Writing Sample 2

I have become desperate and I have become lonely. I miss calling her. For ages me calling her and her calling me has been essential. It’s been all I had. It’s been my only real interaction beyond thoughts. It’s been the only significant thing, the only contact with life and with The World.

Communication, talking to her. Even when we were mean, or short or silent. I needed it. And I needed her. I had a daily something. A daily someone. Someone to report to. Someone to check in with, to check up on. Someone who cared, or didn’t care. But kept being there, telephonically.

Missed calls, voicemails, her ringtone, the whole kit and caboodle. It made me feel loved, made me feel significant, and better about myself. She made me feel necessary.

I miss her. I miss our contact and I miss its structure and the feelings of contentment it gave me. I’ve been feeling lost and alone without her.

A void. I am now living in a darkness. Inside of a void. My existence is contained inside of a cloud of Beth-less-ness.

I become like this every time she steps out of my life. When she leaves and she goes places and does things with her life, my life stalls. My life suffers. I become this depressed…. this distant… thing.

I lay in my new bed and it is dark and I am scared. I am scared of the spirit I know lives inside the antique mirror and I am scared of the murderer I know is going to come in through the door, or the window, or through the mirror, or the closet. He is in the bed next to me. He is there already and I know it and I am terrified and I can imagine his hands strangling me and I can feel his breath and I don’t move and I don’t breath and I think thoughts of invisibility and thoughts of stillness and I am clenched and tight and my eyes are closed and it is dark and I am terrified.

It takes ages for me to get to the point of sleep.

When I wake up she is there in the house and I can sense it and I am happy and it is sunny and I sit up in my new bed and I smile. I smile at my beautiful antique bedroom set and I smile that she is home.

That night as we brush our teeth to go to bed we think about it. I ask her with my eyes to stay with me and she answers and says yes. She knows I have been scared.

We get in my queen bed and lay rigid next to each other and try to fall asleep quickly. It does not work. We do not face each other and I try to imagine that she is not there. I feel stupid and crushed and suffocated and babied and lame. I wish she would go. I want her to get out of my bed. I don’t want to force us to be close. I don’t like this forcing of intimacy and the urge to force us to be together and to be happy. I want her out and I want her out with every piece of myself.

This is how it is. I need her when she is not there. When she is gone I fall and I fall and I fall, but when she is there and she is accessible I am cruel and I am distant.