(no subject)
The young Asian psychiatrist asks me if the numbness is in my extremities, and for a minute I don’t understand. Then I say no, no emotionally. Numb emotionally. I don’t feel. Anymore. Oh, oh, I see, he says, and he’s unfazed and he scribbles things down. He’s got a wedding band, and he doesn’t look like he ever needs to shave. But there’s some white hair around his ears, and I can’t place his age exactly. I decide that he’s young, because something about that gets me, you know. Because I want to write about it later.
The young Asian psychiatrist writes me a prescription, which I later spill beer on. He writes me a prescription for a new medication, because maybe, he says, maybe that numbness is a side effect of the other stuff you’re on. Your body gets used to things like that after a while, he says. It won’t hurt to try something new. But really, he says, that’s what this stuff does, you know, dulls things. The good and the bad. Awkward smile, lurching laugh. I feel like I’m on a bad date. He looks like someone who would have a stutter.
I make an appointment to see the young Asian psychiatrist again in two weeks. The drug will have set in by then, he says. He repeats himself a lot, which I guess is somewhat like a stutter, really. In a way.
Later that day I don’t do my work. I don’t do my work and instead I buy a novel by a New York City nihilist and I read it in bed. I fall asleep and don’t dream. Later that day I get smashed, we all get smashed. We take shot after shot after shot after shot. There’s no sipping going on here. We’re no connoisseurs; the taste is an unpleasant side effect. Later that night I get too drunk to remember. (.) I do not wake up in my bed.
The next day I fill the prescription that the young Asian psychiatrist wrote me. My first fill in New York State. I buy a pill cutter, I read two magazines while I wait, I drive home in the rain. I cut the pill, powder crumbs are bitter, no water to wash it down. Later, the sun goes down. Eyes skip, legs spread. I drink til I’m drunk, drink til I’m numb. The pill sticks in my throat.
. . . . .
(Note: despite what the tone of the above may suggest, things are going well. Beautiful, really, in so many ways. I am so lucky to have the people I have. And I feel something for him, he's good for me. I am so afraid, so afraid to feel again after everything that happened last year, so terrified of letting myself go. [the irony of the whole situation, really, is too great to get into here.] But maybe I can trust him, and maybe this is good. His voice is jazz, and I can't in words do justice to his eyes. His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean. Sometimes I am alive because. Sleepy kisser. Vague references to the future, and what if he sees the hope in my eyes? Hope, hope is terrifying. [We wake and see each other, smile and sleep. He makes me coffee in the morning, and kisses me goodbye on the front stoop after seeing me to the door. i feel his eyes on my back as i go.])
(One final note: You and JayHee. YOU AND JAYHEE. and an edit: a weekend of poetic beauty, all swirling love and tragedy and dreams, cigarette smoke in the night. My friend sleeps with her hat on, and she's been told she fell from the sky.)
The young Asian psychiatrist writes me a prescription, which I later spill beer on. He writes me a prescription for a new medication, because maybe, he says, maybe that numbness is a side effect of the other stuff you’re on. Your body gets used to things like that after a while, he says. It won’t hurt to try something new. But really, he says, that’s what this stuff does, you know, dulls things. The good and the bad. Awkward smile, lurching laugh. I feel like I’m on a bad date. He looks like someone who would have a stutter.
I make an appointment to see the young Asian psychiatrist again in two weeks. The drug will have set in by then, he says. He repeats himself a lot, which I guess is somewhat like a stutter, really. In a way.
Later that day I don’t do my work. I don’t do my work and instead I buy a novel by a New York City nihilist and I read it in bed. I fall asleep and don’t dream. Later that day I get smashed, we all get smashed. We take shot after shot after shot after shot. There’s no sipping going on here. We’re no connoisseurs; the taste is an unpleasant side effect. Later that night I get too drunk to remember. (.) I do not wake up in my bed.
The next day I fill the prescription that the young Asian psychiatrist wrote me. My first fill in New York State. I buy a pill cutter, I read two magazines while I wait, I drive home in the rain. I cut the pill, powder crumbs are bitter, no water to wash it down. Later, the sun goes down. Eyes skip, legs spread. I drink til I’m drunk, drink til I’m numb. The pill sticks in my throat.
. . . . .
(Note: despite what the tone of the above may suggest, things are going well. Beautiful, really, in so many ways. I am so lucky to have the people I have. And I feel something for him, he's good for me. I am so afraid, so afraid to feel again after everything that happened last year, so terrified of letting myself go. [the irony of the whole situation, really, is too great to get into here.] But maybe I can trust him, and maybe this is good. His voice is jazz, and I can't in words do justice to his eyes. His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean. Sometimes I am alive because. Sleepy kisser. Vague references to the future, and what if he sees the hope in my eyes? Hope, hope is terrifying. [We wake and see each other, smile and sleep. He makes me coffee in the morning, and kisses me goodbye on the front stoop after seeing me to the door. i feel his eyes on my back as i go.])
(One final note: You and JayHee. YOU AND JAYHEE. and an edit: a weekend of poetic beauty, all swirling love and tragedy and dreams, cigarette smoke in the night. My friend sleeps with her hat on, and she's been told she fell from the sky.)