every laugh of hers punctuates the air in a warm sting

every laugh of hers punctuates the air in a warm sting. in theory, if i keep making her laugh then this fireworks display will never end, right?

this is a huge problem for me: i’m not naturally funny. but i’m wracking my brain to come up with something, anything, so she’ll keep on laughing.

A Meditation on Time Travel

Can I tell you a not-so-secret-secret? I float between worlds — and years, too. 

The years ‘bit’ is a recent revelation. I’ve become a past-tense psychic. Last Friday, when I stepped outside my building, it was the summer of 2015. The morning was crisp, vulnerably bright but cautiously on edge. It didn’t know what could happen but it had that innate optimism working in overdrive to try to make something good happen. That was me in 2015: full of fervor, and unshakeable, overwhelming hunger, but endlessly guarded. I had safety locks in places that, back then, even I didn’t know about. 

The moment I stepped outside, I was washed in a full-body familiarity; it was as if I had stepped through a portal and ended up inside my 19-year-old body again. But how had I managed to truncate eight years of my life into a morsel of time? How had I managed to even go back? Was anyone else seeing this? More importantly, was anyone else feeling this? And why the summer of 2015? What was so special about being 19 years old again? 

The summer of 2015 was divided into two distinct color schemes: 1, a gradient of hazy purples and pinks, and 2, a series of black-and-white photographs. There’s a cloudy layer covering all the events and feelings of that summer, keeping them from erupting and overflowing on everyone. But not well. There was always leakage, always an overshare, always a too-muchness that I couldn’t cover up. 

I always oscillated between being too much and not enough. Balance was a foreign concept, the same way allowing and receiving love was. A single kind word was an instant K.O. I craved love so desperately, yet any time I got close to it, I backed away, tripping over my own feet. Bring me love! But then keep it very far away from me! I know it doesn’t make sense, but neither do I!

I was deeply excitable and easily upset-able; I was rough around all my edges, and soft in all the places the world laughs at. I was constantly teetering on opposite ends of all spectrums but never finding the center that I so desperately craved. Everything was never-ending-ly spilling out of me and I tried doing everything to contain it, but I could never get it right. I was always too much, a little off, kind of wrong, not right, weird. 

Then it happened again today: I went for a walk on the boardwalk and it was the summer of 2016. I looked around, stupefied. Why the summer of 2016? What had become so special about being 20 again? I was dressed for the winter, three layers of pants, a polka-dot scarf wrapped around my neck thrice, but suddenly it was that summer — that beautifully, vibrant summer whose memories are still coated yellow and pink inside my body — and I was wearing a tank top and shorts, with my hair pulled back into a ponytail, inside of a body that loved to run on nothing.

I stood on the boardwalk, but my body had a different texture to it. A different set of colors, a different set of shapes, a different set of energetic identities that comprised it. I was 20 again but way too overqualified to be 20. 

Whenever summers visit me, like a lingering outline, I become tempted to shed my clothes and run into the sky. I wanted to do that today. At the end of the boardwalk, I imagined that the sky’s mouth would open up, its gummy, reddish-pink tongue would unravel like a fruit roll-up for me to step onto, and then it would swallow me up and away. I always want to let go of this corporeal form. It weighs me down sometimes (I’m sorry). 

That’s why I wish someone else could visit my body, pace my hallways, run across my walls, float through my floors, sit on my chairs, sleep in my beds, dance barefooted on my living room carpet, put on my makeup, wear my clothes, and walk around as if they were me. I want someone else to see inside of me and then tell me what they see. What’s it like to be me for a day? Is my body dark and cavernous, a single floorboard wide, a floorboard that’s creaky and rotted? Or is it an endless maze and the exit moves as soon as you get too close to it? Am I all the colors that could possibly exist, undulating in and out of one another? If you answer yes to any of the above, would you still want to be me after a minute or would that be too much for you?

I’m still embarrassed to write about my sensitivity, my ability to feel spectrums of emotions I haven’t seen people put into words yet, because with it comes this undercurrent of ‘too muchness’. I have always been too much, an odd little big thing. There’s so much that I write that is embellished, worded delicately, worded beautifully, because the truth isn’t beautiful. It’s harsh, sharp, pungent, painful. How do you write about being almost murdered without evoking concern? How do you write about a decade of eating disorders without inspiring pity? How do you write about the tragedies of your life in a way that doesn’t change how people see you? Because I just changed how you saw me. I do it with every single sentence.

I used to wonder if tragedy was the best part of me. That’s why I spent most of my time writing about it. How easy it was — and still is — to swim into the pain and drown myself in it over and over just to create something bigger and far more beautiful than I could ever be. I realize now that I was really writing so I could listen to myself. Everything I have ever written, and will ever write, is a love letter to myself, first and foremost. 

It was 2016 today. And it was 2015 last week. And I don’t think I’ll ever be one thing. And I don’t think I’ll never not be too much. And I don’t think I’ll ever stop never-ending-ly spilling out, falling apart to come back together again. I think I am simply endless

boardwalk

my feet haven’t hit these wooden floorboards in years, over half a decade since i’d wake up at the crack of down and run along this quiet, crooked crescent at the edge of brooklyn hoping to find answers to questions i was too afraid to ask.

i went eleven miles once and i would’ve kept going — but i had to teach myself limits. i drowned myself in sweat that morning and then i went home and i fell asleep.

i miss it. i miss my body pulling me that way, pulling me in a way that felt like it was towards something good. i miss pushing my body, pushing my body in a way that made me feel unstoppable, unbreakable, untouchable. i find that these days i’m swallowing my body down into a never-ending pit of nothingness, hoping to find those answers that i’ve been chasing down for years, but all i am able to find is just how stoppable i am, just how breakable and fragile this chosen body of mine really is. no broken bones and yet i feel as if every inch of my body, in a phantom-like way, is incorrectly placed and shaped and broken. the more of me that enters the pit, the less of me i have left.

in moments of optimism, slivers of that old, young version of me will appear like a saving grace. she’s still around, but who am i now now that i’ve gotten to know over a thirty dozen me’s since i was her? have you ever met some fifty versions of yourself and none of you could agree on an answer to the same question? do you know what it’s like to wake up every morning a different version of yourself and you can’t go back to who you used to be — she’s gone — but that doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten her, and it doesn’t mean that you know who you’re becoming either, so you’re stuck in no man’s land, hoping, praying that what comes next is better than before — and that the answers will appear one day, seemingly out of thin air, without you even having to ask the questions?

back then, the sun silently crackled in the pale blue sky. it warmed my skin in a soft embrace, a golden halo covering my body like an outline, like a safeguard. even with all the chaos inside of me, the outside world was peaceful, quiet, beginning — a chance to start anew.

and i feel like that possibility is still here but it’s been tainted by years of failures that have felt like consecutive death sentences.

some days i have some answers, other days i don’t have any and i don’t know if i’m asking the right questions. i do know that i still want to run. that urge has never quite left.

vengeance.

a mumbled frenzy continues to grow in the underbelly of this city. these scattered brains and empty eyes of hollow bodies too young to die have never had a say in their destiny. their misfortune was fated from the start.

the days are a withering flame, bodies never in a standstill, the shuffling of feet on the street swept away until it’s a faraway echo ready to be squashed by the creeping sunset.

the nights are a balloon frozen in mid-explosion — and there’s always a hungry fist waiting around to crush it. the fist is patient, willing to bide its time, willing to dance its fingers across the fractured crystals starting to disperse outwards. but it is careful when doing so, lest it allows the sharp icicles to pierce its flesh.

“no, not yet,” the fist says. “not now.”

this fist is calculating; the fist is playing a chess game against everyone, and everyone doesn’t know it yet — and they won’t know until the almighty chill hits them. but by then, it’ll be too late.

this city is never at peace, hardly a moment goes by without some sense of unease. the people are on edge. the people are waiting for something else to fall apart the way it always does.

i move in the dark, below the rays of the moon. i watch dreams collapse on the sidewalks, only for nightmares to emerge out of the sewers with a sinister howl. i am as tied to this city as my soul is tied to this body of mine.

i clean the mess. it is my duty. no one needs to know why i do it, or that it’s me who’s doing it. all they need to know is that someone is doing it. some one.

i stuff the nightmares into my pockets, in between my fingers, under my nails, up my nostrils, below my tongue, behind my ears, anywhere that i can, anywhere that isn’t out there. out there these nightmares can stroke panic; in me, they can only deepen the abyss. and from the abyss, my vengeance grows.

the nightmares are relentless, but they’re single-minded. with enough time, i barely notice them anyway. this city needs a shred of hope. maybe i can be the one, some one, to bring it back.

Summer Came Early This Year

Summer came early this year, and with it, a few old familiar stories. I wonder if these stories are asking me to revisit them so I can do them right this time, or if they’re a subtle reminder of what not to do the second time around. I think this is that first coming-of-age story we all have as late teens, the one that was meant to happen several years ago, but in true ‘me’ spirit, it’s decided to happen now. I’m trying hard to be optimistic, but in the quiet moments, I remember I do not have a handbook for what comes next. There is no safety net, and the parachute I was convinced I had was ripped off my body before I got pushed off the plane. Thankfully, the free fall is slow and the views are nice, but at the end of all of this is the hot ground. Unless I somehow manage to pull a rabbit out of my ass, there’s only one way this story ends. But I’m still hoping for that rabbit, I’m still clinging to the belief that magic is real and that hope is stronger than fear, because magic and hope are what have gotten me this far. And this, I hope, won’t be any different. 

It’s a bit funny. Absurd, really. Over the last few weeks, I’ve watched my life happen to me like a viewer in my own body and not the actual inhabitant. Things are happening to me and all I can do is either cry or laugh and then say “This makes sense. Of course, this is happening. As expected. Carry on.” At some point, I do need to take control again, but what if I never do? Could I allow myself to float like a lily pad through life? Probably not. I need a death-grip vice on everything; control is in my hierarchy of needs. So, okay then, tough guy, what comes next?

I’m so used to doing what I think I’m supposed to do that I don’t know how to do what I want to do. I also don’t even know what it is that I want to do. Anytime I’ve tried to rebel, I’ve been just as quick to push myself back in line. Keep your head down, don’t say much. Any admission of anything is messy. Years of self-sacrificing have left me with a ghost. 

I’m at multiple crossroads for everything in my life — and yes I do I want to throw caution to the wind and let loose, but the pragmatic chainlink fences that my dad and I built are rattling, howling, demanding that I stay within the plot and commit to being the best me that I’m supposed to be. But I want none of it, or at least not all of it. And this, I think, is that spark plug moment. Or, it might end up being my pie-in-the-face-can-you-believe-she-did-that? moment but I’m really hoping it’s more of the former. 

It’s obvious that I’m scared, right? Yeah. Just a little bit. It’s funny, it is funny. I know I’ll get through this; I just wish I knew what this is. I wish I had a vague outline of what the future would look like even if the one I had been moving towards this whole time was not what I wanted either. It’s funny, it really is. Laugh with me, it’ll make me feel better. Even when everything is falling apart, I know it’s my own doing. I’m forcing my own hand. I’m the dealer and the player. This is what you wanted, is it not? It is. Forever the villain and the hero. Forever wanting to write the last chapter before I’ve even started the first. 

Would it be so bad if I don’t pull that rabbit out? If I free-fall with no help? Am I not allowed to jump over the fence? It’s not even about the grass being greener over there. It’s not about jealousy or wanting more but about recognizing that deep down I’ve been a ghost trapped in a shell while my soul’s been circling the fence waiting for me to recognize that she left a long time ago. 

A car blares its horn and I push my body back into the present. The streets and roads around Prospect Park are light in traffic this afternoon, probably because most people are at work. Most people are busy. I am not anymore. I am free, I guess. 

My skin is trapped below the early summer heat, beads of sweat pooling at the nape of my neck and in the valleys behind my collarbones; once they’re ready, the sweat beads will swim down my chest and spine to form wet splotches in my clothes. I could walk slower, that would help, but I have no one to see, nowhere to be. I’m in a race against myself and I am breathless.

December Blues and Crescent Moons

December blues began to pour into our conversations, leaving us hungover for days on end. we slept through the mornings and well into the afternoons on an unmade bed fit for two. our bodies were nothing more than skin and bones that crisscrossed at odd angles on eggshell-colored sheets and pillows. we had stayed indoors so much the past few weeks — a trait of our similar introverted natures as well an unspoken hunger between us to spend as much time together as we possibly could away from everyone else — that our skin had lost both color and vibrancy. when we would finally awake late in the afternoon, and look at ourselves in the bathroom mirror, we would find dark violet-grey crescent moons buried beneath our eyes. in turn, Robert would splash water on his face and i would rub a baby blue gel-cream onto my skin, hoping that the crescents would disappear; i much preferred them shining bright in the sky than hanging on my face. 

as the december days hid — and in their place the december nights entered through the cracked-open slit in our kitchen window — we were overcome with a hunger to be more than we were, a yearning for a different stroke of life. 

fall had been odd, peculiar, unmanageable, and unimaginable: Robert struggled with his work while i fought with all the versions of myself that no longer served me any purpose. i had to let go of them, but i was incapable; i hated change, even if it was good for me. 

our relationship also had its ups and downs during this time. we found ourselves deeply in love one day, then silent friends the next. we went from spending all day together in bed, listening to records and talking about a vastitude of topics — from poetry to film to our upstairs neighbor’s weird insistence that we were siblings because we looked so much alike — to spending several days in succession without speaking more than a few words to one another. and though this behavior could be seen as normal, for partners are not always attached at the hip, i suppose it was the way that we oscillated between matching our language, both body and mind, to one another’s to then hardly speaking at all that left me constantly feeling displaced in our relationship. 

but even in silence and stillness, there was still a magnetism between us that existed far beyond the physical. the waning embers of our love glowed all around us, that i knew — and Robert did, too; we just never said anything about them. and on the days where we existed apart from one another, i held onto those embers a a little bit tighter. i had always been fiercely independent and counter-dependent, but with Robert, i couldn’t help myself from becoming more and more codependent, hungry for even the tiniest morsel of his approval, validation, and love. 

i was used to this rollercoaster of emotions, and i had learned long ago how to exist in this grey space (and even thrive in it), but i found it especially difficult to deal with this time around because of how much i adored Robert. i was torn between myself — who i was, who i had created myself to be in order to stay safe, and who i was becoming — and how i felt for Robert and what we had created together. my love had always been warm, generous, and giving, but over the years, i had learned how to quell it to be lukewarm at best. i had met far too many people who hadn’t deserved my love and affection, so i taught myself how to shut it down and how to keep any feelings i had for anyone to a minimum, if at all. yet, and despite all of my attempts to squash it, deep down inside of me there still burned a love so bright and so unforgiving that it was waiting to be let out. i wanted to share it with Robert, but i couldn’t tell if he wanted this love of mine. i also could never tell if Robert knew how much i cared for him to begin with because i was so cautious with my love. by all accounts, he seemed happy with our arrangement, so that became good enough for me, most of the time at least. 

however, when we had lulls in our relationship, i grew antsy and anxious. fearing that i had done something to drive him away, i felt a compulsive need to get his attention without outwardly saying so. the logical thing to do was to have a conversation with him, to share my worries and fears, but my anxieties always triumphed logic; that, and i was conflict-avoidant. i had no interest in honest conversations. honest conversations always carried risks with them and one of those risks was physical altercation. i had experienced it before and i had enough physical scars to prove it. i also had no masochistic streak in my body to explore that part of my life again, so honest conversations were off the table.

but Robert was different and i knew that. i felt that. he was kind, he never raised his voice, and his touch warmed my body. he made me feel safe in a way that no one ever had. yet, a part of me still worried that maybe i hadn’t read him right, that maybe one day he would snap, hit me, and push me up against a wall, threatening to hurt me in ways that i couldn’t even imagine. i recognized that he wasn’t capable of doing such a thing, but what if he was? what if he was?

i resented myself for thinking so poorly of him, but could you blame me? it was my brain’s evolutionary protection mechanism kicking in. i just wanted to be safe. and if being safe meant keeping my mouth shut, while doing everything to get him to notice me on his own accord, then so be it. old habits die hard.

one evening in mid-November, while Robert read a book in the kitchen and enjoyed a glass of whiskey, i snuck into our bathroom to cut my hair and dye it blonde. a part of me grew tired of staring at the same person in the mirror, and another part of me wanted Robert’s attention in any way that i could get it. once i was done, i sheepishly entered the kitchen and waited for him to take notice. i expected Robert to get mad (for every reason already stated, but more so, in that moment, because of a pronounced side-effect of dating a string of physically and emotionally abusive men before him), but he didn’t. instead, he looked at me with his big brown eyes and smiled from ear-to-ear with his signature childlike grin. 

“you look electric,” he said and immediately dropped his book onto the table. he walked over to me and i counted every step. when he began to run his fingers through my hair, i held my breath. i watched the way he marveled at me, like i was a piece of art only he had access to. he scratched at my temples and tugged on my hair, feeling its new, choppy texture in between his fingers. i closed my eyes and faded away into the sensation of his touch. his fingers moved down to my cheeks and then down to my jawline until he had his index finger resting underneath my chin. he raised it ever-so-slightly to get my attention. i opened my eyes and met his. 

“why are you running from me?” he asked, his voice tender and full of concern. Robert had this inexplicable ability to melt time and space and unravel you in ways that you didn’t think were possible. i had always been the person strangers told their secrets to, yet the first time i met Robert, i found myself sharing secrets i thought i would never tell a soul. he didn’t ask the question again out loud, but i heard it again once more: “why are you running from me?”. i suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to both cry and collapse in his arms. i was so tired of running, but if i stopped, who would i be? would he be able to handle that version of me? no one had been able to handle me in any version of me before this so why should this time be any different? 

“hey.” 

his voice cut through the sandstorm of thoughts swirling in my head. almost as if he was reading my mind, and it often felt like he was, he said “i’m not going anywhere” and dragged his thumb slowly across my lips before leaning in to kiss them. every kiss with Robert felt like the first and the last: the first because it always felt gentle, new, and innocent, and the last because i always feared that he would realize he wasn’t really in love with me but some idea of me that i had let him think existed.

i leaned into his embrace and wrapped my arms around his body. i could run away another time, this i reasoned with myself, but for now, i really wanted to stop running — and, for long enough to enjoy this moment and him and us before i felt that urge to start running kick in again.