by Ace Gray
Today is not that day though. Not yet. Thank God. Thank the universe and the Gemini constellation too.
But today IS the day I told them. I told them that I’m moving. And if they know, you will soon. So, I had to tell you. I told them that in three months I won’t work there anymore. And you…
Well my mouth—my mouth that craves you—had to tell you that I’d never have you. That I was leaving you. I said the words, “I gave my notice. I gave my notice because we’re moving to Colorado,” but there were all these other things that wove in between the consonants. At least in my head. In my head I told you that I’m moving because of you. Because you helped me find me again. Because you brought me home. Because that feeling is so damned addictive, I’d leave everything behind to chase it and that alone is a reason to leave. I mean, I’m not free to…well…any of it. I want to stay. I want to stay with you. And I’m not free to…well…do that either. It’s so confusing. We’re so confusing. So wrong and raw and right all at once. You’ve shaken me and left me muddled (and drinking far too much.) Somedays I need to leave to get away from you. Somedays I need to leave to find the me that’s worthy of you. Maybe even find a way back to you… I can only pray that I’ll still know you, still talk to you, still be able to reach out and touch you when I find that version of me. I’ll send you a meme or a GIF or something.
When I told you I gave my notice, when I told you I was moving, there on the third floor of the parking garage today, the other words woven in were that I’ll miss you.
And honestly, I don’t know if I’d survive missing you if you were really mine to miss.
Those are a different kind of eggshells to tiptoe on. I hear the echo deep down in my bones.
February 12th, 2018
To the man I’ve fallen for,
I spent the weekend with you. With you and him and her.
You and him isn’t new. I’ve gotten used to hiding the way my smile is tied to yours. How they even pull up in the same crooked mess sometimes now. I’ve harnessed the cringe that tenses my shoulders and tweaks my eyeball when he says something stupid. I’ve mastered the way to quietly joke it off between us. To send you something witty under the table, via text, where I can read and read and reread all your messages. Where I can live and live and relive those moments between us.
But with her…with Jenna was something new entirely.
It wasn’t the stabbing pain I thought it would be. More like the beautiful dull ache that reminds you you’re alive, and even under the weight of the world, you still get to inhale and exhale. Don’t get me wrong, it hurt to see your long fingers holding her small hand. And to watch you watch over her, to see you run the stairs from time to time to leave the party to give her water, pillows, a blanket, you. It hurt, but it was you, the way I always pictured you would be. Strong and caring, attentive without being overbearing. A crutch to lean on, and someone to push you to fly.
I expected nothing less of the man I’ve fallen for.
She’s sweet and kind and smiles a lot like you, too. She’s genuine. She conquered her fears to walk into a house party full of strangers and go toe to toe in fine beers and cheap gin. Of course I like her. I love you.
But she reminded me of something gut wrenching.
She reminded me that I’m not yours. I’m not yours and you’re not mine.
I think I forgot that along the way. In the abstract, anyway. I mean, of course there were these hurdles. There was him. And her. And the move across the country. But there was hope too. Hope that the smiles were for me but also the girl that might be yours. The looks from underneath your thick eyelashes were looks for that girl too. But now, with her, I don’t know. Reality filtered in beneath those hanging lights in the kitchen, and I don’t know if you can see me through her. Through him. Maybe you can’t see me at all. Not like I saw you last night anyway. Not in the way that told me what it really is when your looks and smiles are sewn with heartstrings to someone else’s. I told myself I couldn’t ever ask you for the truth because of him, because you were too good of a guy to even formulate an answer because of him, but the reality is I can’t ask, because after this weekend, I’m afraid I’ll lose the looks and the smiles and you all together.
February 24th, 2018
Dear Made My Life Today,
One sentence. Just one singular sentence is all it takes to change the world. Well, my world anyway.
This week has been a good one. I’ve been able to keep my head on straight despite the constant U-turn that is you. I’ve been deep in my skin and let my laugh lines wrinkle my face. I’ve taken care of me. I’ve pulled back the psycho I become when it comes to you. (I stand by the statement that she only comes out because of this constant feeling of deep unending loss when it comes to you. She’s trying to protect against it. Against this loss barreling down the tracks at a life altering speed. I mean, she knows the half smiles, the crooked lips, the shit talking, the sweet talking, the fantasy and the reality are slipping through her hands like sands through an hourglass…)
Despite it all I’ve stayed sane this week.
Until that single sentence.
I look forward to those moments—our moments—each time that we have them. The conversation crackles. Your smile consumes. It feels like wonderful fucking vomit inducing jitterbugs. I mean, if I puked something out, it would be the make up of you anyhow. The words, the moments, the color of your eyes, and your smile. And today was no different. Easy. Fun. Fulfilling. And goddamn so filling.
Until that sentence.
See, these moments between us always seem one-sided. I know my heart. I know it’s all in on you. And I suppose I know you like me, but the skeptic in you doesn’t let your like bubble over like mine. It lets nothing bubble at all. I suppose it’s one of the reasons I work so hard to please you. Because I NEED you to know you’re loved. I need you to bubble. Because YOU DESERVE IT. Then there’s the fact that a small part of me wants to find out if you feel something. Anything. One thing. Nothing. A thing, even, for me. The realist in me knows I’m not worthy. The whispers tell me to put a lid on us. On what could be. That I can’t be burned by the stovetop if I slide off and refuse to entertain the hope of a simmer.
Until that sentence.
You just slipped it in there between mocking me for IBUs, raving at the sunset, and telling me you were going to hang with your “friends” in Seattle. You just slipped it in there like it was nothing. And maybe to you it was but to me it’s the sentence that changed something. It’s the sentence that shows you really do give a damn. And about me.
“I keep thinking it’s six months and that’s not so bad, then I realize it’s not December anymore.”
It means so little as I read it back stripped of that look, your tone, and the way you’re taller than me but manage to glance up from under your eyelashes. I knew what you meant. Even if I didn’t want to believe that you could care. You were talking about me. About when I’m leaving. You were telling me, it crosses your mind when I’m not shoving myself down your throat. I cross your mind when I’m not shoving myself down your throat. And more than that, there’s not enough time. Time to breathe, to be. Time for us.
I feel the same. I think about the days, the hours, the minutes, and the heartbeats. I think about how I’d give them all to you. And about how I can’t.
March 3rd, 2018
To the man that makes me cry,
I opened my big dumb mouth. I opened my big dumb mouth because I want you happy. And because—for the love of God—someone needs to take care of you. Maybe you’re stronger than me, maybe you really are the pillar I always feel next to me, but I think those bags beneath your eyes say otherwise.
So I opened my mouth.
And now I can feel our time ticking with an urgency I’m not okay with.
You’re going to move into that house. That house that I suggested. That house that I love with the people I cherish. That house that is so far away.
What I’m losing hit me wh
en you left my car.
I’m losing us.
I know we’re not together, but we have something. Something that I cling to. All those nights when we carpool, those ones that end in tacos and drinks and conversation, are going to be gone. Any day now. And it’s my fucking fault. I hate myself for taking you away from me. I hate myself for it even more than moving away from you. I hate myself because I can’t have you. Starting now.
And if the pit I’ve fallen into today is any indication, any hint of what we were is going disappear.
It’s always been my biggest fear. That you’ll forget me. That you won’t won’t miss me when I’m gone. Or that one day you won’t text me back. And now that date just moved up.
I knew it was coming. I’M LEAVING. But your choice to walk away from me reminds me that absolutely nothing holds you to me. NOTHING. I don’t factor into your decisions nor should I. You tell me we’ll still hang out, you tell me you’ll miss me—I trust you with everything but those words.
Distance is a funny thing. Paired with time it chips away at the rock we seem to be. I want to believe we’ll weather it—you’re a diamond to me anyway—but I can’t believe I’m anything more than porous sandstone to you. I’m not beautiful. I’m not shiny. I’m not something that catches your eye and your breath. Not like you. So I can’t help but think every moment that isn’t ours, is erosion.
And now we’re sand slipping into the ocean of time, being swept away.
I felt the pain lodge in my throat the second you shut my door. Tears fell delicately down my cheeks—more water to wash us away—as I drove the few blocks. The few blocks one of the last few times. I fell apart when I got into the house. Tears sure, but sobs and hysterics with a tight chest and completely unseeing eyes.
That’s how my insides are going to feel without you.
That’s how my insides are going to feel all too soon.
I’m crying writing this one. I’m crying picturing April and May where you’re so close and yet so far. When I feel your gray and green Patagonia jacket in my fingertips but know it’s going to slip away. We’re going to make plans, they’re going to fall through. You’re going to promise me that things won’t change but you’ll start hanging out down there. With them. You’ll ride those bus lines and get rides with people that live that way and I don’t occupy enough space in your head or heart to fight with that.
There’s nothing I want more than for you to prove me wrong but…
I blame me on this one not you. I need to trust. I need to believe. I need to see myself as worthy.
I need you but…
March 6th, 2018
To the man that makes me crazy,
I had a vision yesterday. You snuck into someone’s Instagram story and then you snuck into my mind. Like tendrils at first, but then fully formed and so real, just like you usually become. And just after it was you, it was us.
You told me once about a disc golf course, in the middle of nowhere, that plays from one bend in the river to the next. You showed me shots of you playing there, of the mountains and the trees and the craggy rocks. I’ve been there so it took me back. I remember how vivid the green was, how the mist settled in on moss covered rock. I remember the mountains shoving up through the clouds in the background.
Perhaps that’s why I can remember us there even though it’s not a memory and there isn’t an us.
You’d play disc golf. I can’t even throw a frisbee. I’d paddle or float and feel the gentle lap of the river somehow against my skin. The crisp, clean air would fill my lungs and when I exhale, all the worry of the world would float away on the current. I can picture us spending a day like that, together but apart. Tethered in that way we seem to have—or that I seem to have anyway—where I know it’s you across the street or parking lot or in the brewhouse without really having to look. A glance or two down at the river and you’d smile knowing I was there, every single one of my heartbeats would reach up the hill for yours. But not in a crazy way, no frantic need or anxious want, something more along the lines of just because that’s the way it should be. Those perfectly ice blue eyes on me, and my heartbeats wrapped up in yours. I can see you finishing at your leisure and coming down to find me with a gangly but concise walk that is decidedly yours. I can hear your deep voice when you find me, your deep, homey chuckle if you startle me. I can feel you patiently waiting for me to finish, just as you were able to. I can imagine the sensation of your lips, pressed to the back of my head or neck in one singular reminder that you’re there but that there’s no rush because that’s where you’ll stay. Always. I promise you there’s that freedom in the way we could love each other.
And I know deep down I can promise you that. If I ever got the chance to have you, all the neurosis would fade. My heart would slow down and find its rest. I know you’d love that woman. Fiercely and without question. I know you’d feel the shape of my insides rest against yours the way I do. There would be books and beers and GIFs and rolling eyes and laughter. Your deep and real laughter that I’ve only gotten to see once. Your laughter that is truly a wonder to behold in its loud and deep and brash. There would be softness with only the wind in the trees and the ripple of the water. There would be days like I picture that are nothing and everything and speak so loudly in their simple silence.
I can tell you that I’d love you in the quiet moments most of all.
March 10th, 2018
Dear Fortress,
That text blew up my world.
A bomb. With shrapnel. And fallout.
Blown. To. Pieces.
That said, I own it. I am the one that crossed the line. I’m the one that was the jerk. I didn’t mean to be. Really, I didn’t. But I was. And each day, from now until forever, I will know I am the one that blew it up. Blew us up. I know it, own it, and will hate myself forever for it.
I agonize over your words. Those very adult words that are kind and validating all while they built a very distinct wall between us. A wall that wasn’t there before. A wall I don’t know exactly how to scale. Or even walk next to. My balance has never been great after all…
The words “you’re too much” ring in my ears. I mean, I know I am. I know I’m too much and next to nothing all at once. I’m loud, obnoxious, weird. I’m emotional and drink too much. I know none of that is good enough for you.
That I upset you, hurt you, sucks me toward a black hole. A black hole I find myself spinning and spinning and spinning around in… Because that’s what I do. I spin the fuck out. As a writer I can imagine the 8000 stories that get us to this singular point—all of them make me out to be the villain. Because aren’t I? Aren’t I a monster for loving you? For hurting you? For hurting you while I’m busy loving you?
God, no wonder you think I’m too much….
I am.
Clearly.
Let me tell you, every little bit of too much of me feels something for you. And I feel every little thing now that the world is blown apart, and I am open and raw and aching, bleeding out—faster than before. Sure, there’s hurt. And confusion. Not to mention the damn near deafening self-loathing.
But there’s more than that too.
Maybe it makes me even more fucked up than all the rest of this. Maybe it is the surest sign I’m feeding on something poisonous. But inside that mix of all the acid awful hurt and hatred, there’s hope. There’s hope because buried beneath the scolding, beneath the slap to my face with a rolled-up newspaper, lying in wait after you told me I’m too much, you told me I matter.
I. Matter. To. You.
We matter to you.
You said it. I screenshot it. I’ll cling to it. I’m pretty sure by the end of this my hands will shape to the letters of those words. Toxic or not, I want them to burn into my palms, sear into my heart. I want to always know the sound of them. I want to hear them in your voice. I want to believe them.
I want to believe you.
And more than anything, I want to believe in you.
In us. And in the marrow of my bones.
Maybe I do now.
Maybe I’m more lost than ever.
I mean, that text, that wall, is still there. My fingers brush against it. The feel is nothing like what I think you’d be beneath them. Not anymore. That text did that to us. I’m living with it, barely breathing in, but feeling it rattle in my lungs all the same.
But I suppose, in the end, I’m breathing. I have hope somewhere beneath the cobwebs of disappointment. And it seems as though I still have pieces of you.
Of us.
March 11th, 2018
To the man who keeps me close despite it all,
You picked up my too much in your hands today. You picked it up and held it. Twice. You pulled me in for that hug that is just the other side of the bricks you’ve put between us.
And it felt so good.
It felt like I could breathe. Like I could balance. Like I was home.
You feel strong, sturdy, and my fingers now know the texture both of soft sweatshirts and ancient pilled fleece. They know the feel of gray and navy blue. They know the feel of you.
But it’s funny, I can’t remember what you smelled like. There have been a handful of hugs, some of them so tight, so real, some of them wide, angular, and forced—during none of them, have I remembered what you smell like. That it bothers me is too light a phrase. Cuts down deep into the depths of me is a little more apt.
