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so much said in listening
Aug. 6th, 2015 08:00 pmlate last week one of my oldest and dearest friends ended his life.
i am and continue to be in a bad place. what i'm i doing and why am i doing it. where i'm going. with this, with that, with everything. why.
how i could have done things differently.
i don't mean late last week. i don't mean a couple weeks back or even a year ago. i mean back over time. i mean when we were kids, sitting next to each other in creative writing class, his head ducked and neck strained, right index finger twirling that tiny bald spot into his scalp. i mean one of those times i visited the summer after i graduated and we sat in his gray room, watching strange old movies, me considering making him an offer involving our mutual lack of positive sexual experiences and the otherwise empty house but not sure how to put that into words: but that was okay, our friendship had give like that. driving into the city with him in our twenties, his eternal joni mitchell on the tape deck. his instant snap to attention scent of slate and aussie shampoo. the particular signature of the intuitive flash i'd get when he rang my phone, even when i hadn't heard from him in years, even when i'd logically think, no way.
both of us writers, we authored poems to each other but never pointed that out directly: it was always on the slant. the way things go between two left handed children not made for this world. always a storyteller, stories he told twenty years ago emerge from me still. always a dancer, he never once made me feel clumsy, not once until sunday, when i got the call. now i seem to be stuck, clumsy, forever. now i am left stumbling, weeping and rearing up the corners over vulnerable surfaces. now i don't know just who i'll be, but who i ever really was.
last night watching stewart on hulu, ben turned to me and said, "holy shit, this is his last week, isn't it?" matter of fact, huh, that went fast. i stopped, blinked, and started to cry. that's the way it's been happening: i'll be somewhere else, thinking about something else and all of a sudden it strikes from behind like a steel-toed boot between the shoulder blades. why the fuck did stewart have to leave this week? i know he'd been planning it that way for months. i've had time to sort my feelings about it. as i was rationalizing, i remembered my friend's tendency for suicide timelines in prior attempts and the idea of planning it for months stuck in my throat. that made my crying worse. ben paused the show and sat holding me until i could breathe again.
i'd say that had nothing to do with stewart leaving, but that's not entirely true. it's just another loss in my intensifying vacuum of big-picture tradeoffs.
i am and continue to be in a bad place. what i'm i doing and why am i doing it. where i'm going. with this, with that, with everything. why.
how i could have done things differently.
i don't mean late last week. i don't mean a couple weeks back or even a year ago. i mean back over time. i mean when we were kids, sitting next to each other in creative writing class, his head ducked and neck strained, right index finger twirling that tiny bald spot into his scalp. i mean one of those times i visited the summer after i graduated and we sat in his gray room, watching strange old movies, me considering making him an offer involving our mutual lack of positive sexual experiences and the otherwise empty house but not sure how to put that into words: but that was okay, our friendship had give like that. driving into the city with him in our twenties, his eternal joni mitchell on the tape deck. his instant snap to attention scent of slate and aussie shampoo. the particular signature of the intuitive flash i'd get when he rang my phone, even when i hadn't heard from him in years, even when i'd logically think, no way.
both of us writers, we authored poems to each other but never pointed that out directly: it was always on the slant. the way things go between two left handed children not made for this world. always a storyteller, stories he told twenty years ago emerge from me still. always a dancer, he never once made me feel clumsy, not once until sunday, when i got the call. now i seem to be stuck, clumsy, forever. now i am left stumbling, weeping and rearing up the corners over vulnerable surfaces. now i don't know just who i'll be, but who i ever really was.
last night watching stewart on hulu, ben turned to me and said, "holy shit, this is his last week, isn't it?" matter of fact, huh, that went fast. i stopped, blinked, and started to cry. that's the way it's been happening: i'll be somewhere else, thinking about something else and all of a sudden it strikes from behind like a steel-toed boot between the shoulder blades. why the fuck did stewart have to leave this week? i know he'd been planning it that way for months. i've had time to sort my feelings about it. as i was rationalizing, i remembered my friend's tendency for suicide timelines in prior attempts and the idea of planning it for months stuck in my throat. that made my crying worse. ben paused the show and sat holding me until i could breathe again.
i'd say that had nothing to do with stewart leaving, but that's not entirely true. it's just another loss in my intensifying vacuum of big-picture tradeoffs.
