Walk Away

With So Many People To Love, Why Do I Worry About One?


There’s nothing like coming to the painful realization that someone actually hurt you, someone you never thought you’d care for somehow made the small numb part of your heart feel again, made it hurt again, made it cry out again. And there’s nothing like the realization that they no longer care about you. Not an ounce, not a gram. Instead, all that’s left is the cold shell of a friendship that was never really there. Maybe that friendship would have lasted if you hadn’t kissed me that evening, that evening we sat on the roof and pretended like the night had no end. We ignored the time, ignored the blaring signs that one day we would fall from that paradise the roof was to us. Because that night there was a beautiful sunset, and watching allowed us to ignore everything else. We watched it in its entirety - it was one of those early fall sunsets, one streaked with blood red ribbons. It was chilly, and you held me in your arms.

Your arms have a smell, you know. I don’t know if you know that, but they really do. I feel like I’ve been impregnated by the scent because in the mornings I sometimes think I smell it, and my insides begin to kick. Perhaps once I would have loved to feel that emotion growing inside me, taunting me with the prospect of something I would unconditionally love. But our relationship has never been that tangible. Now when I smell that lovely scent that once I cherished, all I feel is nausea.

You told me there was nothing to fear, nothing to fear as we stepped over broken glass and slept on broken glass with alcohol coursing through our veins. It made us warm in that cold cold building that contained our love. It made us feel alive in the room with the broken tiles that echoed when we spoke. And when we laughed it was syncopated with reverberations.

Is that all I was to you? A reverberation? An echo of something you used to love? Did my voice remind you of something you loved in your youth? Is that all you wanted me for? Were we destined for failure? When you heard me sing, the way my hands felt on your back was all you saw. When you saw me slowly tear off my shirt, the way my breath felt in your ear was all you heard.

We did fail. We saw it coming, but it didn’t make it any less painful. When we sat there in a circle passing around escape in a blunt we looked at each other through cloudy eyes and decided that yes, we did hate each other. There’s that sickness again, there’s that pain. I had forgotten what it felt like.

I can’t say I loved you. But I can say that I hated you. I hated the way you looked past me. I hated the way you ignored how well our voices intertwined. I hated how you refused to be my friend when all I wanted was to hear your voice again, like I used to. Will I ever admit that I loved you, even a little? No. But I know that someday I’ll look back at the pictures of us smiling together in the sunshine, you wielding a sword, smashing a pineapple on a picnic table. And I laughed that day. I laughed so hard. And the sweet sticky juice dripped down my chin and I’m sure you tasted it when you kissed me.

Tell me, did love it? Did you love the way I tasted? Did you love the way I felt under you? I’m sure you did. But how much did it bother you that I wouldn’t let you go farther? When your tongue traced the indent beneath my ribs, and the channel that runs down the center of my stomach, how much did it hurt you that I made you stop? How much less did that make you want me? Or perhaps it made you want me all the more. I’ll never ask you. I’ll never know.

All I can know is the way you treated the other girls who yielded to you. And at least I can say that despite your loathing for me, I’ll never be like them.

LIke the two of us, you and all of them failed. You told me the stories, you told me the conversations you had with them. You took them to that place we all imagine, that magical place between heaven and hell, where the angels sing songs in your head, and the devil mocks your sin. I never let you take me there. I don’t regret it.

But we did plan a trip together. It wasn’t a trip to ecstasy, as much as you may have wanted it. It was a trip to the land of skyscrapers that look like crooked teeth against a grey black sky. It is the place where neon lights take the place of the sun, and where music leaking from underground allies is the soundtrack to the city. We were going to go there, together. We would make that music, we would instill ourselves into the city’s background noise. We would laugh, and we would kiss, and we would sing. And we would get a following.

People would come to see us in that ally where we started to play. People would come to see us in that cafe that let us play as its connoisseurs sipped lattes and mochas and other drinks that ruined the bitter taste of the coffee buried beneath the sugar. People would come to see us in that venue that took a chance on us. People would know our name. People would yell our name. Our name would mean something to those who loved our music. Our name would mean something to those who loved our lyrics. And the important thing was that it was our name. It was not my name. It was not your name. It was our name. Our name. Our name. And what has that become? Where has that gone? It’s passed to nothing in the midst of our downfall. It’s vanished into the space that keeps growing between us.

I tried once to close that gap. I had been made strong by the atmosphere, by the serum of confidence that flowed in my blood. It did not matter that later that night I would forget all about you. It did not matter that the next morning I would not want to rise from the ocean of my sheets. It did not matter that the next day you would reveal to me how uncomfortable I made you feel. At that hour, that minute, that second, all I wanted was to feel you again, feel the way you moved in my arms.

But you shifted so awkwardly, so uncomfortably. What exactly does that mean? I’ll probably never know. We don’t communicate well. We knew that from our very beginning. You told me to call you more often, I thought you should call me less often. You always wanted me to stay, I always told you I needed to go. You thought I thought things about you I never thought about you, and I would never even consider thinking about you. But you’ll never know that. Our thoughts never coincided.

Although we both know that you’ll be with someone else. I’ll be with someone else. And someday you’ll walk away from them too as you did to me. Will they write of you, as I am now? Will they think of you in the same way I do now? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps you find it easier to simply not think about me. You never think about the way my hair smells when you bury your nose in it. And you’ll never think about how my head lolled to the side in your father’s chair. You don’t want to think about it. Because there’s nothing like coming to the painful realization that you were actually hurt by someone.

I don’t think you ever intended to become attached to me. Our first night together, we laughed with Elizabeth C. Baker in her decorated ballroom. And although we sang and giggled and rolled with bare backs on broken glass, Miss Baker witnessed our first breakdown. And we realized that night that we would never last. Shouldn’t you have detached yourself from me then? Shouldn’t you have started running away? Shouldn’t you have started hating me then and there? We were a ticking bomb, just waiting to tear our relationship to shreds. It was just a matter of time. Is it just a matter of time again?

Perhaps, in time, you’ll be able to look again at me like you used to. Maybe my heart will jump again like it did when you looked into my eyes by the moonlight, nothing but thin wisps of fog between us. You told me then that I was beautiful, or my voice rather, although you would have liked to say that my face was too, and my lips, and my hands, and my hips. But you couldn’t. Then, there was another. Always another. I was just another another to you. I really think so. I’m another in your past. I’m another you kissed. I’m another you walked down the street with, hand in hand. I’m another you took care of to the best of your ability. I’m another you loved to talk with. And I’m no longer. And sometimes I think that’s alright to be just another. Hating is easier for a logical mind to handle.

But how much credibility do thoughts really have when your heart screams the opposite? The heart does not have vocal cords to allow it to communicate. The mind does. And so I say I hate you. I say you’re immature. Do I mean it? Doubtful. Because when I sit in your room in the chair we both used to fit so comfortably in something hurts inside me. It’s a muscle I didn’t know could be sore. It’s a part of my heart I didn’t know could feel. I don’t know where it comes from. It scares me a little. I want to go take that escape between my fingers, between my teeth. And then maybe I won’t remember. Maybe I can erase that feeling. I can cut that little part out of my heart. I can pretend it doesn’t exist.

But then I hear his voice. That strange, scratchy voice that we both loved. You were so excited to hear that I loved him too. You have the poster from his band’s tour on your wall. You want to get their lyrics written in ink on your virgin skin. I assured you it wouldn’t hurt. Not that much anyways. Oh, I lied.

And I’m sure you lied to me too when you said you wouldn’t hurt me either. And just like all those needles in your skin hurt so, so much, you hurt me so, so much. I don’t want to admit it. But I just did. And it hurts me even now to admit it. Perhaps what makes it bearable is the fact that I hurt you too. And we can be together in our respective pain.

How is that? How can we only be together in hatred? In pain? In hurt? In disrespect? We can’t. We can’t go on like that. We can’t be together. Or at least not now. Maybe one day we can. Not today. Not when the sun rises on barren trees. Not when our hearts are still barren for each other. Not when our music is still barren. No feeling there. No love. No connection. Just tension. You can feel it in the air. You can taste it.

It tastes like peanut curry. And bananas. No. We can’t be together. Because when I think of peanut curry, I think of you. And bananas make me think of you too. And blue moons shining so rarely in the night sky. And chinese food. Do you know you ruined chinese food for me? Black beans too. Tequila. Porcelain under my clammy grasp. Brass hooks in my fingers. Quilts tucked expertly in. All of it.

Your name is written in the stitches of the shirts you loved when I wore. Your fingers trace the rips in my jeans. I shudder. I smile. Oh, I hate the smile that creeps onto my face. I can’t have it there. I need to erase it. I need to forget it. I need to forget how it feels when you run your fingers through my hair.

No. I can’t have you. I don’t want to have you. I don’t want to miss you. And I don’t want to love you. I don’t want to think I ever could have loved you. This is my way of saying goodbye, because I can’t do it face to face.