Every once in awhile I open up my documents file and scroll through the half-finished, unedited pieces I abandoned. Most were born in moments of overwhelming emotion, moments when I felt so much that I couldn’t keep it all inside without threatening my mental state. Melodramatic thoughts work fine inside my head, but once I start to put pen to paper I am usually embarrassed by the uncanny likeness to a tele-novella. I chastise myself for blowing it out of proportion and neglect to ever finish it. Sometimes I go back and reread them, and in the rare occasion when the feelings come flooding back, I add, and edit, but still never finish. I opened one last night that inspired those pangs of feeling, albeit only ones of regret, and decided that I would post it on here. There is no dialogue and no real plot. It was written at the messy conclusion of a semi-relationship, and I guess it requires some back-story. Which I might give you someday. In all probability I will soon decide that posting this was a bad judgement call and remove it…but it’s here for now.
Deep blue lightens as daylight comes, my eyelids heavy from lack of sleep, refusing to stay open, though never closing completely. The decrease in my field of vision casts a haze over my surroundings and all of the objects casually strewn around the half empty room take on a different light. The mirror, leaning against the wall, teasing you with a lower half view, but nothing more. The ceiling fan, faux wood blades crafted to fit a child’s dollhouse, looming overhead, tentatively offering a breeze, then soundly refusing as you pull gently on each dangling appendage, hoping to coax it to life. They both appear completely different under the gentle scrutiny of my 4a.m. haze. A breeze blows in through the open window and I inhale deeply, feeling the cool air wash over me but quickly I wince as the pungent smell of marijuana overwhelms me once again, settling itself on every surface in the room. I prop myself up on my elbows as heavy footsteps pad down the hallway, closely followed by the sound of eager claws, tapping a consistent beat against the hardwood floors. My eyes drop as a groan sounds from the sleeping figure next to me and I focus on him, testing the depth of the flattering glow emitted by the fuzzy edged, sleep deprived, high definition picture. I was seeing him through a drastically different filter, though I didn’t know it then. I should have, the clues anything but few and far between.
We sit across from each-other, miles comprising the mere feet between us. His head dips to the right, his nods and repeated “yeahs”, a trademark of his personality made apparent in the first half an hour. I attempt to search his eyes for clues of anything, but the frequency of the head leans guarantees prolonged eye contact with a patch of carpet three feet from the table, never me. My eyes dart anxiously around the restaurant, taking in the soft candlelight, rich red tablecloths and happy couples, hands clasped, resting on the table tops. Briefly, the thought of leaving comes to mind, and I wonder, if I caught him at the beginning of a lean, how long would it be before he noticed my departure.
Sweat collects on my skin, rolling down every available path towards, and away from. I shift my body, his arms slipping from around me, and roll towards the wall, momentarily rejoicing the freedom to sleep as one when a heavy arms drapes over me, pulling me closer once again. I know I should want this, should revel in the comfort of being held, safe in a man’s steady grasp, but I don’t. Pieces of my body, hot and sticky with sweat, take turns tensing as I reluctantly fall back into his arms. The mattress creaks with every movement, no matter how slight. I press my feet into the springs, staring at him expectantly as it shrieks a tune, waiting for his eyes to open, but he is dead to the world. I crave sleep, wishing I could buy it in a dark corner of a back alley, pocket my little baggie, $40 for a solid eight hours. Instead I’m in the space between his body and the wall, my own personalized rock and a hard place, appealing to all of the higher powers I don’t even believe in, offering my soul, my first born, an arm and a leg, just for him to back the fuck up and let me get some sleep.
The annoying gestures, thoughtless words and unspoken conflicts were all caught in the filter before making the journey to either head or heart, both guaranteeing him only one thing, a one way ticket back home. I wanted to love him, to fall easily into the doe eyed, tongue tied, heart aflutter pre-love delusion. My love for him would fill a hole, and prove a point, saving me from years of not so subtle told you so’s.
Arms wrap awkwardly around each-other, unintentionally groping to find a comfortable place, hoping to fit together like puzzle pieces. Abandoning the search, my hands rest against the middle of his back, his just under my shoulder blades, and we try to fit together. Our intentions are good, but it’s like trying to unlock a door with the wrong key. The smell of his cologne fills my nostrils and I inhale deeply, hoping to lose myself in this moment and somehow come back changed enough to fit him.
Dew clings to the air, landing softly on the bristled surface of the green astroturf. I run my fingers across it, marvelling at its likeness to the closely cropped hair of a former conquest. The alcohol flowing through my body takes me back, my fingers in his hair, legs wrapped around his waist, his lips on my neck. I can almost lose myself in the memory, but something brings me back. Four bodies sit crowded around the plastic lined hole, warm from the leftover humidity of the day still clinging to their skin, refusing to retreat long after the sun had set. The glowing orange embers from shared cigars are the only light on the golf course, intensifying briefly with each puff, then falling slowly to the ground, left to burn out. He sits directly to my left, wearing his inebriation like a sweater, his body contained within it, protecting him from the rest of the world. Uncrossing my legs, I fall to the ground, staring up at the sky as the moisture seeps through my thin t-shirt. I can hear him breathing next to me, feel his eyes on me, but I keep mine trained to the sky, wishing on every star I see.
We sit so close I can almost smell the alcohol on his breath, or maybe it’s my own. I lean a little closer, the smell of his cologne the only thing reaching my nostrils, a smell I would know anywhere. It enters every room before him, announcing his presence and lingering long after he has passed through. I know him by this smell more than anything, confident in my ability to pick him from a crowd with it alone. I am always confident in my ambivalence towards him, until that smell invades my senses, and then I am unsure. Maybe I feel more than I would admit to even myself.
A street lamp flickers above us, inconsistently offering the safety of its light in the heavy 3am darkness. We sit in his van, staring straight ahead, not speaking, the silence saying more than any words ever could. My anger fills the entire space, engulfing both of us like smoke, and I can feel the heat of the approaching fire but I don’t attempt to escape. I cross my arms over my chest instinctively, protecting what exactly I’m not sure. The easiest answer would be my heart, but exerting effort to protect something broken long ago seems utterly pointless. I stare out the window, watching the fog form and disappear as I breath in and out, exhaling heavily with rage. I wait, hopefully, for the words to make it right, the sound to fill the hole. It doesn’t come, and I see it, the two of us, lieing broken at our feet. I feel the pain to come, see the hurt in my own eyes, can watch it all at a distance but I can’t stop it.
5am, sleep again refuses me as I stand at its door, having waited outside for hours. The wind lifts the blackout blinds away from the window, exposing the light as the night creeps ever closer to day. He passes by small towns, contained within their tiny bubbles, oblivious to the huge world around them. As the distance between us grows larger, I feel the hole he left begin to close. The farther away he becomes, the less he seems to matter, until he is an insignificant dot, retreating into the horizon. I briefly wonder if he feels the so recently forged ties that bound us snapping, but then I am interrupted as the door in front of me opens, and sleep finally invites me in.
