Written On My Ribcage

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

If only you knew

People are so quick to tell others with disorders that they’re “too this” and “too that” - they tell someone with panic disorder that they’re too dramatic and someone with depression that they’re too emotional, like these people don’t know this already. Like they don’t know that they live only in short bursts between attacks and pits, a brief moment where they actually feel like they’re okay and have any kind of control over themselves. You tell the person with panic disorder just relax. You tell the person with chronic depression just be happy. There’s nothing worth all of that stress and fatigue. Panic and depression are just as strong as addictions, you say that we feed off of it, that it seems like we crave it. And we do. Because our minds are so fixated that it gives up all control. You tell the one with panic disorder that they’re being irrational. The one with depression is just being downright ridiculous, pessimistic and stubborn. And you’re right. But don’t be so ignorant as to think we want to be this way. It’s not a quick fix. It’s an illness, much like that of which occupies those of you that speak down on them or give up on them or refuse to see it as a serious issue. We know that we are sick. We recognize it just as clearly as you do. But Until we learn how to dictate our own minds we feel as if we have no control. We do, but we don’t. It takes patience and strength to get through a disorder. All it takes is you thinking twice before opening your mouth to rid of the ignorance you’re consumed by. You aren’t telling us anything we don’t know. We know much more than you think. Now it’s your turn to gain some knowledge.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

chapter one

you wore a peacoat because you remembered that i liked them, and it didn’t take you long to hold my hand which is nice because he used to always tell me that I was needy, when all i really wanted was a sense of someone else besides myself. you promised me coffee on our first date but it took me long enough to parallel park that we got there just as they were closing, and you reached for the door just to spin us around and you gave me that little smirk and told me not to worry, because you had something better in mind. so i just walked with you, fingers shaking but stuck in yours and legs somehow keeping up and i could smell the chocolate before you even opened the door for me, and when we walked inside there were flowers made out of chocolate and cases and cases of chocolate covered-everythings and you led me right to the chocolate covered strawberries and told me to pick which ones i wanted. i had told you nights before that i hadn’t had them since my birthday. you told me tonight was close enough.

you bought me homemade hot chocolate, too. and you carried the box and handed me a neatly little wrapped strawberry and i turned around so you couldn’t watch me take the first bite, and i had chocolate all over my fingers but you held my hand anyway and gave me tissue paper to get rid of what my lips couldn’t. it wasn’t until we started turning down lightly lit side streets that i asked you where we were going, and you told me that i’d just have to see. just wait and see. we walked through the beautiful part of downtown, and eventually i could see the lapping water of a lake, and the road turned into grass which turned into gravel, which led us to a long dock that stretched out over the water. you remembered that i liked those, too. you sat with me on the end of it and asked me about my family while i asked about yours, you told me your mom was one of the best people you knew but that you didn’t see your parents very often. i asked you if it scared you to get close to someone knowing you’ll be leaving for college soon and you said i’m not really leaving. at least you weren’t leaving yet. we’d let the silence sit between us and watch as it planes passed over us and you swore that it was the same one just circling around and around again. there weren’t many stars out, only a few big ones which i focused on many times that night when i couldn’t grasp onto any sort of reality. i asked you what you were thinking about and your hand was so soft on my thigh that i had to focus to hear your words and you told me you were only thinking about the fact that you were on a date with a beautiful girl.

i kept telling you that i didn’t feel like i was here. and did that make sense? does that make sense? i’m here, i am here of course i’m here but it doesn’t feel like it. i don’t feel like i’m here.

you pulled me back to lay with you and we just laid there on that dock with your fingers playing through my hair and my own making designs on whatever part of you i could reach, and you kept tightening your arms around me as if i could possibly go anywhere and you just kept asking me what i was thinking, and i just kept asking you what you were thinking. you pulled me up to the edge of the dock and i stood there facing the water and imagined everything beneath it, and you whispered into my neck to just imagine. to imagine with you. to imagine my own little bakery on the most beautiful street of paris, right on the corner, and fresh tulips would be delivered from holland every week and you’d have a regular, pierre, who would come in the mornings and share a croissant. and he would buy lilacs for his wife. he would always buy lilacs for his wife. i just closed my eyes and the only thing i could think to say was that the water was still now.

you held my hands out with yours as the breeze toyed with my hair and i’d just keep folding you into me every way i could and slipping my hand beneath the band around your wrist. we held our thumbs out to the little sliver that was the moon and decided that it wasn’t in fact always larger than our thumbs like the movie had said, and you told me that there was someone out there holding their thumb up to us just the same, comparing and looking right at one another without looking at anything at all. i turned to you to bury my face in your chest and told you i wanted to go dancing. i’d always wanted to go dancing. you cradled my head to you and i asked you now what you were thinking. i could barely hear myself but you did. so you cupped my jaw and gently, too gently pulled it up to yours and kissed me. and you kissed me again, and another time, and then i was giving you them in return. and after awhile you pulled back and it was quiet again, and you told me that’s what you were thinking about. me too.

all i could say was me too.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

daily excerpts from a complicated heart, 2 November 2013

I swore that I would be kind and not harsh, that I would share and not build walls, but promises from these lips are like already broken glass. There is no piece or place in me that is starting from a comprehensible whole. I am in pieces. Be warned - I may cause you to bleed. And I do not know where my heartstrings start and end but they seem to be constantly short-circuiting. I think I’m trying to fix this. Trying to fix the dead-end statements and passive aggressive meanings that seem to have gotten loose from my faulty grip. I may be trying. Or I may be making it worse. But I swear something is happening because I get these daily messages engraved into my palms or sometimes whispered in my dreams telling me that I am changing. The signal is out. Habits are altering and my home is shifting. My passion, love, and attention are all being remodelled. There is something critical happening in my nervous system, something worthwhile is forming from the fragments that I thought had been empty all along. I am becoming more than these shattered pieces. I swear. This is the first time that I did not cry. Maybe it does stop hurting. Maybe leaving does get easier. But I don’t think I want it to be easy. And while you may say this could be growth, I must say that I don’t feel good about it. Not one bit. So for now I will keep hoping that my tear ducts are temporarily broken because leaving without a knot at the base of my throat doesn’t feel quite right.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

my heart and I belong somewhere else

my heart and I would be somewhere where it’s raining. Where even the night can pull off looking gloomy, too dark, too cloudy. A moody night when the weather has a temper and my heart just keeps fluttering too much for it to think straight. At first I’d just like to have my raincoat with me. Dark blue, dangling down to just above my knees, big buttons crossing all the way to just beneath my chin, and a hood to swallow back my hair, even though it won’t save the drips from getting to my forehead. I want cute polkadot rain boots too. I’ll walk to where I’d like to go, just with the night’s company. The puddles can talk to me and the scuff of my boots can join in and the sloshing of the sleepy eyed drivers out at such an hour passing me can pitch in too, if they happen to be around. Then I’ll get to my little cafe. I want to be able to see it from a block away, when everything else is asleep and every window’s eyes’ are closed and the cafe is the only thing illuminated it seems for miles. That tangy, dim light. The light ding above my head to greet me. Then the night can wait outside, until of course I’m ready for it to walk me home, to tuck me back into bed. There’d be a cute dainty little waitress, the only one willing and able to work such a night shift, weary but present. I’d whisper my order to her before I sat, and I’d make my way to the very end of the cafe, against the corner window. I could let my hood fall and the ends of my hair send droplets to scurry and slide down my thighs, my fingers tingling. Waiting for the warmth. I’d get some delicious coffee, some sort of cappuccino or how about french vanilla. Yes I’d like that. And I’d hold it between my fingers until they blushed from the scorch of the heat and I’d stir, and I’d stir, and I’d stir, just to hear the clinks of the mug writing me a short little sonet. A love poem, even. If I could, if I really really could choose, the only company, then, that I’d ask for is a set of handsome eyes sitting on the very opposite end of the cafe, at his own round and tiny table with countless empty and body-less ones between us, the same aroma and scent clinging to his lips and skin as mine. Dark coffee to match deep set eyes, untouched and unrefined scruff to compliment a nice jaw. A light brunette. A red rain jacket leading down to a wonderful pair of hands, an artist hands, a creator’s hands, passionate hands. Hands that look like they’ve touched ground. Touched someone, somewhere, something. Actually touched. Maybe a book at his table, like there’d be one tucked in the slouchy pockets of my coat. I’d like to look up, for him to do the same, to meet in the briefest of ways and know that at least then and there I belong to someone entirely, and they to me.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

lead me

My heart breaks for other people a lot of times. For friends that are struggling. For those I know are better than what they allow themselves. The people I allow to know me, I love a lot and I love hard.

Then other days, my heart just breaks. I get lonely and my heart aches for things I don’t know. I’m one of those people that doesn’t know how to stop loving someone. I’ll be sucked right back in the second things start going right and when they go wrong again, I know that I know…I should’ve protected me better or kept my mouth shut. I just don’t know how. I’m like this really weird paradox that hates vulnerability, but enjoys being real. So I’ll tell the hard truths and I’ll be honest with people, but I still protect the deep parts of my heart. I’m genuine in what I say and I’m known for it, but laying it on the line when a part of me is at stake, that’s a different story.

I know parts of me are a disaster; they’re just a complete mess. Sometimes I say too much. Sometimes I don’t say enough. Sometimes I shut down and walk away when I’m frustrated. Some days I seriously wonder if I’ll always feel some things deep down and if I’ll just push those to the side to make it through the day. I struggle with feeling redeemed. I struggle with grace. I struggle to pursue Him back. Sometimes, I just really don’t want to. In the aftermath of all of those things, though, I find myself running, immediate or delayed, to the one place I know I can be vulnerable and broken and still be known. So, today I’m a bit of a mess. Tomorrow, I’ll be a mess, too, of a different kind I’m sure. All of these faults in myself and things that threaten to break me may never change. I’m just thankful that even if they do,

He won’t.