personal blog: simon

well three hours of sleep is shitty. my eyelids finally got glued together at around six simply due to pure exhaustion. but like a rehearsed speech, my body woke at nine. my internal clock sucks.

the aroma of brewed coffee spills from the tray and I tend to it carefully, abiding my nerves, trying to list the unclaimed items fetched in Kevin’s boxes. maybe there is something I don’t after all want to return. a thorn, not Kevin himself, but the breakup. the idea of causing someone pain and the fact that I am the cause, that’s what is heart-wrenching. I hate myself for I prefer to carry the wounds rather than to inflict them. pain is at times a heavy stone in my gut, but I am used to receiving it.

“men don’t cry. if you’re pushed, you push harder.” my father’s advice and then he would spoil me rotten. baseball cards and runs to toy store. my art decorated the fridge, the hallway wall, my bedroom, as if I was always escaping my reality and drowning in my own fantasies. “you’re not a coward.” another of my father’s proclamation. he didn’t like using sissy or wuss or a wimp. coward seemed to have a stronger and bolder hold, like a hero of its kind. my father considered Spiderman and Batman cowards, hiding behind their masks, but then he would buy me those action figures in abundance because I liked to have them, because I was his baby-boy.

so I hold my own now, or at least I try to, and I don’t even know why. I haven’t seen my father in over a decade.

I snap my fingers and retrieve from Kevin’s box a collection of pictures. first photo. Kevin and I sitting silently, hunched to the blaze of a fire-pit. I cannot recall who snapped the picture, but it must have been one of Kevin’s friends, as he has plenty. maybe Sasha. a summer ago at the annual outdoor musical festival. wildlife isn’t much of my sense of fun, same as loud noises, but Kevin had a blast. “isn’t this a blast?” he kept on asking throughout the day. I only grunted.

all of the photos. all capture Kevin’s smile and my grunts. it was never supposed to happen, the us. Kevin and I was never supposed to happen. it felt forced. or at least I felt that it did.

fuck it. I toss the pictures back to the box. all these recollections, if nothing than painful.

Kevin’s boxes, evidence of pain and regret. not the first time, I would collect his stuff and leave it collecting dust, a ploy knowing that I would reconsider, letting his apparel and knickknacks tug at my emotions until I cave in, until I would take him back, unquestioning my devotion, as if nothing has happened, as if no time has passed.

I take out my phone ready to text him, but I freeze. maybe allowing a day to stew over things be wise.

plus, this time, it’s different. my threat of moving, another empty verbal assault, the one Kevin would arrogantly muse, crinkling his face, “where you gonna go?” like I didn’t have any other choice but to be with him, like it was the most ridiculous threat he has heard, not an empty threat any longer. the “sold” sign on the window makes sure my argument is true, my decision’s set.

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