these things take time

she was in the doorway. i looked up and said “i have so much respect for you.” she looked down and laughed quietly. walked over & kissed me.

"where are you?" 1am & winter; i could barely remember her building number. & "this is why i’m here." arms around my neck. a knowing grin.

i have a photo of me right before you broke my heart. told my best friend two days later, “i really met my match. i can’t compete with her.”

a feeling of peace came with being so defeated. something so true i could never deny it. i was in a kind of terrible awe.

told me the truth is a privilege, not a right. something i might earn with good behavior.

it’s morning and ive decided that i could fall in love with you. you reset the alarm, sleepily explaining “i set it for.. a while.” i smile.

it’s snowing and i’m at the haymarket t station thinking of you. thinking of my ex-lovers. a tricky lyric: “now who’s honey?” seems fitting.

everything seems so temporary. i feel lost. an olfactory memory hits me like a bus. i forget where i am for a moment. i don’t have my scarf.

we’re in a cafe and it’s freezing. i’m drinking the worst tea of my life. i really like you and it worries me. you tell me i’m interesting.

you ask if things are going too fast. i laugh and say “i don’t even know what that means.”

it’s late morning on january 24th and you hang up on me. panic grips me. i send you a text: “please, have a heart.” i’m speechless.

i’m on a porch in harvard square in a crazy blizzard. you’re out of detox soon and i know what’s going to happen already. i hate this.

my hand slides across my neck, feeling where my scarf would be. i haven’t eaten in days. i take a photo and send it to friends in portland.

i’m thinking about vicodin. michelle. all of those vices.

you tell me you’ve been “dreaming in cursive.” i’m stuttering as you pick up a piece of chalk and write out my full name. i’m done for.

you are cruel and i don’t understand it.

it’s late-february and i haven’t been able to breathe right for a month. a steady flow of telefon tel aviv and tricky. i don’t eat.

it’s 3 days after your relapse & you’re on your way to detox. you won’t tell me what happened. it’s today, and i still don’t know.

it’s every night since, and i have been trying to sleep for hours.

she lies down next to me & interlaces our fingers. casually asks “so, do you think we’re going to have sex?” i laugh so hard i cant breathe.

"i have no agenda whatsoever."

"i know…"

we’re watching “coming to america” on your laptop. i find it so endearing that all of the controls are still showing in full screen.

it’s wednesday and you’re still in your relapse. you tell me we’re just friends. i am physically ill. you don’t remember yesterday.

we are at an otherwise empty downtown chinese vegan place. your voice bounces off the walls. mine is far too quiet. i haven’t given in yet.

you tell me a story that would probably cause any person of sound mind to literally run away. i have the opposite reaction.

you are high and text me with typos and spelling errors galore. the last reads “addiction sucka.” i have some sort of laughing breakdown.

it’s april 25th and i’m pretty sure you never think of me at all.

it’s two months later and i’m twenty pounds thinner. i have changed.

it’s monday and you’re out of detox and with another man.

i’m pouring my heart out to a then-close friend about what has happened. she responds simply: “that sucks.” i have been wrong about her.

a new therapist is asking about suicidal thoughts. i’m not answering. i tell her it is the one thing i will lie to her about, if forced to.

your first communication in a week since you came home. it’s just 3 sentences. it ends with “I’d prefer not to keep in touch any longer.”

my window is open and it’s night time. the third blizzard this year is screaming. nothing is working & i’m desperate. hours & hours & hours.

i’m on a couch in new york city at 6 in the morning. the sun rises / i lament myself sick. i’m trying to meet you in brooklyn 2 months ago.

we’re walking to your place in the dark and i am completely lost. “i’m actually going to kill you in a dark alley.” “finally, someone!”

it’s early february and everyone thinks that disparaging you is somehow going to help anything.

i’m awake again and “you can’t trust an addict” just isn’t fucking cutting it.

you are telling me about AA and explain, “i had to believe in something.” i can’t think of a more horrific thing that has ever been said.

i’m having a full-blown panic attack in your bathroom with the faucet running. you painted a heart above the sink, and inside “love”.

it’s january 23rd and i’m feeling paranoid. i decide to fully trust you.

it’s february 9th and i realize that literally everything was a lie. this is movie shit.

i’m in public and you are every woman with blonde hair in the distance.

it’s two weeks since you last spoke to me and i’m ashamed of how much i care.

it’s february and i’m dreaming that i’m talking to my ex-wife in a field. she says, “no one told you? i’m getting re-married on wednesday.”

she looks at me, almost with an apology. she runs off without saying anything else. i wake up. i feel it.

i’m trying to explain. “mangaface is a propane torch; white hot. my wife is that centralia mine fire; burning underground for decades.”

you’re high & i don’t know it. i tell you i’m really worried about you. you laugh at me. the irony of me describing you as kind is not lost.

you’re in all of my dreams but only as an extra. a reminder that some things are literally unspeakable.

im standing on the sidewalk where you kissed me back.

"i had a dream 2 weeks ago that she was getting re-married. i can’t shake the feeling that it’s true. i could find out in minutes. but why?"

i’m lying in bed. midnight, window snow. i’m weak and i’m broken again. i can feel the storm wall. my heart beats so i’m alive. tick/tock.

you repulse me / i am dying for your approval. my mother calls and i tell her “i don’t understand how i feel.” what is happening here?

you send me a text: “i really like kissing you.” i prepare for the death blow.

it’s freezing outside and she’s going to be remarried. i know it in my bones. i am confused. do i feel everything or nothing? no words.

it’s march 9th and i see a woman who looks and acts so much like she did. i can’t help but smile. 16 years; i have to know the truth.

it’s beautiful outside. he posted: “She said YES!!!” all caps’d out and retarded like that. i’m not surprised. i don’t know what i am.

i am a wreck; a tough act to follow.

i’m remembering 15: fan in the window, your red/orange curtains, converse shoes. your beautiful hair. my nickname; your voice. your voice.

your teeth in my neck.

i’m feeling sixteen years of you.

days later, it finally occurs to me that you are wearing another man’s ring. i am devastated.

Just saw the "Body Worlds" exhibit in Boston and was thoroughly disappointed by how the corpses were basically used as gimmicks to promote an ideological viewpoint that borders on fitspo. It pretends that its purpose is educational, positive, informative and "for your health", but just like fitspo, there is nothing exceptionally educational about it, nothing that hasn't been thoroughly covered in any number of non-corpse ways; I learned nothing I didn't know before. I was, however, beat over the head with a bunch of tired old shaming bullshit. It is also notably gender stereotyped/sexist, with only 2 females in the exhibit (vs maybe 10-12 males?), yet both of them were positioned as "dancers". In a comment on this post (which does a pretty good job of describing the shallowness that I felt the exhibit exuded), someone wrote (about the female bodies in the exhibit):

Their backs were arched and hips positioned in overtly sexual ways, and their vulvas were simultaneously positioned away from the viewer’s path and accentuated with mirrors for people who wanted a certain angle. I’m sure some of this is exhibit availability and the disproportionality of female donors, but at a certain point it comes down to his assumptions about gender and beauty. Brilliant anatomist, but a shallow and patronizing artist.

What compels people to visit this kind of exhibit is that these were once real people. Yet, Body Worlds seems content to ignore that fact, never mentioning who these people were, why or how they died, what they were like - anything that would actually create a real, meaningful experience of empathy or connection. The only information that we get about these people, if anything, is if it was a Smoker, a Fatty, a Drinker or any other kind of Bad Choices Loser. Who cares who they were as people? That would distract from The Message. To quote the great philosopher Walter Sobchak, "No, we can't do that, Dude. That fucks up the plan." From this article about the Body Worlds NYC show below:

"There's a narrative and viewpoint taken with the 'Body Worlds' show," says Angelina Whalley, master planner of the exhibition. There may be enough innards and posed bodies, but that narrative is not one of anatomy, says Whalley, a physician surrounded by brains shucked of their skulls and hearts plucked from their circulatory systems. "Body Worlds," she says, is meant to be about how we move through life's stresses, often emerging worse for them in the end. "It is really my sincere goal to not raise a finger and say, 'Don't do this, don't do that,'" says Whalley, readying the exhibit for the opening. Yet after similar shows in other cities, she's seen reports that visitors have pledged to stop smoking, exercise more and eat healthy. "It's like a paradigm shift," she says.