a double-edged thing

lightning doesn’t strike twice in three months it just doesn’t.

you don’t think so?

well never to me, no.

yeah but he's like you’ve seen him. you haven’t met him but he’s so magnetic.

but you know a lot of people are magnetic. I think it’s like I think a lot of my ex best friends are these crazy magnetic people, and I get so drawn into that and it like it really consumes me in these friendships.

mmm.

and then they grow well it’s not that they grow tired of you but you just grow apart a bit, and you suddenly feel like there are these crazy problems with you because you weren’t good enough for that friendship.

yes.

or well I’m obviously saying this in a friendship lens.

yeah.

but the point is it’s not that and it’s not that you aren’t good enough for them it’s a natural it’s just a growing apart thing. they grow apart from you but you also grow apart from them and because you’re so focused on the fact that it’s like well “why couldn’t I be this thing for them?” you’re ignoring the fact that they couldn’t be this thing for you either. you know what I mean? and that it wasn’t one-sided it was two-sided. you weren’t giving them what they wanted, sure, but they also weren’t giving you what you wanted but you’re able to ignore their faults because you’re able to focus on your own instead. do you know what I’m saying here?

I do know exactly what you’re saying.

I think this is making I feel like this is making perfect sense to me.

I know.

so you’re able to think “well, you know, I just, you know, he’s going through something and I wasn’t able to be there for him in the way that I should have been able to” but it’s also like he’s going through something and he’s not able to be a good enough person to be around in this moment.

yeah.

but even if it’s not a better or worse thing it is a double-edged thing.

it is reciprocal.

you know. and so maybe you’re thinking well it’s like “why doesn’t he want me?”

sure.

but it’s also like “why aren’t you giving me these things that I want?” “why aren’t you here for me?” you know “you know that I want someone to be here for me why can’t you do that for me? I need someone who’s gonna be able to do that for me."

mm.

do you know what I’m saying?

dressing up

rain on tin roof over tarot card reading. I pick the cards a friend translates from the book. queen of swords ace of rods three of rods. their story is mine if I want it. I don't care enough to remember how it goes. my friend talks about a quote she can't remember from a book she hasn't read but heard someone say online. something about watching your own misery in the cinema. you are the only one there and you can choose to leave at any time. when I read her cards she oohs and aahs she believes and no doubt this will help her moving forward. maybe faith is all I need.

October ends alone in another bedroom at another party. I sit in my armour and think about you. time is twisted. your silence weighs more with every day that comes between today and when we were. I wish I saw your costume. we were going to scheme together. remember dressing up and dancing in the smoke. remember kissing in the pantry. we were lightning cataclysmic bioluminescent glowing in the dark. did we really have to stop? I wish we could go back. I wish you wanted to.

Halloween

but what is Halloween without my favourite ghost?

I hear your laugh in the dark

down the hall

where we’ve been (when we were)

before

I tried to find you

we were glowing

between the faces of the internet and gods and nightmares

we can be anything

I’d dress as you if only I could find your eyes

sky blue windows to a heart to drown in

if I weren't waiting for the fire

if you were still here

in the valley

holding me like water

when I was yours and what you wanted

when we were

before we weren't

and I don't know what you dressed as

but I know you're beautiful

a month is a burning hill / a waiting room / dead air

the knight cycles home in the dark

shining armour

costume party hallows' eve eve painting faces in the bedroom of a friend. you were there once: laughing singing running away to take photos in her mirror. we drink wine from the bottle and listen to lux. I love the choir and the strings. she sings along and knows the words and what they mean. everything she wears is beautiful. everything I'm wearing comes from someone else. crucifix and chainmail on tonight I am my hero in the kitchen watching pasta on the stove under red light. by nineteen she'd saved a nation. I save dinner for a friend.

too many faces no place for a pyre. in the bathroom with myself a fairy someone else in shining armour. with my eyes closed could be you. steel smooth to the touch. I open in the dark and you are gone.

without

knowing

missing

wondering why

this is just a nightmare

wanting to wake up

limping

like a husk or a shell or

the monster in the fridge

counting

in prayer

lost in the fog

waiting

blind

in the dark

hoping you're okay

Pluto

I felt sorry for Pluto when they demoted to a dwarf planet. 2006. I was seven watching others playing chasings / reading gothic fiction about orphans. I wanted to know what we were meant to do about the planet chart. it was up on the wall between the whiteboard and the window in the classroom. in a dark pool of nothing Pluto sat in a line with its friends and the sun. but NASA had changed their mind. Pluto didn't matter anymore.

I remember hearing the headline on the news after dinner. my parents didn't seem to care. our teacher spoke about it the next morning. there was probably some chatter some questions before we moved onto more important things. but the planet chart stayed up on the wall. I thought a lot about this. how can something be right one day and wrong the next? one decision makes our knowledge old and incorrect. I was frustrated both by the decision - how it had startled me, having changed what I thought I knew by surprise - and the expectation that we were to accept it. what about the planet chart?

everyone moved on. we kept reading and counting and learning. the boys played soccer. I picked daisies from the pitch, half-watching in my jersey from the sidelines. they started playing handball and kissing girls behind the library. I tried to keep up and we all kept growing. twenty years older I still think about Pluto and the news that things had changed. a month is nothing in the face of decades. a person is a dying star / a lost weekend / much smaller than a planet. you rewrite your chart as you please. if I was Pluto I still am. will you remember me?

systematising

somewhere on the internet (we do not yet deeply understand the experience). trying to systematise grief. 'back to the things themselves...' like we're more than dust / the clay from which we came. still guided by what happens lacking context of our being (no escape). a fickle dance: to shape or be shaped by the world / bruise / stream in which I live / shake / dream. keep telling stories to make sense.

lived existentials in body in space in time in human relations. too many outcomes, too little control. how to measure meaning in life? authenticity? psychological capital? (made me laugh!) how much is falling through the cracks? how much matters when the sky falls?

there are different levels of belonging. the hierarchy-of-the-deserving logic is reproduced. how are needs defined and understood? what are human needs? need is more than lack (possibility). remember the first night. shaking butterflies in denim jeans on denim jeans all glowing you all over me. what do I really need?