static_abyss (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
static_abyss) wrote2018-10-31 10:05 pm
static_abyss) wrote2018-10-31 10:05 pm
LJ Idol Week 4: Metamorphosis
When I try to remember you now, the first thing that I can think of is that day in my kitchen. The stove was on, and my mother, in her black and white dress pajamas and her oversized shirt, was cooking caldo de rez. You called it beef stew, even though it was clearly not. You weren't there that day, but I was on the phone with you, sitting on a burgandy foldout chair, my cellphone in my ear, mom's food on the stove, and the rain hitting the window.
We were talking about our future, the sound of your voice settling warmly around me, along with the heat from the stove. I have always run uncomfortably warm, but the easy way you included me in your plans, years from then, was a welcome heat. I had long ago become accostumed to the way you made me feel, somewhere between absolutely certain and wild at the same time. As though I could make it anywhere, carefree and laughing all the way. Like, with you, I could run away from all the things that settled like lead on my shoulders. I forgot my family a little, with you, which in essence means I forgot myself a little, with you.
We never outgrew that habit, the constant pull of you, your smiles, your lipstick, the dresses you wore to parties and during the summer. You wore them more often once you got that job at NYU, and something about your legs in stockings, and the smudged lipstick you reapplied as soon as you saw me, kept me following after you. It kept me on the phone with you that day, that and the way your head had felt on my shoulder on our trip to Austria.
Did you know that the memory of your heat against my side helped me sleep at night? You thought I was ignoring you when we were in Europe, but how was I supposed to tell you? What words exist for the way I felt at the sight of your fingers against your lips when you fixed your lipstick?
Red has always been my favorite color on you, but the day we walked into the gardens in Austria changed that. The orange and yellow of the fallen leaves, and the way the sun hit your hair, how it kissed the sides of your face, will forever be seared in my memory. We walked in that garden for hours, the wind biting, your hair loose and mine in a bun. You were wearing your red coat, and your black boots made no sound on the carpet of leaves. We didn't run into anybody on our walk, just us and the rows of trees with their orange and yellow leaves. It was just us and the tarred paths, us crossing the manicured lawns, us next to each other but never touching.
I told you I was gay that day, a whispered confession from under the hotel down comforter.
"Oh, don't worry," you said, from your side of the room, your hand paused in front of your mouth as you wiped away your lipstick. "You'll find the right guy some day."
That was the day the silence began, and I still don't know what I could have said to break it. There's more to this story than just the certainty in your voice at your suggestion. It's tangled in the years spanning our friendship, from the moment I chose to sit next to you in class, to that day in my kitchen when it all unraveled.
I only mention Austria, because it started the silence I tried to break for the last time, that day in my kitchen. You told me you had just gotten up from a nap, and the first thing you had done was call me. You said you had smudged your makeup, and I knew your hair was probably pulled into a messy ponytail since it was Sunday. I could hear the half hour of sleep in the laziness to your voice, that languid way you had of speaking when you were tired, like you were stretching out beside me.
"What are we going to do when we're married?" you asked.
My mother was in the room, but we both knew what I meant when I said, "Who knows if I'll even get married?"
You never liked silence. Ever since we met, you have tried to beat the quiet with the sound of your laughter, with the conversations that kept us on the phone for hours, with the TV on in the background even though we weren't watching it. You filled a room with sounds at any opportunity, with people even if you didn't like them, because to be alone and silent scared you more than it will ever scare me.
Do you understand, now, why your silence that day did more damage than any words you might have said?
"Hello?" I asked, even though I never spoke first, never had to.
"Yeah," you said, your voice sharper now, more awake. "You know what I always thought though?"
"What?" I asked.
"I always thought you would be doing something important with your life," you told me, that earnestness in your voice that always came before your harshest words. "I thought you would at least be in med school by now."
That was another silence, a deeper one, and in it were the years I had spent agonizing over what I couldn't bring myself to do, and what would be best for my family. You knew about my family. You knew how deeply embedded in my choices they were, how what I wanted and what would benefit them were the same. You knew med school was, at that time, my greatest failure. You had to know. I had said it enough.
But perhaps, it wasn't that you didn't know. Perhaps you had forgotten. Perhaps you were still tired. Perhaps you didn't mean to open old wounds. Perhaps what I heard in the static over the phone were the number of times you said, "I know you," only to end with descriptions of the person I had been, and no longer was. Perhaps I had made enough excuses. Perhaps I had given you enough chances.
I hung up because what could I say? What were the words to tell you that I had, until then, felt the most with you, that your words had shaped me in ways that I might never fully undo? How could I tell you that you and I had spanned centuries, that you were half of my life? There was too much in the years between us, too much lost in the silence, more lost to your incessant need to fill the quiet.
What were you afraid of? Did you know what I would find in the silence? Did you think that if you stopped talking, I would finally hear myself, and that when I did, I would walk away?
Did you know that when you texted, I wouldn't respond?
We were talking about our future, the sound of your voice settling warmly around me, along with the heat from the stove. I have always run uncomfortably warm, but the easy way you included me in your plans, years from then, was a welcome heat. I had long ago become accostumed to the way you made me feel, somewhere between absolutely certain and wild at the same time. As though I could make it anywhere, carefree and laughing all the way. Like, with you, I could run away from all the things that settled like lead on my shoulders. I forgot my family a little, with you, which in essence means I forgot myself a little, with you.
We never outgrew that habit, the constant pull of you, your smiles, your lipstick, the dresses you wore to parties and during the summer. You wore them more often once you got that job at NYU, and something about your legs in stockings, and the smudged lipstick you reapplied as soon as you saw me, kept me following after you. It kept me on the phone with you that day, that and the way your head had felt on my shoulder on our trip to Austria.
Did you know that the memory of your heat against my side helped me sleep at night? You thought I was ignoring you when we were in Europe, but how was I supposed to tell you? What words exist for the way I felt at the sight of your fingers against your lips when you fixed your lipstick?
Red has always been my favorite color on you, but the day we walked into the gardens in Austria changed that. The orange and yellow of the fallen leaves, and the way the sun hit your hair, how it kissed the sides of your face, will forever be seared in my memory. We walked in that garden for hours, the wind biting, your hair loose and mine in a bun. You were wearing your red coat, and your black boots made no sound on the carpet of leaves. We didn't run into anybody on our walk, just us and the rows of trees with their orange and yellow leaves. It was just us and the tarred paths, us crossing the manicured lawns, us next to each other but never touching.
I told you I was gay that day, a whispered confession from under the hotel down comforter.
"Oh, don't worry," you said, from your side of the room, your hand paused in front of your mouth as you wiped away your lipstick. "You'll find the right guy some day."
That was the day the silence began, and I still don't know what I could have said to break it. There's more to this story than just the certainty in your voice at your suggestion. It's tangled in the years spanning our friendship, from the moment I chose to sit next to you in class, to that day in my kitchen when it all unraveled.
I only mention Austria, because it started the silence I tried to break for the last time, that day in my kitchen. You told me you had just gotten up from a nap, and the first thing you had done was call me. You said you had smudged your makeup, and I knew your hair was probably pulled into a messy ponytail since it was Sunday. I could hear the half hour of sleep in the laziness to your voice, that languid way you had of speaking when you were tired, like you were stretching out beside me.
"What are we going to do when we're married?" you asked.
My mother was in the room, but we both knew what I meant when I said, "Who knows if I'll even get married?"
You never liked silence. Ever since we met, you have tried to beat the quiet with the sound of your laughter, with the conversations that kept us on the phone for hours, with the TV on in the background even though we weren't watching it. You filled a room with sounds at any opportunity, with people even if you didn't like them, because to be alone and silent scared you more than it will ever scare me.
Do you understand, now, why your silence that day did more damage than any words you might have said?
"Hello?" I asked, even though I never spoke first, never had to.
"Yeah," you said, your voice sharper now, more awake. "You know what I always thought though?"
"What?" I asked.
"I always thought you would be doing something important with your life," you told me, that earnestness in your voice that always came before your harshest words. "I thought you would at least be in med school by now."
That was another silence, a deeper one, and in it were the years I had spent agonizing over what I couldn't bring myself to do, and what would be best for my family. You knew about my family. You knew how deeply embedded in my choices they were, how what I wanted and what would benefit them were the same. You knew med school was, at that time, my greatest failure. You had to know. I had said it enough.
But perhaps, it wasn't that you didn't know. Perhaps you had forgotten. Perhaps you were still tired. Perhaps you didn't mean to open old wounds. Perhaps what I heard in the static over the phone were the number of times you said, "I know you," only to end with descriptions of the person I had been, and no longer was. Perhaps I had made enough excuses. Perhaps I had given you enough chances.
I hung up because what could I say? What were the words to tell you that I had, until then, felt the most with you, that your words had shaped me in ways that I might never fully undo? How could I tell you that you and I had spanned centuries, that you were half of my life? There was too much in the years between us, too much lost in the silence, more lost to your incessant need to fill the quiet.
What were you afraid of? Did you know what I would find in the silence? Did you think that if you stopped talking, I would finally hear myself, and that when I did, I would walk away?
Did you know that when you texted, I wouldn't respond?