They don’t tell you that when you live on the water you become attached to it. The return to land is less a return and more a queasy holiday from your true home. Any pause or loss of focus on the task at hand reminds you that you are not where you ought to be. Something isn’t right. The walls move around you and a wall to lean against is more comfortable than a chair.
Naturally, only constant movement eases the feeling of imbalance. Walking, running, driving, flying—back to the sea.
The past becomes a series of hypotheticals. You consider what could have been. The potential overtakes the reality.
I’ve been unable to read or write anything for a while. A number of reasons, I suppose, but none more clear than I simply needed to get out of that place. Every turn into a hallway presented a ghost I never felt. A face I never touched. It reminded me of those first failures. Do you remember them? Calling sick into work. Laying in bed all day. Wanting to simultaneously fuck and strangle her.
I could only drown out the silence with Netflix and music. It was months. I stopped going to the places I went. Stopped seeing anyone. I eventually began to hallucinate. Vague senses of a being at first, and then sharper shapes, sounds, textures. The feel of sweat my own. The crook of her body a pillow.
One day not too long ago, I awoke. It felt like it was a different life. I was home, and beside me a partner. Breath her own. Hair the mess it ought to be. My left arm brushed against her. I panicked when I turned to kiss her and found no one.
I’m moved now, feeling better. But then I left them all behind. This is what life may be and I get the sense it’s do or die.
Time is never on our side.
“This could have been our home.”
The past becomes a series of hypotheticals. You consider what could have been. The potential overtakes the reality.
I’ve been unable to read or write anything for a while. A number of reasons, I suppose, but none more clear than I simply needed to get out of that place. Every turn into a hallway presented a ghost I never felt. A face I never touched. It reminded me of those first failures. Do you remember them? Calling sick into work. Laying in bed all day. Wanting to simultaneously fuck and strangle her.
I could only drown out the silence with Netflix and music. It was months. I stopped going to the places I went. Stopped seeing anyone. I eventually began to hallucinate. Vague senses of a being at first, and then sharper shapes, sounds, textures. The feel of sweat my own. The crook of her body a pillow.
One day not too long ago, I awoke. It felt like it was a different life. I was home, and beside me a partner. Breath her own. Hair the mess it ought to be. My left arm brushed against her. I panicked when I turned to kiss her and found no one.
I’m moved now, feeling better. But then I left them all behind. This is what life may be and I get the sense it’s do or die.
Time is never on our side.
“This could have been our home.”
SW Greenburg Road.
Tigard, OR. August 2012.
SW Greenburg Road.
Tigard, OR. August 2012.
