Sticks and Bones

The first part of a chronicle of a crush-turned-obsession. I'm sorry, Julie.


To experience this in natural reading order go to A Bright, Ironic Hell: The Straight Read .


Also, try Satellite Dance and Crystal Delusions--Parts 2 and 3, respectively--complete.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Can't Stop, On Fire (7/24/09 Friday)

I nearly talked myself into not writing again, so I have to. It's one those evenings when nothing I can think to do seems worth doing. Expressing that is the last thing I want to do, but essential, as if doing so is admitting something I have to deal with. Every day it seems easier to not write, given the cumulative unfruitfulness of this almost obsessive output, and I know when I start writing about it that I'm nearing that bottomless precipice into which I would throw my book and pen. Writing is the last thing I ever want to write about, and doing so seems to tell me that it is, indeed, the last thing to write about. It isn't, but it might be the last thing I can make an effort to write about. It's painful to continue talking about Julie. There have been many details of our interactions over the past several weeks that I just haven't wanted to write. I don't want to look in the microscope anymore. I took our relationship from innocuous to impossible in barely a year. I spoke three words to her this week, because I had to. Today she spoke to me--because she had to--and I just stared at her a moment and turned away. She didn't require an answer, so I didn't giver her one. Until today it had seemed we'd sunk into agreement--no contact if could be avoided--but when she emerged from the bathroom after changing from her bike clothes this morning, and there I was, bag in hand, needing to do the same thing, she said, "Your turn," and the deal was off, the day lost, and the week ruined. My pride balloons up, and the bitterness floods in, and I hurt all over again from the humiliation of what I put myself through and--worse--that I'm still putting myself through it. I haven't seen James in months, and as much as I miss him, I'm ashamed to tell him where Julie and I stand.

So this is all I have, these words. It's hardly enough, and I haven't convinced myself to continue, but I think of Richard Pryor running down the street in flames: "If I stop I'll die!"

2 comments:

pandoraskey said...

I enjoy your writing as if to see my own personal dealings with love. It's actually made me understand a few things I didn't want to admit to myself. It's interesting to here this come from a man's point of view. Not so different, I don't know why it surprises me. please keep writing.

Dion Burn said...

I appreciate your praise and am glad that it has helped you. Can you elaborate on what it has helped you understand about yourself? It could very well be something I'm trying to understand myself.