An Inhuman Condition

II: Luv Me

Fourteen months later and she still has her claws in my back. I can’t run away from it. Whenever I write down some words, whenever I read, not even the television is safe. Every blonde lead is a doppelganger stroking my nostalgia strings. I’ve tried to move on. I’ve tried to find healthy and good and everything a guy could want, but that’s not for me. I always come back to her.

I haven’t even seen her for a month now. She only comes to town around the holidays and she tends to leave my haunt alone. I still see her though, occasionally. She likes to bring her brother here. He and I have the same name, but he never seemed to like me so much. I guess the few times we all sat around for coffee, he and I never had anything to talk about. Not just in the I’m-sleeping-with-your-sister sort of way. He and I were obviously a different breed altogether.

So when I see her again, I never have anything of substance to add. He’s always there, and he doesn’t seem to want me to get a minute alone with her. It’s like he’s trying to protect her in a way, but fuck, he’s really just protecting me. I know that nothing healthy and good can come from us being alone – even for a few minutes. But that doesn’t stop me whenever she’s around. I feel the lure dangling in front of me, blinded to the hook I want to bite.

I see the sway of her hips, the glint of her lips. I see everything that made me fall for her and none of the rubble around us. She’s buoyant, flirty, filled with bubbles begging to be popped. Selective memory at it’s best. That’s probably why we tried it three times. Hell, I probably would have gone for it again last April if she had let me. I don’t understand how I can be so fucked up over one girl, but whenever I’m lonely, my mind drifts back to her.

There’s no potion that’ll save me. There’s no cure for my mind. There’s no sound advice or second of solace that was made for me. I like to think maybe we were made for one another, that there’s no other way the story can go. Destined to be together, but cursed to be so shit at it. In my delusions, we just need to figure ourselves out, line up the Rubik’s cubes and live happily ever after.

But that’s just a fantasy.

I’m damaged, and I need her. I need her to let me go; leave the hook at home. I need her to get married, move to California – anything to get her out of my mind. Because if she’s around, even a little, I will never fix myself. I won’t look for what’s healthy and good, and I will never get what I want out of life. I can’t keep going back to her literally, figuratively, totally. But I can’t back away from the memory. I can’t go back to the world without thinking about her. I need her to push, to put me back, get a full refund. And then maybe I can do it again.

But that’s just another fantasy.