Posts in category "Random"

A Crush

I met a girl across the sea
Her hair the gold that gold can be
Are you the teacher of the heart?
Yes, but not for thee

So I asked out Jenn.

I sup­pose it should­n’t come as a sur­prise; Jenn’s been — per­haps unwit­ting­ly — a source of quixot­ic inspi­ra­tion as of late.

It was some­thing I approached del­i­cate­ly, out of a sense of pro­pri­ety (if indeed, such a thing still exists), and the fact that Aaron and Karen are our close mutu­al friends. An avow­al of such a nature, han­dled incor­rect­ly, always has the poten­tial to be a cause of awk­ward­ness at par­ties.

Not that I was­n’t already awk­ward enough around her.

Jenn’s pres­ence alone would make me flus­tered. When I could speak, it would often be a flour­ish of non­sen­si­cal words. Something that’s humourous in hind­sight, but rather frus­trat­ing in the moment.

To be so affect­ed always took me by sur­prise.

I would tell myself, “This will pass. This is a phase, an infat­u­a­tion; time or luck will have me grow out of this.”

And it worked, for a while. I moved on, hav­ing con­vinced myself of such an idea, nev­er telling any­one how I felt. Then one day, I real­ized that I was only fool­ing myself. It became obvi­ous when I’d think of her in the lyrics of every song. I could­n’t pre­tend I did­n’t need to defend some part of myself from her. Until then, I nev­er believed in love at first sight. I did­n’t want to believe it. After all, how do you explain such an illog­i­cal, inef­fa­ble, irre­press­ible feel­ing? I grew, but not out of this, and in vain had I strug­gled.

She said no.

It’s fun­ny to think that with the wis­dom I’ve gained, the expe­ri­ences I’ve had, I can still be reduced to such an ado­les­cent emo­tion. I don’t think any­one, myself includ­ed, would have imag­ined this would hap­pen to me again, not at this age, not with what I’ve been through.

I just won­der now, when we’re both at Aaron and Karen’s wed­ding, after giv­ing me her polite dec­li­na­tion, whether I’ll still feel the same. Sometimes you think you’ve moved on. You think you’re over some­one, until you do some­thing as sim­ple as see them again and your heart stops. Love, attrac­tion, infat­u­a­tion, they’re nev­er so con­ven­tion­al as to be under­stood.

What a sil­ly thing a crush is.

Letter From An Ex-Girlfriend

Jeff

Where do I start? I can’t even begin to recount the last six weeks of my life, and real­ly if I were able…Im [sic] not sure you’d want to hear it. I won’t say the “let’s be friends” email was a sur­prize [sic]…I sup­pose I just need­ed to hear it.

I find a let­ter in my mail­box, wrapped in a gold foil enve­lope, teal let­ters on a white page.

The let­ters are blocky, square, with no regard for case. She used to write me notes with her Es as three par­al­lel lines, count­ing on the eye to draw an illu­sion of a ver­ti­cal bar, and her Os dot­ted in the cen­tre. It was one of her things, one of the details she used to be unique.

Now she’s aban­doned all that.

I’m already skep­ti­cal, on my guard.

It’s hard though…I had my chance…I sup­pose you had yours through our relationship…you could­n’t be what I need­ed then and now look at you — the sub­ject of my fantasies…watching from afar…wishing I’d have saw [sic] these things then — won­der­ing if maybe I had looked through less skep­ti­cal eyes, I could have saw [sic] who you are today.

I’m remind­ed of why it end­ed. Of how hard I tried to make it work, of all the things she did to hurt me.

Now she points out her faults. The mis­takes she made. She flat­ters me. She lets her guard down. I’ve nev­er felt her so vul­ner­a­ble, and this is how I know she’s changed.

You lead the struc­tured life I always want­ed, I don’t know if you have a coun­ter­part in your life…I don’t know if you’re con­tent now to struc­ture your own world and not yet some­one else’s…there are few things I do know about you…but what I do see…Im [sic] sor­ry I did­n’t before.

Truth be told…Ive [sic] dri­ven all the way to the east end on a few occa­sions and turned back. My inten­tion was to fall at your feet…to kiss them as I had in the past but with a renewed respect for you and a bet­ter under­stand­ing of myself. But I was affraid [sic].

I’m remind­ed now of what drove me to achieve what I have now. To cast off that part of my life, to buy a house, to live on my own, to move on. I may nev­er have had any of this if it was­n’t for her.

I’m sure you’re shak­ing your head now…maybe laughing…maybe not even read­ing this any­more. You’re done with me it seems. i’m [sic] okay with that…afterall [sic] it’s my own fault. I had that chance and I could­n’t take it.

i’ll [sic] get to the point: on the next page is a short fan­ta­sy I had pass through my mind yes­ter­day and so I wrote it down in my jour­nal because late­ly some­thing has changed in me — I nev­er assign a name or face or…person to my fantisies…lately you’ve been front and cen­tre.

I’m remind­ed of how intense­ly sex­u­al she was. The nights we stayed up, alive in flame, con­sumed by our con­cu­pis­cence, push­ing the lim­its of our bod­ies. There were times when I nev­er felt so alive.

Before you read this next page…know that if you had want­ed me at your feet—Id [sic] be there in a heartbeat—even still—what an hon­nor [sic] it would be to curl up at your feet while you read this—

Okay now Im [sic] stalling—because Im ner­vous at the thought of you open­ing your eyes to my want…for you.

Her words aren’t enough. Not enough to change my mind or what’s past.

Too lit­tle, too late.

Note: The sec­ond page, the fan­ta­sy, was­n’t includ­ed, for fear that it would give away the iden­ti­ty of writer. It reads like some­thing from l’Histoire d’O; noth­ing vul­gar, but flat, dry, and devoid of lit­er­ary devices.

Words From One Who Cannot Write

I used to fan­cy myself a poet. Then I read a series of poems by Susan Musgrave and real­ized how naïve I was to believe such a thing. So I stuck with writ­ing, and fan­cied myself a writer, until I read Aurora’s words, mys­te­ri­ous and res­onat­ing, still bit­ter from the breakup in January.

A while ago, it felt like I ran out of things to say. Now I real­ize that it’s not a lack of sub­ject mat­ter, but a lack of con­vic­tion.

The seren­i­ty, bal­ance, matu­ri­ty I’ve gained has robbed me of the pas­sion that once fueled my writ­ing.

Even as recent as January, Dave Seah, pro­lif­ic cre­ator of the Printable CEO, Procrastinator’s Clock, and fel­low 9ruler, said that I wrote with “lit­er­ate-yet-con­ver­sa­tion­al inten­si­ty, the kind of writ­ing that sounds good when spo­ken aloud”. Now my entries are dry and tech­ni­cal, devoid of the inten­si­ty I used to feel, and I fear that it’s a reflec­tion of myself.

Maybe this is why I’m so quick to embrace my moods and emo­tions. They let me write the way I used to, with the lyri­cal qual­i­ty and style I once enjoyed.

So I sit here, with the lights out and Leonard Cohen on, the ear­ly folk stuff before he went synth in the 80s, songs of love and hate, win­dows open to the night, try­ing to recap­ture the pas­sion that drove me to write when I start­ed this blog.

I’m not a writer. I can’t write.

I’m sim­ply a thinker, with the need to express him­self.

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Bronwen

I love you too much baby
For you to be with me
I love you too much baby
I got­ta set you free

—Shea Seger, I Love You Too Much

You were the clos­est I’ve ever come to per­fect in a girl­friend. In fact, you raised the bar. Now I know there are girls out there who are fun­ny, intel­li­gent, open-mind­ed, car­ing, sane, and I’ll always be look­ing for the same now.

Making love to you was fun because you’re so damn cute. I loved to look into your eyes, though I wish you’d be able to keep yours open.

In so many ways, we worked. My love of dark choco­late and your love of milk choco­late meant that we’d nev­er have a prob­lem fin­ish­ing off an assort­ed box. You’re so easy-going, while I’m so uptight. All the lit­tle things, like puz­zle pieces made of clay.

Even though it’s been months since we’ve bro­ken up, our video is still by far the most played item on my iTunes playlist. It’s such a beat­i­ful mem­o­ry, and I’ll always cher­ish it.

I still miss those notes you used to leave me about what you did dur­ing the day and when you’d be back. Those times we’d take the bus, and you’d rest your head on my shoul­der. Those times we’d wres­tle and fall asleep in a pile, right there, from exhaus­tion.

I miss all these things, but the fact is that it did­n’t feel right, and it would­n’t be fair to either of us to keep going. You deserve to be with some­one bet­ter. Someone who will ful­ly appre­ci­ate you and the things you do.

I know I nev­er said it in our rela­tion­ship, but I loved you.

And I still do.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen