it’s not that I drink, it’s that I don’t stop

it’s not that I drink, it’s that I don’t stop, once I get started. and when I’m so pissed that I can’t even bring the bottle to my mouth I decide to pass out for an hour so that I can be sober enough to drink more. I go to the supermarket, buy beers, back home, finish them up. then I put my jacket on again and go to this chinese bar where I drink two camparis with white wine. then I go to this other bar owned by this  guy with dreadlocks and it’s two more glasses of white wine and then I decide it’s time to go back home, and I get something to eat first, but when I’m on my way I realize I need at least one more drink, so I go back to the chinese bar for a vodka tonic and when that’s gone I get another one and while I’m paying I get a beer to take away. then I black out and then I’m home and I call P and my face is all streamed and wet by the huge tears my eyes are producing. P wants to know what the fuck is wrong with me and I start blubbering about how alone I feel and how tired I am of being unknown and how my anonymity is erasing me and how not really existing for anybody makes everything not worth it.

but it’s just the drunk me talking and I’m blowing this out of proportion and there is someone out there who loves me, even if it’s just P, and it’s actually enough.

earlier on when I was at the chinese bar I just sat alone and stared at this guy who was sitting at the table in front of mine, alone, just like me, with the only difference that he was waiting for somebody. he had a shirt on buttoned all the way up to the neck and an hooded jacket on top of it and his neck was completely tattooed and so were his hands and knuckles and this suggested that probably the rest of his body was too. I guess I could have talked to him. we could’ve had a chat. but I can’t start a conversation with a stranger even when I’m that pissed and even if I could, I would probably freak him out because I can barely speak and it would be awkward to have a talk to someone in my state. his two friends arrived and he seemed relieved because for the whole time I didn’t take my eyes off him. I don’t know why. I didn’t even like him that much.

I woke up early this morning, and my head was killing me and I was dehydrated as usual and I thought how I’m getting used to all this: drink water, get paracetamol and go back to bed for at least another hour if I don’t want to be totally useless for the whole day. having drinking as an option is reassuring for me. I get a text from P saying she hopes I feel better today and that she loves me and I can’t give up and she’s grateful for my unconditional love. her electronic words make my eyes shine. I want to cry again. but I need to be drunk for that. I put some clothes on and go to the bar downstairs to get credit for my phone. I’m hanging heavily. I may need a beer.

on love #1

love will make it up for all the rest. for our failures, our delusions, our solitude, our bitterness, our grudges, our inabilities. love is  what’s going to fill the void, the knight that carries our redemption. love is an undeserved trophy, a self-built house of cards whose shakiness we keep ignoring. it’s the religion we turn to when there’s nothing else to hang on to. an excuse to feel sad. love is what we want. what allows us to walk in the rain and feel reassured or sit in a dark corner, head between hands, in company of our pathetic self.

Philip:

I’d just left his house and he told me ‘I’ll see you after the week end, I’m going to London’. If he’d stabbed me right in the chest it would have hurt the same. you don’t need to go out for the week end with your fucking friends if you’re in love. you have me. I have you. we have each other. we belong to each other. you can’t make this decisions for yourself, you owe me an explanation, we owe each other. always. I own you.

It looked easier on the paper. I slammed the door and walked away but I kept checking my phone, convinced he was about to call or text me. he’s going to cancel his week-end of course, he’s not gonna fuck this up, he doesn’t wanna lose me. but no, the phone doesn’t ring, nor do I receive a text message.

love is somebody else’s skin in your bed, an arrow tattooed on your groin, a borrowed hooded jacket that you’re not going to give back, a shared cigarette, a drive home on a cab at 4 in the morning holding hands.

now, this is just wishful thinking really.

after three days, I haven’t heard from him and I figured, well, he’s trying to teach me a lesson, we need time apart, he’s right, I’m too exclusive. I should probably enjoy myself too, go out with friends, have a drink, maybe even get laid.

but no, I’m not interested in doing anything, let alone seeing anyone. I can just think of me, it’s enough really, I’m happy that way, just waiting like a stupid sod on the couch.

It’s monday, I think he’s back from London, he definitely is, yes, he’s return flight was last night and it’s 5 pm now, he must be getting off work, he’ll call soon.

yes, he’ll call soon. yes….

or maybe not.

It’s saturday, he never called, but fuck him, he’s the one missing out, by thursday he will be erased from my mind. he just wasn’t the one, he’s too cold and also very damaged, he’s got psychological problems, he’s been through a lot, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

he’ll call me, eventually. I know that.

but It’ll be too late.

satellites_an encounter told by memory #4: 2011

I’m waiting for tube in Stazione Centrale and my train will be here in three minutes and a half.  we’re well into spring, everything melted and winter is far gone. a voice calls my name, I turn around and I see M in front of me. I stand there, dumbfounded, with my mouth half open, and the only thing I manage to say  is ‘what are you doing here?’.  he looks clean. he’s been studying in Milan and is about to graduate, he says. ‘I was in Dublin for six years’ I say, ‘I just got back a few months ago’. he also asks me about N and I say that I’m still in touch with him and we see each other once in a while, when we get the chance: that N is still in Naples and he finally managed to graduate and nobody could believe it. I throw some random, distracted glance at his body and notice he gained weight. he’s obviously embarrassed, and probably feels the need to apologize for never calling, never trying to get in touch. with a quick flash, my mind takes me to our last call, when he was getting back to rehab. ‘I had to cut everyone out’ he says. ‘I caused too much trouble’. I look at him with what I think is a serious and understanding gaze. through the years, my eyes filled with tears thinking about him, but crying it’s always been difficult. after four stops we get to our destination. four stops for seven years. on the escalator, he tells me about this girl he’s with now, a painter, and I feel a slight, itchy discomfort, that’s only a pale reminder of the moments where I actually suffered for him.

we get outside. the sun hits our faces and we look at each other with eyes ajar. I look up and see the dark tall building and the sky on the background, perfect blue, with its fat, well defined clouds. then we just stand there and look like total strangers. we don’t know each other anymore. our lives crossed, so unforgettably, so triumphantly, before they parted ways.  we could exchange phone numbers, meet for a beer or maybe for lunch. but it’s not the case. and I don’t want to anyway, or it doesn’t make any difference. we’re just shadows now: metabolized pieces of each other’s past. ‘I’ll see you next time I meet you by chance’, I say. he answers with a sincerely bright smile that lights up his face and turns around. M goes his way and I go my way. after a few steps, I turn around for one last glance, and I think of all the times we said goodbye and I used to hope he would turn around too. but he never did. he never turned around. as if he was ready for the next event, for what happens afterwards. as if looking back didn’t make any sense.

He’s lost in the crowd now. I think that I’ll never see him again.

satellites_an encounter told by memory #3: 2004

2004_1

we haven’t heard from M in two days. the last time I saw him was at the train station where he took a train for Bologna. he asked me for money, but I only had twenty euros so I couldn’t give him any. I knew he needed them to get dope once he got to Bologna. his mother has been talking on the phone with my sister who kept her informed on what he was up to. a few months ago his parents sent him to this rehabilitation center near Varese. it’s an hidden place on the mountains where they use the same method they used with vietnam reduces when they had to be reintegrated into society. it’s a long process, where they rebuilt your mental schemes and give you as many rules as possible to make everyday life bearable without addictions. but M didn’t make it and decided to leave. they put him in this room, with a chair in the middle, where he was supposed to think about it for a few hours before making a final decision. but he’d already made up his mind, so he took a train for milan and showed up at my place. he only had his backpack, with a jumper and an electric razor inside. he tried to shave his head in the train’s toilet and looked like a scabby dog. after a week at my place, mostly spent getting drunk and laying on the couch waiting for me, he decided to leave. you work all day and I’ve got nothing to do, he said. now he’s vanished, though,  and his mother keeps calling in to check if he made any contact with us. I’m starting to think of the worst:  that he ODed in some filthy toilet or in some remote corner of the train station where nobody can find him. all I can do is walk up and down my living room, unable to relax, nevertheless find peace, hoping, maybe, deep down, for something tragic to happen, that would set the right tone on this all story and finally put it to rest. until the phone rings: it’s him. the mother-fucker acts as if we talked five minutes ago, of course, and hasn’t even the slightest idea of how worried we were.  he says that he loves me and I’m his good friend, which means he’s full of heroin to the bone. he says that once he got to bologna he visited his old flatmates to borrow money he then used to buy dope. he says that once the money were gone he met this american man who was so kind to him and bought him food and let him stay in his hotel room. he says that he feels good and he’s happy and that that’s the life he wants to lead. that when you have dope that’s all you have to think about. I immediately hang up on him, slamming the receiver so hard that it must have sounded as a fuck you on the other side. and it was. my mind goes straight to M fucking the guy in the hotel room. I think about the guy’s face in his intimate parts and I curse them both. I think about how unpleasant and ugly this american man must be and how M could end up like this: kept on heroin by some old rich bastard. I think about a year ago, in Naples, when we kissed on that landing and how it seemed the beginning of something. I think of how I hate my life right now. I think that having an addiction is much more dignified than working in a crappy office and that at least M was able to make a decision for his own life and dedicated it to heroin. I pick up the receiver again and dial N’s number. M is still in Bologna, I say. I know where you can pick him up.

2004_2

I call N and ask him to pass me M on the phone. he’s taking him back to the rehabilitation centre. hearing his tone when he’s not high breaks my heart a little. I’m going back there, he says, it’s for the best. I swallow to avoid bursting into tears. I visualize the highway, full of sun, like California, and him, on the backseat,  looking out the window. I see his long hair and his unironed t-shirt and his metal rings and leather bracelets and the muscles of his lean arms. I imagine the landscape, unfolding out the window, and always regenerating into something new. I know how difficult is for M to stay sober. I know that he would gladly smash his head against that window and inject into that uncatchable landscape the right quantity of blood. just enough to feel the pain. just enough to make its vision bearable. I crave M as much as he craves heroin, yes. and that’s making me want to crave heroin, yes. but the only thing I’m trying to get hooked on it’s actually him. ‘I can’t call you or write to you from there’, he says. ‘I know, I know’.

satellites_ an encounter told by memory #2: 2003

I came to Naples to meet M and we’re walking through Piazza del Gesù. M says that I look fine and he likes ‘the way I carry myself’. he hasn’t touched heroin for a few months and gained some weight. we decide to go to his place, which is in upper Corso Vittorio. once in his room, we sit on the bed and in a few second he’s already tighten the belt around his arm. after he’s done, he puts it around my arm, shoves the needle in and pushes the plunger, observing the reactions on my face with curiosity, in a slightly sadistic way. then we just lay there, in our private limbos, for a few minutes, until we look for each other’s hand. I haven’t seen M in a while. after an hour, we are finally in the condition to stand and decide to leave the house. we walk until Mergellina, on the seafront, and seat on the rocks. we talk for ages. the sky is grey behind him and so is the sea. it’s january. the wind blows strong around us and M’s hairs move frenetically like crazy whips. we are seating on two different rocks and I suddenly wish we were closer. even though we’re not hungry at all, we decide to go to this place not so far where they say the make the best pizza in Naples. it’s a simple place, with long tables, that looks more like a canteen than an actual restaurant. there’s no private tables and this guy seats right beside us. he must be in his lunch break and he’s wearing a tie. he obviously wants to start a conversation and asks where we’re from, what we do. he soon realizes how stoned we are and feels entitled to lecture me saying that this is my life and I have to be careful. then he quickly wipes his mouth and leaves. as he’s watching him walk out the door, M wonders why people are so into giving cheap life lessons. it’s because it makes them feel better about themselves, I say.

in the evening, N and S arrive with their car and we drive through the city, aimless, stopping in a few bars for drinks. M and I are in the backseat and he carefully positions his hand on my leg. then he kisses my cheek repeatedly and moves to my ear, sucking it, and continues down my neck. I really don’t know how to react to all this so I decide not to. I’m a little worried about the others may think but they don’t seem to notice. before we call it a night, we get more dope and park the car down M’s apartment building to shoot up. once we’re done, M asks me to take him upstairs, because he can’t really walk, and he also wants to talk to me about something. as we get out of the car, N mumbles a couple of words like ‘don’t be long’,  but he’s about to pass out and I can tell he actually doesn’t give a shit. we enter the gate, walk the first flight of stairs and stop in the landing. M turns around and looks at me with shiny, imploring eyes. ‘do you like it when I kiss you?’, he says. ‘yes’. ‘would you like to kiss me right now?’ he hasn’t finished the sentence and our faces are already getting close. then our lips join and our tongues too and it’s perfect, as if it was always meant to be this way, and rather than kissing we’re trying to devour each other’s face. with my hands I feel his shoulder blades, his spine and his ass under his jeans. my blood pressure concentrates on my face and I can see it going red and I can feel this heath running through my whole body. I can’t believe this is happening. I never imagined something so overwhelming. I take a big breathe with my nose and let myself go. the corners of my eyes are wet. it’s like a big revelation. the image of the two of us standing up her and holding each other up is so epic. I wish I could take it forever with me. I wish it didn’t have to end.

satellites_ an encounter told by memory #1: 1999

it’s july and it’s hot as hell outside. M and I spend the afternoons in his room with the light filtering through the blinds. we positioned two mattresses and a rug on the floor. on the rug there’s a huge ashtray, a box always full of grass, roll papers and all our getting-stoned equipment. M has a long pile of CD’s with the whole discography of Aerosmith and Nirvana and Red Hot’s Californication. we don’t leave the house unless we run short of our grass supplies, in which case we have to face the sun and it’s like fighting on the frontline. M only has his underwear and we basically just talk and chill and he often takes short naps.  I personally can’t fall asleep during daytime so when that happens I just hang out by myself, keep changing CD’s ’cause I want to listen to different tracks and think about when this summer will end and how comforting this situation is for me and how it was before getting here and how I pushed back all the shadows. I also watch him sleep. something innocent takes over when he’s passed out. something you’re not able to see otherwise. he relaxes into this long and deep breaths that make him look like a child. and I get lost following the line of his skinny legs and his face pushed against the pillow with his fat lips and his long eye-lashes. in the rare occasions we feel like going out, we go to this park in the valley. there’s a crystal clear water stream that comes down right from the mountain and runs through it.  you can rent this small pedal boats and go till the end of the park where there’s this old rusty bridge we usually stop under, sometimes even for hours.  the trees are so tall and their crowns create shadows and the surface of the water reflects everything as perfectly as a mirror. it’s beautiful. it’s a place for us.

I left home a few months ago. there was this big fight and I ran outside as fast as I could and my father came after me on a bike with this big butcher knife in his hand. I got into this field of tall grass where I knew he couldn’t reach me, turned around and raised my arms crossed in the air as to say ‘I will have you arrested this time’. He went mad. I knew that was to worst thing I could do to him and that’s why I did it. after that, going back home equaled suicide. my mother, as usual, remained silent, not knowing what to say or what to do, hiding behind her broken heart and her ever-present depression.  I actually don’t even know where she was when it happened. she must’ve been seating on her  bedside staring at the wall or in the terrace on the back looking at the neighbors garden, hoping for something to distract herI always tell M that I envy him because his parents seem so open and smart and sensitive and seem to want the best for him. but M never comments on his family. it’s like running on this open road for miles and suddenly bump into a big wall. silence.

sometimes V hangs out with us, she’s from Naples. sometimes M and her start making out when we’re in his room. usually, I just continue doing whatever I’m doing and glance over at them once in a while. they don’t seem to realize I’m there in those moments. I feel left out, but it’s not so bad. days are very long. in the evening we cook something and drink ourselves senseless in the garden. sometimes we stay there till the morning. when we wake up the sky is clear and the grass is damp. we get up without saying a word, collect our empty bottles and drag ourselves inside.

summer city walk

I need to go out.

first I decide to go looking for her. she can heal me. the map I traced over and over inside my body takes me straight to where she lives. I’m wearing a white t shirt and dark sunglasses. I want to listen to different music. I walk all the way till here as if this was my last summer, my last possibility to find her. I ended up in a part of the city I didn’t know. well kept buildings, no litter, no ugly scribbles on the walls. asian cleaning ladies coming down the shiny marbled stairs of the entrances. I get to my destination, number 10. it’s a liberty style white building freshly renewed with huge shiny windows. it’s nice. I look for her name on the inter phone but there’s only numbers. I pick one randomly and ring. an old woman answers. I need to deliver a letter, I say, can you let me in? no reply. I wait. I hear a window closing and look up. I realize nobody’s going to let me in. I stay out there, stupid, daydreaming of her, inside, laying in her bed with pink velvet pillows, smoking a cigarette after another, with her headphones always on. her big dark shades to protect her from the light, long black hairs spread all around her. I wish there was a part of me that could talk to her telepathically. ask her to let me in. I wonder for a while, fantasizing about our magical long-waited encounter, then…

I leave.

the sun won’t give me a break. my back’s all sweaty and stuck to my t-shirt. I look for a place with air-conditioning but it’s all unappealing fancy restaurants with the waiters outside inviting you in, ‘would you like an aperitif?’ the muscles pumping out of their tight shirts, their stylish haircuts soaked in gel.

I keep walking.

the urban landscape changes. the more I walk the more it deteriorates around me, until I get where the prison is. I used to come here when I was a kid to visit my father. nothing has changed. a fortress  of cement with a big orange stripe that goes through its high damp walls as to clamp them tight. a rusty metal door. writings like ‘free our companions’ or ‘alexis we didn’t forget you’ don’t make it any less desolate. the last surrogate of hope and rebellion. it’s as if the whole prison just landed here, implanted its roots in the ground cracking the pavement. no past, no future..so unavoidable. so present. I walk away, turn back, and now I can see the tiny secured windows of the cells facing the big courtyard inside. I think I can spot somebody in there. some form of life or what’s left of a life slowly moving inside.  no need to rush, no need to pretend. every day is exactly the same. do they ever wonder what happens outside? can they see me standing out here? did my father ever came back here once he was out? but why would he? it’s easier to escape from the pain.

I walk away.

at this point I’m melting.  the city is suddenly so different and so real in such an unexpected way. everything I see, every person, every car, every traffic light…around each corner, life blossoms in all its rawness, as I sweat my bleeding memories out.

scars

the first thing I remember about the sun is the blinding light. the next thing I can recall, one of my earliest memories, is this nun in primary school slapping my face very hard. it was mean, because she caught me by surprise. then, then it’s me again, very small, in the bathrooom, looking up at my mom and dad kissing each other with love. for years, I couldn’t remember that moment. as if someone deliberately erased it from my mind. and then it was back. so vividly, so suddenly, like something that I should’ve never forgotten in the first place. the young me, the kid, observing love and tenderness for the first time. the weirdness of it. I suppose a part of me needed to remember that, even though I knew it wasn’t enough. visualizing an happy memory  couldn’t obliterate what happened afterwards. it all got so messed up. so permanently. other memories, I dont’ know. me running and my dad jumping on a bike and coming after me with a huge knife in his hand. one of those knives butchers use to cut big chunks of meat. I ran even faster into a field where I knew he couldn’t reach me, I turned around, looked at him, and raised my arms crossed in the air, as to tell him I would have him arrested, just to make him even more mad. it worked. he got mental. I can also see myself in my room, putting some music on and trying to shed a tear. failed. I also remember me begging my mum to please take me away. failed. when she felt too guilty for not doing anything she would take my father’s side, saying he was actually right: that we needed that kind of education and it was all my fault. I guess it made it easier for her, she hated feeling guilty. now, when we argue and I reminder her of that, she just changes the subject or pretends not to remember things. I call it selective memory, she’s so good at that.  once we were at my grandmas, in the countryside. I fell from a bike right in front of my father. a sharp stone dug a deep hole right above my knee. my father just looked at me with disappointment while I was crying and bleeding. when I look at that scar now, I’m not even reminded of that day anymore. It just doesn’t matter. after all my father sensed I didn’t like him, why would he help me?

during the last couple of years we lived under the same roof, alcohol didn’t make my father aggressive; or maybe his aggressiveness did not make me violent towards him, anymore. I would just ignore him. and he would cry in front of his friends saying I didn’t know how much he loved me. I remember thinking that wasn’t the point. and why when people hurt each other they always remind themselves of how much they love each other? there’s this guy I was with for a vey short time. I liked him and I liked fucking with him but he was living with his boyfriend. whenever we weren’t together I would think of the best possible way to hurt him. little things I could say or do that would hurt his feelings without giving him enough reasons to respond or fight back. his sensibility would detect my meanness without giving him enough elements to start an argument. I would often drive half an our to see him and live after five minutes with a stupid excuse just to make him feel bad and not in control.

the exact moment I stopped being victimized by my father was when I was fifteen. he came back home after spending two years in jail. I suppose it was fucking hard for him because things can change so much in two years and he really didn’t know how to act. I would yell back at him. we would get into this very physical fights where we would punch each other in the face or try to strangle each other. sometimes, when it was just the two of us, it could go on for an hour or even more. it was like a game, like playing the war. we also took little breaks when we were too exhausted. he did this thing where he would hold my throat tight using just to fingers until I was gasping for hair. and even that didn’t stop him. in those moments I remember thinking how good he was at that. I had to hit him right in the face to get rid of him and the day after he would have bruises as reminders and get even more mad. he also had this small scar on his cheek that I left him. I remember wondering what it would feel like to look at yourself in the mirror and being reminded every day of your son hitting you. I suppose the same thing as with the scar above my knee happened: after a while, it was just a scar like any other.

the potential of this setting

the guy asks me if I want to smoke a cigarette with him. he’s blonde and skinny and looks eighteen. hopefully is older than that. we leave the others inside. he lights my cigarette and after thirty seconds of conversation finds a way to ask me if I have a girlfriend. I wouldn’t have a girlfriend, I say, I would have a boyfriend. anyway, I don’t. oh, so you’re gay. he hasn’t even finished the sentence and his tongue is already in my mouth. I didn’t really expect that but I’m drunk and it turns me on right away. I hold his little blonde head in my hands and suck is neck. then I drag him on this big steps made of stone, I lift his shirt and start kissing and licking his flat pale belly. it’s easy to leave marks on skins like his. I get carried away and I don’t really give him the time to react to anything, or even breathe. we realize it’s not a good place, though, and everyone else is still inside so we decide to postpone our encounter. we go back inside and nobody seems to have noticed our absence or us coming back. I keep drinking and dancing and make jokes and laugh. after a few minutes I realize the guy is not around and I go looking for him. It’s raining outside. I find him standing against the big gate looking outside like a prisoner. as I get close I ask him what he’s doing. he turns around and I see the camera in his hands, just taking some pictures, he says. I get closer and I kiss him again and he kisses me back. there’s a little dark road that goes up the hill on the other side of the street. we clearly can’t wait any longer so we exit through the gate and take it. it’s dark and the sound of the rain clapping is loud around us. I go down a little slope I know and we undress each other. we lie down and I’m over him and I can see his pretty face. I hear the sound of the rain getting heavier. I guess is what you could call a romantic moment. I turn him around and his back is full of little black leaves, stalks and insects. a map of all you can find on the ground. I stare for a second, something is turning me off. it’s too rainy out here, I say. it takes a while to find our clothes, then we put them on and go back inside. everyone is too wasted to notice our state when we enter the room. maybe another hour goes by. at the end of the night I decide that I still want to get off and go to his room. there’s only a little lamp on and we get naked again. I get right to the point,  put my legs around his neck and start fucking his mouth. his eyes are closed as to say that’s what I wanted. he wants me to come over his face. I do that and his eyes are still shut.  we lie there, exhausted, for a few minutes. then I get up, collect my stuff, take a cigarette out of his packet and leave. he’s already asleep. I get dressed just outside the door. I go on the big balcony and light my cigarette. it’s silent. I burst out laughing thinking about the guy, earlier, looking up and telling me to talk to him in ‘italiano’ with my cock in his hands. the laugh turns into a smile that fades into a frown. I take a long drag from my cigarette. I think about all the fucks I had in my life and how they always follow the same routine. right ahead I see the dark shapes of the hills, the quietness of the moon casting a light on them. I think it’s beautiful. I think about the potential of this setting.

why we cry

I’m in one of those self service places full of washing machines, I really need clean clothes. I’m in Florence and I don’t really know why. I ask myself why we cry, why we want to cry? I was supposed to leave yesterday but something was telling me it wasn’t a good time. I’ve been down for the last week without really knowing the reason. anyway, yesterday. I couldn’t get a train in the afternoon so I postponed my departure for the evening, meanwhile I went for a walk with my sister and a friend. I couldn’t really talk, and everything was pissing me off. I had this weight pushing on my head and the muscles of my face were very tense. It’s gravity and unexplained anger, that’s what happens to me when it’s not going well. we went to my friend’s boyfriend apartment, I sat on the sofa, played video games, and it was kind of fun. then I sent a text to Ana saying: I think I’m clinically depressed. she called me back right away and from her voice I could tell she was high, she can’t sleep at night and needs something to keep her active during the day. she says the phase I’m going through is normal. I could feel the tears in the back of my eyes ready to burst. why we cry. why do I need to cry. she told me I shouldn’t give up and I was like, give up what? it’s just emptiness, I’m just a bored person. I hang up and look out the window. what I see is a narrow tunnel with clothes hanging that leads to a very small courtyard. there’s a pink plastic plate full of water in the end and it’s raining inside it, everything is wet. I stare for a couple of minutes and I wish I could take a photograph of this moment. I focus on this image of myself, out the window, as if I’d jumped out of my body and what I’m staring at is actually me. I feel like I’m floating, but not in a good way. I go back inside, get my stuff and give it another try at the train station, but no way. I’m just not meant to leave this city. I stay. I still don’t know why I’m trying so hard to cry. at the station, I get a refund for my ticket and decide right away to spend it all in alcohol. then I think about something I told my sister a few days ago. we were having a pint and out of nowhere I ask her why all our relationships suck and we can’t really get close to people and are always afraid of getting hurt and always find excuses to avoid taking up are lives. we always need breaks, I said, do you realize we are damaged because of what we’ve been through when we grew up? She went blank for a second and said she never thought about it. she seemed a little surprised. that’s the difference between us, I said, I wish I wasn’t so analytic. I go back to myself at the station, not knowing what to do. I realize that there’s nothing to do. and I don’t know why we cry. I start walking in the rain and I don’t mind getting wet. by the time I get to the first bar, I’m soaked. for a while, I’m just not gonna make any decision.