I'm sorry if I ruined your life

Existing inevitably results in time spent with others. People come and make memories, they build their nests in your chest and leave their favourite albums in your car and their video games strewn on your bedroom floor and occasionally you may find one of their old t-shirts in your drawer. Then they leave, or they give you enough reasons for you to take your leave, and they're not just fond memories now, but relics from a simpler time. You pick one up and you turn it over in your hand and wonder, what was all of this for? How amazing it is to find a piece of history! but with discovery comes responsibility, and are you meant to catalog all of these things, write about the emotion they invoke and the surrounding context and the time which they date back to? What are the proper steps to be taken after finding such things, whether they be in your head or objects that survived? Survived what? There is so much to think about that you render the warm stirring of nostalgia to be grossly exaggerated, the pain involved outweighs any satisfaction; and so you regard it as bad move, something to be avoided at all costs. Escapism will get you far, and the days become fewer and father between when you will unearth your ancient heart. New nests are built, but the remains and the memories of those former homes are like callouses, like stains, like rotting leaves under the last of the winter's melting snow.
And like a cancer, you don't get to choose if they're malignant or benign.

i used to write poetry that expressed how i (still) feel

You announced that life is beautiful,
a sacred thing;
it was not a suggestion, nothing like a harmless challenge
and I was not permitted to be discordant.
Again I was reminded,
no, prod and subtly forced in your Nazi method
to participate in your joy.

Through the looking glass is not all
white rabbits
small, harmless creatures
with pink eyes winking up at you,
daring you to scoop them up in your Mother Teresa hands.
The fur does not stay white and smooth
like a baby's skin, like ivory
because children are pure, white as snow.
That snow melts.

Where is your great happiness now?
Raping and pillaging the countryside;
he wasn't even beautiful when he was born,
rupturing from the only good home you've ever provided.
There was pain - you snap at men, who don't understand -
you both bled;
but he knows that better than you do.

Existing is a curse.
I tried to warn you about the cracks in the sidewalk;
he just steps on them to spite you
and I'm stranded,
like you were,
to bless this accursed Earth
with more sanguinary plebeians

Sarah Belbeck, 2010

how do you write about love?

I wasn't planning on writing anything today, but I came across this photo and was instantly inspired to attempt to do this very thing. I'm not sure what other people go through when they feel positive emotions towards another person. I'm not sure if some people find it easy to explain why they love someone, or if it's universally been accepted as one of those tasks that we can't seem to succeed at, no matter how hard we try. The words never seem to come out right, and especially not at the right time. We tend to think telling someone you love them and that you would do anything for them is a candlelit dinner or sitting under the stars on a warm, summer night kind of affair, but it usually comes up at inopportune times. I understand entirely. I know that once you find those words, you don't want to let them go unsaid. What if you never find the right combination of letters and sounds again?

I often wonder what it is that other people answer to a question like, "why do you like your significant other?" Is it because they're attractive, or they're fun or make good jokes, or something deeper than that? How do you know when you love someone? Is it just a feeling? I know I believe that love and relationships take mutual effort, but what is love, that moment where you fall into it? How do you explain that? I've been thinking about how to explain these things that I often take for granted, because I think that's what happens sometimes when you don't try to pinpoint what it is that you really feel. For myself, I tend to let it become this thing that is never going to be properly voiced, so I stop trying. I am a mess of inaudible grunts and smiles and grabbing hands when it comes to spending time with the person I love. I have to be satisfied with, "you're so cute, I love you!" because nothing else seems to be good enough. I'm not even satisfied with those silly things that fall out of my mouth, because they don't fully capture the complexity of the emotions I experience. Then there is this whole archive of what it's meant to look like based on films and television series we've all seen, or how our parents act or our friends and their boyfriends or girlfriends. Everyone has this preconceived idea of what being in love looks like, and no matter how hard to try to erase that from our memories and work on the living person in front of us, we still get caught up in those beliefs. I don't want to say things like

you mean everything to me

I want to do everything I can to make you happy

I would do anything for you

I want to share everything with you

I don't like it when you're not around

Such words reek of desperation. They remind us of the kinds of people we don't want to be in relationships with. No one should make another person the center of their universe, right? Isn't that what people believe? So how do you express those sentiments without saying those things? You usually don't. You usually suppress them and say something simple and safe instead, even if it isn't what you really meant. Thus begins the cycle of feeling like you have never expressed how much someone means to you. You're constantly thinking of new ways to do it, but if it's close enough to matching your emotions, it's usually not kosher.

I know what people mean when they say some cliche thing like, "it's just a feeling, you can't explain it." But the writer in me wants to be able to convey something so real and so universal. It causes me distress to not be able to write about the love that I have. I have to keep trying. I carry a notebook with me at all times. I try to write down the little details that make me feel that dull ache in my bones, the things that accelerate my heart, the moments that make me smile. I am trying.

 If only I were a poet.

Pablo Neruda

“Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way than this: 

where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. ”

Such desperation smells much sweeter when written in stanzas. 

those moments when

there is nothing incredible happening to you, but you feel like joy is a tangible thing and it's running through your body, like it's in your bloodstream or perhaps even under your skin, rushing, and it's pleasant and invigorating and you can release your anxieties, your tension, the way you worry about everything that has nothing to do with you
and part of you wants to hold onto it, feel it going over your palm and between your fingers, make sure it's real and not going to be fleeting, flying or flowing or falling away any time soon, but the part of you that has let go of everything forces you to simply take what has been shown to you and accept it for what it really is
a rare piece of heaven, where the sun is just warm enough to kiss your skin but there is no way you will become uncomfortable, where the wind is mild and your hair billows around your face like a halo and your favourite song is playing in your ears, or maybe not your favourite but somehow it fits the moment perfectly and you couldn't have known that before this feeling came along and grabbed ahold of you, robbing you of your melancholia
you're walking across a parking lot, you were doing errands or wasting time or thinking about nothing in particular aside from how awful you are and how long it will take you to get back home, your feet hurt and you just came from the store but of course now that you're on your way, you're thirsty, and suddenly you realize, this is it. this is what I've been postponing my own death for, this is what I've been waiting to feel and I always wanted it on my own terms, I've always only wanted it to be a result of something I've done
but life isn't so beautiful when you memorize a formula and plug in the data and restrict and abstain and measure and plan and wait, the waiting, the expectations are what keeps us from ecstasy
you can be doing nothing meaningful, feeling only despair, knowing you're nothing special when this moment comes along and sweeps you off your feet and pulls you lovingly into the lap of liveliness because that's what it does, it makes you feel alive, and it doesn't take a hike to a mountaintop or a large sum of money or a jump from a plane to feel a rush
most of our lives will be insipid but I've never felt so alive as when I was walking across a parking lot on a Wednesday afternoon