Feeling Lost...

But I know where you are. You are in between. In the middle. The middle of here and there, far and near, old and young, now and then, this and that, mature and young, adult and child, spontaneous and planned, rigid and flexible,

What was and what is.

That's where you are. You float there, in the middle. Just float. Because you don't know enough to know which way to struggle. Don't know where the surface is, just know where you are not. You might move your limbs every now and then, but you do not really expect to get anything from your efforts. You just float and feel

Lost.

I know that feeling. The indefinite quality of your surroundings makes you feel lost, but what really bothers you, occupies your mind, and occasionally makes you strike out against your Middle place, is the Alone.

Stuck in the middle, you feel like no one else is around you. You focus so tightly on the inside of your eyelids that you fail to see. See that the place where you are is not an empty middle ground, devoid of anyone who could possibly see what you see. No.

I am here. So are the others. The countless others of us who are in the Middle of everything we have ever been and everything we will ever become. We are all floating in this nothing. I could reach out my hand, should the desire strike me, and grasp your wrist, just as you could do the same to the one on your other side, and the many that reside with us here could all touch hands.

Touching my hand won't make the Middle any less indefinite. Won't make the murky water clearer. Because I don't know the direction in which the light cuts the surface any more than you do. Here with you, all I see is what you see. All I know is what you know, and all I hear is the shallow, panicked sounds of my own breath and heart. No, I can't make the middle any less terrifying.

All I can do is hold your hand, can give you warm, solid, pulsing proof that you are not alone. The emptiness you feel is only beneath your skin as you slowly rid yourself of everything you are in favor of everything you might be.

Losing all of those things that once defined you is frightening, but you've already done that. If you were still clinging to the past, you would not be here with me, in the Middle. So release a bit, the worst part has passed. All that remains is to float. Float until slowly, slowly, slowly, the world rights itself, the light begins to make definite angles, and the surface breaks over your face. When that happens, when your world defines itself anew, then you can let go of my hand and do this for yourself.

But for now, hold tight. After all, with your eyes open the way they are, we all make a beautiful picture, just floating along, hand in hand. It's not a portrait of terror-inducing isolation, but a scene of the young-becoming-old holding each other in place as we glean from the Middle the things we could not get on either side. We need not be overwhelmed by the Alone to learn what the Middle has to teach us. I can learn just as much with my hand grasping yours and yours grasping mine.

So don't feel lost. Just hold tight to me. Together we may overcome the fear of the unknown land that is the Middle.

Dance in the Rain

Dance in the rain with me
Hold me close,
So close that the only thing between us is the drops of atmosphere
The atmosphere that clings to your lips and your eyelashes and your
Tongue
Tongue in my mouth covered in the rain
It tastes so
Sweet
Sweet like candy like childhood
Bittersweet
Like summer

Dance in the rain alone
Turn in slow circles
Looking for the hand to hold your back
Twirl unguided, alone
Alone but for the rain
Rain still so sweet in my mouth
As it makes its own way down my throat
Sweetening my lips tongue
My everything

Dance in the rain with me
Tilt back our heads together
Scream to the gods
In euphoria
Euphoria for this gift
For the sweetness that brings us together
Yet keeps us apart.
The only thing sliding between us is the rain.

Dance in the rain
Together
But alone
As the rain separates us
Keeps you you,
And keeps me Me

Nothing between us but the rain.
Dance forever in the rain
That we may always know more than just togetherness
That we may be always certain of how we exist apart.
For without the rain,
We might forget that the lines between us are good
Special
Unique
...Sweet.
The rain outlines ourselves
In the sweetest possible way.

Let's never stop
Dancing in the rain?

Ugh

My room smells like you. I was FINE until you let me get my guard down. I was aching, but I kept my walls up because I knew there was no chance. I was moving past it, as I do.

But then you put your arms around me. And kissed my fucking forehead. You say it's you. But that can't be true. Because you talked to me, and you're still not interested. You opened up. Told me you weren't sure about God. We talked deeply. And then you left. Without a glance.

So what now?! Now we just go back to being friends. Better friends? Do I want to be your close friend? I don't know. I know I won't stop you. But it's going to hurt me. A lot. Because I still feel hope.

It's softer, this hurt. Because I saw it coming this time. Even as he was holding me, I was thinking of Robbie and the hurt I had to bear from my time in his arms. I don't know if this will be better or worse. Better because he and I did not go as far, worse because it felt so real. Better because he will not drop my friendship to the earth as though it means nothing, worse because I will have to keep seeing him, keep pretending that all is fine, that I just want to be friends.

It smells like you in here. I miss being in your arms. I miss things that didn't even happen. It's not a missing so much as a longing. Pain from what is not there. Who knew that emptiness could hurt more than anything else? The not-having is worse than having something undesirable. It's the hard, uncompromising emptiness that makes me pull my legs to my center and bruise myself with my own embrace. Trying to hold myself together around the big, expanding ball of empty air in my core.

What happens when the empty gets bigger? When it starts to consume me? I keep telling myself that this is the last time. That every time I get hurt by a boy is the LAST time. And every time I go back on my word. I allow myself to get pulled down under the covers so that I am blinded again by the dream of HAVING, of my empty being filled. It's such an intoxicating thought for one who has only known the nothing.

The nothing space hurts like a beating. Like a part of me has been ripped away anew every time I am re-reminded of it.

The short of it is that you hurt me after I swore to myself I would never be hurt again. And I can't even forget about it. Can't even relax into the bed and sleep. Because the room smells like you. And I can't escape it.