“I hate emo rock,” she says as she takes the last drag from a cigarette she never smoked and turns off the TV. A few moments of silence pass between them as they stared at the same broken pattern on the carpet before he interjects a little chuckle.

A confused an annoyed “What?” is asked, as if to express disgust even by hearing his laugh.

“I just think it’s so weird, you know? We stare at the same fragments of carpet and come up with different theories for how it became so.”

“I really don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“No, you just don’t want to.”

It was at this time her desolation could not be retained any longer. She burst out in an absolute puerile explosion of tears and drool with such force, you’d think she hasn’t shed a single emotion in a year and a half. Her body went limp like she had just been shot in the chest. Unable to control herself, there were no words coming out of her mouth as she tried to rationalize out loud why she just lost control. Instead, only a small murmur was audible as she collapsed to her knees.

He allows her to get herself together after a few minutes. And in between her desperate sniffling, he asks “When will this be over?”

She promptly replies, “There is no ‘THIS!’ There’s nothing to be over, why can’t you get that?”

He sarcastically replies, “Right, right,” and passes her a napkin from the night stand.

The birds can be heard outside the window, beginning to wake up the day.

She’s able to let out a large sigh, finally. “Why? What did you see in the carpet?”

“I see this broken pattern, here, and figured it was from your shoes heel.” He says.

“Yeah. It is from my heel,” she says, “but I was picturing a cane had created it, even though I know you don’t use a cane nor is there a cane here.” and she begins to sob again.

There’s been times he’s tried to say things and it never comes out the way he intended. What he doesn’t realize is that it never will. And everything you think you know is only right because you believe it to be.

…..I don’t want to be done….

But I’m done. I think I’m done.
I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I’m going to try.

Almost five and a half years of being a rock. Steady and patient. Devoted and keen. Empowered, enlightened, and grateful; I cannot be a rock any longer. My heart has atrophied.

So much has changed! With her, I mean.
But I have all these words saved with me that I can read over and over again, to remind me of what once was the ultimate kind of love and connection.

Then I wonder, what is love without background; without history and time behind it? True, we had unspeakable chemistry and I believe the forces of nature were putting all their effort into making us find and be together. But there’s something to be said about the time two people spend with each other that gives that relationship substance you cannot otherwise have with someone you just met. It gives real meaning to loving someone. So I have to wonder.

And without any explanation (and PLENTY of attempts at obtaining one), she’s ignored me for almost a year. Is this her way of giving me a hint? I don’t take hints very well. I like pure, unadulterated honesty. I’ve said time and time again to tell me to go away the moment you don’t want me in your life anymore. That doesn’t happen, so I go on believing I am still wanted.   But going through a major, somewhat risky surgery without a peep? One that was only a 2 hour drive from her home?  And then, being here in town with nothing to do and purposefully, with intent, did not contact me?  This is big-time rejection, more than I’d expect from even the most casual of acquaintances.  Hell, I even got “Get Well Soon” wishes from people I’ve never even spoken to!

It matters no more. The explanation for this silent treatment is what *I* needed to move on. Obviously, it’s not what she feels she needs to give me — and I can’t keep hanging on to that, giving me another excuse to keep this door cracked, letting the hope continue to seep in.

I don’t exactly know how I’m going to do this.
I have some ideas, which my chances of success are questionable, but we’ll see.  Either way, I’m done.

Really.

Door is closed.

Originally published elsewhere on January 17th, 2004

“Bottoms up.” she says as she told me she just found her ex-fiancé asleep in bed with her roommate. Also sleeping. Also topless. A shot of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum runs down her throat as she goes to sit back on the couch she just left from, when she decided she should get to bed.

I put down the shot glass she handed me. I had already had too much. I sat down again, still dizzy and disoriented from the alcohol I have had. I offer my condolences and try to help her look at things from a different perspective.
She smiles and calls me “sweetheart.”

It’s the decision he made. He had two bedrooms to choose from. He’s been picking Holly’s for the past 3 years since the marriage was called off. This time, he didn’t.

“Such a stupid little boy,” she says as she fixes herself to rest her head on my lap. I cradle her and take the hair from her eyes.

“You touch very well.” She says.

Time goes by as we talked. Eventually, I kiss her forehead to seal the connection we have discovered. We are two lovelorn souls with so much love to give but no one to give it to. The cat meows and we smile.
I kiss her lips. Dry and chapped they were, but soft and predictable. Her tiny tongue so sweet and I only tasted the tip. We smile. This is nice.
She nestles up under my chin and around my neck, lightly clawing at my sweater as she positions herself in a fetal-like position on my lap. We kiss some more. Like a kitten, she rubs her cheek against my chin and then shows me her tattoo. It’s the word “kitten” in Chinese and in so many ways this is a perfect tattoo for her. I am amused at her cuddling and fall in love with her familiar body, as I begin to explore it. I’ve touched this body before… it just had someone else’s face and name attached to it. She begins to get a little aggressive – she gently bites my lip — as the cat meows again. We laugh silently but are muted by the sound of an opening bedroom door.

He walks out. He sits on the adjacent couch and lights up a cigarette.
“I think I’m going to have that other shot, now.” she says, and he gets up to ask what’s wrong. They whisper for a minute or two. They sit back down.

Silence.

I light a cigarette. He gets up and walks down the short hallway and enters Holly’s bedroom.

Holly lets out a large sigh.

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart” she says as she gets up and follows the same path he took.

”Good luck to you” I say to no reply other than the flipping of the light switch.

And here I sit. It’s dark and I’m drunk.
I guess I’m going to bed now.

I wrote a number of pieces through the telling of a fictional story, or a fictional story based on real-life events; a mixing of reality, metaphor, and fantasy. This is one of them.

12/22/05

“I wasn’t really in that bad of a mood,” I recalled to myself later in the evening. I remember walking into the hall of tears and cheers and looking at all the paintings on the wall. They were animated, but lifeless and soaking wet. They forgot where they were for a moment and couldn’t remember their way back. It’s just that they’ve been hanging there for so long.

I felt someone tugging at my shirt but there was no one behind me. I think someone’s been trying to hang me on that wall. I’m a little too lucid for that, still. They’ll keep trying harder. I somehow missed the placement of one single eye screw stuck in my shoulder blade. Here I thought I just had a pinched nerve!

This was here yesterday. Not the screw, the whole deal. I put this in my sockdrawer, didn’t I? Shoved it in the back, didn’t I? I thought the sock goblins would come and eat it up like they do with the other things that get pushed back there. How did this get out? Why am I seeing it again? I feel like clicking my heels together and chanting an infamous line.

I was through your veins not long ago. Like everything else, it passes. Soon there could be nothing that remains the same as it is right this second. Soon, there could be nothing at all. But I’ve got a stint up my sleeve, I suppose, because some things will never fade away.

And I’ve been on the verge of tears for reasons I can’t finger. (that’s not a pun)
Is it the holiday season of which I am not really participating in this year? Couldn’t be. Guilt from eating too much? No. I think it’s just feeling powerless over my entire life right now, especially because I had such a firm grasp on it not too long ago.

What’s another term for “missing you” ? I can’t find a good word that describes the feeling of missing someone so very badly it seems to cause exhaustion and fatigue. How would you say that? I’m fatigued by the ____ that I am feeling. By the “missing-you-feeling” that I’m feeling? NO!! There’s gotta be something.

So I had these water-words boiling in me and I don’t know if I soothed it or not. I’m thinking not, but it’s not burning me so much anymore.

I gotta stop now anyway because I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open. It’s funny how much I bore myself.

But I’m still here. As usual. As always. And I’m definitely looking forward to a day off tomorrow/today. I need it.

She looked up to the fast-moving clouds and overcast skies. She looked up so long, her hair grew long and skin turned pale.

The clouds kept rolling, the sun would set and rise again. She kept right on looking, waiting for something new to happen up in the sky. She didn’t even know if anything new was supposed to appear. But she kept staring and her pupils became dilated. It all began to blur together but she did not even notice.

At some point, she sneezed. The tiny particals of mucus twinkled in the light sun for a moment and it woke her up out of this self-induced trance. She screamed at the top of her lungs so loud it could be heard for 300 miles. “WHAT IF I DID?”

The question was posed.

She sunk back into her coma and forgot to listen for an answer.

Eventually, the wind paid another visit to the girl, now aged a bit. And with it, a voice. It was not a voice you nor I could hear. It snuck around inside the wind and would have to be blown directly into the keeper of the intended ear. Today, that girl was the keeper. And how the wind howled that day.

It spoke in riddles but it answered all her questions. It soothed her nerves. It brought a lucid touch to her soul. Still, the one thing the wind could not answer was how long this calm would last. So the girl looked down at a large rock settled next to her and her stump and she looked at it and asked “Why?”

The rock, solid as it was, sat there in silence.

She wept. She wasn’t satisfied. She needed this question answered before she moved off this perch.

But the rock knew the answer.
He just couldn’t tell her.
Becauase he was just a rock.
And she wouldn’t believe a word he said.

So he stayed, silent and patient, for the wind has already answered her questions.
She just has to learn to believe.

Congratulations to The Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s a shame the Eagles weren’t in the Superbowl this year as everyone predicted, but I’m quite happy another PA team won. Especially one from such a fine town as Pittsburgh.