4 short stories about loving people

I.

You write music about your ex who left for San Francisco, hoping that with the right amalgamation of metaphor and meaning you can get him to apologize for things he never knew he did wrong. At night you wander through your dreams, shaky and often losing focus. Things seem to form around you without you knowing: large shapes and trees, jungles or city blocks full of all the people you used to know who now feel like strangers to you.

Sometimes, when you are most frustrated, you cry to no one in particular. You wished you believed in a God—loving and merciful. You wish there was someone behind all this pain or suffering behind the small acts of daily life that always seem to come for you. It would be helpful to blame some higher power for lost credit cards or misplaced keys, for flat tires and gridlocked traffic. It would be nice to think of things as not so random, purposeful maybe. But you went to college, you’re too smart for that.

II.

In San Francisco you and your partner go out to eat every night for a week before realizing how much further your money went in Texas. You always wanted to live in a real city; some place that had a lot going on where it felt possible to travel by foot rather than car. Your partner brought you here for his new job: a visiting professor at City College—not quite prestigious but you never cared much for titles.

You have been here once before, when you were still in college and dating the thin man who slept in till noon. Then you were both broke and spent what little money you had on museum tickets, cheap beer, and crisp new books from the very same bookstore Ginsberg used to visit. You remember having an argument then but you can’t remember what it was about. Angry, the both of you walked home drunk, up a hill, tipsy and panting and nearly out of breath. Once back in your hotel room you still could not look at each other, but covered in sweat and red-in-the-face you understood the humor of it all and collapsed into each other laughing.

Now you have no clue where he is. He soft blocked you on Instagram three months after you broke up and never added you back. He could be anywhere, though you suspect he’s likely where he always was.

III.

You came to the city to talk to freshman about poetry and make so little money you’d surely starve. You partner pays the bills; he’s an HR executive at a big tech firm and once when you saw his paystub you almost choked on what you were drinking.

All day he paces around office rooms talking about staffing and company liability. He makes PowerPoint presentations and can often be heard in the other room (when the two of you work from home) agreeing politely with whoever he is in a meeting with. This isn’t what he went to school for, but you only briefly knew him then so it’s not like you can really compare.

You remember how the two of you met. How desperate you were for his affection and attention. He was with someone else, the thin man with perfect teeth but the two of them were always fighting. Even now, years later, he still will not tell you much about the thin man. He tells you things in passing like you should already know them. Often, it seems to you, he thinks you live inside his brain; as if you are capable of understanding a thought he has the moment he has it. Sometimes you two will fight about it: his inability to open up. Angry and frustrated in those moments your mind wanders back to the thin man and you wander if your two lives were more similar or different. Sometimes you imagine each other like ships passing in the night or bizarro versions of each other—like you read about in the Superman comics.

IV.

You know you are worthy of love, though you often think you’re not. You’ve been dating the musician for a while now and sometimes the distance gets tough. He is moderately successful, a soon-to-be indie darling. He has an online following. He has recorded songs about love and lust and misery, though you suspect most of them are about his ex. Often, when he is on the road and jumping from city to city, you worry he is seeing other people behind your back. You are so insecure. You are so non-confidant. You are “processing childhood trauma” according to your therapist.

The two of you have a house together and own two cats. He helped you buy a car and pay off your student loans. You go to work every day and come home and cook dinner for two. You have shared friends. You have both met each others’ parents. He tells you each night, just before you fall asleep, that he loves you but still he never writes a word about you. You sometimes think he finds comfort only in misery; artistic inspiration only through sorrow. You wish he could sing something happy, you wish he would propose to you, you wish he would be a better version of the person you wished you were dating.

Love, to you, is all about compromise and superstition. Love, to you, is hard work and dedication. Love, to you, is safety and security. Love, to you, is contradiction. Or, at least you need something to believe in.