i · used · to · compare · myself.

They say the in the summer that everything feels better: a warm breeze, scraped knees, the delicate black keys; they're somehow sweeter in the sun of a warm June or July. Like a gentle push in the winds coming from the midwest; something like an echo of the future and the crash before the bolt. Like a mistake that you've already made but don't remember why it's not right just that it's wrong.

In the summer, it all feels better; like first kisses, like your love, and the way that I let it go. Like a kite stuck in the sky; all beautiful things should stay with the stars - as memories to look up to late at night, as fields on the side of a highway to look back on when the sun is just about to set - when everything seems so much bigger and I feel so much smaller. Like the disaster that we were and the ruins that we became; the kind that makes your heart race the sun. Like the hope that I had and have somehow found again.

Like how I felt that, in that summer, I could have been anything. Like a treasure map. Or a gold mine. Instead I was an alleyway, pebbles to keep in your pocket. Someone you were incapable of letting love you. Like I loved you. In the summer when everything felt better.

"There used to be this ache in my chest that I could never, ever, ever seem to suppress; no amount of cigarettes, sins, or sleepless nights spent searching for something new could dull it's ever present rhythm. The dullest of thumps, not like the rise in the tide or the swell of an orchestra; no, more like heavy footsteps upon wooden floors. Echoes of who used to wonder these halls, the kind you build around your heart to keep the cold out. But, oh, how it creeps in. In the ways that we used to fear as children; under the door, through the window sill.

Our greatest fears to the sound of thump, thump, thump. That tightening of muscles, that quickening of breath; like a punch to the chest.

But, somehow, now, it seems, I'm finally able to breathe. Slow and steady, how my hands used to move when I wasn't so worn thin like the railings I walk place my thoughts back in my head. I can breathe now, but I still wonder ... if I'll ever really live again."

In between the stacks of vinyl records, CD cases, cassette tapes and notebooks, filled with words of "favorite songs" and lists of things I've already done or planned-on-but-never-quite-got-to there's something, so small, scribbled in those tiny sentence fragments that I almost forgot it ever even existed. How is it that something that used to be such a big part of our lives ends up collecting dust with our childhood dreams? How could we grow to forget what we thought would also be so important?
I wonder if we're all so easy to forget.

i'm starting to compile a list of all the stuff i collect. comic books, records, cassettes, cds, STAR WARS stuff, etc. i could say it's because i'm tired of losing track of my stuff when it gets loaned out, but in all actuality, it's so i can see where there are gaps in my collections and i can, maybe one day, fill them in.
because i, without a doubt, am a dork.

+ trying to get a job.
+ packing my stuff up.
+ trying to save money (failing miserably.)

in short, i'm trying to keep busy.
to keep my mind off of things.
like missing home.
and crossing state lines.

"it's like a book elegantly bound but in a language that you can't read."
new death cab's gonna be real good.

"I am so determined to lay in lakes."

I think I'll do just that.

Birthday dinners. Last MLIW show. Record shopping. Drunk. Etc. Week's gonna be good.
Coming home won't be so bad either. New apartment. Hopefully new job.

You'd think I'd have forgotten about it all.
But somehow, it's what I think about the most.

Got some flip-flops.
Sweater.
And cassettess today:
- Squeeze.
- Morrissey.
- Queen.
- Elvis Costello.

Less than two weeks.
Thank. God.

1.] I’d like to say that I think about you more often than not, but I was never one to lie to you. To be honest, sometimes I forget that you’re not around anymore, that you’re up there making small-talk with the big man instead of showing back up in this dismal ghost town to pat me on the back and say, “You never know, kid, you never know.” In my mind, you’re still out there somewhere, making girls blush with your blue eyes and baby face charm. And, because of that, I still think, one day, you’ll come back from California and I won’t have to wonder any more. The truth is, I don’t think about you much because it hurts to know you’re really gone.

2.] There are a lot of things that I could say to you and most of them begin with ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m sorry I was the only family you had left for the longest time. I’m sorry I was there when your whole world fell apart, putting it back together, piece by piece. I’m sorry I never left your side when everyone said you weren’t going to make it. I’m sorry I spent so many hours through telephone wires just listening to you breathe. But, most of all, I’m sorry that I’m not sorry for all the years we’ve missed out on together. I always thought you were going to be the one I always called my baby brother.

3.] We were so young, younger than I remembered. Then I started counting years we’d spent together, and then the ones apart, and it came up to something much larger than expected. I can remember long walks down dead-end roads and even longer talks about what the future could possibly hold; then I can remember standing-still until the silence outlasted anything else that could ever be said. I wouldn’t say that I wish things had turned out differently, and I wouldn’t say that I’m not happy that it all happened. But I would say that sometimes, and only sometimes, I wish we would have just stayed friends. Those days without were harder than the ones with you.

4.] I thought that letting you go would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do; I thought it would haunt me for days, the way that a song stays in your head long after its been overplayed. Instead, nothing will ever compare to how hard it was to hold onto you; you were always running away from me. Maybe someday you’ll circle back around; you can only run so far before you go back to the start. But I’m not standing still any more.

5.] There are so many things that I want to say to you, but they always get caught in the back of my throat. Every time they try to come out, I remember that some things are better left unsaid. And we used to say it all the time. Every day, actually. Now there’s just a silence where it used to be. We even cut out the formula for it. I don’t anything you. And I don’t remember when that happened, when the words fell out of our vocabulary, or when we stopped noticing. But I just started to remember. And it doesn’t matter how we meant it, it matters that we mean it. We are still friends, you know.

6.] In a different life, in a different time, I would have said “yes” all those years ago. You would have treated me better than anyone I’ve ever known and I could see myself growing old with you; in a different life, in a different time. These bodies we’ve been place in, however, were meant for something else, regardless of where our souls are supposed to be. I just know that there’s no one else I was supposed to spend forever with besides you. That’s what best friends do and I hope that has been enough. Because it always has been for me.

7.] Your good looks might be quite the catch, but you are the reason that she’ll never really be happy. She absolutely adores you, in a way that I thought only girls in movies loved boys. I’m not saying you should have kept the charade going, I’m saying you should have never let it happen in the first place. We all make mistakes, though. Some of them are just more epic than others. Yours, in this case, is relative to the size of Mt. Everest. This, however, does not make you any less cute.

8.] Hating you was always easier than seeing the truth, but, now, it’s painted right on the front door, in big, bright letters. And hating you isn’t what I want to do any more. It was never about you, I hope you know, none of it. Not a single word, not a line, or a tear. It could have been anyone, but it just happened to be you. If I could go back and erase it, take a closer look at the details, I would see that you were just a pawn in a bigger game of chess; one that I was set-up in from the very beginning. To think that I thought I was in control. I’m just glad that I can sit down, have a smoke with you, and know that we were both lured by the same old trap; I’m glad that the company I keep knows exactly what it’s like to be me.

9.] Trusting in you was the biggest mistake I ever made, right next to believing every word that you said. I put all of my faith and energy into something because, for once, I felt like I was a part of something. In the end, it wasn’t anything at all, just smoke and mirrors. A clever web of strategically placed lies and alibis that we all fell for hook, line, and sinker. I wish I could have seen it coming, that I would have read the warning signs. But I never thought you would do that me, or the group of ragtag misfits that loved you so. Because we did; some of us still do. It’s just hard to think, maybe, you never loved us back. I mean, who would ever think that someone that loved them would lead them to river just to get drowned?

10.] There is not a single day that goes by where I don’t wish you were still around. You taught me everything in life that matters. To never lose your poker face, to never grow up, and to always follow your heart. I hope that I still make you proud; you were the only person whose opinion ever really mattered. I still have a hard time knowing when to call it quits, in cards and in life. I wish you were here to help me get over that.

I've been running 'round in circles for two and a half years, counting clouds that go by and pretty faces that you have chosen to follow. I lost track sometime between that first summer and this last fall, wondering when enough would be enough. It seems to me, though, that baby blue skies are the only parts of this that will always stay with me; you're always going the other way and, well, I'm much too tired to keep up this race. I was always the one trying to make you love me.

I have spent this lonely winter underneath this same old tree, making patterns out of stars and sattellites, and I've come to realize that it always should have been the right amount. But you said, "love's just not enough," and what I think what you really meant was, "you're just never enough." I'm not all those other kids ... They'll put up a fight. But my white flag, oh, it's always been waving; you've always had every bit of me.

I might have won all those tiny little battles to keep you here but, baby, you've finally won the war. I'm finally beaten enough to learn that it's time to walk away.

Just what hurts the most is that you won't come after me. You've already got someone else to chase. Maybe someday, just maybe, I'll find someone that will do for me what I used to do for you. Except I won't keep running away.

Half the fun of playground games is getting caught. It's such a shame that I'll always remember you as the one that got away.

Sincerely,
Me