some crescent moon

The last time we made love he thought it was because I wanted to feel closer. 

But I actually wanted to experience him disconnected. 

If a man tells you he's ending things being intimate is the best way to let him go. 

You'll never feel more used than you do by him in that moment. 

Men think they have us figured out. 

They think we won't be able to get over them and that our love for them will haunt our hearts. 

But what they don't realize is while they're looking at our Instagram we already have another man in our sheets. 

Love is fickle. 

It is the very extreme of emotion which gives it all the credibility of a teenager. 

How can I possibly take any of it seriously when it has no consistency?

Just thinking about its ups and downs makes me dizzy. 

What sort of truth lies in that?

He was pretending and we both knew it. 

But he thought I believed him. 

He thought my eyes were the same doe ones that believed everything he used to say under different stars. 

But there was only one night this time I truly believed him and it was the night he first said I love you and water danced in the corners of his eyes. 

But his love, like most love, was a selfish one. 

It doesn't make it feigned. 

Just a little insincere. 

Because the heart can't want what it wants when it has no fucking clue about anything. 

It merely reacts, like some chemical experiment where I'm the one standing motionless in a glass jar. 

And after all of it, the passion and the love and the distance and the silence, I am still, and forever will be, his only other one.

And he is my one.

Of many. 

Many loves. 

And lovers. 

And I am something he'll never be. 

Free. 

I saw a Ghost on my birthday

I woke up hungover. 

Which is really a great way to start your birthday. 

I'd had such an epic birthday eve I'd already made out with two people. 

Happy fucking birthday, Reese.

I slept in but not as much as I'd wanted. 

When you go to bed after two you want to sleep half the day away. 

So I forced myself to wake up and continue the celebration. 

I was so out of it when I left I didn't lock my front door. 

I got back that night and thought my home had been broken in to. 

Nope. 

I just never locked the door. 

Holy shit. 

Guess that's what a good night will do to ya. 

So I pick up the Bestie and we drive into town. 

And I guess I'm still pretty out of it after brunch cuz when I park I'm not where I think I am. 

I thought I'd parked a block away from my favorite vintage clothing store, the one I visit every year on my birthday. 

But as I looked up I realized I wasn't across the street from my favorite vintage shop. 

I was across the street from his bar. 

The Phantom's.

I stopped for a moment on the sidewalk and just stood there, dumbfounded. 

The bar I was staring at was four city blocks away from the vintage shop I could've sworn I'd parked in front of. 

I laughed at myself wondering if my subconscious had brought me there because I'd wanted to see him. 

We started walking past the bar and all of a sudden there he was.

Unlocking the side doors to let some people in, the lights on the Christmas tree twinkling behind him. 

Huh, I said, There he is.

And I smiled. 

I didn't feel anything I expected to feel--sadness, anger, longing, regret. 

I simply smiled.

Wow. I'm --over him. I was so.obSESsed with him. And now....I'm over it. 

And then I laughed. 

I stood there in the rain and I laughed. 

So happy. 

We got to the vintage shop and it was empty. 

Our faces looked upon the other and this time we both laughed. 

A sign on the door announced the store had moved. 

To Hawthorne. 

The exact street on the other side of the river we'd just came from. 

It was literally a block away from where we'd been. 

So I drove across the river, across the Hawthorne bridge, to walk in the rain and see The Phantom on my birthday. 

And smile. 

And realize I had healed. 

It was perfect. 

Fill in the emoji

I got myself an advent calendar and quickly discovered the only thing I'm good at doing every day is masturbate. 

Consistency is a lot of work. 

Making time for anything takes a lot of fucking effort these days. 

It takes work to forge relationships with people who aren't giant flakes. 

We're the generation of entitlement and nobody is gonna do anything they don't feel like. 

Unless there's something in it for them. 

I get it. 

Sometimes I don't want to share my time. 

Sometimes I cancel my dates so I can play Mariokart. 

Sometimes I want to do what I want, by myself with no one other than my cat staring at me in judgement from across the room. 

The times I do have a problem are when people flake when it's important. 

You don't want to meet me for happy hour because your period has sucked all the energy required to put on a bra?

Fine. Whatever. 

But I invite you to something weeks upon weeks in advance and you bail?

Not cool, brah.

I hate when people let me down.  

I'd tie myself in knots just to make the people I love laugh. 

I expect my beloved to treat me with the same caring grace. 

It makes me want to kick them in the vagina when I feel like they're indifferent to my disappointment. 

This time of year brings out the best and worst in people. 

When Dickens was writing A Tale of Two Cities he must have been talking about Christmas time. 

I know in a month it won't matter. 

Hell, it may not next week. 

It's just strange. 

Why is it always the way that the people you don't expect to be there for you, are, and the people you do expect to show up can't be bothered to send an emoji?

There's something really poetic in all that. 

I just haven't figured out what it is. 

Can't talk right now, playing Mariokart

Last night I cancelled my date so I could stay home and play Mariokart.

Tonight I told him we should meet for a burger because I knew I'd never bail on a free burger. 

Sex, sure. 

Burger, never. 

Dating when you've been single as long as I have is much more complicated than I ever realized. 

A guy asked to see me again and instead of being elated like a girl is supposed to feel my first thought was, Didn't I just see you?

I'm apparently not used to sharing my time with anyone but my cat. 

It's a good thing, though, cuz I like it when people push me past my comfort zone. 

In bed and in life. 

Let's try something different, let's spice things up.

Let's not make it awkward when I make it clear I want you to leave. 

But the thing that has been good about dating guys who send me texts other than dick pics and emojis is that it's made me realize how happy I actually am single. 

Of course I love dating and I love sex and meeting strangers is practically a hobby of mine. 

But it's the holidays and I thought I'd be pining for someone to link arms with me at zoo lights and I'm not. 

I'm a happy panda all on my own. 

In fact my actual birthday was spent with some of the friends I hold more dear  than anyone else on this planet so I'm not wanting for anything. 

Except perhaps this burger that's supposed to be killer. 

The bastard's lucky I have a weakness for meat. 

Ah hell.

And men. 

I can't make that

I got to celebrate the Bestie's birthday last week and part of the birthday extravaganza was going to hear Dumb Blonde. 

I had honestly never heard of the band but the Bestie was stoked to see them and I'll go to just about any show if it's only twenty bucks. 

We got to Holocene, the particularly small venue, and I say particularly small because it looks more like a bar than a venue for bands to play at. 

And since it's my favorite persons birthday I want to buy her a drink. 

Well unlike me, because opposites attract, my girl is not the lush that I am. 

In fact she hardly ever drinks. 

She doesn't even know what to order, that's how infrequently she drinks. 

I know, she's fucking adorable.

So I channel my inner 22 year old & suggest an apple martini?

Sure, that sounds great. 

Ok. 

So I walk up to the bar to the skinny guy wearing a black turtleneck. 

Yes.

I said turtleneck. 

Hi, Can I get an apple martini? I ask.

I can't make that, he curtly replies. 

Oh, I'm fairly shocked. Ok.

And he hands me the menu with the cocktail list and I sit down with that. 

We look over the options and most of them are designed for the alcoholics like me but I point out one with rum and pineapple and declare that to be the sweetest. 

So that was the birthday cocktail to be had. 

I marched up to Mr. Turtleneck and asked for the Jam & Berry. 

I can't make that, he replies, annoyed.

What? Now I'm getting annoyed. 

I'm missing one of the ingredients. Here you can get a Tom Collins.

Which ingredient are you missing?

Or a Paloma. Or we have the slushee, he points half heartedly to a machine that looks like they stole it from a hot dog on a stick from a mall food court. 

Can SHE make the drink? I point to the female bartender I wished I'd spoken to in the first place. 

He pauses. No.

It's my friends birthday and she doesn't drink a lot so she wants something more on the sweet side. 

Well I don't know why she doesn't just come up here herself. She can get the sluuuuusheeee.

I can't believe this. 

What bartender can't make a fucking cocktail?

Does he even actually work there?

Or did he just throw on what he thought was a cool outfit and walk behind the bar to be the slusheeee pusher. 

Who wants a fucking slushee in winter?

What an idiot. 

I ordered a shot of Jameson --because I needed to drink after talking to him. I needed a zanax after talking to him.--And walked back to the Bestie mildly defeated at not handing her a birthday cocktail. 

Now I know for next time. 

If a man is wearing a god damned turtleneck and he's standing behind a bar, I will find somewhere else to drink. 

Because he not only can't make good wardrobe choices, he can't make a fucking drink. 

#fuckholocene

My soul's sister

There are some nights when a man won't do. 

Nights when nothing and no one can satisfy the twitch dancing in your skin. 

But a soul sister. 

I'd had it. 

To say I was fed up was like saying I like sex. 

It's a bit of a fucking understatement. 

I understand changing your mind. 

Hell, I change my outfit several times a day. 

But there's a point when you don't get to change your mind anymore. 

You get to choose your choice and suffer a life without me in it. 

Hey, if you're a dumbass you get what's coming to you. 

So, reeling from yet another change from my ever changing lover--(or ex, as of late, for the moment, anyway, who the fuck really knows)--I was craving something consistent. 

I was supposed to meet her at our usual place but something about our old haunt didn't feel like what I needed. 

I wanna go somewhere else, I texted her. 

She suggested a dive we'd been to a few times and THAT, for whatever reason, was exactly what I wanted. 

Yes, I wrote back. But only if we can smoke. 

Because this soul sister not only calmed my frustrated storm she also smoked the ridiculously frou frou menthol cigarettes I'd smoked the night I popped my nicotine cherry. 

And sometimes in life there are only 3 things that will do--whiskey, sex or cigarettes. 

(Or all of the above).

So we drank and smoked and we talked of all of it. 

And those few people I can tell my ugly secrets to are the ones who make my heart sing. 

And as we held hands across the table suddenly we both leaned forward and her lips found mine. 

And life is repeatedly full of such disappointment and men who change their minds. 

But sometimes, when the cries of your heart align with the moon, love finds its way to you. 

And it's always sweeter than you remembered. 

A little blue box

He was the last guy to buy me jewelry. 

And when I miss him, I wear the necklace he gave me. 

It never makes me sad. 

It always makes me happy. 

And it makes me feel close to him.

Even if I'm never going to look into his face again. 

I remember when he gave it to me. 

He said he hid my birthday present at work because he didn't trust me. 

He figured I'd look in his apartment for it. 

And maybe I would have. 

It was months after he'd said, "I love you."

He used to be so excited to say it. 

He'd get up from his computer and cross the living room to where I was sitting on the couch just so he could put his face in my face and say, "I love you."

It was unbelievably sweet. 

The last time we made love as a couple he looked in to my eyes during and told me, "You're the most beautiful woman in the world."

And I could have died in that moment.

Satisfied. 

Complete. 

And days later he didn't want to be a couple anymore. 

Love is frightening. 

It overwhelms. 

And the only way to love is to be vulnerable. 

Which scares the shit out of most people. 

Who can feel secure so raw?

I, however, would choose the vulnerability of love any day over the self sufficiency of independence. 

I'm happiest when my heart is resting inside a clueless pair of hands. 

I'd rather fumble through life alongside someone's mistakes than ride smoothly in a placid sea of my own making. 

But most men I love don't see love that way. 

They need to transition. 

I am their transition. 

I still remember when he handed me the little blue box. 

It wasn't wrapped, because white ribbon is really all you need. 

And before I opened it, I was already shocked. 

Tiffany.

And this from a man who never spent a dime without a fundamental, logical reason. 

Love had driven him to such excess. 

And it danced about his eyes with the excitement of a child. 

I opened the tiny pouch inside the tiny box and a silver necklace fell into my hand. 

It truly, could have been anything.

And I would have loved it. 

Because he chose it. 

The tiny knot was so simple and subtle. 

It was nothing I ever would have chosen for myself. 

But it was perfect. 

He was so proud. 

And it feels like a lifetime ago. 

Which I suppose in some regard three years is. 

But it's mine. 

And he isn't. 

And there are so many painful memories that frame our tragic love story and broken friendship. 

But that delicate necklace from Tiffany will always be the symbol of the love he once was so excited to share. 

I was such a different girl then. 

And I hope one day, despite how short my next love may be, that they would share such a token with me. 

So when years have passed, and I've forgotten to miss them, I can reach into my treasure chest and find a symbol of the love that once sang in their heart. 

And feel close to them, when I might never look into their face again.