UpSiDe DoWn

Do you know what it's like to have your past run circles around you? To feel so trapped you go back to writing on a blog that the other person doesn't even remember, will never look at again, just throwing your wasted words into the black abyss of cyberspace? To feel so choked up that you're on break just because if you have to think for one more minute on the job you're going to burst into tears?
Why did you leave me, Levi? Why? Didn't you mean anything that you said on this blog? Didn't a single post, a single letter, leave any lasting reverberation in your heart? How can you be so blissful with the Noelle void in your life now? Except it isn't a void, because you patched it up pretty fast with the Tim filler and Anna filler and New Job Position filler. And here I am, still spinning my wheels, still thwarted by my past, still trapped in the pain and agony that your void leaves. Because you aren't replacable to me. Not for a minute, not for a day, not for seven months. You just weren't. I loved you that real. And you, did you love me at all? Please come back. Please tell me it was real. Everything is falling apart on me. I've tried to move on, to find some peace, to find some new life, some new anything. And my past keeps rushing back over me, everywhere I try to run from it. I just want to get away from it, to forget it. I threw my Andri box into the dumpster and I swore I would never remember but they won't let me. Credit reports, medical reports, the DMV, they all just keep hounding me. How could you judge me for hanging onto the past when it refuses to let me go as well? I tried to be the girl you wanted, who was free of the past, and it was just a lie. All I lost were the good memories, the sweet tangible evidence that in all that bad there was good. And I threw it all away. I threw it all away for you, for the boy who told me he loved me but didn't mean it. Not deep down where forever resounds in his soul. Because you walked away. You walked away, and you left me with all this mess. And I'm drowning. I'm drowning in it. I can't find up, I can't find down. I can't move forward because there is nothing there for me but more pain, more suffering from the choices of my past. And the good things in the past? The thing like... you? I will never get that back either.
Because it's days like today when I'm trapped and alone and the tears won't stop flowing and I have to go back to my high stress job in just a few horrible minutes and.... I'm sitting here writing on this blog. Because I didn't want you to go. I tried so hard to get you back. All I've ever done is fail.I've failed everything in my life. Every single thing. Every. Single. thing. And none of them, as important as you, and yet... none of them as final as you. Because you're gone today. You're always gone. And you always will be. You left me on my own and you are never, ever, coming back. You will always walk right by your Noelle and turn your smiles on someone else. There is nothing left for Noelle. nothing nothing at all.
Levi, why?

Seven Months

Oh, Levi. July 13th has come and gone... another month tucked into history, never to be erased. Why did you leave me? At what point did you stop loving and praying and turn... cold? To walk away and never look back? Oh, I saw you on Sunday all by yourself. I imagine Anna has gone back home, was ill, something. But it was the most bittersweet, hopeful sight I've seen all summer. My Levi... and the place at his side open. My place, waiting for me again. It was hard not to let the tears fall in the choir loft. Oh, Levi. How can I love you so much? Still? It's easy, really.... just go reread your own post from June 2nd, last summer. When we made our pinky promises to each other. When you compared us to tattered, fraying ropes, and the only strength that could keep us together is the 3rd cord of God intertwining us. Oh, to just read that... and I am awash with regret, shame, and repentance for all the times I let you down, God down. And the prayers and tears mingle from sadness to joy, because I know, I know, deep in my heart... I love you still. I'll do anything to try again. To make it. I'm still here... still here in Oklahoma City though I'm terrified... and I'm still praying and waiting all alone... and I love you more each day.
I know you are home today. Home... Washington... the beautiful castle in the sky to me. Did you fly? Who dropped you off? Did they give you a hug, a tight one, and tuck a letter in your hand to read on the plane? Did they text you in Los Vegas' layover? Are they praying for you, as I am, right now? Oh... I hope it is a good visit home. I'm so confused by all the time you have been able to take off work since you left me.. the Southern Jubilee, the Preaching Conference Week, the Banquet... and now, three weeks? That's what Davina told my mom... But oh. I can't express the joy inside my hurting heart. That my Levi could be home, could rest... oh, it makes me so happy... so wistfully jealous. I want to go home so badly.... And yet, I really want to go to you... You are my home.
I found this song randomly. I don't like the original by Jason Mraz quite as much as this cover by a little teen girl, because... it's easy to hear my voice instead of hers. But as I sat at the latest game night with all the Heartland Singles and Crossbearers and they poked me about not crushing on anyone yet... I looked over at the sunset and let the beauty and warmth wash across my pale, sad skin. Because I'm not alone. You're memories, your spirit, is in the chair right beside me. If i reach out my hand... I can remember what it felt like to have your hand hold mine. And it gives me hope. I will never want anyone else but you. You said it was not in your nature to hate? It is not in my nature to let go. Not ever.....

This song is for you.
I hope someday, you hear it on your own. And I hope that you think of your little Noelle. She misses you so much tonight.


I Won't Give Up on Levi

July

Dear Levi,
the sky is soft and dark tonight, a beautiful kind of quiet that comes with the settling of earth into sleep under heaven's watching care. The sky at Brixton Square, facing west, is always light up with spectacular sunsets but it has always been the twilight that I love most. The moment when I can almost hear the world nestling down into sleep. When timid deer cross the pastures, bunny rabbits snuggle close in their hollows, and lonesome owls take wing into the night. The moment when the skies are coming out, one by one, glittering and shining against the fading light of the day. The clouds are deep indigo and sapphire, layers of blue and darker blue and darker blue to black against the treeline. This is my favorite time of day, but it is almost the saddest.
May was agonizing, exhausting, blisteringly cruel.
June... just was Idabel. June was the slow seep of acceptance into my soul. June was restful.
July... July has been hard. The hysteria started up again, the tears, the sleepless nights with nightmares and screams for you. Horrible nightmares, your presence so close and so untangible. Always reciting the ways I have failed. The ways I have never been good enough. Not for Dri, not for you. July has been panicky. Changes with Panera. My new job at TGIF. Changes with my rent. Changes on the outside, changes on the inside. The anniversary of my car wreck... the renewal of the despair. If God is always going to take away the things I love and dream for, then why doesn't he just take me to be in heaven with him? The thought has been resurrected in my broken, lonely heart. But I know he wouldn't let me die for a reason... I try to find it. I try every day to make a difference for someone, to leave a reason for why I existed today. I am trying to be a better person than I was two years ago, and while the pain is still as bad, it's amazing how different I am than back then. God is with me always now. His comforter.... what would I do without him? I cannot feel him, but I know he is here. Every minute.
I miss you. You look happy, in church, from across the great expanse when I see you. You look boyish and energetic and happy. I am glad, because I pray each day for you. But you look skinnier... are you eating okay? Do you have enough money? I hope the 300$ I put on your last school bell helped you start out for summer. Did you get AC in Santanna, or are you dealing with the heat okay? I worry about you... pray... pray... pray. I never stop thinking about you, not a single minute of the day. There is not a person, situation, or moment I am in that does not somehow bring you into my mind. But as I think about you, I pray. Pray without ceasing, and I do. If you never let me be anything more in this world, I will be your biggest prayer warrior.
I miss you. I am still dealing with the hurt of what you did to my father. I don't want to forgive you, but holding resentment against you is wrong... but its' hard when you have hurt someone whom I love and respect. Why did you do it? How could you do it? When I grapple with the shock of it, I have to remember that I don't understand how you have done anything that has happened in the past seven months.
Seven months..... oh my word, how much times keeps draining by.
Will you never think of your little Noelle again?? Never???
Even if you don't... she will never give up on you.
She made a promise. A pinky promise, even.
To a little boy with caramel eyes in an empty parkinglot on the northeast edge of town, when he told her how his dad would make those pinky promises.
And she can't ever break it.
Because she meant it.
I love you, Levi Pierce.
I will never give up and leave you.
Seven months... they seem like 7 days.... for the love I have towards you, my sweet prince.
Come back soon.