nicole

what the fuck is she even doing in law school? can't she think of herself she's not happy there. why does she have to be so damn hard-suffering.

don't do this to yourself.

l-o-v-e.

wine makes me sad.

elsewhere.

angel chasing clocky around the room in a valiant attempt to pet it is one of the cutest things i've ever seen in my life. i love her so much :)

i like the night people, and sitting around outside paradiz at three in the morning. people smile at you at night, between the closed shops and the quiet streets. they are happier and quieter and more honest.

cities don't change, much. for you or for me.

no, ryan.

i would really like to see nicole right now.

i... really would.

all i want.

i don't know how to unlove.

the obvious solution is to learn to love more freely.

i need to make a list of things that make me happy. like sitting on the internets, reading /ck/ and learning how to cook. like little smiles from girls i love. like canned mocha nescafé. like angel when, on being kissed goodbye on the forehead while sleeping, wakes up and pulls me close so i can't leave the house without being hugged.

if i had my way the laws of physics would be such that every time someone experiences something that makes them happy they would be forced to do a little jig.

being happy makes me happy. it feels like being loved by a ghost.

i still love nicole, very much. but in a good way this time.

on getting better.

we all change, grow, and learn.

even me, apparently.

holes.

easily the seventh hole-in-the-ground i've dug for the army. i can never get rid of the feeling that i'm digging my own grave.

sometimes it's hard to push away the anger, the bitterness; the pointlessness of it all. but it's just soil, and dirt, and earth, and i am more than a hole. fuck the army, but i am more than a hole.

i will come out on top of this shit.

rewind/play.

i am walking with nicole in a windy field. it's quiet and we're both silent, just walking, holding hands, making our way softly through the lallang.

i realize that i am truly, honestly happy, so happy that it hurts. i stop, and tell her this. tell her that i love her, tell her that i'm happy. i'm happy. it's enough for me.

she smiles a bright little nicole smile and asks me why the sudden.

i know now, and it crashes into every inch of my body. you're going to break up with me nicole, i say. you don't understand. someone else takes these quiet walks with you now.

she looks hurt. no, she says, i'm not going to break up with you. i might forget, but i'll remember sometime. she looks at me with those bright, terrible eyes. i won't forget.

i wake up and her eyes fade from my throat into the darkness. the dream is the sixth of its kind this month.

every night i lose her all over again.

on nicole.

I have a propensity to romanticize. I won't here.

It's only now, after all the dust has settled, that I realize that it was never about getting over her. It was about getting over myself.

Looking back, I think she really loved me, and wanted me to be a better person. She saw me for everything I could be and was upset when I didn't live up to that. In that light, in the light of that kind of love, all the little things I got angry about seem selfish and self-absorbed.

So, honestly and without pretension, all I can say is that I'm sorry for everything that I did. Sorry that things turned out the way they have, sorry I disappointed her, sorry for the bitterness and stupidity that's come between two people who could have been good friends - could've been more than friends, could have been in each other's lives for a very long time.

I'm not sure she knows just how much she meant to me. And I would give both legs if I could have a chance to redo it all over again.

A part of me will always belong to Nicole; caught up in quiet moments, in jennifs and chocolate, in the days of two people alone in the world. That part of me will always exist, even if the rest of me forgets, moves on. For better or for worse, I loved Nicole. Even if what I didn't always show it.