(no subject)
So here's the deal. I'll stay your lj friend, but all I'm going to post is writing. Not stupid updates on my uneventful life. If you guys like this, COMMENT AND TELL ME. If not, I'll just go back to the original plan and ditch lj altogether. Enjoy.
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I unplugged my clock two weeks ago; now it seems that everything happens in the past. I can’t stop and say that this is what I’m doing right now, but in a while - an hour, maybe a year - I will know that I was here, that I felt this alone. Two weeks ago I was angry. My nails were turning purple ‘cause I didn’t want to eat. It was around the same time I passed up an opportunity to change my life. At eighteen you shouldn’t be experiencing bittersweet nostalgia. Some people take pictures to remember, while I try everything just to forget.
Turn up your hearing aids for this one: You’re not alone. If I know one thing for sure, that’s it. It doesn’t matter that I may not know you. If you are sitting there reading this, I already know enough. The truth is, you’re obsessed with yourself. So am I, don’t worry. If we weren’t, we’d feel worthless, because no one else would pay as much attention to us as we do to ourselves. Everything we do is just a step towards self-improvement. Clearly, in cases like coming out about being gay, people don’t do it so their families will love them more. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be so much conservative moral/political juggling going on. Shh, the correct term is ‘life partner’.
I’m looking at this as foreshadowing. In a few decades, people are going to have to remind me to breathe all the time. By then, I’ll do this most easily through a tube inserted into a hole in my neck, a window to my veins, a path to my murmuring heart. I’ll be telling secrets to myself when no one else can hear.
I saw you the other day, driving down Main at the same speed the clouds were shifting in the sky. Fast enough to toss my hair into the wind, slow enough for my hands to tremble at the sight of your lips. Seeing you makes me wonder why you don’t hold me anymore.
I called you the other day. I sat for hours listening to the dial tone, hoping that somewhere inside it was your voice, asking if you could come home. The answer is yes. It’s always been yes. But the chance of me hearing your voice is about the same as the Pope committing suicide. Not bloody likely.
I can’t sleep because you’re always inside me then. Last night you were on a bridge. Everyone watched from below. “I’m going to jump,” you yelled. So many times I tried to grab you, but your hands were liquid inside of mine. “Look at the moon,” I told you calmly. The breeze must have carried my voice the right way because you looked up, and from the side of your face I could see you smiling. You got down from the ledge and walked away from me. People clapped. The moon disappeared behind the clouds.
My mother keeps calling to ask what she should do with the sandwich meat that I left in her fridge. It’s been there for long enough to be squishy and grey, and I’m sure she’ll keep it ‘til it grows back to animal size if I don’t tell her otherwise. There’s nothing in my fridge except a humming noise and an unopened jar of baby dill pickles. The guy at the grocery store stopped hitting on me once he realized I hadn’t been eating in the past while.
Can life really be separated by page numbers, lines, chapters? I don’t want to title this. I’d rather have it all italicized, dramatic, yet I’m tired of putting on sad faces. Last time I smiled, a ripple of tiny cracks broke out across my face as though it was made of stone. I could write a thousand apology letters for how I’ve been acting lately but I guarantee I wouldn’t send one. I’m contemplating admitting myself to the hospital so I could see you on a daily basis. They would give you money to bring me shitty fruit salad and medication and give me baths in cold water. It’s not like that turns me on it’s just it’s been so long since I was touched by anyone. The scent of you still lingers somewhere in a pile of laundry that I’ve been meaning to look after. I need to get my priorities straight. I only know it’s the weekend when Oprah doesn’t show up for our television date at four o’clock. Then again, it could just be bad reception. My vision’s gone blurry and the cat looks oddly alike to the couch cushion but your picture on the dresser is still crystal clear. Inside of it, between the mountain face and the heavy rush of the waterfall, a memory of you and me is still there, set in stone. Almost like your hand on my heart and the sweat in my palms each time I see you in my head. On my birthday I fell asleep in the back corner of the bookstore while a band sang to me words that I’m sure were meant for you. They must have been, because as they made their way into my ears, your face was painted across the inside of my eyelids.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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I unplugged my clock two weeks ago; now it seems that everything happens in the past. I can’t stop and say that this is what I’m doing right now, but in a while - an hour, maybe a year - I will know that I was here, that I felt this alone. Two weeks ago I was angry. My nails were turning purple ‘cause I didn’t want to eat. It was around the same time I passed up an opportunity to change my life. At eighteen you shouldn’t be experiencing bittersweet nostalgia. Some people take pictures to remember, while I try everything just to forget.
Turn up your hearing aids for this one: You’re not alone. If I know one thing for sure, that’s it. It doesn’t matter that I may not know you. If you are sitting there reading this, I already know enough. The truth is, you’re obsessed with yourself. So am I, don’t worry. If we weren’t, we’d feel worthless, because no one else would pay as much attention to us as we do to ourselves. Everything we do is just a step towards self-improvement. Clearly, in cases like coming out about being gay, people don’t do it so their families will love them more. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be so much conservative moral/political juggling going on. Shh, the correct term is ‘life partner’.
I’m looking at this as foreshadowing. In a few decades, people are going to have to remind me to breathe all the time. By then, I’ll do this most easily through a tube inserted into a hole in my neck, a window to my veins, a path to my murmuring heart. I’ll be telling secrets to myself when no one else can hear.
I saw you the other day, driving down Main at the same speed the clouds were shifting in the sky. Fast enough to toss my hair into the wind, slow enough for my hands to tremble at the sight of your lips. Seeing you makes me wonder why you don’t hold me anymore.
I called you the other day. I sat for hours listening to the dial tone, hoping that somewhere inside it was your voice, asking if you could come home. The answer is yes. It’s always been yes. But the chance of me hearing your voice is about the same as the Pope committing suicide. Not bloody likely.
I can’t sleep because you’re always inside me then. Last night you were on a bridge. Everyone watched from below. “I’m going to jump,” you yelled. So many times I tried to grab you, but your hands were liquid inside of mine. “Look at the moon,” I told you calmly. The breeze must have carried my voice the right way because you looked up, and from the side of your face I could see you smiling. You got down from the ledge and walked away from me. People clapped. The moon disappeared behind the clouds.
My mother keeps calling to ask what she should do with the sandwich meat that I left in her fridge. It’s been there for long enough to be squishy and grey, and I’m sure she’ll keep it ‘til it grows back to animal size if I don’t tell her otherwise. There’s nothing in my fridge except a humming noise and an unopened jar of baby dill pickles. The guy at the grocery store stopped hitting on me once he realized I hadn’t been eating in the past while.
Can life really be separated by page numbers, lines, chapters? I don’t want to title this. I’d rather have it all italicized, dramatic, yet I’m tired of putting on sad faces. Last time I smiled, a ripple of tiny cracks broke out across my face as though it was made of stone. I could write a thousand apology letters for how I’ve been acting lately but I guarantee I wouldn’t send one. I’m contemplating admitting myself to the hospital so I could see you on a daily basis. They would give you money to bring me shitty fruit salad and medication and give me baths in cold water. It’s not like that turns me on it’s just it’s been so long since I was touched by anyone. The scent of you still lingers somewhere in a pile of laundry that I’ve been meaning to look after. I need to get my priorities straight. I only know it’s the weekend when Oprah doesn’t show up for our television date at four o’clock. Then again, it could just be bad reception. My vision’s gone blurry and the cat looks oddly alike to the couch cushion but your picture on the dresser is still crystal clear. Inside of it, between the mountain face and the heavy rush of the waterfall, a memory of you and me is still there, set in stone. Almost like your hand on my heart and the sweat in my palms each time I see you in my head. On my birthday I fell asleep in the back corner of the bookstore while a band sang to me words that I’m sure were meant for you. They must have been, because as they made their way into my ears, your face was painted across the inside of my eyelids.
TO BE CONTINUED.