You'll feel better when you cannot feel....

I left when I should have been going to bed. You beckoned me with promises of fun times and impromptu band performances. Almost reluctantly, I drove according to directions scrawled on a scrap of paper. When I realized how close I was, I took a small detour just.....because. I don't know what it was that made me want to stop. I just did. You said yourself that it was wierd. Maybe it was. Maybe I am.
Onward to a garage thick with cigarette smoke and filthy distortion. My throat caved in protest and my nose ran without mercy.
"I'm not going to last very much longer."
So we left for the park. Light wind and a perfectly clear sky. An ideal backdrop for halted words and awkward silence.
"I don't like looking at the stars."
"Why?"
"It makes me feel so....insignificant."
"We are insignificant," I laughed.
When I got the feeling you wanted more than friendly body-warmth, I let my mind take control of my mouth.
"I want everyone to forget me. I want to go away. Maybe not physically, but mentally. It seems like every life I walk into, I end up ruining. I can teach people things, but some want more than knowledge. They want a part of me that they create in their heads. They want to hold on to a part of me that doesn't really exist. And then I end up disappointing them."
I went on to explain how I don't let people get close to me. And how I tend not to let myself get close to anyone anymore. I poured my entire heart out. Or whatever is left of it. I needed to get it through to you that whatever you saw in me is merely a figment of your imagination.
"I love you."
"No, you love the person you think I am."
You then tried to explain to me how seperating myself wasn't the healthy thing to do. I needed to come back eventually, you said. Well, I know I'll come back, but when I do, I have a feeling I'll be so different that you need to say goodbye to who I am now.
"I think it would be best if you just left."
I saw a shooting star streak across the sky. I didn't make a wish.
"If that's what you want, then I'll go."
This time when you left, we were both happy. That's how I knew that it was finally ok. I heard your shoes crunch across gravel; my ears following your presence until you disappeared into the dark. I stayed on the field, eyes to the sky, shivering in the cold. It felt good to be by myself again. My skin puckered and convulsed in vain attempts to conserve heat. I quivered on the grass, in the pitch black, all alone.
Back at the car, I turned the heat on full blast and waited for my fingers to regain dexterity. Then I took the wheel and drove home. My carport smelled like honeysuckle. It's been like that for days. The flowers are dying, and this is their last attempt at making their presence known. In a few days, the blooms will disappear, but the scent will stay behind like a shadow.

"Somehow I don't think yelling; 'If I knew what love was, I would probably love you!' at his front door really counts for anything."

I learned two things tonight. First of all, I discovered the moral to settle my internal dispute between free will and rational decision-making, (aka Conscience). I decided that I don't want to do anything I would have to lie about later. Honesty is so important to me. If I live honestly, and base my decisions on honest means, then I have nothing to worry about. Even if a decision I make is considered 'bad', as long as I can admit to it and tell the truth about it, then it's merely a learning experience. If I do things that I feel uncomfortable telling people about, then that's when I have to worry. If I find myself in a situation where I can't make a rational choice, then I will ask myself, "Will I be able to be honest to someone if they ask me about this later?"
Secondly, I learned a little more about love. I think you should only say you love someone if you truly know who you are loving. I think it is much more wise to say, "I love the kind of person I perceive you as," but who would say that (haha)? The reason love goes away is because people change. You love a person because you think you know who they are. If they change, then you feelings change aswell. You find yourself saying, "I loved you, but now...", or, "How can I love you if you're not the same person?" I guess the ultimate test of love is seeing the worst side of people. The side you fear the most. The side you don't expect. If you can love a person, even when everything you thought you knew about them is wrong, then that love is truly real. If you can honestly say that you will be with someone no matter what, then I think that is what love is. Even though I now have some sort of idea of what I think love is, I still feel just as lost when it comes to saying it myself. I don't know if I'll ever know someone enough to tell them I love them. And 'knowing' someone goes hand in hand with 'trusting' someone, so who knows when that will happen. I'm beginning to examine what trust means to me. It's increasingly confusing. In some way, it means believing someone will always be there, but that goes against my number one rule of not setting expectations. How am I supposed to get around that??
It still baffles me how I am supposed to be at a milestone in my life right now. I'm finally becoming an 'adult'. Ha. I can't shake the feeling that I have started all over again. I'm at the bottom; the beginning. I came this far and now it's like I'm relearning everything I thought I had figured out.
Anyway. I think that I've thought enough for tonight. Enough talking. Enough 'figuring out'. I'm dead tired. And I'm sick.






"You came here on time, I just hope that it's not too late. I've seen you at night, biting the frost of silence."
-The Mars Volta