1999, how I hate your guts. I had been backed into corner. As a matter of a fact, I was still being backed into it. And he had been dead for a month.
I was with him before he was like this. Before he sank. Something about him was cold and dead. All of him was. There was no way to prune the dead parts off and save the living part of him. I remember everything about him. All of his favorite things. I don't think he did. I think he forgot himself and became lost in an identity he didn't even want. At some point he'd given himself up; it was easier to just swim down. And I couldn't reach him. It was too dark for me to see.
When we first started seeing each other I remember making a playlist of all the songs I knew he'd enjoyed. It comforted me knowing that he, at one point in time, was listening to them; maybe even at the same time as I was. It was like being in his embrace even though we weren't together. They all seemed to fit him skin-tight. I liked listening to him talk about his music interests. They shaped my future tastes in music. And it's painful that they still do. Over time, I have come to be able to enjoy more and more of them, though there is one I can't listen to. Beautiful by The Smashing Pumpkins. That's the first one I heard and almost supernaturally, it drew me even closer to him. Of course, I added songs from my own personal interests as well that I'd associated with him.
You're in my blood like holy wine you taste so bitter and so sweet oh, I could drink a case of you and I would still be on my feet.
Sometimes it takes me a while to remember the words to the ones I haven't had the courage to listen to in a while. They take me to a dark place. There was a time when they gave me comfort, now it's like the songs are bound to him and I can't listen to them without experiencing a part of him. Every time. There's a few I've been able to disassociate him from. A few that I get excited to hear without thinking about him.
I can feel him around at times. He is looming and tall and dark. He doesn't feel evil but his energy is dark and I can't ignore what I know about him. What everyone knows about him. I try to tell him to go away but he always comes back at some point. I fear he will do this for eternity. I feel that in life, I made a promise to him without knowing. I made a promise that we'd be together forever and he's holding me to it. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have hit the ground running and stayed as far away from him as possible. Or at least that's what I imagine I'd do. We always hope we'd do something brave in situations when we're in danger, but we'll never fully know until we're in them.
I remember the first dream I had of him. It was so sweet. Like the breeze on a warm Sunday morning. He was so beautiful. He didn't speak, just smiled. I had him only for a moment and then had to leave. I remember feeling a longing in the dream. I wanted him back. I think now that it was foreshadowing what was to come. I want to dislike him, to hate him for what he did, but I can't. Emotions like the ones I had for him don't just go away overnight. I think somewhere in myself I still love him, just in a different way now. I feel so guilty for feeling that way, but I hope over time the guilt will leave me. That's my main emotion. Nearly my only one. Not hate for him, or sorrow for the people he hurt, but guilt that I couldn't stop him or save them. I know that I could not have stopped him. He wasn't even himself. Like I said, he'd taken on an alternate identity. I do wish I'd spent more time with him. Told him I loved him more. Love, as powerful as it is, couldn't have stopped him, I don't think anything could. But for comfort I like to tell myself it would've. One more date wouldn't have changed a thing in him. I just think that I tell myself if I'd had held him closer or tighter, he wouldn't have been able to leave and do what he did. I go over in my head at night thinking in circles "if I did this I would've been able to stop him" but it's pointless. People say the night dies when the sun rises, but I die when the sun sets. I can feel him in the wind. It comes in strong gusts. I sometimes am able to go to that dark place for a moment. I don't like being there. It's so sour and blanketed in pain. I think it helps me understand him in a very twisted way. I am desperate to understand any of this and to make sense so I can pick up the pieces and move on. My life will never be normal again, but I hope I can restore it to being as normal as it can be for someone like me. I hope everyone that was around him, that loved him like I did, can do the same. Our lives feel so empty. Everything that once existed around him no longer does. Kind of like an old house. All of the belongings of the person that lived there are still there, but not the person. He made a home for himself in my heart. Everything he had, that surrounded him, is there, but he is not. It's like the shock of a freeze. Everything above ground dies but the roots live. Maybe if that's true, something beautiful will sprout when my heart warms up some. This cycle will continue every year around the day I lost him and that's the worst part. It will always be there.
