Gymnopedie No. 1

A few years ago now, Open Diary walked off the face of the planet. Which would have been all fine and good had I bothered to actually save any of the things I had written on there. I wrote so infrequently that I had no idea they were even shutting down. When I realized that they had, and that roughly half of the things I had ever written were simply vanished, well, I took it as a sign:

My writing days were done.

And for all intents and purposes, they were. In the past 3-ish years I have barely written anything worthwhile. Even including things that I despise – it would be generous to say that I’d need more than two hands to count them. I call myself the Apple-Man still, for some reason, but I can’t help but feel that I’m wearing the face of some poor dead poet.

“Where’d you go, psycho-boy?”

Love found me. Like a moth finds fire.
She moved softly into my arms with all the delicacy of a bullet train.
She was Red.
Her hair, her heart, her handle.
I built my world beneath her feet, and yet was startled when she trampled it.

We moved in together, we bought a dog together, and for just a short sliver of forever we must have been happy together.
I wasn’t enough. Perhaps it’s proper to say that I was just always “incorrect”.
She wanted me to change, and I changed, and she didn’t like who that was either. She met a boy online, and they’d talk, and she’d vent her feelings and problems to him, and he’d say: “Love me instead.”
And how couldn’t she? I never spoke to anyone.
I just drank, and searched for words I didn’t possess – because I’d changed.
I had quit my job in order to go visit her home and family, and adopt our dog – but the jobs I had after didn’t pay enough to support the three of us. She was temperamental and depressed, and she lost her jobs as well. I paid the bills, I paid the rent, I paid for groceries and I’d pay time and time again to put just one smile on her face.
I paid the price.
But money can’t buy love, and love can’t buy happiness.

We broke up.
I lacerated my entire body above the waist.
I lost everything.

I’d thrown away some of my best friends to appease the green monster hiding within the red beauty.
Somehow, the one I’d hurt the most –
the one with abandonment issues –
the one I’d called a c*nt and countless other curses just so I could push her away from this crumbling kingdom I’d hid myself in.

She saved my life.

I hope she knows. I think she thinks I’m over-exaggerating.
She first reached out to me when I wanted to kill myself. And then again.
On New Years (‘17) when I had nothing and nowhere to go, and Red was at home giggling and celebrating with her online love – she reached out to me. When I had been thinking up suicide letters and the best spot on the escarpment to jump out of this ugly life.

It’s funny, really. I think she realizes that the person she saved isn’t the one who threw her away. She could be best friends with a man who could make her laugh and call her important and then toss her away like garbage at the first omen of love.

What does that say about the person I’ve become?
Probably less than I believe. It’s always less.

She probably just doesn’t trust me fully, though – and I can’t blame her. I can’t allow myself to ever be mad at her. I just can’t explain enough how much I owe this person.

Enough of that, though. Red got another new tattoo, not long ago.
A Moon. Luna. A crescent on her chest. Can you fathom that?

My muse stole my muse and locked it in a chest.