free wonderwall bullshit. Freedom will never come to us in an oppressed and hypocritical society. anyway... 020409 ... silentbob some people thing the american flag is synonmous with freedom i laugh at some people 020410 ... spoons buy one, get one 020410 ... stoic a stone in my hand pull back rush forward let go it is free. . 040113 ... tilt the free mind is the one that knows it's trapped. 060323 ... nom i always look in the free box i love the free box 070326 ... tender_square if he'd have wanted me back, i knew i wasn’t going to be strong enough to resist him. i knew he’d hurt me anew and i didn’t want to be a broken woman, i couldn’t bear him knowing he had that kind of power over me. in the days following our brutal breakup, i wrote nasty messages about him and taped them up throughout my apartment, constant confrontation, reminders of why he was terrible for me. i wrote that he had b.o. because he wore natural deodorant, though it never really bothered me. i wrote that he was impotent, when really, he probably had too much alcohol in his system and needed to see my face to stay with me. i wrote that he cheated on me, even though of this i was never certain: he was with me while i pumped gas for my parent’s mini-van, and when i looked through the windows as i squeezed the nozzle's handle, i noticed that he’d moved from the passenger seat and was cowering in the back row. back in the car, i asked, “what's with hiding out in the backseat?” “my ex was at the pump across and i didn’t want her to see me; she was crazy.” i didn’t trust this answer. part of me wanted to put the car in park, take the keys from the ignition, and go inside the store to ask her about him, to see if he’d take off running like a coward. i never pressed him about it. i wrote that he was a drunk, even though i always kept up with him, even though i was always buying us drinks during his bartending shifts at the fish market. the messages helped some but the agony was, i had to see him each week. when we were dating, i got him a timeslot at the radio station for a world music program. for a half hour, his show overlapped with the start of my shift. i had to hear his voice. and if i had to go into the on-air studio to pull expired commercials or collect the weekend logs, i had to see him. just when i thought i was losing my love for him, he randomly showed up at phog one early evening, while i was out with radio station friends for a beer. as soon as i saw him, i forgot how to breathe. we stared. the table hushed; everyone knew we had once been something and that it had ended poorly. and he moved toward the closet beside our seats to grab his guitar he’d left there from a performance the night prior and left. back in my apartment after, i paced, wondering if his gaze was a sign that he missed me like i missed him. there was no way he would've talked to me when i was around so many people. after the breakup, i had immediately unfriended him on facebook. but now my mouse was hovering over “add friend” button. i clicked; crushed my eyes closed in regret and ran from my computer. i hated myself. minutes later, he called me. “i’m sorry for what i did to you,” he said. “i should’ve handled it differently.” those were the words that i’d been waiting weeks to hear. but all i could manage in return was a meek “it’s okay,” as if what he did to me was acceptable. we agreed to be friends, but after i hung up the phone, i knew that would never happen. my resolve was eroding; how he treated me was not even close to okay and i was setting myself up for disappointment and heartbreak. i knew a second time would be worse and i couldn’t allow that to happen. the following day, i told my boss that i couldn’t manage my ex as a volunteer anymore, he’d have to do it for me because i couldn’t have any communication with him. he agreed, though i’m sure he thought i was being extreme. i sent an official notice to my ex on the station’s letterhead informing him of the change. he left the station not long thereafter, handing off his program to a fellow friend in the music department—someone i’d gone to high school with—and i was relieved to have a place that had belonged to me exclusively be free of him. all that i needed after was time for my heart to be free of him, too. 211215 ... kerry this really grabbed me, tender_square. i gobbled it up. 211216 ... tender_square thank you for this, kerry! it means a lot coming from you. 211217 what's it to you? who go blather from