A Silence for Voices

Five in the morning.

The house is dark and still.

I am on my side and my eyes are open. My brain is on fire and I miss you. I should have let you go completely, or not at all. Headfirst, or not at all. There is a pressure in my skull, between and behind my eyes. There is a choke in my chest, waiting for a moment to escape. There is a numbness through my skin and a silence in my throat because when it breaks, it all breaks.

Five in the morning and my eyes are open.

Christmas morning and now I drift through the empty house. The void, four bedrooms, two baths. The gifts you won't get. Memories we won't make. Worse, memories we did. Worse, memories you make alone now.

Fridge.

Beer.

Throw the first one back to kill the thirst, to satiate. No luck. Try again. Keep trying.

Through the window, past the goddamn reflection, I see the snow coming and heavy. I finish the other beer and put pants on. Shoes. Gloves. Coat. Fill a bag with more beer, and into the dark and snow.

Six inches or so. The stillness soothes but it leaves too much room for me. It leaves a silence for voices. My shoes are already wet. Open a beer. One glove to keep warm, one fingerless glove to open cans and text if it comes up.

The choke sits in my chest. Lodged. The pressure shifts, turns.

Earlier in the night I ran into the cop that tried to stop my suicide. He checks on me from time to time and I thanked him for being nice to me. He said he liked my art and when I walked away to go home I cried a little but the air froze it and eventually me. Goddamnit.

Goddamnit.

I am encased in snow already and each time I drink I eat a little snow and it gets in my eyes but I need to know the world continues. I need to know I am inconsequential. I need to know I am unimportant so I walk the middle of the street in a tire track and I stare in dark windows and hope the houses are warm and there is love in the rooms.

I only want love in your lives.

A car drives slow through the snow and dark far away from me and I wish them well and then they are gone. They never knew I was there.

I don't know where I am walking, I just keep going. I am cold. My fingers are numb and two more beers are gone and I remember I hadn't showered after work. Just got drunk and went home and got drunk and fell asleep. I try to remind myself to shower when I get home. Maybe I will. I come to an area with wi-fi and my phone picks it up. I stop under a tree and let whatever notifications are coming.

You.

A screen shot of a note on your phone. It's from my birthday last year and it is a poem about 'when I leave I will leave a symphony' or something. Prophetic, I suppose.


I don't know why you sent this to me.


I won't kill myself on Christmas. I won't jump off the Golden Gate. I won't hang in the Sea of Trees. I saw the cop earlier that night and I hadn't for a little while and I wonder, a little playfully, if he is still stopping my suicide. Should have knocked the fucking wine out of my coat or the beer out of my hand. I'll do it slow and miserably.


I want to see you, you say.


I am standing in front of apartments at five thirty in the morning. Drinking, freezing. See this.



So come, I say.

Tonight. Are you okay? You're acting really strange.

I'm fine. Always fine.

I love you.

Okay.



A snow plow crashes down the road and I step back as the wave of snow and ice falls violently around and I know he can pay his rent, the driver. I know he doesn't want to be awake right now, I know he'd rather be curled up to Warm Lovely Girl, but he can pay his rent and I envy him. I wish him luck and then he is gone and he never knew I was there.

I don't finish our conversation, I just leave. I leave the apartments and the wi-fi. Maybe you'll show up tonight. Maybe you won't. Maybe I won't. It's hard to tell.

I throw an empty can at a porch and hunched against the snow I walk nowhere. None of these sleeping people know I was there. None of these excited children know I was there. I've been trying to tell you all my name, and now I am thankful I haven't. Open the last beer and I miss you.

Dark and the snow.