i'd give anything to bring it back

ph: weheartit

I spent a good fifteen minutes just staring at the blank, white empty email awaiting my love story. Or not so love story. I wish I knew what i wanted to say, and it's not even that I have nothing to say, it's just my head is currently such a busy, crowded street with feelings and emotions bouncing off of each other.

I don't know what happened to us. It's like being in a car, driving down hill, and having the breaks go out. You just want it to stop, you want everything to be okay, you want to make it out alive but with the way things are going, it just doesn't seem like such a hopeful situation. But at this point it doesn't even matter because truthfully, I already feel dead. If my heart is still beating, i can't feel it anymore.

We started like any typical couple, except maybe we were jaded from the start. You were twenty one with a good heart, a contagious laugh, a huge fear of relationships, having never even come close to having one. I was healing with little to no hope in love, but you opened me back up and helped pick up the pieces. You were new and sweet and naive and just wonderful. I fell so in love with you, so easily. Your smile helped with that. I had never seen such a beautiful smile, and when you smiled my whole world just lit up. I miss that smile, I haven't seen it in quite some time now. We were just perfect together. We made people jealous and probably sick to their stomach with how cute we were. I miss us, I miss us so much.

But somehow, at some point, everything just started to fall apart. And now those old memories are like walking past your old home where happy thoughts and love used to dwell, and now it's just an old abandoned house with weeds and broken windows and an empty, hollow, sad inside. It absolutely started the day I had to go away to school. Distance kills love. I truly believe that. And especially with us just starting out. We had a month to hold on to each other before I had to be away from you, and i warned you that this would be hard, that it would ruin us, but we blindly took that leap together, ignoring every warning sign. We tried. We tried so hard but come May, things were so bad, and my homecoming- which we thought would save us- just broke us down even further. The insecurities and exhaustion from the distance carried over, the little fights began, then you started to give up ever so slowly. You started to emotionally pull yourself out of the relationship until I was basically alone. I felt like I was in love with a ghost. That beautiful, bright smile was so dim now.

I guess it just became too much for you. This being your first relationship, you had no idea how to handle the rough patches. You truly believed that relationships should always be perfect and that if problems exist, the relationship isn't right. You are a complete idiot to believe that, i hope you know. From then on you just turned cold, and angry, and void. You hated communication and the second I wanted to open up about my feelings, you would just shut down and ignore me or just yell at me. I think that is what holds us back so much. You need communication in a relationship and without it, you'll go nowhere. I felt dissatisfied and hopeless and foolish. I just wanted a sign from you, anything, a kiss, a touch, flowers, a text message- ANYTHING to show me that you still cared, that you still wanted this. I wanted you to fight for me instead of with me. But you can't make someone love you, you can't make someone fight for you. I'm not perfect, I had my flaws, but i never gave up.

And then I came home one night to flowers on my doorstep and a beautiful note. You told me you loved me and that you'd love me through any situation, that we'd work through this and "let's make this count." I still hold on to that note, i still read it every day because for a second I saw the boy I had fallen so deeply in love with. Just for a second though. It wasn't much longer after that you wanted space, and then you started saying you were confused, and then you wanted to leave. We sat outside on your porch, the rain falling down just for us, and you cried and cried and cried. I'll never understand how someone can leave someone, but be sad about it. If it hurts you to leave someone, why can't you just stay and put effort in the relationship? I don't understand it, probably because I've never been one to give up on love no matter how many times love wants to give up on me. I just can't. Once you have my heart, you have my heart and I'd do anything to keep that heart with you.

We've been together a year now. We agreed to keep trying, but it's been the same story ever since. You're still confused, you still want space, and my heart still doesn't want to let go. You keep trying to give up, but only because for you it's easier than working on something. I'm so sick of putting my heart fully into something just to be disappointed all the time. I think disappointment is one of the most painful emotions to deal with. I wish I meant more, I used to mean more. I wish I was worth something. All I've ever known is people leaving and i never wanted you to fall in that category. You're not even the same boy anymore. You're even starting to look different to me. I just wish I had the strength to walk away. I wish I could just give up on you, like you give up on me...on us. But no matter how many times you tell me you can't do this anymore, I end up back on your doorstep, fighting my ass off for you, trying to convince you that this will get better, that we can make it, because i have hope and sometimes that's all you really need. Call me crazy, or pathetic, or stupid... I am all of the above, but i can't let go, I just can't.

I have this stupid image of us in my head, hand in hand, looking back at this time and laughing it off like a bad dream. I just want everything to be okay, I just want us to work out, I just want you.

By the time this story gets published, I'm sure you'll have left me again, but I hope not. I hope just this once love is enough. I'd give anything to bring it back to the way it was in the beginning. Can that even happen? Is it possible for a relationship to hit such a low point and end up better than before? Probably not. And if it were possible, it'd probably require both individuals to want it enough and with your constant giving up, hope is paper thin.

I don't even want my heart anymore, you can just take it and run.

just hold on

ph: postsecret

I was so content before I met you.

Yes I was lost, bleeding, hurt beyond comprehension, blind to my own pain. But still, I was happy. And now you come into my life and change everything. Make me feel again. Make me feel so much all the time that I don’t know what to do with myself. Make me miss you, want to be around you. You make me feel like this stupid little girl when I have lived through lives of hurt, when I’m around you it just all goes away. When I’m around you I feel safe. When I’m around you I’m comfortable, I don’t worry. I feel the pain leave, I feel my wounds and see the scars and they don’t matter as much. We can’t be together now and we’ve agreed to be friends. You don’t know this, but I’m giving you six months. Six months to see if you can be the man I need. I’m falling for you and I have to hold myself back because you’re not ready for a girl like me. If you want someone in your bed, to get you through the night, then that’s not me. I’ve seen this beautiful hopeless romantic side of you. I know you truly desire the same things I do. Then why did you have to kiss me last night? Why do I have to set you up for failure? Why do I not know how to control myself around you? I want you to succeed. I’m going to try harder to not give you mixed messages, I will be better. I promise. You're broken, and so am I. But when I'm around you I don't feel as bad. I know we could be extraordinary together instead of just ordinary apart. Just hold on babe, hold on for me. I can get you through you're pain and you can help me with mine.

And I hope you mean everything you say. You keep saying these wonderful things that make me so happy. Your promises of long walks, deep talks over coffee, wanting to become my best friend before we consider dating. I hope you mean all these things. I have a lot of hopes for you. And all I can do is sit back and pray. Pray that you are the right person for me, pray that I’ll have the strength to be there for you and to let you go if I have too.

sorting through the rubble of our relationship

ph: weheartit

My shrink told me to write you a letter, to tell you how I feel about all the shit that’s gone down the past few months. That alone is embarrassing. I can see you in our kitchen, just sitting at that dilapidated kitchen table you picked up on the side of the road and so lovingly restored, just sitting there with a cigarette between your fingers, shaking your head and taunting me: A fucking shrink, Louise? A fucking shrink?

Yes, I need a fucking shrink. I’m not like you; I can’t just pluck a few cords on a guitar, drink straight tequila and deal. I need to talk. Most relationships are based upon talking, but ours was never like that. I bet I couldn’t fill a one-subject notebook with all the words that passed between us while we were together. Yet we somehow knew more about each other than most people. Like I know that when you were 12, you were making out with Georgia Flannery behind a 7-11 and her father caught you. I also know that he chased you back to your house wielding his belt above his head, swinging it just close enough that the buckle made a whoosh sound next to your ear.

But that’s a verbal story. I could fill a five-subject notebook with stories about what goes on behind your eyes. I could publish novels based solely on the way you’d kiss me in the morning before I was even fully awake and the journeys your fingers made up and down my naked back. Ours was a love based on moments strung together by hand with emotions, like those ropes of popcorn we decorated our plastic red Christmas tree with in the middle of summer.

It was the most fulfilling, realistic, complete relationship I’d ever been it. It was also heart wrenching, twisted, blemished, rage-filled and nauseating. There were nights I would cry myself to sleep because I didn’t know where you were, where we were, what we were, what you wanted us to be or how we were going to pay our bills. But then I’d wake up with your curly hair in my face and know, somehow, that this was right. That we’d make it work, fill in the holes and sew up the tears. It would work. It had to work.

The way we met wasn’t glamorous or romantic like you read in thick paperback novels. I worked at an ice cream place on the boardwalk; you loved medium vanilla cones with rainbow sprinkles. The first time you stopped by, I fell in love with your big, crooked fingers that floated in front of your chest, waiting for your change. The second time you stopped by, I fell in love with your witty, sarcastic humor that I hoped you were putting on for me. The third time you stopped by, you asked for my number and waited around till closing. We drank 40 ounces on the beach. Our first date. We barely spoke, a foreshadowing of the relationship to come, but we spent the whole night lying on our backs and tracing constellation. Every once in a while, I’d feel those big crooked fingers wiggling through the sand, hesitating on whether or not to take the plunge and lace between mine. You told me you dabbled in photography and that you’d love to take my picture. I figured you were either a pornographer or the love of my life. I gave you a chance.

Our second date. You picked me up in your yellow Chevrolet Caprice from the 70’s that you had found on the side of the road and breathed new life into. I had a big Christmas bag filled with yellowing lace slips and oversized loafers. We drove to a junkyard and I changed in your backseat while you sat on the hood and smoked a cigarette. We spent the day taking pictures: me on a couch that was growing springs, me in a rusted out pickup truck, me holding an umbrella with holes like Swiss cheese.

With every click of the camera’s shutter I felt bits and pieces of my soul transplanting themselves in you. I was scared out of my mind, but I was drunk off the very idea of you. I knew in that instant that I would never be whole again if you ever left me. The truth is, no one truly understand that feeling until they’re standing in front of the person who has so neatly and completely embezzled their heart. No, not just their heart. Their entire being.

We were inseparable. It was only a matter of weeks before I moved into your place. Of course you would live in a trailer. It would be impossible for you to even think about maintaining a home. But I didn’t care. Our lives quickly meshed into one another, and before I knew it I was eating mashed potatoes with hot sauce, like you, and you were clipping your toe nails over the toilet, like me. We bought a cat and named him Tiddly Winks. He slept on a doll’s bed next to ours. You and I fell into a routine. I quit my job at the ice cream stand and started working at an antique store in Point. All day, I’d sort through old dresses and jewelry and spatulas and coloring books. I started taking old black and white photos of babies in basinets and big Italian weddings, framing them and hanging them around our house. We pretended they were our family, since we really had none: Aunt Madge, cousin Hector, grandma Natty. But we didn’t need a family. We had each other.

You got work at a furniture store and worked on restorations. I’d love rubbing your callused fingers after a long day at work. I loved you, and you loved me. You spent your days smoothing over cracks and imperfections in tables and chairs. But it was only a matter of time before our own cracks and imperfections started to show. We tried to smooth them over. But they were a little more stubborn. Your paychecks were minimal, which didn’t make sense because you worked 15-hour days. The nights we used to spend together watching Land of the Lost and drinking white wine started to dwindle. You’d come home, shower and go out. I didn’t think to ask you where you were going. Sometimes when you’d come home, your lips would be chapped. I tried to smooth over the cracks. I loved you so much.

The first night I woke up to you cooking crack in the kitchen, I wanted to die. Your eyes had been looking distant, and I wanted you to love me again. But you were just sitting in the kitchen, cooking crack. Next to the pan of uneaten lasagna I had made for dinner. I felt stupid, standing in your Metallica t-shirt and bunny slippers. Like I was in middle school again, and we were watching that sex-ed video, and everyone seemed to know what a period was and how a penis gets hard before sex, and I didn’t. You looked at me and gave me a scary smile. Your teeth were yellow. I went back to sleep.

Things got worse. I’d come home to the sickly scent of burnt Brillo pads and know. We’d make love, but it wasn’t like before. It was violent and painful. Sometimes afterwards, I’d look down at the twisted Superman underwear around my ankles and feel like a rape victim. Since I couldn’t hate you, I started to hate myself. I still loved you, and I hated myself for loving you.

I was alone, watching Land of the Lost with white wine the first night you hit me. I don’t even remember the reasoning, but it was quick and I saw streaks of silver. My cheek swelled. I left it like that. A battle wound. I deserved it. I deserved it for loving you. And it made me hate myself more.

The day I knew our relationship had to end was the day I had to charge American cheese to my Visa. The old lady behind the counter looked at me with sad eyes that seemed to say I know. Looking into her eyes, I felt no self-pity. All I could think about was how I never wanted my eyes to look old and tired like that.

I came home and made you grilled cheese, like you’d asked me to. It was one of those stretches of three days where your normal self would return. You’d be loving and attentive and you’d fix the kitchen table chairs you’d broken on your last binge. We’d re-hang the pictures of our imaginary family that’d crashed to the ground the last time you threw me into a wall. I’d make us Hamburger Helper and you’d make love to me like old times. Watching you eat your sandwich from across the table, I started to think, maybe, just maybe, you’d stay this time. I’d help you stay off the drugs, we’d move out of a trailer and into a cottage on the beach, we’d have a babies and name them after J.D. Salinger characters. Life would be good.

With a mouth full of grilled cheese, you looked across the table and said I love you.

I packed up and moved out that night. You were asleep with Tiddly Winks.

It’s been a month. You haven’t tried to look for me. Or if you have, you just haven’t found me yet. Maybe you didn’t even realize I’d left. Maybe you finally overdid it with the drugs. All I know is, I still love you. And I don’t hate myself for it anymore. I know that you love me, too. Maybe one day you’ll come back for good. Maybe the drugs will end. If that day ever comes, I want be here waiting for you. My shrink says that’s not a healthy plan, but I don’t care. I’m perfectly content with spending my days sorting through the rubble of our relationship, wondering what you saw that night on the boardwalk. And why you lost sight of that.

I love you, too.

Love,
Louise

i don't know what to think anymore.

ph: weheartit

i have 66 le love images saved, and too many stories to count. they all remind me of him. the good and the bad. the thoughts that go through my mind all day everyday are written in those little pictures. i love him more than anything, but my insecurities have made me have to convince myself that he loves me. i am always questioning it. even when he says it, he doesn't say it enough. then you wonder, well what if my insecurities are right. what if he really doesn't love me. so you get even more insecure. but maybe the insecurities are caused because i have always been 100% he has always been 50. maybe its because i have sacrificed relationships with family and friends trying to protect and defend our relationship when he doesn't even want one in the first place. in the beginning of our relationship he was perfect, almost a year later and it has disintegrated into "we are together without the title," i don't want to be tied down," "relationships have obligations and responsibilities and i don't want that" and most of all, "can we talk about this later?" throughout the secrets and the lies, i have ignored it all just to be with him. i kept my ignorance so i could pretend everything was perfect and he wasn't lying to me.

right now he has been going to these christian conferences. he called me and said that he has changed so much already and that he loves me but he wants to "renew our love" he wants to forget about the past because he has been manipulating me and hurting me without me even knowing it. but i have known it. i have had that feeling but i chose not to listen to it. he hung up. leaving me with 3 days of making up what his lies could be in my head. having imaginary conversations with him about how it might play out and thinking that maybe he has been cheating, maybe he has been doing the drugs he knows i hate. and he is going to stare me in the eyes and tell me that he has changed and lets forget the past. he is going to expect me to believe him. he comes home from these conferences in 2 days and i don't know what to think anymore.

do you forgive almost a year of lies in hopes of a trustworthy future with the one you love? or do you give up the insecurities you know will follow because you think he is going to do it all over again...

in like with you.

ph: weheartit

The first night we met, I was automatically comfortable around you. It was like I had known you for a long time. It wasn’t awkward, and whenever we had both stopped talking, we didn’t feel the need to fill the silences with stupid small talk. The first time we kissed was like one of those cheesy romantic kisses in chick flicks. I want to puke rainbows as I close my eyes and reminisce, but here we go:

We were lying on my bed, watching tv, when I felt your fingers run up and down my arm and hand. You pulled me close, causing my hair to fall in front of my face. I smiled at you, and as you smiled back, you brushed my hair to the side and tucked it behind my ear. You put your hand behind the back of my head and pulled me even closer to kiss me.

Was it cheesy and cliché? Absolutely. Was it perfect? Absolutely.

I really like you, but sometimes I can’t help but remember that time you disappeared from my life for 2 months with no explanation or anything. We just had started hanging out a lot, and then nothing. I was hurt and embarrassed, because I couldn’t figure out what I did to you to cause you to not talk to me anymore. I felt so stupid for letting my guard down around you. For those 2 months of not having you in my life, my heart dropped into my stomach whenever I’d pass a car that looked just like yours. I felt pathetic and sickened that I still missed you. I missed the smell of you, the way you would pull me close just to look at me, how you would run your fingers up and down my back as I would fall asleep in your arms, how your beautiful hazel eyes would crinkle and light up whenever you smiled, seeing a text from you during the day just to see how my day was going. I missed all of that, and so much more during that time. Eventually I thought of you less as time went on, and I accepted the fact that you were pretty much just another guy passing through in my life. I deleted every trace of you from my life, and moved on. Even though I still thought of you at times, I was honestly ok with it.

But guys have a funny way of worming their way back into your life once you’ve worked so hard to forget about them…

You’re back now. And yes, I brushed it off. Even though you apologized multiple times and I know you’re truly sorry, it doesn’t mean that you can pull that again, because if it were to happen again, I’m done with you. The reason you stopped talking to me was because you were afraid that your baggage would make me not want to talk to you anymore, but here I am. I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere. You make me happy. In fact, I’m the happiest I’ve been in awhile. You tell me all the time how much you really like me and all I can manage is to smile and blush like a freakin’ 6 year old girl. There’s still so much I don’t know about you, but I love learning things about you. Falling asleep in your arms makes the crappiest day into a good day. The way you dance like a fool in my kitchen when I make you grilled cheese at 12:30 at night makes me like you so much more. I could go down the endless list, but you get the picture. I don’t know if you’re my soul mate, but I can’t imagine my life without you. In love? No. In like? Yes, very much so.

-S