August 2009
8 posts
i love her…
…and this is the end of everything beautiful. this is the end of everything, beautiful.
—
thank you for taking this journey with me. i am thankful for the space you’ve allowed me to make. she has chosen a path without me, so i will not be writing (ellipsis) any more.
i invite you to follow my new tumblr, http://iloveherepilogue.tumblr.com where i will put...
i love her…
…so i told her. i am so afraid, so scared that this is the beginning of the end. but i told her. i said she did not have to say it back but she had to, had to believe me.
i love her…
…because she keeps me on my toes. no matter where this goes, i’ll always think of her as someone that i love. i know that passion and patience have the same Latin root word and i have found both truth and solace in that.
i love her…
…and everything we’ve shared together. a year, says the ticket stubs in my wallet. says her clothes in my drawers, says the art on my wall, says the photos in my phone, says the poetry, says my body, the way my heart beats.
i love her…
…and how i can do anything with her, from the intimate to the silly. like that time at Bourbon Street when we faux-hawked her friend’s hair and i got him to dance and my new pants ripped straight up the ass and we all laughed but kept dancing.
i love her…
…so i feel our beginnings like the butterfly effect. i touched her skin in brazen summer and found a line of braille: i’m hanging from moment to moment with you and in between the butterflies hold me together.
1 tag
i love her…
…and i wish she’d be a little gentler with herself. ‘even a broken clock is right twice a day,’ she told me once. no matter the hour, or where the second hand lies, the original rhythm remains inside. all the answers will come in time, by way of no clock but her own.
i love her…
…in the waking hours of her late brother’s birthday; she was so sick, nearly in the hospital recently, and her phone was dead for a day and oh, all the scenarios that made movie screens of my skull. delicate new-york-minute lives. i do not know what i’d do without her in mine.
July 2009
31 posts
1 tag
i love her…
…so the acoustic version of Everlong will never be the same for me. last summer, we’d kissed, just kissed, for three hours in my bedroom to an acoustic playlist of the same seventeen songs. kissing her is the closest i have ever come to perfection.
i love her…
…breasts, and how sensitive they are for her. when she got one pierced i nearly had a heart attack for want of her. her taste has lingered long on my lips; her touch is where art and sex meet.
i love her…
…boxy glasses framing feral eyes, and her dimples when she smiles wide, and her little, cute feet, toenails painted black. she had short, courageous hair when we met. her hair’s grown out but not her courage.
1 tag
i love her…
…and i know it feels like her sky’s falling down in waves, she’s sinking slowly. i want to be her rock, that coastline with the beacon that spells safe harbour; no, i want to be the ship that braves the storm just to keep her warm.
i love her…
…nakedness. when she first gets out of the shower, her long rose-pink towel wrapped loose around her, wet hair disheveled, her embarrassed half-smile. no lighting, no camera angles, could translate that quiet grace.
i love her…
…so i walk the busy city and feel its emptiness without her nearby. “i missed your skin when you were east” plays to the hum of the traffic. i got on the train and for the first time it was in her opposite direction.
1 tag
i love her…
…when she sings. no one sings like she does, no one. in the car, her energy conducts hotwired music. she exhales along with the sound system and she becomes the song that’s stuck in my head.
i love her…
…and i miss sleeping next to her, so badly, and still. i always went to sleep cold in that room with the queen bed, cuddling up to her, but by morning my body heat had driven the covers off though not us any farther apart.
1 tag
i love her…
…even though she’s painfully intractable. ‘i’m just me,’ she says, and i almost laugh. of course she’s her; that’s who i fell for, and i knew what i was getting into, through both the simple and the struggle.
i love her…
…so i blush whenever she takes me by surprise. when she catches me unaware, i shade red. unexpectedly behind me in my room, or beside me at her job, i’m left laughing, turning colours just for her.
i love her…
…and every room in my house knows her. here, and here, and here. there we kissed hard over plastic chairs, there we took floor shots during the election, there we slept after long nights, the dog beside us. and every chamber in my heart knows her. here, and here, and here.
i love her…
…personality, particularly as she is for no other purpose than her own, when she is as she is for herself alone. she is most beautiful when no one is looking; but that is a lie, in part. she is always beautiful.
i love her…
…hands, bigger than mine but not by much, much like the rest of her. at times her hands haunt me, ghost howls of where they once were, yet are no longer. overboard in midnight hours, her hands were lifelines.
i love her…
…because though she can barely boil water, she claims, she makes wicked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from scratch. i have bartered with her for them. and i’m craving them like mad right now.
1 tag
i love her…
…pants, slick wet with water and sweat after a long work shift, her smile roughed up as much as her hands. off-work but at work, she brushed her cheek against mine, a kiss goodbye so quick anyone looking would miss it. these small moments mean everything.
i love her…
…because though she isn’t perfect, she is to me. if you had asked me what i wanted in a girl, what i needed, i could list it all, but instead the qualities could all be summed up by saying her name.
i love her…
…in her car, emptying parking lots and streetlights, out behind the stadium where we met. i held her arms, her wrists, and looked at her, really looked at her, kissed her. i knew nothing outside her car doors.
1 tag
i love her…
…and i want to say to her, with my words and eyes, ‘you are so beautiful. you are so beautiful,’ in such a way that she can not again say softly after, ‘no.’ she is worth it, worth everything. baby, happy birthday.
i love her…
…and one of my favourite things to do with her is just talk. i like to hear her thoughts, her opinions. i miss our conversations strewn like steps from the balcony to the door.
i love her…
…and her favourite Cold Stone: banana ice cream, brownie and cookie dough chunks. we shared one as we walked eight blocks that night, the Times Square cement sidewalks glittering like nowhere else in the city.
i love her…
…and she may feel like she doesn’t fit in, like she’s a loner, product of too many disappointments, but she fits in my life. she fits next to me, my head on her collar bone, arm around her, better than anyone i’ve ever known.
i love her…
…even in my dreams. last night, we were all leaving. us, our families too. exodus by ocean liner, the world together for elsewhere. i lifted her out of the pool before we boarded, looked in her sad eyes and said, ‘i will never give up on you.’
i love her…
…although she wouldn’t let me give her Valentine’s Day. why only one cold hideaway day to treat her right? i agree. every day, even in careless, carefree summer. every day. that’s when you should show it.
i love her…
…and that’s her fault as much as mine. just being herself around me, how she treated me, held me, laughed with me, convinced me that, wordlessly, this was the only way for me: held breaths, the space between heartbeats.
i love her…
…and i know she’s not healed. she’s afraid to open up, to be loved and left once more. so she pushes it away. she pushes me away. i bloodlet but i don’t want to leave. god, i don’t want to leave her.
i love her…
…even when it hurts. even when i can’t see her enough, when i am afraid she’ll forget me, when i’m afraid it’s easier not to, when i’m afraid it won’t matter or that it never did.
1 tag
i love her…
…and she doesn’t owe me anything, no. i am here freely. when fireworks dizzy the darkness with carousels of colour, i hope that she thinks of freedom. yes, of the country, but also, in time, of love.
i love her…
…in the weight of quietness. in the daylight, i’ve slept in, the sun warm against my skin for once, the clouds rolling pictures, as they do. in this mundane, in this disconnected quiet, the day itself is not enough.
i love her…
…t-shirt sleeves rolled up, her strong arms, her muscles, as she works at the ball park where we first met. i remember my nerves, clear as yesterday, when i’d gathered the courage to give her my number.
i love her…
…because she doesn’t realize what she does. unaware when she kisses, when she kills; beneath it all, her priorities are hers alone. strip the facade and the bliss that’s left is of her own making.
i love her…
…and i feel better after talking to her, even if it’s texting about nothing in particular. she strips away some anxiety, some breath i didn’t know i was still holding.
June 2009
30 posts
i love her…
…soccer history. i would have loved to travel to her games, watching her take on the field. i feel like i missed out on so much just for not having met her sooner. so weird to think that this time last year, i didn’t know her.
i love her…
…sense of humour. one of the hardest aspects to describe, but also one of the best. half the time i don’t remember what we were laughing so hard about, but i know my face hurt from smiling.
i love her…
…so it’s times like these that i’m glad i’ve worked her into memory. missing her is easier when i can see her in my head, see trademarks of her skin. her face when she’s sleeping, her smile when she’s angry, her laugh when it’s true.
1 tag
i love her…
…and i didn’t want it to be easy. i wanted to mean it, to be sure i meant it. so i fought it. for months i tried to deny it. but i am sure. and i do mean it. and i can’t fight that any more. she’s undeniable.
i love her…
…and since i miss her because she’s on vacation this week, i’ve taken to looking at the sky. like we share it, like they say. but let’s be honest, it’s raining here, it’s always raining. there, there are sunrises and sunsets. she’s away and that’s not my sky.
1 tag
i love her…
…and the way she looks at me. she says her eyes are dull, but they’re a crescent city sunrise in july, a kaleidoscope of redwood and summer. warm, deep brown with flecks of red, small streaks of gold in hiding.
i love her…
…because she is my opposite complement. everything i ever wondered, strange and wonderful, she’s discovered. she has the answers to all of the questions in my head.
1 tag
i love her…
…yet she has only ever asked one thing of me: ‘don’t forget me.’ difficult, because i have a terrible memory. but i try. every time i stare too long, i kiss too hard, i hold too close, i’m making a memory. something i can keep to keep my promise.
i love her…
…smell; she left some wet clothes in my house, despite our effort to remember them, so i hung them to dry on the line. her scent caught the air and, for a brief moment, i felt peace.
i love her…
…and sometimes, it surprises me still. on occasion, i say the phrase alone in open air, turn the syllables over in my mouth, taste test their honesty, startled by their certainty. i say the words aloud because, sometimes, even i don’t know what to do with them.
i love her…
…touch, the spread of her small hands, like mine yet unlike mine. i leaned my head into her stomach, her side, when she had to go, feeling her hips, her muscles, happy for her touch, her hands on my back, then her lips on my forehead by carlight.
