My mom was my dad’s second wife. I met the daughter my dad disowned (because he told his third wife she “wasn’t his” when there’s obvious proof she is), the one from his first marriage, when she found me on the internet after ten+ years of looking for me. She told me some horrible stories like that he told Mary, her mom, that he was going to medical school, had a pager and scrubs, and went to class every day, but had been lying and never enrolled at the school.
My dad and my mom both did horrible things to me as a child. Never sexual abuse, but they had their own issues and paid very little attention to me, even when I acted out to specifically get it. My mom was on drugs. My dad was a workaholic. When they got divorced (I was 9 and my younger sister was 7) my dad fought a custody battle to get my sister and me, won, and then moved us away from my mom and blatantly ignored us.
Years later, my mom cried and apologized to me for not being able to be there for me; my dad’s response to me has always been one of “I never did anything wrong, why are you so fucked up?” I moved away in 2001, when I turned 18.
In 2006, his third wife’s parents went on a Caribbean cruise. They invited every child and grandchild (my stepmother has 4 and my dad has my sister and I) and their significant others except for me. I found out through facebook. My stepmom felt so much “guilt” at me not going that she and my dad paid for my trip, barely talked to me the whole week, and though she hugged me tight and promised she wouldn’t “forget” to call me the next time one of my grandparents died like she had earlier that year, we haven’t spoken. Her father died a few weeks after we got back.
Seven years ago, when I was about 19 years old, I started dating someone who was not only 33, but also my boss. He was also my boss at a retail establishment. I pursued him because I thought he was really cool and interesting, but things seemed off from the start. He, at first, would say that we weren’t really able to date but then he “gave into me” or something equally as awkward.
One of the first weird things happened when we were at the store waiting for a meeting to start. I was telling him about the one tattoo I had at the time, and he showed me the one on his arm. He talked about it a little and then started to tell me he had a tattoo on his ass. He described it in great detail, about how it was from a dare, etc, and I kept asking him if he was being serious. He continued to respond that he was, that he definitely had a tattoo on his ass but obviously couldn’t show it to me because we were at work.
But weeks later, when we were both naked together for the first time, I found he had no tattoo. He didn’t even bring it up, kind of pretended I was crazy when I said we had that conversation.
He spent most of our relationship telling me he did all these cool things like parties and late night poker games with his friends, but I know he was just playing Morrowind to the point where he could jump over buildings — we never actually went out anywhere and he would have had to have 36 hours in a day to accomplish everything he said he did. When we finally broke up, it happened in a fucked up way too: we were at his apartment and he asked me one morning if I still loved him. I said no, so he packed up everything I had at his place into a garbage bag, with no expression on his face. We got back to my place and he pulled my stuff out of the trunk and started crying like a petulant child.
“I hate you! No, please don’t leave me,” he said on the sidewalk, but I was so glad to be rid of him that I just went inside with my stuff. I changed his name in my address book to “DON’T PICK THIS UP” and tried to move on.
The next few months after that were pretty bad: he called me at all hours of the night; he showed up to my job (he was transferred to another store when they found out about him dating me) in a suit and tie at 9am and proceeded to tell me about how he was at an all night poker game with celebrities and that he was going fishing with his dad now; he sent my mom roses when he found out she was sick just to get contact with me again. There’s a lot more, but this is already so long. It was just a fuck ton of pathological lying and he would get mad when I called him out on it. But we did stop talking in October of that year.
On New Years Eve, he called and I didn’t pick up, but the message he left said pretty much that he wanted to apologize for everything he did to me. I never responded because that would have just started it all up again.
tl:dr: Seven years ago, I dated my boss who was 13 years older than me and a pathological liar.
He’s everywhere, on all sides of me, at all times, lurking. I see his glasses on the face of a much older man with too pale lips and crooked teeth. I see his hands gripping the thin metal pole on the train, but they’re attached to the skinny arms of a teenager. Looking up from my cell phone, I see him across the street, and I almost jaywalk to get to him. But it’s just wind. He’s not even in this country and if he were he would be more beautiful than when I last saw him. He must be.
—
I didn’t get it then, I couldn’t see how big his nose was or how his ears stuck out. His lips were too full. He never took care of his eyebrows except for occasionally when he would shave crookedly between them. It never helped: there was just the shadow of the hairs there and a bit missing from his left eyebrow. His teeth were straight and white but he never brushed them enough. The electric toothbrush he had was a gift from his mother, and he hadn’t bought a new head for it since she gave it to him two years before.
These things I then knew not, nor observed. They met my eyes on every side, and I saw them not. I composed poems, in which it was not permitted me to place every foot everywhere, but in one metre one way, and in another, nor even in any one verse the same foot in all places.
I started writing poems about him from the moment I saw him, poems where I noted his nose, his glasses, his shoulder blades. He sometimes would jut them out at me to prove he could, like wing flaps, like broken wings. I knew he looked unique. It was something I knew well.
—
Now I walk into a restaurant and see his hair from behind but when I walk past and do a double take, the chin is all wrong. I stare at too many tall, thin men with black hair and unshaven faces and plastic glasses. I look too long and it frightens me that they might be looking back.
—
His tongue was slick, licking syrup off of my cheek or spices from my fingers. His hands rough as he pressed them against my thighs to open them. But his skin was so soft and I would rub his back and say, “How did you get skin so smooth?” And he would always reply: “I moisturize.” But he owned no lotion. I saw these things, but there was so much I knew not, nor observed.
Or I ignored.
I don’t think Abi’s actually going to get in touch with me, so I resign myself to staying home for the night. I go to the corner store with the two dollars in quarters left over from laundry last week and I buy some candy and a little box of pasta sauce. I eat a bowl of pasta and Nutty bars and play Persona 4 for an hour and then my phone rings. Abi had to get my number from someone else, but she tells me it’s gonna be a while before they’re done with dinner. While waiting for her, I die in my video game by accidentally casting a strong spell on a bird who has a reflection shield. And then it’s a few hours later, and I put on my shoes and sit on the couch. Abi still hasn’t called me, and then I psych myself out, tell myself I don’t want to go.
Two minutes later, she calls. My shoes are still on so I decide I should meet them. While I’m waiting for the bus, a white car pulls up on the other side of the street and two people get out and yell at each other. The woman is yelling that she’s scared, but he seems to just be wanting to drop her off. I pause my iPod and try to make it seem like I’m not paying attention. He gets back in the car and starts to drive away, but she runs after him. He stops, lets her in, and I hear them screaming at each other loudly until they’re out of sight. The sun is setting. The bus comes.
There’s a thin redheaded guy sitting across from me reading a book. I want to know what he’s reading, but I can’t quite make out the title. I can tell it’s one of those Penguin classic books. A few people get off of the bus with me when I go to make the connection for the train. One of them is that guy. I walk up the stairs to the platform, get a better look at his face. He looks like a coworker from when I was working at the library in Evanston. He’s too gaunt, his teeth aren’t crooked enough, his glasses are the wrong shape.
I call Abi when I get to her stop. She comes out to meet me. Upstairs, I see our friend Thom, and a guy who I assume is her husband, Taylor. They’re playing Bubble Bobble on an NES hooked up to a HD television. Taylor talks to me about how Abi’s told him about me being a geek, about some of my youtube videos, and we start talking about Persona 4. I don’t know if he wants to impress me, or if I just want to be impressed, but he pulls out a Famicom and his copy of the board game style Mega Man game. The four of us play for a while, but the game is in Japanese so it’s just a guessing game.
Continue reading wading into the lake
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About As a poet, I feel like any photography I do will always be a reflection of the words I use. When I think, I think in words, not images, unlike visual artists. This site houses a minimalist dream log, my poetry including poems from You May Waltz To Your Doom In Sanguine Stained Shoes, my photography, and a blog with Let's Play related entries.
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