lights, energy, window
"I think I'm going to cry," she told me. I didn't know what to say to her. I don't know what to say a lot of the time, I think. I didn't know what to say at 2 a.m., in my driveway, in her car. I just knew that words would cause nothing but harm.
I can see the ocean from the window where I'm writing this. The town where I normally live, -two hours from here- is close to the ocean. Drive for a few minutes and you'll find it. I don't see it very much. There're a lot of things I don't see. I walked down to the beach earlier. An attractive woman who I wager was maybe thirty said "hello", and I said "hi". She was walking her dogs. I used to not like dogs very much. The vestiges of a childhood fear, probably.
I'm going to see an old friend tomorrow. I don't see her very much. I told her I was in love with her one time. We didn't talk for a while after that. Tomorrow, maybe after I've been there for a few hours, she'll ask me how things are going with this girl, this new girl. I'll reply:
"I don't even begin to know how to answer that," I'll say.
I can see hundreds of lights from a strip of land on the horizon. It looks like a New York City skyline without the skyscrapers. I know it's not New York City; that would just be foolish. Some of the lights blink in time to this music I'm listening to. The lights stretch out as far as I can see them. The lights in this room aren't turned on. I think I'm going to cry.
"Things will get better," she told me on a snowy day. She had read my tarot a couple weeks before that, on a night where she might have cried in her car in my driveway.
The first card she drew was The Devil. It was paired with another card, the one with all the hands chained down, struggling to grasp the swords that float inches above them. If those hands really try, they can take the swords and break the chains. They can do it. If they try.
I can smell her perfume right now. A few weeks ago she burned me a CD. It's really good. I like Mates of State. They're a really good band. Sometimes we just sit embraced in her car, for fifteen minutes at a time. We do this a couple times. We don't say anything. Sometimes I run my fingers through her hair. Sometimes she runs her fingers through mine. When I step out of her car and watch her drive away in the early morning, I'm saturated with her perfume. It's called Egyptian Goddess, I think. It kind of smells like incense. It's drifting off the case of that CD she burned me.
Sometimes, random women will ask her what perfume she's wearing. Sometimes older, scholarly men, and their scholarly wives will tell her that she's beautiful, and smart, and that that's a rare combination. She's going to do great things, they say. She probably will. She's very confident. A lot of strangers want to know her. People don't talk to me much. I'm a good-looking young man, and I can say that with very little ego, because I'm not bragging. I guess looks only go so far though.
"I love being a woman," she told me once. It made me want to fuck her. I love confident women. I love women who know that they're women. I have no interest in little girls who don't know what they are, but seem to know what everyone else is.
I'm in the middle of a screenplay. It's about a woman who loves being a woman. She loves to kill people, too. She's a very sad character, because the only thing she can do is destroy. The story takes place in a city where neon lights stretch out as far as the eye can see. It's being written by a little boy who likes to think he knows the deepest mysteries of the female psyche. Because he's kind of cute, and a little feminine, and really witty and interesting.
I was crying on the phone to a girl I've known since high school a couple weeks ago. I don't talk to her very much. I kind of treat her like shit. She loves me, and I don't love her. She's not afraid to smack me across the face if I'm being an asshole. She's done it a few times. I can't say that I don't like it. She's never seen me cry. A girl might have been crying in her car in my driveway a couple weeks before, and now I was crying over her, because I thought she hated me. Because she wasn't answering my phone calls.
"Evan, I've known you since high school, but I don't know anything about you...you never talk to me," said the girl who loves me.
Am I that hard to get to know? Is love really just 99% lust and 1% jealousy? I'd like to think it's more.
"It's funny how you just meet people, it's like, you're at your lowest when you break up with someone you have really intense feelings for, and then things come full circle you know? You just meet someone new."
"Do you believe in the Circle Theory? You know, like, from PI?" I asked.
"You're only the second person who's ever asked me that...*** was the first."
I've been obsessed with the concept of the Femme Fatale for so long. She leaves a path of destruction where ever she goes, and yet men bend and break for her like plastic toys. She seduces, and breaks hearts, and even when she's gone, she's still there, draining all the energy, all the love a man can offer. I obsessed over the Femme Fatale, until I actually met one. And I want more. And I can have more, so she tells me. She wants more too. There are some things we both aren't very good at, in different ways.
"I think I'm going to cry," she told me. Soul Meets Body, by Death Cab for Cutie, was playing on her car stereo. "*** made this CD for me. I listened to it for like, three months straight after we broke up; those were some bad times...I should probably go."
"Oh...I..."
She took my face in her hands. Most girls aren't as aggressive as she is, they don't usually initiate the first kiss. She had given me a few pecks on the lips the week before, and now she gave me our first real kiss. I didn't mind that she did it. She didn't cry. The song she had listened to every day for three months was playing. It's kind of a sad song. It's kind of beautiful, kind of catchy. It might be perfect.
She was kissing me, and she was listening to this song, and this song made her think of the first person she ever loved, and this made her sad. She tells me sometimes that I remind her of him in some ways, but that I'm totally different in most other ways, which is good. As I kissed her, I could almost feel him there with me. As I traced the lines of her lips with mine, I could feel the love that he still had draining away from him. I could feel all of the energy that was draining away from all the boys who had fallen in love with her, torturing themselves over something they could never have. I didn't really know why I was one out of a small handful who received her affection, and I didn't care.
She started laughing.
"Jesus, this song is so fucking depressing, and we're sitting here like, making out to it." we both laughed.
I can't see the ocean from this window anymore. It's been hours since I started writing. I know it's there, though. I can see the blinking lights in the distance perfectly. They stretch out as far as I can see. I'm not playing music anymore. I don't think I'm going to cry. I keep looking at the lights. Maybe they never end. It's not really my business to know how far they go, and I don't want to know. I'll find out someday.
I can see the ocean from the window where I'm writing this. The town where I normally live, -two hours from here- is close to the ocean. Drive for a few minutes and you'll find it. I don't see it very much. There're a lot of things I don't see. I walked down to the beach earlier. An attractive woman who I wager was maybe thirty said "hello", and I said "hi". She was walking her dogs. I used to not like dogs very much. The vestiges of a childhood fear, probably.
I'm going to see an old friend tomorrow. I don't see her very much. I told her I was in love with her one time. We didn't talk for a while after that. Tomorrow, maybe after I've been there for a few hours, she'll ask me how things are going with this girl, this new girl. I'll reply:
"I don't even begin to know how to answer that," I'll say.
I can see hundreds of lights from a strip of land on the horizon. It looks like a New York City skyline without the skyscrapers. I know it's not New York City; that would just be foolish. Some of the lights blink in time to this music I'm listening to. The lights stretch out as far as I can see them. The lights in this room aren't turned on. I think I'm going to cry.
"Things will get better," she told me on a snowy day. She had read my tarot a couple weeks before that, on a night where she might have cried in her car in my driveway.
The first card she drew was The Devil. It was paired with another card, the one with all the hands chained down, struggling to grasp the swords that float inches above them. If those hands really try, they can take the swords and break the chains. They can do it. If they try.
I can smell her perfume right now. A few weeks ago she burned me a CD. It's really good. I like Mates of State. They're a really good band. Sometimes we just sit embraced in her car, for fifteen minutes at a time. We do this a couple times. We don't say anything. Sometimes I run my fingers through her hair. Sometimes she runs her fingers through mine. When I step out of her car and watch her drive away in the early morning, I'm saturated with her perfume. It's called Egyptian Goddess, I think. It kind of smells like incense. It's drifting off the case of that CD she burned me.
Sometimes, random women will ask her what perfume she's wearing. Sometimes older, scholarly men, and their scholarly wives will tell her that she's beautiful, and smart, and that that's a rare combination. She's going to do great things, they say. She probably will. She's very confident. A lot of strangers want to know her. People don't talk to me much. I'm a good-looking young man, and I can say that with very little ego, because I'm not bragging. I guess looks only go so far though.
"I love being a woman," she told me once. It made me want to fuck her. I love confident women. I love women who know that they're women. I have no interest in little girls who don't know what they are, but seem to know what everyone else is.
I'm in the middle of a screenplay. It's about a woman who loves being a woman. She loves to kill people, too. She's a very sad character, because the only thing she can do is destroy. The story takes place in a city where neon lights stretch out as far as the eye can see. It's being written by a little boy who likes to think he knows the deepest mysteries of the female psyche. Because he's kind of cute, and a little feminine, and really witty and interesting.
I was crying on the phone to a girl I've known since high school a couple weeks ago. I don't talk to her very much. I kind of treat her like shit. She loves me, and I don't love her. She's not afraid to smack me across the face if I'm being an asshole. She's done it a few times. I can't say that I don't like it. She's never seen me cry. A girl might have been crying in her car in my driveway a couple weeks before, and now I was crying over her, because I thought she hated me. Because she wasn't answering my phone calls.
"Evan, I've known you since high school, but I don't know anything about you...you never talk to me," said the girl who loves me.
Am I that hard to get to know? Is love really just 99% lust and 1% jealousy? I'd like to think it's more.
"It's funny how you just meet people, it's like, you're at your lowest when you break up with someone you have really intense feelings for, and then things come full circle you know? You just meet someone new."
"Do you believe in the Circle Theory? You know, like, from PI?" I asked.
"You're only the second person who's ever asked me that...*** was the first."
I've been obsessed with the concept of the Femme Fatale for so long. She leaves a path of destruction where ever she goes, and yet men bend and break for her like plastic toys. She seduces, and breaks hearts, and even when she's gone, she's still there, draining all the energy, all the love a man can offer. I obsessed over the Femme Fatale, until I actually met one. And I want more. And I can have more, so she tells me. She wants more too. There are some things we both aren't very good at, in different ways.
"I think I'm going to cry," she told me. Soul Meets Body, by Death Cab for Cutie, was playing on her car stereo. "*** made this CD for me. I listened to it for like, three months straight after we broke up; those were some bad times...I should probably go."
"Oh...I..."
She took my face in her hands. Most girls aren't as aggressive as she is, they don't usually initiate the first kiss. She had given me a few pecks on the lips the week before, and now she gave me our first real kiss. I didn't mind that she did it. She didn't cry. The song she had listened to every day for three months was playing. It's kind of a sad song. It's kind of beautiful, kind of catchy. It might be perfect.
She was kissing me, and she was listening to this song, and this song made her think of the first person she ever loved, and this made her sad. She tells me sometimes that I remind her of him in some ways, but that I'm totally different in most other ways, which is good. As I kissed her, I could almost feel him there with me. As I traced the lines of her lips with mine, I could feel the love that he still had draining away from him. I could feel all of the energy that was draining away from all the boys who had fallen in love with her, torturing themselves over something they could never have. I didn't really know why I was one out of a small handful who received her affection, and I didn't care.
She started laughing.
"Jesus, this song is so fucking depressing, and we're sitting here like, making out to it." we both laughed.
I can't see the ocean from this window anymore. It's been hours since I started writing. I know it's there, though. I can see the blinking lights in the distance perfectly. They stretch out as far as I can see. I'm not playing music anymore. I don't think I'm going to cry. I keep looking at the lights. Maybe they never end. It's not really my business to know how far they go, and I don't want to know. I'll find out someday.