The Girl Like A Joan Miró Painting

I met a girl who was like a Joan Miró painting; all colors and shapes and symbols, arranged in such a way as I'd never seen before. Her speech was a surrealist conglomeration of words and phrases, often without any rational links between them. Every word she spoke and every movement she made were wholly unexpected and often unintelligible and I adored every second of it. It's like being with a beautiful random phrase generating app. But, you know, good.

And by spending time with this girl who was like a Joan Miró painting I've been able to borrow a new life. For a week I got to throw away the anxieties, the doubts, and the baseless morality of my world and experience a dadaist lifestyle of incomplete thoughts brought to life, of heavy laziness. And of course, drinking.

And she would spend so much of this sleeping on me and I would spend so much of it laying awake in the night, trying to find truth in the patterns of my ceiling. And now that it's over, I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm so unsure now of all those things that I held to be true. Because even though I never understood a god damn thing that she was talking about, I loved every second of it.

More Lies

I didn't want to come home. More than that, I was afraid to come home. Afraid of how much had changed in my absence, and even more afraid of all that was the same. I was afraid of how little difference my being there made. I was afraid to see everyone that I knew I would see there. I didn't want to come home. And then she told me to lie. "You're a great actor," she said, "So just fake it." More than a year later, here I am, still acting; still faking it. And what astounds me is how comfortable I've become in the lie. Whenever I feel that twinge of panic in my guts, I know to put on my mask and perform for them all. Whether it's upon the boards and under the bright lights or in the solitary darkness of my room, I know to keep character and everything will be fine. The lie is my comfort, my crutch. Without it I never could've given her a hug, never made eye contact and smiled, nor made small talk as if we were in fact friends. Without the lie I would've backed away; I would've told her how much I loathed her, how much she ruined my life, how much I hated and envied her happiness. But I didn't have to do any of that because I, ladies and gentlemen, have the pleasure of living a lie.

A Very True Love Story

"Hey. Fine, I'm fine. How are you? Yeah. So, how have things been going today? Well, I mean, yeah, what with all the shit that's been going on out there, what do you expect? No, I know, but still. So um...what? No, I'm fine. Hey. Hey. Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? No, it's fine. Don't make it weird. No, I'm just...okay, listen, what I'm trying to say is I'm in love with you. Ok? Yes, I know what I'm saying, Jesus, just...Look, you remember the night of the riots? Someone started throwing rocks and suddenly the police were firing rubber bullets into the crowd. I grabbed your wrist and practically had to carry you away. You were just standing there while people started screaming and running. I don't remember actually getting away, but I remember hiding with you in an abandoned cafe. By the way, what is with us and cafes? Was that my idea or yours? Oh, yeah, that figures. So there we were in that cafe, covered in blood and sweat, and water from that stupid fucking exploded fire hydrant and we hid underneath a table as people outside screamed and fought. A car on the street got turned over and exploded and it blew out the front window of the cafe. I couldn't hear anything for like twenty minutes after that but I remember staring into your face and even though I was completely fucking petrified you had the biggest grin. Like you were just having the time of your life. You had dried blood in your hair and down the left side of your face even though you hadn't gotten hurt during the riot; I'm sure you were the only one who showed up to the damn thing pre-injured. How did that heal up by the way? Good, I'm glad to hear it. Look, the whole point of this story is, I need you. I need that grin in my life. I need your adventure and excitement and your pure unafraid joy. I'm no epicurean; I read books and I live on the page and in my head. You know, I've never given any thought to what my life is and now that it might not last too much longer, I know that I've wasted too much of it thinking. Someone told me once that as long as there are people out there who remember you and who love you, then you'll never truly die. Well I don't know how many people out there love me, but I know that when I die it won't be all that much longer before the few people that I've touched enough to remember me are gone too. So I need to make some changes. And the first change I'm making is that I'm going to live my life. And I want to live it with you. So there it is. I love you. So...what do you think?"