I love you. I hope you are doing alright.
Content warning for death and grief. If you are in mourning, I do not know if this will benefit your mental health. These are my thoughts and they have sharp edges. I center myself in this because that is the point of the newsletter. All I know is how I react to things.
An accident happened and a friend died. I hate putting this in prose. I was never very close with him but we were friends. I feel the impact. Proximate pain is pain is pain is pain.
The night I learned he died, I went to the gym, where he and I would most often interact these past few months. Everyone there looked like him. I saw him in the corners of my eyes. I saw him in the reflections in the mirror. I never saw his face, only a corner of his head, an eye, a curtain of brown hair, an arm, a shoe. He was in the periphery of everything, but never in focus. He was reduced to reflection, memory, anatomical similarities.
When anything terrible happens I think of my brother. I know how that sounds. When anything amazing happens I also think of my brother. I don’t want to put that weight on him. No one deserves that.
When I learned that my friend died I thought of my brother. On the way to the gym, I called him and told him what happened in a quiet voice because I knew if I said it too loud I would scream.
On the way home from the gym it was raining lightly. Or maybe I was crying. A car’s headlights filled my eyes with almost white light. I was crossing the street and the car was accelerating towards me. I stopped in the middle of the street just to see what would happen. The car kept accelerating. The tears or rain or both in my eyes made it impossible to see anything but the endless reflections of the headlights. All else was black. Within a foot of my body, the driver stopped suddenly and I could see their face for the first time. We made eye contact, the driver waved an apology and I waved back and we acknowledged our mortality.
I stared at the sink watching the Britta fill. Where does the water go? I swear the meniscus never rises. Hours pass in seconds and seconds pass in hours and days in minutes in seconds in hours and minutes. How am I supposed to cook dinner? How do I eat? What do I do with these hands? What do I do with these legs?
In the shower, I thought of my friend and my brother and I wept. Tears came slowly at first. I cry dry, it's mostly a soft scream. Eventually my eyes gave in and my vision blurred with salinity. I sat on the edge of the bathtub and cried in my hands, trying to be quiet so my roommates wouldn’t hear. They were outside talking and laughing and talking. Once I worked up the courage to leave the bathroom, I was met face to face with one of my roommates who asked, “how are you?” I went to my room and put on clothes and that’s when it got bad. I was on the couch, one roommate on my left and another on my right. My head was in my hands, my fingers pulling at my eye sockets. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god-” They rubbed my back but it felt like the way someone rubs a dog. Eventually I was quiet and then I screamed and couldn’t stop screaming. I slammed my fist against the coffee table and ran into my bedroom and collapsed on the floor. All I could think about was everything but this. I saw a blue light. Is that your reflection? Where is the object? Where do we go when we dream? I swear I saw your reflection. I need to be spread across all that I love. I need to feel everything. If I feel all the sadness there will be none left for you. I need that to be true. What happens when the projector stops? The little boy dreaming you woke up. The little boy dreaming you woke up! If you leave a room and close the door it feels like someone is in the room.
All of us were children. All of us are someone’s child. No one should have to bury their child.
“Condolences”, we even made a word for it. How do you define the opposite of everything? I am further from heaven than I ever have been. The only way to believe in god is to believe he is evil.
Everyone has a reason.
I told my roommates about a different loss. When I was 16 my sister’s ex-boyfriend died. They dated for five years and he was like a brother to me. I took everything from him, his smile, sarcasm, laugh, semi-nihilism, careful apologies, casual existentialism. My jokes all belong to him. All my best stories belong to him. I didn’t know this until he died. It’s hard to articulate how his death affected me. What happens when perfect becomes a memory. When does a brother become a body?
If you listen closely you can hear the hum.
It took me an hour to get a chair I thrifted back to my apartment across town. Every few minutes I would see a friend in the distance, eyes glazed over, floating like a buoy. Where are they going? What do people do when meaning is erased? “This will change everything.” I know. Everything is already different. It’s never been the same. Consistency is distortion. We are built for patterns. Each moment is completely separate from the last. The little you dreaming you is waking up. I swear I just saw you.
I’m cataloging faces. My friend said he always forgets faces. He said if he doesn’t see his girlfriend for a day, he forgets what she looks like. I’m cataloging faces now. I will memorize your freckles and find patterns in your eyes. If I can find a number in you I will always remember your face. I will make you immortal. I will reduce you to your barest self and find you everywhere I look. Existence is interaction. I love you but I can’t hear you. I’m so sorry.