Here recently, I have come into a bit of a horrible conundrum. It's one of those, boy meets girl but girl is only in town for about a week and doesn't know boy has fallen for her quite quickly, sort of things. It's one of those, I am pretty sure the universe loves to play terrible, mean-spirited, not-funny-at-all jokes on me, kind of things.
I had all but forgotten about women, really. Enough of them had proved how horrible they could be that I was just done. I had come to terms with being alone until I died and I was happy about that. But then there she was. Sitting across from me at that dive bar while we were both accosted by an older gentleman who tried to teach us math while discussing his fifty-four confirmed kills in the Vietnam War.
Seeing her there amidst clouds of cigarette smoke, which admittedly we contributed quite a bit of, I was reminded of what it meant to be entranced by someone. The pointed frames of her glasses stretching just slightly past the edges of her face. Tattoos for old friends, favorite bands, parents, for everyone. A ring of polished metal strung through the septum of her nose. Short brown hair meticulously tussled. I spent a large part of the evening wondering why she was there with me.
We left the bar for the porch of my house. Conversation flowed easily until the sun began to creep its way inch by inch above the tree line. A short car ride back to her parents house.
This is me giving up. This is me keeping my mouth shut.
Another night and another bar. I hated bars. People constantly milling about yelling and cursing, all social skills abandoned by the presence of alcohol in bloodstreams, but there she was dressed all in black because her closet contained no other colors, and if she was there so was I.
After a few more drinks and more than a few cigarettes, the bar began to close and we wondered how it had become three in the morning. It was her porch this time, well her parent's porch. This was preceded by a tour of their home filled with knick knacks and a baby grand piano that took up just enough of the living room to not be obtrusive.
This is me kicking myself for not being able to speak up. This is me bottling my emotions and putting them away somewhere because she'll be gone soon.
Days filled with coffee shops and nights of walks around her neighborhood with talk of which neighbors were rich or poor or happy with their marriage or disappointed in their children.
Her last night we spent with a bottle of wine in a basement house because there was music there. She ended up spending more time with that wine then I did. We went in search of food to help sober her up some. On the way, she ended up lighting the filter of more than one of her cigarettes.
After we had eaten I started the drive to her parent's house.
"Are you taking me home?"
"I thought that's what you wanted to do."
"I just want to hang out with you. I don't care about what we're doing, but I want to be with you."
This is me dreading goodbyes. This is me hating myself for not being able to talk.
The next morning I drove her to the bus stop. We said goodbye and that was that. She was gone and I was as alone as I had started.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Stress Relief
Everyone had fallen asleep, and I was sitting on the porch alone with my cigarettes finishing off the last of whatever it was we had been drinking. It was a night I was meant to forget. That was the point, at least, but when people are in my house I get so anxious, worrying if someone's going to vomit on our new couch or if the girl in my room is asleep yet. She's the reason I won't forget tonight, no matter how much I want to. Because I slept with her and because it didn't mean anything and because she needed to get drunk for it to happen.
Same girl, different year, different house, different us. We are just waking up and I'm fumbling for my glasses to see how late for work I'll be today. She wants to make love again and I know I don't have it in me. I'm going to be late. I still need to shower. I still need to find my cigarettes. If I lose this job I can't afford to pay rent anymore, it's steep, but there's air conditioning and I can't sleep unless it's freezing. I shrug off her final plea and skip a shower to make it in time.
She hasn't left when I get home. I ask her what she did all day. She shrugs and mentions something about working on some poetry or reading some poetry. I'm half-listening and wholly not interested. I get my pants off and drift out of the room for the kitchen because there's supposed to be beer in the fridge. I open it and stand there for a minute. I need this. To be still with the cold wind rushing over my legs attempting to shock some life back into me, but it doesn't work. I haven't found the beer yet. Bottom drawer and there's two left. I grab both and inch back to our room. I guess it's ours. I had thought it was mine, but she's here more and more. I know she's said something about her parent's house not fostering creativity or having bad lighting or - when I get back in to my or our room she's still talking about the poetry she wrote or read and hasn't even noticed that I left the room. I hand her a beer which she semi-acknowledges and just keeps talking. She has managed to change subjects and God bless her for it.
She's droning on about a party she wants us to go to. It's never just "she" anymore, it's always "us" and it makes me feel alone.
Her again, but no us. We're on the porch of the apartment I used to live in and she's chain-smoking-crying about some guy. I want to console her or be there for her or whatever it is I am supposed to do in this situation, but I'm thinking about how I need to wash my sheets or replace them, there's so many cigarette burns.
That first night and how it started with her bringing me a six pack of the beer we used to drink. I should have known. I should have seen it coming when she dragged me away from the living room filled with people who would know every mistake we were about to make. But I wasn't thinking about that and hadn't since the last boy in a string of boys had broken her heart and I had let spill the thoughts that still wracked my head. I didn't think about her after she told me she didn't love me anymore.
It was years ago that I met her. On the downward swing of some other girl. One who had left me feeling empty and tired. I didn't want another. It had been far enough into my life that I had grown so weary of chasing after girl after girl, hoping that one would make me feel something. They all, every one of them, eventually left me feeling alone. She seemed different, but no one is different. If I have learned anything about women, it's that they bleed you dry in one way or another.
The first time we made love seems so long ago now. It caught me by surprise. The week before, she had told me how she didn't know if she'd ever be ready, but there we were in my old house, candles lit, very romantic. Afterward she asked me for her first cigarette and we laid in bed watching the smoke from our cigarettes drift together and separate over and over and over.
Nothing was ever perfect. It probably would have scared me much more if it had been. It scared me enough as it was. I don't know if she ever understood that. How scared I was. When we said "I love you", it made me distant. She was always wanting more and more closeness, but I was too afraid to give it to her until it was too late. The last time I had meant it the way I did with her, I had been broken so completely. I had been too young and it taken too long to reassemble myself so I kept her far away and built walls to protect myself. Feeling joy always means feeling pain eventually.
The morning after that night, a night we spent like we had spent so many others. Discussing literature before our lips met and records spinning till their end while we made love. Cigarettes and closeness after and sleeping next to each other. Her falling asleep and me trying to be quiet while getting up to have a cigarette on the porch. It was all so familiar, but the morning after I didn't wake up to her face close to mine. I woke up to an empty bed. I saw her a few hours later and asked what the night before had been.
She shrugged and told me she just needed to relieve some stress.
Same girl, different year, different house, different us. We are just waking up and I'm fumbling for my glasses to see how late for work I'll be today. She wants to make love again and I know I don't have it in me. I'm going to be late. I still need to shower. I still need to find my cigarettes. If I lose this job I can't afford to pay rent anymore, it's steep, but there's air conditioning and I can't sleep unless it's freezing. I shrug off her final plea and skip a shower to make it in time.
She hasn't left when I get home. I ask her what she did all day. She shrugs and mentions something about working on some poetry or reading some poetry. I'm half-listening and wholly not interested. I get my pants off and drift out of the room for the kitchen because there's supposed to be beer in the fridge. I open it and stand there for a minute. I need this. To be still with the cold wind rushing over my legs attempting to shock some life back into me, but it doesn't work. I haven't found the beer yet. Bottom drawer and there's two left. I grab both and inch back to our room. I guess it's ours. I had thought it was mine, but she's here more and more. I know she's said something about her parent's house not fostering creativity or having bad lighting or - when I get back in to my or our room she's still talking about the poetry she wrote or read and hasn't even noticed that I left the room. I hand her a beer which she semi-acknowledges and just keeps talking. She has managed to change subjects and God bless her for it.
She's droning on about a party she wants us to go to. It's never just "she" anymore, it's always "us" and it makes me feel alone.
Her again, but no us. We're on the porch of the apartment I used to live in and she's chain-smoking-crying about some guy. I want to console her or be there for her or whatever it is I am supposed to do in this situation, but I'm thinking about how I need to wash my sheets or replace them, there's so many cigarette burns.
That first night and how it started with her bringing me a six pack of the beer we used to drink. I should have known. I should have seen it coming when she dragged me away from the living room filled with people who would know every mistake we were about to make. But I wasn't thinking about that and hadn't since the last boy in a string of boys had broken her heart and I had let spill the thoughts that still wracked my head. I didn't think about her after she told me she didn't love me anymore.
It was years ago that I met her. On the downward swing of some other girl. One who had left me feeling empty and tired. I didn't want another. It had been far enough into my life that I had grown so weary of chasing after girl after girl, hoping that one would make me feel something. They all, every one of them, eventually left me feeling alone. She seemed different, but no one is different. If I have learned anything about women, it's that they bleed you dry in one way or another.
The first time we made love seems so long ago now. It caught me by surprise. The week before, she had told me how she didn't know if she'd ever be ready, but there we were in my old house, candles lit, very romantic. Afterward she asked me for her first cigarette and we laid in bed watching the smoke from our cigarettes drift together and separate over and over and over.
Nothing was ever perfect. It probably would have scared me much more if it had been. It scared me enough as it was. I don't know if she ever understood that. How scared I was. When we said "I love you", it made me distant. She was always wanting more and more closeness, but I was too afraid to give it to her until it was too late. The last time I had meant it the way I did with her, I had been broken so completely. I had been too young and it taken too long to reassemble myself so I kept her far away and built walls to protect myself. Feeling joy always means feeling pain eventually.
The morning after that night, a night we spent like we had spent so many others. Discussing literature before our lips met and records spinning till their end while we made love. Cigarettes and closeness after and sleeping next to each other. Her falling asleep and me trying to be quiet while getting up to have a cigarette on the porch. It was all so familiar, but the morning after I didn't wake up to her face close to mine. I woke up to an empty bed. I saw her a few hours later and asked what the night before had been.
She shrugged and told me she just needed to relieve some stress.
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