The Unpolished
When she published "merae nugae", the notification on my phone unearthed me from the depths of 3 jalapeño margaritas and an adderall XR that hadn't worn off yet.
You'd have better luck scraping me out of hell than the last half of a happy hour.
It was taco tuesday and the food in front of me was staler than the look on my friends face.
"Who is zara?"
Platonic dynamics between men and women always amuse me. Jealousy lives in the grey crevices that form when attachment stiffens and breaks up. When I'm not mentally stable enough to settle down with but I'm good for fucking a fistful of times. And now you don't know exactly what to do with me. I guess spending my money is as good a start as any.
Who is zara, is a question you feel just entitled enough to ask. Or maybe the question sat on a cliff edge until the alcohol nudged it over. But it's one that falls and lands nowhere.
Who is zara? How can I begin to answer that?
She's some hybrid between a human being and an idea I contemplate.
I've never seen her face. Yet I feel intimately aware of her. I close my eyes and picture a creature like Yoruichi from Bleach. A striking woman with feline eyes that light up my skull like green halogen bulbs. Much like the character, I operate under the assumption she can turn into a cat at will.
I look out at the black sky and wonder how many of the same stars she can see.
I wonder if the light pollution is as bad in Dubai as it is in New York.
The pollution I see behind closed eyes is worse. It's dense. But colorless and odorless. A dormant cloud of anthrax I must hold my breath to navigate.
I get further and further each time I try.
But one day I might lose my way back to the surface.
Girls say I'm mysterious. They spend the first half of the date talking about themselves like a 60 minutes interview. Then wonder why I don't ask questions. They correctly assume I'm not interested, just not for the right reason. The intrigue I had when I swiped on your profile blew up in a plume of smoke as soon as you started talking. I'm not so mysterious. I consider myself an open book and don't know when to shut the fuck up at times. I had dinner with my best friend, and asked if he thought consciousness was the universe's awareness of its own imprisonment. He responded by reminding me we were at Applebee's.
He's my best friend for a reason.
I dress in linen or Oxford button ups with slacks. Pale yellow or tans are my favorite. They're easy to pair with brown loafers and shades. I don't dress to stand out at the bar. I dress to become part of the scenery. I'm a shade of brown in a backdrop. A piece of furniture. A puff of smoke judging you from a corner I'm not actually allowed to smoke in. I go so unnoticed they don't even bother to kick me out. Loneliness doesn't mean being by yourself. It means being the set of eyes that see everything else in a group. Broken promises. Dreams given up on a long time ago. Endless excuses for why things couldn't work out. Alcoholic parents. Abusive bosses. The toxic ex. Even when talking in relation to others. Every conversation circles around the me.
Ego doesn't disappear when it stops feeling superior. It would rather be pitied than outright ignored. And attention is attention even when it bleeds. I think self pity is what narcissism sees in a cracked mirror.
From where I sit in the room I can't seem to find any guilt. Yet I'm here in the first place because I wallow neck deep in my own. And it's too thick to swim through.
I can close my eyes and place myself back in the ICU. The cold that froze tear drops that landed on my skin. The humming and clicking of machines allegedly sustaining life. I remain unconvinced. I suspect what they mean by sustaining life is slowly weening it off. Morphine adjusted by the drip. Ventilators that slowly take over. Then are unplugged all at once. As soon as I sign my name on the dotted line effectively ending my mom's life. I remember the desk I signed it on. I remember the bic pen that was just as reluctant to write as I was. I remember the small clock stereo playing a Daughtry song I was in no mood to hear. I threw it on the ground and stepped on it. The doctor had to tell hospital security to stand down. The words he used. Go easy on him. Loud enough that I could hear them. Quiet enough that God could not.
I don't sleep. I blink my eyes and see her face again in a dream it takes me the first 10 waking minutes to unspool and disentangle from reality. She asks me why I did it then. I tell her that's what she wanted. She asks, is that so? Or is it what you wanted? I start answering her question with a question. Why did you have me? Why did you pluck me from the tree of nonexistence? Just so I could be consumed and wither back into the ground?
She tells me she never meant to and that it all was a mistake.
Some people wake up in a slow pour. Ambiance. Backlit sunrise and warmth over the blanket. A squint followed by a yawn and deep relaxing stretch before sitting up slowly and rubbing weary eyes. Time to start the day.
I wake up in a jolt. Like coming up from under when the hand holding my face underwater mercifully lets me have breath.
I gasp. Then pant. My legs twitch and clutch when I kick off the blanket. I unstick myself from the mattress I've practically sweat a hole through and crawl onto the floor.
I drink a piss warm cherry coke Celsius like it's a cold glass of water. Sometimes it washes down a stimulant or a Xanax. Sometimes it follows a swig of Woodford Reserve.
I compose myself enough to look into the mirror. But I pause at the eyes. They’re sunken. My pupils barely hold back the ocean. Not something beautiful. Something large enough to consume. Not something you view from a shoreline. With a beach blanket and a mai tai. It's more like something where you turn around and around and just see the same thing. Waves. Ripples. Black open sky. Not enough light to make out the horizon. That line we use to trace where something begins and where something else ends. I never know where it is.
I never know where a friendship doesn't become romantic. The weight of a moment that wobbles on everything holding you back. Then it falls like a gavel and cracks every reason not to. Sometimes it's the light beaming off her face. The shade of her iris. The reflection of myself I see back in the pupils when they engorge just enough. Seeing me in something else. What clearer sign is there that something is yours?
I never know where beauty begins. Or where it ends. I just know I can never time it right. I look at art on the wall and not give a fuck. I read pages in a book people rave about that will never move me.
I tell myself beauty is just an attempt to create meaning. It's like family. Legacy. Morality. It's all means to a bleak end. It's all zero sum. The thousands of times I've watched life leave eyes. Knowing mine are already in the queue. I'm a number waiting to be called. I can spend my whole life creating art. Loving hard. Chasing fire. And when my number is called I take none of it with me. I take nothing nowhere because there is nothing else. There is nowhere else. But until that day comes this vessel imprisons me. And every day in-between, everyone else chooses to look the other way.
I can't.
I've tried.
So all I can do is etch and keep score. Every passing day I wake up in this life I carve a tally mark into the wall.
Waiting for them to come down.
Hoping the number of lines adds up to something..
Instead of just vandalism that defaces the surface.