M I R R O R E D W O R D S

with your feet in the air and your head on the ground

2011-12-31T07:46:00.001-08:00

E. in the beginning there was void, and the spirit of God moved upon the surface of the water. so God said, “let there be light”, and there was light. and God saw that the light was good, and he divided the light from the darkness.

these words are spinning in your head and you let them, you open your eyes and remember that you are in the dark. you know that you probably shouldn't be scared because mommy told you that there aren't any monsters under your bed or in your closet, she told you that and mommies are never wrong about things, but you still feel scared-so-scared. you close and open your eyes and you cannot tell the difference.

you clutch your stuffed lion and tangle your feet in the covers, and you think about downstairs with pops and mommy, with the warm glowing light and the crackling TV. the last time you went downstairs past your bedtime pops got really angry at you though, saying lots of big words you don't understand, and you roll onto your stomach and press your face into leo the lion until you can't breathe and that thought disappears. you are still thinking about pops and mommy and how they are in the light and you are in the dark and you wonder whether there's a reason for that because there's always a reason.

and God called the light day and the dark he called night, and you wonder if that's when God painted the stars into the sky because you're not sure if it says that anywhere in the bible. you close your eyes and you still can't see a difference.

C#m. the freckles on your legs are like a map of the stars. you want to sit out here until it's dark and compare the two, but pops still doesn't let you stay up that long even though you're already five years old. you settle for taking out your crayons instead and you play connect-the-dots on your skin, except the dots aren't numbered so it's way more fun.

you draw a flower and a fish and a big scary dragon fighting a wizard, and you write your name up your left ankle. first there's two huge A and an R which are all kind of difficult to draw. then the letter O which is just a circle so it's easy, and then the N which is easy too but you drew the letters a bit too big so it stretches down onto your foot.

you rest your hands on the roof tiles until you notice how hot they are in the sun and you put your box of crayons into your lap because they're your birthday present from mommy and you don't want to ruin them, you've already worn down all the red shades in the three months you've had them. you're thinking about dragons and wizards and castles again until you remember that they aren't real, and what pops would say, that there's a reason God didn't make dragons and wizards, you forgot, there's a reason for everything. thinking about pops being angry makes you feel angry at yourself so you push your palms and forearms extra hard into the roof for even thinking about stupid things like those, you think to yourself that you're the stupidest kid in the world because all the things you like are fake and wrong. when your skin is all red and burnt you sit up straight and dangle your legs over the edge so you don't have to see the stupid things anymore, but your arms hurt and you want to cry except you're a big boy now and big boys don't cry. you look down onto the concrete below you and for a split second the idea of jumping down flashes inside your mind, maybe you'd break your leg like this one boy in your class and people would visit you in the hospital to bring you candy and presents even though it's not your birthday, and everyone would tell you how sad but glad and thankful they are and they'd really mean it because people always tell the truth if you've just had something bad happen to you.

maybe you'd crack your skull and die like what pops says is gonna happen if you keep sitting on the roof like that. you bite your lip to hold back the tears and you're not sure why you want to cry again. you go inside and scrub the crayon on your legs away with soap and paper towels so pops won't get mad when he comes home from work.

Ab. there's lemon cake for dessert at this funeral feast, the kind that's really just yellow cake mix with icing that tastes like sugary plastic rather than actual lemons slabbed on top. actually, it's the same kind of lemon cake that's been served at every single funeral feast you've been to. you hate that lemon cake so much and you hate wearing starched shirts with tight collars that rub your neck raw and you undo the top button and hope pops doesn't see from his spot at the table. you hate funeral feasts and funerals in general. this time they buried your dad's father's father, and you didn't even know his name until you saw his corpse all made up and dressed in a suit and starched collar shirt like yours and at least where he is now it won't ache his neck. pops told you that they put make up on dead people and sew their eyes and mouth shut so they won't look dead, but you don't really understand why you have to look at dead people in the first place. the day after your first funeral you decided that when you die, they're going to keep the casket closed so no one will have to see your body. they won't sew any parts of you shut because heaven seems kind of pointless if you can't use your eyes.

when you told this to mommy, she ruffled your hair and told you that when you die, your body stays in the coffin under the earth and your soul is the part that goes to heaven, but when you asked her how she knew that she didn't say anything.

A. it's the night after your seventh birthday, and so far this birthday has been by far the worst. not that any of your birthdays hadn't gone horrible in some way, because every year something goes wrong, mommy doesn't have time to bake you a cake or sometimes even buy you a present, or pops has one of his bad days again and doesn't give you anything or even let you order what you want at waffle house. this year, mommy had to drive him to the hospital even though he isn't really sick, and when you asked mommy about it she just told you that you're still too young to understand. you curl into a ball on the bed and clutch the presents you got this year, a new big box of crayons from mommy and the two books auntie brenda got you, even though you didn't ask for books and you don't even like to read but you still had to say thank you because that's the rule when you get a present. maybe you'll draw your favorite pictures in sunset orange and atomic tangerine into the margins tomorrow.

the numbers on the alarm clock glow electric lime in the dark, but you can't read what time it is. you only know that it's late, way past your bedtime, and you want to crawl into mommy's bed but the dark outside your bed is big and scary and cold and your blankets are warm and safe, so you just hug your presents tighter even though they're hard and kind of poke your chest. you pull the duvet over your head and wrap yourself into a bundle, and you're thiiiiis close to falling asleep when the door opens. for a second when the someone first sits on your bed you think it's mommy, but then the light switch is flipped and you hear a voice. “hey little bro. you still up?”

you poke your head out the blankets and jonah is sitting next to you, and you don't even bother putting on your glasses before you rise up on your knees and wrap your arms around him. he smells like cigarette smoke and coffee and the leather of his jacket is wet and also his stubble kind of chafes against your cheek but you don't even care.

“where've you been?” “here and there”, he says, “been a while, i know.” he unzips his backpack and pulls a paper bag out of it, “figured i should bring you some stuff from the real world. your birthday's sometime soon, right?”

“was yesterday,” you say, and you have to squint to see everything in the bag, there's chocolate bars, jawbreakers, all the good candy mommy never buys for you, a small remote controlled car, superhero comics and even more crayons for your collection, and you grin and stash the bag away in the space between your bed and the wall. “how long are you staying?”

jonah pulls off his jacket and lays back onto the mattress. “not long,” he says, “got another freight train to catch in a few days. texas bound,” he adds, and you don't really know anything about texas except that it's really big and really really far away from here.

you pull a face. “you need to stay here. for a while.”

“can't. old man doesn't want me to stick around the house, he'd probably kill me.” he pauses and reaches over to flick the light back off. “wanna come with me?”

you curl back into your blanket and think about it for a second, about mommy and the teachers at school and how they'd probably think you'd been kidnapped and how you would be in the paper and on TV because everyone cares, and how they'd worry for no reason because you're only on an adventure with jonah and alright and you get to see all the big places in the real world like lake erie and san diego and the golf coast. you nod so hard it feels like your head is going to fall off until you realize that jonah can't see, so you say “yes” and push your pillow into your chest and you decide that you were wrong because this is the best birthday ever.

“cool. saturday, six in the morning we're leaving, deal?”

“deal.”

“don't tell mom 'bout this, she'd go raving mad, something like that.”

you nod and then there's a small pause before you say “thank you”.

“what're you thanking me for?”

“nothing.”

E. jonah keeps his word. you hop a freight train and the next time you wake up you're in houston. you see the glowing billboards downtown and watch underground rap battles in abandoned warehouses. you sleep in motels that smell like mold or tucked away under jonah's jacket and a thin blanket in the parking spaces of malls while he stays up to make sure no one steals you away.

you hop a freight train and the next time you wake up you're in florida. you pet a dolphin at seaworld and go to disney world for the first time in your life and you're not sure if they were right when they called it the happiest place in the world because everything there is fake and running away with jonah is the most real thing you've ever done. you sit outside of your crummy motel room and listen to the bed creaks when jonah brings back girls or boys he picked up downtown.

you hop a freight train and the next time you wake up you're in pittsburgh. you hold jonah's jaw open when he pierces his own tongue with a sewing needle dabbed in vodka in the men's bathroom of a cheap diner and jonah chats up a trucker to take you two with him. you fall asleep in the passenger seat and the next time you wake up you're in new york.

you look at the statue of liberty from up close and spit into the hudson river, you walk up all the stairs in the empire state building and jonah takes you to the times square and broadway and soho (“don't let go of my hand, kid, for fuck's sake don't fucking let go of my hand”). you see the graffiti in the bronx and suddenly everything you and your crayons have ever done is meaningless and fake.

jonah blows a good deal of his savings on greyhound bus tickets and the next time you wake up you're in chicago. you sit on jonah's shoulders when he takes you to see a punk band in a shabby club and afterwards the musicians laugh and touch your hair when you tell them how this was the coolest thing you have ever seen and you feel unstoppable like a giant tornado, no, a giant fucking tornado, and you should probably feel bad for thinking a dirty word like that but you really don't.

you walk along the shore of lake michigan the day after and you take your shoes off and dip your feet in, and when you look across the lake from a certain point all you can see is water. they call this lake one of the great lakes of america, and you're most certainly sure that they were right when they named them great lakes because this one alone is the greatest and realest thing you've ever seen.

you hop a freight train and the next time you wake up you're in omaha, only a few miles from home, and you catch one last bus and the adventure is over.

C#m. mom starts crying when you show up at the doorstop with jonah, the kind of crying that's all messy and gross with snot everywhere, and she hugs you and doesn't let go for over a minute. she shoves you into the kitchen and tells you that she missed you so much and she was so worried that you'd gone missing, and she shows you the article in the newspaper asking for any sightings of you to be reported to the police so you'll be back at home and safe soon. you almost want to feel sorry for mom right then because she's still crying when she heats up leftovers for you, but all you can do is grin, because that's your face right there and mom wanted you to come home and so many strangers wanted you to come home and you get that tornado feeling in the pit of your stomach again.

jonah doesn't stick around for long after that, obviously, but the next time he comes back it's the middle of summer and he takes you with him again.

you see california and las vegas over the summer and new mexico during thanksgiving break. you go to seattle and canada over christmas and you don't even miss being home and getting presents. you see atlanta and new orleans and detroit and boston and portland and so many other places that you can't even count them, and by the time that you're ten years old you feel like you've been pretty much everywhere. jonah starts teaching you things, how to make a fire without matches or a lighter, how to fight dirty and how to jump out of a second story window without breaking your face. how to steal food and booze and how to run up a wall even though your legs are still way too short for that. he tells you all about how to land with girls and guys, and how to steal the money from their purses and wallets while they're not looking. how to hotwire a car and how to get weed for cheap. “don't tell you heard it from me,” he'd say when he finishes one of his lectures, and you'd nod until your head is buzzing.

you always get kind of sad when you have to stop having adventures and go back to school, but once you're back at home mom orders your favorite pizza, the one with lots of gooey cheese and pepperoni and bakes you chocolate chip cookies and tells you how much she's missed you and how much she loves you. sometimes you're not sure whether the actual adventure or the coming home is your favorite part.

you're scared of the old man now though, more scared than you ever were of anything if you're going to be honest. you barely see him around anymore, but every time he comes to visit from the clinic he just seems to have gotten even angrier, you're starting to wonder whether that place even does him any good since no one ever bothered to tell you why he's there in the first place.

you're pretty sure it's the old man's fault too when jonah leaves for good.

Ab. you are exactly eleven years old and “fuck” is rapidly becoming your favorite word. you're supposed to be downstairs right now because mom baked you a cake and you're pretty sure she got you the art supplies you asked for too. instead, you're sitting on the toilet lid with your legs folded beneath you. it's been exactly one year now since you last saw jonah and he hasn't even sent a postcard or anything to tell you that he's okay. the bus he left on was canada bound, you've only been to canada once and it's not the sort of place where you'd just get lost and die. you think about canada and jonah and the old man and how much he hates both of you and how much you hate him back, because he says you're a fucking failure even if mom says he doesn't really mean that but you know he does, and you look at your freckles and you're thinking about connect-the-dots again. you bite your lip and you wish the old man dead. the old man's razor is always sharp and you can almost see how sharp it is when you take it in your hand. mom always tells you you shouldn't touch it, what the fuck, you're old enough to know how to handle a stupid razor. you've seen this on TV once or twice and they always have the same excuses, “i cut myself shaving”, “i have a mean cat”, or “i fell down the stairs”. no, fuck that, you'd want people to know what happened if they ask, and they'd better feel fucking horrible when you answer. you look down onto the freckles on your legs again and all you see is a complete uneven mess. if you tried to connect the dots all you'd get would be a dirty ugly cluster.

you don't really understand how it's supposed to work. do you just make a cut and then you feel a little less like shit? you might as well try it out for yourself.

you connect the dots, carefully, and wow. oh. wow. you're actually a little less angry now. you exhale and drop the razor on the floor. wow, it works. you stand up to look at yourself in the floor length mirror and smile, just a little smile, as if you'd just been told a secret and you want to pass it on but you can't. that's what you feel like, like this is an awesome new secret except no one actually told it to you, you just came up with it by yourself. there's a ribbon of dark brick red blood flowing along your ankle and you swipe it with a finger and lick it up. almost tastes like candy.

you connect the dots again, and again, and at the end you bandage your cuts and go downstairs. you feel like more than a tornado, you feel fucking saintlike and you try to remember what the guy from the bible you were named after ever did or if he ever even became a saint. you're pretty sure you're better than him already.

nobody asks about your cuts and you feel like shit again.

A. the old man gets you a scholarship at st. joseph's academy. the best school in the state, they say, and you're really sure they're wrong with that one. it's your first day of middle school and you already want to burn the fucking place down.

she's sitting alone at lunch and the first thing you notice about her is that she's got red hair and freckles like you, not burnt orange hair like yours but rather apricot, you can barely even tell it's red. her t-shirt is one of those ugly carnation pink things with an airbrushed dolphin on it and she's wearing a skirt, but not one of those skirts that make girls' legs look good. she's dressed exactly like a little girl or like one of those social rejects that probably got bullied to hell and back for their whole life and mom always tells you to not make fun of them because it's not their fault they look this stupid, and for a moment you're so sure that this has got to be a motherfucking joke.

“hey.” “hello. are you new here?” even her voice sounds like a little girl's. you focus on scratching the scabs under your sleeves to keep yourself from laughing, no way she's not a huge practical joke. “i just started middle school,” she continues and you're so sure her voice is fake except it doesn't sound fake in the least, “my name is nelly.” she shoves her bangs out of her eyes so you can see her face and you're a little surprised that she's actually kind of pretty. you look at her binder on the table, lisa frank rainbow cat, her full name is helena, actually kind of a pretty name. “i'm aaron.”

helena reaches for your sketchbook on the table, the sketchbook you carry everywhere, and now her stubby fingers are all over the pages, “you do art? so cool”, and you kind of want to laugh at that except the joke isn't funny in the least. she starts with the earlier sketches from fifth grade or so when your memories were still clear, “is this new york?” she goes through all your clear urban scenery drawings guessing each city and she gets every single one right until the point when your memories got too fuzzy so new york merged with hollywood merged with atlanta, and she closes the book and scoots it back over to you.

“you know, i do art too.” you raise a brow. “i mostly do anime”, and she giggles.

you're not sure if you want to make fun of this girl behind her back or kiss her right on the lips.

E. you stop drawing the cityscapes from your memories and start drawing real things over the next few years.

you sketch the old man drinking coffee over breakfast while he isn't looking and he looks more tired and dead with every drawing, you draw mom sitting on the couch going through her drug counseling notes and you draw the neighbors from your room's window and your teachers at the whiteboard when class is boring again. you sketch the old man when he says that he's got a job in IT, that he thinks he's getting his life together now, and on the day of your fourteenth birthday you draw the debris in the backyard after the old man spilled the contents of the whole liquor cabinet onto the lawn and stomped down all the bottles. at some point, you buy pastel chalk with your extra money and sketch yourself in the foggy mirror when you get out of the shower and put in your contacts, white and piggy pink skin with burnt sienna freckles sprinkled on it, pink sherbet brick burn from running up walls on your chest, salmon road rash on your knees from falling and ugly violet red welts of fresh scars scattered across most of your arms and legs. you stopped hiding them a few months after you met helena. you'll let people stare if they fucking want to. they still don't ask. you sketch what you remember of your childhood, playing connect-the-dots with crayons and not with blades, disney world and graffiti and motel rooms.

you sell most of your pictures in downtown omaha to afford more art supplies and weed, only five dollars for every sketch but it all adds up. you take requests too, sometimes.

“tell me about yourself,” you say to your subject. “so, you any have kids?” “what d'you do for a living?” “who's your favorite band?” you pull everyone's personality right out of them in the space of ten minutes, and then the picture is done and you ask for your pay.

you draw most of the strangers you meet at parties, the faces of all the girls and boys you kiss, or at least what you can remember of their faces since it's almost always too dark for them to make out your face and the other way around. you draw the heaving bra-clad breasts of girls when you have two fingers inside their panties and the faces boys make when your hand is down their pants. that's the pictures you keep stashed in a separate sketchbook under your mattress, not as something to whack off to but rather for future reference, that's what they should look like when you make them happy and if they don't you didn't do a good job. by the time you're about to turn sixteen, you already have a reputation with most of the public school kids, and you don't care if you hear anyone call you a manwhore or a greedy slut behind your back. at least they're talking about you, but when you tell this to helena she just shakes her head and sighs.

you draw helena a lot too, helena when you meet her in front of the school first thing in the morning, helena when she's asleep during class with her hair spread messy across her desk and that stupid lisa frank binder. you sketch helena's smile when she plays you her favorite music from her father's record collection, bob dylan and my bloody valentine and jeff buckley, and you sketch the grimace on her face when you show her glassjaw and deftones.

you sketch helena reading 1984 for class and helena rolling up her jeans to check on her road rash when she didn't make it up the wall like you did. you sketch helena exhaling smoke with a joint between her fingers and helena eating taco bell. helena blowing out birthday candles and helena crying over thanksgiving dinner. helena in her mountain meadow dress at the middle school graduation and helena in her purple pizzazz pajama pants first thing in the morning after you spent the night at her house. she never looks the same between two pictures but it's always the real helena.

you pin your favorite pictures of her onto your wall and mom asks if you two are dating more than once, but you always say no and wish you were lying.

you try to sketch jonah a few times but every time you do, it looks less like him and less and less real.

one time you buy spray paint in all shades of red and yellow you can find and you spray a giant mural of a fire right onto a house facade where everyone can see. it takes three or four nights but then it's finished and it's the most real thing you've ever seen. when you show helena, she just says “nice”, but you don't think she means it.

Ab. you finish rolling the joint and fumble for your lighter and helena says “i don't think we should smoke here” for what has to be the third time. she's sitting on the floor between two bales of straw with some spare pieces sticking to her hair and sweater and you kind of really wish that you'd remembered to bring your sketchbook. “my dad knows the lady who owns this barn, you know, she's really sweet and i don't think she'd want this.” for the third fucking time. “like she ever gonna find out about this.” you light up and pass it over to her, and she takes a drag. “still think it's wrong.” “you're still doing it.” she passes the joint over to you and you inhale it so deeply you feel like your lungs are gonna burst. you flick the lighter's switch on and off and suddenly your hand's moving a little too close to the straw bale behind your back, wow, how'd this happen, and suddenly there's fire.

“oops,” you say and it almost sounds genuinely like it was an accident, except you start giggling at the end. “told you,” helena says and her voice sounds a little distant so you're not sure if it's actually her or just your little conscience, like jiminy fucking cricket from the movie but in the shape of a cute girl. you flick the lighter again to shut her up except suddenly it's out of your hands and on the floors and another bale has caught fire, oops, how the fuck did that happen, and suddenly you remember being a kid and building brick towers just to kick them down, except this is far better than bricks because it's actually real.

“what the fuck are you doing?” helena asks, you're sure it's actually her this time, and you say “oops” once again, but this time it doesn't even begin to sound genuine. “it's cool, she's not ever gonna know it was us,” you say, and you take another drag and that makes it all better.

“yeah, maybe,” helena says, “but she still keeps the gas for her lawn mower in here.”

it takes a few seconds, fucking weed, before what she'd just said really kicks in, but then you realize what that means and you see the flames inching further along the bales and holy fuck this thing is gonna blow up, and you throw the joint down and grab helena's hand, “fuck, run run run run”.

and you run and you don't stop or fucking turn around until you're back on the road into town and thank the fucking lord nobody fucking saw you.

you wind up watching the cornfield and what's left of the barn burn down from the window in helena's room. she's still clutching your hand and you know you should probably feel bad about what the fuck you just did, but you still feel kind of proud of what you did, for doing something that's far more real than anything else you ever did. you stay like this until the fire starts to die down and helena leads you over to sit on her bed. your hand is still in hers, and she leans over and kisses you, not like any of the kisses you ever had but all gentle and soft and without any tongue at all. you immediately decide that it's the best kiss you've ever had.

“you know, aaron,” helena says, “i really really like you.”

“me too,” and you kiss her again, you move one hand under her shirt and touch her breasts really carefully, as if they might break in your hands or anything. you keep kissing and both your shirts come off, one of your hands is under her skirt and in her panties, “that's nice,” and she helps you take your pants off and eventually you're both naked. you're even more careful when you push in, and she wraps her legs around you and kisses you again, “just like that,” and you really don't want to finish too quickly because this is the best thing ever and the thing you've whacked off to since you were in seventh grade, and now it's real and wait what no rewind the tape--

“you know, aaron,” helena says, “i really really like you.”

she says, “but it's getting late and i still have to finish my essay for lit class.”

“you should go home,” she says.

and you say “okay”. you don't try to kiss her again or even hug her goodbye. you pull on your jacket and you go home and whack off until your wrist aches and you feel like you won't be able to get hard again for the next month. you wipe your hand and dick on your bed sheet and go to sleep.

A. they fucking find out, of course. nothing on a large scale, obviously, the FBI never show up at your doorstep or anything, and even if they did, they wouldn't have any proof, but one morning you walk downstairs to get breakfast and mom says that she would like to talk to you about the barn. you don't have a fucking clue how she knew you did it, or at least you convince yourself that you don't, and you sit down and listen to her lecture. she tells you everything, about your graffiti and your drugs and all the girls you've hooked up with, she only mentions the girls so you hope she doesn't know about the boys but she probably does. she tells you everything as if you didn't know already that you did those, how could you not know, you were right there. you don't know what to say but you feel like you should say something (but you still don't say anything). mom takes a sip of her coffee and says that she's met a lot of people like you over her job, young people, smart people, who decided to do drugs and violate the law, and you want to say that you never decided to break any laws, you just want people to pay attention to you, that you wanted to be important, but that sounds really fucking stupid so you keep your mouth shut either way. mom says that she's been looking into options for treatment, that she's kind of scared of telling your father because he'd probably relapse if he ever found out. you bite your lip and nod, and you tell her to call in sick at school for you and you go back upstairs. you want to connect the dots more than anything but mom got rid of the fucking razor, guess she also knows where your scars come from now. you go back to bed and put the pillow over your head and you wait. helena doesn't visit you or even call to find out why you didn't show up for class and you want to die more than ever.

in the end, mom gets you a spot at the white rose residential treatment center. they say that it's the best mental institution in the area but you still want to commit arson against that place more than you've ever wanted before. mom made you sign the admission slip forcibly, but you figure it's still better than being shipped off to military school or whatever the old man would have thought of.

you spend the first two weeks or so in your room with the shades pulled down, the orderlies always pull them up when they come to bring breakfast and lunch but you pull them straight down again after they've left. at least they trust you enough to let you have a single room so you don't have to put up with any of the crazies here, or maybe you should say the other crazies since being here kind of means that you're crazy too.

mom comes to visit you at least twice a week and she still brings you her chocolate chip cookies like you're still the favorite child, very funny mom, but then you think about the last time you heard from jonah and then consider that there aren't really any other options for “favorite child”. you're not sure if you want to punch mom in the face because first she gets you shipped off to white rose but then she apparently still likes you enough to make you food. you eat everything she brings you though, because it's far better than the disgusting excuses for meals they serve here. mom always asks you how you like the white rose so far, though, and you really wish you could tell her to fuck off but she's still your mother after all. you want to tell her that you hate the place more than anything, you hate the shrinks and the orderlies and the other patients and art therapy and your room and group therapy and you even hate the fucking stupid name this place has and that that's more hate you've wasted on a single thing than you ever have before, but all that you say is that you guess it's alright.

the old man only comes to visit you once, the weekend before thanksgiving, and he doesn't bring you food, not like you were expecting anything, he doesn't even ask you how you are.

“i've never been more disappointed with you,” he says first thing, like every angry dad on TV ever, which is almost funny, if you pretend he's not your father and you don't have to deal with him, that is. “go ahead and do enough stupid things to get you locked up here, and you're not even trying to get better, do you have any idea how much this place is costing me, consider yourself lucky the mortgage's already paid out, do you even know how embarrassing it is to know your child's in a mental hospital, not like it's even a secret anymore,” and he slicks his hair back, his stupid red hair that's the main indicator he's actually your real father and not just some asshole mom got married to.

“like you weren't in treatment for your f-- stupid alcohol addiction,” you say, don't swear in front of him, it'll just make him angrier, and he says “that's completely different,” says, “wasn't my fault that the stress got too huge and i took up drinking, it's your own fault for being here, your fault because you just had to go ahead and get yourself in trouble.” he's getting louder now and his fingers are tearing at the ugly pleather covering of his chair's arm rest. yours are digging into your arm, fuck, you wish you could play connect-the-dots right now, but you're not sure whether you'd rather use your arm or the old man's as a playing surface. too bad they filed your nails short and blunt just yesterday.

you remember the last time you were actually scared of him, when you were ten, and now you've started to understand the reasons why he's like this, but you keep talking either way

“you and mom were the ones who wanted me away, can't really say it's my own fault that i'm here.”

“not like we had much of a choice, couldn't let a f-- freaking criminally insane kid out in the open, could we.”

“yeah well, maybe you're the one who made me this way,” you say, and you stand up and spit right in his face. you want to do much more than just spit, you want to punch him and push him to the ground and kick his teeth in, criminally insane, you'll show him criminally insane. “fuck you, dad.”

the old man's head is a spray can of red paint and you're about ready to cover the walls in it but the orderlies are already at your sides and pull you backwards when you reach out to strike, and you want to fucking bite them in the arms and kick at their shins until they let you go and destroy the old man, but they're far stronger than you are and so all your flailing is useless.

they give you a sedative and then you're back in your room and you're getting a lecture from your shrink on how you need to control your anger against your father and how what you did was the wrong thing, but you're not sure whether you should believe it.

Am. you're almost happy when the nurse tells you that your lady friend's come to visit, but as soon helena actually walks in you just feel incredibly out of place, even if it's technically your room. she looks different now, you guess she's gotten taller, and her hair is shorter and she's wearing deeper colors, jungle green and mahogany and a plum scarf as opposed to the standard razzmatazz and tickle me pink . you hug her, but she doesn't hug back. “hey.” “hi.” … “i brought you some cupcakes. vanilla with strawberry icing.” “nice ... thanks.” … “this place doesn't seem too bad.” “'course it seems like that, you can just walk out and go home.” “sorry. didn't think that one through … i'm sorry that you've ended up here.” “it's okay … not your fault.” “yeah. guess it's not my fault.” … “yeah. i'm not missing anything while i'm in here, right?” “not really, no.” she laughs, but it sounds too fake for you to laugh along. it's quiet, suddenly, way too quiet, and you can hear the nurse chaperoning just outside the door, listening in so nothing's going to happen. it's a policy of the white rose, obviously, no visitors of the opposite sex allowed without staff supervision, but they don't trust you either way and you know it. “...you know, the real world got really boring without you.” “thanks... i guess?” … “you know, my dad's waiting to pick me up. i told him i wouldn't stay too long.” … “so, see you soon, then, i guess?” “yeah, see you.” helena stands up and you want to tell her to stop. you want to kiss her again, just kiss her, and you want to tell her how much you l-- lo-- okay, no, you feel stupid even thinking it, but you really do want to tell helena that you l-o-v-e her, except the words get stuck in your throat and you can't say a fucking thing. the door closes and she's gone and you bite your lip so hard it makes you scream. the nurse asks if you're alright in there, and you tell her to go away.

helena doesn't visit again. you keep the cupcakes in your room until they start to smell funny and fall apart and you have to throw them out, the moldy strawberry icing almost looks like a piece of modern art between all the other trash. speaking of art, you hate art therapy more than anything.

they don't even let you have a fucking no. 2 pencil or charcoal, that's how little they trust you, instead you have to use crayons just like the ones you had when you were a kid and you refuse to as much as touch them. the art therapist tells you no pressure, just start drawing when you finally feel ready, maybe draw whatever's on your mind or something from before you came to this place, and she looks through the sketchbooks you brought with you and compliments you on your art, but everything you've sketched just kind of feels fake now. fuck, the world outside of the hospital grounds seems really unreal, or maybe the world outside is the real thing and this place is unreal, fuck, that's kind of a scary thought.

the art lady, you can't remember her name to save your life, she asks if that pretty girl in the pictures is your girlfriend, that she thinks she's seen her around your ward once, and you say you don't want to talk about it. instead, you pick up your stupid black crayon which is the closest thing to a decent pencil you're gonna get in here, and you finally start drawing. you draw helena, or at least you try to, but the crayon is the cheap brand that's kind of brittle and all your lines get messy, but at least it still looks like helena, at least kind of, but her nose seems a little off and her chin is too round and right, she's got a different haircut now. you try drawing her again, and again, but every time there's a little flaw or two in the finished product and you want to smash the crayon between your fist except your shrink says breaking shit isn't a solution for anything. so you get out your sketchbook and you use all the old sketches of helena for reference, but you still think there's something off about your new drawings, and the longer you look at the old ones, the more you think there's something off about them too. in the end, you stop drawing helena altogether, you move on to mom, she still visits every weekend so the memory is fresh, but there's still something off about her face when you draw it, so you stop drawing her as well. you go backwards through your memories, making out, the old man sobering up in reverse, cityscape, the whole world, jonah, but the further back you go the fuzzier everything seems and every single one of your sketches gets more and more distorted and less like the real thing.

you drop the black and draw the only thing that's still clear, the big clear thing behind all the fuzzy memories.

you grab all the crayons you can find: brick red, mahogany, red, scarlet, sunset orange, red orange, burnt orange, mango tango, neon carrot, macaroni and cheese, sunglow, goldenrod, canary, laser lemon and unmellow yellow, and you draw the fire.

it's the best thing you've ever seen, so you do it over and over, but it just gets messier, less like actual fire and more like a small kid's chicken scratch drawing. in the end, the only thing you see is a lot of straight lines scrawled next to each other on paper, and you give up. or you give in. to failing. to the fact that you need help.

whatever.

C#m. they were telling the truth for once when they said that it'd get better, because it actually does. it's not like you wake up one morning and feel completely alright, but maybe white rose isn't such a horrible place after all. you've started actually telling your shrink about your problems and it kind of really helps, and you start really talking to people too, you try to be nice to the orderlies and the kitchen staff even if the food is still fucking horrid, and you start talking to the other crazies, too. really, they don't seem all that crazy to you, even if they probably are, but you're crazy too so you probably don't have the right to judge. you meet this boy with big empty doll eyes who barely says anything, but when he does it's always the right thing, and this girl who's either the most exciting person in the world or just such a great liar that she could tell you how she hung the stars into the sky all by herself and you'd probably believe it, and you're not sure whether you should feel bad about envying either of them. you meet another boy, with freckles just like yours, and he seems completely normal and alright at first glance but you can't pretend that he's not clawing at the walls and screaming things in his sleep when the walls are thin and his room is right next to yours.

and you meet another girl, a girl named laura who reminds you way too much of helena despite not being like helena at all.

laura is gangly and wiry and her hair is stringy and black. she wears huge lumpy sweaters and long tattered skirts with chunky boots, and she looks like someone picked her straight out of the trash, or like a reclusive old lady at a funeral, as if she's trying to make herself as repulsive as possible. she's got scars on her arms that look almost just like yours, except when you ask her about them she'll pull her sleeves down past her knuckles and say that it doesn't matter anymore. in fact, she's kind of bitchy and overly defensive about everything you've ever asked her, and your shrink says that she doesn't really mean it but she probably does.

you're pretty sure that the only thing laura actually likes is art therapy. the only thing she ever does is paint black shapes onto colored canvases, and when you ask her what they're supposed to be, she tells you to fuck off, but then she shrugs her shoulders and says “birds,” and they don't look a thing like birds, they don't look like anything, but you just say “nice”.

the art lady, you still can't remember what her name was, she teaches you how to work with a paintbrush and acrylic paint, and once you figure the whole thing out the first thing you paint is birds. they actually look like birds, unlike laura's, and you paint two of them on one canvas, a pink sherbet bird on a black background and a black bird on a pink sherbet background. your birds actually look like birds, and when you're finished laura is the first person you show. she just shrugs, and you point at the black bird and say “this one's inspired by you”. “who's the other one?” she asks, and you bite your lip. “'s a secret.” laura says “it's okay, you don't have to tell me,” and she almost smiles a little. laura's smile is the only thing about her that's genuinely pretty, and you almost want to kiss her right then because she almost reminds you of helena, but she isn't.

B. you leave the white rose after a year and a half in total. laura doesn't come to say you goodbye and mom doesn't come to pick you up, either, but that's okay, you're okay, or at least much better.

the day after you return home, you spend what's left of your savings on a tattoo, nothing fancy, just a simple inscription on your ankle, “to hell and back”.

you stroke the bandage when you sit down at the bus stop and you feel like you're ready for everything now.

when i arrive i won't know anyone. [written october 2011]

2011-12-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

he steps out the door and the night is dark blue and silent. it's a far cry from chicago, from the constant city lights and the rushing of cars. buses. planes. there's nothing in a rush here and he turns his head upwards and watches the unmoving stars with not a single twinkling airplane between them.
he can't remember the last time he's seen a sky this clear, and he counts the constellations. cygnus, the swan. orion, the hunter. the big dipper and the little dipper. polaris. he used to know them all by heart, but not anymore. he forgets so much.
he walks down the path into the street and lies down. the stars in full view and he's the only one to see this, it almost feels like they're staring back at him. he shuts his eyes and waits, and when the voices finally come they're just as crisp and clear as the cold air.

"you haven't slept in a while." mother pours black coffee into the cup in front of her. she isn't worried, even though her voice sounds like she's trying, but he knows better. he knows everything about her.
"it's alright. coffee?" he asks, and she pushes the cup over towards him.
"you don't even like coffee. sure you're doing okay? took your meds?"
"yeah," he says. funny how she thinks she knows everything about him. yeah, as if. he can't remember the last time he took the pills. all they ever did was weaken him, either way, and he can't afford that. the voices are the only advantage he has over her. "i feel fine," he says and takes a huge sip without any sugar. it tastes like his own personal hell, but he doesn't want to go back to sleep, ever.

they've gotten more concise over time, the longer he's gone without the drugs mellowing down his brain. the first time he heard them again, all the predictions they made were vague, but now he's got a direct wire from him to the gods right in his head. he knows everything, about her, about the crow boy, about himself. he's this close to omnipotence, and he thinks that they should change his diagnosis from batshit insane to second coming.
he can't remember whether jesus was clairaudient, but he knows for fact that he's found his personal judas in the crow boy when he lights up. he hates cigarettes, and he's pretty sure jesus didn't smoke, either, but it's worth the soothing effect, even if it messes with his powers. he takes a deep drag and his brain gets quiet, until the only voice he hears belongs to the crow boy.
"smoking is really bad for your health, you know."
of course he knows. he knows everything.
"i'll die young either way," he says, and judas turns his head in surprise. sometimes he forgets that not everyone can be blessed with this.
"because," he says, "because the good ones always die young."
judas doesn't say anything, and it's so funny how he doesn't seem to know his fate, but then again there can only be one son of god at a time.
the messiah grabs judas' hand, and it's ice cold and clammy, of course, the traitor is always cold-blooded.
"but i'm not glad you're not one of the good ones," he says, "i wouldn't want you to die young."
the messiah can almost see his fragile brain buzzing when judas blinks at that, and then the messiah decides that it's probably a good thing that those powers are limited to him.

he feels strangely betrayed in a sense when judas touches his bare chest with those icy hands, and he's sure that his heartbeat is amplified a thousand times, louder than any voice could ever be. the voices had told him about anything, everything, except for this. judas grabs both of the messiah's wrists and kisses him, his mouth much warmer than his hands. he smiles and he's probably not aware just how murderous he looks at that very second, and the messiah feels both crucified yet omnipotent at the same time.

in the same night, he tries to kill judas. jesus was supposed to be a pacifist, but things have already very clearly gone wrong. maybe the voices were wrong, maybe crow boy isn't his judas after all. maybe he's simply one of twelve.
judas doesn't die, obviously, because that isn't how things are supposed to go. the messiah leaves and the voices are loud enough to drown out judas' breathing. he's never heard them angry before.

judas is gone. he is gone, and the messiah is still here, and even more importantly, he's alive. this is definitely not how things were supposed to go.
looks like he'll have to take things into his own hands, and he's pretty sure that jesus wouldn't condone suicide either, but the voices have spoken and he can't change that. he's already let them down once, once too many, and so he walks into the bathroom and finds the strongest painkillers mother keeps around the house. she'll be relieved when he's gone, virgin mary would be so disappointed with her.
he swallows all the remaining pills, dry, and he hopes that's enough because he's built up a massive oxycodone tolerance over time.
he goes to sleep for the first time in weeks and he feels messianic, like the patron saint of junkies everywhere.

it takes him over three days to wake up again, back in chicago, when he had been sure he wouldn't ever have to see this place again. his head is mellow and empty, and the only thing he hears is the buzzing of the monitor he's hooked up to.

i can watch and can't take part

2011-06-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

you still live in the same part of town as he does.
he's seen you in town a bunch of times, no special occasion, just while doing everyday things. going to the laundromat. buying groceries. getting some coffee. just really ordinary things. sometimes he nodded at you across the aisle, or just tried to make eye contact, but you always turned your head away. needless to say, he doesn't really go out that much anymore.
it started around a month after the incident, “the incident“, that's what we're calling it.
he keeps telling me that we'll never speak of it, but he still makes references to it all the time.
he never tells me any details of what exactly happened that night, but i could recite every single detail of the morning after by memory just from what he's told me. boiling coffee spilled on the floor. plates shattering against your parents' kitchen walls. two black eyes, one for you, one for him. bruises and cuts all over both your and his arms. two missing front teeth, yours. one broken nose, that's his. two broken ribs, his as well, with a punctured lung to go. light head trauma, his. a broken ankle, that was yours.
i remember how he took the bus to the emergency room. “i fell down the stairs.“ that's what he told the other passengers. blood flowing from his nose, past his swollen bottom lip. three people offering him a seat.
“i got mugged.“ that's what he told the nurses and doctors. the white of his right eye turned red and the dark purple around slowly fading to black. i wasn't with him at the time, or even aware that anything happened, but he described it to me in such vivid detail that i recall everything like it was yesterday.
“i couldn't exactly report it as a hate crime,“ that's what he told me when i came to visit him in the hospital. wincing with every word he spoke and every breath he took. “'cause it wasn't a hate crime, it was a love crime.“ he laughed at that, or at least it sounded like it was supposed to be a laugh, but the bandages around his nose made it sort of difficult to tell. i couldn't force myself to laugh along.
he only told his parents about the injuries after he left the hospital again, and that was the day when he packed his bags and left home. he never told me whether he lied to them, or whether he left by his own choice.

he arrived on my parents' doorstep that day, his nose still crooked from the punches, the skin around his eye still slightly yellow and his brain mellowed down on painkillers. mellow yellow. ha.
he told me that he needed to get away from home, and whether he could live with me until he'd gotten over you. you and i have lived on the same street since pretty much forever, but nice try.
my folks didn't object to him sleeping in my room, and they didn't dare to ask any questions after he showed off the scars and faded bruises on his arms.
later that night, we were lying in bed and he began to tell me the whole story. i'd dragged an old futon from the attic into my room for him, but he'd insisted to sleep in my queen size bed. queen size. ironic.
the mattress is big enough that we could both lie there without as much as our shoulders brushing against each other. he always sleeps on his back, on the very edge of the mattress. we don't ever touch when we're lying in bed. it's an unwritten rule of sort, i stay on my side, he stays on his side, no cuddling, no touching, no accidental elbowing in the middle of the night. some nights i watch him while he's lying on his back, limbs stiff, and if it weren't for the sound of his quiet breathing i would guess that he's dead. physically dead, i mean.

in his defense, he really did try getting his life back together during the first two or three months. he went to a handful of community college classes and got this part time job at a movie store downtown. it started out pretty well, really.
we'd wake up in the morning, with him on his side of the bed and me on my side of the bed. i'd make coffee and he'd use it to wash down his vicodin, half a tablet, to minimize the pain in his chest, he'd say. it's what the doctor had prescribed. after a few weeks he started increasing the dosage, one tablet a day. he started calling in sick to work and skipping classes, not too often, maybe once or twice a week. when i asked him why, he'd always say the same thing, “wasn't feeling too well,“ and then he'd say something about dizziness, nausea, headaches or vomiting.
“must be some kind of flu,“ he said, and i shrugged. dizziness, nausea, headaches, vomiting.
one quick google search told me that those are common vicodin side effects, but i'm still not sure whether it really was the vicodin or just you.
one tablet a day became one and a half. he'd stay home three days a week.
one and a half became two. he was fired from his job.
two and a half tablets of vicodin, he stopped going to college altogether.
he's already lying on his side of the bed when i come home from work every night, with his hair still wet and skin still flushed from showering. sometimes he's forgotten to put clothes on, and on those days i can't help but eye him from head to toe and wonder how i ever was attracted to him. how i'm still attracted to the surgery scars on his chest, his permanently crooked nose and the sallow skin that looks like he bought it a number or two too large. vicodin kills one's appetite almost as well as one's pain.

that very first night, i turned the lights off and rolled onto my side, all the way onto the edge of the bed, as if i could have possibly pretended that he wasn't there, that he wasn't breathing only three feet away from me and that the stench of hospital didn't still stick to him. as if he hadn't called me from the hospital after we hadn't spoke a single word for over a year. as if he hadn't let me down for the sake of someone like you.
i covered one ear with my pillow and the other with my hand, but that still couldn't keep me from hearing him.
“let me tell you a story,“ he said, with his voice still nasal, and at that point i had been almost completely positive he'd already fallen asleep.
i didn't say anything, and i'm still not sure whether he ever knew that i was awake that night, or any night after that, for that matter. he started off with telling me about his sophomore year in high school, about how he met you, and all i wanted was to press the pillow over my head until i'd suffocate. maybe his head, i wasn't picky. all i wanted was to not hear about you. he told me how he fell in love with you at first sight, love, as if actual love could have possibly ended like that.
i'm not the type of person to accuse others of throwing words around until they're meaningless, but in that moment i couldn't help but wish that he had done it more often in relation to me back then. he said your name that night, and the way he said it made it sound like the single most desirable thing in the world.
the morning after that, after i'd made us coffee and he'd taken his vicodin, he asked me to never speak of the incident, and i agreed, under the condition that he'd never speak that name in front of me. he still does it at least once every night, and every time he does it i push the pillow onto my head a little tighter. i never say anything, but i still wish he'd say my name like that.

it was about two weeks ago when i finally snapped. he was hanging off the bed stark naked and even more lifeless than usual, and if it hadn't been for his heaving ribcage, the smell of soap still clinging to his shower-moist skin and the distinct absence of flies circling his body, i would have guessed that he'd finally gone past his expiration date. i grabbed the container of tablets off the nightstand, and i guess the sound of pills rattling sent him back into full consciousness.
“what are,“ he said, a whisper at first before it rose into his usual nasal voice, “what are you doing?“
“no one needs two and a half vicodins a day after over three months,“ i said. i think i had meant for it to come out calm, but i couldn't stop my voice from rising.
“NO ONE,“ i said, once again, and he rose up from the bed.
if someone were to ask me right now, i wouldn't have been able to tell why, but in the next moment i open the window and drop the container with all the remaining tablets down onto the street way below the apartment, and in the next moment i hear the crunch of SUV wheels driving on plastic.

“YOU NEED TO GET YOUR FUCKING LIFE TOGETHER,“ i jump onto him and thread my fingers in his unkempt hair
“i'm trying,“ his fingernails scratch across my shoulders and dig through the cotton of my shirt
“YOU CAN'T JUST STAY HERE FOREVER,“ my knee digs into his stomach
“i'm trying,“ my hand is on his throat
“YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO GET THE FUCK OVER HIM,“ his fist barely misses my eye and hits the bridge of my nose instead
“i'm tr–,“ he doesn't get any farther than that before my other hand pushes onto his mouth
“AS IF POPPING PILLS FUCKING EQUALS TRYING,“ and my fist smashes straight into his crooked nose.

blood started spurting from his nostrils almost immediately, and i pulled back instinctively. he sat up and i just watched as the red liquid dripped down, past his bottom lip and onto his chest from where it started running down towards his crotch. déjà-vu if i'd ever had one, except for the bit where i hadn't ever actually seen him like this.
i went out for dinner on my own that night, and when i came back he was already lying on his side of the bed. his hair was untangled, but the dried blood was still sticking to his face and bare chest. i changed into sweatpants before i turned off the lights, and i lay there in silence listening to his breath. waiting until he'd start once again, “let me tell you a story“. really, it's not that i missed listening to him talk about you, quite the opposite in fact. i guess i'd just gotten used to it.
he finally started speaking after what seemed like a good few hours, but this time it was a different line.
“i'm sorry.“ the sheets rustled, and i felt him shift on the mattress, until he was this close to lying on my half. his hand awkwardly moved across my side until it finally grasped at mine. it's the first time he's touched me since he let me down back then, it's the first time anyone has touched me like that since then.
“i'm sorry. i'll try.“
i turned to face him, and in the faint glow of the streetlight from the window he looked even worse, his skin even sallower and saggier, his eyes even deader, his everything even deader. the dark red stripe leading from the bottom of his nose down his chin made him look as if he was growing a particularly unattractive beard.
“i'll try my best.“ he pulled me by my hand until there was barely any space between our bodies. there was no my side or his side of the bed anymore, we were just lying together. “i'll try my best.“
my whole throat was constricting. i just nodded.
his arm wrapped around me, and i looked at him again, it should have been hard to believe that i wanted to have sex with this animated corpse once, but it wasn't in the least. i grabbed him by the jaw and peeled off the strips of dried blood before i opened his mouth and kissed him.
he didn't move a single muscle, and if it hadn't been for his warm breath in my mouth i would've been lead to believe that i was actually kissing a corpse.
his clammy hands moved around my torso and pulled off my shirt and then i felt his skin right against mine. no matter if he'd remembered to get dressed after showering, he always strips down before sleeping, and since we didn't usually touch each other it doesn't really matter.
i could feel more dried blood ever so slightly sticking against my chest, but this time i didn't get around to pulling it off before he pushed his open mouth onto mine. not only did kissing him feel distinctly corpse-like, so did being kissed. i pushed my hand down between his legs and his fingers slipped into my sweatpants. even his grip on me felt like being jerked off by a dead man's hand.
that night was the only one when he didn't talk to me about you, and judged by his reactions to me, he probably didn't even think of you. we didn't fuck, or make love, or even have sex. as far as i'm certain all of those things require at least feigning interest.
the morning after, he drank coffee without vicodine, and we both told each other to never speak about this night again. it was the third vow about things left unspoken we made to each other, and it's the first one we actually managed to keep.

every night he tells me some new details about his relationship with you. it's still as sickening as the first day, but all i ever do is lie still and listen to him narrate. i hear how jealous he was of every single girlfriend you ever had, how you were the first person to ever kiss him, how you were the first person he ever fell in love with. (there's that word again, love. if it had been love he wouldn't be telling any of this to me.) every single night i'd get to hear essentially the same story in different variations over and over again, how much he wanted you and how you kept ignoring him, and it's both made me realize how much i still want him, and how much i hate you.
sometimes he didn't stop at just how much he wanted you and also started talking about how he wanted you: on your back, with him straddling you and running his hands all along your chest; on all fours while you pull his hair; face to face, so he can wrap his legs around you while you touch him all over. he'd describe every single one of his sexual fantasies in detail, and sometimes i almost tried and imagined myself in your place, but instead the mental image of you fucking him keeps entering my mind.
then there's the nights when he decides to recount our own relationship to me, from the day he met me in a coffee shop, over our first date to the first time we had sex in a snow storm.
“you know what's funny,“ he told me during one of those stories, and i knew he didn't expect me to say anything because i never say anything. “every single time we fucked– every single time we fucked, i always imagined you were him.“ he obviously didn't say him. he said your name.
and i swallowed so hard i damn near choked on my own trachea. if he hadn't told me all those things about wanting you, maybe i would have thought he'd been kidding. but of course, even if it hadn't been for those sexual fantasies featuring you, i still would have been deeply in denial.
one can only pretend their boyfriend isn't saying the wrong name for so long.
he always drifts off to sleep when he finishes his stories, but i'm always left just lying there, with the exact images of you he'd been describing circling around my head. sometimes i can hear him mumbling your name in his sleep, almost moaning, and that makes it all just so much worse but as much as i want to the pillow still can't drown him out.
he didn't restrict the story telling to nights either. when one of my classes got canceled or i had a day off, he'd tell me the story of what happened between the incident and him moving in with me. it's the same story over and over, just with some new details sprinkled here and there. i can identify all people on the bus he rode by race, sex, hairstyle and rough age range, and i know how every single dish at the local hospital tastes, but i still don't know what put him there.
“nights are for the before, days are for the after“, he said to me once when i asked him about the incident, on the very first day, before we made the rule. there's no time of the day for the inbetween.

i started calling you every saturday morning back when he first moved in with me.
today is the first time you pick up. it's still ridiculously early, and the sun hasn't fully risen yet.
“let me tell you a story,“ you say, and i don't say anything. i just listen.
when i finally hang up, he looks at me from across the bed.
i never told him about the calls, but judged by his face he knows exactly what i've been listening to.
“tell me your version of the inbetween,“ i say.

And in the night, the walls disappeared.

2011-01-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

It's 6 PM.
I burrow my head between my arms and rest my forehead on the cold wood of the table. Dinah is making soup, but I'm ill. There's a gaping hole in my stomach right below my ribs. It's just the right size, maybe a little larger than my fist and a little smaller than a baby chicken, but if I try to stuff it I start throwing up and my chest aches all over. „I'm not hungry,“ I say. „You have to eat or else you'll get ill again,“ Dinah says, and I tell her that I'm already ill. She asks me when the last time I ate was. I say Monday, it's actually Saturday. Today is Wednesday. Dinah sighs and says that if I don't start eating again tomorrow she'll call a doctor. She pours the soup down the sink. Sometimes I forget whether Dinah is my mother or my sister. I don't know how old she is.

It's 7 PM.
The first time I meet him is at the local town fair. It's already dark out by the time I get there, but in the bright lights I don't really notice much of it. Dinah had said she would let me go here by myself as long as I promise to eat once a day and don't talk to strangers. (I haven't eaten in two days, but I don't think she knows.) And that's when I see him, just standing in the middle of the town square like he owns it. He's a stranger, but he's a pretty stranger, and so I walk up to him and tell him, because Dinah doesn't have to know. He doesn't laugh. Instead, he says „thank you“ and says that my hair reminds him of birds. I smile and ask for his name. (If I know his name, he's not a stranger anymore.)

It's 8 PM.
Dinah slips on a short red dress. She says that it used to be a prom dress and that the girl it belonged to had her throat cut open by her own boyfriend just the morning after. Every piece of clothing in her closet has a story behind it, each of them more gruesome than the next, and Dinah has told me all of them at least once. (I sometimes wonder if she made some of them up.) “How do I look?” she asks while turning around her own axis. I point out that it sags around the chest, and she makes a small sound somewhere between a sigh and a hm and takes it back off. Dinah's closet is ordered by colors – blacks on one side, whites on the other and reds, blues and greens in the middle. (No yellows.) She takes out a long velvet gown (cancer patient, hung herself after her hair started falling out) and pulls it up around her hips and slips her arms into the long sleeves. I get up to help her pull the zipper closed, she spins around and at that point she looks like an old English lady who smells of cigarettes. (Which she sort of does.) “Is this good?” she asks, and I nod. (Sometimes I can't help but ask myself whether this is what normal life is supposed to be like.)

It's 9 PM.
There's a large window on one side of my room, right above my bed. The glass is slightly crooked and there's cracks on the bottom right corner, and when it rains a lot it leaks at times, but I don't really mind anymore. There's days when I like to just sit on my bed and stare outside, and it makes me feel like I'm a goldfish and this is my fishbowl, and everyone in the outside world doesn't really care I'm there, and the thought of that makes being alive seem a little less scary. (I used to own a goldfish when I was eleven. Dinah named him Moby Dick, and I didn't really care he was there either.) When I was a child, after we had just moved into this house, I'd sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and rest my forehead against the window pane, until the cold from the glass was so unbearable on my skin that it would take my mind off my nightmares and I'd be able to fall asleep again. (I had the same nightmare every single time. I don't remember much of it these days, but it always ended the same way, with my head forced under water until I couldn't breathe, and that was when I would wake up.) I can see the town square from here. Marlon is standing in his same spot again, like a statue, with his eyes focused into empty space. I know he can't see me from where he's standing, or even know where I live, but I kind of want him to notice me. I hear Dinah's car pull into the driveway, and so I lie down and pull the covers up to my nose. (Dinah doesn't like it when I people watch.)

It's 10 PM.
I am standing on the bridge just outside of town. It's been raining a lot lately and the river is overflowing just a slight bit. If I shine my torch at just the right angle and squint a little I can almost see the fishes down there. They look green and blue and purple, but maybe that's just from the light and from the water. Maybe they're actually rocks and not fishes and I just think they're fishes. (When I was a child, I thought that fishes just lived normal lives down there in the water, with little fish houses and fish cars and everything. Looking back, I think that maybe they do.) I hear someone coming down the bridge, and so I turn around and shine my torch down onto the ground. (Dinah says I'm not allowed to go out at night and look for fishes because people in town think it's weird. I do it anyway.) It turns out to be just Marlon. “Bird Kid,” he says and asks me what I'm doing here around this time. Marlon doesn't seem like the type of person to laugh or think I'm weird, and so I tell him the truth, “I'm watching the fishes.” “I don't think there are any fish in this water.” “I know.” (That's sort of a lie, because in my mind there actually are fishes in the river, but I don't want to tell Marlon that yet.) Marlon laughs. “You're weird, Bird Kid. I like that,” he says, and I'm not sure what to say to that. “Well, see, I never caught your name, and your hair looks like a bird, so I'm just going to have to call you Bird Kid. That okay?” “You told me that about my hair before,” I say, “I remember that.” Marlon doesn't say anything, but he looks like he's waiting for me to say something. I can't think of anything to say either, so I just repeat myself. “I'm watching the fishes.” Marlon laughs again, but it's a good laugh, and asks me how fish watching works. He seems to be actually interested, and so I tell him: “Well, it's kind of a game but not really. It's not really about fishes.” Marlon just says “Oh,” (the good kind of oh) and wraps one arm around me. (His body is all warm and he smells like pine cones and french fries. It's sort of nice.) We just stand there in silence for a minute or three before Marlon begins to speak again. “You know, Bird Kid,” he says, “I don't actually like birds. But I think I like you.” I smile once again and tell him that my name is Connor.

It's 11 PM.
The hole in my stomach is bigger now. I think I'd be able to stuff both my fists into it if it was possible. Dinah is boiling milk and crumbing bread. “What was the last time you ate something?” she asks, I say Thursday. (I can't actually remember.) Today is a Saturday. Dinah puts the small pieces of bread into a bowl and pours the hot milk on top. Just the smell makes me want to vomit. “Eat,” she says and places the mixture in front of me. I tell her that I feel ill, and she says “drink”. I know that she's going to call the doctor if I don't eat for longer than three days, and so I lower my head and sip off the edge of the bowl. Dinah pushes back the chair across from me and sits down. I know she's watching me, so I keep drinking until I've finished half of it and I feel like I'm going to throw up any second now. Dinah hands me a spoon, so I swallow two spoonfuls of soggy bread too. I feel like death. Dinah says how proud she is of me for eating. I don't know what to say to that, so I just turn the bowl in my hands. Dinah reaches down into the pocket of her apron. “I found this while cleaning out old boxes a few days ago,” she says. She pulls out a thin necklace with a golden brown stone pendant. “Real amber.” She leans across the table and fastens the clamps around my neck. “I'm fairly sure this used to be your mother's.” I don't remember anything about my mother, but I say “thank you” and run my fingers across the stone carefully. “Thank you,” I say once again.

It's midnight.
I can hear the church bells from here. (Dinah always says I shouldn't go out after midnight, but it's only been midnight for a few minutes and I've been out for longer than that so it doesn't really count.) Marlon and I are standing in his spot in the town square again. He lights a cigarette and I say that smoking is bad for his health. Marlon laughs (a thick raspy laugh) and says that he's going to die young either way. I ask him why. “Because,” he says and exhales a big cloud of fog; I can't tell whether it's cigarette smoke or from the cold. “Because the good ones always die young.” He takes my hand. Marlon's hand is warm and bigger than mine, and it feels right so I don't pull back. I'm fairly sure my hand is all clammy and cold right now, but Marlon doesn't seem to mind. (Holding hands with me is like holding a dead fish. At least, that's what Dinah used to tell me.) “But I'm glad that you're not one of the good ones,” Marlon says. I raise my head, and he continues, “I wouldn't want you to die young.” I'm not sure how I should feel about that.

It's 1 AM.
Marlon and I are sitting on the dark leather sofa in Dinah's living room. (Dinah always tells me I shouldn't let strangers inside the house, but she isn't here right now. Besides, Marlon isn't really a stranger.) Marlon is warm all over and he smells like pine cones again. His body is soft against me, softer than mine will ever be. I bet my bones are poking him right now, but he doesn't complain. (Somehow, being with him makes being in this room a little less weird.) “I like your necklace,” Marlon says and runs his fingers across the pendant. I say “thank you,” and I add, “real amber. Used to be my mother's.” “Your mother, the coroner?” I shake my head, “Dinah's not really my mother.” Marlon just says “oh”. We lie there in silence for around a minute, until I get the feeling that I should probably say something. “It's not that bad, really. I can't even remember my real mother, I think I was six years old when she died” I say, and Marlon nods. He opens his mouth, but instead of saying anything he leans forward, and then his lips are attached to mine. It feels right, so I open his mouth and let him kiss me. I'm not really sure what else to do at that moment, so I just sit there for a second or three, head tilted back, open-mouthed, with his tongue between my teeth. (Even kissing me must feel like kissing a dead fish.) Marlon pulls back and sits up. “Wow, I'm sorry,” he says, and I'm not sure exactly what he's apologizing for. (So I grab him by the jaw and kiss him again.)

It's 2 AM.
Dinah rubs her eyes and places a cup of warm milk on my nightstand. She asks me what's wrong. “I had that bad dream again,” I say and take a careful sip. The milk is still scalding hot, but I swallow it all. “The drowning one?” I nod. “You haven't had that one in a while,” Dinah says, and I say that it's been two years now. She turns the candle she's holding in her hands and sighs. “Listen, it's all going to be okay. Just don't think about it anymore, try to go back to sleep. No one's going to drown you,” she says and stands up, and I don't really want to talk anymore so I just mumble “alright”. “Good night,” Dinah says and blows out her candle. (The light coming from the hallway shines through her dressing gown – pneumonia – and it makes her look like a ghost. A ghost wearing ghosts' clothing.) I say “good night” too and she closes the door. For a few seconds I just lie there and listen to her steps getting quieter. When I'm sure she won't come back, I sit up and rest my forehead against the windowpane. I close my eyes and inhale, and I count to twenty. When I've finished counting, my skin is stinging from the cold, and I exhale and open my eyes. I'm a goldfish and this is my fishbowl and the outside world can't hurt me. Right now the outside world is empty and all the lights are out. Even Marlon isn't standing in his usual spot in the town square. I'm a goldfish and this is my fishbowl and the outside world can't hurt me. (It's sort of funny too because you cannot drown a fish.)

It's 3 AM.
The first time Marlon and I fuck, it's up against the window in my room. My hands and face are smushed up into the cold glass, but I'm way too warm on the inside to actually feel the sting. Right below where I placed my hands, the water runs in thin droplets down the windowpane and leaves curvy little track marks against the fogged up glass. I feel like maybe I'm a melting ice block or maybe I'm a fire and I'm melting down the house. (Either way, it's not all that bad of a feeling.) Marlon wraps his hand around my throat and asks me if this turns me on. It takes me a second or three, but then it's all there, the moisture on my face and arms, Marlon's hand, his hot breath on the back of my neck and the way he thrusts into me. I'm pretty sure I'm an ice block now. “Yes,” I choke out, and Marlon moves closer to my ear and calls me filthy. I'm basically halfway molten ice in his hands by now, and it only takes another two or three thrusts after that before I finish and so does Marlon. My knees buckle when I open my eyes, and so I let myself fall down onto the mattress. My hair lies flat on my head for once and my body sticks to the sheets with sweat. (I used to be an ice block but now I've melted down.) “Are you okay?” Marlon asks, and I can only barely manage to nod. I can see the view from my window from here, but I don't feel like a goldfish anymore. I feel filthy. (Filthy feels good.)

It's 4 AM.
My earliest concrete childhood memory is probably Dinah taking me for a walk in the woods when I was nine years old. That was back before the swamp was drained, and so we walked along the edge of it, with Dinah clutching my hand in hers so I wouldn't fall. After a while, Dinah asked me if we could stop and take a seat for a few minutes, and it was while she was sitting on a bench that I found a dead frog. It couldn't have been dead for all that long, but flies were already swarming around it and its little frog belly had begun to swell. I remember taking a stick and poking it, and it didn't take too long until its skin ruptured and its organs were exposed and glistening in the sunlight. I just stood there for a second or three, looking at the small carcass in front of me, the flies already beginning to circle it once again. The whole situation just sort of scared me, and I wasn't exactly sure what to do at that point. I raised my right foot and kicked it into the gaping hole, over and over, until the tip of my shoe was covered in frog guts and the stink of death. It was then that I heard Dinah's voice from behind me, “don't touch it, it's covered in germs,” and so I turned around and whispered “okay”. She grabbed me by the hand and we went back home, and she never noticed the mess on my shoe. It's sort of funny that this of all things is my last thought, because this is just how I feel right now, like a little frog carcass with a bloated belly. I must stink like death too. (The only thing missing is the flies.) I can't remember how much I ate, or when the last time I ate before that was, but I do know that it was too much and too long ago, respectively. I roll off my chair onto the cold kitchen floor, and this time the cold is almost soothing. I put both hands over my stomach, onto the place where my hole once was, but now the hole is overstuffed like a bad thanksgiving turkey. (Don't think about thanksgiving turkeys.) Maybe I should just wait down here until I die and someone covers their shoes with my guts.

It's 5 AM.
Dinah only lights spherical candles when she's mad at herself. Usually it's because of me, or her job, or me, or the people in town. (Mostly me.) This time, it's a phone call. She finishes lighting the last candle and motions me to sit down on the sofa. There's a candle on the arm rest beside me and two on the back rest. This is at most the third time I've been in this room, and it's the first time that Dinah and I are in it at the same time. It's also the first time that I've been in the same room with her during one of her spherical candle moods. My stomach cramps up, but it's not from hunger this time. The hole is still gone. Dinah takes the seat across from me and straightens her dress (emerald green velvet, heroin overdose). “The woman from child services called today,” she says. “They've gotten my reports.” She pauses and scrunches a handful of her skirt in her fist. I think I can see teardrops glistening on her face but I could be wrong. “And they said that they don't think I'm capable to take care of you anymore. That they've given me enough freedom in raising you. That maybe, I just need to face the fact that you need professional help.” She pauses once again and wipes at her cheeks. Now I'm sure she's crying. “You're gonna be put into foster care. We've got three more days.” She reaches for the box of tissues on the coffee table and blows her nose. I wish I could say something at that point, but I can't say anything. I don't know if it's because I'm shocked or because I know in some corner of my mind that I'm actually not shocked at all. (I can't even tell if I'm shocked in the first place.) “I'm so sorry, Connor, I'm so sorry.” The mascara runs down Dinah's cheeks and paints them with jagged black lines, almost like cracks in ice. (Maybe we are both ice blocks.) I still don't know what to say. “I'm so sorry,” Dinah says once again, and I want to tell her to stop saying that, because it was my fault all along. Instead, I tell her that I have to do something and ask if I can go out for an hour or two. She takes another tissue and wipes the dark goo off her cheeks. “Of course,” she whispers, still with tears in her eyes, and it's at that point that I really just want to give her a hug. All I do is say “thank you” and run my fingers across my necklace. (It's no longer just my mother's now. It's my mother's and Dinah's.)

It's 6 AM.
I find Marlon in his usual spot in the town square. When he sees me, he asks if I'm still up or already up, and I say “still”. He takes my hand and says “already,” and I ask him if we can go to the bridge. We lean against the railing once again, and that's when I tell him what Dinah had told me. With every word that comes out of my mouth I just want to cry more and more, as if saying the words just makes it more real. As if keeping my mouth shut would somehow make this all just a nightmare and all I have to do is fall off the bridge and drown, and then I'd wake up and return to my goldfish life. But no, this is real. Marlon takes a deep breath after I've finished speaking, and that's when he wraps both of his arms around me and pulls me into him. “I'm so sorry,” he whispers into my hair. “I'm so fucking sorry.” It's then, with my face smushed into his chest, that I finally allow myself to cry, and it's under tears that I mumble “stop saying that word”. Because it was my fault all along. “Fuck?” Marlon asks, and I say “no, sorry”. It was my fault all along. We stay like that for a while, with me crying into his sweater, and I think Marlon is crying too but I don't want to look up.
After a while, the church bell tolls seven, and by that time I already feel like I can't cry anymore even if I wanted to. I remove my face from Marlon's chest, and we both turn to lean onto the railing once again. “You see any fish?” “Marlon, there aren't any fishes in this water.”

break my back

2010-12-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

one. it's early morning. i'm sitting in the kitchen and i am eating a fish sandwich. selkie's face is as white as the milk she pours into her bowl of cereal. „i had another bad dream tonight.“

two. the concept of „making love“ had always bothered me. i just never really understood how putting a penis into a vagina was supposed to produce that complicated chemical process happening between two human brains.
selkie insists that we turn off the lights and close the curtains every time we do it. she claims it's because of the neighbors, but i know that she really just doesn't want me to see her stretch marks, and i think she knows that i know too. one time she confessed to me that she thinks of f when we have sex, and at that point i could have told her that i think of f too when we have sex, but instead i just rolled over and pretended that i didn't hear her.
maybe love has to exist in a relationship before you can make it.

three. “i'm in the woods, basically, and i'm caught in a bear trap with both legs, and i'm just bleeding and bleeding and then i hear people coming.”

four. i remember the day selkie got married. she still keeps a picture framed on the fridge, it's the one of us, me, her and franklin. she's scribbled out f's whole head in black sharpie, but you can still see parts of his face if you squint really hard. the whole picture is kind of hilarious in an unintentional and twisted sense, because this was supposed to be the happiest day in selkie's and franklin's life, but i'm the only one whose smile is actually genuine.
selkie once told me that she'd wanted to have a white princess wedding ever since she was five, and then there she was, standing in a backyard in her 150 dollar off-white wedding dress with a rather obvious bump underneath, looking like a trailer trash barbie doll in her fake smile.
i know for fact that if it had been up to her, there wouldn't have been a bump, and if it had been up to franklin, the dress wouldn't have been off-white, and if it had been up to both of them they wouldn't have stood in this backyard in the first place. i also remember that selkie cried during the ceremony, and so did her mother, but for entirely different reasons.

five. she pauses to shove a big pile of wheaties into her mouth. they're the honey frosted kind, but it's not like she'll keep them down either way. “they were coming to get me.”

six. f had told me once that he wanted his ashes to be scattered over the sea in the rain, but instead he was going to be buried on a bright summer's day. i remember that day surprisingly well, the pastor's speech about ashes to ashes and how all those accidents happened in god's will, selkie in the same black dress which was now stretched out across her stomach, the casket sealed shut, the pitiful looks people were giving the two of us, selkie crying on the way back home.
i don't really remember the next few days after that, and i don't remember the day the rain finally set back in either.
i don't remember waking up to selkie in the next room screaming that her contractions set in, driving to the hospital with her crying in the backseat, her being wheeled into the emergency room, me waiting an hour, two hours, four hours, until the weather had gone from gray and rainy to black and rainy and a nurse told me to go home. i remember selkie and the woman behind the reception telling me about these things, but i don't remember living them. the only thing i do remember is the day after, the IV stuck in selkie's arm, her face so white that it made the hospital gown and bedding look gray and how tears formed in her eyes when she told me that the baby didn't make it. i like to pretend that this is all i remember from that day, but the truth is that at that point, she just looked so lost and lost and lost that i just leaned in and kissed her. not even in a sexual way. just kissing it better.
as-fucking-if.

seven. “i can hear them getting closer and closer, and some of them are screaming my name, and then they're right in front of me but i still can't see their faces.”

eight. when we were in high school, we would sit on the riverbank just out of town, just the three of us. we would lie back onto the grass and just talk about everything, because it's not like there was anything better to do. it was one of those days of us just sitting there that franklin and selkie eventually happened.
years later, we eventually returned, and even though it's kind of hard to pinpoint in retrospect, that was more or less the day when franklin and selkie ended.
we were sitting underneath the same old birch tree that still had our names carved into it from years earlier, selkie's black dress spread out across the grass. we just sat there and talked for a while, just like back then, about life and life after high school and whatever else people who haven't seen each other in a while might discuss (even though we all still live in the same town). it was only after we've stopped the small talk that selkie lowered her voice and said that she might be pregnant. i looked down at her stomach, there was a very slight bump below the velvet of her dress, and so i congratulated the both of them. franklin swallowed, discreetly, but still loud enough for me to hear it, and selkie said that she was going to name it alice if it's a girl and joshua if it's a boy.
my memory is kind of fuzzy after that, but i do remember the early evening hours, we were still sitting in the same spot and selkie had said that she'd be back in a little while (but i don't remember why). that was the exact moment when franklin and i began – if you can call it that. i remember how he moved closer until i could feel his breath on the back of my neck and how his arms wrapped around me. how his lips brushed against my ear when he told me that he couldn't do this for much longer. that they would probably have to get married soon. that he was tired of living a lie. and how much he wanted me. whether we could do something. to be honest: yes, i wanted franklin. and so i said yes. again, i don't really remember what happened after that, but only a few hours later we were back at my house, and only half an hour after that he had kissed me one last time.
only half an hour after that, i turned up the hot water and started scrubbing at my skin, at every single part of me that franklin's lips and hands had touched.
to be honest: yes, i wanted franklin. i wanted him to fuck me like they do in porno films. fuck me until i can't breathe, fuck me until i scream, until i cry, fuck me so hard that i can't walk for days. i wanted to feel his teeth sink into the back of my neck, i wanted him to whisper all those dirty things into my ear, i wanted him to make me come so hard that my vision goes blurry. and he did.
to be honest: yes, i wanted franklin. but not like this.
i only got out the shower when the hot water ran out and my whole face was rubbed red and raw.

nine. “one of them raises his gun and pulls the trigger, and then i wake up.” at this point, i could tell her that she should probably see a doctor about this. or that everything will be fine eventually. i say nothing.

ten. the rain set in a few days before it all ended. in retrospect it was kind of prophetic, almost ironic, but back then we didn't think much of it. it was an ordinary night and franklin had come over again, i remember feeling his wet body pressed against my back (but i was never sure whether it was from sweat or from the rain), and i remember after, him buttoning up his shirt and saying that selkie was probably waiting for him. “my wife is probably waiting,” that's what he'd said, he never called her by name anymore. nothing out of the ordinary.
i remember turning up the water and scrubbing at my skin. nothing out of the ordinary.
then the phone call from selkie, her saying that f hadn't come home yet and that i knew how scared she is of ghosts, and that's the point when my memory begins to speed up. i remember getting dressed again and driving down to selkie's and franklin's house. thinking back now, i probably should have noticed the wrecked car in the ditch somewhere around the woods, but i didn't.
i knew how scared selkie was of ghosts, and so i just kept on driving. i remember arriving to selkie crying, i remember telling her that everything will be fine, i remember just holding her for a few minutes until she stopped shaking. i told her once again that everything will be fine.
i remember kissing her on the forehead. kissing it better. as if.
i remember selkie opening the door. a police officer saying he's sorry to inform her that her husband got killed in a car accident. selkie breaking into tears again. the officer's reactions going from “miss, please try to stay calm,” over “please calm down,” and “you need to calm down, miss,” up to “you have to calm the fuck down,” and me telling him that it's probably best if he leaves her alone for now.
i remember selkie falling asleep on the sofa after her eyes ran dry and i remember turning up the hot water and scrubbing at my skin.

eleven. selkie asks how my night was. i could tell her that i didn't sleep all night again. that i considered taking the gun she keeps under her pillow and just ending it. i say “oh, the usual,” and take another bite from my fish sandwich.

twelve. when we were kids, selkie and i would sit in the branches of the highest tree in my parents' backyard. we'd feel like we were the rulers of the world and this was our castle, and somehow the idea of that made the rest of the world and the rest of our lives seem a little less scarier. it was one day when we were ten when selkie knocked at my parents' door, book bag on her back and a bundle of clothes under her arm, asking if she could stay for a while. my parents didn't ask any questions and so she did, and it wasn't until the next day that i found out why. we were sitting in 'our' tree again, and that's when she told me that her mother had to be put in the hospital. that her father had left town. that she couldn't stay at her own house anymore because she's scared of ghosts, and that's when she hitched up her skirt and showed me the bruises and burn marks all over her legs, and the gaping wound slightly below her right knee. i remember running my fingers across it, asking her if it hurt a lot, and her asking me to kiss it better. and so i did.

twelve and a half. people in town say that i only love her because f is dead. that's not the bad part. i know that they can't know the whole truth about him and me. i know that it seems like selkie is just another distressed widow and i'm just another year-long friend trying to comfort her. that's not the bad part. the bad part is that i know they're right, and selkie probably does too.

a remotely gay story

2010-10-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

(i fast forward to the day we first meet and press play)

we meet the day when we're both entering sophomore year in high school, and that day i'm just your average sixteen year old loser who's never even had a girlfriend, and then you walk into the room and all of all sudden all that i can even notice in those few split seconds is you and your hair and eyes and smile and arms and everything, as if there's some sort of radiation surrounding you that just screams perfection

(i pause at this for a second just so i can soak myself up with the moment of meeting you for the very first time)

and that's also the moment when all of all sudden, i fully consciously realize the real reason i've never had a girlfriend before and it's standing right next to me and smiles a smile that looks like it's been cut straight from a tooth paste advert, and right then and right there it just hits me out of the blue alongside vague memories of awkward group showers after gym class and that one really hot guy from that one mediocre band and boys in eight grade who i wanted to be with be with a lot more than is normal, but all i can actually notice at that moment is how the oddest thing about this whole revelation situation is that i'm not even wowed that much.

(i press play)

and now your lips move again and i hear your voice for the very first time, "hey, i'm kyle,” you say and take a seat at the desk next to mine, and i think i may have been so lovestruck by you and your presence only two feet away from me at that moment that i completely forget that i'm supposed to be a functional human being, so i just sit there for a while. in my mind this goes on forever, just me sitting there and staring at you, but the tape doesn't lie and it's actually a few seconds. you extend your hand, and i awake from my vegetable state and say “i'm josh,” we shake hands, and your hand is so warm and soft and perfect in mine that i kind of wonder how someone who is this perfect just so happened to find me.

(fast forward to the weekend after)

we're lying in your backyard and i'm not even sure anymore why we wanted to hang out in the first place, i'm pretty sure it was basketball but you'd given up on trying to teach me how to play after you realized that i was only the most out of shape person in the universe.
so we're lying on the grass, the trees and the sky above us, the dewy green below our bodies and there's only about a foot distance between us and my heart is up in my throat and beating like there's no tomorrow because this is happening and you exist and i could totally swear that i'm falling in love or something, and that sounds just like a scene from some cliche chick flick, except for the bit where neither of us happens to be a chick, but who cares because you're right next to me and you're fucking perfect and the rather large part of me that thinks with his dick just wants to roll over and kiss you, because you're just so fucking perfect that you probably wouldn't even mind and maybe you'd kiss back because you're perfect and obviously any situation involving you would also be perfect and and and, but just as that part finally manages to convince the rest of my brain to just go for it, you sit up and ask me if i've ever had a girlfriend before.
at that, my heart does an abrupt sinking motion from the back of my throat down into the very bottom of my stomach, and i could have sworn that i could hear a little swooping sound effect, like the one used in cartoons when something really heavy falls from a really great height, and i also could have sworn that the really heavy something just fell out of the sky with a small swooping sound and was about hit me in the head. that's exactly what it feels like, a large blow to the head just waiting to happen, and a part of me just really wants to cry at this because of course i have to finally meet someone i'm actually consciously attracted to and then you just have to prefer girls over awkward slightly overweight boys like me, but i just swallow and say “no”, and then, “have you?”, because if i can't have you i at least want to know if someone else ever has – had you, i mean.
you let yourself fall down onto the grass and shrug, “well yeah, i had a girlfriend back in washington, but i've just moved here now and i guess now i'm just gonna see what's going to happen”, and i nod and ask you what washington is like to get away from the subject as quickly as possible, but the whole situation kind of feels awkward and there's still a small echo of that stupid swooping sound playing in my head and i really just want to ask you why you can't just be gay because that would make the whole thing a lot less complicated, but i don't and so we just wind up talking about how much washington sucks for a while.

(fast forward to a few months later)

it's your average november day ('average' meaning 'the sky consists of fat gray clouds which kind of remind me of particularly bad porridge') and you and i are sitting on the old tacky couch in your parents' basement which kind of looks like the 70's puked it up. i guess we were supposed to be playing video games or something equally substanceless, but it degenerated into staring at the screen, eating stale nachos, watching our virtual selves get slaughtered by zombies and just talking.
there's actually no “just” about the phrase “just talking”, it just makes it sound like talking is the easiest thing in the world, as if there's no barriers to be crossed or awkward silences. as if everybody in the whole world just spends their days talking about things that matter and things that don't.
i think we were concerned with the things that don't when you finally brought it up. it.
you begin to speak, “oh yeah, i've got”

(but i press fast forward fast enough before i have to hear those words again. those words that made the exact same metaphorical really heavy something from three months ago finally finish swooping and fall onto my head with a daft thud. those words, “i've got a girlfriend now by the way”.)

i'm not even sure what enraged me more at that very second – the fact that you had a girlfriend for what was probably a while now and didn't even bother telling me, the fact that it just had to be a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend, further decimating my chances, or the “by the way”, as if you didn't even think of me, as if your life was completely irrelevant to mine, and as if you didn't even realize how much those words hurt my feelings.
how could you realize, it's not like you know that i'm gay, it's not like you know that you're the single most attractive person i have ever met, it's not like you know how much i want to be your boyfriend, and a part of me really just wants to scream at that moment and tell you how much you mean to me, but i don't because i already know that i have no chances with you and we've only met a few months ago and this would just ruin our whole friendship before it even really started andandand.
“nice”, i just say instead, “what's she like?”, and you tell me her name (maggi, short for margaret, after her great grandmother) and how you met last week at the mall (at the virgin megastore) and what her favorite color is (light green) and how good she smells (like cinnamon rolls and sunday mornings – whatever a sunday morning may smell like), and i nod and say “nice” after all of those facts, but i know that it's fake and you probably did as well.

(fast forward into winter)

we're sitting on the same old tacky couch again, and when I say we, i don't mean you and me, i mean you, me and maggi, or as i should probably say me, you and maggi, because she's pressed up against your side and during the gory parts, she buries her face in your chest.
and even though i know i should be paying attention to the action on screen i just cannot help but look over towards you and her. and even though i know that i shouldn't be jealous of her, i am. and even though i know that she's just a girl and probably has a great personality and we're still in high school and eventually you two will break up, i cannot help but wish for a flaming rock to fall out of the sky and hit her in the head.
eventually the movie ends, and you get up to look for more popcorn, and then i'm alone with maggi, which is pretty much the equivalent of putting a spider next to a house fly, and i don't even know whether i play the part of the house fly or the spider in this one.
“hey, are you okay?” maggi's voice is light and soft, and i can almost understand why you're so attracted to her – she's just about the perfect girl equivalent to your perfect boy, and maybe that's why i hate her so much, because i will never be perfect enough to be with you (not be with you, actually be with you), and maggi just sits there and looks at me, and she says “josh?” and only then is it that i realize she actually just asked me a question, and i blink and say something to the extent of “no, no, i'm fine”, and she says “oh, i was just wondering, you weren't looking at the screen at all during the movie”, and i shrug and then you finally come back with more popcorn and we start the next movie.

(and eventually maggi leaves, and i fast forward to later that night)

i think we must be on horror movie number six or seven at this point, but it's cold outside by now and so we had moved up into your room, with both of us laying on your bed, eyes focused intently on the small screen, and now that we're all alone and there's nothing – or no one – between us, a part of me really just wants to nudge closer towards you and bury my face in your neck during the gory parts, but i don't because you're not gay and you have a girlfriend and i really don't want to fuck things up and besides, even if all those other points were void i'd still look like an even bigger pussy than i already am, and so i stick to eating popcorn and hoping that my hand accidentally brushes against yours.
after a while this movie ends too, and you turn your head to look at me and mumble, “dude, i'm tired”, and i nod and mumble “yeah, me too” and i'm still not sure whether that one was a lie, but i get up and make myself as comfortable as possible on the inflatable mattress on the floor, and you turn the lights off, we say “good night”, and then for a while we just lay there and breathe, and after a while your breathing gets quieter and more regulated, and i'm pretty sure you've fallen asleep.
there's a part of me that kind of wants to get up and crawl in next to you, not ravish you in your sleep or anything that's even remotely sexual, just lie next to you and hold you, feel your chest heaving below my arms and your breath against my face, and you would never even know, and i would get to actually do something close to being with you, even just for a night, what could possibly go wrong?
i sit up, and just at that i hear your voice again, “hey, can i ask you a question?”
i freeze for a second, but then i relax again, there is no idea you realized what i was about to do, i was just going to get a glass of water or something, something like that, and i say, “yeah, go ahead”, and you switch the light back on and turn to face me.
“well, you know, i was just noticing that you kept looking at me and maggi earlier today, so i was wondering...” my stomach cramps up again at this, i was so sure of the question that was about to follow, are you gay?, and i already dread the idea of answering that question, no matter how you reacted, it would likely just fuck up everything. fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. “are you jealous of me or anything?”
i exhale loudly at this (never minding the fact that i didn't even remember holding my breath in the first place), and you furrow your brows and continue, “are you okay? i mean, i was just wondering, since you've never had a girlfriend or anything, and yeah, i'm not gonna be mad if you say yes.”
it takes a few more seconds until i fully regain my ability to talk, because you didn't suspect anything, thank the lord or some other spiritual entity. “i was just wondering, alright?” and i mumble, “naw, she's not really my type... maggi, i mean,” and you nod and say “okay”, and turn off the light once again.
we just lay there in the dark for another few minutes, and the silence in the room is so thick you could cut it with a knife, and once again i consider just doing it, just crawling in next to you and pretending that we're actually being with each other, but now i know for sure that you're awake and this would be just way too weird, and that's when you begin speaking again.
“so... this is kind of awkward,” and i shrug and say “awkward,” partially to break the silence, partially because it's true, this is the single most awkward situation i have ever been in, and there's just something about talking in the dark that's much easier than regular talking, and that's when i say it.
“you know, kyle...” i take a deep breath. “i think i might be gay”, and that's when the light goes back on.

(i take the opportunity to pause the tape just so i can see your face, and you seems to be genuinely surprised, with no trace of hate or anything to be seen, and then i press play again)

“are you kidding me?”, you ask, there's still nothing but surprise in your voice, and i just shake my head.
“so... you like guys? as in, sexual like guys?” and i just nod, “well, i'm pretty sure i like guys, you know... not like i ever actually had a boyfriend or anything, but yeah... you know.”

(i pause yet again, and your face still has the same expression of surprise on it)

“well, then... that's okay, i guess”, you say, “wow... i have a gay best friend i guess.”
you laugh nervously at that, and i exhale loudly, you're not going to hate me, you're not going to hate me, and you switch off the lights yet again and say, “well, good night then”, and i say “good night” as well, and i close my eyes and try not to think about you or being with you or what i had just said, and in the end i actually fall asleep to the sound of your breathing.

(fast forward another few months)

it didn't last. of course it didn't. “maybe we're just not compatible,” you snivel and wipe your nose on my bedsheets, “that's what she said, maybe we're just not compatible.” you're lying on my bed, your head next to mine and your arms around my neck, and this would be almost just everything i'd spend the last few months hoping for, but right now you're crying like a baby which is kind of ruining the moment.
a part of me kind of wants to tell you that of course it didn't last, because you were just kids in high school and high school relationships never last and that you're acting like a fucking pussy and that i'm going to have to wash these sheets later today, but i am actually holding you and you are actually lying on top of me, and even if you are crying this moment is kind of way too wonderful for me to say anything like that, and so i settle for stroking your back instead.
“maybe we're just not compatible”, you repeat for the third time before burying your head in the pillow and breaking down into a string of sobbing and semi-incomprehensible words, many of which are either “maggi”, “compatible” or “fuck”. and then for a while i just lie there, with you sobbing into the pillow while still halfway on top of me, and i'm not sure how much time passes while you're still sobbing, and i kind of wish i could say something right now, but it's not like i've ever been broken up with so it's not like i'd understand.
i think it takes around ten minutes of sobbing in total before i finally do ask you if everything's okay, and you roll off of me and look up and shake your head, and you're still so perfect even if your face is stained with tears and even if you have snot running down from your nose, and the look in your eyes just screams of the feeling of being hit in the head with a metaphorical swooping object, and at that moment you just look so goddamn heartbroken that i just want to lean in and kiss you.
just kiss you, as if that could possibly fix anything, but i just know that i shouldn't and you just keep looking at me like that and it's then that i start crying too, and i'm not exactly sure whether it's because you're crying or because i can't have you, and then we just sit there and cry for a while until you sit up and look at me once again, and then your hand is on my cheek and you say, “hey, stop crying. not your fault”, and that's when it happens.
that's when your hand is on my jaw and my lips are on yours, and i'm still not sure which of us started it. the kiss, my first kiss, technically. it's sort of awkward because your face and lips are sticky from tears and snot and mine are probably too, and there's no tongue or anything, but it's a kiss, and i think i might have cried just a little more at that because it's nothing like the way i expected my first kiss – or our first kiss – to be, but still it's everything i'd hoped it would be,

(and that's when i take the time to rewind back just a few split seconds before the kiss, and now i can clearly see that it's actually you who started it which makes the whole situation in retrospect just a little better, and then the whole thing happens again until you pull back and exhale.)

“wow,” you say, “wow, i'm sorry,” and i just want to tell you that you don't have to be because this is more or less everything i've ever wanted, but instead i just lie back and say “let's never speak of it again,” just because even thinking of bringing this up ever again would just be way too awkward, and you say “never,” and then it's sealed.

(fast forward to spring break)

it's a quiet night and we are sitting in your backyard with nothing but a bottle of jack daniel's between us. our knees and arms brush together, and if either of us tilted his head just a little slightly it would be lying on the other's shoulder, and this is almost just like i'm actually being with you, except for where in my dreams neither of us were drunk, but right now we are and so i grab the bottle and take another sip.
“you know”, i say, “it's spring break. we should be in california getting laid right now”, and you say, “i know”, and lie back, “but i don't really care.” you take a sip as well, and i let myself fall down onto the damp grass next to you, the sky is almost a little too clear right now and this just seems way too fake, as if some spiritual being had made us characters in a metaphorical movie without our knowledge, but maybe that's just the alcohol and the sky isn't really that clear.
and then the silence starts to get awkward, so i take a closer look at the sky again and ask, “hey, isn't that orion?” even though i know literally nothing about astronomy and neither do i care, and you shrug and say “probably”, and then you laugh and reach for the bottle again.
“you know”, you mumble, “maybe this is actually a lot better than being in california and getting laid”, and i just nod because in california i'd have to share you with a girl and you'd have sex with all of those californian girls pop songs are written about and i would just sit there and have extended make-out sessions with my bottle of jack.
“speaking of getting laid,” i say “you got a girlfriend again?” and you shake your head and ask me if i've got a boyfriend yet, and i also shake my head and then we just sit there again in semi-awkward silence, until you grab the bottle by the neck and say “dude, i'm bored. let's play never ever have i ever,” and i pull the bottle from your hands and take a sip and say “never ever have i ever is boring if you're only playing with two people.”
you shrug and sit up and reach for the bottle yet again before handing it to me, and i prop myself up on my elbows and take a sip. we take turns drinking the rest of the bottle until it's empty, and that's when you collapse down onto the grass and say, “josh, i'm tired”, and i just nod because i'm pretty sure anything coming out of my mouth by now would be complete nonsense, and you wrap your arms around me and now i can feel your breath on my neck and holy fucking shit, i'd probably have at least a semi by now if i was less drunk.
“'m cold, hold me,” you mumble, and so i put one arm around your shoulders and the other around your waist and this seems like the perfect moment to try and kiss you again, and i open my mouth slightly and try to aim for yours, but i get your nose instead, and you twitch and i whisper “sorry,” and that's when the tape cuts to black and i probably fell asleep.

(fast forward a few weeks)

her name is janie and she has curly brown hair and freckles, wears oversized sunglasses, listens to early 90's punk rock and smells like marlboro's and chocolate. she's the exact opposite of maggi and yet somehow next to your perfect boy she seems to be just as much of a perfect girl, and maybe that's why i already hate her despite having never spoken a word to her.
“janie, this is josh,” you say, and she stiffly sticks out her hand, her face frozen in an expression somewhere between apathy and imminent dislike. i reach out and shake it, her palms are clammy and her nails are painted dark red. she pulls back almost immediately after about a second and then twists her fingers into yours, and the way you and her just seem to complement each other to the point of something beyond perfection makes me want to claw out her eyes even more than 'just' the fact that she's the one who is with you.
for a few seconds we just stand there in the middle of the hallway, you're looking at janie, janie's looking at you, and i'm just standing there and pretending to look at something remotely interesting right behind you two, and after those few seconds you clear your throat and say, “awkward”, and i say “awkward” and laugh nervously, mostly to even try and get a normal conversation going, and janie lets go of your hand and says “well, i don't know about you guys, but i have calculus now”, and you nod and kiss her on the cheek, which just fuels my desire to push those stupid sunglasses to the side and dig my fingernails into her eyeballs even further, but before my homicidal urges can take over me she already kissed you back and walked down the hallway (in the single most perfect way a girl can walk, of course).
“so this is your girlfriend now?” i ask in the most passive-aggressive tone of voice possible, mostly to let all the hate out, but also to assure a very small part of me that no, this isn't a very elaborate and mistimed april fools prank, and you nod and ask me if there's something wrong with that.
“i don't think she likes me,” i say (by which i mean that i don't think i like her, but that's not something i could say out loud in front of you without delving into an extended discussion of my sexuality), and you shrug and say “i think she's amazing. she just takes a while to warm up to, but i swear she's a really sweet girl,” and if it weren't for the fact that i really don't want to get into an argument with you, i'd set you and your lovestruck ass straight and outrightly call her an ice cold bitch.
instead, i settle for asking exactly how you guys met, mainly to try and pretend to be not so bothered by the idea of you having yet another girlfriend, and you say something about last week's pep talk and “you were right next to me, josh, don't you remember”, and i just say “oh yeah, right, i remember now” which is a blatant lie, but you swallow it and change the subject to something less relevant.

(fast forward into the beginning of summer)

i first meet him at the cheap doughnut shop three blocks away, it's a sticky arizona summer evening and he's in line in front of me and ordering a blueberry doughnut and a small latte.
it doesn't take long until he pays for his stuff before he turns around and leaves, and that's when he just happens to me, or probably i should say that i just happen to him, because all that i'm doing is standing in line and waiting to order my doughnuts, and he is turning around and preparing to leave but instead he winds up running straight into me and his doughnut and coffee cup slip out of his hands and onto the floor and he goes down right with them, and i get the feeling that i shouldn't just stand there and watch, and so i kind of fall right onto my ass too even though he barely even pushed me.
“wow, holy shit man, are you okay?”, he asks, and it's kind of the day i first met you all over again but without the electric feel of oh my god oh my god oh my god running down my spine (amongst other body parts), and i quickly open my mouth to try and not seem like a vegetable. “yeahyeohmygodi'msosorri'llbuyyanewcoffee,” i sputter out and immediately feel even more embarrassed, because seeming like a blabbing, attraction-struck mess really isn't much better, but he just laughs and reaches for my hand before pulling me back onto my feet.
“i'm brandon”, he says, or probably that should be brandon says, because i know his name now and i also know that he likes blueberry doughnuts and is apparently accident prone so he's not just a stranger anymore, and i should probably tell him my name as well so i say “josh regan” and brandon laughs again. it's only then that i notice that we're still holding each other's hands but brandon doesn't seem to mind.
it takes a few more seconds of us standing there awkwardly before i finally let go of his hand and walk up to the counter and order him a new latte and blueberry doughnut before placing my own order (a chocolate glazed doughnut, a strawberry jelly filled one and a medium mocha latte), and brandon nudges me over and says “let me do that” and pays for my stuff even though it costs a lot more than his, and we grab our doughnuts and go outside.
i still don't really know how it happened, but we wind up on the pavement right in front of the shop, and in the end we just sit there just talking for around an hour or two, genuinely just talking without any awkwardness or uncomfortable moments, about bands and horror films and junior year and other things that don't matter that much, and eventually one of us brings up being gay and holy shit is this really happening, and eventually it gets dark and brandon stands up. “look, josh,” he says and pulls me up once again, and once again he doesn't let go of my hand (and in retrospect i think that maybe i should have actually felt something at that moment, but i don't because at that moment all i can think of is the fact that i'm not thinking of you for once). “i really really enjoyed this and well, i was wondering if you wanted to see a movie or something soon?”
i just completely zone out at this point because i think that's the part when i realize just how perfect brandon actually is because this is the first time i'm not too busy talking to him to actually notice how his eyes and lips and hands and hair and everything just scream perfection, and it's obviously not the same perfection as your perfection but it's perfection and that's good enough.
“i mean, if you don't want to see a movie we can also have pizza or something”, he adds, and it's only then that i realize that he just asked me a question and so i say “yeah, pizza sounds good”, and brandon asks whether thursday night would be okay, and i just nod and say “great”, we exchange phone numbers and then he lets go of my hand and says “well, see you on thursday”, and i nod once again and then we both leave into different directions, and it's only once i'm a block away that it finally hits me that i'm going on an actual date with an actual gay guy who's actually attractive, and in retrospect i probably should have been happy but all i can think of is how brandon isn't you.

(fast forward to thursday night)

we are sitting at the very back of the classiest cheap pizza place in town with a large peperoni shared between us, and when i say we i obviously mean me and brandon because you are too busy being with janie, and i probably shouldn't be thinking of you and the fact that you just have to have a girlfriend right now, and so i try and focus my attention on the pizza in front of me.
“you not hungry?” brandon asks, and i just shrug at that and finally take my first piece, it doesn't really taste like anything but that might just be the feeling of not you speaking. after a few seconds brandon is still looking at me so i swallow and say “i don't know, this just feels really weird,” mainly to even say something, but also because it is weird, because this is my first actual date and i should probably be happy but all that's on my mind is you and you're not here, but it's not like i can just tell brandon that.
“you're gonna be okay,” brandon says and smiles, and i nod and say “i guess,” and then we just eat in silence for a while and somehow we manage to actually strike up another just talking conversation.
eventually the pizza is eaten and we just keep talking until we don't have anything to talk about anymore so we pay up and leave, and brandon drives me back home and somehow we just think of even more even less relevant things to talk about during the drive.
i think we're talking about our least favorite brand of cereal or something equally meaningless when brandon pulls up in the driveway of my house. “well, tonight was a good night,” he says, and i nod because it actually kind of was, ignoring how he still isn't you, and i have already opened the door as brandon grabs my hand.
“wait, wait,” he says, and i pull the door closed again because it's actually pretty cold for a summer evening. “yeah?”, i ask, and he twists his fingers into mine and next thing i know his lips are on mine and i can feel his breath on my face, and that's when i open my mouth and slip my tongue into his and at this moment all that's going through my mind probably should be holy actual fuck i'm having my first real kiss, at seventeen years because i'm a total loser but that's okay because he's the closest thing to perfection i will ever be with be with, and he also tastes like molten cheese which is pretty sweet i guess, but instead, the only thing on my mind is that it should have been you.
eventually, we break the kiss and he says “i'll call you tomorrow,” and i just nod and get out of his car and he drives off, and for a while i just stand on the lawn and think that i should probably be happy.

(fast forward to the last weekend before summer's end)

it's another sticky arizona summer night, but it's not like i actually notice much of it firsthand. your parents were out of town and you'd told me that you wanted to “make our summer go out with a bang” just a few nights back, with “a bang” apparently equating to sixty-odd strangers sitting around your house drinking gross beer, destroying precious belongings, having unprotected sex and doing whatever other things people at high school parties supposedly do.
you'd also said “our summer”, despite the fact where you'd spent most of your summer having a girlfriend and i had spent most of mine being with brandon trying to ignore the fact that he's not you. but right now brandon isn't here and janie left only a few minutes ago, and actually i'm not too sure of where you are either because i've been sitting in the exact same spot on your couch for around five hours now, clutching a now empty glass of what once was soda.
technically i could be getting shitfaced off trashy cheap lager right now or snort coke off your parents' toilet seat, or i could even go over to brandon's house and get laid and actually not be a ridiculously late late bloomer for once in my lifetime. instead i am sitting here and trying to pretend that i'm having fun, but it more than obviously doesn't work and so i'm just that one kid who's sitting on a sofa at two AM and is the only one at the party who doesn't enjoy themselves.
i kind of just keep sitting there until everyone else has gotten bored of their beer, coke, sex or whatever else they might have been doing, and after i'm sure everyone has left we should be having the house to ourselves, except for the bit where i'm still not exactly sure where you are and it takes me another ten minutes of sitting on your couch before i finally get off my ass and go look for you. in the end i find you curled up on your parents' bathroom floor, eyes halfway closed and clutching a half-empty bottle of jack.
“kyle? you okay?”, i ask, which in retrospect probably was the dumbest question i could have possibly come up with at that moment because it was quite obvious that you were anything but okay.
you don't reply, and so i ask again, louder this time, and you open one eye and shake your head, and i probably shouldn't just leave you lying in there, so i pull the bottle from your hands and then wrap my arms around your chest and slowly pull you up.
you just hang in my arms like a wet sack of rocks, and if it weren't for the fact that it's you and that you've probably been lying on the cold tiles for a while now i'd probably just let you fall, but i tighten my grip and drag you into your parents' room.
“fuck, you're heavy”, i say, and you slur something that vaguely sounds like “sorry”, and so i let you fall onto the king size bed as gently as possibly, and because it's already past two and i had just spent the last few minutes with possibly the heaviest physical activity i have done in the past few years, i crawl in next to you and drape the covers around us, and at that you open your eyes once again and mumble something that could probably be interpreted as a “thank you”.
you close your eyes, and after a while your breathing gets quieter and more even, and even if you just passed out you're still so perfect, and i really just want to wrap an arm around you and hold you at that moment, and for once there's no part of me protesting against this because even if you were to wake up you're still so drunk you wouldn't remember any of this in the morning, so i nudge in closer and put an arm around you, and i can feel your breath on my face and even if you do smell like whiskey this moment couldn't possibly be more perfect, and it doesn't take too long before the tape cuts to black and i fall asleep.

(fast forward to the morning after)

i wake up to the sound of someone choking, and this time it doesn't take me that long to figure out that it's you and it's coming from the room next to this one. i get up as quickly as possible, stretch (and crack around half a dozen joints in the process), before i walk into the small bathroom, and there you are, leaning over the bathtub and puking your guts out, and i shouldn't just stand there and stare, so i hold your hair back as the second load comes from your throat, then a third and a fourth, and by that time all that's even coming out of your mouth anymore is water and gall juice, and you get up and turn around to lean against me.
“dude, i'm never drinking that much again,” you say and i just shrug and wrap an arm around your shoulders, “never”. i nod and you wriggle free of my grip and stagger back into the bedroom before throwing yourself onto the mattress.
“you okay?”, i ask, which still sounds just as stupid as the night before because you just puked up what has to have been at least two days worthy of meals, and so i quickly add “can i get you something?” onto the end, as if that would make the question any less stupid.
“never drinking this much again,” you mumble once again. “think you can get me some painkillers?” i nod and go into the kitchen to get a glass of aspirin, and when i come back you've rolled yourself up into the same fetal position as last night again. i hand you the glass and you slightly raise your head and drink it all up in one sip, and it's only then that i realize just how goddamn tired i still am.
“move over, i'm sleepy,” i mumble before climbing into your parents' bed once again, but you don't move and so i just kind of adjust myself until one of your legs and arms each are thrown across my torso, and you're just so comfortable in what isn't even a sexual way. i turn around to face you and because i never really know what to do with my limbs in situations like this (not that i've actually been in situations like this before) i throw one arm over you, and for a while we just lie there like that until you tap my shoulder and mumble “dude, this is kind of gay, nothing personal.”
i just shrug and roll over onto my back once again and say “fuck off, we've done gayer things,” because right now you're so tired that you probably won't even care if i brought up the kiss again and besides it's a valid argument, and you nod. “besides, i can't even properly hit on you since i've got a boyfriend now,” i mumble, and you say “didn't know that” and wrap your arm around me just a little tighter, and i should probably feel guilty because you're not brandon but instead you're you and this is almost like being with you and so i just shrug and say “well,” which isn't even a proper fragment of a sentence, but it's not like i can really put the feeling of “i-wish-you-could-be-my-boyfriend-instead” into actual words without ruining this whole thing, and so i just say “well,” and that's enough for both of us.
in the end we spend the whole day just lying there until your parents come home and jokingly ask you when you'd “switched teams”, and when your mother starts complaining that there's empty bottles and plastic cups all over the living room and that someone had puked in her bathtub, even that doesn't bother me that much anymore.

(fast forward to yet another average november day)

“you know, i never really liked rain,” brandon says, and i just shrug and put my arm around him even tighter. i'm not even aware of what we were doing in the first place (or what we are supposed to do now) but i'm pretty sure that it amounted to exactly nothing, which is exactly what we are doing now so it all works out.
“i mean, yeah, i know that it's good for something and all but it just kind of bothers me. you know what i mean,” he continues, and i could say something to the effect of “yeah, i get you,” now, but at this point i'm kind of tired of talking and i'm kind of tired of listening to brandon talk, and so i just settle for turning my head and kissing him, and he kisses me back and this goes on for a while. we break apart for air after a few minutes, and he rolls on top of me and we go back to making out, and this is most certainly the part where i realize that i should probably be feeling at least something at this point, but i don't stop because making out in itself is just much more fun than actually talking about anything, and brandon is rather good at it (that is, if i'm allowed to say that without having a proper comparison).
i think it's at some point around five minutes in when he sits up and asks me if everything's okay, and i just shrug and mumble “i guess,” and for a few seconds we just sit there in silence before i ask him if he wants to go watch shitty talk show reruns or something.
he just says “okay then,” and we turn on the TV and at that moment it kind of feels like everything is said and done even though it's clearly not but it's not like i'd ever be able to tell him about you, and so we just lean into each other and watch a man in a dress and a pregnant teenager have a heated argument about something which apparently involves excessive use of sound effect bleeps, and if i don't think about it too much i can kind of pretend that you are brandon and brandon is you.

(fast forward another month into christmas break)

we're lying on his bed with the covers pulled tightly around us, and by now it should be kind of obvious that “we” is brandon and i. i think at this point we're not even trying anymore to even pretend we're doing anything productive, at the moment we're just lying there, with his lips locked on mine and my tongue twisted into his.
brandon breaks the kiss at one point and says “i think it's snowing,” and i just nod and rub my nose against the side of his face because really i would rather just make out than talk to him right now. making out is pretty easy, once you get the hang of where to put your nose and how to not bump your teeth into the other person's, but instead of telling brandon all that i just say “hm”.
“d'you think it's snowing?” he asks, and at this point i just want him to shut up so much, so i just mumble “maybe,” before reattaching my lips to his, because if there is one surefire way to get brandon to shut up for good it's this, and then for a while we just return to lying there and making out. this time i actually kind of enjoy it, but that's most certainly because when i close my eyes and block out the smell of brandon's shampoo i can pretend that he's you.
it's around three or four minutes in when brandon breaks the kiss once again and i'm forced to open my eyes and realize that no, he's still nowhere near your level of perfection, but it's not like i can actually say any of that out loud so i just ask him what he's doing, and the moment i ask i realize that i probably should have known what he was about to do sooner than that, because that's also the moment when i realize that i have a hard-on rubbing against my leg which most definitely isn't my own. it's also the moment when i realize that i'm already half hard myself, so i don't even object when he kisses me again and one of his hands sneaks down my stomach and into my pants.
“you sure you want to do this?” i ask, and it's not even that i don't want it because hey, would you look at that, i may or may not be about to actually get laid, and it's not even that i don't necessarily want it with brandon because it's not like i'm ever going to have sex with you and brandon is the next best thing to that, it's just simply that i'm not sure if he actually wants to do this because i may or may not be about to actually get laid and it's not like i ever actually thought this through.
“yeah,” brandon says and the hand moves to stroke my dick through the fabric of my boxers, and holy shit, his hand is on my dick. “i mean, if you want to, it's all up to you,” he continues, but i don't even say anything because there's a loop of holy shit going on in my brain and so i just settle for kissing him and moving my hand down near the waistband of his sweatpants. it takes me a second or two of realizing that holy shit i am getting laid before i build up the courage to actually stick my hand into his pants, and then, for the first time in my life, i have a dick in my hand which isn't mine, and once again, the issue isn't even that i'm touching another guy's dick without being inherently disgusted by it, but the angle is awkward and i'm not really that sure on what to do now and to top it all off, brandon's arm keeps brushing against mine which just adds to the awkwardness.
i'm still torn between whether to try and jack him off or just straight out say that this is my first time doing anything sexual ever that involves more than one person when brandon breaks the kiss and says “dude, this is awkward, take your pants off or something,” and before i can even say anything he's already slid them off me and thrown them to the floor but it's not that i really object because i no longer have to try and deal with the fact that i'm holding a dick (or was, until five seconds ago).
“so, hey, do you want me to suck your dick or something?” he continues, and i could have almost come right there because brandon just asked me if i wanted to get my dick sucked which is only the single most sexual thing anyone has ever said to me, and because you just don't pass up an offer like that if you're a seventeen year old teenager with a penis, i just nod and say “go for it,” and i lean back and that's when i feel the tip of his tongue and holy fuck and i must have said that bit out loud because brandon laughs and takes it in his mouth and holy jesus titty fucking christ this is awesome.
at that point i close my eyes and imagine it being you sitting there between my legs and i'm pretty sure after that it only takes me around three more minutes until i have what is quite possibly the single most awesome orgasm in history and come all over your chin, until i open my eyes and you turn into brandon again, brandon, who's wiping his chin and smiling at me with the sort of smile that comes straight out of a porno and basically screams was it good for you?
because i can't just say no to that sort of smile i mumble “jesus christ, brandon,” and it takes me every single brain cell that doesn't feel like it's just been sucked out of me to concentrate and not call him kyle instead. brandon just smiles that smile again before he crawls back up the bed and kisses me, and it's only then that it occurs to me that he still hasn't come yet, so i motion him to take off his pants and wrap my hand around his dick once again, which goes slightly smoother than the first time but still not completely smooth, but in the end he comes and we wrap the covers around us.
brandon falls asleep pretty much instantly, and he just looks so peaceful when he's asleep that he's actually kind of cute, so i wrap an arm around him and for the first time since i met him i don't wish that he was you, and at that moment life almost seems really good so i curl up and fall asleep as well.

(fast forward two months)

we're sitting on my couch, and this time we means you and i again, and you're clutching your hand in mine and that's probably what i should be focusing on right now because hey, you are holding my hand, but instead all i can think of at that particular moment is the bit where you mumble “josh, shit, i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry.”
i don't think that you actually have any idea of what to say because that's all you've been saying for the past minute or so on a loop now, “i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry,” and the issue isn't even that you don't know what to say or that you keep telling me you're sorry for something that has virtually nothing to do with you, the issue is that i'm not even sure whether you should be sorry, because i'm not even sad about having broken up with brandon because he's obviously not you and brandon probably isn't even sad right now either but that's not the point, the point is that you need to stop.
so i say “stop saying that,” and you say “okay,” and then we just sit there in silence for a while but you don't let go of my hand and i think that if anything i'm the only one who should have a reason to be sorry right now because i basically dumped the guy who could have been considered my boyfriend up until two hours ago without even giving him a valid reason, but it's not like i could have just told him that he isn't you and he never will be and that's the only real reason i'm breaking up with him, because that would just make matters worse.
it's at that point when i let my head fall down onto my chest and say “i'm sorry,” and you just say “stop saying that,” in a poor attempt to imitate my voice, but i shake my head and tell you that you wouldn't understand because you wouldn't because it's you. there's a few seconds after that when we just sit there in complete silence and neither of us even moves, and even though there's not even music playing or anything i can't even hear your breath, and if it weren't for the fact that you're still holding my hand i'd guess that you just hate me right now.

(and if i didn't know any better i'd say that i pressed pause at that point but i didn't)

i think it takes around a minute or two until you sit up and ask me if i wanted to drown my sorrows in chinese takeout and jack daniel's, and i obviously say yes because at least that would give me an excuse to think about something that's not brandon.

(fast forward to another spring break)

it's another quiet night and we're sitting in your backyard once again, sharing another bottle of jack and talking about getting laid in california yet again because we're seventeen and drunk and it's not like either of us ever actually got laid laid before, and we're sitting so close that your head is on my shoulder and the moment is just as perfect as it had been last year, even if we just so happen to be both drunk and you just so happen to have a girlfriend.
“hey, josh,” you slur and i turn my head, we're sitting so close that my nose is brushing against yours in the process. “i'm tired,” you mumble and i just nod, and you let yourself fall down onto the grass and say “let's go sleep, josh” and i say “okay,” and you pull me down next to you by the shirt collar and laugh, the sort of small, pointy giggle people get when they've had a little too much but somehow it's still the definition of perfect when it comes out of your throat.
“do you think you're funny?” i ask and just as the words come out of my throat i kind of regret saying them, but you just laugh and say “yes,” and then you close your eyes and it's only a matter of minutes before your breath evens out and you've fallen asleep, and somehow you're still just as perfect as usual even when it's long after midnight and you've passed out in the middle of the lawn.
at that moment i just want to lean over you and kiss you, actually kiss you, slip my tongue into your mouth just to figure out what you taste like (and i'm pretty sure at this moment you'd taste like jack but i wouldn't be able to tell the difference between jack and perfection), and you'd never know because you're asleep and we're both drunk and even if you did remember it in the morning for some reason i could still blame it on the alcohol, and while my brain is still debating with itself whether to go for it i've already rolled over and pressed my lips to yours.
i lick across your bottom lip just really slightly, and if heaven had a taste i'm pretty sure this would be it, even if you only taste like jack and make-out session mouth, because it's you, and i roll over onto my other side once again and mumble “good night, kyle.”
in the end i fall asleep right there next to you, with one of your arms outstretched over me and your head on my shoulder, and just the moment before i drift off to sleep, i come to the conclusion that this is easily the greatest moment i have ever lived.

(fast forward two months into the beginning of summer)

we're sitting in your car outside of the nearest fast food place, eating greasy burgers and sipping something that tastes like stale coke and may or may not actually be dishwater.
“y'know what's funny?” you ask, shoving a sad-looking french fry in your mouth. “it's my eighteenth birthday, i should totally be getting laid by my girlfriend right now,” and i don't really know what to say to that, considering i'm not sure whether you're actually serious. “and instead, i'm sitting outside of the cheapest micky dee's in the universe, in a minivan, with my best friend, eating cheap hamburgers. funny how those things work out, isn't it,” and now the sarcasm in your voice is overwhelmingly obvious, and so i just shrug and take another bite of my burger (which looks like it should have been sold around eight hours ago).
“hilarious how things can turn around,” i mumble, and you lean back in your seat and say “of course, i would probably be stuck balls deep in some vagina right now, but my girlfriend just picked the greatest day out of all days to have ever existed to decide to break up with me, isn't life wonderful?” and by that point the tone of your voice is so exaggerated in a 'comically sincere' sort of way that i can't help but burst out laughing, and for some reason you start laughing at that as well, and then we just sit there and laugh for a while, and if a random stranger were to walk right past the car right then they would guess we were both high as kites.
i think it takes around five minutes before we've both finally come down and then we just sit there for a few seconds, panting in an attempt to regain our breaths. “honestly though,” you then say and take a sip from your cup. “i'm pretty sure most girls just suck,” and i just shrug at that because it's not like i can talk.
“you know, if it weren't for the whole dick thing and all i'd probably go gay, you guys must have it a lot easier,” and i could swear that i could feel my heartbeat stop for a second or two right there because holy actual god in heaven did you really just say that, but instead of saying anything to that effect i just shrug once again and say that guys suck just as much as girls, which really isn't something i can talk about either seeing that i broke up with my first and only boyfriend for the sole reason that he happened to be not you, which probably makes me the one who sucked more in that relationship, and besides, the only guy who ever actually managed to break my heart janie-style is still you and it's not like i can flat-out tell you that because it's not your fault that you happen to like vaginas.
you just shrug as well and say “people just suck in general,” and i nod and then we just sit there for a while before you start talking about senior year and i just go along with it because i don't particularly want to talk to you about janie or the advantages and disadvantages of being gay or anything else even remotely relevant to relationships.

(fast forward another two months)

it's the last sunday before senior year and just like last year we're lying on your parents' bed and somehow this time your smell of vomit and alcohol almost seems a little too normal, and you just mumble “dude, i swear to god i'll never drink this much again,” but i just shrug and roll onto my back and say “that's what you said last year, too,”
you swat your hand in my general direction in what is probably a desperate attempt at hitting me before grunting, “shut up, i'm hungover,” and then we just lie there for a few seconds, with your arm loosely thrown across my chest and your head resting on my upper arm, and this isn't even remotely close to being anywhere near romantic or like being with you because all that i can think of is you throwing up what has to be bucketloads into the bathtub and the smell just reminds me of that even more, and so i just stare at the ceiling for a while, but the ceiling isn't actually that interesting and so i just shrug after a while and mumble “dude, summer sucked this year,” not just to break the silence but because it's true.
it's not like i'd ever had a particularly good summer but this year was particularly the worst. you just shrug at that, and i'm assuming that this means you're too tired to talk so i just keep talking, “i miss brandon,” i say, which isn't even a lie because even if he's not you he still was halfway decent at giving blow jobs, and maybe my summer would have been slightly less terrible this year if i had at the very least gotten my dick sucked on a regular basis.
you roll over onto your stomach and mumble “i miss janie,” and then you close your eyes and bury your face in the nearest pillow, and if i didn't know any better i'd guess that you started crying again, but there's no sound and i can see your chest heave regularly, and at that i realize that you've fallen asleep, and so i get up as carefully as possible as to not wake you. i wind up throwing out all the red plastic cups and beer bottles and also clean out the whole bathroom before i climb back into the bed, and you turn around and open your eyes at that.
“you feeling better?”, i ask, and you just shrug and ask me if your parents are back yet, and i shake my head and tell you that i'd already cleaned the house. you mumble something that vaguely sounds like “thank you”, and then we just lie there again in silence for a while, and it's only when i'm around ninety-nine percent sure that you've gone back to sleep that you tug my sleeve and say “josh”.
there's a small pause, as if you'd forgotten what you were going to say, but you're way too hungover for me to accuse you of being, well, drunk, and so i just look at you questioningly before you continue, “josh, i got laid. don't remember her name.” i could swear that i physically swallowed at that point, because the thought of you having to have a girlfriend is bad enough and the thought of you having sex with your girlfriend is even worse, but the thought of you having sex with a random girl just genuinely makes me want to throw up, and i'm not even sure if i'm just thinking that because i'm attracted to you or because it genuinely grosses me out (but it's probably a bit of both).
“last night, in the guest room,” you continue, and it only hits me then that i'm probably supposed to say something, and so i just ask whether it was good for you, and you nod and i'm glad that i was spared from being told the exact details.

(fast forward to october)

it's a surprisingly stormy night for this season and you and i are sitting on the same old ratty couch in your parents' basement just as we did two years earlier. there's a movie playing on the small tv screen, but it's not like either of us are really paying attention. i'm pretty sure the only reason it's still playing is because neither of us can be bothered to actually turn it off, and so we just sit in the dark for a while and don't really talk about anything.
“remind me again why we're not going to homecoming?” you ask and pull out a self-rolled cigarette from somewhere under the couch (your secret stash, as you'd told me a few months ago). you light up and take a long drag, then lean back against the arm rest and exhale loudly, and i cannot help but stare at the thin blue wisps of smoke caught between your lips because damn, and i'm not exactly sure whether that applies to you and your mouth or the fact how someone can still be so attractive even when they're slowly poisoning themselves.
it's at that point when i realize that that was a legitimate question, so i lay back and roll my eyes. “because you don't have a date and i don't have a date and they probably don't even have booze,” i say. you just shrug at that, take another drag and say “homecoming is probably overrated”.
i'm not really sure what to say to that, so i just try and focus onto the screen again, but by now the movie is almost over and besides i'm not really sure of the plot anymore, so i just stare into the flickering light for a while until my vision starts to blur and i look away, back to you and your cigarette.
we just sit there like that for a while, with you exhaling smoke towards the ceiling and me just sitting there and staring at you, until the silence gets awkward and you sit up, stub out your cigarette on the cheap upholstery and light another one. “girls just suck,” you mumble and take a drag.
i shrug and say “boys suck just as much”. you laugh at that and lean back, then suck harder on your cigarette before opening your mouth wide and blowing smoke rings up against the ceiling. i'm still not exactly sure whether i'm staring because your lips are moving in a way that's highly reminiscent of sucking a dick or because you simply look so perfect while smoking, but i'm pretty sure it's a mixture of both (but mostly the first reason, because holy fucking shit this is hot).
it's at that point that you sit up and ask me “want one?” and i'd be lying if i said that my first thought upon hearing that was “a cigarette”. it's also at that point that i realize that my staring must have been pretty obvious, and so i say yes just to make the whole situation slightly less awkward, and besides, smoking couldn't possibly be that difficult.
i light up and take a drag. for a split second i don't feel anything but then it kicks in and it all happens at once, the slightly dizzy feeling in my head and the taste of ashes in my mouth, and that's also when i start choking and i cough and i choke and cough and cough and in my head i spend at least two minutes choking on the smoke in my throat. it's actually just a few seconds, but that's enough to make my eyes water, and by the time i finally get my throat free there's tears streaming down my face.
“josh? you okay?” you ask, and there's that stupid question again because from the looks of it i'm obviously not okay, so i shake my head and stub out my cigarette. god, i must look like such a pussy right now, i can't even figure out how to smoke, and that thought really isn't improving the whole situation so i just keep crying, and it's then that you put your arm around me and say “no, no, it's okay, it gets better,” and that's when you move your hand to my cheek and wipe those tears off my face,

(and i actually have to pause at this exact second because that exact moment just makes me cry all over again, and i'm not exactly sure what does it, the fact that i'm crying or that look in your eyes at that split second, that look that just says love, and it takes me a few seconds to get myself together before i can bring myself to press play again)

and after a few more minutes i wind up smoking a second cigarette which goes down a lot smoother than the first one, and in the end we just spend the night sitting on the couch, talking about nothing and smoking, until you curl up on your side of the sofa and fall asleep, and it doesn't take that much longer until i fall asleep as well.

(fast forward another few months)

it's new year's eve and we're at some party. i'm not really sure whose house it is or if i even know the host of the party, but they have plenty of booze and so i'd spent the majority of the evening so far in the kitchen with a bottle of jack. i'm not exactly sure where you are at the moment, either, but at the moment i'm kind of a little too intoxicated to care about anything, that is until he enters the room. he, the guy with the nose piercing, the antler tattoo on his wrist and what looks like a gay pride shirt and holy fuck he's attractive, not attractive like you in the i just want to be with you be with you way and not attractive like brandon in the you're hot and have a decent enough personality let's make out for a while way, but attractive in a i just want to fuck way. he walks right past me and grabs a bottle of beer from the freezer, and it's on his way back when he does stop and stand next to me.
“hey,” he says, and from the tone of his voice he's only slightly less drunk than i am. it's then that it occurs to me that i must have been staring, so i say “hey there” to seem slightly less awkward, and because i feel like maybe i should try and get to know him a little better i quickly add an “i'm josh” afterwards. he just smiles (a slightly too huge toothy smile that just makes him seem drunker than he actually is), then says something along the lines of “great party” and introduces himself. i don't actually catch his name, but it's not like it really matters because he's drunk and i'm drunk and in the odd event that we ever meet again after tonight it probably wouldn't be too embarrassing to ask for his name again. in the end we wind up exchanging small talk about booze and guys and college for a few minutes (despite the fact that i'm still a senior in high school, but at this point i'm sure he's too drunk to pay that much attention to me), but after a while i'm fed up with talking and listening to him talk and so i just grab him by the wrist and lean forwards to kiss him, after all, he probably wouldn't even mind.
technically, he was only the third person i ever kissed and practically he was only the second, so it's not like i really had a lot of comparisons, but from what i could tell he was pretty good, not as good as brandon but still pretty good – even if he did taste like cheap beer. we just stay like that for a while, with my hand wrapped around his wrist (the one with the antlers) and his hand still on the beer bottle on the counter behind me.
it's only when some guy i vaguely recognize enters the kitchen and tells us to get a room before yelling “BRO, LOOK AT THOSE FREE RANGE FAGS” that we break apart, and he suggests that we could look for some place quieter. i don't really object to that because well, he's hot and besides i don't really feel like being the source of amusement for a bunch of stupid high school boys (not like i have any room to talk because it's not like i'm any less of a stupid high school boy). it takes us a while until we actually find a room that's actually empty, but once we finally find one and close the door behind us, there's no holding back

(and that's when i begin to fast forward, i fast forward through us making out up against the wall, stumbling onto the bed, taking off our clothes. i fast forward through him fumbling for a condom and me telling him that it's my first time, him saying that he'll be gentle. i fast forward through the sex, through my stupid face when it hurts like fuck at first, through my stupider face when it gets better and through my even stupider face when it gets really good, and i fast forward through me coming all over his stomach – and i may or may not have called him kyle at that point, but if i did he probably didn't even notice, and in the end i fast forward through him coming and throwing away the condom, and i fast forward through him falling asleep next to me, and that's when i fall asleep as well and the tape cuts to black)

when i wake up in the morning, it's seven am and the first thing i notice is that he is no longer lying next to me. i sit up, and only that's when i really notice how much my head hurts, holy fuck, as if someone had split it in two with an ax or something similarly gory and painful. fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, and i let myself fall back down onto the bedsheets and it's only then that this whole thing really sinks in. basically, i'm lying naked and hungover in a stranger's bed in a stranger's house, and less than six hours ago i lost my virginity to a guy whose name i didn't even know. fuck.
i get up as quickly as possible, and it's only when i bend down to pick up my clothes that i realize how much my ass hurts, as if this day couldn't start off any worse. in the end i actually manage to get dressed and sort out my hair and face to the point where i don't look completely dead. i make my way downstairs only to realize that i'm by far not the only one to have woken up with a shitty hangover, if the amount of guys and girls sitting around clutching coffee cups and looking generally just as dead as i probably did a few minutes earlier is any indication. some of them look up when i open the door and one guy says something that vaguely sounds like “bye josh” but between his hangover and my hangover it's kind of hard to tell, and that guy may or may not have been him, but in day light and sobered up he doesn't look anywhere near as attractive as he did the night before.
i don't bother with saying anything to him, and it's at that point that i stop thinking of him as him and the guy i slept with and start thinking of him as just antlers, the guy with the wrist tattoo, and i can't help but kind of have to wonder why i ever wanted to have sex with him. for a while i'm not exactly sure where i'm going, it's not like i could go home because my mother is probably there and she wouldn't be too thrilled about me coming home with a hangover and a sore ass, and so i decide that i should probably go to your house instead.
besides, it's closer anyway, and after i've spent a few minutes walking i want nothing more than to just collapse on your bed and ask you to crawl in next to me and hold me, just like you did the two summers before, and so i'm more than happy when i finally arrive at your house. the sound of the door bell just makes my headache worse and your mother winds up trying to hold small talk about how my holidays were which really isn't improving my general condition, but then you finally show up and just seeing you stand there in the door frame in just a t-shirt and a pair of baggy sweat pants makes me feel much better.
“hey,” you mumble, and even though it's just a hey it totally makes up for everything, and i say “hangover” and you nod and lead me into the house and into your room. i collapse onto the bed right then, and you ask me if i want coffee or a painkiller or something like that. i shrug and say “coffee?” even though i have the distinct feeling that i might throw up if i eat or drink anything right now, but there's always the slight chance that it will actually make me feel better.
you just nod and leave the room, and i bury my head in your pillow which smells a lot like your shampoo and your sweat and just you in general. it's then that i wonder once again why i ever decided that it'd be a good to fuck antlers, because it's not like i wouldn't have been able to get a proper boyfriend and just fuck him instead without the hangovers and the regrets, but then again any boyfriend i would have still wouldn't be you and the thought of that just makes it all feel so much worse.
just as i'm about to metaphorically drown in self-pity you enter the room with two cups of coffee, and i feel better almost immediately as soon as i drink my first two sips, and you smile and ask me if i'm better now. i say “i guess” and you ask me if i can get something else, and because i really don't feel like being alone again i ask you to just stay here with me, and you laugh and motion me to move over.
your bed is smaller than the one in your parents' room and so the whole situation is kind of awkward, but in the end we find a position we're both comfortable in, and you wrap an arm around me and ask me how last night was. “lots of booze,” i say. “i lost my ass virginity.” you laugh at that before saying “congratulations,” in the most awkward-sounding tone of voice you could possibly congratulate someone, and then ask me if it was good for me.
i shrug and say “pretty good.. well, i guess it could've been a lot worse” and we both laugh a little, and then we just lie there for a while until the hangover gets to me again and i wind up falling asleep in your arms.

(fast forward to april)

it's the night of my birthday and you and i are sitting on my back porch, each of us armed with a bottle of jack. technically, it's not my actual birthday in another four minutes, but it's a friday night and so we decided that we might as well start drinking beforehand. “dude, this is boring” you say for what has got to be the fourth time and light a cigarette. “we should've gone over to my house, at least there we could have watched a movie or something,” you continue, and i just shrug and take another sip of whiskey and say “next time we're going to your house.”
i take a look at my phone's screen, still three more minutes until my birthday, and because it's an unusually cold night for this season i zip my jacket closed and reach for my bottle again. we just sit there like that for a little you're blowing smoke rings and i'm clutching the bottle next to me while trying not to stare too much because damn. after a while the silence starts to get awkward, and so i nudge you in the side and ask you if i can bum one off you, and you just nod and then we sit there again for a few seconds and smoke, and when i look at my phone once more it's two more minutes to go.
you blow out smoke and say “you know, i kind of miss having a girlfriend.” that's so out of the blue that it takes me a good few second to actually process what you'd just said and find a response – not out of shock or anything, but it's not like i expected you to say anything at all right now. “i kind of miss having a boyfriend,” i say, which isn't really all that true because i doubt that brandon would want me back (and for that matter, i kind of doubt that i'd want him back), and besides i kind of doubt that there's another you out there who would want to be my boyfriend, and so i mostly say it to pretend that we're having some sort of conversation. you just sigh at that and say “too bad relationships suck in general,” and i'm not really sure what to say to that so i just nod.
i look at my phone once again, one more minute until i turn nineteen. nineteen. not really a milestone or anything like that, and i still wouldn't be able to legally get drunk for another two years but still, at least nineteen sounded like a pretty big deal. “in retrospect,” i say and take another drag from my cigarette. “being eighteen was pretty boring.” you laugh and stub out your smoke and say “being eighteen is pretty boring,” and we both laugh.
you take another sip of whiskey and it's then that you nudge my side and say “josh, it's midnight.” “i know,” i say, and you laugh again and say “happy birthday or something i guess.” i stub out my cigarette and say “thanks or something i guess,” and we both laugh again.
“so, any special birthday wishes or anything?” i just shrug at that, honestly, i never really thought about making any specific wishes because i'd figured i would just get money from my relatives and you'd take me to see a movie or something like that. in the end i settle for saying something about how a boyfriend would be nice, which isn't really a lie because having someone there would be nice, even if it were just for sex and extended make out sessions, but it's not like that someone could ever be you so it's not like i'd be actually happy.
you just laugh and say “come on over here,” and the look on your face right at that second is so perfect that i kind of want to take a picture of it and keep it forever, because you're obviously drunk (but in an attractive way) and everything about your smile just screams kiss me. it's not like i could say anything though, and so i just move closer until there's no more space between us. you laugh once again and take another sip of whiskey before wrapping an arm around my shoulder.
“oh, fuck fuck, hang on a second,” you say, and then we just sit there for a few split seconds and stare at each other and i still kind of wonder how a single human being can possibly be so perfect and that's when it happens.
that's when you lean in and your hand is on my cheek and your lips are warm and wet on mine, and i probably should have done something, but at that moment i'm just way too wowed and my brain is on a way too huge loop of fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck this is happening to actually get my body to do things, and so i just kind of sit there and wait until you pull back and look at me with that same kiss me smile (which is kind of ironic because you just did, but it's not like i kissed back).

(i take that moment as an opportunity to rewind to the moment when you lean in and watch it all once again, you closing your eyes and cupping my face and me sitting there, eyes wide open, just kind of staring into somewhere between you and the hedge a few feet behind you, until we break apart and i kind of keep staring and you smile that smile once again)

“happy birthday man,” you say and i don't really know what to say at that so i just laugh and ask if you want to get fast food, but really all i wish for at that moment is to go back in time just a minute so i could be prepared and kiss you back and everything would work out much better

(and i still kind of wish i could go back)

instead you just nod and we spend the rest of the night sitting in your car and eating cheap burgers, and i still want to kiss you so much even if you'd taste like a mediocre sandwich.

(fast forward to june)

it's 2.30 in the morning after your birthday and everyone else has already left. we're halfway sitting halfway laying on your bed, and the fact that your arms are wrapped around me and your head is pressed against my soulder could almost be considered romantic if it weren't for the fact that you're crying once again.
“you don't understand it, i fucking loved janie,” you say and i can feel your lips brush against my collar bone at that. “i loved her and then she just got some other guy and she just had to show up,” you continue, and i don't really know what to say to that so i settle for rubbing your back and telling you to calm down.
“i fucking loved her,” you repeat once again and i just nod, and then we just lay there like that for a while, until the tears stop flowing and you raise your head to look at me. “better?” i ask, mostly to even be able to say anything because the odds are that you're not feeling better, but you actually nod and reach for the bottle of jack on your bedside table.
you take a deep chug and ask me if i want some too, but i decline because i don't particularly feel like drinking at this very moment. we just sit there for a moment once again before you reach across the bed and grab my wrist. that's when you said it.
“you know,” you say, in the smallest voice i've ever heard you in. “i could use some cheering up right now.” for a second i just sit there and stare at you before what you just said properly sinks in, and even then i still just sit there for a few more seconds because i can't believe that you'd ever actually say that.

(and in all honesty, i still can't believe you really said it, and so i take the opportunity to rewind and replay that line again, “you know, i could use some cheering up right now.” you sound completely genuine saying it, intoxicated and perhaps a bit shy, but you're definitely being genuine.)

even when i accept the idea that you basically just asked me to hook up with you, i still don't know how to reply to that other than something along the lines of “are you sure you want to”, “what if you regret it in the morning” or “you're way too drunk for this”. honestly, i wouldn't even think to tell you something along those lines because god damn i've wanted this so bad for the last few years and the fact that you're a little drunk wasn't going to stop me, but i still don't know what to say and so i just settle for leaning in and kissing you instead.
honestly, it's not like i'd kissed a lot of people but from the second that you open your mouth and let your tongue glide against mine i can already tell that you're a better kisser than brandon and a much, much better kisser than antlers, and at this point i don't even care anymore that you taste like whiskey because i probably taste like the taco i had for dinner but who even cares because i'm kissing you and you're kissing back and this is only my number one masturbation fantasy from the last three years come to real life and oh god oh god oh god.
we stay like that for a few minutes before eventually breaking apart for air, and that's also when i open my eyes and see you sit there right next to me, and all i can say at that is just “whoa.”
you just laugh at that, and there's something about you at that point that basically screams SEX, and there's nothing i want more at this moment than skin on skin, and so i reach down and pull off your shirt. you do the same with mine, and at this point i don't even feel self-conscious because you fucking want me and i want you too and can we please just get back to making out now, and so i pull you in once again.
your chest is warm and smooth against mine and i'd be lying if i said that i wasn't completely fascinated with your body before this, and i'd also be lying if i said that i wasn't spending considerable time running my hands along your arms, back and ass right now because holy fuck i'd spent so much time hoping for this and now i finally have it, but it's not for long until this just isn't enough skin to skin anymore and so i snake one hand between our bodies and begin to undo your pants.
you do the same with mine and it only takes around ten seconds after then until we're both naked and you're lying on top of me and there's lots of friction, good good friction, and if we're being honest here i'm kind of surprised that i didn't come just from seeing you naked, and then we just lie there for a couple of seconds before i tell you to move or something, and you do, really carefully, and holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck this is so much better than anything i've ever done before (even though i'm pretty sure that's only because it's with you).
“holy fuck,” you say, and all i can even think at that moment is don't stop don't stop don't stop so tell you to keep going, and you start rocking against me, a little harder this time and fuck oh fuck oh fuck FRICTION

(and not going to lie, this is pretty hot, and so i pause to unzip my pants before i keep watching)

eventually i feel myself getting closer, and so i wrap my arms around you even tighter until there's literally no space between our bodies and holy fuck. it doesn't take much longer until i come all over your chest, and i probably made a really stupid face at that second but if i did you probably didn't notice, and it doesn't take much longer until you come as well

(and i come as well)

and you roll off me and kiss me once again and tell me how fucking good i look right now

(and i just have to rewind and hear that again, “you look so fucking good right now,” genuine)

and it's then that we both fall asleep.

i wake up the morning after the greatest i've felt a long time, which may or may not be because it actually happened, we actually happened, and it was the most fantastic thing i'd ever experienced. when i roll over, your side of the bed is empty, but the sheets are still warm and besides it's already ten-thirty and so i figure that i might as well get up. it takes me a while to actually find all of my clothes, but in the end i go downstairs fully dressed only to find you in the kitchen.
“morning josh,” you say with a smile. “want coffee?” i don't even like coffee that much but i say yes more or less automatically, because it's a monday morning and everyone drinks coffee on monday mornings.
you grab a full mug from the counter and take a sip, and you just look so good right there with your little smile and your hair that's still kind of messy from last night, and i kind of feel like i should say or do something right now and it's not like there's that much room in the kitchen either way and judged by last night you probably want this too, so i just take that one step forward and kiss you and that's when i feel you freeze up

(i press stop and eject before your coffee cup hits the floor)

letters to a

2010-06-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

i. dear a,

i'll have you know that i saw you today,
and i'll have you know that your face burnt itself into me

ii. dear a,

your angles and corners would mix greatly with my curves
(and by greatly i mean awkwardly, and by that i mean perfectly)

iii. dear a,

your face just seems to keep coming back for more,
and i'm running out of that

iv. dear a,

i don't know what is happening,
but i hope it's going to break me (because i need that)

v. a,

i honestly don't give a fuck about you anymore

vi. dear a,

maybe i do love some of you after all.
(because my bipolar disorder and your schizophrenia get along greatly)

vii. dear a,

i'm going to be perfect
it won't be easy
and it will be your fault

viii. a,

i honestly don't know why i even bother thinking about you

ix. dear a,

you are the soundtrack to my life's soundtrack.

x. dear a,

i love everything you do
have hope

xi. a,

i forgot how you're supposed to make me feel

xii. dear a,

i remembered
and it's completely amazing

xiii. dear a,

when i meet you i'm going to take your hand
and i hope you won't mind when i forget to let go.

best prom ever

2010-06-10T03:45:00.000-07:00

it's 4 AM, and i'm wide awake. "we're best friends, ashley. you know, best friends, best friends who stick to each other like thighs stick to leather couches."

best friends. best friends aren't supposed to have sex with each other, best friends are supposed to just stay there. be best friends. best friends stick to each other like thighs on leather couches.

like my thighs are sticking to the leather couch in tyler's living room right now.

i look up again, there's the glowing screen of my cell phone with just those words in it (we're best friends, ashley. thighs stick to leather couches. best friends, ashley.)

then tyler, asleep just a foot or two away, with the covers draped around him and his face smushed against the pillow. god damn, he's really not that attractive, i think, but it'd be a lot more believable if i hadn't been pressed up against that naked body just an hour or two ago.

the floor, grey carpet, then there's tyler's boxers, a pair of sheer tights, the pair of sheer tights my mom made me wear, tyler's slacks, tyler's shirt, tyler's suit jacket, a godawful pink prom dress (and i know that i'm supposed to think of it as 'my prom dress', presumably like all those other girls who just had post-prom sex with their boyfriends), i lay back down and cross my arms above my chest, there's a small vaguely finger-shaped bruise next to my nipple, and now i think back to tyler and his hands and his dick and.

it was 3 AM, and tyler was lying next to me, his arms wrapped around my waist and his lips on my neck, and i think he must have talked about love or dating or something like that, but i don't remember because my head is empty like radio static, except for his hands and his mouth and that small voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me that i made a giant fucking mistake. tyler's eyes are half-closed, and knowing him he'll probably be asleep soon, and it only takes a few more love-dating-sex sentences before he stops talking, and then his breath gets all even and quiet and he's sound asleep, and i just lie there and stay awake and listen to that small voice and the radio static starts to fade and fade and the small voice turns into a big voice and.

it was 2 AM, and tyler and i were sitting in his car, with somewhat mediocre take out from taco bell in our laps ("taco hell", tyler would say, and the joke would be old but i would still laugh because it's tyler), and tyler asked me if i'd go back to his place. (and of course i said yes, because it's right across the street and it's not like we've never done this before.) we flop down onto the couch, and it only takes a few minutes until his tongue is in my mouth and vice versa, and a few more minutes until his shirt comes off, the prom dress, his slacks, until we're both naked and then it happens once again and tab a goes into slot b and he tells me how good i look and.

it was 1 AM, and prom night was over. tyler and i had decided to go together, just as friends, or something like that (like every other couple of friends of whom neither had a date). he asked me if i wanted to get something from taco hell, and of course i said yes, and we ride in his car and i take off my heels and tyler turns up the radio because who cares if it's past midnight and.

and now it's still 4 AM, and we're still naked, and my thighs are still sticking to his leather couch, and i peel myself off the couch and get up and search for a pack of cigarettes (i usually don't smoke, but tonight is a different story, so i light one and exhale and i cough so hard at that my eyes start watering)

(and even after i've smoked three more cigs i still can't calm down enough to see a good side in tyler naked on the sofa and the prom dress on the floor)

saccharine

2010-03-04T17:22:00.000-08:00

i sometimes lie.

actually, no, i lie all the time.
i lie in the morning, i lie during the day, i lie at night.
i lie to mom and dad, my friends, my teachers, you.
about everything.
about my homework, about the last butterfinger in the cabinet.
about the scars on my arms, about the stains in my shirts.
and about that time i went over to tyler's house, that one time last summer on the day when you and mom went over to wal*mart to buy white-out or something like that, remember?
when i got home and mom asked me what we did, and i said 'oh, the usual. played some video games, had fast food, talked, you know how it is'?
yeah, lie.

"you interrupt me at this point, ask me what really happened that day, and i just shrug and try to avoid your eyes, because you know."

so basically tab a went into slot b.

"you raise an eyebrow, the awkward silence in the room is tangible. a few seconds pass before you lean back into the couch and start to stare at the ceiling. 'well,was it good for you?' you ask, and i just shake my head."

not the point.
so basically yeah, tyler and i fucked. just once. won't happen again.

"maybe, i add mentally. for what it's worth, he wasn't too bad at it, after all. you shake your head, mumble something about how i'm way too young for him. this. sex."

sixteen.

"i almost regret saying that one single word right after it leaves my mouth. sixteen. other sixteen-year-old girls don't accidentally have sex with their best friend. other sixteen-year-old girls don't shove their fingers down their throats in hopes that maybe, if they do it for long enough, they'll stop looking like.. well.. girls. other sixteen-year-old-girls don't have any problems with the idea of looking at themselves in the mirror. other sixteen-year-old-girls actually tell the truth at times."

well yeah, i lie. a lot.
actually, not really. it's not that we didn't play video games or talk or have fast food that day, you know?
i didn't lie to mom and dad about that, i just told them the truth and left out the bit where we had sex.
like when you have visitors over and lock the doors to your bedroom because they're not supposed to see what's in there, you know what i mean?
yeah, it's like that.

"you cock your head to one side, then scratch at your chin before speaking. 'why', you just say, it's not really a question, more of a statement, as if you didn't really expect me to explain."

i don't like telling the truth. it's usually just admitting how much of an ass you are, and well.. i really just want to hide the ass parts of myself. you know what i mean, right?

"'ashley', you say, 'you're sixteen years old. sixteen. stop it.' sixteen, i repeat in my head. too young for tyler. too old for lying."

i can't.
i just lie all the time. about everything.
about my grades, about tyler, about my fingernails, about taking out the dogs.
i lie to everyone.

"but mostly, i lie to myself. especially late at night , when the lights are off and i can't see or hear the rest of the world, and i tell myself that this is right, i don't need help, god doesn't fuck up.
because i'm sixteen, god dammit, and at that age you just have to deal with things the way they are."

genderFucked.

2009-11-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

I. ”you're pretty.“ the words spill from his chapped lips like vomit, as if he had meant it to be an insult, and for a moment you just want to actually vomit, chuck out the fat amongst all the pretties, paint the bathroom porcelain in a new version of the rainbow (green-brown-green-yellow-green-brown-green), get it all out until there's nothing but bones and skin and muscle and man. nothing but a handsome.

III. the first time you fuck him, it's a lot different from what either of you had expected, there's none of the awkward glaring and stupid questions. all that you had wanted was talk (and now that you think back, you don't even remember why) – but all of all sudden, you were on your back, and then there was skin on skin and hands in places and tab a went into slot b. (you went home later that night to puke, to purge out all of the beautifuls, all the baby girls, all the pussys, all those hands in places where they don't belong.)

V. it takes another few weeks until you fuck him again. this time, he's drunk, and the whole process of add bed-subtract clothes-tab a-slot b goes over a lot less awkward than the first time. you wind up falling asleep in his arms, but not before 'officially' declaring him your boyfriend. thinking back now, you kind of wish you had been drunk that night as well; at least, it would have given you an excuse to call it off right away.

VII. sometimes, you would watch yourself dress in the mirror, watch yourself transform from woman to man ever so slowly, and just the thought of seeing the right person staring back at you would make you incredibly happy. (sometimes, he would also watch you dress, and just the thought of him glancing at your half-naked body, the feeling of his eyes tracing every single curve would make you sick; it would all remind you that this was nothing but an elaborate masquerade.)

IX. it's about two years after that fuck when you first start questioning why you're still with him, or perhaps that should be why you haven't left him yet; since there is no “with him”, all there is is he. he and an illusion of the girlfriend you aren't. and you think about the things he says, the ones about pretty girls and cunts and tits and other four letter words, and no matter how much the thought of this hurts, all you can think is how somehow this is much more desirable than the idea of being alone.

XI. the room is dark, but your eyes are closed either way; small groans are leaving his mouth, and you can smell his skin. “does this”, you say, mainly as an excuse to take a deep breath, “does this feel good?” he smiles and pushes you towards him, running a hand across the back of your head. “you look so beautiful like this, baby, you know”, he mumbles and leans back, and with every word the idea of just biting down gets more and more tempting.

XIII. “so.. when did this start? you know, the whole thing?”, he asks, and just by the way he uses his words you can tell that his heart isn't really in it. you think back, back to way before, before him, and the memories are just as vivid as the actual experience, and you can almost feel the blood on your hands and almost smell the smell of vomit and something else you'd rather not think about. you swallow. “i don't remember”, you say, and judged by the look on his face he actually believes you.

XV. your head is spinning when you throw your bags onto the backseat, and you can't tell which part is from excitement and which is from the vodka, but your hands are completely calm when you put them onto the steering wheel, like it was made just for you to hold onto. the streets are dark and wet from the rain underneath the wheels, but you've never felt this comfortable in your life, and the speed goes up up up up up 70 80 90 mph and beyond, far beyond. and as you feel the bright white of the headlights coming closer and closer you can't help but think that you've made the right decision.

watch the ghosts dance

2009-11-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

I. the lights are bright and the night is young and filled with noises.
he is beautiful, unexplored, different. he doesn't do, all of all sudden he just is.
and what he is is fascinating. (and you're not sure in which way.)
his voice is soft and shaky when he speaks, and the words fit into him
way too perfectly, like they were made to be spilled from his lips.

II. his eyes are warm when they lock with yours, and his fingers slide
into the creases between yours a little too perfectly, like a lock and key.
and still he is fascinating magnificent beautiful, like the first time. he laughs,
and his breath tastes like hot coffee and the sound of 'forever' when he's the
one saying it. "forever", you say, but it doesn't sound nearly as pretty.

III. "nat", he says, his voice is scratchy and smells like sticky summer air, but it's
still far more beautiful than anything you could ever say. "yes?" "i can't sleep."
you sigh and shift on the matress until there's enough room for the two of you,
and even though the room is dark his smile is still bright and perfect when he
crawls in next to you, and his body is soft and strong and cold and hot at once.

IV. the night is cold and wet, with snowflakes pouncing against the windows and
the lingering cold extending its fingers through the open window. he is curled up
against you, his hot breath against your chest, and his fingers are threaded
together with yours. "nat?", he asks, "can i tell you a secret?" and before you
find the time to nod, he whispers, "i have a little girl in my head."

V. there is a pause. you both just sit there for a second, and it is now that you
notice the blank stare in his eyes, and all of all sudden his hand seems to be
just as cold and clammy as the air outside. he tightens his grip on your fingers,
as if he was scared you'd run away. "sometimes, she sings to me", he continues,
and before you can say anything your lips meet and he tastes like perfection
(if perfection and stale beer taste anything alike).

VI. his body is warm and firm and sweaty and perfect all over you, and it's almost
funny how perfectly he fits against you. "nat", he says, his voice caught somewhere
between a moan and a sigh, "nat, this is so perfect." and you nod and laugh,
and just because the way he says your name is nearly as perfect as this, you
kiss him, and the moment is almost perfect until you realize how much he tastes like sickness.

VII. it's only a matter of a few months until the two of you end up lying on the sofa,
him sprawled out against you, and this time your fingers aren't interlaced.
"nat, i'm sorry", he says, "i'm sorry", once again, and now there is no trace of
perfection left in his words, all there is left is a big hole, and you're not sure if
it's always been there. "you don't need to apologize", you say, because he doesn't.

that is the moment when you realize that she'd stopped singing.

the one with the backseat

2009-09-11T05:24:00.000-07:00

The first time we met, he signed his name onto the back of my hand in dark green marker – Alec Jamais, “with one A, one L, one E, one C and no X,” he added, and jamais like the French word for never. (Years after, I'll find out that it's actually Jamesson, but he claims it reminds him too much of bad actors and breast implants.)

I barely call him by his given name though; whenever we meet, it always starts with “love”, to then progress into “harder”, “fuck” or “do that again”, to then end with a single moan.

In turn, he starts out with calling me his favorite pretty boy, which is soon replaced by “greedy little slut”, and then eventually leads to pseudo-endearments like “you're amazing” or “I fucking love you”, but both of us know that they're just empty words mumbled against the shell of my ear.

His skin is cold and paper thin beneath my hands, and his ribs make small bumps under my fingertips as I let them brush down his chest, rib rib rib nipple rib rib rib rib rib. He calls me a whore when I shove a hand into his briefs, but the expression on his face and the raspy low moans spilling from his lips when I replace my fingers with my mouth all make up for it, and the contrast of my pale, freckly hands against the caramel color of the skin stretching across his hipbones is almost pretty enough to help me ignore the moment when he tells me to roll over before pushing in.

He kisses me a lot, but it's never on the lips, but instead all over my cheeks, neck and collarbone, and whenever we fuck, he sprinkles tiny bites all over my shoulders and down my spine. Sometimes, after we parted, I'd stand with my back to the mirror and look at them over my shoulder, playing mental connect-the-dots and trying to find a greater picture in the small red scabs, a heart on my shoulder and a huge lightning bolt squeezed into the space between my shoulder blades, right below the small crescent moon at the base of my neck.

His skin makes a sharp contrast to mine yet again whenever he runs his hands up and down my chest and sides, grasping at tits we both knew weren't there, and that's usually the point when I dart my tongue out and lick a long stripe of saliva up his throat, and that's when his grip on me would tighten and small gasps would leave his throat, and just hearing that got me more and more excited every single time. He'd tell me not to stop, and I'd move my mouth further and further downwards, his previously cool skin now boiling hot and glazed with sweat, and oftentimes I'd try to sneak my tongue into his mouth, just to see whether he tasted this good on the inside as well, kind of salty, kind of sweet, and definitely hot.

The first time we have sex is less than 24 hours after our first encounter. It's not particularly romantic or thoughtful, and now that I look back onto it I can't even remember how we got there, but somehow we had ended up in the back of his car, in a parking lot outside the local fast food place. The sex itself was rather awkward and really uncomfortable – like the backseat of a Volkswagen – but after the initial moments of shock, it started to feel good. Incredibly good. And so, we kept doing it over the summer. Same parking lot, same time, same car, same sex, same Alec-and-Loren.

After we'd finish, we'd usually just clean ourselves up before he would curl up against me and whisper nothings against my ear, sweet ones and not-so-sweet ones, and in all honesty, some of the words slipping from his lips were dirty enough to make me want to fuck him once again (and again and again andagainandagainand). I'd never say anything though, just run my hand up and down his side, rib rib rib nipple rib rib rib rib rib, and the world would be sunshine-and-rainbows perfect for a few seconds, just between him and I and the ratty old upholstery, neverminding the fact where we only knew each other's names and license plates.

echoes and mirrors and .

2009-08-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

. . .

.and i say, "what's up",
and i really mean,
"i really like your eyes"

"nothing", he says and
he really means,
"too much for both of us"

.and i say, "i'm bored",
but in all honesty,
i just want to hear you

"me too", he says and
i know that
he just wants an excuse

.and i say, "let's fuck",
but really i think,
"i just want to have you"

"okay", he says and
he thinks,
"tab ay -> slot bee"

.and i say, "take it off",
and at that,
i just want to faint

he takes it off and
he knows,
he can't hide anymore

.and i think, "be still"
but it won't,
my heart keeps fluttering

"butterflies are for girls",
he says but
i don't care anymore

he.

2009-07-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

"you're such a slut, and you know it", he hisses, balling his hands into fists and clutching the ends of his sleeves. i just shrug, then look down onto our feet standing side by side on the concrete, green with pink laces next to checkered grey, and i should probably say something now, but it's not like that would fix anything.

"yeah, like you're one to talk", i mumble, and as soon as the words leave my mouth i just want to eat them or smash them with a hammer and then pretend they were never spoken in the first place, because holy shit, that came out way more hateful than i had intended it to. for a few seconds there's silence, before he turns his head to look at me and whisper "shut up", and if i didn't know any better i'd guess that his eyes are filling with tears.

his fingers tighten around the fabric, and honestly, he looks so small and vulnerable as he's standing there that i get the urge to just wrap my arms around him and kiss him, kiss his tears away and hold him like they do in romantic movies, but instead i just settle for wrapping one arm around his shoulders and pulling him close, and that's when the first few droplets hit me, but i can't tell which are from him crying against my shoulder and which are from the rain.

the muscles in his upper arms convulse once, twice, before he pulls away and bites his lips. "i fucking hate you, you know that", he mumbles, but judged by the tone in his voice he doesn't mean it, and now i can see the make-up run down his cheeks. i tighten my grip around him once again, then wrap my other arm around him as well, and this time he just leans into me, and really, if it's possible for a moment to be absolutely perfect this is definitely it.

we just stand there in silence for a few seconds, before he finally speaks up. "i'm okay", he mumbles, and the spiteful tone in his voice has completely disappeared now, instead replaced by a tiny, raspy whisper. he moves his arms to wrap them around me, and that's when i just have to bend down to kiss him. his eyes pop open out of surprise when our mouths meet, but after a few split seconds his lips part under mine, and whoever claimed that kissing the one you love tastes like rainbows and sugar was wrong, because he tastes more like cheap salty fries and blood, but really, i couldn't care less.

"i'm not a slut", i mumble a few seconds after we break apart, and at that he just turns his head in disbelief. "yeah, right."

piano keys

2009-05-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

10. i remember the first time i saw him, the way he moved, the way he laughed, the way his lips would open and close, drawing words into the air surrounding him, and how his hands would talk as well, painting pictures to go along. i was too young to know it back then, but that moment was when i first fell in love with him.

09. the day we first spoke, we were just walking around the neighborhood, kicking a can of soda around between us, and he told me about piano music, how it was able to move people, how just a simple tune could provoke incredibly deep feelings.

that day, i bought a handful of piano records, and all i could think of while listening was him.

08. the first time we kissed, we were sitting on the ratty couch in his parents' house, playing video games like we always did. i remember how he was talking about keys, piano keys, and how beautiful they were. he kept going on about music, and how it wasn't the most important part in piano. he just seemed so enthusiastic. i was able to hear the music right in my head, just by the way his voice described it, and his eyes were sparkling with adoration while he talked, and in all honesty, he looked so beautiful that i just had to lean in and kiss him. he pulled away at first, telling me how wrong this was, and how boys shouldn't kiss other boys, but either way i kissed him again, and he kissed back.

07. we officially started being in a "relationship" after moving into our own apartment at 16. it wasn't very great, and there wasn't enough room for either of us, but at least there was something. in exchange for that, the sex was great, and i loved being fucked to the sound of his piano records.

06. it's safe to say that we just weren't meant to be, and so it wasn't that much of a surprise when he told me that he just wanted to take a break.

05. a few weeks after our break-up, he told me he was dating a pianist. my reaction would probably have been more than just a nod if i had noticed the bruises on his arms, and the way his words had lost their magic, how they couldn't paint pictures anymore, how they were nothing but simple words by now.

04. we continued to share the apartment after that, but now he'd stay at the pianist's house much more frequently, and whenever he returned, he'd tell me about the pianist's hands, and about how amazing they felt on his skin, and about the even more amazing music they'd play just for him, and while he told me about those things his voice was more beautiful than ever, describing everything in great detail while only using a few words, and all i could envision during conversations like these was him making love to the pianist.

whenever he didn't return home, i'd light a piano record on fire.

03. we started fighting more and more after his and the pianist's relationship got "intense", and usually it was because of the dark bruises all over his body and the blood stains in his clothes. at first i just took it as a normal thing, but after a while the fights started being more physical, less about actual reasons and more about fighting for the sake of fighting, and after every fight he'd light a match and leave a burn mark on my body, for all the records that i burned, or so he said.

02. after that, things started to go downhill faster and faster. he kept coming home late at night, smelling of cheap liquor and pot more and more frequently, and every time when i felt him curl up naked against me, covered in sweat with semen running down the insides of his legs, he whispered nothings against my ear, but they weren't the sweet type.

01. we eventually started fucking again, but it wasn't the same as before, and now that i think back, maybe i should've noticed the blood and semen trickling out his ass, maybe i should've noticed the cuts and bruises on his face, but all i could think of back then was him telling me how the pianist was much better than i was, over and over again.

00. they played piano music at his funeral. i couldn't feel anything.

plastic blue

2009-05-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

1999

the first time we meet, he's dressed in all black, shaggy dark hair hanging to his shoulders and pale skin, so pale that it makes the walls behind him look gray. "my name is g, but you can call me risk", he introduces himself, voice cold and emotionless.

2000

it's a cold, windy day in february, and risk and i are wandering around the neighborhood. we're talking about life and everything else, and his voice is just as empty as it had been on the first day. he's talking about how he'll move into his own apartment after his birthday in a few months, and then buries his hands deeper in the pockets of his jeans, then kicks a can of soda across the street. "you can come too, you know", he says, looking at me, and his face is just as empty as his voice.

2001

we're sitting on the couch in our apartment, facing the wall, and watching a movie on the old television set. neither of us know what it's about, but it's not like there's anything else to do. i occasionally laugh, but else than that the room is silent, apart from the occasional sound of rain hitting the glass of the window behind us. "risk?", i ask, slightly nudging his side. he turns around to look at me, and that's the first time when i notice how blue his eyes are. "can we change the channel?" he doesn't reply, just grabs the remote. we end up watching some porno, a blonde with big breasts being fucked at what seems to be the speed of light, and then some. he grins an incredibly fake grin, then leans back and watches. i shrug and look down at my feet; to be honest, i couldn't care less. the man on tv goes for her ass now, and i can hear risk unzipping his pants. "damn, that's hot", he mumbles under his breath. i can see him stroking himself out of the corner of his eye, and in all honesty, at that moment he's clearly the hottest thing in the room.

2002

it's the day after my sixteenth birthday. supposedly, that's the day when you'll start feeling grown up, mature and competent, but at the moment i feel more helpless than i have ever before. risk and i had decided to spontaneously crash on the living room floor, and at the moment his head's in my lap, hair splayed out all over my thighs. i tangle one of my hands in it, it's unbelievably soft and cold. his breath is soft and quiet, and he's still as pale as he was when we first met. i look across the room, there's still some empty beer bottles on the floor, and the smell of sex in the air tells me that someone got quite a good fucking in here after i fell asleep. "jason?", a raspy voice asks, and it's risk, he's awake. i quickly try to remove my hand from his hair, but he just shakes his head. "feels good", he mumbles, blinking, "i'm hungry." i just nod, then move to get up and head towards the kitchen.

2003

the sky outside is grey and stormy. we're sitting in the kitchen, eating pizza, and risk is reading the newspaper. his hair is messy, and his eyes aren't the perfect shade of blue they used to be. he reaches for another slice of pizza, letting a string of cheese drop down onto the paper. "i fucking hate sundays", he mumbles, letting his eyes travel around his room and taking a bite. his lips look so beautiful right then, and as he runs his tongue across them, i can feel my pants get a little tighter, shit, not again. he looks at me, then at the box in front of me. "you didn't eat at all, j", he remarks, and his face remains empty. i just shrug, then pick up a piece and take a bite. risk gets up, then leaves to watch tv. i just stay there for a while. when i'm sure that he's not going to return, i reach down and jerk myself off, but it's not as great as it'd be if he were doing it.

2004

risk is leaning against my side, telling me about the girl he broke up with. he's calling her a dirty whore, and saying that she should die in a fire, and i can hear small sobs in his voice. i just listen, occasionally nod and pat his back. he looks at me, and his face is emotionless as ever, except for the small teardrops sparkling in the corners of his eyes, and at that moment he just looks so small and helpless that i can't help but lean in to kiss him. he just looks at me for a second, then kisses back, and his lips feel incredibly soft as they part under mine.

2005

we're both incredibly drunk the first time we have sex. it's risk's birthday, and we had locked ourselves up in the apartment with tons of alcohol and action movies. we're on the third movie, and a bomb explodes on the screen when he pulls me in and starts kissing me. i kiss back, he pulls me in and shoves his hand into my pants, a bunch of guns fire. we take off our clothes, he mumbles „let's fuck“ into my ear, and someone is shot in the head on screen.
later that night, we're lying on the floor, naked, panting and sweating. "you're amazing, you know that", he whispers in that empty voice, tracing patterns on my skin.

2006

„you know, j“, risk says, lighting a cigarette and exhaling, „i met this girl in town today.“ i just nod, curling up further against his side, and brush one of my hands over his ribcage. „she asked me out on a date“, he continues, and that moment is the first time in all the years i've known him that there's some sort of emotion in his voice. i just lie there for a moment, he just has to tell me this right after we've had sex. in the end i just nod and roll over to turn my back on him.

2007

i'm sitting on the couch, watching a movie in the middle of the night, and risk is halfway sitting in my lap, halfway splaying out on the couch. that's when he announces to me that he's getting married. my first reaction is the urge to sit up straight and scream at him, because apparently all those times we fucked and the years we've been living together apparently meant nothing. i don't know what i'd do after i'd finish screaming. maybe i'd jump up, pack my things and run off, look for a new flatmate or something. not that i'm independent or cool enough to do anything of that sort. i bite my lip, and just mumble „congratulations“ through clenched teeth. risk turns around to look at me, and judged by the look in his eyes he actually thinks i'm being honest.

2008

it's a sunny, warm summer day when risk returns to my apartment. he's sitting in my lap, just like he had only a year ago, but this time he's a sniffling, sobbing mess, his tears staining my shirt and his hands clutching the upholstery. „she killed herself“, he whispers, wiping his eyes, and at that moment i really want to say something to cheer him up, but all i can think of is „there's other fish in the ocean“, and that didn't seem too appropriate, so i just hold him and listen to him. „she, she told me she'd do it, but i didn't listen“, he continues, „and she said it's because of you.“

desolation boys .

2009-05-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

summer

every night, we would sit on top of your roof, fingers laced and looking up at the dark sky sprinkled with stars.

you'd say that it reminds you of a piece of cloth that someone had draped around the hills and then ripped in parts to let the light shine through, and whenever you'd tell me that i'd just nod and agree.

really though, it reminds me of your eyes, and the pattern of the freckles splattered across your nose and cheekbones.

we'd light matches and smoke cigarettes, exhaling the pale blue fumes into each other's faces and letting the ashes drip down onto the damp grass beneath us.

when the package of marlboro's we'd share between us was empty, you'd pull me close and whisper sweet nothings against my hair, your silky pink lips occasionally brushing against the top of my ear.

we'd just stay there, entangled in each other and talking about nothing and the world, until the sun would rise and the stars would fade, or until either of us would start shivering.

fall

we probably spent a lot more time in bathrooms than it was usual for two average kids in high school - if one could call us average to begin with.

we'd go about it like a routine, i'd nudge you in the side or tap my foot against yours under the desk during third period, and you'd look at me, send me a huge silky-pink-and-freckles smile and understand.

i've always found it kind of ironic how excited we'd get over this type of moments, considering how there was nothing particularly romantic about it, but you told me that for you, it was like an addiction, and i suppose i just kept doing it to see that smile every day.

you'd always be the one to begin, the first to crouch over the toilet bowl and stick two fingers down his throat, repeat the process until the ceramic was stained with vomit and blood, and i'd be the one squatting next to you on the tiles, holding your hair back and patting your back before we'd switch positions.

afterwards, we'd pick each other off the floor and you'd wrap your arms around me and kiss me, and every time my lips would part under yours, allowing your tongue to slip in.

we'd taste each other's vomit and our protuding bones would crash together, and when we finally parted, you'd tell me how much you love moments like this.

winter

i remember being in middle school, sitting in sex education class and being taught that intercourse is a beautiful, loving thing inbetween a man and a woman.

whenever we had sex, it was not so much that but more of a frantic, furious thing between two men.

we'd just crash down onto the bed or maybe the floor, and our clothes would come off one by one, and soon we'd be completely naked, tracing clavicles and hipbones through each other's skin.

you'd leave tiny kisses up and down my throat and i'd wrap my legs around your hips, and we'd grind together to the sound of imaginary guitar riffs, moaning in rhythm and orgasming as the grand finale.

as an unwritten rule, we never kissed or even spoke once it was over; all we ever did after sex was cleaning ourselves up before one of us would go home.

the next day, you'd always call me up and thank me for the fuck, and i'd just reply with a laugh and a 'you're welcome', and only about an hour later we'd be at it again.

spring

the days would get warmer, and we'd spend more time outside again, hanging around in the park and sharing cheap cigarettes.

you'd tell me how pretty i was, and how my eyes reminded you of big chunks of amber - neverminding the fact that they were actually green, but i never complained.

whenever you did that, i'd just smile and say that your freckles reminded me of constellations, and that your hair was the same color as the small kitten i had owned back in elementary school.

you'd always reply by poorly imitating a cat's purr and rubbing up against my side, and to be honest it never ceased amusing me.

at that point, i'd pet your hair and then turn my head to kiss you, and you'd always taste like nicotine and vomit.

you'd say that i tasted like death, and we'd both laugh because mortality is incredibly amusing when you have lungs like the insides of a chimney and bones that would make a skeleton feel fat.

summer

summer came with smoldering heat and humidity, and so did we.

we'd spend the days in your room, a mess of sweaty, thin limbs tangled into each other, our hands exploring the parts of each other's bodies we already knew too well.

the nights, we'd climb up onto the roof just like the year before, wearing nothing but shorts and small droplets of water running down our bodies, and if anyone had seen us they would've declared us insane.

you'd push the damp hair out of my face and blow wisps of smoke into my direction, and i'd lean towards you and inhale it all, and we'd repeat the process until there was no space inbetween our mouths anymore and the vague taste of carbon dioxide would be replaced with the strong flavor of what you call death.

we'd break apart after a few seconds, and on the last night of summer you'd put an arm around me and talk about how i was still beautiful no matter what i was doing to myself.

that was the moment when i realized that this couldn't possibly go on forever.