Black Eye

The first thing you should know is that it’s way too easy to look like you’re doing something important. Just because people don’t “get it” suddenly means you’re making a statement or something. Maybe it’s just a coping mechanism. Maybe I called her too many times. Maybe she had a project. Maybe she was fucking someone else. I don’t know. Obviously, I haven’t talked to her in a while. Maybe I just wanted to feel alive again, to get that same rush. Running as fast as I could into a brick wall feels about as intense as holding the person you care about. So instead of whispering “I love you” and feeling them breathing against you, you fall on the ground and laugh as hard as you can as tears well up in your eyes and you feel the blood coming out of your nose and mouth. And it feels absolutely fantastic and liberating, and the strangers around you, they don’t get it so they ask if you’re okay. So when you stand up, wipe the blood and spit and tears off on the sleeve of your $200 dress shirt and exclaim “I’ve never been better!”, for some reason they get confused. Well, I’m not here to be a goddamn tour guide anyway. Until they forget their jobs and their families and everything they thought they knew about happiness, they’re not going to get it. Until they throw away the preconceived notions and the caution, until they fuck around in the bathroom with that boy at work and punch the mirror afterwards and say “It’s okay that we see each other as one-dimensional” then bleed all over their progress reports before turning them in, they’re not going to really understand. This is therapy. This is healing.