As spring flourished around us I took to picking her up after work and having an afternoon smoke at the park just outside of town. Every day we would ride on the merry-go-round... spinning and spinning and laughing out of control. I hadn't been stoned in so long, but getting stoned with her felt so good. In my head, I always imagined that I could feel her better when I was stoned... that maybe, just a little, she would seep under my skin and make me warm all over.
She recited poetry. William Blake, Alexander Pope, T.S. Eliot... and her favorite: E.E. Cummings. She would stand atop the jungle gym and shout the lyrics triumphantly. The saddest poems were battle cries to her. She laughed in their faces. "Sadness?" She would say. "Be gone!"
I never knew a person could memorize so many verses. Poetry had always flown directly out of my head when I read it. If it didn't have a tune the words became jumbled and backwards until I couldn't remember them at all. I could never recite poetry as she did. Not even as a singer and a song writer - the words on my tongue were flat and boring - but from her, it was music. I could feel the beat in her words, laying on the grass with my eyes closed. My palms would tingle with the energy of the world and her words would vibrate through my buzzing mind. I felt the rhythms in my abdomen, and they pulsed warmth through every inch of my frozen limbs.
This was how she expressed herself, and as I knew her better she began to share her own. But when she told me her own, she was much quieter. More modest. She'd always say, "I'm not that great" and launch into something that sounded as graceful and fluent as a dance. It was her heart and soul, and she guarded it carefully. I knew that she feared a critical tongue, misunderstanding, or false praise, but the truth was that I felt honored to be the one to hear her words. Every day I called her a liar. Because she was great.
I sang to her as a response. Though I had lived my entire life singing, a tiny part of myself still got butterflies every time I was put up to it. My words were trite and empty next to her's, but I called it only fair. I asked her one day if I could sing one of her poems, and she said Yes. It was the first song I had written in months. Isaac was surprised, I remember, to see me downstairs at the basement at the piano. He listened intently for a few minutes and then stood over my shoulder to read the words.
"Taylor, did you write that?"
"No. Annissa did."
"That's fabulous."
"I know." I smiled. "You should tell her, because she doesn't believe me."
I was nervous when I had to perform it for her... singing it softly to her one day as we lay in the grass under our favorite tree. After I was finished she hugged me.
"Will you record it for me?" She asked. "I want to listen to it forever."
"Anything for you."
"God, you rule."
In the evenings we'd watch the sun set, and smoke more pot to jump start our evening of driving around and talking until our heads were spinning. She played me her music, I played her mine, and soon, music talk became our lifeline.
"Taylor, you have to hear this song, it's my absolute favorite song in the universe..."
"Hmm? Who's it by?" I asked.
"Bjork."
"You know," I admitted, "I haven't really listened to her, ever."
"I'm appalled! You guys have the most boring fucking music taste on earth, you're too boring to even listen to Bjork!"
"Excuse me!" I said, "I think my music taste is awesome, thank you very much. It's all subjective."
"Well, I suppose you're right." She agreed, "I mean, I listen to Hanson."
"Go to hell and die." I said to her sly smile.
"Wouldn't I have to die first?"
"No, it's better if you go first then die."
"Would I have to suffer eternal damnation in hell if I died there? Or would the fact that I went to scope it out and died in the process automatically guarantee me a space in heaven? You know, as a martyr or something."
"Hmm..." I said. "I don't know. Maybe the latter. I like you too much to actually condemn you."
She rifled through her CD case, and pulled out her choice. "Well, I suppose that doesn't stop me from attempting to shape you into the person I want you to be. I'll get you to listen to more interesting music, and you tell me stories of yore."
She placed the CD in her discman-tape deck set up, and turned the volume up so the sound could be heard over the racket of her car. The bass was fat, and made her speakers sound fuzzy and terrible.
"What's it called?" I shouted.
"Sorry about the speakers!" She yelled back. "It's called 'Hyper-Ballad.'"
I nodded, and sat back, closing my eyes. I listened better with my eyes closed, she thought it was funny. I was surprised, when the song started, by the voice of the infamous Icelandic singer. The track was a mellow electronic ditty, and though the bass was still fuzzy, the voice was crystal clear. As I listened to the lyrics, I couldn't decide if they were happy or sad. I opened my eyes as the song reached it's climax to see all of the lights of the city moving past us at lightning speed with the momentum of the music.
"I go through all this before you wake up/so I can feel happier to be safe again with you."
"Do you like it?" She said, as the song came to a close and another quirky, but quite different track began to play.
I nodded, "I do, actually."
"I love how she expresses things." She said, "Once she described this song in an interview. It's about that point in a relationship when each party has given so much of themselves to the relationship that there's just nothing left to share... and they both need to take a break for a while to discover that part of themselves that is still external to the relationship, just so they can return to each other and say, 'I love you.'"
"Hm." I said, thoughtfully. I had never thought about a relationship in such a light. But then again, I had never had a relationship that lasted long enough or ran deep enough.
She smiled, and laughed a little. "I don't know. I just thought that was interesting."
"It is. It's not just you."
"Man, I'm hungry..." She said, "Let's find a Denny's or something. I could totally dig those awesome square french fries that they have only at Denny's."
The days and the nights barreled on. Every day I met her at the Convenience Store after her morning shift, or after school, and every night we hugged goodbye at the end of my driveway, or in the parking lot at the store. I told her everything, as together we drank, and smoked, and popped pills. My secrets, my hopes, my dreams, my memories, and my silly pointless thoughts. I shared with her my life - something I had never entrusted with anyone. I loved her thoroughly and shamelessly.
"Taylor, do you eat?" She asked me, one day, as before us I placed my bag of mushrooms. This was our first time tripping together, and my first time in several years. It became a game. Once a week we'd try something new together. It started after we got bored with pot, and I ran out of my Valium pills. So far we had only sampled pharmaceuticals and other happy pills. I loved uppers almost as much as I liked the pills that knocked you out cold. I used to love mushrooms when I wanted to be taken to Neverland, but that was before I fell in love with cocaine.
"I eat these." I said, "They're damn nutritious."
"No, Taylor. I mean, food. Do you feed yourself at all?"
"Yeah, I mean... yeah kinda. Why?"
"Kinda? What does 'kinda' mean?"
"Forget it." I said, "I eat enough."
"You just look like you've lost an extraordinary amount of weight since I've met you, is all."
I popped the mushrooms into my mouth and chewed. "It's not that important. It's just stress." That's how I justified it, anyway.
She didn't look convinced, but we both forgot soon enough. That's what I liked most about the drugs. They helped me forget, or, at the very least, focus on the present, not the past. I had defied everything I had promised Zac not too long before his death, but I no longer cared. I was feeling better about myself, and ultimately, he was dead, I was not, and who was I saving, anyway? I couldn't keep promises, everyone knew that. I was a liar, a cheat, and a fool. I conned everyone I saw. I used women. I hurt myself on purpose. And there was no stopping an old fool at his game. Just as long as I didn't start doing blow, I was in the clear. No one would ever have to know aside from she and I. I didn't have a problem. I just liked to have a little fun. And what was wrong with that, really? My therapist prescribed me pills that rendered my ability to drive, think, or speak... I didn't see how popping speed or chewing hallucinogens was any worse.
She started muttering her poems into my ear, and I laughed and laughed.
"Who knows if the moon's
a balloon, coming out of a keen city
in the sky-filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it, if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited, where
always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves"
She created flourishes with her hands, and the words wrote themselves in front of my face, coming together with meaning I would have never been able to draw from them at any other time. That's beautiful, I thought. That's perfect. I want to capture this moment forever in my mind.
The sky was red, I remember. She was skipping school again. I almost kissed her, and then I realized what I was doing and pretended to wrestle her. We sat on the merry-go-round as the sun set and I made her tell me the poem again.
"Who knows if the moon's a balloon..." She started, dizzy and delirious and hysterical. I saw my life then, spiraling out of control and she, the only person in it. I think I laughed until I cried, like I had answers to questions I would never remember. Enlightenment misconstrued as illness. Or was it my illness that was misconstrued as enlightenment? I wondered if it was wrong to drink poison to see the truth.
For a few hours, we were playful and carefree. Tripping on mushrooms and dancing around the park in our own fairy tale world. With her, everything glowed like sunshine and was filled with rainbows. Flowers sang and the grass spoke to us the secrets of everything. It was all good. All of it. I couldn't believe I had ever seen anything bad in life at all. Even then, death was okay. And the spiral, the spiral was even better.
"When this is all over..." I told her, "We should get married."
"Married?" She wanted to finish her thought, but instead we both laughed. "That scares me."
"Do you ever notice the ruffling sounds clothes make?" I said rubbing my shirt sleeves together, having already forgotten what I said. "It's odd. Isn't it?"
She seemed lost in thought. I continued to rub my sleeves together, marvelling at the sound next to my ear. "It's getting dark."
"I can't tell."
"Well it is. You can see the moon."
"Who knows if the moon's a balloon..."
We both fell silent.
"Ani?" I said, using the nickname I had given her. "Do you think he's watching me, right now?"
"Yes."
"Is he protecting me?"
"I'm sure."
"What if he's mad at me?"
"He would never be mad at you."
"I beg to differ..." I trailed off. Then softly, I whispered, "I'm sorry."
"Sing me my song..." And softly in her ear, so that she could feel my breath on her cheek, I sang to her.
We stayed out in the park all night, that night. All night until dawn and she had to go to school. Hours went by in minutes, and even when she had to leave, getting in her car to drive to school, I didn't want to see her go. The high was gone, but my head was still a little fucked up. I knew it would be a couple of days before I felt like myself, but then I wondered when the last time it was that I felt like myself at all. I walked home. It was a bit of a distance, but kicking the curb helped me clear my mind and keep away from home for just a bit longer. I smoked a joint on the way. Isaac didn't even ask where I was when I passed him by, dirty, wild eyed, and stoned. He didn't care. Nobody had the energy to care much, anymore. I went straight to my room and fell asleep for twenty four hours.