now, i can't think of anything else to say.
"but i've told myself that, if i ever killed myself, it would be after the school year is over." i had said this casually. i did not look over at you.
briefly, we once talked about disappearing. after all, it's a game that's quite possibly impossible to play.
only recently have i started more seriously realizing the prospect of dying soon. perhaps i realized that time is running out swiftly, or perhaps i realized that there was no magic for me to strangle to death, no magic for me to keep living for. after all, what's kept me living all this time?
unfortunately, i know the answer to that.
and without realizing, i've passed it onto you.
coming up on five years. five years spent embroiled in a curse. it has lots to do with me falling asleep, somehow. it has lots to do with this time of year. it has lots to do with the setting sun, a golden hour. it has lots to do with the spike stuck through my chest as you stood in the light, almost blinding.
"why do i play music?" huh? what does this have to do with anything? perhaps it has everything to do with everything. because i'm sure, i'm quite positive, you were watching me. it was (almost) all because of music that i met you, wasn't it? and now i realize, perhaps it goes back longer than i realize. you were already there long before i could have predicted any of this happening.
the color of the signal light is flashing, strobing, between silver and indigo. how long have i wanted to die for?
why is there music? i imagine that we are simultaneously blessed and cursed. i can feel your eyes on me, you know, i imagine that if i simply looked up, you'd be staring right at me. i try to puzzle out what you're thinking, but i can't tell, and i would rather die than assume i mean anything to you. isn't that strange? i smile to myself, i let my fingers fly over the keys, my heart is stretching so far i imagine it might swallow my chest whole. i imagine that i've spent every one of my blessings and that now all i am is cursed.
time isn't edible. feelings aren't edible. thoughts aren't edible. i know that, i've known it this entire time.
is that why i play music? because i can't swallow these emotions down? is that why we're next to each other? because i can't love properly enough?
something interesting i noticed today (the signal light blinks brighter):
i saw you make two faces i've never seen you make. it's a little odd, isn't it? this universe is reserved for 2 or 3 or 4 am. or maybe it wasn't reserved at all and this is me brushing a feeling that you've not shown me yet. it was interesting, though, when i told you to not take any future advice from me, that you made such a face.
there's a story here and i don't know how to unravel it. there are cards and i am not playing them right.
what i mean by all this, is that everything existed long before i assumed it ever even could.
this curse exists in the chord changes of five years. it involves a pair of thread scissors and the softness of my skin. it involves sitting at the piano and looking right at you. it involves a thousand songs catalogued with care and gentleness in my head. it involves not being able to love anything properly, or even to hate anything properly. it involves leaning against the glass, falling asleep on a bus, with you right next to me (god, i wish i could tell you how much you mean to me and thank you for everything you are, but words are tar between my teeth). it involves taking a solo, taking another, refiling the form in my head. it involves wondering if someone will ever look at me and think about me the way i look at them or think about them. it involves falling in love, falling out of love, with you, with music, with the world, with our gazes, hands, words, with spoken and unspoken dreams and songs and compositions, with old penned signatures in heavy scratched yearbooks. it involves sitting at the table, on the table, spinning round and round and round. it involves singing in a car. it involves soft fluffy hair and a soft gentle smile. it involves quitting classical music. it involves a burgundy dress, a royal blue one, concert blacks for a whole day. it involves hugs, the moon, a first place trophy. it involves three separate contracts unwittingly made, preventing my death so that you wouldn't cry. it involves a flower in my hair, a scar made from petals, a gift, shared food. it involves graduation, it involves perspective. it involves pondering how you might see me and how you might hate me and how you might love me. it involves wondering what it takes to be beautiful enough, good enough, proper enough, to be worthy of being alive, to be worthy of being human, to be worthy of your smile. it involves cards and chess and an old game of UNO and the terrifying idea that someone might want to be next to me. oh, that's strange and that's uncomfortable, that someone might want to be next to me, but how else would i explain this? how else would i explain the way you smile(d) at me? how else would i explain the pain in my chest when i smile(d) back? when will i ever be worthy of love? when will i ever be worthy of having the ability to love properly? when will i ever be worthy of standing right next to you?
perhaps it's not right to call it a curse, but simultaneously, i feel as if it's such a thing that will follow me from life to life. from contract to contract. from universe to universe. staring up at the stars.
i wonder what you're thinking about right now.
i shelve each and every word and i wonder how long it will be before they lose their meaning, before they expire.
"don't kill yourself." that's what you told me.
ah. that's really unfortunate. everything is because you are here. everything is because i want to hear you laugh again. everything is quite unfortunately not for myself and i know that's a bridge that will break between my bruised feet when i get there.
or perhaps everything is because time is ending again. because the world is ending again. because we are meeting another end. just as we have. just as we do. just as we will.
thus i live while wanting to die, because we are together, we are sand, and we are falling.