Night 7
(In the car.)
Thoughts without words. Like a body without life. Corpses of thoughts.
(At the restaurant.)
The current truth of sitting in a dimly lit restaurant at a table, next to him, in a cute black dress, without his hand on my hand, without his hand on the inside of my knee and thigh and calf, is not so much disconcerting or foreign, as it is gutting. The gaping void inside me is so absolute that the experience of pain and disappointment is moot. There is a me-shaped doll sitting on this chair, her finger adorning a giant ring, her thumbs moving to type this at the will of my disembodied consciousness, hovering somewhere overhead, somewhere around, caressing the bare arms of this mute doll. But she is lifeless and cannot feel its presence. Neither, conspicuously yet unsurprisingly, can any of the others, very much alive, at this table. This consciousness, some remnant of a once-feeling, once-caring, once-loving existence, is contained in itself, outside the doll, but barely. Its edges blur into the empty space around the fingers and legs of the doll, the space not occupied by his fingers.
He has rested his elbow on the backrest of my chair, his shirt sleeve against my shoulder. I dare not move an inch lest I annihilate even this contact.
And he has removed his arm. It is astounding, the level of loss I feel at this most insignificant of human movements. It is a death I must now mourn in silence while maintaining a smile on the unflattering face of the doll.
He knows I am writing something. He asked. But he will not ask to read this. He will not ask to read this. He will not ask to read this. I repeat this to try and make this fact less painful but it is not working. He will not ask to read this. It will be dissipated into the cosmos, much like the only extant version of my consciousness, disembodied as it is, will be lost in this Seattle restaurant. Some new version of it will come back with me; but this, now, here, the gaping void and the awareness of the gaping void, will be lost, because no one wants to find it, no one wants to know it; and it wants to be found and known so desperately that it is commanding the lifeless doll on this chair to write it down, to make it real, in case he wants to know. But he doesn't.
(At the beach.)
We are at Alki Beach. The sound of his voice talking to others is dissonance amid the whispering of the waves that seem to carry the silenced desires of a thousand dead, mine amongst them. That wave there...that was my desire to have walked up to the water alone, have him come up behind me and slide his hand into mine, to have turned around, kissed him once, deeply, and turned back to the water, my back against his body, his arms wrapped around my waist, and my arms wrapped around his arms. And that one? That was shorter and simpler. That one was just my desire to have him care what I want. A hundred other unintelligible desires flow into each other before crashing into the rocks, before crashing into the stone I want so terribly and desperately to be. With the ability to have desires crash against me, to subsume all hope of them ever being realized, with absolutely no noticeable damage to myself, eroding only over years and years.
Thoughts without words. Like a body without life. Corpses of thoughts.
(At the restaurant.)
The current truth of sitting in a dimly lit restaurant at a table, next to him, in a cute black dress, without his hand on my hand, without his hand on the inside of my knee and thigh and calf, is not so much disconcerting or foreign, as it is gutting. The gaping void inside me is so absolute that the experience of pain and disappointment is moot. There is a me-shaped doll sitting on this chair, her finger adorning a giant ring, her thumbs moving to type this at the will of my disembodied consciousness, hovering somewhere overhead, somewhere around, caressing the bare arms of this mute doll. But she is lifeless and cannot feel its presence. Neither, conspicuously yet unsurprisingly, can any of the others, very much alive, at this table. This consciousness, some remnant of a once-feeling, once-caring, once-loving existence, is contained in itself, outside the doll, but barely. Its edges blur into the empty space around the fingers and legs of the doll, the space not occupied by his fingers.
He has rested his elbow on the backrest of my chair, his shirt sleeve against my shoulder. I dare not move an inch lest I annihilate even this contact.
And he has removed his arm. It is astounding, the level of loss I feel at this most insignificant of human movements. It is a death I must now mourn in silence while maintaining a smile on the unflattering face of the doll.
He knows I am writing something. He asked. But he will not ask to read this. He will not ask to read this. He will not ask to read this. I repeat this to try and make this fact less painful but it is not working. He will not ask to read this. It will be dissipated into the cosmos, much like the only extant version of my consciousness, disembodied as it is, will be lost in this Seattle restaurant. Some new version of it will come back with me; but this, now, here, the gaping void and the awareness of the gaping void, will be lost, because no one wants to find it, no one wants to know it; and it wants to be found and known so desperately that it is commanding the lifeless doll on this chair to write it down, to make it real, in case he wants to know. But he doesn't.
(At the beach.)
We are at Alki Beach. The sound of his voice talking to others is dissonance amid the whispering of the waves that seem to carry the silenced desires of a thousand dead, mine amongst them. That wave there...that was my desire to have walked up to the water alone, have him come up behind me and slide his hand into mine, to have turned around, kissed him once, deeply, and turned back to the water, my back against his body, his arms wrapped around my waist, and my arms wrapped around his arms. And that one? That was shorter and simpler. That one was just my desire to have him care what I want. A hundred other unintelligible desires flow into each other before crashing into the rocks, before crashing into the stone I want so terribly and desperately to be. With the ability to have desires crash against me, to subsume all hope of them ever being realized, with absolutely no noticeable damage to myself, eroding only over years and years.
posted by Kriti at 2:40 AM
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