He remembered the night he decided he would lose his mind. His parents had been with his great aunt sorting out her life. That’s what they did with her life since her husband died. He never met her husband, but he heard good things. Her husband did everything for her and when he died she was helpless. A helpless old woman, but she still had her mind then. Everyone he knew did. He was younger and didn’t know that the bad things ran down both sides of his family. He found out that night though, and decided it would happen to him. He swallowed a milligram of lorazepam to help fight the anxiety he always had and tried to think clearly. In his mind it wasn’t a possibility, but a fact that one day he would lose all his memories. It wasn’t uncommon to forget about memories, to let them get dark around the edges, if you didn’t think about them regularly. There was something about losing them that scared him. He had lost so many of his memories already by then— all of his childhood. It was as if he was only a child for a few days, a teenager a few months, and in his twenties for only a few minutes even though he was four years into them. He wondered if this disproportionate interpretation of time was an early sign of the bad things. He wondered why he kept calling them the bad things when they had names; Dementia and Alzheimer’s. He found his answer and was scared by the irrationality of it. He was afraid by having the words Dementia or Alzheimer’s in his mind would rot away the space where they were stored in his mind. As if the words themselves were poison and had some kind of power. He took a few deep breaths and a few more milligrams of lorazepam. One day he would find himself with a mind that lost names, faces, places, smells, loves, hates, everything— except for language and the ability to control himself. He could never lose those. If he did he would have to kill himself, since pride, shame and guilt are things in the heart, not in the mind. He knew even if he forgot everything in his twilight years, he would remember that decision and hoped he would stand by it. He never wanted to be a burden.

He was a burden though, twenty-four and still living with his parents. He had no degree— only a high school diploma. He took time off to find himself and didn’t like what he found. Most people would have turned to drugs, but drugs were always too social for him. He turned to bad relationships and suicide. He was better by the night he decided he would lose his mind. Medicated and out of a mental care facility, under the influence of nine-hundred and ninety-two milligrams of different medicines. It was a strong, well mixed cocktail of psychotropics that he would washed down most nights with beer and most mornings with energy drinks— sometimes coffee. He always took them. Even though sometimes his mind would tell him it was okay, that he was okay, that he was better now and didn’t need those nine-hundred and ninety-two crutches. He knew that it was just the craziness trying to take over again. He wasn’t supposed to call it the craziness, or even to call himself crazy. He was supposed to distance himself from those words. They were comfortable and had a truth to them though. That’s what other people who didn’t know him would call him. He had a charm that he could work on people that met him. They wouldn’t call him crazy, at least not in a negative way, but if they only knew him on paper, they would call him crazy. They would mean it in a negative way and they would be afraid of him or for him.

His name was Jonathan and he probably should have had a few more or different milligrams in him. He wasn’t open with his psychologist or his psychiatrist, but they thought he was because of his charm. He didn’t tell them about the irrational fears; the fear of the bad things, the fear that there was something deeply wrong with him. A genetic switch flicked the wrong way, in a new way that’s never been seen before. Something a test couldn’t find. That he worried constantly about cancer, brain tumors, and aneurysms. Sometimes he’d feel twitching in his arms and feet. The doctors couldn’t ever find anything wrong with him. He was gifted. The only thing that really kept him together was his mind telling him how to act normally. He described himself as a bundle of problems tied together with loose ends. Every relationship and friendship wouldn’t be cut, but would fray and snap; and he would think about the ends and that would keep his mind off the bad things. It gave him something to analyze other than himself, even if he was part of the equation

Jonathan wouldn’t be a serial killer, even though he thought he might. He had a detachment from his emotions and he thought it would turn him into one. He was just a kid, afraid of what he would become, what he might have, when he would die, how he affected people… He was just a scared kid. A kid who thought he was going to lose the only the only thing important to him, his mind. He started writing down everything, not stories or anything, but writing everything down to remember it. He’d fill up composition books with his daily notes and file them away for reading when he lost his mind. He knew that it wouldn’t make everything come back to him, but he hoped some things would make it through. Those things he wrote big in the books. He chronicled everything and he became amazed at the things he missed before. He even missed some of his emotions. He didn’t have a distance from them. Sometimes they were just too complex for him to experience all at once without feeling somewhat numb to them. He became less afraid of being a serial killer, but he was still just as afraid of the other things and he felt how afraid he was when writing them. His hand would shake slightly and at first he thought it a symptom of something, but tests showed nothing and he figured out it was him just being afraid. This didn’t stop the fears though.

First his journals filled his shelves then a foot locker his mother bought him to keep them secure, but it was really to keep the tattered things out of sight. His mother was the type who didn’t understand that framing a poster, then hanging it up ruined the point of having a poster. She liked everything framed, squared off, and in its place. She had things wrong with her too, but would never admit to them even though it clearly bled into her child. She was a nice lovable woman, even though a bit loud. She loved her Jonathan, but thought all his problems came from his father’s side and not hers. Even though her mother was medicated for some of the same problems Jonathan had. Denial is easy, easier than thinking you tainted your only child’s genes with bad code. She thought about it that way sometimes until coping mechanisms kicked in and the house was clean and the toilets scrubbed. She made him a nice orderly house to combat the chaos in his blood and in her head.

She did everything for her son. Worked long hours to give him the time alone with himself he needed. It scared her to leave him alone after the last attempt, but she had too or he would never get better. He would just crawl back inside of himself and break down again. She didn’t understand why he needed time alone, but that’s because she was made the other way. She was social and was a good networker. She’d always have more friends than her son at any age and that made her feel sad for him. She’d never think anyway else about it, that’s why she would never understand Jonathan.

Jonathan’s father was distant and never played with him as a child. He was a lot like Jonathan and required time alone. Unlike Jonathan though, he had a short fuse and a loud voice that always seem to yell. Jonathan would always be a little afraid of him. He could also remember every time his father said he loved him. Those didn’t make more than a dozen memories. Jonathan never let those memories get dark around the edges.

Jonathan was an introvert.

He could fake being an extrovert well. It gave people a false sense of him; he was so good at it. It came natural to him. If he’d been born somewhere else he might very well have become an actor. He thought about that sometimes, but would dismiss it. He liked where he lived too much and already felt too old for something like that. He liked his room and he rarely left it. If it wasn’t for school or the few times he wouldn’t pass on a night with his friends, his room is where you would find Jonathan. It was his world. He still imagined things. He would put himself into situations he wanted to be in. Daydream about being better than he was, but well in reason of what he could be— most of the time anyway.

Most people know a Jonathan. The smart kid in class. Quiet. Fidgety. Spaced out, but highly focused on something always. An over-explainer. Non-fiction book reader. A kid that believed in Santa Claus a little bit too long and stopped believing in God a little too soon. A kid that never really looked at the grades he made because he knew he passed, but didn’t want to know by how much or how little. A little ashamed of his intelligence and really ashamed of how much he never applied himself. Funny.

Yeah, most people know a Jonathan until high school is over.

He thought about high school a lot. He thought about it a lot because of Dawn. She was always a relief to him. He grew up with night terrors and so did she. They would talk on the phone all night until they fell asleep. They knew each other since middle school, when the calls started. It never got romantic even though both of them wanted it to. He was always too afraid and she wouldn’t be the first one to make a move. He would remember the times he swore that the world begged him to kiss her and in his room, in his day dreams, he would. They would marry and have children and everything would be perfect. Dawn was gone from his life though. She went off to college and forgot about Jonathan. Not completely, she could never do that, but her mind forced a lot of memories of him out of her. If it didn’t she would have always been stuck on him and never grow into the person she was now. He hurt her so much by never kissing her and what seemed perfect to both of them, what seemed like the best idea never happened. It would never happen, but in his mind, in his daydreams it did happen.

He felt like he was searching for who he could have been in these daydreams; the person who took more chances, the person who did something and made something with his life. Yes, Jonathan was only twenty-four, but he felt like his life was already over. He felt like he lost the one girl he was supposed to be with. He felt like he lost all the things he was supposed to be and that made living hard.

See, living is a choice. Everyday Jonathan didn’t kill himself he was choosing to live. It was getting harder to make that choice. Even on the medication it was hard. There would be sad people if he died. He knew that it would even crush some, but he’d never have to deal with those consequences. He could die young or die old, broken and without his mind. These new bad things he learned about where pushing him closer to suicide and he could feel it. He didn’t want to lose his mind. He felt past his prime. He took a milligram of lorazepam and when he felt it kick in he took another to make sure the thoughts would go away. Of course they never really did.

He needed to get out. He called Robbie-Bobby and pretended to be an extrovert.

Robbie-Bobby was born Robert and raised as Bobby. Then freshman year he started to refer to himself as Robbie thus, Robbie-Bobby was born out of mockery.

“Robbie-Bobby!”

“What’s up John?”

“You working today?”

“No, I’m off. Why? Want to do something?”

“Pool.”

“Beer and billiards?”

“Hell yeah, I’ll buy the first round.”

“Anyone else?”

“No, let’s keep it small.”

“Meet you there in fifteen?”

“Done.”

Jonathan loved that about his age and gender. A phone call that lasted less than a minute could set up something that would be two hours of fun. For a moment he thought about how hard it was to set up things with Dawn or any of the other girls he was just friends with, this moment only took a few seconds since that’s all it took for him to process all the memories and thoughts. He took off his hoodie and put on a shirt then put his hoodie back on. He could get away with just wearing a hoodie when he was eighteen and in better shape, but now with beer and the medicine he couldn’t.

The pool hall had the normal pool hall set up. Bar in the front, tables in the back and smoke everywhere. It was early, but not early enough for the bartender Mike to play a game or two with them. The regulars were already there drinking cheap beer and needed constant attention. They’d be there for hours drinking. Alcoholism must be a hell of a monster to fight Jonathan thought about without a hint of irony. He did drink most days and some days too much, but he didn’t drink to get drunk, he drank to cope with things and he thought that made him different. It did not.

Mike greeted John and Robbie-Bobby. He’d seen Robbie-Bobby around, but seeing John was a treat to Mike. He was the only one that made him laugh after his last big break up. He’d only seriously dated three women and when he told John this, John held up three fingers and said, “You know which one she is?” Mike looked at him confused till Jonathan dropped two fingers and flipped him off with a smirk.

Mike rang up two beers as water and didn’t start a ticket for the table they were playing on. Jonathan and Robbie-Bobby both have served tables and tended bar and tipped more than the two beers and free table would cost. Mike knew, this but he didn’t do it for a bigger tip he did it because he liked them. Mike was older and was the owner’s son. He’d been working there since John and Robbie-Bobby where in high school and would come in after classes. They and one girl that used to be around them all the time were the only people Mike has ever served alcohol to underage. He felt responsible for their good taste in beer.

At the table John racked and Robbie-Bobby broke. John always let people go before him. He was a strong player and didn’t like the stress of running the table for so long, so early in the game.

They sipped their beers and took a few shots in silence.

“John, What’s wrong?”

“Nothing… Just needed to get out you know?”

“I know what that’s like. Most people know what that’s like, but you don’t know what that’s like.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes and sunk a ball.

“Do you remember the last time we played pool Jonathan?”

“Yeah.”

“Two days later you tried to kill yourself. Is that in your head again?”

“It always will be.”

“Is that why you needed to get out?”

“No…” John shook his head, “I just miss all the people I could have been.”

Robbie-Bobby didn’t say anything.

“You know, I had so many choices of what I could have been, and they’re all missing now. I’ve waited too long for them.”

“You’re only twenty-fucking-four. Stop acting like you’re on your deathbed, do something with your life.”

“Like?”

“You? You could start some kind of revolution.”

Jonathan smiled and wrote that big in his composition book.

I’m an artist, most would say I’m a writer, I’m writing this in a Moleskine with a Zebra F-301 pen, the ones with the great smelling ink. When I get to my MacBook Pro it’ll be transferred into TextMate and when I think of a title it’ll be copied into Scrivener. Between those steps ideas for this essay will be typed into my iPhone using Simplenote and then synced to my Mac with Notational Velocity ALT. There will probably also be a Field Notes Brand Notebook and Space Pen involved. These are my tools. I trust them and keep them at the ready. My system is redundant and the only holes are human error.

All these things: the pens, the notebooks, the applications and the gadgets are magical to me, but a fucking Moleskine didn’t write any of my stories. Simplenote is not a muse whispering in my ear and a Space Pen didn’t make me a writer.

Even the process I’ve made for creating stories seems magical to me, but it’s just a series of actions that have proven to work well for me, at least for now. I’ve tried a lot of different ways to create, I’ve read a lot of books on how to create and I’ve only learned one universal truth while doing so, no matter what you do you have to keep trying. There are no shortcuts. Sometimes these shortcuts seem like they work, but they just leave you wanting an even simpler, easier, less frictional way to create. It makes you lazy and it makes you addicted to finding the one thing that will make you a great artist. The great shortcut. The holy grail to genius. The one thing keeping you back. It stagnates you.

There is no shortcut or life hack that will make you who you want to be instantly.

The greatest life hack is discipline. I wish I learned it sooner, I wish I wasn’t still learning it now, I wish I had it mastered. It might be better to say discipline is a muscle I wish I had exercised more.

If you’re looking for that one thing that will make you write that novel, lose that twenty pounds, run that marathon, or what ever you want to do, it’s discipline now. Not discipline starting Monday. Not discipline after one last cookie. Not discipline in the new year. It’s discipline now.

You’re future self is just as lazy as your present self. If you don’t start it now, chances are you’ll never start it. You’ll keep putting it off. You’ll keep dreaming and not producing results. Stop telling yourself that you’ll do something in X amount of time. Tell yourself you can screw off after an X amount of time. This is not a new idea, you’ve been told it all your life, get it done now so you don’t have to worry about it later.

I’m just figuring this stuff out myself. I’m just now figuring out not to worship your tools but to use them and not be afraid to use them. Anything idea is worthy of paper in any notebook no matter how much it cost. You can even put it in the Moleskine you dropped a Jefferson on. If you can’t do that, carry around a composition book that will only set you back a Washington. Feel free to bend that metaphor in anyway that makes you more productive. Really, if you can only run your five miles wearing a matching track suit somedays wear it, but run your god damn five miles everyday until you realize it’s okay not to match.

I’m sorry to all the teachers that had faith in me
Sorry to all my friends too
I’m getting on the right track now but at twenty-four it seems a little too late sometimes
I shouldn’t have followed so many girls around
Should have made my own path in this life

I was smarter back then and a little older too
Unwilling to take shit from anyone
Anyone other than girls I knew would be wife
I miss them all and wonder what could of been even though I’m truly happy right now

I swear I was smarter then too
I’ve let raw talent go to waste and stagnate into mediocracy
Should have read more books and written a few myself by now
Or at least have a job and a place of my own

I feel like your coming down here to make my future for me
I’m so thankful for that I just wished I could have done it without you
Have a place for you to fit into flawlessly
This will be hard because I’m still a child sometimes

I promise to do the best I can to be with you forever
Always have medications in my system to hide the flaws that nature gave me
Keep you up at night until you’re not upset
This will be something perfect between us

At first she was his muse, but now she was his writer’s block. Everything was great, but great is nothing new; great is just a better good. There are no stories in good. Happiness is short lived for most artists. It’s like a Zen mind, a thoughtless mind, eventually you notice it and in noticing it you destroy it. He wrote all the poetry he could about her. He did all the thoughtful things he could do for her. He was empty now and felt it. Pain was an old friend of his, depression his oldest, but no art would come from this pain. This was a new pain and a new depression. He felt safe with her. That thought gave him fear. That thought was commitment. Something he thought he’d only have with his art, but there he was with her, telling her he doesn’t want anyone else. She agreed and his art died.

Inspiration couldn’t be sucked out of his fingertips and anytime she tried they just ended up in bed or against a wall. There was still his day job, his night job, his anytime he was scheduled to work job as a server. It wasn’t too nice of a place; he could have made more at a fancier place. Not much more though, he was the best tipped waiter there. He enjoyed the speed of it and enjoyed being one of the few that could help out anywhere they needed him. He loved it a little less though now that he saw it as his real job. The new slight distaste didn’t affect his tips. He always hated the customers and still faked that he loved them all just as well.

He still felt motivated to create and hated everything that he did. He looked over a poem that he wrote when he first was getting to know Emma. When they would both flirt and tease each other before they became each other.

The warmth of your body is still on my bed
It lurks with your scent
You told me what it was
The components, the mix
I remember your hair is strawberries and cream

Being teased is only fun for so long
You probably think the same thing

It wasn’t that good of a poem, but it was a happy memory. She would lay her head on his arm and let him play with her hair. Sometimes they would lay with cheeks touching, stealing each other’s breaths. She ran a few degrees hotter than normal, which he liked because it meant her skirts and shorts were shorter and would be worn more. Her style was the first thing he noticed about her. They would still lie that way. They were still that much in love.

His art was still dead. He thought about having all his old writing buddies over and having a eulogy for it, but that would have been too creative. He washed her smell off his hoodie to see if he could do without her. He couldn’t. He had her wear it around the house. It’s the only thing she wore and usually she was naked. She had a beautiful body; Italian skin, the color of aged porcelain. He’d tried other ways to see if he could live without her, like sneaking out of their bed to sleep on the sofa. He woke up feeling lonely and dead inside and would walk back to bed where she would snuggle up to him and make him feel alive again.

She thought her love would be enough, but it wasn’t. She thought about what was wrong with him and she knew it wasn’t his art, but it was what made him an artist. He was a depressive. She was afraid to say anything since he made a few jokes about all the pills she had to take. Those pills made it possible for him to love her and she wondered if he understood that. She thought about how she could bring it up softly, but then one day she felt him pull away from her and into himself. She couldn’t lose this one. She told him he needed help and he agreed. She had to take him everywhere or he wouldn’t have gone he was too afraid to get help. His parents brought him up in a house with a bi-polar sister they tried to cure naturally. There was a stigma to admitting you needed help in his family and she helped him get over that.

He started writing again; more than ever, with a clarity that he never knew.

He wrote a poem called Emma.

You found me in the dark and stayed with me there
You let me love you and trust you more than anyone
I would have broken your heart if you never found me help
Thank you for stopping me.

His medications changed him, for the better, but still they changed him. He became calmer and less self-destructive. He lost some of the things people loved about him but, he didn’t lose too many friends over it. He felt like he didn’t lose those friends either, but that he simply out grew them. With his new sober mind, that’s what he called it, he didn’t see how he was friends with some of the people he used to call his brothers and sisters. Emma loved him even more now that all the bad parts of him were gone as if by magic. He became perfect through prescriptions, and they became perfect through love.

Becca was the kind of girl to have mono recordings on vinyl. She had a massive collection from all genres which she bought with whatever money she had left over from her paychecks and student loans. A music history major I met in professor Bell’s algebra class freshman year. She had better taste than me and that was unusual. I was the resident music guru in high school and her passion for it dwarfed mine. I wish I could say I talked to the pretty girl with the dangly earrings first, but she had heard Dylan through my headphones and sat next to me in an almost empty classroom. We would talk before and after every class. I’d walk with her to her next one since I was done with classes after algebra. I thought about making her a mix tape, but I couldn’t think of any bands I mentioned that she didn’t already know. She saved me from myself and asked me out first to this cool little Italian place no one knew about.

It was spring semester now and we’d been dating for a few months. We both lived off campus in the same complex but different buildings. There had already been talk about moving in with each other when the leases were up at the end of this semester. We were happy. We were connected. I started to believe in destiny.

She worked at a coffee shop that let her pick the music. I was going over to visit her. Then it happened.

There was a loud ringing deep in my skull, in the primitive part of my brain that echoed almost louder than my worried emotions. Still I stood as best I could and ran into fleeing people. I had to find her. She was outside already but through a glass wall that shattered when her body was thrown against it. People had trampled her and some were dead. I could tell she had the ringing too. She had blood on her, not all of it hers and some of it mine. I dragged her away best I could. That’s all I really remember clearly. Everything else was background to the ringing in my ears. At the hospital I was told the bomb was meant for the abortion clinic two blocks over. At least that’s what the news people said. Who stops in to get coffee with a bomb in their backpack? I wasn’t hurt as bad as her. My ringing would go away, a few more minutes or hours. They said hers might too, but she might never hear again either. All of this was confusing to me and all of it was done on paper. I couldn’t hear people over the ringing.

The ringing went away after a few hours but hers never did. It was all she could hear. We made it work though. At first we’d write notes to each other and it was like being in professor Bell’s algebra class again. We had happy times even though she was tired and miserable. She couldn’t sleep because of the ringing and she couldn’t deal with what happened without her music. I started staying at her place to help her get accustomed. I became the kettle monitor for her morning cup of tea and listener for all kind of buzzes and dings to know when things were done. I met her parents and they approved. They were happy I was in their daughter’s life. When I didn’t have class I’d go to hers and help her take notes even though she didn’t need me too. She was such a kind person everyone offered up theirs to her. The professors were good to her too, especially Bell. She switched her major to mathematics. I could tell she was just going through the motions though. She lost her soul that day. She was putting on a show for everyone. A big one for me and she knew that I knew. She thanked me every day, more than once usually, for being with her. I told her it was no problem but of course that was a lie. She was changing and everything about her that I loved was faked now.

I thought too much about it one night while we were in bed. She couldn’t hear me crying, but she could feel the slight shaking in the bed and she asked me what was wrong in a voice that wasn’t hers. I broke down.

“You’re leaving me aren’t you?”

I shook my head no.

She started to cry too and we held each other. We both knew it was over. We couldn’t let go of each other and it almost felt like it would work out but it didn’t.

It was the worst thing I ever done. I wish could understand better. I wish that my life would have changed as much as hers. I wish I would have kept the ringing. All I had were nightmares of that day and an irrational fear that everywhere I tried to go would explode. I missed her waking me up from my nightmares.

There was a knock at my door early, a loud banging knock that woke me up from a nightmare but scared me even more. I opened the door and I could smell her, but there were nothing but boxes, too many boxes, with a note attached that read:

“We have changed, I know that, but I’ll always love you, who you were before the terrible thing. I hope you will always love who I was and I hope that this will let you get to know that person I was better and hold onto her forever.”

It was her vinyl collection and I did come to know her better.

I listened to those records non-stop for the rest of the semester, for the rest of my life really. It’s how I grieved for her. It’s how I stayed in love with her.

Their hugs would last for more than a breath. They each used both their arms and would let go slowly, slightly scratching the other’s back, and he would sometimes kiss her on the cheek. They were falling in love. It would be nice if it was simple. Love sometimes is, but with her it was complicated. She was beginning to feel torn. There was the guy she would hug, more hold than hug, for so long her hoodie would steal his scent. Then there was the guy she would kiss; the one she’d been with for a while. The one she thought for so long was the one.

She felt horrible and couldn’t do the easy thing, because there was no easy thing to be done. She couldn’t just leave Mitchell and she couldn’t stop her feelings for Michael even though she tried. He knew she tried and would compliment her more, make her feel special. Play with her hair the way she liked, the way Mitchell never could. She shouldn’t let him do things like that, but he just did them. He wanted her and made her feel like he needed her. Part of her hated him for making things complicated. She had no one to confide in. She’d been with Mitch for so long all their friends blended together and she had no one to herself, no one but Mikey. Maybe it was because he was new, and that meant that it would go away. She liked the feeling though, and wished that Mitchell would make her feel like that again. If he could just still make her feel special everything would be okay. Things would be simple.

Mikey was cute and could be the sweetest. He smelled good and maybe that’s why she hung onto him for so long. Mitchell smelled good too, but Mikey smelled like a man while Mitch still smelled like the boy from high school. One year she just noticed him in the halls, he liked her forever before that and everything was perfect. They never fought. She wanted to fight with him though. He wouldn’t take a side that wasn’t hers. Mike would fight with her, he’d disagree and tell her why she was wrong. He could be an asshole, but at least he had an opinion. It was her fault too, she wouldn’t fight with Mitch either. He was just so sensitive and one disagreement would ruin the entire time they were together. A disagreement with Michael would widen his brown eyes and heighten his voice a little bit. It would make him cuter. It would make the time together better. It was okay that she didn’t agree with everything he said, as long as she had a good reason to. Mikey believed everyone should be passionate about the things they believe in. That was such a change to Mitch’s laid-backness.

Why couldn’t Mike just kiss her and make this simple? Then she could tell Mitch what happened and he would get mad, show some emotion, maybe make her feel special again or break up with her and she could be with Mikey. She gave him plenty of chances. He just wouldn’t take them. He would just smile at her with his smirk and ask her if she was still being followed around by her little dog. He did follow her around like a little dog. Mikey would ask how she could respect him and she didn’t know anymore.

She went to Mikey’s place without telling anyone, it wasn’t the first time but she felt guilty about doing it so much. Three times now. He answered the door with that smirk and she could feel herself melt a little, even though it was freezing and she was wearing those shorts he liked. She hugged him and he kissed her on the cheek. He smelled like a shower and she thought about how nice it would have been to be in there with him.

“Hey legs, you should have worn pants, it’s cold.”

She was glad he noticed, and just gave him a shoulder shrug to explain why.

“Here let me help.”

He grabbed the throw from the couch, and when she sat down, he rubbed her legs warm with it. It felt nice. Nicer when he got to her thighs. She gave him another chance to kiss her but he didn’t take it.

“Want a cup of coffee to warm you up? I’m having one.”

“No, but thank you.”

“Hot cocoa then?”

“Yes! please.”

“Marshmallows?”

“Yes, melted in and then more added on top please!” She made sure she said this extra cute so she would get what she wanted.

“Made with milk so I can’t use my fancy-single-cup-coffee-machine-thingy, right?”

“If it’s not too much trouble…” She said it sadly to get what she wanted.

“You’re never a problem love.”

She pretended that he didn’t call every girl that. Soon the coffee and the cocoa was done. He even put whipped cream on top of it with a cinnamon stick to stir it up. She held hers with both hands close to her body to warm her. He took a sip of his coffee and put it on the end table. He started to play with her hair, but the hair close to her neck, was this his move? She leaned into him a bit, but then thought of Mitchell and pulled back a little. Mikey kissed her anyway. His mouth was warm from the coffee like his hand on her thigh. This was wrong, and at first she didn’t kiss back, but after he bit her lip she couldn’t help it. They did what lovers do, and his mouth felt hot all over her body. She felt bad about it in a good and bad way. Two hours later she left his house spent and sore.

She had dinner tonight with Mitchell and the families. She would tell him tomorrow. This dinner was special because it was to celebrate the end of final exams. She and Mitchell were strangely silent at dinner— did he know? Her dad kept smiling at her and her mom looked teary eyed. Maybe it was because this place was a little more fancy than usual.

Then it hit her. This couldn’t be happening.

Mitchell looked her in the eyes, took a deep breath and a knee, “Chloe, your friendship, your love, you have made me live just as much as breathing has. You’ve made these years with you short. A series of perfect moments that could never last long enough. Growing old with you will take no time. Please, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

She felt sick, she felt special; she felt so many things. She couldn’t believe she said yes, but then what else could she do? Mitch did nothing wrong. The next day she went to tell Michael. She showed him the ring and told him she said yes. He slipped it off her finger, put it on his kitchen’s bar and kissed her hard, with passion and with satisfaction. She let it happen again. Then again.

She was living two lives and hating herself for liking it so much. She should feel worse though. She was the one calling Mikey now. It was like he was losing interest, like she was just becoming a side piece. Mikey told her he was afraid to text or call her, because she was around Mitch so much more now while planning everything and she believed him. She couldn’t let go of him though, and to spend more time with him she halfway moved in. She kept her shampoo and body wash there so he could wash the scent of him and sex off her. He washed her slow, rinsing then kissing every bit of her. She’d eventually have to kick him out of the shower and wash the sex off herself.

Somewhere she stopped caring about Mitchell, and was mad at him for not figuring her out. How could she stop everything that was in motion? She didn’t want to be a bad person, she didn’t want to ruin Mitch so she didn’t. She said “I do” and went months without Michael, almost a year. She went over one day out of weakness and found her stuff still in the shower. She didn’t know that her stuff spent much of the last year under the bathroom sink, while other girls moved halfway in and most of them all the way out. It was easy for Mike to find someone to love and that crushed her. She hated herself for going back to Mike and it not being the love story she wanted; not the scene to justify her cheating. She felt horrible for all the things she’s done to Mitchell. She had to end this and she did it slowly. Seeing him less and less till one day she didn’t need him anymore, and she loved Mitchell as much as she could. He gave her a child and provided for them both. She respected him again. Their marriage was a series of perfect moments, one more baby and then grandkids, travel and old age. He died without ever knowing about Mike. He died thinking he had the perfect wife and truly found what everyone searches for, and what all the books and songs are about: true, everlasting, unwavering love. She died a better woman because of Michael, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. She died happy, still in love with Mitch, not torn and not one thought about Mikey.

She had coffee stained breath and the bitterness of it smelled sweet to him. This was the mornings. She would wake up before him, get the coffee started and have a cup before laying back in bed with him. Since she needed the caffeine to deal with him. She loved him and he wasn’t trouble, but he spoke in half-sentences and without the energy she couldn’t keep up. He was on medicine now, a methamphetamine, to help his mouth keep up with his mind. It helped a little, but he still wore a sad face because the world couldn’t keep up. Her name was Valerie and she could keep up most of the time. His name was Adam and he was a genius, though his wealth of knowledge wasn’t worth a damn.

She would wake him with kisses or something more. Their love was so saccharine it would hurt the back of some people’s throat and left a bad taste in one girl’s mouth. She wanted Adam and didn’t make a secret of it to him, but he did keep it from Val. Soon it felt forbidden and Adam felt like a prize to be won, something most men can go a lifetime without feeling— especially if that man can fix your computer. It happened and now he was in love with the new girl. The break up happened over the phone, after Adam took all his clothes from the apartment they shared. Luckily, it was only in her name.

He did it while she was at work.

A job that supported them both.

Valerie was crushed; her universe dented.

The new girl’s name was Tiffany and she wouldn’t support Adam; she pushed him away from his art. He was a photographer and always looked picture perfect with Valerie. It wasn’t the same with Tiffany, she demanded too much of him and wanted too much from him, he even sold some of his lenses to buy her a purse worth more money than would ever be kept in it. With no skills he became a cook and Tiffany was on a diet. He would come home smelling like fry oil, cheese sticks and half-pound burgers and went to bed smelling like dry blood, sweat, and sex. For a while it worked out, but it wasn’t like it was with Val. Tiffany loved Adam, but she loved being in the relationship more. She loved the things he would do for her: massage her, find socks for her cold feet, rub her feet; he always made sure she was sated. He could care and love like an artist, Tiffany never had a guy care for her like that. Adam had more empathy than most, it made him fragile, but Tiffany still treated him like the other guys she had before him.

Tiffany was a self-proclaimed artist since no one else would call her that, she worked in creative spurts and didn’t take it seriously. The work was lackluster and decorated her mother’s and sister’s houses like they where refrigerator doors; the artwork a B+. She could paint, she had the skills, she just didn’t have taste or a good eye to edit with. The few friends Adam had left after the split wouldn’t take to Tiffany so they had to go. It was just Adam and Tiffany, no one else, so they smothered each other and any fire that was in their relationship. It went on out of comfort until some guys noticed the slimmer, fitter Tiffany and she was a prize to be won.

Adam was already out of love with her when it ended, but he had no where to go that felt safe anymore. He got out of his parent’s place as quickly as he could, it felt loveless and controlling. He had no friends to reach out to, or to stay with, so he took the contents of his medicine cabinet. He woke up somewhere he couldn’t talk his way out of, a hospital where he was put with violent people and druggies trying to get clean. He was there for seven days and only his parents visited him. His father showed emotion and his mother wasn’t intimidating. He got out of there quickly and got the help he needed, a psychologist and more medications. His parent’s changed when he went back home, they looked after him like they never did. He liked his new parents and wondered if they always had this compassion they were showing him. Adam contemplated that for the first few weeks until he forgot what they were like before— maybe they’ve always been kind.

Months later, the breeze barely lifted the hair on Adam’s arm. Autumn was coming and he didn’t miss Tiffany. He made most of his friends back the same way he lost them, one by one. It’d been five years since he left Val, she had moved on and moved out of the state. Autumn reminded him of her, a yearly quarter-year reminder that he messed up and let the right one get away. He hated himself for it, but was happy for her. She called him up when she got the ring and her voice sounded sad. He knew he could have stopped her but he didn’t, he didn’t deserve her and now she was gone forever— three states over and on a completely different beach. Adam hoped she was happy, he was happy with the new man he’d become and wished he would have gotten medicated years before. Maybe then he and Val could have worked out. He smiled at the thought as he made the coffee.

His phone vibrated. It was a message from the only number he had ever memorized: Val’s.

“Hey…”

He pecked out, “Go away, you’re married now.”

He put the phone back in his pocket feeling proud, stupid and sad.

His phone vibrated again, and in a few months he was smelling the sweet scent of coffee on her breath as she learned to trust him again.

“The easy thing to do would be to stand here and cry. Everyone keeps saying how he wouldn’t want us crying but how else do you show that you’ll miss someone? I was the last one to see him alive and the one to watch him die. When I saw him I was past hope, past lying to myself and I knew he was not going to make it.”

Two days and a haircut earlier this man felt more like a boy. He watched the family gather at the old man’s house. The nervous laughter that happens at times like this offended the boy even though he understood it. He wouldn’t be a part of it though. There he was sitting alone in a room in his grandfather’s chair. The old man was clean and never carried a scent with him so the recliner still smelt like leather.

This all would be easier if the boy was a believer. Then he wouldn’t have to let go, he would just have to wait to see his grand-dad again. He had hope though. Lots of it. The old man was a lion and this wouldn’t be his last roar. Still, the boy wrote kind words in his little book. The same kind of book his grandfather kept in his shirt pocket.

Always have pen and paper.

It was one of the old man’s rules; part of his way of life. He was a self-made man. A millionaire now who started off his working life walking an hour to his job at a restaurant. Walking a little faster at night when his shift ended; his hand on his knife at all times.

The boy felt the knife in his pocket and felt proud of himself. The old man taught him a lot over the past few years. They weren’t distant while the boy was growing up, but they didn’t have what they have now. The old man saw that the boy was turning into a man. It was a slow change, but still he was becoming a man even though he could drink legally a year ago and a girl had already made him a man in high school.

God, why couldn’t he believe? He had faith when he was young. He had faith through the death of his mother, through the molestation, through what people would call rougher times. Why couldn’t he have it now? The boy couldn’t think about this now. He started to cry and no one noticed because he never made a sound while crying. It was just a few leaks around the eyes. He kept on with the kind words in the little book. He wished more would come to him like magic even though he wished he wouldn’t have to use them. He knew he wouldn’t have to use them.

He couldn’t decide if he was selfish or chicken shit for not going in to see the old man yet. He kept writing. He mouthed the words to himself, “The easy thing to do would be to stand here and cry. Everyone keeps saying how he wouldn’t want us crying but how else do you show that you’ll miss someone?” He cried a little more and kept writing.

The boy’s pen was interrupted by a cousin’s voice, “Jack. He wants to see you.”

Jack walked into his grandfather’s room and stopped lying to himself.

The old man nodded and said, “Well, I guess it’s time for me to go then.”

“I really wish you didn’t have to.”

“I do too son, but I have to.”

“I know.”

“Tell everyone I love them. Tell your grandmother she’s still my life. Keep her going to the doctor she doesn’t need to rush to see me.”

“I will.”

“I know you will. You think you’re weak but that’s where your strength is.”

The boy cried harder and made a sound.

“I’m damn proud of the man I met in you.”

“A lot of that is you grand-dad.”

“That’s how I’ll stay alive.”

His grand-dad nodded off to sleep for a few last breaths. The boy felt all the parts of the old man that would stay alive inside of him and they weren’t enough.

“I love you.” said the man, no longer a boy.

I broke the seal on a piss
And found a clear mind without meditation
Fuck Buddhism

It was the type of bed you could tie someone too.

There’s a sharp drop of acid in my throat burning away any words that would be useful. I guess no words would be useful right now. I take a drink of water trying to kill the acid and to fill the silence. She knows about the burning, she knows me well. So well I should have known I couldn’t keep anything from her.

They were like two birds crashing. They met, fell and put a dent into rock bottom. Deep enough in the hole to make a grave. They needed their drugs and she knew how to get them. She put her mouth on a dealer and it got them both enough. She cry more than she’s ever cried. He stole, because he was too much of a junkie to be a dealer. She slept with dealers without any tears. She knew she lost her value. He had a gun and used it once. He died in jail and left her alone. She was dirty and got a disease too big for the free clinics and died a few years later from a cold.

I found a girl to love but I didn’t get her name. I took her smile and nothing else, except for the glances I gave back to her. There was a growing frustration in her face as I did nothing. There was something there and we both felt it; she refused to make the first move. I’m glad she didn’t. I wouldn’t have known what to do, I’m not ready yet. I don’t hope to run into her again because she’ll remember me as a coward. I’m not a coward I’m just taken.

I found a girl to love but I didn’t get her name.

Babe, I got a problem and my problem is I remember you.