Learning to Love Someone

 1.     Have you felt love before?

For a while, I thought I did. Doesn’t everyone? Think they have it when things are good. You’ve got to know you have it, even when things are bad. In fights, in tears, in disagreements, you’ve got to know there is love. Now I understand.

I had never felt so much. I had never felt so little. Violent little words strike me. Jesus Christ / he slurs, to tell me he’s embarrassed of me. Not tonight / to tell me he’s got no time for me. I’m sorry / when he finds out I know about those other girls. Comments like little atoms inside my mind tell me this is pain, not love. And still, I bleed confusion. Crucify me.

2.     Can you describe human embrace?

Goosebumps on my spine. Snowflakes on my cheeks and red dress. Delicate red lace stencils my figure like dainty veins. I wear a dress to show him I am beautiful. His voice strikes me down, and I lay on the ground surrendered. Acupuncture in my ears. Frosty blades of grass support me like a child. In anxious nausea, I remind myself I wanted to be his date.

I am dried wax that he tears off the Earth. A 5th floor walkup. He rips off my dress and mounts me like a rabid animal. Fill in the gaps. His sport coat is too tight as he pulls it back on and slams the door. That is not embrace.

Merry Christmas, Dear poinsettia with fallen leaves.

3.     What is pain?

Pain is blue gum. A matte black pack with metallic blue sticks. His chewing is compulsive and aggressive. The blue is sticky and mean and it smells like his breath.

Sapphire eyes in my dirty mirror the morning after. My eyelashes stain my cheekbones with black tears. My hair snags when I try to brush it. His gum. My pupils dilate. Peanut butter isn’t a hair tool. Scissors snip, and the lock spoons my left inner palm like a small animal. You’re cut. You’re done. I tuck the hairy wad in my bedside drawer to not forget the pain. To keep myself from coming back. Thank you for setting me straight.

I don’t chew gum anymore.

4.     Can you tell me what it feels like now?

I feel nothing for him. The relief I feel to feel nothing.

5.     Can you tell me how the beginning goes?

On the edge of self-doubt, I meet you. Lips are peeling, I am drought. You pull me in by my hip bones and the brick wall sands my back. You say I shouldn’t use my teeth when I kiss, and my laughter forms a cloud above us. Let’s go inside. Okay says my body.

You pull off my boots and there are socks, forest green and washed out. I loved you before you knew me / you say. How? I know you want to know me. How I paint with my fingers and how my insides are pink and sponge-like.

My phone rings and his name appears on the screen. I have to go / I say. You fume and say that I am weak for him. Sadness floods my body. You must not know what it feels like to ever have loved someone / I say. I pull on my boots and go.

Don’t you want your socks? / you shout after me. You toss them in the apartment hallway. They are green and limp.

6.     Do you know anything about trying again?

How do you learn how to love someone? One piece of sand rides along with the current. You have to let go. Did you know I’m just now processing this? I’m sorry / I say. Let’s try again. 

We drink wine out of juice glasses. Your teeth look like grapes now. Tongues full of tannins. Seeds and skins and stems growing winding around pink tissue.    

7.     Can you describe human embrace?

Cold water rushing over me in a shallow stream and your face is the sky. Your fingers are smooth pebbles molding into the valleys of my spine. The pressure of the water gliding across me. The weight of you above me. Your eyes are stars and my face is the moon. You touch my body, and I am not embarrassed. You touch my body, and I do not feel pain.  

8.     Can you tell me what it feels like now?

Now I sleep in because you sleep in. I wrap around your body like a crescent moon. We wax and we wane and the seasons change around us. You are gravity and I am a pink balloon on your wrist. I sway in the wind and tug gently to let you know I am still there.

9.     What does loneliness feel like?

Reading letters on the couch. Sticky black pleather like tar. Socks with frilled edges ruffle my calves. My eyes won’t stop sweating. I write you letters before I leave, only for a while. It’s weird. How quickly someone can become home. To feel again.

Your chest is a lit fireplace, and your arms are protective walls. Your chin rests on my head like a roof. To miss someone before they are gone. Close your eyes. Don’t let them spill.     

10.  What is pain?

Weeks passed, and now we are in a big city.

A glass shattered on the ground and my dog walked through it. Bloody little paw prints stamp the tile floors. Sharp noises in the back of her throat feel like broken glass. You pick her up onto your lap and pull small shards out of the paw pads. Her whimpers quiet as you hold her and wrap her paws in your socks.

11.  Can you tell me what it feels like now?

We go to a sweaty chutney shop on the coast. People mingle around the cash register and thin sheets of sesame batter crisp on the grill. Linen is soft on my legs, and we share our little egg blankets outside. The dosas steam even in the thick summer air.

I think I am older than I am. I work and live by myself. I worry about the future. I worry and worry. What happens in the meantime before you grow up? Will you still love me then? Why do I think these things. 

12.  What do you know about spatial boundaries?

Not enough.

13.  Would you tell me the difference between holding on and letting go?

Yelling is holding on, sometimes, if you’re fighting for something. Atoms bounce off of one another back and forth like a pinball machine. You say you love me, but you need space. Okay. You’ve got to know you have it even when things are bad. Even when there are fights or tears or disagreements, you’ve got to know there is love. I hope I understand.

Crack that Grade-A egg. Let it pour into the frying pan. Tell me everything you have to say to me now before I go.

Silence is not speaking. Silence is letting go. This is me giving you space. I am a broken egg yolk in a skillet rebuilding itself. All the little peptide chains are coming together, rejoining. This I must do.

14.  What does loneliness feel like?

Four weeks of heartache. Making fried eggs for breakfast. Why do I think of you as I crack the whites and yellows into the pan? They have nothing to do with you. They are just breakfast.

The consequences of memory. There are many.

15.  What does the absence of loneliness feel like?

I bring a six pack of Lagunitas over because you say you want to talk to me. You are lying on your bed in pajama pants when I come in. You look like a stranger, and I stand there awkwardly.

You get up and wrap your arms around me, rebuilding these walls. On top my head you sit your chin.

Can I be fragile now? 

16.  Do you know anything about trying again?

Pain is unavoidable.

Get up, get dressed and try again.

17.  Can you tell me what it feels like now?

The leaves crack like golden eggshells and I have a splinter in my toe. I try to remember pain like this, as something uncomfortable but bearable. I don’t want to be hurt again.

We go to Gormet Garage. On top my bed we make a picnic and drink out of mugs. My Manhattan room is a play fort. Two twin beds pushed together to make a queen. Sheets with golden pineapples. Asleep on top the fruit. You lay in the crack between the beds to be close to me.

18.  What do you know about spatial boundaries?

Love him but give him space. 

19.  Would you tell me the difference between holding on and letting go?

I’m sorry / we say.

I am a broken dish that has been resealed. Pieces of sand pressed together into porcelain. Peptide chains pulled together in a frying pan. Yellows and whites converged. You cannot tell that I was broken. You cannot tell that the two parts were ever separated. 

20.  Who are you and whom do you love?

I am.

October 2019