Pear Children

an old story I hope to rewrite, someday.

So it’s Monday. You told me that you learned how to conjugate in Italian today. Persone sono stupide. People are stupid. They don’t give me any credit for how hard I’m trying to get better, they just expect more. What am I supposed to say? No, I’m not happy. I am ashamed and I am so so sorry. Apparently today is officially “F**k With Michelle” day. You said that you don’t celebrate that holiday. You at least pretend to understand what I mean. People are stupid. Persone sono stupide.

            My journal is full of such s**t. It seems so pointless to write in - what am I going to do with it? Look back and reminisce about all of the hard times I had in life? What if I forget something important and then screw up my whole perception of myself later? It just seems so arbitrary and cliché. Oh gee golly, I think I’ll go write about my feelings so I can relieve some of this sadness in my heart. Yeah, okay. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. Sure, I respect that it’s comforting to some people, but they shouldn’t push their comfort on me. Where do I get my comfort?  Remember when we built a fort under your bed? There was a little road little road come and go come and go how come you never went there? Goddamn, I miss you.

            Okay, Monday. I wake up at four in the morning. It is very hot and I feel as though I am burning in a pool of flames, but when I look down I see only my sweaty outline seared into the bedsheet. Your smell is in my pillow and I remember how I used to lie against your back while you showed me the stars that you kept under your clothes, and how you said you wished the carbon could turn to diamonds but I said love is made of gold so you’re already rich enough. and how you said it how you say everything you make it sound so smart

We live in a dream. It’s always waking dreams in between sleeping dreams in between waking dreams in between sleeping dreams, etc: a cycle. The cycle of sin, where no one is responsible for anything because they only sinned because of someone else’s previous sin, who sinned because of another’s previous sin, etc. Etc. means cycles you talked about your menstrual cycle and I said stop don’t talk about it and you said wow really you can’t talk about something that happens in your own body and I said no it’s personal it’s something that happens but should not be shared and you said like sex like intimacy and I said I suppose they’re similar. The days kept going and I knew I was loving you but I ignored it to enjoy loving you because you looked younger then. Sentences of a book

 

Me: We have two weeks.

You: Until what?

Me: The end.

You: What does that mean?

Me: It’s going to hurt.

You: We’ll be okay.

Me: Why don’t you hate me?

You: Because I can’t.

Me: You should hate me; it would make things so much easier.

You: Why?

Me: You could forget about me. Just let me go- pretend I never existed. It would be for the best, for the least amount of pain.

You: You’re crazy.

Me: I’m rational.

You: You’re delusional.

Me: I’m delusional?

You: Yep.

Me: Do you want to go on an adventure?

 

Our adventure took us to a tennis court where we obviously played tennis, but I forgot how to write so the imagery didn’t process well and now I can’t remember what I felt. I’m sure I loved everything about you- hearing you laugh and sound smart, watching your hair make haste with the wind, feeling your hands fall everywhere, on me- just me, all over the world, too much, way too much to remember. The sky crumbled and a starry dust of Heaven sank to the Earth. Every year since the beginning of years came spinning through us; we watched as our world became their world and their world became nothing. We watched we watched we watched. I felt I felt I felt. I loved you I loved you I loved you. What did you feel what did you feel what did you feel?

After tennis we saw bats flying around above us. You said they looked like a cross between birds and butterflies. I was scared because I remembered that girl who was bitten by a bat at church and then got Rabies and almost died. You said that you actually used to go to school with her and that she wasn’t a very bright girl so it didn’t surprise you. I said I wasn’t a very bright girl. You said I was brilliant and then reassured me that she didn’t even die so we had nothing to worry about. I stood behind you and held your arm while you looked up in fascination. Up up up.

            You got into my car and it was cold because it was only early spring and I felt sad because the night was almost over so I started singing at you “I’ve got chills they’re multiplying and I’m losing control because the power you’re supplying it’s electrifying” and you glowed and said things that I don’t want to repeat not because they’re crude but because they belong to you and me only and the car but cars can’t own words like that because they’re cars don’t I always tell you not to personify inanimate objects because it’s a sign of schizophrenia? At least I think it’s a sign of schizophrenia. It was so cold I sang and you fell down down down right into my singing voice I’vegotchillsthey’remultiplyingandI’mlosingcontrolbecausethepoweryou’resupplyingit’selectrifying but it wasn’t metaphorical it was something so different because it wasn’t thoughts or words but the things that come between thoughts and words the things that I can’t explain because they aren’t explainable but I felt high I guess I felt high I think my heart was swelling or my brain or your brain because you were so smart

            It’s not fair- do not think it’s fair. It would be wonderful to say that I don’t love you, that my human nature doesn’t control me so absolutely. It would be easy- they’re just words. Everything is easy when we realize what tragedy really is. I could lie and tell you that I don’t love you and then just regret it. But what does that mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? I don’t ask anyone to forgive me but it’s what I could bear. Life is only what we can bear.

            I asked you to come to the film festival with me to watch our film debut because we had worked so hard on it-seven months to be exact, if you’re interested in dramatic effect. You said of course you would. We all waited for you but you never showed up so we went to the festival and still never saw you so afterward I called you and said way to be an a*****e and you said you got there late and were sorry and I said fine just wait until you graduate and then never talk to me again and you said nothing and I said why don’t you ever say anything? And you didn’t say anything so I said I supposed you didn’t care that I was upset and you said you were really sorry and I said I didn’t believe you and then I hung up. It was gross. It was really gross.

            The next day you tried to apologize again but I said why are you walking next to me go away and you said sorry sorry sorry and I kept walking and I think you were crying because you said you didn’t know what else to say except that you were sorry and I didn’t say anything and you said okay? And I said yeah okay I get it and your face was red and cracking and I didn’t look at you but I wanted to look at you but I just held my neck and walked away. It was so gross. It was the grossest thing ever.

            I should give you your journal back. I’m sorry that I loved you even though it was an impossible art for me to make. I don’t let myself be as talented as I am because I don’t tell the truth. We are all wrong. My name is Michelle and I cried while writing this. I hate you because you are reading it. The parallels make me feel weak. I wish I could have shown you something worthwhile. I should have been a better friend. I was melodramatic and emotional. My sentences were never beautiful. You should have your journal back.

You sat by me at lunch and asked how my morning had been. I nodded but didn’t say anything. You were eating spaghetti with a fork and I was spooning around in some cereal. I talked to the girl next to me and the boy across from me and the girls sitting next to him but never to you. You looked down in dysphoria. Down down down.

You said once you were sad but I don’t know you’re too much of a vampire for anything like that to please you, there are days when you feel good and days when you feel lousy but there’s nothing in between, I think that’s going to kill you, I will watch one by one by once by once, you are falling apart, you are falling, soon soon, I am ripping you apart and pushing pushing pushing, come back let me feel you come back, your shirt is white I touched your face I am in love

That night you called me and I listened to the voicemail and I felt so sick so sick so f*****g sick

 

You:

look I'm really really sorry pause

and I don’t exactly know why you’re so upset pause

and I kind of just want you to tell me because I’m really hurt pause like really hurt

Michelle pause I've cried like three times in the last three hours sob sob

I just don’t quite understand what’s going on pause

I don’t really know what to say to you sob pause

I just don’t want things to go like this sob

I’m so sorry sob for pause whatever happened sob

I feel really sob really bad sob

I just feel terrible for whatever it was exactly

sob sob sob I’m so sorry pause

I really just wish that you would tell me what’s going on or something

 

            I fell down the stairs on my way to the kitchen. My friend drove into my driveway and I corrected her English essay. I called you back.

 

You: I cried, you got your wish.

Me: I’m not good for you. I will always end up ruining things. I don’t touch you the way you touch me

You: You gave me my journal back. It was probably the only Christmas gift I’ll ever give anyone, and you gave it back. You can’t just do things like that.

Me: I’m sorry. If I’d known you’d get so upset, I wouldn’t have done it. See, I hurt you.

You: You hurt me when you act so ridiculous. I don’t understand what happened. Why are we doing this?

Me: I don’t know. I don’t want to lose you. I love you so much I can’t hurt you it breaks me my lungs are so full of water as I breathe in swallow it maybe my body will float if it’s so full of water maybe if I just breathe if you just let me go love love let me

You: That’s not fair to me.

Me: I don’t know what to do. I just want to love you and love you love you live under your bed

 

I wrote my own essay about books and words and then I cried because you had cried and I imagined that you were not so beautiful because it made me feel safer that way because I couldn’t even control myself when I loved you because it was love and that’s what love is apparently just loads of sadness because you can’t stop being yourself and feeling something and sleeping in someone else’s bed and holding in your guilt because it’s all just settling innocence and it’s not so bad, it’s not so bad not bad it’s love I think I forgot a lot of things from that night I forgot what you said about

     How can someone who wants to be loved hate it so much when they are? Does it really hurt that bad? Darling, every time I breathe I feel your weight fall back onto me. Tell me it’s not so bad. What happens to me? What happens to you? When it ends. When we win when we lose when we feel our hearts and see our veins pop out from anorexia and laugh it off with tactless sarcasm and throw up because of pills and and and I say it’s better than nothing I say I’d rather feel something like that than something this

I had a dream but it was also a movie. The teacher was driving and the road was tilting sideways and she was pregnant with a little baby and you weren’t even in the car but I kept thinking about you so it was like you were there and when we got out of the car everyone was fighting with each other but I didn’t get involved because I don’t think about them I only was thinking about you, you were suddenly there with your friend who I don’t like because you let her touch your shoulder when you don’t let me touch it and you two were in a truck and the dream was really a movie then, everything was green and orange and I wasn’t even in the truck but I was in it in your mind and you said mean things to your friend and then you said nice things to your friend and that made me happy because it made you non-fiction and then I woke up and realized that it was today. Monday.

Your journal is so beautiful but I swear I’m going to waste it.