la gaudiere (an excerpt)

I went on a date last night and then you texted and asked, again, whether I would come there. Start our days with coffee, end with you making dinner. Forever. I feel myself tug towards yes and then I remember why it will always be no with you and I.

There are people in your life who are going to love you for all of the wrong reasons. They will love you for the best part of your face, the best part of you naked, the best mood on your best day, the best story you ever wrote, the best outfit you ever wore.

They are going to miss the scar on the underside of your nose from the time your older brothers dared you to run across a pile of logs. They won’t know that you fell on a hidden nail just as you completed the challenge. They’ll miss the scar on your finger, too from the time you were seven and closed a swiss army knife on it. They won’t understand that these are two of only a handful of things you can remember about your childhood. They’ll notice that you have great tits, but they’ll miss that your thumb tucks into their palm when you’re walking together and that your eyes have darker circles when a migraine is coming. They won’t know you get migraines. They won’t ask where the story you wrote came from, so they’ll never know that it was true. They’ll love it because it feels real to them. They’ll miss knowing the sweatshirt full of holes that they criticized you for wearing was your dads. You might tell them some of these things along the way, but they will remember the best things instead.

They will love your good moods, your energy, your sense of humor, but miss that you never turn to them, but rather to a shower or a pillow or the back of your throat to shed tears. They won’t ever consider you strong.

When the parts that aren’t your best come out, some people will shield their eyes as if you have just forced them to look directly into the sun for hours until their irises burn. They’ll silently make you promise to never show them that again. Those things are not to be shown. Be at your best so I can love you. I would love you more if only you never show me those things.

And you do not marry those people. You do not sit and sleepily drink coffee with those people. You leave those people and you remind yourself that they missed the better parts of you.

i dumped her and then she wrote a book about me

I remember when there was just one person that occupied my mind, and now there are three separate ideas, people. I wanted so desperately to save what me and Melvin had because at one point it was everything and I could not accept that it was nothing now, and Johnny, my safety net, when my love life gets too hectic, I know that I can just see him and within an hour of him and his dexterity, everything becomes okay, and then there’s this new guy, who for the first time in a really long time can make me laugh, like really laugh and could kiss me and transmit a flock of butterflies into me. It feels as if I’m following a compass and all three of these people are stepping on the arrow, and I don’t know which direction to go in, I’m losing my way.

They say it all the time in movies; sex without strings attached is the first trip to a disaster. If you’re me, you don’t listen and you go ahead and have casual sex with your “friend” who you’ve once dated and liked and things didn’t work out but now you’re in bed with him and a whole bunch of things are running through your head but you still find yourself in bed with him again a couple times after. In my opinion Johnny and me do not fall into the typical cliché romantic comedy of two people who casually have sex and then fall in love, we, our personalities would not allow such an ending to occur. We’re both stubborn, and “always right”, and he spoons, and believes in aliens, and asks me so many goddamn questions that I really don’t ever want to answer but I do because he listens and even if spooning is one of the closest forms of physical contact which I abhor, he’s really good at it. We are unique in the sense that we hate each other so much but we want each other way more.

One impulsive text led to an impulsive call, leading to an impulsive I love you, and… I opened my eyes and Melvin was right beside me. No words were exchanged between us and the context behind my silence was far deeper than any word I’ve ever said to him but if I could say something to him it would be that I am not that good of an actress to make it seem as if I’m not torn, and that I’ve slept on the floor for a month after he left me because in a sick and twisted way I thought it made us closer since he slept on his floor too. Instead, I could not stop staring at the back of his head while he was staring at the T.V screen. I was thinking about someone else, I wasn’t there, I was somewhere else. I was scared because it didn’t make sense to me that I’ve dreamt of this for the past two months and now I’m daydreaming about being with someone else and it wasn’t Johnny…

the page break

Given that Melvin even thought of me, his hands must have been paralyzed because he never picked up his phone and called, or sent a text; I mean I could have too but my finger twitches on the backspace key every time. It was like I knew what I wanted to say but I didn’t know if I should say it; kind of like the new character in this story, I wrote him in but he keeps deleting himself out, almost like he knows it’s a bad idea, that I’m a bad idea. Feelings exist behind the words I do not say to him, his character exists in the unwritten paragraphs. I don’t know how it happened but he’s a character in this story now…

2.5 ?

I was on the other side of the wall waiting for him to climb over and prove to me that I; better yet we were worth it. Instead, I was using all my strength to break it down, for days, for months but he just gave up and I kept trying. I wondered if Johnny saw Melvin’s reflection in my eyes when he... The indignity in me told him that I missed him and the only response I got in return was his disdain. The coward in me ran back to Johnny, and for the first time I got into bed with him and did not undress myself, I was already allegorically naked. I curled up next to him and allowed him to put his arms around me and I cried into his chest. I looked up at Johnny and I saw him, for the first time since I met him, I saw him. It was one of those moments where you come to the precipitous realization that destiny is not determined by choice, it’s fate. I woke up in the middle of the night to Johnny still holding me tight enough to not let me go but Melvin still exists in my head, and this was my fate.

the dissection 2

“The romantic attraction we feel now is a state of mind & if one day you happen to miss me and I am no longer there in flesh, you can revisit this state of mind in your memory, where we exist. So in theory, we could never really be apart since we always live in each other’s minds.”

                                                                        -Excerpt from my letter to Melvin

            The conversation of death arose sometime during our finals week study session. I'm not exactly sure who brought up the topic but it didn't matter because this would be the first of the few we would have. I couldn't look him in the face throughout the entire confabulation. Instead, I was staring at his empty piece of loose-leaf paper. "I want to die…I know that it shouldn't sound as conventional as it just did but I don't find any reason for my existence. This is not impulsive, I think about it…all the time, and this is not a choice; no one chooses to want to die." There was a preceding awkward silence but it was one that we shared together, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it so tight that the circulation of blood in my hand was almost discontinued. I looked up at his watering eyes, grabbed his arm and directed him toward the nearest staircase. I pushed him up against the wall, and there we were, the only people in school at 10:00pm. I don't think that the suicidal girl and forlorn boy exactly fit the romantic movie cliché but we came close, we were falling in love. "You give me a reason to want to live," I whispered into his ear. I want to say that this was the truth, but I wouldn't dare tell him that his mere existence was not enough of a reason, it was just not enough.

I spotted Johnny across the room the moment I walked in. It was a couple of days after New Years, but my friend and I were still determined to not remember the rest of our days. I suppose he felt the same, holding a ¾ empty red cup of liver poison. I didn’t know anyone but the cup of Jack in my hand, and of course, the only mutual friend between these strangers and I, Lisa. An hour passed, and I’ve already drunk about 3 cups of whiskey and I’m sure everyone else in the room drank more.  As blurry as my vision was, I still saw him, approaching me. The last thing I can recollect is dancing with him and then… I looked up at the mirror. I splashed water in my face and my mascara began running down, this time when I looked up at the mirror, I saw Johnny’s reflection behind me.  I turned around, “Are you okay?” His shirt was off, truthfully, I could care less about why he was in the same room with me. Secretly, I was glad he was there. I sat on the sink and examined the contour of his body; I almost forgot he was there, in front of me.  I saw his sign tattooed somewhere on his right deltoid/upper bicep. “So you’re a Leo?” He looked at me and asked me the same question. The bathroom was too small for both of our personalities. I was sitting on the sink with my eyes ogled at his lips and he undoubtedly noticed. “If you wanna kiss me, do it already.” I responded by wrapping my legs around him and pulling him closer to me. Legitimately, I was caught in between wanting this archaic stranger’s tongue down my throat and fulfilling my higher moral standard I set for myself.  I was teasing him the whole while, pulling him closer and farther away. “If you wanna kiss me, do it already.” I said. He laughed and our lips were a centimeter away from each other before I pulled away, hopped off the sink, and walked away. The chemistry in the atmosphere or more appropriately between us, was far too vigorous for me to stay. He generated a completely other side of me, one I was afraid to explore, one without any boundaries.

brain fart

teaser; have a happy blue balls

It was after Melvin had drifted into the night, after the expeditious sex, my fake orgasm, and I believe it was also the first time we had sex. My eyes, my concentration was directed towards the ceiling above me, I stared at it for hours until I undressed myself and decided to make use of the jacuzzi I paid extra for. I was thinking about thinking; the thought of suicide was a notion I briefly flirted with in the past. If I didn't feel alive right now, would it feel any different at death's doorstep? The compilation of these thoughts, this question, the smoke filled room, and the loneliness of the night; it led me me to my next endeavor. My brain weighed me down, propelling my head into the pool of water surrounding me. Submerged in the water, my question was progressively answered; I felt more alive than ever. The amputation of oxygen in my circulatory system left me gasping for air. Gasping until… "Amanda" he yelled . We reached our pinnacle together and I rolled over to the other side of the bed. I looked over to my right, panting, I saw Johnny doing the same; there was nothing fake about this. 

not based on true events 1

During the course of my life, I've had various individuals attempt to analyze the inner workings of my mind and Johnny was no exception. He took part in any opportunity to transpire an accurate analysis for my being. The last thing I concretely recall is his lips, his arms, and the rest… The succession of events that led to the two of us in the same bed without our pants and undergarments on was a mystery but the chemistry between us was as strong as the mixture of francium and fluorine. The reaction was explosive. My body was somatically there but my mind was in the last place I left it, with Melvin.

I would like to say that i felt something, I want to say that some emotion came over me, sad, happy, angry, anxious, I didn't feel anything. "We need space," I was lost in his eyes, my mind got lost somewhere in his eyes, I was swimming in the ocean. His words registered into my brain and I stayed quiet. He began speaking, and I can't tell you exactly what about because those light blue eyes, I was drowning in the ocean. When he walked away, he took my mind with him, it was lost somewhere in his deep blue eyes. I was drowning on dry land, my carcass stood still, lifeless, emotionless, empty.

The next morning, I woke up and if I didn't feel anything yesterday, I feel it now. Every muscle in my body ached to clean the mess, i'm not exactly sure of which one, the one in my room or the one in my head. The bed, this bed it reeked of my past endeavors, my thought processes all led to it being confiscated of. I went into my drawer and ripped every trace I had of this horror story, i ripped everything. Oh my god, my bed, I couldn't even gain the strength to dispose of it. I grabbed my sheets and put it on the floor. This was a much better arrangement, and for the first time in the whole day, I felt sane.

My eyes were burning a hole through the side of his head, and I'm sure he felt the dissipation during it all. The bad habit of blankly staring while in deep thought was something I picked up at a young age and it never left me. When he asked what I was thinking about, my immediate answer was of course nothing. There was absolutely no way I was going to narrate the incessant number of questions in my head, he would have no answer for any of them.

I replayed the events of the previous night in my head continuously over in the shower trying to wash off my regret and my guilt. Suddenly, I started remembering my first date with Melvin and how reluctant he was to even hold my hand. I held his instead and this was the precursor of how things went throughout the discourse of our relationship; I was the first one to kiss him, the first one to touch him, the first one to tell him that his existence took place of a reason for mine, and then I remembered him saying I love you first, and walking away first; this was the omen, this was our liaison.

I wasn't sure what was worse, the walk of shame, or the unwanted text message you got the next day; I reckon that they equally weigh the same. The flashing red light in my phone, the scratching nails on the chalkboard. I stuffed my phone in my bag and smothered my face in the pillow and yelled, I could not contain the emotions I was repressing. Not that I exactly understood how I felt, guilt was what I felt now, but pleasure was what I attained that night, my body was indisputably pleased. Why should I feel guilty about that? I went in my bag grabbed my phone; I cut the scratching nails and began writing on the board.