Hey,
I don't know your address.
I hope you never read this.
My therapist says that this is the way to get it all out of my head.
I was under the impression
that writing to someone
ended in burning the evidence.
That it was a kind of healing ritual.
Cleansed by the flames.
But no,
electronic almost-correspondence
appears to be the answer.
Here goes:


I got drunk today.
It seemed like the thing to do.

There was a couch,
it was grey.
Yeah, that one. The red wine stain
is still on the underside
of the cushion cover.

I prefer white.

I sat on the couch.
That's what they're for, couches,
so not much of a surprise, I guess.
But I don't know what to say,
I'm filling the void with
obvious facts.

I didn't even use a wine glass.
I filled a pink mug
full to the top.
Had to sip off the rim of it
so it didn't overflow as I carried it into the sitting room.
With the bottle of wine,
of course.

And I drank.

So I'm drunk now.
I keep laughing.
Of course, I'm not a happy drunk,
but everything is
wrong
anyway.
There's no one around to
tell me to shut up,
for one thing.

Not that I would mind
if there was.
It would fill the silence.

A silence punctuated with
pathetic little
giggles,
as I mentioned before.

I'm not sure what I'm laughing at.
Could be the man outside yelling at his car,
the alarm has been on for an hour now.
Maybe it's the fact
that you took the kettle with you,
and I haven't bought a new one.

I make tea in the microwave now.
Ridiculous.

I don't like you.
Not at all. I don't like the way
that you can't seem to
say anything of importance
and I don't like the way
that your absence
is like

it's like

being stabbed, but that's not enough I feel like I don't have the right to claim that kind of physical pain, I don't feel like I have the right to cry or even walk out my own front door for some reason, and for some reason I was not good enough for you even though neither of us tried our best because we thought we were enough but we weren't and I don't have the words to describe what you are to me, or what you were to me, only that grocery-store sushi used to be that pathetic thing you bought at past-eleven-pm-sometime and now I hate it so much that it's the only thing I can eat and I

I don't need you.

I don't. It's impossible for me to need you,
in the scientific, explainable
rational sense.

But explain it for me,
please.

smiles are misleading
screaming
and pleading

smiles are fleeting,
but this one's for you

“pinky promise you’ll be there for my play?”

i don’t do pinky promises.

“why not?”

I don’t make promises that i can’t keep. because a broken promise is just about as bad as a broken tequila bottle shoved into the soft spot just below your ribs.

“…what?”

speaking of tequila, let me tell you why i don’t do pinky promises.
it was a few falls ago, three if you really want to get technical.
i’d come down to visit you on a weekend instead of staying home to study like i should’ve been.
it was eleven to eleven. 

drunk. dear gods we were drunk. we’d just stumbled out of the greasiest mexican restaurant i’d ever eaten in. 
but hey. the margaritas were cheap, and more importantly, they were the only place in the area that would serve to minors. They even included a free shot of tequila when you asked for your check, that went down with similar smoothness to the way my debit card slid through the reader and emptied my bank account a little more.


but yes. you and i were drunk. and as we strolled down fifth avenue i-

“me?”

No, i mean her. not you.

“who is ‘her?’”

that’s not important. do you want me to tell the story or not?

“whatever…”

anyways. as we strolled down sixth avenue i-

“i thought it was fifth avenue?”

Can you not?

“sorry….”

as we strolled down whatever the **** avenue it was, i couldn’t tell my feet from the concrete because the street lamps tinged everything an odd warm shade of brownish orange.
to stop myself from falling i reached out and wrapped my arm around your shoulder. 

I can still feel the fur from your coat brushing on my cheek.
you didn’t protest, and i sure as hell wasn’t going to stop.
we were drunk. and talking. 
talking about nonsense, about school, about our grades, about boys… 
it’s funny that if we talked for long enough, without a doubt, our conversation would drift to the subject of love.

You knew that I liked you. back then i thought you just liked to torture me. 

we stopped at the burning open palm of the street light before us. 
i stopped you mid-sentence. 
‘i could love you better’.

after those five words left my lips i suddenly wasn’t very drunk anymore.
 
silence. 

there was no turning back now,  so i had to just roll with it. 

‘you waste all of this time on these boys who do nothing but hurt you…. but i’ve loved you for years now. you and i both know that you deserve better. that i would be better. every single time you come up in conversation with my old friends or my parents they ask whether or not we’ve finally gotten together or not. what’s stopping us?’

You stared at me for a long time, saying nothing, but it didn’t take a psychic to see the indecisiveness and longing and anxiety and fear swirling inside of you like your unmentionables in your Maytag.


“I guess i don’t really have a good reason. it’s just…. awkward, you know?” 

She paused. I tried not to betray any emotion with my face. 

"I'll cut you a deal. if in two years, we aren't seeing anybody... we'll give 'us' a shot." 

Not quite the answer I was looking for, but it was better than a flat out 'No'. little did I know at the time that they were essentially the same thing. 

I stuck out my pinky finger.

'Pinky promise?'
"Pinky promise”, she replied.

We locked eyes, locked pinkies in an embrace, and seconds later the ghostly white of the pedestrian walk signal shone down on us. 

We broke our gaze and walked off into the night.

That was three years ago, and it’s probably safe to say that we won’t be taking that shot.
I don’t hold it against her. But i learned through three years of waiting not to make promises that you can’t or don’t intend to keep.

My first paper cut happened so fast
I didn’t know something so thin
Could hurt so badly.
Thin was never an adjective
I’d associated with pain but
The sting of red blood that
Appeared on the surface of my skin
Would later become an addiction
I couldn’t get away from.
Thin silver razor blades
And thin white paper
Shouldn’t seem so similar.

My teacher asked me if I needed a
Band-Aid at my kindergarten conference
When a paper cut sliced my finger
While we were going through my materials
As if looking into my future.
I told her I didn’t need a Band-Aid
And in return, she told me that I was strong.

Kindergarten has come and gone
And after a very long time of thinking
Band-Aids made you weak,
I’ve realized that bandaging up your
Wounds actually makes you stronger
Than trying to bottle up the hurt.