Every day I wake and I think if I don’t write, write it out, I will go mad, quite mad, but there’s no one to tell and what to say and that’s not true, it’s not that there’s no one to tell, it’s that there’s no one I want to tell, there’s no you. I am not an amateur, I’ve been here before, I know this, what lies, I know nothing.
I read an article on Orange is the New Black, a review, or some shit (and this is the true beauty of twitter, the mindless forever scrolling the everything to read that takes you away from here, but doesn’t really, because everything, everything reminds you and I understand why you follow comedians because to laugh is to feel something other than this numb this pain this intolerable hurt but, if you’re me, the laughter is unsatisfying, worse, you want to share it and you are reminded that there is no you to tell and that takes away from the beauty beauty of endless garbage, endless distraction, endless numb and yes perhaps this is a scream an unhinging yes, an ugly display of emotion, it’s embarrassing avert your eyes, please don’t look at me, please don’t read, it hurts, it hurts) anyway, the reviewer writer author made the point that there is no villain, no big bad (see, Buffy and that reminds me of you, you are everywhere and I can’t wipe you away and I’m am going to die remembering you, my god, it horrifies me) in this season that instead, it’s the daily deprivations, the daily defeats, the daily hurts, the daily wrongs, the daily hurts, the daily terrors, the unrelenting every single moment wrong that work as the villain and I thought that is life and that is what is exhausting, this life, for some of us, I know it is not life for everyone.
I knew we would fuck from the first moment we met. Did I tell you that? Sharing a park bench, away from everyone else, he rolled a cigarette and passed it to me. Outsiders. I am helpless. He is so very Melbourne, so of that city. Confident, and cynical, a little depressed. Of course we’d fuck. The first time we met I tried to ignore the attraction, some attempt at being faithful to something not my own. It’s such a short flight. So easy to fit in, mid-week, a night here, a night there. I’m standing in a hotel room, late afternoon, the sun filtered, golden light. He undoes the buttons on my blouse and rubs his thumb over my collar bone, pushing my hair back over my shoulder. He tells me that he prefers my hair dark. The first time we fucked I was blonde. I laugh and tell him but of course, the damaged brunette is the manic pixie dream girl all grown up. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t know the trope, and it doesn’t matter because his fingers are brushing my lips and my hands are under his jacket tugging at this shirt. In the mess of sheets he sits up and looks at me, ‘you’re a very beautiful woman, you know that?’ I pull him back down to me and as I rest my head on his chest the room darkens, a shadow steals the light, and I’m sure somehow, the shadow is you.
Some days I want to carve open my chest to let all the hurt pour out. I can’t live with it.
I will end again, as I so often do, it embarrasses me that I say it so much, those three overused words, keep you safe, keep me safe, keep us safe, which is the hardest thing in the world for me to be, please don’t go, it isn’t a false memory, like a declaration against the fear, it’s there in the world, I love you.
jbbartram-illu
yousharknotpass
areudirty
pixelskylines
vaporwave
