Yesterday I felt so uncomfortable at coffee and I am hoping he is a bright enough man to take the hint. A nice man, certainly, but it felt like I was filling in for something more than just a coffee partner- I was all the women of Boston, all the human contact of nine months, every hope for a union of Africa and the United States and that, my friends, is just too much pressure for one girl to bear. That and nothing bothers me more than being forced into a hug that is ten seconds too long.

I’ve been alone in the house for a couple of days now.  Friday, Saturday, Sunday- the tail end of a pretty thanksgiving.  I think a lot.  I think the primary function of a roommate or mate is to prevent long stretches of profound thinking.  I just downloaded the new Tori Amos holiday song album and have been listening to her very supple and unique tone- she’s something special- she moves right through my heart like a painful but beautiful breath.  Sometimes I feel like she is what the voice inside my head sounds like.

Lavan, my constant companion, is peering at me. Like the child born to keep together fading lovers she tries to pull me out of my reverie, shoving her toys at me, showing off, offering me her kisses as if she were a consolation prize.  I cannot picture days like this without her diligent attention on me.  “I’m pretty Mommy.  You’re pretty Mommy.  I love you Mommy. Look what I have for you. Want to throw this for me?  Maybe we could just sleep.”  It’s a song her eyes sing on repeat for me.  Seamus sliding in to sit beside us, I wonder if this is how it will always be.  Just me and them.

I often think that the answer is change- change something.  Change what I do, change who I see, change how I look- just make some change that will bring me closer to someone that someone needs.  I think though, no matter how many times I think it, it must be the wrong answer.  If it were the right answer then I would change.  And things would get better.  I wouldn’t feel like this anymore.  I cannot tell you how many dates I went on this year, thinking someone, anyone, could work out and end this.  No one was anyone I wanted to see more than once, maybe twice if I forced myself.  No one was anyone I didn’t think I would rather be home with my dog for.  No one was anyone that looked at me with even an ounce of recollection for the amazing depth and quality of my heart.  And worse, the ones, or I should say, one, who whispered at my core for the first time in, hell, years, only to systematically disappear making me wonder if I imagined the whole thing.  Sometimes I want to relocate my entire heart and replace it with something smaller cheaper and easier.  I am growing so tired of trying, and I haven’t even begun to try.

I wish it was early enough to go to bed, even if its only return to the same dream I have almost every night. A hard thing to wake up to every morning, the same old violence by a varied cast of characters.  But insomnia doesn’t work.  Waking dreams are as bad.  I am ridiculously looking forward to being back at work tomorrow where I am distracted and I can enjoy the company of people who value me.  Imagine that.  I suppose that is my fault, too.  Like everything else.  Like every other failure.  I don’t want this path anymore but I cannot seem to find a different one.

I wish I could remember everything
about that moment when I first met you-
my eyes were stars, immediately- I know-
I wanted you in some primal way
thought that might be enough
thought I might try to make you mine
and oh! did I.
I used to watch the rain dripping down the window frames
and leaned my face against the screen to feel the wetness there,
and I would see the lights on from your room and want
with something deeper in me than I knew
than I had ever known,
want you to come out and ask me to throw down my golden hair.
I can see, behind my eyes, the way I was pushed against the wall,
so like a rag doll,
broken and silent,
it was you I pictured there.
And like the cool water of rain, my tears were the balm that soothed me-
and you didn’t hear a word-
how could you have ever doubted a kiss?
but I could not help but turn away- did you grow tired of my cheeks?
what was left was not a combination of you and me-
but was actually the work of three.
If that love had been enough there might have been,
something new or blue or full of woe-
I’ve nothing to show for my rainwater eyes
but a pile of odes
and a memory that doesn’t die.

Ever Virgin.

There are times, it feels, when I pray so hard, so long, so loudly that for hours at a time I feel like I am screaming in my head.  I scream for help and guidance and I scream for an end for the crushing loneliness I feel.  I scream so longley and with such absolute fortitude that I cannot imagine that God does not hear me.  I’m clever.  I attempt to pray in the way we’re taught is best.  I don’t ask, “God, please send me a boyfriend”, I ask, “God, please help me to feel the blessing in the love that surrounds me.  Help me to be less selfish and less demanding.  Give me the strength to endure this time alone until it is the right time for me.”  Except the bully of it all is, no matter how carefully I phrase it, doesn’t God just hear, “please send me a boyfriend” anyway?  I don’t even want a boyfriend. I hate boys.  I just want to stop feeling this way.  I want the answer not to be, “find happiness in yourself- look not to other people’s validation for happiness,” but that isn’t the answer.  The answer is that my heart will forever feel like a wasteland until I am able to prove to myself that there is a time at which I am the first choice.  A time at which there is not another soul in the world greater or more important than I am to another human being.  I used to believe it wasn’t true by virtue of some deficiency in the way I looked.  Now I’m not so sure.  More and more I think I am just tragically flawed- another Manfred in a sea of Heros (minus the incest). I think I might be doomed to wander the cliffs alone forever until I am overcome with despair and hurl myself upon the rocky shoals below me.

I’m just tired of everyone elses boyfriends, I think…. or maybe I’m just tired.

That seems likely.

Ever Virgin.