Today it is June, but sometimes I lose track of the months, this year especially. What are months without rain? And even more so, what are months without you? What is May when you have not blossomed to me? What is May when the end of a school year is more torture than exciting? What is May when all I feel like doing is giving up? There are no months anymore, time has taken them all up. Now it’s about just getting through the day. I don’t know what month it is anymore; I don’t even want to look. My calender still on April 11 because what is the point? The days are over, but it never ends. The month is no longer relevant.
If I ever told anyone that she left me without saying goodbye, then I lied. She said goodbye to me so many times before she actually left. We were on our way home during the night. It was dark, the road was empty, the only noises we heard were the ones coming from the car. “I wish I could write my own lyrics,” she said. “But you do.” “I know I do, but not good ones.” “The lyrics you write are wonderful. What are you talking about?” “But they’re not things I actually want to say.” “What is it you wanted to say?” She put on this song from a CD and I don’t remember which song because I’ve never heard it before. If the stars shined brighter than the moon, maybe it’d be okay to leave you, but life is not that way, I have to stay. “But I don’t get,” I said as I looked at her in the passenger seat, but she was not looking at me. She was looking outside the window a thousand miles away from this car, this city, this state. I let it go, didn’t think twice about it because she didn’t mean that it was what she wanted to say; she meant it was something she wanted to write because it was so beautiful. She wanted to fly kites one day. She had one buried in her attic and we went. “This is my childhood,” she told me, “The only thing I liked about it actually.” She always spoke of her childhood as if she hated it, but she didn’t. I know she didn’t. It was really windy that day, perfect for flying kites, but you had to hold onto it tightly. I watched her fly her kite. Her kite was high up in the air when she began to speak her language of riddles. “Don’t you wish you can just let go of everything and have it fly away? I mean, fuck everything. We look at this sky but we can never see all of it. Fuck that. I’m tired of looking at just this piece of sky! I want to forget everything.” And she let go of the kite. It flew and flew away with the wind. I looked at her and again, she wasn’t looking at me, but far far away. When she said forget everything, I thought she meant her childhood; I would have never thought she meant me. She wanted to go swimming so we went to the lake. I watched her swim a bit and shortly fell asleep. When I awoke, she was not there. She was not anywhere. She did this a lot, hid from me. Why couldn’t I have already known it was a sign that she was always going to be hiding from me? I jumped in the water and stayed under and when I came up, she was there. “I thought you weren’t going to come back,” I said. “What if I didn’t?” I should have told her that my only wish in this world ever and forever was for her to always come back to me and never leave. Never leave me, but I didn’t. I couldn’t solve this riddle and even if I did, it would always be too late. She was going to leave me no matter what I said or what I did because that’s who she is. Someone who couldn’t stay and even if she was, she was going to hate everything anyways. The day before she left, I was sleeping. I was half-asleep when she said these very words, “I love you so much you will never understand, but I have to go. I have to go and be those pretty lyrics, I have to catch my kite, and I have to swim oceans or else I will never be anything.” She kissed me and she was off. I thought I was dreaming, but of course I wasn’t dreaming because even in my dreams, she would always come back. But now I was living in this nightmare and it was never going to end. It never ends.
You know how they say we never really know how much we have an impact on the people in our lives? And not even the people in our lives, but I’m talking about just somebody on the street, or class or anything else you can think of? I think of myself. I am so affected by everything around me. The light that kisses me good morning, the boy that looks at me in class, and somebody on the street not looking forward, but off to side—all of it means something to me. And maybe I could mean something to somebody anybody that just sees me. Making an impact isn’t much because some people are impacted by everything. I just want my existence to mean something.
I love them because how could you not love the things that kept you there? Kept you standing, trying, and believing? There are that to me. They make me love the thing I don’t by just being beside me. They keep me there. If I were a roof, they were the wall. If I were a wave, they were the wind. If I were earth, they were gravity. And I love them. I love them so much. How can I not? Saying goodbye would hurt nobody but me because I’m loving them while they’re putting up with me.
I’m tired of trying to be spring when I am fall. I will always be fall. Everyone knows when I walk by I am not bringing rain. I am not causing flowers to bloom. I am not something new. The rain was months ago and I am destroying everything it brought. I bring the fall of the trees and taking their leaves away to far away places. Flowers, what are they? It’s time for the weeds. I bring the relationships ruin—the hardest part of the year. I cause everything to hang on even though they know they’re about to fall. I give them hope, but there is no hope. Everything is soon going to die. Look out the window, everything is orange, brown, and yellow like everything is fading. The photos are fading to yellow, the dye in my hair orange, and the black sneakers turning brown. Where is the color? I allow the color to go away. I take and take away; I am not spring. I don’t give my all, I make the fall. I make myself seemingly pretty, but nobody knows the truth of it all. That I am not pretty, I am not their favorite season, that they’re suddenly going to fall. I am the step before death, I am dying. I cause the wish for death. I am fall.
I don’t know who I’m going to be. One day I’ll just be tired. Tired of it all. I’ll find comfort and sleep with the things that kill me. I won’t care as long as it makes me forget. I just want to forget. All of my friends around me don’t know what’s going on in this head. Neither does my family. Do I know what goes on in this head? I hate the things that go on around me. Well, not really, because all things are beautiful. But sometimes I just want to be myself and not get laughed at or even looked at. I want to be invisible and only visible to those who I want to see me. I want to be myself and not be worried about it. Let me dance, let me sing, let me stay quiet, I don’t want you to look at me. Just let me listen, let me nod, let me stand in peace. I’m going to be tired. I’m going to be tired of trying, of quitting, of not wanting to try neither quit. I’m going to be tired of the people around me. I’m going to find peace in the things that will kill me.
I was attached to everything in my life like dead roses. The seeds were planted, the roots stuck in the ground, and when they grew I pulled them out. I put them in pretty vases and when they began to dry up, I kept them there. I never took them out. I never disposed of the broken pedals. I left them in my pretty vases, dead and unable to grow. I used to look at them and think they were so beautiful. The vases of dead roses began to take up all the room and there was no place to put the new roses. But I loved them so much more than the new ones so I kept them. I kept them and let them pile and fill and spill all over my life. But the new roses were so beautiful. They made everything bright and alive; why was I so attached the dead roses? The first bouquet of roses I’ve ever had blossomed in the spring of 2002 and my parents were still together. I couldn’t get rid of them. They were so beautiful when they were happy. A bouquet on top of the mantle—when I loved loved loved you and you used to sing me to sleep and call me in the morning and told me you loved me. I couldn’t possibly dispose of the roses that had your name on them. Even though they were as dead as you and me. The roses on the dinner table were the roses when my grandmother was alive. She would cook me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She would drive me to school and she was healthy and perfect. I needed those roses. I needed every single one of them. I didn’t want any others. I still don’t.
In the heart of my city belongs my heart. It’s so beautiful there, everything about it. Where it’s quiet, old, and where the most beautiful weather is perfect and the ugliest weather it is still perfect. I feel like home and everything is pretty and bright. It’s windy and my heart is windy. Even when somebody’s terrible taste in music is blazing, everything is still pretty. I become absolutely captivated by a brilliant bookstore. I’ve been there before, but I fall in love every single time. Walls and piles and shelves and rooms and walls of books books books I can drown in it. Even if the books fall on top of me, I’d find it a lovely place to die. I’m lost in the titles and the authors and the words words words. Words that have the capability of stamping my heart in permanent ink. Covers of books all different kinds. The smells, the dust, the atmosphere. It feels like home, my heart, my love. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. Purchase a few books, grab a cup of joe, and drive with the windows down listening to indie music. For a terribly ugly place, my city is beautiful.
I thought about doors and how many doors there were in a household and what kinds. There are doors that may lead into the kitchen, to bedrooms, to bathrooms, to backyards and front yards. There were sliding doors, doors with locks, doors without locks, and sometimes doors were taken out to allow anybody to enter. When you enter a house you’ve never been in before, you may ask where the restroom is or their bedroom. I thought about if each room had a label on them: RESTROOM, LUCY’S BEDROOM, MASTER BEDROOM, FRONT DOOR, LAUNDRY. And while I was thinking of all of that, I thought about if the doors in our lives had labels on them. Before you opened a door, it would say things like, THIS DOOR WILL HURT and inside it will be a thunder storm, cold, wet, and windy. THIS DOOR WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY and you see a brightly lit city with everything and anything you could possibly love. THIS DOOR WILL BE DIFFICULT BUT IT WILL BE WORTH IT and you see a sun so bright and warm but in front of it is a very large mountain with a lot of obstacles. These doors will be labeled before you made a choice and how it would make everything so much more simple.
Girls like me—we’re not supposed to fall in love. We’re independent when we’re alone and when we love, we love too much. When the person we’re in love with falls out of our lives we’re no longer the same. We can’t even seem to remember how to count anymore: one, two, three, eleven, six, five, what number was his favorite? Was that the number on the back of his jersey? Possibly. We would do anything for them and because of that, we think they’d do anything for us. Of course he’ll stay up with me all night, of course he’ll let me pour my heart onto him, of course he’ll leave some alone time for just him and me. Of course he’ll love me, period. We give them all of our insides. The lungs, our ribcage, the heart. It beats, breathes, carries, circulates for them. It’s okay, you know, because as long as it’s his, we won’t bleed. But we bleed, all right, we bleed a lot. We give them all the pretty skies, the pretty pictures, the pretty thoughts. We take them to all of our favorite places. Let me show you my favorite beach, my favorite book store, my favorite city so when I go to all of those places, I’ll be reminded me of you over and over again. Let me lose myself, my body, my favorite things because I’ve fallen in love. Don’t let me fall in love, please.
