The Devil's Rose's blog

2006-11-20 10:32 p.m.

”On the Arrow”
He said, “Who truly belongs here?”
“Not I,” she said, “I’ll lie here with you.”
He knows no one shines forever;
They change with the weather.

He said, “I’ve now stayed too long here.”
“Goodbye,” she said, “I’ll wait here for you.”
He knows the winds carry sorrow.
As they leave, she’ll follow;
They leave tomorrow.

Fragments of joy torn apart,
A freshly drained heart that beats
Disguise themselves through him.
He’ll say that it’s nothing new,
And swear this is true.
For you, I’ll swallow the ocean.

I’ll swallow the ocean.

He said, “Who truly belongs here?”
“Not I,” she said, “I’ll lie here to you.
“I know the sorrow is sacred
“And I’ll never break you.
“I’ll softly save you.”

Fragments of joy torn apart,
A freshly drained heart that beats
Disguise themselves through him.
He’ll say that it’s nothing new,
And swear this is true.
For you, I’ll swallow the ocean.

I’ll swallow the ocean.

I’ve spent the past four hours trying to hide tears from everyone, even though they’re bubbling under the surface, begging to be let out.

I’m not going home this Thanksgiving. There are lots of reasons for this. I can’t afford it. It’s a whole day’s trip in either direction just to fight with my family and cry myself to sleep. That’s how it always works. My siblings, my mom, and I all have a free-for-all battle, ripping at each other verbally in all the ways we know will hurt most. I’m not going to miss that. I spent seventeen years of holidays wanting nothing more than to escape it. That’s why I’m here. In Santa Cruz. When I’m an Angelena by birth. Still, the thought that I won’t even see my mom or my dad or my grandmother or my aunts and uncles or my stepmom or my siblings or my dozens of pets…that’s had me in tears, listening to “On the Arrow.”

I’ve never heard a song that so closely mirrored my own mood before.

I started crying the second I heard it. I have it on my computer now, and I’ve been playing it on repeat, but I keep verging on tears as I listen to it. And I keep hiding them.

Only three people here know the real reason why I’m not going home. I’ve told a lot of people a bunch of bullshit stories about time and money, but three people know the truth. One is my roommate. But I haven’t let her see me cry.

I was writing in my journal earlier, before my seven PM lecture. I had a pressed flower in there, or rather a pressed sprig of flowers. From last year. They were night-blooming jasmine blossoms, and still the delicate shade of pink that they’d been when they were given to me. One of my gay boyfriends gave them to me, on the principle of, “Every girl should get flowers on Valentine’s Day, even if she’s single.” How he’d managed to keep the blooms from closing up or falling off in order to give the sprig to me in the daytime, I’ll never know. It was so sweet; I smiled the entire mile walk home from school, taking such care to make sure nothing happened to the little flowers. I pressed them in my journal, but didn’t forget about them. I still look at them sometimes. They’re beautiful. Beautiful like I wish I was. Beautiful like his intent. Beautiful like this story…because that’s all this is. A pretty little tale.

That gay boyfriend hasn’t written me once since I left for college. And today while I was writing in my journal, his flower sprig fell out onto the floor beside my bed. The blossoms detached from the stem, the stem broke, and the leaves fell off. All still perfectly formed, flexible enough despite being dried to not turn to powder upon impact, in complete disarray beside my bed. Destroyed, but almost more beautiful for that. Certainly more precious.

”Precious”
Precious and fragile things
Need special handling
My God what have we done to you
We always tried to share
The tenderest of care
Now look what we have put you through

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we'd manage
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

Angels with silver wings
Shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you
If God has a master plan
That only He understands
I hope it's your eyes He's seeing through

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we'd manage
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

I pray you learn to trust
Have faith in both of us
And keep room in your hearts for two

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we'd manage
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

And I’m already feeling like a reject. Some of my mother’s last words to me before I left were “Don’t come home for the holidays.”

Granted, it arose out of a fight. But I spent the next week avoiding her whenever I was home and crying into the shoulder of the very same gay man who gave me my night-blooming jasmine blossoms that are still lying disheveled on my bedroom floor. The very same gay man who hasn’t responded to any of my emails since I left Los Angeles. I guess I wasn’t that important to him after all, if he could forget me so fast.

Or rather, I guess he’s more important to me than I can ever be to him. I always have tended to become over-attached to people. I turn them into ideals. Like the gay man who loves his straight girlfriend enough to make sure she gets flowers on Valentine’s Day even though she’s single. Who goes out of his way to make sure that they’re perfect so that they’ll put a smile on her face. Who somehow manages to pick the one flower in the world she finds most beautiful, even though she’s never told him what it is before.

I’ve always loved the smell of jasmine. But now, it just smells bitter to me. My roommate has a jasmine candle she likes to burn in our room to make it smell nice. I always have to choke back tears when I come in after it’s been burning. And maybe there’s an explanation. But that doesn’t stop the fact that it hurts now. And it also doesn’t keep the dark thoughts from rising, unbidden, in my mind to trouble my heart.

I wasn’t that important after all…but then, I never am.

No family for the holidays. A ruined sprig of flowers, all too reminiscent of the friendship that didn’t last past its first major test. Friends who you can’t see or can’t relate to…

I was supposed to go to one of my best friends’ Thanksgivings. That fell through the floor, needless to say. I’ll miss the opportunity to see her, but not as much by a long shot compared to how much I’m already missing all of my best friends.

Only one of my friends is also staying at the University over Thanksgiving break. But he’s…well, a he. A he about whom I happen to be extremely confused. A he on whose shoulder I would like nothing more than to cry. A he who would be frightened by such a display of raw, negative emotion. And, above all else, still just a he. And still just a he whom I met here. We have no history, save for that which was established at a dance or several, or in the dining hall or a cave, or in my room with my tipsy roommate popping in and out periodically as we watched a silly movie.

”Who truly belongs here?”

Not I.

I don’t belong anywhere, I don’t think.

It’s just too bad it hurts so much, is all. I feel like there’s an arrow in my heart. And not in the good, warm and fuzzy, Cupid’s Arrow kind of way.

No, this is the grim, Nobody Loves You As Much As You Love Them Arrow.

What did I expect? I’m the Devil’s Rose after all. I’m inherently unlovable. The things my mom says to me are proof enough of that.

Yours if you’ll love me and promise not to abandon me,
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