2008
“I wouldn’t leave.”
She says this to me again. She says it often. She re-tells stories, and this utterance is the punch line. She has said it to a friend and a doctor. I assume that she has said it to him. She hasn’t ever told me that story. But she’s told me that he’s told her to leave. I can only assume she said it to him.
“I won’t go.”
This is a strange thing to say, when someone wants you to go. I would never say it. I am always asking “do you want me to leave?”
Sometimes I leave before any questions are posed. I gladly leave before I am an unwelcome guest. I left him, before I could work out what he wanted. After he’d come, and fallen asleep beside me, I left the room. Left him alone, moved to another bed. In the morning he followed me there, and he put his hands on me until I moved against him and left myself for a second. And then I closed my legs and left him again, gathering my things with haste… leaving, leaving, leaving… quickly, quietly, head spinning, running, gone. Now, I see his hands and I wonder what my world would look like if I was the kind of girl who said “no, I won’t go’ instead of “I’m going now.”
Now, I drive along, alone, listening to that girl singing with her school girl voice: 'I left him, and I can leave you too' and I wonder who I’ll leave next, and if he'll still be in the room when I go. I wonder when I’ll feel I can stay.
She says this to me again. She says it often. She re-tells stories, and this utterance is the punch line. She has said it to a friend and a doctor. I assume that she has said it to him. She hasn’t ever told me that story. But she’s told me that he’s told her to leave. I can only assume she said it to him.
“I won’t go.”
This is a strange thing to say, when someone wants you to go. I would never say it. I am always asking “do you want me to leave?”
Sometimes I leave before any questions are posed. I gladly leave before I am an unwelcome guest. I left him, before I could work out what he wanted. After he’d come, and fallen asleep beside me, I left the room. Left him alone, moved to another bed. In the morning he followed me there, and he put his hands on me until I moved against him and left myself for a second. And then I closed my legs and left him again, gathering my things with haste… leaving, leaving, leaving… quickly, quietly, head spinning, running, gone. Now, I see his hands and I wonder what my world would look like if I was the kind of girl who said “no, I won’t go’ instead of “I’m going now.”
Now, I drive along, alone, listening to that girl singing with her school girl voice: 'I left him, and I can leave you too' and I wonder who I’ll leave next, and if he'll still be in the room when I go. I wonder when I’ll feel I can stay.
10:43.01.07.09...
I don’t miss how my stomach filled up with tiny little lead balls of confusion whenever you periodically updated me on your latest conquest. But I can’t say that I don’t think about the smoothness of your hand on the back of my neck.
2001
In a room, alone with slamming doors. With the mad clearing, the piles of things not wanted, of things to be cleared, of junk the she doesn’t want to see. All the others have gone the way of the rats, jumped ship long ago… now only my ears can hear the thuds of rage and the obsessive shifting of furniture. What is it? Shall I look under the bed? On the red table? Where have you put it in your whirl wind of all possessions constantly moving? Will I be here for you if you go looking for me? Will I be in this green room and will I hide from me in the piles of ‘do you want this? Can I get rid of it?"
01.07.09-07
I’m just now starting to realise that there are certain things that will always be stained by your presence, now banished. That there will always be books that have two authors for me; you, and the person that wrote the words. When I read those books, I read them with you, whether you know that or not. I read, alone, in my bed with cold sheets, you in my head reading with me, as if you were looking over my shoulder making comments. Your narration overtakes me.
Now when I read about that character, the one like me, I can not see her without seeing you. I can not think about her without thinking about what you think of her. What you said about her stung, and I will always feel that sting, because I will always see the words “she looks like someone I could fuck and leave” alongside the words of the real author. When I think of her fixing her mussed up hair with a self-consciousness that made her hands shake, and her pulling the sheet quickly over exposed breasts, I see a hideous reflection of my own inadequacies and how they must have appeared to you, you who can not even abide seeing a woman not able to move without consciousness on an empty dance floor. I think about what you must have thought of my lack of grace. My fumbling touches, my insipid moans, my too intense feelings and my inabilities… how you must have compared them to the detached grace of the beautiful women who had been there before me. I wonder if you compared me to the ones who were there after.
I wonder if you took me to bed so you could narrate in your head a story about a little girl who thought too much of you while you thought too little of her. A girl that you took from and lied about, used as a mirror and then forgot. A girl you emptied yourself into. At the fore of this story would be everything that made her forgettable. You would outline with scientific precision every imperfection that allowed you to treat her like she was nothing to anybody. There would be no consideration of your own imperfections, you would not reward the girl for her ability to see them and love you anyway.
Now when I read about that character, the one like me, I can not see her without seeing you. I can not think about her without thinking about what you think of her. What you said about her stung, and I will always feel that sting, because I will always see the words “she looks like someone I could fuck and leave” alongside the words of the real author. When I think of her fixing her mussed up hair with a self-consciousness that made her hands shake, and her pulling the sheet quickly over exposed breasts, I see a hideous reflection of my own inadequacies and how they must have appeared to you, you who can not even abide seeing a woman not able to move without consciousness on an empty dance floor. I think about what you must have thought of my lack of grace. My fumbling touches, my insipid moans, my too intense feelings and my inabilities… how you must have compared them to the detached grace of the beautiful women who had been there before me. I wonder if you compared me to the ones who were there after.
I wonder if you took me to bed so you could narrate in your head a story about a little girl who thought too much of you while you thought too little of her. A girl that you took from and lied about, used as a mirror and then forgot. A girl you emptied yourself into. At the fore of this story would be everything that made her forgettable. You would outline with scientific precision every imperfection that allowed you to treat her like she was nothing to anybody. There would be no consideration of your own imperfections, you would not reward the girl for her ability to see them and love you anyway.
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