'smastime is over, hooo-ray! i'm not all about baby jesus, rabid commercialism, never seeing my moogie, or less-than-heartfelt family get-togethers, so you can imagine it is not my favorite holiday.

but presents... now presents, that's a different story.

clothes galore, hello kitty lights, blues clues sheets, more bath & body cucumber melon than i know what to do with, SNAPE DOLL!! (drool), blank cds and labels, new phone (needed desperately), etc; i was pleased. as usual i was embarrassed by my own gifts to give, but everyone waxed ebullient about homemade gifts. so.

i still think things like 'ben would really love my uncle rick,' something i've always thought. he showed me some of this poetry he wrote when he was younger to work out a lot of his inner demons, and it was so something ben would get. i want to tell him about it. but i won't.

i still have dreams about ben where everything is all right. but it won't be.

last night the dream of everything all right again was accompanied by a feeling of, no, i don't want everything to be suddenly all right, we have things to talk through. and, no, i don't think talking's gonna make a difference. we're through.

i think i'm finally getting it.

i'm finally accepting that things could never be different between ben and i. we have lived these same sick cycles of mutual destruction, self-loathing and second-guessing far too long. there will never be trust between us. we will never reach a point where we're just friends and it's just nice. there is nothing between us to be called 'fun.' time spent together will never be something looked upon without a little - or a lot - feeling of dread.

i can't continue this. it's killing me. it's keeping me from having a real relationship with any other human being. as much as i would swear to him that this is not true, it is: he is what holds me back. and it's my fault that it is that way; i made him into what he is in my life that holds me back. but that doesn't change what is. he holds me back.

we're scheduled to meet again in four years, two months and four days. that was decided upon a while ago. maybe someday we can be good to each other. but it's just not happening right now.

i'm letting my best friend go, and along with it my huge safety net. it's a little bit scary and a lot sad. but it's also liberating and hopeful and exciting. i'm not going to be self-destructive anymore. whatever elements of that remain in my life i'm going to get rid of them. there's no place for that now.

it's a christmas present to myself, i guess.

you know i'll miss you, and thus it begins. but i'll release you, and thus it continues. someday we'll be happy again.

so it's better this way, i said, having seen this place before, where everything we said and did hurts us all the more. it's just that we stayed too long in the same old sickly skin. i'm pulled down by the undertow, i never thought i could feel so low. oh, darkness i feel like letting go.

to tell the truth, it wasn't bad. we had to have a reason, and lack of love wasn't it. we both know we had a past, but present must contain a future where both of us could fit.

there must be some other door they are saving behind which my happiness lies. i won't be wasting my words to tell you hopes that i had. we can just leave it alone for now.

so that's today's memory lane with all the pathos and pain. another chapter in a book where the chapters are endless and they're always the same. a verse, then a verse and refrain.

it hurts to even think of those days - the damage we do by the hopes that we raise.

he made me feel so second-best. i never should have let him do it. but when he makes his pretty mess sometimes you just fall into it.

though i loved him much too much, i never thought my love was wasted.

this is for the time that i lost, the death of who i thought i was, the things in which i cannot believe for fear i'll wear them on my sleeve.

nothing is good enough for people like you who have to have someone take the fall, and something to sabotage, determined to lose it all.

what can i say? you don't know me and it's just wishful thinking to keep myself from sinking. hence, no evidence to support any theory i have handy that you could understand me.

love is love - it could have gone either way. 'cause it is also love that walks away.

i don't think i was afraid of you, but how could i be sure when with every altercation you would show me the door. well, here i go.