The Albanian

This piece of TMI has been sitting in the drafts box for a while, from back in the days when Europe was at my feet and real life was a faraway haze my parents sometimes spoke of. I was on my way to someplace pretty (wasn't that all I did, those days?), but there were people in the way of my scenery and I owed my friends a life update, so I settled into my train seat and gave them the story of The Albanian. It had sass, (incessant talk of) sex, bitchiness and misogyny. Booze and drugs and tattoos. Alcoholic missteps, fumbled flirting and lame comebacks. Really, pick a cliche and it was there. 

And, for the rest of you, here it is. For context - I really didn't like men in early 2017. 

_______________________

The story starts one wintry February, when Annie-with-a-boyfriend announces that she thinks B, he of the long hair, tattooed arms and constant cigarettes, is hot, and that I, single-af-Sam, should go for it. Personally, I'm more inclined towards his good-boy-looks quiet-but-witty friend - let's call him D - but D is still in love with his ex (as am I? Maybe), and what is exchange for if not experimentation?

The Albanians in the house tease B about me in Albanian. The Indians of the house tease me about B in Hindi. The stage is set.

Then follows a series of flirtatious encounters so smooth and skilled that they will make you, dear reader, wonder why you ever thought yourself awkward. He compliments my hoodie. He compliments by pyjamas. And lest you think he is just a platonically inclined boy with exceedingly good taste in clothing, he compliments my fingers. He compliments my name, repeatedly and more than a little drunkenly. He calls me beautiful.

Given his tendency towards baggy t-shirts and baggier basketball shorts, I don't have too much to compliment in return, but I am open to listening, and he wants to talk. Boy, does he want to talk. He comes and sits with me in the kitchen we share, not eating or cooking or cleaning (even, almost especially, when it is his week to clean the kitchen), just talking at me. I am in a new country with new people for new experiences, and I am curious. He tells me about his family fleeing to Greece when there is a coup against the Albanian government of which his father is a member. He tells me about the mountains and beaches of Albania, about the women and...then some more about the women. He talks a lot about the women. Much of the time he wastes in being a man™, in that he repeatedly shares with me his authoritative opinions about myself and my life without having any knowledge, insight or foundation whatsoever for the same. He ignores my indications that I am familiar enough with my own life, and would prefer he stick to talking about his own fairly interesting narrative. 

We drink together sometimes, the two of us and the other housemates, in various permutations and combinations. The alcohol loosens lips, begets questions ("no, but how are you still a virgin?"). Weeks of awkward kitchen encounters pass. By the time that fateful night arrives, I have thought about him, told my friends about him, and talked about him when there was nothing to talk about. I have considered the possibility of liking him, or even just making out with him, of switching my measure from "why him?" to "why not"? He has left hearts on one of my facebook posts. 

Then, that night, we decide once again to drink together, me and B and D and a common friend, L. By this point, dear reader, it is clear that the more I interact with him, the less I want to keep interacting with him, and on this night, I mostly keep to myself. But while I may have all but dismissed him internally, the elephant in the room has only grown larger externally. We play a game, and I choose dare, and am asked to kiss the wall for a minute. He walks over to examine the sight closely, and declares that he doesn't want to kiss me if that's how I kiss. I tell him not to worry about it - he is unlikely to ever be allowed to kiss me. On his part, in the manliest™ of moves, he is all over L, a friend of mine and a fellow housemate he has lived with for nigh on a year and a half. It seems like our charade of mutual forced interest (which self-proclaimed player hits on a woman like that if he actually wants to get anywhere?) is finally over, and I am relieved. 

But no! In an almost impossible twist, we find ourselves walking to a club, arm in arm. Our friends take a turn around the road and suddenly, his mouth is on mine, his tongue exploring the contours of my chin, lips and nose in what has to be the worst kiss I will hopefully ever experience. I am flummoxed. I am confused. I am, by god, going to get a better kiss out of this. I push him away and blink confusedly up at him in my classic sexy way, and then reach up for a kiss worthy of the name. Alas, friends, while the tongue stays where it is supposed to this time, it still turns out to be nothing to write home about, and we proceed onwards as though nothing has happened.

But something has happened. My tongue has been loosened, by both drink and touch, and before I know, out pops from my mouth, "Wow, you're a terrible kisser."

There is a pause, and then a longer pause because I have not yet realized that the words have been spoken out loud. Another stretch of time passes while my alcohol-addled brain catches up with my mouth, and it's a few more minutes before my brain and mouth are able to co-ordinate a rescue. Finally, in a save as bad as his kiss, I attempt to assuage his inflated ego and my inflamed sense of guilt with a weak, "Hey, I didn't actually mean that. You know I was kidding, right?"

"Of course you didn't mean that," he says, in a weak imitation of his usual swagger, "how could you possibly have meant that?" 

Needless to say, the compliments stop. My taste in fashion is no longer worthy of his attention. Suddenly, I am not a very good cook; suddenly, I am defensive and not funny; suddenly, he is no longer compelled to sit with me in the kitchen for hours. Something about a rude virgin who knows how she likes her kisses has rubbed him the wrong way (swear it wasn't my tongue, though), and he is not a happy man.

Now, someone normal would have breathed a sigh of relief at being left alone and moved on to other, fun-er experiences in literally the most beautiful country in the world. But you know me better than that, reader. You know about my overactive guilt glands, and while I thought I had lost them after The Break Up, along with my kindness and other virtues, I was wrong. They were there, and they made themselves heard. Suddenly, I was the one maneuvering to catch his eye in the kitchen, seeking him out to say nice things to, complimenting his...basketball shorts.

It wasn't much, of course - I really didn't want to push it enough to make him think I wanted to kiss him again. But they were attempts, however feeble, to be nice and charitable; there was a sense of being plagued by guilt for the rest of my life, for the awful words that had slipped through my mouth.

That was, fortunately, not to be. Showing true chivalry, he bided his time, and responded with enough meanness to assuage more vestiges of guilt than even my unduly engorged guilty glands could produce. This is how it happened.

A few exams and papers after The Kiss, I found myself once again drinking in his lacklustre company, with our mutual friend once again the object of his affection. I was there because she had asked me to be; when it was clear a threesome was unlikely, he was evidently not pleased to have me there. I intended to enjoy a few drinks and take my leave, aiming for a largely uneventful evening, but my life took one look at my plans and said, "lol."

And thus began a journey of self-awareness that I had hoped would occur more organically in this exchange. For, dear friends, he called me fat. Then he called me asexual. Then he said he was joking and begged my forgiveness, but that is irrelevant to this story and to the larger scheme of life.

Now of course, there is context to this hurling of names. A boy, however chivalrous, does not simply say such a thing out of the blue. First, we talked about the meaning of the word "bitch", and he vociferously defended the rights of women to be as slutty as they pleased. Then, we talked about the use of protection - specifically, his preferred contraceptive of "pulling out" without use of either condom or birth control. The mutual friend and I were, obviously, aghast. I argued for the use of the pill - no, he said, it fucks with women's bodies. Before I could fully be amazed at his knowledge of the process and its side-effects, of his surprising sensitivity to the hormonal and physical pains the pill can inflict on women, he went on: it makes them fat.

Another pause; another few moments simply to attempt to comprehend the sheer magnitude of his ignorance and entitlement. A confession - I know what I'm talking about because I was on birth control for nearly a year. A retaliation - is that why you're fat?

I waited for more, but that was honestly the only comeback he had. I had expected something - he had hinted sufficiently earlier on at my terrible taste in "many things" to make it clear that a retaliation for my kiss comment was on its way - and, despite all evidence to the contrary, I had really expected something a little more imaginative. I mean, it had taken him three months to come up with this? 

Then, as is customary in such gatherings, I was interrogated about my intact hymen. My friend was genuinely curious - was I not scared that I'd never lose it? Was I worried about the pain? Why, in the course of a year-long relationship, had I not felt like having sex? I attempted to answer, but the mansplainer got in my way. "It's against human nature not to want sex," he crowed. What about asexuals, I asked? What are they, he forced out, seeming to have trouble admitting ignorance. I explained, and he dismissed them as "some bullshit". Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't valid, I said. I'm not gay but I'm okay with homosexuals, he countered. I...was lost in the face of the sheer brilliance of the argument, such a behemoth in its logical fallacies that I did not even know where to begin to take it apart. Sensing victory, he went on - so you don't want to have sex, you have no desire, you're just like every other virgin waiting for a right time that will never come, you're asexual. You aren't even being consistent, I wanted to say; please stop talking, I wanted to say; please come stand over here so I can kick you in the balls and shut you up long enough to talk some sense into you, I wanted to scream.

But I said nothing. I sipped my wine and let him blubber away into silence, which soon turned to apologies - you don't hate me, right? It was just a joke. Hey, you don't hate me right?

I did not hate him. He was not remotely important enough to be worthy of that.

But he was a man™. How was he to know?

~ Sam 

O-V-U-R

It's so odd, as I walk around every place that meant everything, that one day, it'll stop mattering so much.

You'll stop mattering so much.

I'll come back here, to celebrate my tenth year of leaving this godforsaken land, and I'll look at that basketball court and the tree and the bench where everything began and everything ended and it just...won't mean anything. And I'll go live in the Training Centre, if it's still standing then, and trample over those stairs where you first asked me out, where we shared our "chaste" first kiss, and I won't even remember what was in the letter you wrote me.

And there will have been so many people and heartbreaks and experiences that this, what used to be the centre of my life, will be nothing but the distant remnant of a memory. And I'll think of all of these things associated with you and us, and my heart won't re-break every time I do. And it just won't matter anymore, and it's so odd when I think about everything we said and felt and did, that I'll ever let go to that extent, or that you will.

Or that you have.

Or that people do, every day, at every place, every moment.

And I wish people were black and white.
And I wish we didn't have to let go.
And I wish the world was as it should be.
And I wish I wasn't quite so emo.

But I suppose they aren't, and we do, and it isn't, and I am, so...so this is goodbye. This is me being finally, finally ready to accept, after a lifetime of reluctant farewells and focused efforts to keep in touch, that sometimes, things must just...end, and that it is okay to let people go. That it isn't my job to care for everyone who crosses my path, to collect them in my coterie of strays and give them all my love. That I can care for me too. That I must. That sometimes, it's time for things to just be O-V-U-R, over. That for us, that time is now.

So goodbye, sweetheart. I loved you.

~Sam

The Break Up Protocol

There was a very clear break up protocol. I really don't know how it could have gone so wrong, to be honest- I'd even put it in bullet points, and how hard is it to follow a plan in bullet points? First on the list was to unfollow you on facebook and switch off your chat- facebook hadn't gotten the message, you see, that you were no longer allowed to be central to my life, that I was no longer allowed to care what fleeting thought you'd decided to share that day, that you no longer topped my list of people I could chat with. Facebook didn't understand how a few words could change everything.

But a few clicks sorted out the problem of your overbearing presence in my virtual life, and then it was on to step number two: changing your contact name. Of all the things associated with you - perfectly mundane words and food and places and ideas that you really had no right to exert such enormous influence over, distracted and Nutella and Sunderbans and travelling - your name was the very worst. I simply couldn't handle it, you see, it accidentally popping up when I was looking for someone else, reminding me of your existence when I had tried so hard to forget. And so it had to go; you had to become The Ex. Funny, a constant reminder of our changed situation, and trivializing an intense Matter of the Heart, it seemed like the perfect solution, until of course, it wasn't. Because I could change your name, but I couldn't change you, could I?

Next on the list was to clear our chat history and cut you off until I could deal with your existence like it hadn't once been entwined with mine. Ambitious as it was, I thought I was doing okay with this one too, I honestly did. I was immersing myself in my life instead of in our old chats, even if I hadn't yet been able to delete them, or the pictures from my birthday. (Do you remember that, sweetheart, do you remember how you took out precisely enough time, and made it just magical enough to give me hope, to make me think that the problems were only in my head, before wrenching yourself away again? I know you have a terrible memory, but I hope you remember what you did to me, those last months.) I was, I thought, resisting admirably the urge to share with you the details of my journey on this arduous path of Moving On, odd as it seemed not to talk to you about something so significant in my life. Because of course, I was moving on from you, and it would be counterproductive to tell you how I was doing, and ask you how you were doing, no matter how natural it seemed to share this with you like I had shared everything else, from my CCD visits to my family fiascoes.

No, I truly was on my way to doing okay- although, even then, it was hard, sometimes, when I saw something funny, to remember that I could laugh without you, that I could love without loving you.  And you, sensing this like some strange predator of the heart, pounced. You decided, as is your wont, to do what was easiest and best for you- you decided to text me, without caring that perhaps you had taken away your right to reach out to me for emotional assistance; that perhaps you could restrain yourself, instead of waiting for me to tell you to leave. That I would never be able to ask you to leave, so long as there was a part of you I could love.

So yes, I had convinced myself I was well on the way to becoming whole, painstakingly pieced myself together over hours and days and weeks- and then you sent me one mundane message and there I was, shattered again. It is really quite unfair, you know, how much power some people can have over you. People should really only be allowed to break you once; their ghosts certainly shouldn't be allowed to come back and haunt you long after they had ended everything. A month and a week really should have been enough; I should have been whole.

But I wasn't, and you wriggled in, and made a place for yourself again. Slowly, steadily, methodically, you undid every piece of progress I had made. You made me forget every reason I had not to kiss you, you made me think perhaps it was possible to be friends. You made me forget that I was terrified of keeping you in my life, of keeping the feelings alive, because one of us would inevitably move on first, and that would hurt, that would hurt so fucking much, the guilt if I did, the sheer simple heartbreak if you did- as you have.

But that didn't matter to you, did it? You put yourself first, as you always have; I let you, as I always did. Old habits die hard - you'd know, with that death stick still in your hand. And so I fell again, to no one's surprise. I convinced myself to kiss you, to talk to you, to hold your hand and help you though this grief you had caused us both, even if that meant I was holding myself back, entangling myself when I should have been disengaging. I hadn't wanted us to end, but now that we had, I hoped we could somehow find a way to end right, so that I could someday look back with a smile and not a grimace.

And somewhere in the middle of all these romantic notions, in the middle of all that kindness and empathy that I thought I owed you for the good times, I forgot one important thing- if we were both looking out for you, who was looking out for me?

The last point on the protocol was to never, under any circumstances, listen to Ed Sheeran. But if I've come this far, I suppose I might as well break one last rule. And so I'll end this little diatribe by listening to the words of the song I'd scribbled over and over again to myself way back before the beginning, back when I'd kissed that other boy and thought it was the worst sin in the world to have done that to you; when I put my heart on a platter and you considered it for hours before you decided to pick it up, back when the feeling of my chest caving in on itself wasn't familiar territory yet: "And if you hurt me, well that's okay baby, only words bleed..."

~Sam 

Stop blaming hearts 2k16

I don't know why we blame the heart when we cry and break and drunk text that ex. When we're paralyzed by pain and bad decisions, I really don't know why we blame the heart. My poor, bruised heart hasn't done anything but nurse its wounds, red and blue and black and purple, quietly in a corner, sinking into itself, into the miserable oblivion of unrestrained emotion and nonstop Netflix.

It's my brain which is the problem- my brain which fires up the spleen of my anger, my brain which reminds me of everything. Of street food and stuffing pani puri into my mouth, of the balloon and the baby and the little bubble toy, of the movie and the cuddling and the junk food- so much junk food. I guess you were bad for my heart in more ways than one.

But there I go again, bringing my heart into this mess that it has no business being in; this mess that my brain created. My brain, which refused, just straight up refused to fathom a world without you, for a year and a month and four days, and which broke the very first time it was faced with the possibility- hell, the first five times it was faced with that possibility. My brain, which still can't quite seem to grasp the concept of over, which changes its mind twice an hour about how to deal with the remnants of us. My brain, which no longer lets me like summer and sundays and sundaes and sunshine, suede and subtlety and suits and sweethearts, but which won't let me stop liking you.

~Sam

Heartbreak and Other Clichés

Hello!

It's been a very long time since I've written anything that could possible classify as "writing", and to change that, I have decided to do a series on heartbreak. It is apparently the easiest thing to write about, and I hope it will act as a gateway to more frequent writing. I'll start with reposting a slightly edited version of something I wrote recently for this platform that lets you write open letters about your emotions, real or fictional.


To: The One Who Gave Up

Your shoulder was of the perfect height. I know I said your hands were my favourite part of you, but I was wrong- it’s been your shoulders, always. You were too tall for us to fit together perfectly, the length of our torsos a bar to our experimentation. For the perfect hug, I had to stand on a stair. Your hands were so large they made even my giants feel insignificant, feel so deliciously small for perhaps the first time in my adult life. Your lush hair had dandruff; your lips were too pouty for mine to feel secure in their stern thinness; your feet were the most calloused I have ever seen. Your arms, your hands around me, on me, on my waist, in my hair; our fingers wrapped around each other like we couldn’t ever possibly get close enough- that was heaven, yes, but your shoulders- your shoulders were perfect. To lean on when I was sad and lonely and couldn’t, wouldn’t, hold myself up. To melt into just because I wanted to, because  they were mine and I could, because you said you were mine, god damn you, you said you were mine. For a year and a month and four days, you were mine. To nestle against in the cold, into the love in the heart I was sure, so sure, so naively certain, was strong enough. Because you said we’d try. Because I believed you. Because if mine was, why couldn’t yours be?

I don’t know when I realized you’d given up. Was it the moment you told me – I’m too scared, I can’t, we should end things– or was it in the months before, when we stopped being anything but the bare bones of a relationship, no substance, just two people going through the motions of acting like they were in love? Was it when I forgot you so much that my neck strained with how much it had to tilt to look up at you, forgot what had once become second nature? Was it when we ran out of things to say to each other, because you were never there, and so much had happened, so much kept happening, but you were never there, until my brain forgot you mattered enough to share things with, until I drew a perfect blank those rare occasions when I did see your face? Was it when I tried anyway, when I told you I was probably depressed and you said okay, let’s head back, like that was an interesting anecdote to end our meeting with? Or had you always, in some part of you, given up on us, every set of holidays, every time I told myself I was overreacting, every time I made your excuses for you – he’s busy, he’s tired, he’ll text back eventually, he means well, he loves you,  he’ll be here tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

Did you know I always wanted my first open letter to be something fun and quirky; never about a guy? That I never wanted someone whose actions I had to defend and justify and rationalize and excuse? That I wanted someone who felt about me, the way I felt about you? Did you know, when you promised me a future, when you promised me we’d try, that family and age and time and distance wouldn’t get in our way- did you know then, how easy it would be for you to change your mind? To say- yes, I know I said that, but now that I’m actually here, it turns out I’m too scared. Did you know that you would always, always choose yourself over us, choose to cut your losses, because god forbid that you commit to anything more than an indifferent might as well? Did you know, when you were being infuriated by my use of the shrug emoji, that you would personify it in our relationship? Hey, so what about the future? – ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

But I believed you anyway. When you said you loved me, I believed you. When you said we didn’t have an expiry date, I believed you. When you said we would try, I fucking believed you. For months, you fed me lies, and I don’t care if you believed them then too, because I believed you and you lied. You were different, so different with me; so considerate, when you were there; so warm; so vulnerable, that I believed you weren’t the jackass they all thought you were. That you were more. That you were mine. That you always would be. That you’d at least try, that you meant what you were saying. That only some insurmountable, unimaginable obstacle would keep me from being yours, and you from being mine.

I suppose I just never imagined that obstacle would be you.

I suppose I was a fool, for not recognizing the problem when even you told me how hollow your apologies sounded when they were spoken for the same mistake for the fifth time. A fool, for believing you’d put us before you, when every little inconvenience had you putting me in second place. A fool, for believing the sweet nothings you so intensely whispered in your sweet, accented voice into my silly little ears. A fool, for letting you swallow me up, a fool for believing you’d been swallowed up too. A fool, for going back repeatedly and smiling over the good times; a fool for ignoring all the bad signs. A fool, for thinking you knew what you meant when you said you loved me- when it should’ve been clear, from the very first time, when you said it and shattered us in the same breath, it should’ve been clear as crystal that you had no idea what you were talking about.

A fool, because I believed what you said, but it turns out you never did.

I’m trying not to do that anymore, trying not to be a fool anymore. To be rational– so strange, that feels, like trying on an alien outfit. To feel the future stretch out without it being bound to you- to forget that I wanted it bound with you, uncertain and terrifying and unfathomably difficult, but with you. I’m trying to write again, because I put you over that as well, because I was so happy wrapped up in you that I had no sad poems to write anymore. I’m trying to remember what it feels like to be a whole in myself again.

My friends offer me their long-distance shoulders. They offer me blankets and hugs and love and listening ears and all the things you stopped giving me a while ago. And I’m trying. But how do I lean into someone who isn’t you? How do I fit my head into the crook of a shoulder which will never be tall enough? How do I forget you?

~Sam