I just can't remember.

It is not that I made it up, it is just that I can't remember the truth; only the sentiment remains.

He's Just Not That Into You

Beth, I know that you waited a long time to give up your virginity. Most girls where we were from were having sex in high school. Even the preppy, prissy good girls weren't so good in the end, when the queen of virtue got pregnant just before graduation. I worry about you, because when I talked to you last week, you were bragging about a one night stand with your former fellow after spending the evening chatting with his girlfriend. Let me be clear, I am not judging you. I just worry that maybe you are not being a safe as you should, and perhaps you are not protecting your emotions as you should. I was always the secret whore, the wild girl who would say or do anything for attention. I just want you to be happy and to know real love.
I should probably tell you.

I Would Never Say, I Told You So

Jimmy calls me and leaves a message.
"Hey you, uh... Malia just called and she went to Planned Parenthood and she found out she has Chlamydia. So, that means I probably have it too and you should probably get checked out just in case. I am really pissed at her. Anyways, just give me and call and be sure to get that done."
I am not mad, or even worried. I just call him back and talk to him for a while about all the events that lead up to his recently acquired sexual angst. He is clearly disturbed and angry at her, at himself. I try to comfort him.
He says, "This is what I get right? I mean, I deserve this for sleeping with someone I don't even know. This is what I get."
"I don't know. I wouldn't put it like that Jimmy."
"Well, there has got to be some sort of waiting period or something from here on out. Jesus. She wasn't even going to tell me!"
I felt so sorry for him. I wasn't going to give him a big fat I told you so! I know how much he regrets the way things ended. I know he doesn't want me back, but that he also did not intend it to end the way it did. Sure, I feel vindicated that his new gal gave him the clap and that he is an emotional disaster area. I just don't have to go around flaunting it.
I would never say, "I told you so."

Slaying the Dragon.

I have slain the dragon! For the past 38 days I have cried and punished myself again and again. Assuming full blame for the failure of our relationship, I packed up and left town in a hail of tears and suicidal ideation. In his own way, I think that Jimmy feels bad for the outcome and that should have been enough.
Jimmy has always been in love with a very pretty girl from high school named Rachel. He was always very clear about the fact that he wanted to sleep with her and had feelings for her. It didn't do me any favors helping me feel secure in our relationship. He becamed very determined to contact her and contact her he did. She returned his call and left a message on my cell phone. I deleted it. I never told him.
I told him today.
It is really sick that I take such pleasure in tormenting a fellow with such a fragile ego. He was hurt and confused. He wasn't even mad at me. After a few hours his soft underbelly was showing, he was confessing his vulnerabilities, how he wasn't ready for what he wanted with me, how Rachel was his best friend in high school and the only one he could open up to, how he thought he was just going to ruin every relationship he was ever in... the list goes on and on. He is gentle and broken. I guess that is what I love about him.
He sent Rachel a message and she responded. It made him more confused than ever. In a way it is satisfying just to know that he is uncertain.

Homocide.

I have decided to kill James instead of myself. In my experience, all the men I have dated have failed to meet my expectations. Then they break up with me, because I am so infuriating to live with. Always correcting their grammar, noting more efficient or appropriate ways to complete mundane tasks and trying to make them better people seems to drive them off. They flee, defending their wounded egos and attempting to break me down in the process. Later, I find them with the most unsuitable women, fat, ugly, lacking personality, whorish, unintelligent, needy, or too good for them, too smart, too rich or too old or young. I find them unhappy and unfulfilled and I smugly consider how if they had only listened to me they would not find themselves in these messes.

notes on relationships

My earliest memories are somber. As a child I was sensitive and serious, people don’t take you seriously when your 5 years old. I was keenly aware of my surroundings. I began writing stories in a journal when I was 9 and I always had diaries. I started to escape through these narratives. I would walk around narrating my life in my head. It was always much happier and more exciting than my real life. My real life consisted of watching my little brother while my chronically depressed mother lay in the bed all day, and fetching my father Michelob beer until he passed out. One Christmas, I was very young, I asked my grandmother, a very authoritative women, if she could tell my dad to be nice to my mom. Around 7 years old, I begged my mother to divorce my father. I became withdrawn and turned my emotions off. My dad drank and drank and drank. He started a construction company. He drank a 24 case of Michelob on the job site everyday. He was also bipolar, schizoaffective but we never really noticed because he was steadily drunk for years. He bought 10 acres of land in Christiansburg, Virginia. Then he started building a house. The house kept getting bigger and bigger and he only used the best materials. Soon he wasn’t taking any other construction jobs. Then we started running out of money. Before long we were bankrupt. We lost the house we lived in, the house he built, the company went under and we had to start moving.
My dad went into rehab and failed. We moved to the shit-hole town Claremont, Virginia and bought a condemned house full of chipping lead paint. One of our family’s friends found my father passed out in a pick-up truck down by Cypress Pond. My dad left for the V.A. Hospital in Martinsburg, West Virginia. They had a 2 year inpatient program. We stayed in Claremont in a rental house, unable to afford heat. My mom, brother and I slept together in the living room floor huddled against the dog for warmth. Finally we moved to West Virginia to be there for my dad.
In West Virginia we got approved for section 8 housing and skyrocketed up the waiting list because we were homeless. I went to a counseling session with my father and told his doctor I didn’t want him to come home ever again. My mom dutifully stood by him, supporting him every step of the way. She was ill herself, having some sort of intrauterine tumor and terrible untreated diabetes. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment in a housing project outside of the city. It was much better than the projects in the city limits; we only had one murder in the two years we lived there. One time we had to call the police because two men escaped from the local jail and came to our upstairs neighbor’s house. It wasn't that bad. Soon enough my father was home again, sober and suffering from full blown manic depression and schizoaffective disorders. It was confusing and incomprehensible. We had chased this man across state lines and he was still too fucked up to live with. Kurt Cobain died that year, and I focused all my teenage attention on his wasted life. We had things in common like affection for the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, stomach ulcers and agonizing depression, we both had suicidal ideation, but he had been successful. I distracted myself by reading everything I could find on him. I dug through periodicals for even the smallest mention. I wrote a 10 page paper in the 8th grade about his life and lyrics. I got an A on it. Guess what? We are moving again.
For some reason my parents thought we should move to Crewe, Virginia where my mom's parents had lived for over a decade. My grandmother, now a widow, lived on Powell Street and we bought a house diagonal across the street. In that house, there was no end to the misery. My father was crazy, attending AA meetings 7 days a week and treating us as though we had all perpetrated some terrible crime against him by existing and inhibiting him. My mother was still sick and more depressed than ever. I bought a barrel cactus at the local Wal-Mart and named it “Spike”. I decided that the only living thing I could relate to was a 1 inch, spiny, phallic, but thick skinned plant. I plastered my wall in Rolling Stone photographs and obsessed about Kurt Cobain even more. One picture has Kurt seeming to flip off the camera; it was really his ring finger. MY mother ripped it down and threw it away. These little digs really had an impact on my psyche. I now mourned the loss of a coveted poster. Then I met a boy. Joey, was 19 years old, I was only 14. Nottoway High was teaming with hicks, jocks and niggas. A fourteen year old with pink hair, in a mini skirt and combat boots wasn’t really welcomed into the popular crowd. Hell, there wasn’t even an unpopular crowd of misfits at this point. I went to a school full of drones, except Joey. He had an old denim jacket with the names of cool bands like Bikini Kill and Rancid on it. He was my heroin hero. Actually, it was more like crack and cocaine, but I didn’t care. Joey was the only person who understood me. When he told me he loved me, honored me and only wanted to be with me, I believed him. My mom would let him spend the night. We would stay up late and watch TV in the living room. Finally he took me in the kitchen and lifted up my night gown and unzipped his pants. I was scared because I was a virgin. He kept reassuring me he would be gentle, but really there was no need. There I was confronted with a 3 inch, pinky finger for a dong. I couldn’t even feel it; my index finger did more for my teenage urges. No matter, not even a week later I was in art class sitting next a girl named Beth something, a head banger chick. She told me that Joey and his girlfriend came over that weekend. I devastated. That fucker set the tone for every relationship I have ever had since. I hate him for it.
Now, debased and alone there was nothing left to do, it was time to seek therapy, or to use a phrase coined by Angelina Jolie in Girl Interrupted, “The-rape-me.” I was diagnosed manic depressive at 15 years old. Treatment in the mid 90’s consisted of cognitive behavioral therapy and medication, Prozac and Lithium. Enter the zombie. Lithium is essentially a chemical lobotomy. I couldn’t feel anything and I certainly could not stay awake in Latin class. Try taking the Prozac in the morning and the Lithium at night. Well, now I am angry and crazy during the day and then drugged up and sleepy at 7:30 at night, take the Lithium any later and I can’t wake up for school. I wanted to die. I took chances, I drove too fast, I started sleeping with every boy that liked me. I didn’t even have safe sex, I got on the pill, but I never used condoms. Then I felt guilty for having sex, or scared that I would get an STD. I had to keep a million secrets. My home life sucked ass, school sucked ass and I was certain that I was fat and unattractive, but my father remained sober and that was all that mattered, I guess.
On and off of psychiatric meds, green pills, blue pills, my hair was falling out and I was fat and then thin, always sad and alone even among friends. My brother wouldn’t even consider counseling and somehow he got away with it. If he didn’t want to go to school, he didn’t go. My mom was totally out of control of the situation. I don’t even know what triggered my parents to split up. One day we finally moved out and into an apartment in Blackstone 10 miles away. Once again my mom crammed herself, my brother and me into a 2 bedroom, too small apartment. My dad stayed at our old house and had a lady from AA move in, but supposedly nothing was going on there, which is good because she has hepatitis. Eventually he sold her the house and moved to another little place in town. I don’t remember a lot about that time; then again, I don’t remember a lot of things.
There are people who have saved my life from time to time. Somehow, I got set up with this pen pal in New York State and we wrote each other hundreds of letters. I could easily piss away 2 weeks at a time just knowing that a NY postmark would appear in the mailbox. Closer to home there was Mathias, a bear of a fellow, a year my senior. He was unusual, a talented artist, well read and my best male friend. When we first met, it was difficult to know what to make of our fast friendship. One day he came over after school and I closed my bedroom door. We kissed and then sat on the bed looking perplexed and feeling even more uncomfortable. It was like I had just frenched my brother. He shared the sentiment and we knew we could never be together. We settled on being devoted friends, though I could rely on him for a good cuddle now and then.
Somehow I always manage to fuck things up. Mathias had a girlfriend in his hometown of Danville. She came to live with his family eventually. Matt was a real stud though and he wasn’t too concerned with obscuring his indiscretions with the ladies. I befriended Kate. One night, I disclosed to her all of Matt’s sordid goings on. Then next thing I knew, the whole lot of our mutual friends arrived at my door, menacing as if they intended upon burning me at the stake. It took a long time to repair our friendship, but we mended. He and his best friend Kyle moved in my downtown Richmond apartment for a short time when I was in college. There Matt met Brandy, an underage catholic school girl. They got married and we lost touch, except for that one time I came to their apartment and he touched me in their king size bed.
There was lots of clandestine, statutory rape and consensual sex among minors going on in small town, central Virginia, particularly in the cemeteries of Blackstone and the backseats of my parents and friends domestic sedans. I wish I could totally blame impulsive manic depressive urges, low self-esteem and general family dysfunction sending me on these ill-fated missions for acceptance and love. The truth is, I really liked fucking, and I still do. There were boys I dated for a few months, but there were also exciting chance meetings and one night stands. I also enjoyed deflowering virgins. You would think that experience would really count with guys, but you can tell a virgin anything. They are pretty much soft clay waiting for you to form and fire them. I form, fired and creatively glazed them. There were older men, younger men, married men, emotionally unavailable men and there were a few women. I love the men.
I remember the first virgin I corrupted was a 16 year old fellow named James. He was an Eagle Scout, gifted musician and sculptor. He wore NIN t-shirts and had long blond hair that was shaved underneath. I wanted to date him when I was freshman, but most of that year he dated a gal named Avril, she was a grade ahead of him and I despised her. As a sophomore, I was friends with Amanda, a clarinet player in the band. James was a drummer in the band. I would hang around band events waiting for Amanda to get done. I got a lot of James exposure this way. She arranged for us to meet up with James and his best friend Mike for a game night. That sly dog James made his move while we were watching Akira. We frequented each other’s houses each afternoon after school. He gave me rides in his old blue Ford F150 and made me sit in the middle next to him with the shifter between my legs. I had to work on him a little, he was a Christian and he was planning on saving it. One day we were at my house, I don’t know where my mom or my brother was, but James and I were alone. He told me he wanted to do it if I would take charge. He didn’t want to admit he didn’t know what to do. After our first time we did it constantly. He liked weird stuff, strange position and he was creative about it. He had this bear fur type blanket and he would want to do it on the bear. There was a brass fire extinguisher in his room. He used to toss our used condoms in it. I though this a very bizarre practice, what if his mom wanted to move that thing to another room? James’ mom was a real bitch. Her name was Gail and this was her 3d marriage. James was her only child. She was married to a lovely man named Bobby. He owned a local tavern, and two vintage cars that needed a lot of work, but were still really cool. She was a total bitch to him too, belittling him in front of company. She decorated her house seasonally with things she had procured in Williamsburg in the designer stores. She had custom drapes that matched her custom sofa. She didn’t care much for me, I distracted James. When I spent the night at their house, I had to sleep in the guest room downstairs. I remember it well because there was the most comfortable goose down mattress in that room. This teenage romance lasted about 3 months before it fell apart. I remember so many afternoon of James eating beef jerky, drinking chocolate milk and eating cereal out of a huge mixing bowl. He smelled like a puppy you know, that smell babies have that are being nursed. I assumed it was from the mass consumption dairy, mac and cheese and the like. One day, I dumped him out of his chair in the lunchroom, I am sure I had a good reason. I don’t know. I was mean to him. He got tired of it; I was too much work so he dumped me. I wanted to kill myself. I withdrew and hid from the world. He had told everyone in the boys’ locker room about our sex life. Finally, I decided I wanted him to be jealous. I started going to these parties at his best friend Mike’s farm. I met Jason from Kent Forrest School there. He was hot and it only took two or three drunken weekends for us to consummate our drunken friendship. In high school I wanted to be a journalist. Everyone thought it was a great idea, after all I had been writing since I was young girl. My teachers steered me to write on the school newspaper, yearbook, to submit in small publications. I was directed to go to Virginia Commonwealth University, which at the time had the only accredited School of Mass Communications in the state. I wanted to go to Bard College and live in Annandale on Hudson and pretend it was Stratford on Avon. My mom convinced me that we could never afford to send me anywhere but state college. I only applied to one school. I got an apartment in the Monroe Park Tower, a high rise in downtown Richmond across from Monroe Park on Franklin. I lived there with my best friend Amanda. This scenario quickly turned to disaster.

Orchestrating death. Part 1. I am going to kill myself.

Orchestrating death. Part 1. I am going to kill myself.

Setting: Early November 2004, Washington Park Max Station... cold air, artificial lighting and eerie quiet in between the whoosh of the trains.

I don't know what day it is, but I am having the worst week of my entire life. There is a 3-mile light rail tunnel burrowing through Portland's West Hills. The Washington Park Station is the deepest transit station in America. The MAX shits you out 260 feet beneath the Earth's surface into the tunnel. There is no natural light and even during the hottest summer day it is cold under the mountain. There is the faint hum of the fluorescent lighting and high speed elevators nearby. The wind picks up as the next train barrels into the station. The Oregon Zoo and other attractions hover above. This is a busy stop in warm sunny weather, but it is cold and pissing rain in November. A few people wait for a train back to town. I am waiting, but I am not getting on the train.

No transit security officers are patrolling the cave, there are cameras, but cameras won't be able to stop this suicidal 25 year old from dashing off the platform into the bright yellow light of the oncoming vessel. It takes about 2 city blocks for the MAX to stop, even though the train begins to slow on approach, I don't think an unsuspecting driver will see me in time. I have been sitting here timing the trains, listening to the noise they make as the get close to the platform, trying to figure it out. The combination of Vicodin, Oxycotin, assorted psychiatric meds, cough syrup, booze, insulin, benzos, and whatever else I can scrounge up should ease the pain, but I don't want to be too fuckered to make a good go of jumping in front of the train.

The train is just for effect really. I could just give myself a lethal dose of insulin and drift softly into a coma and die. Just falling asleep seems so anticlimactic though. I am known for being overdramatic. I think it would really disappoint those whom have known me well if I were to just Nytol myself into the next life.

Why am I going to kill myself? It is simple, I got dumped. Yeah. That is what this going to look like. My 19 year old boyfriend has left me for some stoner-slut from Hawaii, so I've been sitting in our apartment in the dark for 3 days, sobbing and contemplating my own demise. Second guessing myself, I realized that I would botch any go softly into this good night with a belly full of pills attempt, so I better do this right. I wouldn't want to be classified as one of those attempted suicide cry for help types that you read about in Seventeen Magazine. Oh no! If I am going to be accused of killing myself over this wanna-be musician, computer nerd from Tillamook smells like ass, Oregon it better be dramatic and it better be final.

Jesus! Of course I am not going to kill myself over Jimmy J. Jack-off. But you pile Jimmy on the roof of a structurally unsound, manic depressive house of cards and watch it tumble. Every stupid relationship, hurt feeling, rejection, disappointment, failure, abuse and abandonment combined with a lifelong struggle for basic sanity and what do you get? It is too much too bear. My brain actually feels heavy in my head. There are too many emotions for me to process. I can’t stand it. I never want to feel this way again.

I used to cut myself. It started in high school in sophomore biology class. I broke a slide accidentally. The broken shards barely touched my skin, but they were so sharp they peeled my skin open like a zipper. The blood poured out bright red against my porcelain skin. It was exhilarating. It didn’t hurt, so I just kept doing it. I wore a long sleeve chenille cardigan all the time to cover up all the tiny slices. One day, while driving in Richmond near the VCU campus, my sleeve slid back and my mom noticed all the scabs. She totally freaked out and started the whole, “WHY? WHY? Why are you doing this to yourself? You need help!” I didn’t cut myself again for a long time. The whole act of cutting was very private for me. I never wanted people to see it; I didn’t do it for attention. I felt alive when I was bleeding and people made me feel bad for it. Unless you are manic depressive, you can’t understand the numbness that anesthetizes you, in contrast to the overwhelming emotional tsunamis that drown you in happiness, anger or sorrow that presses on your chest until your heart might burst.

Orchestrating death: What is the best way to die? I tried researching this on the web... but I got a lot of annoying Christian sites that just wanted to help me live. This made me want to die more and just made the prospect of researching and orchestrating the ultimate death evermore frustrating. A humane guide to ending one's life should be available at the local Barnes and Noble, certainly at Powell's City of Books. I am certain lots of Portlanders are nervously contemplating suicide at least 6 rainy months out of the year. The only thing keeping us alive is constant intravenous espresso from the nearest Starbucks we claim not to go to because it is too corporate. I found one website that was particularly helpful. They listed the method of suicide, extensive details on what the death would be like and possible risks of failure, along with a pain scale as well as how long it would actually take to work. It contained lots of citations as well as a bibliography. I like a well researched website. I would be neck deep in medical journals researching self-inflicted euthanasia methods myself, but suicide takes on a sense of urgency. Thus, I do not have time to write a thesis on the matter. I have gathered up as much reputable information as possible and now I have to make a decision. No one wants to end up like Madame Bovary, swallowing arsenic and spewing black vomit and wrenching in agony for days.

I don’t wear a watch. Since there is no natural light down here, there are no clues as to the time. I have an idea of how far apart the trains are, but I can’t keep track of how many have passed by anymore. I am sitting on one of the basalt columns and my ass has gone completely numb. My nose is cold and it stings as I adjust my nose piercing. My hands are stiff and cold. I have been down here a while. Behind me are 16 million years of geological core samples condensed into 260 feet worth of clear tubing. My 25 years on this Earth are a mere speck of ash in terms of straw full of ancient volcanic rock. As I inhale, this moment and every moment leading up to it were all set in motion eons ago. We go through life making decisions, pretending the things do have some ascendancy on the inexorable outcome. I feel as though I am pinned to this Earth by gravity, hurling through the cosmos under the laws of which I do not understand. I could blame the acid reflux from the molten belly of out planet for spewing out this mountain I sit inside waiting to die, but I have slightly more precise coordinates upon which to fire my missiles of culpability.

Another year approaches... this one left behind.

I am full of sorrow. Each time this happens, when you are far away, I feel as though I am dying. Overcome with emotions and struggling to keep the razor from my scarred arms, which now must represent the state of my heart I wait. Down at Sauvie Island a little after 11:00 p.m. I slowly trek down the snow covered bank onto the grey sandy shores. An enormous barge cuts effortlessly through the water. Another pushes upstream and it appears as though the two ships will collide in the cold night. I turn up my bottle of cheap champagne on this second day of the new year and I wish the ships embrace that there might be an explosion. The destruction of 2 massive ships cannot replicate the turmoil in my heart.In your absence I realize how much I love you. You are the one I want by my side always. Zeb tries to distract me with tales of his conquests. It only works for a little while. At home I put on all your clothes and try to smell you. I have on a bizarre array of items. Mourning. 3a.m. Morning. The muscle in my neck is tight. I can't sleep. A police car passes by... then another and another with their sirens. If you are to be taken from me, it will not be such a grand affair. Will I even know? Who will tell me? I wait for you. Like a stone.