I curl up on the chairs clutches. From living as a King in Sin City to be collecting dust in captivity, this drug bubble glazes over me, I can't think, I can't breathe, is my heart
"So, what are we talking about today, Doc? My mam? My Dad? Emotions? Or my fave, my hunting's?" My voice has started to fail, this what happens when you'd rather talk to yourself from the inside than talk about the identical conversations from before.
"No, no... Today I'd like to talk about relationships within your life. Have you ever been in love? Have you ever had any type of sexual encounters with another?" His pen points out the thin ice of his questions he skates across. My memory relights the root of candle in my eyes.
"I've only ever had the one, she was my first. She was also the reason behind me writing the way I do. After she left me, all I had were question which left me words." â "You can elaborate, if you like. Take your time Kyle, no pressure."
I laid belly flat on that ground, burning ants with my magnifying glass. I was a really goofy looking kid and that wavy brown hair was nowt to be haughty of, I thought it was stylish. She rolled by on her pink bike with entourage, Lauren Burns, her dad owed Burns Tool shop in Town. She will always live within my memory as perfection. She will always be my first love and I would always be her first victim.
"I will hold my heart over you." She injures the demon within me.
If we only die once, I want to share a box with you. I had a dream of our perfect life together, holding hands in the midst of each other's battles. If we are side by side we could conquer it all, we could be royal lovers in our ravishing dark land. Too much booze brings out our slurring kiss of life; me + you = us. Self-destruct with me and I promise you will not be alone in this world full of people.
I only have one heart so I can only share it with one other person; you! We have nothing else but this. You give me life being around you, if you were to ever leave me, the loneliness would be my serial killer every day. As time goes by and I haven't seen your face in a while, I begin to think I could live without you but when you arrive in front of me, the feeling of loving something, which is precise for my soul, comes flooding back in. You do more for me than you know.
I love you, the term sounds so overused so let me just say I love the way we make the other feel. Billions of people within this world and I haven't met them all but there is one I cannot live without. I want to grow old and senile with you, forget you one moment and dance in our treasured memories the next. I stand a man upon walked pages ready to fight for love on its own battlefield. Over this past year, my life has been about you, you haven't gone that far from my mind but you always arrive at my door; your knock knocks me down. Something bigger than my ego and passion is at work. I know you and it is a love of stellar proportions. I can daydream of you for hours and hours, to the outside wilderness of a world I am living with bewilderment but inside myself, I am building a greater future for us both, keeping our love alive. A man would go crazy without a proper woman.
The date was the year of the I-pad and Lauren and I were sitting making daisy-chains in an open field just behind Donnie Larks farm. This was our spot, our time and how we showed love to one another. For teens, worldwide falling for the equal sex for a time in curious nature may just be a fad, but for us it was the real deal; Lauren and Kyle forever carved into trees we held each other in. Here we lay staring into each other's starry eyes as the only two here. Our ankle socks pulled up high as well as my hope for our love. My eyes have been immersed in the shimmer of her. Drug me up, baby. Her hair was always bunched in a fountain style up in air, held together with clasps of different animals every day. Her aching asquint squeezes her lover. She only smiles one corner lip at a time. Her skin has a natural brown shine; the black and white striped t-shirt she wears complimented and blew up her jugs, they're such a mouthful to talk too. She's not a trophy to me but I will hold and polish her metallic fleece.
"Are we going to be together forever?" I look for my insecurity to be laid to rest, her words will heal me.
"You don't have to ask, Kyle. I love you. I love snuggling into you and hearing your heartbeat." She sucks her tight lips into her mouth. I should have read the signs at this moment.
"Why is that?"
"It makes me feel safe just knowing you are alive in this moment, as am I, and that is a feeling you can't deny." She says the words, which reach deep in me.
My world becomes smaller and we are the only two inhabitants on it. I jerk my birdy face towards her and peck her on the lips. This is how I want my life to be until the end of time.
"Say something, I want to hear your voice."
She turns on her side and arches up her head with her hand. I look up to the sapphire sky with lightly dotted clouds.
"Once upon a time, the sun and moon were in love; a man fell in love with the sun, but with a passion he hated the Moon. So, with his magic powers he separated the Sun and the moon forever. Now the Sun shows her face during the day and the moon took upon the night, one day every thousand years they meet in an eclipse, but during their time apart they send wish messages on the wind, depending on the power of the wish, depends on the speed of the wind." Magically I am maximally magnetized.
"Run away with me." An idea sparks my words.
"What? ...Where will we go?" She squeaks.
"Anywhere as long as it's with you, it's you I want to be with, that's all I know." I pull her closer and hold her head on me.
We made plans to jump town and get on a train and head into the sunset far beyond our eyes can see. This was the plan I pondered and plodded around, but perfect is all my pen can write.
The next day happens and here I am waiting under our tree, stars and moon watching over me. I am so in love; I don't even realise she is twenty-five minutes late on us meeting.
Where should we go? We can always get part-time jobs, build up our money and head for Paris, or Mexico, a dream you can almost touch. I look idly at my watch to figure out what could be taking so long? Maybe her father has found out about us running away? She got lost in the dark? Kidnapped? .... Cold feet? Try not to jump to assumptions.
After a long night of my hope waiting in the darkness as a thrown-out dog, I head to my heart-owners home for answers. Knock-knock, her mother answers in her 80's styled dress code, her beauty is lavish and confined.
"Hi there, Mrs. Burns, is Lauren home?" I chuck a cluck.
"Hi Kyle, I am sorry, lore' has gone on a date with Jason-Lea from school; you two are such close friends, I thought she would have told you." My heart breaks, love has become her weapon to use against me, she has shot me so many times in the same spot.
"No, she didn't mention it to me, thank you." I turn and the door closes on me and our love.
I can't even shutter my eyes, what a bitch! A glower for my lover.
She has destroyed my world, I guess that's her nature, but revenge for this hurt turns into an idea which springs up instantaneously. Stick to the rules of yourself, do not hurt anyone to further yourself and you will live. I am not talking about myself. A monster is born.
After twenty-two hours of persistent phone calls and door knocks, she has agreed to meet me, but we must keep it a secret as I am sure this will be our break up, she can only kill me once, right?
I wrote her something, remember your lines, Kyle. She'll appreciate every word, she's a poetry girl, she's not a robot. Go over it again.
You will need Electric-Shock-Therapy now to get a beat from my dying heart. Welcome to Love in the Time of Mental Illness. This pen can make me lose my mind, again. A hug from me comes with a free straitjacket, keep your distance. Perhaps my paranoid-schizophrenia is kicking up a fuss, going head to head with another heart to heart.
Here she comes, moping across broken twigs and dead plant life, her head in between her legs to show the hurt she put me through; she knows she is in the wrong.
Her hands stretched out to bargain. "Please Kyle, just hear me out. No one knows I'm here, I snuck out to see you because I do care about you, a lot, and I do want you in my life." Biting my tongue and holding back my shattered hearts pieces I hold cupped within my hand, I nod. "I think we should just be friends, it's not that I don't love you it's just that I can't love you, just yet." Here come the water-works. "And I know what we have is special, but we are living a lie if we think we can get away with it, I just don't want it to slip out and have everyone call us out, and just be another ruined couple."
One thousand and one things to say and she has me stumped, she really is my kryptonite.
"So why when we started to do this did you continue? If deep down, you were feeling like this, you could have stopped me before I fell by myself in love. Right?? Lead me along the road of a happy future and you hitch a ride from someone else and leave me stranded. How shitty is that? You were the one who talked about marriage and forever, a family. I guess they were all tricks. You convinced me; you actually wanted to marry me one day, why?"
Nothing but the caws from crows and hoots from owls fill this awkwardness.
"Yeah well, it's not like it was real or anything. I come from a good home and we have money, we have standards and aspects. What do you have? A weird sister, a drunk, drug abusive dad, you have no ambition or talents and I dread coming to your house, it along with its inhabitants are filthy, sorry to say, I know it's not your fault. Where did you think, this going? Did you think we were going to live happily ever after? We had a good run, it was fun while it lasted; you'll be fine. Can I say, before you start hating me and crying your way home, just know I had to say all this to you so you don't love me or bother me or stalk me. You were just something to pass the time, until something way better came along; why'd you think I wanted to keep it a secret from everyone else, eh? I was embarrassed to be seen with you. Screw this, I shouldn't have to defend my actions to a damaged little boy, I'm going home, don't get in touch with me ever, Kyle." She attitudes upwards and turns away. I have seen her in a real new light; I must have been standing in her casted shadow. I wait there, has anyone seen my confidence? Has anyone found my balls? If you find them, step on them for me, please. I guess I can stay out a while longer; I'm already going to get the knuckle-kiss for passing curfew. As I walk home all I have my words.
I have married in hell, I put a knee to the flaming floor and I was submerged in blood. A ring of fire upon a broken finger and a vow of I do was spoken with a kiss of poison through your veil of cobwebs. Our witnesses are lined up in open coffins in pews for perfect views. Love dies now. Each blink is too long and each beat is too much, so I shall rip off my eyelids and tear through my chest to save time and keep you in my sights a little longer.
My lips become unworked and dry without your pressure and I will wonder and pace in circles to your addiction, your essence or smoke will cling to my lungs, I know each inhale is deadly but the tribute will butcher me. Love is not love to you; it is but a weapon against me, that you shoot so many times in the same spot.
Only when love and hate are merged, can it forge such a feeling. What am I to do now? My heart's trying to scram before the self-harm sets in. How could I be so dumb? I gave the wrong one my love pump and now I have been signed, sealed and dumped. And, what is her punishment for doing this? She gets everything she wants, the new man, the new start and a chance to hide herself from the normal school kids. Ripped off that bandage ever so quick but I am the one left with the fever chills, which follows the pain.
I can't let her get away with this, think Kyle, think. Stop your drudge, use your gut, and grudge. Show no pain, you have no way out, hollow your brain before you blow that fucker out, hold your blame, you have nothing to cry about, rip her skin and her clothes, let a shallow grave become her home. Destroy my world, slut, this is your nature.
(This part of my horrified low-side at that time, I do not disclose to the doctor, I pussyfoot on by it.)
I'll remember you and it is a pain of celestial proportions. I can daydream of you for hours. To the outside world, I am dazed but inside myself, I am building us back together again, just to keep our love alive. It was premature in ending, if I had it my way you would be the queen at my side smiling, let's start forever together in some way. You died somehow along the path we were on and I am still waiting for the phoenix to be born back. Now you will be forever married to the reaper that took you away from me. I remember your laughs and frowns, your second guessing motives and the scrunched-up attitude you showed when you thought you were right in a debate. Your kiss means everything to me. If I knew today would have been our last day together I would have planned something special. I try to remember the smell of your hair and the feel of your skin but it usually turns into anger and me throwing something across the room in frustration. Where are you? What does your new life have that the old one doesn't? It doesn't have love. I've made a mistake, haven't I? And, I know you better than anyone in this universe, even more than God, I don't know how I know, I was built to know you. A man would go crazy without the proper woman. You said it wouldn't be that easy to get rid of you but you lied. I need a sign, just the smallest of miracles; I have been through so much and never asked for a thing, so let this be granted. You were like nothing I knew; now you will be everything I am.
I come back from my imagination, which is harder than it seems, once it sucks you in, you are in there until the bombs go off or you get hacked up and nailed to the wall.
"Doctor, she left me for another guy, who by the way, looks like a soggy potato in designer clothes. Just thinking about her now makes me wanna' clap hands over the butterflies in my belly, she makes me want to puke and everyone like her too, you can't treat people like that. I could never do something that evil to someone else."
"Lauren burns... Didn't she go missing a few years back? There was huge nationwide manhunt for her."
And, here is where I raise the curtain and reveal a twist in the plot. In Hollywood-land I think they call it a beat, I could be wrong.
"Missing implies no one knows where she is. I know where I left the fucking bitch, so she can't be missing. Yes, she was the one, but when I say she was my first, I don't mean humping each other's brains out, I mean she was my first murder. I wrapped that clunk of rock a few times over her skull until she loved no more." I rewind and play and rewind the moment. "The moral of the story, don't fuck with my heart and I won't fuck with your head."
His pen tries to steady itself; if you look close, his hand is flailing.
"Her body is buried in the wooded area closest to school. I don't know if the city has built over it by now, if they haven't, she is in there somewhere, around the middle area. All I know is I positioned her on her side, so she is facing my houses bedroom window, yeah, it's like half a mile away and I can't see the woodland, but I just love the idea of knowing when I look out my window at any time of day or night, she is looking in it. I don't care what you do with what I've just told you, it's not like you can keep me alive past my sell-by-date to live out another life sentence. All I'm saying is, she should have dug deeper to find my heart. I've dismantled my love-meat before the next one comes into contact with it. Saying that, I do still dream about it, I mean love, it's a nice idea... it's like flying, I can try for it, even though, deep down, I know I'm going to fail and fall hard."
He's lost for words, he raises a hand mid-level but keeps it there, speechlessness. His eyes freeze in place. He presses a button on his desk, he must be calling on someone for help.
"Good God!" His lips let slip.
"Good God? I maybe a God, but I sure as Hell ain't good. And he had no part in it, he watched and let me do it, so in theory, he's my accomplice or I shocked him to look away."
"I have to tell the authorities and they will tell her family, give them closure for their missing daughter. It seems rather excessive, over a broken heart, Kyle."
"Really, I gave that whore my all, and she lied right to my face, not only that, she hoodwinked this hooligan and paid for it, she help destroy me, by taking a vital part of me away, I just took something from her. Like I needed someone else dumping their shit on me, so they could get something they want. I am not stepping stone, I am an option, I should be seen as an idea you stop at and hold on to."
Ellen, an orderly enters the room.
"You called for help, Doctor." She stands hands cupped below her bellybutton. With his hands, McKay gets up and scuffles over to the orderly. Ear-to-ear the pair whisper whispers. I let them deal with that.
I intercept my boredom and hook a pad of paper. Let's do what I do best, play pretend in this land of faux.