The Night Before I Leave
I no longer hunger for grief
The night before I leave I have this dream where I grow my hair long long long. I’m standing talking to someone and I look down and there it is bright red and flowing beautifully covering my shoulders covering my breasts and I am shocked, really- I look back up at the person I’m talking to- look down again and wonder how I missed all of that growth.
When I wake up I’m soaked- I sweat through my shirt and onto the sheets. I get up, look in the mirror. My hair is still short, covering nothing. I spend the rest of the day missing something neither even nor ever actually mine.
On the day of I sleep fourteen hours and leave later than I mean to. This sucks because I have to transcribe the rest of my interview with The Politician when I get home. I will get home by driving- I hate driving more than almost anything. It’s not ideal.
I meant to do it all the night before leaving and I did, kinda- I did some of it but there’s only so much you can do when you’re sitting and that’s the thing you’ve been wanting to do all day but now that you’re doing it you’re itchy itchy god so itchy and you’re trying to scratch it of course trying to make it stop but it just won’t no no it’s not something that can be stopped so easily not something that can be solved so easily no no not today. And you know this of course but - your foot won’t tap it can’t it won’t it’s frozen just like you
were not Are and you know this you KNOW THIS and still
it is hard to remember.
When I planned it all out a month ago I said Oh this will be perfect I will talk to The Politician I will write what we said and then I will go home with no responsibilities on my plate other than to watch my sister graduate and that’s not a responsibility really no that’s something beautiful isn’t it god it’ll all be so beautiful won’t it.
And I’m glad I thought that way I guess I don’t know I think it’s good to be delusional sometimes if that’s what you need to push your way through and I did and it worked for a bit as it tends to of course it worked until I remembered that my sister’s graduation is in the place where The Man Who Raped Me could plausibly be especially because his Younger Girlfriend should also be graduating soon and just like that the delusion loses its legs and now I am left tapping my feet scratching my face doing anything other than sitting with my thoughts the way I want to the way I need to.
In total through the weekend I sleep thirty-eight hours and I am exhausted but I am not empty no and this is a first.
Going home to me has meant grieving in the same way that grieving has long meant to me going home- does that make sense?
I listened to pop music all morning because i had things to do. to write this piece for example. this piece that’s left me white knuckled when i promised myself i wouldn’t be. there’s no way to grieve other than to do it. and i think that’s what i mean when i say it’s not glamorous to seek out suffering. it’s not glamorous to seek out grief. when it finds you you will know and you will feel its emptiness and you will feel it and you will feel it and you will feel it and you will say
god. why didn’t i cherish it more,
not knowing this not feeling this
On the way home this time I feel genuine hunger and I am surprised- usually that’s the last thing I can feel when the fear is so imminent. But I listen to my stomach and I pull over- get a chicken sandwich and fries eat them both before the feeling fades and continue on. Later I think maybe I was hungry because I knew I had work to do- work that couldn’t be done on an empty stomach an empty mind. It’s the work that’s saved me before. I’m sure it’ll save me again. I ask god not to take it from me - I try not to imagine ways she would.
I think that’s what trips me out so much about true crime it feels like an ostentatious hunger for the grief
a bastardization of the grief.
a continuation of the objectification ultimately presupposing her death your death maybe mine too.Â
A week or so before this Someone tells me he likes Mary Boone best and I wonder for too long if that means anything or if I’m being vain.
Then I stop thinking about it because tasting something like that and then having it ripped from between your teeth and out scraping past your tongue saliva dripping out you cry OUT but it doesn’t matter no. No. You won’t taste something like that again. Something once yours no longer.
It isn’t something I want to experience with any more depth than I already will. But
Someone has curly blonde hair a kind disposition and a nice nose. He is smart. Not something I really ever say lightly. So.Â
The night before I leave I debate for too long whether or not to tell Someone about how I am nervous in the same way as last time when I stayed with him too long and then hugged him too long and then drove home and back in his sweater. In the end I do and then I take a walk so I don’t think too much about whether he replied and if so what he replied and if it’s something mean if I have fucked it again what I’ll do where I’ll go and then I get to the park and I pull out my phone and
he is reassuring and kind and I know that shouldn’t be that big a deal but whatever I’m trying to be more honest about these things so I’ll admit it still is.
On the day of writing I listen to My Love Mine All Mine remembering hearing the words from the source how it felt like a Prayer a Communion an Acknowledgement an Understanding
I guess I never lied really I was looking for muses
I don’t know what to do with my love otherwise
And what else is love if not learning. What else is learning if not work.