The Humanist

CHAPTER TWO

"We read books and highlight the lines that speak to us, we listen to music and tattoo the lyrics that touch us, we turn to poetry and learn the lines that become us; we're all hopelessly inept people, struggling in vain to coherently express ourselves. We know what we want to say but we don't know how."

- reasons why i write /// (via thesocietyofpoets)

I like beginnings. I think beginnings may be my favorite parts. There's so much potential in a beginning, you never know what they'll lead to and I like the surprise of finding out I actually like something. I know I sound snobby, I swear I'm not, I'm only a little picky with what I spend my time with. I live in a small city no ones ever heard of, it's mostly for elderly retired people that like to stroll around, enjoying the near empty streets and focusing on nothing but getting where they're going, which really is a pity. If you're able to see, really see, it's truly a beautiful place, no where quite like it. 

I'm quite a hazy person, something you'll come to know, I like the dark, I love the fog, the heavy rain. Which is perfect here, the sky refuses to do much except pour or frown it's dark clouds down at us. It's raining now, it started not too long ago and it's getting heavy, giving me a closed up feeling which isn't good. I can't focus. Makes me feel more dissociated than I already do and at that point all I can really do is put in both headphones and blast Election by Don DiLego while I absentmindedly watch it pour. Maybe I'll even cry a little, but I'm a very unsteady person so it's not too disconcerting. Plus the song makes me sad. I once read something: "Nostalgia is dirty liar that makes things seem better than they actually were." Which makes me feel quite depressed. Like all the little happy memories I have are fake, like I just forgot how shitty everything really was and I'm admiring a tainted memory that doesn't really exist in the way I see it. And so what if I never really had true happy moments, I know it makes me feel like a phoney but maybe I should appreciate the lies my mind tells me, then things don't seem so bad, and sometimes it's just worth fooling yourself for.

Elliot's laid out in my cushion chair, his eyes closed, fingers tapping on the armchair to the melody of the music playing from my shit quality old speaker. And it's raining, as I mentioned. He likes the rain too, he likes the pattering of it mixed with my music, his eyelids are fluttering scrunching up, like his eyes are looking at something beneath, searching for something. My pencil traces the line of his jaw in the small sketchbook I have splayed out on the bed before me that resembles a novel more than a sketchbook but I like that about it. My secrets come in disguise. Elliot's always liked my odd variety of old songs, he once told me one of the things that makes them so appealing is just how much I'm mesmerized by them, he said the way I listened to music itself was an art form. I wonder if he'd still think that.

There's no one else other than us in the old wooden house; it's a quiet Thursday night and the sky lays high above in constant ruin. My mother and father's vacant faces are miles away, hidden in their pretend worlds. And as I lay back inhaling nothing but calm and peace, something seems missing. Off. Elliot's quieter tonight and so am I. The other day I'd tried to bring him with me to lunch with my mother for her birthday and he'd blatantly refused. Made some shit excuse and swiftly left. I haven't asked him about it again, and I don't plan on. I like his company and tonight I feel it's vital I not be left alone. Lonely can lead to some dark thoughts and I need Elliot here to keep me sane.

I've known him since I was a child, spent so much time with him that he's grown to be a part of me, so close to me in every aspect of life that I don't think I'd ever be able to function without him. This thought used to scare the living crap out of me, I'd continuously try and alienate myself from him, try and be without him, it felt like a large, frightening vulnerability, to be so in need of someone. But somehow, I think I've grown to be comfortable with the idea, I know that he won't ever go away, he can't. He needs me just as much as I need him.