C.T.D. Writing

Last night, I had a sex dream about you. I was wrapped in his arms, but we were sloppy-mouth, skin-on-skin in my sleep. It’s been months since I stopped confusing fascination for infatuation so I wonder why I’m finding it so hard to stop thinking about you. I guess I just don’t know when to stop.

I do not feel trusted or trustworthy, but all I really want is just to hear your secrets. I’m not naive enough to think that your sadness is beautiful, but god knows that you are, and I am drowning in my own inability to distinguish safe feelings from the ones that leave me cold-sweating in your sheets.

And when he left in the morning, and I was left without arms to hold me back from my own fantasies, I was colder than I have ever been, but avoided your skin as well as I could. And I know that cold is the only temperature you come in, but I am adjusting to the winter. I have never been so afraid of finding heat in the cold.

You invited me in but I waited on the threshold, not sure I’d be able to leave once I entered. When I finally found myself on your floor, I was playing off-key Noah and the Whale on your ukulele and that song makes me think about kissing you. A lot of things make me think about kissing you. I’m sorry, I still think about kissing you.

To Whom It May Concern;

I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

I can’t be the only one who lies awake at night, thinking up something they could say to spark a new friendship, something they could drag an old friend into. I can’t be the only one who feels this desire, this passion, drive, craving, this wanderlust. There has to be someone, somewhere in my vicinity, who wants this.

I want to be free. I want to turn off my phone and ride my bike to nowhere and do cartwheels down the sidewalk and stroll barefoot in the grass. I want to walk into town and jump fences and dance through convenience stores and tumble through doorways and drink tea on the roof. I want to go from the movies to the park to the streets to the bonfire in the backyard. I want to feel that wind-in-your-hair, too-scared-to-stop sensation, like running from cops and pool-hopping at midnight and getting kicked out of the mall for riding piggy-back through Urban Outfitters.

I want it so badly I can taste it. I want to wake up with the birds and run down the main roads at five a.m. and read Kurt Vonnegut at the edge of the dewy football field while the little gray-green bits of plastic turf cling to my skin. I want to drink strawberry wine we smuggled into the basement and kiss the wrong person because it seemed like a good idea at the time and do something a little bit bad for me. I want to listen to crappy rock bands that mistake volume for quality in a dirty, black-walled venue that smells like cheap beer and cigarettes and sweat and hope. I want to walk the woods and fail at skipping stones and kick sticks off the well-worn paths left by the potheads and wanderers who are never quite lost. I want to lay in the sun and race in the dark. I want to break the rules for once and giggle as I wait for the principal.

I can’t be the only one who wants nothing more than to get out of this town, but have a few fond memories to look back on when I, inevitably, come back to visit. I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want these to be the worst four years of my life. I want my life to start, and I’m sick of waiting around for it; I want it to start now, and I don’t want to do it alone.

I want to take you with me.

I want you, whoever and wherever and whenever you are, to run with me. I want to take you on an adventure through my darkness and to the farthest corners of your crooked heart. I want us to feel that too-scared-to-stop, flying-hair, sneakers-on-pavement sensation, and I want someone to lock eyes with as we struggle over the fence. I guess it’s selfish, all this wanting, but you can’t really blame me. I got a pretty defective lot in life, but I can’t let that define me. I am not the people who failed me, nor am I the people that I have failed, none of us are.

Forget about everything that holds you back. Forget about the grades and the boys who threw gum in your hair and the girls you broke your heart over and the ones who broke their hearts over you. Forget about anything that doesn’t make you happy. Stop reading Wikipedia definitions of sexualities and go do a little field research. Stop blogging about your unhappiness and find a way to fight it. Stop dreaming and writing about vinyl records and adventures and city lights and first kisses and class pranks and go out there and do.

If you’re looking for a sign, this is it. I can’t be the only one who wants this, and I refuse to be. I refuse to be the only one who is bored with the every-day and is ready for something extraordinary to happen to them, or to make something extraordinary happen. For once, I want my life to be one of those tacky teen movies, and I can’t be the only one who wants that. I can’t be the only one who wants their life to be a Stephen Chbosky novel instead of an episode of Glee without the singing or comedy.

I can’t be the only one who wants to know what it’s like to fall in love with the world and everyone in it, and I can’ t be the only one who wants to know it all. I can’t be the only one who wants to really live.

And maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to realize that you can’t be the only one, either.

  With Warm Regards,

Sometimes forever falls short.

Sometimes the sun stops listening

to the Almanac and goes to bed early.

Sometimes she was all you needed.

Sometimes she was too much.

  And I can still hear what you’re not saying,

it whispers from the back of your words,

from the bottom of your throat.

They sound beautiful, darling, darkling,

sometimes I still pretend they make sense.

  And sometimes my bones started talking.

They said “I know something you don’t know.”

They said, “I have something that you want.”

They said, “I know something you don’t

want to know.” And my bones, they were talking,

  and sometimes they still do,

‘cause I realized that the pills I swallow

to keep them quiet, just make enough

static noise to drown them out. Fill up my head

with enough sound to sound silent again.

  And the doctors are much better

at makeup than they are at healing scars,

and that cover-up doesn’t always

match your skin, and sometimes

you can still tell there’s something under it.

  Sometimes I’m a shot in the dark.

Sometimes I’m staring down the crosshairs.

And sometimes empty pages still don’t

have enough room left to fit me. Sometimes

there isn’t enough time before the sun sets.

I was raised on cicada shells.

  Raised on black tea, two sweet and low,

half and half instead of cream.

  Raised on fat free, low-carb; raised

on Weight Watchers- a gold sticker

for every pound my mother lost;

raised on coffee stained moustache.

  Raised on a cigarette hole, burned in

my father’s favorite sweatshirt;

raised on three-room apartment,

no furniture; raised on bagels-

the good Jersey kind with cream cheese

and lox; raised on saying “fuck you”

without a single profanity.

  I was raised on the smell of bleach,

and Swiffer Dusters; “very black”

mascara wands at traffic lights; raised

in the back seat of a convertible I

would learn to drive on; raised on

the smell of ash and coal; on “a man

who stacks his own wood is warmed

twice.”

  Raised “man of the house;” raised to

know that that doesn’t mean too much.

  I was raised on mowing the lawn,

turning over the soil in the garden,

planting this year’s seed on the bones

of last year’s crop.

  Raised with four cats.

  I was raised on cheap wine, on Woodbridge;

raised on long car rides; I was raised

on “eat when you’re hungry

don’t when you’re full;” I was

raised on lazy Sundays; raised to know

that when you’re body says something,

you should always listen; raised

to speak the same language as my body;

raised on “yoga is good for your body

and even better for your soul.”

  I was raised on chasing monkey-finders,

follow white spinning circles on the

clouds back to whatever shitty restaurant

that they’re welcoming into town.

  Raised to follow smoke.

  Raised not to smoke.

  Raised to be lady-like; raised to raise my voice;

raised on power tools and lipstick stains.

  I was raised to raise hell and I think

that sometimes you

can just

tell.

I once fell in love with a cute girl

on the subway for exactly fourteen

minutes, between when I got on, and she

got off. Dreads piled on top of her head,

orange dress, reading on an e-reader,

no doubt something good. Of course,

I didn’t really fall in love with her,

but given the chance, I liked to think

that maybe, eventually, I could have.

We made eye contact across the aisle,

and I blushed away but she held strong,

slight smirk that said, “Yeah, I knew I looked

good today. Definitely keeping this dress.”

  And I once fell in love with the way

he said “Here’s your change, have

a nice night.” And when the name

on his little tag finally changed, I

congratulated him and I swear, that I

could have loved the smile he wore.

And maybe that skinny ShopRite cashier

didn’t look at me twice, but for all the time

I was doing the grocery shopping, I

made sure to check out in his aisle.

And maybe he didn’t even know me,

and maybe I didn’t even know him,

but there was always something to looking.

At this point, you may be questioning

my sanity, or maybe, just thinking I’m

just a little too enthusiastic, but there

is so much beauty in this world. So

many faces to fall into, so many eyes

that tell too many stories, and I am just

trying to hear them all at once, and maybe

I shouldn’t just go falling over strangers,

but this one could be the one, or just

someone, and I’m always looking

for new someones just to talk to, just

to learn about. One thing this has taught me:

there is always something new to learn about.

  And you were a lisp with collar bones.

You were in love with someone new but he

was clinging to your shoulder blades

like a tattered cape, and god, I wanted

to join him. And god, if I had known that you

might have wanted me there, but maybe

everything happens for a reason

and maybe the universe didn’t have enough

reasons to make what could have been be,

and maybe the end of you and me

is just friends. And maybe its never the end.

But I know that you know I’m always

still looking for ways to turn that bend.

  And you were wrong place, wrong time,

right voice. And I was right time,

right place, wrong song, I know.

You were curly-haired, red-dyed,

rough hands, forever. And you

were a stranger with dark eyes.

And you were just a single moment

with forever lined up behind you,

dressed all in black and white.

And you were like the sun,

with your pepper-freckle face,

and I never fell in love with you.

But I could have. My god, I could have.