i. An eco-friendly covered cup sits next to me. It’s been empty for a while now; I've waited all afternoon to say: “Oh this? Just a novel I’m working on.”
ii. I want to write as I wrote last year – of the goodness in the world, of infinite faith, and brief captured moments of beauty – rather than to write just to expunge the bitter tastes of life. I haven’t written in a while – yes I realize what a bad joke that statement is; seeing as I hardly ever put my pen to the paper anymore. A great many adventures have ensued recently, but every time I begin to write them down, I end up hating my words and scrapping it all frustratedly.
Perhaps I don’t wish to print my happiness in permanent ink, if it is in fact merely impermanent. For I know that if it all vanishes back into long work days, and short cold nights, then I will re-read these words and be drowned by the tidy little paragraphs – caught up in a better time – and forget to open new windows and doors that happen to present themselves.
iii. This year has been a year
of faking it, wearing burgundy lipstick and dark winged eyes, making detailed lists, ensuring my voice-mail doesn't get too full, watching my weight and flipping off my scale each morning, learning to smile without permitting my lip to fold up, looking in the mirror and accepting that my forehead has frozen into my thinking face and left a permanent thoughtful crease between my brows.
a year full of nights. Of sleeping with windows and hearts dangerously open, letting the sometimes biting breeze makes its home beneath the cracks of my eyelids, recognizing that blankets are never enough to warm my cold cold bones, staring emptily at the pages of the journal I never really seem to fill, watching my pile of feathered pens dry up, wondering to myself if the life I live now is all it will ever be, and fearing the rapidly turning pages of the calendar as I watch fearfully with eyes wide open
a year of staying focused, trying to be the adult that I am expected to be, ignoring my internal monologue of endless questions asking me what I am doing, struggling to never let on that I am somewhat lost and sometimes lonely, and often so confused. Tasting the blood as I bite my tongue to keep from screaming, and struggling not to ask strangers to tell me what it is that I am supposed to do next, and where exactly I am supposed to go from here.
vi. My writing had become a reflection of my blind ambling through an empty existence; the only light in the darkness were my dreams of another life that was not mine and wistful thinking for romance painted with a golden brush.
I had forgotten that life is far larger than the drive to work with sleep filled eyes, or the rush to complete a task minutes before it is due. I had forgotten that keeping friends was more important than making money, that my soul was more important than my body, and that there is always love waiting to be found in the most unlikely of places if I only took the time to seek it out.
v. Forget about the things you had, And all the things you lost.
Before you let your heat drunk breath, Grow cold and turn to frost.
~C
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