today started out well enough. i got up pretty happily, took a shower and once again looked for jesse passing me going the other way as i do every morning, but i still haven't seen her yet.

yesterday was pretty good. after writing the entry yesterday, i had a double period of chemistry, and i got a good bit of research and testing done for my science fair project. it's started pretty well, and i should probably be working on it now. i'll get to it soon. after that was a pretty uneventful lunch, just chillin and talking with some people. i also made a pretty funny club card thingy, i might post it on another day.

i had american literature after lunch, and we read some poetry. there was one poem that really hit home for me, called 'Edward's Anecdote' by Donald Hall. it's about a wife cheating on her husband and the husband kinda struggling through it mentally. the last few stanzas really got to me, but lemme share the whole thing:

Edward's Anecdote BY DONALD HALL

Late one night she told.

We'd come home from a party

where she drank more wine

than usual, from nervousness

I suppose. I was astonished,

which is typical,

and her lover of course

was my friend. My naiveté

served their purposes: What

you don't know beats your head in.

After weeping for an hour or so

I tried screaming.

Then I quieted down;

then I broke her grandmother's

teapot against the pantry brickwork,

which helped a bit.

She kept apologizing

as she walked back and forth,

chainsmoking. I hated her,

and thought how beautiful

she looked as she paced,

which started me weeping again.

Old puzzlements began to solve

themselves: the errand

that took all afternoon;

the much-explained excursion

to stay with a college roomate

at a hunting lodge

without a telephone

and of course the wrong numbers.

Then my masochistic mind

printed Kodacolors

of my friend and my wife

arranged in bed together.

When IO looked out the window,

I saw the sky going

pale with dawn; soon the children

world wake: Thinking of them

started me weeping again.

I felt exhausted, and

I wanted to sleep neither

with her nor without her,

which made me remember:

When I was a child we knew

a neighbor named Mr. Jaspers --

and ordinary

gray and agreeable

middle-aged businessman who

joked with the neighborhood

children when he met us on

the street, giving us pennies,

except for once a year

when he got insanely drunk

and the police took him.

One time he beat his year-old

daughter with a broomstick,

breaking a rib bone, and as

she screamed she kept crawling

back to her father: Where else

should she look for comfort?

"Where else should she look for comfort?" i remember recieving the call from jenika saying she had cheated on me. where else could i crawl for comfort. i just tried to breathe for a few minutes, packed a towel and went and laid on shoy's trying to convince myself that everything was alright and that i was ok. i wasn't. i felt sick to my stomach. everytime i closed my eyes to rest or wipe my mind, there was that picture of jenika and dylan "arranged in bed together." Who could I turn to for comfort? I tried calling david, he couldn't even fathom it. i tried calling andy and kyle, the two who had insisted that this would happen, i couldn't reach them. so i tried just breathing. 'don't call her. there's no way it make things better right now. you can't talk to her.' i knew it was all true, and i called. and i confirmed it. it just got her crying again, and me on the struggling to breath again. these are the moments where you really do question your existence. it's of course wrong, but you question it and wonder if the pain would then stop. what are you willing to sacrifice to forego that pain. which brings me to my favorite movie of all time: 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. instead of suicide, the 'pain reliever' is erasing the memories of her. in a subconcious quest unexperiencing the memories, he realizes that there's no pain that should be worthy of killing those memories. the memory of the wrongdoing will always hurt with seemingly unbearable pain; but the memories of the good times will always be there to brighten my day. i remember...

it's not a comfortable feeling to be able to associate yourself with an unhappy poem. especially one like edward's anecdote. it makes you question what future love can hold for you bearing that experience in mind. your mind keeps shooting back and forth from the bad and the good, making the decisions forthcoming insanely difficult. "I wanted to sleep neither with her nor without her" how do you make that decision? is your love 'beyond all borders'? or do you actually take this pain to heart? which takes us a step further... does she even care about you? "She kept apologizing, as she walked back and forth, chainsmoking." how do you gauge that reaction? she's stressed, that obvious, and what is she apologizing for? the act, or that you found out? "My naiveté served their purposes" did it happen because you said something about worrying about it or because you weren't around to know?

the questions only get more and more personal, till it seems like a war is being waged against your caring feelings for her. where do you stop it? how do you stop it?

you don't, you just let it destroy you, and rebuild yourself.