Now where was i .... ?

Oh thats right.

I was reflecting on how i tried to keep myself content over the holidays and shrug off any thoughts of you. Except i forgot, god only knows how, i failed to think about the thereafter. And sure enough that day came with me bored and at my wits end, deciding to plod into work.

I dont know what it is about you. right now, I dont know what it is about me either. But the very sight of you renders me compleletly and utterly captivated by you. You should know that i would bend , break, beg and steal for you. In fact i would love to know what its like to be rolled in your palms.

And the fact that i know, with or without hindsight that you and i are just not anywhere near compatible: has also opened up a new canyon of questions and doubt about myself. About me and my capabilities. My actual worth as a human being. Not many people have been able to crawl this far under my skin and lay this many questions. Asking myself if i am not godd enough for you, could i ever be good enough for anybody else?

I knew from the very moment i saw you again this year,that i am not going to get over easily. In fact, even today, though its been a month or so since my dreadful (second) attempt at trying to relay my feelings to you. I'm still sitting here thinking about you. Admittedly not as much, there is a streak of mottled hate and malice in my veins but you should know i would never draw any of that out on you.

So the days of january ebbed past, each day surmounting even more pressure and fighting to hold everything back. Recalling the days i saw you with all your other boyfriends, wearing some of your tears on my shirt. Sitting accross the table biting my tongue and trying to place a size 11 shoe in my mouth. Grinning only to hide the real feealings i have for you. Grimmacing only to know that this path i walk is crusted with broken glass which are only going to lacerate my feet. Swallow another bourbon and inhale longer on that cigarette. Maybe i should have said something sooner. Maybe i should have realised what boundaries need to exist bewteen us.

I wonder what you really think of me. I mean really. Looking at things now i find myself sitting somewhere between the heel of your shoe and something slightly higher than an earwig. A blip on your radar. I'm that guy who has a cigarette when you need one. And a lighter because i know you never have one. Not much by any stretch, but for what its worth, if thats the closest you'll ever let me be next you then so be it. I want to be something more. and i know there are times i have stepped in front of you, because i couldnt stand to see any harm come to you. And its because of this behaviour i want to actually go back to two occassions; in an attempt that maybe i can explain myself better.

Its funny how alcohol can reflect the true shape of what we are. I dont think its always the case and much like a pinch of salt, it needs to be taken with some caution.

No. On second thoughts, we won't go back to those occasions. Lets leave it there. I'm just a line in your book.

So enter january 23th. The day i decided we end this endless death waltz and save whatever remnants of my sanity and heart i have left. I managed to steal a little time with her after work. we sat outside on on one of the smoking benches. And thats right about the time i also felt a twinge in my left arm and my blood turned to acid. The walls of my heart collapsed, wave after wave of blood slamming against it. My head began to boil and thats when my skull jumped out of my face.Well, thats what it began to feel like anyway.

I was an unremarkable human mess that day and every other day leading up to it. My lungs have turned into charcoal smothered bags. The lack of sleep. A complete distate for food. A downward spiral about to be punctured with a nine inch nail.

Cigarette in hand to try and fend of the quivers of fear scuttling up my back. Because standing in front of someone about to tell them how you feel, while honest and intimidating, is no easier sitting. And slowly, from the heaped mess that sat before you, the ball of words slowly untethered from my tonge and a string of words unravelled out. I have never, and to this day know that my use of the L word will be limited. But bringing myself to say that i have feelings for you which aspire to three other words, even that just seems shallow and redundant. I like you. More than you'll ever know. And i chose the safety of this space as i know your eyes wont ever read this.

I know that though we exist in this planet on the same land mass, only kilometeres between each other and at times mere inches away from each other, its still feels like this abyss will never close. My world is dark and lonely. I feel like this piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The only piece that came inside the box and trying to figure out what picture it is that i fit into. Not yours; that i am quite certain of. An anomoly of sorts, random.

I know by trying to sit down and even tell you all of this i could in fact create another rift and you may eject me from your life completely. And that would be alright. I wouldnt hold it against you. It would suck, but i wouldnt hold it against you

So somewhere between getting my lips to move and realising my heart was littered all over the place, i managed to at least get some indications of my feelings to you out. In all honesty, i didint say a fifth of what i really wanted to tell you. Of what i really wanted you to hear. Yeah, praticed it in my head a few hundred times and then blank. Because sitting there, trying to find your eyes behind those sunglasses, i know i have already tripped and fallen on my own landmine. Just not realising the fact that i am actually dead and scattered into a million pieces of flesh and bone. After your obligatory spiel on i dont see you that way etc, i felt better. i dont know if that will make any sense, to you or anybody, but its like after all this time finally finding a sense of peace. War orn and battle ravaged and finally i have no one left to fight . Casualties, they have been removed for the playground. Maybe this peace is the eye of the storm, because i know of a hell yet to come.

As we sat there and talked, you also asked me what i wanted going forward. Lets be precise: Since you could warrant no reciprocal feeling of that sense towards me, what is it that i wanted from you. And being selfish i didnt want to let you out of my life. I still believe that if you drink enough poison, you will at some stage build up a resistance to it. The other part to that is that you could also end up very fucking dead.

i wish you happiness line.

The happiness that i know i wont be able to give you. The happiness that i am yet to find as I am still trying to find my own two fucking feet and head in this world. The happiness you get not from people who have made you cry, and landed your tears on my shoulder. god given; if i ever did cross paths with them i would lead them to an alleyway and bludgeon their heads with a lead pipe.Sorry, but i would.

I hope that you find solace in someones arms and they treat you well. And as cliched as it may sound i wish you a romantic movie ending. Its the only thing tangible i could think of this very moment. I hope whoever he is, for you: will be everything that colours your dreams. I should hope to be so lucky too one day.

Its safe to say i have reached the end of this road with you. And i bid you a sweet farewell of sorts even though i will see just about every day.

Its not the end of this story though.

Hell is just around the corner ....

You may proceed.

Following the burgeoning hangover and bucket full of vomit I tossed up on the first day of the new year , the path that followed the next two months was equally regrettable and its aftertaste much the same.

This three ring circus that centres around her has now escaped the confines of the grotesque carnival i created and have landed me in a darker pit that bears sembalnce to a different kind of hell, with a different kind of devil.

Her departure to America last year for the holidays left me pining like always in any of her absences; and at the same time reeling with some sense of relief that she wasn't around. Nevertheless I did count the days until her return, the idiot that i am. Despite my corroded relationship with a god of any kind, i asked that she be safe as well. Parting was such sweet sorrow on that last day, a farewell to her flesh, and an embrace that i wish conducted the electricities rattling through me.

After she left, I wondered if she even liked what i got her for christmas. I wondered in which lonely and forgotten shelf in her apartment it stood.

Given its frailty, crystal breaks easily. And so do i. I dont regret and never have regretted giving the gifts i have. But sometimes i ask myself if she could see what i saw in the cute little geisha bear. Nevermind that its a Swarovski crystal that i would rather see added to my own collection. Nevvermind that its limited piece in a catoalogue. Finally, i was left with the pandering question that left my bank account as empty as the answer to this question: Was it worth it?

Its has been roughly two years since she walked through those doors. I fell for her immediatley. Through what others may have seen as coincidences; i charted a course with my sights set on her. And i fell even more when i found out she knew about Khalil Gibran and the Prophet, and showed me the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Alluring. Two years and i still get all fuzzy on the inside when she sits next to me. Like an idiot moth to that flame.

And in those flames you burn. You either writhe in agony or welcome its warmth. Knowing the difference between the two also helps.

For you see, I have found myself in that all too familiar and much despised quantum called: The Friend Zone.

As a male, I liken this to having your man sacks smashed between 2 slabs of granite. Okay, that may be a bit extreme. But nevertheless; its uncomfortable finding you have feelings for someone who could really only see you as a friend. The only reason you could get this close to someone and not have it go any where is because you're butt ugly. No, i wont take that back, in fact i belive there is some truth to it. You make for damn fine sounding board. And little else.

Its delibilitating when someone says they don't want anything to happen because it will ruin the friendship. And then proceed to get so weirded out they stop talking to you and the friendship is over anyway.

I quite easily put myself at her night and day. Dropped every fucking thing to accomodate her, pandering to her needs.


I became that sweet-but-slightly-pathetic puppy. last time i checked girls love puppies. But they don't want to date them. I am that asexual security device. I should have caught on sooner that discussions of wardrobe choices, crushes and her love life equal instant friend zone.

But instead time has elapsed and clouds have moved in between us.

As the abyss began to dig through us even more and i find us drifting further and further apart, i drew half lighted conclusions as to where things would be upon arrival of the new year. I have been partly to blame for our subsequent unrevelling. No, actually since its just us here, I am really the only one to blame.

To fend off feelings for her i through the holidays, i carefully plotted a string of distractions. Anything to help tide me over her absence. Looking back i know now that i had already uncovered all the answers to my questions about her. And despite hopes and dreams shattering into a million and one little pieces; i still sought a glue that would ridiculously piece everything back together.

Know this much at least despite all my rambling: I care about her.

Diving headfirst into books and movies, lapping at the violence and heartbreak on page and screen. Capturing the ghouls running rampant in my head on my sketchbook. Lashing paint on canvas and carving the page with my pencil nib and bleeding inks. Long walks on the cusp of midnight; along a deserted shoreline and waiting for the break of dawn. Smoking trains of cigarettes and listening to the slow burn crackle. Its glowing end and plumes of smoke trailing into the blackened void of my world. Shrugging off the invititaions of friends as i cannot stand to see them happy with their significant others for it dawns a spotlight on a gaping hole that is my life that i have been forever trying to fill.

Screams tore out from my speakers as i embellished my music, switching between brooding electronic landscapes and shrapnel strewn and exploding warfields. Metal running through my veins, my soundtrack was unforgiving. With a few moments in between, coming up for air, the next wave of brutality was never far behind.

Mirror to my own soul, i began to see what can only be described as bearing withness to my own downward spiral and possible demise. Beneath my skin the blood began to boil. Far from a slow burn, i exploded into a critical mass of rage and undistilled emotions blistered out.

Admittedly I dont have a drinking problem nor do i find myself regressing the drug fuelled haze of my yesteryears. I do however still find solace by running blades along my left forearm and superficially tearing the surface. Uniform thin red lines. If you have read this far and have any concern for my well being, don't worry. My attempts at a suicide earlier in life were half assed. The release of beta endorphins, however, can be compared to a runners high.

So for basically one dreary and lonely month i soldiered on, battling demons to keep them at bay best i could. Kept every thought of her wound tightly with barbed wire and land mines around her perimter. Saturated with everything i could lay my senses on, soaking it up like a sponge in an attempt to move on. And i would have nearly won too, except i forget one thing. She was coming back.

End part 1.