The Atmosphere, Past Tense.
the shapes of stardust
She seemed so sad. That was the only way I could sum it up and have it sound accurate. She seemed like she was worn down, like a toy running on half-dead, mismatched batteries that didn't seem like they would be enough to keep her going until eight at night. I know I hurt her a lot. I know that she was so sensitive. I know how hard things were for her sometimes. But she just didn't understand what I was saying. She didn't understand why I got so agitated. She didn't get why my moods changed so quickly. She didn't do anything to stop the match from striking, she didn't have the reflexes to bat away the flame from my short fuse. She didn't do anything to stop it from igniting. I guess I resented her a little for that.
How could a person who considers themselves to be so strong be so weak when it came down to love? How could they let themselves crumble and bend and melt at the hands of an uneducated and inexperienced alchemist? How could someone believe someone else after they had lied to them so much? How could someone take someone back who had hurt them before, and act as if they had forgotten all the negative things from the past? The acceptance of an intoxicated apology doesn't seem to constitute as something a strong and intelligent person would partake in. But she did, and she accepted me for what I was and she took me back and loved me like I should have loved her before. And yet, I still felt resentment towards her.
She was so quiet when she was hurt, when she was angry, when I had upset her. She was so still, like a lake in the winter. She was ice - fragile, cold, and still. So, so still. She absorbed the room. She took her surroundings in like a sponge, like a vacuum, and she used them to craft the stories that she never let me read, and the poetry that she wrote me sometimes. She was so, so sweet, but she was so, so broken and that worried me. She worried me, because she was always worried. I loved her, but she was so, so difficult.
Anyone could feel her energy - this tense vibration that shook the floorboards and rattled the windows until they shattered from the middle, sending shards of glass across the carpet and into the skin of surveyors who got too close. She was a force of nature and she was a miserable person, but she loved me and she tried her hardest to be happy. It was so frustrating for me to do everything in my power to make someone the happiest girl in the world, and to have it seem to amount to nothing. There was moments where she would grin and it wouldn't be forced, and where she would look at me with something other than a heart-wrenching sadness in her eyes, but these were only moments in a series of hours and they weren't enough for me to ever feel like I had accomplished anything.
The times I would call her out on being insensitive, loud, and inconsiderate seemed to build up inside of her until she felt that she was of little worth. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to make her feel like less of a person than she already did. I didn't mean to make her eyes sadder. I hated when her face changed. I didn't understand how someone so sensitive could also be so cold, but I guess that's why I didn't understand her.
She frightened me. She frightened me because she had the right to seek revenge and she didn't. She had the right to destroy me and she didn't. She held all this power over our heads, and she could have crushed me with it, but she didn't. She just held it there, allowing it to linger and become part of this terrifying atmosphere that followed her everywhere, like a dark cloud right before a thunderstorm. Her aura exuded from her body, like a metaphysical manifestation of her enigmatic personality, and it made her so scary. So, so scary.
By the same token, she was so human. She was full of such raw emotion and she was so vulnerable. She didn't like herself and she made that clear and she was so accidentally trusting that it made me question her ability to reason and think rationally. I knew it was there - I saw it frequently, or when necessity dictated. She wasn't the type to ever tell me exactly what she was feeling, unless it was anger, and it flowed through her like a red breeze. It filled her lungs and it colored her irises and it became a part of her, and she was a violent whirlwind of uncontrollable, child-like lividness and it was so scary and so funny at the same time. She cried a lot, and she always claimed she didn't cry when she was sniffling and wiping her swollen eyes. I always called her a liar, because she was one, and she would always deny it with the utmost sincerity - the sincerity that only exists in the genuinely good and the compulsively evil. It proved my point every single time.
Car rides were the worst. I hated driving in cities and she never did anything to make it better. She would say, let's move away from the city so neither of us have to drive in it. She would talk about the future at the most inopportune times. She would say things about "us" and "our house" and "our kids" and "our cat" and it would make me cringe because I didn't want to hear about "us" when I was driving on an interstate highway in rush hour traffic. I would hurt her feelings and she would get silent and then chain-smoke menthol cigarettes as she stared longingly out the window. A song she knew would come on the radio and she wouldn't sing for fear of being too vulnerable. She would just absorb it, sinking into the chair and the wheels and the pavement. She would sink so far into herself and the music that she would pretend she was invisible. It was childish and it was a coping method and it bothered me to no end. I would pester her to speak and it would hurt her more, but she would throw words from her lungs, her vocal chords trembling like I had punched her in the stomach and she was calling for help. Her disappearing act annoyed me so much. I just wanted her to be okay. Part of me knew she would never truly be okay.
This girl, she had so many ghosts, and they had all made her the way she was, and I hated every single skeleton she lugged on her back and hid in her closet. I wanted to throw them all away, in a dumpster somewhere far from Upstate New York, somewhere where they wouldn't weigh her down anymore. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe it was altruism. I want to say it was the latter, but the truth is that it's probably the former. She was constantly reminded of her character flaws and past mistakes by things I would say without thinking. She wanted my approval so badly, because the ghosts didn't approve and they didn't like the way she was before they changed her. They didn't like the way she was, after, either, and that's why they faded until they were invisible forces that lingered in her atmosphere. The ghosts had a lot to do with her insensitivity and her humanity, and I blame and thank them all the same. I blame them for ruining a perfectly good human being, but I thank them for giving me some semblance of "person" to work with.
I forgave her, though. I forgave her for the way she was. I forgave her for her broken heart and her sad eyes and the monstrous power that she held in her enigmatic personality. She was not the same person she was the week before, the month before, the year before. She was ever-changing, and she was as still and as cold as an iceberg. But she kept me warm. She had a heartbeat I could feel every time she laid near me, and she loved me no matter how many times I told her what I thought she was doing wrong. I guess all of her enigmatic bullshit and her intelligent facade and the way she became part of the walls and air and earth whenever emotion won over logic was worth putting up with. She loved me unconditionally and I tried my best to fix her, and when she draped her arms around me or fell asleep on my chest, she stopped being an unsolvable problem and became the only person I would ever love.
How could a person who considers themselves to be so strong be so weak when it came down to love? How could they let themselves crumble and bend and melt at the hands of an uneducated and inexperienced alchemist? How could someone believe someone else after they had lied to them so much? How could someone take someone back who had hurt them before, and act as if they had forgotten all the negative things from the past? The acceptance of an intoxicated apology doesn't seem to constitute as something a strong and intelligent person would partake in. But she did, and she accepted me for what I was and she took me back and loved me like I should have loved her before. And yet, I still felt resentment towards her.
She was so quiet when she was hurt, when she was angry, when I had upset her. She was so still, like a lake in the winter. She was ice - fragile, cold, and still. So, so still. She absorbed the room. She took her surroundings in like a sponge, like a vacuum, and she used them to craft the stories that she never let me read, and the poetry that she wrote me sometimes. She was so, so sweet, but she was so, so broken and that worried me. She worried me, because she was always worried. I loved her, but she was so, so difficult.
Anyone could feel her energy - this tense vibration that shook the floorboards and rattled the windows until they shattered from the middle, sending shards of glass across the carpet and into the skin of surveyors who got too close. She was a force of nature and she was a miserable person, but she loved me and she tried her hardest to be happy. It was so frustrating for me to do everything in my power to make someone the happiest girl in the world, and to have it seem to amount to nothing. There was moments where she would grin and it wouldn't be forced, and where she would look at me with something other than a heart-wrenching sadness in her eyes, but these were only moments in a series of hours and they weren't enough for me to ever feel like I had accomplished anything.
The times I would call her out on being insensitive, loud, and inconsiderate seemed to build up inside of her until she felt that she was of little worth. I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to make her feel like less of a person than she already did. I didn't mean to make her eyes sadder. I hated when her face changed. I didn't understand how someone so sensitive could also be so cold, but I guess that's why I didn't understand her.
She frightened me. She frightened me because she had the right to seek revenge and she didn't. She had the right to destroy me and she didn't. She held all this power over our heads, and she could have crushed me with it, but she didn't. She just held it there, allowing it to linger and become part of this terrifying atmosphere that followed her everywhere, like a dark cloud right before a thunderstorm. Her aura exuded from her body, like a metaphysical manifestation of her enigmatic personality, and it made her so scary. So, so scary.
By the same token, she was so human. She was full of such raw emotion and she was so vulnerable. She didn't like herself and she made that clear and she was so accidentally trusting that it made me question her ability to reason and think rationally. I knew it was there - I saw it frequently, or when necessity dictated. She wasn't the type to ever tell me exactly what she was feeling, unless it was anger, and it flowed through her like a red breeze. It filled her lungs and it colored her irises and it became a part of her, and she was a violent whirlwind of uncontrollable, child-like lividness and it was so scary and so funny at the same time. She cried a lot, and she always claimed she didn't cry when she was sniffling and wiping her swollen eyes. I always called her a liar, because she was one, and she would always deny it with the utmost sincerity - the sincerity that only exists in the genuinely good and the compulsively evil. It proved my point every single time.
Car rides were the worst. I hated driving in cities and she never did anything to make it better. She would say, let's move away from the city so neither of us have to drive in it. She would talk about the future at the most inopportune times. She would say things about "us" and "our house" and "our kids" and "our cat" and it would make me cringe because I didn't want to hear about "us" when I was driving on an interstate highway in rush hour traffic. I would hurt her feelings and she would get silent and then chain-smoke menthol cigarettes as she stared longingly out the window. A song she knew would come on the radio and she wouldn't sing for fear of being too vulnerable. She would just absorb it, sinking into the chair and the wheels and the pavement. She would sink so far into herself and the music that she would pretend she was invisible. It was childish and it was a coping method and it bothered me to no end. I would pester her to speak and it would hurt her more, but she would throw words from her lungs, her vocal chords trembling like I had punched her in the stomach and she was calling for help. Her disappearing act annoyed me so much. I just wanted her to be okay. Part of me knew she would never truly be okay.
This girl, she had so many ghosts, and they had all made her the way she was, and I hated every single skeleton she lugged on her back and hid in her closet. I wanted to throw them all away, in a dumpster somewhere far from Upstate New York, somewhere where they wouldn't weigh her down anymore. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe it was altruism. I want to say it was the latter, but the truth is that it's probably the former. She was constantly reminded of her character flaws and past mistakes by things I would say without thinking. She wanted my approval so badly, because the ghosts didn't approve and they didn't like the way she was before they changed her. They didn't like the way she was, after, either, and that's why they faded until they were invisible forces that lingered in her atmosphere. The ghosts had a lot to do with her insensitivity and her humanity, and I blame and thank them all the same. I blame them for ruining a perfectly good human being, but I thank them for giving me some semblance of "person" to work with.
I forgave her, though. I forgave her for the way she was. I forgave her for her broken heart and her sad eyes and the monstrous power that she held in her enigmatic personality. She was not the same person she was the week before, the month before, the year before. She was ever-changing, and she was as still and as cold as an iceberg. But she kept me warm. She had a heartbeat I could feel every time she laid near me, and she loved me no matter how many times I told her what I thought she was doing wrong. I guess all of her enigmatic bullshit and her intelligent facade and the way she became part of the walls and air and earth whenever emotion won over logic was worth putting up with. She loved me unconditionally and I tried my best to fix her, and when she draped her arms around me or fell asleep on my chest, she stopped being an unsolvable problem and became the only person I would ever love.