Disenchanted

The next morning.

I don't know why I continue to torture myself like this. I never slept last night when I did get up and drag myself back home. I curled up in a ball in my bed, turning on my best breakup songs the loudest I possibly could and crying myself out. The crying ended when the tears dried up, the salt from my tears had made my eyes bloodshot and puffy. And when I was sniffling in saddened disappointment.

I held the tape in my shaking hands. It was a home video. One of the many we had made. More tears dripped pathetically down my cheeks and off my chin. Staining the label on the tape. It's title “Memories of '89”

I glanced hopelessly over at the cardboard box taller than me sitting down, filled with more of these tapes. Which would most likely have the effect of acid on cuts for me. I sucked in one deep encouraging breath, poked it into the VHS slot and looked slowly up at the screen. It was black and white and fuzzy at first. I had to make more of a effort to make out the shapes until it cleared up.

“Open this one.” He demanded. Shoving another Christmas present into my hands. I was blushing like crazy. Grinning like a moron.

I laughed and ripped it open. It was a vinyl of a outdated copy of Elvis Presly.

Then the scene cut to a fuzzy vision of me standing with him under the doorway with a little sprig of mistletoe above my unknowing head. He pecked me on the cheek and I turned bright red.

The most noticeable thing about me in the video, was how much I smiled, laughed and blushed. How happy I was...

And then he turned and grinned into the camera. And I was forced to get a eyeful of his green eyes, crooked teeth and bleached blond hair. His silly grin as he ruffled my hair. Then when he placed his finger to his lips to tell the director to be quiet, while he snuck up behind the sofa on his drummer, scaring the living shit out of him. I laughed, quietly. It awoke the demons inside.

I hadn't realized that I was leaning towards the screen. One hand raised hesitantly towards the flickering projections of Him. The one who caused me all this pain. But seeing his face again now, certainly didn't help my sanity. But it reminded me that he was real. Or had been. Now he was a flickering figment of my imagination in my dreams and memories.

I ruffled his hair and called him by his nicknames. I, the bassist and the drummer serenaded Him in the song he sung when he was five.

“Look for love, look for love, look for love.” we sang loudly out of tune while he faked pouting on the couch. Crossing his arms across his chest tightly in a pre-tantrum mode. 

God, watching these, I realized how much I missed him.

My next song started on the stereo, quietly, but loud enough for me to hear it, I listened to it until the end, when the tap also rumbled to a end. The closing line of my song was the one he sung to me a lot when I couldn't sleep. 

“Because I'm thinking about a brand new hope. The one I've never known, 'cause I know it's all that I wanted.”

All that I wanted...