i exist [as the definition of nonexistence]

Rubatosis

Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
for myself. or maybe a fictional character, who knows.
~~~

It starts with a heartbeat. A single thump, tumbling around inside your vacant chest. It frightens you, ruins you, you want it to stop. You want to go back to pretending you're dead, because that's easy. It's something you know, a pattern you've memorized.

You see her in a bookstore, and it's like a fairy tale moment, because she's got those soft curls and flushed cheeks and the sunlight is catching her eyes just right and they're a delirious shade of-

You shove the book back onto the shelf and leave. You've always hated fairy tales.

He corners you backstage after a performance, and this is what you're used to. This is no happily ever after, your heart is decaying in your chest, and everything is perfectly fine. And when he leaves you, and you collapse against the wall with a breathless sob, you pretend for a moment that you're happy.

The next time your heart beats, the girl with the Sleeping Beauty aura has bumped into you, and she's carrying one of your favorite books, and she smells like chai tea and cinnamon. Her mouth is a perfect little O, eyes wide, and you can tell she wants to apologize, but you don't give her the chance. You stalk away. Your shirt smells like her, so you go hunt down a guy with a wolf's smile to forget. And you tell your heart to shut the fuck up, because it's not important.

The coffee's watered down, the heater's broken, you have too many books for your shelves so you're using the hardbacks as a nightstand. Basically your life sucks, and you feel like you're suffocating. But going out with friend's means smelling like vodka and shotgunning with strangers. That's not to say it's bad, but is that really living?

You see her again, in the park, and she's walking with a friend, and this time you don't ignore how your heart feels like an engine sputtering to life. Suddenly she turns in your direction and you immediately walk away, pulling the sleeves of your sweater down over your hands.

This can't be happening. Not to you. And maybe you think it's some absurd dream, another figment of your overactive imagination, but when she purposefully corners you at the same bookstore where you first saw her, you know you're a goner.

"I've seen you before, haven't I?"

God, her voice. You nod, breathless, and your heart feels like a wind tunnel in your chest, your head. She smiles, and you're alive suddenly, reborn into the burst of happiness that comes with that curve of her lips.

"We should get a coffee sometime."

"That would be nice."

Your heart is a race car, a machine gun, a train roaring across the tracks. It stays like that as she scribbles her phone number and name on your hand, as you walk away, for the days leading up to the coffee date.

This isn't you. You break kneecaps with a baseball bat and make drinks for homeless people down the street and watch old movies while your house fills with the smoke of your best friend's joint. You don't shyly flirt with this princess, this unbelievable dream that's taking your hand and pulling you toward a music store. You write horror stories and have sex with strange guys in dark corners, you don't think about kissing the cute girl that's wearing the shirt you bought her because she liked the same band as you.

Your heart doesn't stutter and flutter and gasp like this, but now it won't stop, and your brain is a mess of her lips, her hands, her tongue.

You can't get enough. You're pretty sure that if she leaves you might have a heart attack.
~~~