Make Something, Move On

The angel came over again. It felt like I hadn’t seen him in forever. I asked him if we could be friends tonight and go from there. I was worried I would not be attracted to him again. Within a few minutes, I know I am excited to have this man under my fingernails. I listen to him talk about things he’s passionate about and for two hours we talked about ourselves and our passions. He has been very kind to me. I softly land on the realization that I have let people treat me worse than I want because I think I deserve it.

I tie him up and give him head and I can feel the power and control in my shoulders. I feel out of practice. He is a verbal processor - like me - but I have a hard time doing so many things at once and can’t talk him through the orgasm. I feel like I am underserving him, but I decide I do not care. He would say I am doing enough. After he cums, I take all of him in my mouth and hold it. I roll it around with my tongue and savor the mouthfeel.

Apropos of nothing, he breaks the silence with, “you are the first person I’ve had sex with in over a year.” I was surprised - he’s handsome, I would have expected him to have a roster like I do. But he says the last year has been really hard for him, and that he really needed this. He uses those words - “I needed you.” I know he regrets them as soon as they’re out of his mouth. He is afraid of doing something wrong and scaring me off. But I am familiar with the dance of being too much for people, and I tell him to lay down. This is a conversation for when we’re horizontal.

We talk and cuddle and exchange back rubs and I, as I do, show too many of my cards during pillowtalk. It feels like he sees me without judgement. I told him I have a hard time feeling beautiful. I told him I like it when he touches me. I tell him it is hard for me to ask for things. He puts his warm hand on my hip as I talk and my body glows at the heat.

Some things are clear about him and I: we are not going to be casual. I am happy we have an end date. There will definitely be a zine about him after he’s gone.

The loneliness knocks on my door as an old friend. I let her in unwillingly. I am no stranger to the heaviness she brings.

I call A*** and we both commiserate. I am happy to have him. As we talk I feel myself sink deeper and deeper into the familiar angst that has fueled most of my art. I tell him I need to go nonverbal, and he lets me go. I am so happy to have him.

I make art about the little cat. I am hoping that by putting him on the canvas in front of me, I am slowly removing him from my head.

Secondary to that, I make art about love. I add too much medium to the acrylics and it takes several layers to make an opacity I’m happy with. The unfamiliarity with the technical aspects painting is the worst part of getting back into it. I have to remind myself the only bad art is art unmade.

I want to have someone in my bed tonight. I am cold and want the pressure of another human and to feel their breath. Part of me doesn’t care who. Another part - one I hate - does.

Two concerts, one day. I’m exhausted.

The first concert went well. He is hard to ignore. The executive director plays some stupid recorded music while we warm up and the little cat plays an improvised solo over it, filling the concert hall with his clarinet sound. It’s beautiful and impressive and I’m trying not to be jealous. I remind myself that I can do that one day, I just need to practice.

When I passed his chair after the first concert, there were drops of spit under his chair. I flash back to when I told him I wanted to drink his spit. I get dizzy for a moment. That memory doesn’t shake out of me for a while.

The second concert was fine. I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. At the end of the performance, after I’ve packed up, I say “good job tonight!” It’s a pleasantry. He smiles back and says “thanks, you too!” It’s a pleasantry. I am still craving his attention. I don’t like how stuffy things feel.

The person I’m fucking casually is texting me about seeing their AA sponsor tomorrow. My brain draws a connection between addiction to alcohol and addiction to other people that I’m too tired to put together. I am using sex to not have to deal with my own bullshit, and I know that, but it is so hard to stop doing.

I gave the little cat copies of both of my zines, including the one about him. It had an extra paper inside saying “thank you for the painful lessons, fuck you for liking me big until it was inconvenient for you. I hope the next time someone gets attached to you, you will be less of a coward.” I wish I could end things on a sweeter note, but I think that is just carving out another loophole for him to crawl through.

I am so tired, my heart hurts, my soul aches. I can’t wait until I have the energy tomorrow to make more art about it.

yours truly -

After I got home from work I turned on some classical music and stretched for nearly an hour. It feels like a core activity to who I want to be. I feel so relaxed and in control of myself.

The concerts tomorrow will be rough sitting next to him, but I finished printing both my zines today and feel good in my soul.

You led me on. You lied for so long.

You hurt me a lot.

I am nervous all day for our conversation. I spend the day cleaning and distracting myself from thinking about it, but it is still the only thing I can think about.

And so we sit in my living room in silence. I take a few deep breaths and let the silence settle. Earlier I had written down the goals I had for our conversation and things I wanted to tell him. I kept the notebook by me as we talked, to take notes. A part of me desperately wants to grab his hands or close the distance between us, but I had promised too many people I would go through with this. 

I learned more context. He was only ever looking for someone he could be friendly with and see for sex once a month. But there is a pattern of his partners falling in love with him without his permission. He says he has learned to be guarded but that pattern repeated itself here. I tell him of my own patterns, that I like to fix people when they don’t need to be fixed. Our patterns fed off of each other.

He said he stopped texting me back because he was trying to get me to like him less. With that context, I feel much better, but I am still angry at how he treated me. I hope I never actually fall in love with someone who treats me like that.

I tell him I’m envious of his partner because he loves her. I tell him his relationship with her throws up red flags in my mind but I’m unsure if that is colored by my envy of her or not. But I don’t want to talk about them during this conversation, I want to talk about me and him (there is no longer an us to speak of).

I bring up a memory where he assured me I would never be too much for him. I asked him if he remembered what he did. He did not. (I told him. He kissed my forehead and made me feel so safe.) I asked him why he would do that if he was lying, and he told me “it seemed a bad idea to disagree.” I do not think he realized how foundational that small moment (and many more like it) were to my growing adoration of him.

I feel led on. I feel betrayed. I feel like the places I let only him touch are on fire with sin. When I got home and read through the notes of our conversation, I felt the urge to purge again. The nausea is a physical symptom of my fears coming alive in front of me.

He said he likes the process of becoming intimate with new people. I think he is really bad with the consequences of that. There was a moment when the spell broke and in front of me sat not a little cat, not someone on a pedestal, but a man. A man with problems and mistakes. I wish I could’ve lived in that moment for much longer.

I tell him I wish I could be someone that’s good for him and I wish we had the connection him and his girlfriend had. I say I wish we had found each other in different times of our lives. He is quiet. I know in his head, he is disagreeing. When I had run out of words and asked him if he had anything else he wanted to talk about, the only thing he brought up was what I had said about his relationship with his girlfriend. That slammed the door shut on any hope I had that I had ever meant anything to him. (I had never meant anything to him.)

The zine I’m making about him will be completed very soon. I will give him a copy and I imagine he’ll read it with horror, if he reads it at all. I am glad he never gave me anything except hickies.

I keep waiting for some big romantic gesture to appear from him as if that’s in any way realistic. It was never about love, or connection, or trust. It was about me wanting too much from him, and him being capricious with his reciprocation and communication.