Lonely Planet Dot Com

This is where I try to explain why I'm leaving and fail because I come back every day. Also I have an important question to ask you.

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Hello. As you can see, despite telling you that I am on a hiatus, I am here writing words and you are here reading them. I want to tell you why I decided to take a "hiatus" but I have a problem: I don't know why. You see, I made the decision on a whim. Howevs, I think there are actual reasons inside of me and I'm going to attempt to explain them while I still have your attention.

One of the main reasons, actually, is that my blog feels really sad. This is a really sad place for me, and maybe you can see that sometimes when I write sad things and it's awkward and you don't know what to say and maybe you want to say something or maybe you just want me to stop. When I look at it, I see my sadness reflected back at me. And it's sort of like looking at a mirror when you haven't looked at a mirror for a long time. I recognize myself but it's still kind of shocking. Conor Oberst said: "I'm not surprised, but I never feel quite prepared."

It feels very self-centered. And a blog is totally self-centered. This is a place to write about myself and have a bunch of people read it and talk about me and how well or badly I write. memememe. Sometimes that's okay, but right now I really want to talk to other people. I want other people to talk to me. Instead my feelings get sent into a cybervoid.

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If you haven't yet surmised from previous posts, I'm going through a super shitty time right now. Despite everything currently being amazing, everything also sucks. You know?

I don't know how to say this, I don't know how to talk about it: my girlfriend broke up with me and I have sad feelings in that area of my heart.

Stephen Dunn said: "I wanted everything or not enough. It was all my fault."

Riese said: "I stood next to someone wearing your perfume, and it made me miss you."

Cat Power said: "I will miss your heart so tender, and I will love this love forever."

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I want to talk directly to your eyeballs right now. I wish I could name you so that you would know that I am talking to you. I wish we could make eye contact. I'm talking to you, reader. Really. I want to talk to you about things. I want to show you my christmas lights because I think you would like them. I want you to come look for used bookstores with me because I think it would be fun. Sometimes I just like to look at the spines of books. I want to cook you dinner because I'm getting better at cooking and I think that you are the kind of person who would eat my not-so-amazing food. And I don't think you would mind eating on the floor because I don't have a dining table. I want to go to the museum of fine arts with you because I have a pass and it lets me take a friend for free and I want you to be my friend. I want to go see Howl with you and I wouldn't even mind paying because that's how much I like you and also how badly I want to see Howl. I want to write you paper letters. I want to walk up Mount Royal with you because the view is pretty and totally worth it. And maybe I will put my arm around you because even though I don't really like touching, I think you're kind of comfortable. And sometimes it feels good.

I want to ask you things. I want to ask you: how do you do it? What do you do when you are lonely as fuck? And it hurts to be you? And you feel trapped inside your own mind but you know you must keep being you because there is no other person to be? How do you deal with everything all the time? I am really asking you. This is not a rhetorical question. I want to hear from you. How do you cure loneliness?

I want to try and write in my blog at least once a week. But I also want to try a lot of things. I guess, in my own weird way, I'm asking you to help me. And I know that's kind of vague, but like, maybe you could be vague right back. I don't know. If there's something you want to say, I guess this is the time to say it. Maybe you could give me some dinner recipes.

A friend of mine said: "All I want to do is go crazy and have so much fun and have things be perfect like that, but I just feel really fucking sad."

Hiatus

Due to reasons that make little sense to me and no sense to you, I will no longer be updating this blog until I decide that I want to update it again. That might be in 3 days or 3 years. You can ask me why but you probably won't get a (coherent) answer. Archives are still available.

You can still email me at emily choo 19 at gmail dot com but um, who knows if I'll answer it.

You can find me on the internet at Autostraddle.com or in real life on the streets of Montreal. Other than that you can't find me.

Thank you to everyone who has read even one blog post (even if it's just this one).

Anyways... we move on.

absence poem #1

you said once that your heart was making a lot of noise and you thought that i might hear it. well, i wish i could hear it now. i wish i could hear your heartnoise and i wish you could wrap it in an envelope and send it in the mail and i could open it and use it as a way to tell the time, but not clocktime, but counttime that tells me when your heart noises faster and when it noises slower, a steady noise, until i hear an excited "yesyesyes" that tells me you're coming home.

i wish we were on an air mattress in new york city with the thump thump thump and gentle touch and my own heartnoise humming like happy. i wish your heartnoise would give you away now. i wish i could feel your heart through your fingertips. i wish your heartnoise was something i could keep in a jar but it's lost now anyhow.

i wish i could press my ear to your chestdoor, and heartnoise calming and full, beat, beat, beat, i wish i could hear it now, a "yes yes yes" and maybe soon some sleep.

Homesick As An Astronaut

So I've been directly ignoring my own advice and been listening to a lot of Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes. Also I haven't had a music monday in like 3 weeks because I've been so busy trying to contain my insanity but surprisingly enough Bright Eyes has been one of the things getting me through this fucked up period of my life. Probably because there's a Bright Eyes song for every feeling I've ever had.

[Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band - Danny Callahan]

(credit)

There Was No Snake Oil Cure For Unlucky In Love

I was obviously drunk when I told you I loved you. You were wearing a white shirt, I thought the fabric smelled good. I leaned in towards your ear because the outside noise was loud, and I said "I like your shirt". I kissed you sloppily on the cheek. You blushed, were silent, but received my kiss with grace. Encouraged, I kissed you on the cheek, more carefully, more lightly this time. I said, "I meant to say 'I love you'".

You gripped my hand tightly and pulled me out of my seat. I stumbled and blushed, secretly pleased, my palm pulsing "yes yes yes". We stepped out into the rain and ran the sidewalks like it was summer. The wind hugged us closer. You invited me to my home. We exchanged our wet clothes for drier skin. When I closed my eyes the world spun counter-clockwise.

We staved off loneliness all night. The back of my head beat pulsating rhythms pound pound and a little bit suffocating. On your collarbone I could smell your white shirt. Or perhaps on your white shirt I could smell your collarbone. I hugged you close like the wind, I felt you move through my body.

In the morning your heart was a smaller size. You said, "my feet still hurt from my new shoes."

I said, "I will carry you.

"I know how the world is cold sometimes".

now things feel like the way they did before i met you

various states i am living in: missing, waiting

i haven't had time to write much because i've been trying to figure out how to live again. i feel like i've gone backwards in time a bit. also i've forgotten how to write normal sentences.

i went to the laundromat for the first time. i met three different people there. one guy told me i could go next door to get change. another guy asked me if i got wifi and i told him no, but that was a good thing because i wanted to read my article with no distractions. i went home 5 minutes later without reading anything. then i came back and realized that i had forgotten to put a sock in the washer. i asked a woman if i could just open the door and put the sock in. she said it was probably locked, but to try it. i tried it. it was locked. i shrugged my shoulders and said i have a rogue sock. she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. she left.

i read two pages of my politics in china book. for every quarter, the dryer dries for 5 minutes. i brought my clothes home half dried and opened my window really wide.

the way it feels

i am inside your sweater, under your shirt and my little hamster heart is trying to be a better little hamster heart.

the inside of your sweater is made with that fluffy stuff and it feels nice. and it's still kind of warm.

i'm really tired. is that okay? i wish i were a little tiny baby so i could fall asleep on your chest. i wish i had little tiny baby hands so i could tug at your shirt and pull your hair and touch your face and it would be okay, because babies touch things, and you can't blame them for touching things. i wish i were a baby so i could look at you in wonder, and be amazed at how the world created this thing, like these tiny hairs on your face, like the shape of your nose. babies are amazed by everything.

my stupid little hamster heart runs all night and it won't shut up. why don't you want to run on your wheel? do you want some water?

this is how the days of the week work

if i make it to monday,

i might make it to tuesday,

and then i will park myself firmly

in the middle of the week

and hopefully one day

i will get to thursday

where i will be one day closer

to the weekend.

if i make it to monday,

that will mean that i have

spent some money,

read some sentences in a book,

laid in my bed,

eaten some pasta

and maybe a bagel,

probably showered twice.

if i make it to monday

without being an asshole,

crying over little things,

spending too much time on the internet,

ignoring phone calls,

or listening to sad music

it will be

a miracle.

if i make it to monday,

someone will listen to me talk

it will feel like a million tiny hands

massaging my brain

it will feel like punching a wall

i will call it a successful social interaction

i will navigate my way

to tuesday.

truth about women

it’s the middle of winter. i think winter is perfect for breathing close to someone when you’re outside and hiding your hands somewhere. i wonder why it is always winter when these things start.

it’s the middle of winter and i don’t have boots on. i have shoes on and they are wet. my knees are wet because i fell to the ground to look at the sky. i thought it might answer some questions but i guess since the sky can’t talk it just snowed on me. it snowed on everyone else too.

i tried to make the place i live a home. i try to drink something warm every day. i’m afraid in the middle of the night my bones might freeze if i don’t continually stir the fires in my finger tips. i wonder how long it would take for someone to find my frozen bones and all it would take is another body in my bed and i might just melt a little. well, the truth was that i was waiting for somebody. i was waiting for her to come to the place i try to call a home because i thought maybe, well, i thought she said she would. but that was a long time ago.

it’s hard when you’re in love with everyone in the world. i want to say “you’re the most beautiful person i’ve ever seen” i want to say that to everyone i meet, ‘cause it’s the honest truth, every time i look at them, god, i think, good god, you’re beautiful, and you, you’re beautiful too, you’re all so goddamn pretty i can hardly stand it. i love them all. i love you all and you don’t even know it. you’re beautiful and you know it so you don’t hear me when i say it.

you’re beautiful and you love each other and you don’t love me and i love you, all of you, and i say, i love you, and you, well, you. there you are.

time is strange because it’s never quite the same everywhere. somewhere it is summer. somewhere on the opposite side of me.

you wore a white shirt and you said something in my ear and it made me love you. i said that i didn’t love you before but now i do. i like that shirt you wear. i like those black framed glasses. you have your hand on my arm and inside my head i’m like “yes!yes!yes!”

no, wait.

that was a dream.

i’m wearing these shitty converse with holes in them and my feet are freezing already. i’m walking home at night, in fact, it may already be tomorrow, and there is slush in my shoes and inside of my socks. i wear my collar high or else the wind might come inside too, and then my bones would shiver, and they can’t take a shiver right now, they’re just waiting for a shake. but no one grabs my shoulders and looks me in the eye and says “shake shake shake”. shake shake shake.

i thought i’d be home by now but i’m not home. and you know what, i’m mad because i can hardly take it, you know, i can hardly stand it, i feel like kicking concrete. i’m mad at all the things; the wind, my dreams, the height of my ceilings, her glasses, cold tea.

i happened to be there one night. i never go there but then i was there instead of being somewhere else. that’s how things happen. it starts like i was doing my ordinary thing but then something changed. so something changed. so i was there. you were there, surrounded by friends or just other people. i carried you home and laid you on my bed. i said “i’m here,”

and you said,

“i want to go home”.

and home it is. keys and stuff. asleep in the next room. i stay up because i think she might call me. i remember that time is different if you’re not in the same spot as me, and she’s not. but i stay up because maybe, just maybe.

i had things tentatively planned. i thought she could maybe help me pick some winter boots. i thought we could stumble home from the bars and it wouldn’t seem so long and far. i thought maybe we’ll eat dinner somewhere, or maybe i’ll cook her dinner, or maybe both, or maybe more. she could walk to the bus stop with me. that’d be a nice change from standing with the lonelies who have gathered at the same spot for the same reason but can’t connect ‘cause they were born with lonely in their blood.

she didn’t call.

i’m so fucking in love with all of you. i’m so fucking in love and it hurts. it’s a million heartbreaks and i can’t go back. i can’t ever go back. once i was on the outside and it was a dull pain, the inside was a real heart but i’m not there anymore. and i can’t go back to anywhere. i’m so fucking lonely i might shrivel up into blank paper.

i barely sleep at night. i wander through dreams of people that i know but not well enough. in my dreams they are my friends but in real life we don’t know each other well enough to call it that. i wake up confused about the time. i think it’s morning when it’s 4 am and i start to get dressed only to check the clock and i can’t fall back asleep again.

when she finally called i hated every word i said to her. i was a sad puppy child full of contradictions. i cried quietly so she wouldn’t hear but all i wanted was for her to hear so i could get some attention. but i didn’t know what i wanted. but i knew what i wanted. but i wanted to cling to her body, looking for some kind of primeval comfort that i’m too shy to ask for when i’m sober. i couldn’t ask because i knew she couldn’t give. i didn’t know if she would call again. but i wanted it, yes, yes i did, so honestly that my own honesty hurt me.

after she called my eyes broke and i ate a half-cooked half-dinner. no, it wasn’t even half-cooked.

it’s not about you this time, i guess. it’s about me. it’s because i tried really hard. i mean, i really tried, i tried so hard that you didn’t even notice because everything i did was perfect. i was so fucking perfect. and i still lost.

i felt the fabric of your shirt, your white shirt. it touched my fingertips. i put my face to your chest and it touched my face. your arms were a blanket. i liked the way small parts of my skin stuck to your skin and the way you smelled and the way you breathed like it was a normal thing to do. you know i was still learning how. inside my heart i breathed a steady “yes, yes, yes”.

it was a dream. sometimes waking up from a dream is harder than other times. i can’t help myself for wanting it, for wanting you, for wanting her, for wanting everyone. time is hard, but time is not the same everywhere. somewhere else there is good time and the truth is that we will get there, all of us, every single one of us. because we’re so beautiful, we’re the most beautiful people ever made, and that’s the honest truth, i think, good god, we’re beautiful, and i love you, i really do, every single person, and all the doubles too.

inside my heart i breathe,

“yes, yes, yes.”

it's kind of quiet here in my cave.

there were many things to do

today.

somedays, not so much.

i bought nice clothes

to get a nice job

hoping it will pay for itself.

we'll see.

i am obsessed

with a cheese grater.

i must have a kettle

to make tea in my new apartment.

get me a frying pan

STAT

and please,

if you care about me in any way at all,

please

tell me it's going to be okay.

i hope the bank

will accept 47 dollars and 54 cents

in nickels and dimes.

i hope you know

that i would carry

the weight for you.

i hope you know

that there is an ocean inside of me.

it takes an ocean not to break.

we'll see.