Chamblee54

If I had more energy maybe I’d show up for one of your weekend afternoons in the park dressed in layers of mourning, head-to-toe black lace complete with a gorgeous embroidered veil, and out of a fuchsia rolling suitcase I’d remove seven huge three-dimensional letters made of glass and lay them out on the ground in front of you. Through the glass you would see the grass, but also the reflection of the sky and maybe your eyes — G-O-O-D-B-Y-E — and then I would take a tiny metal hammer with an enamel surface covered in elaborate flowers and smash each letter, one at a time the grass the sky your eyes the sky the grass the sky the sky, and then when I was done I would take out a tiny pink vacuum cleaner to remove every glass shard even the tiniest remnant and then I’d walk slowly down or up the hill through the crowd whichever felt more dramatic in head-to-toe black lace with my fuchsia rolling suitcase. Of course, if I had more energy maybe I wouldn’t think about you at all, not even when wondering what kind of vacuum I could find that would be so small, and cordless, and that I could be certain would remove any traces of the glass, so as not to hurt anyone, and of course you would be the person I would ask such a crazy question. And you would say: here’s what you should get. Or: that’s a crazy question. Once I asked you whether chickpeas would ever lose their shape and you said no, you’d have to put them in a blender. I didn’t realize that would be one of the last questions I’d get to ask. But I just cooked chickpeas for seven hours and they lost their shape, a small victory. Sometimes I feel better when I don’t think about you, and sometimes I feel better when I think about you, because maybe that will mean that eventually I won’t think about you, and sometimes I actually don’t think about you. The other night I went to some huge public event and I thought maybe this is the time — I saw so many people from so many different parts of my life even our life and it was kind of fun, I almost thought it would be okay to see you too but then I worried that would mean I wasn’t really expressing myself. So then I thought about the glass letters again, everyone smashes windows. Right now I actually feel calm. _ _A few days later someone came up to me, one of your old roommates from around when we first met and she said she couldn’t believe you were in nursing school, you’d make a good nurse. A good nurse. That interrupted the narrative arc I was building here. I don’t feel calm anymore. _ _ Lostmissing is a public art project — I’d love it if you’d participate. And here’s what lostmissing #36 says: Sometimes I think I’m done thinking about you, but then I end up thinking about you again, so I’m not done. Maybe it’s because I still haven’t run into you — 10 months now, is that really true? Everyone says this is such a small town, I guess I should be grateful that it’s not as small as they say, not grateful that I haven’t run into you because I need to run into you at some point. I guess the city is smaller if you believe. I still think about my hair, it’s longer now and I wait as much time as possible before washing it — otherwise it gets too dry. It gets too dry anyway, but at least it looks healthy. By day three or four it starts to get a bit greasy, but it mostly just looks like a styling product although it’s not the styling product I would use — day one or two might be a better time to run into you. Although that’s also when the wind blows my hair all over the place. Sometimes I wish I could use hairspray, but then that would dry it out more. The other day, one of the days when I thought I might run into you because I went somewhere where I knew I would run into a lot of people but it was kind of fun, it wouldn’t have been fun if I saw you so I guess I’m glad I didn’t. Someone I haven’t seen for almost as long as I haven’t seen you came up to me and said: you look amazing. I’m pretty sure he meant my hair, that was day two or no maybe day one because I remember leaving the conditioner in for a half-hour. Today I left the conditioner in for over an hour, but still my hair was too dry when I rinsed it out, so I put on more conditioner, a second kind. I wonder how I’d feel if I ran into you and you said: you look amazing. Sometimes I think about your therapist, when he kept giving you all those meds even though they made things worse he would just say try this one now and one time I said if you need someone to tell him not to give you those fucking meds I’d be glad to come in and talk to him and of course you told him that, and took the prescription anyway, and later your therapist said he was afraid of me. I don’t know how that came up but of course you told me and I thought it was funny but you didn’t tell me what he thought about that. I wanted to blame your therapist. Sometimes I hate you, I really do but then today I thought about calling you to tell you where to get something you were always looking for, something mundane but now I can’t even remember what it was. I thought about what it would feel like to call you and give you this tip, maybe it would seem like I was okay with losing you and I’m not. I don’t want to be okay, I mean I want to be okay but I don’t want to be okay with losing you. _ _And, just in case you can’t view it, here’s what lostmissing #42 says: Snap this attempt at narrative closure — I think about you less, but when I do think about you it hurts just as much. I almost walked to your house the other day, I mean the other day two months ago. I arrived early to meet someone nearby and I thought okay, I’ll walk around. Maybe I’ll even walk in that direction, just to see your front steps.But why would I want to see your front steps? So then I walked in the other direction.All those times when you said oh, this is something new, I need time to think about this. And then I gave you time, at least two years’ time, but you never brought anything up again, I had to ask you what you thought. You thought these were old issues, old issues you didn’t need to think about.Or when you said that I knew this was a hard time, a hard time for you, you were going through a hard time. Of course two years can be a hard time, no question about that, but then shouldn’t there be time in a difficult time for thinking about issues that might matter?I wish you didn’t matter, that’s what I’m thinking now — it’s been a year and I still haven’t seen you and I saw your old roommate again, this time she didn’t say anything, but maybe the music was too loud. We waved. Then I thought about you anyway, in the middle of the night I got all manic and decided maybe we should get together to say goodbye, even if we did it in silence. We could meet somewhere in public, stand there and look at each other and then leave. Just for some kind of closure. Maybe I would feel it._ _Then I was on the train, the train that goes right by your house, and for the first time I didn’t get all tense when we passed by the places where you might get on, instead I was thinking: go ahead, get on the fucking train, get on the fucking train and I’ll kick you in the face. I don’t mean literally — I don’t want to kick you in the face. But I was ready, finally ready. At least for a few minutes. _ _ Text today is from mattilda . Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Video is from live apartment fire.