you've been me before,
i noted, as i pulled the hair away from your eyes,
wiping your tears away with my sleeve.
you'll be me again, and i will be you.

three girls locked in the bathroom
of a crowded bar while young people
drunk and high press up against each other
and answer their cell-phones,
dance to the band and smoke cigarettes outside.

we stayed and held you while you cried.
after a while she had to go home and it was just you and i.
we smoked and you tried to laugh and i said,
"i've been here before" and you nodded because you knew.
you were there. you did this too.

we sat in your car and i remembered how it felt
to scream uselessly to a pair of eyes that hold nothing
but hollow apologies for causes they can't understand.
and when you shout to them
"you're killing me!" you want to feel stronger than you are
and a choked out sob is the only utterance that
can really express how desperate you feel
when something you've valued so intensely
is ripped from you in the night and replaced with
something new and comparably prettier
than how they made you feel.

you said that you couldn't look at him,
that he reiterated how you'd hurt each other.
that you slapped him because it was all you could do
and you walked away. you shook hard when we hugged you.
i remember that, too.

and also how it feels to be hopeless
as though you've lost every person that ever mattered
when really it was only one. and every one around you
promises they'll always be there, and you say
"thanks, i know" but you're wishing you didn't need them,
because you can't rely on anyone because
sometimes they all go away all at once,
and there's no one to cry to.

and so i said nothing.
we drove around in circles and didn't speak.
every so often we let out a sigh or a grunt,
but mostly we just lit cigarettes and let our hair fly
out the windows as we passed dimly-lit houses
and only interrupted silence between coughs.

when we pulled into the driveway i looked up
and noticed the stars, and you said,
"fuck the stars for being so beautiful
on a night i would have wanted to share with him,
fuck the stars because i can't have them,
fuck the stars because i don't want to care,
fuck the stars because they're all probably
fucking each other, and he's probably fucking
someone else too."

and so we jumped up and down in the middle of the yard
at 2:00 AM screaming "FUCK THE STARS!" at the top of
our lungs and i knew it was more therapeutic
than any superficial advice i could offer,
"it wasn't you, it was him"
"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

but no,
FUCK THE STARS
because that's what worked at the time.

as i went inside,
you pulled me back and said
"hey, wait...

I love you."

and two girls held each other on the doorstep
for a very long time,
because they knew
it wasn't the first
or the last time
that they would be there.

and we agreed in the morning
that we would get coffee,
go to the park,
and maybe slash his tires.

04/09/2006

Posted on 04/10/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer