I always thought god was like a metaphor, more than some deity that could affect anything, I figured it was something to give people a reason. So that no one thinks too hard. And they were all peaceful with their gods, going to bed and falling asleep at 1AM and I laid awake thinking about the universe, confused and upset because I yearned for that ignorance.
'Living with cancer,' they say, 'living with -insert any terminal illness-,' is like a contradiction, like you're alive but your body doesn't want you to be. Because there's something in it that wants to make stew from your bones and you're in the way. I wasn't living with anything, I was living with the affliction of curiosity, the affliction of being human.
Human nature is simple to understand, it's a constant need to learn, to know more, we love doing these things, they make us happy and I laid in my bed, awake, confused and upset because I was unhappy. And it was snowing hard outside and cars vroomed by my house and I sighed into the stuffy air. I thought maybe I needed someone to talk to, but I didn't feel like it. I felt this strong urge to just remain stationary, not to move or think or talk, just to empty my senses. Just to exist on my own for a while.
To recapture my own existence.
Name? Irrelevant. Elliott Lynch, but still irrelevant. Age? 15 1/2. Simple statistics. Names were ridiculous. Names were tiny labels stuck to us so people could address us somehow, as if 'you' wasn't acceptable. Life goal? Undecided. At the moment, it was staring at the ceiling and waiting for an epiphany. For the last 5 years, it was staring at the ceiling and waiting for an epiphany. I assumed it would be the same for years to come.
After that reevaluation, I went back to staring. The shapes got fuzzier and my eyes strained and blinking felt heavenly and I felt like cracking my knuckles was becoming a tick. Whatever, no one would notice. It was like an addiction, almost, like a constant need to do something, the more you thought about it the more you needed it but you were in public and there were people everywhere and you hid your hands and doped up on the sweet sound of joints cracking.
I never cared about myself much, it was easier not to. I just assumed everyone else had me figured out, so what should it matter what I thought. Except they didn't have me figured out because I never talked to anyone, I never actually talked to anyone. Except Henrietta and Dylan. A total of two people.
The phone rang and I was hoping for one of them.
"I got kicked out of class again," Dylan. He refused to speak to teachers. He had no problem with the principal or the counselor but he wouldn't utter a word to his teachers. No one really cared, though, most of them let him do tests, but one particular teacher had a problem with him, "I hate music class!" I smiled lightly at his voice, soft even when he was yelling.
"Why?" I whispered, too tired to speak.
"Cause I wouldn't talk to her," noticeably, he was fuming. Also noticeably, he was absolutely right and his music teacher was stupid, "she sent me to the principal and asked to talk to my parents."
"Aren't you like selectively mute or something? Isn't that illegal?"
"I don't know," he admitted, his voice went weak and he sighed, "I don't care. I just," and he drifted off.
A comfortable silence was present, not painful or awkward, no one would hang up, no one was in a hurry, it was a gentle basking in the ambience of the night, slowly accepting and slowly breathing. It was calm and serene.
"I just," he began again, his voice more composed, "don't want my parents to freak out or anything," he mumbled and it took me a moment to get what he was saying and somewhere along the lines I guess I told him to come over and the stars in the sky held my uneasiness as he hung up and they expelled it onto me as he knocked on my window.
I opened it and he walked in. He smiled and my mouth did a partially happy upturn for a second and he plopped down onto my floor and kicked his gaudy shoes off.
"I'm sad," my voice sounded shaky and foreign to me.
"Shit sucks," he whispered back, "sorry," and I nodded at him.
The snow made him look gorgeous and I was never happier for poor heating in my room because he looked downright surreal. Dark, painfully dark circles and smudged eye liner, a consistent scowl, messy hair and green eyes and I stared at him, an absolute mess, physically and mentally. A god was sitting on my bedroom floor and I was still thinking about myself.
"What happened to your hands?" he peeked over at my left hand that held onto the covers of my bed, and my bruised and lightly bleeding knuckle, "did you get in a fight or something?"
"Nah, it's just the cold," and I despised small talk but he was genuinely curious and there was room in this messy earth for both of us because he made us fit. And so I allowed the small talk.
"Lame."
I always figured god was like a metaphor, but more so a thing that lived inside you, like a need for there to be something above you so that you don't feel any pressure, so you could blame someone else. He coughed and I stared at him and I cracked my knuckles again as I narrowed my eyes.
"I think," he began, his voice cracked a little from not speaking often, "I think we'll always be like this. I mean," and he was trying to explain and I felt like I understood him regardless, "I always thought we'd grow out of this, somehow assimilate and not care too much but… I don't think that's ever gonna happen."
"Maybe we'd be happier if we just gave up," I offered, sniffling a little and eying him.
"Maybe. I don't think, if that was the truth, that I'd wanna be happy," and I absolutely understood him.
The moon and sky and stars were free and I envied them badly because they were out there, not caring about anything, and I was trapped in this universe, a mess of existence. And sometimes I'd manage to fall asleep and sometimes I'd swear I could understand what it meant to be alive.
I lived for small things, I never had goals. It was easy, living, I did it for naps in the afternoon and that high you get after getting away with something, I lived for the smell of smoke and pastries in the morning and the feeling of skin brushing against my arm.
The room was fresh-aired now, from the window being open as Dylan's frame made its way inside. The faint smell of snow and conifers was present while the snow on top of his head melted and a droplet of water fell onto the wooden floor. It was ultimately desperate, the way I searched his face for any sign of emotion and it was amazing when he gave me a smile. Like a prize.
"I'm glad," the silence shattered under his voice, "I met you."
"Me too."
Now and then I thought about how ridiculous it was that I thought I could grow out my childish need to learn more and how ridiculous it was that I thought I could do anything like other people.
My life was like a Greek tragedy. That's how opera was created. But my life couldn't create anything. Especially nothing like that. I created foul things. Disgusting little portraits of disembodied heads and dead flowers. Dylan liked them. I painted his aunt with no eyes or arms once. He paid me in scattered kisses, all across my neck, like pinpricks.
I felt like I may have cared too much because I was irrelevant and he wasn't but… he could hold the water from every ocean on the palm of his hand. I couldn't hold a drop.
And he was an ocean and I was a drop.
I felt him.
In the confined space of my cold room, I felt him, needy and empty and yearning to touch and feel and see and know. I also felt him when he crawled over closer to me and left tiny kisses along my neck, like he did when I painted his aunt or helped him pay for the window we broke at school when we tossed rocks at the teachers' lounge.
His tiny teeth sank into my collarbone and left even tinier bite marks and we stayed silent as he pulled away and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. My neck and collarbone were a little wet from him but I didn't wipe either. It was something we could share between ourselves. Disgusting and sticky.
I let him stay over and we barely fit into my single bed. His elbow jabbed at my ribcage and my knee was against his calf and it was too hot and we were sweating and it was disgusting and sticky. It was something we could share between ourselves. Like a secret or a metaphor.
I always thought Dylan was like a living metaphor and I prayed to nonexistent gods that he'd never stop. Because I lived for tiny moments, like sticky kisses and sore ribs.
I lived for him.