Love.

You know the words. Repeat them with me.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves.

Except here’s the thing, sugar.

Love is not patient. Or kind. it is not God’s work or a thing of beauty. It is vile, repulsive. You hate it, and yourself. It changes you.

Love is long-distance marriages, common law marriages, people who want to get married but can’t, people who don’t want to get married and do, people who shouldn’t get married; people you never thought would find someone and did.

Love is good decisions for bad reasons and bad decisions for good reasons; it is good sex and bad fights; bad sex and good fights. Love is confusing, uncertain, unexpected. It is different political views, different religions; one partner wanting children and one not.

It is falling for someone you hate; beginning to hate someone you once loved. It is knowing you were meant to be with someone 15 minutes into the first date, and it is not realizing that you are not right for each other until 15 years too late.

Love is a lot of things. It is rain and snow, broken shoes and torn clothes, friendship bracelets and white-gold rings; arguments over dinner and make-up sex, but it is not patient, and it is not kind. It will break you, but you won’t mind. In fact, you will love it.

bookstore.

fingers run over spines of books as if all of the knowledge and comfort the words bring will come through osmosis.

concentration is broken; how many books have been touched? which disease was caught; which title remembered?

one dollar, five dollars, eight dollars. books collected that mean nothing except for a famous author; words not yet absorbed that should have been; will be.

stacks are slipped in to plastic bags, lines move forward; still seated, enthralled by the people passing, the conversations quietly overheard, the words lacing through veins.

one hour, five hours, eight hours. dark has settled, closing time approaches; still seated, progression of time unimportant. one book has been finished, another postponed for a future reading moment.

moleskine closes, mac shuts down, espresso machine turns off. final purchases are made, people leave, brains still in the book as feet shuffle to cars, buses, bikes.

all that is left are the books, the titles, sentences, phrases; words that change lives. they will open again tomorrow, communicating beauty to those willing to see it.

LIFE

One day I will write something. It will tell the story of me, of those I have loved, those who have hurt me and those who are still with me. It will tell the story of the women in my life: the mother who scarred me, the step-mother who loved me, and the redhead who believed in me. It will tell of the men: the father who did his best for me, the almost step-father who emotionally battered me, and, eventually, the man who fell in love with me.

It may not be something others read. It will take them years to read it; months to understand. It will be confusing, convoluted, and rocky - even the people closest to me may never read it, for fear they will never understand. But I will know what every word, every sentence, every grammatical aspect means. I will share bits and pieces with people, to help them to understand me, and this piece I write will tell such a story that everyone will want to read all of it.

I will title it LIFE, and I will distribute the most profound pieces to those in need of inspiration. I will try to make sure that my LIFE is passed on properly before I go, and if it is not I hope that my loved ones will pass it on once I am gone. LIFE will become a way of life, I predict, and I will watch from wherever it is I end up as people read and enjoy Life. Maybe I will even get lucky enough to experience the reincarnation that people speak of, and I will get to experience LIFE for myself. People will read LIFE far after I am gone, like Hemingway, Thoreau or Dickinson. My children’s grandchildren will read it, and they will know “this LIFE came from great-grandmother” and they will be honored. And maybe they will write LIFE as well.

One day I will write something. It will be beautiful, poetic, and it will tell the story of me and the people around me. I will call it LIFE.

To the Women of Kenya

May you always be maridadi; beautiful.
May you always be the strongest women I have ever met.
May your voices rise above all of the others.
May you forever give birth without pain drugs and continue to be stronger than your white counter parts.
May the water jugs always balance on your head.
May your babies outlive you.
May your children be grateful.
May your husband love you; your in-laws welcome you; your community worship you.
May you never get HIV/AIDS and pass it on to your children unknowingly.
May you never again have to sell your body for food and shelter.
May you always look more beautiful working with your hands than sitting behind a desk.
May you always have a smile that brightens a room.
May you forever live in peace.
May your husband protect you, and may you know how to protect yourself.
May you always sell your fruits and vegetables.
May you always be kind and willing to share.
May you always be maridadi; beautiful.

- written July 29, 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya.

what you don't know about me.

what you don’t know about me is that i am strong and weak. heartbroken, yet with a heart that has never been touched. i love easily and fast, chase people from my space, want to live in my own bubble and embrace the world at the same time.

what you don’t know about me is that i am you and i am me, i am the boy i love and the girl he doesn’t understand. i embrace the spirit of all people, want others to know they are special and wanted and yet never feel special or wanted myself.

what you don’t know about me is that i am memories of broken cigarettes and hidden glass bottles, secrets attempted to be masked and yet brutally told too soon to the wrong people. there is nothing i want more than for you to know who i am, but i know that you will never really know me.

Late blooms.

She grew up on her own; stretched her wings and flew too fast, too soon. She barely remembers what being in a sandbox is like, or how it feels to fall and skin her knee and have someone other than herself calm the tears. She was her own mother and she failed; she let herself fall apart.

Women are a novelty to her now. She doesn’t know how to be a strong one and admires those that do. She’s too old to still be learning how to be herself, she thinks, though she knows others would tell her differently. It doesn’t matter what they say, to her she should be all grown up, and not being there makes her a failure.

Early twenties in body, pre-teen in mind and spirit, she clings to the “grown-ups” she knows, denying herself the opportunity to learn and grow from those who most likely know best what she is going through. It’s a beautiful thing when she finds someone who satisfies both parts of her, but the relationship always ends; stalls when she has clung too fast and too hard and scared them away.

She imagines that one day her two parts will merge together and she will become one whole person with one whole spirit, but she is also terrified of that day. Is this maybe who she is supposed to be; should she be less afraid of herself and more afraid that she will lose herself?

It’s a subconscious decision to embrace the pre-teen, but she makes it all the same, her adult self hoping that she turns out to be who she is supposed to be and who others will enjoy at the same time. She figures the growth will come when it is supposed to, even if she is a little late to the party.

World Series.

She is jealous. She wants what they have, the can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, world-series kind of love. Or what she assumes they have, because he looks at her in such a way and she talks about him in such a way that there’s no other explanation for it.

She wants to know every detail of their relationship, so that when she sleeps she can dream that it is her and the boy she loves, though she knows that when she wakes nothing will have changed. She will still be too shy, he will still not see her that way; she will still be jealous.

She imagines herself wearing the white-gold rings, sharing the covers with someone; snuggling under a blanket with a puppy tucked at their feet. She imagines it but deep down knows she won’t ever be that girl. Any ring will probably remain on a chain around her neck for otherwise she will lose it, she can’t even share covers with a friend, and if anything the dog will be snuggled under the blanket with her before the man is. She likes to pretend though.

She imagines that one day someone’s hand will fit in hers, and that is really what she wants the most. She wants to feel their fingers threaded together, and she’s excited for the day he will eventually come, if only because then she will finally have a hand to hold that doesn’t let go when someone better comes along.

She will probably always be jealous of them. She will always see the look in his eyes and hear the words fall from her lips and know that their world-series love is more than she can ever hope for.

Sentences.

She tries to write beautifully on purpose; wants to impress her, challenge him, be an artist. She tries to make the words sound right, realizing only too late that focus on vocabulary turns the reader away from the content.

She sits down one day, closes her eyes and lets the pen sprawl across the page; sentences, phrases and ideas forming before she has time to edit them in her head. What emerges on the paper is a story of love she has never told, a past she has hidden and a future she is afraid of. She can’t piece anything together but she tries, playing with the sentences until they make sense. They aren’t beautiful after that.

The scratched on piece of paper emerges from her bag, crumpled and dirty, and she reads through it from beginning to end, seeing the story in it that she missed the first time. It tells the story of the men and women she has loved, the pain she has experienced and the unexpected things to come. She tapes it to her wall, watching the sentences come to life as she experiences each day. Each day is an experience; each experience a sentence.

The phrases spill off the paper and on to her walls, covering the concrete structure she hid behind with the reasons she can no longer be so afraid.

It dawns on her one day that the writing she was trying to make beautiful already was, she just needed to let Life do a little writing for her.

Crayola

She defines things in colors. His eyes are blue; green; today they’re grey. Her hair is red; orange; strawberry blonde. She finds that the way the light reflects off of things and changes their color to be the most fascinating event she has ever experienced. She observes things mostly, looking away when people catch her staring because she doesn’t want them to think she is different in any way.

She likes the way colors melt together; it is what she likes most about coloring books and crayons, for she can make things in to the colors she thinks they should be. It is also why she likes fall best; the grass is green and the leaves are yellow and orange and the sky is the prettiest grey she has ever seen.

Color defines her life nearly as much as sound does; if not more. When she listens to music the notes dance across her brain in different colors; blue for melody, purple for harmony, red for the drums. Laughter is bright orange; sarcasm a deep green. Colors are different every day, which is one of her favorite things about color. His eyes are a different shade of blue; her hair more red on a Monday than it is on a Friday. Can colors really change like that?

Resistance is futile, she reminds herself. Embrace the colors. Paint your nails bright orange; decorate in deep reds and greens during the holidays. Let the colors surround you, for one day they will fade. One day his eyes will be a bland grey; her hair nearly white. She will see in shades of grey instead of Crayola colors, and if she doesn’t take advantage of the colors now she will regret it for the rest of her life.

Cry

The song is a bad omen. The piano keys echo in her ears and her feet pound against the pavement in time with the beat as she rounds the corner. She shouldn't have let herself run in his neighborhood. She can feel it in her bones; she's about to run in to him, or his wife, or one of his daughters, all of whom are so close to her age it nearly makes her uncomfortable.

She sees their mutual friend walk down the front pathway three houses away and she slows down, nearly walking instead of running. She watches him follow Elaine down the pathway and she takes a deep breath and speeds back up so she can pass them. She turns her music up and lets her feet carry her across the concrete and past them, feeling them watch her and hearing him call her name over the words of the song, the words that are reiterating what she's feeling; wanting to cry and for it all to go away. She hears Elaine's voice, but still doesn't turn, focusing instead on the hills in front of her, wishing she was running up them instead of just watching them move up and down behind the houses.

She forgets about the cracks in the sidewalk until they affect her, her palms hitting the concrete long before she has realized she is no longer falling.

¥

"I'm the loneliest person I know," She says, playing with the loose strings on the pillow clutched to her chest. "And I know a lot of people."

"If you know so many people, why are you so lonely?"

"Knowing their name is different than really knowing them."

He nods, writing something on the legal pad in his lap. She hates it when he does that. "Do you think that maybe you don't really know them because you won't let yourself?"

"No," He doesn't look up from his paper, and his silence shakes her. "Ok, maybe."

"Why is that?"

She closes her eyes. "Dr. Grove..."

"Answer the question, Juliet."

She sighs. "Because I don't want to get hurt." It's a mantra she's been repeating for years; she told it to herself when her mother left her Dad, her Dad repeated it to her when she left home 4 years ago, and it was what she told Elaine when she was asked why she had never been in a serious relationship. "I just...I'm afraid."

Dr. Grove nods, staying silent for a few minutes before looking up. "I'm going to tell you something, and you're not going to like it, but I want you to listen."

"Okay..."

"In order to stop being so lonely, you're going to have to be more open to the possibility of getting hurt."

¥

The smell of rain fills her nose as he presses her body into the wall, wet kisses on her neck in twos, threes and fours. His cologne mixes with the rain and all of a sudden it's her favorite scent, making her weak at the knees and warm between her legs. Three weeks she has known him, flirted with him, been falling for him. His blue eyes are the focus of most of her newly developed photographs, his smile has taken over her brain; his heart warms her soul.

Grove said she had to get hurt, but this doesn't feel like hurt, this; this feels like bad thoughts and good feelings, like cold raindrops and warm bodies. It's a cluster of emotions she can't quite describe, and though his shirt is clinging to his body and her hair is sticking to her neck, when their mouths collide and a mixture of wet and salt and heat explodes in to the far corners of her mouth, she never wants to let go.

¥

It's one of their infrequent dinners out when he tells her; clutches her hand across the table and tries to make the words sound less catastrophic than they are, though he's not very good at it.

"I need to tell you something," He says, after the waiter has dropped off their food and will certainly leave them be for a while. "Jules?"

She looks up and takes the hand that is stretched across the table, her brown eyes watching his blue ones speckle green and grey. "I'm listening, Alex." He smiles softly at the way his name falls out of her lips. He stares at her for a minute and then lowers his gaze and her heart starts to thump. You're too young for me; My daughters don't like that I'm dating someone this young; I just don't think we're right for each other...

"I'm married."

The pad of her thumb stops moving stops moving over his hand. "What?"

"Married." His free hand reaches into his pocket and pulls out a white-gold ring, which seems to clatter above the restaurant noise when he drops it on the table. "I don't like wearing it. I love her, and I never imagined falling for you. You surprised me, Juliet. I never expected to love two women. I'm so sorry. I had to tell you. I don't want this to be over but I...well, I suppose that's up to you." He looks up at her, his eyes grey with confusion and brimming with tears.

She can't say a damn word. She's forgotten how.

¥

Elaine's little brother ends up being her rebound guy, a man in age but a boy in all other aspects. He doesn't hold a candle to Alex; no one ever will. They date for a month and half before she finds herself standing outside of Alex's office, wringing her hands together. His meeting ends and she waits, eyes tracing the patterns in the carpet as the head of human resources leaves his office.

They don't say a word to each other; he touches her arm and she follows him in, settling in the black leather chair that sits in the back corner before bothering to look up.

"Hey," He says, pulling a chair from in front of his desk and sitting down across from her. "Is everything alright?"

"I hate you." She whispers, slipping out of her heels and pulling her legs up so that she is sitting cross-legged in the chair. "You-you cheated on your wife with me and you broke me."

"I know. I'm so sorry..."

"Stop," She says, shaking her head. "Stop apologizing."

"Julie..."

"I miss you." She looks up at him, willing tears to form in her eyes. She hasn't cried since he broke the news and she feels like a robot. Not to mention she wants him to care; wants him to see her tears and feel bad. "I need you."

His hand brushes against hers and she clutches at his hand, lacing their fingers together. "I miss you too, but I...Juliet, I can't."

"Why did you tell me?" She snaps, his hand dropping out of hers. "We were happy. I was in love. Couldn't you have just...left it alone?"

His heart breaks when her voice cracks. "No, I couldn't. It wasn't fair to you, or her."

"You know what else isn't fair to me?" His head shakes slowly, but she can see it in his eyes. He knows. "This. THIS, Alex. I'm dying without you. I need you so badly, and I..." She stops, standing. "I have to go. I can't believe I came here."

"Come on, don't leave."

"No. I'm going." She walks away from him, reaching for the door handle and closing her eyes. "I need to not see you any more."

"We work in the same building."

"On different floors. Just, try."

He doesn't say anything at first, but she hears him cross the room and rest his hand on her shoulder. "I promise, I will."

She leaves without another word and goes home for the day. The don't see each other for another two months. It's at the company Christmas party that she meets his wife, and then leaves and drinks herself to sleep on Elaine's couch.

¥

Her eyes open slowly, Alex's face coming in to view; fuzzy at first, and then clear, clearer than she's ever seen it. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," She says, sitting up. "I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" He lifts her up by her arms, helping her stand. "You hit the concrete pretty hard."

"I'm fine." She pulls out of his grasp, moving back and forth from the balls of her feet to her heels.

"Juliet, what about your hands? You went palm first..."

"I. am. fine." She snaps. She moves to run her fingers through her hair, but her wrist screams at her and she cringes.

"I told you. You need..."

"You didn't tell me anything." Alex opens his mouth, but she shakes her head. "No. Don't say anything else. I'm fine. I didn't get hurt. I don't need your help. Just leave me alone!"

"Juliet." Elaine steps between them, reaching for her friends arm. "Sweetie, calm down."

"I am calm!" She screams, and Elaine steps back, lifting her hands in defense. "I'm sorry, Laney. I'm just..."

"Fine; you're fine." Alex snaps. "We know." He turns to walk away and then stops, though he stays facing away from her. "I got hurt too, Juliet. I fell in love and got my heart broken too. You're not the only victim here."

"No, I'm guessing your wife is the other one." She hisses, watching his shoulders tense before he finally walks away, his steps slow and steady as they head towards his front door.

The two women don't say anything else to each other, but Elaine helps Juliet in to her car and takes her to the emergency room, insisting that she get her wrists checked out.

It isn't until the doctor is splinting and wrapping her wrists that she finally, finally, lets herself cry.

Head vs. Heart

There was something about the way he smiled. It set her stomach in motion; made her hate herself for being so contradictory. "Always trust your head," he told her, but her head was telling her to write him off, to be finished trying to be his friend; to stop trying to fix him, and she couldn't. She wasn't ready.

She never really understood how to flirt. Is it flirting when she makes fun of him, giggles when he counters her statements, or touches his shoulder? Is she obvious; does he know? Is he flirting back, or just being nice?

She feels like her head will never stop being angry with him, and she thinks that her heart will never let him go. She's less worried about the other girl interested than the competition between her head and her heart. He'll date the other girl before he dates her and that's fine. She just wants her whole soul to be on the same page.

Sometimes she hates him. It's not just because he has changed, or because he doesn't understand; it's mostly because of the way he thinks. It's the zen, the open-ended questions; the written pieces that she doesn't really understand. It's that he keeps finding ways to justify his change; changing who he is and who he was so that people will understand the change. It's that he wants her to keep him accountable, even if it means she can't let him go. She's worried about his past; worried that he'll start again and it will really change him. Will it just be nicotine? What about alcohol? Hard drugs? Is it already happening?

She never wants him to know how she feels because she doesn't want him to stop being himself, but she wonders a lot whether he would feel the same way if he knew the truth. (Unless he already knows, she thinks, knowing that could certainly be possible.)

It's 9 pm when she gets the news. It's not a subtle call at all - the person who calls hasn't made a call to her since...forever. She answers the phone confused, and when the voice on the other end cracks she knows something is really wrong.

"An overdose," the woman on the phone says, "We still don't know if he'll wake up." She can barely respond. "Did you know he was doing drugs again?"

"No," she says, her voice coming out much softer than she expected it to be. "But I thought - I had a feeling. I should have said something."

"Don't blame yourself." She wants to say something else but can't, so she just nods, as if the older woman can see her through the phone. "Do you want me to stop by and get you? I'm on my way to the hospital."

"Yes." The rest of the conversation is a blur, and the next thing she knows they are on their way to Mercy, and she is seated in the backseat of a cab, crying in the arms of her mentor, whose tears are not hidden.

"He'll be okay." The older woman runs her fingers through the girl's messy curls and she closes her eyes. "I know you guys were close..."

"I never told him," she rasps, trying to cough away the tears. "I should have told him how I felt."

"You'll still get to." The girl with the brown curls nods, even though neither woman actually knows whether or not the statement is true.

He's awake when they arrive, but just recently. The doctor says he'll be fine and lets her go in to the room by herself. He bursts in to tears when he sees her, and when she tells him she loves him, he repeats the sentiment.

Two weeks later she is driving him in his car to the rehabilitation center that his parents chose, his fingers threaded through her right hand as she drives.

"I'll miss you," he says, and she smiles. "Will you miss me?"

"Yes," he squeezes her hand and she glances over at him. "But the wait will be worth it."

The problem is that it's not worth it. He comes back in love with a girl he met at rehab, and she finds herself watching him walk away just like she always dreaded he would.

She moves away from home, starting a new life with new people, and never sees him again but hears. She hears that he and his sweetheart get married and have children and that just after their second son is born she relapses and overdoes, leaving him with three children and a broken heart.

She determines that he deserves it.

Dry Erase

Squeeks ring in her ears as individual letters string together,
A green marker marks a white whiteboard,
From a shaky hand,
A short sentence forms,
Words drip from her careless lips,
Whispers of thoughts she wants to convey,
A quiver comes with an audible vowel,
A tap on the shoulder,
A clearing throat,
Remind her that she is not alone.

Squeek.

- MRB and NJF 10/20/2009

What motivates you to succeed?

the blue in his eyes,
the laughter that spills from her mouth,
the way their skin contrasts with mine,
how the adults arm fits around my shoulder,
how the childs hand fits in mine,
sarcasm,
wrinkled noses and tapping fingers;
laughter that cackles and fears of armpits;
inside jokes,
tea stained shirts,
too much coffee and not enough sleep;
GLEE,
languages i can't understand,
you,
concrete jungles and rural homesteads,
baby elephants and blind rhinos,
my past, present and future,
people,
laughter,
music,
LIFE.

Red Wedding

Blank paper.

Crisp, clean, perfect.

The only thing there may be are flecks from the journal cover, little pieces to be wiped away once the pen and the mind are jointly prepared.

He worships the blank sheets, buying notebook upon notebook and staring, knowing one day he will write something; anything.

It starts with one word; red. His pen digs in to the pages and he writes with abandon, describing with love a woman he worships almost as much as he worships the blankness of the pages he is now describing her on.

He knows not how to say the words, so he writes until he can write no more, then goes back for the sentences he likes and moves them to a new, crisp notebook. He fills two notebooks with her, watching her details spill on to the white.

Six sentences are chosen; phrases that describe her flaws and perfections in such a way that he sees her beginning to form in front of him; curves and contours and all.

He carefully sketches the three-letter nickname on to the front of a third notebook and fills the front page with the sentences. It will be his reminder notebook; one to keep for the ages.

He dresses, white tie, and leaves the room, carrying his new reminder with him.

The six sentences are used later, when she stands before him, white flowing from beneath her deep red waves. It reminds him of the notebooks.

When the sentences fall from his lips, and the tears from her eyes, he forgets the blank crispness of the pages and watches them fill with ink, all colors, with scratches and drawings; perfectly sketched ‘i love you’s’ and lopsided ‘don’t talk to me today’s.’ He sees laundry instructions and recipes and potential baby names; funeral dates and anniversary reminders, and he finishes with words not previously planned and most definitely something he never thought he would say.

Red is the color of the ink I like the best, the blood that will bind us, and is the universal color of Love, but mostly it is you; it is how I will always know that you are the one whose hair will drift through my fingers and whose lips taste like strawberries, because red means my love, my wife; my life.

Her hair drifts through his fingers later, red against the white of his vest as she lies in his arms. He reaches for the notebook while she sleeps and scratches words on the second page, still mostly blank.

Red. White. Wife. Life. Love.