You
You
When I find you, you’re asleep on the hardwood floor of your dark room, like you’ve just completely forgotten about the massive king-sized bed. You’ve always thrown away what you had. When I find you, you’re shirtless, waxy-paper-eyelids closed, twitching with sleep every few seconds, dusty pink lips opened to just a tiny half-circle, and a tiny bit of crimson red blood flowing underneath your skin tipping your cheeks pink.
When I find you, you’re still breathing. And some part of my sick heart finds that so surprising, and so disgustingly heartbreaking. Some part of my sick mind wanted you to be dead already, so I didn’t have to say goodbye. When I find you I’m eight minutes and thirty-six seconds late, and even if you aren’t going to say anything, trust me; you notice.
Because I am wasting time. I am always wasting time.
My foot scuffs the hardwood, and I bite my lip as you stir to consciousness again. You blink twice, and then you open your grey eyes. The hard steel of them sends a shudder soaring clear through to my bones, and I take a deep breath, open my mouth. “I-“
“It’s okay,” you whisper hoarsely, and I just shut my mouth again, just nod, and say okay. Because you’re never really looking for excuses. Just reasons. It’s all about the facts when it comes to you. But even when there aren’t any reasons – even when it’s all just stupid disgusting bloody and torn excuses – somehow, you still seem to forgive me.
They said you were going to die. When they said it, I punched the doctor in the face; I broke his nose, nice and clean break, blood dribbling down his bleached-white, dry-cleaned doctor’s coat, as he stood there and blinked at me. And he never said anything when I walked away. He never said anything when I picked you off their tiny frail bed and carried you the entire way home.
When you speak, your lips form so slowly around the words. Like you’re contemplating what exactly would be the right way to say the things you want to; which way the syllables will come out sounding less weak and tired. When you speak, you eyes just go even hollower.
When you speak, I close my eyes so tight that tiny purple, green, blue and red fireworks explode behind my eyelids, and the fissure line cracks even deeper.
I am crumbling to pieces, crumbling to the ground, so hard, so fast, so weak.
And even though it doesn’t even seem possible, you are crumbling even faster.
“C-comehere,” You say, and it blows out of the perfect oval of your lips so fast that I have to do a double-take. When your arms reach out for me, I feel suddenly like I might collapse on the hardwood in front of you, shaking and sobbing and pleading for oxygen to stop my bleeding lungs from burning. But instead, I just walk over and sit on my knees in front of you.
And when your tiny arms wrap around my seemingly growing frame, it hits me.
I am not growing. You are just shrinking.
Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking down to nothingness, so fast I’ve barely had time to blink. So fast it feels like I’ve been caught up in a whirlwind of one of those soap-operas, where loves ends to easy, and people die too fast.
But something tells me that when you die, you won’t come back like those stars always do.
When I look up into those grey eyes filled with lost hope, new despair, and black pupils of abyss, I realize that I am gasping for breath, I realize that every fiber of my being is taking a crash-course-lesson in HellofuckingReality. I am gasping gasping gasping, pleading, and somehow, through that, warm tears are creating a river of resentment between us.
When I look up into those grey eyes, I feel resentment towards you. Resentment, because a boy-man like you should never have given up. Because you have never given up before; I resent that you’ve given up now.
“What?” You murmur slowly, like you’re not really sure whether or not you should question this.
“I just… keep thinking that… that something will change. Someone will change their minds and trade you for someone else.” The air around us shifts, electrically charged with dangerous words now. Your arms tense, and your eyelids flutter closed for just a second longer than normal.
“That’s not the way it works – you don’t trade one life for another. I-it doesn’t work that way andyouknowit.” The last part of your sentence hurls out fast, and it’s then that you begin gasping for air, too. I reach up, and brush my fingers through your hair, long overgrown, pale and glimmering in the early morning sunlight.
These are our last hours, and there’s no turning back.
Even though the tears in my eyes are evident, there’s no trace of pathetic salt-water hidden in yours. You have long since given up on the broken promises and disgusting tears – such a waste of energy. Even though I’m still gasping, the sound ringing loud and desperate through the room, you are calm and complete and at peace with this.
“D-don’t you want to be angry?” I ask you, and for a second – just one tiny, fast beat of a second – the barriers in your eyes come crashing down, your defenses are ripped to shreds and your fears fly out into the room, hurtling towards me full-force.
But it’s only just one second before you block them again.
“I’ve been angry,” you murmur, burying your face into my neck. “Most of my life, I’ve been angry. My parents, schools, you, the world – I’ve been angry. I’ve been selfish and I’ve been cocky and I’ve been obnoxious and arrogant. I’ve been it all. But most of all, I’ve been so angry. And call it giving up if you like, but I can’t do it anymore.”
“You could have fought it,” I say, with a hard edge to my voice, my fingers gripping your arms, and my jaw setting in a stern way. The emotion in my voice is so raw, so feeling, that my stomach twists at the revelation that yes, maybe it’s possible that I could love you. Maybe it’s possible that you could love me.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” you say in your newfound slow drawn-out tone. Your fingers brush the collar of my shirt, and suddenly, I know that you don’t want to talk about anything anymore. You just want to feel.
When we make love for the last time, the feeling is raw and unintelligible, floating in the spaces between us, slipping through the deep fissures of our hearts; the sounds are low and sad, filled with broken little gasps of broken words, words we can’t complete when we aren’t out of breath.
When we make love for the last time, the high I’m on doesn’t seem to crash, when your head is lying on my torso, glassy-grey eyes blinking up at me through the thick haze of sex and sweat. My fingers twist through your hair, a repeated process, as you smile in contentment. It doesn’t seem to matter that our hours are dwindling into minutes, it doesn’t seem to matter that when I leave at the break of dawn, there’s no turning back.
You’ve made your decision, and you’ll always stick to it. People like you don’t go back on their word – that’s what you say. But something inside my mind screams that people like you wouldn’t want to die so fast, either.
When I open my mouth to say something, the look in your eyes tells me that you already know what I’m going to say, that you just don’t want to hear it. So I keep twisting my fingers through your hair, and you drift off into sleep. And for a second I’m horrified – how could you want to sleep when we only have six hours, three minutes, and nineteen seconds together left?
But I let you sleep.
Because if there’s one last thing I want to see you do, it’s this. Your beautiful body, sprawled around me, naked limbs tangled with white sheets and sweat; this is one image that for eternity, I’ll never forget…
I wake you just before six a.m. Just before the sun slips up through the dark-grey clouds, just before the moon slips behind the grass, just before the clouds give way to the blue sky. You blink at me, and in that moment, I see all the self-resentment you hold against yourself for giving up. And it might only last a fleeting second, again, but I see that you love me, too.
And when I kiss you, it is rough and hard-edged, but filled with unspoken words and regrets. Iloveyou. I shouldn’t ever have come. I need you. And then you pull away, and you open the door, and you say goodbye, and I know, I know, that even when you’re dead, I’ll never be able to put you behind me.
When I walk outside, the crisp autumn air bites at my nose and the sun seems cool and even-tempered. The leaves flutter around me and then settle back down.
When I walk away from you, some hidden string in my heart breaks, and everything I’ve been holding in falls apart, from the inside out, and I know, I know, that it’s never been about me loving you. It’s never been about me hating you or wanting you. It’s just been about you. Period.
And I don’t believe I’ll ever forgive you for giving up this time.
But I still love you.
When I find you, you’re still breathing. And some part of my sick heart finds that so surprising, and so disgustingly heartbreaking. Some part of my sick mind wanted you to be dead already, so I didn’t have to say goodbye. When I find you I’m eight minutes and thirty-six seconds late, and even if you aren’t going to say anything, trust me; you notice.
Because I am wasting time. I am always wasting time.
My foot scuffs the hardwood, and I bite my lip as you stir to consciousness again. You blink twice, and then you open your grey eyes. The hard steel of them sends a shudder soaring clear through to my bones, and I take a deep breath, open my mouth. “I-“
“It’s okay,” you whisper hoarsely, and I just shut my mouth again, just nod, and say okay. Because you’re never really looking for excuses. Just reasons. It’s all about the facts when it comes to you. But even when there aren’t any reasons – even when it’s all just stupid disgusting bloody and torn excuses – somehow, you still seem to forgive me.
They said you were going to die. When they said it, I punched the doctor in the face; I broke his nose, nice and clean break, blood dribbling down his bleached-white, dry-cleaned doctor’s coat, as he stood there and blinked at me. And he never said anything when I walked away. He never said anything when I picked you off their tiny frail bed and carried you the entire way home.
When you speak, your lips form so slowly around the words. Like you’re contemplating what exactly would be the right way to say the things you want to; which way the syllables will come out sounding less weak and tired. When you speak, you eyes just go even hollower.
When you speak, I close my eyes so tight that tiny purple, green, blue and red fireworks explode behind my eyelids, and the fissure line cracks even deeper.
I am crumbling to pieces, crumbling to the ground, so hard, so fast, so weak.
And even though it doesn’t even seem possible, you are crumbling even faster.
“C-comehere,” You say, and it blows out of the perfect oval of your lips so fast that I have to do a double-take. When your arms reach out for me, I feel suddenly like I might collapse on the hardwood in front of you, shaking and sobbing and pleading for oxygen to stop my bleeding lungs from burning. But instead, I just walk over and sit on my knees in front of you.
And when your tiny arms wrap around my seemingly growing frame, it hits me.
I am not growing. You are just shrinking.
Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking down to nothingness, so fast I’ve barely had time to blink. So fast it feels like I’ve been caught up in a whirlwind of one of those soap-operas, where loves ends to easy, and people die too fast.
But something tells me that when you die, you won’t come back like those stars always do.
When I look up into those grey eyes filled with lost hope, new despair, and black pupils of abyss, I realize that I am gasping for breath, I realize that every fiber of my being is taking a crash-course-lesson in HellofuckingReality. I am gasping gasping gasping, pleading, and somehow, through that, warm tears are creating a river of resentment between us.
When I look up into those grey eyes, I feel resentment towards you. Resentment, because a boy-man like you should never have given up. Because you have never given up before; I resent that you’ve given up now.
“What?” You murmur slowly, like you’re not really sure whether or not you should question this.
“I just… keep thinking that… that something will change. Someone will change their minds and trade you for someone else.” The air around us shifts, electrically charged with dangerous words now. Your arms tense, and your eyelids flutter closed for just a second longer than normal.
“That’s not the way it works – you don’t trade one life for another. I-it doesn’t work that way andyouknowit.” The last part of your sentence hurls out fast, and it’s then that you begin gasping for air, too. I reach up, and brush my fingers through your hair, long overgrown, pale and glimmering in the early morning sunlight.
These are our last hours, and there’s no turning back.
Even though the tears in my eyes are evident, there’s no trace of pathetic salt-water hidden in yours. You have long since given up on the broken promises and disgusting tears – such a waste of energy. Even though I’m still gasping, the sound ringing loud and desperate through the room, you are calm and complete and at peace with this.
“D-don’t you want to be angry?” I ask you, and for a second – just one tiny, fast beat of a second – the barriers in your eyes come crashing down, your defenses are ripped to shreds and your fears fly out into the room, hurtling towards me full-force.
But it’s only just one second before you block them again.
“I’ve been angry,” you murmur, burying your face into my neck. “Most of my life, I’ve been angry. My parents, schools, you, the world – I’ve been angry. I’ve been selfish and I’ve been cocky and I’ve been obnoxious and arrogant. I’ve been it all. But most of all, I’ve been so angry. And call it giving up if you like, but I can’t do it anymore.”
“You could have fought it,” I say, with a hard edge to my voice, my fingers gripping your arms, and my jaw setting in a stern way. The emotion in my voice is so raw, so feeling, that my stomach twists at the revelation that yes, maybe it’s possible that I could love you. Maybe it’s possible that you could love me.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” you say in your newfound slow drawn-out tone. Your fingers brush the collar of my shirt, and suddenly, I know that you don’t want to talk about anything anymore. You just want to feel.
When we make love for the last time, the feeling is raw and unintelligible, floating in the spaces between us, slipping through the deep fissures of our hearts; the sounds are low and sad, filled with broken little gasps of broken words, words we can’t complete when we aren’t out of breath.
When we make love for the last time, the high I’m on doesn’t seem to crash, when your head is lying on my torso, glassy-grey eyes blinking up at me through the thick haze of sex and sweat. My fingers twist through your hair, a repeated process, as you smile in contentment. It doesn’t seem to matter that our hours are dwindling into minutes, it doesn’t seem to matter that when I leave at the break of dawn, there’s no turning back.
You’ve made your decision, and you’ll always stick to it. People like you don’t go back on their word – that’s what you say. But something inside my mind screams that people like you wouldn’t want to die so fast, either.
When I open my mouth to say something, the look in your eyes tells me that you already know what I’m going to say, that you just don’t want to hear it. So I keep twisting my fingers through your hair, and you drift off into sleep. And for a second I’m horrified – how could you want to sleep when we only have six hours, three minutes, and nineteen seconds together left?
But I let you sleep.
Because if there’s one last thing I want to see you do, it’s this. Your beautiful body, sprawled around me, naked limbs tangled with white sheets and sweat; this is one image that for eternity, I’ll never forget…
I wake you just before six a.m. Just before the sun slips up through the dark-grey clouds, just before the moon slips behind the grass, just before the clouds give way to the blue sky. You blink at me, and in that moment, I see all the self-resentment you hold against yourself for giving up. And it might only last a fleeting second, again, but I see that you love me, too.
And when I kiss you, it is rough and hard-edged, but filled with unspoken words and regrets. Iloveyou. I shouldn’t ever have come. I need you. And then you pull away, and you open the door, and you say goodbye, and I know, I know, that even when you’re dead, I’ll never be able to put you behind me.
When I walk outside, the crisp autumn air bites at my nose and the sun seems cool and even-tempered. The leaves flutter around me and then settle back down.
When I walk away from you, some hidden string in my heart breaks, and everything I’ve been holding in falls apart, from the inside out, and I know, I know, that it’s never been about me loving you. It’s never been about me hating you or wanting you. It’s just been about you. Period.
And I don’t believe I’ll ever forgive you for giving up this time.
But I still love you.