K__ Leaves, 1

21DEC2009
　
I’m exhausted being interesting. I never want to say another wise-sounding thing. I come across people like that sometimes. William Hurt and Adrian Brody in the behind-the-scenes part of M Night‘s movie The Village -- they were always trying to sound so profound -- weirdos.
I wanted to be Normal, Real. I accepted a journey, like in the film Adaptation, starring Nicolas Cage. The main character’s only hope is to look deep into his soul. It was the only way he could make sense of the Life around him and prevent something very bad. He was always on the verge of narcissism and he knew it and hated himself for it. It was a comedy.
It’s exhausting feeling like a whore for attention. The loneliness makes me want to open up too fast with strangers, makes me want to put myself out there in a way that goes against normalcy.
I have people now, and when I need to open up, I have to remember to go to them, instead of holding on to the usual broad assumption that I have no one, then writing it all down, as if I‘m some fictional character on an Oprah‘s Book Club list.
It’s not normal.
I didn’t get the attention I deserved as a kid. In the house it was like I didn’t exist. Their abuse was casual and effortless. A__ and H___ acted like it was nothing to treat me sexually, R__ seemed to think trying to rape me was inconsequential.
I remember coming across that somewhere, something like Humility allows your Real Qualities to shine through. It’s ironic that Humility requires a great deal of confidence .. self trust.
I feel like K__ is going to appear any minute now. He is due back. Whenever the door opens, or I hear a footfall in the night, I sense it could be him.
When he gets back he’s going to tell the story of his last month effortlessly. He’s going to want me to tell the story of my last month, and I feel like I won’t tell it right.
I already told -- wrote it down -- so I know it. But to stand in front of another person and tell it requires me to be myself. It’s not just the words that have to be true.
I talk to M__ a lot over cigarettes, and I practice. I’ve told him things I’ve written down, sometimes I tell it verbatim but still it’s not true because I seem incapable of being myself in front of another person.
The writings are the Real me, but they don’t correlate with the me in the presence of others. In those moments I feel like if I was to talk and act like the Real me, they wouldn’t believe me. As if that’s just the world we live in, that’s just the way it is.
I went over to the medic’s tent so they could follow up on my foot. Sitting in the line of chairs serving as a waiting room, the House crossed my mind, and the four of them. I thought to myself, They will never believe you. Never never. When they lay eyes on you, they will always see the lie -- the Ugly, Pathetic boy they saw. And it means nothing. It’s sad, but it has no meaning.
They say people see you the way you see yourself. As an adult I sense that’s true. As a child it didn’t apply, because they were seeing me that way to be Abusive, regardless of anything I could’ve done, thought, or been.
The ones who supposedly knew me the best -- my immediate family -- saw me that way. Maybe it’s why I don’t let people see me now. Like a reflex. It’s why most of my sex life has been one night stands. I run into them sometimes, or at least their friends, how could you not call? they say.
I believed them, when I shouldn’t have, I should’ve been strong. I still feel the shame and weakness of that, and blame myself, and don’t seem to want to let it go until I’m sure I could face the same eighteen years of Abuse and still hold on.
Intellectually I know I was just a little kid, but it still seems that to be Natural (Him) is required always, even of little kids.
I always found ways to separate myself, because the world had turned out very wrong and no one seemed to know it but me, which only made the UnNaturalness worse.

__________

　
I was on guard duty when Mo___ passed by and told me K__ had just arrived via Blackhawk. I forced myself to react casually.
Mo___ cocked his head and squinted at me, like he thought my reaction was odd.
_So you got your -- roommate -- back,_ he said, almost saying brother instead of roommate but stopping himself out of confusion.
I showered, used the internet café, and entered the tent, wary of triggers and the craziness I have known. I poked my head into Mace__‘s room instead of my own, on impulse, and said hi.
_Oh, you come in here to hang with me when your brother’s back? I’m shocked._

_Is he back?_ I replied.
_Yeah. When he stepped in the first thing he said when he saw you guy’s room was What the f-ck?_
_He said that?_
_Yep._ M__ said with a laugh.
I cleaned the room, even though it was already clean. I couldn’t understand why K___ said that.
When K___ entered it was with a sudden swing of the door and a grin when he saw me. He was so gracious, I didn’t have a chance to feel intimidated by him.
We caught up outside over cigarettes. He had Ease. Everything I tried hard to do, to understand, to feel, he did effortlessly. His own Him always shown easily.
I remembered how people who come across to me as perfect can at the same time come across to me as fake. It’s like they never seem to do anything human. Even when K__ farts, it still has great comic timing. I put it out of my mind. I thought to myself: It’s just intimidation hiding as something else, B.
He said the first thing he saw when he entered the room was the new coffee maker. That’s why he said what he said. _I’ve never seen you drink coffee, Chuck._
He hadn’t slept in days, so we stopped chain smoking and went inside. I laid down even though I had been a night owl for the last month and knew I wouldn’t sleep.
In the dark I expected my mind to fill up with the usual insecurities that always arrived along with K___, the sense of being less, of being behind, damaged, unnatural. They didn’t fully materialize, they just lurked somewhere in the background. I ran my hands along my limbs, then stretched slowly, thoroughly. I could feel their skin, their muscle, their value. I thought to myself:
You have your own.

__________