Snazzy Babble

We were sitting on your great grandfathers patio counting how many humming birds were at the bird feeders. Your whole family was talking at once, asking me varying questions. There were the polite, mundane questions: Where are you from? Who are your parents? How long have you been together? Then one of your cousins asked what every romantic wants to know—how did we meet? You explain that you were running late for work and ran out of the house without having a cup of coffee. By your lunch break, you were exhausted and needed to fuel your addiction to the bitter drink. 

“I had just sat down when the small bell above the door rang, announcing someones arrival. I looked up and saw small shoes colored a striking blue step across the barrier, one after another, making a staccato note with each dainty fall against the stone flooring. That’s when I knew that I wanted to know you.” 

Your family smiled for us and you kissed the top of my head. Then you said as an after thought “If I weren’t addicted to coffee we never would have met.” 

It was then that I wondered for the first time how many times we never met.

How often were we on the same subway, both sitting next to a stranger who would never be anything more than a stranger? Perhaps we passed each other on a weekly basis; just two people sharing the side walk. Do you remember when we found out that your mother and my grandfather were buried in the same cemetery, twelve bouquets of flowers apart? You visited her every Sunday before church. I visited him every Sunday after church. I wonder how many times we stood in the used bookstore on the corner of Pine, flipping through a book we knew we weren’t going to buy. 

You said if it weren’t for coffee, we never would have met.

I’m not sure if I believe that though. I believe that soul mates are always crossing paths, because if two people are meant to know each other, they will find a way to meet. The period of your life that you meet them decides what they will be to you: a lover, friend or mentor. Maybe we only meet them when we are meant to. Maybe I could have been introduced to you a dozen times last Winter and we would have still parted as strangers, struggling to remember the others full name. 

Perhaps we find our soul mates when we are able to fully appreciate their presence. Or maybe I’m wrong, and if it weren’t for the fact you wanted coffee we never would have met. Maybe my face would never have caught your eye. Maybe you would always been on the 7:30 bus, while I waited faithful for the 7:45. Maybe we would have never crossed paths. 

I don’t believe that though.

I believe we have met over and over again, waiting for the day when we would meet and it would matter. 

I sat Indian style on the bed, naked with my mind stripped of thoughts. I stared up at the single light bulb that flickered above the bed and wondered why it just didn’t give into the darkness. I stole a glance at your bare back and watched your eyes in the mirror you were looking in. I whispered that I was sorry, and you gruffly asked what for. I replied for being sad. I looked down at the angry scars on my thighs and stomach and wished I could take back the night. You followed my eyes and scowled at the marks. “I thought you loved me.” “You know I do.” “Then why hurt yourself?” It was a valid question but one I could not answer without the use of a device that projected the vivid thoughts in my mind. I needed to show him the tangled knots inside of me that connected me to the world. The ones that wrapped around my veins and strangled them effortlessly. Why did I hurt myself? The same reason I got up in the morning; I had to. “I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t know either. Can you stop?” Another reasonable question. It would have been so easy to say yes. I wanted to stop because I hated pain. I had no tolerance for it; paper cuts brought me to tears. But giving it up would have been giving up my control, and I’m sure I would have spiraled to an even darker state of mind. Why can’t I stop? Why can’t the lightbulb give in to the darkness? It’s the same question. “I don’t know,” I answered. I took the next few moments to compose myself. I told myself that I didn’t need him to be happy because I was never happy anyway. I walked out the door and with each step felt the string connecting him to me pull tighter. I listened closely for the sound of footsteps following but there were none. The only thing I can’t remember about that night is who was the first one to leave.

Once again, I am driving. I’m pretty sure driving in rage is up there with driving while intoxicated, but at this point I really don’t care. I need to see Blake. He’s working today, but he always has time to talk, especially when I really need to rant. I’ve been thinking a lot these last few hours. There comes a time in a mans life that causes him to remember the people he knew and consider the people he knows, or thinks he knows. I mean, how well does a person know another person? People say “Yeah, I know him,” all the time, when really they mean, “I know his name and he lent me a pencil in pre calc once,”. Going by that I know a lot of people. But wouldn’t those people we “know” also be ones we knew? I’m never going to be in pre calc again; I’m never going to talk to that guy I use to “know”. How can I compare him, this meaningless unknown, next to someone whom I’ve though to have known and loved? I thought I knew Ruby. I knew her laugh, and the way her eyes crinkled. I knew her cherry scent and her sway. I knew her favorite bands and her best friends. I knew everything…but that hasn’t changed. I still know all those things. I know her voice and the shape of her lips. I know her taste, her eager mouth. I know everything, except for her. It’s not fair that guys get accused of being the careless ones. Girls always blame the guys for the end of a relationship. If a guy breaks up with a girl, it’s because we are “heartless lowlifes who don’t care about a girls feelings”, according to the girl at least. For one thing, why would anyone want to stay with a person who just broke up with you? There’s always that girl who begs and pleads, claiming she’ll change and be better. Change what? If you have to change for a guy to stay with you, why be with that guy? When we break up with you, all you hear is “I’m not good enough,”. It never even crosses your mind that we’re not good enough for you. Breaking up with you is giving you a chance to be with the one meant to love you. We don’t want to hurt you, we want to let you go, so that both of us can be happy. It’s also interesting how often guys are accused of cheating. First off, there is a difference between “guys” and “men”. A guy has no self-control, where as a man gives his whole self to you. I believe that the only thing a girl fears more than being cheated on is having her love look at her with regret. When a guy cheats, you girls act like you saw it coming. “Well, he was a guy,”. Though it hurts and ruins you, you still find the need to act like you knew it was going to happen. You mend so quickly though: You cry, you eat, you rant, you vent, you move on. We realize that it hurts, and we’re sorry that it has to. But you will feel so much better when you’re with the right guy, the one who doesn’t ever have to hurt you. However, when a girl cheats on a man, it brings a pain that can only be compared to the stitching of the heart. Each time she hurts you the needle digs in, puncturing a once perfectly happy vessel. It stings and pulls; but you know that with each tiny stitch you’re getting stronger. The more stitching you have, the harder it will be for your heart to be ripped apart again. Being cheated on is the last thing a man expects to happen to him. Girls are suppose to be lovely and sensible. When guys cheat on girls, their excuse is usually “I didn’t want to hurt you,”. Girls have no problem hurting guys; nothing can stop a girl who is searching for her soul mate. She may feel guilty, but that won’t make her stay. When she cheats on you it’s basically saying that you weren’t even worth having an ending with. It’s also strange how people seem to not think of cheating as leaving. It’s leaving; just because their body is with you and the words are spoken to you doesn’t mean they’re thinking of you. No, their thoughts have left to stroll through sweet memories of secret kisses and hushed words shared with their other. There have been two girls whom I have loved with passion and sincerity…there have been two girls who have left me to re-stitch my wounds. People walk in and out of lives every damn day. They step on memories as they walk out the door, they blow away sweet words with the screeches of truths, and they make you forget the spark in their eyes, leaving only the image of them leaving you. And what is the moment you are left? Was it that last kiss you shared? Or maybe more of a number of memories, compiled to form a bitter short film: Looking for her in a crowded stadium, watching her walk down the halls oblivious to you, seeing her eyes pass over you slowly and then light up when she spots her new friends? Leah and Ruby have only ever inadvertently shared one thing, and that is being loved by me. They are so different that not even I can compare the two in a way that does justice. …And when it comes down to it, out of all the people who have left…Leah is the one whom I wish had stayed.

Everything is so simple when you’re young; There’s no vanity or jealousy to get in the way. No one cares about who you are or what you’re going to be. You’re just you, an innocent being in the world; a potential friend. As you get older though, people start to use your potential. Often it’s wasted on trying to be something you’re not. And feelings begin to get in the way. You start to feel things with more intensity and passion. Suddenly, something as simple as holding someone’s hand is new and complex. I use to have this music box in my room. It played a wordless melody and had a tiny ballerina twirling on her toes in the center; I use to lie in bed and imagine myself being that ballerina, waiting to have a boy come and take me out of my little box. Nothing’s that simple though. When I was a toddler, I met a boy at Nursery. He was sort of cute, for a four year old, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He even had a sweet little smile that I thought was magical. I didn’t learn how dangerous and deceiving a boy’s smile was until years later. He was in the sand pit and looked kind of lonely, so I crawled over to him and colored on his face. I was a strange child, even then. He laughed and drew on me. Soon we were in time out together and best friends. Simon became the most important thing in my life. We were together so often that soon our parents became friends, and they encouraged our relationship. We went through Elementary school together, not needing anyone else. Why would we? Simon was everything to me. Everything else in my life was insignificant. As long as I had him, I was happy. He felt the same, until we reached high school. Everything was going great. I had chorus and musical theatre, and all honors courses. I was going to be in the school play. Things were perfect. It started slowly; Simon started doing stuff without me. He joined the football team and made new friends there. I had no interest in football, so he became hard to talk to. Then he started to avoid me entirely. He started missing our weekly movie night and got too popular to pay attention to the glee geek that was me. A month later Simon and I wouldn’t even acknowledge each other in the halls. He’d moved on, so I had to too. He didn’t have much trouble doing it either. I mean, he was a guy, right? They could do anything without feeling guilt or caring what it did to other people. And I’ll be damned if I were to let him know his abandonment me affected me. I didn’t have any other friends though. And a lot of girls thought I was stuck up because of my dedication to my future acting career. I proved a few wrong though, and soon formed a group of true friends, who I would do anything for. Friends who would never leave me. I thought I had loved Simon. But it was probably just that I was too comfortable with the way we were that it had felt that way. What would I had known about love, anyway. If I’ve learned one thing in my life so far, it’s that you can never trust a guy. Being friends with one of them is just like riding a bike; they are unreliable and you always get hurt somewhere along the line, no matter how careful you are. There’s really no reason to risk the heartbreak. Having a guy best friend is complicated, because if they leave it means they are basically rejecting you in two ways; They don’t want to date you, and they don’t even like you enough to be friends. It is very difficult, despite what girls say, to not fall in love with a guy best friend. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a guy who knows everything about you, who you do everything with, and who seemingly cares about you? If you said you wouldn’t you’re lying to yourself. You may call me bitter, but that’s okay. Because I am. There was nothing sweet about leaving me for no reason. Am I suppose to forgive the guy who took everything and left me with nothing? I could forgive him. But the fact is I now love hating him too much to forgive him. Hating Simon Holt is almost as good as loving him.