Dear K, Part 2 of Many

Dear K,

I felt you near me tonight. I could tell it was you because of the sudden warmth on my skin, like the way you used to come up behind me and wrap your arms around me. The way your presence enveloped mine, and how you were slightly, perfectly taller than me. And I could very nearly smell you, and there was a smile there for a moment carried by a memory: us in Whole Foods, smelling all the natural deodorants until we found the perfect one (because you were so careful with what you put on and in your body). You know I have been in Whole Foods exactly once since you died? And how I still hate those words that go stabbing through me every time I write them? And that my disbelief still roars so loud I rush to cover my ears before I realize it's all coming from inside me?

Oh Lovey, it's been weeks since you have visited me. Why is that? I imagine because it has to be, because there are some great laws of God or metaphysics or the universe (we still aren't on speaking terms, the universe and I) governing all of this in something like a pattern. Something like reason and sensibleness.  I imagine it's because I have to figure out some way to  go on, and how can I go on if all I'm doing is holding on? You had this thing for honesty and integrity so let me tell you true: my mind is rarely on anything but you. All day, every day. All the things I want to tell you. All the things you would find funny or ridiculous or sad. All the times I want to ask you a legal question because I was so impressed at all the knowledge you had from law school. Simple things. Artifacts of our life.

I like to imagine you would be touched by all the things I've written. You were always my primary subject, all the little poems that popped into my head during the day because of how I loved you. How you loved me. The time I stood up in an nearly empty basement in the Student Union and recited the slam poem I wrote for you, about how you were my Adonis and how beautiful you are. How beautiful you were. You are. Past tense is wrong. I don't care. I don't care if I can't hold your hand or kiss you or see your eyes or wear your hats. I don't care if the only way I can hear your voice is an accidental voicemail not even meant for me, or if I'll never get to buy you shoes or hats again. I don't care about any of that because you are not past tense to me. You are here. I feel you and you are here.

I didn't set out for this to be sad. I didn't set out to be crying yet again, or to have my heart to be humming with the way a bird trying to break a cage might. I just wanted to write you a letter because I felt you and I wanted to say hello. Just that simple thing so many take for granted. Hi. Hello. How are you? I still love you. And so I'll sign off with a little missing poem for you, that you might see these words in whatever way you see things now and hold them with you where ever you are.

I'm remembering all the little ways you loved me tonight.
I'm remembering things easy simple,
the smells and soundtracks of our lives,
the imprint of your person on my couch from years
of existing right along side me,
the way you used to flick my fingernails--
drove me crazy but felt like some tangible part of me for you,
before you realized that you had all of me--
and how hard was never nearly hard when you made me laugh,
and when didn't you make me laugh?
and things that are so tiny they aren't even memories
but shy glimmers and shadowy sparks,
and how I never knew I was beautiful
until I was beautiful in your eyes,
and all the ways you made me feel fearless.
All these tiny things I hold now,
and offer back up to keep you
warm and comforted in forever.

Always,

Your Leppy


Music: Ed Sheeran – Give Me Love

The Scratchiest Broken Record Alive

An apology for last night: I couldn't find my words, couldn't get my feet back under me. I wrote it after walking home from a good weekend with a friend, after talking to K's parents because it was Easter and it's been longer than it should be since I called them last, after passing under the Williamsburg Bridge with tears streaming down behind my new sunglasses, after sharing with K's mom the fact that I have his voice on a voicemail in my phone, after thinking about how sad it makes me that I have so much of the man he was and they only have memories of the child. So much After.

And I felt lost again friends, in this new place and new world I am in. I felt dizzyed up in confusion and eagerly afraid all together at once. I felt my heart and lungs and stomach contracting into themselves, dehydrating from this pain that I can hardly describe let alone touch or treat or heal. And I was thinking about how these themes are so damn reoccurring. The lost and lonely. The isolation. The confusion about how I am here and why and what to do. Always what to do with nothing to do at all. I feel like a broken record. I feel like the scratchiest fucking broken record in the world. Sometimes I wonder if these words are nails on a chalkboard to you. It's so easy for friends to forget the place I am in. It's so easy for them to treat me like the Sara they used to know. And I feel bad for them but worse for me, because I can't just remind them all the time, and sometimes I have to play along and it hurts. It fucking hurts to pretend that hard. Who knew Grief had so many kinds of pain? Who knew there were this many ways to feel sick?

I'm feeling vintage tonight. I feel older than I should again, like I'm posted up on someone's shelf, once loved now left behind. I feel dusty and dry, bitterish like tannins and tightened up like a short finish. It's important to write this all down I think, how I feel when I'm feeling at all. I don't think people really get what it's like not to feel because who does that, truly? Psychos and Socios who are out torturing animals before they work up the nerve to try it on a human? That's not me. But truly, I feel nothing. People say they're dead inside, but I wonder if that's just the numbness talking. My nothing is more like absent, some indeterminate hiatus from this plane of being. I guess the fact that I don't know how to get anyone to understand is why I keep trying. And that fact that people say all this is helping them. I can't begin to guess why or how me rambling on about how angry or sad or frustrated I am is helpful to anyone else, but so be it. I don't question anything anymore.

So let's see...how about some lessons making themselves recursive as of recent? I learn so much these days, like not seeking action where there is none. Like letting us be as still as we want without telling us to be gentle with ourselves (that's a repeat from last night, but it's my current source of irksomeness) or to feel the feelings we are trying to find again. It doesn't matter if it's anger or depression or joy, anything that will make us something like tangible and here and accounted for is welcomed. And knowing the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing at all, because then we don't know if you're uncomfortable or uncaring due to the equilibrium of our social queues being off, understandably. That just being with us is so important, that no matter how okay or normal we seem, or how little or much we cry we are still going through something horrible. How important it is to know and remember and do the best as best can be with any of us at all, the way we are so tiresome in our sadness. And the thing is, we know this. But it is not to be helped for some time. And that just sucks.

And realizing the converse of all that is all the people who want us to listen. Maybe because we've become so still, we seem like a receptacle for other people's stories/problems/existence? Maybe because we are empty, others desire to fill us up, selfishly or not, I don't know. And no matter how we react or don't, we are not ungrateful. We are incapable. It's different, you see, because it is surviving, or maybe living once in a while if the day is especially bright. So here I am, your favorite broken record played on repeat. But it bears repeating. It bears trying to fill in our gaps and blanks, understanding and compassion that cannot be returned just now, and so many other things. Just being with us in time and space, grounding us back to this earth and this reality. Keeping us here because the locale we desire is (must be, so important) unobtainable to us. Because holy fuck we just can't believe this our life, and how are we still breathing or existing at all? Don't talk about strength or anything else. We aren't strong, we are just here. We just exist and that is not strength but a bar set low for living, and that is okay. It's okay to not be encouraged or uplifted. It's okay to just be.

I spend a lot of time figuring out what is okay. I hope you haven't minded so much that I decided to share.

Love.

When I Slip

It's funny the way music works, how a simple melody or someone's voice can catapult us into an emotional extreme. And maybe the lyrics don't quite match up with how you're feeling, but somehow they still do. Today I was having brunch with a new friend and this song came on: Miike Snow – Animal  and it's not new and I've heard it before, but then the chorus hits and I hear

I change shapes just to hide in this place
But I'm still, I'm still an animal
Nobody knows it but me when I slip
Yeah I slip, I'm still an animal

and it's got me thinking about slipping. And what happens when we slip back towards darkness and low points and things that are scarier than they should be. These past few weeks have been hard for me, and I've been worried that I'm coming out of some sort of shock I didn't know I was experiencing (not that I think I'm fine, but just that I've been moving along in some capacity). I'm feeling a little at a loss for words tonight, but my heart is aching hard and I feel like writing something, anything at all, might ease my pain. So that's a disclaimer against what may end up as a stream of consciousness.

K's Law School is throwing a fundraiser for him this week. He used to wear brightly colored socks--amongst other sartorial choices that I always liked--and so they're asking everyone to wear bright socks on Tuesday to raise funds for a scholarship. So maybe if you think of it, and you own some bright socks, wear them on Tuesday and think of K, even if you didn't know him. 

So let's talk about that. Knowing K. Because many people thought they did, and they didn't. He was intensely private, although kind and attentive and a good listener. He was guarded about himself and his goals and his life. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who really knew him at this stage in his life, because he told me things he didn't tell anyone else. The way you get so comfortable with someone you don't sugar coat, you can just be candid and honest and open and know they get it. Even when I didn't get it, I got it because I got him and how he saw the world. I was lucky to have known him like that, to be trusted so much by someone who didn't trust very easily at all. 

I'm feeling lost. None of this is helping my heartache tonight, but I still want to write it. Sometimes I just want to talk about K for hours and move in and out of crying and memories. I want to show whoever is listening pictures and tell them stories. I want to play the single voicemail I have so they can hear his voice and try to create an image of the whole person I knew.  And I don't want them to say anything. I don't want to be told it will be okay eventually, or to see a therapist, or to be gentle with myself, or to let myself feel the anger and sadness. I appreciate it, the kindness and the good intent, but I don't want to hear it anymore. I just want to be able to talk forever about someone who doesn't exist anymore. And how fucked up it is that it's so easy to stop existing (yes he's still with me, etc etc didn't we just talk about not saying those things anymore?) and how unfair.

My heart is too heavy to write the way I want, or say the things I want to say. So I'm just going to stop. Sometimes I wish time and world and everything would just stop. Sometimes I wish I didn't bounce between extremes and confusion and feelings of nothings and everythings. I wish I wasn't vulnerable and that I didn't trust so easily. I wish I was more like K, who was good at so very many things that I am not good at...and I am good at things he wasn't good at---that's why we worked so well. 

I just really, really miss him right now. I want the person who completed me to be here to hold me. He is the only person who I want to tell me it will be alright. He is the only person I want to make me laugh, or to keep me company so I don't feel lonely. He is the only person who could truly keep me from feeling lost. Good night friends, in all this confusion and odd ramblings of tonight. The next one will be more coherent. The next one will have a point. I think I said inspirational on Facebook? The next one will be...something. Hopefully inspired. Hopefully better.