Love and Aloe

You used to say that I was exempt from all the mean things you did and said to people. The death cursing

under your breath geared at someone that didnt understand what you wanted, or that didnt have enough

change or did anything that didn’t go as you planned or imagined. I sometimes apologized for you, sometimes I ran away. I would tell you that it was mean to do that but you didn’t care and alway said that I was on a

different level. Except when I did something you didn’t like, or not how you liked it, or when you were tired. I

was most of the time scared of you. scared of you being mad at me and scared of feelng like I wasn’t enough. I have never been enough for you. I still am.

Years ago when I used to have panic attacks you would either try and hug me or tell me to go buy weed. The

hugging only happened in winter, in the summer I couldn’t even touch you, unless you were drunk and high

and all your walls were down. You felt sorry for me and I talked and talked about how my parents had

“screwed” me up. You talked the same way about yours. But aren’t all parents ultimately submitted to their kids saying that about them? I forgave my parents, you erased yours.

I was attracted by your strange and different ways. If a crazy broken man like you loved me then I figured I had

to accept it for what it was. In the early days I tried breaking it off but you always convinced me to stay. It took

me months to fall in love with you, even though you had fallen so long before me. The year that I left my four

year old daughter with my parents I acted as crazy as ever, did all the crazy things, was irresponsible, unhinged, out of control. And you were still there.

One time at an after party I was so high, I was all over the place. You were standing off to the side and a

perfect stranger said to you, “look at that crazy freak! She is totally insane!” You smiled and said, that’s my

girlfriend. That evening you covered me in aloe lotion because I had a first degree sun burn all over my body. I

used to feel proud of that day, now it just seems confusing.

I didn’t know I had depression, I just thought I was a little crazy, a bit off. Nothing weed couldn’t control. I was always a cheater, it was just something I did. You fought back with more cheating and that just created a

cycle of lies and confusion. I cheated alot with girls, it made me feel powerful, I wanted to have threesomes,

orgies, you gave in a couple of times. I think it scared you and made you feel inadequate. Our sexlife wasn’t

ever easy, sober sex was a mystery and seemed unattainable.

I spent the days apologizing, you spent the days forgiving me. Why was I always the crazy one? All the weight of

insanity fell upon me. You took it upon yourself to try and fix me. I know now how difficult that must have

seemed for you, how you must feel now that I am not only not fixed, but more depressed than I have ever

been. You have lost hope for me. You took steps to fix yourself, to look inside and clean the gutters of your own despair, I did not. You have a attained a personal peace that I can only dream of, and because of that we have

grown apart.

You don’t death curse anymore, you just don’t know how to treat me. I’m stuck in a revolving space of paranoia and fear. You aren’t holding my hand anymore because you don’t feel that I will learn anything. You

take me for granted and don’t even know how that makes me feel. I understand now that the only way to fix

me is for me to fix me. Me. I cannot depend on you anymore, for all the years you tried I am thankful. I am also really scared.

Read the next chapter "For the love of curls"