synecdoche.

I’ve Followed Your Eyes Long Enough to See You Looking at the Door.

When you started spending the night you would wake me up in the morning as you recoiled from the light coming through the blinds. I used thumbtacks to hang a blanket over the window so we could sleep in perfect darkness at all hours of the day. The hurt romantic part of me wants to find symbolism in this and say something poetic about how removing you from my life might bring some light in. However, I know this to be untrue. The light in my life right now is the light you’ve brought in, the complication is if you’ll leave it or take it back.

Part of me wants you to leave.

Part of you wants to leave.

I don’t know what comes next.

I told you that I would pay for all of your happiness with my own and I meant that. No matter what happens this was healthy for both of us. Our involvement in each others life has taken us from one point and transported us to another. We don’t need to be upset about this or weighted down with negative emotions. We made each others lives better for a moment and that is what matters.

For your part you taught me how to look forward again. You reminded me what anticipation felt like.

If I can’t love you as a lover than I will love you as a friend.

For my part, I had some idea of what your life was like when we became involved. In a way, I had already been you. The choice you made with me was the logical next step in removing yourself from the life you once lived. I understood the transition and in the amount of time we’ve had together I worked hard to acclimate you. I gave you what I could and now you must decide.

Each choice we make changes the trajectory of our lives.

Your choices run in opposite directions.

So do mine.

Part of me wants you to stay.

Part of you wants to stay.

I always told you that your uncertainty made me uncertain.

New Eyes

To the person who has recently found this page and knows me personally:

You should not read this for the already stated reasons.

That’s all.

The Emotionally Taxing Holidays I Could Live Without.

Tonight at work it was hard to move. I dragged my tired body around the restaurant and spoke to tables in a manner that thinly veiled my distaste for them. My personal theory is that everyone secretly hates the holidays, no exceptions.

Special events and dates and holidays are so tiring that anything remotely enjoyable about them is eclipsed by the inconvenience and hassle of their comings and going.

My job is to lie to people and pretend I like them. I am usually very good at my job. The difference between who I am and who I pretend to be is startling. After six years I am exhausted and fake. I am unhappy and apathetic. I’ve seen so many faces that I don’t pay attention anymore. Everyone breaks down into categories that are frighteningly predictable. Nothing surprises me. I am desensitized and bored.

My mother ruined Christmas in my teens by trying too hard. I’ve never gotten over it. She would fill our tiny living room with lavish gifts she had purchased with the electric money. She once told me that from the months of December to April the utility companies are not allowed to shut your power, water, or gas off. It’s illegal to do so. I was in middle school when she told me this. I have a book worth of similar information that my mother has filled my head with.

I rejected material goods for a couple years and boycotted Christmas at my house. I threatened to stop coming home for the holidays.

New Years is about purging ourselves from the family functions and the obligation of being extra nice to people. We’re supposed to get so drunk we forget our names and piss our pants. Sometimes that’s the only way to survive.