independence day

"Independence Day" - ani difranco

we drove the car to the top of the parking ramp
on the 4th of july
we sat out on the hood with a couple of warm beers and watched the fireworks
explode in the sky
and there was an exodus of birds from the trees
but they didnt know, we were only pretending
and the people all looked up, and were pleased
and the birds flew around like the whole world was ending
and i don't think war is noble
and i don't like to think that love is like war
and i gotta big hot cherry bomb, and i want to slip it through the mail slot
of your front door

don't leave me here
i've got your back now
you'd better have mine
cause you say the coast is clear
but you say that all the time

so many sheep i quit counting
sleepless and embarrassed about the way that i feel
trying to make mole hills out of mountains
building base camp at the bottom of a really big deal
and did i tell you how i stopped eating?
when you stopped calling me
and i was cramped up shitting rivers for weeks
and pretending that i was finally free

don't leave me here
now that your back
you'd better stay this time
cause you say the coast is clear
but you say that all the time

we drove the car to the top of the parking ramp,
on the 4th of july
and i planted my dusty boots on the bumper and sat out on the hood,
and looked up at the sky


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rather than the hood of a car, i am thinking of a river where there are rocks and clear water and a beautiful smell as the water falls over the rocks, softly enough to sit in the little pools. it's enchanting and when i was there with you, it was as though the world disappeared and it was you and i, you and i, the water so cold, you shivering helplessly and i giggling, fondly, for how cold you were, wanting to hold you and make you warm, goose fleshed between us. silty mud on our feet and bums and thighs from lying in the river water, the little rocks that pressed into the skin, indented forms.

i think of how i had to change my phone number, and how i don't even care.

i am thinking of the way you looked at me as you cradled my face, and softly said 'what a beautiful profile', with this soft expression of awe as though i would break, as though i would disappear or i was not even real. a part of me worried that you one day would turn over and realise i was real, and that would be the day that i would go to sleep alone. i was not wrong.

i am thinking of the softness of your chest, that little space below your shoulder blade where i could (and i even typed can, and my eyes seized up slightly) curl up. or the softness as i lay, on my side, facing the window in your room, and you curled behind me. i could feel you breathing on my neck, and i felt so comforted, and so so warm.

little flashes of perpetual misery in the bliss skip through, and each little snip comes back to the one thing - she is better to embrace, softer, (i know, skinny little wreck, that's what i am), and warmer - things are more COMFORTABLE with her (and i am difficult, i am a fight, i am hurting hurting, because i find this a struggle and i hurt when you say things and i'll say so but it is because i love you that i fight and by GOD i wish i had never let go i wish i had held on tighter, and i don't mean that, i don't mean that, i don't mean that, but fuck)...

you say you like me more, than more than one other lover. and yet i am the one to go. that shatters me.that shatters me.

i had to run away to brisbane. i lay on a couch last night, not drinking as my friends did because i knew i would cry and fall apart if i was slightly intoxicated. i was in a room with two past lovers, one whom i still have (had?) feelings for. but my first thought when i looked into his exceedingly beautiful green eyes was not of their beauty and me-and-him because i suddenly realised our friendship was perfect as is. it was the solid echo of your eyes, and it hurt me so much, how much i wanted to see you.

i curled up as friends talked, and a friend told me my eyes were sad. i almost cried, but held it back. jule kept an eye over me as i startled in the corner. when we all went out, my body was shaking again, arms, legs, verge of being sick. physically rendered underwater.

it is heavy and humid here. the heat last night drowned me over and over, and i was devoured by mosquitoes. i lay under a pile of unwashed clothes, scattered items as dim protection against the cold, fought and won with bugs on my flesh, periodic shaking. i ponder going to other old haunts today, old bookstore job, comforting place after another, seeking solace in old pain in order to remind myself that i cried myself to sleep before and survived.

but i have only once vomited, and never shook in a ball for days on end. never rendered awake for hours and hours at night, sleeping bits of days and bits of nights but unable to hold one position, unable to remain in any one state, restless.

i think about our imaginary hypothetical wolf-baby. i think of little fingers curled around mine, montage of warm round belly tenderly touched, warm arms, little house for us, the fantasies of you in my house settled or me in yours, it is ours, regardless, it is ours, i sleep in our bed as you faff about the house and i smile blissful. and the possibilities shatter one after another, shot down with the fact there is not enough time in the day for you to love two of us, and it's too intense between all parties for this to even be worth thinking about. but i would do anything trade anything compromise anything to have you, and i say this out of weakness not because it is true, because i know that i am worth more than that.

i feel angry below this, and i would rather not. i feel it rise, thick and acidic like vomit in my throat, and i want to make you hurt like i am hurting, i want to take from you whatever i gave, even though i don't because i love you, and the fact that i love you but am so angry at you confuses me. the love hasn't changed. i love you just the same. i am just so heavily freshly anger, there is not even bitterness there, it is the texture of fresh coffee grinds.

and i know this will pass. this too will pass. i will grow, and it will move into memory. i think of you saying 'well, you know this is a passing thing. it's just a phase in our relationship, a bump. i am in it for the long term, you know - you are the only one that makes me jealous. the only one that makes me cry. we are stuck together' with a sly grin as you walk off, and i am curled up on a solid marble chair small and trying to disappear. and now, i am the one that is gone, gone, gone, and not worth the fight anymore. and i know it is the right decision, but seeing you take those words back with actions, taking phrase after loving phrase out of my heart and back into you, echos as solid as seeing 'Darling Heart' on a text message and knowing you didn't call me elaborate romantic nicknames (even though, well, i wouldn't want that).

i know you'll wake up in another's arms. you'll take her to the drains i was so looking forward to exploring with you. you'll have a life i wanted to share with you, with her now. you have taken that life of possibilities away from me, and given it to her, and i cannot pretend that this doesn't shatter me. the list of things we would do are already being enacted with someone else, someone more comfortable that doesn't make you feel things that make you tired. i make you tired. that breaks my heart maybe most of all.

i'll be back there next tuesday night. the trees are shifting again, just as they did around the time i moved last year, when my dreams were simply to find new people, new friends to have hand in hand walking in parks and finding each other in strange places. i have that, oh yes, but now i walk down streets with heavy memories that are going to beat like a slow and tired heart in my mouth until this stops being so raw. actions are so much louder than words, and i have nothing left in that respect. i will go back to dry air that sits like dust storms, away from my dense humid home, which is warm and gleeful and full of life.

i am couch surfing for three nights, from a dirty sharehouse that makes me feel safe, to my cousins, to my best friends, before settling for the weekend at my sisters place. by then, i feel comfortable being alone some times. up til then, i am remaining surrounded in warmth. i am on the floor hearing little rats, humid cool breeze divine and soft on my skin (the softness of cooler humidity is wonderful in summer, the way you can feel the millions of damp molecules in the air running on your exposed skin from under blankets)...

i am going to rest in this blog until i can resist the urge to beg for your words every few moments. because i get this repetition of seeing you eagerly hanging on texts from someone else, and knowing now, that you are probably dreading every word that comes from me, oh god, it hurts. it hurts. it hurts.