I Can Smell It

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

She leaves for the day to the beach. I'm sure that it's not against me, but it feels like it is when she goes. We fought last night. I felt stretched beyond my means, stressed out by unseen enemies and lack of sleep. I was ugly. I was mean.

The day feels like a facsimile of a life I'm supposed to be living. I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel detached from the world, constantly defending myself from an ever encroaching enemy. The apartment is not my home. My clothes are not my own. This isn't the building where I live. I look in the mirror and see an impersonator living in my skin.

It feels silent out, yet the sounds are attacking. There are no clouds but it's gray and rains. The air is too thick to breathe.

I don't say a word to anyone all afternoon. A city full of millions of people and I feel like a stranger.

Before class: The girl from Italy - her light is fading. She just moved here. "New York is not what I think. The blacks are racist where I live here. I think everything is going to be shiny here. But everything ees broken." The young guy next to her who's just come from a year of traveling chimes in, "It's segregated here. It thinks it's not, but it is. The city is schizophrenic. It's fractured living here." The sallow deadpan girl who's lived here all her life tries to defend. I tell her not to kid herself. "This city's a shithole," I say. "There's no gates on the bridges keeping you here," she says, "You can leave anytime."

Something inside me feels stale. Something no longer gives a fuck.

Marie's made food when I come home. I apologize for the way I've been acting and tell her that I love her. She smiles and starts the movie. "You," she says, "You are a handful." I think to myself that the same could be said about her as the fan twists back and forth searching for us in vain from across the room.

She hits me afterward on the couch, joking, one time too many for me to laugh anymore. A sick tension creeps into me from her stare. I tell her if she has a problem to say something and quit fucking with me. She gets up, telling me that I can rot in it. I tell her she's the one rotting, I can smell it.

Love

King Of Pain

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

In my utter confusion over the past week since me Marie told me some Jamaican motherfucker kissed her I've searched high and low for an answer, as to (1): what it meant?; (2): what I should do about it? As at this point in my life, considering my track record with women (two divorces; two cheaters) I simply don't trust myself to know what the fuck to do - fuck me for being a decent guy wanting to give people the benefit of the doubt. So before I hopped a Greyhound bus again to the middle of nowhere, and said FUCK THIS, I decided to sit tight, hear the little woman out and invoke the guidance and wisdom of anyone who would listen. I asked friends, co-workers, long lost acquaintances, bosses, family members, bar tenders, anyone really who would listen, including one certified genius and member of MENSA, as well as random people on the street as I vented my frustration throughout the city. Some declined to respond (literally didn't pick up the phone or respond via text - like old friends who've already been through two divorces with me (I think they're tired of hearing it and I can't blame 'em really as I'm tired of saying it)), some were equitable in their responses, some charitable, while others were harsh and condemning. I guess it's all relative. So maybe the only problem that Marie and I have is just getting on relatively the same wave length about these things with each other. Or maybe we just need to find someone else who's already there on that wave length and save each other the grief?

Here are the responses in no particular order:

- Shame on her for playing dumb. He didn't kiss her. She let him. Every woman knows when a man wants to fuck her. She could have cut it off. And giving him her number just leaves the door open. It's disrespectful to you and the relationship. If the guy ever met you he'd have no respect for you. He doesn't have any respect for her either if she told him she had a boyfriend. He was just trying to fuck her. She may have done it because she's not sure about the relationship, or simply not sure about being monogamous. Either way, she's questioning.

- Hang with the little sis.

- I don't think it's a big deal. She seems to be into you.

- You should crack that motherfucker with that headthumper of a ring of yours!

- Dump the bitch. She cheated. And even if you don't call it cheating, it's close enough to let you know that eventually she'll cheat. Get rid of her and save yourself the grief. You've already done your time with untrustworthy women. It's harder to cheat than it is not cheat. She doesn't seem to be able to act with integrity in regards to you and the relationship. You can find a woman, easily, who will. Let her go.

- Well, if she's the one, it won't happen again. If she's not the one, at least you know now.

- I don't usually give advice on relationships. But my feeling is, if she kisses someone, let her go.

- It's not a big deal that she didn't tell you. Little things like that happen all the time in relationships. And if they really don't mean anything, there's no reason to bother your partner with them. It's one of those things. Sounds like he caught her off guard with a kiss. But, since you did find out, you've got to be able to express how you feel about it without being attacked. That's fair.

- Good luck bud.

LOve

S.O.S.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

I need help.

The other night Marie was on the phone talking to a friend of hers. She was going on and on about a guy from a few weekends ago from a party at The Waterfall House Upstate that she'd done the cooking for. I wasn't there, and I hadn't heard about this guy before. So when she got off the phone I asked her who this guy was, and more pointedly, if there was something that I needed to know about this guy.

She said that he'd kissed her.

I wasn't expecting to hear that.

What transpired after that turned into the same old thing with us: me asking for clarification or explanation; her telling me that there was nothing to talk about; me getting upset that she considered what she'd just told me to be nothing; she then got upset that I had a problem with what she'd told me and her refusal to acknowledge it as "something". I felt dismissed. I felt angry. She felt accused. She felt attacked. She said she was scared. I felt betrayed. I felt disrespected. She felt criticized.

And we fought.

We said awful things to each other.

We tore each other and the relationship down.

At one point I said we should stop and talk about it at our therapist's office. She said that she didn't even consider "it" a subject worth mentioning.

Exhausted I let it go for the night.

Another stalemate of silence.

I had a feeling when she came back from Upstate. I'd had a feeling that there was another guy. I'd almost asked her two or three times over the past two weeks out of the blue, but I didn't want to come across as jealous or possessive. And I let it go...

I didn't want to get up the next morning. I didn't want to go to work. I didn't want to go to therapy. But I did.

When we got home from work I brought it up again, as we'd each seen our respective therapists and thought we could come at it with some insight and less hostility. She said she hadn't brought it up with her therapist. I told her that I felt she treated me with disrespect in regards to the whole thing. And we fought again.

She broke down, fragile, angry, on the verge of tears. She wanted to know what I wanted her to do. Acknowledge. Accept. Understand. Empathize. Anything but stonewall me and try to sweep it under the rug. She didn't get it. She wanted me not to have a problem with any of it. I had a problem with all of it.

Awful things were said.

I wanted to leave.

She told me not to go.

I wanted to get as far as way as fucking possible - Texas; Utah; Alaska... numb... dead again.

I told her to leave.

She packed her bag and left, giving me a forlorn look, and sad goodbye as she walked out the door.

I couldn't respond.

The next day she text me, telling me that she'd made an appointment with our therapist.

We met at five the next day at the therapists' office. Nothing was resolved. She tried to defend herself. She said that she knew she wasn't going to win this one. The therapist wanted to know what she what she wanted to win. That's what it was about to her - winning. She said that she was scared of me, and that my anger reminded her of her mother - irrational. I said I was done. It was somehow being turned on me. I said it was too much. I couldn't do it anymore. Marie said that she didn't want to give up.

And our time was up.

I was just as confused as before we went in. She'd done something hurtful. Then she'd lied to me - or withheld information from me. Then she'd refused to acknowledge or even admit that any of it was wrong. She didn't want anything to change between us. Yet she hadn't even said that she was sorry, or accepted any responsibility. She showed no remorse. I felt I couldn't trust her.

On the way out she said that we could work it out, that it meant nothing, that I shouldn't go. She said that I was like a child, running, always running.

She was right.

I didn't want to run anymore.

But I didn't know if I could trust her either.

And she came home.

I don't know what to do.

I don't know if I know what love is anymore.

Should I stay or should I go?

LOve