Pine Needles and Quill Pens.

     The message on my cellphone, it tells me River tried calling. It tells me I have one missed call, from 29 minutes earlier
My thumb presses the green square button that dials River's number.

River's thing today is:
She say's she loves me.
She say's she still likes me. "A lot" she says.
She says despite the above two comments, she doesn't think I'm worth it. For all the pain and hurt I've caused her.
On my notebook I write words like, "like" and "love"
I write the word "BUT" in capitol letters and underline it, twice.
I hear Ms. River take a long inhale and exhale through her phone.
Ms. River, she wants to know if I think I'm a good person.
I pause.
"No." I say
"Then why aren't you doing anything to change yourself?" She wants to know.
I pause
I pause and think of a response. After several seconds of self loathing and self reflection, I say, "I don't know.
Right now, I am a Brothers Grimm.
Right now, I am a fairy tale, hanging a life size mirror on my blue wall.
Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
Who is the biggest fuck-up, of us all.
The mirror I stare into, it self reflects a long and jagged index finger, toward my long and self deprecated face.
"You!" This  mirror says.
Why aren't I doing anything to make myself better?
This sentence I jot down in my notebook, over and over I write this.
I circle this sentence and put a trail of questions marks behind it.
Ms. River wants to know why I'm so cruel.
How and why I could do something like this to her.
I breathe and long and steady breath through my phone and tell her,
"I don't know" I say
"What are you going to say?" She wants to know. "What are you going to do?"
I tell her I don't know.
The truth is, I could say a lot. To quote Ms. River, I could say and do "A fuck ton."
It's the execution I'm lacking.
Lack of execution when it comes to romance, simply leads to the execution of the end of romance.
It's the quiet things we do that hurts the people we love.
The thing about River, and most of her ideals, she's right most of the time.
River, she says I give up.
She tells me with a stern voice only Ms. River can mutter and tells me I give up almost everyday.
"Every time you don't call me." She says "You give up."
"Every time you're not writing, you give up."
"Every time there are no flowers, you give up." She says.
Ms. River takes another breath through her phone and exhales a love she's trying very hard to hold to.
"So..." She says "What are you going to do?"
What am I going to do?
I write this sentence down, drawing a box around this statement.
What I'm going to do is not give up.
What I'm going to do is not give up and cross my fingers, placing tips around the hope that I can somehow crawl out of this hole, this cavern of fuck-ups and let downs that I, myself have dug.
"Each day you don't call me to see how I'm doing," River says, "You're giving up."
What I'm going to do is show River love.
A true love.
A love that places the other person above, ahead and beyond yourself.
Where I'm at right now, is sitting in my room.
I'm sitting in my room, thinking of love and hearts needing to mend
I'm thinking of the woman I love, writing on my notebook with a black bic pen.
Talking and listening to Ms. River.
While I talk to her, it feels as if my heart is full of pens and pine needles, as if blood is returning to a numb muscle, a muscle that's been asleep for fall to long.
I tell Ms. River that I should get back to typing. That I have a weeks worth of stories I owe my readers.
"I'll talk to you later?" I say.
"Promise?" She asks.
"Promise, promise." I say.