from-dre

[from-dre]

The Fine Line Between Awareness & Fanaticism

Can you tell I wrote this in 2014?

11:32am—I checked the clock on my microwave twice before sitting down in the desk chair with my morning coffee today. It was still steaming so as I began blowing a gentle stream of cool air into the cup, I hopped on YouTube knowing I'll have some time to kill before beginning my day.

A good headline should be attention grabbing. It should pop out at you amidst a sea of other unrelated clutter. More often than not, if it doesn't stand out the first time my eyes glaze over it, I won't even know I missed it much less give it a second chance. So I begin to skim—typical compilations or foreign music videos or news segments of world events fill up most of my screen. Then, something along the lines of, “How the CIA manufactured Isis.” Here we go, I think to myself, almost rolling my eyes. I know I shouldn't. But we've all been through this exact minute in one way or another. Maybe you're running to the grocery store to pick up some milk or whatever and there, in the checkout lane sits The National Inquirer, shouting at you from its rack: “HEY! I KNOW EMBARRASSING THINGS ABOUT FAMOUS PEOPLE! BUY ME AND READ ME!” You know you shouldn't, that you're above it. But its got a picture of a pot-bellied Brad Pitt on an exotic beach somewhere with another unrelated snapshot of a black-eyed Angelina staring down in some type of shameful pose. Could it be true?,your mind thinks. “I NEED TO KNOW!” I don't blame you. In return though, I ask that you give me the same courtesy during my own display of attempting to show zero self-restraint and giving in to that guilty pleasure which goes against my better judgement. I click on the video as I prepare for the next few minutes.

It's what you'd expect. Decent graphics, a fancy set designed to emulate a respectable news studio, and an expensive diaphragm microphone with a very animated man shouting frantically behind it—arms flailing, voice heightening to new peaks every other sentence, all while the overly-agitated speaker spews opinions dressed-up as factual reporting.

The 10th Circle of Hell

It's interesting to see these people work themselves into such a frenzy, such anxiety-riddled rants that they must feel as if they don't hit every single angle and theory, then the “sheeple,” or “uninformed” audience will miss their point entirely. I don't want to pick solely on this specific man, there are hundreds of like-minded people who dedicate every free moment of their lives to producing new content for their YouTube channels, blogs, podcasts, or if they're super edgy, their still-in-circulation zines. I'm not knocking the passion. Their dedication is honorable. Even their motives, I suppose, are admirable—to merely wake up the sleeping. All fine and good. It's their processing abilities that they've shrunk down themselves that signals a loss of a perfectly valuable mind, before it had baseless theories pelted at it from all sides—and worse, forced to accept.

Though I'm perfectly satisfied with The Divine Comedy as is, I'm sure if Dante were to have gone any further, the tenth circle of the Inferno would consist of nothing but having to convince one single conspiracy theorist of rethinking his arguments, even for a moment. It just isn't possible. Their world is just as sick and chaotic as everyone else's, they don't need to look any farther to find a news story ripe with injustice. We then, begin to differ on how we mentally process such things. A balanced brain can admit the sadness of the story at hand, they're also able to leave it alone, as is. They don't need to attach any extra narratives to make sense of what they've just heard or seen. It is what it is. Tragic. Or a miserable example of human interaction. To a conspiracy theorist, there must always be something else that we're not being told. We aren't given all the facts, ever. Surely, certain words have been blackened out of the official transcript before the cameras went live. Everywhere they look, there's a connection to be made. It's all run by The Man Behind The Curtain, down to the very last detail. Nothing is under-thought or left to chance. Big Brother is very real and is watching them even in this very instance. Like the final shot of Hitchcock's Psycho,Norman knows he's being observed, analyzed, so acts that much calmer. Not even a fly can break the man's concentration when it's time to put on the poker face.

Their incessant warnings have fallen on deaf ears for so long that they've adapted the same formula they profess to be exposing: fear mongering. They say mainstream, State-run media is all one huge sham. That their stories are used to advance hidden agendas. The irony is that they are employing these same tactics themselves. It takes a willful eye to pick up on the hypocrisy, but it's there. Was it really necessary for this opinionated speaker to keep reiterating his validation of a particular politician again and again? Say you respect the man's views once, then move on. Things like that. It's bothersome, not because they hold allegiance to their own political figures as the big boys do, but because they do it all while making such a huge fuss about how honest their aims are, how thankful the general public should be toward them because of their unwavering courage in exposing the truth.

Patterns = Safety

Well, “the truth”—in my opinion—is that they're just as scared and bewildered and let down in humanity as the rest of us are. They don't understand how such pure hatred could go unnoticed for so long, how so many innocent lives are lost for the furthering of poisonous ideologies. That much is completely understandable. However, they get diluted with fantasy—that if some shadow government was behind it all, everything would make that much more sense. There would be a pattern again. Life would cease to be so chaotic and they'd be able to sleep once more. They're amazing talkers who have no interest in exercising any reason whatsoever, so a good conspiracy theorist is quite able of convincing even himself that up is down or that the sky is actually bright red. Once connections are drawn from seemingly unrelated events, they begin seeing it goes farther than planes flying into buildings. That it's bigger than the gas chambers and extermination camps built solely with the purpose of wiping millions of innocent lives off the face of the planet. In fact, it's the most extraordinary piece of knowledge ever—and they're the ones who stumbled upon it. They will expose these criminals hidden-in-plain-view to the rest of the world and because the assassins must already be on their way to their homes, they'll go down as martyrs for humanity. Truth seekers who saw it all before anyone else.

Either way, listen to any one of them talk long enough and you'll quickly start getting tired of hearing about their sure-deaths. How they'll be used to cover-up the truth they were trying to expose. They say it with such certainty. From the mouth of this man himself: "When the nuke finally goes off, expect every last one of us leaders to be killed within an hour. That's all it'll take. An hour. You'll see!”

Rabbit Holes

With all of that said, here's the whole point of this essay: after sipping the last of my coffee, I looked up from my computer screen—12:47pm.

More than an hour later and I was still jumping from video to video, listening to mumble I could either poke holes the size of these men’s egos in or—while trying to give him the benefit of the doubt—not only accept, but strengthen his arguments with much better logic on my end. Both were incredible wastes of time. It was useless trying to reason with hyperbole. So how did I lose track of time? The sheer arrogance of it all engulfed me. I was in a trance. Much like flipping through channels and stumbling upon The Wiggles or Teletubbies or any Kardashian-centered show, you can't help but take a few extra seconds to admire the awkwardness. “How does anyone watch this?!,” you ask yourself, while watching it. Not even noticing the seconds ticking by, turning into entire minutes.

As I closed out Safari and began getting myself ready for the day, all these thoughts swirled around my head. This is how honest, good-natured people get sucked in, I thought. The need some humans hold in their black hearts to see Western Civilization burn down to nothing but ash is a terrifying thought and a properly-wired, down-to-Earth mind tries to make sense of such a thing. The reality of there being no good motive behind these crimes against humanity is a tough pill to swallow. So the armchair geopoliticians flock to their keyboards and offer their skewed theories, promising the truth. The ones with louder personalities and intrusive characteristics eventually build a following, get noticed and maybe get a talk show, with real producers, because someone will still listen to a complete stranger’s opinion, no matter how much lunacy they radiate.

Advocates & Worshippers

But a true thinker considers all viewpoints, no matter the source. So, let's play Devil's Advocate and for a minute, humor these people and their delusions. Even a shadow government is still compromised of human beings. Even if they're secretly praying to evil deities and placing subliminal symbols in everyday environments, they're still two arms, two legs, and a torso with a talking head. Even if they perform Satanic rituals at meetings of the world's utmost elite, they're still buying weekly groceries, eating at their favorite places, trying to stay in shape, arguing with their wives or husbands, accidentally backing up their toilets, walking their dogs, oversleeping, getting sick, getting old, dying. These devil-worshippers draped in scarlet robes who wear animal skulls as masks and chant in ancient tongues are not real threats. The real danger is a poisoned ideology.

Those are what this speaker and Co. should be concerning themselves with dispelling and eradicating. Those ideas are what live on, much longer than that of the men who spend entire lives living for, spreading and eventually dying for. Hitler is no longer with us, so why are Neo-Nazis still sprouting up randomly? His theories can be called out for the sick rhetoric they are—but as long as they hold weight in sick hearts, they retain enough power to destroy lives. An internet show or podcast built around the discussion and dissection of ideas doesn't pull in the masses though. We're talking ratings people! YouTube has been writing out some hefty checks—let’s get in on that action! Instead of exposing why and psychologically where these monstrous acts of violence come from, taking the time to destroy their threads of logic from the inside out and exposing their followers as blind and ignorant, they choose to paint a picture full of hidden plots, mystique, secrets, connections that are so outlandish, they just might work. And of course, they do. Every time. They speak to an audience who doesn't like thinking for themselves. Unfortunately though, these are the types of people they replace their innate intuitions with.

Just the fact that people lose their lives, isn't that enough of a news story? Isn't that enough to bring out the best in us? Why does there always have to be even darker, ulterior motives? No matter what the event, an even grimmer truth is waiting underneath the surface. Look long and hard at something and a person will trick himself into seeing exactly what he wants. If there are governments in bed with each other who also invite Big Pharma and The World Bank for one huge orgy and their ultimate goal is the enslavement of 99% of Earth's population so that they can feed us nothing but that weird paste fast food places pass off as beef, then I'll be a pretty bummed out slave. But until the day comes where I am taken from my home by MIB-looking agents dressed in expensive Gucci suits with sunglasses to match, why obsess over the possibility and eventual rise of this New World Order? Why spend all my waking hours and gorgeous summer days listening to Apocalypse-enthusiasts who make it a point to dream up the most brutal scenarios they can, as if it’s a sport? The end of the world is never close enough for these soapbox preachers. Disease! Famine! The fact that Joan Rivers once had a joke about Scientology in her set! Can't we see how simple and related it all is?!

Finale

Which brings us to the end of this long diatribe. I left my studio and stepped out into a sunshine so bright and invigorating, so powerful and lifting, that I suddenly felt more alive just standing outside my front door than I had in the entire past week. The sounds of the city flowed in and through my head; laughter, birds singing, church bells, an airplane soaring high above taking people I'll never meet to new places they've never seen. It was all so real, so perfect. It reminded me what life truly is. Or at least, what it can be if looked at with the right frame of reference.

There's been so much sadness lately. A million reasons to just break down or shout at the sky or give up completely. I've realized that the continuous stream of bad news will never stop. There'll always be a tragedy waiting to happen and be reminded of in the weeks afterward. You get mentally and emotionally exhausted. You forget how important it is to be able to appreciate a nice day outdoors. The trick isn't to disconnect from the mainstream media by just jumping ship from these opinions to those. Rather, it's to disconnect entirely. No more theories. No more “strange” and “curious” camera edits. No more tracing back the paper trails and who was whose distant relative. It may all be related, sure. But that's because they're all things vying for your full attention, energy, and heart. All of which are so precious and valuable and nobody but yours.

Of course it’s important to be aware of the world you live in. Of the evils which are possible and those carried out everyday by tyrants. But to know is one thing. To fill your life with them to the point where they’ve consumed all you are is another.

If these men behind the microphones ever allow themselves to truly experience a moment’s worth of honest happiness where they aren’t looking for connections or hidden plots put in motion by scary men in the depths of dark shadows, I’ve never seen it caught on tape. Maybe at some point they too, chuckled at something funny. Or maybe they got home one day and instead of their usual B-line for the conspiracy websites, they grabbed their wives, spun them around and while in their arms, planted a huge kiss on the women’s lips for no other reason than to make them smile, just for that moment. Maybe. Who am I to assume to know these complete strangers? I just wish they and the millions of similarly confused theorists would just take up a hobby every now and then. Something that doesn’t involve a computer or a webcam. Crocheting circles? Then they could harness those beautiful brains of theirs on who keeps using all the green thread or why the jar of raspberry jam they’re all supposed to share always turns up mysteriously missing. At least it’ll keep them busy.

[from-dre]

The Value of Experience

I once knew a girl in high school who I admired very much. Her grades were consistently at the top of the class. She had a style all her own. Her bedroom walls were covered in magazine clippings and collages she'd spent long hours on. She didn't mind falling off a skateboard and scraping her elbow. Her creativity just shimmered through everything she did, no matter how small. She seemed like the model student. More so, the model friend. Then she started trying different things. Introducing different chemicals into her already-brilliant psyche. She figured that she may as well now, while she was still young and able. That—in her words—she'd like to have all these things "under her belt." It confused me. She already seemed perfect. Why the need to experiment if you've been blessed with so much? Stranger yet, her grades never suffered. They didn't dip once. Throughout all the psychedelics, pills, and whatnot—, she remained on top of her class. This confused me even more.

Long story short: she transferred schools and I never saw her again. I'd often think back to her free spirit and nonchalant attitude toward drugs and try to see the soundness therein. Her premise was probably that the more experiences one has, the more they'll have to draw from, hence, the more reliable their conclusions will be.

But I don't need to stick a needle in my arm and shoot up heroin to know it's bad for you. There are studies available. I've skimmed a few.

All sarcasm aside—there actually are people in this world who won't respect an iota of your opinion if you haven't done each and everything you're describing on a firsthand basis, multiple times over. Though, nobody reaches the top of the Empire State Building and needs proof that jumping toward the street below will be the worst—and last—mistake they'll ever make.

It's common sense. It's engrained into our DNA. Rationale; it's there to be used, often.

So why this elitist obsession with having as many things under one's belt as possible? They claim "enlightenment" as these would-be’s ingest handfuls of brightly technicolored capsules and listen to music so new that it hasn't even been assigned a sub-genre yet. These "brave" culture warriors teeter the edge which divides our mainstream from the scary wilderness beyond. They self-appoint themselves the true curators of cool but only because there is nobody else who cares enough to make such a huge production out of whatever the current flavor-of-the-week happens to be. Everyone else is gone. They've moved on. They grew brains and with them created goals, outlined plans, and just started taking those who chose to stay behind at their words.

"Oh..., too many counteractive drugs in your body will shut down your central nervous system?"

So I’ve heard.

"Oh..., you smoked three packs a day for twenty-some years and now you're bummed out by your test results?"

Hmm...

"Oh..., going through withdrawals really isn’t fun?"

Wow.

Opposite a posteriori, a priori knowledge is independent of experience.

If a privileged upper-middle class teenager who's been lucky enough to grow up in an environment where the realities of drugs could be observed through both those that litter the streets of his downtown and the internet at large, still needs further empirical evidence to fully commit to a conclusion, then I would venture to say that he is probably welcoming of all the misery he's plunging himself toward.

There are certain things in life that I don't need to experience on my own skin in order to label them a certain way. A priori knowledge. Anyone who sees this as whimpering away with fear is a masochist and can be my guest when it comes to trying "that new gasoline stuff.” My only guess is that people are forever trying to one-up each other. “You've tried the pink powder? Well I've tried the blue.” And so on and so forth. I don't admire this type of thinking. It gets you killed or at the very least, makes you extremely regretful. The one I admire is the third person looking at the two arguing with a look of bewilderment that shouts out: “Why?!”

[from-dre]

One One-Thousand

I’d been among the few stuffed animals that Mrs. Carmine had placed inside the crib when she first brought little Cynthia home. The others lining the rest of the room hadn’t been as lucky and so the toddler rarely played with them in the years to follow.

Her bright blond curls stood out in family portraits when set against the straight dark hair of her adoptive parents. They adored the child. She was showered with attention. Always given new toys. It didn’t matter, I remained her favorite. So on the day the screams started, little Cynthia came running for me first.

The Carmines had a television in their living room, but if I wasn’t placed or dropped on the floor in its line of view, I’d be stuck having to piece things together just by listening. What I heard was horrifying. Mass violence overseas. Some type of invasion. Enormous power outages leaving entire countries in the dark. I’d hear Mr. Carmine talking about a potential war and how they’d have to start coming up with an escape plan would it ever reach Stateside. I’d hear Mrs. Carmine sit up crying for nights in a row. Cynthia held me tighter than ever before. After she’d fall asleep, I’d stare at the other stuffed animals in the room with me, all of us with the same blank expressions we’d always worn. I always wondered if they too, could think like me. If they were stuck inside their own bodies like I was, unable to move or speak, just observe and process. I assumed they could. But of course, I’d never know, just like they’d never know if they ever wondered the same thing about me.

“Sam!” I heard Mrs. Carmine crying out to her husband from another room. “Get in here now!” She sounded petrified and began sobbing loudly. Cynthia stopped her coloring, scooped me up by one of my floppy ears, and ran out of her room towards her mother. From the poor girl’s arms, I watched the television but struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. A helicopter was transmitting a live feed from high above. It showed a gigantic gaping hole in the middle of a desert. I couldn’t make out how large it was until I realized the small specks surrounding its outer edge that I mistook for ants turned out to be people. Millions of them. The camera zoomed in as far as it could onto a cluster of them. I could almost make out their faces when Mrs. Carmine shrieked again, covering her mouth. “They’re digging!” She yelled to herself. Cynthia and I were made to go back into her room, though I couldn’t help but think about what I’d just seen. Who were those people? Something about the way they were standing wasn’t normal.

In the coming weeks I tried piecing together what little information I could. Mass suicides were happening globally. People were voluntarily walking into the oceans without trying to swim. All heading towards the hole that had gotten so big it now seemed to cover half of Egypt. Mrs. Carmine began sleeping next to Cynthia at night. She’d taught her daughter to count from ten one-thousand all the way down until she’d hit zero. She told her how that was the magic number that could instantly slow her racing heartbeat if she ever got scared. But how she could only use its magic once in her life. How the fewer numbers she’d need to count, the braver she was. Cynthia never needed to get past six one-thousand.

One afternoon I heard shouting. But it sounded different than ever before. I quickly realized it wasn’t coming from anywhere inside the house. Just then, I heard the front door open and slam shut.

“Carol – get Cynthia now! It’s here! It’s come here!” I heard Mr. Carmine running through the house, gathering things.

“What?!” Mrs. Carmine’s voice from their bedroom.

“Now Carol! Go!”

“Tell me what’s happening!”

“No time, I’ll explain in the car! Get Cynthia!”

The sound of the bedroom door bursting open woke the sleeping girl. Her mother grabbed her hand.

“Come on baby, we’re leaving.” I watched the two hurry out of the room, down the hall, and around the corner out of sight.

“Wait!” I finally heard. The sound of little footsteps ran back towards me and a minute later, I was in the girl’s arms as the three of them headed for the front door, bags of food in hand.

“Straight to the car.” Mr. Carmine said. Then, sunlight. Since first arriving to the Carmines’, I’d been taken outdoors twice. Once for a trip to the park and once to play with Cynthia in the backyard. For the past year and a half however, we lived with the world turning into utter chaos. Now, I finally saw for myself the reality of it all.

The first thing I noticed were the screams coming from half the houses on the block. A few cars had broken windows. Then, a man running, another chasing him while flailing his limbs violently, saying something over and over in a gurgled voice. Mr. Carmine jumped in the car. Mrs. Carmine opened the backseat for me and the girl, then slammed it shut and hurried into the passenger seat. I tried to see where the two men ran to but couldn’t find them. When the car backed away from the driveway they reentered my line of sight.

“Mommy!” Cynthia howled. The gurgling man had caught up to his victim, pinned him to the ground, and was now forcing himself atop his head to get to his ear. He began chanting the same phrase over and over again. A language I’d never heard. In a matter of seconds the man trying to fight himself free stopped moving. He stiffened out. Then, his limbs cracked into a position they weren’t made to take. He began to utter something. His voice had changed into the same demonic growl as his attacker’s. He jumped up and the two began running again. But this time, together, and in complete syncopation.

“Drive, Sam!” Cynthia’s mother yelled.

“What’s happening?” Mr. Carmine muttered to himself.

As the car pulled away from the house, I looked out passed the back window. Trees whirled by. Homes on fire, cars overturned, we were nearing downtown. More packs of those gurgling people, all chanting the same thing, all with cracking limbs running in a form no human body has ever taken before. No blood stains, no wounds, just the same expression on their faces as I had seen on those people surrounding the huge hole in the Earth. It looked, evil. Muscles I’d never seen a face use held their features in place. Unsymmetrical eyes. Lips that snarled. Crooked noses.

“They’re saying whatever it is reached Manhattan last night. By this morning it was here in Florida and an hour ago just outside Sarasota.” Mr. Carmine relayed the news to his shocked wife, too paralyzed to cry. “They turn into these things by some signal the brain picks up when it’s close enough to hear it. Then they go after others, turning more until they have enough and start heading East.”

“Why East?” Mrs. Carmine asked.

“They’re headed in that hole’s direction. Whatever’s buried there, they’re digging for it constantly, day and night, even after some have their arms fall off, they continue to dig. It’s…, this is it. This is how the world ends.” The car continued to race through the city streets.

“Don’t talk like that, I’m sure they’ve started dropping bombs on that pit by now.”

“It doesn’t work! New ones find their way to it! They just-“

Mr. Carmine had been in the middle of catching his breath when an SUV barreled into the driver’s side. We slid to a complete stop with broken glass covering the inside of the car. I couldn’t see the aftermath but by Mrs. Carmine’s hysteria, I assumed the worst.

“No! No, no, Sam, my God!” Cynthia had never been quick to cry. But now I started feeling her chest rise and lower quicker and quicker. “Baby get out of the car!” Mrs. Carmine flew out and grabbed her daughter out and into the street. Cynthia held me tighter. I could see the driver from the SUV’s body had smashed through its windshield. “Oh my God, oh my God. Where? Where?” The girl’s mother was frantically looking for a place to run towards. Screams came from all around us. The storefronts were all broken into. Gunfire from both near and far. “There!” She grabbed her daughter’s hand and the two of them ran inside a neighborhood deli. The chairs that were once stacked up against the door had been pushed to the side. Mrs. Carmine looked around in a panic. Then a voice.

“Over here! Hurry!” From behind the counter, a man stood waving his arm. We ran towards him as he pointed to the walk-in freezer. “My wife and son are in there, come on!”

The two pounded on its outside and a few seconds later the thick door swung open. From back out in the dining area, a loud crash rung out by windows being broken, then the faint sounds of deep gurgled chanting filled the room.

“They’re in! Hurry, get to the back of the freezer!” The man yelled. His wife, young son, Mrs. Carmine and Cynthia huddled together in the dim corner as the man pulled the freezer door shut and stacked as many crates as he could find in front of it. He kept the light on and I watched him kneel down in prayer. Cynthia squeezed me tight and I noticed the young boy with us looking at her in worry, he too held a stuffed bunny in his arms. I made eye contact with it and it with me. I didn’t know what the young boy had named his furry friend or if they’d made as many memories as little Cynthia and I had over the years. I didn’t know how close the two had become or if the young boy had ever been able to read the bunny’s blank face as well as Cynthia had been able to read mine. I didn’t even know if the bunny could feel emotion or think thoughts like I could, but still, we stared at each other in silence. Outside, gurgled chanting neared closer to the freezer.

“Ten one-thousand…,” whispered a shaking Cynthia. “Nine one-thousand…eight one- thousand.” Pounding on the door began. The man prayed faster, louder, with more aggression. The chanting, though in unison, sounded like it came from a dozen or more voices. “Five one-thousand…four one-thousand.” The man began crying, the chanting grew louder, the pounding turned into violent scratching. Panels began getting pulled off in all directions. The bunny held its blank expression, still looking at me, and by the time Cynthia reached one one-thousand and hadn’t yet stopped, I wondered if it knew how scared it should truly be.

[from-dre]

Beata Beatrix

Letting Myself Go There

I used to walk by a small bridal shop on my way to weekly therapist visits. With skateboard in hand, I’d stare through the window at the custom pieces. A sight of renewed purity flowed down in off-white silks and satins. Beads of ivory instead of sweat. Lines of embroidered passion instead of permanent slits.

I’d imagine the clientele; ecstatic at the feelings they’d get on their final fitting day—an image of redemptive beauty reflecting back from all angles. She'd close her eyes and see the imperfect Prince Charming riding toward his bride, steel armor replaced by scarred arms, sword and shield by pen and paper.

Then; trust-falls back into a recoiled reality as she draws back the eyelid curtains and reaccepts objective truth. He is nowhere, she is non-existent; the shorelines dissolve back into the ash that rises up through the atmosphere like burned pieces of grey confetti. The best men all gather around the groom—anxious to see the ball and chain locked up from their front row seats. I’ve pretended to get down on one knee too many times throughout my life—nobody’s ever taken me seriously, not even myself.

Storybook Sadness

I got up one morning as I sat on the edge of my bed, nearly shivering with nervous sweat. I began thinking about the dream I’d just woken up from of an image that’s haunted me ever since;

A beautiful wedding in a broken-down chapel; rays of sunlight still shining through its cracks in the rooftop, impaling the dense air with translucent touches of promised hope that pierce the fog in permanent halves. Beacons from high above all beaming prisms of rich colour through the stained glass windows and onto walls half-sprawled with the bright vines of deep green emeralds.

She stands center-stage; framed perfection. A magnum opus wrapped in white threads of pure redemption. Untouched skin; restored to life and ever-pampered by real Seraphim who flew down from His side and saved the star-crossed lovers from their eventual suburban fate of celestial disappointment. I’d found true happiness at last through her eternal smile.

“Does anyone have any reason...,” the preacher utters the words I’d been dreading to hear as she peers through her peripheral in my general direction. My entire body freezes shut—disabled by well-deserved humility and a forced life of self-imposed silence. Through the veil’s intricate lace; a microscopic image of our entire universe and its timeline starts taking shape as it simultaneously begins unravelling at both ends, gaining exponential purpose within the glistening liquid of reflective teardrops being formed real time inside the bride’s outlined-eyes.

Then I wake up.

Dreamy Frequencies

The haze brings about bits and pieces of memories that don’t make sense. Chopped up frames of film I don’t remember shooting. Anger works in ways that’s hard to take into account. It threads itself into my daily existence with such a delicate touch that by the time its coursing through my body, I’m already breathing fire. I used to try meditation until I realized that it required active focusing upon nothingness. I used to be able to pray with so much more ease a long time ago too, but lately I feel like I’ve been picking apart my end of the line. The emotions used to drip out through my fingertips and onto the canvas below, smearing technicolor truths through optic brushes—a filmed masterpiece from beginning to end to new beginning.

Constant turmoil and persistent guilt comes barreling toward me at light-speed. A ball of havoc in attempting to purge so many of the things that’ve haunted my life follows suit. The off-color marks still on my wrists, the emptied fifths still stashed away in closets, the pictures of a once-romanticized era realized through saddened expressions and regretful moments. The hospitals, the medicines, exile, disease—it all interweaves itself into a mess of misery in an attempt to find and rid myself of all the darkness that’s held such a permanent hold on my heart.

Beatrice Portinari, 1977

After the storm, a period of personal restoration is required. In order to beautify a place that’s been held under such a previous oppression, one must first create their own space of individualized-peace. Symbols of hope eventually come through the images of potential happiness countering my puke stains and pill bottles. Everything surrounded by a brilliant swirl of sleeplessness cast upon the outside world with zero concern and even less caution.

An immediate shift within the earth’s core; flipping the switch on polar opposite poles when she appears in my dreams as someone I have yet to meet, taking center-stage; both brims ink-filled while adorned in Vivianne Westwood accessories with added revolver clip as liquified rose petals drip down halls of scarlet throughout a timelessly-armored heart. Her attitude; priceless—the posture; prayer, as her poet approaches his muse from beyond the background’s shadows.

[from-dre]

Complex Creatures & Their Tormenting Needs

The Cherry Oak Desk

Here's how the scene's set up: your beloved husband who you've been very happily married to just got bumped up in the company with a generous raise and a bigger office for all the dedication he's brought to the job these last few years. He can't wait to get home and give you the great news! You'll finally be able to upgrade to the types of cars a power-couple like yourselves should've been driving all along! Maybe he'll even begin thinking of that next step and start looking into adding on a nursery to your already perfect dream home you've lived in for the last X-amount of years. Or maybe there'll be more time to spend together now that more money will be coming in. Life is perfect! Everything is perfect! You are living the storybook fairytale you always knew you'd have, from as far back as you can remember, you willed this fate for yourself.

What you couldn't possibly know at the present moment is that in your husband's new office is also the new desk that's made entirely out of cherry oak making its maximum supported weight nearly a dozen times that of the two half-naked bodies currently atop its smooth surface. Of course, you'd never even heard the name “Jennifer,” let alone know she'd been recently hired as a new project manager or secretary or whatever, it really doesn't matter if she's the new janitor for all it’s worth. The reality is that she's eyeballed your husband from Day One. He's an average-looking guy with decent hair and a nice-enough smile. He doesn't hold doors open but doesn't let his yelling at the waiters get too out of hand when he has to send food back at restaurants either, so he's got his good qualities too. Above everything though, is the simple fact that he's a man in a newly-acquired position that comes with a bit of power, with a bit more pull and influence than his last one had. Top that off with the fact that he didn't turn away when Jennifer bent down the other day to pick up the notepad she'd "accidentally" let slip out of her hands and right to his feet and there you have your textbook example of unsuspecting prey.

Man Into Animal

Though this scene's just an example highlighting how quickly a “perfect” and “sturdy” life can be torn to pieces, it's also realistic and accurately representative of many more marriages than we probably want to admit. The point we're going to examine isn't the wife's delusional dreams of having attained the perfect man, but rather, that man's acceptance of that same delusion. They bask in a shared mania; that power puts a person above the need for a moral compass. They don't need to see where the bar's set, they are the bar. The deeper problem and the crux of this reflection into the human psyche is what that delusion eventually does to an otherwise, levelheaded person.

It turns a man into an animal. In an instant, he loses all self-control and every ounce of self-respect. He manages to spit on his wife's loyalty, his reputation that he's worked years at building up and his own dignity all in the same breath. It's almost artful, to possess such selfish, destructive talent. Almost, but not the slightest bit admirable to be considered quite “art.”

I realize how easy that scene is to write though. Men in power almost always let their egos spin out of control and the inevitable cheating on their wives is almost cliche at this point. So how about the wife herself? Or worse yet, how about the mother? Yes—the mother who's so far removed from the bored housewife trope that it's painful to even let our imaginations go down this path. Thankfully our thresholds have Olympian impenetrability and our sense of sympathetic understanding will guide us along.

10 Minutes of a Lifetime

What's the mother of three to do when in the midst of her ridiculously hectic schedule, she too, allows herself just a measly ten minutes to grab some midday coffee and the chance to catch her breath? Deny herself the most petty of pleasures? The small shop is packed yet she spots the lone chair that's still available in the back corner. Our exhausted woman with the chipped nails, the unflattering “Mom Jeans” and the pair of plain tennis shoes she wears to run errands with shuffles forward and sits down with an unassuming smile and starts sipping her caramel macchiato, trying in vain to clear her head of what else needs to get done today.

Just ten minutes of quiet time to herself, that's all she needs to walk out of here recharged and ready to continue on with her day. All is going well until she lets her eyes roam around the room, looking at the random college kids poking away at their laptops to the teenagers wearing green aprons working behind the counter and finally to a lonely mirror placed on the wall across from her, set facing her direction, dead-on. A pause, her gentle stream-of-consciousness now broken. The reflection looks back at her with the same wide-eyed disbelief. She stares in silence with a nonthreatening focus until finally, sighing a long, loud exhale of pure dejection before dropping her eyes back down to the floor.

No wonder she's gone untouched for these last few years. He'd stopped holding her hand in dark movie theaters let alone wrap his arms around her until she'd fall asleep, like he used to long before the kids ever showed up. Nowadays they'd say their ‘good nights’ with such monotonous delivery that it'd make her insides want to convulse, like metal nails scraping across endless chalkboard. After they'd separately crawl into bed, it was every person for themselves. She'd be left to fend the approaching darkness on her own, again. They weren't the team from their first years together. When they'd be each other's soldier, watching each other's backs, guarding for anything that'd stand in the way of making the other smile as often as possible. They'd stand up for each other, even when it was hard to. Even when they'd bicker themselves, they'd never let anyone outside of their marriage know or see any sadness. They kept it private. They only wanted to exude positivity to their friends and the world around them. Their business was their own and nobody else's. Their heavy and active sex life too. Nobody else's. Their closest friends would never guess, even in a million years how this depressed blob of a middle-aged man used to take his neckties after coming home from work, throw her on the bed after a few long kisses and wrap it around her eyes, tightly tying it behind her head. What difference something as small as a makeshift blindfold made back then. He'd let himself become feverishly engulfed in that passion, that carnal lust that they used to be able to see in each other. Now? He'd probably deny of anything ever happening. How that's the kind of disgusting things these kids are up to today. An eighty year old slumped man in a mid-fifties shell.

All For Naught

So why should she go out of her way to get her nails done? Who'd notice anything at all? Who would she be dying her hair for anyway? Even if she wanted to do it, nobody would ever notice. The background noise of the coffee shop which she hadn't even paid attention to since arriving was getting on her nerves now. Stupid caramel macchiato! The one thing she lets herself have during the day and these idiot kids can't even make it taste halfway decent?! She didn't need to check her phone to know that the ten minutes she needed had been up long ago—it was time to leave. This was a silly idea to begin with. Who drinks coffee in the middle of the day when she still had the dry cleaning she hadn't even picked up yet? Stupid. Stupid waste of time! That's all this was. She walked out through the front doors with an agitation she didn't have on her way in. Lesson learned. No big deal. Tomorrow she'll skip this entirely and the next day and the day after that. Why would she even deserve her ten minute coffee break anymore? She's been repulsing to touch for years, coffee was the last thing she deserved.

Hopping into the driver's seat of her car, she pushed the engine on and before being able to throw it in reverse and back up and away from the parking lot, she felt an oncoming wave of bottled up hatred. It was so sudden and took hold of her ability to choke down anymore tears that she accepted the inevitable and let herself burst into a ball of uncontrolled sobbing. Hands covered her floodgate eyes and soon was soaked and an even bigger mess than before. She hadn't noticed the man sitting in his car directly across the parking stall in front of her own who was now stepping out and walking over to her slowly with a concerned look on his face.

Knight in Shining Armor

At this point he doesn't need to have any tissues on him specifically. All it takes is for him to simply approach. No matter what follows next is irrelevant to that first decision he made to interact with a complete stranger. His presence has now become a permanent part of her life, no matter how insignificant it seems at first.

So maybe he offers to find a napkin for her in his car. She thanks him though reassures him she'll be just fine. It doesn't look like he has any so insists that he'll be right back. That he's just going to run and bring her a few from that coffee shop nearby. She tells him it's no big deal—he tells her not to be silly. Two minutes later she sees him in her rear-view mirror walking back with a small stack of napkins and a large cup of coffee in his hand. He thought maybe she'd like to catch her breath before going on her way and that he wasn't sure how she took her coffee so just got her a caramel macchiato instead. It's always been his go-to drink so figured it'd work just as well as anything else.

He then stands by her driver's side window for the next three and a half hours getting to know this woman. Getting her to laugh, to tell him about where she grew up and sharing stories from his marriage which ended up in divorce nearly a decade ago. They talk. And talk and talk and he makes her feel something new. He tells her how he'd love to be able to do it again soon, next time over dinner. She doesn't quite understand, she'd been upfront with him about having a husband and three children. He is sincere. No hidden agenda. Everything as it truly seems. He gives her his business card so that she doesn't feel any pressure to give him her information just yet.

Before parting ways, he slowly holds out his hand, waiting patiently to take hers, shake it, and while letting her know what an honest pleasure it was to make her acquaintance, he brings her hand to his lips and kisses it goodbye—chipped nails and all. She blushes like a second-grade schoolgirl, naturally.

This handsome man gets in his car to leave, pulls out of the stall and before taking off into the sunset, gives her one last wink while smiling. Our woman is left sitting in her seat, grinning, fiddling with his business card in her hands. Knowing she should just rip it in two, throw the shreds out her window and just go on her way. Just leave this parking lot and not let herself make something out of nothing. She sits and thinks and doesn't even realize how she's no longer concerned with how long ago her ten minutes were up. Sitting, fiddling with the card.

Decisions, Decisions

What happens next is for you to decide. It doesn't really matter. The truth is that for the next ten or twenty or how many ever years it turns out being, they'll undoubtedly be filled with fiddling. It'll be both—part anxiety, part excitement. Mostly though, it'll be the feeling of having someone take notice whenever she gets a manicure, or buys a new dress, or does something extra special with her hair. The nearly-forgotten feeling of being loved again, being needed will always keep that fateful card in her fiddling hands.

It's weird because I can't blame this poor woman. Her husband truly does sound like a jerk who doesn't deserve her in the slightest and I was just coming up with him on the fly. I feel for this lady. But can we really put her in a class outside of the husband from our first scene? Aren't they both committing the same transgression? Isn't the trust that one is throwing away as if it were a piece of trash the same emotion that the other is mistreating as well?

These are things that we'll all come up against in our lives. Human experience isn't so black-on-white though. We live our entire lives in a constant spectrum that's filled with endless shades of grey. We can assign morally upstanding people as judges and have them point their own weighty fingers in the faces of those who betray us. Until we're in these people's shoes though, it's as good a guess as anyone else's. Until we've got Jennifer’s seductively long nails slithering down to our belt, unbuckling it, and letting ourselves cross into a territory where turning back from is unheard of, we can't say for sure how hard or easy a decision it must be for the man with the nice desk that's just begging to be christened. Or until we reach a level of such self-hatred and pity that the last person we'd expect to have the ability of picking us back up, dusting us off and in-fact, placing us on an even higher pedestal than we've ever reached before, is a complete stranger with amazingly broad shoulders who walks with his head held high, we're doing nothing but throwing darts in the dark, trying to hit the center of a moral compass.

Shades of grey, always.

[from-dre]

Flash Fiction #1

Maggie twirled the spaghetti around her fork on the plate, round and round, afraid of taking the first bite into the last meal she’d have with her husband before leaving him forever. Round and round. Over and over.

“It won’t give ya any black eyes babe, try it.” Alan’s words disgusted the other three around the table, but none let on. He snickered to himself, proud of his wit. She’d spent nearly an hour’s worth of applying makeup in the bathroom mirror before heading out that evening. It wasn’t a one-time thing with him. Ten years ago she thought, maybe, maybe it is just a phase. Maybe he’s just stressed from working so much. The promotions came, more money came, the beatings continued. It wasn’t a one-time thing, ever. And now, he’d gotten so used to it that it’d become something to joke about at dinner with the Cascellas—their only good friends.

“Well?” Alan asked. “See how you like it.” Maggie ripped a piece of bread from her loaf and tried it with her spaghetti. She chewed and nodded in approval.

Alan resumed his analysis of the stock market with Anthony Cascella. Judy smiled at her with the warmth only she could give off. Stay strong Maggie, her eyes seemed to say. Of course Judy and Anthony knew about tonight. Judy had even helped her pack everything she was going to take with her and filled the car up to the brim with brown boxes. The two had moved quickly, in and out, three hours at most. Alan had left for the afternoon to do God-knows-what and planned to meet Maggie and the Cascellas at the Grand Lux for dinner later that night.

“We’ll have dinner,” Judy had repeated to her for the twentieth time earlier that day, “and then we’ll go somewhere else for dessert. Maybe that cute yogurt shop Alan likes. We’ll take two cars. Anthony can take Alan in his new two-seater. It’ll be perfect, you’ll see. They’ll get there, and we’ll never show up.”

“How are you going to explain yourself? What about poor Anthony?” Maggie anxiously asked, pacing back and forth.

“Don’t worry about Anthony, he’s got no part in this. Me? I’ll just say I had to run back in for my purse or something and that when I came out, you were gone. Maybe you left all of us, not just him. You know?” Judy smiled.

“I…,” Maggie couldn’t keep it together, her eyes soaked over. The two women hugged, Maggie squeezing tight. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Now that the moment had come, her knees were shaking underneath the table. From fear, from anxiety. Mostly they shook from the excitement. She’d never been the type to overstep boundaries. Her own mother taught her that—and if there were any lessons she’d skipped, Alan had come along to eagerly teach. She’d been the quiet girl all her life. The good girl who didn’t cause trouble, didn’t bring home boys with pierced ears. She fell in love with the first man who’d called her “sweetheart.” Now she was married to someone with zero tattoos on his skin and constant whiskey on his breath.

“I tell ya…, if my old man were to see the type of girl I sure chained myself to…,” he’d often say, “phew…, poor guy would be rolling over in his grave. You’re lucky, you know that? He would’ve hit ya twice as hard if you were his girl.” She knew he was probably right. She knew the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with these men. They didn’t just sprout out of the ground overnight though. They must’ve been around during her mother’s days. Why hadn’t she steered her daughter clear of something so ugly? It’d been a question Maggie had asked herself over and over throughout the years. The closest she’d ever gotten to an answer was that her mother hadn’t known how. She’d married one herself. Though Maggie’s father never laid a hand on his child, he made sure her mother knew who was in charge. That woman had all the courage in the world, all except the little bit she needed most. The little bit that Maggie was going to muster up tonight, in the next few minutes. She was going to do what her mother was never able to. What Alan’s mother was never able to. Just a few more minutes, she thought.

“Wow…,” Anthony said, patting his stomach, “I’m stuffed.” The time was here, the check was paid. “Whose sweet tooth’s acting up?” he baited.

“Oh yeah,” Alan chimed in on cue. He gulped down the last of his drink. “You can go with Judy. Anthony’s gotta show me that beautiful new machine he just bought.” Yes, I can, can’t I? Maggie looked at him, knowing everyone else’s eyes were on her. She stood up.

“You know…, it’s so beautiful outside, with the snow falling, wouldn’t you want to walk instead?” She didn’t have to look at Judy nor Anthony to know their faces lit up with shock. She felt Judy’s eyes though. Maggie quickly looked at her and saw the shock melt away into disappointment and anger. She had to do this…, just one last try. “Alan…, sweetheart, did you—”

“Beautiful?!” he shot back. “What’s so beautiful about freezing yourself stiff in this weather?! You’re getting crazier by the day, you know that?” Maggie kept a directed stare.

“Alan…, are you sure?” she asked.

“Of what, woman?!—I know you’re not deaf. No, I sure ain’t walking in the snow.” Maggie let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay babe…, if that’s what you want.” She returned Judy’s smile to her and began wrapping her scarf around her neck. As the four began walking down the stairs toward the front doors, Judy’s hand squeezed Maggie’s arm. It was warmth, strength, and love—something Maggie had almost forgotten she could feel.

[from-dre]

The Feature Presentation

As vital a moment as it was, the last-minute coughing fits and readjusting of strange bodies in creaky seats would still happen, every time, without fail. The lights would dim, our minds as well. Automated unseen machines roped in the cheap velour curtains to the sides of the now-wider screen. Though it had every last pair of eyes in the theater glued to it like cement—mine included—I now retrospectively wonder to myself, how of all the inanimate objects in the known universe; the immeasurable amount of toys, towels, shoes, and large plastic Starbucks straws, how among the zillions of products one’s mind can imagine, the simple concept of the screen deserves humanization more than any other.

Personifying a screen—more specifically, a theater screen—should be easier than it sounds, and make more sense than it does. Had it only known how many different pairs of strangers’ eyes it’d attract over its lonely lifetime, maybe it would’ve fought harder. To be fair, it did fight. Unknowingly, it fought incredibly hard for its well-deserved attention, many times. A canvas, however, has no say in what color its artist chooses to splatter across its blank slate. It must sit there with a silent smile and accept the work at hand, regardless of personal taste or opinion. Realistically, a giant roll of white vinyl offers up no critique whatsoever, so our own are then perhaps, projected onto its face, shoving for space between mindless dialogue and senseless explosions. The screen—assuming it could—would probably try to hear your thoughts, most likely agree with you that, “Yes, the original was much better.” Though, it cannot and will never possess that humanistic trait, to cease communicating others’ thoughts and ideas and begin belting out its own logic, love stories, and musings. Heart-wrenchingly, the mere ability to possess a skill doesn’t promise it ever being put to good use. A million human beings are thinking the exact same thing right at this very second, and because they know this very fact, will continue to do so, simply because a million different independent minds can’t be wrong. However, how many of them are projecting organic ideas and not merely playing the quiet canvas, sitting idly by, allowing and even encouraging some artist to splotch away at their unique mental-prints. How many of them don’t realize they can be their own artist?

What you aggressively allow no other person to see, the screen takes all in. It devours the tiny details that may have never crossed your own mind. The boy’s shaking arm slowly reaching around the back of the girl’s seat but stopping just short of full-contact, palm-to-foreign-shoulder. The man who’s been fidgeting since he sat down, one moment a ring on his finger, the next, after reaching into his coat pocket, gone. The woman in the next seat over seems to be enjoying herself, as well as having a bare finger all night, not noticing the man’s inability to decide whether he should be here at all.

I’m no different. It’s looked back at me many times before. It’s peered into my wistful eyes, themselves peering at a seemingly safe object. Through them, it’s seen my soul and read every line in my subconscious library of secrets and regrets. I imagine some of the more bold-faced phrases included such gems as: “Do I really love her?”

Its method is absolutely genius. There are lovers embracing on its widened-face, having just gone through an experience that nearly killed off any possible future of them reuniting again, and yet, here they are, on high-definition display for the world to witness. Most sets of eyes are at the very least glazed-over, mine are not only dry, but rolling as well. The screen sees this. It processes it with remorse. It doesn’t want to see that much cynicism radiating from a single person, no matter how corny the scene may be. Perhaps it’s not of two newly-weds at all, and instead shows a short transitional scene of a not-so-happy average person pulling into a parking stall at their not-so- spectacular job. A ritual they’ve performed for many years and will continue on with for many years to still come. Maybe the movie’s supposed to be a comedy. So why is this unimportant scene making me unconsciously tear up? The screen knows, even if I never will.

It’s witnessed my upbringing. It’s been there for my maturation, regression, ups and downs. First dates, excitement for sequels, anxiety-filled precursors to a talk I’ll have to eventually have tonight with a girl who’ll be completely blindsided—the screen’s been there through it all. At sixteen, it saw my blood-shot eyes and unusually stiff demeanor, correctly deducing just how paranoid a few hits off of a water-bong earlier in the day can make an amateur like myself. At eighteen, it saw my date do things no person should ever feel comfortable doing at a midday-showing of Kangaroo Jack. At twenty-two, it saw my expressionless face in vividness it probably wishes it could forget. In hopeless attempts to do exactly what it was built for and distract me from whatever seemed to be weighing on my frontal lobe, it filled its face with bright colors, state-of-the-art visuals, and swirls of different worlds, realities, and lives—to no avail. It’s been beaten down by the very kids who’d come running down its halls, shouting in excitement and picking out favorite seats in front-row sections that parents hated. Those kids grew up into cynics who aren’t impressed by loud, booming noises and superhero costumes like they once were. Fair enough, maybe indie dramas and underground horror festivals? It still comes up short. At least, it did with me. I wish I could look it in its face with pure honesty, at some point before the pre-show or maybe after the credits. Those handful of minutes in- between the very end of the last show and long before the next one’s start-time. I wish I could stare into its dark abyss, let my eyes relax and let the center of itself envelope my thoughts so I could tell it how much it deserves.

“You have always been here for me!” I’d admit. “I do lose myself in your stories!” I don’t say anything though, I don’t even think about it, because the alternate realities I’ve become accustomed to seeing up there is exactly the reason for my disenchantment now, and why it’s nearly impossible for my being swept away at twenty-seven like I was at seventeen, at twelve, and at nine. Much like walking out into the sun after hearing a sermon that sounds like its got your name written all over it, and with even a thousand other people in the congregation, the pastor’s speaking directly to you, the first time walking out of a first-viewing of Jurassic Park, Inception, or Lord of the Rings feels like bathing in a warm, bright, shimmering enlightenment. I envy those who have yet to see those classics and others, as you only get one “first time.” The sermon stays with you for a while, maybe only until you reach your car, but the radio comes back on at some point, doesn’t it? Or a text reminds you of something you’d been intentionally putting off for a while now. One way or another, the sun too, sets and goes away and the cold night air reminds you that while fantasies are fun in temporary doses, reality will ultimately creep back in and cause the dreamers heartache. It will thread its sickness into their mental fabric, and unable to catch it in time, they’ll wake up one day and realize that those are just as they’d feared—dreams, and that the screen is just a screen, that a canvas is and can only ever be a canvas, whether it’s blank or bragging about the Picasso it holds. A canvas could never change the world, likewise, the screen sits alone, late, after midnight when the house lights are all shut off and the pitch black darkness reminds it of just how lonely it truly is. It has the widest and loudest-heard voice, but cannot speak. It’s looked at in awe and wonder by the youth, the magic-drained, dreamless “average guys” of tomorrow. In the darkness though, it sits alone and wonders, if through all the eyes it’d captivated, there wasn’t one pair that would take what it’d just experienced back home, and keep it sheltered, safe from the overreaching sadness of the outside world? If even when they’d age too, like the rest, wouldn’t they still look back to it with the same awe and respect and pure imaginative stare that they’d once had? Maybe today was it. Maybe it was finally the day where it got through to the one mind it needed to. Not with the story it was forced to show, of course, but with the mere fact that it was showing a story at all. Maybe its dialogue was forced, or its car-chases didn’t make logical sense, or its two lovers were never guaranteed a perfect future together so the ending was filled with ambiguity, but—it’s a story. It’s a beautiful, perfect story, because, it’s ours. It may be a hollow copy with little heart, but even those are based on greater, larger possibilities. Those are our lives up there, on the big, shiny, silver screen.

For the moment, I may not be so easily swayed to believe in them again. I, however, still show up, with varying degrees of consistency, but I still show up and find a seat and wait for the lights to dim and the velour curtains to pull back so that I can see my friend again. Depending on what it’s got for its theater tonight, the screen may or may not get the respect it deserves. Attention, however, is a non- issue. For the next two hours, it owns us, will captivate us and try as hard as it can to make us believe in bigger, brighter futures again. Of greater, larger possibilities. It’ll watch us as we watch it. It’ll notice all the small nothings we’d never look twice at. It’ll speak to couples on the verge of divorce the only way it can—not through its immediate art, but instead, the collectiveness of its art. At some point in their relationship, the screen played a vital role, its only goal tonight is to merely nudge them in reminder of it. So I sit and wait, knowing the feature presentation isn’t far off now. Knowing that everything that’s come before it are previews. Knowing I’m not here for those stories, even if I have to sit through them momentarily. Knowing the story I’m here to see is something completely different, perfectly specific and something I’ve waited an agonizingly long time for. I look up at the screen and though I may or may have never seen this unique screen tell a story before, I know it recognizes me, like it does everyone else in the theater. The screen is all of them at once, showing thousands of different stories at the same time. Alternate realities. I inhale a deep breath and feel strangely comfortable, like I’m at home. I’m just realizing how much I envy the screen’s strength, to know how powerful its canvas can be, yet to never be able to have organic, original thought displayed. I’m just realizing that if it could, it would pick my body up and shake me into the understanding that I have the ability to do what it will never be able to. I’m just realizing how thankful I am to it when the lights begin to dim. Someone coughs a few rows back and a smile stretches across my darkened face. Maybe I’m becoming the screen myself.

[from-dre]

The Entire Universe

Quadrant I

You're sitting in your living room. Cool gusts of air keep your home at a comfortable temperature. Outside, a scorching summer lingers on. Somewhere; loud laughter, people playing on their front porches. The bay window directly in front of the couch you sleep on shows you a lush world beyond your own grayness. A stale silence enveloped your psyche long ago, now it's touched every room you've stepped into for the past decade-plus. This one holds the most pressure. This, room. You feel it pushing down on your shoulders, seeping through the cracks in the drywall, crawling downward like a poisonous vine until it convinces you to fall back asleep, back to an underworld of muted heartache that only you could ever understand. A place that has just enough familiarity outlining its perpetual rainfall. You shut your eyes and begin to feel your body drifting off to this land, again. You begin humming some song that's been stuck in your head..., but that in reality, is just some melody you made up at some point in the far past that you've forgotten about. The notes rise and lower, like your chest, like your mind. Then, the melody drowns into a deep, thickened bass, submerged somewhere in the depths of pure pitch darkness, hardly recognizable anymore, like your mind. Then, sleep.

The very few memories you have of your father trying to teach you lessons on 'How to be a Man' don't particularly stick out in the sea of other moments from your youth. His voice was stern, powerful, so they always seemed like important bits of information at the time, even if they weren't. You try to remember more every time you think back, but your mind's eye only sees so much. It's been ravaged by self-induced comas where instead of calling out toward the skies above, it was the chemicals which you'd praise. So now as you find yourself back in this other world's grasp once more, you cover both ears with your palms and squint your eyes, struggling in vain to hear him say; "don't fall asleep here son, you'll never wake back up."

But I'm already asleep, your mind whispers back.

This place is constantly wet. Either from the rain or sleet or collective teardrops, the water never evaporates off the concrete. It's usually a city-setting. A metropolis straight out of some type of post-apocalypse. Usually, but not always. You've found it take other shapes before, other forms of dystopian coldness.

Once you'd found it a vast highway, so enormous and gargantuan that the cement stilts holding its hundred-lane body many miles above the earth were wider than any building you'd ever seen back in the real world.

Another time it appeared as a never-ending beach front, stretching on forever in either direction. A singular structure protruding off its darkly-sanded face; a pier. One that led out into the very middle of the largest body of water your mind could conjure up. A pier that took days to reach the end of and once there, had no railing to protect you from falling over the edge and plunging into the abyss below. Like it almost...called for you to do just that.

Usually however, its face was that of a downtown. A large sprawling place where the sun always seemed to almost rise, but never did.

It'd unsettle anyone else, but this is where you’d felt at home. This is where you'd kept your last sliver of security. Where Billie Holiday was always playing from some window on a higher floor inside random skyscrapers. Where Pablo Neruda's words made sense:

"I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul."

You did ... and she was.

Quadrant II

Who "she" truly ends up being is so inconsequential to her overall impact on this realm and directly, your life. "She" is everybody and nobody at once. "She" is and isn't you. A fierce sun that hangs high above the desert during midday and a frigid, lonely moon that's full of craters, devoid of any warmth; she is both of these simultaneously.

Violent gasps of air, in and out. Sucking her essence deeper with each breath. Is it any wonder you consciously choose to go comatose in her memory?

Keep swallowing—, even though it feels like something sharp.

Keep breathing—, even when there is no more air.

Keep seeking a salvation within her embrace—, even if it's an insincere one.

The ground opens up and you fall in, further. Spiraling with a strange elegance toward impending personal doom. Grime. Vile. Lust. Beads of sweat rolling off of familiar hips. Pounding. Pounding. More pounding. More wine. More excess.

It all feels so...magical. Until...it doesn't.

Then..., the hatred and self-pity ease into play. A darkness threading itself into the very fabric of your dual- existence. But do you turn away? Do you fall to your knees and pray? Never. You accept it with open, scarred arms and the fakest grin you've ever seen a face make.

Past telephone wires and rusted car parts. Past lifeless trees whose branches hang like pinned skeletal arms. All, permanently set in some type of celestial stone. Fate?

Past your laughter, moaning, and anger-filled threats. Playing, fighting, sleeping. Rinse and repeat.

These are the things love hides from newcomers. These..., secret side-effects that will grow to haunt and maybe even, destroy you. These..., compulsive cravings to bite her lower lip so hard that your teeth pierces the skin and rips apart its armor, letting your own liquid code mix in with her exposed scarlet DNA. No drop to be wasted. No moan to be forced.

By the time you catch your breath...she's already swimming freely inside your veins.

"Now..., do you still love her?," the heart asks. You do ... and she is.

Quadrant III

If you blink your eyes for even a second, you'll miss it.

Large smokestack-factories have the run of its land. Industrialized sorrow at every turn. Her laugh, her fingers clenching the bedsheets just to feel a pull, and her sadness —, you remember all of these with an intimate, infinite energy.

Material is everything here. Red dresses. French tips. Good pills. Sweet dreams. Wasted youths. Fallen angels. And she...?

Where is she?

What a torturous self-inflicting wheel of pain we strap ourselves to. It outdoes any and all, before or after.

LOVE; loss of valuable energy.

If you blink your eyes for even a second, you'll miss it. It —, her.

You will ... and she'll be.

Quadrant IV

Where does the lover begin and the other end? In dreams, it’s the instant your mind fills the room of your first kiss with two bodies. In deep thoughts, it’s the snap of strange fingers alerting you to the length of time you’ve been quiet, subdued. In reality, it’s the first time you whisper, “I love you,” to another and know down in your soul just how heavy those words truly are—, how unimaginable the depth of their meaning really is.

Only then can the lover disappear completely into their other—without shame.

When does the heart break by its most anguished degree possible? In books, it’s after you’ve read the last line of the last paragraph in the last chapter and still feel an unfilled void in your chest. In the stars above, it’s being unable to make out their name anymore. In reality, it’s the first time you whisper, “I love you,” to another and know down in your soul that no matter how many seconds tick by, you won’t hear it echoed back to you.

Only then can the heart cut off all ties with every other organ in the lover’s body and willfully implode from crippling agony—, without reserve.

The true lover is vain and exposed, they rip apart all armor—, no barrier.

The true lover is appalling and full of self-hatred, they poison their own souls—, no pride.

So now, at the end of your journey, squeezing random shards of glass with one hand, clumps of hair in the other, how will they say you lived your life? Will they fill in the blank after your name with happy, veiled things? Will they smile to each other nervously, for they all know deep down you were nothing to be proud of? Will they go on to remember you at all...or will everyone you’ve ever known simply, forget?

When Virgil and Dante finally reached the ninth circle of their trek into the center of our world—where the gigantic Lucifer forever flapped his enormous wings, encasing himself further in frozen ice—they didn’t begin heading back up to escape, they climbed down further. When a world as dark as theirs needs an exit, even it stays shrouded in shadow.

So dig further.

Dig further down.

Further darkening your fingernails with dirt and grime. Further letting the last bit of candlelight inside your soul go out without so much as a whimper.

Further down, past old regrets and cherished memories.

Further until you’ve almost bled yourself into the nothingness around you.

Until you can’t keep your eyes open from the deafening silence of your world’s misery.

Until it’s no longer air your lungs breathe, but something thicker, like chalk.

Until the very blood that runs through your veins starts to feel cold.

Until you realize that there’s some type of familiar light shining onto your closed eyelids.

Familiar but artificial.

You stop digging and open your eyes.

You’re alive.

You’re sitting in your living room.

[from-dre]

The Passion Flower of Lucca

Though she’d die in a matter of hours, Gemma kept her eyes as open as she could, focused on the guardian angel at the foot of her bed. She’d never asked the angel her name, but had always been able to see her somewhere nearby. During infancy, her beautiful friend would float above her wooden crib at night. Italian thunderstorms were rougher near the sea, but even Gemma’s parents thought it weird their child never cried. During adolescence, the bright-haired angel would appear at random, in corners of rooms, at the end of long hallways at school, from second-story windows when she’d go to the piazza. Always looking directly at the girl with eyes that felt warm.

After both her mother and Gino—her older brother—had died from tuberculosis during the fall of 1885, Gemma was sent to live with the Sisters of St. Zita at their boarding school across town. Not long afterward, she received her first communion.

“But she hasn’t lived here long enough!” Sister Catherine would bark out, throwing up her boney arms. When Gemma noticed her angel sitting in the last pew behind the Sisters, smiling like a proud parent, the girl felt warmth again. This continued for the next thirteen years. She excelled at every topic. The Passionists wanted to make her a nun. She’d seen her angel regularly. So when she learned of the spinal meningitis decaying her body from deep inside, she looked around anxiously for the friend only she could see—nothing.

Soon after her father too, passed away from illness, the orphan became a housekeeper for the wealthy Giannini family. She was still a month away from turning 18, hadn’t seen her angel for years, was still recovering from her sickness, when the first vision happened. It was of the Master hanging himself with the rope from the shed. It’d been months since the Master had started looking at her with a twisted stare. Something in the way he’d watch her from across the room while she cleaned, it made her stomach hurt. In the morning, she heard the Misses toss awake in her bed, followed by a long, shrieking chorus of screams and shouts.

“He won’t wake up! Girl—come in here! Help me!” Gemma heard all of it, but couldn’t move a muscle. Her eyes felt as if they’d been stretched open all night. Her limbs, paralyzed. A constant vision of a dead man who now, apparently laid as lifeless as Gemma had seen him the entire night in her mind’s eye. Suddenly, a figure approached the bedside. She couldn’t shift her eyes to see who it was, but a familiar warmth overcame Gemma’s body and instantly knew her angel had come back. She didn’t speak, like always. Still, a voice hummed gently throughout Gemma’s ears.

You are a Victim Soul, my Gemma. The girl didn’t understand. You will suffer for those around you, because your strength can handle their transgressions. The angel raised her hand to Gemma’s forehead, brushing her hair away slowly. But as long as you shall live, dear Gemma, no mortal of woman born will ever dare harm you. A thunderous boom sounded as the Misses burst into the housekeeper’s bedroom and suddenly, Gemma bolted free, sitting straight up in her bed, sweat dripping from her face and neck. The angel was gone. Only the two women and a dead body were left in the entire home.

The Misses kept Gemma around more out of loneliness, but after the visions increased in the years to come, they’d become harder to snap out of and the signs of stigmata which had started were impossible to hide. The day the Misses found droppings of unexplainable blood on her kitchen floor, she made the girl pack up and leave, wondering what type of demon had been living within her home and if maybe she’d killed her poor husband in his sleep.

After meeting Reverend Germanus Ruoppolo, Gemma finally began feeling that possible happiness wasn’t out of the question for her. The Reverend took her in, fed her, clothed her, kept her spirits up. The visions seemed to fade away in frequency. No more scars on her hands and feet. She began wearing a crucifix. Finally, two nights ago, the Reverend crept into her room to check on the sleeping girl and found her levitating high above her bed, in a trance, limp arms and legs hanging beneath her torso. As he leapt for the front door and howled all the way down his street towards the church, waking his neighbors, Gemma’s angel crouched in a corner, watching an unconscious friend from the invisible realm she was forced to stay in. All guardian angels have borders—both, emotional and spiritual. “Don’t watch over her too often, you’ll get attached to a Victim Soul.” The angel had heard those words for thousands of years, but never until Gemma, had she worried to keep her distance. Now in this specific room, she understood the depth of how painful losing this child would be.

As the sickness took over Gemma’s body once more, she finally dropped back down onto the bed below, a heavy thud and asleep she’d stay, for hours on end, only waking up periodically to cough up mucus or blink away tears. The angel knew it wouldn’t be long. She walked up to her friend of 25 years and cupped the girl’s rough hands inside her own, heavenly palm. The two met eye-contact like they used to before Gemma could even stand. She wanted so badly to ask the angel’s name, for once at least, but couldn’t find the strength. I’ve been given many names by people over the years. The only name I care about is the one you’ll remember me by after you leave here. No point in explaining that angels like her can never enter where the girl’s heading soon. Their only reward is eternal rest after their last soul is delivered, as hers was preparing to be.

Gemma’s lips were barely able to mouth two final words before her body finally expired. The angel floated above the bed, out and beyond the room, and into the Tuscan winds that carried her across the lands and seas and skies until she found her own place of eternal rest. A small field of forestry nestled deep within empty woods, overgrown with lush greenery, far away from sickness and evil and regret. She came upon a small plate of marble that’d been set as a base for some sculpture long ago which was either forgotten about or given up on entirely. Perfect, the angel spoke inside her mind. I too, am forgotten. She placed her head down on her tired arms and thought back to Gemma’s parting words. You’re welcome, she said, as the ethereal mass that once made up her body turned to earthly concrete and stone—covering her chest, legs, arms, hair, and wings. She’d no longer be invisible now.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 10 of 10

The name is unknown, the face is blurry, and the voice I have yet to hear. Still, I know her. The final piece of the puzzle. Where I may finally find her remains a mystery and maybe I won’t even be looking once I do.

There are a few things which I allow myself to continue on thinking about—, in every sort of angle down to the smallest detail. Events and stages of my life which I haven’t yet achieved. Memories from the past flood in through my psyche and I can’t help but wonder where I’d be today had I become who I was always meant to be. The story goes on. The possibilities are endless. I can’t stop at one single scenario—, there are still too many unwritten ones to count and write about.

I dream about the wedding; white tablecloths with bouquets of dried red roses sitting in their centers; an incredible contrast of what was and what is still to be. Stringed instruments play Mozart on a loop. Flower petals rain down like colorful confetti. It’s all so impeccably picturesque. The lights dim, the choir sings—, the ceremony begins. She enters everyone’s line of sight. She is not just an image of mere perfection nor solely radiates the light of beatific love, no. The bride is beyond beautiful.

I dream about the marriage; constant laughter, a sense of harmonized peace, two against the world. There is no obstacle too great, no barrier too big. We handle it. A single path converged from smaller trails that were less important before finally merging. It doesn’t matter where we live or how big our house or loft in the sky is—, we make our home feel like a castle. Cozy, comfortable, and an atmosphere of consistent love exudes throughout. We give each other quick stares when we’re out in public, like we already know what we’re thinking. We go out on dinner dates with longtime friends and fidget in our chairs—, impatiently waiting to get back home again and resume our normal, nightly routine. Overflowing bubble baths with black and white movies from decades gone by in the background. We don’t have to finish each other’s sentences—, we’re already thinking the same thoughts. We don’t have to make time for each other—, we’re already our first priorities. We are what everyone around us considers to be “a happy couple.”

I dream about the woman, herself; my own Song of Songs with Esther’s courage and glowing of something godly. With closed eyes, I let my thoughts swirl themselves toward a figure I can’t yet fully describe. Though she exists. She walks with purpose, speaks with appeal, and is overflowing with charisma. She exists; somewhere—, out beyond the horizon of my mind’s eye. In another realm, another sphere of being. Ethereal obsession; marked by the way she says my name. A place where perfect skin and scars can mix. That’s where I’ll find her. Draped in silk and dripping with just the right amount of narcissism. That’s when I’ll find her. At our world’s end. A new beginning awaits then—, with laced-up boots and breathy tones.

“I am yours,” she whispers while thinking, and you are mine. All hers. Forever. She is cultured to a point that makes me feel like I have so much further to go myself. She knows what she likes and why she likes it. A conversationalist—, she can speak to anyone from the most educated to the homeless on the street. She is not above, nor below anything.

Deeper. She wears three-inch heels everywhere she goes. Skin-tight jeans and see- through tops when in the house. Hair up in the morning—, down by sunset. She emits a style all her own. A natural beauty—, minimum makeup, far less foundation than the rest of her friends. Slightly-rouged cheeks and pink-tinted lips. She is polished and graceful in all she does and says. A kind, courteous spirit lives within her body. Stays away from gossip and never spreads rumors—, she is who everyone calls for advice.

Deeper. Our first time meeting is memorable. She and I make eye-contact throughout the strangers crowding the room and slowly start moving toward each other without trying to seem like we’re slowly starting to move toward each other. We finally erase the wide space in-between our two bodies and stand a mere few feet apart. I’m borderline-awkward while trying to introduce myself—, she playfully laughs and does the same. I look deep inside her eyes and swear Cupid must’ve shot me straight in the back because all I can see are bright, smoldering stars. An overwhelming sensation takes center- stage as a new lead actress is crowned and given a multitude of red rose-bouquets in the form of clumsy compliments coming out of my mouth.

“You look..., nice,” I say with more weight attached to the word than ever before.

“Thank you—,” she says before returning the remark. We dance. Or maybe we just take a couple of seats and talk for the rest of the evening. Either way—, we know we won’t be forgetting one another. Something special happens in the room that night. Something—, cosmic. Or at the very least—, something out of our control. Our names play games with our tongues for the next few days. Our faces are imprinted onto the frontal lobes of each other’s brains and we swear that we can see them on every person we pass on the street—, on every block, in every store. We finally ready ourselves and reach for the phone—, finding the right contact and calling ahead of dating-rule-schedules. We couldn’t resist, the wait was too much.

“Hi—,” one of us says.

“Hi—,” the other replies. And so it begins. Not just the telephone conversation but the journey our two paths have intervened for from here on out. Our speaking patterns are a thing of beauty—, where one drops off the other picks up, there is no self-conscious silence or unease of any kind. We flow in and out of verbal wordplay—, a matrimony of consonants and vowels. She is—, of Poetess-caliber.

Always—, deeper. We attract like water. Droplets of rain pooled together atop a patio table, we advance and reach each other’s edges—, merging, growing. We are one—, atop a patio table. Contoured compulsion; a blending of unbearable desire. It’s what we do. Two shades of the same color on The Painter’s palette—, whisked and mixed together. He uses us to create. Impassioned portraiture. She is my favorite, everything. A sunburst, a shadow—, a perfect time to find my other. Raised heart-rates—, one hundred-and-some beats per minute.

“Maestro..., faster.” She waves her wand while conducting my body’s orchestra to full- crescendo. What a spiritual symphony we’ve created. Angels watch from above. Analyze. Envy. We don’t blame them. We’re envious of ourselves—, being unable to rewind time and repeat past movements. Emulation is all we have left. Breathe. Fingernails running across two backs. Palm prints on the steam-streaked shower door. Breathe. Sweat seeping through mutual skin. Glorified agony of our five senses. Again, we breathe. Inhaling one another. Fine hair that’s individually numbered. Lush lips that pout when speaking pleasing things. Long legs that wrap themselves around me. Soft ankles that ache to be caressed. Like the melting lollipops of a humid-conquered Houston summer—, we drip candy-apple red. Swerving—, in and out of faster lanes.

She is my perpetual winter night; like the glimmering snow, a beauty frozen in time. Amidst tree branches and twigs wrapped in ice, her silhouette glides across the wet ground—, beckoning me closer. Her touch is colder than cold—, a degree below the lowest point ever reached. She guides me through the still landscape of a twilight world. This is where we belong—, in a togetherness which keeps each other warm and alive.

She is both sexy and sweet, classy and passionate, ladylike and a luscious lover in every way. Something I’d waited so long for—, and will continue on waiting for until the day finally arrives when we’ll both sense the stirring of sensuality in the air and slowly lean into each other for the first time. Much more than that—, we patiently wait for the moment to finally let ourselves go further. Similar hips shiver with anticipation that;

“Yes..., we’re together and ready.” Indeed. Undone buttons; the jeans we slide down to each other’s feet. Assuredly. By all means. Where’ve you been?, we both wonder of the other. Now that we’re here—, we can safely say it was worth it. Voice; I heard it. Kiss is perfect. The lesson life teaches I took it and learned it so this letter I write; love the way that it’s worded.

I’ve always assumed that the type of woman I’d given my heart to was more important than the woman herself. That I would’ve always fallen in love as deeply as I did—, no matter the person. That it just so happened to be them. I strive to look forward, towards my future however, and I see a very specific outline that I can’t yet flesh out. The blanks are there in the right spots but I don’t yet have the words to fill them in. I realize it’s more than a type of woman I’m looking for—, but her, herself. The fact that I know she exists and is looking for me as well makes everything that came before her that much more valuable. All the shattered dreams, promises, and pictures hanging on walls; mere stepping stones to a brighter future, together. With so many girlfriends gone and so many pacts broken apart, it can all seem so discouraging in trying to find anything as special ever again. Still—, I keep the fire alive, no matter how close it’s come to burning out before. A promise I can make as of now, even before ever kissing her lips is this; no matter the circumstances, our union will be a sober one. I want her to be everything that I’ve always looked for in foreign chemicals and fiery liquids. I want her arms to tremble at my touch and for mine to do the same of hers. All those vivid colors I’ve seen throughout my numberless dreams and darkened clubs—, I want to see again deep within her own two eyes. All those feelings of flying high above the atmosphere outside, I want to experience with her as we hold one another and kiss each other awake in the mornings. A new favorite type of drug—, one where there’s no chance of overdosing. A new favorite type of rush, the real reason for a pounding heart within my chest and dilated pupils within my head. My new favorite movie, my new favorite song, and our relationship—, my new favorite story.

I once sent my mother a picture I’d found of a woman who had long, blonde locks looking downward and wearing a horizontally striped U-neck shirt. She was at the head of a small boat out in the middle of wide open water. My nautical muse.

“This is who I will one day marry—,” I wrote out with the message. Not that specific model chosen for whatever ad it was, but someone who had a very similar vibe. Adventurous, attractive, an allure I wouldn’t be able to escape. From that point on, it became our inside-reference. The other, the soulmate.

“You still haven’t found your girl on the boat yet,” my mom says every so often. I think about it for a split-second and then;

“I know.”

I can only imagine what the next chapter of my life holds. What I know for certain is that I’m one step closer to finding her—, one day nearer our first meeting, our first dance, or in- depth conversation. She will wash away all of the stains from everything that’s happened before her. She will renew my faith in so many things which I’ve thrown to the side in recent years. Another half. A better half.

She is in my past—, as I’ve felt her for ages. She is in my present—, as I dream about her nightly. She is in my future—, as we’ll soon have the chance to finally hold each other’s hand. She is infinite in relation to my life’s timeline. I’m already trying to find her name in my star-filled night sky. The moon isn’t far off and soon, the sun will shine its glorious rays of light in her direction—, illuminating every corner and crevasse there is. We will meet. We will merge. She will smile and with that—, close every loop that’s ever been opened.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 9 of 10

I thought of all I’d lost in the last ten years. The girlfriends—, in all of their shades—, were gone. Now the drinks kept me company. And the bottle makes three, I thought to myself. It was all I had left to remind me of a time gone by. I grabbed the glass neck and lifted the bottom upwards—, downing all the drops, drowning all the dreams, escaping once more into a permanent nightfall. Deep down into the things that I’d missed out on I went; weddings, birthdays, events that’d never come around again. I could’ve gone with the women I’d loved before and sat by any one of their sides, making whoever she’d be proud of me and maintaining the relationship at a healthy level, instead of having it dip well-beneath decent standards. I closed my eyes and dreamt of their lips again. How I’d give anything to press mine up against them just one more time. I’m so sorry, I thought to myself and no one else. I regretted all the moments that’d passed by which I’d made a mess of. I wished I had another chance at them once more—, to make it right, to make it meaningful, and to make them all so much more beautiful than the first time around. Remorseful me.

I began walking the streets of downtown alone. I needed to be around people but I knew that nobody could understand exactly what I was going through either. So I just blended in with the crowd. I made my way back down towards Michigan Avenue and recalled all the times I’d walked it before with others by my side. I saw visions of myself looking through the various display windows again. I saw visions of myself getting down on one knee again. I saw all of these things and couldn’t help but feel a slight sting in my side from all my former faults. All the while, I was living in my dream city and still, I felt a hollowness from deep within—, an unexplainable emotion to anyone else around me. I again, heard myself musing aloud;

“We should move here one day.” Like the blanket of time folded and wrapped around itself, bringing my past up to my present and permanently fusing the two together. Now that I was finally here, I didn’t know how to take hold of it all and enjoy it to its fullest extent. What’s the point of living in such a wonderful place if there’s nobody to share its scenes and sights with? I had it. At one point in time—, I had it all. Now; nothing but the commotion of the city outside my studio window. I got the world but lost the girl—, either with the Dark Eyes, the Epic Tattoos, or the Gorgeous Smile. What an appropriate ending to another one of my life’s chapters. It seemed like the overall theme was getting stuck on repeat. The reader didn’t even need to finish the phrase—, it was already spelled out from the beginning. I needed to change books or at the very least—, change genres mid-adventure. What was there to do but keep writing out my story? Onward I went—, with a blank piece of paper and pen at the ready.

The weather outside was quickly turning into a dreary grey—, scattered thunderstorms would soon be on the way. I decided to run to the corner store one last time for more fuel to add to the ever-growing fire inside my stomach. I stepped out into the calm before the storm—, a very familiar feeling took over me as I noticed how silent everything was. Nothing moved, all was quiet and still. I began walking down towards the main boulevard in my neighborhood. Then—, the tiniest drop. And another. And another. I kept moving right along. Suddenly; a torrent erupted from the sky and down came a cascade of water. I stood in place for a few minutes—, letting it all sink in; the break-ups, the disappointments, all of the regrets piled up into a single mountain of mayhem and I let myself soak within it in the process. Ex-girlfriends’ DNA was in the rain and I let it cover me from head to toe. They dripped down from my brow onto the edges of my dry lips and fell off my chin below. Where are you now?, I asked any one of them through my thoughts. They were everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They were in my past as a memory, in my present as a figment of my imagination, and in my future as someone I’d forever remember. Eventually, the rain washed away all of yesterday’s mistakes and I began feeling brand new for the first time in a very long while. I knew I had to leave my shell of self-pity and get back out in the real world if I was ever going to finally get over my old life.

The days went along as scheduled. Seasons changed, jobs changed, and different friends came in and out of my life. I started taking my own advice as I’d gotten to know someone new recently and we’d decided to meet on our own for the first time halfway in-between our two places. I walked through the streets and avenues and wondered where this would all lead. Not just this spur-of-the-moment meeting but all of these chance encounters I’d been having with random people. I thought that maybe I was just trying to replace previous loves with new and exciting circumstances but I couldn’t be sure. I knew for a fact that I didn’t want to fall into anything deeper than a simple, surface-level love affair that would ultimately go nowhere. Who was I to dictate my future though? Those types of things always happen when someone least expects it —, something deeper. I was never actively looking for a perfect match—, I’d just found her; sitting beside me in class, working beside me at a job, and living nearby in the same building as me. To think I’d actually find another half again wasn’t just unlikely, it took a huge imagination as well. I redirected my attention to the present moment as I saw my new friend walking towards me from across the street. She was wearing a black and white- striped dress and sporting a cute ponytail.

“Hey!,” I said, trying to seem more excited than I truly was. There were streaks throughout her hair and I couldn’t help but notice how pretty they made her look. “Nice highlights.”

“Thanks!,” she replied, slightly surprised that I’d even seen them. We walked the short distance to my apartment while discussing the usual small-talk two people on a first outing alone usually dive into. It didn’t take long to get into the plans for the rest of the evening.

Getting home, she stepped inside the small studio and immediately got comfortable—, pulling up my blue butterfly chair I’d always give to guests as I sat at the desk. I knew where this night was headed—, we both did. Still, I didn’t want to rush anything and cheapen the entire affair with pre-conceived notions that she’d just want to jump into bed as quickly as I did—, so we spoke for some time.

“Do you have any plans for the weekend?,” I politely asked while preparing a couple of drinks.

“I’m actually going to my first dance class tomorrow,” she said. “It’s always been something I’ve wanted to try out.”

“That’s really cool,” I replied, appreciating the fact that she was more fearless than her looks led on. Time passed by as it always does in these types of situations—, each second being one step closer to what both people are ultimately looking forward to. Finally, she let herself get as comfortable as possible. She got up and laid sideways on my bed, propping herself up with one arm. Her dress slid down her shoulder, nearly coming off completely. The moment had arrived. I slowly leaned in for a kiss and brought my hand up to her cheek, gently palming it and bringing her closer to me. We twisted and turned—, all the while removing every article of clothing we had on our bodies. Piece by piece—, we became more and more in tune with each other.

Again, time passed by as it always does in these types of situations. I lit two cigarettes and handed one to her after we’d finished. Laying on our backs, we blew smoke out towards the ceiling and stared up with wide- eyes, wondering if and when we’d see each other again.

“I’m invited to a swingers party next week —, do you wanna be my date?,” she asked with slight innocence.

“Sure—,” I answered back. Why not?, I thought. I’d never attended something like that before and figured now would be as good a time as any to try and see what it was all about. My only concern was that she wanted to be something more than just a temporary fling. I wasn’t ready for anything serious. I’d lost too much and now had very little left of me to give.

The next morning rolled around as I was still reeling from the experience of the night before. I’d thought about how mismatched my feelings on the whole thing were. One half of me felt relieved that I could still have fun with another person while the other parts felt slightly devalued. I’d never been that cut out for one-night stands but I figured everyone goes through a phase.

My date got up and got dressed—, kissing me goodbye before leaving through the front door. Not a handful of hours passed by when I suddenly saw her name flashing across my cellphone as it started to ring.

“Hello?,” I answered.

“Hey—,” she said, “I’m just getting out of my class and was wondering if you had anything to smoke.”

“Yeah, I have a little something. I can meet you outside your place in about thirty minutes.” With that, we hung up our phones and off I was on my way to see her for a second day in a row.

Approaching her house, I could see her already sitting outside on the front steps. She jumped up and came towards me, giving me a big hug.

“So—,” I said, “how was dance class?” We chatted about this and that and though I didn’t have much time to spend, I sat with her on the steps as long as I could. She finally asked if I wanted to get high with her but I shook my head. “I’m sorry—, I have to go,” I regretfully said. Though she called me a week afterwards for the party, I was out of state for an impromptu trip and so, we quickly lost touch. That’s how things seemed to go in a big city—, people came and went at random, in and out of each other’s lives. I wondered if I’d ever make such a tight connection with someone as I had earlier in my life. The thought however, quietly slipped away, as all I needed at that moment was just good company for a night or two—, not another toxic-twin or a self- reflection of any kind. I’d be content with someone whose name I could remember and that was about it.

Back in Chicago, the people began wearing thicker winter coats once more as the leaves began falling off the trees. It was another autumn night when I found myself walking the streets alone. I’d passed by a local pub plenty of times before on my way to the L-train station, but this time was different. People were piled out into the street and the atmosphere inside was loud, crowded, and festive. There was a group of six or so strangers to my right who were huddled up smoking cigarettes by the alleyway when I noticed a sultry look coming from the center of everyone else. She stood out from the other girls around and her voice was as lulling as the rain that began trickling down our faces.

“Hey,” I said from outside the semi-circle of friends. She was already looking at me before I spoke. “Do you guys know where I could get some—,” I brought my fingers up to my mouth, making a smoking motion.

“Yeah,” she calmly said. “Right here.” She pulled out a joint and asked if I wanted to light up with her and her friends. A short while later we went inside the pub and enjoyed ourselves for a couple of hours more.

“So do you live pretty close by?,” she asked me out of nowhere. It was a ten minute walk to my place, so off we went, both eyeing each other the entire trek there. I knew she’d be fun, she knew the same about me. We seemed to click. The only problem with having her over my studio so late at night was that I had already promised a previous friend that he could crash there as well a few days earlier. We didn’t have much time to wrap ourselves around one another so as soon as the door shut behind us, we were in each other’s arms. As soon as the lights turned off, we were in bed. And as soon as we were starting to enjoy ourselves, my friend unlocked the door and walked right in.

“I’m so sorry—,” he said, quickly realizing what was happening. “I’m just going to use the bathroom for a minute and then leave.” We all blushed for a few seconds but didn’t think too much of it—, there was still plenty of time left ahead for us to take advantage of. Suddenly—, an idea.

“Would you be cool with—,” I didn’t have to finish my thought. She knew what I’d meant and slowly nodded. She was both excited and a bit nervous, but I could tell she’d done this type of thing before. Perfect, I thought. My friend exited the bathroom, immediately read the situation, and with that, we began a night’s worth of fun and fantasy-filled revelry.

I couldn’t help but think of past Lovers—, how they themselves would’ve moved and maneuvered through the multitasking of pleasing two different partners at once. The thought made me smile as my friend and I made sure our mutual date enjoyed being the center of attention. After swapping, I situated myself at her frontside and laid down on my back, blowing smoke into the air. She too, like ex-girlfriends, was busying herself with me when I bent up and slowly lifted her chin with my fingers.

“Open,” I gently suggested. She parted her lips as I brought mine right up to them and pushed out the thick fumes from my mouth into hers. She took a nice, deep breath. It was everything I wanted it to be—, and more. The music played on as we too, played on—, well into the night and until early the next morning. My friend got up to leave shortly after everyone was too tired to move anymore.

“We should do this again sometime,” he said and with that, it was just her and I for the rest of the day. We laughed, spoke briefly about our backgrounds, and what our future dream jobs would be. Puff after puff, time rolled by and in a few hours, she too left through my front door with an experience both of us were glad we’d made.

Around the same time, I began talking to a woman who was almost twenty years older than me in her late-forties and found myself over her house one fateful night. We sat on her living-room couch and spoke about topical things until the moment came to finally go into the bedroom. I saw her letting down her hair and thanked The Universe. She saw my scars but graciously said nothing. We each saw what we wanted to see in the other and that was enough for us. After laying on the bed, she slid her hands down her chest, stomach, and toward her jeans. She slowly began making herself comfortable. I nestled my lips near her neck and softly bit her earlobe between whispers of what we should do. Finally, she let out a long exhale as she continued to lay next to me, running her fingers through my hair, staring at me.

“Don’t give up on yourself,” she unexpectedly said. “You’re different.” The words stuck themselves right onto the center of my heart as her sentiment burrowed itself inward.

I thought about all of the different experiences I was having and how I was really just chasing old ones with new partners. I’d been finding lovers but no Lover. No match, no other. I didn’t know where she could be—, in another part of the city, another part of the country, or another part of the world altogether? I thought about the two hundred-plus nations and none of them truly stood out as being separate from the rest. They were all on an equal level, brimming with possibilities and women of all kinds. So many locales with millions of different blonde, brunette, black-haired, blue-eyed, brown-eyed beauties. How could I ever limit myself to one in-particular person with thoughts of complete permanence? Maybe that was just the storybook ending to a fairytale we’re all told growing up. That out of the billions of souls on this planet, not only does our other half exist in the first place, but is in-fact living within our own timeframe, on our own continent, and has all of the qualities we actively seek for in a soulmate. It seemed—, improbable. But then again, so did a lot of other things I’d been through in my life, so I held out some type of hope that one day I’d get to meet her and see her for who she truly is; my reflection, unchanged, untainted, forever the same.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 8 of 10

I’d go on to see The Girl with the Gorgeous Smile every single day for the next month or so. Restaurants, cafés, movies—, it didn’t matter, we just wanted to be near each other, to learn more about each other, to pick our brains over anything and everything.

Going to one of our favorite coffee shops in the neighborhood on a random afternoon—, we decided it was a pleasant day to sit outside on the patio. We ordered our drinks, took them to our table, and sat down ready to talk. Instead, she pulled out a notebook from her yellow purse and tore off a sheet, sliding it over towards me.

“Here you go,” she sweetly said. “What’s this for?,” I asked. “Let’s both write out a short story on the spot and then read them aloud to each other.”

I thought it was one of the best ideas I’d ever heard for two people to do—, especially two people in love and dating.

“Let’s do it—,” I said. She gave me one of her pens and off we went—, our hands writing as fast as our brains could churn out the words in the right order. When we finished, we both took turns proudly reading our creations and then immediately started the process over again, and again. Three times in all—, we wrote, read, and reacted positively to each other’s imaginations. Afterwards, she collected the pages and put them together in her notebook as future mementos to look back through and reminisce about.

Of course I respected and appreciated her mind—, that went without saying. She was much smarter than most other people I’d come across throughout my life—, but I was also attracted to the air of aristocracy she walked around with. She knew she was a beautiful woman—, inside and out. I told her how one of my idols growing up was Edie Sedgwick.

“That’s interesting you say that. I’ve actually won an Edie-lookalike contest,” she proudly said. Once I’d learned that, I can safely say I was hooked—, both to her mental and physical attributes. That all eventually took on the form of sleeping beside her, which quickly turned into one of my favorite things to do. Not just because she’d climb into bed without a shred of clothing on—, but that even to the slightest touch, she’d nearly purr herself awake. She had such a pure sensuality and we clicked very well because of it. We didn’t have to go all the way to have amazing physical chemistry. I always respected that about us. We’d kiss each other alive while removing our shirts, one button at a time. She’d busy herself with me while I’d slowly slide my fingertips across her arches. Then I’d lay down next to her, basking in the moment when we’d finish.

One of our favorite pastimes was to see new movies the week they’d come out. She knew everything and everyone, especially from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Buying our tickets, we’d walk down the same types of hallways toward our theaters that I’d walked a decade earlier—, still excited about whatever movie my current girlfriend and I would be seeing, still wondering if it’d make us fall even further in love with each other. She’d pick up on all the symbolism, could dissect a film fifty different ways, and always stayed silent during the show—, focused on it, respecting it, making me respect her for it.

There was a particular piano bar downtown which everyone would eventually circulate through depending on where they were in their own relationships. It was the perfect place to bring someone on a date. It didn’t take long for us to make our way down towards it one evening. The line was well into the street and around the corner, so we walked up to it, waited our turn to show our I.D.s, and go in through the doors down the front steps. Once inside, it was so crowded that it’d taken us a full fifteen minutes to walk from the main doors to the coat-check room and back out to the bar. We finally arrived at the front of the line and the bartender took our drink orders as we sat at a nearby, candlelit table. We started chatting each other up and wondering what we’d end up doing for the rest of the night. Her eyes twinkled in the soft light of the atmosphere and she looked like she had something important to say.

“You know—, it just hit me,” she started, “I love spending time with you.” My heart naturally grew.

“I love spending time with you too,” I said.

“Yeah but—, I like it when it’s just me and you. We don’t need to be out at these fancy places. There’s nothing better than being at home together.” She was right. I’d felt the exact same way ever since stepping foot into the room—, it was so packed that we could hardly hear each other over the loud chatter all around us. While it was a charming spot—, it wasn’t the type of place we wanted to be in anymore. We cherished each other’s company too much to let other people get in the middle of our next conversation or kiss. I couldn’t help but think back to all the times I’d stood outside other bars and clubs, waiting to get in so I too, could become one with the flow of energy filling the different atmospheres therein. All those years of trying to find something to believe in while not knowing why I was even attracted to that sort of environment seemed so out of reach now. I’d finally started feeling like I was growing up and maturing into the adult I was always meant to become. We paid our tab and made our way again through the crowd and onto the street outside. A quick cab ride later and we were back at home, in bed, and watching one of our favorite shows as we slowly drifted off into a deep and pleasant sleep.

I continued on at my job—, heading to work with a huge smile on my face more often than not. The front door to the shop flew open with attitude one day—, I could tell. From the briefest glance, I saw a woman with golden hair that flowed down to her waist walk in and immediately head in my direction.

“Do you have any heels?,” she said with a sense of high esteem.

“I’m sorry, we don’t,” I replied. She picked up one of the peep-toe wedges we had and analyzed it carefully.

“Well do you have anything classier than this?,” she asked. I could tell she wasn’t someone who liked to hear “no,” so I tried my best to appease her.

“How about this?,” I asked back, holding up something similar.

“If I were your girlfriend, would you let me wear that?,” she said looking straight at me.

“If you were my girlfriend, we’d be shopping down on Oak Street right now—,” I answered matter-of-factly. It made her smile—, which was more than I’d thought it’d do. I’d never been one to step out on whoever I’d be dating though so the conversation abruptly ended and she left the store empty-handed. I knew that after my shift, a beautiful woman was at home waiting for me to walk back into one of our small but precious studio apartments. So that’s exactly what I did.

Each and everyday—, there was always a new book or movie she’d want to show me. It kept things interesting and the relationship full of good conversation. Once nightfall would come around, we’d nestle up next to each other and either read or speak on the day’s events or plan out our tomorrows with excitement. The morning would always roll around and in all my months of spending time with her, I never once saw her hit the snooze button on the alarm. She’d jump up and ready herself for the day almost instantaneously. I’d prepare her coffee while she ran the warm water in the tub. That was where she could be free from the rest of the world if only for a few moments at a time.

On a specific morning—, I knew I wanted to surprise her with something she wouldn’t have expected, something different than what she’d gotten used to. I knew I wanted to make the day as special as I could so I woke up extra early, rolled out of bed, and snuck out of the apartment unnoticed. Walking down the street towards the corner store, I was already thinking to myself how happy we’d both be back upstairs in a matter of minutes. I bought my presents and stuffed them into my backpack before heading home. Once inside, I saw she was already awake and excused myself while going into the bathroom, backpack and all. I ran the water, let it fill up until it reached the very brim of the bathtub, and went to work on my surprise. A few minutes passed by before I walked back out into the living-room and just sat there, waiting.

“I’m going to take my bath,” she said, much like she did every morning. I didn’t say a thing, I let her walk into the bathroom alone and once she looked down at the dozens of red rose petals floating atop the warm water, she came back out with her signature smile extended from ear to ear.

After work, we’d planned on having a nice dinner over my place. I began running her a bath again like I’d done so many times before but the night felt special for some reason. She’d come over earlier to cook dinner, turned on the stovetop, and began mixing the vegetables together inside the pan. The sound of sizzling romance was in the room and it brought back a handful of different memories from previous dinners; TVs turned toward the living-room windows so we could watch from the front patio, sweetner-tinged greens which I never knew would taste so good, and so many others I’d been unable to retain throughout the years. They’d all come and gone before I ever really had a chance at capturing any of them.

As we were watching live concerts on the computer, the music made its way into the bathroom and set the mood for our time together. She climbed in and slowly submerged her body underneath the bunches of bubbles. Letting herself relax, she rested against the back ceramic ledge and let me do all the work, which I gladly did. I soaked the washcloth and wrung it out over her knees, letting the droplets race down toward her thighs below. I gently began washing her legs as she stared at me with a sense of curiosity. She couldn’t hold it in much longer before directly asking;

“What do you get out of this?”

“I like taking care of the things I love,” I answered. The rest of the night as well as the next morning were just as romantic, making it hard to part ways before both of us headed back off to work.

Later that evening, after returning home, we decided to spend some time up on the rooftop. We exited through the hallway door and stepped out into a picturesque view. Panoramic skyscrapers stood in wait a mere mile away. Above us were tiny specks of light that glistened and glowed. I couldn’t have imagined a more romantic scene. We sat down on the concrete next to a large smoke-stack and stared out at the city in a pensive silence. We shared the champagne we’d brought along with us as she placed her head down on my lap, closed her eyes, and let the night breeze drift her off into a soft sleep. I stayed awake and focused in on the buildings all around while brushing her hair with my fingers and sitting still for the next few hours.

Time passed by—, week after week, month after month. I was excited about where our relationship was heading though a subtle sense of disappointment from my past slowly started coming back again—, ruining all of the present memories I was still in the process of making. It wasn’t just the time of year—, it was the year itself. I’d turned twenty-eight and still wasn’t married. It’s not that I particularly wanted to be, it’s just that any probability of it ever happening got erased a long time ago. I couldn’t tell my girlfriend about all of the wasted promises I’d made, but something inside wouldn’t let me be at peace either.

While digging through my closet one night, I’d found a homemade anniversary card with a giant heart-shaped logo drawn on the front. I opened it up and began reading. There was a date written within it from a decade earlier—, it was for a day that wouldn’t pass until the upcoming summer. My stomach turned at the thought of what it represented and the wedding ceremony that’d never be. Even in my dream city, I couldn’t escape the what ifs of yesterday.

Though I maintained a forced smile on my face more times than not, everyone felt its fake nature. My relationship began suffering because of it. She could tell that I was a thousand miles away. I wanted to be present more often—, to tell her how beautiful I thought she was and to share opinions like we used to when we first met, but it was useless. The constant calling of old mistakes came and ruined more than its handful of moments. The spark between us was slowly burning out. Like with others before—, we were steadily slipping away from one another—, fading farther and further out into an open sea of uncertainty.

She came over one day and noticed how especially depressed I was.

“What’s wrong?,” she sincerely asked. I just sat in my chair and stared down at the floor below. Finally, the constant pressure of thinking the same thoughts on repeat spilled out of my head and over into the real world around me.

“I wonder had we would’ve never started something like that, if she’d still have those same scars on her today,” I let myself say with complete honesty.

“Not this again—,” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air from the frustration of having to go through yet another similar conversation. “Honey, that’s in the past now—,” she said with just as much honesty as I had. “Let it go.” Words to live by—, truly and utterly. It’d taken me an entire decade to let their meaning fully embed themselves into my mind and take their advice to heart. I knew she was right, I just couldn’t bare the supposed-responsibility of it all. Had it really been my fault this entire time? Was it really something I’d initiated? I didn’t need the answers to my questions as much I needed some type of forgiveness—, from The Universe, from the walls in the rooms which’d watched us desecrate our own temples, and mostly, from myself. I’d let the regret destroy too much of my present and it was finally affecting my future as well.

We were on the verge of calling it quits, I could feel it. I needed to protect myself before this relationship too, had a chance to implode. It was no use. She too, finally tired of my constant dislike for daily life. She’d fallen in love with someone completely different than the person I’d become within the past couple of months. When before, I’d walk into her studio excited to learn about which movie she’d currently be watching, now I barely noticed the TV was even on. I’d had the same depressing songs on repeat for a while when she finally snapped me out my self-loathsome pity party. She could take no more. She was fed up with trying to rescue someone who didn’t even want to be rescued. I was back to being lost so she let me be just as lost as I wanted to be.

“You’re not in a good place,” she seriously said one night after a lengthy argument. She threw my coat at me and slammed the door shut. I walked down the hallway toward the elevators—, broken and bewildered. I was upset with myself for ruining another relationship but also strangely attracted to a woman who I’d never see again. I hadn’t witnessed that kind of attitude in her before and I was happy to finally know that somewhere deep inside herself—, a powerful person did exist.

Returning home, I collapsed onto my bed and could barely keep the room from spinning completely out of control. What am I doing with my life?, flashed through my mind. I had no answer. I just stayed there—, searching the ceiling for my purpose within a very cold and lonesome existence.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 7 of 10

I arrived in Chicago during summer. My friend and I drove all of my furniture across state lines with a rental and a good array of songs blasting from the truck speakers.

“Let’s go through the Loop—,” I said once we got into downtown. Driving on Michigan Avenue during the warmer months was like having front-row tickets to the latest fashion shows. Colors popped and blended together on skirts, shirts, and dress-suits alike. Men and women flaunted their good looks and better fashion senses all while enjoying their favorite lattes from the multitude of coffee shops lining the Magnificent Mile. Everyone was on the move. Nobody stood still for longer than a few seconds at a time—, either to take pictures or hail a taxicab. There were too many places to go and get lost in. So many shops and sights and side-streets—, one didn’t know where they should go first.

Further north through the Gold Coast we went and couldn’t help but people-watch as they walked by in groups of two or three. All wore glittering jewelry and were draped in expensive clothes to match. The townhomes were nestled behind rows of lush trees and greenery, elaborate gates guarded the front doors, and the unmistakeable scent of old money made its way through the atmosphere above.

After I’d gotten comfortable with the new streets and had lived in my neighborhood for a while—, I began seeing things with a different set of eyes. The people all had the same look splashed across their faces; excitement. A deep feeling that everything happening was fate making its mark on everyone’s lives took hold. Whether or not I still held out hope for a bright future before I’d arrived was nullified once I’d become accustomed to my new surroundings. I noticed what heels the blonde across the street was wearing, what blazer the brunette crossing paths with me had on, what everyone wore with pride—, to see and be seen. Maybe it was competition or just for plain attention—, regardless of the reasons, everyone looked wonderful in their own personal ways.

The city was alive. It was a type of liveliness I hadn’t experienced back in my old home for quite a while. Everywhere I’d look, I’d see it; the same sort of energy bursting through the people crowding the streets. Through the windows of restaurants and cafés—, there were first dates happening, business meetings being held, and solo diners that were on quick lunch breaks before heading back off to work. Through the windows of moving L-trains rushing by—, there were parents trying to maintain order over their families, a million single people who were searching for their next great love, and homeless sleepers taking up two or more seats at a time. Through the windows of tall high-rises from above—, there were young professionals trying to keep up with the stress of success, mature adults who were retiring and just wanted to live out their golden years in peace, and first-time city dwellers, like myself, trying to find themselves in the constant bustle of everyday life. Everything and everyone intermingled with each other. It was a thing of beauty and personal bliss as I walked by different stores, shops, and buildings of all types.

I started paying more attention to my movements, my way of speaking, and my mannerisms overall. I began dressing better, looking people in the eyes when I spoke, holding my head up high as I walked. This was finally my chance at ultimate reinvention. To recreate what the past near-decade had taken away from me; more amazing memories, more meaningful moments, and a higher sense of self-esteem that seemed to all but burst through the ceiling.

Picking up a job at a local shoe store right up the street—, I began meeting more people than ever before in my life. Crowds bustled in and out of the show-room which I’d stand in for hours and wait on different kinds of customers. There were the preppy yuppies, the above-it-all hipsters, and the old school businessmen who just wanted a new pair of wingtip slip-ons. Coming into contact with so many different types of personalities within a given week made me confront some of my own characteristics. Why was it that it took moving into a new city to finally break out of my self-loathsome shell of so many years? Why did I have to wait so long to leave behind all of the bad habits and broken dreams of yesterday? For the first time in quite a while—, I actually liked who I was becoming and I couldn’t help but wonder why it’d taken such a drastic move to make it happen.

I’d lived in the city for nearly half a year when I first saw her looking through the windows of a small seafood restaurant close by my building. She must’ve noticed me walking down the street towards her because as she looked up, I saw the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. I nodded out of sheer reflex.

“Hi—!,” she said with absolute enthusiasm. It was like we’d already known each other for ages. I couldn’t resist.

“Hi—,” I said back in my own way. I passed her by and couldn’t get her smile out of my head for the rest of the night. Not two days later, I was coming back home from work and was waiting on the elevator to take me up to my floor. As the doors slowly opened, I entered and she quickly walked in after me, the smile as wide as I’d remembered it. No way she lives in the same building, I immediately thought. She didn’t recognize me but I knew I had to say something now or else I’d regret it for good. I noticed her yellow patent leather purse and figured that’d work.

“Cute purse.”

“Oh yeah?—, thanks!,” she happily replied. “Cute scarf!”

“Thank you—,” I said before taking my shot. “Can I just tell you—, you have the most beautiful smile.” Her eyes grew. The elevator reached the fourth floor and off I went on my way, excited that I’d made some type of move towards getting to know her better. She’d tell me months afterwards how she called her mom later on that night and was promptly told;

“You should date him.” She’d eventually go on to take her mother’s advice.

I’d bought a brand new orange sunburst acoustic guitar from a local music shop a couple of weeks back with money I’d saved up from my job. I played it everyday and was just getting used to the fretboard and developing new callouses on my fingertips when she first called up. We chatted about this and that, but all the while, I knew I had to make the most of what time I was allotted.

“Let’s have dinner this weekend,” I suddenly suggested.

“Sounds great,” she said. I knew I didn’t have enough money to take her out to the type of place a first date with such a stunning woman required—, so back to the music shop I went to return my new guitar.

A couple of days passed by before our date came around. I began getting ready for the evening—, a long shower, groomed hair, and my Sinatra playlist on repeat. I was letting my mind wander off into all the different possibilities the night may have in store for us. What should I wear? What am I going to talk about? Hair spiked or flat? This date was actually making me nervous for the first time in a long while—, and I enjoyed it. I put on a freshly dry-cleaned burgundy shirt with deep grey dress pants and blue suede ankle-boots. Looking into the full-length mirror in my hallway, I was admiring my selection of clothes when suddenly—, a knock at the door. I opened it up and there she stood—, radiant in her long dress with black wedges on.

“Can you help me with something?,” she immediately asked. She turned around with her back to me and there was her dress—, undone and almost ready to fall off her shoulders. “Could you zip me up?,” she said coyly while holding her hair.

“Of course,” I replied, using one hand to hold the top in place while carefully zipping her up with the other. She spun back around to face me with her splendid smile—, like I’d just passed my very first boyfriend-test.

“Thanks—,” she said, and with that, we were ready to leave and let fate take over.

We walked into the elevator and pushed the button to the ground floor. Right before the door opened back up, she slid her arm in-between mine and my body, clutching it like we’d already been dating for some time. We slowly walked through the lobby and let all the strangers see us in our magnificent state—, cleaned up and ready for all the city had to offer.

We’d planned on having dinner at an upscale place specializing in fondue dishes. After the short cab ride over, we entered the dimly-lit atmosphere of the restaurant and the hostess took us to our seats—, right by a window facing the winter wonderland outside. Snow and frost covered the glass while we sat inside by a single candle dancing atop the table. We looked around the room while trying to sneak stares at each other but we’d catch them every so often and make quick eye-contact. She finally broke the silence.

“So tell me about yourself,” she said. I looked down and tried my best to hide the personal disappointment I felt with its air of regret still following me around so many years later.

“I don't know—, I don’t want it to change the way you look at me,” I earnestly said, deeply staring into her eyes.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “my past isn’t perfect either.” We went on to compare broken dreams, broken hearts, and heavy situations we’d both gone through at different stages of our lives.

“I almost wanted to end it all a long time ago—,” I opened up.

“Me too,” she replied. I suddenly felt a strange new admiration towards her—, like we’d both tackled the same shadows on our roads to finding one another and now the two kindred spirits were finally united over dinner in a busy corner of a bustling city.

“What made you change your mind?,” I asked, knowing I was getting into something much more personal than simply small-talk.

“A Frappuccino.” I raised my eyebrows in curiosity, unable to hide the fact that I wanted to know more about the story. “It’s true...,” she continued, “I was at the lowest point of my life and just before everything was to happen, I found myself in a bookstore coffeeshop. The barista behind the counter could see the desperation on my face—, so he gave me a Frappuccino for free and said it was to cheer me up.”

“And it did—,” I interjected.

“And it did—,” she agreed. How much weight can a small gesture have that reinstates someone’s hope in humanity? My date was a prime example of just that—, and my heart went out to her so much more for it. “How about you?,” she followed-up.

“Oh—, it just wasn’t meant to be,” I said. “The Universe wouldn’t allow it I guess.” For the first time in eight years, I’d spoken those words aloud and I’d never been more grateful that my story as well as her own had ended up the way they did. We’d crossed paths not by accident, but perhaps to nurture our broken hearts back together again, knowing exactly what types of places we’d both come from.

We stayed a little while longer—, people-watching and letting our minds wander off into different places. There were so many separate dates happening all around us at the same time. I wondered if they too, talked about the deeper things which my own date and I had just gotten into. If they’d dug into the softest, most vulnerable places of another person’s being and still come out the other end infatuated and in love. It didn’t make sense to wear such thickened masks on a first outing—, sooner or later, they’d too come off and reveal a much more beautiful face waiting underneath.

Finally exiting the restaurant, snow had begun falling from the sky in large, puffy flakes. We stayed underneath a lamppost, waiting for the next taxicab to drive by. We were encircled by tiny, white shapes that glistened from the street light above us. What a gorgeous night to be in the city with such a beauty by my side, I thought to myself.

Eventually, we arrived back to my place and as soon as we got in through the door, we were completely lip-locked. From spot to spot, we stayed in step with one another until reaching the bed. She began unbuckling my belt and unbuttoning my clothes. Slowly, she made her way downward towards the floor—, and slowly, I brought her back up.

“Well this is different,” she said with a surprised look.

“Let’s—, not rush,” I sincerely said. It’s not that I didn’t want to go to those places with her, it’s that I wanted it to be memorable. I liked her—, a lot. I could tell things would be getting to that stage sooner or later anyway, so I wanted to relish the moments we’d still have together, finding out more about each other and taking our time to build up to that level. We kept kissing but that was about it. Finally, we laid down next to one another on my bed’s blanket and continued to bask in each other’s warmth for a while afterwards. She was running her hand through my hair when she focused in on my eyes from the side and gave me a long, loving look.

“So what are we anyway?,” she finally let herself ask. I didn’t say anything for a minute. I just let my mind wander off, find, and grab hold of that word for a third time on its own; Lover—, I’ve been waiting for you.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 6 of 10

“Your girlfriend doesn’t look too happy today,” other employees would sometimes say to me.

“Oh, that’s just how it is if she isn’t smiling,” I explained. It was true. If she wasn’t beaming with joy from ear to ear, she had a sense of annoyed anger. The smile she wore though—, it made all of that wash away and even sparked something angelic in her.

We’d plan on going out to romantic dinners every once in a while. We’d get to the place, take our seats, and immediately feel like we were more grown-up than ever before in our lives. We spoke at length about this and that while going over the menu and deciding which meal best suited our given mood for the night. Inevitably, the waiter would ask for our drink orders as well and with that—, we’d decide on two very mature choices. Wine or fancy margaritas or something else that seemed to fit with our vibe. I had reached the point in my journey where whoever I was dating and I could enjoy a glass of Chardonnay and not use it as an excuse to completely forget about tomorrow. It was a nice reminder that I too, was finally growing up.

When we weren’t out trying new restaurants or circulating through our favorite ones, we’d make a stop at the local church on Sunday mornings. It was surreal—, being in such an important place with such an important person by my side and all the while, knowing that there was no chance of ruining our good energy as soon as we’d step back out into the shining sunlight. Memories would sometimes come flooding back in; an old flame, a prior church, so many broken pieces of our hearts left out in those empty parking lots. It was just another example of how far I’d truly gotten.

That Christmas felt especially special. We’d both packed as many gifts as possible underneath my white light-wrapped tree I’d kept in the corner of my living-room which gave the entire place a nice, warm glow. I got her a couple of new outfits that I knew matched her style; dark army-greens and Earthy-browns. She’d gift-wrapped a huge rectangular-shaped board and upon opening it I saw a beautiful black and white picture of us kissing blown up to poster-sized dimensions and neatly framed all around.

“This is amazing,” I said to her, surprised at how artful the photograph turned out. It was from the very beginning of our relationship. Now we’d have a keepsake from that time-period forever hanging on my bedroom wall opposite my bed so that it’d be the first thing we’d see when waking up in the morning.

Even though I was beginning to feel a certain sort of joy again, the days were starting to blend into each other—, restaurants, movies, even going to church began seeming mundane. Like we’d already done it a thousand times before. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the outings and especially the company, but I was getting the faint feeling that we were becoming stuck. That this was it—, there was nowhere else to really go. No level to rise to, no separate stage to reach. We’d found out almost everything there was to find out about each other and now we just sat in silence, waiting for the night to roll around so we could head back off to sleep. Finally, she snapped me out of my constant daydreaming by asking a very grown-up, very mature question—, something I was far from having the answer to.

“So what’s your five-year goal look like?,” she seriously said. I had no clue as to what that even entailed. I understood the point of having such a plan, but I was the last person who’d ever truly considered it before.

“I’m..., not sure,” I admitted. I knew I’d at least want to move somewhere different again. That I’d need a change of scenery sooner or later—, and that I even wanted her to be there for it, but other than that, I was just a shadow sifting itself from former faults. I was still healing in a way, still dreaming that everything would somehow circle around and I’d be able to become all I’d fallen so short of long ago. It didn’t take much time for her to follow-up the question with something even deeper.

“We should look into getting homeowners’ insurance,” she suggested. I had no idea how little I actually knew about being a responsible adult. No wonder I’d been such an ineligible bachelor before. Still, she saw something special in me and that went a long way in my trying to appease her expectations for future plans.

“Yeah—, we should,” I finally said of the insurance. I just wanted to make her happy—, to make sure she didn’t regret the decision to open up her heart to me.

“My friend wants to have us over for dinner,” she unexpectedly said one day. “She’s getting married next September and wants me in the wedding, so we have to go.” She’d already been preparing her speech—, this was something very important to her and I needed to be on board one-hundred percent.

“Okay,” I reluctantly agreed, knowing I’d have to be on my best behavior around the prospective spouses. It’s not that I didn’t want to go, I liked being involved in her world, with her friends. They’d just lived a different type of life than I had. If they only knew, I’d think to myself, remembering all the wasted nights of being wasted and all the hazy days that’d follow. I was so much more acceptable now—, dressed better, spoke more sensibly, acted a touch above my previous years. Still—, the lit embers inside my soul burned onward, letting me know with each exhale of thick smoke that something still raged within. That young rebel never really did completely disappear—, he’d just fallen into a deep sleep that nobody else could wake him up from. How do I get back there? Do I even want to go back there at all? I didn’t know the answers to the many things which kept my mind racing in the middle of the night. All I knew was that once the sun went back down, I’d be laying next to her again—, and that she liked who I was.

The day arrived that we’d be heading to her friend’s new house. I maintained keeping my butterflies in check, knowing I was representing her and wanted to do as good of a job as possible in making her proud to show me off. We arrived and I readied myself to be the person I’d always known I could be—, sharp, stylish, and somewhat-cultured at the very least. The door opened and beyond it was a cozy atmosphere that just oozed nearly-newlywed love. Above the fireplace stood two wooden capital letters, one for each of their first names. The kitchen was neatly organized and the dinner table was beautifully set up for four people. It was all so—, grown-up. I needed to act mature and make sure that this was all very routine and customary for me—, to have such friends that bought nice homes in nice neighborhoods and lived nice, normal lives.

“Let’s eat,” said the fiancées. We took our seats and spoke at length about new movies, books we’d read, and slightly touched on when my girlfriend and I would tie the knot ourselves. My stomach slightly dropped at the question. Not because it was a completely foreign concept, but because I wasn’t anywhere near ready for that sort of thing at this stage in my life. I’d already looked down that path in the past and almost took the first few steps towards it, but now—, I was farther away from it than ever before.

We made our way back home and so, for the second time in my life, the arguments didn’t take long to follow. We’d been growing weary of one another’s mannerisms for a while and though I still found most of hers somewhat charming, she was probably getting fed up with mine. She could tell that I wasn’t as excited about things as I’d once been—, that the ditch of real life that I’d fallen into was keeping me stuck inside of it like quicksand. She needed to intercede with something—, anything. So she did.

“Just know—, if you’re not at that wedding, this relationship...” she trailed off. I knew what she’d meant. I’d felt it myself for a while. Still—, the thought of actually attending the event itself brought me down into a depression I couldn’t tell her about. Again—, I had nobody to confide in. I wouldn’t have been able to explain myself anyway—, that it was the atmosphere, the designer dresses, everything working together to remind one of what it truly meant to marry their soulmate, once and for all. I didn’t want to go to something like that. I’d been around weddings my entire life and always let myself daydream about my own someday. This was a new chapter of my life though—, and from here on out, I wasn’t allowing myself to lose anymore time doing something like that.

All of my negativities, pessimism, and destructive depression came back like a wrecking ball. She noticed all of it and didn’t know what advice to possibly give me that’d snap me out of my self-loathsome behavior and back into the real world she’d helped me face all this time. We’d begun arguing over the smallest and simplest things and always went on to regret it later.

On another random night, we’d been bickering for some time and had retreated to separate rooms of the apartment when the sound of her sobbing shook me back into the present moment. I walked into the bedroom and saw her curled up underneath the covers facing the wall.

“What’s wrong?,” I asked from the heart.

“I wish we could go back to when we first met—,” she said. “I wish things could start turning around for us.” I knew she’d been getting tired of the constant fighting, but this was a new side of her I hadn’t yet encountered. I felt a strong sense of empathy rush over me—, if only it would’ve lasted a while longer.

The arguments kept piling up—, one on top of another. It was a different type of personal disappointment though. One that seemed more advanced than the many nights I’d spent awake so many years prior. This time, it felt more consequential. Like I wasn’t just living for today or tonight but that my actions would have an affect on future emotions and moments altogether.

The perfect example of that came one morning when we’d both woken up with incredibly negative energies surrounding us. The way she rolled out of bed, got dressed, and was applying her make-up all felt so forced. Like she didn’t want to be there at all. Maybe it was just my imagination or maybe I’d been right all along about her fleeting feelings—, but either way, I couldn’t take much more of it.

“Problem?,” I asked her while she smoked before leaving to go to work.

“Not one—,” she coldly replied, smashing the rest of her lit cigarette into the black ash tray with all the hostility she’d been holding inside her and storming out of the bedroom. I just quietly stared up at the ceiling before noticing an empty cup on the nightstand. I reached for it, snatched it off the table, and hurled it as hard as I could at the hanging portrait of us kissing—, shattering the protective surface into pieces and leaving a giant mark on the photograph itself. Not two seconds went by before she came back into the bedroom, wanting to see what the loud sound was. She noticed the broken Christmas present she’d had specially made and just looked back at me with the most disappointed eyes I’d ever seen her make. Years later, she’d go on to tell me;

“That was the moment I started letting you go.”

Some time passed by but the wound never truly healed. Finally, on a day that seemed on its surface to resemble all the others before it, I was half-asleep on the living-room couch when I felt her presence walking right up to me. She bent down to kiss me on my forehead before standing back up. It’d be the last one we’d ever share together. She walked towards the front door to leave as I slowly began waking up. I could tell something was different about the way she’d let her lips touch my skin for so much longer than usual. There was an added sadness lingering in the air, probably from the night before or our last fight.

“So, tonight then?,” I asked of when we’d see each other again.

“Probably not,” she said with slight attitude.

“Why?” She just shrugged from the bottom of the stairs. That was enough to let me know something was wrong. Like we’d been heading down this road for a while but now we were finally at its end. I couldn’t make too much sense of it. I just knew I wanted to change direction. I wanted to change myself and my relationship and my life overall—, I just didn’t know where to begin. A thousand things were piling up inside my mind and I wanted to say all of them at once, but there was only one phrase that I could come up with. “Have fun at the wedding,” I said, slamming the door shut. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t make out the tearing sound, but I knew—, on the other side in the stairwell was a heart breaking in two, just like mine had been for a while now. An already-broken bridge began crumbling apart, piece by piece—, falling into the nothingness underneath. There was no more structure linking our two worlds together. We were finally on our own—, again. A familiar feeling to say the least.

Things settled down after that. The apartment grew more silent by the day. The friends coming over got more impatient with my gloomy nature. Wine lost its taste but not its effect. The bed felt empty but not the sleep. Anything to pass another day. Anything to make it through another mundane week. I quickly realized that there was nothing else left for me in either the city or the state itself. The environments I’d made less-than-perfect memories in remembered my mistakes all too well. They’d remind me of them whenever I’d pass through. I needed a change of scenery, a change of lifestyle. It’d been time for me to move away for years, but only recently had I caught on to the notion for myself. There was only one place on the planet which could cure me of my despondency. I was finally headed towards my own personal heaven; L-trains, taxicabs, and crowds galore.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 5 of 10

The years slowly rolled by—, one after another. I couldn't bare to think of all that I’d done so I tried putting all the negativities out of my mind. Good friends would come over during those in-between chapters of my life.

“Don’t go to the dark side,” they’d say to me whenever seeing me intently staring off into the distance, not focused on anything in-particular. I’d try to snap back into the moment, to not let what was keeping me from enjoying life take hold and drag me down once more. My mom would come home from work and see me still laying in bed on my days off.

“Let’s go see a movie tonight,” she’d suggest. That, or we’d stay home and watch our favorite TV shows one after another. I quickly realized we were in this mess together, shoulder-to-shoulder. Of all the people that’d come in and out of my life—, she alone stayed with me through every single mistake, misstep, and mischievous moment of my last twenty-some years. Soon after telling her that I should move to a different setting in search of a more balanced lifestyle, she agreed and started helping me in my hunt for a new place to live.

I’d been looking for apartments one city over and found some nice places to try and make a new life in. Finally picking the right spot, I began wondering what type of people I’d meet, who I’d become friends with, and what kind of new experiences I’d have. Would they hold my history against me or take me as I am? Would they realize that I wasn’t truly the person who I looked like on paper? I wanted to start fresh—, to have a clean slate to work with, a new canvas to try and paint a different, more-appealing picture onto. Before actually moving though, I needed to find another job closer to my new home. I applied to every store in the strip-mall across the street from my apartment until getting hired.

I packed up all of my belongings into boxes and my mom and I made nearly a dozen trips back and forth from my old city to the next. I was finally feeling an exhilaration about life again—, like I’d made my way from one person to an entirely new human being in the span of three short years. I also knew I had an enormous responsibility in needing to make my mother proud of me. I had done just the opposite for so much time that things needed to drastically change.

The new job was exciting. The people were nice. The atmosphere was pleasant. I’d made friends with all the managers and they genuinely liked me. Of course, they only knew the new me but that was enough for them to invite me out to dinners and pool halls and clubs. Little by little, I was re-finding myself again. I’d begun taking the bandages off of all my old faults and realized they’d been healing well over time. I spoke in positive ways and about a bright future again. I knew that slowly, I’d return to the person I’d been before ever tragically falling in love.

On a random day like most others, I was straightening up displays on the side of the store when the double doors swung open up front. I saw her coming both quickly and in slow-motion. Sunshine was beaming out right behind her as she walked down the center aisle that made making out her facial features nearly impossible. Even then, she was covered by a thick veil of deep shade.

“Hello—,” I got out, not knowing who she was.

“Hey,” she swiftly said, and nothing else. Walking away and towards the backroom, I realized she too was an employee and made sure to keep my composure from there on out.

She looked like the girl I’d dreamed of ever since growing up; tattoos, piercings, and a fierce spirit to top it off. I could tell she was the type to never take anyone’s bad attitude or negative energy and always kept her heart sheltered. Maybe from former experiences or less-than-perfect memories. Either way, I understood and clicked with it. After everything I’d gone through in the last half-decade, I needed someone new to shake things up with. Someone who wasn’t easily put off by a tainted story. Someone who knew something about sprawling shadows and how they could affect a person’s life.

I soon invited her over my place one sunny afternoon. Walking up the steps to my second-floor apartment, I could already feel the sensual tension between us. I wanted to take her hand in mine and play with her fingertips—, to slowly draw imaginary figures on her flower-stamped skin by outlining the indelible inked-designs. I was ready to talk to her about anything—, except of course, what eventually begun our conversation;

“So do you do drugs?,” she asked outright. I half-smiled at the question—, not really expecting it but respecting her for it all the same.

“Why do you ask that?,” I cautiously followed-up with.

“I don’t know—, I guess I’m just curious.”

“I’ve done some before but not anymore,” I admitted, “I’m not against anyone wanting to try them though, it’s their own life and their own decision, you know?”

“So if there was a line of coke here right now, would you let me do it?” I knew the answer even before I spoke.

“No—,” I calmly said, “I wouldn’t want to see you like that.” A slew of unhappy memories made their way back into my mind. I hoped she knew that I cared for her too much, that it wasn’t me trying to decide things for her, and that it came from a place of protectiveness. She quietly smiled back.

We started sharing a notebook where we’d write down our deeper thoughts. Things we couldn’t talk about while at work. Our dreams, our ideals, our definitions of love. We’d bring it with us every shift we had and place it in our designated locker for the other to find. Back and forth this went until the day came that I’d finally get the answer to my question of the last few weeks. I couldn’t wait to get back into the store and find the green journal. Once in the break-room, I flipped to the right page and started reading. It was pure flirtation. Ideas of a romance that hadn’t even begun yet. I knew what I had to do. Luckily, we were both working that day. I walked out onto the sales floor and went directly over to her. Gently taking her hand in my own, I placed it palm-up and ran my index finger over it to draw out an I—, a heart—, and a U. She couldn’t bare hiding the grin growing on her face. She looked back at me with wide open eyes.

“Whew—,” she said, letting out a long exhale. “Back to the real world.” That was it—, I knew things would be different from that day forward.

We finally decided to go skateboarding a short while later. Up and down the hill we went, letting the wheels run themselves over hot asphalt while we rode with the wind in our hair. The pop-punk music blared out from inside my Mercury Cougar and about an hour or so passed by when the sun began to set.

“Cigarette?,” she asked. I nodded in agreement and lit up two Marlboro Smooths while I sat on the car’s trunk. It was getting windier by the minute. She nestled up closer to me. We started playing with each other’s fingers, running them over each other’s hands and finally, she began wandering too far upward for comfort. I shook my head and tried to maneuver away from her, but she got even closer. “It’s okay—,” she softly said. New hands slowly climbing up scarred arms; breathing getting heavy, heart racing from anxiety, and then—, acceptance. A soft kiss. A new Lover—, The Girl with the Epic Tattoos—, is finally here.

Back at my place, we kept getting closer as our lips stayed locked. We kissed on the living-room floor as minute after minute passed by. Eventually, her clothes began coming off one piece at a time. Tattoo-covered arms and back, barbell piercings, and jet-black hair that nearly flowed down to her waist—, it was all so picturesque. We moved up to the couch and it was there that all the visions of intense love came crashing back in a tidal-wave of feeling. Soon afterwards, I began explaining how I didn’t want to come on too strong, that we should just take things slowly.

“No,” she willfully said. “I want you to smother me.” That was all she had to say. A fire ignited inside myself and I thought back to what it truly meant to do that to someone else and how it felt to have it done back in return. I wondered if she really knew what she was asking for. Either way, I took her words to heart and started acting accordingly—, more sleepovers, more notes, more everything. We couldn’t get enough of each other and for that, I credited my past missteps as merely ill-timed attempts at romantic gestures. This was a new day—, a new life. I could barely remember what had come before.

Things escalated to scorching new levels of ecstasy for both of us. We kept things pretty new and interesting on a regular basis; leather stiletto boots, backseat sessions in the parked car outside, and making out in the maintenance closet at work. On what seemed to be another normal night for us, we were again in the parking lot out front and fogging up the windows with our heavy breathing. I needed air so I slightly opened up the back door though didn’t plan on the inside light being so bright, illuminating everything within.

“Sorry—,” I said, trying to shut the door. “Leave it,” she suggested.

“What if someone walks by?” She said nothing, smiled, and just resumed onward with the routine.

It didn’t matter how many mistakes either of us had made—, we’d found that we were very in tune with one another. She was a different sort of sexy—, our movements were a different type of love-making. I began wondering if everything that’d happened to the two of us didn’t directly lead us into each other’s lives. Maybe fate was still alive and well after all.

We decided to go out to a nearby bar with some co-workers one night. The atmosphere reminded me of older times but I could tell she wasn’t that comfortable. We sat side-by-side as she took out a pen. She brought the drink menu closer to us and wrote O.O.M.E. in the corner. I stared at it for a while before feeling a smile taking shape. I looked at her and mouthed the words silently; Out...Of...My...Element. She smiled back and nodded.

“I’m pretty tired tonight,” I began to say to the entire group, planning our escape home and back into each other’s arms. “I think I should get going.”

“Okay—,” she followed up. “Then that’s it for me too.” We were good with each other like that—, knowing what we’d both feel without having to explain too much. We related to one another through a type of shared-introversion.

That autumn, she started school again and was taking nursing classes three days a week. I made sure to wake up early in the mornings and iron out her white dress clothes so that I could place the patches on them in their appropriate spots.

“All set,” I’d say to myself, laying out the lab coat with pride on the ironing board before trying to make her breakfast in bed. At night, I’d flip through her college books and begin recording the assigned chapters so she could follow along as she listened through headphones later on. Sooner or later, we’d have to break apart and wait for another day to come around before seeing each other again. “You know what it’s like, leaving you?,” I’d ask. “It’s like there are two separate worlds—, yours and mine—, and when we’re both asleep and dreaming, we meet on this bridge we’ve created that connects us together.”

“That’s perfect,” she replied. We held onto each other as tightly as possible—, physically and emotionally. We’d both been through our own battles with broken relationships and we knew very well to treasure the good times we were having together.

The honeymoon stage was well on its way with us. In-between reading aloud our favorite books or stories to each other, we’d play our favorite movies, songs, and shows. The only heaviness we’d feel would be when dusk would come around and she’d have to sometimes leave to go back home.

“See you on our bridge tonight,” she’d say with a smile. With that, she’d be through the front door and headed down the stairs outside my apartment only to return less than twenty-four hours later. Things had turned around and I was finally feeling the warmth of love on my shoulders once more.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 4 of 10

The weather outside had changed like clockwork—, summer to fall to winter and then? It seemed like it got stuck somehow. The cold had completely frozen the bedroom window shut, it had stalled my car’s engine to where it wouldn’t turn over anymore—, it quickly become one of the eeriest seasons of my life. The only place where I’d found any warmth whatsoever was in my girlfriend's arms. There was only one problem; we didn’t know how to get any closer. Physically, we’d gone as far as we could go. Emotionally, we were completely tied up in the other. Only our mental state had any free space left to give away.

I’d moved to a different city—, we were now farther away from one another. Less time to be together, less time to share and experience new things, less time, less time. We’d become desperate for reasons to stay inside. I didn’t want to leave anymore. Home wasn’t fifty-some miles away, it was wherever she was. We’d become desperate for reasons to keep grasp of the other. She didn’t want to leave anymore. No friends, no work, nothing that seemed like it was from the outside world. We’d become really, really desperate. Desperation turned to anger, anger turned to hatred, hatred personified itself in the form of something too sharp for words. Something too vengeful, too heavy for mere emotions to make sense of. We held onto the handles of ominous instruments and used them to sculpt a darker reality than the one we’d been running from.

“Baby!—,” she’d exclaim upon waking up. What happened here last night? Unsettling thoughts ran through our minds. All we could do is guess at the unfortunate scenarios which may have played out. Furniture moved around. Couch cushions turned upside down. Thermostat all the way up. We’d blacked out and remembered nothing. Only the stains remained—, measuring our madness like height-marks on a wall. We traded in long-term happiness for some temporary relief at the hands of tiny, pointed teeth. Regretful us. How short-sighted can young love really be? We were on a collision course in trying to find out. Two lost ships with no lighthouse in sight. Dense fog. Broken compasses. We never stood a chance at making it out intact. Every inch ripped apart—, another scar on our hearts. Pound for pound, we weighed and made sure to repay in kind. We became unrecognizable; cutlery rivals. That which we loved, we came to resemble.

“What’s happening with you two?,” friends would eventually ask. They’d noticed we’d become more withdrawn, less excited about the things which had made us so happy before. There was always a catastrophe to complain about. It was our new routine and we’d found some type of comfort in it. A quiet humming sound constantly played in the backs of our heads, like we knew something was wrong, but something we couldn’t shut off either. It pulled us out of everyday moments and affected our presence in regular situations. This went on—, day after day, week after week, month after month. Things played out tragically; broken promises, broken spirits, everything around us was breaking apart. Slowly, the seasons began changing again, but not our negative energies—, we’d gotten too used to them. Now, they became ingrained in our thinking, in our voices, and in our love itself.

Summer came around once more so we headed back to a land of lovely memories we’d made just a year prior. Back to Florida, back to the Gulf Coast, and back to a type of temporary lifestyle that’d suited us so well beforehand—, but strangely, felt disconnected from this time around.

“What’s different?,” I asked myself aloud.

“Everything—,” I heard her voice whisper back throughout the once-sunny horizons of my mind. There were no more exciting drives throughout the city, no more people-watching, and no more dreaming about future lives lived out together. I wanted what we’d had before so badly—, I wanted our old memories and moments which had made the previous summer the best one of my life. Now, it all seemed to be a distant dream to which I’d never be able to return. The car rides were quieter, the waves crashing onto the coast were calmer, everything was empty of any excitement or joy. At night we’d lay awake in bed, look up at the ceiling, and wonder if we’d made a good decision to come back here.

The morning coffee started tasting different—, even in a beautiful city like the one we were visiting, the depths of our regret from home followed us. We’d sit and sip and stare at the floor, very rarely bringing our eyes back up. We felt so many emotions at once and directed them straight toward one another. Somewhere deep within our dark roasts—, we could barely make out the shapeless waves of an uncertain future together and it made each passing day feel more hopeless and gloomier than the one before.

We were nearing the end of our trip and an hour before we’d be heading back to the airport, she tried one final time at making a lasting memory.

“Do you want to collect some sand from the beach with me?,” she sweetly asked from the armchair. I just slowly shook my head and looked back down at the floor in disappointment. So much for trying to rekindle a nearly-forgotten feeling. I’d go on to regret the decision for a long time afterwards.

Back home for another autumn. This one brought about a newly discovered rush with it. I’d made all the wrong types of friends in my new neighborhood and they had the party essentials one in my situation of desperation needed to take in order to fully enjoy life again. I bought a bag’s worth and waited until I saw my girlfriend again to dive in. I chopped up the piece and laid out a long line across a plastic case, gently handing it to her along with a rolled-up twenty-dollar bill. She readied herself, bent down towards her lap, and drew in every last flake with complete poise and perfection. I would’ve married her right there on the spot. She was everything a person looks for in their toxic-twin; courage, composure, and the sexiest bloodshot eyes. We were re-sparking a fire that’d almost completely gone out. We were discovering something new together again—, like we had with drinking, smoking, and the rest of our rituals. This time though, the stakes were raised.

We divvied up white lines on each other’s stomachs and took turns inhaling the freshly fallen snow off our bodies. The room whirled around us—, we were alone in a sea of subjective spinning brought on by outside substances. Nothing to keep us tied down to this world—, we flew high above it all. High—, and above it all. Beyond clouds, beyond time and space. We’d found another realm where we watched ourselves slow-dance to a far-off symphony while going through all the phases of life. Together and separated only by our imaginations. Eventually, they too would combine into a singular vision; objective rapture. Never wake up. We almost never did. Earth came calling and we had to answer back, opening our eyes once more. The room stood still. Only our elevated heartbeats kept rhythm with what we’d just witnessed. It was useless to try and ask her if she’d seen the same things I had. I knew, somewhere deep inside herself—, she’d dreamed of them before ever meeting me in the first place. They were just amplified now; feelings, fantasies, an on- going reverie that wouldn’t let up. How could we go back to normal after something like that? We couldn’t. So we didn’t.

Though the fun lasted a short while—, it wasn’t enough to truly keep us going for long. We swam with the current as far as possible before our arms started to give out. Driving back home to her apartment one day, we had the radio unusually turned off. There’d been something on my mind for a while and I couldn’t keep the question to myself for a minute longer.

“Do you feel like we’re drifting apart?,” I sincerely asked. She instantly answered back.

“I really do.” That was all she had to say. Even with new toxins and exciting experiences, we couldn’t escape the let down of our second summer. We tried our hardest to remain hopeful about the future, but things seemed to pull us in separate directions now more than ever.

We hadn’t seen each other for quite a while. She started school again, I picked up another job, things naturally cooled down after our last car ride together. I was finishing up my shift at work one night when my mom walked in to surprise me.

“Hurry up and clock out, I’ve got something to show you,” she excitedly said. We walked into a glitzy restaurant right across the street and headed downstairs. I reached the bottom floor and stood for a second, unable to react as there sat my girlfriend in a glittering red dress. She slowly turned to face us and gave me her signature look.

“Hey—.” That was all she had to say. I’d fallen for her again in a matter of moments.

“I’ve missed you,” I admitted to her later on at home.

“Me too,” she replied. We moved from the bed to the floor and back again. It was as I’d remembered—, an unequalled emotion. Something absolute and complete. We were making up with each other, making up for lost time, and making more memories than either of us had in the previous few months. We left the white linen sheets and still had the energy to smoke a couple of cloves on the roof outside my bedroom window while quietly wondering where everything was leading to this time around.

Winter rolled around once more. It seemed colder than the last one—, which was near- impossible. I’d been over her place for a few hours when we started downing shots—, one after another in quick succession. The room spun, the kissing started—, everything was going according to our usual plan. Finally, she fell asleep and I didn’t wait long to do the same myself. The next morning, I could already feel the consequences of what’d happened even before I had the chance to open my eyes. We woke up in a haze—, not knowing the exact sequence of events or what order they’d fallen into, but we felt the weight of regret hanging heavily in the atmosphere. Something vile about the way reality came crashing back down on the both of us kept her and I quiet for a long while. She eventually broke the intense silence.

“Look at yourself,” she got out, raising her gaze up from the floor. She stared at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen as I noticed the smears I still wore.

“They’re just arms,” I naively said. She quickly covered her face with both hands.

“Those used to be my arms!,” she cried out from the bed. I had nothing to say—, no words could properly describe the amount of desperation I felt. I turned to walk away, leaving the room with an air of awful energy attached to it. I slowly made my way down the stairs and out through the front door, got into my car and forever drove away. So it went that it’d be one of the last times we’d ever see each other.

I needed to vent—, to lash out at something, anything. I had so much pent up within me that I didn’t know who to turn to. Everything was my fault—, I’d felt the emotion radiating from her spirit without her having to say a word. Without having ever fallen in love with me, maybe she’d be so much farther along—, with dreams, with relationships, with life itself. It seemed that I’d kept her in place for much of the last few months. The same arguments constantly led back to the same conclusions; maybe it just wasn’t meant to be after all.

We didn’t speak for a long time afterwards. We just watched the clocks change seconds and minutes and hours but nothing else around us ever improved. We were without the other and while it gave us some breathing room, it also forced us to remember how everything felt before falling into our first kiss together. It all seemed like it’d happened so long ago—, in a different lifetime altogether. Finally, she called up one night to see how I was holding up and of course, it didn’t take long for the attacks to begin.

“Are you using needles yet?,” she said in a soft tone. I cringed at the thought of her actually asking me such a question.

“No,” I answered back, a little annoyed. How was it possible that we’d drifted so far apart? Wasn’t this the same girl who’d always kept me in line, calculating my grades everyday for an entire semester of English class to help me pass? Now—, she was asking if I’d been injecting myself with drugs. Of course the flow of firewater never let up and the pills seemed to be in full supply ever since I’d moved, but her imagination was definitely getting out of hand.

“I don’t think we should speak to each other for a while,” was her suggestion. I appealed with pure emotion.

“So we can’t even be friends?”

“I don’t want to have a friend like you,” she said, tearing my heart in two. That was that. We hung up and the world seemed a little bit colder than it was before our conversation had started. I pulled myself up off the floor where I’d always sit to talk on the phone and went upstairs to my room—, confused and more alone than ever.

I decided that if people were beginning to see me as a person on a permanent downward-spiral, then that’s exactly what I’d become. Party after backseat after movie after bedroom—, I started making my way through all of them with a sense of invincibility. I’d figured that I’d already gone through enough to where only I could get in my own way—, that nothing could slow me down or could take away from the momentum I’d built up over the last couple of years. Everyone around saw the walking catastrophe I’d turned into while I was becoming increasingly unaware of the dangers starting to surround me.

The night finally arrived when I took one too many pills and was rushed off to have my stomach pumped clean. I woke up with leather straps wrapped around my wrists. My arms were tied to the metal handlebars of a hospital bed on both sides. In the corner sat a woman of about forty with a nice, warm smile on her face.

“Hello,” she said. “Do you know where you are?”

“Yes—,” I answered back. I knew what’d happened. To escape the heavy sadness of the entire situation, I began replaying old memories of happier times. Just when it seemed like I’d made the worst mistake of my life, I noticed there was a phone sitting beside me on the nightstand to my left. I thought about it for a while before finally being allowed to pick it up and dial her number. It rang—, and rang and rang. Just before I was readying to hang up, she answered.

“Hello?,” her familiar voice said with a tinge of worry to it.

“Hey—,” I began, trying to follow it up with something useful to say, but I came up empty. She didn’t wait long to get down to it.

“Why are you calling me from St. Joe’s?,” she promptly asked.

“I—, umm..., almost O.D.ed,” and just before I had the chance to say another word, I heard the coldest click of a telephone hanging up ever. That would be it. Nothing else followed but more tears and praying sessions for me with sidewalk preachers and sobriety milestones that I’d mess up later on anyway. There was nothing else to do or say. We split ways for good after that.

What’s it feel like when pure romance dissipates? It’s being left completely alone in a foreign country with no translator. Nothing around makes any sense and nobody can help out. Every message, meaning, and concept had been made clear through their presence. Now? Static. How can we eat—, or drink—, or even sleep? The soul’s been ripped apart and our own reflection is no longer familiar. Lover was gone—, but so was Best Friend. Nobody was left to confide in. Nobody was left to even speak to about anything that mattered at all. So onward I went—, into the pitch black darkness of an everlasting night with nothing to illuminate my path or guide me back to the dawn. I wasn’t just pursued by the shadows any longer—, I became one myself.

Things started to make less and less sense. I didn’t feel like I fit into the mainstream lifestyles any longer and couldn’t pinpoint what I’d been made for in the first place. People all around me had goals, went in pursuit of them, and reached new levels of their destinies. Me? I just lulled around in self- pity. All that kept coming back were memories of better days. Please let me turn back time, I’d beg The Universe. No luck. What used to be someone so secure and confident was reduced to a mere hallowed-out shell of their former selves. I had to exit the existential framework. Life seemed so forced and anyone who didn’t follow its strict guidelines was faulted to the maximum degree. Selfish arrogance took over. I didn’t think about anyone else—, least of which, the people that truly loved me—, least of which, my mother. She could tell I’d become withdrawn and uninterested in everything that I’d liked so much before. Who was I to take such a special gift as life in my own two hands and try to rip it into shreds just for the sake of self-interest and sorrow? No one. I was no one—, I just didn’t know it yet.

Finally, the day came when everything around me silenced itself into a dull quiet. Like I’d finally reached the end of a long-winding tunnel. What’s left?, I thought. Nothing. I found myself in the backseat of a car with the outside world blurring by. Faster and faster it went—, down the busy street and straight towards the nearest E.R. Once there—, I woke up—, mentally and emotionally. The doctors’ hearts broke for my mother’s own. I couldn’t open my eyes from the sheer heaviness of it all and didn’t know how to process the situation so just fell into a very deep, very detached sort of sleep.

[from-dre]

Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 3 of 10

The Girl with the Dark Eyes and I started wearing each other’s names around our necks—, tightening the personalized nooses as far as possible. We became branded. It felt good, too. We engaged each other every chance we could, captivating onlookers. A singular mass split in two. Dual shadows that seemed to resemble one another in ways that didn’t immediately make sense. It was all so predictably beautiful in its simplicity—, such naiveté.

She soon decided it was time for a slight makeover—, a simple nose stud is what she had in mind.

“Let’s do it,” I advised her. We walked into the piercing shop as a lady sitting behind the counter gave us a long look-over. She didn’t say a thing and it wasn’t until we were readying ourselves to leave before she finally spoke.

“You two have such bedroom eyes,” the woman said to us. “And I think it’s very sweet that you wear each other’s names like that,” she added, pointing to our homemade necklaces. Others’ opinions of us only strengthened our bond and because of it—, our reasoning that it must be fate after all.

Her birthday would be coming up soon and coincidentally fall on a perfect summer Saturday. I crudely wrapped a new black mini- skirt in skateboard ads that I’d cut out of a magazine and couldn’t wait for her to open up the present.

“I should wear this tonight!,” she excitedly said.

“You will,” I replied, “because we’re doing something different.” The city had only one decent nightclub but everybody seemed to always end up there. We arrived on the street outside the front doors and could already hear the blaring music from inside blocking out all the other sounds around us. We gladly showed our I.D.s to the bouncer and in we went—, making our way down to the dance floor where the bright strobe lights washed us over in deep neon greens and blues and reds. Beautiful flashes flickered from all directions and drenched us in their dreamy and druggy energies. Our bodies moved like we’d made ourselves at home. The pumping basslines of underground trance almost made our sweat jump right off of our faces and onto the floor below. We kept moving. Nothing in the world seemed to matter—, the summer was in full swing, we were in full feather, and things were finally making more sense than ever before. How could anything top the feelings we’d started to feel on a daily basis? There wasn’t much more to go until we’d reach the highest point of our merged journeys before finding out how powerful the fall back downward can truly be. It didn’t make much difference though—, for that moment on that night in that sweaty club, we felt like our time together was infinite—, and for a while, it was.

The days continued to pass by before finally, a new idea entered into our formula.

“Let’s have a dinner date,” one of us suggested.

“Definitely,” said the other. The next night I was on my way to pick her up and while having the usual butterflies in my stomach, I also felt some type of subtle pressure hanging in the air. I knew tonight would be different. The music matched the mood of my racing heart-rate before reaching her apartment. I knocked on the front door and upon it slowly opening, saw her gorgeously wrapped in red. She wore a skin-tight scarlet piece that came up just above the knees, accentuated by my black tailored suit. We looked good together. Back at my place, we put on the proper soundtrack to the glamorous evening as I took her hand in mine and began swaying from side to side. All of the moments gone by at prom came back and gave us another chance at stealing the spotlight. We danced in slow-motion right there in the middle of the living- room. The light-classical music kept playing on as I gently spun her in soft circles, taking her again in my arms and tightening my grip around her waist. We finally made our way into the candlelit bedroom where dozens of red rose petals interspersed with pictures of us covered the mattress. Tender kisses with Merlot-stained lips and smeared make-up made up the rest of the night. The next morning, she collected the cork from the wine bottle and a few rose petals and put them all in a plastic bag as a remembrance of the beautiful evening we’d spent together. I’ll never forget this, I silently thought.

As classy as the date was, what we craved was being alone with each other and our favorite drinks at the ready. I’d made it a personal tradition to toast every shot.

“Ladies, gentlemen, class of ‘04–, this is for you.” We sipped and swallowed down the firewater with pride. The empty bottles were lined up along the wall like hallowed soldiers coming back from war. Like we’d soon be ourselves. They resembled us even before we’d been able to realize it. It was her and me and the bottle made three. Further down into the depths of our watery world we went. Sinking. Drinking. Under the influence—, and very much comforted by it. We rode the waves of what it meant to be out-of-body, through hazy motions—, we lifted up and off the ground toward the stratosphere above. Hand-in-hand, we flew through the air—, from one end of the world to the other. Overlooking the planet below, we’d watch everything that’s ever happened or will happen at once. A block-universe where the same moment would permeate throughout the entire timeline of everyone that’s ever existed. It’d be beautiful. Sooner or later however—, we’d both be forced back down as we’d once again, wake up to the real world.

While back downtown one night, we decided that before we could leave the car to go out and enjoy the festivities we’d planned, we first needed to pre-party. We stayed in our seats, downing shot after shot. Music blasted through the speakers, cigarette smoke escaped through our mouths, everything was as it should be. Suddenly—, bright flashing lights. Red and blue. A police cruiser pulled up and out stepped an officer with broad shoulders who came to my side of the car.

“Good evening—,” he began, “any reason you guys have been parked here for so long?” We didn’t know what to say. “Been drinking tonight?” Again, we didn’t know what to say. “Let’s step out of the car guys,” he finally instructed. Two minutes later, a second cop car was on the scene as both of us were put in handcuffs, getting arrested together. How very appropriate of our relationship. We were transported to the police department in different vehicles and were processed separately. I’d been placed inside my holding cell first and could hear her voice from the next room over. It was tinged with an annoyance that I completely understood given the situation. I was almost proud of her in a way. I figured she’d be a mess, but she was just the opposite; cool, calm, and collected. Time passed slowly. Hour after hour ticked by without any indication of how she was holding up. Maybe she’s fallen asleep, I thought. After a while, I heard footsteps approaching and had to ask what’d been on my mind.

“Excuse me sir, could I write a letter and have you give it to her?” I just wanted to make sure she was okay, to comfort her through some words of encouragement.

“I’m sorry, no,” he replied. So there I sat on the cold metal bench until morning finally came around. I’d almost fallen asleep myself when I heard the clinking of loud keys opening up my cell door.

“Let’s see if we can’t get you two outta here,” the officer said smiling, bringing up the breathalyzer to my face. All zeros. We walked out into the near-blinding sunshine, hand-in-hand, with smiles on our faces and M.I.P.s on our records.

“So what’re we doing for tonight?,” I asked. She replied with a grin and that would be that. Despite our court-ordered directives to attend an alcohol abuse class, we kept up our positive attitudes and tried to enjoy the rest of the season in style. Soon—, I’d be going on a week-long trip and of course, I needed to know she’d be by my side to truly enjoy it. “Come to Naples with me,” I said.

“Absolutely,” she replied.

The plane’s wheels touched down on a Florida airstrip and with that, we’d begun our first trip together. Stepping out into the crisp southern atmosphere, the sun shone down on our shoulders and we immediately felt the vibes of a very different lifestyle than the one we were coming from; wide beaches, endless tanning, and swimming in the Gulf were just a few of the things we had in mind from the moment we arrived.

We drove through the city streets with the top down and loud music escaping from the car. Something felt so right—, that this was the type of environment we should spend all of our summers in from here on out. The sun’s rays beamed down on our faces and finally—, we were free to be the couple we’d always known we’d be from back home; together, in a tangle of brown hair and hazel eyes.

The houses lining the different avenues deep within the neighborhoods were enormous and told of the people who lived inside them. Their lives were probably so interesting and fabulous—, having such places to call home, with grand staircases in the lobby, massive portraits on the walls, and so many memories they must’ve made from all the years of living there.

The sunsets were a painted canvas of oranges, pinks, and sky blues. We sat on the sand and watched the fading ball of fire drop down into the water below. Beyond the horizon; that’s where all of our dreams interwove into a masterpiece of fate and emotional fortune.

“We should never leave here—, ever,” we’d take turns saying to each other.

It was the seventeenth of August—, near midnight. We were swimming in the pool lined with lit candles and every so often, we’d take a break and sit on the steps leading down into the water. We’d kiss and look up at the starry night sky.

“So what are we—, officially?,” she asked looking me straight in the eyes. I didn’t know. All I knew for sure is that I wanted to be official—, so that’s exactly what we became. From that point onward—, we didn’t hide the fact that we were holding hands anymore. We let the world in on our very obvious love affair.

There was a different type of spark in the air the next morning. The wind ruffled our hair as we sat outside a coffeeshop not far from the beach. Her eyes looked different here. Like they’d been telling a story that I was only now catching onto. They sparkled, shimmered—, they personified every summer I’d ever lived through. There was a promise present in them. I needed to get down to its core. Was it that they were just waiting for the right amount of time to pass? Were they seeing something I wasn’t? Were they full of a brighter future together? Maybe they saw us living in a spacious loft in the sky, somewhere in a big, sprawling city—, right downtown, right where all the streets intersect and the people move in waves of absolute energy. Maybe they saw us walking down the same aisle with separate parents by our sides—, going on to hospital visits from friends at the birth of a new generational blessing—, going on to parent-teacher conferences, bring-your-kids-to-work days, walking down a similar aisle decades later for another ceremony. Or maybe—, they saw nothing but the bright sunshine blinding their perspective on all things possible. Either way, it was a sight that I’d remember for years afterwards.

A few days into our trip we found ourselves driving down US-41 South towards Miami, stopping only to get gas or see the street-side attractions. A couple of hours later, we were crossing the huge bridge into Miami Beach as the wind continued blowing her hair in all directions. After finding our hotel and dropping off our things, we quickly headed back outside towards the lively atmosphere. The time had come—, we knew the routine. We started wandering through the busy streets as bustling groups of people entered and exited the booming clubs lining the avenue. We were again, in search of a perfect candidate to provide the necessary party favors we’d need for the rest of the night. Finally, I saw a man that didn’t look lost, but instead, seemed to be walking around aimlessly and alone. I cautiously went up to him and began with my request.

“Excuse me sir, would you be cool with buying us something to drink?” He smiled.

“Can you get me a couple cheeseburgers on the way?” I smiled back. We circled around towards the car and were off.

Again, we found ourselves crossing the bridge with our favorite songs blasting through the back speakers. Our stranger-turned- temporary friend bobbed his head up and down, keeping perfect time with the fast-paced punk music that seemed to be something new for him. We pulled into an alleyway as he hopped out of the backseat and into a corner store. Two minutes later he handed us a bottle of Bacardi O as we sped off towards the nearest fast-food drive-thru.

“Maybe I’ll see you two tomorrow on the beach,” he said after taking his bag of burgers and fries. And with that, he was off on his way down the dark sidewalks by himself, never to be seen by us again, but somehow, still strangely remembered.

Back on the main avenue, we parked the car and started walking down towards the water. Dawn would soon be on its way. We sat side-by-side on the pebbly sand as we watched the sunrise in quiet contemplation, all the while passing the orange-flavored rum back and forth, and each letting out long breathy exhales of what can only be described as some sort of eternal exhilaration. The risks, the recklessness—, it all made such sense. We knew to enjoy it, just maybe, not as much as we ultimately should’ve.

Eventually, reality took hold of us once more and we were again, on a plane headed back home. It was like waking up from the deepest dream—, slowly, I’d regained my old state of mind, I’d come back to my old consciousness, and I was restored to my previous surroundings. We exited the airport and drove to our home city with all-over body tans and an experience we wouldn’t soon forget.

Not long afterwards, we left again on another spur-of-the-moment trip. This time, to a very special place that I’d kept in my heart for many years while growing up; Chicago, The Windy City. Once we were actually on those busy streets and surrounded by all of the skyscrapers, we took to exploring downtown and the areas around it. We walked from store to store, following the dozens of other tourists crowding Michigan Avenue and stopped to look at all the beautiful displays. Fine clothes and expensive accessories for them were everywhere. We let ourselves daydream about our upcoming futures—, if we’d ever be so lucky to wear the designer outfits ourselves and walk these same streets again with a sense of accomplishment, knowing that we’d finally made it. I knew we wouldn’t have this chance again anytime soon—, to be amongst the lively lifestream of so much happening at once—, so I decided to playfully make the most of our visit the best way I knew how.

“Watch this,” I said to her, getting down on one knee. “Will you...,” she didn’t let me finish. She quickly pulled me back up to eye-level and gave me a serious look.

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?,” I asked back, not having meant to make her upset.

“Don’t joke about those kind of things,” she answered in low tones. I then decided that the next time I’d ever do something like that, I’d have a ring waiting for her as well.

That night, we stayed inside the hotel room and looked out at the wonderful view of the staggering buildings all around. It took us into another world. Suddenly, the city seemed so romantic and bursting with possibility. We held hands, then kissed, then more. The next morning, there were still palm prints on the glass from the night before. We’d watched so many different types of people living out their lives in real time, while we were very much in the middle of living ours. The lights beyond all the windows opposite from our own turned on and off, illuminating the rooms with unique vibes. Lofts and apartments and suites of all kinds were scattered across the sky. There was a sense of excitement to everything happening below as well—, the people all walked in gracious movements to and from places, taxicabs and cars intermixed like streaks of paint on the same canvas, not too far off, the constant sound of sirens wailed themselves and everyone else within earshot awake.

“We should move here one day,” I mused aloud. Though she smiled, I’ll never really know what exactly crossed her mind. That afternoon, we were on the highway again, headed to our actual reality.

Back home. Back to our daily traditions in our old stomping grounds. It wasn’t that they were getting tiresome or that we were growing weary from the same routine. It was more that we were saying goodbye to a perfect summer. We knew we’d never have one quite like it again—, and once winter came around, we knew things would take on a different shape. We didn’t like it. It wasn’t our season.

We both started school again and little by little, ice soon covered most of the streets and sidewalks around the parking lots of our local college. Since we’d always been so full of such good ideas in the past, we decided to go skating in the snow late one afternoon. Though the steps up ahead seemed to be slightly frosted over, I thought it smart to try and clear the set anyway. I rolled up to the edge and jumped—, followed immediately by my slamming into the frozen concrete below. I didn’t realize I’d landed right on my wrist but instantly felt the throbbing pain shoot up my arm.

“I think I just broke my hand,” I said. We were in the car a minute later on our way to the hospital. She was searching her purse for something and finally pulled out her passport, removed the band keeping her hair in place, and put them together to form a makeshift brace for me until we’d get a real one put on.

“Here—,” she said, gently wrapping it around my wrist. “This’ll keep your hand straight.”

“Thanks—,” is all I could say, noticing her warmth and nurturing spirit which had always been some of her strongest qualities.

A few weeks after I’d gotten a neon pink cast placed around my arm and properly signed by all my loved ones, I found myself walking by the stationary section of a store one afternoon and couldn’t pass up buying a couple poster-boards for a project I’d been meaning to begin. Once home, I laid out dozens of pictures from our summer together and went to work. I cut and cropped and glued them all neatly around the canvas. In the middle was a shot of us kissing shaped into a heart. With black paint and a brush I wrote around it the best quote I could find: ‘That which we love, we come to resemble.’ The words would go on to stamp themselves not only on the violet-colored cardboard but our frontal lobes as well—, coming to life in more ways than we were truly ready for.

I arrived at her apartment later on that night and upon pulling out the homemade artwork, she grabbed onto its sides and intently stared at it for a long time without saying a thing, studying it. Then;

“This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever given me.” She taped it to her bedroom wall within a minute. We decided we should take advantage of the sweet energy surrounding us and have a two-person slumber party right there on the living-room floor. We laid out the mattress but as the hours ticked by, we became restless. There was nothing to drink, nothing to smoke, we settled on kissing instead and seeing where that would take us. I looked at her while she laid on her back and began keeping time with the rhythm of our two bodies together. There was no music, there was only her deep breathing matching mine. Nothing to distract us from the other, nothing stealing away our attention, everything was still—, except us. Something suddenly felt different. We were finally present—, finally alive—, finally sober. I noticed her eyes beginning to film over with a watery veil of emotion. Without even realizing it—, my own had started overflowing themselves and with a single teardrop, our two worlds merged through shared-DNA. We stayed silent for the rest of the night, never once breaking eye-contact. We fell asleep looking at each other and woke up hours later the exact same way.

Meanwhile, the stars in the sky seemed farther off than ever before. We shut the door and refused to leave the safety of her bedsheets. It was the warmth of the other’s presence—, the refuge of the other’s arms—, the calm before the storm. We’d started diving deeper and deeper into ourselves, making less and less contact with the outside world. We’d see the snow slowly falling past the bedroom window, we’d watch the sunrise pierce through the pulled blinds, but still—, we wouldn’t invite anything new into our mutual reality that didn’t relate to our immediate circumstances. Those four walls surrounding us became our closest friends. They saw everything and never said a word. We’d plastered band posters and pictures of each other all over their surfaces in hopes that we’d still feel in touch with a fleeting counter-culture. It was no use—, those things only held our attention for a short while before we’d dive right back into our shared mania. A million “I love you”s wasn’t enough. A thousand kisses and embraces and everything else that comes with a stronger love than one can handle still didn’t compare to the feelings we chased day and night. Euphoria—, plain and simple. There was no finish line to our race—, no end in sight. Something new eventually needed to take the place of yesterday’s rush. So it went, that we’d found a different type of intimacy. Beyond the locked door, beyond the bedsheets, and into each other’s eyes, we saw a new sort of sensuality. Her room became something close to heavenly, something close to hellish. It was in that room where our game of darkness began.