I hear my heart gently breaking. I hear the soft creaking of floor boards as my weight crosses a dark, moonlit room. I hear the whisper of my fantasies carried on a breeze. I hear your name roll of my lips, like poison I drink from my own mind, the vile creator of my torment. There is no one but you on my mind, there is anyone but you on my mind, I can think of nothing, not even for an infinitesimal second can I bring myself to think of anyone else but you. Just you, in all of your imperfect glory, in all of your imperfect existence and in all of your perfect being that I’ve crafted, a cocoon of my own mental fantasy and needs, constructed from nothing but pure lust and thought. I find myself enthralled by my version of your existence. It feeds my hunger, satiates my longing, and quenches my thirst for an everlasting emotional torrent of pain. I crave this need and need this craving. So, tell me something, tell me something, tell me something. At what point should I stop. At what point can I let the tears fall, let you go, cut the string, forget everything. At what point should I stop? At what point should I forget about all of this, forget and renounce this morbid life of love, forget and renounce all of this rich and vapid feeling, all of this emotion, all of this so called, all of this, all of this mess. When can I bury myself in this grave, because I’ve dug deep enough, I’ve dug deep enough. At what point, I beg, I plead, I ask, I need an answer, an answer and a goodbye. Cut the string for me, slit my throat, just don’t leave, just don’t leave. I hear my heart gently breaking. I hear you slowly stepping on the pieces of what’s left. I hear the soft, dying moan of what used to be me. I hear the shrill cry, the agony of a dying man, a dying ideal. I hear everything, I hear all of this, all of this, all of this superfluous noise. Yet, all I need, all I need, all I need is to just hear you.
What is it that makes me so digress?
And now, now that I’m alone, can I cry? I can cry just a little bit to myself? It’s not really even about you anymore. It’s about me. It’s always been about me. But sometimes, I like to think that it’s about you, but no, that’s a terrible.
Where are from, where are going, why are you here, why am I here, why do I need this so much, why do I need this so much, why do I need this like I need a drug, like I need a shot of Novocain?
I love you.
Can I even say that to you with a straight face? Can I even say that to anyone with a straight face and a straight meaning? Do those words mean anything more to me than just words? A symbolic representation of something that I’ll never feel, so elusive, so fickle, so fiendish and ghastly and horrid as love, something so bad, so wicked, yet I crave for, I crave for like I do life. Life. Life is horrid. Life is the feeling bubbling from chest, the feeling about to break from my ribcage like a wild animal, rip through flesh and bone and tear my soul to pieces, claws, claws, claws through this visage, this façade, this charade, this falsity I call myself and find me, find me in the center of everything, a tiny, tiny cowardly existence in the center of everything that is not myself and is, at the same time.
I feel like dying for you, not out of obligation, but out of curiosity and the need for experience. There is a tingling in my arms, my hands, and my mind is filled to the brim with just you. I see you and hear you and feel you and it’s all just you, a three letter word that means so much more. You, you, you, you, everything from words, letters, moments, sounds, just you, the pure simplicity of the world comes to in the form of a man, a man who means less to me as he is than as he is in my mind. If I never sat next to you, if I never met you, my life would not be any different. You’d simply be spared my presence.
Congratulate
Its international tell someone you like them month, according to Facebook. I hate Facebook.
I’ll find you in just a few moments. I’ll look for you in a few seconds. You’re always in the back of my mind, and try, and I try not to look in your direction, but my eyes find their way to you anyway. I try, try so hard to forget that I have but a few fleeting moments with you left. I try, try so hard to forget everything that I’ve said and done, everything about you. But, as much as I love the pleasure of pain, I’m unable to wipe this, these memories of you. As hard as I try, as often as I try, my eyes trace that unbearable three paces to your feet, my heart follows that awful longing to your face and I wonder, wonder how I’ll live without you, without your words, without your smile, without the moment of awkwardness I share with you, without you in general, general relativity.
I think
I’m going to be okay.
I really
hope that I’m going to be okay.
I actually
know that I’m not.
Are you
okay?
The promise of tomorrow is the promise of my broken heart.
More time with or without you is the promise of my broken heart.
I saw the Raconteurs today. One, two, two, words: Motherfucking awesome. ‘Nuff said.
God, that was some good fucking shit, good fucking shit.
Thumb caught in his belt buckle and a smile across his lips, he saunters slowly in her direction. It’s a quiet smile, a quiet moment and it’s a slow progression.
There are so many shades of black. I’ll say what’s on my mind. Mind numbing fear? Ear ringing noise? Heart breaking love?
Shades of Black
“Just jump.”
In. Out. In. Out. Slowly, slowly, it’ll come to her. Her breath is her metronome, the tartan track is her instrument, a stretch of maroon striped with white like the ivories of a piano, the strings of a guitar, the valves of a trumpet; it’s an instrument she knows well, her spikes dig lightly into the track. The sky is still, the light blue of summer hangs like a shirt left out to dry on the line. A bird cuts across her vision like a razor, ripples the stillness.
***
“On your six, don’t look. He’s walking this way.” High school romances, if there are such things, are the worst. She’s nudged in the ribs as she carries her precariously stacked plate of cafeteria food. She almost drops it out of surprise, and a little bit out of anxiety.
Lunchroom, seventh period, (unknowing) love of her life enters left. Perseus Holt, like a sickeningly wonderful nightmare, like a thunderstorm on a sunny day, like squeal of a dying animal, passes by guarded on both sides by his friends. Chatting, laughing, his presence, for even the brief moment that she feels a slight breeze from his passing, completely numbs her mind. Her friend, a bouncing bundle of fiery red curls, jabs her again and says, “God, Elysia don’t turn so red.”
They sit near a window. She shakes a packet of ketchup and rips it open, pouring the condiment over her fries. In a moment, she’ll look for him. In a moment, she’ll scan the crowded cafeteria, scan the sea of people for his light blond hair, his black (he looks good in black, he only wears black, and once a yellow shirt with the most absurd picture of a kangaroo) shirt, his slightly hunched form over some table, scan the room for his voice, catch a word or two. Only in a moment, only in a moment but she daren’t any earlier. This sacred treaty with herself she dares not break.
“How was the math test?” Katherine peels back the plastic tab of a fruit cup gingerly, trying not to spill the juice. Licking her thumb, she breaks the plastic wrappings of her utensil set against the table. “Heard it was pretty bad.”
“Awful,” Elysia replies, amber irises following Perseus’ path across the lunchroom before flickering back to Katherine, “How was your,” her voice acquires a playful edge as she picks up one of her ketchup slathered fries, “English skit?”
Katherine sighs slowly, rolling her eyes, “Alright, so, I told you about Johnny Woo?” She begins, feeling rather tedious about the retelling of her unfortunate English skit. Elysia nods, sucking her lips under her teeth, trying to suppress a laugh in anticipation of the story as Katherine continues, “Right, so we tell this kid, bring in his copy of the book, and guess what? He forgets, he forgets! So he makes up everything!” Emphasis on the two words, her hands grabbing at her hair, “he doesn’t just ask for another copy of the book, he could’ve just borrowed a book, he totally could’ve. Instead he deems himself this great,” hands waving, as if trying to pull words from the air like magicians do rabbits, “this great, great impromptu Shakespearean playwright and just makes up the rest of Hamlet!”
Elysia watches, but barely listens, her friend’s rant, her little fits of insubstantial anger are hilarious. Out of the corner of her eye, beyond Katherine’s wild gestures and flurry of words, beyond Johnny Woo’s inherent inability to understand what poetic meter is, she sees the Perseus. Strolling across the linoleum floor of the cafeteria, he brushes by a table of freshman girls who watch his every motion just as she does, and all cluster together after he moves on, the oyster shell of their clique closing as they whisper in a vicious frenzy among themselves. He approaches a vending machine, and she’s reminded by her own mental narration of the scene of some animal documentary she’s seen on TV.
The boy slots his quarters into the machine, she notes the slight pause, and enters the code for a can of Coke. Tucking his wallet back into his back pocket, he bends down to grab the refreshment. As he turns, a sudden hiss accompanies the opening of the can. Before he presses the chilled lip of the metal to his own lips, his light grey (or, where they blue? She couldn’t really decide, she never really got the chance, either) meets hers.
She ran over a deer once, on the highway, when she wasn’t a too particularly experienced driver (she still isn’t). Right before impact, like some sort of infernal judgment from her own invisible, sorely personally God, her own higher power burned the image of the poor doe, the white of its eyes, the muted gaze of fear, into her mind. She imagines, at this moment, that’s exactly what she looks like to him, a deer in headlights, but there’s nothing to run her over.
“I gotta go.” She says rather suddenly, cutting off Katherine.
“Really?” Her friends asks, checking her digital watch, one of those large, shock resistant, mud resistant, water resistant things that Elysia refers to as life resistant, 12:53 stares back at her, “It’s early.”
Elysia slings her backpack over her shoulders, places all of her random wrappers and napkins and her half-empty (or, half-full?) milk cartoon onto her Styrofoam plate. Katherine watches all of this curiously, following her rather flustered friend’s movement and sighs with an understanding nod and smile as she turns around to see the back of Perseus Holt, can of soda in hand, walking away.
“I don’t know why you worry so much,” Katherine remarks, eating her own fries, “I’ve been telling you this for, like, an entire year. Just the way he looks at you, the way you look at him, you have to see it for yourself sometimes. You two are like a pair of forlorn lovers separated by the vastness of the lunchroom. All you have to do is, one of these days, just go over and talk to him.”
“Don’t talk so loud!” Elysia squeaks shrilly, alarmed by the openness with which Katherine blathers about everything, she feels like a caged mouse, “people are looking at us!”
“Correction, people are looking at you,” Katherine nonchalantly waves a fry in her direction. She leans back in her plastic lunchroom chair, tipping it back so that it rested on the hind legs, giving her a perfect, albeit upside down, view of Perseus Holt staring at her beet red friend. “So is he.”
Elysia suppresses the need to just scream, to just yell till she looses her voice and to stop remembering everything, everything little glance, every little look, every one of these little moments, everything about him just drives her crazy, everything he does, he says, everything he doesn’t do and doesn’t say. “I’m going to the library.”
“You really should just go to him!” Katherine calls after her and retreats to her plate of food with a grin.
***
The sun, a livid, glaring white forces her to squint as she stares down the track. She wonders if he’s here, sitting with his group of friends, somewhere in the bleachers, under the same hot and oppressive sun, watching her. She cringes at that last thought, the same old anxiety in her stomach mixes with this morning’s breakfast, mixes with her rainbow of feelings for him, mixes with a certain dread and anxiety of an imperfect jump, a blender, a whirlpool of all the things weighing her down, draining into the emptiness of her self.
In. Out. In. Out.
***
She settles in a quiet corner in the back of the library, hidden well amongst shelves of ancient books with browning pages and worn covers, with marble inlays and gold etchings, torn copies of Scientific America that no one reads, catalogs of journals untouched and undisturbed for decades, with the soft whisper of central air condition playing gently in her ear. She settles, like the ocean after the quakes of a ship pass, like dust displaced by sudden movement,
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force this moment to its crisis?
I give up trying to channel my repressed emotions, I’m going back to writing like a normal human being.
The clinking of silverware and muffled footsteps wake her. The apartment is tiny and his noise becomes her noise. With a groan she gropes in the darkness for the digital clock and almost blinds herself with the green, electronic buzz of 2:03 blaring in her eyes. She tosses the clock back where she found it, sits up, blinks several times, looks around at the dark emptiness of the bedroom, follows a pair of car headlights as it throws rectangular patches of amber light up on the ceiling and thumps against her pillows and sheets in mild annoyance.
“Honey!” She calls out.
The response comes in the form of silverware against tiled floor and her husband’s little cries of surprise and fluster. The kitchen lights turn on.
“Are you okay?” She calls out again.
“Just,” her husband’s voices starts, “Good god! I mean, I’m fine, just fine, just fine. I just dropped some, some, uh, pot roast on the, the, uh, dog.”
“Oh, alright, come back to bed when you’re done. Don’t forget-” She turns over in the sheets, ready to enjoy the rest of her four hours of sleep when she realizes that, “You dropped the what on the what!?”
Riza and Roy Mustang, married five years, go through everyday as if it were their first.
Do I have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? God, I wish I did, every once in a while, I wish I were a lot braver than I actually am. I wish that I had a little less shame than I actually did, a little less face, and a lot more faith, a little less of everything and a little more of everything and every three or four, every five and six, a copy of my chemistry textbook so I won’t fail my test tomorrow. A copy of my life textbook so I won’t I fail my life tomorrow. A copy of my life, actually, just so I can laugh at myself later. Laugh at my little insecurities and little, and just everything.
I try really hard to avoid it. I try really hard to stop thinking about it. I try really hard to remember to try really hard to stop thinking, just stop thinking and maybe it’ll go away, maybe this feeling, this ache, this dull, dull ache, like falling on a hot, sticky sidewalk and scraping your knees sort of ache, would just go away, but it won’t, it doesn’t. And when he, the source of all my supposed misery, the supposed receiver of all of my romantic transgressions and occasional lustful fantasy, when he leaves, he leaves only more misery, in another form, another shape. There are only so many shades of black, but each is worse than the one before and each kills me more, and each is darker than the next, and in this case, need I, dare I, face the next? Need I seek the tragedy of a life that I haven’t lived? Need this be the end of my high school career, or half of it anyway, in tears and agony and some sort of heartbreaking confession on the last day of school. One that he won’t have time to digest and one that, pretty much, will be sorely mocked and forgotten, yet took almost all the courage I ever will have to make? Is this really all my life will ever, ever, ever amount to? A dull ache, a slight remembrance of what it all used to be like? And we just sit there, and I just sit there, and mourn the loss of a time, a simpler time in my life where I needn’t think for myself, where my allocation of time factored not into the way my life turned out, where numbers on paper, where tests and the rest of my life had no real, no substantial, play in any of my thoughts, mere shades and shadows and impending doom that the live in the moment type of people, like myself, just seriously ignored. Really? I only want to ask one question, direct one question at God, if given the chance, “Really?” And if he answers, “Really.” Then, I die happy.
People in your life are like seasons. My headphones are electromagnets. Of course, I learned that wonderful tidbit of information in class (next to him, oh, but of course), only today did I realize that, oh, yes, my headphones are fucking electromagnets. Fucking hell, that was amazing, the practicality of a class like physics smacked me in the head today and I thought about, again, of what it’d be like to be a physicist. To make absolutely no money whatsoever but to be continuously dumfounded and amazing by things like, “Christ, my headphones are repelling each other.”
I mean, what else am I supposed to devote my energy to, besides the obvious, besides the not so obvious, and the fact that my headphones repel each other. It’s cool, it’s insanely cool and I can’t get over it. It’s like the first time I tasted candy, I don’t even remember how cool that must’ve been. I don’t remember the first half of my childhood (the second part makes me think the first isn’t really worth remembering, so I don’t think I’m missing on much), but really, life is a nifty experience. To be or not to be? I’m going to fucking be. Underline that shit green, or whatever. Yeah, I’m going, how does that quote run, something about slings and arrows, or whatever. Yeah, hit me, hit me, bitches. Sure, whatever. I’m not really fond of Shakespeare. I just don’t really like him. Maybe it’s because I never really picked him up and read him, but, I’m not really fond of him. Dare I say it, I’m more of a modernist when it comes to my literary diet. Eventually, though, eventually, I want to put myself through classical literature. Train myself in ancient Greek, or something. It’d be awesome. Spectacular. Read not in my native language, read in the native language of the other half of me and write poetry and make allusions to myths and works, and John Milton, because I find that man to be seriously inspirational.
I’m going to fail that chem. Test.
That physics test.
That mandarin test.
That math test.
Forget about that paper.
I’m not gonna write anything, ever, ever again.
It was a terrible paper.
She’s going to be disappointed.
I hope to god she is, but I really hope to god she isn’t.
I’m gonna hand in one, with corrections, or whatever.
I feel like I should.
I should.
Life of a musician? How is that any different, except I sing about my god awful problems? How’s that any different than what I do now, except I put that all to music? How’s it any different!
Death must hate the human race. Poor man and his tedious job, he really must hate the human race.
3:53, not really sleeping again. Writer’s block of some sort, or just tired?
I’m like a trash can holding all the information.
I might go take a shower now. What is it, 4:40? Alright.
After I listen to this song two more times and my review sheet decides to print.
I’m gonna draw up my mandarin review sheet, tomorrow. Retrieve my bloody textbook, tomorrow. Think about stuff, tomorrow. And count the days, tomorrow, to the end of school, in my head, during that seemingly random…thing they have planned for us. That, orientation is not the right word, presentation is too casual, gathering is just strange (Magic, ha) and I’m stuck going to summer prep school. I’ve been in SAT but I’m in it again, with calc on the side. Hooray for the Asian parent. I want to apply to be a TA next year, my god.
Prom, semi-formal, SAT II, team dinner, Sex and the City? At least I’ll see Miles again, come next year, Villiger, States, Grands (maybe?) and wherever else. No, the other one’s not coming back on alumni day.
4:44, that’s an awful number, time…time reading, or whatever. It’s quite unlucky in Chinese.
He lives inside his headphones and he barely pays attention to anything, which, ultimately, might be the reason why he bumps into trash cans, streetlights, people, walls, pretty much everything. He ignores just about everything and turns up those giant round things, like parasitic clams clinging to his ears, all the way and air guitars every once in a while. People usually do this in the shower, or, when no one’s around, but that’s just the way he is.
One can’t really blame him, the way the world is, I suppose it’s dull for a guy like him. No one really even knows his name until he bumps into you, which is how we met. It’s a real surprise he can hear anything anyone else says, or that he listens to what other people, humans, have to say.
Headphones, kids, never wear headphones. Never associated with people who live entirely in headphones, it’s better to just keep walking, or not say anything. Of course, in my situation, saying something was inevitable, but really, stick to the normal side of things.
“My god, I’m terribly sorry,” I said rather hastily, I was carrying a large bucket of paintbrushes of varying sizes, running down a silent hallway halfway through fifth period, trying to appease my eccentric art teacher when, he, this kid with these giant, bulging headphones, turns a corner with his eyes closed, fingers mimicking, what I found out later to be Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, some sort of a guitar solo and runs into me. Everything goes flying, me, my bucket of paintbrushes, the kid and his headphones.
What do you call these things? Introductory physics has its perks, namely the cute kid that sits next to me, so forgive me if I can’t classify the collision as elastic or inelastic. I start picking up the random pieces of, at the time, I thought to be my eternal damnation. Ms. What’s Her Name is going to have the largest fit ever, when she finds that her perfect (actually, these brushes were terribly shoddy anyway, public schools, what can you do?) paintbrushes were, for a lack of better words, not anymore.
“Uh,” he stood there, rubbing his head, headphones around his neck, apparently they came flying off when he fell, less damage done there, “Uh.”
“Uh!?” I almost screamed at him, I must’ve looked ridiculous. Back then, I used to wear these god awful plastic, red rimmed glasses and used to put my hair up in a bun, clipped in the back with one of those street fair shop artsy hairclips. I don’t remember exactly what I was wearing that day but it feels like a black tee with some band or another across the front, it’s not like I wake up in the morning and actually care what I dig out of my closet, which, by the way, looks a lot like a war zone. But, back then, I used to have a thing for cargos and oversized t-shirts, XXL for no good reason. It came out a lot harsher than expected, but I was pretty irritated, like a bad flu of an angry virus and we stood there, after that awkward exchange of “Uh’s!” just looking at each other.
“Uh.”
I snorted. He laughed. And we spent another good five minutes just laughing. (What’s his name, Oscar Wilde, was it? Had a quote that ran along the lines of something like laughter might not be the beginning of a good friendship, but it’s certainly a good ending to one. He, of course, is a lot more articulate than I am when it comes to these epigram things, so, I’ll leave it up to you to actually go find the quote. I’m not even sure how this is truly relevant to my story or headphone kid, that’s what I call him, even though I know his real name, but, it was a worthy side note. Hence, the parenthesis.)
“Holt. Perseus Holt.” Introduced himself James Bond style. I returned the favor.
“Jones. Lillith Jones.” If you typed our names into Microsoft Word, which is the only I communicate nowadays, over keyboard. Writing is overrated and my handwriting is illegible anyway, technology really saves my ass every now and then, and SparkNotes. Right, but if you type both our names into Word, they’re both underlined red. I like the way Word underlines things, it alerts me to all of my little faults, spelling mistakes and incorrect use of grammar and what not.
“Beautiful.” He replied, out of nowhere and with a deep tone of admiration. I stopped, half bending down, half getting up and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“Say what?” I’m rather obtuse, I don’t think politeness is even a word in my dictionary. I say what’s on my mind, and sure, someday, someone will hate me for it, and I’ll get shot, that’s what they all tell me, but it’s not like I really mind that either. Better shot for calling someone out for what they are, better shot for saying what’s on my mind, than living a life of so called politeness, or mental repression.
I really don’t mind what you call me, anything but sugar pie or cuddles. He has a tendency to call me both, mind you, not out of affection. Never, ever, divulge too much of your pet peeves to anyone, or your annoyances, or, god forbid, your secrets. That sorta thing tends to fuck you over in the long run like no tomorrow. He calls me sugar pie on a daily basis. Sometimes I wished I didn’t break those wonderful headphones of his, or he might not have been around to hear me tell him all that stuff.
“Your name is beautiful.” He elaborated.
“Thank you,” I remarked slowly with an odd sense of appreciation on one hand, and on another, a strange sense of strangeness, for a lack of better words. “Your name is, uh,” I was digging for words here, harder than a mole digs his hole, “rather heroic.” I felt like an idiot. I barely remember who Perseus is except for the guy who rescued that chick, what’s her name? Andromeda? Like the star system, like the TV show.
“Wanna go out with me?”
Alright, I like surprises, but this was just weird. Not only was I seriously late for fifth period art, not only will I be killed by Ms. What’s Her Name when I return to fifth period art with all of her brushes messed up and in some sort of incoherent mess, but what the hell is this kid talking about?
“What!?” That came out louder than expected.
“Will you go out with me, Lillith Jones?” He repeated with a grin across his sheepish face and ran a hand through his hair. For the first time, I noticed he had this amazing strawberry blond hair and a set of pale, pale eyes that felt like ice cubes, for a lack of imagination.
“But why!?” Still exasperated over everything, I looked up seriously, from behind my red rimmed glasses, and kept looking.
“By the merit of your name,” was his reply and I just kept looking, and felt my mouth part slightly.
“Really?” I settled my weight onto my left leg, clutching a paintbrush I brought one of my fists to my hip and gave him another look.
“Really really,” he was awfully serious and the grin was replaced by a stern look of absolute determination. He was really animated for a guy who lived completely in a pair of headphones, who lived completely in music. Facial expressions, his eyes, the way he carries himself, totally unexpected. Never knew he existed until right about now, either.
“Convince me.” I challenged. I wanted to see what this kid had going, I mean, at this point, it was just really, really strange. Kid, headphones, paintbrushes, a date, late for class. God-motherfucking-damn.
No sooner had the words left mouth did I feel his hand grab mine and in this elaborate movement, one of those spin-twirl things they whip out at you in dance competitions, will all those people in their little dresses and shoes and costumes, he spun me around in the hall into his arms, I heard the paintbrush I was just carrying clattered against the linoleum floor (when did I even let go of it?), he dipped me back in his arm, I was certain he was going to bite me, like something from a cheap horror movie, on the neck. Then, his lips met mine and I almost screamed if not for the strange wonder I felt when I tasted, and don’t think I’m crazy, what felt like a sunrise on his lips, like the wonder of a crisp, red sunrise across the city. Totally fucking weird encounter, weird kiss, in the hallway. Fuck fifth period.
“Convinced?” He asked, looking at me as he cradled me in his arm, his strawberry hair falling into my eyes, grazing the slightly grimy lenses of my glasses. I couldn’t speak for a moment and just looked at him. I must’ve looked even more ridiculous, half wannabe tomboy, face (most likely) red as hell, in a large, extra, extra large AC/DC t-shirt from her father’s better days, with a curious expression of shock on her face. “Good.”
With that, he walked me down the hallway, away from my mess of paintbrushes, down the three flights of stairs, the north staircase, if I remember correctly and just right out the front door of the school, despite the curious glances of the security guards and whatever else’s that prevent kids from just waltzing right out of school. Mind you, we actually just waltzed right out of that building.
Perseus Holt. One serious fucking character right there.
“Oh, and my headphones are broken.”
“Uh!”