Bittersweet Clearity
1. the end of...
Where had everything gone so wrong?
As I huddled on the slippery albino-tiled floor I pondered over this question. My eyes were stuck in a trance and didn’t blink to clear away the tears that had dried to crusts along my soaked eyelashes. Vomit dribbled across the tile floor with the pretty red that entangled itself with every crack in the floor. Half of the shower curtain stuck to the wet floor where it had been torn down by shaking fingers, just to offer something to hold onto while my toxic-filled stomach couldn’t take anymore poison I put in and splattered stomach acid all over the powder-white floor. I had no food to throw back up; I couldn’t even remember the last thing I’d eaten. The only thing that passed these lips were pills, smoke, alcohol, and the sugary taste he leaves behind after the intertwining of our tongue. I’m not going to bother much about the things that have gone through my nose…
Donna Way flashes through my head; sweet mama Way is just smiling proudly at her son while she waves goodbye with a few tears trickling down her wrinkling face. The image of my mother waving goodbye to me the day I moved out, the same day I turned eighteen, was blotching my vision so only her face flashed above everything else my gaze was directed to.
“Be careful son,” she had told me. I had only but smiled and hugged her, shifting on my feet and anxiously awaiting to lunge in the car and tear off down the street away from the house I had grown up in.
“I’ll be fine mom. I’ll call and check in every once in a while, yeah?”
She had known all too well that I would be doing no such thing. She had already heard almost the same exact words come from her eldest son; Gerard hadn’t called for a month, and after about five minutes on the phone he had asked for money. It had made me uncomfortable to watch my mother stare at me with a weary knowing look on her face; she predicted in about a few weeks I would be calling her up and pleading for support money or dragging myself back to live in the bedroom I had abandoned all too eagerly.
“Sure son,” she had said without any bit of remorse or bitterness.
Donna Way was a mother I didn’t deserve.
I think back to all the times I had my quivering hand just hovering over the phone for a full ten minutes, just standing there trying to suck in my pride and dial my family’s number. It could have all been so easy just admitting defeat. I wouldn’t have even had to admit up to my failure, I knew my mother would hold open the door to my old room for me with a warm smile and not a single word. She would have understood.
Then the voice of my brother echoes through my head, his panicked voice crackling through the receiver while I strained my ears to understand him the night I had passed out at a house I had no recollection of staying at. I had panicked before realizing I had Frank’s arm curled around me and his face nuzzled into my back. I dialed the only person’s number I could really confess to as a sudden revelation came over me from that five minute black out I had endured.
”It’s alright, it’s gunna be fine,” my brother had coaxed over the phone while I rambled on about my fears and the situation I had dug my way into. My speech had been so slurred from the recent booze and coke that I was sure my brother couldn’t understand half the things I choked out between quiet sobs.
”I’m going to pick you up. Wait for me and we’ll get you through this, alright?”
I didn’t wait for him.
I had made it half way through the living room of the current party I had crashed before I felt his lips staining my neck with vodka-coated kisses; I didn’t know how long he’d been awake, I had probably woken him up with my whimpered pleadings on the phone. All thoughts of my brother had been pushed aside while I let my body sink into the soft cushion of an unknown bed. The last thing I remember from that night was being buried in his sloppy kisses, he whispered softly in my ear that sent shivers down my spine as he promised he would try to make everything better, while the grit of metal against metal filled the air and my pants were being pulled from my hips along with our half-conscious groans.
He was such a beautiful tragedy. All I could think of was how lucky I was to have him fuck up my life then without him at all. Not a day passed by now that I couldn’t picture not having him and his over-medicated grace around me. Even now I smiled at the distorted memories we shared. We were just two boys whose goals had been shattered with the many broken booze bottles we finished.
I remember the night we fell down the pub steps, laughing about the fucked state we had let ourselves sink into because there wasn’t anything else we could do; our tears had dried up a long time ago. My head rested against his shoulder as I traced the ink trails that decorated his arm, my fingers slipping off track when my vision blurred and spun.
“Everyone knew,” I had whispered breathlessly, my lips quivering with broken chuckles without any real laughter behind me. “They all knew this was gunna happen…”
The bitter night’s air stung at my eyes that had already been watering from squinting so long at the street lights above. He sat up and squinted down at me, those bright hazel eyes trying to find just which pair of shifting eyes in his vision were actually mine. I could feel my bottom lip quiver as I began to burst into laughter, my hand wrapped around my stomach while I held my sore sides and cold tears drizzled from the corner of my eyes. My reason was slipping; I was going fucking crazy. All the faces that had ever looked at me with that knowing glare haunted me and swam through my head. They all thought the same thing; this boy isn’t gunna last. And they were right.
He just stared at me and shifted nervously beside me; his hands never lost their grip in mine.
“Ha ha! They all knew! They all fucking knew!” I screamed as I laughed and rolled around on the wet cement from the previous rainstorm that had sent us running into the pub in the first place. He was now staring at me with wide worried eyes as he watched me lose my sanity. It wasn’t like this wasn’t expected. Those sad hazel eyes had witnessed me fall apart so many times.
“K-knew what?” he asked hesitantly. I knew he was just waiting for me to lash out at him and scream. I also knew he wanted me to do just that. The way he looked at me with those pleading eyes whenever I assured him every one of my fuck ups was my doing and mine alone—but we both knew it was him who just loved company; he had given up on his life a long time ago and admired me for clinging onto mine.
“That I wasn’t gunna make it,” I choked out as I rubbed the residue out of my eyes. “I know what those fuckers thought. He’s just gunna end up like his junkie brother, he’ll never make it, he’ll be back, who does he think he’s fooling—THEY ALL KNEW!”
I watched him jump from the corner of my eye as I pretended to scream up at the night sky instead of in his face. Anger, pure anger bubbled in me. I wanted to just scratch out those bright hazels that just watched me, I could already see the tears welling up and could hear his whimpered apologies all over again.
One.
Two.
Three…
“M-Mikey, p-please, I’m s-“
“Don’t. Frank, j-just…”
Instead of tearing my fingernails across his face, I clutched onto the thick frames of my glasses and squeezed them tightly until my knuckles turned white. My hands ripped the glasses from my face and chucked them across the back lot pavement and into the middle of the street. I couldn’t see them skid; everything was just blurs of colors by then. There was a long moment of dead silence. Only the sounds of our chattering teeth and shaky breaths were heard but none of us moved. Even as my vision was blurred, I could see Frank’s face painted with tears as the trails shined on his cheeks in the light.
None of us spoke the rest of that night. We both stumbled home in silence that night. He had grabbed my glasses off the floor some time before we left and gently put them back on my face without a word. Our hands laced together without any emotion, it was all just habit by then. I think that’s why tears continued to roll down his face the rest of that night; he realized just how dead we both were.
I was stuck in reverse as I sat there on the tiled floor. Memories flashed like a movie theatre screen in my head, his eyes seemed luminescent as I watched him cry like he did so many other times. I wasn’t quite sure who was worse; me or him? Maybe if I wanted we could’ve compared our tragedies—he would win.
I wanted to scream and bawl. I wanted to cry and whimper. I wanted to tear the bathroom apart. I wanted to wail and cry for my brother’s help that I should have never turned away. I wanted to beg for my mother’s welcome home.
I guess I wasn’t as grown as I had thought.
Everything was slipping. Nothing was as perfect as it had once been. There was a time, when I first met Frank and when I first moved into my apartment, when I was honestly proud of myself for making it so far. Now, I stared at myself with disgust; I had been evicted weeks ago and was letting my relationship crumble before my very eyes without much of a fight. I was too tired to keep on fighting any longer. So was Frank; every sad weak smile that stretched across his face told me he was dragging along behind me now.
My love life had crashed with my dream life. Now, neither existed.
All my dreams of being a musician were crushed—I couldn’t even remember what notes to play with all the coke I shoved in before any kind of practice. Every band I jumped in with kicked me right back out. They didn’t see the same bass player from the very first practice ever again, only the drunk stumbling in with his bass who attempted to strum a few notes. I was good at first impressions; I just can’t keep up the act for too long. Frank knew that only too well. Any hopes for my relationship with Frank were torn beyond repair. Our hearts had dried a long time ago, there was no more blood left to drain. But somehow, every one of his choked “I love you’s” were pathetically honest and desperate. I couldn’t return his gestures anymore. I just stared hollowly back at the boy I had once gushed over and asked why.
I was just a lost little boy clinging onto the only thing left that held some bit of comfort. Even now, Frank’s presence was nauseating; I could just count down the seconds to our next devastating breakdown.
“J-just tell me!” he had screamed at me one day. “Just t-tell me what to d-do and I’ll do it!”
I didn’t need him to explain what he was talking about; I read the desperation in his eyes before he even opened his mouth.
“I don’t know what to tell you Frankie,” I mumbled dryly. I looked away so I didn’t have to watch him fall apart all over again.
“Are you even gunna t-try?” he whimpered. His eyes were burning into me, watching every movement I made to see if he could find some sort of revelation from me. This time I gave him what he wanted. I looked up and stared him straight in the eyes; he knew what was coming the second he flinched from my stare.
“I don’t know if I can try anymore, Frank.”
That was the last I saw of Frank. I wasn’t sure how long ago that was. A week ago, a day or two—maybe a few hours ago. I didn’t keep track of the days anymore. Slowly, choked sobs escaped me and my glasses fogged from my body’s exhausted heat. I had felt lost and uncertain about the world with Frank, but now that I had no one to face the world with, I felt completely empty. I had no one. Everything had just gone into a downward spiral leaving nothing behind for me except the lonely drugs and alcohol I pumped myself with. Now that I’m strung out, I don’t even have the toxic sensations anymore.
As I looked around the bathroom, I felt sorry for whoever’s house this was. I had left it destroyed with dripping blood and splattered vomit across the floor where I had run to make it to the toilet. My body was convulsing and I wheezed for air while I tried to fight back the urge to throw up more stomach acid. So much was whirling through me, physical pain included. I curled myself on the floor, not caring if a few locks of hair fell in the puddles of vomit.
I stared in a daze, my eyes weren’t focusing on anything and neither was my mind.
This was when it hit me.
I was just a lonely little boy who had lost himself.
Days would go by, but Mikey Way would be stuck at day one.
The day he stared into the eyes of Frank Iero and they both smiled.
As I huddled on the slippery albino-tiled floor I pondered over this question. My eyes were stuck in a trance and didn’t blink to clear away the tears that had dried to crusts along my soaked eyelashes. Vomit dribbled across the tile floor with the pretty red that entangled itself with every crack in the floor. Half of the shower curtain stuck to the wet floor where it had been torn down by shaking fingers, just to offer something to hold onto while my toxic-filled stomach couldn’t take anymore poison I put in and splattered stomach acid all over the powder-white floor. I had no food to throw back up; I couldn’t even remember the last thing I’d eaten. The only thing that passed these lips were pills, smoke, alcohol, and the sugary taste he leaves behind after the intertwining of our tongue. I’m not going to bother much about the things that have gone through my nose…
Donna Way flashes through my head; sweet mama Way is just smiling proudly at her son while she waves goodbye with a few tears trickling down her wrinkling face. The image of my mother waving goodbye to me the day I moved out, the same day I turned eighteen, was blotching my vision so only her face flashed above everything else my gaze was directed to.
“Be careful son,” she had told me. I had only but smiled and hugged her, shifting on my feet and anxiously awaiting to lunge in the car and tear off down the street away from the house I had grown up in.
“I’ll be fine mom. I’ll call and check in every once in a while, yeah?”
She had known all too well that I would be doing no such thing. She had already heard almost the same exact words come from her eldest son; Gerard hadn’t called for a month, and after about five minutes on the phone he had asked for money. It had made me uncomfortable to watch my mother stare at me with a weary knowing look on her face; she predicted in about a few weeks I would be calling her up and pleading for support money or dragging myself back to live in the bedroom I had abandoned all too eagerly.
“Sure son,” she had said without any bit of remorse or bitterness.
Donna Way was a mother I didn’t deserve.
I think back to all the times I had my quivering hand just hovering over the phone for a full ten minutes, just standing there trying to suck in my pride and dial my family’s number. It could have all been so easy just admitting defeat. I wouldn’t have even had to admit up to my failure, I knew my mother would hold open the door to my old room for me with a warm smile and not a single word. She would have understood.
Then the voice of my brother echoes through my head, his panicked voice crackling through the receiver while I strained my ears to understand him the night I had passed out at a house I had no recollection of staying at. I had panicked before realizing I had Frank’s arm curled around me and his face nuzzled into my back. I dialed the only person’s number I could really confess to as a sudden revelation came over me from that five minute black out I had endured.
”It’s alright, it’s gunna be fine,” my brother had coaxed over the phone while I rambled on about my fears and the situation I had dug my way into. My speech had been so slurred from the recent booze and coke that I was sure my brother couldn’t understand half the things I choked out between quiet sobs.
”I’m going to pick you up. Wait for me and we’ll get you through this, alright?”
I didn’t wait for him.
I had made it half way through the living room of the current party I had crashed before I felt his lips staining my neck with vodka-coated kisses; I didn’t know how long he’d been awake, I had probably woken him up with my whimpered pleadings on the phone. All thoughts of my brother had been pushed aside while I let my body sink into the soft cushion of an unknown bed. The last thing I remember from that night was being buried in his sloppy kisses, he whispered softly in my ear that sent shivers down my spine as he promised he would try to make everything better, while the grit of metal against metal filled the air and my pants were being pulled from my hips along with our half-conscious groans.
He was such a beautiful tragedy. All I could think of was how lucky I was to have him fuck up my life then without him at all. Not a day passed by now that I couldn’t picture not having him and his over-medicated grace around me. Even now I smiled at the distorted memories we shared. We were just two boys whose goals had been shattered with the many broken booze bottles we finished.
I remember the night we fell down the pub steps, laughing about the fucked state we had let ourselves sink into because there wasn’t anything else we could do; our tears had dried up a long time ago. My head rested against his shoulder as I traced the ink trails that decorated his arm, my fingers slipping off track when my vision blurred and spun.
“Everyone knew,” I had whispered breathlessly, my lips quivering with broken chuckles without any real laughter behind me. “They all knew this was gunna happen…”
The bitter night’s air stung at my eyes that had already been watering from squinting so long at the street lights above. He sat up and squinted down at me, those bright hazel eyes trying to find just which pair of shifting eyes in his vision were actually mine. I could feel my bottom lip quiver as I began to burst into laughter, my hand wrapped around my stomach while I held my sore sides and cold tears drizzled from the corner of my eyes. My reason was slipping; I was going fucking crazy. All the faces that had ever looked at me with that knowing glare haunted me and swam through my head. They all thought the same thing; this boy isn’t gunna last. And they were right.
He just stared at me and shifted nervously beside me; his hands never lost their grip in mine.
“Ha ha! They all knew! They all fucking knew!” I screamed as I laughed and rolled around on the wet cement from the previous rainstorm that had sent us running into the pub in the first place. He was now staring at me with wide worried eyes as he watched me lose my sanity. It wasn’t like this wasn’t expected. Those sad hazel eyes had witnessed me fall apart so many times.
“K-knew what?” he asked hesitantly. I knew he was just waiting for me to lash out at him and scream. I also knew he wanted me to do just that. The way he looked at me with those pleading eyes whenever I assured him every one of my fuck ups was my doing and mine alone—but we both knew it was him who just loved company; he had given up on his life a long time ago and admired me for clinging onto mine.
“That I wasn’t gunna make it,” I choked out as I rubbed the residue out of my eyes. “I know what those fuckers thought. He’s just gunna end up like his junkie brother, he’ll never make it, he’ll be back, who does he think he’s fooling—THEY ALL KNEW!”
I watched him jump from the corner of my eye as I pretended to scream up at the night sky instead of in his face. Anger, pure anger bubbled in me. I wanted to just scratch out those bright hazels that just watched me, I could already see the tears welling up and could hear his whimpered apologies all over again.
One.
Two.
Three…
“M-Mikey, p-please, I’m s-“
“Don’t. Frank, j-just…”
Instead of tearing my fingernails across his face, I clutched onto the thick frames of my glasses and squeezed them tightly until my knuckles turned white. My hands ripped the glasses from my face and chucked them across the back lot pavement and into the middle of the street. I couldn’t see them skid; everything was just blurs of colors by then. There was a long moment of dead silence. Only the sounds of our chattering teeth and shaky breaths were heard but none of us moved. Even as my vision was blurred, I could see Frank’s face painted with tears as the trails shined on his cheeks in the light.
None of us spoke the rest of that night. We both stumbled home in silence that night. He had grabbed my glasses off the floor some time before we left and gently put them back on my face without a word. Our hands laced together without any emotion, it was all just habit by then. I think that’s why tears continued to roll down his face the rest of that night; he realized just how dead we both were.
I was stuck in reverse as I sat there on the tiled floor. Memories flashed like a movie theatre screen in my head, his eyes seemed luminescent as I watched him cry like he did so many other times. I wasn’t quite sure who was worse; me or him? Maybe if I wanted we could’ve compared our tragedies—he would win.
I wanted to scream and bawl. I wanted to cry and whimper. I wanted to tear the bathroom apart. I wanted to wail and cry for my brother’s help that I should have never turned away. I wanted to beg for my mother’s welcome home.
I guess I wasn’t as grown as I had thought.
Everything was slipping. Nothing was as perfect as it had once been. There was a time, when I first met Frank and when I first moved into my apartment, when I was honestly proud of myself for making it so far. Now, I stared at myself with disgust; I had been evicted weeks ago and was letting my relationship crumble before my very eyes without much of a fight. I was too tired to keep on fighting any longer. So was Frank; every sad weak smile that stretched across his face told me he was dragging along behind me now.
My love life had crashed with my dream life. Now, neither existed.
All my dreams of being a musician were crushed—I couldn’t even remember what notes to play with all the coke I shoved in before any kind of practice. Every band I jumped in with kicked me right back out. They didn’t see the same bass player from the very first practice ever again, only the drunk stumbling in with his bass who attempted to strum a few notes. I was good at first impressions; I just can’t keep up the act for too long. Frank knew that only too well. Any hopes for my relationship with Frank were torn beyond repair. Our hearts had dried a long time ago, there was no more blood left to drain. But somehow, every one of his choked “I love you’s” were pathetically honest and desperate. I couldn’t return his gestures anymore. I just stared hollowly back at the boy I had once gushed over and asked why.
I was just a lost little boy clinging onto the only thing left that held some bit of comfort. Even now, Frank’s presence was nauseating; I could just count down the seconds to our next devastating breakdown.
“J-just tell me!” he had screamed at me one day. “Just t-tell me what to d-do and I’ll do it!”
I didn’t need him to explain what he was talking about; I read the desperation in his eyes before he even opened his mouth.
“I don’t know what to tell you Frankie,” I mumbled dryly. I looked away so I didn’t have to watch him fall apart all over again.
“Are you even gunna t-try?” he whimpered. His eyes were burning into me, watching every movement I made to see if he could find some sort of revelation from me. This time I gave him what he wanted. I looked up and stared him straight in the eyes; he knew what was coming the second he flinched from my stare.
“I don’t know if I can try anymore, Frank.”
That was the last I saw of Frank. I wasn’t sure how long ago that was. A week ago, a day or two—maybe a few hours ago. I didn’t keep track of the days anymore. Slowly, choked sobs escaped me and my glasses fogged from my body’s exhausted heat. I had felt lost and uncertain about the world with Frank, but now that I had no one to face the world with, I felt completely empty. I had no one. Everything had just gone into a downward spiral leaving nothing behind for me except the lonely drugs and alcohol I pumped myself with. Now that I’m strung out, I don’t even have the toxic sensations anymore.
As I looked around the bathroom, I felt sorry for whoever’s house this was. I had left it destroyed with dripping blood and splattered vomit across the floor where I had run to make it to the toilet. My body was convulsing and I wheezed for air while I tried to fight back the urge to throw up more stomach acid. So much was whirling through me, physical pain included. I curled myself on the floor, not caring if a few locks of hair fell in the puddles of vomit.
I stared in a daze, my eyes weren’t focusing on anything and neither was my mind.
This was when it hit me.
I was just a lonely little boy who had lost himself.
Days would go by, but Mikey Way would be stuck at day one.
The day he stared into the eyes of Frank Iero and they both smiled.