vacate

Yesterday, driving south to Austin from Dallas, I created beautiful images in my head. I danced on an empty wooden floor, surrounded by empty tables, the tike lights glittering through the wavering trees. It was dark but lit autumn-like, the dead of summer sterilizing all it’s victims and keeping them in their hotels to rest and relax after hours at the beaches. Inside the hotel was staunch and sticky and mysterious. I was glad we had the bar to ourselves, the few other couples sipping their strong special-occasion nightcaps, and the thoughtful loners that would graze past, lost in thought or the transience of what was left behind.
In my mind, I would be walking away from Evan and his faceless friends. I’d strand myself along and stop on the wooden dance floor. I’d move to unrecognizable beats and pretend they were mixtures of styles combined to make me feel emotional, but stable and detached.
I’d close my eyes and feel the breeze; I’d open my eyes and look through the trees, around at moments between the bartender and his bottles, the elderly couple with their shawls around their necks. I’d feel the laughter and calm curiosity ruminating between Evan and his friends. It felt relaxed and happy and young and calm, but there was something else that only I was a part of. I stood on the dance floor unnoticed, not really looking at anything, the momentous emitting from my eyes and fingertips, feeling some vivid, unrestrained tranquility. I was invisible, beautifully invisible and I felt like air.
Events get fuzzy after that. Projections of him and I leaving Brazil together, alone from the rest of the group, and going off on our own linger around the ending.
Projections of seeing Adam at the bar: me holding a Vodka and listening to the ice cubes tanker into one another, it’s bitter smell daring the salty sea and sweat and body odor staining the air. I’m always speaking Portuguese and feeling free like language, full of the essence he drains of me.
Through my projections, we’re there for a long time. Staring at Adam, holding Evan's hand and transporting somewhere else, somewhere simpler.
I’m driving down the highway, halfway between Dallas and Austin, and I’m gazing up at the clouds. I want to explode into them and I’m pretending the sky is my mind and the clouds are people and memories and feelings. Everything’s equal and there aren’t really choices to be made.
Fantasies eventually intertwine and emotions unravel to create knots of tragedy and tension. The end I could never see. Sometimes, I’d look into Evan’s eyes and see into his mind and we’d be in a backyard, swinging on a hammock. All the parts of me he can’t relate to – all of the angst, and pointless thoughtfulness – I’d keep it to myself, while his hand rests on my thigh, our bodies slowly rocking, our faces upward looking through the trees. Eventually, it might strip away and fall down like leaves in front of my eyes. I’d look off and try to connect my thoughts and relate them to him, but they’d sound trite and nonsensical. We’d keep swinging and it would be all right.
Sometimes I’d be driving down roads with Adam. We’d watch things and think during the day and push everything out as soon as nightfall hit. He’d talk and talk and talk and I wouldn’t feel lonely by it. We’d look at our faces and at one another and keep driving.
I daydreamed for almost two hours about the small details: the crisp, pungent Vodka, twinkling in its clear glass. I thought of one morning on the beach, when I’d wake up at dawn and leave the hotel room to go down to the shore. I’d run and stop and look around and it would be empty. It would be the end of the world, like a beautiful scene in my mind with all of the sensory aesthetics tangible to my muscles and body and mind. I’d run into the water and lay back, languish in the womb. I’d float and stare at the clouds and the sky with my ears underwater. It was what it was like to be born and to stay there, without having to swallow the restrictions of living.
Although it was yesterday and things have changed those images, rendering them childlike and typical, I still think I’d like to drive from Dallas to Austin forever, being at some remote place in Brazil, tasting salt and sweat and smelling fresh breaths. I think I’d like to find a place where I can be that way all of the time. The pictures in my head are always different than the ones that unfold each day.


The reason I drove to Dallas on Tuesday only to come back on Wednesday evening was to steal Adderall from my brother. I think I should introduce that now as it may indicate something about my character or shed some light on the spiritual malaise you are about to take on as your own. It’s not necessarily the drugs that would make you think these things of me, but it’s the desire to steal them that would rightfully so suggest some character flaws. Maybe you understand and agree or understand and disagree or think a million different things. The point is, I haven’t said anything to warrant judgment up until now, so I wanted to make it straightforward.
I told Evan I went home to study the menu I have to memorize in order to resume my job as a waitress at a seafood restaurant here in Austin.
Adderall isn’t that important. It’s just a short divergence from everything else. It gives me a reason to feel illogical and rational and not really make sense, and it’s a relief from feeling how I do without an excuse.
My brother is prescribed to Adderall, which I don’t like, because I think it will invariably make him depressed and restless and lead him to the path I have decided to take. It’s long and dry and infinite and you feel no relief. It’s a life of self-punishment when you feel content, a life of false meaning and cravings for the ability to relate to other people without feeling gross. Drugs do that sometimes.
Or, for those who have fully worn out the delusion of escape through drugs, it just makes you feel comfortable feeling bad. Relishing in your sadness can feel very nice; when I’m wallowing at the times I should be smiling naturally, I feel a strange relief.
It’s like when I used to cut the soles of my feet. I’d cut off skin until it felt a little uncomfortable. I’d walk on it and feel tall and tolerant and savagely proud. Eventually, I would start cutting the whole underside of my foot: the arch would be covered in dried red smears and the palms would feel like bones clacking against the concrete.
I discovered it out of boredom, really. It was something to ameliorate normalcy, to rebel against all of the ignorant people feeding their stupidity and egos to feel life was easier until they died feeling alone for the first time. When I die, I’ll be prepared, as I’ve been living my whole life free of the apparition that you’re not alone.
Every time I’d walk on my freshly speared flesh, I’d wince and remind myself that I was always alone, that I’m the only person really inside my head. I’d cut close to the sides, so it’d be a risk for people to see and be disgusted and throw a fit. Only once did someone see without me showing them and however embarrassed I was for its ugliness, I still felt proud. Everybody’s ugly, I just took the mask off.

When I got home from the drive, I was buzzing with the shock of Adderall in my system. I had stolen four pills as not to create a problem for my brother who has probably become dependant on them to study and whatnot. I was warm all over and attributing everything to it, so I wouldn’t think the happiness and focus was real. I felt like I was flying, and it was a challenge to ground myself.
I’ll excuse feeling a shock of it into my system, but not out. It should just slowly fade away and I should forget what’s the difference. My reminders of its fakeness and dirty quick fix made me fall into the Atlantic Ocean but I didn’t forget how to swim.
I sat in front of the computer and listened to a CD. I chatted online and relished my CD. I could have left for Evan’s at any time, but I knew how I’d feel when I got there. I’d feel restless for feeling and not being able to expel it from me. When I sit there beside him, too angst to commit to anything but reading short stories or internet articles, all the thoughts I want to indulge in are pushed further inside of me. If I want to feel my solitude but I’m with someone else, then it’s lonely inside.
It doesn’t matter that I love him.
I walk through the bedroom door and we hug for a little bit. We end up on his bed, frantically pumping our hips into one another, me trying to divulge myself unto him, him kissing my neck and his scent making me crazy with love.
I’m not wondering what it’s like to be him or someone else. I feel like we’re the same people and I know what it’s like to be him always because he’s showing me his insides. Then it’s over because I climb on top and he looks peaceful and I don’t want him to be peaceful when we’re doing this right now, so I lay down beside him. I stare at the spinning fan and think of the loose images in my mind from driving and how they seemed as real as this. I wonder if this is going to be a longstanding image during the lonely moments – me thinking of feeling good and surrounded with effrontery and collisions between disaster and dream.
All night, our eyes glaze over the computer and the television, protruding like wasted little bulbs. I start to read short stories, but feel too affected to finish. I try not to clench my teeth. I wonder if I’ll be able to fall asleep tonight.
We lay in bed for a couple of hours and talk. It feels nice.