COLLIDE

COLLIDEIMES

COLLIDE

10:20am, Saturday, May 22, 2021

I am compelled to write but also feel tired and can’t keep up with what’s behind my eyes. Energy is electric out in the world. The heat beginning to claw away at the breeze, and the internal human temperature is escalating. The streets are alive…

I have been restless on the inside, thinking, anxious about the movie and feeling old, feeling a lot of self-hatred, and internal unrest.

May 10th is a big date for my body, it remembers. I am breathing through it, but it is lingering… I am being relentless about staying connected.

Cooking, I’ve been cooking, burying my hands and fingers into food, as well as soil. Planting, re potting and feeding flowers on the deck. I focus on their growth, and am reminded, I am also growing.

Yesterday I cooked, I worked out, I watered, and went for a walk. Later in the day, needing more movement, I once again headed out to procure ingredients, more cooking, more tactile connection to the world around me, smells, touch, taste…

Angel was out front, she asked me where I was headed and we talked a while, the sky and the air perfect, warm, and whispering against my skin. I was even daring to step out in shorts. Something I never do, it’s because of a lifelong hatred for my legs. My legs are weird. When I look at them I don’t relate to them, like they are not mine or something. It’s as if my legs are someone else’, and I’m the top half. I’ve never understood them, their shape, their color, their, anything.

Anyway…

As I hugged Angel to head off, a screech and what sounded like an explosion literally enveloped us. A car had run through the intersection and sideswiped another car. I didn’t see it happen, I only heard it…

I turned and watched as a white car skid then flip. It rolled over twice, and landed on its side, up on the sidewalk. The other vehicle miraculously also headed up onto the sidewalk, down the street a little, and slammed into a tree. It was loud, fast, and then, for a moment, quiet. Everyone for a split moment, silently absorbing.

A car horn… And then people, running… Myself included.

I ran to the car and looked in the window, a woman, reaching to me, she was scared, but reaching… I asked her if she was the only person in the car, I was desperate to have her say yes. The thought of children in the back of the car was devouring me… She was alone…

The car was surrounded, people, trying to help, but everyone was manic, rapid, and on fire. It was madness, the energy. But it was all for the right reasons, wanting to help, but their help, was dangerous. I turned away from the car and towards the sea. I started touching people, on their shoulders, on their backs and arms, smiling, and looking them in the eye, trying to calm them. A man grabbed his cane and started smashing the back window, which he did, and glass exploded everywhere. Others at the back end of the car were trying to push it back up to standing. I moved through them, all of them men, touching, looking, and breathing with them for a moment, bringing them back, reminding them that moving anything was dangerous.

They slowly let go of the car and released themselves through voice, calling out to her, talking to her and each other…

Within minutes the street was also filled with police lights and ambulances, sirens, and voices, pleading.

Once the teams arrived we all stepped back and watched as the woman was cut out of her car. People pods, absorbing…

A young man thanked me for calming him, he was kind, and gentle inside, telling me he was a veteran, and he knew what I was saying was true… I reminded him that his intention was for good, and that’s all that matters. He was trying to help, not hurt, and he was spinning, on the inside, not thinking in the moment. He was so appreciative of me, and I of experiencing him.

A tornado of emotions and lives intersection in an intersection. Strangers, now all a part of one story, together. Life, life is like this even without tragedy, it gives me goosebumps when I think about it. In a split second, life is moving at an exponential rate, and we are all experiencing our own version of the same thing, over, and over, and over again. it’s so amazing.

I asked the men who were driving the other car if they were alright. They were still, stoic, and in shock. I could tell immediately that they were at fault. The way they were…

The young man I was looking at said yes, he was okay, and added, it’s my third accident. I told them I was happy they were okay, and stepped away. Their cars nose separated by a tree stump. Metal hugging it, the front end destroyed. It was a miracle they ended up where they did, they missed cars and a buildings wall by only feet.

I concocted a story in my head, as I do… Why didn’t he say anything about the other car when I asked him if he was okay? Why didn’t he express frustration, or concern, or anything? He was stuck, in the moment before what had happened, and where he was now. I could see him, behind his eyes…

Of course, I’m guessing, because I didn’t see it, but I see him, I see her, I saw the moment after and the movement within them all…

The streets and that corner are usually filled, busy with children and conversation. It’s a corner, like most corners in Brooklyn, busy. But at that moment, it was only them, in their cars, colliding.

We are all, constantly colliding.

SOMETIMES

SOMTIMES

SOMETIMES

Sometimes I think about dying, well, I think about it a lot more than perhaps most. If I’m outside, I think about it at least once. But I think about it in passing, like a stop sign or a broken fence post. It’s fleeting and like a whisper, almost kind.

It’s also usually in a violent way. Like being hit by a car, or a train, or someone shooting me on the face while I’m in the back of a cab.

One of me is always in a spy movie. Being chased, watched, and hunted. My walls tapped with cameras and microphones and me “performing” it’s not a real world place but a real world place. My body can believe it if I done keep my imagination in check.

I wonder how many other people think about their death, in passing.

MRS POTATO

I have taken the day, to be on the inside, cleaning the outside. Things have new places, and I feel calm. I am sitting, finally, taking it all in, and he is texting me…

So, I am turning to you, to bleed the chatter within…

A photo of a potato, one side has a paper cut out of his face stuck on it. On the back of it is written…

“Spud muffin. Monica did not send you this. – Hot Wheels – “

He sent me this picture, he sent it, asking if I had sent it to him. And alas, no, I had not sent the potato. I did however, recognize the photo. It was his face cut out of a photo he had sent me, back in December. I guess I wasn’t the only one he sent it to. Me, Monica, and the potato, well that makes at least three of us…

I had so many questions, so many thoughts and pictures, names, and faces, all running through my head. Like a rolodex in the sneeze of an open window, scrolling…

I found the photo and sent it to him, reminding him of the date and mentioning that perhaps that could be a clue into his rolodex, of women. He laughed at that and also sent me a voice message saying…

“Good call on the date… I had sent that pic to Maria…”

He told me the potato woman - “Maria” is married, with children. Apparently they “hooked up” in a hotel room provided by the hospital. A part of being a nurse during a pandemic… And yes, he said hooked up.

Well after they “hooked up” she “caught feelings” he said. And now she’s reaching out to him in weird ways” AKA – The potato.

“Caught feelings..” What forty-three-year-old man says, “Caught feelings?” And a potato with a cut out of your face isn’t just weird, it’s the beginning of a Law and Order episode.

I feel sad for the potato girl. She spent time cutting out Blues face and pasting it on a potato. She’s in it… She’s deep in it… I have been there with him, drowning…

But am I any different? I’m a lunatic sending him glow in the dark toys. Convincing myself I’m clever, and about to bring him joy, or make him smile. Not knowing he’s getting potato’s also. Vegetables with his cut-out face, like on a ransom note. A face from a picture he also sent me…

It’s all a game to him, women, sex, me, we’re all just pieces in a board game.

I casually asked him if he had a random folder of selfies that he texts to people, and if there was any rhyme or reason. I already know the answer, it’s why I’m so casual. But I’m also genuinely interested, casually, in seeing if I’m right. I’m certainly not angry, I have no reason to be angry, I’m more intrigued that he is this person… Still…

He sent me a voice recording, explaining how he does indeed have folders, and he does indeed send them to a few women at the same time, and if one gets a good response, he will send it to a few more, then a few more, so on, and so forth…

My belly feels light, in between sick and excited, the moment right before your cheeks fill with saliva, right before you throw up. I have been sucked in again. I have always known it was a ruse, but I was enamored by it, by him, and by what my heart had felt so very, very, long ago.

He’s an admitted animal, and, he makes no apologies for treating us as cattle. He’s actually delighted to tell you all about his process, if you dare ask him. I am grateful for his honesty, It’s one of the things I love most about him. His refusal to think about others and do only what he wants. I find it fascinating, sociopathic, but fascinating nonetheless. At least I know I’m not crazy for thinking and feeling that these things might be true. They are true, he tells me as much.

When we were together, I spent a lot of time feeling insane with Blue. I think a part of him enjoyed that, keeping me a little bit confused, all the time. Rationing himself off to a starving child, and punishing her for being hungry. I was obsessed with him. I couldn’t breathe without him. So, I sat, like a pet, like a dog. Then he left.

I remember, I would run across the room at times, because I would hear my phone tinkle, and I knew it was him. It was like electricity shooting through my blood. My life, my world, my every breath, consumed, by him. Willingly…

Love can find a way to drift, slowly, quickly, unseen… It was another world, another time, a time that only really existed, in my imagination.

I have been swallowing his pics, his texts, and his “communication” as mine, again. His name on my phone, again, reminds me of that run, my muscles, still running to him somehow… But far off in the distance, softly, gently, and knowing it’s a mirage…

But again, I am breathless, as if what he was sharing, he was sharing with me, because he wanted to talk, to me. But, every moment I spend communicating with him, he is communicating with several other women at the same time, about the same pic, or video, or whatever. It explains him disappearing, I guess he chooses a cookie to eat, and puts the box with the rest of us back in the cupboard. For later…

I am a cookie in that box, along with others, waiting to be chosen, thinking, we are a single wrapped artisan blend. When in fact, we are processed, and meant for bird seed, and not consumption.

He owes me nothing, history is just that, history. And love, well love can die, as completely as hate can. And to love another, does not guarantee love in return, ever.

I’m disgusted I am one of a bunch. I need to remove myself from that immediately…

I am a harvested fan…

I, and my gift, am one of many. I am sick with the idea of that. And at the same time, had prepared for the sickness. Feeling sick comes with loving Blue, because you are constantly starving.

I asked him if I have a folder. He “lololololololololed” me, and said, “no, girls don’t have folders”

This is so bizzare! It’s as if we didn’t spend years together, living together… I again feel like a fool, because of course, Blue has a folder for me, a folder rich with sub folders.

My head rotates on the rocks of “girls don’t have folders” I’m a girl? I’m just one of everyone else, or, they are one of me? A woman once in love, once planning a life with him, and it failed. Does he just cheat from one to the next? Is that how it goes? I’m genuinely interested…

I just asked him if when he sends me pics, he sends it to me in a kind of “blast” pic text.

He said yes, he does. This of course, is like a punch in the stomach, and a giggly, going over the top of the rollercoaster feeling all at the same time. It’s painful and hysterical. I am fascinated by when he chooses to tell you the truth.

I run through all the thoughts I’ve had about him, feeling pretty, and excited about seeing him, him sending me a video running down stairs, him asking me upstairs, to see our old apartment. Him saying, “it was like you were home again…” It’s ludicrous, my poetic license and fairytale endings. It’s all trickery.

It’s all performance. He was, and still is, always, always, performing. He can’t stand to be alone, so he is drowning in pussy, drowning in women, and he can be the star of the show. Attention, female attention, it’s his drug, and he, he is a junkie. He can’t ever fail, if he keeps moving, from one to the next.

Knowing Blue is a form of mental torture…

This man wouldn’t watch a movie called Unfaithful with me, because cheating disgusted him. And now he’s sleeping with married women? He’s sleeping with another man’s wife…

He is a character in a play, a play constantly being rewritten, and a new character being born to suit.

I am disgusted in myself. Disgusted in my getting excited at his messages, thinking, he was thinking, about me. But he wasn’t, I’m actually just part of a blast text group.

He even said, in his voice…

“Sometimes I will shoot a pic out to people I haven’t seen in a while, and see who bites…”

That’s me, I’m that fish. I hadn’t heard from Blue in like a year, and boom. There he was.

I thought he was thinking about me, missing me maybe, wanting to talk to me, know me, be friends with me…

And instead of reminding myself who he is much, much louder...

I indulged in a ridiculous story, a childlike, wonder filled story. Because they are some of the best stories...

I know who Blue was, and I guess I just imagined that he may have changed. Or better, hoped he had changed. I know I’ve changed as a person since I was with him, I am not the same women at all. He, however, he is exactly the same.

And I’m just a girl without a folder. I am some girl he hasn’t spoken to in a long time. A girl he catches on a line when he goes fishing.

He sends out cut and paste text messages. Generic sweetness, a pic of him smiling into camera, like he’s smiling at you. The smile is not actually meant for the recipient, it’s meant for the feeling he gets when he is the center of attention. It doesn’t matter who he gets the attention from, it’s the attention, period. A response is all he wants, and, the more the merrier. It doesn’t matter from whom.

Blue…

There was a time I loved him, like, really, really loved him. He never really loved me though. I was just another girl. Just another text bubble.

One of our first dates, he received a text message from a girl with a menu on her lap, the restaurant was called Blue. It had some sexual innuendo about him eating her pussy written with it. Perhaps I should have taken the hint and saved myself a few years. Perhaps I could have been a mother.

The red flags were always there. “I have fucked her five times already…” A text he sent to his boys group chat, about me, very, very early on. It was in the first week of us dating… I should have absorbed the kind of man that writes such things much deeper. But I was already in love with him, and decided he wasn’t that man.

He has group chains, but none of the links are connected, they all live in separate universes, so, he’s a busy boy. No wonder the potato was confusing.

He is who he is, and who he is, is not a very nice person, to women. He doesn’t trust us to be different than him. He’s also a really smart, loving, sweet, and funny man. And I will always be grateful to have experienced that kind of love. It felt so, so, so very good to be in love with him.

I now know Blue was unfaithful our entire relationship. Well, maybe not our entire relationship, but ninety percent of it. He did it almost our entire relationship, I’m convinced of it.

I feel foolish. But only a little. There will be no tears shed. I knew who I was dealing with. I know Blue. I know him well. I should have kissed his eyelids on the train. I will never get that moment back. Ever.

I don’t really feel foolish. I feel fine. I knew who I was dealing with, and although I always write romance in my head, my feet are firmly on the ground. But a girl can dream, can’t she?

I am, and will always be, in love with a made-up man. Blue is not the man I was in love with, the man I was in love with was made up in my head. But that man, the one I made up, he was the love of my life.

The man Blue really is, well that guy makes me feel awful… Accidentally, on purpose…

I don’t want to be a link in a chain of women… I have to remember the real us…

He’s the guy that called his friends to throw me, and my life, out into the street. He’s the guy that bought me flowers and papers to sign, so we could dissolve our being a couple. He’s the guy that wanted to keep me off the utilities so he could control our apartment. He’s the guy that threw me onto the floor and held me down in bed and screamed in my face. He’s the guy that turned our entire apartment upside down because he thought I was cheating on him. He’s the guy that went through my e mails and called me a whore repeatedly because I had e mailed a reply to an ex a year or so prior. He’s the guy that sent pornographic GIFS over, and over again, while I sat in meetings because he thought he saw a man’s leg in a photo I sent him. He’s the guy that left me under a bed, crying, and he’s the guy that cheated on me, over, and over, and over, again.

He’s also the guy that sent me photos of him kissing women he was dating. He’s the guy that said thinking about me with other men after we broke up turned him on. He’s the guy that never came to pick me up on thanksgiving. He’s the guy I never spent a holiday with. He’s the guy I waited for, I was faithful to, and the guy I was in love with. He’s also the guy that called me a stupid, idiotic, cunt bitch…

He’s the guy that had a whole life outside of me, in his phone, his splintered life, a broad spanning of women, I just happened to live with him.

Here, now, thinking I am special when I’m a trinket, in a game. He who wears the most chains around his neck. He who collects the most women, like costume jewelry. Wins.

Blue is a collector, and a child with a broken wing. One has to imagine it inspires him somehow, because he literally feeds from it, he feeds on women, he feeds on me. And I, in my own way, feed on him…

He is surrounded by wounded animals, women, all of us, looking to him to feed our own starvation, and we are eaten alive. Pic, by pic, and smile, by churned out, smile.

I ache for touch.

Notions, like potions turning bird seed into bread, and bread into a meal with soup, dessert, and a belly full. Nonsense, it’s all, nonsense.

Today, today is beautiful, and I am grateful, I am blessed, and I have no hatred in my heart. I have only a ravenous need, to understand.