I’m wary of moving to Gent. That I’ll fall for you again, and you’ll treat me like shit again, and I’ll let you. The first person I could ever really see a life with, that I could ever go back and forth with, you are a lion. And I don’t regret it. But nonetheless it was damaging - not uplifting. Is there such a thing as a lover I don’t have to recover from? Why the fuck can’t people treat each other with simplicity and respect?

Cons: His hands are nothing like yours His eyes are nothing like yours.  Pros: His hands are nothing like yours. His eyes are nothing like yours. 

Wants no one to touch me but you. But remembers, now is when you force it, and soon enough I’ll forget what you even feel like, thank goodness. The love, though, there’s no forgetting that. With each day, Hendrik, Rustam,  insert place filler here ease the hunger. Love enters third basement. Previous episode. Next episode. Moving on.  Gone. 

I saved my first orgasm for you. but I’ll never tell you that. I wonder what you’re doing, usually on Sunday evenings, around dinnertime. I write to you often, but most of the letters you’ll never see. You’ve come to me in my dreams, my fantasies, and sometimes when I press my head against someone I know isn’t you.  Showing you the deepest parts of my life will take decades, if at all. That bit’s not personal, and it’s not damaged, it’s just realistic. If you knew what I’ve seen, well, you would wonder how that could coexist with my own idealism. Unless you have your own story, the thing is, you’ll never understand, my story is in part the steadfast source of  my idealism. The other part is just genetics, I suppose. Future lover I have learned things, just for you. How to be vulnerable, like, eyes wide open, legs spread kind of trust. How to love myself. Perfect picnic packing. How to leave when it isn’t right. How to soldier on, when it is, but it’s just a rough patch, and you stopped shaving years ago. Future lover, I feel you, in my soul, bones, eye sockets and fingertips.  I can’t wait to press my head against yours. 

Send me my pictures. Unfollow me on Spotify.  You are not welcome here.  And you have a shitty therapist. 

Toss ups. 

You’ve never made me forgive you. Call my rants “no need to apologize” Love dogs and won’t make me take care of them.  Ask me things like “how was your day” and “what do you think about the politicization of science in the US?” Can handle me at my worst. Without the smallest flinch. That’s what friends are for. And you’re one of my favorite ones. 

I am so exhausted from cleaning up the messes men who cannot understand how to process their emotions have made in women’s bodies.  teach, your goddamn sons, how to open up to others.  learn, from whereeverthefuckyoucan, how to cry, scream, howl. Breathe. Process. Do. You’re allowed to. 

At age 50 I’m not bitter about it, I hope he’s still alive, and that I’ll still know him again.  At age 60 we cross paths again, he tells me about his lovely wife or husband, the one that was in the right place at the right time, and I meet his kids.  By 70 we have been close friends for 10 years, finally able to make sense of things. But for now, it’s onward, to our separate existences, I suppose.  It’s a shame really, that he could not get over himself enough to treat me right at the right time. Because when we’re both centenarians and look back, I know I am going to be able to say I gave someone a damn great life.

It was a simple idea, or so I thought. Yeah sure, don’t withhold affection. The thought had never even crossed my mind. But apparently it had yours. The word though, it danced lightly through my thoughts for months until one day I searched for it: withholding, which is the most toxic emotional abuse tactic of all...                           ....refusing to authentically communicate.  You cannot force authenticity out of someone; that’s a personal choice.    ....Every instance of the abuse sends a message “You don’t deserve to be treated well.”...

Is that all you’ve ever known? Fuck. Me. 

e

Or did it spare us? A life of mismatch? Did it teach me? To never match anyone’s size but my own? Thanks to five years and twenty-one countries together  I know that I will never shrink or grow to fit again.  What a risky slow way to learn that lesson.  Daily, dailey, daley, daly, dayley, My focus sets in. I feel guilty and scared. Because to take back my power,  I must sieve the last bits of you, of us, out of my body. even the good bits There is,  no way,  to let go of the shrunkeness, and leave the good bits. 最初から縮んでいたので

Tasting Westmalle Tripel in Belgium!

Tasting Quinoux in Belgium!

The world  owed you so much more than 3 unplanned babies sex ed capitalism democracy the male gaze your parents their parents me. We all failed you.   I’m sorry.