WAIT.
LISTEN.
I LOVE YOU.
DO YOU HEAR IT?
I want you to run from it.
What I mean is: I knew something bad would happen.
The girls walk in the streets covered in glitter and ribbon and whiskey. The taste of the spritz on my tongue is unbearably strong. It doesn’t fit in my tastebuds the way it used to. I try describing the scene to you like a painting. There will always be me telling you to imagine it. Neons and radiation, wet sidewalk, the car crash down the road where the smoke looks like clouds echoing off a cheaply lit sky, a muddy walk home. See: the soles of your shoes falling off, a hangnail, rosaries, your happy trail.
I’ll turn to you, solemn, and say, “I’ve always wanted to be followed like a hunter dog would.” You don’t quite understand that one and I shake it off.
Many times my harsh words will roll off my tongue and into a vacuum and you do nothing to catch them. I let it happen. I’m looking over at you looking over at the stairs. I’m looking over at you like you could be the dog, like I could take the collar off you and place it on our dining room table and you’d take it, staring. Following me like nothing would throw you off your course. There are priorities here, I trust you enough to know them, and ultimately you don’t.
I know myself like the dog. I’m looking at you looking at the stairs like you forgot to set the bowl down from the island and you want me to jump for it. There is satisfaction in staring back at me and this one thing is what you refuse to give me. I’m staring at you like a bone. There’s a hole in the backyard and I’m off leash, and I’m running into the hole getting my feet all muddy with a smell so wretched I can’t be let into the house later that night. There’s dirt flying and body parts, and so much blood. But I’m running to you, and you’re scared, and I can’t give that kind of shake away to anyone else and you keep on running. I’m so excited to see you and you are so horrified of me.
I say to you, ”I want you to see it like I do just for one night.” You do not listen.
Dollar store perfume gives me the shakes and I try to take it all in, turning it into a dance for two. I’m cultivating a nervousness that lets me take the reins this time. It’s embarrassing to hold your right hand in your left, stroke your own cheek, pull at your own shirt. Twitching fabric between your two fingers and hitting it off in ways that make you curl in on yourself at night. Uncomfortable smells of rock candy and vomit mixing in with the scent of sweat, or sharpie pens. Often times I wake up with the sheets damp and my legs hurt a little bit more every morning than they did the morning before. I never knew how to make the ache go away. When I sit in the bath tub warm saliva fills my mouth and coats my throat and I just vomit it all up. Dirt and chocolate cake and blood orange thickness going all over the side of the sink and the toilet and the bath.
In this dream: I beg you to promise me that you will be better this time. Waiting, listening. Calmly and intently. I open all the drawers in the kitchen and you watch me, waiting, still, like I didn't just have to get on my knees to get what I want. In this dream I’m asking you to do the impossible: stay within arms reach, smile, walk with me back and not touch me at all on the way there. I can't get what I want this time. Rustling and more rustling, I'm making it known, I'm really trying, I’m being embarrassing and throwing my arms over the kitchen table, fists crushing the linoleum lining the kitchen counter. It’s hard for you to watch because I’m the one asking you to do it.
I'm rough with the handles like I own it. I'm digging because I have an idea of what is going to happen and you promised you would be better this time. I'm laughing through tears and you promised me this one thing.
I shake my underwear down to my ankles and throw my papers to the floor. When I sit on the seat it makes my head spin and I look down at the dust on the tile of the floor, the missed piss, sparkles fallen off on some unfortunate evening gown. Itching my knee uses the same amount of strength it might take to hurt you or freak out all over the dining room table. I don’t say anything when I get back to the kitchen but I start going through those drawers again trying to find it. Sharp and promising, I keep reminding you that you promised me. I want you this time. Is that okay with you? In the background the girls are laughing again and this light keeps flickering. Looking up at the bulb that’s looking down to look at you and I’m still digging in these cabinets, trying to keep you stuck. You ask me if I do this on purpose. I guess I don’t really have an answer to that. Turning my back to keep looking for that handle like it was carved with only my fingers in mind. There is no answer. I’ll let the light answer your questions because I don’t want to scare you, but I’m freaking out.
In this dream: Red wine mixing with the ungodly sight of blood leaking from your side. In and out and in and out again. Ugly and taking. And taking. Always fucking taking. Take these movements into the living room. Make me worthwhile. Paper garland and shiny tape, loose strings of hair getting caught in the doorframes or couch. It's the same as being all naked on the pavement, lying there with your face down in the yard trying to match your breathing with the amount of time it takes to fall in love with the smell of wet grass or cigarette smoke or salt in your mouth. It's the kind of sting like a scrape on your knee, pouring rubbing alcohol into open wounds like you didn't slice your own damn stomach open. Like it never hurt until now, and you never cried. You didn't know how to until now. I'll put my fingers gently in it. Just the two. But you’re still there on the table and I am too and I don’t know how to make it a tango if you can’t get up. So I take it out and you grunt, naturally, and my fingers are still there because that was part of the promise, and I hold you tightly to my left side using the indent to hold you up right. That kind of tightness frightens you, you say your muscles aren’t working the right way and I remind you again that you promised me.
Walking in with your head all high and mighty, making small talk with the stranger beside you. From the kitchen I see you hold the glass like you mean it. It's a death wish the same way it's a genuine act of hopefulness. Knowing 6'0 well enough, knowing slacks well enough, taking shots well enough, shaking the door knob all harmful like. Something bad would happen. You knew it would. It is the first thing you said to me when you walked into this place.
Walking in like they don't know where the knife is. Condemned and serrated and wooden and harmful. A slit on the left side of your torso, a sloppy, wet kiss, a harsh goodbye. None of these things matter tomorrow.
Imagine pouring alcohol into an open wound. Now imagine taking the bottle from me, now imagine I'm you, I'm the bottle. Imagine I'm inside and I'm making it hurt and it didn't feel quite the way you thought it would. It's a red face and a let down. A parting kiss where nobody gets hurt. It's a pile of dust, a bin full of your shoes, the last drink, a plate of fish and crackers.
When the night is over and the sun is rising, the girls are still dancing like they never had the idea in their mind to stop. I see ballet flats and thick sneakers and studded boots and little 2-inch heels clacking all over the hardwoods, leaving scuff marks and bottle caps and sweat glistening in an orange haze. There’s blood all over my favorite dress and I’m dancing, I’m moving my hips and my arms, feeling the heaviness of my body moving around the thick air. Smiling like I mean it comes very easy when I have this knife in my hand. It’s paralyzing to feel this free.
I tell you I’ll be right back, and there’s a third party. It’s watching my hair toss as I swiftly turn my body out of the door. It’s telling everyone there I did something horrible, watching my feet shuffle on the porch swing because I’m too cold to stay still and I can’t be approached because of the smell of iron and alcohol and saltiness that throws everyone off so much. Putrid. It’s not keeping your promise. You’re still on that table when I walk out of the door. They’re watching you with eyes frozen and glossed over. They’re watching you, stuck, like moving would make it worse. Acknowledging it would make it hurt and you don’t want it to hurt anymore and they don’t want to be next so they just stand there. Exits and entryways blocked by hands shaking from very, very still bodies. I’m running out with tears in my eyes. I’m running out with my hands to the sky, I’m touching God in the streets, I’m doing it because I love you and you promised me this. I’m doing it alone.
I’m waking up every morning and doing it differently. Last week I watched myself choke on my own two fingers and it burned like vodka going down for about five minutes. Last week Victor told me my erratic outbursts were a feature, not a flaw, and I listened because I love him and I want to feel like the programming of my own heart was made to hold such largeness. I want to believe in the empty space inside of me. I don’t really care that I will never figure out what the something was that used to be in there. I love the way the light swallows you in an empty living room because it is the way my body feels on a cool July evening. I wake up and I miss you. I go to sleep and I miss you. One big and horrific sun taking what I can’t. One big and horrific heart holding time and space, opening its ears to the sounds of harsh breathing and replacing it with something much more beautiful, like bells. I do it to make you seem prettier. I do it because I took the time to think about it. Silence in the morning time makes things matter more. I thought you over and over and over again.
When I finally wake up I think I don’t feel too strongly about it anymore. I do it all because I love you so much it makes my gums bleed.