Craigslist.

I just sold the last of the ikea furniture we bought together when we moved in. I was so excited to furnish our life together. 

Even our old craigslist posts make me cry. Remember the apartment with the walls we painted all different colors? Remember that little table with the sides that folded down?

Whatever happens

I keep this blog because sometimes I can't stand not to call you. I can't stand to miss you like this. I can't stand not to say something and I know the only way I can be kind to you now is not to say it, not to call you, not to show up in your email account or your text messages or your life. But sometimes it doubles me over and I can't stand it and so I come and write it here. And of course I hope that someday you'll find it, but I don't think you will.  I say these things here because they cut me open and I can't not say them.  I say the words from the book of common prayer for those we love, "almighty father we entrust all who are dear to us to thy never failing care and love, for this life and the life to come, knowing that thou art doing better things for them than we can desire or pray for." I think you would hate that prayer but my arms ache and it is the only way I can hold you now. 

I'm writing today because I found these cards. It was something I wrote you when you were thinking about going to grad school, I think. My handwriting is bad and I couldn't figure out what to say and I wanted to make it beautiful so I had started on all these cards for practice. 

My Amanda, not mine anymore, this is all still true. 

wishful thinking

A book I read once (I don't remember the name) talked about two people being the best and closest kind of friends, the kind of friends who used to be lovers.

I found places for the time that I used to spend with you, talking to you, thinking about you. There is no place for all the love I have. It's yours and I can't give it to anyone else, and I can't stop having it either. It makes me think about how mothers who lose their babies still have breasts full with milk for them, painfully full, leaking every time they hear a screaming kid on the bus. And what an awful chore, pumping that breast milk--because you have to, because it hurts so--for a baby who never got to nurse. I know I am the one who killed the baby in this scenario, but still it breaks my heart and cracks my chest to pour out all this milk on the ground.

But what do I do with all of my knowing-you? What do I do with all of my knowing you?

Right now I keep it. I hide it away. Like the poem, "I cannot live with you / it would be life / and life is over there / behind the shelf."

I would give it back to you if I could, because I don't think you want me to have it anymore, but I'm glad that I can't.

Maybe one day it could make us the best and closest friends. In one of these possible worlds, we are that, still.

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?

I hope so. 

Happy Valentine's Day.

This came on the radio this morning.

[This used to be "happiness" by the weepies, before youtube deleted all its music. I think that's what it was, anyhow. It's gone now like everything else.]

I recognized the first few notes and thought about turning it off but instead I listened to the whole thing, remembered singing with you, singing to you, sitting next to you at that show so long ago.

I remember everything I can. I wish it were everything.

The Saddest Thing in the World

http://saddestthingintheworld.tumblr.com/

a coat so warm