04.28.21
Things always change long before you really see them. It isn’t until we were stripping ourselves naked, chests pressed together, your neck strained and lips hovered, forbidding yours from meeting mine, that I began to notice such things. The salt from your eyes burnt my cheek, leaving crusty remnants like a scab I had to pick off out of impulsion. Or maybe they came from my own eyes–your tears–but it couldn’t be, for it was the only time I ever saw you clearly. Either way, it was the last remaining part of you I ever touched. Ever will touch? You were gone before I said goodbye; but then again, so was I.
This isn’t a story about love, nor heartbreak. And certainly not unrequited love. In fact, this isn’t a story at all, so feel free to leave me and my work behind. Otherwise, take it lightly or deeply or whatever feels right.
In loving equally as hard, I was understood in ways beyond the self–which leads me to this last attempt to unlearn my flawed perception of self, and thus rebirth myself. I always envied your vision–the way you see through to the core’s deepest desires; but in taking it upon yourself to grant them, you enslaved me.
I will be writing with the intention of discovering the point of it all. In understanding myself the way you did. The way you do. I need to know why we let ourselves engage in the cyclic nature of addiction. Why we even tried it to begin with. I wonder if we’ll ever reach a point of no return. If the hole in my cheek will burn or heal me. Why scars are looked at in such an admirable way–like they’re some form of proof for the pain we endured–yet how suicide is seen as a weakness; selfish, despite living a life of selflessness.
Love is not synonymous with happiness; and sex is not synonomous with love, but possession; obsession. It's the simple concept of give and take. In giving you the most raw and vulnerable parts of myself, I abandoned myself. I planted a seed, you watched it grow, and picked my fruit dry.
It began with a drug deal. There’s this selective hotline in the city that requires referral. Exclusivity always fiends desire. When something’s open to everyone, it lessens the appeal. Anyway, you were referred, and so we placed an order. It was formal. They sent us a menu with strains and prices. We sent back a list: 4 oxys, 4 perks, an eightball, and an eighth of Cheetah Piss Sativa. When we were out getting cash, the dealer arrived, followed by a few angry texts and a call saying we better get our asses there immediately. His deep muffled voice made me cold. You gave me your denim jacket–the one covered in pins from that vintage shop on Avenue B that sold the same band tees as Amazon, but we loved the owner too much to save the extra dollar. Pins of Penny Lane, The Clash, Annie and Her Dog, A Cartoon Outline of a Girl Smoking a Joint, A Grateful Dead Dancing Bear, Morrisey, Pink Floyd, and a Cat Riding a Skateboard covered the cuffs. Only you could have pulled that thing off, though it did fit me perfectly, and smelt of Camel Blues and Old Spice deodorant, and you.
Fox was waiting for us when we returned with the cash. His face was much softer than his voice. I can’t quite picture what he looked like, but I know his softness surprised me. He was large, dressed in black leather and a snap-back. It bothers me that I can see what he wore, but not who he was. I wonder if I’d recognize him at a bar, the way he did with the girl he met in Denmark. See it wasn’t that Fox’s voice or appearance didn’t match his persona–it did–Fox is a hard ass. But I guess he liked us. He saw in us what we see in each other–an indescribable depth; an almost immediate recognition when adjusting your lens correctly; but also something you could spend the rest of your life searching for if your lens only remains focused on me–like how I believed I could only find that in you. But I no longer believe in such dramatic distinctions. In soulmates. Life changes far too fast, and far too drastically, to hold onto such beliefs. But like all else, there’s a balance; in this case, between letting go and recognizing potential.
He gave us a pre-roll as a peace offering and joined us for a sesh. We were with my best friend from childhood, visiting from California–the closest thing I have to family. The concept of keeping in touch has always confused me–the safety net of reassurance that people need–we never felt that toward each other. We kind of just know we are constant. But then again, everything must come to an end. Every time I see her, her hair changes color and style. This time it was long and blue, with self-trimmed bangs. Her face filled out. She looked much healthier–and more casual than usual–in a tie-dye sweatshirt hanging below her knees, wearing my old Nikes from high school that I grew out of and shipped to her. Her eyes glowed the way they would when we were young, climbing through the snow tunnels we’d sculpt in her driveway every winter after the snow plower left. My point in this description is not to bore you with appearance, but rather to emphasize how quickly and drastically external life changes. Not just her appearance, but her actual self; who she is, what she likes, what she reads, to whom and what she studies. See, no matter how much she diverts from that little girl I once knew, even to an unrecognizable form, her values at the core remain constant and pure. Our friendship, just like ourselves, is constantly evolving, yet somehow our dynamic mutual understanding and capacity for that change remains present. That same lens I mentioned before that allows you to connect to me–and Fox to connect to us–it keeps us present in each other’s lives, and present in that room, hungry for perspective.
I think that’s why I have such an emotional attachment to The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. She describes this concept in ways I wish I could; in words I wish I wrote.
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
Fox told us about his life. How he grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, and had spent his last decade relying on innumerable interchangeable relationships. He moved to Denmark alone, in an attempt, like all others, to find himself. But does running to another world really solve what’s going on within? The way I see it, yes. I see it as a second chance; if you fuck up your first life, start over somewhere else. The real problem begins when you stop running–when departure is too frightening to let go. In Fox’s case he had a conversation with a woman–(a friend)–that changed his life. They sat in the bar until morning, bouncing thought off of thought off of thought. 4 months later, back in Brooklyn, Fox walks into a bar, and there she is–his friend. She gives him her business card, and hires him the following week as a flight attendant. He spends his next decade of his life traveling the world.
Now he’s our dealer. But ignore the profession and acknowledge his lens. Something in him switched–the man on the phone versus the man sharing a joint with us. He didn’t explain it, but we all knew it and saw it–the step back and breath he forced himself to intake, and the even greater audible exhale he released before handing us the j.
There in that room, was the balance between the past and present. Fuck the future. An end doesn’t always mean a new beginning–both can be there simultaneously, and I really believe that is how each of us sitting there that day felt consistently understood.
Can people change? Yes. 100%. But more-so like the seasons than anything else. Or like the waves; We rise, fall, and drag ourselves back to where we started.
I’ve seen how actions have an impact on the world in small yet meaningful ways. I just went to a new gynecologist. My last one made me weigh myself after explicitly telling her of my eating disordered habits, then forced birth control on me despite my suicidal side effects. Well anyway, this new nurse at my new gyno spoke to me, while taking my blood, about her job. About the power of first impressions. She is aware of her significance–how she can change the whole dynamic of the session–especially one in which the doctor is sticking metal shit up your vagina. (general you, not you). Anyway, my point in mentioning any of this is that over the past year of my life, I’ve become aware of my power in this world. Not even to make some drastic evolutionary shift to this world, but more-so to just connect on a real level. To understand the way I desperately want to be understood. And to not place any thought above another. I hated when you did that. You always did that. Yes, you understood me. But you then used my hidden parts as leverage to break me. You didn’t do this intentionally, but intentions really don’t matter in this world unless you make them clear to the perceiver. Knowing your intentions doesn’t change a single thing.
Last week, I walked into an earring boutique, and filled my millions of piercing holes with gold-plated rings. I was already out of the shop and around the corner when I felt some pang of emotion–not necessarily guilt, but more so compassion. I ran back in and paid for everything I already claimed as mine. In doing so, I ran out of money for the month, and ended up stealing from Urban Outfitters and selling on Depop to fund our pills, but either way it felt good. I don’t know. I wonder why I feel a need to tell you my point. I wish you could just figure it out on your own. But no one ever can. Not unless I bring my random tangents full circle, and connect them to whatever the fuck I was talking about minutes prior. I wish I could just speak freely. And not always need to have a point.
It’s impossible to compete with the past; we were always happier back then. And when today is no longer present, I’ll miss this moment the way I miss you now. Oh, how we laughed. How we soaked up the world.
We laughed and soaked for a very short period of time. It wasn’t who we were at that point and time in our lives. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had we met before that year. Or if we had healed before we added the steroid of love to our pain. I wonder if you still would love me–if I wasn’t damaged like yourself. Maybe you’d envy me the way I envy you now. For seeing more clearly than I ever will. But then again, I have accepted my position in this life. Why turn it around for those who’ve already left. That’s one thing I know for sure. If I do decide to change, it will be for myself. I know you’d do the same.
If you were expecting some emotional story about my coming of age, I’m sorry to disappoint. But that same lens that seeks depth in others, also tends to seek destruction. You’re damaged goods–but aren’t we all? Just outcasts living in a conformist society, wanting to be understood. And when we’re lucky enough to find a person or state that does–understand–that hunger surpasses all else, and in most cases, becomes settlement in fear of never finding it again.
I must admit, to all who aren’t you, that even as I sit here compulsively scribbling about what I wish to change, you sit beside me, half-conscious with a lit cigarette burning a hole in my sofa. The same sofa upon which I lost myself to you. The same hole you scarred on my cheek, still wondering if it will burn or heal me. The same sofa we’ve drenched in our love, now stained a whole shade darker than its original light teal. The same sofa where Fox sat, and changed our lives in more ways than any of us like to think about. The pills, our love, the pills, our sex, the pills, you fuck me. You fuck me. You fuck me. I feel everything, and then suddenly nothing at all.