Handle

(This started off as word vomit and turned into a bit of a poetry moment. If you want to listen along as I read it out loud click the play button on the player below. IT STARTS LOUD so don't get blown away. Also, I apologize for the sound quality, the mic on my computer isn't the greatest.)





You’re like a sickness. The winter cold that I just can’t shake. A lot like a tickle in the back of my throat that keeps me awake at night coughing. Tossing and turning praying for rest, but too miserable to grasp the peaceful serenity of sleep. Or, maybe that burning itch in my eyes that comes from staring at something too long. That odd pain that I can’t quite explain as I try to blink away the tears that welled up in my eyes. Suspended in a moment while my eyes desperately try to focus on something as my head spins from imbalance. You’re the sound of my alarm clock in the morning.  A brazen reminder that I am alive to live another day, but that for the time being I’ve lost the peace that comes from being unaware. You’re an endless goodbye. The scratchy throat, red in the face, how am I going to make it through this emotion type of goodbye. The kind that leaves me restless for days. You’re like a night of binge drinking. Just like that girl wrote that poem said. You’re an endless memory of good times and rash decisions followed by the conversation in front of my bathroom mirror. Why did I do this to myself? Why did I tell myself I could handle just one more? You’re the cigarette in my hand that everybody says will someday destroy me. I inhale you anyways to curb the nagging need, but I fear I’ll never be able to put you down. You’re the rush of fear and adrenaline the moment before my face hits the ground. An unsettling preparation for the worst possible outcome that leaves me drained even if I don’t bruise. But, I always bruise. Dark purple and blue. Blue, just like your eyes, but not blue like the color of my soul. Not the blue that means happiness, dedication, belief, and love to me. But blue like lips in the dead of winter after they’ve kissed away warmth of life. You’re every little pain in life that I’ve learned to survive. You’re the moments that remind me that I’m really alive. You’re nothing I can’t handle.


I could be your final moments of the game. That feeling that rushes through your veins and tells you it’s do or die. That last shot suspended in motion while the world stops turning and your heart keeps beating. I could be a summer day. That force of nature that calls you out into the world and makes you realize the grass isn’t greener on the other side it’s a beautiful verdant field right underneath your feet. I could be the waves that lap against the boat. A comforting feeling of connection to something greater, but a challenge to withstand on a rough day. I could be your favorite movie. The one you know inside and out but never pass up the chance to see again. A story line that never grows old and that you compare everything else like it too. Or even better, I could be your favorite band. That one band that means more than all of the rest. The one that has the songs that always seem to fit your life and the album you turn to as a sense of identity. I could be your memory. The one that always makes you smile and fills your heart with the warm sensation of a genuine life experience. The one you remember on the days where life takes too much from you. I could be your home. The place where you lay your head. The safe haven you return to when life hands you the pains you remind me of. A cure for you winter cough. The soothing sensation that comes from resting tired eyes. Waking up to the sound of nothing with sunshine on your face. That lasting Hello that never leads to a goodbye. A tall glass of ice water sliding through your body after the alcohol has left you dry. That feeling in your lungs when all you breathe is fresh air. The feeling of victory when you catch something right before it hits the ground. The one to ice your bruises when life knocks you down. I could be a reminder that you are alive. I’m the one you can’t handle. 

I can be pessimistic too.

Every once in a while I stumble across some quote on the internet that goes a little something like this:

Was your first thought is to agree with this? Maybe that person you feel emotionally invested in popped in your head and your heart. Did you feel butterflies or terror? Because, I’ve learned there is a fine line between the two. A very, very long time ago I took that chance. I sat in my car and I poured my heart out to the person that I loved. Long before I was a comm. major I still had the talents to present a good argument. I listed the reasons why I loved him and then I listed the reasons why he should love me. Then, finally I took all the excuses he could give me for why we should not be together and refuted them. But, there was one argument from him I never totally expected. I never really thought that the boy I had loved so much and had given everything to would turn me down simply because I’m what the world likes to call a fat girl. Little did I know that the emotions that I felt in the moments driving away from him would last for so long. There are still days when those emotions leak into my blood stream and like liquor in your system from a night of binge drinking, bring bile to the back of my throat and regret into my mind. So many boys have entered my life since that moment in the driveway. A few of them have stolen my heart and ran away with it but I’ve never once told another one how I felt. I’ve spent countless nights wondering how my life would be if I could just walk up to the person I feel so strongly about and say something like “I really dig you and I think we could be great together, you wanna maybe give it a shot and see what happens?” But, I won’t ever do it again. You see the trick to being a girl that wears her heart on her sleeve is to keep it slightly tucked in under the cuff. That way everyone can see it but nobody has easy access to it. There is no doubt in my mind that my fear of being shattered again has led me to miss out on life in more than one occasion but fear is the world’s most powerful motivator, or “demotivator” rather. It’s not really love that rules the world and don’t you dare let Hallmark tell you otherwise. There is safety in keeping your heart to yourself but joy in sharing it with someone else, but don’t ever let yourself blindly walk into a conversation where your heart is involved. Hindsight is 20-20 and my hindsight has taught me that the minute my heart becomes emotionally invested in someone else I can do one of two things, I can open my heart up and tell them and suffer the consequence, or I can keep quiet and live off of song lyrics, tea, and hopeless daydreaming. Because, here’s the real secret, people will let you down, but your daydreams, they never will.