THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER

I have so much of you in my heart.

You had pale, blue-toned translucent skin dotted with delicate brown freckles. In the right light you almost looked ghost-like, I thought, but maybe that’s just my wild imagination working again. I’d never seen anyone like you. I often studied people’s faces through windows, on public transport and over coffee cups in cafes — old people with their weathered studious faces and eyes stained with experience and harsh truths, children with their curious, innocent faces and colourful minds, lanky self-diagnosed ‘depressive’ teenagers who poured over Sylvia Plath novels and romanticized about death and decay — but none of these people interested me as much as you did.

And I realized that then you were perfect, and my teeth ripping out of my head. And it looked like a painting I once knew back when my thoughts weren’t entirely intact.

We’re kissing each other but so much more, kissing like warriors saving the world, at the end of the movie, the last two, the only two who can save everything.

There was a time not too long ago when hurting yourself felt good. Back then though, it was called something different. It wasn’t about inflicting pain, it was about feeling something, anything, that was different than what you already knew. I’m talking here about the newness of things. I’m talking about moments that could shock your entire body and leave you feeling high for days. Baby faces doing grown up things. Little hearts filling themselves up with experiences. There was always a story at the end of it all and it didn’t usually end in tears. That, like everything else, would of course soon change.

It’s hard to discern when the change happened though; it’s hard to tell when you became incapable of shaking things off like you once did, when you stopped believing the promises of a shirtless boy in a dark bedroom, when a fight with a best friend turned into years of a steady and slow dissolve. All you know is that it happened. Don’t know how. Don’t know when. But here you are: hurting yourself for different reasons. Here you are hurting yourself and it actually starting to feel like pain. The lows aren’t so dramatic. There’s no screaming, no yelling, no visible anger. Instead they just creep under your skin and stay there, chipping away at your resolve. The permanence terrifies you. The permanence is proof that you can no longer afford to be silent when it comes to running your life.

You would’ve done anything to go back. Go back to the first boy, the first friend, the first drink. Feel it all around you. Feel it go inside of you. You figured this would make you happier. Because the problem here is the cruelty of time. You’re sure of it. Not a doubt in your mind. You blame moving to different cities, long-term relationships, and busy schedules. They’re the issue. They’re the things that are making you miserable and taking everything and everyone away from you. Right?
Pop quiz! Why doesn’t getting drunk feel the same? Why does having sex make you feel even more alienated? How come you aren’t getting what you want when you did everything that was asked of you?

How come.

You’re asking the wrong questions. You know that, right? No? Okay, well why don’t you go further down until you realize it? Why don’t you hurt yourself some more until you realize you actually want to feel good?

Look, I don’t blame you for not wanting to ask the right questions. There’s a certain kind of peace that comes with willful ignorance. There’s a certain kind of thrill you get from rejecting the things that make you happy. Because once you start asking them, once you make that choice to better yourself, being bad will never feel as good. Being bad will just feel like you’re delaying the inevitable.

When did everything change? You wonder this as if knowing the answer will make everything better. It won’t. Growing up is difficult — you have to mourn the newness and accept being old enough to know better — but it’s what you have to do in order to keep living. Because there’s only so long you can keep asking the wrong questions and expect to find a good answer at the end of it. There’s only so long you can check out of your life before it starts to belong to someone else. Something else. 

Ryan O’Connell

“it’s like the background noise of a not so distant lawn mower when you’re smoking your last cigarette. that irritating yet somehow comforting, numb buzz. yeah, i think it’s like that. or maybe it’s like when you’ve been alone for days, months, weeks, lifetimes so you put on a movie just to hear the script. maybe you’re just looking for the comfort of the speech. it’s that sore in your mouth that won’t heal. that irritating burn everytime your tongue scrapes it. it’s like those nights when you’ve been awake for longer than you care to think about. when you know you’re gonna be tired today, tomorrow, for your whole fucking life. yeah, i think it’s like that. it’s those situations where you’re shaking so bad that you shove your sweaty palms so deep in your pockets. poking the tips of your fingers through cigarette burned sweatpants. it’s those days where you actually feel good about yourself for a single blink that you have to pick apart and convince yourself not to again. it’s the scars that change colors and the pupils that stay dialated. the bottles you hide and the addictions you can’t avoid. the screaming matches and the silent crying. blood stained sheets and clocks ticking backwards. but most of all; above all else, it’s the fact that you care so much that you don’t even care at all. it’s all of this.” kris

Did you think I was cool when you met me? I worried about that. I worried that you would think I was too much when you met me. Because I was listening to Grizzly Bear while we watched Irma Vep movies, because I was too high to think straight and fell asleep all the time and wore those fake topsiders and hated everybody in that class. I worried that you would think I was trying to be cool, and think that I was failing because all of those things were pretty not cool. But I didn’t care a lot and you said, “So you’re pretty eccentric huh?” when you met me and I said, “I don’t think so, no?” And I was confused. So we just danced at Sundance and drank filthy Stella Artois and kissed like hands trying to hold each other.

If I died tonight I think I would like to come back as your morning coffee. Just as strong and just as necessary.

“I promise to plant kisses like seeds on your body, so in time you can grow to love yourself as I love you.”

I’ve come by, she says, to tell you
that this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s
over. this is it.
I sit on the couch watching her arrange
her long red hair before my bedroom
mirror.
she pulls her hair up and
piles it on top of her head-
she lets her eyes look at
my eyes-
then she drops her hair and
lets it fall down in front of her face.
we go to bed and I hold her
speechlessly from the back
my arm around her neck
I touch her wrists and hands
feel up to
her elbows
no further.

Charles Bukowski