Clowns and other such nonsense...

Nearly exactly a month ago I found that my "too good to be true" lover had a slight... issue. Her name was Krystal. She lived in New York. He and I, we live in Hollywood. He went to New York, saying he'd take care of it and came back and hid from me. She moved into his apartment the next weekend. We had absolutely no problems (which, I suppose, is a problem in and of itself). I was careful. I would not cling, I would not banter, I was unendingly tolerant as we both work fulltime jobs. I worked to keep it casual, but he pushed it serious with day trips, romps all over LA, and by meeting my parents and spending my elaborate birthday with them and me. Giving me the expensive fountain pen I'd drooled over and bottles upon bottles of ink. He mentioned that I'd thrown him... I was unexpected. We laughed that we'd end our fling in early July. The 9th. (unbeknowst to me, the day Krystal would find if she'd gotten the position at a firm in LA) But at two months he lauded me as the longest real relationship he'd had, and the only woman to write and record him a song. What we left out was Krystal, that big pink elephant in the back of the room. The woman I was meant to replace, but never could.

The day I met him when we passed on Hollywood Blvd... he told me I would know him when I saw him and offered no other description. When I spotted his white jacket and peered into piercing (cliche, I know) blue eyes, I did indeed know I had found him. My father always said, with a bemused smile on his face, that when you meet the person you're truly meant to love, you just KNOW. It's not a matter of time, it's a matter of pheremones. A chemistry you can't fake or avoid. You can feel in two months what some fight to find in two years. I found that. And I fought the entire way... reminding myself that I would be just fine, fine without him.

It's funny how when you look back, you realize that you're only able to tell yourself things like "oh, hell, I'd be fine/better off/happy without [insert cunt here]" as long as you honestly believe that they ain't goin' nowheres for a stretch. How you don't let yourself trust until you've already felt the warning, the pang of impending dismissal.

It ended very suddenly and I still have his things in my car. His friends are comedians, graphic designers, editors, and filmmakers. They all knew it was over before I did. I remember telling him in our last conversation, that it didn't matter to me that he left. My only wish was for him to be happy, and if that's not with me, then so it goes, right? However, why he went on public forum and bragged about his new oh-so-serious relationship before me dragging out the truth, I could not understand.

I was a joke. For two months, they must have really laughed it up.

I looked into the glass of the Sushi Bar my parents had taken me too that night, holding a glass of Vifandel and I saw my hair no longer black but in gaudy shades of blue, pink, and orange. Nose was already a bright pink. The other customers stared out at me as I ignored them and did a little jig. I went through my purse wondering if I had enough empty packs of cigarettes to juggle. A tear slipped off my chin and into the wine, and I was confused because I could feel that I was still grinning. After a blurry weekend, I found myself at work, and the first thing to come off my fingers was this:

It really is startiling how bad it can hurt.

The way suddenly, in every picture of yourself, you see a big red nose matching the white and red paint. Look down at your feet, and the toes of your shoes have ballooned out 20 sizes larger than any set of toes has ever been. The t-shirt you picked for the heat is pleasantly slick, and satin. A baggy suit, with the zipper tight at your neck.

You don't walk, you wobble.

You don't speak, you shout.

You don't hear much save for the honking of the bike horn in your hand and the pulse of your own voice in the back of your head.

They're all laughing.

They giggle and point. Everything they say is in whispered chuckles, in jokes they think you don't understand. Acronyms that they don't think you've paid enough attention to decifer.

They aren't laughing at your clothes, or enjoying your silly appearance. They are laughing at your choice, your choice to let them mock you.

They are guffawing at your stupidity. How long you've stood there, not realizing the insincerety of their intentions. The dopy smile you had at first when you greeted their grins as friends. How lame are you, honey, how funny, that you really thought, you really thought this was all real. Real and for you. How sad.

When you cry, the make-up runs. You tear at the cheap faux sheen on your shoulders until you stand there naked. You don't run, you don't say a word. You just weep till the sobbs blind your every sense and you stand, vulnerable and alone.They stop laughing, one by one. Stunned and incredulous that your ignorance has lifted, and you're not angry.

Where is the vengance? They crow.

Where is the spite? They beg.

They twitter and try to keep their lips pulled back in their tight grins.

You can't hear them as the sounds all spin into your heaves, and heavily, you drop your small frame to the floor.

Just breathing, "won't you go, away, away, away."
****

I wanted to be a vengeful ex-lover. Leave some deceased rodent on his car each morning before I left for work... but I've been wholely unsucessful at hating him. I just hoard all of my emotion, like a child with a bag of jelly beans, in that bag in my trunk... slipped in amoungst his jacket, books, and the twice-lit match-stick heart I didn't know still functioned until it had been stomped firmly into ashes once and for all.