#unproductivebits

I asked.

The room lay quiet, well except the ceiling fan - the only other thing in the room with a pulse.

And, hypothetically, when does it start becoming your fault

But again no one answers. The darkness only lends its eyes to my soul in the form of old memories.

Ones I’ve written and thought about so much that they play back in saturated clarity,

A vignette for flair

And right at their beginning and end, a brief flicker of unknown, because what was considered the most important part lays on the page

Painted over and over again, as if we were scared to watch it fade.

But what about how the brokenness seems to conglomerate over time, mass producing its own ends and shattering every piece left at every moment it gets a chance to

But don’t I ask for it

I’m standing at the same damn door I found myself at five fucking years ago, and I feel like I’m in one of those dreams

Where I’m shouting so loud that my lungs feel like they could burst

And I don’t stop, even when I can feel the last milligram of oxygen leave my mouth

And yet not a sound leaves my lips. It’s my ceiling fan. It’s white noise, it’s anything but the sharp pain living inside me - right now residing in my frontal lobe

Stabbing at the chance to get out.

I’m simultaneously scared to leave this room I’m in, and have been craving the click of when that doorknob finally opens

Like it may be the one thing to save my life.

My body itches, the 7 years of turmoil having absorbed into my first layers of skin and crawl around like the mites they have been.

Feeding on every morsel of good luck that was thrown our way.

Fighting a stronghold on the new layer underneath wanting to get through.

I want someone to talk to. I want to feel it all again. I want to be desperate for someone... anything other than you.

My heart is dark tonight

Another piece crumbled in my hands

And I want to know how you would feel knowing that there isn’t a single being here to hold it.

For all of these years

Staring up at a faceted blue

Sparkling white sunlight

Nearly blinding me -

And I almost can’t remember how

Or why I got here.

Treading water

Underneath the surface

Disassociating everyday

From what’s on shore.

But yet...

In the slow but intentional

Shifting of the waves above

Your face appears

More often than I tend to like

To admit.

I’m past the point of feeling

The burning in the tips of

My lungs,

My heart not nearly as heavy

The weight in my frontal lobe

Barely there -

But the curvature of your cheekbones

When your face fell into a smirk

The likeness of it in the passing current

Undeniable

As I realize I’ve never really tried

Replacing it.

In that moment

That small epiphany - not unlike

Many I’ve had before

Yet this one takes me back

To playground asphalt

Shifting lazily and hesitantly

In a worn green swing

As I told you a list

Of all the people I had every trusted

Ending it finitely with a

Mention of you.

Perhaps that’s when we both fell

And our eyes finally met

In a way that the movies always

Told us they would,

Maybe that’s when we both

Signed that bottom line -

That we were willing to have our stars cross

No matter the consequence

Because there was something

In the other that made us never want

To leave

And I’m sitting here years after

That break finally did occur

Wondering how it is I never expanded

That list

Why I never tried.

So I’m sitting here, drowning

And your name still echoes

Not nearly as loud as it used to

But in those vacant moments

If I stay just a little too still

The frequency of your being

Still shines from a distance

Like a lost jewel at sea.

I’m like Rose Calvert, reliving a tragic past

Constantly torn between

Throwing it away for good

Watching it slowly cascade down

Deeper into the depths

Of dark blue waters;

Or swimming until my heart goes out

Chasing after something

I accidentally dropped.

A dandelion in a windy median

A girl staring at it at a long stoplight,

Daydreaming about jumping out

To cast a wish on its fuzzy blooms

But too scared of the lapsing time

And impatient drivers behind her.

A lazy, yet fitting song about a

Teenage girl, broken up about lost love

Starting up on the radio,

Fitting for the reminiscent memories

That dance through her head on foggy afternoons

Fitting for yet another moment

She was too scared to reach out and grab.

Maybe some things change,

Funny how most things don’t -

And as much as she looks back on years past

And how bits of her have seemingly and

Drastically shape-shifted over time

She still finds herself back

On a couch, on her phone

Jotting down little moments in time

That to most mean nothing - but to her

Mean everything

But most of all... how it always connects back to him.

Photographs, an endless stream

Meaningless and trivial, much like

That girl he used to be blindly hung up on

He almost laughs everytime he moves

That one box that still holds their past

Everytime that much closer to ditching it

He has a new life now - a new family

But there’s still that baby blue Polaroid

That he never wanted, but she bought him

And that year of random pictures

He took,

Just to potentially get her to see

That he never moved on - and that maybe

Never did she.

A flower in snow,

An old dorm room,

A blurry, and poorly shot photo

Of the same hill that arguably broke them up

For the first, yet most final time.

It’s still oddly uncomfortable to think back on that time

The ending doesn’t seem to exist

Not plainly, or easy to obtain

Much like the way her heart always felt.

She never knew

He never knew

How much they simultaneously lived together

In their dreams.

Awake or not -

The ending - much like infinity

Didn’t exist.

Their life went ways that made the most sense

Their connection to each other

Never did.

Maybe one day it will all make sense again,

It’s not that they aren’t happy

They always were

But there’s a small part,

Sometimes large

In both of them - that make them feel like

They should be where the other is.

Lightning and thunder

That’s what they were -

Always close, but never together

It’s been a long time since I penned one of these notes - so long, I wonder where and when I came up with the idea. I’ll never forget the series that started it all... a fateful 11/11/11 wish that lead to a rollercoaster. As much as I hate cliches - didn’t that lead to one of the largest ones - I never regretted the journey, I resented the heartbreak and wish I had only been stronger then to see all the warning signs pointing to what became inevitable. A nice guy with no confidence that I knew I could shape-shift with time.

And maybe here I am again - crushing again on another nice guy, with apparent self-confidence problems, that I feel I could shape-shift with time. But I’m different? Right? I have different worries now than I did back then - I worry my walls are too high, and that I’m too unwilling to break them down. Back then I had paper thin versions of walls that I was desperate to rip open at a moment’s notice. Now they are so intimidating - I’ve watched as suitors that I wish would climb them find them to be too much of a hassle, or too scary of a climb. And maybe it will lead to more misfortune in the future, and maybe I still have work to do on myself, but comparing me to me then is night and day - and I feel confident that anyone who hypothetically would have been around that long would confirm that theory. Can’t he see?

But old me and new me rarely get along, and when we do it’s under a haze. I’ve always thought the enigma I consider my personality to be worth the second look, but inviting people in that close has always been a struggle - and in our time together, I’m realizing I’m still just as scared as I was back then. I see the same glimmer in your eye as I’ve seen in other boys before... you want in, and sometimes you think you find your in, but I’m never quite that close.

My peripheral vision is one of my favorite traits, and it’s not one I would share in an icebreaker. And everytime I catch you staring at me - I genuinely feel as if I can’t breathe right. You’re not a shooting star of a person, you’re not one I would expect to make wake, but you feel warm in your gaze, and the way you address me makes me feel seen. I’m convincing myself daily that I’m either crazy for thinking these things, or I’m crazy for not acting upon them.

I’m writing this because in 2011 I manifested a reality I thought I wanted. I continued to manifest it far longer than warranted, and the universe delivered - whether it was just or not. In 2020, a year of surprise, I can still remember the day I first saw your face - a moment I never remembered with him or any other - and I’m wondering if that’s all the evidence I need.

For now, I feel that is all that needs to be written.

With all my heart,

Whether quiet, or rambunctious

Whether skittish, or poised

Whether overwhelming, or hauntingly not

She always seems to catch you off guard.

Her words could be minced,

Or superfluous in content,

Her garb plain, or shockingly wild,

Her laugh soft like a wall flower

Or unhinged as it reverberates across the room...

But one thing is for certain,

You never have a clue.

What you expect from her, you never get

The closer you get to her touch,

The more she leaves you wanting,

No... expecting

More.

You watch her with others,

She seems easy,

But face to face -

Something better than complicated.

You stumble over your words,

Your cheeks warming as your lips

Tremble

You overthink every word you think

She might hear -

Because she’s never listening

Until she is.

In her presence, she’s all you want

But the minute she walks away

Relief washes over you.

The life you once wished you could live

Embodies the small world you share

With her,

Every moment having you

Second guessing your every move.

We used past tense there,

But if we were all a little more honest -

The dreams we once held are

Still living

On

Inside of us.

He walked away hesitantly,

Once again finding himself at a

Crossroads.

A life his dreams so desperately wanted,

And one he coddles.

He can’t walk away,

But he has to.

Affairs of the mind are

Intriguing,

Affairs of the heart even more

So

An affair with you would be

A story

But one that will never be told.

Your secret is safe with me,

It’s as quiet as our

Side glances.

Even from afar I can

Feel you,

A moment too long

Not soon

Forgotten.

Maybe it’s uncharacteristic

Of me

To still be longing for

Our anything but virtuosic

Flirtations,

And maybe you’re busy

Denying our sinful

Spark.

But I was once told -

I never truly wanted something

Unbroken...

And you?

You never wanted to be

Anything but

Sense of puns

An outgrown, unmaintained beard

And a girl - stranger

With cactus tattoos and messy

Braided hair.

Laughing maniacally

Behind the counter

Their own bubble,

Turned face blushes

Changing color moonstone rings

A single polished green nail

And after too long - it felt good.

Pisces and Scorpio

The star crossed pair

A fate she knows too well,

And one in which he knows

Nothing about.

Her only wish?

That he remains unavailable

Either by choice or otherwise,

His wish?

Unknown, like the night sky

She dreams under.

A writer you say?

Than grant me one line

To validate my existence...

If only once and awhile.

To ask for anything more

Than the time they’ve been given

Is not only selfish

But improbable...

But tonight?

“Does reality ever hit you all at once?

And then everything looks a little washed out?”

Being so separated now

I think of love like a

Long, lost tale

Like when you look back at

Old photographs

And laugh

Sometimes because of the

Memories they hold

Sometimes because you can’t

Remember it at all

And how sometimes,

Just sometimes,

The one face you are always

Searching for,

The one, most familiar, staring

Right back at you

Is, in fact, the most unfamiliar

One of all.

I remember the bad times

Because it’s easier -

The good ones scrubbed

So hard during the

Moving on process

That they are more blurry.

But perhaps tonight what

I remember most of all

Is how you can spend

All of those years...

And the one thing you’re most afraid of

The one place you don’t want to be

The one thing you don’t want him to say

That you go crazy

The nights you let yourself

Think of the possibility

And the thoughts eat at your

Insides

Stuck between dry heaving and

Catching breathe

Grasping at the mattress beneath you

Reminding yourself it won’t happen

Until it does.

And I think we should all be grateful

Of how our body reacts in those

Moments

Rock bottom

Our worst fears revealed

Before our eyes

Pinching ourselves so hard

Until we realize our eyes are

Already open

And ears hearing not what our

Deepest and darkest corners of our minds

Have dreamt up,

But the actualization

Of just that.

How you expected the world to

Fall beneath you

And instead, you sit

You stand

You walk away.

You’re breathing,

Tears may fall, but

God you’re breathing and

If we were all honest for just that

Second

Nothing hurt.

Our bodies didn’t allow it.

They rejected the pain, and they

Displaced it

They let autopilot jump in

And take the wheel

And God, thank God.

Because if I lived through that

Than I think I can live through

Anything

And maybe that’s why

I’ve lived the way I’ve lived

Since love entered

And left my life.

Because once you meet

Your ultimate destroyer

Your kryptonite

And find out that you can

Survive?

We walked out of the restaurant, hand in hand. He was going on about how flavorful his meal was - full bodied and each bite an adventure. I hadn’t tasted a single thing.