A Ball or, I Feel You, in Blood

A Ball or, I Feel You, in Blood

“Goodbye. I love you.” Is that what I said, when you left? I can’t remember, I can’t remember much, anymore. You’ve been gone a year. I try and fail; I can’t fill the void that is you. And what did you say, when you left? 

“Goodbye.” I hear you say it, but your voice is only in my mind now. I like it, when you speak to me like that, but there are no new words, only echos, half remembered. You always knew so much, much more than me. I think about you, what I do, without you here, and I know I’m flailing, and I wonder, how are you? I want to cry, right now, as I write this. The tears are waiting for permission to fall. People say ‘my other half,’ but that’s not what you are. You’re my middle, my filling, my heart, I guess you could say. You prop me up and I move, and everything is okay. Now you’ve gone, and I am hollow. Nothing to hold me in place, to keep me from caving in, on myself, and I do. It is slow, but they will notice soon. I forget a lot of things, now. 

I have a ball called anxiety. It lives in my chest. I don’t always see it, or feel it, or notice it at all - it is at home, and I’m at home with it. But we meditate, and when we do, it is all that I see, all that I feel. A golden ball, so pretty, so cold and hard and pretty. It chokes me. The doctor gave me antibiotics for the ball that he could see, but glands aren't what make it so hard to swallow. 

“Valium?” I asked. He looked upset and shook his head. 

“You see your normal doctor.” My normal doctor! A joke. I have none, she is gone, too. I have eight little yellow pills, and when I eat them the ball starts to melt. It shrinks and I can take big breaths again. It was like that when you were here, too.

Time passes in skips and jumps. I get mixed up, a bit, but there is no one left to notice that. I like to sleep; alone and warm and not really here at all. One day, I sat at the computer. She started talking to me, a she, a girl, from before. Just one of them, a no-one, to forget. 

“Hello,” she said. 

“Hello,” I said. I didn’t want to talk. Who are you? I knew her but so long ago, for such a short time. “I have to go get something to eat,” I told her. I just wanted to get away. I wandered off into the yard. The sun was out and I sat in a puddle of it, on the grass, near Peter. Did I tell you, when he died? I smoked cigarettes and the sun went away. When I went back to the computer, she was still there. Belle. I looked at the name, flashing, something else to say. I thought I might use it in a story. I might still, if I do that sort of thing again. 

“You always go away when I talk to you. I have something nice to tell you. Next time, I guess,” she had said. But she was still there.

“I am still here,” I told her. “What is this nice thing?”

“It’s not like me to say this,” she said, “but I am going to put it the way it is...”

“Ok.”

“I like you ... just a wee bit. Just could not stop thinking of you lately and you keep putting a smile on my face.”

When she said that, I got scared. I lent back in my chair and reached over to turn the computer off. Why had she said that? But then you were there, time and space evaporated, in my ear, talking, telling me, telling me, and you were right. 

“You’re afraid of commitment,” you said. I felt your breath against my ear when you spoke. I turned around but there was no one there. You always could see what was inside me. You always knew more than me. I stared at the words Belle had sent. My golden ball of anxiety was pulsing and I though of you and I thought of my little yellow pills, and how they make me feel like you make me feel. How do I make you feel? 

“We will go out for a drink, when you come to Melbourne,” I wrote. Then I turned away, and walked away, but you were still there, I could smell you, your shampoo, right beside me. Why can’t I see you?

I am the imitator, the great illusionist. I see the way they live and that is what they see, when they look at me. I don’t have to do anything, to live this way. The outside of me knows how to look, how to talk. Knows the words, it is a script. I sit on the inside, alone, in the space that you once filled. You moved out and now I can see this space, but I don’t know how to fill it or use it, like you knew how. It is big in here, and I can’t imagine how you filled it. When you were here, you were like me. But now you’ve left, and every day I am smaller, smaller, and I wonder, how, once, you filled this hall, my heart? I miss you. What did we say, to each other, before? And what will happen, if you, when you, come back? I hope I am still here, when, if, you do. I am holding on, holding on tight, and I think of you. Waiting. But I am getting smaller, and your voice, it only whispers now. 

I lay in my bed. I feel time pass. A car door, a dog. The night is not a quiet one. But I am  quiet, where no one can see me. I think of you, but I can’t feel you, anymore. I feel my ball, it glows, and there is nothing else, nothing else at all. The room is dark but my eyes wont close. I think of those pills, my little yellow pills. Only eight. Eight. I feel so empty, now. Just me and my ball, in the dark, in my bed. I sit up and my motions are fluid. Sleep has not begun its search for me, though I waited. I have a light by my bed. You were here, when I bought that light. I turn it on; it hurts my eyes. I open a draw and begin my search. Why am I so empty? I don’t know where you are, where are you, and there is nothing inside. I am cold, separate. I am watching, my own fingers, my head, bent low, as I search. My hand closes over cold steel that I can’t feel. I am a watcher, now. My knife. I wonder what is inside, in that hollow space, without you. My body searches. The blade sparkles, so pretty in the light. It shines like my ball. It is cold, and with gentle motions, as I watch, my fingers guide its tip to my leg. Up and down, so careful, not a scratch. My knuckles whiten, clenching tight, arm taught. The steel presses into my knee, bites down hard, and with the fluidity of detachment, the knife follows my hand my arm, through my skin, meat, flesh, air. I feel nothing. I watch. My knee opens, but there is no blood. I watch. Small spots appear in the hole, they grow, drop. The new hole fills. This is blood. This is what is inside. It overfills, spills, trailing down my shin, to my foot. Tickles. Tickles. I feel. I feel. Is this you, that I feel? You have no answers for me, now. Did I say “I love you,” when you left? 

“How did you feel, then?” Hannah asks me. I don’t know the answer, but I try, I try. 

“Scared?” I say. I’m not sure, was that it? I don’t know, the questions she asks me, I can’t answer. 

“Where did you feel it, in your body?” Difficult, difficult. 

“My chest.” That is the only place I feel, now. Have I lost you? I tell her about my ball, how pretty it is, how it shines and pulses and hurts, hurts to breath. She writes something down, the notepad is on her knee. Her hair, it glows too, catching the sun, from the window. It shines like autumn. I like her hair. I look at her and I see you, laughing, the sun, on your hair, shinning. We got so burnt, that day. That day, I remember that day. We drank beers at sunset and I know I said “I love you,” then. Hannah wants me to tell her about you. I tell her about how you laughed, how red we got, in the sun, and you shone, your hair. I don’t tell her ‘like yours.’