(by the way, and this is really important, but the friend I was waiting for is my ex-boyfriend. I stopped talking to him after he decided to erase me from his life following our break-up 9 months ago, but over the course of the last few months, against my better judgment, I started talking to him again. I don't know what I was thinking. It seemed harmless enough starting out. He would start talking to me on Skype, small talk, the litany of usual complaints about his work situation. He mentioned to me that he was taking the TOEIC the following month. Would I talk to him on voice chat, y'know so he could get some English practice? I trembled at my keyboard. My face felt hot. I told him that I didn't think I could. He naturally asked for an explanation. I replied that I just.... just couldn't. He said that he understood. I spilled tears on the trapezoidal area of tatami between my legs, holding back the bile and vitriol pent up inside me for months. Why did he do that to me, I mean FUCK what the hell is wrong with someone to do that do another person, to reduce them to a handshake?
The whole experience was very enlightening for me. It proved to me something that I already knew, somewhere in the deeper parts of my being that I try not to look at. Turning my head this way and that, I fought the glare. I couldn't live if I continued to harbor these feelings. I couldn't carry that weight on my shoulders. It was too hot, too heavy. "And so my burden I began to divest". Don't worry, I didn't try to kill him. I just thought those lyrics might sound rather poetic here. But don't worry, it's nothing. I mean, just don't look too hard into it. I'm not trying to draw any parallels between myself and a fictional child murderer. Like, seriously, just drop it.
It's so bright in here.
I resolved to meet him. We made plans to meet up one night in January, some organic food buffet in Shinjuku, so like him. I was hoping to get him alone, to tell him that I was still mad as hell, to lay bare the unresolved, to vomit my emotional intestines across the dinner table, to scar him, to make him pay. He asked if he could bring his friend. This was war. I invited my friends. We all had a big, uncomfortable dinner together like a big dysfunctional family. He punched me in the arm like a good friend, said that he felt nostalgic upon seeing my bag. I was bursting. Pulling my stitches taught, I made it through dinner. Although, for most of the second half, I could barely keep up with the conversation, couldn't hear it above the screaming in my skull, GETOUTGETOUTGETOUTGETOUT. I wanted nothing more than to leave.
A few days later, we talked again on Skype. Same small talk, same litany of complaints. Then, he casually remarked, "Well, you were the man that I loved". This is when I finally flipped my shit. I couldn't let this stand. This was Lexington & Concord. This was Morris Island. This was Pearl Harbor, and if you think it's culturally insensitive of me to say that, you can suck a bag of dicks. I had blood in my eyes. Turning my head this way and that, I fought the glare.
Since "letting him have it", things have been better. I've found new things to feel emotionally unstable about, sure, but my relationship with my ex-boyfriend has finally reached the point where I can look at him without frothing at the mouth, talk to him without gnashing my teeth. In a twist that I would never have seen coming, I've actually been hanging out with him a lot and, dare I say it, enjoying his company. I detoxed, flushed out the impurities, and down in my core was the sad and undeniable fact that I really do enjoy being around him. So I invited him for coffee yesterday.)
so I turned around all bright and cheery-like, surprised but happy to see him. Oh yeah, I thought. I invited him. It's amazing what they're doing with technology nowadays.
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