(no subject)
All about them
She was always the one with the D-cup tits, and the long blonde hair. I was the shorter, messier one. And it was great.
We were 8, and I didn't speak a word of french, not a fucking word, and I turned up at school on the first day and felt like driftwood, but she was there. And we communicated with broken english, messy french and our hands.
She took me back to her house, at 4 when school was over, and there we sat at her kitchen table, eating dried apricots, french bread and chocolate, with lemon cordial in one hand, and my eyes wandering over the wall, taking in all the pretty postcards her mum had collected over the years.
I had the dreams, and she made them reality. And I had imagination, and she had common sense.
We made little dens in trees, cushioning the earth with moss and dried grass. She was the mum, cooking mud pies, and I was the dad who went off on adventures, and came back with a plastic bottle for her to use as a vase, and a pocket full of grimy wild strawberries.
When we were 10, I decided we should go down to the river, and make a boat. So I took an inflatable rubber chair that belonged to my sister, blew it up, and prepared to set sail.
She stood there with frail arms wrapped around her body, repeatedly telling me that it wouldn't work, that we'd fall in, that LOGICALLY it would tip over. But I said that we'd be pirates, and find treasure, and conquer new beaches!
So onto the chair/galley we got, and 5 seconds later, it tipped over.
She never made me go shopping. She knew I hated it. Instead, she'd run in and look at bras, and skirts, and jeans, and I’d sit outside and smoke.
Or sometimes she went on shopping sprees, and I’d give her an hour or two to do her thing, whilst I went down to the skate park and wolf-whistled at the boys, and when they asked me how big my tits were, I’d ask them how big their dicks were, and then I’d go back to pick her up.
I was the husband, and she was the wife.
One time, I got so badly drunk I was scared of everything, and I couldn’t remember where I lived or where I was, but I remembered her number. I called her from a phone box, one of those phone boxes that smells of cold nicotine and old men’s piss, and she spent half an hour on a bus. She took me back to her house, and held my hair whilst I was sick, and undressed me and put me to bed, and called my parents to let them know I was sleeping over.
And one night, on the evening of the Fête de Genève, we went up the Signal de Bernex, this massive hill where you can see all of Geneva stretched out beneath you, and all around you there’s nothing but stars and mountain.
We looked at those stars, and we counted them, and we chose a star to be our star. We took off our shoes, and ran across the hill, mud under our feet, grass itching our ankles, and we laughed and ran until we couldn’t laugh or cry anymore. Spent an hour looking for our shoes, fucking around looking for our socks, whilst fireworks exploded in the valley, and the moon throbbed over it all.
Exchanged rings, made a promise. I’ll keep that ring forever.
Another night, we went to our old primary school. 10 at night, not a soul in the playground, just her and me, me and her, on the big tire swing near the lampost. And we swang so high, and sang kid’s songs, and remembered together.
‘’Hannah, I’ll always remember those fucking bracelets all the way up your arm.’’
‘’Emmy, I’ll always remember your fucking hand-made bags.’’
‘’I’ll always remember your hands.’’
‘’I’ll always remember your nose.’’
‘’I’ll always remember the time we…’’
‘’Do you remember when we…’’
And the night went on, and we went home.
She’d meet me at our café, and we’d sit and smoke the day away, and then the night, and she’d drink her coffee, and I’d drink Red Bull, and I’d get upset about something, and nearly knock the table over with my arms, getting all wound up and hot-headed.
She’d raise the cup to her lips, and look at me with cool, placid eyes, and wait for me to finish.
I’d get swept away in the moment, drowned in all my ideas and fantasies and dreams, about stars and rain and the night and snow, and she’d point out all the stupid, impossible, unrealistic points to what I was saying.
I hated her for being boring, but I loved her for it. She hated me for my temper, but she loved me for it. And I hated and loved her for her calmness, and she hated and loved me for being so unrealistic.
I’m scared I’ll never meet anyone like her, and I’m hoping I never meet anyone like her.
I still have that bloody ring.
----------------------------------------
How many months has it been since I last saw him/spoke to him? I don’t know, but I wish he wouldn’t call me out of the blue like that.
I have this paper frog he made me. We were on the train going home one night, and he was trying to keep me awake. So he tore a page out a magazine, and folded it into a little origami frog. And he wrote a letter to me, saying ‘dear Hannah, I love you, and we’ll be friends forever, I promise.’ And I started crying and he told me to stop because crying really pissed him off, so I stopped. And our stop rolled by, the doors opened, and it was suddenly really cold that night, because I didn’t want to leave him, because I felt safe next to him. I felt weak, but safe.
Sometimes I think the line between hatred and love is so fine, you can cross it without even watching where you’re going.
A look, a smile, a word that just comes out right, and it pushes you over the edge, and you don’t even realize it.
My memories of him are so vivid, it hurts me to even think about them, let alone relive them in my head. The way he smelled, cigarettes and his jacket, and the way he would know just when to touch my hand because things weren’t right.
And he got deeper and deeper into things I didn’t want him to be getting into, until one day I realized I had lost him. Some people you can’t help, but I just wish I’d been more persistent, I wish I’d dragged him out of it, but at the time I didn’t know how to. I saw the man that kid could have been, someone great, someone selfish, and cold, and self-destructive, and dishonest but someone with so much creativity and imagination that he would have gotten places, he would have been someone.
I’ve told you before, I think, and I’ve told myself again and again that it’s not worth thinking about, but I can’t help closing my eyes at night when I feel like my whole world has just gotten so dried up it’s burning down and falling over my head. I can’t help remembering the nights up on the hill at Bernex, when we’d lie on the grass, and I’d just blab on at him about the stars, and how the world is so big and the sky so wide that you can’t help feeling like things are going to be okay, like nothing really matters at all because there will always be stars for people to look at, for people to cry to. And I’d turn my head to see if he agreed, and he was softly snoring next to me. It made me laugh, because I knew he didn’t care, I knew it didn’t matter to him, all that really mattered was having someone he could affect, someone he could call his own. And I never really loved him, not in that way, not now not ever, I never loved him, I just always cared.
He needed to get out of the house at 1am, and I went along with it. He needed money, and I gave it. I just kept giving and giving, and he gave back, but never really enough.
So it would be 1am, and this one time, it was raining so hard, and I took my shoes off because I wanted to feel it on my feet. He got pissed off and told me to act my age please because I’m going home if you can’t act more mature. Okay, I said, okay. So I put my shoes back on, and started tap-dancing in the rain, which I thought was funny, but he didn’t. No sense of humour. We’d duck into a bus shelter, and he’d start rolling his joint. I was cold, and he gave me his jacket, and I hated that because it’s so Hollywood. Like a weak little damsel, and the guy gives her his coat to keep her warm. But I’m thinking that’s what I was, with him. I don’t know why.
And I kind of lost him now. When I really wanted to tell him things would be okay. I never told him. Why didn't I ever tell him it'd be okay? I don't know. I just never did. I wanted to tell him. I should have told him.
She was always the one with the D-cup tits, and the long blonde hair. I was the shorter, messier one. And it was great.
We were 8, and I didn't speak a word of french, not a fucking word, and I turned up at school on the first day and felt like driftwood, but she was there. And we communicated with broken english, messy french and our hands.
She took me back to her house, at 4 when school was over, and there we sat at her kitchen table, eating dried apricots, french bread and chocolate, with lemon cordial in one hand, and my eyes wandering over the wall, taking in all the pretty postcards her mum had collected over the years.
I had the dreams, and she made them reality. And I had imagination, and she had common sense.
We made little dens in trees, cushioning the earth with moss and dried grass. She was the mum, cooking mud pies, and I was the dad who went off on adventures, and came back with a plastic bottle for her to use as a vase, and a pocket full of grimy wild strawberries.
When we were 10, I decided we should go down to the river, and make a boat. So I took an inflatable rubber chair that belonged to my sister, blew it up, and prepared to set sail.
She stood there with frail arms wrapped around her body, repeatedly telling me that it wouldn't work, that we'd fall in, that LOGICALLY it would tip over. But I said that we'd be pirates, and find treasure, and conquer new beaches!
So onto the chair/galley we got, and 5 seconds later, it tipped over.
She never made me go shopping. She knew I hated it. Instead, she'd run in and look at bras, and skirts, and jeans, and I’d sit outside and smoke.
Or sometimes she went on shopping sprees, and I’d give her an hour or two to do her thing, whilst I went down to the skate park and wolf-whistled at the boys, and when they asked me how big my tits were, I’d ask them how big their dicks were, and then I’d go back to pick her up.
I was the husband, and she was the wife.
One time, I got so badly drunk I was scared of everything, and I couldn’t remember where I lived or where I was, but I remembered her number. I called her from a phone box, one of those phone boxes that smells of cold nicotine and old men’s piss, and she spent half an hour on a bus. She took me back to her house, and held my hair whilst I was sick, and undressed me and put me to bed, and called my parents to let them know I was sleeping over.
And one night, on the evening of the Fête de Genève, we went up the Signal de Bernex, this massive hill where you can see all of Geneva stretched out beneath you, and all around you there’s nothing but stars and mountain.
We looked at those stars, and we counted them, and we chose a star to be our star. We took off our shoes, and ran across the hill, mud under our feet, grass itching our ankles, and we laughed and ran until we couldn’t laugh or cry anymore. Spent an hour looking for our shoes, fucking around looking for our socks, whilst fireworks exploded in the valley, and the moon throbbed over it all.
Exchanged rings, made a promise. I’ll keep that ring forever.
Another night, we went to our old primary school. 10 at night, not a soul in the playground, just her and me, me and her, on the big tire swing near the lampost. And we swang so high, and sang kid’s songs, and remembered together.
‘’Hannah, I’ll always remember those fucking bracelets all the way up your arm.’’
‘’Emmy, I’ll always remember your fucking hand-made bags.’’
‘’I’ll always remember your hands.’’
‘’I’ll always remember your nose.’’
‘’I’ll always remember the time we…’’
‘’Do you remember when we…’’
And the night went on, and we went home.
She’d meet me at our café, and we’d sit and smoke the day away, and then the night, and she’d drink her coffee, and I’d drink Red Bull, and I’d get upset about something, and nearly knock the table over with my arms, getting all wound up and hot-headed.
She’d raise the cup to her lips, and look at me with cool, placid eyes, and wait for me to finish.
I’d get swept away in the moment, drowned in all my ideas and fantasies and dreams, about stars and rain and the night and snow, and she’d point out all the stupid, impossible, unrealistic points to what I was saying.
I hated her for being boring, but I loved her for it. She hated me for my temper, but she loved me for it. And I hated and loved her for her calmness, and she hated and loved me for being so unrealistic.
I’m scared I’ll never meet anyone like her, and I’m hoping I never meet anyone like her.
I still have that bloody ring.
----------------------------------------
How many months has it been since I last saw him/spoke to him? I don’t know, but I wish he wouldn’t call me out of the blue like that.
I have this paper frog he made me. We were on the train going home one night, and he was trying to keep me awake. So he tore a page out a magazine, and folded it into a little origami frog. And he wrote a letter to me, saying ‘dear Hannah, I love you, and we’ll be friends forever, I promise.’ And I started crying and he told me to stop because crying really pissed him off, so I stopped. And our stop rolled by, the doors opened, and it was suddenly really cold that night, because I didn’t want to leave him, because I felt safe next to him. I felt weak, but safe.
Sometimes I think the line between hatred and love is so fine, you can cross it without even watching where you’re going.
A look, a smile, a word that just comes out right, and it pushes you over the edge, and you don’t even realize it.
My memories of him are so vivid, it hurts me to even think about them, let alone relive them in my head. The way he smelled, cigarettes and his jacket, and the way he would know just when to touch my hand because things weren’t right.
And he got deeper and deeper into things I didn’t want him to be getting into, until one day I realized I had lost him. Some people you can’t help, but I just wish I’d been more persistent, I wish I’d dragged him out of it, but at the time I didn’t know how to. I saw the man that kid could have been, someone great, someone selfish, and cold, and self-destructive, and dishonest but someone with so much creativity and imagination that he would have gotten places, he would have been someone.
I’ve told you before, I think, and I’ve told myself again and again that it’s not worth thinking about, but I can’t help closing my eyes at night when I feel like my whole world has just gotten so dried up it’s burning down and falling over my head. I can’t help remembering the nights up on the hill at Bernex, when we’d lie on the grass, and I’d just blab on at him about the stars, and how the world is so big and the sky so wide that you can’t help feeling like things are going to be okay, like nothing really matters at all because there will always be stars for people to look at, for people to cry to. And I’d turn my head to see if he agreed, and he was softly snoring next to me. It made me laugh, because I knew he didn’t care, I knew it didn’t matter to him, all that really mattered was having someone he could affect, someone he could call his own. And I never really loved him, not in that way, not now not ever, I never loved him, I just always cared.
He needed to get out of the house at 1am, and I went along with it. He needed money, and I gave it. I just kept giving and giving, and he gave back, but never really enough.
So it would be 1am, and this one time, it was raining so hard, and I took my shoes off because I wanted to feel it on my feet. He got pissed off and told me to act my age please because I’m going home if you can’t act more mature. Okay, I said, okay. So I put my shoes back on, and started tap-dancing in the rain, which I thought was funny, but he didn’t. No sense of humour. We’d duck into a bus shelter, and he’d start rolling his joint. I was cold, and he gave me his jacket, and I hated that because it’s so Hollywood. Like a weak little damsel, and the guy gives her his coat to keep her warm. But I’m thinking that’s what I was, with him. I don’t know why.
And I kind of lost him now. When I really wanted to tell him things would be okay. I never told him. Why didn't I ever tell him it'd be okay? I don't know. I just never did. I wanted to tell him. I should have told him.