table of contents
complications (us) (suicide themes)
origami (death themes)
the enigma of jack caper
the ideal woman (death themes)
complications (us)
your beginning was complicated. they didn’t want you because you were an outsider. they didn’t want you because you were too different, too confident, too much. you were a splash of color in the monochrome painting, and they didn’t want to be anything but colorblind. so you tucked yourself in bed, eyes blazing, waiting for the day you become a shooting star.
my beginning was complicated. they didn’t want me to become something i was. they didn’t want me to be me. so i retreated within my fortress and gave them what they wanted. i became her: the ideal, the image, the pretender. my life started to revolve around the decisions that would bring me the least discomfort. it was no longer living, just getting by.
but the beginning of us wasn’t so complicated. you sought comfort. i sought comfort. we found each other. we found comfort. you just wanted someone to hold and hold and hold, someone who loved and loved and loved. i just wanted someone who would always listen, never judge; someone that would just let me be and be and be.
and it worked for a while. you laid me down upon your lap, running your fingers through my too long hair, singing silly songs, and murmuring the observations you kept pent up during the day. and i relaxed, eyes closed, mentally constructing poem after poem after poem, none of which ever did you justice, none of which were ever written down because i was afraid that if i wrote them down, i would forget them, afraid that i would forget your beauty, afraid that i would forget you. sometimes, you would tell me about how scared you were, how sometimes believing in yourself meant being scared of yourself. “because,” you would say, “the mind’s speculations can become reality, and when you give them that type of power, reality can become the thing you’re most afraid of.” and i wondered then if we would last because you were so terribly beautiful in that moment that i wasn’t sure if i could ever survive you.
when you left, it was like the world turned back fifteen hundred years to the dark ages. when you left, i stopped seeing in color, and i started writing things down. i wrote and i wrote and i wrote because if i didn’t write these feelings out, they would’ve exploded out of me, leaving behind radiated waste for at least three generations of people around me to suffer through. i wrote to remember, to eternalize you, and i wrote to forget. i wrote to forget you, and i wrote to forget how everyone assumed that i was okay. i wrote because my words were like cuts that could drain me of the poison that was missing you. i wrote because the abuse that i put my body through could only ever be a fraction of what you put my mind through.
by the second year, i stopped coming to our spot, not because i had forgotten, but because the constant memories of rejection hurt too much. i stopped staring at the only photo of us i had. i stopped hoping, hoping for you to come back, for you to have taken me with you. i stopped saying i love you before bed every night as i stared at the stars, guessing which one you could be. i stopped writing about you. i stopped writing because writing meant thinking of you and thinking of you meant feeling sad and feeling sad meant acknowledging the bone-deep weariness that had settled in my tired soul. i had learned that there was no way that i could write out missing you because the best way that i could even begin to describe missing you was as a feeling of sadness so intense, so pervasive, lasting for so long that it started to feel normal. it started to be normal, and i became detached from the reality of where sadness began and you ended.
by the third year, i started pretending again. i started pretending to be one of them. i started pretending i wasn’t me. i started pretending i was her: the ideal, the image, the princess. my life started to revolve around the decisions that would bring me the least discomfort. it was no longer living because living meant breathing in your vanilla and pressing you so close to me that i thought we were one being and finishing your sentences for you and debating literature and finding sad quotes to smile about with you and leaving yellow post-it notes with cheesy messages in your things to hear your quiet giggle. because living meant being with you, and you weren’t here anymore. so i started to say i hate you before bed every night, studiously staring at anything but the stars that could’ve been you.
by the fourth year, i had but one message for you: no matter how much i say i hate you, take comfort in the fact that i hate myself more than i can ever hate anyone else in the world because:
you were my undoing.
you are my everything.
and you will be my destruction.
my beginning was complicated. they didn’t want me to become something i was. they didn’t want me to be me. so i retreated within my fortress and gave them what they wanted. i became her: the ideal, the image, the pretender. my life started to revolve around the decisions that would bring me the least discomfort. it was no longer living, just getting by.
but the beginning of us wasn’t so complicated. you sought comfort. i sought comfort. we found each other. we found comfort. you just wanted someone to hold and hold and hold, someone who loved and loved and loved. i just wanted someone who would always listen, never judge; someone that would just let me be and be and be.
and it worked for a while. you laid me down upon your lap, running your fingers through my too long hair, singing silly songs, and murmuring the observations you kept pent up during the day. and i relaxed, eyes closed, mentally constructing poem after poem after poem, none of which ever did you justice, none of which were ever written down because i was afraid that if i wrote them down, i would forget them, afraid that i would forget your beauty, afraid that i would forget you. sometimes, you would tell me about how scared you were, how sometimes believing in yourself meant being scared of yourself. “because,” you would say, “the mind’s speculations can become reality, and when you give them that type of power, reality can become the thing you’re most afraid of.” and i wondered then if we would last because you were so terribly beautiful in that moment that i wasn’t sure if i could ever survive you.
when you left, it was like the world turned back fifteen hundred years to the dark ages. when you left, i stopped seeing in color, and i started writing things down. i wrote and i wrote and i wrote because if i didn’t write these feelings out, they would’ve exploded out of me, leaving behind radiated waste for at least three generations of people around me to suffer through. i wrote to remember, to eternalize you, and i wrote to forget. i wrote to forget you, and i wrote to forget how everyone assumed that i was okay. i wrote because my words were like cuts that could drain me of the poison that was missing you. i wrote because the abuse that i put my body through could only ever be a fraction of what you put my mind through.
by the second year, i stopped coming to our spot, not because i had forgotten, but because the constant memories of rejection hurt too much. i stopped staring at the only photo of us i had. i stopped hoping, hoping for you to come back, for you to have taken me with you. i stopped saying i love you before bed every night as i stared at the stars, guessing which one you could be. i stopped writing about you. i stopped writing because writing meant thinking of you and thinking of you meant feeling sad and feeling sad meant acknowledging the bone-deep weariness that had settled in my tired soul. i had learned that there was no way that i could write out missing you because the best way that i could even begin to describe missing you was as a feeling of sadness so intense, so pervasive, lasting for so long that it started to feel normal. it started to be normal, and i became detached from the reality of where sadness began and you ended.
by the third year, i started pretending again. i started pretending to be one of them. i started pretending i wasn’t me. i started pretending i was her: the ideal, the image, the princess. my life started to revolve around the decisions that would bring me the least discomfort. it was no longer living because living meant breathing in your vanilla and pressing you so close to me that i thought we were one being and finishing your sentences for you and debating literature and finding sad quotes to smile about with you and leaving yellow post-it notes with cheesy messages in your things to hear your quiet giggle. because living meant being with you, and you weren’t here anymore. so i started to say i hate you before bed every night, studiously staring at anything but the stars that could’ve been you.
by the fourth year, i had but one message for you: no matter how much i say i hate you, take comfort in the fact that i hate myself more than i can ever hate anyone else in the world because:
you were my undoing.
you are my everything.
and you will be my destruction.
origami
smoothly folded edges are creased over, some clumsily, some with the utmost precision as if the creator was a child learning for the first time. the shape slowly becomes discernible as one stares and scrutinizes longer until the effort of trying to understand and pretending to understand blurs. with each rip, tear, and fold the outline becomes clearer and more distinct until it can only be one thing – the classic crane. the fold of its beak done with special care so that it appears to be a tiny right triangle; the small, meticulously precise body brings attention to style of the crane, revealing that it is the unmovable type. which is just as well, after all, the fragile wings are folded too straightly, too uniformly for such a fancy, dainty thing to flap its wings and take flight. for it would take a thousand, possibly more, birds before the hope of the child could be fully realized. it is this, this small token of a gift, which compels her heart to race along, tears trailing, leaving behind a regular, if slightly damp piece of paper, the last gift received by a terminal patient torn away from her only baby.
the enigma of jack caper
the man with intelligent, calculating, faded black eyes was one of either high or low class – it was indiscernible. this man, one mr. jack caper, wore a simple but fancy jet-black business suit. it was immediately apparent that it was of the highest quality and expense. the shiny black of the meticulously kept jacket looked as if it had not been wore a day yet, and yet, it could be determined from the fond stance of mr. caper that he had, in fact, worn this particular suit many times. the perfect length of the cleanly, immaculately pressed pants and the snow white, silk dress shirt belied the amount of capital he had. yet, despite all this, his confident, charming demeanor, and his clean-shaven face, there was a certain quality to his eyes, a certain quality, which belied his troubles. it told of cold nights in the streets and rough paranoia against savages once thought of as brothers. it spoke of a deep, underlying dissatisfaction with life, that it could be so cruel and kind at the same time as to grant peace through tyranny. and it was not through his apparent appearance that yields understanding but his secrets. the ideals he fought so diligently to keep could be read in the slight down-turn of his eyebrows. the innate hatred for authority could be gleaned from his arms, crossing so naturally. but most of all, a fundamental sense of passion could not be obfuscated; it radiated off him with his words and actions, screaming not to be ignored. it was such a fiery inferno that his gentle, simple acts of kindness could not hide he was angry, angry enough to choose to be seen as a ratty, lazy scum of the streets rather than a man of his standing and wealth.
the ideal woman
there is a mysterious glint in her dark, almost black eyes, one that neither confirms nor denies any of the observers' questions. she is a beauty, shiny, black hair curling in the most appealing way, smooth, pale skin gleaming in the light. dark red lips curved just so, hinting at something, a secret only she knows. her eyes glint mysteriously. they reveal a sliver of her previously gregarious personality, alluding to her charisma. smooth hands with strange calluses that can only come from gripping a pencil incorrectly for hours on end reveal her loving dedication to her art. which art it is, however, we will never know. was she a writer, spinning out fanciful words, weaving them forcefully into a magical novella? or was she an artist, capturing the fleeting beauty of ordinary, unique moments? yet, could she have been a designer, perfecting model after model of her work on the fragile paper in which she plans upon. the observer shall never know for the subject holds a strange, quiet power that releases a commanding presence in which no one dares to breath a word, only whispered phrases of prayer and hope for guidance, the only disturbance allowed in her room. but it is not her room, and she is not alone, standing at the focus of the gaze of distraught friends and devastated friends. she is stock still, sundress swaying with an imaginary breeze, as she has been for the last fifteen years, as long as i have lived. a fact i find myself not caring for when she is only a picture, nestled upon rows and rows and columns upon columns of wooden placards for the once living; just an imitation of the aunt i will never know. and i find it a pity that i was never able to meet such someone with such power, who evokes such emotion in my family. i find it unfortunate that i was never able to know an ideal such as her.