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I check my phone every couple of minutes.

I am exhausted but I don’t go to sleep. I cannot focus on anything for long. I switch between writing, to a game, to my phone, to my dog. I want to read a book and watch a tv show at the same time but I realize I can’t. I want to take up boxing. Should I take up boxing? Which day? I find a nearby boxing place. 

I feel like I love you so much. Right now, you’re not here, I feel like I love you so so so much it’s unbearable. Have I felt this way before? I don't think so. I think of you. I see images. 

You’re walking along, it’s a cheerful sunny morning. You ask me spontaneously if I know the Muffin Man. The Muffin Man? I ask. You say yes, the Muffin Man, the one who lives on Drury Lane. I don’t ‘know him, I say, I don’t know the Muffin Man. I am smiling. I turn around to look at you. You’re adjusting your sunglasses. I’ll take you the Muffin Shop, you sing. I can’t stop laughing for days afterwards. 

Drury Lane. Is that the one from the song? I don’t know. I google it. Wait, boxing, the boxing place. They have classes at 6am on some weekdays. I know I won’t get up, because I won’t go to sleep, because I stay up late with you and when I’m not with you I can’t sleep. 

My game, I’ve been logged out. I log back in. I am doing quests in my game, I have pretty horses in my game. I miss you. I check my phone. You haven’t texted me back yet. Why? Who are you with? Is it that guy again, the one I think is a tweaker? You’re playing pool. You are smiling, you are having a good time, I’m not there. My chest hurts. I might cry. 

Oh shut up, it’s stupid. You have other friends. You are probably with a stranger. Maybe somebody you don’t even like. You miss me the normal amount. You miss me in the way that still lets me breath. But I don’t want to breath, I want to be smothered in your presence. 

Boxing. I have Fridays off, they have an afternoon class on Fridays. This is reasonable. But I feel fat. I want to get skinnier right now. I want to punch something right now. I want to be learning something right now. I can’t stand this. I can’t stand this. I can’t type fast enough to stop thinking about you. 

I want you to text me back right now. I want you to text me that you love me, right now. I need to know. Who are you with? Are you having a good time? Do you wish I was there? Like, really wish I was there? I want you to miss me as much as I miss you. Wait, no, I don’t, because I miss you like crazy. Like crazy. I mean it. 

I don’t want you to- my game. Is it logged in? Has anyone replied to my ad, about training the horses? I am typing so fast. I can type in the top 98%. Well, I could. I should see if I can still type that fast. 

I can type really fast. I got 102 WPM. That’s really fast. I like typing really fast right now. It’s kind of calming. I’m not thinking about you, I’m not thinking about how much I love you. How much I want you here. I think I will never sleep. I am exhausted but all the adrenaline keeps pumping through my veins like waves washing over me. 

I don’t want you to love me like I love you right now. I love you fanatically. I can imagine the feel of your shoulder blades under my hands. Your breath in my ear. You above me, slowing moving into me. We fit together. You stop and you’re as deep inside of me as you can get. You cum and gently kiss my neck at the same time. I don’t feel like I am being fucked, I feel like I am being worshiped. 

I think about this. I think about everything. I think about laughing with you. I think about snapping your broken nose into place for you when it hit your fridge so hard. I want you here, I want you now. I masturbate over and over, I play my game, I do anything but lay here and think. 

Finally, I am too exhausted to stay up any longer. I realize I have to wake up in 5 hours and I hate myself. I have a drink, I leave the Netflix on, I lay down and fall asleep fast enough to not think about you. 

These arms make me realize how rough all the other arms have been.

His hand slides along my shoulder and reaches the front of my neck. I am suddenly anxious. I can feel a memory creeping up from beneath. The darkness, the smell of sweat and dust, the inside of me feeling numb as a hand closes around my neck and holds. A tear comes up. A few days later I am having an episode, at home alone. May Amelia screams at me at the top of her lungs. She says it's the kind of thing he's supposed to ask you first. She says I'm pathetic and he's a monster. She wraps my scarf around my neck and tightens it. I am on the verge of passing out when I realize that her hands are my own. I let go of the scarf and it falls around my shoulders innocently. I gasp for breath. 

These are the memories that come when I feel his fingers creeping along my collarbone, up to my throat. His hand begins to squeeze... And he rubs my shoulder. I am frozen for a moment. No, this feels good, I think tentatively. He is not choking me for his pleasure. I am not going to try to find the words to say no. I sit in his gentle arms instead as he works out the kinks in my neck. 

Things escalate and he is on top of me, his whispy breath in my ear, we wait for each other and follow each other, like dancing. I want him so bad but I think about the conversation we should have. Do you have a... When was your last... I'm still your boss... The anxiety begins to fester and I lose sense of my body. I shake my head just the tiniest bit. Everything stops. He kisses me on the forehead. Just like that. Just the small shake of a head. I relax.

 You make me feel like everything is ok, I tell him as I wrap myself around him. I can see him smiling at me through the dark. He leans into my ear, but everything is ok, he says. I laugh and he looks puzzled. It is, I say, it actually is. 

These arms are different.

They don’t pull me in, they touch me and I melt into them. 

This is new. I have always wanted the touch, but it came with a price. I want to be wanted but not too much. Not so much that I am anxious, not so much that I am thinking stop but the words don’t come. Not so much that they forget to watch if my eyebrows are furrowing. 

These arms are strong but they are the gentlest. I like the way his breath makes whispy sounds as it comes out his nose. I like his scruffy hair when he blinks his blue eyes open in the morning light. 

I explain things to him that he doesn't know. He is in awe, he tells me I'm so smart, he is not bitter that I know more. I beat him at pool games, over and over. He is not bitter. You usually win, he says, but this time I'll beat you, he says. I win again and he smiles and racks the balls again. 

His apartment is clean. I like it. I feel good, I feel comfy. He kisses the top of my head. I kiss his neck. We can't kiss me anywhere else yet because I am almost the new assistant manager and he is a cook. But he wants to transfer. My dog gets up on the couch and flops on the other side of him. My two favorite girls, he says, scratching her behind the ear and holding me. His titanium heart ticks.

 He'll transfer and we will lay in bed on sunny mornings like this all the time. We'll read books and cook food and find geocaches and enjoy the silence together. Maybe I am naive, but these are dreams I have been holding, these are things I've wanted to do with the people before him and it was impossible.

I went into relationships with ideals without looking at the reality of the person in front of me. I hated their messy places. They played video games and didn't want to read books. They didn't want to go outside. They hated when I was right, when I knew something, when I won. They loved me so hard that they grabbed me, held me too tight, didn't see my silent tears. 

But he is different. He is soft. He is clean and patient, he wants to go outside, he wants to have a good time. He is always laughing and he makes me laugh too. He likes the sunlight coming in through the shades. He kisses the top of my head and it reminds me of a butterfly at the zoo. 

The job part II

This topic just needs a different voice. It’s about a choice, it’s more analytical and technical. 

So here’s the deal. I work at a pizza place. Yeah, it’s not exactly what I thought I’d be doing for almost a year now, but it’s not bad. I was a cook, now I’ve been a shift leader for a while. It’s not a big deal to be a shift leader. You teach people stuff, you learn to run the ovens, run to the bank sometimes, count the till at the end of the night. Once in a while you have to point someone in the right direction cuz they’re just standing around. It’s been good and I got a $1 raise for it. Not much, but it’s something.

Now money has not been the easiest for my house. I moved back in with my dad when I found his house a disgusting mess. Very small, 2 bedrooms, my sister who is 17 was in the other room. I could not believe that people could live in such filth, let alone my very own family. And what’s worse is they were looking at eviction within the month.

So I moved back. I created a new dream. To live with my dad and sister, help them out, save up, and travel around the country. Well, I kind of thought I’d be on my way by now, but I’m not. My dad still can’t pay all of the rent, my sister still needs to be told to take the trash out, and I still find myself broke on a bi-weekly basis. I have been sleeping on the couch in the living room for over a year now and my back hurts. 

Well so what to do. I guess I’m not leaving this summer, but yknow, that’s ok. I am getting a Vanagon with some money from other relatives and I can spend another year fixing it up. My sister will be a senior in high school come fall so I can stick it out for her last year before she leaves for college. One of my good friends says he wants to come traveling too. Maybe things will get a little easier and I can leave next summer. 

But suddenly, there is an opportunity. A promotion. Assistant manager. Twice the pay. My head spins. We could get a new place to stay, my dad and my sister and me. One with a third bedroom so that my back doesn’t hurt and I have some privacy. One with a yard for the dog. One with a lease for peace of mind. I could make it happen with that money. 

Next I would get a car for my dad. He’s a delivery driver. Well, actually, he works at my pizza place, so I am his shift leader and I guess I would be his manager. That’s not a big deal, the drivers just do they’re thing. But he uses my sisters car that she got from her rich side of the family. I have a beat up Subaru that barely runs at this point. There is the constant bickering. My sister needs her car for work, my dad needs his for work, mine is breaking down. What if they are both out of the picture suddenly and he loses his job? No, with the money I would get him a little car. 

So, what would I have to do? Well the physical job wouldn’t be too much different. Running the ovens more, doing inventory, going to meetings. Making more decisions. I wouldn’t mind that part. But there is one part that makes me nervous, and that is managing people. See, there is something you have to understand. I’m a 21 year old girl and I am about to be promoted to be the second in command. Almost everyone else is older, a lot of them are guys, a lot of them have an attitude that they don’t have to listen. This would be a challenge, the challenge is can she put her foot down? Can I be confident enough in myself? Can I even speak loud enough, can I make eye contact?

In theory I am all for the empowered female. But in reality I am the female that needs to be empowered. I would rather crack jokes than stir up conflict. I’d rather do something myself than tell someone they’re doing it wrong. I don’t know how to come back when people have an attitude. But, that said, perhaps this opportunity, as terrifying as it seems, would let me gain those skills. Surely I’d come out on the other end with a more forceful presence, without sacrificing my kindness and morality. 

So there is that. And then I think of my friends. We were quite a group at first, but then after the heart attack our buddy had to stop doing drugs. Suddenly we realized it had kind of been about the drugs. I don’t know, I don’t want to give up the friendships. But can you be friends with your boss? Can you get drunk and do drugs with your boss? Can you party and complain about work to your boss? Or will they begin to censor themselves? I don’t want to be that person that walks by and everyone is suddenly hushed. 

And then there is the one with the ticking heart, the one who has become so close. The one who... I don’t know. Will we be closer? Can we? No, we can’t because I am his boss and will be more of his boss. All I can do is rest my head against his shoulder and he puts his arm around my waste and we don’t speak of it. But what is the future of that? And how much of it do I hide? 

It’s all a difficult question. I think that ultimately I need to realize that I am getting offered a promotion to assistant manager at a place that I have not yet worked at for an entire year at the age of 21. I obviously am doing a lot of things right. I am good at my job, I am very valuable at work. People will respect me for the effort I put in. I will get better at communicating and holding people accountable as well, not just being an example, but being a leader. 

And some people will look at the fact that I am so close with my friends who work there and they will not respect me for that. And maybe my boss will wonder if I’m sleeping with the boy with the ticking heart. Maybe my friends will be a little frustrated when I have to pull them aside and tell them hey man, you can’t be late to work everyday, please don’t be late again. But that will be the side that’s not perfect. Nobody is perfect. My hard work will be worth the rumors. 

I am taking my anxiety here and now and throwing it out the door. People will talk and that’s ok. Some people will not like me and I will do my best to be civil and that’s ok. Someone might confront me and we will figure everything out. Some people might gossip and that’s ok. I will make mistakes and get in trouble and that’s ok. What’s the worst that can happen? I will move somewhere else and do well there as well. 

My dog is pacing back and forth but I don’t want to go out yet.

Does this make me a bad dog owner? We are going to go on a hike, just not yet. I just need one cup of coffee. I don’t look at the screen as I type. 

I stayed home last night after work. I ate carrots and did a couple of dishes. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I did it. I chatted with my dad and went to bed. He had spent the day writing a long piece about politics. He didn’t walk my dog. I was mad but I was too tired. He sends me his writing enthusiastically. I read it and it doesn’t make much sense to me, but I know I can’t say that. I tell him I don’t understand everything, but that I like it. 

My dog is watching me put lotion on my hands. Hands that are starting to look older than me. They’re the ones that are keeping this house together. I earn just enough. But now, suddenly, there is an opportunity. I could move up. It’s not too special, it’s just a pizza place, but still. The money, double the money. We could move and I could finally have my own room, a real bed. A yard for the dog. A car for my dad so that we are not constantly on the verge of him being out of work. 

The work wouldn’t be too much harder, either. I love running the ovens, I see things that need correcting, I am beginning to understand the flow. I don’t mind things like inventory so much. But then there is the social aspect. These people are not just my coworkers, they are my friends. I need to change my writing style a bit for this. I’ll start again.

I can’t seem to survive without them, warm bodies.

Maybe I have never really loved anyone, I’ve just needed them. Two weeks alone and hear we are again. In a new bed, in new arms. A new mind thinks of me when they wake up, while they masturbate before falling asleep. 

This one is gentle. Gentle face, gentle laugh, gentle arms. He follows me everywhere. To the dog park, to the pool table. He puts his right arm up against his cheek, blushes and hunches his shoulders and smiles when he doesn't make an obvious shot. 

He is different but I am afraid that I thought they were all different at the beginning. I am being slow. I have always thought, this time I will stand my ground, I say what I want and what I don’t want. And part of me is prepared. Prepared for the pressure. Be more for me, they always seem to say. They make the moves, they are the first to start yelling, I am the one who quietly slips into submission and loses sight of the way out. 

This one is different but I am afraid. We are getting out of my car. I am a tomboy and I am used to girls. He subtly holds doors open for me. Part of me knows I should argue that it’s unnecessary, but I don’t. I just smile. We lay and smoke cigarettes and weed. He tells me about looking death in the eyes, clutching his chest. His heart ticks methodically. His heart is made of titanium. We watch some episodes and laugh. I rest my head on his shoulder. He tentatively moves his knee over so it’s touching mine. This is enough. We just last there, quietly feeling less alone. 

This is where I am always worried. What next? What did I initiate? How am I going to say no? When will they start saying they want more, that it’s not enough? But it hasn’t come yet. There is no more moves. I wake up and his arm is around my waste and I’m up against his chest. Our noses our touching and we both realize it as we awaken. We both move away at the same time. I turn around and become the little spoon.

I want to believe that he is satisfied. That he thinks about more but he loves what is. That he is not angry at me. That he will not think less of me when he finds out that I am not a badger, I am a deer. On that road where his touch and my memory might collide, I will stare, wide-eyed, unmoving. I pray that we can just cuddle for a long time. I don’t want nothing more yet. I can’t do nothing more yet. I want to be tamed, I want someone who is patient. I want someone who will make me feel better. And I can’t seem to be alone. 

I tell myself to wash one cup at a time.

Scrub, rinse, set aside. There, clean. Now, another. You don’t have to do more than just one cup. There, see? You did two! That’s better than none. 

I have washed a few cups, the laundry is in the washing machine, I fed the dog, I made some coffee, I even brushed my teeth this morning. It’s just little bits and pieces. 

I didn’t wake up hungover but I realize I feel the same no matter what I’ve had to drink. I didn’t drink the night before last. I didn’t sleep much either. I wasn’t going to drink last night, I got home and collapsed into bed. But I could feel a pressure in my chest, I could feel my eyeballs trembling, my heart tripping over it’s beat. The same anxiety as last night, the same anxiety as the day before. I almost fall asleep and suddenly I am sitting upright looking at what time it is. Why? Anxiety. Or is it exhaustion? Exhaustion. Or..

There’s a bottle of vodka next to my bed. I find this questionable. Bottles of booze belong in the kitchen. I walk to the kitchen and grab a can of soda and bring it back to bed. I drink a bit of it and then pour it full again. I watch another episode of a show and drink it down. The tremble goes away. Before I know it, I’m asleep. 

It’s the exhaustion, which has led to the anxiety, which has been worsened by the endless caffeine, which I have then begun to medicate with the alcohol. I am not dependent on the alcohol itself. 

 Hi, my name is ... and I’m an alcoholic, I will say in 5 years. Not because of the alcohol. But because I will have lost all sense of what living is really worth and I will medicate myself with booze, the easiest substance to acquire, the one that kills you the slowest so you feel like maybe someone will realize you’re committing suicide and will come and save you. Maybe you will reconsider it halfway. 

I’m alone again. It terrifies me. Already I think of all the people who would be willing to pull me in close. I don’t want to fuck them, I want to feel them, wanting to fuck me. But then I know I’d crumble and do it and crumble some more. Collapsing inwards to fill the void. 

But for now I will just post these few words. I will finish this coffee. I will wash one more cup, put laundry in the dryer, go to work just one more time. One foot, then the other. One sip to fall asleep, one sip to ease my chest, one sip so as not to feel alone. 

I hate myself for caring about you.

The words, spilling up from the pit of your soul and the edges of your sanity, on the blog that I should not have found, are not meant for me. They are for someone you long for. I was a temporary bandaid on the would she carved in you. 

Today my ex spent 200 korunas to call me. She heard my voice for all of 10 seconds before it hung up. She texted me drunk saying it was worth it. What did I ever do to deserve her? Nothing. I cheated on her with you, I moved away and never felt the regret and remorse I should have. I should think about her, I should dream about her, I should want to hear her voice.

Six months ago I got a message from a girl who cheated on someone with me. She hadn’t been talking to me since I got together with her friend. She told me at the start, don’t date them, they are not good. I didn’t listen, although lord knows I should have. Her message said she was sorry, that she was so angry because she was so in love with me, that she can never talk to me again because she can never have what she wants. Which is me. I should think about her, I should dream about her, I should want to hear her voice. 

There are more. Everyone I have loved, I have left. So maybe I didn’t love them much. I definitely didn’t love them as much as they loved me. Even now there are friends who wish there was more. Sometimes I am tempted to do it, because I hate myself, just for some momentary satisfaction. But I am trying to be kind. 

You are the only one who has ever left me and perhaps that is the catch. It’s not really about you, it’s about me. And you know this and so you don’t reply. It’s good. I only text you when I’m very drunk. It’s only happened twice. You called back a few days later that first time. I think it reinforced the behavior. Maybe I have been the object of shallow and misunderstanding infatuation so often and so completely that I am vain. Maybe I want to hear from you to quell the outrage that part of me feels. How can she not want me, not talk to me, how can she not love me? 

I would give up all of their love for you to write me a damn letter. I am full of myself and I hate you. I just want to know what happened. I want to know if you ever really cared. I want a fucking explanation. 

I’ve been on the couch for a year and a half so that my dad can pay the rent.

The truth is that it’s hard. The truth is it’s hard to say, I’m having a hard time. You’re an asshole to say, it’s harder for me, it’s hardest for me. But you’re not an asshole to say, I’m having a hard time. 

I am the upbeat one, I like to joke around. I take everything that hurts and I laugh at it. I don’t know how to share it unless I’m joking. Everyone knows I’m only joking halfway through. I think people see that somewhere it hurts. They see it on my wrist and maybe somewhere in my eyes. Maybe they see it when I tell them what hurts them, maybe they realize that I can only see it because I relate a bit. 

Most people my age move back in with their parents because they’re broke, I say. I’m smiling and I take a drag of my cigarette. I sound like a stand-up comedian, building up towards a punch line. But I moved back in because my parent is broke! Everyone laughs. Reading this you think, how do people laugh at that? But if you heard the way I know how to say it, you’d laugh too. 

I don’t leave room for an awkward pause. You have to keep moving. You wrap it up with a smile and a wistful look. I’ve crossed a line and I have to backtrack a bit in order to avoid pity. Nah, truth is, it’s nice to be together as a family, I say. That’s what’s important in life, you know. I moved away when I was 15, it’s just really nice to be back, I say. I just told them about how my 50 year old father is dependent on me. How I am stuck on the couch. But somehow I am leaving people with a warm feeling about my situation. 

My girlfriend and I broke up for Valentine’s Day, I say. Well, on Valentine’s Day, not just for the one day. Someone is about to feel bad for me, but I keep moving. It’s great, I continue, because I hate corporatism and all that holiday really is is a big marketing scheme. The best way to say fuck you to capitalism is to break up for Valentine’s Day. Plus, my dog was thrilled, she gave me lots of kisses and doesn’t mind when I called her a bitch since she really is one, I explain enthusiastically and down a shot. 

Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe people think I’m sad, the way I joke about things. I don’t know. Maybe my friends hang out with me out of pity. But I doubt it. Most people don’t hang out out of pity. Most people are assholes, or just honest, whichever fits your point of view. 

One of my friends had 4 heart attacks in 24 hours last month. Cocaine overdose on an already bad heart. He keeps saying he can start smoking again once his heart is recovered from the heart attacks. I tell him once he quits not to start again, it’ll kill him. He says no, the reason I had the heart attacks is because of the coke. I tell him that he had a heart attack because of a clefted heart valve at birth, two open heart surgeries by the age of 13, smoking for several years and then the excessive coke. He walks out of the bar with some idiot we barely know five minutes later with an unlit cigarette. I give him a stare and he looks back nervously. I start rolling up my sleeve. He giggles. I am always joking around. I said I’d punch him in the face if I seen him smoking. He thinks I’m joking. The idiot offers him a light. We are staring straight at each other.

Will you seriously punch me in the face if I light this, he asks. I absolutely will, I say. For the first time he realizes that I’m not joking. Why, he asks. Because I’ll get more satisfaction out of punching you in the face than attending your funeral, I say. Back to joking. The idiot standing there asks a stupid question. My friend gives him back the cigarette. I roll my sleeve back down. 

I’ll be the bitch if it keeps you from lighting a cigarette, I say and laugh. You’re not a bitch, he says quietly. He’s drunk and in withdrawals, even after a month. Not so secretly, I’m glad I’m not him. You’ll get through this, I tell him, and in a few years everyone will come to you, drunk and craving that smoke, asking you to tell them how the hell you got through it back in the day. 

cough syrup, ketamine molly, blow and booze those are my best friends who chase away the blues

It’ll be over today.

Maybe today. If I have the courage. If I have the willpower to. I didn’t want to do it over text, but she knows. I said we should talk, she said face to face, I said yeah. I said I can’t do this anymore, I am so tired, I need to take care of myself. 

It’s true but somehow I don’t want to use that excuse. I want to play the game where I say, I am hurting you, that’s why I don’t want to be with you, I don’t want to be with you because I love you. But I know that’s a lie. 

We’ll see. I’ll yet be free. 

I know that domesticated life is so much easier.

But I can’t. I don’t feel in place or at ease in ease. I am drawn out into the wild, towards the wild ones. We runs and eat and love and cry in a terribly fast and twisting mess as the domesticated look at us from behind their fences and pity us, for wild things are beautiful and free, but they never live quite as long.

-Ramblings of Ravens (Jan 2016)