Okay, sorry for the long delay. Blame my education since it's what's slowing me down horridly. At the moment, I'm learning drum major stuff, juggling schoolwork, working as much as possible, and trying to find another job because I've suddenly found myself close to two thousand dollars in debt, and the bills keep coming, baby. But, you guys enjoy this chapter, and please e-mail me lots, cuz if you don't, it might be the last one you get.
The undercurrent of life is a mysterious thing. We only see the surface as we sail on it. There's no way of knowing if the stretch we're on is as shallow as it seems, or if it will hold some deeper meaning. And so the forces which work below the surface, below our accepted field of vision, will always continue to baffle and astound us, surprise us, injure us, bewilder us, inspire us, terrify us, and make us feel alive.
It seems as if life can't be verbalized, written, or put into words at all. There's no way to take something that massively, beautifully, macrocosmically complex, and break it down into something so primitive. It requires an almost instinctual understanding, an understanding which requires no words, but works on a deeper level. One wonders if one ever truly understands life, but I think there are moments when one does.
The moment when you hold a newborn baby in your arms for the first time. The moment when your hard work pays off, and you're filled with the satisfaction and appreciation for the way things happen. Or, in my case, the moment when you look down at your sleeping lover's fluttering eyelashes, eyelashes you've kissed so many times, and realize that you truly love him.
All too soon, though, this understanding is challenged, dashed against the many hardships and hurts of life. Once again, in my case, the purple bruise gracing my lover's lower stomach, the place I love to kiss and nibble at, destroyed my peace.
So, do you understand what I mean? Can you understand what I was feeling? I was scared, worried, protective... imagine you saw something like that on someone you love so dearly, and had seen marks like that before, with no explanation. What do you do? Do you press for answers? Do you leave it alone, trusting in that person's capabilities to deal with whatever might be going on in their life?
Now, think of who you're talking to. I'm Joey. I'm a fierce, mean, hateful, spiteful little sonofabitch... but I can love just as strongly, if not stronger, than anyone else who isn't the way I am. That fierce rage turns from keeping everyone away to protecting the ones I love. Right now, it turned on whoever had hurt my beautiful one.
I felt tears sting at my eyes, but I blinked them away, knowing they helped nothing. So, I sighed, cleared my mind, and shut my eyes. I fell asleep with my arms still cradling Jonathan's head.
Ever had one of those nights that was a flurry of dreams? That's what I had... images of Jonathan, images of the corpse-me that haunted me in that dream that seemed so long gone, images of myriad bits of broken glass, glittering in a thousand rainbow colors. None of it made any sense if you tried to make sense out of it, but at the same time it seemed to be the accumulation of all of my random thoughts, a kind of timeline of madness. Purple bruises showed up on everything around me, the glass stirred, and corpse-me's hand reached out through it, the shiny bits sticking into the flesh, drawing out tiny drops of blood that seemed more black than red.
I woke up to that falling sensation one gets when tumbling out of a dream too quickly. All too soon the dream faded, and I was left with only foggy pieces of something that was so clear seconds ago. Jonathan's head wasn't in my lap anymore, so I got up, straightening my clothes and adjusting my morning hardness, and went in search of him. I found him in the living room, playing cards with Destiny and Samantha, using a still sleeping Jason's shirtless back for a table as they sat in a circle around him on the floor.
"Hey sexy, c'mere." Jonathan said to me, smiling sweetly with his arms open. He folded them around me and pulled me down into his lap, cuddling me as his head rested on my shoulder, hands cupping his cards in front of me. I kissed his cheek, and looked at Sam and Destiny.
"So what's up, and why are we all playing cards on top of Jason?" I asked them both.
"They want me to get up, and I don't wanna. Destiny wantsa go to the creek again... too sleepy." I looked down at Jason, who was mumbling into the pillow without stirring. I laughed at him, and whispered into Jonathan's ear.
We stared at each other, smiled, then leapt into action. I jumped over Jason while Jonathan swept the cards off of his back. Then, I straddled his lower back and Jonathan jumped on behind me, eliciting a sharp "oof!" from Jason.
"C'mon, sexy boy, let's go! If you don't get up, me and Joey'll do nasty things to you!" Jonathan yelled and ground his crotch against Jason's quilt covered butt.
"Damn queers... always grinding on straight guys... I swear..." Jason trailed off mumbling into the pillow, and rolled over, sending me and Jonathan tumbling over into Samantha and Destiny, which started a chain reaction ending in lots of laughs and me almost losing a nipple to Samantha's nippy teeth as retribution for landing on her.
"Dirty nipple biter, let's go!" I yelped and helped her up. "You have to take me home before we go anywhere, I have some shtuff to do! Pwease drive me and Jonathan to my house?"
"Sure, but you guys better not be using me to take you somewhere so that you can do all that kinky stuff you guys are into." She said, hopping up and heading for the door. Destiny cuddled with Jason, sharing a Marlboro menthol with him.
"I'll be back later, gonna drop them off, go to Wal-mart, and then I'll come get you two, then pick them back up. Be ready to go in an hour or two!" Samantha yelled over her shoulder as we stepped out the door.
We went back to my house, driving lazily down the road, and Samantha dropped us off. Jon and I got out and went into my house and into my room. Jon shucked off his shirt and flopped down on the bed. He looked a bit sun kissed, not quite burned, but close. I went into my bathroom and grabbed the aloe vera gel that I kept during the summer.
"Be still, babe, lemme put some of this on ya." I told him. I squirted some of the gel into my hands and rubbed it around, warming it up so it wouldn't feel so cold on him at first, then rubbed it into his skin slowly, working it into his shoulders and onto the back of his neck especially.
"Mmmm, much better, Joey." Jon sighed. "I don't really wanna go anywhere today... can we just stay here? Is that okay with you?"
"We can do whatever you want, baby, but Sam wanted us to go to the creek. Just tell me what you want and it'll be done. We have to talk, though, okay? I need to know some stuff." I said, rubbing my hands around his hips.
"What is it? Anything bothering you?" He asked, immediately sensing something going on in my head. I almost wanted to laugh at him, since it was so cute that he was hanging onto my every move, but I didn't out of respect and under the shadow of the conversation I was about to have it didn't seem like the thing to do.
"I just need to ask you about these bruises I keep finding on you, baby. You're worrying me. I know something's going on, so please don't keep me out. Tell me, I can help you out, I promise. No matter what's happening, I can help you." I said, blurting out the thoughts that had been ricocheting around my head for the past few days.
"Joey... I know you're wondering about it, but you don't have to worry. I can take care of myself." Jon said, crossing his arms and sitting up, making sure the bruise on his lower stomach was covered.
"Jon, I care about you, okay? That's the way things work now. I don't want to have to worry about you, but I do, and that bruise looks bad, and I want to know what happened. Please tell me. You can trust me, remember?" I told him, pleading with him to tell me what was going on. I didn't know what else to do.
"My dad, okay? He gets rough sometimes. It's okay, he's always been like that, it's nothing new, and you don't need to be worrying about something that's not any of your business!" he practically yelled at me.
"Don't snap at me, I'm worried about you!" I yelled back.
"Well, if you would just listen to me, you wouldn't have to worry. It's not like you really give that much of a fuck anyway, nobody does!"
"What the hell, Jon?! I'm trying to find out what's wrong and how to help, and all you're doing is treating me like shit! Quit acting this way." I told him, my eyes wide with shock.
"If I'm treating you like shit, then why are you sticking with me? And what way? Just because I don't want you fucking nagging me about shit that doesn't concern you, I'm `acting' some way?"
My mouth dropped open, and I stood up slowly. I turned on my heel, and walked over to my door, opened it wide, then turned back around again. "Jonathan, I think you need to leave. I was only trying to help you, but this isn't gonna work if you can't realize that I love you and I want what's best for you."
Jonathan looked at me, and I could see that he was gritting his teeth, hard. He had a habit of doing that when he was stressed. Once I saw him doing it when he was skating after he'd come out of his house earlier that day... A couple days later, this bruise appeared, so I'm sure they were connected.
"Fine, I'm out. Quit acting like such a fucking nosey ass pussy boy." He said, storming out of the room. I heard the living room door slam, and a shudder ran up my spine at the same time, as if the sound itself had caused me pain.
I started to feel like I couldn't breathe, and sorrow that had built up started to overflow. Jonathan's words had hurt worse than anything else I'd ever felt. I remembered when I was little, my mother looking at me with disappointment because I'd done something wrong, and I remembered the shame, anger, fear, and sadness. All of a sudden, I felt like a little kid again, and all those emotions came back. They'd been blunted, dulled for so long by drugs, by me ignoring them, by me pushing them away, covering them in black clothes, nail polish, and makeup, that now I'd forgotten how bad they could hurt.
I hated myself for letting me be open to being hurt again. I hated Jon for hurting me. I hated the world for being there. I hated God, or whatever the fuck there was out there, for letting this happen when I'd tried so hard to be happy again.
My world was slowly, but definitely, crumbling. And it hurt, it hurt so bad. Tears came to my eyes, and I fell onto my bed, sobbing. I can't remember how long I lay there, but it felt like eternity. Eventually the light from the window was gone, and I was still sobbing. My throat felt like sandpaper, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as I sniffled into my pillow. I couldn't breathe, and I didn't care enough to try. Eventually my body would make me move and take a breath, but until then, I just sobbed more.
The tears must've stopped at some point, though, because I fell asleep. It wasn't a restful sleep, though. It was the sleep of someone in distress; nightmarish scenes flew through my head as I slipped into unconsciousness. There was no respite for me in the dream realm. My heart was torn again, and I wasn't sure how I would repair it. The world just seems to have a knack for building me up to kick me down, and laugh at me while I try to salvage the myriad pieces of my shattered life.
The sun poured through my window the next day, and I realized that school was not far off. And I was almost glad... my life seemed stale. Maybe I could just run away from all of this. Just maybe... I could forget it, and I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.
Yeah, I could just drop it. Jon obviously didn't want me anymore, since he couldn't even talk to me without freaking out. Samantha and Destiny and all had been cool, but I didn't feel the connection I used to with them. Maybe I could just... fade away, into the background. Life could get better for me after they all just disappeared, and I could start over fresh.
I knew it was a bit stupid... it was escapist at best. But, it had to work. Otherwise, I didn't know what I would do. It's just in my nature. When things get to where I can't deal with it anymore, I have to run away and start over. Some day I'll find a place where I won't have to run, where things will just be okay... but not now.
I walked over to my little jewelry lockbox, opening the combination padlock on the outside of it, then lifting the lid. There were four little blue pills in a corner of the padded interior. I picked them up, and dry swallowed them. Four valium, thank goodness. Now I wouldn't care for the moment, and I could just run away...