grieving in stereo

(tw: alcoholism, suicidal ideation, mention of dysphoria)

she lays in the cold water, it climbs up his neck, it blocks out her ears. all they can hear is their voice. cassette tape unspooling, vinyl skipping- as his own words come back to haunt him.

the colorful bar and the euphoria, the dingy green carpet and artificial plants of the psychiatrist’s office. she had worked so hard to be there, to be in that place, and for what?

to lose. to lose, again. to lose, again.

all they’ve ever had is themself. he knew that. she forgot. the price is too high.

do they give up their family, who she’s worked so hard to keep, in order to not claw out through his own skin? and what about his voice? her high, delicate, special soprano. the freedom of soaring. the physical freedom of flying. and now, it’s a cage. a reminder of all their failures. a reminder of his cage.

so she went out into the hills. he knew it wasn’t smart. she’s grieving in stereo, but it’s warped- it’s strange. they found the deepest pool and as the sun set and the moon rose, his old friend, the moon, she stepped in.

and fell. fell backwards. fell to face the object of his worship. the moon, their oldest and truest companion. the only one who ever saw her. who ever knew them. who didn’t expect, who didn’t demand, who didn’t have her own complicated feelings to put aside so that he might be himself.

but she is weeping. she feels nothing, and he is weeping. because he doesn’t know. he doesn’t know who they are.

they don’t know if it’s a cage, this skin. he wonders if the pain is freedom. and she will never know if a petty little human invention can fix it or make it worse.

if all you have is yourself, how can you come to terms with not knowing that person?

he’s laying on white sheets while waiting for the sunset picnic he asked his partner to go on. she, the partner, is going to the store to stock up on king soopers sushi, chocolate, and other snacks. no chametz, it’s pesach. it’s the warmest day of the year so far, and she can see the colorful paper cranes they made fluttering on the line she strung up on the ceiling. he watches closely and imagines what his eyes might look like. a weight presses into their stomach. it’s not a real weight, just the remembering of one. just the guilt of one.

the blinds push out with the cool wind. he misses the wind. she feels so stuck. he doesn’t have an answer.

synths pulse out from their phone, sitting to their left. the sun is so bright. the air is so clear. it’s spring, but she can’t bring herself to care.

there’s a plate of salted tomato slices. he eats them with his hands. they’re cool to the touch, like the breeze. she’s sat up now, and the wind pushes through their hair, and they’re breathing for the first time all day.

god, he wants a drink.

they’re pretty sure sobriety was the worst decision they’ve ever made. but, then again, the fact that she’s missing it so much means it was the right one.

he caves, slightly, and asks his partner for a drink with either caffeine or cbd in it.

they’re sure that, later, they’ll be going for a drive. unless he can knock out first, which, they suppose the cbd might help with.

she hasn’t gone on a drive, at least the way she’s thinking of, since high school. dizzying back roads and darkness and reckless driving, sometimes racing on a broad thoroughfare in broad daylight, was his vice before he got introduced to alcohol. they’re pretty sure they can’t do anything to hurt themselves now. her new car, while it has great gas mileage and does the job, isn’t built for anything other than mild-mannered puttering. he’d picked it on purpose.

sometimes, she hates herself for putting in all of these safety nets. other than all the other things he hates himself for, that is. not like there’s a shortage.

sometimes, they just wish they could crash his car. easy enough way to go, if they did it the right way. god, she misses alcohol. at least when they were still drinking, he could sit on the couch and feel the warmth. the blur. it was duct tape on the hole in her heart, sure, but who cares when it gets the job done? and it was less dangerous, though, they suppose, it wouldn’t have stayed that way for long.

he wishes he could be in a story. stories have endings. sometimes happy, sometimes not, she supposes, but either way, it’s an ending. the pain stops.

life isn’t like that. it just… keeps going. and it never gets any easier. so much for all those feel-good stories about how things get better.

for some people, they suppose, the pain never ends. it’d be just their luck to be that person.

grieving in stereo, ad infinitum.