Letters written, never meaning to send

I felt a small sense of accomplishment when I realised I hadn't written to you in a year. They never substantial communications, they were innocuous emails, at best. Reminders of in-jokes and maybe songs you might like, things you might have seen or missed. I didn't write frequently but I came to realise my writing fell into some sort of an abyss. No reply. There was something tragic about that silence and I slowly came to accept that when my name flashed upon your screen it triggered some sort of shame stimulus. I was a living shame stimulus. So I stopped writing.

I still find things I want to talk about but I let that inclination evaporate. I think about it and carry on much like a recovered junkie. I haven't reconciled that existential mystery: am I remembered with scorn or am I remembered with longing? I once believed in false dreams and images of warmth, but now I don't know. I tend to believe in something more complicated now. It's a bit like a hologram, you can hold it to the light and play with its perspective, and the colours will change, from moment to moment. There was a full spectrum of love and toxicity, I've had to face that alone.

I miss you in this reckless, life-wasting way. I can't write anymore, I can only hope you can listen to the songs we once listened to and remember some of the cackling, some of the harmonies we once sang together. It's not much but it will have to do for now.

Guidance

It's only when you open up to the wrong person that you realise how multifaceted grief can be. You mourn for lost moments, lossy memories and an even lesser regard. You've lost out on the most valuable cultural exchange but they never seems to understand it. They think sadness comes from the memory of physical love, but it's often about a more simple desire to be present with another person: it's a longing for the warmth and the education to carry on, as promised.

It's an ineffectual desire in light of where I find myself now. I've been attempting to think of the future and address those plans I once had. It's uncomfortable to dream, now that I find that I have to develop some other life. I wake up each afternoon in a kind of panic. I feel less and less welcome in the hostel, having read horrible things that were intended for me and horrible things that weren't. I have uncovered a plot to replace me and someone else must work for free until I decide that it's time.

I labour on ancient memories after a year of silence, his suggestions that I leave the hostel (and London) as soon as possible. We frequently described this place as a kind of purgatory, as the events of each night managed to bleed into one another and everybody appeared to be wearing the same clothes constantly. I refer to those poetic reflections, those agreements that touched upon how we have all lived together knowing that it was the best and the worst way to live. We lived knowing that this was a stolen season and none of this was ever real.

I don't know where I could possibly go, but I hope I'll have my desk, my books, some air, some light and my guitar. There'll always be those persistent dreams of demos with fuzzy hooks and loaded lyrics, but I know that I will naturally gravitate towards essays about music, grief, love and hope. The wrong people may characterise it as a destructive habit to remember, reframe and honour how I've been mistreated, but for me, it's the only way I can learn and grow and find out what I want. I don't want to talk anymore, I just have to write...

Metaphors

I remember a time when I wrote and he replied. I wrote to him during his work hours, delivering news of triggers and associations as if he were still here: reports of the fridge door having fallen off its hinges and a photo of "breadcake", a piece of white bread with some candles impaled in it. He wouldn't reply as often as he used to, but he would claim that he sent messages that I never received. When I did receive a reply, he was polite but distant, half-heartedly entertaining my stupid stories about a life which could only really be described as Fawlty Towers meets The Young Ones. I knew that he hated it here and I knew he would never return after he left.

I mourned his physical and emotional absence. His replies lacked the kind of warmth and personal interest I had grown accustomed to. I dreamt up this metaphor of being partially submerged in a raging river. I would cling onto a rock to save myself from being carried away in the torrent. He was like that rock, inadvertently shaped like a handle, not purposefully doing anything to encourage me to hold on, but still providing a means for me to cling and hope. The river represented other hostel encounters and the existence of other possibilities that I purposefully avoided. I held my head above water, still feeling that pressure to accept his choice, to let go and move on.

I dwelled on that scene, describing it to Don, a short-term guest who had the tendency to veer our every conversation into the realms of intense romantic trauma. Don had the noble intention to keep our conversation light, but we were genuinely incapable of small talk and so he still found himself there with me at reception, extolling brutal therapy til the early hours of the morning. I'll never forget how he described what was happening to me, he said it was akin to a kind of haemorrhage: "You are used to having this daily exchange and now it's like you are losing your life force. You are bleeding everywhere. You are getting nothing back anymore..."

To anybody who had any kind of distance from the situation, the sudden and complete lack of responsiveness was to be expected. I could never really accept it, however, relying upon prior assurances that we would always have access to one another. He would always respond to me. In light of that, we had always discussed concepts like legacy and consequence, perhaps as a subconscious attempt to help me manage those future triggers and associations that would plague me. I'm now left to consider the veracity of all these grandiose assurances and I don't know how to reconcile any of it: "I won't be able to listen to music without thinking of you..."

Notebooks need to be filled. Essays, songs and unsent letters need to be written. It will eventually manifest in kindness, clarity and indifference. Most importantly, I have to continuously remind myself that although there might be silence, but the dialogue which I share with Missy Laur provides the kind of space and patience necessary to wring out any plague. It was surreal to have her sit across from me in reception, as so many others had done before. I described Don's vivid metaphor to her. I added that her insight had always managed to make me feel so alive, so together. I felt so gratified that she knew it too: "Of course! I am your dialysis machine."

Occupation

Ricardo would sit across from me when everything was quiet and dark. Everyone in the kitchen had stopped creating their messes, everyone in the lounge room had abandoned their epic film. He would ask me questions about love, lust and attachment, pausing to listen to my theories and then clarifying his own view. There would never be any embarrassment between us, we would merely attempt to describe an irrational attitude.

I would tell him things that I only ever clarified in morning pages, how the great lovers reflect certain passions like music, writing or creative projects, all things that continue to exist within myself. It's a moment that rang out, that second he asked me, "But doesn't it make you angry that they still occupy so much of your heart?" I felt such relief when I responded, "But they don't. They don't occupy any part of me any more."

I don't know when they left me, but I think I accepted that it was absurd to grieve, it was foolish to yearn when the present moment opened up so many more possibilities. They still exist in the ether though, as remorseless yet cowardly ghosts in stories. They are one dimensional figures with detailed and finite tastes and persuasions. I make careless declarations, "Of course I still love them, I will always love them... it's just that I've grown committed to those friends who stay, those who ultimately choose to be with me."

Translations

I was so alarmed when he said it to me, I was convinced that it was a mistranslation from the Dutch: "It takes a real man to hurt a woman." It was such a curious expression that I rushed to write it down, not wanting to forget it. When I asked what he meant by that, he went on to explain that it takes courage for a man to take responsibility for the pain he's caused. I said I agree absolutely, although he probably could have expressed it in a slightly different way.

I like to think of myself as an honourary man. I insist that the men around me treat me as such. I encourage them to confide, discuss and describe the way they treat women. I do not take particular offence when they generate an endless stream of seemingly sexist synonyms, ranging from the fat and the stupid to the needy and hysterical. I do not feel particular disappointment when they detail the hollow physicality of their latest conquest. It is a compliment that I know, it is a compliment that they tell me.

A friend often pleads with me to be careful with such confidences, she tries to convince me that knowing such truths will ultimately damage the way I perceive men. I always laugh, because there's no other way to react to such a suggestion. For me, it seems counter-intuitive to fly the flag for feminism when I'm privy to such discussions. Instead, I listen. I try to understand their motivations and justifications. I try to find the source of their cruelty and thoughtlessness.

When I was younger, my brother predicted that I would marry a wife-beater. I never asked why, I had always assumed it had something to do with his obsessive compulsion to punish, bully and control myself and my mother. For this reason, I'm unsure how we ever became friends, but we did for a short time. I was 15 and we would talk for hours and hours, all while listening to early Depeche Mode on our all-night drives to Nunawading. I once asked him if he ever regretted how he treated us: "I've never hurt either of you. I've never done anything wrong..."

Whenever I recall his brutality, I'm reminded of that moment. I'm reminded of that flippant, completely remorseless sense of entitlement. For whatever reason, he felt like he needed to do what he did.

He and I have not spoken in three years, although I find myself silently counting the years over and over again, as if I've made some huge mistake. I don't recall any words during that last interaction, I just recall the ferociousness with which he spat on me. I'm filled with curious feelings of disgust and self-satisfaction when he tells my mother that he misses my emails. He tells her that he thinks I write better than anyone else in the family. I know that I'll never speak to him again, in the same way that I know that I'll never forgive him.

Perhaps it makes sense then, that I should look for that illusive assumption of responsibility in the uncensored accounts of male friends and heartbreakers. Sure, I will always yearn for a sincere statement of remorse, I will always long for an explanation. The thing is that I know how they speak about us. I know how they think about us. It is a compliment that I know, it is a compliment that they tell me.

Persuasion

There's this moment that keeps winding itself round my head and throat. A moment that occurred during that last conversation, where I had described the terms of disengagement. For a moment that keeps returning to me, I can't remember exactly what I said. Something like that he'd go back to her and our existence would be wiped. "And what are you supposed to do?" He'd ask me. "Accept it. What else can I do?"

I wonder if I ever could have exploited the luxury of persuasion, as she did. His question makes me wonder if I could have fought, if I could have won. Is it possible to make someone love you again? Is it really possible to win someone back in some grand cinematic gesture? It's a scenario I'd never really imagined for myself, but then I don't believe that I can convince anyone to love me.

I keep seeing all those successful romantic appeals, not in life but in art. There are painted murals, long-haul flights, declarations over the PA and grand-stand karaoke. It indulges that impossible fantasy that you can do something. It's another world where words have this peculiar currency. You can say something heartfelt and persuasive and it'd change the course of your entire life.

There is this hopelessness, living in the knowledge that there was nothing I could have said or done. I imagine that in this flippant question, there was this unexplored possibility and I could have had the life that I was promised. I tend to forget the persuasiveness of the words I had used. I tend to forget how it became apparent that he had never bothered to read any of those carefully crafted appeals.

Aversions

The writing amnesty has come as a surprise. I figured I'd always write, whether it'd take the form of morning pages, essays, scripts, emails, tweets or text messages. Lately, I've refrained from words, from inkstained hands and repetitious thoughts. The amnesty has come as a surprise, because I had always believed that to write was to feel normal. Even the most meaningless, mindless, pointless thoughts - get it down and you will siphon your heart.

I daydream a lot, I nightwalk a lot, I process very little. My existence is vague but I never seem to shake that tyrannical sense of obligation, that feeling like I should be getting it all down. I should be committing to my past and my present, I should be writing to connect, to make sense of the love and the loss. I try to convince myself that the writing amnesty is some perverse therapy, that the undefined will obscure the grief.

I'll have to start again somehow, but I'm not exactly sure when it will happen. I'm still convinced that to write is to feel normal, but I'm not inclined to rush back to that sense of normality. I'll keep dwelling upon the reconstructive power of creative inaction. I would never recommend it to anyone, but I'll think of its function, during those daydreams and nightwalks. I'll marvel at how it can be so easy and so difficult, all at the same time.

Disorientation

I remember that moment of vague consciousness, when our bus steadily wound round the steep cliffs of Como. It was night and I could no longer see the lake or the mountains, only darkness and distant pin-pricks of light. We weren't saying anything to each other, we were just listening to random selections from the folder, Italo Disco.

I put on Lost in the Night by Costas Charitodiplomenos. I had been singing it constantly in Milan, especially, much like I had sung Roxette's Fading Like a Flower in Stockholm. He would never tell me to shut up, in fact he'd often join in, perhaps in an attempt to create some future musical association.

In spite of my singing its lyrics over and over, I had never paused to consider its poetics: lost in the night, walking alone, lost in the night, left on my own, lost in the night, looking for love, lost in the night, drifting I'm looking for your love...

All of a sudden, I became inexplicably captivated by the tragedy of Lost in the Night. I fell in love with the idea of wandering through a city's back streets, disorientated by grief. There was something beautiful about his desperate and relentless imaginings, hearing her voice, seeking her ghost.

I would soon drift off, but I would later revisit those lyrics, again and again. I doubt I can ever faithfully identify why I am so drawn to it, especially since it had taken so long to develop that personal resonance. It somehow means more now.

He is condemned, forever haunted. Never to find his way back.

Witty

Aperture

It was one Wednesday morning in London town, when Sharron and I were sipping rose lemonade in a vintage camera coffee house. We took photographs of old cameras with new cameras and I took a photograph of myself (or "a naked selfie", as Andrew would call it). My complexion was pallid, my eyelids smeared with Kohl, my overgrown fringe slightly parted. The fatigue is clear, the resignation obvious, the grief apparent.

I didn't delete that photograph, as I should have. It didn't go with the rest of the online travel propaganda, all those check-ins and photographs which would suggest endless days of fun-filled adventure. Then again, perhaps that's why I kept it. Inasmuch as the photograph reveals something grim and truthful, I know its meaning will transform itself in time. One day, I'll look and I won't see his damage. I'll look and I'll see something else.

Pennies

It was a bizarre ritual I had devised some years before. Often, while waiting to get into a club, I'd hand over one of the pennies that lined my rucksack. It seemed to be overflowing with pennies since my 2005 English adventure and although it was never a big deal to hand one over, I'd closely examine how they'd react. Some would be confused, unable to understand why I would hand over something so fiscally worthless. Others, namely the important one, the one who ruined me, seemed to get it. I was bemused to see him closely examining the brass coin, grinning. He would soon boast proudly that he affixed the penny to his wall in order to hold up a poster of Johnny Marr. He would later attempt to return the penny to me, at the end of one of our many epic break ups. I was just about to get out of his car when he slipped the penny into my hand and I wanted to die.

I had never really felt the need to articulate the consequence of the penny, especially since it had been so long since my rucksack had been lined with them. I found myself talking about it with you, for some reason. I had only just met you for the first time a few days before, but we felt content and comfortable enough to talk for hours and hours at Sousou. Even then, you marvelled at how alike we were, often proclaiming that we were separated at birth. I remember your retelling of G. K. Chesterton's short story, What I Found In My Pocket and I can only assume that it inspired me to tell you about the ritual I once practised. I came up with some very vague analysis, suggesting that it was a kind of innocuous test, something to do with the heart. I wanted to see how they would treat something with so little value.


Months later, we met upstairs at Bimbo's and you proudly boasted that you had a present for me. It was a book wrapped in crinkled and faded Florentia paper, allegedly found in an abandoned cupboard. I was thrilled to find it was an alarmingly new-looking copy of Anthony Thornton's Libertines book that you allegedly found in an op shop. More poignantly, you had attached a 10p coin to the back cover with masking tape. We never really spoke about what it all meant, in fact it was probably the first time that we had ever stopped talking for more than a few moments. I suppose when I think about it now, it was the first time that I ever felt like I was on the back foot. Where I had assumed that I was always in the position of the sincere and vulnerable, I was being asked if I was for real.

As it stands, I'm unsure whether I'd ever want to voluntarily hand over trust like a worthless penny. I once thought I was impervious to harm, after the damage sustained from the important one. I imagined I had perfected an almost undetectable level of detachment and that's the reason why I stopped myself from practising this ritual. I never trusted you with a penny, as such, but I made the mistake of handing over more trust than I ever would have consciously permitted. If only I had been smarter, if only I had been more stealthy, if only I had been more sensible, I would have known. I would have known not to bother.

The Hypocritical Headband

Missy Laur and I would often preface advice with the expression, "please excuse the hypocritical headband". It was a reference to the large 1960s headbands I used to wear. Like the headband, the hypocrisy of the scenario was so dramatic that it could never be avoided and instead of being sensible and attempting to take our own advice, we would use the hypocritical headband as a mechanism to deliver lectures, guidance and comfort.

We wore the headband in good faith, we did. We were deathly aware of our mutual propensity to obsess, in spite of our reassurances that there would come a time when we wouldn't. She told me repeatedly that things would get better and after a very long time, they actually did. I would reassure others too, sitting across from dear friends at Sousou. I would tell them that no matter how painful it is now, everything will eventually numb out in time.

Those reassurances now seem so wildly insincere, so desperately hypocritical. I can't believe I ever forgot how painful it could be, but then I find it hard to believe I ever managed to endure it all before. I know on some fundamental level that it will be their words, the words of Missy Laur and Louise Sucre that will ultimately cure me. I have no idea what words could make for any immediate cure but I will try and listen. I will try and get better.