know i’m trusted with such a weight of a person, and that that person could be him.

i’ve written for him before he told me things like this. and every time the echo was the same.

“let me be the one to love you,” my rib cage is screaming into the wall of my chest. “allow yourself to be loved by me please.”

one day he’ll hear it. one day (god please), he’ll be my joyous burden.

until then, all my love is here. and she is so patient.

a.a.s.

[thereisntenoughspace]

falling in love with you is so entertaining,

i don’t know how falling into friendship with you was so mundane.

a.a.s.

[thereisntenoughspace]

I’m going to try something new.

I’m going to try to be inventive, a surging force, an ever changing tin to the thrum of everyday life.

I’ll kill my insecurities with a broken metal bat and I’ll breathe deeply into every swing.

I’m going to be the woman I intended to be from the start. I know how now. And I’m not scared.

[thereisntenoughspace]

Someone grab my hand quickly, run and I’ll follow you. Capture my lips in your teeth, I’ll let you. Let’s leave, let’s make love, let’s fight, and let’s fuck.

take me with you take me with you take me with you.

[thereisntenoughspace]

Aching to be kissed and I am approached by someone who looks like every man I’ve ever wanted

He touches my shoulder where a teddy bear is patched into my knit sweater.

He says “I like this.”

His hand is calloused but gentle. I hold it. “I like this.”

Now a hand through the ends of my hair. “I like this.”

Meeting his eyes I touch his nose. “I like this.”

He grins. Caught. Surprised.

A finger to my lip. “I like this.”

A hand to his chest. “I like this.”

and on and on we like and we like and he soon learns he likes my heart too.

And I see him.

And he likes my mind.

And I hear him.

And he likes my body.

And I feel the bones of him.

And he likes my voice.

And I know the scent of him.

And he likes my eyes.

And I learn his ways.

And he likes my stories.

And I burn him into my brain.

And he likes my cooking.

And I pour my soul into his hands.

And he likes my ideas.

And I crawl into his skin.

And he likes my photos.

And I

And I

I am no longer a woman alone in a bar aching to be kissed. I am someone else’s bones.

For years there will be no explanation for how it happened, where my own bones went and when I left my own body behind.

And despite every effort to find faults, this will always be the pattern, like an inescapable maze I created and then forgot.

I am Sisyphus and I am the boulder.

I am Daedalus and I am Icarus.

I am the pomegranate. And I am Hades.

a.a.s.

[thereisntenoughspace]

I haven’t found a single gold ticket reason yet as to why our friendship ended.

I can’t remember the last message you sent before you stopped responding.

But in messages from years ago, glaringly obvious, are signs of an imbalance

Something maybe we both should have noticed.

I’ll never delete our old messages.

But I’ll also probably never write a new one.

We’re lightyears older than we were, and maybe that’s enough to know about it.

I must admit, however, despite the little it means, and the lack of your ear to it,

I do miss you. I really loved you.

I’ll never know how to be sorry about it ending though, I suppose.

and no one will ever be able to tell me why it did.

a.a.s.

[thereisntenoughspace]

I don’t want to be loved anymore, how exhausting waiting for someone to look at you and feel something, GOD it’s not that simple, it never was. I don’t wish for love.

From now on I only want to be and let them see me if they wish and let them turn away should they not. I’m no one’s desire but FINALLY how free it is to be a stranger, just a woman with a cool t-shirt or a funny pair of socks.

If they want to love me, they’ll have to ask. And me, I’ll never have to wait again.

I’m writing again, and I’m seeing so many beautiful things and calling my mother no longer chokes me. I can seek so much if I stop all this waiting. I can forgive you and I can forgive me, and I can learn about the way the trees here are different on my skin than the trees back home.

I refuse to be stagnant. If I cannot find love and it won’t come to me, I’ll choose life instead.

a.a.s.

[thereisntenoughspace]

— September 18, 1917 / Franz Kafka diaries