Hi my loves,
I am under the weather. My eyes are puffy and I could sleep all day. I’m drinking tea and dozing in and out, curled up under my duvet in a fleece sweater. What got me out of bed this morning was my incredible writing group and today’s assignment - music to our memories.
I created this assignment because it’s an exercise in playing with our memories. I asked everyone to pick a moment that stood out in their mind with a relationship - the first kiss or the first fight, the moment you realized you had more feelings than you were ready to admit to, or maybe a moment you realized this relationship had more to do with how you saw yourself versus how you saw the other person. Then, choose a song that would play in the background of the moment. Paint the scene, and intertwine the lyrics with the moments that are happening.
There is a power in writing about our biggest loves and our biggest heartbreaks. My best friend tells me that the point of it all is to feel things and fall in love. I was hiding for so long, and realized that it had more to do with me not believing that someone could love me just as much as I loved them.
So, this assignment was one that I needed. One that revealed the truth to me, and the truth to all of us in so many different ways. That love, even with its endings, still exists. It’s not black and white, it’s not methodical or planned out. It happens, we react, and if we let it - it will become the best part of ourselves.
Swing by tonight.
A Friday evening in the spring. A wine coloured silk dress and white sandals. Hair air-dried, and make-up that’s barely there.
He points to the empty seat in front of him, and I start to laugh as though the seat had already been mine.
I sit down and he starts to stir.
“Did you think you were going to go to Florence to fall in love?”
I rest my chin on my hand, look up at him and smile.
“No, but I did get stood up for a date tonight.”
“Asshole. Where did you meet him?”
“Online. I wanted dinner.”
“Well, how can you meet someone when it’s not like this?”
–
Drew the line,
Baby, you cross it every night.
It's you I see, so
-
We are laying in bed. His forehead against mine. Hands tracing the tattoo on my collarbone. We’ll stay like this for a while.
The way he looks at me after always terrifies me, but I promise to never tell anyone that.
The world moves but we’re not moving with it.
“Hi.”
I start to laugh. “Hi.”
“Your handwriting?”
I shake my head.
It’s 4 pm. His tattooed back to me, the buttoning up of his shirt. The “have a good day”, the kiss goodbye. I force a smile and stand motionless in the kitchen. He watches me while closing the door.
I wake up alone in the early evening on lavender sheets and start to cry.
“It means nothing.” I tell my best friend.
“I really don’t think this is nothing.”
-
Oh, close your eyes, your eyes
Close your eyes, your eyes
-
Midnight on a Saturday. Our leather jacket and the black silk dress. Legs crossed, my green eyes and his. The way he walks over and the way we can’t stare for too long. The way he can’t stay for too long.
The things we can’t say, the things we can only dream of.
The things I’m too scared to admit to him, and the things I’m too scared to admit to myself.
The smell of cordials and the stickiness in the air. Two groups of men on either side of me that do not dare to approach.
He places a drink in front of me.
“New memories for old stories.”
The title of my latest piece. I feel my back stiffen. “Do you read what I write?”
“Yes, because I can’t read you.”
He looks down and goes back to stirring.
-
Wait 'til you see it's so real to me
I'm closing my eyеs
Every night, every timе
I'm closing my eyes
-
“Aren’t you going to say anything to him?” My friend looks at me as we take the final few sips of our drinks, and take out our cards to pay.
“No. I have nothing to say.”
I am facing only his reflection in the door.
His hands, placed on the bar, and those eyes. The Thursday night bodies, the smell of cigarette smoke in the ungodly heat, and the neon lights all move around him.
But he doesn’t move with them. He is front and center of the show. He is quiet, and he is still .
-