when i felt more like a mouse than a man

i would go home to los angeles, get a job, and be working through the summer. i would write letters to eric and other swarthmoreans, and keep track of all those who mattered to me. i would work hard, and earn enough money for me to go out as much as Mikey and Anna always wanted to, and love every minute of it. i would make enough to pay for superb fencing lessons at the la fencing club in westwood, and would practice so damn much that i would be an amazing foilist by the time autumn rolled around. i would even make enough to perhaps take cello lessons maybe once a week, and hopefully bring myself back to where i once was, and try out for orchestra in the fall.

these were my plans; my best laid plans. or, at least, i would work enough to be so busy that i wouldn't be able to feel regret at not carrying out the rest.

of course i did not account for the fact that jobs might be so scarce right around now, and that I might be arriving home just a tad bit after high school students in the area had begun applying like mad to every job in the city. i did not account for the fact that most of my friends might not be around. and i did not account for the fact that my father might faint and break his hip, leaving him bed-and-wheelchair ridden for two months while my mom is away at work all day.

needless to say, now I need to be at home; all the time. whether or not I do very much here is not the issue, all that matters is that i need to be home, just in case my dad needs me. and being at home; being alone; having so much time to do nothing; has forced upon me the ideal situation for discovering how little of me there is left.

i've written--or should i say begun writing--two short stories since i've been home. one is character driven, one plot-driven. they are very different from one another. what i have come to realize, though, is that both stories are about me. they have become an exploration into my own, unhappy mind, and the layers and layers of craven emotions that have manifested themselves there as a by-product of doing nothing. thus, these stories have become larger than me, because they are me. they elude me because i cannot fully see myself. and when they are finished i am almost afraid that i will have defined parts of myself.

and this is why i can't finish them.

so, here i am, in this big pile of nothingness, trying to make sense of things, and i can't.

if i had more energy, i would draw some sort of parallel between my constant urge and failure to write and the myth sisyphus, and throw in for humor the fact that every day i tear a tiny bit of skin on my ear when i put on my earring at night, and every day it heals because of how long i take it out to hide it from my family.

to put it plainly, i'm terribly unhappy.

when i wrote a short story

A Marsyas In Love

“…and such an innocent smile.”

I grip the steering wheel a little harder. Do we ever really stop loving someone? I think. It’s hard to tell. In this instant there’s an excess of fragmented thoughts swirling around in the air about me, each occasionally flying in one ear and out the other, occupying my mind for a fraction of a nanosecond:

Do I miss Sean? Will I always? Left turn arrow. Will I ever forget how his shoulders felt? So many cars in this damned city. I feel guilty. Am I in the right place to be in love again? Lights! Lights! Lights! No, no I’m not. Yes, yes; I swear. I don't trust my own judgment. What do I do when I can’t trust myself? Calm down. How can I ever—

I love Eric I tell myself. I do.

“better pray for your sins…”

I saw Sean yesterday, at dinner. He ruffled my hair from behind, which took me by surprise. I turned around and saw him standing there with his usual goofy posture. He had this weird haircut; his haircuts were always weird. He likes his hair all over his face. I hate feeling my hair on my face or the back of my neck—it just irritates me in this unexplainable way—and when I look at someone whose hair covers his or her face (as his always does) as often as I’ve looked at him, I start to feel it. So, I ruffled his in return; trying to hide that truly I was pushing it over to the side or over the top both so that I could see his eyes and so that the tingles on the back of my neck would go away. I told him to stop trying to be such a hipster. He sat down. I got up. I walked over and gave him a hug that he broke off too soon. I wonder if it’s because he’s hurting, too. I hugged him again and wouldn’t let go; he got the idea. I was almost tempted to tears. I sat back down.

I turn the volume dial up quite a bit, hoping to drown myself in decibels. What did that mean? I wonder.

“BETTER PRAY FOR YOUR SINS…”

I can’t remember if I kissed Eric before I left for the airport last week. It kills me. I know I kissed him on the neck--below his ear; where I love to kiss him—but I’m not sure if I gave him a real kiss—on the lips. With him, those are the kind saved for real emotion and special occasion. (He used to dislike kissing—he was afraid that he was lacking in that sort of talent—but I think I gave him some self-confidence by telling him how happy it made me each time he overcame his self-doubt.) So, as I got into the van and drove further and further from him and the life we knew so well, I couldn’t determine whether or not I felt the lingering of his lips on mine; of that sweet soreness I get when his short facial hair pricks me proudly under my nose. It felt like I was losing him all too fast, losing it all too fast (the life that I lead in Swarthmore); people and memories flew out of me with each passing tree or light post, as if as a parting gift I had set them all free. I was heading home to Los Angeles and, like some neo-Marsyas, was being flayed of my east coast skin—and with it, all of the kisses and handshakes that left even the slightest imprint.

Emotions are magnetic I think, matter-of-factly. As I was being pulled physically by jet engines towards California, I was being pulled by the etho-magnetic field that exists there for me. People and places acted as tesla towers of sorts, both pulling me in and overloading me with a charge of sense and memory. And, with that, I began breathing denser air filled with old thoughts and past-futures. As in Pennsylvania it’s harder to get myself thinking of Sean or my family or my friends, here in the sunshine-and-heavy-traffic state it’s harder not to, because we all will be breathing the same air and I like to believe we can all feel each other; feel that pull.

I slowly press my right foot on the brake for a red light. All of those thoughts swirling around my head fly forward into the windshield. The air is still, even if just for that moment. It’s moments like these—when emotions are temporarily stunned—that are best for logic and rationality; in all other places there’s just too much in the way. Sean and I weren’t meant to last for much longer. I needed something else. In the mere two months I have known Eric I’ve spent morning to night with him, eaten all my meals with him, slept with him, worked with him, fought with him, danced with him, talked with him, talked with him, and talked with him—and I think he’s good for me.

“CAUSE THE-“ I shut off the radio.

I press my foot on the gas and my thoughts are back in flight. If I didn’t completely flay my flesh and expose my bare soul when I fell in love, it wouldn’t really be love. And it would be easier to forget how much I thought his posture was so uniquely goofy and how much I liked fixing his hair when his haircuts bothered me and how much I always thought I could see his eyes staring at me through miles of fog, as big and azure as they are.