Grasping at Straws

There’s a couple that streams online, a black guy and a Norwegian girl.

Of course they remind me of us, in a way.

I didn’t really follow the girl until a few moments ago and of course, she has nothing to do with you, I don’t think she ever would, and I have nothing in common with the guy.

I don’t watch enough to know if their relationship is working out.

But as an online personality, he may already be a millionaire. Not that that would’ve kept you by my side.

She also misses home, but it feels like she has the freedom to visit whenever she wants, whenever she can.

I don’t know what I’m searching for, I just know it isn’t there, on their profiles.

But still, I look for it.

Super Heroes

One thing I’ve wondered about since reading the statistic that Norwegians read comic books, I wondered if we’d talk about the recent stories in Marvel.

The King in Black

AXE: Avengers Versis X-Men

Krakoa Saga

Maybe not you, maybe Howard, if we were friends.

I’d like that. I think it would be fun.

And I’m sure, with my psychosis brain I’d be thinking, “I wonder if this reads like, all their friends and exes that they attributed to heroes, meeting and having an all out brawl?”

But I’d be interested in how you interpret the characters, how you relate to them, how they speak to you, who’s your favorite.

I haven’t been reading mainstream comics, but I have been reading some graphic novels, and I know, manga is banned in Norway, or was, but I read a lot of that as well. I’d be happy to share.

Just a thought that crossed my mind.

What do I even want?

Gotta be honest, I’d be a little embarrassed if you said you wanted me.

I don’t have a degree.

I don’t think I make enough money.

I’m out of shape.

I still enjoy the things I enjoyed as a child/teenager and I feel like you’d try to shame me for that.

The person that would shame me for these things isn’t the person I want however… so who, or what do I want?

It runs through my head all the time: you get an apartment that’s local to the area, I move in, we begin our life together.

Or you get an apartment, I still live here, somehow I’m paying for two places, I have to meet in the middle.

Or you live with us, and my brother doesn’t want that, you probably don’t want that.

It’s unsustainable, I just have to think about it for a bit longer than the feeling lasts, right?

Maybe there’s another reason as to why we aren’t communicating.

There’s another reason why I can’t paint everyone in that part of the world with the broad brush that you gave me.

There’s another reason why I can’t just bottle up all my emotion and close my heart, steel my mind.

But I can’t inquiry that divine revelation.

I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and one day, maybe I’ll be someone you’d be proud to be with, again, because maybe you were already.

But by the time I’m him, will I even feel the same?

🤦🏾‍♂️

ZYN/Snus

They sell Snus at 7-Eleven here in America now, the brand is called “ZYN.”

I used to buy it and think of you, but I’m not addicted to it, maybe because you gave me the real stuff so long ago… and also probably because I had the real stuff again in prison…

But every time I’m in the convenience store and someone buys it you flash into my mind.

And I’m taking my meditation.

And I’m writing here instead of writing to you-

But still I’m visited by these hallucinations, filling me with fear and hope.

I started writing this because I’m listening to a podcast and they mentioned “ZYN” again.

I wonder, what your husband, Howard, has that I don’t.

I imagine it’s a complete and full understanding of Norwegian History and social customs, something you wouldn’t need in America, but something you might miss, having grown up with it, and abandoning it.

Still, as I go about my life I learn more and more about Nordic way of life and customs from various books, YouTube videos, and friends, enriching my experience, clearing away my ignorance.

I’m not sure how much it will matter, but maybe when I decided to become fluent in Norwegian, when I can move past that mental barrier, when I can visit Norway without being arrested, maybe then it’ll make a difference.

Until then I suppose I’ll focus on Swedish, or leaning Danish. Everyone says they want to get out of America, as we watch the fall of our empire, but I’m only interested in places where I can have a dual citizenship, Denmark is on my list.

Of course I’d need the money to do that.

Of course it still feels like a pipe dream.

Of course there are probably some benefits of living in America, Massachusetts of all places, that trumps Europe, but still- Denmark is where I have my sights set. For now.

It’s that or Japan.

Maps

Not the song.

Recall those Google maps I uploaded to that shared folder, detailing what was in and around my current home location.

It’s 7:04AM on a Sunday, I have yet to sleep, and the community outside, down the street, across the fence, are older Vietnamese people.

Yesterday, there was a party for Cape Verdeans.

I feel like coming from a homogenous country, you might find it hard to feel at home in my neck of the woods.

But knowing what I now know of American History, I find it hard as well.

Still, as the outpouring of words becomes a deluge directed at you for these last hours, I wonder if “feeling at home” would just be being with each other.

If so, I would savor that.

Pride Parade

When you visited that one time, you went to the pride parade…

The pride parade is always a strange memory for me, what you did, what you wore, what you told me.

And then it got merged with my psychosis at some point. I remember those words too.

Well, it’s June 1st, the start of Pride Month, the parade will be soon, maybe in a few days…

I don’t know why it’s just hitting me now, or why I’m writing about it now… in years past I probably sent an e-mail, but I don’t remember everything I’ve sent or said.

I think maybe the date might be more significant to you than me, or that you’d remember it more clearly than I do…

The hostel, the bus, the medication, the laptop, my hoodie, the Bacardi beads, the lollipop, your hair in the morning, talking with your family on Skype, my high school graduation, eating at the restaurant, my uncle taking the picture…

After all the time I spent drinking and doing drugs, really trying to escape myself and my feelings, it’s all still there, like it were yesterday, and I don’t even remember yesterday that clearly.

Not like yesterday, like a few moments ago.

But you wouldn’t want me. I’m out of shape, unhygienic, poisoned by pornography, barely keeping my head above water financially.

Sure I’ve some good qualities about me, but what does that even matter.

I’m writing this more for myself than to convince you to avoid me.

Writing this to remember my place in this world, in reality.

That you’re all the way over there, with a husband and child, trying to make your community just a touch less racist by avoiding all contact with me-

And i’m over here, trying to come to terms with being a brown person on this planet, unfortunately black in America, but with the added, unfortunate bonus of loving white women, or really women outside of my race, because I think it’s time society, globally, moved past skin color, or really, reverts back to a world where skin color wasn’t as significant.

Maybe it always was.

What the fuck am I writing about.

I still love you.

After that blog entry the voices in my head went off about your situation.

long story short, they painted a scenario where we reunite.

I didn’t hate it. I didn’t feel anything profound, but I wasn’t against it.

And the more I thought about it, working with you to strike up a romance, to reignite that loving feeling again, I thought it was at least possible, that I would give it a chance.

Of course, I can’t believe in these hallucinations, I have to take your words seriously, I have to continue living without a shred of hope in my heart.

But without those flowery words, without the golden glow, without the feeling in my hand, knee, chest or stomach, I know-

Deep down

In the depths of my subconscious

That I still love you.

Hope…

It’s 2:33AM, I’m working this weekend. As I sit here in bed, thinking “I took my medication, why are the voices here?”

I hate what I am realizing.

The voices say you don’t exist anymore. There is no *insert name here* but you’ll come back into my life with a new alias.

I know I wrote in my last post that I can’t see us being together anymore, but thoughts like these still make me happy, still activate some reward complex in my brain or something.

What the fuck do I do about that? About this? About us?

Even if it were true I wouldn’t know the “you” to look for, I don’t even think I’d know what to say.

I know you have your “wonderful husband” and you have a child, and again I can logic this all away but these unruly, irrational thoughts still puffs up my chest.

It’d be so much easier if we could just be on speaking terms, truly, but you won’t allow that. I still don’t know what I did wrong for you to freeze me out, to ghost me, but I hate how topsy-turvy this all is. How upside down I can be.

Why

I was doing fine until the voices said you had committed suicide.

I don’t know why I have the voices now, I take my medication, but I knew the suicide they mentioned was the social suicide that that little black book talked about all those years ago.

So of course I’m trying to find it again.

Trying to buy it again.

But all I can find are comic books, and they won’t help me.

I don’t want to talk about love. I know how I feel, I know where my heads at, but I want some more understanding.

I want an explanation.

Something I think I’ll never get.

But I want it anyway.

Aurora

I missed the day they said it was visible in the US, my area, this past weekend.

Of course,

Like clockwork,

It reminds me of you.

But today as I walked to get groceries I began thinking that I can’t see us being together anymore.

I wonder what you think about the situation in Palestine. You probably don’t care, but I wondered all the same.

Back to that previous statement, yeah, I do t see us being a thing.

It sure took its sweet time to get here, but I guess this is the real moving on I’ve been searching for, unsure if it’d ever come.

Finally, the well of affection and love begins to dry up, as I trudge through a desert, barren of significant emotion in terms of thoughts of you.

It’s quite peaceful.