Hello Stranger
Some Habits You Just Can't Change
Hello, stranger.
How does it feel? How does it feel?
Sometimes it’s just like falling asleep. I look at you through thin-lidded eyes that droop shut, and then you are mine. In your favourite black jeans, you can’t keep your fingers from fiddling with the fraying holes so that they just tear even wider across your knees. Sprawled diagonally across my bed, strumming your guitar along with the chords shattering my overhead speakers. Singing at the very top of your lungs, even though we both know your voice will always crack if it gets too loud. In the middle of the song you stop playing, and you smile at me so wide that your eyes crinkle at the edges and your irises are made of stained glass. “I love you,” you mouth with pomegranate lips. Just like always. Because you’re my best friend.
Then I open up my eyes again, back from when I slipped away, and you never spoke those words to me. Instead, you’re ranting about my brother again. How when he passed you on your way to the bathroom, he didn’t even say hello. Not even when you intentionally brushed against him. He just looked at you, not even seeing you. I mean, how much more obvious can you get, you know? Mikey, why doesn’t your brother notice me?
You are with me, Frank, but you are not mine.
Sometimes it’s more like waking up. You call me up on the telephone because the stars are twitching over your house, but you can’t sleep. Voice jittery with late-night nerves and excitement strung up in your veins, you tell me jokes to keep me from falling asleep. Dirty ones that make me cough so hard I’m afraid I’ll go into some sort of epileptic seizure. It doesn’t matter that my eyes are sliding shut, my mind is wide awake every second and thinking of you. You mind if I come over right now, Mikes?
No, Frankie, I don’t mind.
You mind if I share your bed?
No, Frankie, I don’t mind.
I’m awake, awake every second and thinking of you. Of all the nights you’ve ever shared my bed under stars that wouldn’t let you sleep, this one to be no different than any of the others. Unless I kiss your pomegranate lips. Unless I wrap your body around mine so that you’d know just how much you meant to me. Just how many times I laid awake at night, awake every second and thinking of you.
Hello, stranger, I hear you sneaking through the front door, using your own special key for when we go on vacations and you use our house as some kind of stakeout. Your feet on the worn wooden stairs, but they aren’t my stairs. I hear you descend, every footstep hollow with hope. You knock on his door, and I wait for you to get hurt again. Down in the basement, to have him toss you away again. It’s always that same horror story played out a hundred different ways, each one more bitter than the last. I listen for your feet by my door, ready to see you teary-eyed and broken, wondering why it is you aren’t good enough. But you never come. If I listen hard enough I can hear the creaking of his old spring mattress and muffled groans that filter through thin plaster walls. It’s his bed you share that night, not mine.
I lay here waiting for you, Frank, wondering why it is I’m not good enough.
Sometimes it’s like having a nightmare, but I’m not even sleeping. You invite me everywhere the two of you go, because we’re still best friends, right? Holding his hand tight inside the clubs he slips us into when we should be doing homework on my bed—like you want to remind him that you’re still the one who’s there. He’s with you because his arm is draped over your slender waist in a way that you hope is possessive, but his eyes are everywhere but your face. All over those men who follow him to the piss-floor restroom in the back of the club and stay there just five minutes too long. You sit with me and try to smile with all of your teeth, but all the time we both know what it is he’s doing in there. He’s my blood, there’s not much he can hide. Last night he told me he loved me, you tell me over the hot pounding of the music, but which one of us are you trying to convince? The tears in your eyes reflect the parading cabaret of lights, but they still manage to shine when he returns, his fly only half-zipped. You are fading before my very eyes because of those tricks that he plays.
I hate that I am losing you, Frank, because we’re still best friends, right?
Sometimes it’s like a dream, a sweet, mocking dream. I jolt out of slumber because you are a sniffling shadow by my bedroom door. Slumped there for God knows how long, your face buried in a mess of your hands and knees. Is this room getting too small for us, or are we just growing up? No more late-night phone calls because you mostly sleep in my house, but you’re never with me. C’mon, now, I whisper through the drunken shadows, tiredly motioning for you to come over to me. You stand up in your wrinkled t-shirt, and you remind me of the little boy I met all those years ago in the sandbox at school. I’ll never know how you still manage to scrape your elbows on a daily basis. The belt on your pants is slung loose around your hips, jeans you didn’t even bother to button back up. Down in the basement I hear my brother slamming things around like it’ll make some kind of cosmic difference in the things you both said that you can’t take back. How convenient it must be when you fight with your boyfriend, to be able to walk up a flight of stairs and have your best friend there to console you. You crawl up into my bed, your face miserably sloppy with tears and snot, looking absolutely beautiful at your very worst. He called me a fucking slut, you sob into my shirt. Your hands are shaking so bad, rivers of veins slamming through the thin skin. I lift your face and I kiss you hard to make you stop crying, and you press against me so roughly that my lips tear and bruise. When you can’t breathe, you pull back, falling backward onto my pillows and hugging my body to you so tight, just to feel another heart beating besides yours. Thanks, Mikey, you whisper, and you fall asleep with my blood smeared across your chin.
I get out of bed and slump against my bedroom door for God knows how long, Frank, my face buried in a mess of my hands and knees.
But then sometimes, sometimes it’s real. I move away because we aren’t kids anymore, and this stopped being a game. You can’t be my life forever. At night I dream of you because now the bed you used to sprawl across with your guitar doesn’t exist anymore. It has to be a memory to visit in my head once in a while, a meteor shower that only rocks the universe once every seven years. You’re probably off somewhere with my brother, pretending that this is the last night, you won’t take him back again if he fucks it up like you know he will. Off somewhere pretending that you didn’t just catch him sucking anonymous face in a dark corner with a guy who isn’t you. It’s okay to live in denial when you’ve got nothing left to prove. I lay alone in my empty loft apartment, wondering if you ever got my change of address note. Last time I called, your phone had been disconnected because you forgot to pay the bills again. I don’t know how to get in touch with you anymore, so I’m laying here in my empty loft apartment, trying to remember what your face looked like when you smiled. I sent you a key in the mail, remember? You were always welcome in my life, even when you started to shut me out of yours.
The intercom buzzes, but I don’t turn on the light because it’s probably just some dumbfuck pressing the wrong button. Again. Everyone knows that 3 and 8 look alike, so it’s no big deal to be tricked by illusions. When you’re lonely, you learn to stop expecting company. But then your voice crackles through, weary over the airwaves, Mikey it’s me, and my hand hits the buzzer to let you in before my eyes are even open. Some habits you just can’t change. You were always one of mine.
Hello, stranger. You crash through the metal door to my loft, the key clutched tightly in your hand. I lift my head from my pillow and watch you adjust to the darkness and pick your way across my room. A fantasy that feels like liquid, like sand running through an hour glass, a glossy bubble suspended on thin air. Up onto the landing where my bed is, shedding shoes socks jacket as you go. Some habits you just can’t change.
Hello, stranger, you whisper, kneeling above me on the duvet with the light shining behind you like a creature from the apocalypse. You cut your hair, I notice. You’ve developed wrinkles around your eyes and mouth, I notice, but they sure as hell aren’t laugh lines. There are a few tears streaked across your face, sucking up all the light in the room, but suddenly I can remember your smile.
What happened to Gerard? I ask.
And you say, You can only make a mistake for so many years.
Your face buried in my shirt, you sob out everything that’s in you, but this time I don’t know why. You are a perfect stranger, a smile I used to remember from some place in time. All the curves of your body that meant something to me while I slept the hazy, fitful sleep of someone deep in the melancholy of lust. The teasing lilt of your smile that I saw on every single face on the street. So I just lift your chin and kiss you hard on your pomegranate lips to make you stop crying. Some habits you just can’t change. But this time you don’t pull away, and you don’t make me bleed. You just stay there, right where you are, remembering how many times I gave you a human heartbeat when you couldn’t muster one up for yourself. Bringing back memories of singing across my bed and fixing you whenever my brother cracked your fragile heart. I love you, you mouth. Just like always. Because at one point, we could have been more than best friends. Then I hold you until you manage to sleep, and when I wake up in the morning you’re still here with your head on my arm and your eyes closed, dreaming of monsters. We’ve got years to unveil. You smile up at me until your eyes crinkle up at the edges, lifetime paintings of stained glass, and revealing all of the cracks on your weary heart.
And I fix you, Frank. Because some habits you just can’t change.
How does it feel? How does it feel?
Sometimes it’s just like falling asleep. I look at you through thin-lidded eyes that droop shut, and then you are mine. In your favourite black jeans, you can’t keep your fingers from fiddling with the fraying holes so that they just tear even wider across your knees. Sprawled diagonally across my bed, strumming your guitar along with the chords shattering my overhead speakers. Singing at the very top of your lungs, even though we both know your voice will always crack if it gets too loud. In the middle of the song you stop playing, and you smile at me so wide that your eyes crinkle at the edges and your irises are made of stained glass. “I love you,” you mouth with pomegranate lips. Just like always. Because you’re my best friend.
Then I open up my eyes again, back from when I slipped away, and you never spoke those words to me. Instead, you’re ranting about my brother again. How when he passed you on your way to the bathroom, he didn’t even say hello. Not even when you intentionally brushed against him. He just looked at you, not even seeing you. I mean, how much more obvious can you get, you know? Mikey, why doesn’t your brother notice me?
You are with me, Frank, but you are not mine.
Sometimes it’s more like waking up. You call me up on the telephone because the stars are twitching over your house, but you can’t sleep. Voice jittery with late-night nerves and excitement strung up in your veins, you tell me jokes to keep me from falling asleep. Dirty ones that make me cough so hard I’m afraid I’ll go into some sort of epileptic seizure. It doesn’t matter that my eyes are sliding shut, my mind is wide awake every second and thinking of you. You mind if I come over right now, Mikes?
No, Frankie, I don’t mind.
You mind if I share your bed?
No, Frankie, I don’t mind.
I’m awake, awake every second and thinking of you. Of all the nights you’ve ever shared my bed under stars that wouldn’t let you sleep, this one to be no different than any of the others. Unless I kiss your pomegranate lips. Unless I wrap your body around mine so that you’d know just how much you meant to me. Just how many times I laid awake at night, awake every second and thinking of you.
Hello, stranger, I hear you sneaking through the front door, using your own special key for when we go on vacations and you use our house as some kind of stakeout. Your feet on the worn wooden stairs, but they aren’t my stairs. I hear you descend, every footstep hollow with hope. You knock on his door, and I wait for you to get hurt again. Down in the basement, to have him toss you away again. It’s always that same horror story played out a hundred different ways, each one more bitter than the last. I listen for your feet by my door, ready to see you teary-eyed and broken, wondering why it is you aren’t good enough. But you never come. If I listen hard enough I can hear the creaking of his old spring mattress and muffled groans that filter through thin plaster walls. It’s his bed you share that night, not mine.
I lay here waiting for you, Frank, wondering why it is I’m not good enough.
Sometimes it’s like having a nightmare, but I’m not even sleeping. You invite me everywhere the two of you go, because we’re still best friends, right? Holding his hand tight inside the clubs he slips us into when we should be doing homework on my bed—like you want to remind him that you’re still the one who’s there. He’s with you because his arm is draped over your slender waist in a way that you hope is possessive, but his eyes are everywhere but your face. All over those men who follow him to the piss-floor restroom in the back of the club and stay there just five minutes too long. You sit with me and try to smile with all of your teeth, but all the time we both know what it is he’s doing in there. He’s my blood, there’s not much he can hide. Last night he told me he loved me, you tell me over the hot pounding of the music, but which one of us are you trying to convince? The tears in your eyes reflect the parading cabaret of lights, but they still manage to shine when he returns, his fly only half-zipped. You are fading before my very eyes because of those tricks that he plays.
I hate that I am losing you, Frank, because we’re still best friends, right?
Sometimes it’s like a dream, a sweet, mocking dream. I jolt out of slumber because you are a sniffling shadow by my bedroom door. Slumped there for God knows how long, your face buried in a mess of your hands and knees. Is this room getting too small for us, or are we just growing up? No more late-night phone calls because you mostly sleep in my house, but you’re never with me. C’mon, now, I whisper through the drunken shadows, tiredly motioning for you to come over to me. You stand up in your wrinkled t-shirt, and you remind me of the little boy I met all those years ago in the sandbox at school. I’ll never know how you still manage to scrape your elbows on a daily basis. The belt on your pants is slung loose around your hips, jeans you didn’t even bother to button back up. Down in the basement I hear my brother slamming things around like it’ll make some kind of cosmic difference in the things you both said that you can’t take back. How convenient it must be when you fight with your boyfriend, to be able to walk up a flight of stairs and have your best friend there to console you. You crawl up into my bed, your face miserably sloppy with tears and snot, looking absolutely beautiful at your very worst. He called me a fucking slut, you sob into my shirt. Your hands are shaking so bad, rivers of veins slamming through the thin skin. I lift your face and I kiss you hard to make you stop crying, and you press against me so roughly that my lips tear and bruise. When you can’t breathe, you pull back, falling backward onto my pillows and hugging my body to you so tight, just to feel another heart beating besides yours. Thanks, Mikey, you whisper, and you fall asleep with my blood smeared across your chin.
I get out of bed and slump against my bedroom door for God knows how long, Frank, my face buried in a mess of my hands and knees.
But then sometimes, sometimes it’s real. I move away because we aren’t kids anymore, and this stopped being a game. You can’t be my life forever. At night I dream of you because now the bed you used to sprawl across with your guitar doesn’t exist anymore. It has to be a memory to visit in my head once in a while, a meteor shower that only rocks the universe once every seven years. You’re probably off somewhere with my brother, pretending that this is the last night, you won’t take him back again if he fucks it up like you know he will. Off somewhere pretending that you didn’t just catch him sucking anonymous face in a dark corner with a guy who isn’t you. It’s okay to live in denial when you’ve got nothing left to prove. I lay alone in my empty loft apartment, wondering if you ever got my change of address note. Last time I called, your phone had been disconnected because you forgot to pay the bills again. I don’t know how to get in touch with you anymore, so I’m laying here in my empty loft apartment, trying to remember what your face looked like when you smiled. I sent you a key in the mail, remember? You were always welcome in my life, even when you started to shut me out of yours.
The intercom buzzes, but I don’t turn on the light because it’s probably just some dumbfuck pressing the wrong button. Again. Everyone knows that 3 and 8 look alike, so it’s no big deal to be tricked by illusions. When you’re lonely, you learn to stop expecting company. But then your voice crackles through, weary over the airwaves, Mikey it’s me, and my hand hits the buzzer to let you in before my eyes are even open. Some habits you just can’t change. You were always one of mine.
Hello, stranger. You crash through the metal door to my loft, the key clutched tightly in your hand. I lift my head from my pillow and watch you adjust to the darkness and pick your way across my room. A fantasy that feels like liquid, like sand running through an hour glass, a glossy bubble suspended on thin air. Up onto the landing where my bed is, shedding shoes socks jacket as you go. Some habits you just can’t change.
Hello, stranger, you whisper, kneeling above me on the duvet with the light shining behind you like a creature from the apocalypse. You cut your hair, I notice. You’ve developed wrinkles around your eyes and mouth, I notice, but they sure as hell aren’t laugh lines. There are a few tears streaked across your face, sucking up all the light in the room, but suddenly I can remember your smile.
What happened to Gerard? I ask.
And you say, You can only make a mistake for so many years.
Your face buried in my shirt, you sob out everything that’s in you, but this time I don’t know why. You are a perfect stranger, a smile I used to remember from some place in time. All the curves of your body that meant something to me while I slept the hazy, fitful sleep of someone deep in the melancholy of lust. The teasing lilt of your smile that I saw on every single face on the street. So I just lift your chin and kiss you hard on your pomegranate lips to make you stop crying. Some habits you just can’t change. But this time you don’t pull away, and you don’t make me bleed. You just stay there, right where you are, remembering how many times I gave you a human heartbeat when you couldn’t muster one up for yourself. Bringing back memories of singing across my bed and fixing you whenever my brother cracked your fragile heart. I love you, you mouth. Just like always. Because at one point, we could have been more than best friends. Then I hold you until you manage to sleep, and when I wake up in the morning you’re still here with your head on my arm and your eyes closed, dreaming of monsters. We’ve got years to unveil. You smile up at me until your eyes crinkle up at the edges, lifetime paintings of stained glass, and revealing all of the cracks on your weary heart.
And I fix you, Frank. Because some habits you just can’t change.