I.
We met at a coffee shop. We caught each others' eye and
smiled. We exchanged first name for first name.
This should have been an easy story to tell.
II.
You loved me and left me, loved me and left me, weaving in
and out of my life like a sports car in medium-to-congested traffic. Sometimes
you would leave my apartment and I would realize that my shirt was on
backwards. You did things to me that I didn’t understand. You took my snowglobe
world and shook it to see the pretty colors but you didn’t realize that I bled
every time.
III.
You became my friend and I became your friend. I think it
was when you started smoking heroin around me that I realized that I could
officially call you “friend,” because you don’t do that in front of someone
you’re trying to impress. You weren’t trying to impress me and all I wanted to
do was impress you, I the tortured genius artist with the big boobs wanted to
impress you, the junky.
Go figure. What a waste.
I would watch you light a flame under the foil and suck the
fumes rising from the penny-colored paths through a rolled-up receipt. I would
try to catch your eye but you wouldn’t want to look at me. This became
customary and I fell in love with you despite it, because of it even. I wanted
to save you from everything, including yourself.
IV.
One autumn came, one winter, one spring, one summer, and
another autumn, another winter. They all left. One year and one half after the
day that you waltzed into my life and began to cut the corners off of it with
Little Fiskars, I began to waltz around, floating, with a dreamy glass covering
the forest floor of my eyes. I was finally able to claim you, call you mine.
You said the words “I think I love you” and I took even your ambiguity to be
the very words of God. I clasped your promises, few and far between and small
that they were, in my frighteningly cold hands, and I prayed that these
promises would grow to become a life. Because I wanted a life with you. Me, the
young writer with so much promise, me, I wanted a life with the addict.
I thought a lot of you back then and I guess I still do,
even lying here on this floor watching you kneel over me screaming, “Oh my god
oh my god oh my god,” as you shakily try to dial 911.
V.
When you left for the detox center on a random Tuesday
evening in February, you were wearing that purple tie that I always wanted to
use to pull your face closer to mine. I never had the bravery to do those kinds
of things with you.
You left me a Marlboro box stuffed full of folded up foils.
You said, “I’m getting sober. I’m getting clean. I’m trying to be a better man.
Will you dispose of these for me? I don’t trust myself to do it.” And then you
drove away.
VI.
It’s been a while since you left for the detox center on a
random Tuesday evening in February. There is a thick silence between you and
me. There is something unrequited. And that’s why I’m here.
I’m laying on the floor surrounded by crumpled up foils, their
copper trails singed to a black the consistency of tar. My room holds the acrid
stench of drugs that kill, and they’re killing me. I smoked nine foils in three
hours. It’s a lot more than you used to smoke, and you had been building up a
tolerance for years.
I’m laying on the floor with my heart not really beating,
just murmuring, just whispering, just telling me that everything will be okay
in a few minutes through my blood that is sluggishly moving along. I’m lying on
the floor with my lungs not really breathing, my chest movement undetectable. I
called you when I was halfway done with all this just to see the look on your
face. You’re kneeling over me screaming “Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” as you
shakily try to dial 911.
I say, “I’m trying to tell you a story.”
I say, “I’m trying to tell you our story.”
I say, “I’m trying to remember the important parts.”
You’re kneeling over me screaming, “Oh my god oh my god oh
my god!”
You’re kneeling over me screaming, “Don’t die on me don’t
die on me don’t fucking die on me! I love you!”
And I smile to myself. That’s all I wanted to hear.
