Status: A VERY slow work in progress
Stay
Dancer
When I was much younger, probably around the age of twenty, my hair was short and I bathed regularly. It was at that time that I was just beginning to experiment with drugs; not soft drugs, weed was a high school adventure done and over with, but hard drugs. I remember I hadn't been using heroin yet because I wasn't walking with my chin titled toward my chest in such away that it looked like I was sleeping. And although I was born a modest person, I will admit that for a short period of time between adolescence and failed rehabilitations, I was a handsome young man.
As a Montclair State University art student I was adamant in pursuing the technique of Expressionism, something of which I was quite vain in succeeding. I remember how proud I was to have surfaced out of a middle class family and into a world I had no idea would carry me to my addiction in the most swift of currents. I was so ignorant of my surroundings, that no higher education or well furnished dorm room could hide me away from this labyrinth of suffering.
I am twenty years old again. I am sitting in the dark Auditorium waiting for the curtain to unfold the stage. The pulse under my skin is beating loudly, something I have not felt in a very long time, and the ends of every nerve in my body are electrified; the tips of my fingers felt like hot Roman candles. They are dreadfully bored, like a lion pacing in a cage with foam at its jaw.
Picking at the material of my jeans, I impatiently counted the number of stitches in the hem. The school was having its Fall dance show, an elaborate and quite theatrical version of Les Miserables. I was not an English major, but I knew well most influential literature, this one in particular being my most favorite. I was a fan of tragedies. I was also a fan of love.
I tilted my head forward upon the lights dimming, eager for the first impression. The Auditorium darkened dramatically, all conversation decreasing to a whisper and soon, silence. The curtains drew apart, the music surfaced out from beyond the walls and the lights bloomed like lilies upon the stage. As I watched this performance, I thought to myself that Cosette was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I wanted to marry her right then and there. I damn myself for being so arrogant in trying to have that beauty all to myself.
I sauntered up to you as if I wrote the fucking play myself, so determined to have you that I couldn't stop myself from grinning a little. A crooked grin. Damn you for falling for it. I couldn't stand the sound of your voice the first time I heard it, not because it was ugly or unpleasant, but because it was dripping with so much honesty that you stopped me in my tracks from pursuing the thousand different artistic methods and destroyed every motive I had to continue to do so; my desire to please my upper middle class parents, as well as the intellectual society of New York City, had been depleted. My ego, my confidence, every ambition I ever had was pummeled to the ground, and I didn't even care.
After we dropped out before the second semester, suddenly I wasn't handsome anymore.
As a Montclair State University art student I was adamant in pursuing the technique of Expressionism, something of which I was quite vain in succeeding. I remember how proud I was to have surfaced out of a middle class family and into a world I had no idea would carry me to my addiction in the most swift of currents. I was so ignorant of my surroundings, that no higher education or well furnished dorm room could hide me away from this labyrinth of suffering.
I am twenty years old again. I am sitting in the dark Auditorium waiting for the curtain to unfold the stage. The pulse under my skin is beating loudly, something I have not felt in a very long time, and the ends of every nerve in my body are electrified; the tips of my fingers felt like hot Roman candles. They are dreadfully bored, like a lion pacing in a cage with foam at its jaw.
Picking at the material of my jeans, I impatiently counted the number of stitches in the hem. The school was having its Fall dance show, an elaborate and quite theatrical version of Les Miserables. I was not an English major, but I knew well most influential literature, this one in particular being my most favorite. I was a fan of tragedies. I was also a fan of love.
I tilted my head forward upon the lights dimming, eager for the first impression. The Auditorium darkened dramatically, all conversation decreasing to a whisper and soon, silence. The curtains drew apart, the music surfaced out from beyond the walls and the lights bloomed like lilies upon the stage. As I watched this performance, I thought to myself that Cosette was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I wanted to marry her right then and there. I damn myself for being so arrogant in trying to have that beauty all to myself.
I sauntered up to you as if I wrote the fucking play myself, so determined to have you that I couldn't stop myself from grinning a little. A crooked grin. Damn you for falling for it. I couldn't stand the sound of your voice the first time I heard it, not because it was ugly or unpleasant, but because it was dripping with so much honesty that you stopped me in my tracks from pursuing the thousand different artistic methods and destroyed every motive I had to continue to do so; my desire to please my upper middle class parents, as well as the intellectual society of New York City, had been depleted. My ego, my confidence, every ambition I ever had was pummeled to the ground, and I didn't even care.
After we dropped out before the second semester, suddenly I wasn't handsome anymore.