Superlative

I’m lying on the floor. It feels rough like life. It sounds like crying. It smells like Axe and cat fur. I assume it tastes like remorse, but I don’t really lick floors in my spare time. It looks like a carpet, but it’s so much more. It is my life. It holds my past with all the regrets and the decisions and the “firsts” I went through. This little patch of fabric where I’ve lain in the past and thought and decided and cried and loved and lived. Now, it holds me in my present with knotted hair and tears running down my face and swollen lips. Crying. Sobbing. Waiting. Waiting to come to terms. Waiting and telling myself that it’s for the best. This pain. This intense pain that overcomes my body several times a day. This feeling of having my life and my will and my mind viciously snatched from my control. This is pain. This is a pain I no longer want to deal with. One which I intend to do away with. So, now, lying on this carpet where everything in my life has formed and evolved and grown legs and started running. It’s where I intend to die. To kill the pain that controls me. To rid of it. Death is morphine.

If he were here, he would tell me that I’m being stupid. He would tell me to get up and put on my brave face. That life is a whore and it fucks everyone every day. He would tell me that I’m not done. There is still fight left in me. I am stronger than this. He would tell me that it gets better. That I’m going to get better. Stronger. Better. Tougher. Superlative to life. I am more. But he’s not here. He walked away. I guess I should have expected it, giving him an ultimatum. I thought it would work, but it didn’t and he’s gone. The tether that keeps me afloat tore and now I feel myself drowning. Drowning in raw emotion and that pain. That pain that went away when he was near me. When he looked into my eyes. When he smiled. When he told me that he cared about me. I would say he’s my life, but he’s more. He is superlative to life. He takes the pain away. He makes me want to stick around to see what he’ll do. What he’ll say. What he will become and make me become and what we become together. He is more than life and more than the pain. He is morphine.

They say I’m depressed, but what does that mean. Everyone has something wrong. Depression. Anxiety. ADHD. ADD. Bipolar Disorder. Schizophrenia. We’re all psychotic or were psychotic or are becoming psychotic. We’re a dime a dozen and we sit and we talk and we breathe and we cry and they tell us they’ll fix us and they don’t. They tell me talking through my problems and through my feelings and through my thoughts will make me better. Will change me. Will fix me. I was never broken. This is the way I am. Who I am. What I am. Not who I want to be, but who I was made to be. I feel like if I try to fix myself that I’m doing myself an injustice. I’m defying nature and how I’m intended to live my life. If I try to fix myself, I’m trying to change myself. He said I was perfect. He is the only opinion that matters. He is the only person whose eyes see past diagnosis and pills and tears and skin and bones and problems. He sees me. Who I’m intended to be. He sees me.

There’s a knife lying on the floor. I took it when my roommate wasn’t looking. She saw my tears and asked me if I was okay. I lied. I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m alright. I’m lying. Can’t you see I’m lying? I’m always fucking lying! Because if I don’t lie, I’m pitied. I don’t want to be a fragile glass vase. I want to be strong. Stronger. Better. Tougher. Superlative to life. I want to be more. I can’t when everyone looks at me and sees depression. The depressed boy. Poor baby. Poor boy. He’s been through so much. I’ve been through more than they know and want to know and will know. And the knife. It knows. It sees the pain. It glints and winks at me. “I’ll take your pain,” it whispers. It winks more. Dancing in the sunlight and winking and grinning. “I am the morphine.” And it winks and grins and dances and whispers. The sharp edge like smooth polished teeth bared to me. It’s hungry. It wants to bite. Wants to feed. Feed on my pain. And it will live and I will not. “I’ll take your pain.” It whispers to me. “I am the morphine.”

I take the knife. The winking grinning dancing whispering knife. And it smiles like the Cheshire cat. Sly. Sleek. Hungry. Experimentally, I press it to my neck. It feels cold and hungry and right. It feels right as I slide it across my skin, not cutting into my flesh. No blood. Just experimenting. How would it feel? Right. I hover it over my jugular vein and it sniffs. Sniffs the fresh blood that courses life and pain and imminent death through my body. And it winks and grins and dances and whispers. “I’ll take your pain.” It’s hungry. “I am the morphine.”

I close my eyes and breathe. And it feels right and I want to do it, to end it, but then I think of him. He would shake his head. He wouldn’t be sad. He wouldn’t be upset and angry and regretful. He wouldn’t think what he could have done and would have done and should have done if only he knew. Because he did know and they did know and I did know. He wouldn’t be like everyone else. He would be disappointed. He would lean over my body. My corpse. Cold. Lifeless. He would lean over and whisper to me, like the knife. “You were stronger. You were tougher. You were better. You were superlative to life.” He would let a single tear drop and then he would walk away. He would hold me in his heart and think of me. He wouldn’t shed more tears, but he would be disappointed. That means more than all the world’s sadness. But he walked away.

Then I hear rain. The patter of heavy rain on my window, but then it stops. It stops as suddenly as it started and I open my eyes and he’s there. He’s there. He walked away, but he’s there. He’s sitting on my bean bag chair. Here. For a moment, I think he’s an illusion. It’s all in my head. It wants him and needs him and can’t have him. Then, he speaks. “Do it, Cole.” I stare blankly at him. I watch him. I wait. An explanation. A laugh. A tear, but no. That wouldn’t be him. He wouldn’t explain and laugh and cry. He would will me. He would make me realize. He walked away, but he’s here. Stronger. Tougher. Better. Superlative to death. His eyes are unreadable, but his face is tired. He knows me well. Too well. He knows how to make me bend and twist and do what’s right. He knows me. He sees me. I drop the knife on the floor and it cries and protests and growls. He sees me.

At first I can’t speak. I lie on the floor and he sits in the chair and watches me warily and is here. I look at him because he didn’t give up on me like everyone else. He didn’t accept the ultimatum. He’s different. The pain doesn’t disappear, but it begins to dissolve. Like salt in a glass of water, it dissipates and dulls and disappears. He is morphine. I open my mouth, but no sound escapes. I lie and gape and watch. His face never changes. His dark eyes still clouded and unreadable, tired. He’s so perfect, though. I almost lost him and it makes me sad. Not pained and hurt and regretful but disappointed. In myself. And I finally speak. I whisper. “Xavier.” And the tears well and I whisper. “You walked away.”

Then he’s by me. He lies by me and he throws an arm over my waist and he hugs me to him. And it’s right. More right than the knife to my neck. More right than a decision and my patch of carpet that I’ve grown up with. He is stronger better tougher. Superlative. He murmurs in my ear, his voice deep, his hair tickling my forehead. “I can’t always be with you, Cole. I can’t always be there to protect you. I want to. I want to be that for you, but that’s not realistic. You have to come to terms with this on your own and stand up for yourself. You’ll get better, but you have to tell yourself that first.” He isn’t going to always be there to protect me to be with me. That isn’t him. That isn’t Xavier. He knows me well and he knows the world well. But I don’t want to know the world. I want him and all of him, all the time.

So, I whisper. “I can’t stand up to them. They call me a fag and hurt me, Xavier. They hurt me for who I am and something I can’t change. And I can’t keep feeling this pain.” And I cry and he hugs me and he sees me and he’s here. He walked away, but he’s here. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I told you that you always had to be with me or else you could never be with me. I was stupid. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” And he kisses me. I know it’s to shut me up, but I can’t help but feel it’s his sorry. His apology for walking away. Xavier doesn’t apologize, but you know when he’s sorry. And I relish his warmth and his lips on mine until we disconnect. But emotionally we are still connected and he’s here. I see him. I feel him. He’s here.

He murmurs. “I know you hurt, Cole. I know it’s hard, but do you want to change? Because if that’s what you really want then nothing is stopping you. You can be what you want, Cole, but people will still judge you. They’ll still call you names. They’ll still hurt you.” He knows better than I do. He went through it before me. He knows the pain I feel. “I wish you didn’t have to go through it, but we all do. Everyone like us. They feel this pain, but I’m here. I will be here to pick you up and dust you off, but you have to fight the fight first. I can’t do it for you.” I pull him closer and cry openly. It feels better. It feels right to be in his arms and feel his body pressed to mine. The pain is gone. He makes it go away. “So tell me. Cole, do you want to change?” My ultimatum.

I don’t hesitate because I know. I know that I was silly and childish and hurt. But I also know that changing means losing him. I wouldn’t be who he sees and who I’m intended to be. I would be a molded member of society with a washed brain and no one there for me. But here, I’m free. No societal norms to bind me and chain me. And he is with me. He’s here. I murmur against him. “No.” We are stronger. Better. Tougher. We are superlative.