The Port

Yellow, blue, red paint,
with holes torn in different sizes,
revealing hard brown flesh—
or perhaps bones, more accurately.

Slow and smooth,
stiff necks and arms flow above
dark blue water with its opalescent skin.

Little men flail in tiny cages
—brains for brawny monsters—
monsters deaf to their own shrinking importance,
humbled in the soft hum of smaller machines.
People in plastic hats pace and peer,
tracing paths over rough, mossy concrete.

Mountains in the background tower over the horizon—
mountains from long before such strong robots—
and mountains that will last
long after the metals grind to sediments,
passing through bellies of squishy pink worms.

Half-Reckoning in Blind Times

The droplets of water bubbled up on the side of the clear acrylic cup, appearing like glass warts. And as each pregnant drop eventually slipped precipitously down the wall of the chilly reservoir, the heat in the room oppressed as firmly as did the pressure from the conversation.

Joey was backed into a corner. She knew the answer to the question. She twitched in silence, as Mae peered only somewhat patiently.

“I don’t know,” Joey said.

“You do know.”

“She’s not abusive.”

“It’s abuse,” Mae said. She deflated. “Honey, it’s abuse. It’s abusive to insist someone don’t feel what they feel. It’s abusive to lie in order to blame someone instead of accepting responsibility. It’s abusive to tell someone everything’s gonna be okay when it won’t, especially when you have the choice to make it okay or not. It’s abusive to call someone, drunk, because you miss them when you won’t talk to them sober, especially when it’s just to tell them that you love them but also hate them. It’s abusive to let someone pay hundreds of dollars to stay with you only to turn them away for no good reason. It’s abusive to admit you got a problem and to say you’ll work to fix it and then refuse to do so. It’s abusive to refuse to admit when you’re wrong. It’s abusive to get in a relationship with someone and pretend you ain’t together.”

Joey felt her throat swell inside her throat. Joey wasn’t sure if Mae was right about all of them, but what was she going to do? Try to point out some technicality or two? Her head hung from the point where the vertebrae and the shoulderblades form a cross. She saw that her shoes were slightly muddy from the walk across Lydia Street.

“So what am I supposed to do?” she asked.

Quiet, Mae looked at her—Mae’s face like a tomb. “I don’t know, honey.”

“I’m not into this shit, Joe. It ain’t cool. Here’s the thing, honey: she ain’t gonna change for you. I know it don’t feel good. I ain’t blaming you. I ain’t mad at you. I’m worried about you. I’m scared for you. This all seems small. It don’t seem that big. I get that. I don’t blame you. I ain’t mad at you. I’m frustrated, but I get it. I’ve been there, and I know what love does. I want you both to be okay. I mean that. But right now, you’re in trouble, sugar, and I’m worried about you.”

Joey’s head had rotated up, followed by her eyes. She had big, dark brown eyes, and when they swelled with tears, Mae wanted to cry, too.

“I don’t know what to do,” Joey said.

“I don’t know either, baby. I’m not saying what you should do.”

They sat in silence, neither looking at the other.

“I’m mad at you, Joe.”

“I know.” Joey whimpered.

“I’m not mad at you. I’m mad, but not at you. Look, one of the hardest things to learn is that you can love someone and they can love you back, but that ain’t always enough. That’s real hard to get your head around. It’s not a head thing. I guess that’s why. It’s a heart thing. The heart don’t wanna accept it, even if the head really knows.

“You can love the shit outta someone. You can think you’re gonna go off and marry someone and have kids with someone and die in each other’s arms and all that shit, but that don’t mean you get to be with ’em. It don’t. It seems like it should. It’s a cruel thing the universe does. It’s unfair. It’s real unfair. I get that, but it is what it is, baby. Sometimes, you don’t get to be with the one you love, even when they love you back. Because what you gonna do? She already promised to go to therapy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, she’s hurting. Why would she put you through all this shit? Why would she call you and say she’s sorry? Why would she say she knows it’s her fault when she’s drunk? Why would she say you wanna fuck other people when you don’t fuck no one? She knows that. She’s admitted what she does. But here’s the thing, baby: she’s at the center of all this shit. Every time she does any of this shit, she’s hurting herself. She sits at home, and sometimes she don’t call you. She thinks this shit. She feels bad. Sometimes, she knows she’s wrong, but sometimes, she’s so upset that she can’t admit what she done. She blames you, and she know it ain’t your fault. Imagine how bad she gotta be hurting to come up with all this shit. She was suggesting you see other people and pretending you ain’t together when you’re apart just to deal with it. That shit’s crazy. Who does that? Why would someone do that? She ain’t happy.”

“I know,” Joey said.

“I know,” Mae said.

“Isn’t there a way? I mean, what if she did go to therapy? If she’s hurting, too, shouldn’t she get some help? For her sake!”

“Ain’t no ‘should,’ really. I mean, yeah, maybe, but that’s for her to decide. If she thinks she should—if she decides that she loves herself, that she wants to feel better, that she wants shit to work or even just to stop fuckin’ up her life—then maybe she’ll do it. But, you know, there’s no guarantee. She might go or she might not, but even if she does, she might be too embarrassed. She might figure all this shit out, but only after making a lot of mistakes with other people, and by then, she might not remember what happened. She might just remember some vague idea about how you were bad for her or something, not remember it was her who sabotaged shit. You don’t get to decide, honey. She can choose to be miserable if she wants to. It’s stupid and it sucks, but that’s what it is.”

Joey responded, “You know, she’s the one who suggested that we see other people. And I didn’t do shit with no one. I wasn’t perfect, but I tried. And, the difference between her and me is that I at least apologized and I’m working on my shit. I know I ain’t perfect, but I’m trying. How many times have I apologized to her? She made me believe all this shit is my fault. I only just realized it ain’t all my fault. She tricked me, somehow. How many days and nights did I sit in here, crying, wishing, begging, buying her gifts, apologizing for no reason? I mean, not no reason at all. I did things that pissed her off, too, and she coulda broken up with me for any of those, but she doesn’t even talk about them anymore. That’s not the shit that bothers her. The shit that bothers her is some shit she made up. I mean, she talks about how I talked to that Canadian girl when we were on a break, and she’s all mad about that, but she slept over at Steven’s house like a day or two after she said she wouldn’t do shit with anyone until after I got there and left at least. She says I cheated on her for texting someone, but she says she didn’t fuck this dude but just kissed him and slept at his place. He had a girlfriend at the time, too. I know you know this shit, but I’m just fuckin’ pissed. I’m sorry.”

Mae closed her eyes and shook her head.

Joey continued, “She talks about how she’s mad I went out with those people in Temple, but she told me it was okay. It’s all bullshit. She knows that. And, I forgave all this shit. She can’t forgive me, but there’s nothing to forgive. Should I not forgive her? But, I do forgive her!”

“Joey, I know. I’m so sorry, baby, but there ain’t shit you can really do. You’re better off moving past all this. At least for now. Maybe after a while, she’ll decide that she wants to do better for herself and the people around her, but all you can do is wait. I know that ain’t easy.”

“Move past it? Move past it how? What does that mean?”

Mae shifted her hips and slowly, intentionally drew air in through her nose. She exhaled, saying, “I don’t know, baby, but this ain’t doing you no good. She ain’t gonna be with you right now, and I think that’s for the best. You probably don’t wanna hear that. I get that, but what can you do? She’s bullshittin’, and it ain’t ’cause you’re wrong. I mean, maybe she thinks she’s mad at you, but how many times has she done some shit like this? You’re her first love—her first real relationship. She fucked other people only when she knew they were shippin’ out because she’s scared of commitment. That’s the truth. You’re the first person she ever let herself get close to. How many times is she gonna sabotage your relationship—and her own happiness!—before she decides she’s gonna stop runnin’? What’s she lookin’ for? Some perfection that she don’t even come close to? That ain’t it. And she’s already shown she can forgive your faults; what she can’t forgive is her own fear. She’s scared of lovin’ you, honey. She don’t wanna be hurt by you. That ain’t your fault, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. She has to decide that she wants to love herself and be good to herself and the people around her.”

Like the water down the glass, a trail ran down Joey’s cheek, ending in a glob of salty tear. “It ain’t fair,” she said. “It ain’t fair that you can love someone, they can love you back, but that person’s scared of that love, and you can’t be together.”

They sat in silence for a moment, long enough to be reminded of the roar of the locusts outside.

“I love her. I wanna be with her. She wants to be with me. She told me the other night she don’t wanna be with no one but she wants to be with me. I don’t even know what that really means, but she said it. She said she knows it’s not all my fault. She admitted that she ended things for no good reason, that she’s just scared. She was drunk, though, like I told you. It ain’t fair. I’m here everyday thinking how I love her so much and she loves me, and I can’t make her do what she has to do in order to be good to herself and to be happy with me. What am I supposed to do?”

“You’re right, Joey. It ain’t fair, and ain’t shit you can do. That’s just the way it is, sometimes. You can keep loving her, but you gotta move on for now. You can’t do shit about it, honey.”

“And then, she finally calls me sober after all these months, and she says it’s all my fault. And now, she won’t even talk to me.”

“Joey, honey, you don’t deserve this shit. Just be good enough to yourself to let it go. You gonna be okay.”

Joey didn’t feel it. She wasn’t so sure. She thought Mae was right, but from her perspective, it hardly seemed that anything could be okay. She worried about Alex, her now-former lover. She was mad at her, but she mostly wanted Alex to hold her and to commit to working through things. The not knowing was the hardest part.

Closing Circles, pt. 2

Driving solitaire—winding highways
snow-swept pinnacles,
gripped in grey layers of wool and goosedown,
sweating, surrounded,
enveloped in ice,
mauve skies, cacao shadows cast down—
fifty-foot pines—contemplating
a tiny grandmother losing her hearing,
a helpless girl, left alone,

consequences of a battered barrier—
iron and fiberglass, tumbling, tumbling,
tumbling, flames flickering on the side of a snow-
smothered chunk of rock and ice.

Closing Circles, pt. 1

Some days, the ground
disappears beneath my feet,
and I smell pines, and
clouds caress my cheeks,
and my skin glistens in
the warmth of a generous
celestial being a billion miles away, and
everything on Earth is in
some realm that I fail to apprehend.

I no longer desire to be
apprehended. Glycerine slides in fits and
starts, over choppy terrain—a weathered
face—cutting a new path from each time
I’ve known before, identical to countless
twirls of this same universe.

Today, I Believe in God, Part Four: Vessels Adrift

Pt. 1
Pt. 2
Pt. 3

Forgive me. This is a bit dumb, but I wanted to write it down so that I can try to remember it. Bear with me. Or don’t. I mean, I don’t wanna bother anyone. Not that anyone does or should read this. Anyway…

I’ve been having this terrible feeling. It’s like these spiny, smoky phantasms have been creeping around in the background, and they took some toxic something and poured it right into my soul. I don’t know what that means. I realize that I was wrong to judge Lily, though. Maybe sometimes we judge people to protect ourselves, but that doesn’t make us right. Not that it makes us wrong, but I also don’t think that it really makes sense to judge people. Doesn’t it say way more about us than about anyone else? That’s why I feel guilty again.

I find it easy to blame people. I do it all the time. When someone does something that’s different from how I’d do it, I think that they’re immoral or stupid or unfair or unthinking or something. Of course they have their reasons and of course they’re either thinking about what they’re doing or they’re just too stressed out to think. We all know that feeling when we’re all jittery and insomniac and our skin feels like it doesn’t fit us right and it feels like we’re not supposed to be in this world right now. Well, at least, that’s how I feel. I guess other people feel it, too, but maybe not everybody. But like I was saying, when I’m uncomfortable, I blame someone for it. If someone does something and I feel hurt, I assume it’s because they shouldn’t have done what they did. It’s easy to decide with a heavy index finger that someone should be held to my standard, but that doesn’t make sense, does it. It’s harder to come to the conclusion that, for weird reasons, I feel bad, and I’d probably be better off if I figured out what that was about and if I figured out how to deal with it.

To anyone not as stupid as I am, this’ll all be obvious. Sorry.

Sometimes men do this. Sometimes women do it. Sometimes non-binary people do it. White people, black people, Asians, etc. But, I don’t think that people are wrong when they point out that straight, white, cisgender men tend to act violent and entitled. It feels unfair. I hate it. I feel the disgust in someone’s shoulders or the way they avoid looking at me or how they say as few words as necessary if I say something or ask a question. It makes me feel alone. But that’s also unfair of me. I think everyone’s emotionally insecure and all that. I mean, I’m those things—all those things: male, white, straight, violent, entitled. I’m sorry. I don’t ever wanna hurt anyone. Maybe we all are those things, but for some reason, we seem to breed these men to act this way, and so I guess that’s part of why I act this way. Hopefully, I’m not too bad.

I’m back at school. It felt like I’d be in Europe forever (I managed to get outside Europe a little bit, but that’s not the point), but I’m back in reality now. It’s so weird and complicated. Sometimes, people don’t trust me and it makes me feel bad, but people probably look down at, and dismiss, people for being different from how I am more often than people look down at me, so I guess I shouldn’t blame people. I mean, I don’t know what anyone’s going through. If I lived everything that someone else did, why would I think that I’d make a different choice from them?

So, why did I treat Lily this way? Well, I guess it’s because, really, I’m in love with her. I mean, there are a lot of songs about love and movies about love and even books about love. So many. So many! But, I’ve felt some love before, and I don’t know if it felt like a book or a movie. Sometimes, pretty close, but how do you write a feeling? How do you show a feeling? I can’t reach into you and put a feeling there and you can’t, either. What I noticed about Lily is that I did the thing I always do. I did this violence. I strangled and suffocated and killed the lifeforce in our relationship. I’m not saying that she was perfect. You’ll remember my complaints about Lily, but weren’t they so petty? Why was I mad? I was mad because I love her. If I could point out what, to me, appear something like imperfections, then maybe it’s not all my fault. I think that secretly (to others, but more importantly, to myself), I tend to blame myself for everything. Not exactly. I just have this eyeless little bug that sits in the back of my brain and it just slowly gnaws and drools back there, and all it does is constantly convinces me that I might be judged and I might be blamed and I might be wrong. In the end, it’s like I’m not good enough for anything. But, I was good enough for Lily. That’s why she was with me, you know? She chose to be with me. She made her choice, and for her, it was right. I decided that I wasn’t good enough for her. Sometimes, she was confusing and sometimes she was unfair. But, you know, everyone is those things sometimes. It’s not her fault. It’s not my fault. Sometimes, it’s okay to let someone be a bit childish. She can be pretty childish, but that’s just my opinion. Maybe I’m doing it again. I mean, it’s not even any of my business. The thing is that I want to be with her and I always wanted to be with her, but I was stubborn and proud because I was scared. I felt alone and I felt guilty for just existing. I felt that she would definitely leave me. I made her decision for her without even realizing. I feel a bit stupid for it, but that doesn’t help.

No one’s perfect. Lily’s not perfect. I’m not perfect. But also, everyone and everything just are. Maybe that makes them perfect. I often think about this YouTube video I watched of some British guy from the seventies. I think he basically says that everyone’s already perfect always. That sounds weird, but when I think about it, it feels right. We sometimes do things that aren’t helpful or that are inconvenient or whatever. We’re all neurotic, sometimes. We all get distracted. I let my doubts distract me. I need to love myself. I was unfair to Lily and I kept her from having the relationship that she wanted to have with me.

I keep writing about God. For a second, I wanted to do something dumb, like I’d ask for God to intercede or I’d say that we’re all God together or something like that. Maybe that’s all true. I dunno. Do I believe in God? People ask me this more often than you might think. I think about it. I ask myself. If there’s a God maybe God shows herself most clearly in the spaces between two people, especially when they feel that indescribable vulnerability that we call “love.” I want God to be like that, and when God is like that, it’s really that God is giving us the gift of allowing us to give to each other. I want to give to Lily, but maybe I fucked it up and maybe it’s never coming back. There was something so warm between us. I really think that we do respect each other and admire each other. I really think that we both want what’s best for us. Maybe she’s mad at me, too. Maybe she’s frustrated and maybe she feels betrayed. She wouldn’t be wrong to feel that way, would she? Maybe she feels a bit insecure and a bit guilty. Our relationship didn’t work, and it’s always sad to sit along the shore and watch a vessel slowly char and wave around and topple over as the ashes and the fumes spread around, eventually dispersing until there’s nothing recognizable left. To me, that’s what it felt like between Lily and me. What happened to the transcendent, beautiful gift that we occupied together? Where is that thing? It’s never coming back, but I’d like to build a better boat if I could. I watch her from a distance, I cry, I wish, I pray. I feel guilt, I mourn. I hope and I hang my head.

I wrote this about blame, but it’s really about guilt. I want to change my name. Joey is dead. I want to have no name. Everyday I’m a different person, but I want to have this familiar soul beside me. No one could be for me what she is, and I don’t want anyone to be something else for me. I just want to learn to forgive myself and to show her that I can be patient and that I can give her the kind of love we all deserve. We’re all broken a little bit, and I just want to secrete for her the little bit of glue that can help to hold her together when she’s mad at me because she’s mad at herself because she’s mad at her dad from when she was eight or whatever. I mean, who knows how these things work? I just want to be good to myself and to be good to her. I want to work with her and to come up with strategies for how we can be good to each other.

But, I guess that can’t be. Not right now. I have to accept that and it’s so hard. I’m back at school and it’s hard to focus. I just want to talk to her about all of this. For hours and hours. I want to know why she’s mad at me. I want to tell her why I’m mad at myself. I want to hear what I did wrong. I want us to talk about what we can do to behave differently. I’m just going around in circles now. I just wish that things were different.

Today, I Believe in God, Part Two: Shores that Circle the Ocean

Pt. 1

He referred to me as “chaff on fertile ground” or maybe it was “grain on barren ground.” I can’t even remember, anymore. He once said that I was a rebel without a clue. I guess he was right because I didn’t even know what he meant by that, but I liked it, anyway. I still don’t really know what he meant. I still like it, anyway.

I went and saw a band play last night. It was this chillwave band and they had this funny name about a Middle Eastern burlesque troupe or something. I thought it was funny, anyway. My friend told me it’s postmodern. He kept laughing and referring to absurd things as “late capitalism,” and he sounded so pretentious. He calls himself a communist, though.

His name’s Hendrik. I mean, I call him a friend. I don’t know what counts. He’s very warm, sometimes, but he’s scared, too. I see it. He has big brown eyes that are yellowish around the edges and sometimes they’re greenish. They look like olives and it’s very interesting because he’s German. Well, I guess he’s German. Maybe one of his parents is from further South. I didn’t ask. He goes back and forth between being like that—all concerned about how he looks and his phone and stuff like that—and just being really touchy and genuinely kind. Sometimes, it’s so nice, and sometimes, you remember the other way and it grosses you out a little. You know that feeling you get like your intestines are trying to crawl into your neck? Why do we all have to be so fake? There’s always this little distance. I never really trust anyone. I feel like my mom could eat my baby if it came down to it. Not that I have a baby. I’ve barely had sex. I mean, I’ve had sex—don’t get me wrong—but what I really mean is that it feels like everything’s a competition and everyone’s trying to survive but survival means having a nice apartment and a BMW. People who drive BMWs are almost always assholes. I heard that somewhere. I wonder if it’s true.

There was my friend in New York, though. I mean, I had sex with her. We were more than friends. Were, I say. That was a weird thing and I don’t know how I feel about it. Actually, I do know, but I feel a little guilty for it. The thing is that we had a falling out. Well, I just blocked her on social media is the thing. She sent me an email, but I didn’t read it. The email keeps staring at me and I stare back, but then, there are other emails, so I just open those emails and I click on other tabs. But to be honest, I blocked Lily, so why is she emailing me? Maybe that’s why I’m mad at her in the first place. Not that I’m mad at her. The thing is that I realized how fake she is. I mean, everyone’s fake. Like I said, maybe I shouldn’t be mad at her. And really, I’m not. I’m just upset. And, that means that it’s me that I’m upset with. I know that. I’ve had a lot going on this semester. Anyway, she does this thing that I just find really upsetting.

Sometimes, we’ll get into an argument, and you know, I try and incorporate this Zapatista thing that we learned in class: “Caminamos al paso del más lento,” which means, “We walk at the pace of the slowest.” Basically, if you see that someone needs help, you help them. And, you always be on the lookout. Well, we were talking about this thing and she always just gets mad at me and rolls her eyes. Maybe not mad. It’s worse, actually. She gets annoyed. She assumes that I’m wrong and she just doesn’t respect what I have to say. She doesn’t respect me, which is weird to me. So, she just ends up attacking me and then shutting down the conversation. It seems to me a bit like if someone punched you in the face and then ran away and asked you for a truce, saying that they get overwhelmed and can’t deal with it. What does that even mean? Like, why did you even yell at me in the first place if you were just going to be unfair about it? If you couldn’t handle it, why say anything? Well, not yell, but that’s what it feels like. I dunno. I don’t blame her. It’s just annoying.

Anyway, I was thinking about it and what I noticed is that these things that she cares about are so fake. Like, she only dates other activists, and she wants to live with activists and she wants to run a school, but up in New York. She grew up always around this intentional community and she loves it and it’s basically all her friends, so all her friends that she makes are in these activist spaces, but she doesn’t actually care about anything except for feminism and the environment. It’s just so hypocritical. Like, she’s this rich white girl who grew up with good parents and has good siblings and they’re all nice to one another and they own a business and the dad’s a professor and some of them meditate together, sometimes. Really. Like, somehow, people are supposed to look at her and come to the conclusion that she has some moral authority when all she wants to do is hang out with her white friends in Greenwich Village and deliver soup in recycled containers from the mountaintops of New York and we’re supposed to applaud or something. I don’t need friends like that. Her stockings have holes in them. So postmodern. Okay, I’m being mean. Sorry.

Okay, but here’s what happened. The thing was that she was all for Bernie, right? Like, we were all for Bernie. She was really critical of Hillary and we’d had some discussions about it, but then Bernie lost. We were all sad about it, but I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in a few weeks, and suddenly, she was saying how great Hillary was and how Hillary was going to win and how she was #imwithher. I was pretty surprised. I pointed out how there were real problems with Hillary that we should pay attention to. For some reason, she just kinda blew up at me. She talked about how she’s tired of white men telling her how she should think, but that wasn’t what I meant at all. All our mutual friends came to her defense (they’re girls), which is fine, but for some reason, I was surprised that they had to take her side instead of just trying to mediate or something. I mean, I wasn’t mean to her, but she was mean to me, and they took her side. I feel like I was right. I’m not saying that she was wrong, but why am I the bad guy? Anyway, I was a bit heartbroken that Lily was saying these things about Hillary, but I wasn’t trying to tell her how to think. I understand what she meant, but I don’t know why she acted like that. I felt a bit betrayed, even though I realize that wasn’t her intention. At one point, some stranger (to me, I mean; maybe not to Lilly; I dunno) joined in the conversation, and I pointed out how Clinton had been the most corrupt politician in American history, and this other person said that’s absolutely not true. I just said that I’d read that from this Intersectional Feminist blog I read, anyway. Maybe the author was wrong. I dunno. Something about money laundering and dictators and FGM and child soldiers. I’m sorry. That’s super-intense, but it’s just what I read. Don’t blame me. It ended with this other acquaintance of ours saying how people criticizing Hillary were just misogynists and people who want dramatic change just shouldn’t be taken seriously. I wanted to tell her about the Zapatistas, but I didn’t.

The other day, on Lily’s Facebook profile photo, I saw this photo of her looking into the camera with this big, genuinely happy grin on her face, and there was this quotation superimposed: “Vulnerable people get silenced too often. We have to fight to let them be heard.” In all fairness, maybe people wouldn’t view me as vulnerable. I get that, but that’s pretty hypocritical, right? She randomly attacks me and all her friends gang up on me, and she just lets that happen. The other thing is that I was going to be the Secretary in our Feminist group, but Lily’s the President, so she got her friends to agree to kick me out of the position. Well, that’s what it seems like happened. I can’t be sure why they started asking me to give the position to this other girl. It’s weird. Anyway, it’s a good photo of her. Sometimes, when people look directly into the camera it looks so weird and creepy. It almost looks good, but this little thing makes it so uncomfortable. It makes me feel a little sick. But, Lily looks very earnest and kind in that photo. Sometimes, I think of her that way. She can be very generous and sweet, but not in a sorority kind of way or a Georgia kind of way (I mean the state, not the country).

Someone once said to me that the wisest thing someone can do is to observe without making any assessment. For a long time, I figured I should remember that, and then I decided that I didn’t know why I should remember it. I realized that I’m not always good at letting things be how they are, and whenever I realized that, it gained some importance to me. I just think about it, sometimes. That’s how it is with Lily. I don’t know if you know it, but there’s this sad Nick Drake song and I really don’t know it all that well, but this one line always stuck with me—something like Some day our ocean will find its shore. Lily makes me think of that, but in weird ways. Her hair is like an ocean. Her eyes are, too, but in a different way. Even her nose, which is weird, I guess. She feels vast to me. I like her vastness. Anyway, maybe our ocean found its shore, but mine’s off the coast of Lisboa or Normandy or something, but hers is in stupidass New York.

She wants to live in New York for her whole life and always be around people who are just like her and who she’s always lived around. She describes herself as an activist, but she’s never really left the comfort of everything she’s ever known. She’s as active as a dog that never leaves its front porch. That’s how much she cares, even if she knows all the liberal jargon and whatever. She’s willing to save the world, so long as the world comes to her front door, so long as the world looks like and behaves like all her closest friends, and so long as the world doesn’t demand that she sacrifice or do anything difficult. I love her, but isn’t that a bit immature? She’s three months older than I am, but I still think that’s pretty immature. Maybe I’m being the immature one. It’s not like I’m saying all this to her. I’m just upset, so I’m saying it to you. Which is me. I can say it to myself. I forgive myself. I guess I don’t if I have to say it. Oh, well.

She once told me, “Never say more than you have to. But, absolutely always say what you absolutely have to.” I think that makes a lot of sense. I don’t think I’m very good at either, though.

Enough about that, though. I did this super weird thing. I’m still in Europe, you know. Yeah, it’s that time of that year (if you’re looking back at all this or whatever). I decided to just travel around a bit. I’d missed my flight back home, but honestly, I think I did that on purpose. So, what I decided to do was to just travel around by train. I’d never ridden a train. The next train was going from Paris all the way to Vienna, so I went there, but when I got there, it was such a rainy day that I just decided to leave Vienna and the next train from there went to Belgrade. This is super weird. I just decided to go to Belgrade. I was in Belgrade for a few days and it was interesting. Everyone was really grumpy and they seemed to hate me as soon as I spoke English to them, but I don’t really speak any other language. I took some Italian in high school because it was required and I figured everyone takes Spanish. But, I don’t really know Italian well, so it’s not like I could communicate with Serbians by speaking Italian.

Well, there’s this other city in Serbia called Novi Sad, so I just decided to go there and I got in another train. This train is easily the oldest train I’ve ever been on, I’m sure (but like I said, I’d never really been on a train, so maybe more important is that it seemed to be the oldest train I’d ever seen [except maybe the ones they put in museums or spaghetti restaurants]). I’d guess that it was fifty years old. It was very rickety and creaky. The whole time, I felt like it was going to fall apart. There was this girl sitting in this train car that I walked onto. I’ve never really hit on a girl, but she reminded me so much of the only girl I ever really dated—my first love and only love—the one who broke my heart as a starry-eyed, naïve, stupid teenager (I guess maybe I’m still that, but I’m just trying to impress upon you what this is all like). Lily isn’t my first love, by the way. Maybe I love Lily, but it’s not the same. Anyway, this traingirl seemed very gentle and quirky and she was very pretty to me, but not in your conventional way. She had very short hair and I don’t think she was wearing makeup, but I’m no expert, so maybe she was just going for the subtle look or whatever. She was wearing this little sundress, and it was like it matched all the flowers and corn and mountains outside. That’s dumb, I guess, but it really felt that way. She and I kept looking at each other “accidentally.” I had picked a seat right across from her, and after a while, I decided that what I’d do is write this note to her. It was something like “This is very reductive and stupid and unfair, but you give me a very spiritual vibe and I think that I’d like to get to know you, if you wanted. Also, I think you’re pretty, but in a natural way. I don’t think that’s an important thing. It’s not nearly as important as whether or not we’re just humans who could connect with each other, but it’s also true, so I thought I should say it.” And then, I put my name and email address. So, I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she spoke English. I could tell right away that she was a little shocked. I told her that this was very strange and I was sorry if I’d startled her, but that I’d written her a note and if she didn’t mind, I’d like to give it to her. She looked at me in this understated—but kind of terrified—look and took the note and said, “Okay,” and she put the note in her pocket. I guess there might’ve been a better way to have done that, or maybe it’s too objectifying or reductive no matter what. I don’t really know. I guess it’s either a good experience or a good story. Someone told me that once. It sounds like something that someone from rural Missouri might say with a toothy grin, but that might mean that it’s basically true or at least wise or something.

Pt. 3

Pt. 4

Fear and Trembling

Hugo is shaking. He’s not yet aware of how he’s feeling, but he’ll become more aware and it’ll increase his anxiety and self-consciousness. He’ll question himself, thinking that there’s something wrong with him; he’ll want to know what’s wrong with him, and he’ll realize that he doesn’t have an answer except to think that he seems to exist. Sometimes, Hugo questions even his existence. He’s right to do so, but his reasons are the wrong ones. His questioning of his existence is merely a distortion of the problem, if we assume that there’s legitimately a problem.

Hugo’s paternal grandmother—”Nanny,” he calls her—has always had a tremor. She’s an old, displaced Connecticutian, full of Catholic sanctimony and guilt to go with an air of undeserved superiority over her fellow Southern military townies. So Hugo’s mom always said that he got his anxiety from “the other side’s kin.”

How is this happening? What did I do? Again? It’s not the same. But Hugo’s not exactly right. In fact, each time has been different from the last. Hugo’s not reliving the same nightmare; he’s forming escalated spirals in a chaotic universe, spewing entropic residue over unwarned experiences of relatively innocent witnesses. It’s the unmitigated, perpetually deepening tragedy that’s Hugo’s recent life.

It’s getting worse. There you go, Hugo.

Hugo stands, unpresent, his eyes fixed staring forward, failing to see anything, as his thoughts take over his mind. Metacognition is a hell of a drug, and Hugo’s not exactly going to meetings.

Hugo’s head rotates uniformly toward his right shoulder, his jaw stuck and unhinged. He looks up slightly, quickly snapping his down head into his hands before shrinking into a fetus behind the old, rust-colored couch, his feet bent at a 45-degree angle. It’s like an awkward imitation of a Michael Jackson music video.

Smack! Smack! Smack! Hugo’s arms flail as his legs redden beneath his pants, vaguely forming handprints on his thighs, like Elementary School students’ craft projects meant to look like Thanksgiving turkeys.

Rarely in Hugo’s life has he been physically violent, despite his tendency to be consumed by anxiety and insecurity to a point prohibitive to consideration of others. Rarely, Hugo had engaged in self-harm or bursts of violence thoughtlessly directed at himself. It was reactionary, as though he had been calibrating his external world to coincide with his inner self.

Once, in middle school, Hugo had been sick for a few days when a kid had ridiculed him for the last time. Hugo grabbed the kid by his shirt and ran him down the row of desks, before ending at the wall, saying, “Please stop being such a jerk!” The substitute teacher who was in class that day felt baffled and helpless: What do I do now? But Hugo and the other boy weren’t a problem for the rest of the class period.

Today, Hugo’s propensity for self-harm, like his ever-graduating neurosis and ill mental health, is growing, promising to test the limits of Hugo’s masochism.

Monsters

Hugo was walking back and forth along the floor, unwittingly causing the wood to creak as he stepped. “First, I find a song that strikes something in me. Or, you know, not always. I mean, I feel like I could sample anything, really. Maybe not anything. I dunno.”

“You always start with a sample?” James asked.

“No, not always. I don’t have to. I’d say I do it half the time? No. Maybe like two thirds of the time. You know, it all depends.” Hugo spoke more loudly than normal. He smiled a lot and gesticulated in big, flowing motions.

After some quick, careful consideration, Hugo’s eyes got big and he snapped his fingers. Snap! “You know, I get into these moods. Every six months or so, I go back and listen to my beats and they all sound like shit. I mean, not all of them, but most of them, and usually there are obvious things that I was consistently doing wrong. There’s so much to this, you know? You have to learn so many things, but there are also so many ways to do it.”

“I see,” James said. He gently grinned.

“Like, I’ve learned all these styles. What I really try to do is to take the best and beat them at their own style.”

“Beat them? Like who?”

“Well, you know—”

“I don’t know. Who are your favorites? Who do you most admire?”

“Dr. Dre, J Dilla, Flying Lotus—”

James’s back straightened. “Wait! You mean to tell me you try to outdo those guys?!”

“Well, I’m not saying that I’m better than them!”

“Hugo, you’re fucking crazy, man.”

“Whatever. I’m just trying to do my best. I mean, my beats are pretty good.”

“Hugo, I constantly hear you working on them. Honestly, it makes me a little crazy, but I don’t complain because I want you to feel good about something. They’re good. You’re not Dr. Dre.”

Hugo’s neck and back lengthened. “I know that! Look, I’m not a narcissist.”

“UMM…”

Hugo glared at James. His voice lowered. “Look. I think that if I just knew how to market these things, I could make a career making beats.”

“You think so? Why don’t you market them?”

“It’s just not my thing. It’s boring. I like making beats. I’m not a salesperson.”

“Sure.”

“Well, I also don’t have all the tools, you know? And I could use some training. I could grow so much faster if I were properly trained. There are things that I know need work.”

“Sure.”

“But my beats are pretty good!”

“They’re pretty good, Hugo. Maybe you’re right.”

“I dunno. I think so. Who knows?”

“Maybe I could find some way to help you or to get someone to help you.”

“Yeah! That’d be great! We could work together, Jim!”

“Yeah.”

Hugo plopped into the recliner across from Jams. James was sitting on the old, decrepit couch, not moving, before his body stiffened and he grew erect: “Hey, you know Michelle called.”

“Called?”

“On the house phone. I guess you gave Michelle my number?”

“Really? I didn’t even know we had a house phone.”

“Oh. Well, Michelle called.” James turned his head toward Hugo. “Well, who’s Michelle?”

“I wonder why she called. She’s an ex. I keep thinking that she hates me, but she never really seems to hate me.”

“Why do you think she hates you?”

“Maybe I don’t. I dunno. I’m just scared. I get scared.” The distance between Hugo’s irises widened, as though he were looking far off into the distance, far past the wall that impeded his view. “We had a pretty good relationship. The end was really stupid and it was all my fault, but I didn’t fuck it up. Well, no. I did fuck it up, but not in my usual way.

“I mean, I didn’t cause a giant disaster. I just walked away. I kind of just ignored her. I think I started dating someone else. I’m sure that happened. I don’t know why I would’ve intentionally chosen loneliness. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, she was so good to me and she was really into me. For some reason, she really seemed to forgive me and to understand me.”

“So why’d you end it?”

Hugo cocked his head to the side, his neck stiff like a branch that had broken and fallen at an angle from a tree after a storm. He enveloped his head and neck with his bent arm as he massaged the back of his neck with his fingers. “I don’t really know. It was too perfect or something. I remember that she’d made fun of me for some little stupid thing. I don’t remember what it was. It was entirely innocent and I was just being stupid. I knew it at the time, but I couldn’t avoid this terrible feeling. It was like my whole body was some toxic element. I would shake, you know? You know how sometimes my hands quiver?”

“I thought that was just when you were hungover.”

Hugo’s neck straightened as he looked at James. “Yeah. Well, not just.” He looked toward the floor. “She’d made this stupid joke, and I felt like she was gonna leave me. I’d always felt like she’d leave me, but this was like a big, meaty corpse on the pile of reasons why I was scared she’d leave me.”

“You’re such a poet.”

“Well, I’d always been scared of her, and then she’d said this thing.”

“But why were you scared that she’d leave you?”

“I dunno, man. It’s just how I am. I’m scared that you’ll leave me, but not as scared and I don’t care as much about it. No offense.”

“No, no.” James’s mouth formed a downward-facing crescent.

“It’s just—I dunno. All the women eventually leave. My mom always left. She started leaving me when I was very small. I’d cry for her, to her, wanting her. All the time. When I was like two or three, I’d cry for what felt like hours at her bedroom door. I’d lay on the ground and shove my squishy little child hands under the door and wiggle my fingers. But it didn’t stop there. I did that for a while, but even as I got older, I’d go to my room and I’d cry for what felt like hours. I’d run away. Well, I wouldn’t really, but I’d try to. I’d announce that I was gonna, but no one cared. My mom would insult me and tell me that she couldn’t wait ’til I was old enough for her to be forever done with having to deal with me. She wanted to abandon me in a more absolute way. When I was really small, at one point, I even—or maybe it was at several points; I don’t remember—well, I basically intimated to her that I was feeling suicidal. Of course, I did it in a bratty, shitty way, and I think I was just kinda copying It’s a Wonderful Life, but you know her response?”

James slowly responded, his face like clay, “Tell me, Hugo.”

“She basically just defended herself. I told her I wished I’d never been born, and she just blamed me for what was going on, yelling at me, and she walked into her room, crying, leaving me stunned, shocked! I went to my room, and felt even more alone.”

“And you didn’t kill yourself.”

Hugo stared into James’s eyes. “I didn’t kill myself. But everyone leaves me, James. I’m the common denominator. I realize that. Whether the situation’s abusive or healthy or whatever. And when it seems too good to be true, maybe I don’t want to go so far down the rabbit hole that it’s completely traumatic when they finally do leave, so I guess I’m fucked. I can never be with someone who’s good to me. I guess I can’t really be with anyone.”

Hugo and James sat, silently in thought, not looking at each other.

Hugo suddenly started speaking, again, loudly: “But it’s not like I’m an angel, and I don’t trust my choices in women.”

“I’ll say.”

“You remember that girl I told you about?”

“Yeah. I mean, well, which one?”

“Damn, James. This shit was really awful. I was thinking about it the other day.”

James slapped his hands on his knees. He looked like a king in the wrong chair. “Hugo, who are you talking about? What are you talking about?”

“You know that time it got really bad?”

“Okay, Hugo.”

Hugo stared at James for a moment, his mouth agape. “Well, she would kind of verbally assault me and then run away. When I would respond, she would act as though I’d done something terrible to her. She’d tell me that she knew that she was a monster, but the moment anything happened between us, she would cry to her whole family and every friend about how I was abusing her.

“This was actually the girl who’d raped me.”

“Raped you? And quit saying ‘girl.’ But rape? Did she penetrate you?”

“No.”

“Then, don’t call it rape, Hugo. That’s kinda fucked up.”

“Whatever, man. I said, ‘No,’ she didn’t respect it, she forced me inside her. It doesn’t matter. It’s not germane to the story.”

“Fine.”

“You see, she would erupt in these very short-lived fits of rage, manipulation, and abuse, but then she would want to run away. I eventually began to insult her. I said terrible things. I became terrified of what I’d become, the things I’d started to say.

“It seemed to me like she viewed herself as a victim. I mean, this much was clear. I think that what really happened was that I started to view her as a victim. She couldn’t see herself being empowered. We’d talk about how she might view herself differently, but she would resist: ‘It’s not that easy.’ Well, maybe it wasn’t, but she didn’t want to try, either. She was more comfortable being the victim, so eventually I gave her what she wanted until she became the ultimate victim in some sense.

“I don’t mean that I killed her.”

“I know, but I also don’t think that’s ‘what she wanted.'”

“I guess you’re right.”Hugo’s mouth went sideways. “She started talking about how we were Twin Flames. In some way, she was encouraged by the abuse we both experienced. She was giddy about it. So I think I just complied with this idea of abuse, while also proclaiming that I wanted to marry her. I really did want to marry her, but I was also terrified of what we’d become.

“I guess we both thought that the intensity meant something other than that we loved each other and that we were intense people, abusing each other. I guess we were both really monsters.”

Verities and Vestiges

I could feel Charlie staring at me, but I didn’t dare to look. When she looks at me like that, it really freaks me out. It’s like she ceases to be a living, breathing, real human. You know when you can feel what someone else is feeling? Other people talk about this, they talk about people’s energies, or at least I guess that’s what they mean. Well anyway, when someone’s really losing control, when they’re about to get real crazy, sometimes I pick up on something. There’s a static in the room and it feels like something Teslan, like anything could happen, only that it won’t likely be good.

Mostly, I was just trying to not look at her. I was trying to ignore her. She was just staring at me. We’d fought a good deal, recently, and the arguments were getting worse. This was the part where the prospective long-term life partner becomes frustrated with me and decides that I’m not worth all this bullshit. I hate this part. It’s uncomfortable for me and they always make it so complicated.

At some point, I was just staring at the wall when I realized that I was staring at the wall and, then, I was intentionally staring at the wall, following the cracks or just looking at it stupidly, as though I was completely mindless.

I ignored Charlie’s incessant fidgeting. This is how they get when it gets like this. At some point — well, not all, but some — some of them get really anxious and fidgety and I get scared that I’m gonna get smacked by some uncontrolled appendage. Chill out. Don’t hit me, you spazz. I’m always thinking stupid things like that when I get in this position.

But, you know, I couldn’t even blame Charlie for this. In fact, I’m experienced in this sort of thing and maybe she’s never dealt with something as ridiculous as this. The thing is that no one ever understands anyone else. Most people don’t understand themselves. Maybe no one does. I certainly don’t. And Charlie doesn’t understand me. Why would she? Why should she? She wouldn’t. No one would.

She was making me anxious. I suddenly became aware of my heartbeat; my whole body was pulsing — no, thumping — thumping against nothing, thumping against itself. God! Now, my heart was beating even faster. What’s wrong with me? Whenever this happens, I feel like I should call a doctor, but I’ve survived through this so many times now. I don’t want to be dramatic. At least, I don’t want anyone to realize how dramatic I am.

And for some reason, I made the idiotic decision to look over at her. I could see it all in her face, all this pain, all this frustration. She’s mad at me, but more than that, she’s disappointed. I’ve wronged her and I should be ashamed. She’s just standing there, staring directly at me. She’s so mad at me. Why is she mad? Does she even know?

That’s the funny thing about being someone like me. By this point, I’ve seen this patterned behavior so many times that I know what it looks like, even if my unsuspecting, undeserving victims have no idea what they’re feeling at all. It becomes so easy for me to divert attention from what I did wrong and to cast doubt. That’s so shitty, but it’s just true.

I almost jumped when she suddenly made a sound, “Are you gonna say something?” She was speaking so strangely, so uncomfortably.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I dunno. You could apologize. You could explain yourself. Anything would be better than you just standing there with your mouth open.”

She was visibly uncomfortable. She sarcastically looked at the wall with me, as though she didn’t realize there was nothing there to look at. She was annoyed and she wanted to punish me now. I couldn’t blame her.

But I was annoyed by her question and I didn’t wanna answer it. So slowly, I forced myself to play along. “I’m sorry that we’re here, doing this. I’m sorry that I upset you. I have no idea what I did, though. I want to figure this out, but I don’t understand what’s happening and I wish you would tell me.”

I knew it instantly. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I said the wrong thing. You’d think I could figure out how to respond to these situations by now, but I always fuck it up.

Charlie kept spazzing out. At one point, I thought that she might come toward me, but her nerves ensured that she returned to the position she’d been in before.

I found myself remembering the first time I ever bloviated in Charlie’s direction: “The first thing you have to understand about me is that I’m a narcissist. I’m not proud of it, and I’m not as bad as I used to be, but I don’t recommend that anyone get close to me. I mean, I want you to. But for your sake, don’t. I mean, I want you to love me. I want everyone to love me. But from afar. I want to pick and choose who I interact with and how, and maybe I want to interact with you, but you really shouldn’t. Just trust me on this. But don’t trust me on anything.” She had laughed at that. She’s not laughing now.

Charlie’s giving up. She made a weird little exasperated noise. That’s when I heard the birds chirping outside and little furry squirrels and chipmunks roaring like cutesie vestiges of the Jurassic or some shit.

Birdsongs and Tiny Roars

Charlie’s eyes looked alert and dead at the same time. Her eyes systematically scanned over Hugo for any indication of his feelings, but instead, she ended up staring at the crooked bottom row of Hugo’s teeth. He might drool.

Her chest heaved and oil began to accumulate on the surface of her skin. Her hair looked like a small, shiny black cloud, and her movements came in unexpected bursts and waves, establishing no sort of rhythm.

She had once imagined Hugo to be a charming, handsome, gentle, spiritual man with philosophical thoughts and a delivery like a slow, old, empathic woman. There was no more illusion. Hugo wasn’t these things; at least, he wasn’t always all of them. Two ways to dehumanize someone…

Hugo stared at the pale, cracked wall. He wondered who had lived there before him. The thing is that no one ever understands anyone else. Most people don’t understand themselves. Maybe no one does.

Hugo noticed the low drumming inside of him, and his sudden awareness of his anxiety made him feel anxious for the fact that he felt anxious. He looked at her face. She’s just standing there, staring directly at me. She’s so mad at me. Why is she mad? Does she even know?

Why isn’t he saying anything? Charlie’s face formed contorted words as her lips stayed tight around her teeth, “Are you gonna say something?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I dunno. You could apologize. You could explain yourself. Anything would be better than you just standing there with your mouth open, looking at the wall.” Charlie tilted her body unnecessarily, as though she were having to look around something that wasn’t there in order to inspect Hugo’s point on the wall. But there really wasn’t anything there. She already knew that, though.

Hugo’s lips pressed together, forming a long horizontal line while the rest of his face remained still and he looked briefly at the floor before looking back at Charlie. “I’m sorry that we’re here, doing this. I’m sorry that I upset you. I have no idea what I did, though. I want to figure this out, but I don’t understand what’s happening and I wish you would tell me.”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I said the wrong thing.

Charlie’s foot moved toward Hugo at an angle, but her body didn’t. Her foot slid back beneath her. Her neck and shoulders shimmied, causing her head to bobble in a snakelike motion and her arms to dust off her sides. She expelled air in the same way that a dying character in a movie might expel air, softly, “Huhh…”

“I want someone to love me, I want someone to like me. I want them to choose to be with me because they don’t want to be with someone else. I don’t want to be someone’s safe choice. I don’t want them to choose me out of practicality or hope for a good life for themselves. I want to feel like I matter to someone.

“It’s fine if you and I are different. In a lot of ways, I appreciate that. But maybe it means that things won’t work out. Maybe you’ll meet some guy who’ll want everything to be just the way that you want it. Maybe he’ll make you feel safe. I’d be disappointed, I’d be sad. It’d he hard for me. But for you, you’ve got a lot going on, so maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. I don’t want this to end, but it’s your choice at this point.”

Sunlight shone in at a steep angle, and the leaves of the trees made kaleidoscopic patterns through one of the room’s windows that stood a little too high off the ground. Why so high? Hugo often wondered. The yard formed a little hill, and a big ash tree had stood there for a few decades now. Birds, squirrels, and chipmunks fought over real estate in the monumental plant, as the high-pitched birdsongs competed with tiny roars from the rodents.