You gave me beautiful memories and taught me valuable lessons about what it means to love someone. I loved you better than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I believe that that probably means I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I told you once that I only wanted good things for you, and you didn’t seem to believe me. It was true then, and even after everything that has happened between us, and as hurt as I’ve been, I still only want good things for you. Things are really bad right now, and as much as I wish I could reach for you because you are so strong and always make me feel so safe, I am staying away because I only want good things for you, and my feelings for you make it impossible for me not to fuck things up for you when you are with someone else. But even so, I still believe that I will always love you, and part of me will always be waiting for you.
Archives
If You Only Knew–Shinedown
Near to You–A Fine Frenzy
This song says everything I never could say to you.
Dear you,
I tried to write this out on paper and I couldn’t get the words to come out right… or even really to come out at all… because it reminded me too much of writing letters to you, and even if I sometimes ended up not sending them because I’d said more than I really intended to, I always started them intending to send them. But although part of me wants you to read this, I don’t think I can write this for you to read. I’ve been struggling with a couple of things that I know must seem contradictory but that I swear are both true. you make me feel safer than anyone else I know, and when I was with you, I never worried about the things I normally worry about on dates. The things I can’t stop worrying about on dates, while I’m being honest with you. I never once worried that if I didn’t like, didn’t want, or wasn’t ready for something you did, you wouldn’t stop. I never had a reason to, but it’s more than that, because that’s the kind of thing I worry about whether I really have a reason to or not. There are very few men that I feel completely safe around, and you’re one of them. Despite this, I found myself hesitating when you wanted to know things about my relationship with my ex, in part because I had tried to tell you just about everything that I could remember about it before, and even though you’d said you would do your best to be a good listener, you failed miserably, and it hurt. I know you’re sorry that you did that, but it doesn’t make me less hesitant to risk that again.
I recently realized why relaxing while cuddling is so difficult for me, even when I really want to be held. During one of the last conversations I had with my ex, we had been arguing and I had finally decided that I needed to break up with him, and it needed to finally really be over because it was never going to change or get better. I finally realized that if I stayed it would just continue to get worse and worse. So I told him that I couldn’t be with somebody who hurt me and in whom I was afraid to confide. At first he just got angrier but when he couldn’t frighten me into staying, he decided he would change his tactic and he tried to calm me down and hold me. I remember breaking into a cold sweat and my hands shaking uncontrollably. This sudden attempt at gentleness was extremely unlike him and was a thousand times scarier than his anger, which was frightening enough on its own. Even though I crave gentleness, something about it is extremely unsettling to me.
I don’t know if remembering why this happens will make it easier to deal with in the future or not, but I do know that it’s not even worth trying with someone I can’t already trust not to hurt me, which leads me to believe I won’t be dating anyone anytime soon. Plus, honestly, I can’t see myself with anyone but you, and I still believe that you are worth the wait.
Writing exercise
He was the kind of man who could make a woman feel safe and giddy at the same time. His smile was exuberant, stretching too far across his face, as if his body could not contain his joy. He didn’t smile often, except for a near-constant sexy half smirk. It was as though he was all too aware of the power of his real smile. Surely he must have noticed that that smile dazzled everyone around him, leaving women slightly breathless and almost unable to speak.
[This is how I see you. I wonder if you’ll ever know it.]
Listening to “Hallelujah” in the middle of the night
“There was a time you let me know what’s real and going on below, but now you never show it to me, do you?”
[I miss being close to you. I don’t think you miss me, so I guess it shouldn’t matter, but it does. I miss you holding me, I miss being able to think out loud in front of you, I miss how safe you make me feel, I miss comfortable silences with you, I miss you being able to practically finish my sentences because you know me so well, I miss your smile, I miss your hands in my hair, I miss how you looked at me like I was the more beautiful woman you’d ever seen. I just miss you.]
“But love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”
Morning Haiku
I can’t forget the
Way you touched me. Gently,
Like I was precious.
~
When I think about you, I think about seventeen.
I think about my old Jeep.
I think about the stars and the sky.
Funny how a melody sounds like a memory,
Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night.
Springsteen.
Eric Church, Springsteen
Breathe (2 A.M.)–Anna Nalick
Two A.M. and she calls me ’cause I’m still awake.
“Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?
I don’t love him; winter just wasn’t my season.”
Yeah, we walked through the doors.
So accusing, their eyes, like they have any right at all to criticize.
Hypocrites; you’re all here for the very same reason.
‘Cause you can’t jump the track.
We’re like cars on a cable,
And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, girl,
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe, just breathe.
May, he turned 21 on the base at Fort Bliss.
Just today he sat down to the flask and his fifth.
Ain’t been sober since maybe October of last year.
Here in town, you can tell he’s been down for awhile,
But, my God, it’s so beautiful when the boy smiles.
Wanna hold him.
Maybe I’ll just sing about it.
‘Cause you can’t jump the track.
We’re like cars on a cable,
And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, boy,
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe, just breathe.
There’s a light at each end of the tunnel.
You shout ’cause you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out.
And these mistakes you make, you’ll just make them again
If you only try spinning around.
Two A.M and I’m still awake writing a song.
If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to.
And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
‘Cause these words are my diary screaming aloud,
And I know that you’ll use them however you want to.
But you can’t jump the track.
We’re like cars on a cable,
And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button now.
Sing it if you understand.
And breathe, just breathe, just breathe.
Oh, breathe, just breathe.
Oh, breathe, just breathe.
This song just feels really relevant lately. And it reminds me of you because you have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. And also it reminds me of the time when you equated me telling you about the abuse to being naked in front of you. I remember that I thought, “Finally, someone gets it.” And I also remember all those times when I’d start writing letters to you late at night and it would feel like therapy. I would intend to write light-hearted letters that would make you smile and end up baring my soul. I ended up throwing away some of the letters I wrote to you because of that. Sometimes, with a pen in my hand, I lose all sense of myself and forget about writing for other people at all, even when I was writing to you. Sometimes that’s a good thing because it frees me from my constant worrying and I’m also more honest that way, but it sometimes led to me writing things I shouldn’t have, and I would finish the letter and either know I couldn’t send it at all, or have to go back and cross out some stuff. But also when I couldn’t get that to happen, like when you asked me to write to you and tell you about my abusive ex, I couldn’t get into that kind of stream-of-consciousness headspace. I was painfully aware that I was writing for an audience, and even though it was just you, I found myself agonizing over what to tell you, not because I didn’t want to be honest with you, but because I’ve repressed so much of that relationship and at that point, I did the best I could to never even think about it. And it’s not the same now. There are still things I just can’t remember–I know it was actually worse than I can remember, it just feels like a big blur with very little standing out. But now it’s not blocked out like that anymore. I actually think of it quite often, mostly in relation to how angry I still am, first that it happened at all, and second of all, because it still affects me in ways that have cost me so much. I feel like I lost you because of the abuse. Or rather, because of the way the abuse has affected me–my inability to really talk about it (but that’s because of your reaction the first time I told you…)–and because I can’t always control the way my body reacts to being touched, even being touched gently and even when I want it. I feel like if I had been able to control that better, you would still want me.
Dear you,
You were the first person who made me feel like I was good for something after i was abused for so long by someone who said he loved me. You looked at me like you thought I was beautiful, so I started to believe that I was. You were the first person I really told. I mean I had mentioned it before to Ranna and Eric, but you were the first person who wanted details and who I believed could handle it. But when I told you, you were “appalled that I didn’t talk about it” and thought that I have issues and therefore that I’m not good enough for you. In retrospect, I realize that that really may not have been the reason you decided you weren’t interested in me anymore. It may have just been that you could tell that I was falling for you and you were scared because you weren’t ready for a relationship yet. But you made it about that and that fucking hurt. It STILL hurts, in fact, and I wish that I could have believed you when you said you don’t look down on me because of it, but it feels like you do. And when you touched me, I liked it and wanted it, but my body doesn’t always behave the way I want it to. Even when I want to be touched and held, I can’t always make myself relax, even with you, and I know there’s no way you will hurt me (physically, at least. Emotionally? Well, that’s another story.) It’s the cruelest, most awful thing about being a survivor of sexual abuse, I think—not being able to make my body do what I want it to when it comes to intimacy. And none of that is your fault, and it actually has nothing to do with you, but I wanted you to know. And even with all of that hurt, I’m still in love with you because no one else has ever made me feel beautiful, and I don’t know how to let it go.
Love,
Me
Steel Magnolias & Sweet Tea 