He really liked my writing, actually. He was fascinated with my words. He had an uncanny ability to memorize any passage of literature no matter how large it was. He read every poem, short story, and even edited my first novel. I guess he thought it would impress me if he could quote my own words back at me. I found it awkward. At first, I really enjoyed it. He was more enthusiastic to read my work than any friend, romantic or otherwise, had ever been. But it changed. He started asking me if I'd written anything. If I had, he just absolutely had to get his hands on it. I'd always said my writing was a part of me. Quoting my words back to me, he said he just wanted to get to know me.

I know lying is wrong, but when he asked if I had created anything recently, no matter what had flowed onto the page, I said no. I preferred to volunteer pieces for his consumption and criticism. It worked for a little while. I could relax and write whatever I wanted to. My therapist recommended journaling and even gave me a composition book to use.

In my free time, I often used the journal. I hadn't handwritten much in a while, but it was even more cathartic than my keyboard. He caught me one time, writing an entry with a poem and a drawing of a bird tacked onto the bottom.

He asked to see it, and when I refused, it was like a cold breeze blew into the room. His entire demeanor changed. It darkened in a physical way that I'd never experienced from him before. "Are you hiding something from me?"

Naive as I was, I found no other argument to prove my innocence than to hand over the entry. And to my deepening horror, he flipped open to the first page. Any protest that the words in there were private, were hushed and waved away as if I were just a fly. I told him that I couldn't watch him read it in front of me and I let him take it home.

I wish I could go back to that moment sometimes and dump him right there on the spot. He claimed a relationship was built on trust, and if I didn't trust him, then we couldn't be together. But I could have done two things: first, I could have said, alright, then I don't trust you and we would have ended. Second, I could have accused him of not trusting me. But I was so afraid of losing him, of losing someone who cared about me, that I let him walk all over me.

I stopped writing.

I lied to my therapist about the journal.

I attempted a few soulless poems. Though likely some of my prettiest verses, all for him, I've since deleted them.

He thanked me for my openness with the journal when he gave it back to me. I still have the journal. I never filled in the last twenty pages or so, even though I had wanted, originally, to complete the entire thing like a physical copy of my memories, my emotions, and my ponderings. I haven't ever gone back to read it, despite the memory lapses, for there was more than just the manipulation. I don't keep it to remind myself of the pain and stupidity of that year and a half. I keep it to remind myself that I won't be naive or allow myself to be smothered. I keep it to remind myself to keep writing. Not for him, not for my friends, not for my family, not even for my husband who I'm completely enamored with. I keep writing for myself.

Good thing this is in Stream of Consciousness and not Fiction because it's not Fiction. A year, I wish. I didn't just lose myself I gave her up. It's one thing to realize one day you're not you anymore it's quite another to watch it slip away day by day, seeing her go but not knowing how to get her back, how to convince her to stay. Can't beg someone to stay in hell. "You're here for the kid." Those words ring through my head still to this day. His kid mind you. Not ours, not mine. Let me repeat NOT MY CHILD. Not by birth not by marriage not by anything. And yes, I'm there for the kid, I was here there and everywhere for the kid but who the fuck was there for me? Not his father, not my father, just a fading me. I knew it was temporary, there wasn't a moment I didn't know it was temporary. "This too shall pass." Like a fucking kidney stone but still it will pass. That wasn't the question. The question was who will I be on the other side of this? What will be left of me? I left everything I loved not because I didn't love it because I knew if he knew he would do everything he could to take it so the answer is love nothing, not even yourself. Don't react. Don't move. Don't smile. Don't laugh. Don't speak. Just note it. Know that you heard what you heard, yes he just threatened to kill you. Say nothing. They call it gray rocking, I call it I'm dead inside. Sitting there in hell one day wondering "How the fuck did I get here?" "What used to make me happy?" Oh yeah! Writing. I used to write all the time. I bring the notepad out, I journal, I release, I see her again. She's been there, patiently waiting with me in hell, hiding herself away. I'm smiling because she's still there. I go home with a smile still painted across my face. "You're cheating aren't you?" Such a small mind to believe that anyone else but me could make me happy. From drugs to rehab straight back to drugs. OUT, OUT, OUT! I'm DONE I'm DONE I'm DONE! Gone. Not easily, not without police involvement, not without an order from the judge but gone. I'm still here for the kid. Now it's CPS. They think they can push my buttons, they have no fucking idea the hell I will reign down on them for this kid. No idea. I am the boat that will get him to the other side of this but this is no ordinary boat, no. I'm a cargo ship on steroids with a battering ram at the front of me cause I've gone through hell just to get more hell and now you're going to get my wrath. The whole fucking world can get this wrath. From chaos and court hearings to adopted I was there for the kid. Now I'm relearning to be there for me. To have that same fight, have that same fuck you mentality for myself. One word, one step, one day at a time I'm going to make sure she's never put on the back burner again. And she's going to write damnitt, she's going to write and smile to her heart's content and she's going to let the world think she's having affair after affair. The kid is safe now so watch the fuck out.

Wasted. One whole year, wasted.

How many hours could I have spent doing what I wanted to do? How much closer could I be to a finished product, a project that might actually get published? How close could I have been to my dream career? How many ideas did I ignore, discarded because they were less important, less worthy of my time?

And what do I have to show for it? For a year, I told myself it was worth it. For the man who supposedly loved me, it was worth setting aside my passion. I traded my lifelong goals for eternal happiness. So I thought. And now? Now, I have nothing but bad memories, feminine rage, and a sour taste in my mouth.

How could I have been so stupid? So naïve? How could I ever have thought some guy was worth all that? Did I want my happily ever after so badly that I was willing to sacrifice the person I want to be? To sacrifice myself for some guy?

Never again. I’ve been away from my desk for too long, but I won’t make that mistake again. This is who I am. This is who I want to be. Who I will be. My loves will be flowing prose, detailed narration, interesting characters, snappy dialog, engaging stories. Stories about adventure, longing, excitement, love. Love lost. Love found. Love cherished more than life itself. Love that lasts forever.

Why do I have to be such a romantic?

Yeah, I miss you. My ears now hollow, once filled with the sounds of your real laugh, every word that was spoken with passion, and the way you sang all your favorite songs. My heart aches so bad because at one time it sang for YOU like that. Did my voice ever captivate you too? I wouldn’t know.

My skin, now afraid to be touched. Longing for your soft kisses and gentle touch: only comparable to a snowflake, quietly melting when it meets my face. Lips sweeter than my favorite dessert. My nose, longing for your floral perfumes that would take me to the middle of a meadow in spring. Were you able to teleport simply by indulging in me too? Your actions say otherwise.

I miss the galaxy in your blue eyes, staring just as deeply back at mine as if we were the only two in the universe. Lethal doses of oxytocin from the security of your arms locked around my waist and head nestled perfectly under my chin. But deep down, anxiety calls my name. Is she being sincere? Am I a fool blinded by lust, giving every last atom of my heart with no reciprocation?

I can’t shake the feeling that you are only staring at somebody I’m not. Only holding so tightly to this false idea of me. Hearing only what you want to hear. Your words, your body, your time all given to somebody who exists only in your mind. How horrible a feeling. I’m not good enough. The person I’ve worked so hard to be, overlooked and thrown away like a diamond mistaken for glass.

Out of the corner of my eye, my notebook. The cover reads “Wonderlust & Wanderlust,” and now covered in dust. Memories flood in. How many situations have those pages helped me through? Every single one of them. Never failed to be there to help clear up my thoughts. Between those lines I can escape yet understand reality. How could I forget? How could this one woman, as great as I think she is, cause me to neglect myself and one of my greatest sources of joy?

I let go, ask her politely to let me be alone, and I dive into the pages and read everything I’ve written thus far. Nostalgia floods in as I hold this generic number 2 pencil. I begin to write, and page after page flows like a reservoir that finally broke through its dam. There’s smoke coming from my pencil, pages are setting fire. I capture my deepest thoughts and concerns, I contemplate why I feel so anxious in this relationship, why fear has taken root where my self-love used to be. The truths I discover are harder to swallow than a bowl of rusty nails with no milk. And at the same time, I’ve never felt better in all my life. With a sigh of relief, I reread what I had written:

“What a deadly feeling it is to fall heart-first into a space next to someone incapable of loving me the way I deserve. And how terrible it is to find it difficult to walk away from such a person.”

“I ignored my intuition telling me how absurd it is to beg for my love reciprocated.”

“How stupid I feel, thinking someone cared for me as much as I did. How stupid it is to make excuses for them for why they chose to not see my beauty, why they chose to not put in the effort I did.”

“She never encouraged me to do what I love.”

“The anxiety sunk in when I realized I had to shrink myself to make her more comfortable. It sunk in more when I had to desperately search for her authenticity and couldn’t accept never being able to find it.”

“I gave her every ounce of my love, and she took it like a hot desert takes water, with nothing in return but harsh lessons.”

“et cetera…”

I could write 100 more paragraphs of the words I wrote that day. But the main message I found myself was to listen to my intuition, be my true self, love myself in the way I choose to love others, and never settle for anyone who makes me become less than I already am. She may be gone, but the lessons will always remain. I used to be afraid of losing her. Now I’m more afraid of losing myself by staying in something that’s not right.

So, do I still miss you? I miss certain things, sure. Nothing that I couldn’t get from someone else. You chose not to see my beauty, or the light I offered. You never tried dancing with my demons. I lost a rose in a field of roses, I’m looking for that one sunflower standing proud within that field.

My world was fine before you and it’ll be fine without. I can’t thank you enough, I am back perfecting my art, this time with a whole truckload full of new inspiration.

With the help of my entire family and friends, she sunk me deep in doubt and helplessness. My thoughts and feeling were crowded by indecision, the pain of social conformity, the guilt of feeling like I do not belong, the shame of daring to imagine I can do something different. For so long, she made me believe that I had to have a protuberant title before my name. Her voice was amplified by the constant jabs of my family, they stood behind her and cheered me on away from my dream, and stupid little me saw it as support and kept going.

For 9 years I had been following the wrong path like sheep, with my shepherd leading me to the slaughter, I followed, mindlessly. My hesitation was met by false encouragement, an incentive towards the direction she wanted me to follow. When the gentle way did not work, she brought in the muscle, the guilt trip and gas lighting of parents, the fear of loosing it all. Fighting back felt futile and made no sense, in the beginning.

What happens when your voice is tuned down, shoved down your throat, and other voices talk louder, are affirmed and encouraged. What happens when the words that are cutting you down start to make sense, and you can no longer hear your own voice? My mind got foggy and the fog only got thicker with every step I took. The hand I took to guide me felt comfortable and safe, I trusted her wholeheartedly. She promised me a shore, a beach I could lie on, she promised me a steady sail, that beyond the fog it got clearer and warmer, that the sunrays would hit my face and I would be home, I would be happy. And in the embrace of the fog, my soul went quiet, and I mistook it for peace.

With the passing of every moon, my foggy mind grew weary, it wanted the beach, it couldn’t wait, it knew it was dying. I understood that I had to change course, for I was so unhappy. But that meant letting go of her hand, and that scared me as much as the fog that was choking me. When she realized I was getting over the fear, she turned on me “you will be back! You cannot do this, you will starve to death without me!”

I walked away, breaking into a cold sweat. I figured if I was going to die, I did not want my last moments to be filled with feelings of being lost and afraid. I had to dream, even when the dreams scared me stiff.

I have to be honest, she still lingers. Every now and then, when I receive rejection, or run dry in my writing, I feel her chilling presence eyeing my failures. I feel the resentment and shame she carries in regards to my decisions. I still am searching for the warm beach, but until then, I am content with my clear vision.

I am finally getting out of my own way.

I want to laugh at her. I want to be able to say something condescending and horrible and shrug this all off. But in that moment, sitting there almost nervous and embarrassed, telling me I was the first person to ever share the night with her and have the privilege of sharing her morning too, I could feel my heart clenching so violently I could almost mistake it for love.

She tells me this over coffee- stale and tasting of the burnt bottom of the kettle and soake up by store bought shortbread I scrounged out from the back of the cupboard. I wince at the charred flavour from one morning that she had sleepily brewed it twice. She scowls as she listens to the cupboard squeak shut from when I never oiled the hinges.

Yes, I could almost mistake it for love.

But that would mean it had ever left. That it hadn't left an indent around my bones and organs. The velvet carress of petals where the many vices of thorns had left me scarred over the years. Where my words were washed and pressed and folded until they lifted.

God if I couldn't feel it thundering in my chest and pounding in my head like it wanted so desperately to be released from my throat and whispered in that bitch's ear.

But that's just the dose of her poison, isn't it? I am soothed by the blanket of A4 paper and the familiar clack of well worn but long neglected keys. Weren't things that were loved meant to change? To be supported? To squeak from time, like old bones?

The vulnerability that my bastard ex-wife had been trying so desperately to feign was displayed in cracked paint held in the body of metal on my desk, and the feeling of purging my words without judgement let me know I wasn't alone in whatever we were connected by.

My ex told me she didn't like my laugh- how it squeaked and how the box springs on my side were too loud. My typewriter never says such things, kissing my fingertips and begging for more and more and-

Well, my mother in law believes there's another woman.

We are inextricably interlinked; despite how resolute I've been told to act like we aren't.

The calendar looks like a dart board, covered in holes. Empty days and meaningless numbers, circles that don't mean a thing.

I used to mark the days, be able to count the hours since my fingertips last hit the keys, last strung together a slew of words that were possibly profound but more often than not just ramblings. He's gone now, no looking back, and I'm better for it. Everything happens for a reason, or at least that's what they say.

I'm like a swimmer out of practice, nose waterlogged and I keep stopping to catch my breath. God, this used to be so easy, but we're getting back into the swing of things. You and me, old pal. This rusty old machine is still good for something. Oh, and this typewriter's still here, too. How nice.

In some ways it was bound to happen, you know a human's nature must be stronger than the delicate bond between slightly-less-than-strangers. I'd gotten caught up in a messy web of sinewy connections, and I'm sure it'll happen again. But for now, we release. We relive. We write:

He'd been not too close but not too far away either, that's how I liked them, anyway. Enough to tell me I'm pretty--with his eyes--but didn't dare say anything. Just shy enough.

His fingertips were like paper cranes, careful and artful. Swan dances across my knuckles. Something about his smile, too, you know the way they pull you in. A laugh, a look. He hadn't been my type. Until he was.

We counted the hours using each others' eyes, found some sort of constellations right behind the iris. A ticking clock back there built for us and ignorant to all others. We thought it ticked forward, at least at first. And the longer I looked the more convinced I saw that it was a countdown. More I saw that the paper cranes were unfolding, and the stars were never with us anyway.

It fell around us like wallpaper without enough glue. Strips of rolled up paper, still sticky but not quite enough, whispering at our feet. A room of destruction but not enough to hold it together. Built to fail. Perhaps.

And in that room, no words. It was the one thing I always had on me, words. And I'd lost them somewhere, shoved them deep into your chest where I couldn't find them until you tore yourself apart and left all the words in the world pulsing on the floorboards, your flesh split on either side.

I broke you, I know. But I needed those words back. They fuel my ticking clock, no matter the direction. They're my sun and moon and everything in between. I wear them like prize furs, douse them in flame and scream them from the silence of my notebook pages.

You stole everything from me, and I stole even more. So here's all of it back again, the story of us. What you always wanted, no? I never did show you my writing. I never could. But my fingers are made of ink, made of metallic bones in the shape of typewriter arms. I can press my finger to the page and make a letter. This soul is bound in ink and wrapped in leather. Words become I.

Words could never become we.

So this is it, then. And my soul can breathe.

I threw my phone onto my nightstand, at least I thought I did, as I heard it vibrating against the floor.

“Oh my god! Jared leave me alone”, I said out loud.

It’s been two weeks since our breakup and he won’t stop. He isolated me from the world in every way he could think of. Then decided to leave me when he finally siphoned all that he could from me. The aftermath is this version of myself, so mentally, emotionally and physically drained.

Despite this breakup being long overdue, it’s still a shock to my system.

I throw the blanket off of me and slowly edge off the bed. Although my first instinct was to kick my phone out of my way, I bent down and grabbed it.

Ready to rip my hair out, I sat down at my desk and pulled my laptop out of the drawer. I couldn’t help but to feel hate for him, as I opened it and realize the screen was cracked.

“You’re broken just like me”, I said to my laptop.

I held the button in, hoping I could use this. Surprisingly, I could make this work. I looked at my reflection in the screen of the laptop. All of the cracks embedded into the glass, eerily stretched along the area of my face’s reflection. Tears slowly fell from my eyes as if they were leaky faucets, unable to stop.

Without thinking I grabbed my phone and blocked Jared’s number and anyone’s number associated with him.

Unrelenting grief, tightly has a hold on me.

For those late nights and the words that never came to be.

I didn't realize Janice took me away from my writing until it was as it my fingers were too stiff to clang about on my typewriter keys. I didn't realize a lot when I was with her. How I slowly made myself smaller, small enough to fit beside her as "big as the Sun" ego.

Pretty enough to look at, but look at it too long and you'll go blind. And I was blinded by something not quite love, but not quite "not love" either. Maybe that is why I find myself in front of my typewriter again.

I am writing again, yes, and I am writing to find myself too. I am looking for those parts I thought were too big to fit into my suitcase when I packed my life away to jet off to wherever Janice wanted to go. The point being, whatever SHE wanted.

What do I want? I look at the keys that used to be my refuge, my love wondering how I could have ever gone so long without their music in my life.

It is raining here. The window has fogged over from the Summer rain in this Savannah heat. A couple is running side by side under one of their jackets, too small and barely doing anything to keep them from the rain, but they don't seem to mind, lost as they are in their laughter.

I don't think I ever laughed like that with Janice. I think I imitated a laugh. Which sounds like something so hollow it felt as thought I was knocking on a door to a room, one I kept thinking, "When I finally open it, there will be something amazing there. Something worth staying for." T

There never was.

I don't think it was all Janice's fault. I should have run from her green eyes after she told me I spent too much time on my typewriter, yet never even thought to ask me, "What were you writing about?" which really translates to "What makes you tick? Where do you find wonder and joy? Why is it through your typewriter?"

But she never did and I gave up hoping for more long ago.

So I am back. The rain is a low thrum against my window and I finally am beginning to find parts of myself through the keys on my typewriter. The clacking is a familiar melody to the story of my life.

I may have strayed from the page for a while, but I am back and I will not be leaving my story unwritten, not anymore.

you thought you pilfered everything

destroying my ability to think speak

carving out my mind with my heart

you scorched earth my vital being

wrung the daylights from my soul

you killed me dead departed fallen

hung my slain carcass

bleed out on a tree

but my words remain

words that write themselves

words that cry out for fingertips

to bring them to life reality existence

hit me go ahead hit me again and again

punch and beat me on your black tape

strike me batter me pound me hammer

hard harder hard enough

to make words appear

black fragmented indented smashed

on snowy white paper

inserted prime virgin

now soiled slutted strumpeted

blackened pummeled wanton

covered full completely whole

by those words beyond your power

to assassinate murder destroy wreck

even you can never finish my words