THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER

Things I wish I’d said

When I was five, I lived on 16th avenue. There are bits and pieces in which resonate my mind every so often. I remember marriage.  I remember writing on the walls and baby corn and naps on the couch. The first time I got the chicken pox. I remember it all so well and I was so small, not aware of the feelings that consumed me the way they did others. The curls on my head grew, along with my mother and father. There were times when my dad would wake me up a half an hour later than I did for school just to let me sleep in. He would sometimes pick me up in the middle of the day and let me leave. This was the prime of my childhood.  It was the constant reassurance that I was loved – and it came unconditional. It did not have any rules. It breathed on its own. It swallowed up every fiber in my body, structuring me, molding me as I am now. I just want to write. I don’t know what about. But it will be pages long, and I’ll continue until I feel like I cannot anymore. These are the things I wish I’d said.

The first time I heard the name Tyler, I was at the peak of the biggest trip of my life. I was seventeen and I was lying against the gravel in my friend’s garage looking at the stars. Lilifer and Tea Harlow were there. The first thing people thought when someone said their names were, “self-destruction.” My God, they were so much more than that. They were the only people I had ever heard of that had so many different kinds of yin yangs tattooed at the smalls of their backs and along the side of their right and left rib cages. Their satin red hair flew behind their shoulders when they walked, and off the edges and touched the surfaces of the ground when they wrote short stories about Michael. Except for right now, because Tea had her whole head dark brunette with thin tiny tints of teal. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was the only person who didn’t really say anything when I was high. I was always too overwhelmed. I never liked the idea of someone getting a piece of my high. I held in-between my veins and the vessels in my body. I didn’t ever exhale. I kept it inside me; where it belonged.  I didn’t like anyone knowing what I was thinking – which was so incredibly different than who I was to anyone else.  I don’t need to introduce myself to anyone. I liked being on my own. At this single instant was when I heard his name. I turned my head and tried to stop adding the years of my life I began to feel to feel this way – but I was never good at math. Lilifer described him as witty and beautiful while Tea described him as the “biggest asshole she’s ever met,” but that he knows how to fuck. I stopped paying attention at this part because I didn’t know why I had never met him before if they were talking about him, so I looked back up at the stars and counted from one to sixteen as I could feel the drugs lift itself up under my skin and out of my body. “Thank God,” I thought.

The next afternoon I skipped lunch to go smoke a cigarette in my car and pick up panda express. My fake replica of the school’s car pass lied on the passenger seat. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go back yet. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to lie down. I couldn’t find my lighter that morning which was really unusual; it was always on me or on my desk and lit up when I turned off all the lights. But the afternoon I met Tyler it had disappeared. As soon as I put the cigarette to my mouth, I went to reach for my lighter in my glove box and remembered how it was gone. Losing something that could light a cigarette or if I was smoking my last one, felt like hell on earth. And alas, this was both of those. I placed the camel menthol in-between my lips and let my head rest against the steering wheel for a few seconds while I closed my eyes and wanted to die. My stomach made a noise that sounded like bombs hitting the ground in China, so I lifted my head up and started the engine. But before I could do that, I saw someone in the corner of my eye in the car next to me. The only reason this became apparent to me is because I park far away from the school because I have this shitty version replica of the schools parking pass and I didn’t want to pay the 25 dollar ticket. Stubborn, just like my Mother. I stared at the boy in the driver’s seat who had his seat moved farther back than usual, as he took a long, hard drag of his Marlboro Red cigarette. Had I really become this obsessed with smoking that I could see what kind of brand he was inhaling from this far? I just wanted a cigarette. After thirty seconds of debating whether or not I should ask for a light, I didn’t want to think anymore because it made my brain ache and my hands shake. I opened my door glancing over at the Panda Express down the street and knocked on his passenger door window. He looked up and smiled like it was the first time he had ever seen a person in his life. It screamed fascination, wonder, and curiosity. He rolled down the window,  “Hi.”