I can’t recall how we used to be

i’ve spent countless nights trying to understand him and the dreams. scrutinizing. moving. losing my language. getting blown away by conversations. i don’t understand how people can say they love me, as if it is easy. i don’t always want to speak out loud. i want to hold gazes, keep my eyes level with the ones who are talking. i do like it a lot when we e-mail past midnight, when friends give me reassurance. but it hurt too much to be taken by surprise, not knowing when the next dream would appear. it hurt too much to walk around in the streets, rain or snow or wind or sun or heat or memory all clogging up while i wondered why i wouldn’t talk, why i couldn’t tell her that i still cared about her, why i didn’t answer if someone were asking if we would be speaking soon. i feel better now. stronger, although i cannot explain my dreams. i cannot explain why i spend months trying to write despite the fact that i know there is something lacking. some people etch down in my memory. certain conversations, exchanges of glances. they make me write, every day. they let me create my stories.

in lisa hannigan’s song “sea song” there is a girl who is like a smile on a Monday. i know a girl, she makes me want to dance all by my lonesome in the kitchen 01.30 A.M. she is my smile on a Monday, it’s all right so it be so.

i guess i need some space. i’m awake until it’s so late that i can no longer be afraid of what the words mean. because sometimes it all gets to me – what would i be if i didn’t have words, who would i be if i wasn’t feeling this bitterness seeping out of me still? i have no idea. at times i think i know, but then i’m reminded of how i sound when the words are coming out of my mouth and i’m not so sure anymore.

maybe i’m the girl that becomes so happy that she cannot speak, she just has to feel the happiness anchoring her body. maybe i’m the girl who stares at everybody when she is inside trams. maybe i’m the girl who will begin to cry when she is sad.

i’ll let you know.

i always need time to get a proper look at things.
it’s soothing to know, but at the same time it feels like i’m stalling, like i’m avoiding the actual issues. i mean, i know i’m avoiding everything that doesn’t make sense to me – i mean, i know, okay? i just do whatever i’m used to doing. there is no poetry or music that can make up for that. and it seems to me that lately people have started noticing the way i avoid issues, the way i hide beneath my skin. knowing that shocks me off of my feet.

my friends me tell me, “oh, the cryptic you, oh, no, we don’t know her at all”, like it’s the truest joke in the world. it makes me happy.

i learn every day, about my possessiveness and about where my words take me.

my words live a life of their own, they seem to have slight learning difficulties at times, but my editor told me how the writer’s block is a part of the poetry and that the poetry hides, but we will find it. that is the kind of reassurance i appreciate.

there are some things that are not logical at all. like how i cannot answer questions about how i feel, i just feel. i have been trusting the logic to lead the way for me all my life. i often thought that if i let my feelings out in the open, i would explode. these days i rarely explode. i just ride the nauseating highs and lows.

i know that i am pretty possessive. i know that i need to feel connected to those people and things i want to stay close to. in its entirety it does not surprise me. it feels natural. but i am still not capable of seeing how i have this instant need to be possessive because my logic and my feelings do not concord most of the time, though it is the truth. it is brutal. i cannot understand how my feelings can possibly occupy so much space and i do not like to explain myself and my feelings when people ask.

my writing is the only place where i do not feel that other people have this exhausting request that is for me to explain all things. when i was younger i would hide in it, let it shelter me. at times i still let it shelter me.

my chest feels so heavy, it’s weighing me down to make up for the hysteria that settles in my stomach from time to time. i don’t know how else to explain it. i call it hysteria because my thoughts become all irrational as they are driven by fear and nothing else. i know there is no sense in these thoughts, but they always get to me. so i sit in my bed and my eyes are close to bursting when i listen to “where were you” by maria mena because she sings about “disguising the obvious / that i had no one to sing for” and “you could have prevented this / you could have prevented this / you could have prevented this / you could have prevented this / you could have prevented this / you could have prevented this / you could have prevented this / you could have prevented this”.   

every time i hear that song, i realize how beautiful the unconditional love is and that makes me incredibly sad. not because of the unconditional love, but because i have all these doubts that i really deserve to be in it with someone for the long haul. i cannot fathom how it can be the most beautiful, yet the most dangerous thing in the world.

and now that i’ve come down off that dark cloud one more time, all i feel is the gravity that keeps my chest in place.

i tend to think that unconditional love is the most dangerous, relieving thing. unconditional love is the one kind of love that makes me scared because i cannot believe that it is so good, so peaceful. this love is the love that makes me believe i’m worthy of it, and nothing else matters.

i don’t think i ever realized the depths of it until M took my hand and held it tight when i opened up my hand and looked at her. i had no name for it, i was just relieved that she didn’t ask why i wanted to be held.

now that i know this love by its name, i slowly learn to accept it more than before. i learn how refreshing and endearing it is to have a younger cousin who runs into your arms and holds her small arms around your neck, only because she is so happy to know that you’re there. i learn how happy i become when my closest Dutch friend tells me about nights on the beach or Norwegian cars he randomly spotted in his own country and recognized because of the signs. i learn about my state of mind when i’m shocked that people can tell me things so freely because it’s how they feel (about me).

i hope one day this subject won’t be so emotional to write about.