Original Archival Recording of My Heartbeat in Your Presence

That biological espresso shot, 

Flung from the cannon of my body into itself:

A massive shattering of wood on concrete.

Wrecking ball velocity, 

Unhindered by it's obstacle, like a bullet 

Through styrofoam. 

Ventricles, power-washed with 

Cortisol and epinephrine, contort loudly 

In one violent gearshift.

Pupils dilated eons ago, 

Monstrous expanses of time, 

Probably at least 12 to 13 seconds.
They knew to keep a safe distance.

A moment of quiet,

Meteorological silence, devoid of barometric pressure

And then a second crash:

An implosion of emotional crisis.

Even in a controlled demolition,
The building has no idea what's going on.

How strange 

To be completely supine and still require 

The full structural range of skeletal muscle exertion,

Tensing almost as if fighting against 

The possibility of collapse. 

Questions

You ever get what you want?
You ever put your hand between your legs and pretend it's me?
You ever flash your life before your eyes and pretend it's me?
You ever hit a squirrel with your car and pretend it's me?
You ever call yourself pretty in the mirror and pretend it's me?
You ever break a nail and pretend it's me?
You ever walk away from your family?
You ever look back?
You ever walk towards them?
You ever think about how these feel the same?
You ever write a letter and feed it to your mailbox?
You ever write a letter and feed it to your shredder?
You ever write a letter and feed it to your sleepless nights, hungry, and squirming, and desperate, and yellow?
You ever Google "depression symptoms"?
You ever Google "is it depression if I enjoy it"?
You ever Google "how long has it been since..."?
You ever look over your shoulder?
You ever feel happy no one's there?
You ever wish someone was?
You ever delete your internet history?
You ever delete your actual history?
You ever feel the exact moment something becomes real?
You ever tell yourself it isn't?
You ever sit beside someone who knows exactly what you're thinking and says "no, this is real."
You ever feel kind of like she looks like me?
You ever pretend she is?
You ever wish you could stop?
You ever cheat yourself?
You ever cheat yourself?

Violently

We listened to music that once played 

At the house parties our parents 

Weren't allowed into.

We were

Clasped around each other like nervous fingers,

Taking months to finally melt into one rhythm -

The rhythm to a song I'd listen to doing the dishes

In Maine,

The mountains furry with trees, 

My hands dripping water over the sink.

I'm not sure what first drew me to you.

Maybe it's the same sort of pull that my fingers get to press on a bruise.

But I

Spent years reaching over the center console to

Console your center

And to be close to you even though

You said I'd probably have killed at least

Four people with my car by the time I was 25.

Since you left,

I still haven't gotten in any car accidents.

But I think about crashing all the time. 

It might feel the same as it once did to brush by you:

Violently and with no room for other thoughts.

Big City Impulsivity

"Blah blah other movie looks like this blah actress, blah?" The sentence torpedoed toward me with the  explosive attachment of an interrogative tone - someone was talking to me. Asking me a question, in fact, which has the added annoyance of an expected answer. I looked up. In the correct direction, even. A tall David Foster Wallace-ette of a man was hunched over my barstool. Wanting to reciprocate the courage it took to swing down to my neck of the woods (judging by his height, it must have been a long trip), I peered into his iPhone screen to do whatever analysis of the ginger-haired actress about which he thought I might have crucial insight.

"I've never seen Lord of the Rings," I said, smiling, hoping to spike the conversation with some sort of swiftly terminal punctuation. I turned back to my beer. Apparently that film was not a prerequisite to this exchange, because he leaned closer and asked yet another question.

I wasn't trying to be dismissive or rude or distant. He seemed nice enough. Stubble peppered over his strong jaw and jovial aplomb oscillated from his warm eyes. But even the most neutral, conversational interest could be quickly mistaken for flirtation in these places. As he spoke, I imagined us making love. It was less a fantasy and more a... compulsion; automatic and reflexive. "I heard they're going to make a prequel..." Thrust I heard they're going to make a prequel..." Thrust. "I heard they're going to make a-"

"I mean, I see your point, but the real star was obviously the casting director," I posited, jerking myself out of the apparition. "Whoever read a script about aliens and thought that Amy Adams would fit into that world obviously had favors owed to them up the wazoo, am I right? Thank God it worked," I clinked his glass with my own.

I was right. He said so, grinned, and turned to go see the band that had just appeared on stage.

It's not that I wasn't having a good time; I was just getting drunk too quickly for how alone I was at the bar and I needed the experience to retain its label of "pregame" without being gluttonously dishonest with myself. On Monday, sniffling through the band's Spotify page, it became clear that I jumped ship too early. I do wish I stuck around for the main event instead of getting greedy and gambling on a dance floor which was as fruitless as it was inviting. Unrequited grinding makes me want to walk into the sea. Imagine if you bought tickets to Beyonce, and left after Fergie's opening act to go stick your fingers in the electrical sockets of some club. It wasn't that dramatic, but still.

I took a deep breath. I practiced surrounding myself with both plants and coworkers to remind myself that change is occurring, even if its not on my timeline. I practiced colliding full-force with Bud Light Limes and miniature cigars to reconcile myself with the embarrassment that was the last line's wholesome self-care. I practiced what my therapist calls visualization, but what I call imagining what it would be like to actually pay money for something like dry shampoo.

Sometimes I'm self-destructive just because... it's fucking funny. The plants are browning, anyhow.

My Happiest Moments With Her

I have

Surrounded myself with people who better themselves for sport,
Who treat themselves like German Shepherds,
Who have had one adult finger raised
To the children inside of them
For their entire lives.
She did not behave this way.

I met her, in all her glory,
The acrid smell of burnt rubber
In the air, to begin my annual autumnal relationship.
Cigarettes stole her natural smell.
Now acidic and buried.

Tragic that I'll never know what it once was.
Probably used to be sweet like baby powder.

My happiest moments with her were when she was asleep.
Before we slept,
I stood in the window, contemplating her silhouette in the dark driveway,
The impudent trail of smoke slithering out into the November air between us.
I looked past her, a structure looming behind her gray sedan.
I couldn't tell if it was a cemetery.
I believe it was.

An Envisioned Stranger

Excuse the rawness of this account.
When I don't understand something, I tell it
As a story to an envisioned stranger.
A sequential, linear narrative.

Munching on a steady diet of "happy couple" tropes and Disney marriages,
You grow up thinking fighting is a bad thing,
Avoid arguments with partners,
Float through the ocean of your relationship clinging to the driftwood of your similarities,
Not realizing that opposing global perspectives are a survival mechanism
And that disagreement is a resource.
Worrying "What if we refer to the living room by different names and confuse the kids?"

Cutting someone down is actually just a reversal of empathy:
If you know what hurts you, you know what hurts her.
And suddenly the nastiest fights are the ones that follow the deepest
And most intimate understanding of each other,
Strangely from a place of love.

Assumed agreement sans communication is a silent
Gripping, manipulative, depression
On a relationship.
Even in its inherent separation,
Disagreement breeds common ground and
Sunlight streams through an open window.

A Constant Bereavement

She makes me feel sticky on the inside,

That California Red Wood of a 2nd floor employee.

Equal parts reason and emotion, bone and muscle, concrete and windchime.

The thoughts floating through her salt-water cochlear fluid contain biodiversity of oceanic proportion,

Equal parts monster and hero, demon and champion, cancer and elixir.

The Law of Conservation states

That if her skull were to splinter, spilling all these wonders onto the grass,

Like egg yolk,

The very atmosphere would 

Taste sweeter, appear brighter

For a moment

As object fails and essence takes hold.

Simultaneously finding myself

Celebrating and then grieving

Each passing second,

Our time together is a constant bereavement.