when I sit and really think about it

I want to take up more space in his life and I worry or convince myself that he doesn’t want me to, and so I retaliate by taking up even less space than he wants. And I save myself a little from the risk of ever feeling unwanted.

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what is this feeling

I want to see him so badly and yet I deny myself that at his expense. And so I avoid him: avoid his messages, avoid his reaches for connection, avoid his plans. Because if they aren’t exactly enough exactly when I need them, I decide they are all facades, all the time. And because they are not real, I don’t want any of it, ever. At least, while I am here, here. You know where here is.

Is it because here tells me that it wasn’t likely to be real anyway? Is it that even if it’s real, it won’t be for much longer, anyway? Is it that it’s just not quite enough? Is it that I am unable to take up more space in his life and I’ve become worried or perhaps I was always worried that I was taking up too much space in his life? Because I would rather take up too little space than too much. Because I don’t think I deserve that much space. No, because I don’t know how to take that much space for anyone. Or, I don’t think he wants me to take up that much space. Or, I suspect he only likes me because I take up so little space.

At least I told him something, I told him, at least I did that. But really, I know, I know he deserves better than this. Can I be that? Can I be better than myself right now? What’s better? Is it the full, painful, nasty truth? Is it someone else? Is it suppression? Is it just getting the fuck over this idiotic problem?

I found this old post from last semester and think it’s quite interesting my tweaked relations to these people.

An edited list

people I have thus far successfully collected and the remarkable quality I probably was drawn towards

ES – a whole host of bizarre mannerisms, combined with her apparent ADHD-style genius –> kind, just so kind, with a family I slightly dislike but it clearly has made her empathetic

AM – a deliberate drive for intellectual curiosity –> no longer friends; unintentionally elitist in a condescending way

YM – a similar sense of self-deprecating humor and an empathy like no other –> bad at comforting people but otherwise my soul mate; we are slightly fractured but trying

MH – a keen, nuanced thoughtfulness and certain instantly respected air –> keen and thoughtful but also emotionally damaged (much like me!); we are trying

MS – a sharp wittiness and a promising streak of artistic genius –> condescending and elitist and bad for me because I don’t have time for people to whom I don’t matter and so we are not even friendly

people I’ve wanted to collect

HJ – an ease, a warmth, and an intellectual streak –> my parrrttttnneeeerrr

MSh – a fascinating, hyper-intellectual gregariousness, although petty and immature at times –> sure

IC – a talent for poetry and performance and theatre and a somewhat repelling force against the petty girls on my freshman year dorm floor –> after years of her avoiding my eye contact, I’ve given up

MC – an unexplained solitary ease, an admirable tendency towards fascinatingly individualistic activities –> sure, but also the kindest person ever + empathetic

JH – similar to MC, but music oriented –> sure

EP – similar to MC and JH, but open and gregarious and quirky –> sure

ZL – JKm’s friend, unfortunately, but just so kind and dorky –> sure

MD – JKm’s friend, again, but very MC-like –> even more so!

JB – AM’s friend, another individualistic ease and outward drive for adventure and impact –> kind of a privileged white asshole who is wildly entertaining and charismatic but frankly that doesn’t cut it anymore for me

ZH – random guy I met that was AM’s friend; sharply witty in that jewish way –> sure, hella privileged though

AV – mysterious on social media and adorably awkward in person; musically talented –> awkward, so awkward it’s amazing and hilarious

JS – do I need to describe him? well-traveled, well-read, and insanely developed as a human being –> flakey and opaque in a way that points more to the fact that he is deceitful when his dick is involved that any sort of personality quirk

AjM – individual, and yet seems like the kindest person alive –> eek, who is this?

EL – went on spring break trip with him; can be summed up through this exchange with AM: me – “I like him a lot, but I feel like I don’t know him”; AM – “he probably feels the same exact way” –> love love love

FF – a drugged-up ease, an intellectualism, a vague sense of floating through life, and a crazy music talent –> really quite a dick but somehow my hate is mixed with admiration for the aforementioned qualities

VC – a mellow, unassuming, and yet so apparent kindness –> has disappeared completely (seriously, where is he?) but I still love this guy

adding on:

?? – my CS ta who stayed with me for an hour after hours had ended; HOW FUCKING KIND DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO DO THAT; saw him dancing at a party with abandon so nerdily with this girl and he was so happy and I’m in love

EJ – art and china when art and china are half my being

CL – best friend of EJ; art and art and new york when that’s the other half of my being

 

11/14/17, reading about graph theory at a desk

I Love Him

11/11/17, 10:24am

when I am not with you I revise in my mind how I will tell you I am leaving:

• when I see you with your friends and when I am there with you and your friends I know I am in the wrong place; I do not fit; I can never fit without squashing who I am and I could not do that if I tried; believe me believe me because I have lived my life trying and I only now know that I can’t and I don’t have to
  • this was not about self-fulfillment. this is about capability.
  • I am tired of failing to prove myself to your people.
  • you are white and they are white and I am ready to retreat into my colorful bubble
• you said that we would go until the end of college like that was the longest time ever, longer than I could possibly be thinking, so long that it was a vulnerability for you to say it: I know you matter far more to me than I to you and to continue this would be masochism masochism and so I hold you a distance away I am sure that is confusing
  • you make me happy now. maybe you are being realistic.
  • would leaving be masochism?
  • when will I escape masochism?
• I am holding you back from exploration and self-discovery and I don’t want to I so strongly believe that I should not and yet you will not let me leave and you will not let me bend; things that don’t bend snap: you don’t see the snap but I do, I do, it will be me and it will be for you
  • do you notice that I disappear when he comes?
  • and yet:
  • two truths and a lie:
    • “single”
    • “interested in women”

11/11/17, 1:54am

The first time, we were coming
down. Surreal, soft: I am yellow
and she is brown and you
are gleaming, you are all gleaming.

I am a pendulum: disbelief/wonder/disbelief.
Who could you possibly think I am?

Fairy lights and jaunty conversation
about your day your day your day and this
is how I find out your parents
dogs / apple muffin mix / hospitality with a drawl
were in town to see everyone
every one every single one: oh, you say
they just love love loved everyone: my love
love love who am I if not at least
a part of the definition
of your everyone — it passes,
flashes, and I wonder wonder if
the knife was yours
or just another on the path
I walk to be by your concrete.

I know we know maybe you know you you all
don’t know don’t know what it’s like to be un
unworthy by unknown rules
uninteresting by assumption
unwelcome unwelcome unwelcome
by default I know I know I know
but how could you not
even try

Frank Ocean fucks me up consistently:
sure, sometimes I look you up
peruse the life you run, the one
I hear about when it’s paused, the people
you see who are like you
gleaming, always gleaming. Love, you
whispered: love;
love: why are you single on Facebook?
When did you/we/you/you decide you
you/you/you were single on Facebook?

Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s wrong, nothing’s
wrong wrong wrong

I know I know sometimes I throw knives
at you but does it matter if you don’t
notice? I am small and you are big
and maybe this is the only
why why why for which we fit. I I I am
not so blameless but a knife from you
is a knife for us
and I I I am sorry that I
that I require a saint from you
of you I am sorry
sorry, sorry no, sorry no
more

even when I yell you think I don’t try / help me
convince me that these are more than singular
post-teen trivialities

We shes watch the room unfold
smooth with our backs against the dry
wall; invisible women, sore thumbs, melanined
bruises among paper cuts. You smile
so we smile but mostly we are quiet, struck
sponges on land foreign holding in our water:
daughters, we float enough still to drift
away.

(eek)

… I found the second story that I’d ever written, 20 years ago in Wellington. It was written in the third person, the person most girls use when they want to talk about themselves but don’t think anyone will listen.

• Chris Kraus, I Love Dick