Yesterday began with chocolate chips and a phone call with my best friend. Bitching about boys and liars and the little Kentucky town with the bar in the flea market. We laughed and complained about our bad eating and tried as hard as we could to close the distance between us. To pretend that there wasn’t a two hour drive down desolate roads separating the only person in the world we really trust with all our dirty secrets and midnight embarassments. But at the end of thirty minutes you had to go to Spanish with that country twang boy who drives a green truck and I had to wipte the chocolate off my mouth and head to the daycare where my roomate and her green eyed boyfriend were waiting for me. Singing old Aaron Carter and reading Chuck Palinhuk in the parking lot when she came out, a mess of long blonde hair and stories about hungry toddlers who bite angelic little girls. We drove to the puppy shelter in his moms clean red car and Oohed and Aahed over the tiny perfection locked in slobbery newspaper covered cages. Their food bowls were empty and their eyes were pleading. High pitched barks and low, growling moans. I wanted to rescue them but my eyes were watering and my chest was tight. I wanted to pet every one of their nappy heads but I didn’t have my inhaler so I kept my sanitized hands in my pockets and watched as she picked up the chocolate brown rotweiler she wanted. Holding it in her arms like the children at her daycare, it’s face nuzzling her armpit as if it belonged. It was free and the over-eyelinered girl behind the desk glared at us as we left. Her rainbow lipring biting into a McChicken sandwich and chewing with angst- we took the one she wanted and there was nothing she could do. Little did she know Scooby would be back tomorrow. After a night of whining and peeing and keeping that beautiful couple awake I thanked God for the Nyquil I drank down with my tea. I’m sorry beautiful puppy- there’s just no room in this garage sale apartment for you.

At seven I met you for coffee at Starbucks. You ate your messy blueberry muffin and laughed your loud laugh, the one that echos through any room and infects the ones around you with unknowing smiles. Talked on your cell phone while I pretended to read the business section and wished I had washed my hair. Blonde braids to disguise the fact that I have been too busy to shower, tight brown sweatpants and a paisley orange tank. Mustard cashmere scarf but next to you I sense all my imperfections so I drink my coffee and avert my eyes. Promise to wash the orange and blue nailpolish off when I get home and tell you I want to learn to play the piano. Oh, there are so many things I’m dying to do. These days are slipping through my chipped nailpolish fingernails but now I’m ready to grab onto them. You’re ocean eyes are pretty but it’s your zest for life that’s got me checking my phone to see if you texted. It’s your passion and your drive, the way you watch Kentucky basketball with your feet up on your desk eating a Twix. Yelling at the screen while I smile in silence behind you. The little things. When your green tea is gone you walk me to my car and tickle me. Your scruffy beard grazing my face, sandpaper on my tan cheeks. I drive away, call my best friend, eat queso alone. Make my moms spiced tea and read about African Lullabys and haunted victorian houses. Dream of playing the piano and Nicholas Sparks movies.

This weekend was a series of dizzy disasters and sexy outfits. Polka dot dresses with corset backs and knee high boots. Cheetah print sweaters and tiny red tank tops. Learning to love the long haired blonde with the perfect smile who works at a day care and has no idea how gorgeous she is. She cleans compulsively and doesn’t care when I get in the car and just drive. Not going anywhere, not doing anything. Driving in the cold afternoon sun down winding country streets I’ve never seen because sitting in one place and thinking about all of your lies was killing me. Because the words on my computer screen from the same girl whose kisses you stole on the nights when I was home in bed worrying about you are replaying in my mind and leaving me with hot red rage. Making my skin itch and my eyes burn. Making me feel naseus because all those nights I was right. And now she messages me and asks for advice about you- the broken brunette boy who drinks too much and wastes his nights on girls like you. The one who’ll make you fall in love then rip you apart, using the secrets you whispered to him when you were alone and you thought he was your everything to reduce you to tears. My advice- stay away. I am not bitter just bruised, and warning even you, my misled lip ringed girl, to stay far far away. Unless you are craving catastrophe. Unless you think you can save him. But believe me, you can’t. Because he doesn’t want to be saved. He will self destruct and drag you down by your mismatched plaid shirt until you have no one.

So we drove, her and I. Listened to Guster and The Wreckers and right when I thought the tears were about to come she turned on Shania Twain and convinced me to sing as loud as I could. Any man of mine better be proud of me, even when I’m ugly he stil better love me. Never underestimate the monumental power of a good country song. As the chorus came to a close the traffic got thick and we could see flashy lights ahead. Broken glass and crumpled cars in the middle of the intersection. A heavy set fireman standing on top of his truck and all of a sudden life seemed too short. All of a sudden both of our broken hearts realized that even though they were broken they were still beating. Still making the  blood  flow to our cheeks and the laughter spill from our bodies. Still letting us sing Shania Twain on a Saturday afternoon and order salty Mcdonalds fries when we were hungry for sin. And in that moment I knew I was meant to drive down that road, see that wreck. So that I could see LIFE, so that I could remember that these daily tragedies are minor in the grand scheme of the beautiful adventure I am on, and though the pain may be prominent now, when I open myself up to love, to the world, to the healing power of miss Shania and my adorable new roomate, the healing will begin, and you will be a memory void of the power to haunt me.

How is it that the sunniest days can turn into the most beautiful disasters? Early morning drive in the Ohio cold but I was warm with memories and excited for the sweet possibility the rest of these winter months suddenly seemed to offer. Hot vegetable soup and The Rolling Stones and your cotton candy hands, getting a peek into your world was enough to make me forget the pain my 2009 is dripping with. It was enough to inspire these fingers to write again, to want to stain my universe with poetry because joy and art and understanding are swirling all around me. Because my eyes haven’t been red from crying for days and considering the windy road it took for me to find myself again that’s saying something.

This morning I watched Pleasantville in an empty apartment and imagined a world of black and white- right and wrong, sunny days and quiet nights and a lovely sense of perfect belonging that you did not question or defy. I imagined a world where none of these daily dramas would exist because it was bland of emotion, a tearless, joyless existence. But if this black and white reality means there would be no color- the ocean green of your eyes, the tinged red of your chapped lips, the new golden shine of my hair or the turquoise blue of a summer sky then fuck it. I’ll take the pain, the tears, the earth shattering moments of self doubt. I’ll take the days like this one, where things go painfully wrong so fast and your stomach hurts and you can’t find the right words to say without breaking anyone. I’ll take the nights that I soaked my pillow in tears over a pretty college boy with an overgrown ego if it means that I get to laugh with my best friend in a Huddle House in Kentucky until it hurts. If it means I get to know the perfect bliss of a first kiss with a beautiful boy with freckles on his shoulders. If it means I can truely LIVE. I’ll take my messy world over your Pleasantville anyday.

But knowing this doesn’t erase the confusion, the anger, the questions. It doesn’t ease the pain of living, only reaffirms what I already knew- that life, it all it’s totality, is beautiful. Even the shitty days. That there will indeed be disasters but they will only lead to bliss. And I am trying to find words that will cradle you while they speak my truth but oh it is so hard. We are just two pretty girls in search of happiness in a world of cruel facebook statuses and angry twitters. In a place where being loved, some days, seems impossible. <3