my careless contagion

There's something about her. I can't always put my finger on it. Sometimes I can name it. Sometimes not. It just melts me. Every time. Listen, I'm a man. Been through hard things. Hard times. Endure hard things every day. Wade through pain and frustrations that would make many crack. Sometimes I feel like cracking, too. Sometimes I have to pray hard and fast through strangled tears just to make it through. I've worked more years than those I work with have been alive. I'm tough. Rough around the edges. Stoic and brutish and sometimes cynical and hard. But there is something about that woman that melts me. Every time. All that shellac and veneer. All that painstaking patina. Gone when she's near. She has no idea, I'm sure. I become soft as a baby around her. My heart beats stronger. My mind is set ablaze. The shrapnel in my flesh doesn't hurt. Tiredness in my bones doesn't intrude. I become gooey in her presence. Like clay in her hands. The best parts...

What's this, I made another trip to Nebraska? Yes. It was supposed to be a short trip (I didn't even take photos), just me seeing someone about a job and trying to find a place to live. I later changed my mind and invited my ex to come down also if she could make appointments for whatever. She did, and it was a good idea. Oh, and I got to see Cindy.  I don't know how much I can write in the coming days. Things are moving quickly. I have several possibilities for jobs, even invitations to "come try it out and see if you like it." My ex had a couple of interviews for three positions. I am consistently impressed by the people in Nebraska. They are not all kind and genuine, I know, but many are. Whereas in South Dakota if I had a good interaction with a person, I would consider it rare and it would make my day, in Nebraska, it seems such interactions are common.  Oh, and Kate and I put in an application for a place to live: a nice, newly-renovated home on wheels. What...

She found me lost and alone wavering like a metronome born into a hateful world she swallowed me in her arms and I was never the same One woman can change a man  one love, one touch, and one forever if you don't believe me just look at me now She loves me at my worst lifts me up when I feel done grants me access to a new world where I don't have to be perfect She's knows I'm just a man but treats me like I'm better, made of something swift and strong and forever young She also sees the scars etched deeply in my flesh I stand naked before her but she never judges What I am is changed her love changed me rearranged me put me back together better even made me look at myself and not hate what I saw Now I see why God gave woman to man what a blessing, what peace what a stunning realization so different from what I've always known And so I love her, too,  the same as she loves me with everything I have until my last breath what a beautiful woman to make such an ugly m...

  Chasing Amy. Looking for Alaska. 500 Days of Summer. The Great Gatsby.  I have my own lost love story. It's compelling. It's beautiful. It's haunting.  I still chase her with my mind. I still feel her with my heart. She was the most beautiful thing I ever held in my hands. She was always there. Until she wasn't. I've searched for her ever since. I never knew a woman could make me feel the things she did. I never knew I'd be so impossibly ruined by her — ruined for anything else. I knew she was never truly mine, but just the thought of having her made me impossibly happy. A love like that is a gift. A woman like her is a jewel. The time we had together was a dream. And the memories of her sustain me.  There is no perfect human being, but she was perfect to me. She made me see the world differently. She let me believe something as precious as her could be had by a man like me. Oh, what I would give for just one more day with her. Just to hear her voic...