We never have really talked much. We just hung out and then one day I just jumped down that rabbit hole and I can't really remember what happened after that. It was all just a big blur of psychedelic patterns, late nights, and good music. So it is fitting that this picture sums it all up in such an easy-to-read way... No.words.necessary. Well, I guess it's not that one picture, but the two placed next to each other. They say everything. Two separate looks. Two separate pictures. Two separate situations. I know the situations are unrelated, and this is not an either/or proposition, but they tell me exactly what I have known since before I jumped down the rabbit hole.
And it took this.... this fucking Alice in wonderland bullshit to make me understand that line from my favorite movie-- the movie she would never watch because it was too depressing-- that line I never got until now... It's the line when they are breaking up the first time. He says "This is going to hurt..." and I have always gotten that. I always imagined that to be the subtext.... In this situation, from you.... in that situation, from me... But what I didn't get was when she says "I just want you to hold me" (or something to that affect...). I didn't get it. Why the hell would she want him to hold her? He is a complete dick devoid of emotion or care for her. He can't see past his own self delusion. Why would she ever want him to hold her, much less after that?
But now I get it. I mean, I would bail like she does if it weren't for all this student loan debt.... So, I get that. I have always gotten that.... But the whole holding thing??? But yeah... now, I get it.
I have let exactly two people hold me.... Some may think they have, but that was just a hallucination, brought on by a similar Alice in Wonderland trick. The first time was about 19 months ago. I had just been to the Temp Agency. She said "Wow. You have a Phd. That's very impressive..." Later that night, we were recounting our days in that very couple-y way we did. We were in bed and about to go to sleep....
And that's why I can't stop thinking about her right now... I want to call her, but I don't have her number. I want to email her, but I know she doesn't want anything to do with me-- probably because she has told herself that I was evil, and did something horrible like cheat or lie, even though I didn't; and probably because she has moved on to any number of long-haired pin-up style women... I know I don't actually miss her; she is just filling the profile of someone who could hold me... someone I would really let hold me... synecdoche.
Fast forward 19 months and clichés float around my head like smoke from a cigarette someone else is smoking.... invading my atmosphere, and contaminating my lungs.... Because I know the ending of this movie; the ending of this trip down the rabbit hole... and it could not be more cliché than a "a picture is worth..."