DARK and POLISHED

youareanobject:

“It was in the park. The part when we met, I mean. Was in the park. I was trying this thing where I let my dog out without her leash—the first day, she did everything I said, was a sweetheart and a crowd-pleaser, getting me hit on by at least two MILFs and amusing little kids by licking their faces. That day, though, I guess she didn’t give a shit, because as soon as I unclipped the leash, she ran off. My heart sank and I ran after her. She led me to you. You were crying at a bench, wearing those sunglasses you only take off when we’re alone, or inside a restaurant or something. It was obvious, though. That you’d been quietly weeping in public, I mean. My dog, Court, was staring at you, panting. It was hot out. I ran over and said, “You okay?” You sniffed and said you were fine. I chuckled and said that I meant the dog. You chuckled too and that’s when you looked up and noticed my shirt was off. Your mouth opened involuntarily, just slightly. I said, “Well, the dog says she’s fine, so I guess it can be your turn now. You’re alright?” You nodded. I could feel what your eyes were doing to me even with the sunglasses on. I eyed you back. I had never seen you before—the city is big and full of people and things—but I asked if I could sit next to you. You looked nervous but said yes, and I did. I said, “I’m Thomas.” You shook my hand.

“You were older than me, but the next few weeks I felt like I had met a kind of thing I had never met before, at least not that has ever talked to me. You took me to plays you helped get made, to art shows; to deli’s where you had to order in Italian or French or something; to movies where people always ended up learning something about themselves in a way that made us leave the theater wishing every moment was an epiphany, that way life might make sense to us while we’re still young enough to enjoy it in a way that we fear getting older will strip from us. You told me that being with me felt unethical, and I laughed, because 18 isn’t exactly breaking the rules, except for people who think living by rules makes them better, and so make up rules they’ll spend their lives hoping to break. I told you to touch me, and you did, wherever I asked, whenever I asked, for however long I needed you to. You told me you weren’t much of a talker, were an introvert, but around me, all you did was talk, and laugh, and cry, and look at me like I was this obscure form of currency that nobody knew about, but that could buy and sell everyone on the planet twice over. I just liked to watch you. But when I did talk, you listened. Kissing you felt like the easiest thing anyone could ever ask me to do—every night was like an event, like I was rescuing you from a volcano, or like I saved you from a zombie attack or something. Like you owed me. You told me life wasn’t made for you. That I wasn’t made for you…  ”Everyone’s just made to ‘be’, though. No one was made for anybody.” I said that. You got upset, in the way people do when something is true but they don’t want it to be. I told you I loved you and you said the same, but I could tell you were hurt, damaged by someone, or some…realization about what life is, and what it isn’t, that you’re love for me could only ever be made of the fear of possibly not having me around, making you appreciate that I was. Around, I mean. Maybe that’s what all love is. Just obsession and a need to believe in acceptance, a need to feel like your desires are okay, valuable even. I don’t know. When you left me, I was not surprised. I don’t think you knew what to do with being cared for. I think you felt like you didn’t deserve it. You would say as much, and it would kill me, but that’s just it—you didn’t know how invested I was, or how much time I spent wondering what you were doing, or just…feeling alone even though you were sitting next to me, feeling like my fantasies of us ‘in ten years’ were a joke. Because you left. And you did me a favor, but I wish you hadn’t. ‘I don’t blame you,’ I texted you when I got to our place and you were gone. You and you’re things… You never texted me back. I sat at the window, wanting to cry but feeling unable to. Feeling ugly, childish. Feeling like you thought I was maybe too dumb for you. Too young. I think about love and how it’s just chemicals anyway, how it’s everywhere but some people will never have it; how I’ll be okay—how you probably won’t be. How this does not make me feel better.”