Birthdays

I had so much fun part of today. The part where I was swimming with my friends and taking photos and playing games. The part that felt carefree and relaxed.

And still you turned away from me. I didn't wake up with you and you rolled away when I tried to snuggle. Instead, I was awake at 6am on my birthday, alone and drunk in the dark in the pool. I watched the sunrise and thought it would help me feel hopeful about the year to come. A new day, a fresh start, a new beginning. 

Instead, my new beginning felt lonely, disjointed, cold, shaky, and disappointing.

And now I'm ending the day the same way. We fought, I cried. I'm sitting here and you're sitting over there and you don't want to touch me or be near me and I get worse. Everything gets worse. 

The loneliness increases. The feeling that I'm going through this and there is no hope it's going to get better hits and I just sob and sob and sob. 

This is what my birthday is this year.

I hate it. 

I want to feel better. I want you to love me and hold me and never stop. 

I want a lot of things. I don't think I'm going to get them. 

On Fire/Morphine

I can't put it down. I can't seem to walk away. I know I should, everything in me is screaming that this is not going to get better. That, fundamentally, there is a lack of respect for my feelings, there is a lack of prioritizing me first.

But all I want is to be closer. I want to crawl inside you and sleep inside your chest so I can feel your heart beating. I want to crush you, I want to kiss you, I want you to want me, I want you to fuck me- honestly, passionately, brutally, bruising me. I want you to claim me and never let me go. I want your purple handprints on my body so I have some confirmation of your presence when I leave for work or you leave.  I want to cleanse you with my body and my love so that the last person under you wasn't her. I want to claim you. I want to erase what you did.

But I can't. I'm on fire, torn between pushing you away and pulling you closer. I can't think, I can't breathe, I can't tell if I'm crying or gasping because I feel your hand on my back as if it burns down to my bones and I want you but I don't because I'm picturing you and her and she's awful and I want you to shed your skin like a snake so I don't have to touch any part of you that she's touched. I want you to touch me and never stop; I want you to never touch me again.

And I'm hurt, so hurt, but you've always been my comfort. I want you to hold me and tell me this was just a nightmare and it wasn't real and you love me so much, how could you ever do that to me?

I can't cry. I can't scream and swear. It's like my emotions have been running high this whole time and now that you've told me the worst someone turned the dial back down. Is that because it can't get worse? Do I have no more anxiety because it's over? What I was dreading already happened?

Now the only thing amped up is desire. I don't get it, I don't understand it. But it's there. I feel like I hyper-sexual being right now when I should be a mopey awful mess. Is there a term for this? Is this normal?

Is everyone going to judge me for staying when I was packed up and ready to leave?

Countdown/Morphine

I'm counting down again and this time it's my stomach that's in knots.

I don't want to do this but I know I have to.

I'm like a morphine addict. I know this is the fun phase, the sweet phase, the kind phase. I love kind T. I want to be with kind T. I want to stay with her and hold her and live with her and have babies with her.

But kind T doesn't stay.

I have to remember that.

I need index cards for tonight:
1.This is not my fault.
2. You cannot blame me for your actions.
3. I deserve better than this.
4. I did not look outside of our relationship to make myself feel better. Only you did.
5. How could you spend three nights with your ex-girlfriend and come home expecting to still be in a relationship? How do you justify that for yourself?
6. You will do this to me again.
7. You don't respect me or my feelings. You betrayed me on the ultimate level.
8. You had an emotional, if not physical, affair. You had an affair. You had an affair.
You had a three and a half month long affair.
9. You still think that what you did was acceptable.
10. You expertly planned and executed how to lie to me on multiple occasions to continue your affair.

Put down the morphine needle. This is one drug that is fatal. This is one time you have to walk away. Love doesn't always conquer all. Not when two people don't love the same way, the same amount.

I love you, but you love yourself.

Cycles

Domestic abuse falls into a common pattern, or cycle of violence:

• Abuse – Your abusive partner lashes out with aggressive, belittling, or violent behavior. The abuse is a power play designed to show you "who is boss."
• Guilt – After abusing you, your partner feels guilt, but not over what he's done. He’s more worried about the possibility of being caught and facing consequences for his abusive behavior.
• Excuses – Your abuser rationalizes what he or she has done. The person may come up with a string of excuses or blame you for the abusive behavior—anything to avoid taking responsibility.
• "Normal" behavior – The abuser does everything he can to regain control and keep the victim in the relationship. He may act as if nothing has happened, or he may turn on the charm. This peaceful honeymoon phase may give the victim hope that the abuser has really changed this time.
• Fantasy and planning – Your abuser begins to fantasize about abusing you again. He spends a lot of time thinking about what you’ve done wrong and how he'll make you pay. Then he makes a plan for turning the fantasy of abuse into reality.
• Set-up – Your abuser sets you up and puts his plan in motion, creating a situation where he can justify abusing you.

Your abuser’s apologies and loving gestures in between the episodes of abuse can make it difficult to leave. He may make you believe that you are the only person who can help him, that things will be different this time, and that he truly loves you. However, the dangers of staying are very real.

I may have to read this a few times before tonight. I may have to read and re-read and a third and a fourth time as I wait in the parking lot for the apologies that have already started.

They've happened before too, and just like this cycle. "I'm so sorry, I was such a jerk, I didn't think about you. I won't talk to her anymore...We have so many more problems than her and this is all your fault because you were mean and fighting with me before B and I ever starting talking. But I won't, I won't talk to her."

You'll be so sweet to me, you'll buy me dinner, you'll promise you'll get me to trust you again. Then you'll call me out for something stupid, "you rolled your eyes at me." "I didn't even feel it happen, I don't know what you're talking about." "Oh my god, I can't believe you won't just apologize for rolling your fucking eyes at me. I can't believe we're having a huge fight over this!" two weeks later. And right after that I'll have to sit through 57 minutes of agony as you talk to her in our dark bedroom with the tv on because you don't want me to hear.

It's exactly this cycle. You set me up to justify what you're doing.

I can't believe that I thought I deserved this for so long. I can't believe I let you talk me into thinking that you and B was my fault.

I can't believe I can't believe I can't believe.

Thank you for finally pushing me so far that I couldn't bend anymore. 

No/Controlling

That's not how this is going to work.

You can't just text me when she's done with you, when she has to go back to her life and you start to get scared that what you've done might be wrong.

I know the moment you find out I've blocked you on instagram. You text me you're sorry for hurting my feelings, that this whole trip was a "poor choice." On your last day. When I am your ride home from the airport. When B is gone, back to her life because she's not going to leave a guy who drives a BMW and lives on a tropical island.

And then you try to be magnanimous. "I'll sleep on the couch for however long it takes."

No.

You don't get to choose your consequences. You don't get to tell me how to be mad at you. You don't get to tell me what kind of crime you think you did and then choose the punishment you think fits.

You lied to me. You straight up lied to me and said you'd meet her for lunch, maybe. Then you posted pictures, so you wanted to get caught. You shoved her in my face, left and right. She's in your cover photo on Facebook! You confessed to the 3 day trip with her. You've lied over and over more times than I can count on my fingers and toes. You checked out on our relationship and expect me to be here working on it for you when you get back.

You expect to walk on me like the doormat I've been for you for the last two years.

And you're sorry for "hurting my feelings."

I found some autonomy and some self respect today.

You're not sleeping on the couch. What couch?

4 Days/3 Nights

4 Days. 3 Nights.

That's at least how long you were gone with her, the numbers that you confirmed for me. That's how long you guys took off for a weekend without your fiance or her fiance to a remote island. Without telling me. Did you guys tell him? By the lack of an instagram tag, I'm betting you didn't.

I didn't think about who used to read this blog. I didn't think about the kind of feedback I would get, but K is right. I'm putting the pieces together and everything you are doing is sneaky, and lying.

You know that what you're doing is wrong.

I protected you. I found out on Father's Day and I still went to dinner because your relationship with your dad has been so rocky, and I pretended everything was fine, and I talked you up.

When you were short with me on the phone before your sister's wedding so I got the time wrong, which, by the way, I was doing errands for you and then I was 15 minutes late to pick you up, and then you didn't talk to me the entire evening, even though you weren't dressed when I got there and we weren't late, I still praised you to all your family members.

You know what Sarah said to me at the reception? She said I make you better, that I support you, that I lift you up. And I had to listen to her and nod and smile and not cry because I knew we might not make it past that weekend.

This has been the summer of pretending. Of me pretending I'm fine when people ask, and you pretending you love me, when you've been deciding how to best cheat and sneak behind my back.

You'll wake up later this morning and if you even care to look, you'll find I've blocked you on twitter and instagram. You probably won't find this, or remember it. I've left facebook for now because we still have to talk about things and I can't just shut you out completely, but I don't want to see any more photos from Hawaii and now I don't have to.

How could you text me you love me last night while you're with her? Maybe you slept together, maybe you didn't. I don't pretend to know. But I do know that I wasn't comfortable with you having lunch so I would never be comfortable with you spending three nights with her. But you did it anyway, and then texted me that you love me.

You don't love me, you pretender.

Testing 1,2,3

You're testing me, obviously. You're testing me, right? You're trying to see how I'll react? And I'm failing, obviously.

Why else would you tell me you're not posting any pictures because you don't want to rub it in my face that you're having a good time, and then all the sudden it's a video of you and her, clinking bottles on the beach.

Of all the things NOT to rub my face in, why would you want to bring attention to the fact that you're with her? Why would you want to remind me that you're alone on an island with your ex girlfriend?

Do you want us to break up? I mean, I feel like the only sense I can make out of all of your repeatedly hurtful decisions is that you are too cowardly to break up with me. That you are trying to drive the knife deeper and deeper until I can't handle it and I have to stop it before you kill me with it.

Is that right?

Or are you so overjoyed by her that you have to tell the world, my feelings be damned? Do you forget about me and about consequences when you're with her? Do you forget about how I feel? Do you forget about hurting me? Do you forget about the promises you made me?

I don't know which is worse.

Hate You/Love You

These are things I can't manage to say to you in person, because if I do, I can't take them back. I'm not sure if I mean them, if I'm venting, if I just need to get it out so I can hear how it sounds and see if I recoil or if I grow. Some are things I wish I could say and others I wish you'd just fess up to. Some I wouldn't ever dare say. Some I'm afraid of.

Sometimes I hate you. Since June I have said that many times a week, usually crying in traffic. Sometimes it's a deep, anguished yell, sometimes it's a whisper or a punch to the steering wheel.

No one has EVER hurt me the way you have. Not even first:girl. I loved her deeply, but I hadn't planned my life with her. I hadn't put her ring on my finger and worn it for nearly two years. I hadn't started to plan our wedding together, hadn't set a date, started a pintrest board, started picking out the style of my wedding dress.

I hadn't had a real plan of growing old with her. I hadn't lived with her for two years and created a family with three baby cats with her. When she hurt me, she hurt a girl who still had a place to live, friends to lean on, family nearby.

I have none of that. My home was with you, my family was with you, my friends were your friends. And you cut me out of all of that.

And now you're gone and you say you don't want to be responsible for my emotions and I get that but also, fuck you. What are we doing here if I can't come to you when I'm upset, ESPECIALLY when you're the cause of it? Or when you can't tell me about your day because you don't think I'll be happy for you? Of course I'll be happy that you're having a good time! My goal is not to make you miserable and depressed and I think it's really awful that you think of me that way.

Our conversation last night left me angry and upset, unable to talk to you any further about it because you don't care to know about my emotions, because you're too drained from dealing with them. You should have thought of that before you started having a relationship with your ex, before you put me through shit of "I need you both in my life romantically," before putting yourself first over and over again every week since May. Obviously I'm going to be really emotional when you do that.

You say you've sacrificed, you say you've tried to make me trust you again. You've told me you love me. You've planned my birthday. You took a sick day to drive me to the ER after I almost died the night before, I actually really do appreciate it. But how does that rebuild trust? Then when it comes to the ex in question, you flip flop on your plans over and over again depending on her plans, proving that she is still so important to you, but you still decide to go see her a week AFTER I go to the ER and coming home two days BEFORE my birthday.

You refuse to stop talking to her. You refuse to cut her out even though I hate having her as a part of our lives. You asked me to include her in OUR lives ROMANTICALLY. I DON'T WANT HER AROUND. PERIOD. I don't think that's ever going to change.

So you're not willing to cut her out, and you're not interested in being there for me emotionally, and you're afraid of how much we're fighting and now you're "guarded" (give me a fucking break, if anyone should be guarded it should be me.)

And yes, I was mean, and I said things I shouldn't have said because I was hurt, and I tried to apologize but I shouldn't have said it in the first place. But I am also just learning that I don't know if I see a future with you. I can't be with someone who can promise to marry me and then throw our monogamy away. I can't be with someone who can hurt me so deeply and then only think about themselves and what they need. I can't be with someone who doesn't want to visit my family, who says their friends are a "package deal" and I can't talk about it with them. Who asks me not to leave but then pushes me away.

I wish we could have been better to each other, but we just weren't. I wish I hadn't been so awful this spring and maybe you wouldn't have reached out to her and started this whole mess. I wish I'd handled this better and you'd handled this better and maybe we could have gotten through it together.

I hope you can come back and we can spend my birthday together and make happy memories so that we don't end it like this. I hope we can share the boys and it won't be so painful to see each other. I hope we both get to live happily ever after. Maybe by some act of grace it will be together, but more likely it will be apart, and I'm learning to accept that. I look back at when we were first dating and it makes me smile so wide and I ache because I miss that. Oh, I miss you so. But that's not who we are anymore.

You wanted me to be more independent and autonomous, so here we go.

I will always love you,
XO

Everything has Changed

I'm getting married.

Isn't that wonderful? It is, actually, since I started this blog in a place of sarcasm and jaded bitterness wherein I truely believed I was working on myself because happiness with another person just wasn't in the cards for me.

And then I met T. Perfect, wonderful. Kind, smart, handsome, ambitious, compassionate- great with kids and a social butterfly. And she could make me laugh so hard I would cry, could make me feel so full of love and so loved in return, could make me feel like I was the only person left in the world, and the only person she could see was me.

Fast forward two years. We live together with a cat (how cliche gay) and most days are relatively happy with each other, being in the same space, sharing a couch and watching Gold Rush. But some days are filled to the brim with little things, little nags, nit-picks, digs at this or that. We get over them, we move on, we apologize and say I love you and continue to grow in our relationship.

She gets down on one knee and I don't know what to say, what to do. I'm ecstatic, I'm thrilled. I've been waiting ages for this, but also it's so fast. I don't want to see her with anyone else, I want to take care of her and her to take care of me for the rest of our lives- but there in the tiniest corner in the farthest back of my mind, I'm also thinking of all the arguements, of all the times I want to call her an asshole but don't, all the times T gets frustrated with my Resting Bitch Face.

I say yes, because this is love like I've never felt before. Because she makes my heart swell and music crescendos and we sing and dance to T.Swift in the car, make doing laundry a date night with good food, can do all the choreography to Fantasmic, and cuddle with our cat-son and I want to make this my family. I want her for life. I want to see the good and bad, I want her to want me, I want to be there when she needs to cry, I want to make life better for her.

But all I can do is make it worse. We fight more often-she goes out with her friends and I work late.

Fast forward to tonight. We argued earlier over something small. My tone, I think, when I corrected her about what time a TV program was on. I get off work- "should I meet you guys at the bar?" I ask, where she is with her friends. "It's up to you." Comes the reply. It's not the one I want. "I'm kinda drunk."

"Kind of drunk like it would be nice to have me there or kind of drunk like you are having fun letting loose?" I try to be tactful. I shouldn't.

"Everyone is asking for you. Come if you want." There it is again. That apathetic response that makes me want to scream 'FUCK EVERYONE ELSE, I JUST WANT TO KNOW IF YOU WANT ME!'

But I don't. I sob my face off. I sit in the car for a half hour, twisting my engagement ring. I look up Red Flag Warnings for relationships. They're troubling. I look up engagement doubts and that freaks me out even more. I don't want to leave. I don't want this to quadruple our chances of getting divorced. I don't want anyone to tell me we don't get a happily ever after.

I just want to stop crying, to stop fighting, to feel secure in my relationship, which T has tried to help me with more than once. But I don't feel secure. I don't know why I feel insecure. I know she won't leave me, I know she loves me. But nights like this it's just not enough. And I don't know what to do about it and I don't have the right words to give to her to talk with her about it.

I feel powerless, helpless, less than, and unwanted. And of all of those, unwanted is the one that hurts most.

Grief/Silence

When I need it most, my brain goes quiet. In the ugly radio silence and white noise, the ruined meat shudders and whimpers over all the collective thoughts I should have, should have had while I had the chance. As if I were suddenly rebooted into some safe mode without networking or the capacity to connect to my drives, I curl up, cut off from all possible methods of recovery.

Of course, I’m still talking and functioning. I still laugh and think about other things, still call my boifriend and have full conversations. But once I hit this trigger I shut down. I become useless. I refuse to call my best friend back and talk about the memorial arrangements.

And then this sick, awful part of me wonders why this hit me so much harder than my grandfather’s. Why is it my family's deaths are so normal for me but my friends' tear me up inside? Is it all the broken promises? Is it all the unfinished business? Is it that I know my family knows I love them unconditionally but maybe my friends felt less than cherished, less than cared for?

Because I don’t think he knew how much he meant to me. I don’t think he knew everything he did for me or how he shaped my life or brightened my day or saved my family. I don’t think he knew that he made such a huge impact on us, or how much we all loved him. How his laugh could make all the horrible things of the week run for the shadows, or how his crinkling eyes always reminded me of the kindness and wisdom I imagined in Dumbledore’s.

When I was a freshman in high school I was teased and told I didn’t belong in a certain group because I wasn’t smart enough. He was having trouble with a case and asked us for help finding a defense. I don’t think he really expected any help, but I piped up with a pretty solid way to get the warrant thrown out. It was a totally “Legally Blonde” moment, and it boosted my confidence by a million miles. He always had faith in me, even when I didn’t have faith in myself.

I’m going to miss that.

Dreaming/Reality

If I talk about my date you're going to think I'm lying, or making it up. It was that fantastic. I wasn't dreaming. It really happened.

It's the kind of date you see in movies - fun, full of laughter and warm fuzzies, a wholly unnecessary sappy love song playlist not-so-discreetly playing in the background at the restaurant - when the table seems to shrink and it all feels very intimate.

And then the setting moves and I love being in the car with Prince because we sing and we talk and we're so close and I can't help but touch, constantly, compulsively, because touching is so rare across the distances and in public places and in not-friendly-to-gay areas and the car feels safe and warm and comfortable and I want to touch and be touched.

But then it has to be a movie because I've never seen the sun set over the ocean like that, never seen someone smile at me with heaven in the eyes, and I feel so amazed, bewildered, content, and I don't even want to run off for sex because I just want to stand here, forever, drinking in the sunlight with our arms brushing, laughing at the little girls next to us and all their questions and comments.

I could have sat forever and watched as the city flickered to life at our feet, almost as the Egyptian Pharaohs must have done thousands of years ago from their golden thrones and their city blazed to life in the darkness. I felt like royalty from my stone seat, hand in hand, the world laid out before us, the stars shining overhead, the moon casting a silver blessing over us, so bright, so clear.

And it's laughter, laughter, between all the other moments and places and quiet and feelings, there's this laughter. When Prince laughs it's the most wonderful sound in all the world - the sound I want to hear every moment of every day. I want to be the cause, I want to hear when others inspire it. I want Prince to laugh all day long and I want to be there for every moment and open myself up and fill myself with golden laughter, because just maybe there is real magic and this laughter is it.

Maybe I'm just an idiot :)

I don't have a five year plan and I don't know what I'm doing or where this is going. But I know I never want to hang up. I hate going to work and sleeping alone, and I get really nervous and pack two weeks of clothes for a three day trip. I know that I'm flawed, so flawed, and I want nothing more than to be better - than to be the best - than to be deserving of everything Prince is.

Dating

This may possibly make you want to throw up, because I'm going to be that girl right now.

If I was exceptionally quiet here, it's because I was on a date. A lovely date. A very lovely date with the person whom I've been crushing on.

Real life gets in the way and you can't stay on a date 24/7, but I'd like to. All day at work yesterday, I was reminded by the small piece of folded paper in my pocket, by the picture on my phone, by the taste of cherry cough drops and chapstick - all tangible evidence that I wasn't dreaming.

It's the smile, the eyes, the hair, the skin, the tattoos, the way the waitress comes up to the table and I blush because I'm pretty sure she can see what we're thinking when we stare at each other like that over our water glasses. It's those stares. It's the collar tugs and the hands in my hair and the sweet, amused glint in the eyes when I just can't stop myself from feeling all that soft skin.

It's the door opening, the effects of two beers, the laughter when I'm awkward and silly, the sleepy smiles, the hot hand on my back through my jacket, the singing and the dancing. It's the protector and protected, it's the talking and the not needing to, it's how everything feels like we've done it already - the easy rhythms and moments that should feel so uncomfortable but don't.

It's in the way I didn't feel self conscious once, about my body or my hair or my makeup. It's in the way I felt proud, in the way I never wanted to let go, in the way I wanted to hold hands and show off the amazing person I was with. It's in the quiet way I wanted to go unnoticed, in our little bubble, invisible and free to make out without my hatred for PDA getting in the way (looking back on it you'd have no idea I hate PDA.) It's in the way we say things and then look to see if we got the reaction we wanted, and if we didn't, we try to fix it. It's in the way we listen.

If I go quiet here, it's because I'm finally speaking out loud.

Sugarbutch/Poly

I just want to take a minute and talk about Sugarbutch. Sinclair has been cultivating fantastic interviews about poly life and I am thoroughly enjoying all of them. Poly freaks me out. I've talked about this before. There's so much in me that would be interested in poly with the right people, but also I'm so afraid of not being enough (reoccurring theme much?)/losing love/getting walked out on/ I have severe insecurity issues because my girlfriends keep going straight.

Of all the interviews, this is the one I love most so far. Because this reassures me. This makes me feel like as a normal person with all my issues, I could overcome it to have a healthy, happy, lifelong relationship with more than one person. Not that I'm going to, because that's not something I really crave, so it would have to be both of us seeking out that situation. But still, the reassurance is nice, and the interviews are beautiful and full of good advice. Check them out.

Two Sided Coins

The phrase "both sides of the coin" seems to come up a lot with me. It came up in Updates/Desires, in my first Lesbian/Bisexual post years ago, in my very first post here.

I am two sides to the story, I am two points of view - so much so, that sometimes it feels like I'm two people. I'm butch and femme, gentle and fierce, hardworking and lazy, kind and mean, ugly and beautiful, educated and gullible, elegant and clumsy. I am pro-troops and anti-war, pro-charity and yet I don't give, pro-women's rights yet still uncomfortable with high abortion rates, a lover of art with no talent or background, a musician too scared to play, a writer - published - who now can't undertake anything more than a blog.

I am an amalgamation of people. So many paradoxical ideas - all living and breathing and trying to coexist inside one body. Over the course of this blog, some of you who have been with me since the beginning have seen me search for who I am and what my box is. I don't fit in a box.

But maybe I went searching for my box the wrong way. I went searching for everything I wanted to be, so confused, so naive and drowning in a world of terms and relationships that I didn't understand. Not once did I ask myself what I wanted. Not once did I ask myself what I needed. So caught up in figuring out what was wrong with me, I just assumed that anyone I fell in love with would be perfect, would be right.

And to some extent, every girl is perfect. Every girl fits some piece of me, some part that longs to blossom into life and is nurtured along by her and I can be happy with her. But not every girl can understand that I see through a fractured crystal of a lens, and all the fragments blink back eighteen different images rather than the solitary one an average person sees.

Maybe if I'd asked myself what I need in a relationship, the compassion, the giving heart, the fiery spirit, the conviction, and maybe the ability to see or understand how I see the world, I would have found myself sooner. Would have realized that instead of trying to fit into the butch/femme dynamic, I live both inside and above it - like an umbrella, understanding what lies beneath but ultimately too much and too widely spread to say I belong.

Both sides of a coin.

Here's your Christmas Present: The erotic tales of Caci and Natalie beginning and conclusion on Rainbow Sprinkles ;) You're Welcome! 


This just seems to fit all the themes going on my head this week, and when I wrote this post it ended up getting stuck in my head.

Updates/Desires

After being *ahem* heckled on twitter about my girl crushes :)  I had some startling realizations about myself, my esteem and my love life. Whichever girl I like can be awful, mean as hell, or undeserving (in another's point of view), but I'll think she's wonderful. Is that normal? Isn't that how relationships go? Aren't we all blind to faults?

I mean, I don't like being emotionally abused and I won't put up with it, but there are certain things I get railroaded into. I do end up getting into situations where I'm used physically, but I'll need a therapist to work out that one. Point is, I like when my my girl can get a little mean, because I like a good fight. I like stubbornness and strong convictions because I like confrontation and the explosive force that comes from a passionate argument. I enjoy the cathartic energy of airing grievances and finally getting everything out into the open. If we can't fight, are we really communicating?

There's a certain balance to be achieved in a relationship. Sweet and gentle vs explosive and passionate. I want both sides of this coin. I want the soft mornings and sweet words in bed, I want the hallway fights with slamming cupboards, the frequent shower interruptions to ask a question, the giggles at family parties, the frustration at public events when we want to be alone, and the nights on the couch when I am so mad but then at three in the morning I want nothing more than your arms wrapped around me.

Can I have everything? I don't know. But I want it.

Bonus- here's an excerpt of the latest chapter of my first:girl series AKA coming out story now up on wordpress: Mimosas

The guilt ate at me and the mimosas weren’t helping. I’m home. I sent her. I forgot to check my phone last night. I’m sorry I made you worry. Hope you got some sleep. It was presumptuous, thinking that she had been worried about me, but I typed it anyway, hoping.

I waited, drank another mimosa. Nothing. The tears built up again. I felt like a yo-yo, jerked around one way and then the other. How could she be so loving, so caring, and then so completely heartless? How could she see me aching to offer my soul on a platter to her and wave it away like an undercooked meal?

My housemate knocked on my door after one in the afternoon. “I heard something about you last night,” she started, but I shook my head.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” my voice was hoarse from crying.

“So it ended badly. We all knew it would, Tabby. God, can’t you see she was playing you? You can’t trust girls like that. They’re just as bad as guys, pitting girls against each other-” I shook myself out of my stupor.

“Girls like what?” I searched around for the term clumsily given to me in the heat of an argument.

“Butch girls? You’re judging her because of how she looks?” I was in full defense mode. Maybe Gwen had just broken my heart, but she was still everything to me and that meant fighting for her to the ends of the earth.

“No. Well, yes. Maybe. C’mon, Tabby. You know her, you’ve seen her. She’s playing you.”

“Are you saying that all this crap I’ve gone through with you and Charlie and all the others is because Gwen isn’t a nice, normal, Stepford-wife girl? That if she had long hair and a polite smile and drank cosmos instead of beer and whiskey, and didn’t curse, and wore high heels instead of converse, and dresses instead of mismatched plaids-” I choked, those were all things I loved about her. I loved her masculinity. I loved her rough edges, the way she held her beer. I loved the quirky smile and the crooked teeth and the no makeup and the tattoos and all those gorgeous freckles.

“That everyone would have been fine?” I finished harshly.

Crushing/Lesbissues

Crushing is hard for everybody, but I think crushing is especially hard for lesbians. I see this on Sasha's site over at CCL all the time, where girls are constantly asking for advice on how they know if another girl likes them back. Girls are damn flirty creatures. Myself included. I love to flirt. I flirt with girls, I flirt with boys, I flirt with babies and bunnies and unicorns and Albus Dumbledore. Okay? I'm a flirt.

But when it comes to crushing on someone? It's so hard. I practically clam up. My physical and mental ability to flirt dies and leaves me alone muttering something unintelligible about tamales, and I've got nothing intelligent or witty. I understand that the only way to figure out if a girl is a lesbian/interested in you is just to ask, but I'm afraid of the asking the silence that follows.

You know the one I mean - the two hours of your day that used to be filled with talking to her, that are now empty. The endless minutes, the sparks of thought and conversation that you want to share with that one person who you know will get it - but wait, it's radio silence from her end. Because those words, "I like you," "I'm attracted to you," "I'm crushing on you," "my feelings for you extend beyond a platonic friendship," all seem to spell sudden death for my friendships with girls. And rather than push for a relationship, I'd rather at least have someone to talk to.

Not that it ends that way every time. If I have a pretty clear signal I'll go for it, but most of the time I can't be the person who says it first. Because I'll be honest: I'm afraid I'm going to be left alone, pining, with an outstretched hand and an empty text message inbox, and I know I'm not the only one. So when there's two of us who feel this way about each other, who the hell plucks up the courage to make the first move, or are we just tunnel-o-love boats that pass in the night?

Note: lesbissues (lez-bee-issues) is my new favorite term. Put that right at the top with mo' homo.

Elise

I want to talk about last night's dream because it was lovely, hot, heart-wrenching, and weird. It's been a while since we've talked about dreams, so: I was living in this underground community which was divided into two factions of unrest, but not really fighting. I had been dating, and was totally in love with, this wonderful girl named Elise, and we went on a date to a place that was filled with giant gumball looking machines, but I think they were arcade games or slot machines. It was the go-to place in our community. Afterward, she took me back to meet her parents.

All throughout dinner, these huge spider things kept crawling toward my foot and were scaring me but Elise's father told me to lift my foot up and they would scuttle away, so I held my foot aloft and noticed there was a thick web attached to my shoe, but when it was held up they stayed away. I put my foot back down for a moment, and this giant (I'm talking foot-long) spider bit me.

Elise started freaking out and so did I because the spider had metal jaws and it hurt. Her dad started laughing about how I would pivot my whole world around Elise and it would be the thing that destroyed my faction. I realized he was part of the rebellion and the spider was a man-made metallic instrument, perhaps poisonous or explosive, but definitely bad. Elise started to fight, reaching for me, screaming at her father that she loved me and didn't want to spend her life apart from me. He held her back and threw me into another room.

There was an explosion. I woke up on the surface with hundreds of people around me, digging for Elise and the "lost family" that had been buried under some sort of freak accident or earthquake. I pounded on the ground, screaming for Elise, crying. Someone rubbed my back and I looked up to see Elise, smiling at me. She pulled me into a hug and I burrowed into her warmth.

"I don't want this to separate us," she told me. "I didn't know what he was going to do. I'm so sorry. I love you, I really, really love you," she pleaded, brushing away my tears. I nodded, heart in my throat, only glad she was alive. I swept her hair off her forehead and tried to memorize her face, still so worried she'd disappear.

"The machines!" someone cried in the distance. "All the buttons are loose and it's a code violation! They're going to take them all down!"

"Everyone, go! Turn them clockwise- to the right! We can fix it!" I shouted out directions. I knew Elise would be with me on this. Our reunion could come after. The machines were important to the happiness of our community, and they were special to us as well. I lost sight of her as we all ran amongst the machines, tightening, fixing. After a while the inspectors backed down. Everyone made their way back to the digging site, but I couldn't find Elise.

"We haven't brought anyone up yet," the foreman told me when I questioned him about her. "Haven't even broken through."

Had she come out through a secret tunnel? Had I been dreaming? Had anyone else seen her? 

Frantically, I began to dig.

Excerpt from Starlight

As some of you know, I've been writing my first:girl series over at tabbyqt.wordpress.com and I wanted to give you guys a little snippet of the latest post. For the juicy part you'll have to go to wordpress. No password needed for this one. Some pieces of the story are under password (which is very easy to get through comment, twitter, or email by saying please!)

Starlight

My throat felt tight and my eyes were hot. I gulped for air and turned my head to rest my cheek on Gwen’s breast. I couldn’t keep it in and my chest heaved against hers as a quiet sob ripped through my throat.

“What are you- Oh my god, are you crying?” Gwen asked incredulously, stroking my shoulder. I sat up, shoving her arm away from where it had been wrapped around me and wiped a tear from my cheek.

“I’m not crying!” I protested, but my voice broke. “It’s just-” Gwen was laughing at me! “Come on, do you have no heart? Bette and Tina are supposed to be together forever!” I sobbed at her. “You knew this was going to happen and you made me watch it anyway, you bitch!"

She cracked up, doubled over laughing at my heartbroken state. “It’s a TV show. Tabby, you’re crying over L Word. They’re not real!” she managed in between chuckles.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s – They’re – Jesus, Gwen, she was her first!” I wasn’t crying anymore, mad at her instead.

“So she can go out and experience something new,” she shrugged. “That’s a good thing. You never know what’s going to happen, who’s going to stay together or get together or get back together or what’s going to fall apart. That’s all part of the fun.” She got up to get herself a glass of water.

“It’s not fun,” I grumbled, clutching a pillow to my chest. I wiped the stray tears from my face and the ache behind my eyes dimmed and took up residence faintly behind my heart. She brought a glass of water for me without asking and I gulped it down gratefully. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I’d gotten. Wordlessly, she handed me the other glass and I drank the whole thing as well, but slower. I handed it back to her with a raised brow and then flushed. Right, I’d been crying, of course I was thirsty. “Can we watch something happy now?” I begged.

“Happy? With lesbians?” she joked wryly. “Pick out whatever,” she gestured to the shelf. I looked through the titles she’d already made me watch: My Summer of Love, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, But I’m a Cheerleader, Lost and Delirious, Better than Chocolate, and Boys Don’t Cry. I guess happiness was a mixed bag.

I shrugged, still thinking about the fictional break up I'd just witnessed. "Can we just...I don't know."

"You want to go for a walk?" she asked, and I lit up. How could she know me better than I knew myself? We pulled on our coats and I slipped on my flats as she took a cigarette from a pack in the back of a kitchen drawer. It was odd that she wanted to smoke, since usually it was a social thing for her, but we had both been stressed out at work. She lit it and we quickly made our way out the front door, locking it behind us.

The night was cold and crisp, the stars overhead were glowing, crystal clear points in a dark lake. Our breath fanned out in front of us and frost was already gathering on the grass. The tops of my feet chilled between my flats and the hem of my jeans.

"Gwen," I took her hand in mine, velvet-soft, warm, slightly larger than mine. We fell into synchronized step immediately, I'm not sure whether it was a conscious effort on her part or not. It didn't seem like it.

"What's up, girl?" she asked, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth. I loved when she did that. I loved the Christmas smell of her vanilla and clove cigarettes and wondered what she must taste like.

"What's it like to live in the city, where you can't see the milky way, or the teaspoon?"

"The teaspoon?" she laughed questioningly, pulling another drag off her cigarette.

I nudged her playfully. "Pleiades. The Seven Sisters. It looks like the Big Dipper but really, really tiny so I always called it the teaspoon. It's right there," I pointed it out to her and she readjusted her glasses.

"Wow, I don't think I ever even realized there was a constellation there," she confessed, cigarette pressed against the frame of her glasses. She still hadn't let go of my hand. I let my head drop to her shoulder and looked up at the stars, breathing her in.

"There's a thousand of them. Cassiopeia is that big 'W' shape, and her daughter Andromeda and Perseus are both up there with her. Perseus is carrying Medusa's head - that red star right there is her eye, and it's a malicious star in every culture."

"Weird," she craned her head back to look at the constellations I'd pointed out. The cold bit into my skin and I was shivering, but my nose brushed against the skin of her neck. I leaned in and kissed the warm, soft skin below her ear, begging silently for her not to pull away.

Continued at tabbyqt.wordpress.com

Day 23 Kissing

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 23 — The last person you kissed

There are different levels of kissing. There's the kiss your best friend's mom gives you because you're being great to her baby girl. There's the kiss a child gives you because you just lit up their whole world. There's the kiss your girlfriend gives you and you feel like you can't breathe because your mind is running so fast and you're feeling all the feelings. And there's the kiss that makes your heart click into your chest because you're in love and you've never felt so whole.

My best friend's mom kissed me goodbye when I was visiting them during election week, a nice motherly smack on the cheek which filled me with a warm tenderness. A small child refused to let go of me at work today, as she does every day, because her time with me is considered precious to her. I treat her with kindness, compassion, and respect and give her upset feelings the same consideration I would give an adult's instead of writing them off as a tantrum. Lots of hugs and occasional cheek kisses from that little one.

The redhead and I broke up a while back, so it's been some time since I've had a really great, passionate, all the feelings, kiss. I miss those. I love those. I love the adrenaline, the affection, the happiness, and the heart pounding and the swelling chest and the mile a minute thoughts and the pulse throbbing through my fingertips.

It's been longer since I've had an "oh, this is what it feels like to have my heart stop bleeding because the other half is finally back in my chest" type of kiss. The kind of kiss that can be so simple, so sweet, but so electric, so absolutely against every law of physics and biomechanics that it bends the universe to the lips of two people.

Thank goodness I've got my dreams, or I'd go crazy. I guess if all else fails I can just sit outside a Domino's Pizza and write erotica ;)  Did you miss that tweet? Don't worry, it was nothing special. :D

Update: She appeared again last night - the girl I don't know. But this felt more like an early dating phase in our relationship. We were biking down a trail near a large river, filled with people. We stopped to take in the view and she hugged me to her, my head on her chest as she stroked my hair and I traced my thumbs over the skin above her waistband. It was the happiest, the calmest I'd felt in a long time.

A sweet moment, soon interrupted by threats and grumbles from those around us. Uncomfortable and a little afraid, we began to walk until we came upon a precipice with the river far below, and on the other bank a Tegan and Sara concert was starting up. Happy to find an ally, we shouted their names until they noticed us and turned a spotlight on us.

They decided to play a game for our freedom, and two of their stagehands brought us microphones, declaring that we would sing two songs. Thinking they would be Tegan and Sara songs, we agreed, and she started first. It was an old song, and they had changed all the lyrics to make it funnier, but she stuck to the original (something about a "corvette built for two" and "how I love my boyfriend" that she sang to me and made me giggle). I could tell they were displeased. My alarm went off before we ever got to my song. It was a roller coaster of a dream, but all the ones with her in it leave a lingering happy feeling.

Day 15 Missing

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 15 — The person you miss the most

If I'm going to be honest with you, really honest, it's hard not to make it all come back to first:girl. I think until I fall in love she's the only romantic trauma I've got. She's the only relationship I delved into headfirst and didn't want to come up for air. I have no other experience with that intensity to compare it with, so who else am I supposed to miss?

My best friends? My dead relatives? The brothers I see once a year or the sister I see once every 2 or 3? How can I miss them more than I miss being in love with her? How can they compare to feeling complete? How can you possibly miss something more than the ache of being touched all the time in the smallest of ways?

Hours. The longest I went without a gentle caress, a steadying hand, a reassuring palm to the small of my back - might have been a few hours. Now it's days, or weeks. Weeks without a loving touch, a gentle kiss of fingers against my cheek. The lack of touch could make anyone wither, could make anyone go insane with wanting, with missing.

I try not to think about it. I can stand on my own two feet. I can wait for the right person. I'm not desperate or fragile or crazy enough to beg like a kitten arching between someone's feet for affection. I want feelings first.

But I miss all the touches.



Just as an update because I've gotten an influx of comments and emails about my ex from Day 7: I don't want that ex back; I know I talk about her a lot but I don't want first:girl back. I miss things about my relationships with each of them, sure, but because those are happy memories. Relationships end for a reason, and each has given me an opportunity to learn, grow, and become a better person. So, when you ask me what I'm going to do to get her back -

Nothing. My past relationships aren't right for who I am now. And if you're trying to get someone back, maybe you need to look at how the two of you have changed and see if you can still forge that connection and be what the other wants and needs.