I’ve been told I have a type: emotionally un-evolved. Not untrue and not the worst thing to be attracted to, but certainly a setback. Certainly something that leaves me wondering what I did to deserve hearing the men I love tell me they don’t know what they want years into our relationship; as if I have the power to keep them from being who they are.
-tbrumm
In most recent history, my favorite nights are the ones when we stayed in with lights dimmed low, our current favorites on a loud speaker, and $11 bottles of wine. I’d wear a pair of Calvin’s and he’d wear some hoodie he’s had since college and we found love in the space between the poetic lyrics and soul-shattering musical arrangements that will always resonate with some deep, dark part of who we were before us, and now, and the shallow, lukewarm pool of emotion that we’ve grown used to.
-tbrumm
Kate Nash’s “Navy Taxi” played four times through before I felt woozy from the steam; a fog, a haze. And I’d hoped if I spent enough time there my heart would start to open the way pores do, to release dirt and the debris from being destroyed by the one you love. Softening the layers of dead skin left by this one and the ones before.
This time, it will be different. This time it will be different. This time, it will be, different.
I like my showers hot and my lovers cold and this song to remind me that I over and over choose paths that lead me back to sitting down in showers and standing up for boys who don’t love me the way I need them to.
I’m stubborn and I’ll shout and I’ll cut you out and I’ll make you feel like I never wanted to make you feel.
Have you ever tried to soften your sharp edges for the sake of fitting into his circle? Filing away until I was as dull as they were. That’s when they each thought they loved me most, when I was no longer me, but more like everyone else they’ve ever loved, lost, or let go of – when I became just another brick in the wall they were building between who they claim to be and the shape they take in the dark.
Sweetheart, don’t let someone put you in a box.
Or a circle, space, or square of any sort. Because you are fluid, only solid at your core. Ever-changing, evolving, expanding and then contracting with intention because you’ve spent enough time testing your limits to know you can’t always go back to the way things used to be. There will be some who will want to dive into the darkest depths of your ocean; they usually end up surface level grasping for air – used to shallower waters and cursing you for the challenge. This is not a reflection of you. You are not too much as a result of their being too little. You are not what they say you are, not always. You are not a black hole. You are the Milky Way for those who know where to look. You are the answer, the question, and most importantly, a statement; of beauty, and poise, and strength, and stability, and of all the other things that boys don’t truly appreciate until you’re gone.
So I’ll take all that other stuff that I said before and I’m gonna make it work.
-tbrumm
I remember the first time I heard Banks; it was in the car of a boy from Jersey who gave me more credit than I deserved, the song was ‘Warm Water’. It was Winter time, a dry cold. The time between when the leaves crunch beneath your boots and the first snow fall. I shivered in the passenger seat while I wondered if he was somebody I could fall in love with, hoping he’d be someone who could make me feel the things Banks was singing about. And I’m sure he could have, maybe would have, had I given a decent man a chance.
-tbrumm
When I hug him I place my ear on his chest like I’m waiting for his heart to whisper through his breast bone and into my ear the things his brain doesn’t want me to have the satisfaction of hearing aloud, to promise me that this Cold War won’t last forever, that he’ll one day drown me in the love he used to, that he’ll soon enough forgive me for being who I am and get back to loving me for who I try to be.
-tbrumm
People will love you even in your extremities. Stop bottling yourself up and twisting the lid tighter.
Overflow. Empty out. Refill. Repeat.
-tbrumm
I like the way you fall asleep all at once or not at all; this or that, never null. You’re like ‘this’ with so many things, ‘that’ with most things. I don’t believe you recognize gray on a color scale (other than to describe my most often mood). You live in extremities while I do my best to merely exist and I envy you for that. Sometimes, I cannot stand you because of that. You see the world in a way that makes me wonder where your brain stores everything your eyes see and how your heart manages to carry the weight of the overflow. You are better than I am; at most things and to most people. I love you in spite of this rather than because of this and that speaks volumes of my intellectual growth. I, too, used to live with such certainty. But mercury went into retrograde, someone too good died too young, constants became inconsistent…I saw the brightest colors fade and the dullest colors darken and I lost track. I lost sight. But you, I see you most clear; a sort of beacon guiding me home.
This or that, these or those
You are my shade of gray, this i know.
-tbrumm
Mostly, I’m scared stiff; of both staying still and moving too quickly in a direction the right side of my brain will never be satisfied with.
-tbrumm
Sometimes when I look at him I have a hard time imagining all the life he lived before me because he fits so perfectly in this life we have now; the world of “us” and “ours” and Friday nights in that make a night out in New York City lose all of its appeal.
-tbrumm
Always going, going and never quite getting gone. Always wanting to leave here for there, getting lost on the way, and hoping I run into something that makes me stand still long enough to get a glimpse of myself. Because typically I only see myself as a reflection in the glossy eyes of a boy who will never love me the way I need him to: effortlessly and always.
-tbrumm
tbrumm 