Reliable Memory

Every day I wake and I think if I don’t write, write it out, I will go mad, quite mad, but there’s no one to tell and what to say and that’s not true, it’s not that there’s no one to tell, it’s that there’s no one I want to tell, there’s no you. I am not an amateur, I’ve been here before, I know this, what lies, I know nothing. 

I read an article on Orange is the New Black, a review, or some shit (and this is the true beauty of twitter, the mindless forever scrolling the everything to read that takes you away from here, but doesn’t really, because everything, everything reminds you and I understand why you follow comedians because to laugh is to feel something other than this numb this pain this intolerable hurt but, if you’re me, the laughter is unsatisfying, worse, you want to share it and you are reminded that there is no you to tell and that takes away from the beauty beauty of endless garbage, endless distraction, endless numb and yes perhaps this is a scream an unhinging yes, an ugly display of emotion, it’s embarrassing avert your eyes, please don’t look at me, please don’t read, it hurts, it hurts) anyway, the reviewer writer author made the point that there is no villain, no big bad (see, Buffy and that reminds me of you, you are everywhere and I can’t wipe you away and I’m am going to die remembering you, my god, it horrifies me) in this season that instead, it’s the daily deprivations, the daily defeats, the daily hurts, the daily wrongs, the daily hurts, the daily terrors, the unrelenting every single moment wrong that work as the villain and I thought that is life and that is what is exhausting, this life, for some of us, I know it is not life for everyone.

I knew we would fuck from the first moment we met. Did I tell you that? Sharing a park bench, away from everyone else, he rolled a cigarette and passed it to me. Outsiders. I am helpless. He is so very Melbourne, so of that city. Confident, and cynical, a little depressed. Of course we’d fuck. The first time we met I tried to ignore the attraction, some attempt at being faithful to something not my own. It’s such a short flight. So easy to fit in, mid-week, a night here, a night there. I’m standing in a hotel room, late afternoon, the sun filtered, golden light. He undoes the buttons on my blouse and rubs his thumb over my collar bone, pushing my hair back over my shoulder. He tells me that he prefers my hair dark. The first time we fucked I was blonde. I laugh and tell him but of course, the damaged brunette is the manic pixie dream girl all grown up. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t know the trope, and it doesn’t matter because his fingers are brushing my lips and my hands are under his jacket tugging at this shirt. In the mess of sheets he sits up and looks at me, ‘you’re a very beautiful woman, you know that?’ I pull him back down to me and as I rest my head on his chest the room darkens, a shadow steals the light, and I’m sure somehow, the shadow is you.

Some days I want to carve open my chest to let all the hurt pour out. I can’t live with it.

I watched a flight of doves circling between the old post office and the park today. On each rotation the afternoon sun lighting their grey wings. From the ninth floor I stood and watched until they settled on the post office roof. There are quiet moments in this life Sam. Moments that beaufifulache. I stood a while longer, forehead pressed against the windowpane and told you about the circling birds. With my eyes closed I pretended you were standing behind me. I could almost feel you. I’ve been talking to you for so long now Sam. Telling you. I was a year older than your daughter is now on the day we put my father’s body in the ground. When he left. I imagined you then. Conjured you up. Willed you to me. It was raining that day Sam. My shoes and stockings were mud stained afterward. On that hillside, I talked to you Sam. And then I waited. I waited so long. And then you came, and you found me and I found you and then there we were. I remembered you Sam. I remembered your duffel coat and your big bulky sweaters. The hook of your nose, the crease on your neck just under your ear. I remembered you before we’d ever met. I never told you this but the mornings with you, waking up with you, it felt wrong Sam. Wrong like stealing. Wrong like hurt. My skin knew you wouldn’t stay Sam. Do you remember the morning we woke up and I showed you everything I was afraid of? Do you remember how you promised you’d stay? Do you remember Sam? It’s been 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 days, 10 weeks, 10 months, 10 seasons, 10 years, 10 lifetimes since you left Sam. You left. You left me Sam. You left me here without you. I don’t wear my hair for you anymore Sam. It’s not as short and much lighter than you would like. I wonder if you would mind? I wonder what you would say if you could see my hair Sam. I remember your hands making fists in my hair Sam. Do you? I wonder what you would think of handfuls of blonde hair in your hands. And I wonder and I wonder and I remember that I cannot ask you, that you cannot know because you left Sam, you left. And I have tried, here, to understand, to live loving you without you, to keep some small part of you alive for me but you left and you didn’t tell me, you promised to stay and you left and you didn’t say goodbye. Instead you said ‘I am in this with you’ and then you left and you did not say goodbye and you left and you left and you left and you left me and you left me and you left me and all I have is this dead useless love that I do not know what to do with. Oh Sam. I have talked to you for so long now Sam. Been writing to you for so long now. And I want to stop, I want to stop telling you. I want to stop remembering you and remembering me under you and remembering the scratch of your coat against my cheek and your hands in my hair and I don’t know how Sam, I don’t know how. Inside I scream and scream and scream Sam and you are silent and gone and still. You taught me how to love with all of my skin Sam, but you didn’t teach me how to stop. You left me Sam. You left. Every day, Sam, I think about how to say goodbye to you. How to stop loving you. You left me Sam. And I do not know how to leave you. I do not know how to say goodbye to you. You left.  You didn’t say goodbye. I want to believe that you didn’t know how to. Oh Sam. I miss you Sam. I miss you so very much. You left Sam and you didn’t say goodbye. I miss you Sam. And I hate you. Almost as much as I love you. Almost.