an ocean heart

You have never been open with me, or with anyone really. You're the most heartbreaking book of my life, the one I never was able to read. I have never been able to read between the lines of your words and it seems that most of your book is written in an invisible ink, or perhaps never written at all. Perhaps you pretend to write, perhaps your life story is spaces just like Oskar's grandma's life story in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. That, however, I couldn't say to you because you wouldn't understand, because you don't read that much. You once said to me that you don't know how to write, that you have never found words in you even though you have found the words of others. I know it, I know. Music is your language and the ivory keys are your words. Perhaps your life story is music, perhaps that is why I can not read you, because you are no book at all and all this time I have been trying to read you as one. However, while I love music, I do not understand it the way you do. It is not my language, it's not. And friends and having fun while drinking and laughing and loving life is not my way out like it's yours, it's not. My way out is through words, I have let them become my whole world unlike you. You see, I know that while music is your way, you have not accepted it as your world. My way, it used to be strangers and people who I thought were my friends and pretending to have fun while drinking but drinking only to drown the pain and crying and hurting myself and the pain getting deeper. And it took me so long to understand that it is not my way out but a way deeper in. And that you do not and can not understand as well as many other things. I, however, do understand your ways instead of misunderstanding or even judging them. It saddens me that you can not understand me even though I understand you. Or at least, even though I don't completely understand, I can relate. How did I fall for someone like you? Why? Someone like you, who gets along with people and has friends and loves life and knows happiness and nothing else and who always acts before they think, if they think (whereas I always think before I act, if I act) who always gets want they want, who they want, except for me because I'm not like anyone else. (And that takes me to another place, another time.)

You're not like any other girl I know, he said. I'm not like anyone you know, I said. I know that, he said, and that is why it's so difficult for me to be with you. I don't know what to do, what to say or how to be around you because you seem so frail and I feel like I could break you with a mere touch. You're driving me crazy and I want to touch you so much and be near you but it seems that no way I know works with you. None of your ways work with me, I said. Don't think they'll work. I'm not that stupid. I know, he said. He came nearer and nearer anyway and somehow we ended up sitting on the sofa, him holding me. But something inside me was killing me, a tangled ball inside me expanding. There was a silent explosion and then, rivers under my eyes. Worried steps following hurried steps. Hands, those hands that I wanted to be mine so much, that were trying to comfort. And how you stood right in front of me, so near, trying to get to me, wanting to touch me, kiss me. And how you touched my chin and lifted my head back up, trying to get me to look at you and how I couldn't look, I couldn't look. And how I realized only months after that you had wanted to kiss me so much that moment and I had not realized, I was too blind, too absorbed in my own sorrow. I was staring down, staring at a blank white wall, away from you, withdrawing inside myself, vanishing from reality while you stood so near me. It breaks my heart to have ruined such a moment, to have ruined it completely and to never get it back again. And it breaks my heart how, when we left the apartment and walked in the dark hallway you held my hand and how I, as soon as we got outdoors, in the light of the moon and streetlights in the darkness and coldness of winter, let go of your hand and you said to me that 'you let go of my hand as soon as we stepped out' and how you probably thought it was you when it was me. It was always me and it is still me and it will always be me. And I don't know how to make it be you, in a good way. But I'm getting better, at forgetting about me and it making it be you. But it seems to be meaningless now. No matter how much I try, I can not get to you. I can't call you, you won't call me, I can't see you, you don't want to see me. I do my best to forget about you now that I know how to make it you and not me. But I'm really good at making it me and so it has been me again for a while now. But there are times when it hits me, like a lightning, that it could be you and that I still have these feelings for you. I always think I have no feelings but there they are, hiding within my ribcage. I have these feelings for you and now I know how to make it be you and not me but now you don't have any feelings left for me and you have forgotten about me. You have. I know you have. And the saddest part of all is that I'm not too sad, not heartbroken. Because I'm so used to not getting what I want, because I'm sad of losing you and losing my, perhaps only, chance at love just because I am so full of sadness and pain. It's just so stupid. I'm stupid. And I do not understand why it doesn't hurt now, why I'm not crying now and why it hurt then and I cried then. And I do not understand why you're not here now that I'm okay, and I could be happy. If you return when I'm back again in the dark, deep waters of depression, then I know that the whole universe is against me. But even then I'll try, I'll do my best. I'll at least exist if nothing else. It's the greatest effort on my part, the only effort I have the strength to make.

I'm sorry to pour out this all. It's just that there's so many words and no other place... It seems that I can never leave the past behind. Even now my thoughts wander back to February and to him. Perhaps it's just that there never was a closure. I can't forget and I can't let these feelings die until I know for sure that I'm ought to forget and the feelings are ought to die. But I just don't know how to get to him. I just don't know. And I don't even know if anything will ever matter, if I'll always be this way, if I'm destined to drown in the depths of depression. I don't know. I can never forget about the reality, my reality. Everything I do, say and think and everywhere I go depression always follows in my steps, it has become my shadow it seems. It follows me even when I'm okay, even when I'm happy, just waiting for a gap to bore into in which with it can bring me down again, let me crash against the ground while I fall from the clouds yet again. It's always there, casting a shadow over everything. And what is even a greater weight to bear than depression is not being able to talk about it with anyone because people are too scared of depression and they throw around excuses like 'you'll be okay', 'it'll get better' or 'maybe you should get help' and they don't seem to understand that the only help I need and want is to have someone to talk to (and with) with complete honesty and I do not want it to be an obligation but I want someone to do it because they want to and because they care about and love me. I do not understand how people can be so weak and self absorbed as to not be able to help someone who is depressed. I'm, and many, many others too are, strong enough to bear the weight of depression and loneliness and so much more and these people can't even for a single day bear the weight of someone who bears a weight much heavier every single day of their lives. I don't undestand, I don't.