I think of you when I’ve got whiskey heartburn wrenching deep in my guts. Fuck, maybe turning 21 was a mistake. I can dilute it with cold water, chalky lemon-flavored antacid tablets, salty pretzels, but maybe I’m better off kneeling over a porcelain bowl with you holding my hair back. Always have been. It’s the heartburn keeping me warm, though, as my feet dangle off the balcony in between rusty iron bars and my shivering breaths come out in steamy huffs. It’s around 4:00 AM, the darkest hour before dawn. I miss you. That’s my favorite form of masochism and you’re today’s sadist.
The next time I’ll see you would probably be in a low-resolution panel on a Zoom call. It’s so impersonal. I only use Zoom when I dread it. Sometimes, I come to Professor F’s office hours with vodka giddiness, but that’s the only clandestine spark of joy I get besides watching the bags under your eyes push upwards when you grin. I used to think of you when I spritzed sandalwood cologne on a strip of paper and stuffed it in my purse, not that I associate you with that specific smell. It’s a vague connection—I was analyzing the stereospecificity of α-Santalol when I saw a picture of someone that reminded me of you attached on the notes. That guy didn’t look like you, per say, but I saw those broad shoulders and I thought of how reluctantly reassuring your arms were around me. You’re an event in my mind. That’s only one of the many scattered fragments diffracting memories of your affection into me.
The source light that blinds me, obviously, is your lies. Your promises melt my shivers away. It feels like the first day of spring, all over again. It’s aromatic peonies and boba punch cards never quite filled up all the way and plucking your glasses off your face after you’ve drifted off into even sweeter lies and gagging at acrid ethanol. I remember the shape of your frames better than I remember how to see clearly. Somehow, I always pinch my finger when I fold your glasses in. It was like my own blurry vision was cursing me, warning me of my own bleary faults.
Some of us aren’t meant to distinguish all the leaves of the trees from each other. Or drive. Or walk straight. Or spell words corerctly. I just want to be saved. I want a kiss on my cheek and stifled laughs in the library while I pretend to study carbon-hexagons and triangle proportions. My favorite seat is across from you, where I lean in with my elbows on the table to listen to the nervous drumming of your fingers, Morse Code rhythms to communicate that you’ve had too much coffee. That’s why I’ll keep poisoning myself, why I’ll always trust the old hag’s miracle apple to grant my wishes.
When this is all over, I want to hold you captive on an eight-hour phone call and list all my senescent obsessions until the morning becomes blue. Assault me purple. Sew me a velvet cape lined with silver fox pelts. Cage me like a beast and recite your condemnation testaments and poke me with a six-foot stick. I no longer want to understand the composition of geometrical figures painted in primary colors on a beige canvas. You’ll find long voicemails the same way you’ll find me prolonging non-sequitur Twitter threads. And I’ll challenge you, again, to listen to your voice when you’re wronging me.
But you won’t even pick up. It’s another amber sip, for me.