For two and a half hours, I sat in a room with the television blaring, the record player looping, and a cup of coffee going cold on the window sill.
I don't remember moving, but I do remember the sweat on my palms, the image glued to my computer, a lake by your house, him standing there looking off into the great mountains of Juneau.
Maybe I'm a child, maybe I'm foolish, but I always thought that it would be us. I always thought we would live and love in some off set place.
My mind is in eleventh grade when you read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac, and you planned a trip to Europe and asked me to go with you, and I played along, and you got drunk, and i was too cold to walk the two and a half miles up hill from my house to your fathers.
And now we're sitting in your fathers hot tub and now we're scrolling through movies on your fathers television, and now we're in his basement, and now we're in a tree-house, and now we're by the creek, and now it's 4:45 am, and now i'm calling you and now I'm getting drunk, real fucking drunk because I gave up too early, and never fought, and I never really tried and I look out the window and hope that something terrible will happen, some sickness--cancer or whatever, fuck it, I don't care. Now i'm driving my mothers car up a canyon and I'm holding the wheel as tight as possible, but now i'm not moving because i'm past killing myself but not past driving off a cliff, and this has nothing to do with you, this is me, and my head, and my body, and the fact that I don't create enough serotonin to reach my fingers but therapists don't know what to say or how to say it. So now i'm making worse decisions then before i'm laying on the carpet as the needle moves towards the center of the vinyl, and I'm rehearsing the words that I know, and my dog is asleep and the sun should be coming up and I should be angry but my legs are tired and I'm tired and I say that I'm busy but I'm not even watching the images. I am not real, and I fear that you and I might be dead, and I know that we will be soon but I'm not talking about our hearts beating or our brains sending messages to our feet, I'm talking about the way we don't talk because you're married and he doesn't like me because I love you and how I can't talk to you because I don't like you and because I love you and I put you two back together and now i'm driving that shitty silver convertible your dad bought you--the one with the roof that didn't go down, and the engine that shook and slide like my hands on your back, the one that your dad's girlfriend borrowed because her car smelt like shit--and your kissing him with your coffee breathe in the rear view mirror and he's trying to take off your shirt but you find him revolting and you aren't sure about him and i keep driving, and now your telling me that you didn't like the back seat, and now we're walking through the hallways of our old high school and you have that horrid green hat on but I could never tell you i didn't like it because you were beautiful no matter what you wore, and you were beautiful no matter what you wore, and you were beautiful no matter what you wore, and you were beautiful no matter what you wore and you were beautiful no matter what you wore andyou were beautiful no matter what you wore andyouwere beautiful no matter what you wore andyouwerebeautiful no matter what you wore and you were beautiful, and you were fucking beautiful and now you're crying and thinking you might be pregnant and telling me about what he did and what you let him do and how okay with it you were, but now we remember that were in high school and you're smoking an american spirit and I'm out of my mind laying on the freezing cement in January wrapped up in a giant blanket that history with us--frozen lakes, rooftops, and creeks. and now I'm trying to kiss you and you're backing away, but now i am kissing you and now I'm losing reality and I'm not sure how to tell the difference between the stories i write and the memories my mind harbors, and now we're walking with each other and your you, and your beautiful and I have a fucking beard and I'm wearing glasses and I have tattoos on my fucking arms and you're beautiful and we're heading north and you're fucking beautiful and you're beautiful, but now I'm drunk, laying on my carpet looking at the computer screen, at a photo of him by the lake by your house looking off into the amazing mountains of Juneau, Alaska and I put you two back together and I'm glad that you smile when you come home from work and he's there on the couch playing his guitar, and I'm glad that you fall asleep at work because you two stay up late making love with the television blaring off in the background, and I'm glad that you two kiss too much and I'm glad that I wasn't invited to your wedding, and I'm glad that I can't think, and I'm glad that you live thousands of miles away, and I'm glad that you two are glad and that you two are proving all of us wrong, and I'm glad that every day you wake up and see those beautiful fucking mountains and i'm glad that when the sun comes out you take pictures and I'm glad that I get to see those pictures because you always look fucking beautiful and you always did, and I'm dissecting myself to find out if i'm being honest because Suzzy was right when she said "all i'm good for is writing love poems, but all you're good for is being in them" and I don't want her to read this, and I don't want you to read this and I don't want to wake up in the mourning, and I don't want to realize that I don't work tomorrow because then I'll realize that i have nobody to fuckin' call, and nobody to fuckin' talk to and i'm okay with 48 hour weeks because I can forget about people or friends or fuck it, I don't talk to them or hang out with them or anyone, so whatever the fuck your supposed to call those kinds of fuckin' people,maybe I'm a recluse or whatever, fuck it. . Every fuckin' time Suzzy writes something I cry, because I'm always almost certain it's about me, and I know she's heartbroken because she read's shit like this and knows that my heart is missing and some girl in Alaska threw it into some fucking lake, and Suzzy knows that she won't ever find it but she doesn't stop the calls and she doesn't give up because one day she asked me why I wrote a letter back and I started telling her but my fucking pen ran dry but I kept going because I didn't really want her to know but I feel like it's time to come clean-- because I never tried, and I never fought and I wish I fuckin' did, I wish that I could go back and try again, I wish that I could have left my phone at home that night, and fuck it, I lost. But you still haven't and that's my second favorite part about you, my favorite is that you're a mother and that you would never give up your daughter. That's why I wrote that letter back, and I hope that one day you can look at your husband as he plays with your daughter and you can laugh because you can realize how silly it all was and you'll hope that i got over her, but you'll know that I'm still drunk on my carpet staring at that old photo of her standing by that tree up in AF canyon, the lake was frozen and the mountains we're white and it's a pretty shitty photo, but I only own three photos of her, and they're my favorite three. And her outfit didn't match that day and she looked funny but she was beautiful no matter what she wore. I'm not sure what she'll be doing in 10 years but I hope that she's still falling asleep at work because the two of them we're up late making love the night before. A, the poems weren't about Jeri, I lied, I think it's time I admitted that, they were about you, and how you always looked beautiful no matter what you wore, and how you laughed and the way you cried and the way your hands felt around my back, and the way you walked and how you laughed and how you laughed and laughed and how you laughed and how you smiled and how you took the world in through your camera lens and I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry Suzzy, You'll be reading this and I can't handle that, and we shouldn't have gone camping that one night, and I shouldn't drop by your house at one in the mourning so that we can walk around for hours and get milkshakes and fuck it I'm sorry. I'm not over her, I'm not over the colour of her skin or the way her hair smelled or the way the corners of her mouth looked when she talked about him and the way she held her cigarettes and the way she breathed, and the way she yelled and screamed and shouted and the way she felt under the blankets and the way her hands didn't shake and the way she never brought up my twitch or the way she teased my stutter and fuck it i lost, but I can take that, I can handle it. and Fuck it fuck it fuck it. A, I don't know where you are right now, but I'm sure you aren't wondering about me or the way my carpet feels or how drunk I really am or if that's just an analogy or metaphor or whatever the fuck you're supposed to call it, because the last thing you asked me was "are you dating her?" and I started wondering why you would ask and I was hoping that it was because you knew how I felt about you, but i was worried that you were thinking of it in the wrong kind of lighting and I wish that we could talk and i wish you two would have dated longer, you realize that you were only 18 for 11 days when you two were married? Your birthday was the day after mine and I never really had a nickname for you, Aubs never fit you and you never fit you and I never fit you but fuck it, i lost. I'll never find someone that makes me feel the way you did, but for now, My being drunk on the carpet is close enough. I'll be driving out to Chicago this friday, and I'll be in a car alone for 8 hours three days in a row, and I'll be playing modest mouse albums and listening to books on tape, but I'll be missing everything that was important because you'll be sitting next to me and my hands will be pushing my temples and you'll be saying "fuck you christian" that was my favorite thing you ever said, I'm not sure what he said to you, but you said it, and I'm not sure why I'm bringing this up and I'm worried to read through this while i'm sober, and i'm worried about my early twenties because that's when breaks happen. Aubs never fit. You're the only person I know with that name, and one day we'll bump into each other at a grocery store and it will just come out "Hey Aubs" and it'll feel horrible, and you'll be uncomfortable, and glad you never stuck around with me, because I'll have a fuckin' beard and I'll be wearing glasses and I'll have tattoos on my arms and you'll ask if I still write and I'll say "yes" but the conversation won't go past that, because we won't know how to act with each other, and novelists don't make money,even the succesful ones only make about $50,000, minus the giants like stephen king and J.K. Rowloing, often times writers actually owe the publisher money, imagine that, working day and night, losing sleep, staying up for two or three days just to write and then finally when you get what you think is your break, when you finally think that you'll start making money from all the hard work some fucker in a $7,000 suit tells you that you owe him money, but it's not about the money, it's about me, letting you know that I think I might still be in--
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