jake, my sweet, my darling, jake was nothing like "didi" and i am utterly bemused as to why i was recommended that strange book "about" grieving when it is not about grieving at all. but then, nothing really is, nothing's accurate when it comes to that.
when he died, i thought i would cry forever, until the dessicated tissues of my body just scattered with a strong wind and i wouldn't have to feel so sad because i couldn't feel anything at all anymore. before he died, before i the possibility of him dying ever occured to me- back when death was a remote thing that happened to other people- it was a movie-image that came to me when i thought of mourning someone's death: you sob in a dark room for weeks, and refuse food, and sit about prettily disheveled and just deeply, deeply sad until one day a ray of sunlight pierces the fog and you begin to move on again, slowly but surely. like everything else, it has been nothing like the movies.
some days are harder than others. there is constancy, of course, i think about him every single day and miss him whenever i think about him. but in other ways, it is always surprising: i'll be driving and an image of his smile flashes into my mind and the next thing i know, i'm sobbing into the steering wheel and cursing the universe and just totally fucked for the rest of the day at work, having to pretend to be cheerful and attentive with tears waiting just below the surface to be loosed. a few days ago, i was air-guitaring in the shower when the song changed, and the next song was a sweet old love song and i crumpled to the shower floor, completely overcome with the memory of meeting him for the first time and knowing from that moment on that i was screwed when it came to him, that i was going to be damn crazy about him, that probably i already was.
it sucks because it's always there, this misery of longing and of not understanding and of feeling, at every moment, that something very important is missing from me. it sucks that i can't talk to anyone about it, that if people knew i was here now, crying and writing about him, they'd worry for my mental health but the thing is, how else should it be, how else could it possibly be? he is the only one who could really comfort me, but the reason i need comfort is that he is dead. beyond my best friend, beyond my sisters or anyone else, he was the one i wanted whenever i was upset or angry or happy or anything- if happy, it wouldn't be complete unless he could share in it and validate it, if upset, only he could make it better, even if he didn't know what to say or what the hell i was talking about. everything was better just because i could hear his voice, or feel his arms around me, because i knew he was there and he loved me. for whatever reason, without knowing what i was doing, i chose him and now that he's gone i can't unchoose him; he is still the one i want, and he is the one thing i can't have, and what kind of bullshit is that?
the first time i got high, at his gentle but insistent pressure, i puked all over his bathroom. then i made him clean it up, and after he did that, he sat on the bathroom floor and looked at me wonderingly, trying to figure out what was going on in my mind. i couldn't talk, only sit there and trip out, wide-eyed, but we didn't need to talk to understand each other, and once i brushed my teeth- with his toothbrush?- we stumbled out to the couch where we sat under the electric blanket, holding each other, and not really talking at all but mumbling jibberish periodically and feeling very together. if i'm crazy normally, what am i when i'm drunk and high? but he was good at calming me down, about anything really, and he was good at finding just the right position to tuck my head under his chin and wrap his arms around me and make the world feel like a very peaceful place indeed.
on my way to shop for groceries today, my ipod shuffled to an old ryan adams song, "when the stars go blue," and i flashed back to the first time i played that song for him: early on a friday morning, we had gone to the big downtown theater to watch an animated movie about a monster house. i snuck up and scared him before we went in, and he jumped three feet in the air and kind of hit me accidentally-on-purpose, because while he looooved jumping out at me from behind things, he didn't like to have it done to him. we both got dizzy with the 3-d glasses and he offered to share his contraband pop-tarts with me. when the movie was done, we decided to grab a bite to eat and while burgers and fries would have done just as well, i decided we needed mediterranean food, and the only place i knew of was in ventura, about an hour away. long story short, we got there and the restaurant didn't open for another four hours and naturally, we were starved because what the hell kind of a breakfast is one pop-tart each. so we had sandwiches at this weird place where the decor was all frog-related, and then we browsed at a record store where i bought a huge poster of a flying, naked art nouveau girl with a bicycle, and then we headed home. the traffic back was wretched, and we were stuck for about two hours, moving at like, 5 mph. so i played some of my favorite songs for him, starting with "to be young (is to be sad, is to be high)," which he loved and reminded him of a "young bob dylan." when he got to pick, his first choice was naturally "political scientists", by which if i recall correctly he was unimpressed, as it is not actually a political song in the least. it was a warm day, and we were full and sleepy, and we worked our way all over r.a.'s catalog haphazardly and smoked cigarettes which we put out in a half-full bottle of sobe tea so that the situation in my car was pretty stinky and yet i recall it so clearly and so fondly. and just as we were getting into i.v., hours after we'd assumed we'd be back, i picked "when the stars go blue" and went into raptures about it, and he listened attentively, and it wasn't til we were talking later after he'd downloaded some ryan adams for himself that i learned he thought that song was dreadfully boring and unimpressive. we never did have much in common, i guess, but goddamn if that stopped us from getting along like a house on fire.
i remember a lot of things involving him with almost frightening clarity and detail. normally, this would make me feel paranoid and insane, but i know that he remembered stuff involving me in much the same way. our last night in i.v., being deliberately obtuse, i claimed not to remember a certain night he mentioned, one we spent kissing in his bedroom which was my way of comforting him over the beating his favorite team had taken in a playoff game earlier that day. he wouldn't stand for my professed amnesia, and reminded me of the details of that night until i suddenly "remembered" and only then was he satisfied. so i may be crazy, about him, but i think he was crazy about me too. and speaking of kissing, i came across one of his protest pictures yesterday where he had duct tape over his mouth, and one of his friends commented "ahaha this is ironic because nothing in the world could silence jake" but the thing is i could silence him quite easily, he was actually rather loathe to talk about anything, come george bush or high water, when he could be kissing me instead and goddamn but don't i miss those kisses.
i miss his kisses and his bird-lips and his blond stubble and his mole. i miss his arms and his neck and his chest and his legs, one of which he slung over mine whenever we watched a movie together, alone in the dark. i miss his eyes and all the different expressions they could project, and his eyebrows and the way one was always raised at me. i miss his hands and the way he would sigh whenever, at the end of a long night, he would sink down next to me and take my hand in his. i miss the way he smelled and the way he talked and the way he laughed and the way he smiled. i miss his crazy huge t-shirts with their silly slogans, and his black sweatshirt that smelled like pee when he bought it for like three dollars. i miss his goofy screen names and his random calls and the way he said my name, especially when i asked him to so he'd say it all slow and smiling. i miss the faces he made while he played his guitar and i miss watching him eat cereal and i miss the way he said "horchata." i miss being angry at him and waiting for his calls and raving about him to anyone who would listen. i miss eating in n out with him in my car at the beach and i miss smoking cigarettes with him and i miss the disgusting drink recipes he would come up with for me and i miss all his peculiar hand gestures. i miss being able to call him and ask stupid hypothetical questions, like when i was struck by the desperate need mankind has for flying cars and he smilingly suggested that i probably wouldn't get one in our lifetime unless i invented it myself. i miss taking him grocery shopping, and taking him to the doctors, and i miss going out with him for ice cream afterwards and i miss making him finish mine because ice cream is so boring to me.
i miss him. i miss him so fucking incredibly much i almost can't believe it myself. i miss him every moment of every day, and some moments i miss him so much i can't breathe because it hurts so much. i look around sometimes and am surprised that green things are still growing like they've always done, and the earth is still going around the sun, and no one else seems to feel what i feel, a sense of loss so huge that it should throw off the balance of nature and the orbit of all the planets and everything. i wonder if i'm ever going to love anyone like this again, whether anyone has loved anyone like this before, whether i'll ever love anyone at all, even a little because when i'm sixty i'll still be loving him with most of my heart. it's stupid and it's cliche and it's just the truth that sometimes, if i'm sitting still and missing him intensely, every heartbeat seems to say his name "jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake" and all i want to do is turn to the nearest unfortunate person and let it all out, say "i miss him i love him i miss him." but i don't, instead i sit there silently and fight back tears and hate everything and everyone for how completely it and he is not jake. my jake. when i wrote, i seem to spend my life missing you!, i did not realize the kind of violence and misery i was in for. ah life.
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