My great love

I read something earlier today about the boundaries between platonic and romantic love. The blurriness that is often not acknowledged on either side. That friend that you never hit on but loved to spar with. It took me such a long time to realise the love I have for my best friend, such an odd blurriness. He is gay, I am bisexual and there is no sexuality to our love. I think he almost loves me only for that, that I never fell in love with him like so many other of his girlfriends have. For me, he was always just him. If I think back to our early days of friendship, then.. then what, then I see a guy, a young man. Brave and loud and full of self hatred like all younguns and shy and intimidated and brave again.

He calls me a fake lesbian fondly. It both irritates and endears me and encourages me to lick some pussy. What a fucker. Nothing like those who are close to you to put that knife to your ribs and gently twist to scrape a little skin on the way.

And now? now he is my greatest confidant. We trust each other with secrets and truths with a few lies chucked in for decoration. Testing them out before we admit the real thing to ourselves.

Sometimes I think how sad it is, that we keep friends at an arms length and put romance in as the quarterback, as the president, as the whatever. Fuck that. Time has definitely reminded me that friends are forever and love is the wallflower that you take out for a turn on the dancefloor to return at the end of the song.

What the fuck is going on. Not about politics.

(forgot to click publish on this one. It’s actually the precurser to smitten mitten)

Leonard has died. My love for my lover has also died a little.

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in. ”

I don’t mind his cracks. I can accept and compromise but I do put him on a pedestal. He also puts me up there. Instead of worship, this makes it hateful. Maybe even that’s too strong a word. I feel blindsided. A truck jackknifing in some slushy snow. I knew it could happen but I didn’t realise it would be so messy. When a relationship gets strange, it’s hard to know if it’s a road bump or a tunnel or a fucking avalanche of all the shit you’ve been holding back. I don’t know what I’m doing. This is the longest I’ve been in a serious relationship in a long time, the longest I’ve lived with someone, the longest I’ve loved someone and I really don’t want to let it go. But I find myself looking, imagining new people, testing the ideas of how it could be, wondering if it would be better or worse or the same.

 

smitten mitten

 

Smitten mitten
I was so caught up in you
the classic tug of lovely butterflies in a cloud envelope over my eyes

I love hard my sister says. I don’t really know what that means. But I think now I can see the pressure that can be. I whisper “you’re so great” past your curls and into your ear thinking it makes you feel special as I try to explain that I never open up to anyone. That you are the special one. Now I can see that it made you feel good until it didn’t. Then it smothered you.

You hurt me when you pricked me with remarks. You pushed me away until I found myself again and I see you again, that you don’t need me like that anymore. I have grown, you have grown. Not exactly grown but altered. I love you even more for it. Now I can be me again. Sharper edges. Indifferent. Exploratory. Not your protector. You asshole. See you later for the sole of your foot caressing mine in an early hour.

Put your fingers in me. If I am the mitten.

Leonard Cohen said “cowardice” and “fear” prevented him from marrying her. I think of how you are a coward and your fear of commitment and what that will mean for us. I will face that another day.

His words and that film “between us” reminded me that everyone goes through something like this. phew.

Fuckversary

It’s been a year and three days. How did it turn from a drunken mistake to a fling to the real thing. I’m in love with you and love you. It feels as a temporary fog and a fresh dew in the early morn yet also an eternal kernel as if you were born with me and have always been there.

I can’t run away from you or any problems we have because you push me to confront the uncomfortable parts. When something is off between us and we both sense it, I’m the one who runs away to put a little “x” next to your name in my head. So if more gather then I know it’s time to get rid of you. But you, you open up to me and tell me that you don’t feel right and we talk about it until it heals over again with a few stitches here and there to make it stronger. These conversations stick with me so that space where an “x” would be is also a stitch and can’t be filled with anything negative.

I met a friend last week who has been through some very tough times which resulted in a double mastectomy. She talked about Fundamental Relationship Problems. eek. She has been with her boyf for three years and has said that she sees her future as just herself on her own. She wants to get married, he doesn’t. or at least, not to her. I don’t know why they don’t break it. How many “x”s can there be before they become exes.

After that I did start thinking about my Fundamental Relationship Problems. I have my own personal issues that I try to cut and run at any hint of disaster or boredom, but together I think we have a good thing, with no large issues looming. We’ve talked about the big things like babies and what we want from life.

But you never really know how people may change or how you yourself may change. And I calm my analytical mind with the idea and fact that it’s a choice that I can make everyday and so does he; to stay close to one another, help one another and get deeper entwined. So I secretly hope I’m not ignoring any warning signs of Problems but that in fact there may not be any Fundamental ones, just regular ol’ issues of dealing with other people. This will be the first time for me that I haven’t felt them so I should just stop fucking analysing and relax with the happiness I feel. Thank you my guy for being you.

Worst day, best day.

Grey wispy smoke dissipated in front of my eyes as I sucked it up through and into my throat. I really must buy a pipe, I thought. I’m much to old to smoke weed out of an appropriated beer can.

He asked me what was the worst day of my life and I changed the subject to the best day. When he had asked, for once my brain fired directly to a worst day. Usually I am so locked up in levels of what’s appropriate, what I can tell people, what I should think or feel but right then, in a late night under the influence convo, the memory suddenly hit me in that double vision when you see a real life moment with a memory vision juxtaposed over it. My brown and green earthy colour-schemed apartment, the couch we were sitting on, the dim glow of the lights, and then the bright sunlight and large verandah with ridges on the planks at my childhood home. Then what your eyes see dissolves and you are under the power of your inner vision and the heavy emotions attached to it.

My worst day was a weighty combo of guilt, shame, lies and betrayal. I was 7 and my friend was 9. She told my parents that a family friend had been touching us sexually and on what I can now guess was also one of the worst days in their lives, they asked me about it. I said it wasn’t true, that it never happened. My friend was horrified, angry with me and said I was lying. My mother said that this can sometimes happen that you block it.

I didn’t know this had happened. My brain had told me this didn’t happen. I could feel the feathery edges of some moments but didn’t know if they were real. To this day I have never really explored this. It hurts to try and remember. I felt shame that I might have enjoyed the attention. Guilt that I lied about it and said my friend was lying. I felt so betrayed by my brain falsifying my memory. I was so shocked that this happened and I couldn’t remember.

Back on the couch, I think this memory recall spanned a few seconds before I realised it’s too heavy to share. Not with this person. I’ll save this shit for someone else. Someone who I actually want to see what motivates me or saddens me or why I am the way I am. I did tell him about my best day. The day I lost my virginity. It was to my boyfriend of six months, my best friend at the time, the funniest guy. I felt pleasure and powerful that I was the one who wanted this. I made the choice. Strange that sex is so tied up with both those days of mine.

Just now I remembered that my Dad’s worst day of his life was the day his mother died. He told my sister that once. I don’t need to ask my Mother, I know that one.

I’ve been doing it wrong

In some ways, I always feel like a newborn. Never confident with any knowledge. I learn things from everyone; observing, analysing, testing. Seeing how others do things. I heard a quote once.. knowledge is just making a decision based on experience. I had to present something at work today. A quick two minutes in front of people that I know well, yet my hands were shaking.

I had sex with a woman. Sure she taught me a few things about sex but it’s the emotional connection that she is really showing me how to do. I can’t believe how much I have closed myself off. I forgot how it is to compliment someone or be complimented. How to feel someone.

Last episode of the last season of Mad Men tonight. Stan tells Peggy over the phone that he’s in love with her. In the two minute call, she realises that she is too. How can she be so blind to her own feelings exactly like I am. I know I fall in love with everybody so I choose to close it all off and bind it up in a Japanese binding shoe to fester. Fuck it. I’m going to fall in love, flirt, make out and try to make as many people as I feel like, to feel good. Not just sex and pleasurable orgasms but to really feel good in the bones. Bring out the best in people. That’s what I want to do. In doing that, I may find the goodness in me.

Fearfulness

She is beautiful. He is beautiful. I love them both. Or could love them both. It’s very confusing. The unrequited love of mine that lives in another city or the woman that is right here in front of me. It’s not exactly this feeling that’s confusing but rather how can I think so differently from other people is confusing me. A wide open road where there’s no gender difference that I’ve always pretended wasn’t there till the sign posts were sun bleached and faded and now I can take a step on it. No motorbike or car, just a tiptoe in. I wish I could go back to the 70’s and experience the love revolution, where I imagine that everyone was a writhing pile of hot flesh, instead of doing it on my own. I reject the white picket fence with engagements and babies but am so fearful of being different. The thistle amongst a daisy field, who what? That the daisies will all point at? stop being friends with? I don’t give a fuck about that. So why is it even a problem?

Enfant terrible

This is what someone at work called me; the enfant terrible. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Pleased or punctured. It’s probably right on the mark.

“One whose startlingly unconventional behavior, work, or thought embarrasses or disturbs others:”

I think the surprising part for me, is that I am trying to present a toned down version, not only in the office but also in everyday life. So wow, am I really that extreme? and if so, why the fuck am I permanently trying to censor myself. If I’m already that shocking, I might as well go the whole hog,  take off all the shutters to let these winds howl through the bland halls and sweep everything in it’s path into swift eddies. That is when I feel comfortable, when turmoil is at it’s peak so much so that it becomes the norm.

I’m screwing this very young guy at the office. Not the one who called me the enfant. I still can’t work out if it’s an exercise in stupidity or freedom. Let’s see how this goes.

When another organ joins and gangs up on you

I woke up early yesterday. This was how my brain worked.

“hmm this feels a bit early, check the time. Oh yep it’s too early, go back to sleep for a bit more. Hey by the way, you’re gonna die someday. It’s been a while since you thought about that huh.”

Cue, some wide eyed staring for a couple of seconds, then I slipped back under.

I think it was the way I had woken up slowly from a calm repose on my back. It made me feel like I was easing open a sarcophagus.

Istanbul’s grand bizarre: handbags and gangbangs

In short, we went to the tourist trap that is Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. My friend met a guy, and set up a date with him. He brought a friend. I made conversation and told him I had a boyfriend. I wasn’t interested. They were having a house party and invited us back there to meet some real turkish people for the proper experience (they said).

There were about nine people there, one of them, curiously in his underwear. Two girls in the corner were sitting with their arms around each other. There was a very strange vibe permeating this purple-curtained lounge.

I sat there, a little nonplussed. One of the guys was trying his charming best to get me to dance with him. I decided to go to the toilet instead. Two minutes later I was back and one of the girls was giving one of the guys a blow job on the couch. My friend took off to one of the rooms with her guy. I stood awkwardly in the hallway and two short, cute, muscly turkish men argued with each other and each tried to convince me that I should fool around with them. As they fought, I thought, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. I said let’s all be friends together and debauchery ensued. We disappeared into the undergrowth of a dark room. I found out afterwards that they were brothers as well.

Perhaps not so strange, after rereading Frost’s The Road Not Taken, and after a rumination period of a few days, I’ve decided to settle down with one person for a while. I have scratched off a threesome with two brothers off my “Priusquam mori” list (fancy word for a bucket list, that term is too boring). However I feel that nothing has changed. It didn’t impart me with any wise adage about how we are all bonobos or anything. I feel nothing but the lack of intimacy in the rest of my life. This could also be from the cuddling afterwards that Turkish men seem to be able to do so well and this warms me so much compared to the western European version of a one night stand. This encounter wasn’t glazed with booze on either side unlike most of the rest of my bedpost notches.

I didn’t buy a fake handbag and I need to move countries to a warmer people.