Things stopped making sense
I’m waiting for sense to begin
the story of a metaphor.
Things stopped making sense
I’m waiting for sense to begin
I walked, stuffing sobs back down the esophagus that attempted to birth them. I was being barred from sleeping in my own apartment in favor of you, the sister whose holiness I had been measured against all year, but always, inherently failed to satisfy. I could never be you; the missing one. You, whose absence I involuntarily experienced and was subconsciously punished for. You, whom I voluntarily prayed for every weekday morning, every weekday mincha, thrice every shabbos. And here, I walked lost down Stuyvesant Ave until I noticed your approach from the opposite direction. “Hey!” I cried. Your ears plugged with ear-buds snaking into the ipod shuffle your sister and I had gone to the Atlantic Center to purchase after we learned of your flight to a shelter.
I will never forget the day you called your sister from California. I wonder if you know how your sister, my lover, bequeathed me with a privilege (finally, after so much rejection) of being the first to learn of your survival next to herself. I wonder if you know how high my heart soared. How I hadn’t even thought I would be around long enough in my lover, your sister’s, life to witness a conclusion to so much prayer. a return on, at least, one investment.
You hadn’t noticed me approaching until I cried out to you. ”Hey” you said smiling, taking out your ear-buds. You were happy to see me. I pushed back more sobs. Surely you had done enough crying for the last year; I needn’t burden you with my own. ”I probably won’t see you again, so…” I trailed off and let my arms speak instead as I raised them to encircle your body.
Your body. The entity containing the soul I visualized encircled with strong light, penetrating with love, for so long. Your facial features the strongest. I pleaded with G-d for your release until tears streamed down my cheeks. Found you some light in the harmony I sang along to the misheberach for healing. the melody of the synagogue swelling into a crest to carry my outstretched heart across the country.
Your body before me. I couldn’t digest the breadth of filled space taken up by your body as I hugged you earnestly on the sidewalk. I bid you farewell.
And that was the last time.
Until I glanced over last night at your unmistakable face as you entered the Brooklyn Tech auditorium. I thought, how much you look like your father. And suddenly felt privileged to know this. As if I possessed some kind of insider information about you, which, of course, I do. I know. so much. because despite your refusal to meet my gaze as I greeted you and your uncomfortable, forced acknowledgement, I unmistakably existed during that year of our horror.
you know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you… That’s where I’ll be waiting.
i lose my breath when you hold me like this.
i don’t want the world. the world. i only want what i deserve.
the water was freezing. we would undress and jump off the footbridge screaming. our hearts would stop. for a moment, we felt as if we were drowning. when we scrambled back onto the bank, gasping for air, our legs were heavy, pain shooting up the ankles. you were tall and skinny, with small, pale breasts. i would fall asleep drying in the sun, and wake to the shock of ice-cold water on my back. and your laughter.
-The History of Love
i spent long minutes on the train pondering
how much i was pondering
the corners of her face.
one synapse of real
when my skin is done touching my skin;
inside the crack of movement
i am alive looking outward
observing that i am not.
my subconscious remembered your birthday so it brought me to your party. it was full of gays and freaks and one annoying straight cis boy.
you had eyes for him. we all sat in the backseat of some car driving us all some where and while my gaze trained on the bounce of your long full hair, you sat enthralled by straight cis boy’s analysis of character development. I wasn’t surprised you could have cared less that I was there.
and I woke up unsurprised still. only angry i had to dream about you on a birthday I thought I had forgotten.
There is an element of oppression as well as a heartbreak that can lead to a soft place within a human’s heart. Perhaps one might obtain it through experiencing both, but I know that it arises from the two. I know that when I experience either, my heart does not grow colder.
I need you to possess a soft place for the human soul within me. To contain a sensitivity to complement my own. So, that when you leave, you’ll make sure to say “goodbye” because you understand how it is to not be thought of. You’ll make sure because you know what it feels like to have spent energy thinking of someone else.
I need you to look after me. I promise I know only how to do nothing but the same.
