I like the way you destroy yourself. The way your corpse-like face, with its sunken in cheeks and hollowed out eyes, smiles a crooked yellow smile at the thought of being buried in the ground, rotting away. I thought it was beautiful the way you'd force your fingers down your throat with spindly fingers, "look a rainbow," you'd say, "it's so beautiful," you'd whisper, clutching a slow burning cigarette between the two yellow fingers of your other hand. You'd flush the toilet with such grace. The whole process would've been that of a maestro conducting Beethoven’s 7th symphony, and for all you knew, it was.
I loved that time we were lying in that figurative gutter of morality and you handed me a sharpie, "wanna play connect the dots?" you rolled up your sleeve.
I still remember that day you stole that wedding dress from the Salvation Army. it was out of style and it's still up for debate whether that stain was red wine or blood, but you waltzed right in there, a needle still sticking out of your ******* neck, took that dress in your own two, scab littered arms, and walked right out the front door like you owned the place. I could've kissed you.
In that dress you looked like a princess, with your stringy hair and frame so malnourished that it hung off of you like you were wearing a pair of drapes, you looked like a something out of a bonafide Disney movie.
With my hand in your right hand, and a bag of speed in your left, you pulled me around the corner into the seclusion of the alley.
"I look like a princess"
You looked beautiful
"And that makes you my prince"
A homeless man stirred from behind a dumpster, peeking over the top, his eyes - though showing clear signs of many years deep in any bottle he could find - showed realization. His hand disappeared in the downward direction, his eyes were wide.
“And you know what princes and princesses always get?"
My hand was around your fragile throat, your neck read like Braille, you smile, such a beautiful smile.
"They always get, a happy ending"
And from there, I can't be sure, but I think all three of us finished at the same time.
But of all the days we had together, of every self-destructive tendency you had, I will always remember the day, all of your endless hard work finally materialized into everything you wanted it to become.
“I am the **** of the ******* earth”
This was the day you destroyed yourself. You told me why.
“I turned to self destruction for solace, solace from everything I was expected to become being shoved down my throat, I wiped my *** with morality and dogmas, and I became the antithesis of what I was supposed to be, I ******* won.”
And with that you dropped to your knees in front of the coffee table, the transparency of its clear glass surface obstructed by five pristine white lines. Like perfect little white picket fences, surrounding perfect little yards that perfect little children would play their perfect little games while their perfect parents would do not so perfect things behind the doors of their perfect little houses.
And this is when I understood.
Your *****, messy, clumped-up hair offered a half veil for your face. A $1 bill hovered above the first line; your practiced anticipation was beautiful. God, I loved this part, because you loved this part. Just before that first hit, just before the euphoria expanded, washing over you, blanketing your lanky figure and troubled mind in bliss. Your last seconds on earth.
And this is when I understood.
Before long, all five lines were absent from the table, and making their way through your system, you were glowing. You raised yourself up and teetered on your 6-inch heels, your stick thin legs threatening to snap in half and cut you down. You wrapped your arms around me, you didn't say it, neither did I. Your eyelids fluttered and you batted your eyelashes. I don’t know if it was on purpose, but it was ****.
You walked to the balcony, I knew you wouldn't jump. You just stood there, impossibly high, in your impossibly high heels, at the impossibly great distance to the ground. Your tiny frame, illuminated perfectly by the glow of the electric bug zapper, it was the perfect analogy. Your spotlight was a killer, and your beauty was destruction.
The sun fell behind the horizon lines, and the crescent moon rose high in the sky.
“I’m going to lounge on that”
The stars were faintly visible though the light pollution.
“I’m going to find the flattest stars and skip them through galaxies.”
You had a bottle of ****** in one hand, a bottle of ***** in the other.
“I’m going to visit every planet; I’m going to live in their gutters.”
The bottles were both open, you set the ***** down, shaking out pill after pill into your open palm, you smiled.
“I’m going to meet an alien; I’m going to dance with him.”
A mouth full of ****** and a bottle of ***** to wash it down.
“I’m going to meet God, if there is such a thing.”
Hours passing, felt like seconds. You’re starting to slip, you’re starting to float up, up to all those promises you made to the moon, and the stars, and the aliens.
For the longest time, I couldn't tell if your lifelessness was figurative – conjured up by my perspective of what you are – or literal. I may have sat there for a long time, admiring the beauty of everything you worked so hard for. You looked the same, and I think that was beautiful. It was beautiful the way you epitomized ruination. How you massacred every conventional idea of what it meant to be alive and well. How you taught me that a sense of loss is only relative. I think it was beautiful the way you destroyed yourself.