James Blunt is strong enough to say goodbye

and then i'm sitting in a coffee shop and writing about whether or not my love for her will ever become "loved" instead of "love" and she calls me and i cry and then turn it into humor and she just doesn't have a fucking clue and feels like she needs to tell me her silence didn't mean i can't talk to her when i had hoped that my screaming would mean she can't talk to me.


i drove the two hours away on tuesday night and showed up on her doorstep. i've told the story to friends enough times that i don't even want to put it here. what do you think happened? we talked, we laughed, we cried, we hugged, we kissed, we held each other, we kept things in...

and now me. what do you think happened? i talked, i laughed, i cried, i kissed her, i hugged her, i held her, i felt held by her, i kept things in, i let things out, i said biting things about how i made out with that one girl and how those other girls wanted me, i called her a straight girl, i made my life seem great, i told a lot of stories, i talked about drinking a lot so she'd feel guilty that she's turned me to drinking, i asked her what happened, i stoop up for myself, i noticed the differences in her, i forced the kiss and hug and holding, i refused to acknowledge that it felt different in her arms, i tried to let it be the way it's always been, i turned around when she changed, i found new reasons to hate her, i fell in love with her all over again, i asked her if she got a new bra, i used her toothbrush, i felt more loved than i wanted to when she said her mom was dissapointed we broke up, i gave her her book and cd back, i asked for one thing and she refused to give it in her polite way that i didn't even realize she had refused, i felt dissapointed in her, i felt dissapointed in myself, i ate her dad's chicken, i got pissed at my parents, i held her hand, i looked into her eyes, i fought everything i've learned and felt the past month and a half, i had half a beer, i followed her around, i made her wait, i ...

then it changed. then i realized i was laying in her bed about to sleep there again next to her and i couldn't. i couldn't. i talked about my brother and the shit and her and we started to have the same fight again except i pushed more than before because what do i have to lose and we stopped and it changed. i was there and i didn't want to be. i had wanted to be there at the beginning. i was in control and had power over what i was doing and then i was in that bed and we were going to go to sleep and i started to hate her the way i do in my own bed late at night when it hurts so much and i couldn't be there. i couldn't.

so i left. we fought and fought and she cried and begged me to stay and just kept saying over and over and over "please stay. please stay." but i left. i went with what i wanted and not with what she wanted and it was the first time for that. the very first time for that. not only did i do what i wanted, but i didn't do what she wanted.

My hand on the doorknob, I paused; her crying on the stairs, sensing my hesistation she begs again "please stay." I return, conflicted, with "I'm trying to decide if I want to..." but my ellipsis is a period to her so I have to finish my thought, actually express my longing to kiss her cheek this truly one last time, "...if I want to kiss you goodbye." Then I'm out the door and as I walk away in the cool darkness with my head up, I hear her call my name, quietly. For the first time, I don't answer, and for her first time, she may not have expected me to.

She called as I was driving away. I turned back to the humor, "I'm at the Brentwood light, do you know where there's a cheap gas station?" My ability to hide emotion comes in so handy when there's an awkward situation because I can push down any feelings and say the right thing and ignore whatever's happening and I yet again become that shell of a person people look up to. She's still begging me to change my mind and come back, she even says she wants to hold me, a lie I'm pretty sure would have worked at any other time to get me to go running back into her arms and hold her.

Sitting at the gas station, I'd gotten away, but she still didn't give up, so I gave in, after three years--or perhaps a lifetime--I let her finally push me enough and I gave in and I absolutely screamed out the finish "YOU DIDN'T FUCKING WANT ME THERE" and the phone was down from my face in a flash. I hung up instantly and the phone flew from my hand hitting the passenger door. I was out in one fluid movement, the reverberating noise from my screams still trapped in the car behind my slammed door.

i wrote a poem about her once. the first lines i wrote and the last ones of the poem are "there's a certain beauty for me/in finally being able to feel rage/and I thank you for that."

and then i'm sitting in a coffee shop and writing about whether or not my love for her will ever become "loved" instead of "love" and she calls me and i cry and then turn it into humor and she just doesn't have a fucking clue and feels like she needs to tell me her silence didn't mean i can't talk to her when i had hoped that my screaming would mean she can't talk to me.