Jul 2014
We sat down together, and she began to ask questions.
"Age, age is a funny thing, is it not?"
"Ah, yes. My lover, my mental cannibal, she is 18. Or was. I think she's dead."
"Keep going, friend."
"About what?"
"The thing that eats your mind away. I have one too. Did she wither away?"
I shift in my chair, uneasy. The pit of my stomach begins to ache.
"She disappeared. She was sick, you see, and one day, she simply disappeared. Oh, I didn't give up there, I try to contact her to this very day. It's the not knowing that eats at my skull."
"What part eats at you, her absence or her presence elsewhere?"
"Her absence."
"Do you speak?"
"Love is too cruel to want to have it again. We used Skype."
"Ah, real person."
"As real as I am."
"That's a statement too profound to mean anything and to meaningful to not mean anything at all."
"In the end, I'm only as real as I want to be - which is to say, a ghost, nothing more and nothing less."
"Everything is nothing. Projection. What did you talk about? Did she love you too?"
"We talked about everything. The universe and life and love and ***. I like to think that she loved me."
"What was she sick with?"
"I don't remember. But she was so beautiful, as she coughed and hacked and still smiled when she saw me."
"Did she name you Goat?"
"No. I named myself that, because I eat everything until I am left alone in a pile of my own filth."
"Is she still there? Do you still hear her?"
"I hear her voice, her laugh, everywhere. I miss her. Every part. I miss it when I did something stupid and she laughed. I miss her eyes when she read one of my poems. I miss hearing her sing out on the stairs. I miss her wild hair."
"Pain- write about that, write about relief."
"The only relief for me is death, and I'm not that desperate yet."
"Ah, desperate to end this suffering? Write about death and write about love and life and addiction and form and state and *** and senses."
"It feels like so much longer than it has been. Everything moment is a lifetime. In fact, it must've been. It's inhumane, this suffering."
"I think you mean too human."
"Perhaps."
"Age, age is a funny thing, is it not?"
"Ah, yes. My lover, my mental cannibal, she is 18. Or was. I think she's dead."
"Keep going, friend."
"About what?"
"The thing that eats your mind away. I have one too. Did she wither away?"
I shift in my chair, uneasy. The pit of my stomach begins to ache.
"She disappeared. She was sick, you see, and one day, she simply disappeared. Oh, I didn't give up there, I try to contact her to this very day. It's the not knowing that eats at my skull."
"What part eats at you, her absence or her presence elsewhere?"
"Her absence."
"Do you speak?"
"Love is too cruel to want to have it again. We used Skype."
"Ah, real person."
"As real as I am."
"That's a statement too profound to mean anything and to meaningful to not mean anything at all."
"In the end, I'm only as real as I want to be - which is to say, a ghost, nothing more and nothing less."
"Everything is nothing. Projection. What did you talk about? Did she love you too?"
"We talked about everything. The universe and life and love and ***. I like to think that she loved me."
"What was she sick with?"
"I don't remember. But she was so beautiful, as she coughed and hacked and still smiled when she saw me."
"Did she name you Goat?"
"No. I named myself that, because I eat everything until I am left alone in a pile of my own filth."
"Is she still there? Do you still hear her?"
"I hear her voice, her laugh, everywhere. I miss her. Every part. I miss it when I did something stupid and she laughed. I miss her eyes when she read one of my poems. I miss hearing her sing out on the stairs. I miss her wild hair."
"Pain- write about that, write about relief."
"The only relief for me is death, and I'm not that desperate yet."
"Ah, desperate to end this suffering? Write about death and write about love and life and addiction and form and state and *** and senses."
"It feels like so much longer than it has been. Everything moment is a lifetime. In fact, it must've been. It's inhumane, this suffering."
"I think you mean too human."
"Perhaps."
