peace

and just like that, it's gone. reality is a splash of cold water that hurts at first but then you realize... things are much clearer when you're awake.

sand through the fingers

it hurts it hurts it hurts.

this feeling is familiar.

lying in bed, staring at the phone, tossing and turning through sleepless nights. the tears stay unshed behind a very, very thin veil of a smile, and linger there all day long.

and you remember. the day you made the decision that you were going to cross that line and that it was going to be worth it. you always think it's going to be worth it.

but it's not. and now, you would give anything to go back to the day you could just call each other up for coffee, for dinner, for a walk along the river. for a friend. it can just never be that simple anymore.

and you miss that version of yourself: the one that didn't hurt, the one who believed, the one who could love without abandon. that is the person i'm most afraid of losing, and she's slipping...

cry

i could burst into tears at any moment.

what i talk about when i talk about love

it's crazy how at the age of 24 i sometimes catch myself thinking i know everything there is to know about love. it takes barely a rustle in the wind to show me how obviously wrong i am, all the time.

i get these questions all the time: "is there someone?" "do you like him?" "have you gone on a date?" and for the first time in my life, i can't answer any questions with a straight answer. not that i haven't had complicated... situations in the past, but usually even complicated relationships can be at least summarized simply. any kind of understanding of what i'm going through now would require an afternoon of coffee, and then maybe hard liquor.

i have always stood by the idea that love can be the simplest thing. and i guess i still do. it's just that i had largely ignored the breadth of emotions that stop just short of it. the last time, i loved so wholeheartedly that nothing on my side was confusing. sure it was messy in a multitude of other ways, but i knew exactly where i stood. now, it's realizing that emotional attachment does not necessarily, but may, translate into romantic chemistry; that romantic interest can be gauged on a very wide scale; that an intense and instantaneous connection does not translate into any kind of relationship compatibility. in other words, i'm a little jaded.

i can't shake the feeling that we've dived into the deep end without learning how to swim...

stranger

you know how they say sometimes you wake up and don't recognize the person next to you at all? that the person you married disappeared somewhere along the way, and suddenly you realize you're sleeping next to a stranger?

i loved you for so long that i didn't notice that the person you were is gone. at times i still get a hint of your former self, but mostly i can barely recall your face. and now, from an unbearable distance away, i'm still grasping at your empty shell; a shadow of who you were.

i spent so much of my short adulthood loving you that i barely know how to be without it. it fueled so much of who i became--my hopes and dreams, my fears and insecurities. the truth is, i'm a little lost without you. but i'll learn.