in your eyes

chapter twenty four

ara

stephen kissed me in the spring,

robin in the fall,

but colin only looked at me

and never kissed at all.

stephen's kiss was lost in jest,

robin's lost in play,

but the kiss in colin's eyes

haunts me night and day.

i was proud of my bad writing. everyone were so intelligent lately, and stylish. fucking great. i was proud of philip guston's bad painting, i was proud of baudelaire's misery. sometimes the lurid or shitty meant having a heart, which was something you had to try to have. excellence nowadays was too general and available to be worth prizing.

so i put my pencil down and closed my book, inhaling smoke from the cigar in my right hand as the sun was set above the ocean, the colours swirling together like a beautiful painting that could've taken months to finish. i found it weird but, in a way, pleasing that abby and i looked at the same sky everyday, the same stars, the same moon. we were so far away that it seemed impossible to believe that, although thinking about it gave me a sense of security, safety. but it felt as if the sky i fell asleep under every night was all mine, it belonged to me, as if no one else saw the same thing i saw.

i missed her.

the feelings that hurt me most, the emotions that stung most, were always those that are absurd. the longing for impossible things, specifically because they are impossible. nostalgia for what never was, the desire for what could have been, regret over not being someone else, dissatisfaction with the world's existence.

even then i couldn't trust my own emotions. which emotional reactions were justified, if any? and which ones were created by mental illness? i found myself boldly guarding and limiting my emotional reactions, punishing myself for exaggerations. people who had known me years ago would barely recognise me now. i had become quiet and withdrawn in social settings, no longer the life of the party as i used to be. after all, how could i know if my loud humour was actually me or just a borderline desire to be the centre of attention? i could no longer trust any of my heartfelt beliefs and opinions. my lifelong ability to be decisive had turned into a continuous state of laziness.

so i sat there, smoking a cigarette, watching the swirls of paint in the sky, and thinking of the most poetic bullshit my mind could make up as the waves crashed and the wind howled. not the best weather for swimming. still, that didn't stop me.

i was the only one at the beach, which as lonely as it sounds, i loved it. i loved how the sand felt cold beneath my bare feet, how the wind brushed against my skin so softly, the breeze running through my hair, and even how the ocean sounded, how it spoke to me, how it felt like it belonged to me. the entire moment felt as if it belonged to me, so calming and lovely, because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away. i was happy i didn't have anyone to share it with, just an intimate moment i shared with myself.

the speaker that i'd brought played music loudly, the lyrics soothing me.

i pulled my hoodie over my head and let it drop to the ground, then took off my pants, leaving me in a bra and underwear. the pastel colours of the sky had turned dull and grey, becoming crowded with clouds. seemed like it was going to rain, although i didn't really care. instead i continued to walk toward the water that was becoming rougher by the second, letting it come up to my ribs and wash me, wash away my sins, my pain, everything. i let it drown me, swimming under the waves and staying there until my lungs felt like they were about to burst before returning back to the surface. i ran a hand through my wet hair, brushing it out of my face and behind my ears as it began raining.