Mike tells me I’m going to break his heart because I expected the best of people and that it was true love and that nobody else did that. He says I don’t have any defenses against other people. I’m not a hard person to break. Maybe a long time ago, when I felt I was treated carefully and preciously I would have kept things to myself, or respected Downey’s wishes not to write about him. But he can’t respect a single wish of mine. Not that he would ask what I wish for, or care. Now I am treated like tobacco that needed to be spit out of somebody’s mouth already. I can’t find words for the rush of pain. It is much worse than what happened with B, and I didn’t think it could get worse. I don’t understand this. I try not to understand, and I try to understand, and nothing dampens. I tell Mike that Downey told me he didn’t want to be the guy that hurt me, that he wanted to me my friend, that it was really important. I said Downey respected me, so he said, so it was. Mike sighed and told me that everybody lies like that. I told him it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be true. I emphasized this and emphasized this. I told him that we slept together afterwords yet Downey told me it was my fault we had sex. I keep thinking that I am more patient because of what i went through with B, but perhaps I am less patient. I was willing to wait for three months of silence and ambiguity from B. But there is no way to wait for that with all of the “fluid” lies piled on by Downey. I thought I knew him. I think I do know him. I think that is what he hates the most. Is it possible some people don’t want other people to know how incredible they could be? Maybe they need to lock it away in a closet so that they can not feel bad when they don’t try to do anything good. That sounds extreme, never trying to do any good. But all I know is I followed what he said. I tried, and I tried. And he failed me more times I thought was possible. And I forgave. And forgiving seemed to be a bad thing. I don’t want to be a doormat. But when I got angry, he responded as if I had become the devil. I believed him when he said he wanted to be friends, how desperately important it was, how deep his respect for me was. I believed him….. I always believed him even when he didn’t come through. I even know I could go up there and show up and he would pretend… you can never know what is happening, but I told christina that I felt like a stalker. She laughed in my face and said how could you be a stalker? He told you that he wanted to stay close with you. He is acting the same way he did in the relationship, which is ignoring all calls. I told B in a text, “thanks for being my friend. I hate how I love. I hate how I love. ” I slept with B because the vortex inside me grew and grew. it was tender and right, but could I handle it? I love B, he is a perfect friend to me in his own way, which is so different from what I thought a friend was, that our evolution has taken on some kind of supernatural mystery. But B has his own life, and there is no pushing for more. That is part of the built in friendship. I do know that I have stopped fearing that B will kick me out of his life because I will send him an overwhelming email. I might still have a slight fear that I’ve crossed the line, but every single time, he reminds me that it is okay, it is alright, it is “all good.” The problem? I still wanted Downey, who treats me like dogshit. I told him so long ago love meant sacrifice and I meant it, and I would have and did sacrifice so much for our relationship. Am I really such a masochist? I just keep believing that he can be who he was the first three months. I saw something, and everybody says I need to let it go. But friends believe in each other… I think this is getting overboard. I am trying to move on to the next phase of my life. But not receiving a word from him even when I am talking about his birthday present is such a slap in the phase i forget how to breath. Downey said I did nothing wrong. Why can’t we be together again? I don’t know why it is so hard for me to understand, or why I want somebody back that everybody says is so selfish. and I know he acts selfishly. So very selfishly. But I still miss something and I hate myself for that. For caring at all about somebody who dares to treat me like this. Without respect, without dignity, with total and utter silence as if I do not exist. So I keep apologizing to him for my existence. I don’t know what else to do. It is horrible. And he is doing exactly what he said he didn’t want to do. He is causing me more pain than anybody has ever caused me in my life. More than my mom. More than my sister. More than B did in 2003. Much, much more. But can pain be measured? I don’t know. All I know is that the pain only stops for short recesses. Perhaps I am exaggerating. James said I was stronger than him and Martin put together, and james is really strong. But Mike had a point. When mike got off the phone, we sat in silence for thirty seconds and the electricity pulled me. I cried out to Mike that I didn’t believe I would ever be made love to again in the same way. I didn’t use sappy words like “make love” because that isn’t me. I just said I didn’t think I could be physical with anybody again ever because I just didn’t see how it could happen anymore, no more, I couldn’t be touched because it wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t be who I had loved. I had been with many people and I had never felt that way- as if somebody was made to fit inside my body- and so it could never happen again, the rules of physics denied it. But something about the silence gave me hope. There was chemistry in the silence, and for a little while, the thought of Mike drowned out the pain. Even though I would welcome a life of solitude. I don’t care if I never have sex again. I never cared much for sex- (with exceptions like B and Mike.) I know I am biased but I wonder if the only person I really, really cared, more than cared, wanted, needed, and loved sex was with Downey, and he wants me to be dead. Or worse… he wishes I never existed. I feel like the only person who knows the real him… and accepts that he is a total hypocrite to the world. It’s okay.. and it’s not okay. I had something else to add, what was it? I haven’t been doing so well these last eight months, so I think that might be part of it. A lack of structure isn’t good for me. And I told him a million times that being ignored hurts me unreasonably so. I told Mike that me and Downey seemed to leave things at a point where we might get back together someday. Mike doesn’t say things like “Nicole you are breaking my heart.” He told me he was getting more cynical every single day. (Um…He also mentioned meditating.) But he said it the other day. I think somebody understood. It is compensation. Somebody understood. One person. But that is all that mattes. One person understood something. Oh, darling Mike, thankyou for understanding, even if it was for a second.
Note to self: Wrote this around Parker, who tends to bring out my vindictive side. He snuffs every tiny feeling near him out as if he were a waiter going around taking out the candles by hand. If you go back several entries you will see his own writings. Old, personal rewrites that he read to me. Go. Read about the rat, the hayloft of maggots, or heaven coming apart. The writing reminds me of handwriting so tiny you can barely read it. Writing that has been etched so hard that the pencil has broken after every word. I wrote this story today in his presence. Though the entry with his images is a tedious read, maybe it gives you some perspective on who he is. To this day, I continue to think I am immune to evil inside other people. Why? Because I close my eyes and count to ten? No. Because I know how to let go of what I’m feeling, or what somebody incidentally made me feel… Sometimes I feel it’s all I know how to do, let go and hold on. I just hope I don’t do it at the wrong times. I don’t know what is worse. Holding on to the wrong person; or holding on at the wrong time. If I’m holding on to the wrong person, I’m letting go of everything else just to hold to them. Time plays a role in all no matter how we struggle. I held onto Parker once, and now he will never let go of me. Does he wait for me to turn to him in a moment of weakness? Does he dream of me calling his name, asking him to rescue me? Does he dream of the touch of my skin? I know I will never forget how tenderly he touched me. Neither will I forget how much he contributed to the opera of ash. The music he said was dangerous to listen to because it filled the audience with anger that was directed at them, making them the victim. If so I succeeded. I made an audience feel what I felt. What it’s like to be a hostage to Parker’s fanaticism and Irwin’s schizophrenia.
Is it true? After I hang around somebody does more than skin, smell, disease, or words rub off? As if I am inbred to suction up whatever is inside somebody else so that it enters my world as an image seen through glass. With Parker, I feel the vindictiveness. I even start griping around him. I will complain for hours, asking him over and over, why did this person say this or do this? He churns me like a wheel, getting me riled into a senseless rage about small qualities that are so very human. When he is here he begins to drip with sweat. It has no smell, but it drips onto the carpet or bed. It is the only sign that he emotes.
Outside of family, he chooses almost no company. Does he think that I am supposed to only forgive what he deems worthy? He worships the fact that he is a mothers boy and seems to drain some satisfaction from it. But his mother is tortured by the fact that her favorite son has never left home. He has only tried to kill himself, and now they might be what keep him on this earth. I don’t have to tell you that you never know. Remorse goes afterward. Would it really change anything as close and far as the future if you felt it beforehand? He treats everything so seriously. I wish he could laugh, or get me to laugh. I know there are people that are difficult to make laugh. But Parker is the only one who bottles the joy up just like he bottles the anger up. And both dishes he serves cold. Only tenderness is something he can express. But what does tenderness mean when it comes from a man of restraints?
Was this written by me, or by the me that I was when Parker was around? Easy to exhume the responsibility, isn’t it. But I mean it. Influence is strong.
I am a sponge to my environment, the people in it, the sounds around me, the air I breathe. Children tend to make me feel light. My cat makes me feel relieved. A person is a bundle of things, like a never ending pawn shop that keeps getting new purchases and selling items out. Their exposure is the most valuable to me. Also the most deadly. But I call myself immune because I think I let go of everything. My pawn shop might only have one item in it at a time but it’s always open…
Take Another Look 