Long story short, it's hard being human.
Disclaimer: the usual
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There is this game I play. I don't like playing it but I do it anyways. Call it stupidity.
It starts from when you walk in through the door. Eyes landing on me, you smile, and like I'm supposed to, I walk over and hug you, "Hello." You are warm and my body fits against yours just right but this is the game: I pretend not to notice.
Greeting everyone else, passing myself along, I smile, so happy to see everyone, after all, it's been weeks.
The game never starts off hard. It is gradual and creeping and torturous. A sadistic kind of game. Standing around, leaning against the kitchen table, banter is thrown around, cheap shots and lame jokes, making fun at another's expense. Gathering around the computer, like usual, I read the Wi-Fi password out loud because it is long and annoying and "secure."
But today you are slightly drunk and still coming out of your daze so I type it in for you. "Because I love you." "Because you're my favorite." "Because you're completely useless." Laughing along with me, you agree because of course "I love you most," "as if that could ever change."
Sitting nearby, perched on the computer's desk, everyone talks together, loudly, complaining of the plans they had instead of "this." Plans on getting drunk. Of hanging out with friends. "We're getting too old for this." "It's not like we want to skip out every time but still…" We are growing up. We are growing farther apart. And I wonder if that is what marks the end of my game. I'll only know when I live it.
This doesn't last long. The little ones are called out to eat and we all move downstairs, our true domain, from the times we were younger, and the world was impossibly big and our parents ruled our worlds. Grabbing your hand, I tug you along with me. Stumbling on unsteady feet, your hand grips mine and once again I'm playing this game of pretend. Already I'm losing.
Squeezed together on the couch, we are all crammed together, side by side, eating, laughing, discreetly passing drinks, because we are too old to be told what to do. That is how it feels.
And this is where the game gets hard. Because soon enough everyone gets kind of restless. No one wants to simply sit around and watch TV or play video games. We are young. Growing into wildness. There were promises of drunken freedom, now detained by adults that seem to forget that we are no longer the children we used to be. In small groups, everyone gets up and goes, outside, to talk elsewhere, I don't really know. Because always, I find myself staying with you. Reading some webstory on your phone, we remain pressed tight even though it's no longer necessary. Your heat travels to me and I feel you so acutely, washing over me, rolling in powerful waves and I don't know what to do with myself but I can't get up or even move away. No. That's a lie. I don't want to.
Resting your head on my bony shoulder, I wonder how you're even comfortable. Every few minutes, I twitch, because there is nothing to distract myself with and I feel bad because it must be mildly annoying. Shifting and adjusting, shifting and adjusting, with our bodies "innocently" pressed tight, me against you, you against me, I can't breathe. I'm already losing at my own game.
Quickly getting up, I mumble, "I'm going outside for a moment" before scurrying up the stairs and out the door, except it's worse because the music is pounding into twilight and there's people everywhere, talking, shouting, drinking, being happy and I can't take it because there is no where to escape and I don't know what to do with myself and in the end, I'm just standing there, doing nothing, drowning in something I don't want to name. Because I refuse to lose at this game. Not today. Not ever.
Slipping back inside, I grab a book from my room and make it back to you, down the stairs, next to you, pressed side by side even though there's space. But here's the thing: you don't say a word against it so neither do I.
Shifting and adjusting, we sit like that, reading to the sound of small children screaming, to our parents talking loudly outside. Shifting and adjusting, leaning on me, pulling away, coming back, putting your arm around me but not quite, as if you realized halfway through that you couldn't do such a thing. And even though it's sometimes uncomfortable, I stay where I am because I am happiest when I am next to you.
Everyone else comes and goes, comes and goes, pressing into the couch once again, getting up to leave, over and over, at irregular intervals and sometimes I wonder what we look like to everyone else. That's something I could never ask.
Sitting on the floor, laying your head against my thighs, your neck lays bare and all I want is to reach out and drag my nails across your skin and mark it as mine. To draw your head, to lean closer, to…
Shifting and adjusting, your arms lounges across my knees, your palm flat against my leg, gripping it lightly, your body pressed tight and I can feel it, this want in my chest, to be completely and utterly possessed by you. And in turn, I want to possess you right back, to claim you as my own and no one else's. Sighing in desperation, trying so hard to play this game like I should, my head hangs forward, my body drooping and you pet me, your hands in my hair, like I am something precious to you. It lasts longer than it should and I am reluctant to pull back and if I imagine it just right…you seem reluctant to let go. But that's just me being delusional.
And this is how my game goes. A stupid game really. I shouldn't even be playing it, this game of pretend. But I do. Because if I didn't play, well, I don't know what would happen. Judgment? Intervention? Separation? It's too painful to imagine, so I don't. I have a feeling something like this may have already happened before.
But sometimes, I can't help but wonder…if on some level, you are playing this game too? That in fact, this game is a two player instead of one. That you feel that similar to how I do. That you too are struggling in this game, fighting to survive. Those acts, of shifting and adjusting, of pulling away and coming closer, is it for my sake or for yours? Do you know how I feel? Am I a bother? Is this some hopeful imagining on my part? Some part of me wishes that you feel this too. But the other part wishes that is not so.
We are both wretched. We know this. It is what brings us together, the slipping façade to, at the very least, seem normal, to be capable of kindness and sympathy. You are safe to me as I am safe to you because we "understand" what it means to be fucked up beyond repair. You do not know thus but I have always desired the wrong people, the people I'm not supposed to have. You. Are not any different. I want to believe that I am the only one with these unforgivable feelings. Because if so, then I can tell myself that this is simply some fucked up game I play with myself.
But when you hug me goodbye, you always seems scared, scared to touch me, scared to hold me for just a moment longer. And even as I pass myself along, saying "Goodbye" with a smile on my face, you keep your distance, just out of my reach, just out of yours. You look at me as if you're scared of yourself and the things you may do to me.
Balancing on a cliff of the things we want and the things we are never allowed to have, this is how we part, every time, all the time. This is how my game momentarily ends, until the next time it starts all over again.