Lorrie was your best friend, so perhaps it was ill advised from the get-go that we should become so close. I’m not sure if that made you uncomfortable, but regardless, it was my own policy to never disclose anything related to us. I handled it well, even if sometimes I could see she was curious and made comments like “He’s my best friend, but I’m your friend too. Anything you tell me is to my ears only, you know that, right?”. But I couldn’t, I had to keep my friendship completely separate from you. Had to make sure Lorrie and I could talk and laugh and cry over things that had nothing to do with you.
I concisely built something out of nothing, something that in the future couldn’t be traced back us, something that could sustain itself without you. Because I knew at some point it would be over, and when you inevitably took off, you’d take the interesting friends, some of my books and two of my vynils.
It doesn’t matter if you call me “kid” when I say something you don’t agree with. I’m not a child anymore, I’m cutting my losses, Arthur.
Work
If her life held the littlest bit of poetry, he’d call unexpectedly; ask her to meet him in front of the office building. With the heavy 6pm traffic and the pouring rain as their witnesses, he’d kiss her with intent. He’d apologize for the day before, say he was only upset but she shouldn’t worry and this was proof. The rest was her mind running away with very little. The rest was her breeding insecurity and not his disdain. The rest didn’t even really matter because this, this was the start of something. Then he’d kiss her again (this time a little more rushed) before heading to work.
There was no poetry. She worked, and he never called.
Plunge
No, this is not about love. This is how people relate and how everyone falls apart pretty much the same way. This is proof that the least common denominator is pain. Isn’t it peculiar how we’re only the same when we feel extreme happiness or extreme agony?
Being ruled by emotions you can’t gauge or control. Remind me why anyone would want that.
Routine
We would walk in the sun holding hands. I would visit a bookstore and you would look for a new power tool. We would go back to my place. You’d watch European soccer and I would translate what the portuguese narrator was saying. We would eat in silence. I liked being silent, you never liked words. We would lay awake in the dark. You’d kiss my shoulder and I’d stroke your hair.
I kept whispering the world was nothing but a grinder, and it would crush all of our stingy dreams, would reduce us all to dust. And you tsk-ed, saying you hated it when my mind settled in such dark places. Sometimes I’d see you skimming through whichever book I was currently immersed in. You’d blame some long-gone author for my odd moods, and oh my dear darling, it’s more complex than you could ever imagine. You never said much but when you did it was in halves, letting me guess why it was you could never allow yourself to be whole.
Instructions
Only now, when everything has subsided, and the memories are tinted with forgetting. Only now I see it.
I might have room in my mind and my heart to start over.
Mind you, it’s only a feeling. Volatile, just as all as feelings are.
I have tried to grasp it, tie it down, strap it up, hold it close, lock it up, but it simply cannot be done. There are other ways to go about this.
A subtle maneuver, which requires silence, requires resilience. Your best attempt to keep a sense of possibility is to recognize when it washes over. And then you approach it with very little expectations, no compass, no projections of a near future. For God’s sake, just let go of any notion of space or time.
Then you breathe out, and hope it’s still there.
Winter
He complained this was confusing and seemed serious for once. So I changed the subject to something irrelevant. I kept talking about whatever silly thought crossed the path between my brain and my mouth the quickest as he tried to make me stop. ”This isn’t what I’m talking about” I hear him say but still string a few sentences along before adding - quite convincingly - “This is a safe subject, it’s not confusing, it’s friends talking. We’re friends now”.
Such stupid ties the ones that hold us together. He still owes me money; I kept most of his shirts. We’re both so needy, so lonely, our only chance of leaving each other alone would be if we had broken up during summer. Since winter just started last week, we reach out whenever the rain makes us fragile. We don’t discuss whose blame it is because lately we can’t tell who has the worst life. Now is not the time to claim any faults, so we don’t.
It was never love. I can tell because I only miss him when the cold air reaches my lungs, or when my hands are freezing.
If only the rain would stop.
Mirror
The mail has been slow. Today it held no more than five sentences. The last one was “I’m sorry for all the clichés, you deserved more”. I stored his letter pressed between the pages of a book, the way I usually do when I think something is worth keeping.
I won’t write back, my handwriting has been reduced to unintelligible scribbles ever since the accident. It used to be very pretty - firm and steady - now it’s sloppy and weak, and I can’t even say that’s unfair because somehow it feels more appropriate.
This year is filled with sharp edges and I’m not sure what I’ll look like once the calendar runs its course. It’s almost July and I’m no longer beautiful. I can’t handle mirrors or my own voice anymore. I’ve grown quiet in the worst of ways. This is the sort of damage I’d only read about. It’s the kind of cold that allows very little room for peace.
Short-cuts
The consequence of time is rust. The consequence of stoping is starting over. The truth is nothing happens twice, and that serves as both a consolation prize and discouraging fact. It shouldn’t serve as anything because the truth is very self-sufficient that way.
There’s nothing special about being right. The amount of things i do find special is decreasing by the day.
The way he walked into my life made me believe in things I never witnessed. The way he walked out made me remember I was human and unremarkable. The four months in between made me stop questioning so much.
The path is such a long one, I’ve begun to hope for a lift or a map.
Update
Plenty of water under the bridge and I’m not the same river anymore.
