Listen.
Wednesday your ex-lover will wallop you over the head with
every tactless bone in her body.
Two words, 11 letters, 14 characters.
For a moment you won’t understand what she’s telling you. Hold
onto that moment, remember it existed. It is the last moment this week you will
still feel like you.
The pain will be delayed; it will start at the back of your
head and work its way into your chest. Your throat will swell shut. Don’t
panic. When the infection begins to spread, amputate and cauterize before the
gangrene hits your bloodstream. Your heart will look smaller than you imagined,
laid out on the exam table like a dead kitten. Disregard the jew lodged in the
left ventricle.
You will reinhabit yourself ten or twenty minutes later. You’ll
know you’re back when your body remembers how to be cold. It is winter and you
aren’t wearing a jacket. Your throat will ache from the animal-dying wails. Be
grateful for traffic louder than your pain. Ignore your bruised temples, the
places you gripped your head too tightly to remind yourself it was still there.
In the next ten minutes you will text your closest friends ridiculous things. They
won’t feel ridiculous. Indulge the melodrama because some day you might be able
to laugh about it.
Things I need: wine,
cigarettes and a pack of razor blades.
When your co-worker comes outside and asks who died, don’t
tell her about your dead kitten heart. Just ask her for a cigarette. Smoke with
her covertly, crouched behind the dumpster. The ritual will soothe your shaking
hands. Let her tell you about all the times she’s locked herself in the
bathroom to cry. Let her tell you: “She’s not worth it” and “You’re too good
for her” and “Her loss”, even though you know it’s not true. Sometimes you’re
allowed to need the lie.
When your roommate picks you up
from work, she will tell you crying is bad for your sinus infection. Appreciate
her practicality. Take her advice: stop your fucking crying. Tell her it’s a
Two Buck Chuck kind of night. At the store she will look concerned when you buy
three bottles. Laugh it off. Tell yourself they’ll last the week. Finish the
first bottle before you go to bed, leave the others for tomorrow. Understand
that hate is not the opposite of love. Understand that “numb” is not synonymous
with “indifferent” but it’s a step in the right direction.
This week: smoke too many
cigarettes. Drink too much wine. Feel too deeply, ache exquisitely. Listen to
music, loudly, in the living room. Sing along. Don’t be ashamed of the notes
you can’t hit. Create elaborate lives for each person on the bus. Write bad
poetry. Write good poetry. Create elaborate lives for yourself. Craft macabre
metaphors to describe your pain. Go back to the places you knew before her. Bohemian
Rhapsody, Reefer Madness, Drop Dead Gorgeous.
Tell yourself every lie you need
to stay alive. That you deserve better. That “better” exists. Tell yourself
this love wasn’t the end of you. That you’ll be happy again. That you’re going
to make it.
Tell her goodbye.
-b
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