Fragile Explanations, Barefaced Torn Words
I did think it would be Him, feathered hair Him, conviction-less Him, that would fall for whatever alluring part of me dwelled underneath the colourless and consumer-offensive exterior. Barely negligible but pulsing hopefully. A mimicking heartbeat, but it hurts, my hope, shoved in a place too tight for even its barely-there volume. My weak wishes, they make me ache. But I did think it would be Him to expose them, to wish they were a part of His own lean frame, He seemed naive and I did hope He’d suck the jaded parts from me.
I should have known; He doesn’t read anymore, like He did in highschool, and I didn’t know Him then. In this way, He can’t get past the cover, judging only on the obvious. My bleating mark, so devastatingly buried beneath all else, all but snuffed out. And all self-esteem buried.
And now then, I am cordoned off from the tight strip of His waist because I made it known, with the sweet early-morning air, flowery and stinging like New Years day, all fresh beginnings and gaudy dreams, I had my fingers skimming the bones of His knee (I was allowed then). And I said the ‘bad idea’ we had been consumed with for months after it was consummated, drunk, seven or eight am, silver-tongues replaced with slurred brave actions and dry mouths, this ‘bad idea’ had drawn out my vulnerable youth. I missed Him when He was not around. I waited up for Him till the sun began its lazy rise in whatever colour the sky was saturated in. I hoped, each time He broke my bland routine; subtle fingers on my neck, a short knock at my door, that He would sleep next to me instead of retiring to His own unwashed sheets and tiny floor-space.
And He was ‘Ambivalent’. That’s the word He used. As in, ‘what’s the word… Ambivalent! I am ambivalent, I Don’t Care Either Way’, He said. It has always, will always, come to this, my smug but sad interior remarked. That was it, without the intelligent realisation that He might have hurt me, the door closed and again, the unwashed sheets, forever replenishing marijuana in a birthday card perpetually opened on His bed.
Of course, I have been nauseated by myself for some time, but my God, how the weakness of affection and consequent (and always repeating) rejection amplified that sickness. I wish I would open my front door one day and somebody would be standing there to validate the obvious, unwavering, you are unlovable, ____. You are not the type of woman that men or women would like to hold for the long-term. Go back to your books and cigarettes, the singular place you can ever hope to find love with stability.
All the while, in the dark that does not bleed deep enough through my eyelids to dampen the sharp self-realisation and loathing, I am awake at all hours, too lucid for dreams of pleasantries. I’d like to think I will grow out of this, my lust for closeness and the devastation that renders me sullen when it is unavailable or denied, but it just seems to be brewing thicker and more potent. My teenage years, what were they but an urgent hope that somebody would look at me and find joy with a forearm splayed out underneath my neck. It’s not just sex anymore, either. It is meaningful human contact and affection from unobliged bodies. My friends and I would muse over ‘Daddy Issues’ and laugh at the brash sex everybody was having, friends became lovers then friends again, but it’s not funny when you are the one laughing at yourself, how can you stand to mock yourself in that way, constantly? How can I stand to shower and put makeup on, present myself to everybody I happen to pass, please think I am O.K. I am good enough.
It is one-twenty-six am and I have university for the first time in my life at nine am. Elementary Italian, I am not prepared for you, I am perhaps attracted to the grandiose lovelorn image Europe evokes in me, but my sleeplessness, my lack of appetite, the drugs.. I feel sick.
And while I sit here and His light is still on because His pupils matched mine last night, voluminous fluid marbles, I am still hoping He will just come in and talk to me. Because humans are pathetic and I am one of them.
Wishing you all the best, always.
