My most vivid memories of elementary school involve drama. Not the negative drama where you could get hurt, no--the drama that is acting and creative movement, a captivating idea brought to my knowledge through a teacher by the name of (blank). Ms. (blank)'s way of teaching inspired me to gravitate to dramatic people. My first crush was named Eric, everyone enjoyed him because he was funny, outspoken, and at times, rebellious--a character. I did not want flat, I was attracted to people with grandiose gestures and immense passion. I wasn't aware of it at the time I locked eyes with him, but Zach's passion and movement made me unconsciously want him. Now I tend to wonder, is part of getting what you want...convincing yourself you never can? If you're telling yourself you can't have something and time passes by and you actually don't get what you want, wouldn't that really mean you're getting what you want because what you believed came true?
The happiest clown still cries when the makeup disappears, the most successful comedians see themselves as the world's best joke, and this is the way the world turns. Musicians and artists: extremely happy or extremely sad, no in-between. His face crunches into an expression of disgust with the topic of discussion and I watch as his skin wrinkles and stretches back and wish I could erase the lines. Even when he is well-rested his eyes look tired and worn, like they've seen more than they should and as if tears just don't come out from them anymore. His hair has grown longer due to the lack of time for a haircut and his face sometimes seems so sunken in as though he's been starved of stability. I feel the chill of his new basement room and while on his bed I tell him I'm cold. He asks, "do you mean that emotionally or physically?" and this comment would only make sense to someone if they knew the context. He wrapped his body around me and I instantly felt his warmth. For the past few weeks before that point, our intimacy had been difficult with all of the negativity surrounding his daily life. Zach was having difficulty with what used to be an incredible kitchen job at a decent restaurant. The difficulty came with, essentially, the McDonaldization of the restaurant which meant more pressure and less passion. He'd decided he could not work in the environment any longer and while problems arose with matters of work and matters of our relationship, the fatal state of his grandmother added the imminence of grief to his shoulders. With hope and determination, Zach scored a job wearing chef's whites working at Swan, a finer restaurant than the previous. He had been tossed around and the pit in my chest grew with the inner conflict I faced between being selfish and arguing with the hope for it to become resolved which in reality became endless. It only left me feeling worse for keeping him awake late enough to leave him with the minimum time left to sleep which would surely affect his performance at work in the morning.
I went into the bathroom, holding back tears of anger and wanting to remove the tangles from his stomach and lower back. I wished I could say something that would cure him of this continuous ache. It was a mental trigger of an ache that I'm sure no one else could understand completely. He wanted to be alone and I held back offence and instead felt helplessness. I felt guilt for having caused it but how I felt did not matter because his feelings meant more to me; that is why we left to get me home. My guilt and need to be alleviated of such feelings shows, as I realized it to be, self-centered behavior when I came to the conclusion that to act selflessly was to be silent and go home.
The pain in his face and weakness made me upset and furious not being able to fix it, but still I stayed silent and let him take me home.
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