Hero

Hero

I told her I had a crush on her.

“No you don’t.”

That’s what she said.

Not how you draw it up.

“I’m a mess. You don’t want to deal with that.”

“Yes I do. I think you’re awesome.”

I wanted to be her hero.

Not days before I pictured her in a ball on her couch, covered in a messy stack of blankets like glue, holding her together.

Then she decided to walk outside, for the first time in many weeks.

And she walked into my world.

I had to be her hero.

Looking back, it was her big eyes.

There were signs. Her wounds were real. Everything he was I swore not to be. How could someone take advantage of a person so sweet?

Let me tell you.

It still haunts me today. Tonight even. Right now in my hotel room. My runway ran up and it’s chasing me down. Two sides live in every relationship. I’ve only ever paid attention to one.

The accumulation of consequences, resulting from choices I have made, they have arrived. I came home from a trip and she was on the floor, in the ball she knew well, holding herself, only she was empty. Next to her, my iPad. The one that I left because I wanted to come clean. I knew this was coming but I never felt what I pictured.

“You were supposed to be different.”

I really was. But there was a writer from Spain and we connected differently. We never met but if you read the words we shared.

I was younger when that happened. A different person really. I’ve tried to get her back. Changed everything. Made sure there was no one else. And we came close. We were walking in her neighborhood and I was talking about all my ideas like I always did with her because she really thought I was a fucking genius and it made me feel so strong and she stopped and looked me in the eyes, “I want to have a baby with you. I want to make something with you. And the 3 of us can just be together and hang out.”

It’s hard to say what that felt like. Certainly not real, because there was no sensational precedent. Maybe I had 1 true moment to feel my heart open 1 time for 1 person. I was being lit on fire only my heart was safely wide open in a gel that released itself into my blood.

“Let’s do it.”

I’ve never really been sure about kids. Still not. But fuck if that wasn’t a moment between 2 people. If I could lick the remains off the sidewalk I would.

Maybe it’s guilt.

It’s attached to me.

Since she left I haven’t taken a breath that can calm me down. I have no peace in my heart. Only she could do that. Only when we lied on our sides and I held her body did I know where I was. I tried to remember how her hair felt. The grooves on her head. Really listen for the last conscious breath before she was out.

I don’t believe in god the way that I was raised to. There is a curiosity to the way we came about. There are gaps where divinity would make sense. I feel things that are different.

I lied on the floor last night and asked this thing to release me. The accumulation of all the women I’ve hurt. All their feelings that I turned away from. The reality of loneliness. In my chin and on my shoulders the weight of just me, no one to displace upon. No other girls, no distractions, no pretending that my actions don’t define me. It’s just me and it is heavy.

I had my first vision the other night in meditation. A vision for a film. 32 seconds it appeared on the eyelid projector. The shots, the sounds, the color. I made the film a few days later with my friend Daniel. It was good.

I’m seeing things everywhere. Cities at war inside a man on a bicycle. I can’t explain this but I am losing what it means to look at a box and think that I can simply just trust its nature. What are you really up to?

Something is becoming of me. A new shape resulting from hope and my feet collapsing together. Carrying with me the girl on the floor and in my arms. The full weight of both sides.

I have no peace. But I have something else.

I wanted this to be an act of letting go.

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