2:36 AM: “Well, you figured out how to start your fireplace while I was sitting there, and one month prior I was wondering when I would ever see you again. And now, here I am, three months of being hidden later, thrown away and cut off after promises of ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m always here’ were burnt to ash. Panic attacks at 5AM only further pissed me off. I was asked how silly I was, and the answer, then, was just enough. But I think the real question is how faulted am I to stand in the middle of a thunderstorm, in the middle of a field, and not expect to get hit by lightning? I turned the light off that I left on just for you, because I’m not scared of the dark like you are. I’m not scared of the truth. I took the necklace back and thought I could wear it everyday, but once you hid my stuff when your friends were coming over, the 16 karat gold turned to cheap plastic breaking out my skin. I took it off. I even wrapped your family members’ presents before you made me drop you off at the dealership so your sister wouldn’t see me. Hearing your voice crack while you were singing and dedicating love songs to me apparently would mean nothing in just 20 days time. What would I tell myself if I could go back in the past? I’m still not sure that I would warn myself at all. Plans to hangout in a week were cancelled by a swift block when you realized you couldn’t talk to me and a new girl simultaneously. Now you party every weekend with a friend named after a flower that you said was ugly and you hated, and a sweet guy that’s your best bud (but you’re not his). I likened you to pangea—whole, strong, dependable. But now that sounds more like an ad for paper towels. Funny how things work.”
What would I tell myself if I could go back in the past? I’m still not sure that I would warn myself at all.
Now I stand before everyone,
My eyes aglow,
In complete focus.
I only worry when there’s someone
worth worrying about.
You don’t fit the bill anymore.
(it’s an easy bill to fit)
Springtime always brings about a feeling of renewal. It’s like the sound of popping open a can of lemon-flavored seltzer. That crisp snap and the light radio-static that follows as the carbonation sizzles and the aluminum takes off some of your lip balm as you bring it away from your lips. I, for one, love fall and winter more than spring and summer. I prefer cozying up in blankets to sweating buckets, but there is one thing spring brings that everyone knows I love: picking fruit. Fruit reminds me of re-birth. Every year the flowers bloom and the fruit plumps up. I reach out and feel the soft fur-like coating around the peach, or the powder-like substance on the blueberry, and my hand closes around them. You have to pull firmly yet gently, and then the trees and bushes are without their fruit. They freeze in the winter and thaw again in early spring, only to see me in a few months time, enjoying their hard work and laughing as I pluck pluck pluck away. Anything that falls is eaten by bunnies and birds and sometimes mischievous kids that don’t want to wait for their parents to pick the fruit they cannot reach. I used to be that kid, and I never rat them out.
I think I’m feeling like a fruit plant, or at least I want to be like one. I sit in the grass next to my barren cherry tree, hoping to learn how to be nothing for nine months of the year, yet still believe something good is just beyond the horizon. How to be okay with not being a flowering beauty all of the time. How to be okay with not having the plump, ripened fruit to give. Except. The birds still sit on the cherry tree’s branches as I walk down the driveway, prepping for a run. They still hop jovially on its exposed roots, even though it’s not in bloom. The deer still walk by it, knowing what it is and what it will bring. It stands, still important, the pine tree nearby refusing to drop its pinecones upon the cherry tree’s head (respect). I think I am this cherry tree, still loved when I don’t think I am at my best, still valuable when I don’t think what I have to give is what people love most, and still thinking of spring and what my next bloom will bring.
I think I am this cherry tree, still loved when I don’t think I am at my best, still valuable when I don’t think what I have to give is what people love most, and still thinking of spring and what my next bloom will bring.
10:12 AM: “It’s sad that I gave you everything, and you kept me around and made me think we would reach three years together, but then you dropped me the day you found a new girl to talk to. I hope she likes how I softened your heart, and I know that my heart, too, will be softened—it already has been. What this spring is telling me is that I don’t have to be hardened by the hurt you caused. I don’t have to cry. I don’t have to show up to your 12 AM beckoning after a night of over-drinking to take care of you. I want to be taken care of. I can remember how we laughed as you hoisted me over your shoulder on our brisk December hike, how you drove me around to see Christmas lights because you knew I wanted to. I can remember how you calling me ‘baby’ before the New Year fell out of your mouth and landed on plump cushions, how you sent me sweet selfies from your January haircut. I can remember your Starbucks order, and how I was planning to bring it to you the first weekend of February—we were supposed to hangout on the 6th. I can let the new blooms of the cherry tree fall into my hair as wind stirs its branches. I can breathe deeply. I miss your grandparents, and saying to them, ‘It’s me or her’—when I was the one who visited them every week was a new low I never imagined. Threats from your father to ‘take matters into his own hands’ to find your sad, dirty shoes strewn across the house for eight months while you didn’t need them fell on undaunted ears. I’m going high, though, and you knew I would. I think you’re mad because you knew no matter what, I would still be great. The ones who love me, old and new, telling me, ‘You are who you always have wanted to be, you are you, no matter who tells you you’re not.’ I also, though, can be caustic. As spring brings in new possibilities, new wonders, new hikes and new challenges, I choose how to react and I choose how to be. Right now, I choose to brew in this upset—with the idea in mind that I don’t have to, and one day I won’t want to.”
