I dreamed
of a long hospital corridor

and
you

                                   at the other end

sitting
in
a
wheelchair

crumpled over
crippled

“He’s never going to walk again.”

and my head in your lap

unable
unmoving

It is not as bad as it seems. They fear that you will make me into your hymnbook, your prayer call, and your talisman. But I am none of these things to you. They don’t know that you met me when you were sixteen years old. I was behind the spine of a yellow hardcover volume, and you had searching eyes that drank everything up, so you found me and swallowed. You swallowed, but I took you down with me. I escorted you to the center of everything and brought you back to the surface where you told me that you had never seen anything darker, more true. And now you wake up to my face after every fever and let it absorb you whole. I am all you have because we went to the mouth of the abyss and looked into it until I was your blackness, and you were mine.

Just because the fairgrounds are closed in the winter doesn’t mean that you have reason to be blue. Even though the light is white outside and it bleaches the red from your skin, there is no reason to be blue. The summer will come again and a weary old man will be serving cotton candy while the children scream and scream and scream. You will turn into a blur of colour (a smudge on the back of somebody’s hand) as the scrambler spins you too fast to fear collison. The summer will come again and the ferris wheel will be lit up every night like the promise of a very good childhood. And there will be no reason to be ashamed because nobody will know that you are really just a pale, pale boy who only feels alive when drinking up the yellow of sunlight, drinking up the sound of laughter that doesn’t belong to him.

I didn’t need anybody to teach me anything but they kept my eyes pried wide open. They played paranoia on the film projector and asked me over and over, “Wouldn’t you love to shut your eyes now? Wouldn’t you love to go blind?” And I think that I must have been going blind too. The truth is bright enough to introduce you to absolute blackness if you will let yourself believe it. All of those people trapped in the movie theatre who watched the first film of a train rushing towards them will tell you so. I’m watching that film now too. They’re making me watch it, but this train is racing away from me as fast as it can go.

There he is now, waving from the last compartment on the tracks. The boy with jet black hair saying good bye with a widow’s solemn face. He’s leaving until I make myself believe it.

After the longest absence, there you are, Jack. I see you on my door step as I am leaving for work. Your hair is slicked back and your eyes are bright. You look good, and I tell you this smiling. You look well, Jack. You look like you’ve really been doing well. You tell me that things have been better where you are now, but you came because you had this nagging feeling that something wasn’t alright. You tell me that you searched under your bed and checked every morning if you had forgotten something at home, and eventually realized that it was nothing like that. So you’re here to see me.

We talk for a while on the front steps until I tell you that I’m going to miss my bus. A strand comes loose from the rest of your combed back hair. You ask if you can come around again soon. You ask which boy it is this time. I look at you perplexed until I realize that I’m only acting confused. You always know before I do. I sigh and let all of my defiance collapse into the center of my stomach. I tell you that it isn’t a boy at all — it’s a man. I don’t know where to start with this story, but I’ve never known how to start with any of them. I begin by saying that he’s tall.

“He’s taller than you, Jack.”

“Is that so?” You say.

“Yes, but not by much.”

And suddenly I can tell you all about him like you’ve turned some sort of tap and let my words through.

“The worst feeling in the world has got to be the one of feeling used.”

“Really? I’d say it’s far worse to feel like you have used someone. It’s just that most people in that position somehow escape feeling their own disgust.”

“Disgust. That’s it. I feel used and it’s disgusting.”

“What would you rather feel like?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want to be a dog that he can just toss a bone to whenever he feels like it, you know?”

“Who are we kidding here. You and I both know that you’re just going to be his loyal little b——.”

You have the key to everything, and you aren’t afraid to wield it just in sight and just out of reach. When I met you, you drove it into my back and wound me up like I was yours — yours to command, yours to send forth. And I went forward like your soldier, feeling like nothing had fit quite like your lock pick in the base of my back. Had I known that you were a master pilot, I would have noticed that you had an army. I was just another paper airplane that you folded on the angle nobody had managed to find before. Like everyone else, I loved my new wings too much to notice where I was going. Only when you pocketed your key again did I realize that there was never a keyhole where you had made room for yourself. You left me a carved out burrow that didn’t bleed when you ripped out your key. It was a dry wound — dry like all non-commital things. I turned to look at you and thought I saw two. You had double crossed me and now there was a double of you. A dark sliver and a shining crescent that were really only two sides of the same coin. I should have turned around sooner and learned to see the part of you in shadow, underwater, the flicker, the flinch, the upturned lip on the other corner of that frown — you were smirking from the very start.

It was a problem that we had every weekend. Elise and I would dress up all proper and sit down on the couch (wearing oxfords and all) and think of where we should go that night. We’d exchange suggestions for every type of activity — dinner, dancing, art galleries, films, or any combination of these, but we’d never really be able to pick anything. Usually it was because as soon as something had started to sound nice and settled, Elise would start to say, “Or maybe we could save that for another day…” and do X or Y instead tonight. Now, don’t get me wrong. Elise was really lovely. I’m not saying that it was her fault or anything that we never went anywhere, but it was just a little frustrating at times. I mean, it would be, right? Wearing a stiff collar and nice trousers and sitting there takes a lot of patience. The thing with fancy clothes is that they’re only any fun if you’re out doing something that’s appropriately fancy. But I don’t mean to say that Elise had done anything wrong. Elise was so sweet and always looked pretty in her red dresses, but I really couldn’t figure out why she was never able to pick a place to go with me. Sometimes I think that she just wanted everything to be so great that she was too afraid to settle for anything and let it disappoint her. Or maybe staying at home was exactly what she wanted and she didn’t realize it. I could never really tell. I’ve thought about Elise and those Friday nights on occasion — but never for too long because there are other girls who like to go places and take me along.

Jack, do you not love me any longer because you were my rain gutter? My ash tray, my catch-all. I’m asking because I still love you, Jack. And I promise that it isn’t just that I need you (but I do). I’ve tried everything. I went down to the bus stop many times where you had asked me to wait with an umbrella. But now the monsoon is over and my clothes are dry, yet I don’t see you coming around the hairpin turn. You can come around and go back again. You can go back again right away, Jack, but please come by again. I’ve never gotten on a bus and all the bus drivers ask me what it is that I’m waiting for, and I have to make up excuses like, “Oh, I’m waiting to get on Route 17, please go on without me.” I swear sometimes I can feel my joints snap and I collapse on the pavement and I never want anyone to stand me up again. I’ve grown brittle and weather-worn like delicate stationery left out in the sun — unused and left out on the windowsill to drain of all colour. Come write all over me, Jack. I am looseleaf, I am your weather girl. I am ready to be all the things that you were to me — a receptacle for your pencil shavings just waiting, waiting for you to bring words to my surface.