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jack-jupiter · 6 years ago

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WEAK BOUNDARIES pt1

theres always that one person that loves you so much that you'll never doubt yourself-- or your "lovability"-- ever again. my person came late, and it didnt last, but it changed me forever.

snap wasnt the most beautiful man in the world-- but he was cute. a mutual friend introduced us at brunch, and i thought he was funny, and decent, but i figured i would never see him again. socializing in the city was so transitory.

but i did see him again, that same day. i left brunch, ran some errands, and was craving something cheap and greasy, so i went to panda express. while devouring the thin and crispy chow mein noodles, i saw a cute lil bubble butt in line. i was staring, but maintaining my queer hyperviligance-- until i realized it was him. it was snap, wearing a tight jogging outfit, and it amused me. why go for a jog if youre just going to eat bad chinese afterwards? i was intrigued.

when he recognized me, he danced over and sat at my booth. he didnt look sweaty-- but who was i to judge? i mean, he was in better shape than i was, so he had more social capital in gay world; and he had soft skin, a professional beard, and liquid green eyes. the more i looked, the more i found things to like.

he was a therapist who worked at a middle school, and we made small talk about our mutual friends. he said i had a good effect on everyone in the group. my mere presence cooled the egos of the gays who tended to be more self-involved, he noticed. it was definitely shade, but i was humble and simply said thank you-- and i remained humble when he asked for my number. he was hard to read, but i was open to his friendship. he was funny, and decent.

later, i discovered he had a partner, who happened to be very handsome. a group of us went on the rooftop together to drink wine, and snap's partner had just returned from spain filled with stories, and we got along well. i noticed that as a couple, they werent intimidated by how i could cool and dazzle a crowd. they were both drawn to it.

it was always fun to run into them. one night, a group of us went dancing and we enjoyed being sloppy drunk messes together. snap cannot dance to save his life. he made awkward hip gyrations, leaned on one leg, and would thrust his arms out in long offbeat displays of emotionality. he was terrible, and dangerous to dance with, because you could easily lose an eye.

even when sober, he danced like a staggering drunk with no rthythm-- but i loved that about him. i loved seeing him express himself, because he truly looked free, and i admired that. it was his own interpretative dance, and eventually the three of us were slowly grinding together, to the gay classics. when they drove me home, i sensed "something" there, but i thought better of it and went home alone. i wasnt prepared to be that messy.

but then, the happy couple came to my spa, and invited me into their hot tub, while i was on the clock. they were both naked. i thanked them, but declined. id never had a threesome, and i was just beginning my queer sexual odyessy. i didnt want to experiment and get my sea legs with my friends. i felt there was too much to risk.

months went by, and eventually the happy couple broke up, just before christmas. they were together for a year. by now, our gay tribe was meeting once a week, and during our Monday Night Dinner, snap spilled the beans. he was distraught, because he had never been broken up with. not only was it devastating, but it was new, so we asked how we could support him. "just text and visit me more," he said. my heart bled for him.

so, i texted him, and visited him more. i even gave him a massage, and invited him out with us to dance or watch standup. i realized i didnt know that much about him, really. he was a secretive scorpio, despite his decent casual nature, and i enjoyed making him laugh, and letting him pour his stories into me. i was an unhealthy empath at the time, and it made me feel good to be a receptacle for his feelings, while also showing him a good time. i thought i was healing him! and so, snap grew very attached to me.

he invited me over to his apartment to see his shelves of comicbooks. we would play music and hold each other while he poured his soul into me, telling me about how he scared his partner away with his jealousy, and his insecurity. i should have seen the red flags early, but i was a trauma victim. i was traumatized from childhood to avoid prolonged human touch-- but snap made me feel so safe in his arms! it surprised me, and it was healing me. i felt like he could hold me all night, and i wouldnt try to escape. it clouded my judgment.

there were so many nights with snap: cuddling with him, spooning him, making him laugh, burying his face in my neck, wrapping our legs and touching feet, breathing, going to new thought churches, planning our new years eve, laying out ideas for a podcast, doing yoga, talking to Alexa, walking to the comicbook store holding hands, crying, talking about libido, making salty mario kart jokes, listening to his top 100 new year playlist, and just laying in bed, him playing with my necklace.

we made plans to drive to san mateo for new years, but while we were rolling around the bed, and i threatened to tickle him, he cried out in fear. it felt like i was struck with a cold lightning bolt! i jumped off of him! i was so sorry! but he said he was fine. he said he was only triggered, and he confessed that i had a lot of power over him. it was the night before new years eve, but i didnt sleep.

the next morning, we were organizing the trip, but he was dark and faraway. i wanted to talk about the night before, and the cry that haunted my thoughts, but he went completely silent. suddenly, i realized what i was doing. i was over-involving myself in snap's dramas, and abandoning my own boundaries. when snap finally spoke, he said that i was in a precarious situation, because snap was still sensitive because of his ex, and he didnt want to take it out on me.

why was i abandoning my friends on new years to be with someone i just met? why was i playing caretaker for snap when he needed to be alone, to process his breakup? i was out of order, so i tried to bail. perhaps i should be with my friends instead. "this is your pattern!" he shouted angrily. "why are you doing this?"

i dug deep.

"im afraid that youre just saying youre fine, but secretly youre still mad at me!" i confessed, starting to cry. "i feel like im being punished for making a mistake!"

next thing i knew, i was sobbing in his arms, and he was stroking my head, soothing me, while my diaphragm pushed hoarse cries into his chest. this wasnt normal or proportionate, and we never resolved the actual issue. instead, we were trauma bonding, and when i finished sobbing, i was filled with so many chemicals, and i was so relieved from expressing my childhood trauma, that i changed my mind and went to san mateo with him.

it was his coworkers new years party, and we ate sliders on hawaiian buns, drank wine, danced the cumbia, and bought a hotel to sleep together. we changed into pajamas, spooned, and in the dark, with my arms around him, snap said, "where have you been all my life?"

when we returned home, i didnt leave. i helped change his bedding, i coached him through his exercises, and he lipsync'd to his favorite songs while i gushed. snap was becoming important to me. whatever he believed, especially about me, affected me greatly. i wanted to be his favorite person in the whole world.

he asked to take me to capitola for another vacation, but my friends warned me that we should spend some time apart, and i sensed they were right, so i did. snap was disappointed, but he went with his friends without me-- until he called me from capitola, and said he was coming back early, to see me. his girlfriends said he talked about me the whole trip, and he offered to drive back, even pick me up some food, and take me to a party.

"i cant believe i miss you this much after just two days!" he laughed. i hugged him tightly. i was happy he missed me. i never wanted to be apart from him, and he felt the same way! he even offered to throw my 30th bday party!

meanwhile, he was showering me with gifts. "look in the bag," he said one night. he had purchased me $60 worth of allergy supplements, the ones i had always wanted! i jumped on top of him and kissed him all over his face.

"youve shown up for me in such a powerful way, and it means more than words can say," he said, holding me. "youre my favorite person."

it was like crack.

we were fully enmeshed.

snap wasnt healing from his past relationship, and i was letting him use me as a distraction. i wanted his energy! i wanted his attention! i didnt care! it was a fully functioning codependent relationship-- and soon, i would have to fight my way out of it.

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jack-jupiter · 7 years ago

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In the upcoming years, I scraped by living in the city, losing one job after another due to "attitude problems". City people don't have any manners. To them, manners are just a thin veil to spew socially-accepted abuse. But being in the service industry isn't an invitation for abuse, and manners exist to preserve dignity, the dignity of both parties-- and I made sure to remind them of that. A wealthy white woman from Marin County had advanced into my personal space, nose in the air, and demanded that I "fetch" her an extra pillow for her delicate ribs. I stood unwavering, penetrating her eyes with mine, and spoke one word:

"Please?"

The woman swelled up, red with rage, and she snatched her bags, proclaiming that she wouldn't be staying at our hotel any longer, and that she wanted the number of my manager. I was fired that afternoon. Apparently even my boss believed that the service industry meant abuse under capitalism. But it didn't matter. They were all fools. I didn't mind living on bread and oranges. I didn't mind, of course, because I had weed. I came home that day, threw my backpack on the massage table I slept on, and inhaled curls of vapor, filling the room with ribbons of smoke. Everything was okay... as long as I had weed.

Even though I should be saving money, I rolled over and ordered myself delivery. (A great part of smoking weed is that you make brilliant decisions like these.) But when my food arrived, there was no marinara sauce for my cheesy bread. Now, how the fuck was I going to enjoy cheesy bread without marinara sauce? But the delivery guy didn't leave a number, so I called the pizzeria: who proceeded to tell me that I couldn't get any sauce delivered. I would have to show up to the building. I gripped my phone murderously, and then threw it across the room, shattering it.

I changed my mind.

People in the service industry could suck my dick.

I stomped into the pizzeria and slammed the door behind me, wearing sunglasses and pajama bottoms. I must have looked like the quintessential angry black man but I really didn't give a fuck. These motherfuckers were gonna give me my pizza sauce and their only option was to comply. The lights were already flickering when I took my first steps. Slamming the door had shaken everyone inside into silence. You could hear a pin drop when I approached the counter. "Marinara," I seethed.

The man behind the register looked scared, and without taking his frightened eyes off me, he handed me the marinara packet from beneath the counter. His reaction should have vindicated my rage, but it wasn't enough. I had walked all this way, and my hands were still shaking. I had to make things fair-- and just when I was searching for an excuse, the man behind the counter gave me exactly what I wanted. "Marinara is $1.99," he chirped. My nostrils flared open, and my eyes widened like a bloodhound.

"Y'all made me walk," I hissed slowly, "so this pizza sauce is free."

There was a loud crash behind the register. Someone must have dropped something in the kitchen, and the timing of the crash made the man shake. "Yes, but--"

"Y'all made me walk!" I screamed.

The lights flickered again, and there was more crashing from the kitchen. The poor teller's chest was heaving now, and before I could stop myself I was over the counter, shoving hundreds of sauce packets into my pockets. "These are mine!" I bellowed, making the glass door of the Coke machine crack. A car alarm went off outside, and the horn rang and rang inside the building. "Now, fuck off."

I don't know why I told him to fuck off when I was the one leaving, but I stomped out the pizzeria and returned home, still livid. The skin on my arms was hot. I wanted to punch something. But instead, I took my cold cheesy bread up to my roof, and drowned them in my new bounty. I didn't know my anger could crack glass without touching it, but I was too angry to care. The cheesy bread was advertised to come with marinara sauce, so that bastard shouldn't have charged me shit. He deserved what he got. The city's sky was blue-violet, and all the buildings were brain-colored. I was still high, so it was kinda nice... and in that moment of vulnerability, the waves washed over me, and sank into my bones. I was lonely. None of my friends knew the real "me", about my shadow, or that I made lights flicker in restaurants, over dipping sauce. None of them could even sense my inner turmoil, because it was so cleverly masked. It was my fault that I couldn't connect, and the emotional isolation was leading me toward grey existential feelings. A pretender amongst my friends, a mystery to my intimate family-- why did I exist? Why is it that no matter how I try... I can't feel real? I lacked the support, or the bravery, to be my true self. I felt like a ghost, or a dream.

Through the grey feelings, amidst this despair, I cried and yearned for someone to connect with. I dreamed of someone perfect, who perfectly understood me, who would shelter me. I fantasized about a lover who would motivate me to be vulnerable, to whom I could reveal my shame -- the shame of feeling unreal -- and thusly transcend it. I returned to my room and closed the door, and my shadow looked back at me in the mirror, and spoke. “I want to play a love game,” he said. So that night, we parked a block away from the gay bar, and walked to the corner. I’ll admit, I stood on that corner for a while, leering at those dark doors hiding all those dancing colors. I was terrified to go inside.

I was still afraid of the advances of men, scared of their touch and their attention, which felt so unfamiliar. “Was it possible to connect, and remain that way?” I wondered. I was afraid of what I didn’t understand, and even more afraid of what those men would do, if they found out I was a virgin– a virgin in his late twenties. They could reject me, or even worse, accept me and allow me to fail in their arms. It felt better not to even try.

But as I stood on the corner, swaying with uncertainty, a pair of broad shoulders stood next to me, in a white t-shirt. He was fit. He looked foreign. He wore glasses. So… I smiled at him.

We crossed the street and I let him approach the bouncer first. When he bought his ticket, he lingered in the doorway, his back to all those dancing colors, watching me laugh and fish for my wallet. When I entered, he vanished, and my eyes scanned all the men at the bar. They all turned and looked at me, washed in colors, transmitting desire and desperacy, crying out for love games. I fled to the bathroom! It was so unfamiliar, all those eyes at once! They just felt like more people to let down. I felt impotent.

“It isn’t fair,” my shadow snarled in the mirror, gripping the sink violently. But I took a breath and kept my cool. “I can evade this emotion,” I thought. “I can dream.”

So I returned to the bar and ordered a vodka tonic, pretending not to see the men at the bar, sizing me up. After I paid, I was somehow able to glide to the dancefloor gracefully. There was a hoolahooper on stage with abs. It was a good show, but I wasn’t nearly drunk enough.

So I bought another drink, and on the way back to the stage, I saw him: the man with the shoulders and glasses. He was standing near the bathroom. When we made eye contact, it was like I was arrested where I stood, and he walked over. “I just wanted to tell you that you have the cutest smile,” he beamed. He had a foreign accent that I couldn’t decipher, but he was sincere. My shadow wanted to look at him with its eyes, with its intensity– but I was too nervous. So I just smiled, which thankfully made him smile more.

He told me his name was Hovo, so I introduced myself and asked what he was drinking. He said a long island, and asked what I was drinking. When I said a vodka tonic and offered him some, he politely declined. “I don’t like to mix,” he laughed.

“But you’re drinking a long island!” I snickered. This made Hovo laugh even more, which filled me with cool waves, and he began to dance underneath all those colors, forcing me nervously into the rhythm. I usually like a church gap between myself and my dancing partners, but those vodka tonics were allowing me to flirt with my limits, so I said “fuck it” when he put his arm over my shoulder. I grabbed his hips, further fulfilling the act, and when I could no longer resist, I let my eyes pierce into his, transmitting all of my intensity, but occasionally smiling. Hovo’s facial muscles relaxed, transmitting desire, hypnotized.

"Where are you from?" he asked me at the bar.

"Vallejo!" I shouted over the music. "Wanna go outside?"

"Yeah!"

We shuffled passed a billiard table and onto their deck, which was decorated with potted plants and ribbons of smoke, inviting one lonely shaft of moonlight. We sat beneath the moonbeam on two separate stools and I noticed something. Hovo reminded me of someone... and it made me smile.

"Do I remind you of someone?" he asked, reading my thoughts.

"What makes you ask that?" I sneered.

"I don't know. It's something that happens when people meet me," he said. "I end up becoming someone they remember."

"Uh huh," I teased. "Well... yeah... You do remind me of someone."

"Who do I remind you of?" he pressed.

"My first crush," I grinned.

"That's so cute!"

"I know! His name was Paul," I gushed.

"Tell me about Paul."

"Oh, c'mon--"

"Really! Please! I love this."

So I told him about Paul, about the museum and the toolboxes, and how he would pour his stories into me. I was sure this conversation was breaking some kind of gay flirting rule or something, but Hovo seemed genuinely interested for some reason, to the point where it seemed like he looked more and more like Paul as I talked. It must have been my imagination, but Hovo seemed to slowly resemble Paul's image over time, the nobility of the profile and the foxy waves of hair-- as if it were a glamour.

"Did it work out?" he asked.

"Nah. He got married... to a woman. They have a kid now."

"Damn. Yeah, that's straight men. We always end up falling for them when we're young."

"True. It's a rite of passage."

"But it's alright as long as you have help, right?"

"Well... I don't know," I mused. "I didn't really have anybody."

"Really?"

"Nope... but I didn't really tell anybody, either."

"Thought it wouldn't make a difference?"

"Bingo!" I winked with finger guns.

He laughed and smiled at me. It was so sincere and warm. Beneath the moonlight, it was unnerving how much Hovo looked like Paul now. He was almost a perfect double of my maintenance man with the solid waist, and I think Hovo could sense this by the way he looked at me. He looked like an angel of mercy.

"If it had worked out... what would you do?"

It was like Paul had replaced Hovo on the stool, and was asking himself, surrounded by the ribbons of smoke. It was hard not to stare at him. Paul was such a handsome man.

"I don't know. I try not to think about it."

"You didn't expect it to ever work, huh?"

This remark struck me in the chest.

"No..."

Paul --I mean, Hovo-- looked up into the shaft of moonlight.

"We always act... based on our expectations."

I was lost in how the light hit his gorgeous profile.

My eyes softened and accepted the glamour.

It was worth seeing him again.

"If it had worked out," I spoke. "The next time he kissed me, I would kiss him back..."

Hovo's eyebrow flickered.

"And what if I could grant your wish? Tonight?"

I put my hands beneath his shirt, gliding up his torso to feel his muscles, his ribs. My hands roamed and we made out hungrily. He buried his face in my neck, and I even grabbed his face and kissed his nose.

“You’re driving me crazy.”

Good, I thought. I wasn’t so terrible at this.

“Come home with me.”

I hesitated.

“I’m nervous.”

“Why?” he breathed.

I whispered in his ear.

“I’m a virgin.”

He looked at me, smiling.

“There’s something about you…”

We kept groping. We kept kissing. Eventually, he was on my lap.

“Come home with me,” he repeated.

My head was swimming at this point, swirling with sweat and saliva and ribbons of smoke. I said yes without words, so he took my hand, and led me out the door, into the city's darkness. Eventually, we were pressing our bodies together, on top of his mattress.

"Talk to me," he whispered. "Talk to me like I'm Paul."

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jack-jupiter · 7 years ago

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I was twenty, the first time I hurt someone. I was coming out of the mall, clutching a bag of comicbooks, when I heard my least favorite word thrown at me, like a knive in my back. “Psh. Fruitcake.” I stopped on the sidewalk, but I didn’t dare turn around. I hate using the word “thug”. As a black man, it hurts my spirit. The word crawls, mettallic, over my skin. It gives me goosebumps. But that’s what they were. Not quite “fresh” from high school, but not yet seasoned in life. Twenty year olds, like me, but they wore the clothes of the social elite, the watchdogs of performative masculinity. They noticed that I had froze. And just when I was about to continue on and cross, the same voice cackled. “Nigga, I bet when you shit, fruit loops come out!” My ears began to ring. I became hot. In my homosexual hyperviligance, I tuned into my surroundings. There were two families sitting at nearby tables, watching, not intervening. And why would they? Again, I froze. I was crushing the binding to my new purchases. Anger feels like sleeper pods that were planted throughout your body, suddenly all coming alive, at once. I was losing control of myself. So what did I do? I disassociated. I hovered over my body, feeling nothing, dreaming, and in that dream-like haze, I watched my body turn around.... "What?” he shouted. I don’t remember how I got on top of him. In my astral state, it took me a while to register what was truly going on. But I was breaking his jaw open with the edge of fist, until finally it shattered into three pieces. I don’t know if it was shock that kept his friend at bay, but when my body had finished mashing his disfigured face into spittle, I kept his head forced on the cement with my wet hand and went to town on his ribs -- pounding, pounding, pounding -- waiting for something to break beneath me, to shatter, when the security guard pulled me off. That’s when I learned about the three pieces. He would have to get his jaw wired back together, just like my aunt had. The security guard was talking and I was compliant, but I was still dreaming, wondering if this made me as bad as my uncle, because the feeling of bones breaking beneath my knuckles felt too good. It was too satisfying. I had never harmed someone like that in my life. I was the nice child. The responsible child. The artist. My dad paid whatever was on the guard’s slip, and eerily, he seemed happy about it, like I had finally made a man out of myself. My whole childhood, I wasn’t allowed to cry. I couldn’t sing Whitney Houston songs without changing the pronouns. And when I came out, he tried to buy me a sex worker, to prove it was “just a phase”. (I was still a teenager.) So when even that proved futile, he resigned himself to the same sentence, the only damn sentence he would say if my homosexuality came up: “If you were really gay, you wouldn’t need my approval....” Just like that, I was crucified, and now here he was, jolly that I’d broken some kid’s jaw in three pieces. My father wasn’t a stranger to domestic abuse, just like my uncle. He’d struck my stepmother while she was still pregnant, and it wasn’t really that long ago. It made washing the blood off my knuckles feel weird, like I had joined some ancestral mass karma; but I quickly withdrew back to my apartment, back to dreaming. But then, a few years later, someone turned their back on me. I turned them around, forcing them to face me, then after a breath, I punched them in the mouth. I found out that though I had resigned myself to feeling unreal, my violent alter-ego deeply resented being ignored. I didn’t dislodge any teeth, to my comfort and dismay, but I was satisfied. They knew never to ignore me again. I was a rational person. It’s not like I go around pummeling strangers for nothing. I was just making things fair. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I knew I had a problem. I was uncovering all my childhood trauma, and truly unearthing how deeply my childhood emotional neglect had affected my life. I had never had sex with a man. I could count how many men I’d kissed on one hand. I had slept through my own urges, because I didn’t trust anyone with my body. I found myself fantasizing about Paul, wishing to return to simpler times where my sexuality wasn’t so confusing. But the older I got, the more complex I discovered my psyche was. And what was worse, I was getting triggered everywhere I went. I was triggered when people ignored me. I was triggered when men tried to touch me. I was triggered by police brutality. I was triggered by homophobia. I was triggered by any racial discussions, and it was frightening how much rage ebbed beneath my disassociative reflex. When words would crawl over my skin, I could feel my alter-ego being aroused, waiting. So I created a room inside my mind, locked him inside, and became a “nice person” again. I nurtured my relationships, ignored my impulses, and steadied rocked boats like my life depended on it. I had grown wise among my peers for my self-control, but the more I ignored the anger writhing in that room, the more I lost my sense of self. I didn’t know that our anger provided clarity to definitively set boundaries, or that anger gave one agency to make changes in one’s life. I was too frightened to release my alter-ego. I feared what my new family of friends would think. It felt more righteous to suppress such raw, unpleasant emotions in favor of harmonizing the social equilibrium. But it did not help. The rage found its escape from behind my eyes. My gaze became hypnotic and arresting. “It’s like you’re looking into my soul,” they would say. But what I was looking for, were threats. I was projecting the very intensity that I was trying to mask. But if I wasn’t hypervigilant, someone might rouse the other me. So I pre-emptively scanned and scrutinized everyone in my aura, to protect them -- and myself -- from my own other self. When taking over my eyes didn’t work, I started getting tremors and digestive problems. It was as if there was a force inside, thrashing to get out, and sometimes I would forget the cause and wonder why. I tried to fix it with vitamins and exercise. I would soak in epsom salt tanks and get massages. But no matter what I did, everyone would still ask, “Why so tense? You’re usually so laidback.” And that was the secret to my laidback effervescence: it was devoid of polarity. My personality was a half-truth. But even with my alter-ego locked up in my body, there were still coincidences. The co-worker who took my parking spot would suddenly become ill. The restaurant with the racist waitress was forced to close down. Once, while a friend and I were walking toward a supermarket, in the dark, my shoulder collided with someone leaving. “Watch where yer goin’!” he shouted as he continued toward the parking lot. I took a deep breath and kept walking, and before my friend could make a snide comment, the man behind me had doubled over. He was vomiting. My friends began to catch on that bad things happen to people who mess with me, and honestly, I liked the rush. My shadow was protecting me, even within the confines of my mental prison. I had developed a spunky but righteously passive persona, so it gave me a newfound feeling of dignity. Until, I had an argument with my uncle, about Trump, on the internet. I let myself get upset but concluded that I should just block him. What should I expect from my white uncle? When I saw him next, I righteously apologized, but then we argued again, about the US colonizing Mexican land. I decided I just can’t talk about politics with my uncle. It would just end badly. Next time I saw him, I’d just tailor the conversation away from any landmines. But... I never saw him again. He died of a heart attack. To this day, I don’t believe I killed my uncle, but the thought frightened me beneath my bones. I wasn’t close to my uncle, but I still had regrets about our last encounter. I wished that things were different. It wasn’t until my grandma died that I really became afraid. I used to be my grandmother’s favorite, but I had put some distance between us. I was upset as an adult by how abusive and one-sided our relationship was. So I moved to Oakland and rarely visited. When she called for Thanksgiving, I didn’t call her back. I had gone to the woods, alone. Holidays brought up a lot of trauma for me, so I thought I was practicing self-care by putting myself first.... But Grandma ended up in the hospital, and later died that Christmas. I never got a chance to apologize. She was in a coma throughout her stay at the hospital. After her death, my tremors got worse. My panic attacks became more frequent, forcing me to find private corners to cry in. With my new awareness around mortality, I thought my body was failing me. I thought I was going to die. In a panic, I’d jog around my block, just to make sure my heart kept pumping. I could feel something thrashing inside of me but I’d forgotten what it was. I thought I was alone. So when I turned my jog into a brisk walk, I looked up at the sky, and I cursed God. I demanded answers. While I was walking in the city’s darkness, cursing under my breath, people would walk behind me, friends laughing and making jokes, interrupting my concentration. “Would y’all shut up,” I hissed silently. Then I heard a loud smack, and the rustling of cardboard. They had dropped their box of donuts all over the sidewalk. I kept walking. “So I’m not allowed to get angry, huh?” I seethed toward the night’s sky. “I’m just not allowed to feel anything?” Suddenly, a car’s tire bursted on the other side of the road. The pop echoed through the street like a gunshot. I flinched, then clenched my fists. It was unfair. What kind of life was this, if I’m not allowed to feel anything? I returned to my car, and I broke the handle... Now, I’d had enough. I stormed back down the street, re-entering the night. I was going to get answers. I shouted at the sky angrily. “And tell me in a way that I can understand!” I demanded. “Why is my life so terrible?” What happened next, I can’t really explain. It happened so fast, and there was no threshold for the event, just the clear blue streak of recognition. In that moment, I saw myself. The other me.... I was angry. But I was beautiful. And in that moment, for the first time in years, I felt whole. The door to the room must have come open, for within my psyche, I was confronted with the truth of who I was; and though it was wild, it was also comforting. His eyes were direct and piercing, just like mine. I knew that if I stared too long, I would be hypnotized, that eventually I would be able to see into his world, a world of vengeance and magic. Within him was held all the agency that I had denied for myself. Within him, within me, between us, was true power. In that moment, I felt real; and I realized that by denying my anger, I had not only lost myself, but I had hidden the wounds in my heart from my loved ones, and from all the men who had tried to love me. I was scared to show this new side of myself to people. I was so laidback, wise, and charming to be around. Integrating my shadow side would make me more decisive, more dominate, more mysterious and difficult to read. It meant I wouldn’t be putting up with half the bullshit I dealt with now. Ultimately, my shadow was unsettling. He disrupted all the harmony of the social membrane, and he rocked the boats that I was always so desperately trying to settle. It meant saying what I really felt, doing what I truly wanted to do, and ignoring the rest. It meant committing to myself and the continuity of my story. It meant remaining real. And beyond that, there were secrets, secrets that my shadow side knew, about the world, about people, and about magic. Do I dare? So I began to work with my shadow, but in solitude. The two of us together discussed current events, made art, and deeply harnessed the powers of the occult. As we became one, all my symptoms of illness went away, though the coincidences continued for anyone who crossed me. I felt dangerous, but oddly more whole. In truth, I had always been dangerous. The danger had just been locked in a room. Over time, I was taught how to contact and make peace with my grandma, and with my uncle. I could finally feel a semblance of peace. I hadn’t revealed my shadow to any of my friends, and definitely not to my family, but I was doing my best, and my shadow understood. Some traumas were healed. Some triggers simply went away. But I was still stuck within certain patterns that I couldn’t escape. I hadn’t hurt anyone, but I wasn’t living the life that I wanted. The dire economic realities of this world were really starting to affect me. I knew that I couldn’t reach my full potential without some kind of stability. And there was the issue of romance. I was nearly thirty, and even without some of the blockages I had cleared, love and sex still seemed elusive. I knew I wouldn’t be able to forge much farther alone. I was going to need a teacher.

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jack-jupiter · 7 years ago

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As a gay man, there are so many parts of my life that were unwitnessed, and thusly feel unreal. When no one touches a memory, it starts to become a dream, it scatters and it fogs. The context that was meant to assemble the memory and hold it together just isn’t there, missing, just like the love and support that wasn’t there. When I was a child, I felt unreal. I would wander passed mirrors and “remember” what I even looked like. I didn’t know I was suffering from chronic emotional neglect, but I did feel like one of those dreams. Scattered. Hazy. Without context. But, I remember the first man that made me feel real. He wasn’t the first man to give me a rainbow, but he was the first person that made me feel like one, like I was full of colors, and that my body housed something remarkable... and lovable. I was seventeen years old, and for my senior project I had decided to volunteer at my local naval museum. I thought since the naval museum was close, I could create something simple, get a good grade, and wipe my hands clean of the whole affair -- clearly underestimating how utterly boring naval history is. (I would later switch subjects.) But on lightning-bolt impulse, I strolled to the museum and volunteered. The elderly caretakers were happy to put me to use and benefit from my youthful energy, so they sent me to work with the maintenance man, whom I’d be working under for the duration to get my hours. I imagined he’d be similar to the other caretakers: old, crotchety, exploitable -- but I was wrong. I confess, I don’t remember any of the museum’s exhibits, any of the displays beneath glass, the floors of naval history memorabilia, and I barely remember the grand ballroom and their labyrinthine kitchens. But I remember the ramp to the maintenance room, and the man waiting inside. Paul was twenty-five years old, six foot tall, and he had instantly made up his mind about me. I was a young layabout with sawdust between my ears, but he treated me with a dignified manner, like how aristocracy treats an underling. Paul was arrogant, and he got great globs of validation for being the young handsome handyman around the museum, so he was quite formidable. You could tell by the way he walked. His walk was dignified, but also hunched forward a little. He was worshiped by the other caretakers, but Paul was eager to continually prove himself, was deathly afraid of failure, and was constantly seeking to renew his honorary title as maintenance monarch. He was very prideful, and I wanted nothing more than to burst his bubble, to topple his composure, and to expose him for what he was. It was very aggressive-- but it was aggression born from infatuation. When he would drag me into the attic, and bend over to fix frayed wires, I would inspect him very... very closely. I found him to be the pinnacle of physical perfection. I loved his foxy waves of brown hair, the regal shape of his profile -- as if he belonged on a coin -- and his solid manly build; but rather than show the smallest sliver of admiration for the man, I created power struggles. To be fair, he was no better. He was cutting and sarcastic. He would continually condescend. He always seemed exasperated to see me, but would bore me with his tales of accomplishment and heroism: like rebuilding bits of the roofing himself, building chairs from scratch, singlehandedly protecting the museum from the ominous “council”, and being the building’s best cook. But I continually challenged him to battles of wit. I bombarded him with riddles. I would charm him but go cold to lead him astray. When I was hungry, he would grumble and go into the kitchens to cook for me, but I always withdrew the praise he wanted, even when the food was immaculate. And it was working. Whenever I appeared into the museum after school, I would drop my bookbag and find him waiting in the maintenance room with nicer and nicer clothes, with grander and grander stories. By now he had come to respect my intelligence, so our verbal sparring matches got sharper and sharper. He was stubborn and I was willful. I would withhold and he would try even harder, until finally one day he proved a point by showing me one of his books, and then yet another. I would show up to volunteer and he’d be waiting with books for me to read. (I never read them-- at first.) He was a graduate student, a History major, so he wasn’t just filled with his own stories, he was literally filled with stories. When I eventually showed interest I noticed something had turned in him. My approval was giving him a sense of pride. I began to anticipate driving to the museum. Paul would be waiting with music for me to hear, wild experiments he wanted to show me, projects he was working on. He became warmer. He started cooking for me without being asked. I even began to thank him. He would confide in me the woes of graduate school. He would pine about the pressure. I would support him. Eventually he held me in high esteem. We would wander the museum as a pair, fixing light bulbs, moving heavy furniture, and all the while he would pour his stories into me, with which I would respond with curiosity and wit. “I would try to tell the others, but none of them are as smart as you,” he would casually say. I confess, it made my heart swell whenever he complimented me. Eventually I came to know his secret world. Paul taught me about mental illness. He was struggling with mood disorders and he would show me the cocktail of pills he would take a day, telling me how they altered his moods, or sometimes made them worse. For the first time I felt powerless, and I learned about the power of restraint. I let him know I cared about him, that I wanted him to be happy... and he was glad. To my delight, he began bringing over scifi books, his real treasures, and tell me tales of futuristic military heroes fighting for their lives in compounds full of mutant badgers. I loved seeing this side of him, so I drew Paul in the futuristic military gear, fighting off the mutant badgers of his books with torrents of lasers. He hung it on his wall. Everyone in the museum knew that I loved him. All the caretakers knew that we were inseparable, that we couldn’t wait to see each other. But what he felt? I did not know, and I truly didn’t care. I was so starved of love that I was content with what I had: a close platonic friendship; until the first day he told me he found men attractive. “I mean, I’ve never dated one,” he told me, “but why can’t one man find another man attractive?” I didn’t skip a beat and said something witty in agreement, a perfect balance of affirmation and teasing, but on the inside, birds were flying around in my stomach. Would I finally be able to caress that solid waist of his? Was I being granted permission to take his hand in mine? To stare into his eyes for a second longer than men were allowed? That second that would telepathically transmit all of my repressed longing? Was this an invitation? And sometimes, that invitation felt real. But he was much too dignified, and I was also too proud to let him see that he had any power over me. A part of me felt like he didn’t deserve that power, and another part of me wanted to surrender and believe in him. I wanted to believe that he would treat me gently. I wanted to believe that I could dance in his arms. That I wouldn’t have to choose between loving myself and connecting with him, like so many people had made me choose. I wanted to believe that he was safe, that he would put me above his pride. But when I admitted that I was gay, he spoke about me as if I wasn’t like him, as if I was an entirely different creature. Why couldn’t we be kin? Why didn’t this bring us closer together? Why didn’t this coil golden wreaths around our bond? He didn’t reject me or anything... but it wasn’t enough. I was hurt but I wouldn’t admit it, externally or internally. I made it unreal and carried on with our relationship. I started dreaming. In the end, I gave up on the dry monotony of naval history, and did my senior project on nudity and censorship in museums. Paul helped me select and print large scale neoclassical paintings, and I was bittersweetly pleased. I got an A on the assignment, even though I cheated in several ways, but even after the project was over, I still would wander over to the museum. I’d enter the double doors, smile at the caretakers, and they’d tell me Paul was in the back. When he saw me, he’d smile, and I’d follow him around the building, taking down chairs or playing with circuit boards. He was so warm, so beautiful, so smart and playful, in his own dignified way. I loved him so much, and I continued to love him through the years, even though I visited infrequently. Soon it was weeks between visits, and then months, until finally a whole year had gone by since I had seen Paul. I had tried my own romantic excursions, but they all proved to be failures, and one day, when I was searching for some sense of warmth and familiarity, I walked back up the ramp to the maintenance room. Paul was waiting, and when he saw me he smiled. He was still handsome. He was still warm. He was still proud. And he still had my picture above the toolboxes. And... he was getting married. I masked how far my stomach sank through my shoes, and I asked witty and insightful questions about her. She seemed nice. But when it was quiet, I could tell he was looking at me with regret. I could have been imagining it. Perhaps I was lovesick and throwing rosewood over an unvarnished picture. But he looked... sad... and he asked if I wanted to hang out, at his place. I said yes. We went grocery shopping together, and when we got to his apartment he cooked us dinner. We came out the closet to each other in a different way. We admitted to each other that we both practiced magic. It made me love him even more to see him condescend and lord over me with his stories, his attempts to establish himself as the most powerful and resourceful of the two of us. I mean, he was probably right. And then, he pulled out the Jameson, and the night blurred. I remember spending a lot of time on his balcony, feeling the cool breeze over my constricted blood vessels, while he poured his stories into me, just like the old days. I was less willful this time around. I had learned to really listen, and I’d learned to respond with something more than precocity and wit. I had learned how to respond with empathy. Paul was afraid to get married, and I comforted him. I listened to his stories and let him pour into me because I loved him. And then, when I had allayed his doubts, he calmed down and just... looked at me. And as I counted the seconds, Paul stared for a second longer, that powerful second longer, and I knew the secret of his longing. When he drew close to me, it was the most frightened and boyish that I’d ever seen him. He was floating closer to me even though he was frightened, and he softly, so very softly, kissed my lips. Both our lips were chapped from all the liquor, but it was still so soft. I wish I could say that I felt wonderful-- and I will admit, that kiss was wonderful-- but to be honest, I was trembling inside. I was trying to escape. And it wasn’t because he was engaged, or because I didn’t believe the sincerity of his kiss. It was because no one had kissed me in a way that made me feel real. I had been woken from the denial of my own self. I was a living being, worthy of a kiss from Paul, the man I had loved since I was seventeen. But I escaped. I was overwhelmed by his attention. I was too acclimatized to neglect. So when he withdrew and looked at me, I just smiled at him, and nothing more. We continued talking like nothing had happened, but the regret had returned to his eyes. So we drank more, and then yet more. I have never been more drunk than that night, to this day. Paul passed out on the floor in the hallway, but I’d fallen asleep on the couch, forehead pounding, vision spinning-- and then his fiance came home. She woke Paul up and nursed us to health, and even let me sleep over... but I knew she knew. Back at the museum, Paul had asked for my address to send me an invitation to the wedding. We were coordinating. But after that night, I never got my invitation. I was never invited to the wedding. And maybe that was for the best. She deserved better than that. And I, too, deserved to have my heart break silently, in the comfort of my own home, without vows and rice, and feigned celebration. But I never truly let my heart break. What I did was dream, because there was no one there for me, to witness me. And without that love and support, without mature eyes to mirror and validate my hurt and shame... and joy... those events, those memories, like so many years of my life, became unreal, and faded into dreams. The memories were forgotten by the mind, and stored in the body, along with every other man who ever tried to make me real.

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