acadia

the floating cries of a flea-ridden dog.you are here.

can you hear me?

• march 20th, 2023

i hate the endings of the day. those last thrity minutes to an hour where im like, well, its too early to go to bed (on nights where i don't have anything to do). and you want to call somebody to come lay in bed with you, watch tv, feel you up, touch you. but then you realize that if you leave the house at 10,you probably wont be back till 1 am, and that won't work cause you have to be up at 7.

times like these, i don't know. i have such a fixation with being touched. but i don't want to have sex with somebody that... doesn't know what i want. doesn't want me in the way i need to be wanted. doesn't want me the way i know how to have sex. he knew how to have sex with me.

yesterday, driving back high after dropping off simon, i stood at the stoplight directly across from the apartment where my friend used to live. where they had a party, and i brought you, and you must've felt so cool cause you were a senior. i watched the yellow light coming from the window and remembered your short, soft hair, your red jacket, and the way you smiled at me all night, took care of me and were amused by me being drunk. watched me dance.

you used to find me entertaining. i remember how i used to amuse you. i was skinnier then, and had blonde hair.

i wonder if that has anything to do with it sometimes, but then, you literally wouldn't have sex with me and watch porn of fat guys touching each other, so its hard to say. sorry. i know that was mean.

anyways, i think back to that time at that party, when we went home to anahis house and had the whole night to ourselves. she let us sleep in her bed. i remember how i was secretly looking forward to that point the whole entire time. i remember how i kept saying we wouldnt go all the way.

i remember us jumping around, music blaring around us, holding hands stomping up and down at my birthday party. everything color all around and you trying to outdrink me. for a short time, we shared everything together. everything, and that in itself is crazy. but that was two years ago, and that might as well be lifetimes ago. it feels like we've both gone through the entirety of our twenties in the past two years alone, so far removed from those two kids and eating outside in the cold in front of the neighborhood christmas tree, comparing hand sizes.

• march 18th 2023

How do you put a physical desperate need into words?

Desperate grasping twisting at cotton sheets

The dirty smell on my upper lip

The crumbs on the fucking floor I see as I walk by, that need to be swept up again and the house never seems to stay clean

There's this guy in a porn channel that i think im falling in love with. He's tall, skinny but muscular, he has a beautiful face and mouth and just the right amount of scruff on his chin. He does things with his mouth while he's having sex, animal-like. He licks at his teeth and sticks out his fucking tongue from the side of his mouth, like a dog, while he fucks this other guy. He pets his hair and holds his head down while the other guy, a fat, sloppy, dirty-looking guy, sucks him off. He has that angry, beautiful look on his face, a furrowed brow, when he looks down at the other man while he's fucking him or fucking his mouth.

You can tell how much he loves him. Practically WORSHIPS this other fucking guy, despite him looking like a beautiful model and me practically having to look away from the other guy while he's fucking him to get off. But their sex isnt even just full of passion, it's also like...You can tell how much they love each other. There's this desperation oozing off of them of being caught in the moment, and also, this desperation of this beautiful guy because you can tell he really loves this fat guy and feels like he's appreciative to have sex with him? I don't know. I know I want to be loved like that, though. I'm fucking fat and dirty and I constantly fantasize about a beautiful, strong, person who will know how to fuck me and take care of me and treat me like I'm something small and precious even though I'm dirty.

The way he'll fuck this guy bareback, high above him, extending his arm to push the other's face into the mattress. Or he'll bite and kiss his back as the other guy feels like its too much, like he's about to cum. And even as he's coming this guy will bury himself even deeper, wrap his arm around the other's neck like a headlock...fuck.

• march 14, 2023

• 2 am

against my better judgement, I go and look to see if Nora's added anymore songs to the (three hour) playlist she made you (just a few weeks after we broke up). 17 minutes, 6 more than last time. I love You, Baby, Volodymyr Shynkar. The song I'd always imagine us ballroom dancing in, making strides across the danceroom, maybe on our wedding day. I'd hold you close and look in your eyes.(god. that sounds cringe. i know.)

maybe one day, i wont feel like i'm getting stabbed in the chest when I think of nora thinking of you to that song, when I think of how she updates this playlist for you everyday, when i wonder to myself if you guys hold each other tight and dance in the kitchen, the way we used to, if you guys pretend ballroom dance together, which I always wish we did, but you didn't know how to dance, and I was embarassed. i wonder if you two do, even though, as you say, your relationship is "a completely different, separate, situation, where we have our whole separate lives.""

but she made you a three hour playlist, i want to tell you.

she put I Love You Baby, on it, for god's sake, i want to tell you, the song i'd daydream we'd dance to at our wedding.

but i wont say that, because I have to play it cool. because i decided that after four months, yes, im ready to be friends, even though im the one who had to look for you (again). and in some ways, i dont think im lying. i can stay in the car with you, and not kiss you, not hold your hand, even if my lips buzz and it hurts, it doesnt hurt that bad, and that sounds emo but i really do mean it. i think back to the long nights miserable spent staying up together, the silence staring at the dark in your cold room, our dark circles and the way you never smiled or laughed around me anymore, the stress and nervousness of having sex, the way we stopped having sex, the way i came to realize you legitimately came to fear having sex with me, and yes, even though I think of you every time I jerk off (whether I want to or not), when im with you in person thoughts of sex seem far away and distant, because its something i know we cant do, and something that made us both so unhappy.

so, i think back to these memories of my stomach hurting from drinking disgusting cotton candy bang, alone in your living room while you were in bed, staying up till 3 am, the way we were both depressed, your annoying constant complaints about how busy you were- all of these good reasons for why i know, we aren't good for each other in a relationship. so, in those moments, i know, i think (?), that im ready to be just friends, for us to go back to laughing and trusting each other, eventually with no barriers.

even though i know it comes at the price of having to choose:to live with the pain of being around you, as you fall in love with someone i hate, or, live without you at all, without any conversations, any friendship, any interaction, any walks to the lake or trips to the mountains or walks on the greenway. and i think the second choice is much, much worse.

so, i keep trying to tell myself that i'm done wanting sex, that i'm not secretly hoping we'll get back together, and that i'll be good and kill any glimmer of a hope that even faintly presents itself in my eyes and stomach instantly.

• march 11, 2023



today, while looking through my archive, i found the video of us sitting atop the edge of the blue ridge mountains from when we took a trip in october. its a beautiful sight, you can hear the clean whisk of air and cars driving by, and a vast expanse of yellow gold and red trees below stretching for miles. looks like the sort of thing you'd see in a dream, a view that you'd see when flying up across the sky that you'd think, i don't think i'd logically ever be able to see this in real life.

i think we both knew it would be the last time. the way we lingered while sitting there, and i said i don't want to get up just yet.. even though both of us would never admit it to ourselves conciously, it was just a feeling.

i think i could feel it in the way i felt the urge to ask you every single question i could get out of you that i hadn't thought of yet, every interesting niche and opinion on music, wanted to show you old gerard way interviews (the final nail in the coffin), asked you individually by artist what you thought of their singing style as we sipped on milkshakes driving back on a dark highway listening to old country and cattle call. i think we knew because it sort of felt like we were friends. i could sense some sort of.. detatchment, maybe some sort of annoyance, i don't know, i felt like any sense of romantic attachment was slowly drifting away second by second into the surrounding dark blue air of the highway. it almost felt as if it were the last road trip we owed each other. i remember wondering at some point if you already knew and this trip was one last gift, one last good moment that you wanted to try to give me.

**********

• march 11, 2023

it hurts to say, I want for you to stay.

sometimes, sometimes.

i dont think i'll ever hear that song and not be reminded of you. it really feels like you ghost wrote it, i listen to it and try to understand where you're coming from a bit more. on days like this, when the sun is shining brightly, the very idea of not being able to go on a walk with you up to the lake, or on a drive around with the windows down, seems like a complete waste. i give in and send you a text, trying to be casual, asking if you'd want to hang out near our parents house this afternoon.

hey, im gonna be in (does it matter?) this afternoon to check up on my dog. would you want to hang out maybe

hey, i actually just got back from ( ) after visiting my parents. but im free tonight maybe and various other points during the week

... im also free tommorrow before 3

again scheduling gets us. you always have the upper hand though, and bring up how you "have a'lot of school work" as i internally cringe because i've lost some kind of imaginary game again, but then try not to overthink. i half-heartedly press on that i have a'lot of work too, cause i want you to know how busy i am (I am busy, okay? I don't see how bringing up what you have to do and haven't done is immediately relevant when prepositioning someone to hangout. but i do have a'lot of stuff to do. i am just as good as you, oh man, i have so many projects (that i haven't started on) going on, you have no idea. it pisses me off when you mention this semester is "very academically challenging". like. logically, i know you're not trying to brag. but yeah, DUH, no shit it's going to be hard. it's college. so even though i know you're not trying to rub it into my face, for a moment i'm reminded of the invisible competition i'd always enter into with you secretly during our relationship.)

we agree to meet up sometime next week. and i'm motivated to start working even though im high and was just gonna lay in bed, because i want to be as good as you, even though i'd never admit that.

i guess i hope that i'll see you and it'll help humanize you. i want to test the waters and see if we can laugh and joke as friends. i want to see you in my car. honestly, i want to see you and hope you still haven't shaved your attempt at a beard thats grown on your neck, that even though you know its gross, you're proud of, and hope that THAT will at least help quell some sort of attraction to you (even though it doesn't).i want to tell you that yesterday when i was high, i looked up the moon on the nights of april 13 and june 5th, and the moons complete each other. my dark space for your sliver of the moon make a whole. i want to tell you about my experiences with simon, and how it feels like seeing myself from your perspective, and how he made a playlist titled "ok." after i told him i "wasn't ready for a relationship" even though we've only hung out two days and haha, isn't that so funny, cause that's totally some shit i would do, and i want to see your look of annoyance and wide eyes as you look at me in a "now do you see what i mean"sort of way. i want to talk to you about it in a metaphysical, detached, commentary-on-the-script, behind-the-scenes-after-losing-a-gameshow-and-watching-it's-current-contestants, sort of way.

sometimes i think about it, and you really do feel like some sort of imaginary friend to me. or maybe even god (i say this with admission of religious guilt) to me.



*********************

• march 7, 2023

there is no hole in my life that you cant fill

but there is nothing in my life that can fill your place.

• march 7, 2023



i asked you to see weezer.

(that's already a one liner in and of itself).

i called you, you didn't answer. you ask me

"whats up?"

weezer is coming

(that's pretty funny.)

you don't answer.

30 dollars

is that a good idea like are you ok with hanging out so soon

its in june

well for lawn seats, also it is weezer so

stop dissing weezer

nah i cant hate like that. the pinkerton album.

you dont respond to this. i know you can see through my subliminal messaging of: hey, rememeber how i used to hate weezer? and they were your favorite band? and you told me your favorite album was Pinkerton? and i knew you listened to it because your old girlfriend broke up with you? so then i listened to that album when you broke up with me and now its my favorite and im asking you to see weezer so i can look over at you when they play devotion, because it feels like you wrote that song yourself? get it? you see it?

can we think it over and we can make a decision tommorrow? I have to be up at 4am for work tommorrow

i dont know what i was expecting. it's like i can never really make it more than one month without talking to you. I made it through one month and 14 days of no contact with you. before it all blew up on saturday, leading to our drawn out conversation on sunday, leading to our conversation of paragraphs on paragraphs on monday.

i dont know. it doesnt feel like you're real. like, it doesn't feel like you're a real person. you feel like god to me, maybe. or like a fictional character. like to the point where i think in the shower, just knowing that you "loved me" even when you broke up with me is enough to comfort me. like, i dont need to have you back or date you or even see you because well, you still "loved me". it's like when people say knowing god exists or jesus loves them is enough to carry on through the day

so when i do this, when i call you and you dont pick up, which might as well be me throwing myself at your knees, when i text you because i can barely hang on to 44 days without talking to you, that was the record, and it felt like four fucking months. when i can hear my moms voice scolding inside my head:

en serio??!! despues de todo lo que te hemos ayudado, despues de todo lo que hemos hecho, lo que te hizo. es no tener dignidad. es ser patetico. de verdad *****. me das coraje. pareces tu tia, esas cosas son para gente que no entiende, que no esta bien en la cabeza. madura.

even when i hear that, i think to myself: i feel like we're gonna go to this weezer concert together. and then what. do i just wait until june 24th. my intuition tells me it'll be a last reunion, that agreeing to see weezer on june 24th wont lead back to an endless cycle of me scooting closer and closer and closer and closer to you till you fall of a metaphorical ledge and push me away, because you can't love me the way i want you to, or because you realize "this was a bad idea" or because you talk about nora in front of me and i can't fucking deal with it, and then, you bring me back to reality and i hate you. and i hate you and am lonely without you and obsess about you and i don't know how to get out of this.

what's so bad about being friends? how much of what i miss is platonic. how much of what i miss are shared experiences that weren't sexual. but were they romantic? but can i have them, or will i always be resentful and want something more?

like can we actually hang out during the summer so we can go swimming in the lake. can you come play video games with me at the arcade, all of these quarters ive saved over the last four months are practically useless without you, you know. can you come with me to meras tortas, so i can order something from there again because i dont think i can eat there again if its without you. do you think we can go to the waterpark together one last time, like we did last summer.

can i be your friend who holds your hand? can i be your friend who looks at you while you're driving. can i be your friend who brushes my fingertips on the inside of your hands. can i be your friend who drives around in the warm sun, gold streaming through your hair, The Bends blasting in the background.

or would you just brush me off coldly.

what am i doing?

already the way you talk to me is cold. mechanical. "lmaoooo" or using emojis that you never used. you make sure there is no room for error.

don't get too close., you bare your teeth. don't touch me.

************



• romulus

i had a dream a white wolf

ate my insides

as i lay helpless on the ground, i think in the snow

i smiled while i felt the pain and sting in my stomach

i smiled even as i thought make it stop , as i reminded myself it was just a dream, that the very real sharpness and ache of having my entrails bit out by teeth wasn't real.

i loved both of you.

i loved two of you.

and i now keep you safe, nestled in the pit between my heart and my stomach.

**************

• march 6th, 2023



there's a part of my heart that i keep soft, just for you.

i can't tell if i made it,

or if you took it and tore it out of me

either way, its still missing

******************************

• march 6th, 2023

4:52 am.

i can't fucking sleep. note to self. don't drink three cups of coffee before bed on phenendrine.

i'm all torn up. there's a sinus infection lodged between my nose and my throat, clinging to my piercings, my ears clogged and painful from seeing two live shows blasting on the speaker. my stomach hurts. my throats dry and clucking.

i feel the physical pain in my heart from missing you. it's hard to sleep at night when there's birds singing outside of your window.

march 6th, 2023. i kept saying, he's going to come back. the physical date kept popping into my head, so specific, i thought it had to be a sign. and it made sense. the same time last year, you came back to me after a week alone during spring break.

instead, i keep telling you over and over again. how much i miss you. how i would've done anything to make things work. how i love you. how i kept waiting.

you don't return the favor.

you don't return at all. and instead, i pick up this kid from the same dorm space you lived at last year. when we were both miserable, when you were stuck in that tiny, hellish room, and wouldn't want to share the twin bed with me (i dont blame you), so i'd sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. a cold, small, dark, lonely, sharp room, where we'd stay up, because we couldn't have sex, or you were frustrated i was there, or we both felt something was wrong, or both wanted to reach out. where i shared with you.

you don't come back, and instead, march 5th turns to march 6th as I watch the movie Stigmata (1999) on the floor with ismon. we drink three cups of coffee and talk about angels and patterns and david byrne. "I've been meaning to get into the talking heads.", I say. And what he has about David Byrne, and the way Byrne talks about love and not knowing what to do next and the human experience of giving birth and his thing with televisions is interesting, at some points, and at others, i'm reminded of the difference two years can make, and get the feeling he's trying to impress me. I want to be polite, so I try to act impressed and pensive.

you were the first person i've ever met where i didn't have to pretend.

this sounds stupid, and probably proves the point that i am struggling with some sort of undiagnosed narcissism. but you were the first person i've ever met that was smarter than me. that i couldn't outsmart. i don't think i'll ever be over you. i had to struggle with that everyday, make peace with the fact that i was never going to be better than you, that you would always be above me. smarter, stronger. better in every possible way. it's such a strange and annoying feeling. to love someone so deeply, and still, hate them, and feel the sting of jealousy at being in such close relation to someone who has everything you want, and you'll never have. magdalene and cain share the same heart in me.

you don't come back, and instead, i drop this kid back off at 1 am. we sit in the darkness of the car waiting, and i feel a bit of pity and sadness, and see myself in him when he says quietly:

"so...were you looking to just be friends? or...did you want to kiss and stuff?

feeling shame, and somewhere between attraction and disgust, somewhere between i need to make this up to him , somewhere between I've been crying over Him for hours just two hours ago, somewhere between I Need To Be Loved, i say, "yes"

and to my surprise, he pulls me in by the hair like he's been waiting and kisses me like he wants to. like hes been waiting. like he's hungry, like he wants to. and his lips are soft, not at all how i imagined his teeth would get in the way. and his kiss is soft. and his tongue is soft. and he makes noises like he's hungry.

and all at once i feel a wave of relief wash over me at thinking, ah, he wants me , and at the same time, my heart is broken, because it reminds me of how i used to write about you and say you kiss me like you're eating dessert because you did. you kissed me soft and thorough like you were hungry and waiting and wanting me, in the parking lot in front of the swing set in your neighborhood. our secret the guilt and heat of doing something i wasn't supposed to do. the sweetness of being wanted again for the first time in years.

and it's the same thing all over again. he reaches around without asking and starts grabbing my chest. he reaches around and feels around my stomach, and i moan into his mouth. relief at the fact that he knows. he reaches around down to my thigh, and the anxiety of needing to be a good partner, needing to make him feel wanted kicks in, and i run my hands over his binder, stroking his arm as he's still grabbing and pulling me by the head. i was so happy that's how he started.

you're a good kisser, i say. wide eyed and relieved and grateful.

he smiles and says "well, that's good. i always worry about that. he seems pleased and happy with himself. "i'll see you friday."and he smiles as he closes the car door, walks into the dorm. i watch the back of his head, shell shocked. when he thinks i'm not lookng, he throws his head back up at the air as he waits for the elevator. i hope that he's doing it in relief and bliss.

and i laugh, a little scared, as i start up my car. i stare at the dark in front of me, half-way expecting for some deer to spring out in front of it. i laugh because i'm scared it's all happening again. because it's the softness and the wanting and the love you gave me, when i first met you and didn't want it. i still wonder, if that's the kind of love i can only recieve when i dont't want the other person. i wonder, if you were how you were now, not that skinny, sweet, kid, but you started out now, strong, into yourself to the point it may become full, almost a year on testosterone, and grown a bit cold, would you have ever even wanted me?

i think i can only be loved by people who i don't want at the moment, people who think i'm out of their grasp at the moment. because as soon as i love them, as soon as i reciprocate, it all comes crashing down.

i know this is just me worrying, and it probably won't happen, I had said, looking out the window at the blowing wheat grass and small shack buildings as we drove on our way to Cookout, probably from playing video games, and you looked over silently, but I'm scared testosterone might change your attraction to me. like, i'm scared you'll only like cis men, and won't like me anymore.

...

babe, that's not gonna happen.



**************

• march 5th, 2023

I wish i could take back the day i first met you. the pushing carts, walking down to the other side of the store. the sun shining, and you in stupid overalls. a sweet kid. our first goodbyes.

i was supposed to meet you today. "if you want to keep talking about this, we can call later." my sister told me to apologize. she said i could get in a'lot of trouble for shattering the terrarium over at your house. it was one of those moments where I realized: wow, I really am crazy. this really was crazy. so i apologized to do damage control. i know thats fucked up. i know i should say it was cause i was really sorry, but more than anything, i regret apologizing. especially when you didn't even say anything about the glass. you never even saw it.

"a'lot of the things you did warrant a fuck-you too.", you said.

i never know how to scream in your face: "really? more than breaking up with me because you want to fuck men who were born men, then go fuck some girl with the biggest boobs in our town, who you know liked you, you know waited for you? more than flirting with my roommate, who was beautiful, who wanted you, and you said you "liked the attention?"

I shouldnt even be putting this on here. im trying to be "poetic". make something of this, but I cant even do that.

i got all dressed up for what would be our meeting. showered, wore smaller jeans that i usually do, a black shirt to cover my stomach. covered the zit i of course had to get on this day. curled and fluffed my hair. i wanted to look good, clean, put together, i wanted to do good. i wanted you to say to me: "oh, you lost weight." in a way that was congratulating me but also a bit dismayed. i wanted to stare you down like i hated you. i wanted to see it in my eyes that i hated you, but inevitably, you know id warm up to you, after you cracked two or three jokes, you smiled the way you always do.

i love you. ive been trying to fix myself dinner without crying for the past hour, and i cant. you're all i wanted. you coming back was all i wanted. and i know there's got to be something chemically wrong with my brain that makes me prioritizing this relationship that happened from 19-21 as if we were married, as if this was all i had. but this is all i have. you were all i wanted, you had everything i wanted. how do i throw that all away? i dont think i can live accepting the fact that you're never gonna come back.

"actually, I don't think I can talk today afterall." we try to reschedule a new day.

"actually, Thursdays are when I get busy. so i guess we should just leave it there. (crying emoji. to show how nonchalant you've become about the whole situation.)i appreciate the apology though.

somehow you find a new way to break my heart open everytime. ways i had never even thought of, or seen coming. even today, with setting up this stupid fucking meeting. even when i know its just to get closure, even when i know nothing will come of it, that i'm going to hate what i hear. even when i get ready for you and try to be good for you. you set me up just to break it back down, all with a nonchalant wave of your hand. it doesn't matter.

you find new ways to break me everytime.

you gut, flay, and eat my heart fleshed out against your teeth in a different way, every day

you take me to new levels of pain i never even thought were physically possible

no one can break me like you.



• march 4th, 2023

i was supposed to be productive today. I was supposed to clean my room, get started on interviews..whatever.

"Some go to the beach during spring break and some climb random towers in the woods".

I drove to your apartment and smashed the terrarium you had given me for Christmas two, three years ago? You know, the one from when I first met you. The one I had still been keeping this whole time. Why throw it away?

Brown dirt, fern leaves, and a clear quartz and amethyst. you know how I like to psychoanalyze everything. I always thought, subconciously, you must've known: the clear quart was you: Sharp, angular, clean. Beautiful and whole. The amethyst was me. round, with the edges blurred out.

When you first gave it to me, I remember checking how close you had put the two objects near each other. it would tell me how close you'd want me near. The amethyst nestled, leaning into the quartz, yet still not close enough to touch it.

heart pounding, I grabbed the glass and drove to your apartmnent, tears falling, sun shining, the kind of spring that only comes when there is no winter. the sun pouring into the car, pouring over me, driving past the high school where my old church would meet, where I met the girl, another relationship, another bad breakup, and keep thinking to myself, this same road keeps hurting me so much. and then i laughed, because life, time, god, and beauty, don't care more than to create a good story. crying as the johnny cash cd kept playing on the radio. turning it off when i turned the security gate (that doesn't even work) to your apartment.

you know, i waited for some big dramatic reveal. some big dramatic moment. but you weren't there. of course, you were in the mountains. what was it, "frying pan tower"? her grinning face is the first picture. you never posted me like that. on my own.

you're proud of her. you want everyone to look. you think shes beautiful. she's natural. she's worthy of being displayed. you're proud.

I smashed the terrarium onto the pavement. the sidewalk in front of your house, thinking, you'll see it when you get back. when you're getting parked coming back from the mountains, walking home. you'll see the broken pieces of white pebbles, thick black soil, maybe you'll see the yellowish-brownish tint on the quartz, the small rounded amethyst on the grass. now blown inches apart by the impact on the ground, the sounds of broken glass.

but you know what?

you know what it looked like? all that broken glass, the specks so small it really just looked liked dust on the pavement. a terrarium blends right back into dirt and ground and sidewalk. a whole environment becomes just a broken bottle, if that's even worth looking at, the small crystals pebbles lost in the grass or crushed by the soles of tennis shoes on the sidewalk.

it looked like nothing.

i stared at the sidewalk, standing there looking down at the ground, trying to figure out if you'd even be able to tell what had happened. if you'd even be able to tell that I left that there for you. that i'd been here, that i'd been angry, that i'd been dangerous. you wouldn't even care. you wouldn't even be able to tell, anyways.

***********

• caiada

  

  there's a picture of you. smiling, you look happy.

  the red jacket you used to wear when I first met you

  new hickies on your neck. (she bit down, hard. been waiting to make up for lost time. you took her at the same time, to the same place, you had taken me. last march, after you had broken up with me for the first time. you wanted to reconnect, you told me. i remember looking through the blinds, which would never fully shut. "do you think they can see us?" "no" you said, and pulled my attention back to you. making out surrounded by wooden ceiling. naked on one another, yet not dirty, not disgusting. special. felt so fucking good. i think back to that, instantly. seeing the way you smile at who's behind the camera, taking the picture, before I notice the hickies on your neck. small, red, faint marks of teeth in the front of your neck. and a large, dark, purple stain on the side, trying to be hidden by hair. you didn't wait for me. you moved on. you moved on fromt two years in three months. you were ready to jump right back in, fall in love with someone you knew had been waiting for you. fuck you. (why not me?))

  and that smile i never saw around me anymore.

• march 3rd, 2023



today i went to the lake to go look for you.

there's days like this, where i feel the unmistakable urge to go to the rock in front of the lake, like somehow, i'll find you there, waiting for me, and it'll be the beginning of our reconciliation.

it'll be the beginning of

i love you

and

im sorry

and i learned, i'm back for good now.

i go to the lake, make the five minute walk up the dark, lonely, woods, where you feel like somethings watching you, up the trail that i'd never walk alone. up the trail where we'd always make conversation, up until the point we turned 5 minutes to 3 minutes to 1, around the dirt ledge of the lake, and i hauled my body up the big rock boulder that overlooks the blue lake that looks like a painting, with trees of purple and gray and green.

where we first met, and would come to meet, for weeks and weeks on end.

where we'd come to sit and admire in the winter, when the lake and sky were blue and gray.

where we'd come to swim in the heat of the summer, when the lake was green and the heat was unbearable. where we'd smoke cigarettes and drink beer i'd bought us as we sat submerged in the sand and water.

where we'd first talked it out, gotten back together, at the big boulder to my right side that i can see as i look over the lake.

i sit there, and wait. id be lying if i say i wasn't waiting. if i didn't admit that i felt every tingle in my back as i hoped each stranger watching me was you. as i waited for

hey!

or

...hey

in that regretful, awkward, yet humourous tone when we'd first talked again after a month. where you told me, exasperated,

WE DON'T OWE EACH OTHER ANYTHING.

I sit on the rock and wait for you, from 3 to 5, and wonder, if in some poetic fashion, i'll be just missing you, as you come back to see the snunset.

of course, that doesn't happen.

what does happen, is that on my way back out of the trail, i see a couple, holding hands, swinging, the boy kicking up his feet in an exaggerated jovial way, because he's happy, and making fun of himself at the same time, and i freeze.

and so does he. and i see a flash of shock and guilt in his eyes, as if he recognizes me.

a short, thin, young man with long brown hair and stubble. a blonde woman, grinning ear to ear, sunshine and all black clothes.

Pierre Auguste Cot, The Storm.

we both look at each other with recognition, yet, it isn't you and rona. it's uncanny, but this woman is definitley too skinny to be her. the man is a bit too lanky.

and still i can't help but feel we both know each other. or at least, he feels the shame of being caught. must be a similar situation.

as he's leaving, even his car is almost the same as yours. the stupid, blue and yellow, gay marriage sticker on the back of your car bumper.

apollo and daphne leave. and i know that seeing this doppleganger couple of you is a reflection from the universe, it's god saying to me: no, he isn't coming back. stop being stubborn. here, ill show you.

but i don't listen.

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