| Self-Destruction Dreams by Vito Capobianco |
| That is how we spent the first two years together, me silently falling in love with you, you telling me love could not exist. Spending everyday with you, eating only apples, drinking only tea and ciders, living each moment of my life with you, surely this was heaven. Despite the agony of unrequited love, it was blissful to be in your presence. I seemed to be filling, slowly, with you. Inside, before I had come to this place, I was empty, I existed for the use of others only, and in coming here I�ve have gained a sense of self. Not your self, my own, it has been drug out of me kicking and screaming by the gravitational pull of your personality. So, the first two years were absolute bliss. That is to say I�ve never been so happy. Then, the dreams started coming at a regular pace, these dreams and the scabby eyeless face in them were driving me to insanity. Each morbid fantasy far worse than the last, the face telling me things I could not stand to believe. That you Maryanne, would betray me. That you didn�t and never could feel for me what I felt for you, and each dream drove a splinter through my heart, severing it into two pieces. One half, holding my love and adoration for you, the other became ugly and twisted with bitterness at your rejection, or what I thought would be your rejection, of me. It wasn�t till our third, and what will be our final year together that this did occur. You might blame me, for being a coward, for taking three years to say anything. To open up and let go, to release the words that for so long had been bursting on the tip of my tongue in boils I had no balm for. A stinging raw hurt in the bliss that was, and is, my love. How could I have kept silent for so long? If he didn�t come I would never have had said a thing I think. Yes, it was his arrival that brought on the sputtered of words that offended you so. Santo Diego. The pompous fool that thought to steal you from me, the man whose body is still cooling in the cellar. I doubt you would flirt with him so now Dacia, he isn�t as pretty as the last time you saw him. I remember the day you mentioned him, just so casually, as if I had known all about him. We were having breakfast, mashed apples fried in a pan, with cold apple juice to accompany it. The day had started like any other; we talked idly over the meal, made plans for the afternoon and cleared the table together. It was on our way to balcony when you mentioned him. I remember so very clearly the sinking in my stomach as you explained that Santo was on his way to visit, he had just come back to the country from an extensive stay in the jungles of Africa. The pride in your voice while you told me of his deeds, I think, is what stung the most. The smile that did sneak into your lips was both beautiful and terrifying, while you told me of the many corrupted police forces he �took down�, and the man eating tigers he fought to the death to save villages full of swollen stomached babies. Truly he seemed to fit what his name implied, Saint Diego. He took very little time to mention this fact, he seemed to flaunt it. The three of us stood in the den, next to a suit of armor in a death struggle with a silver snake. He was a tower of a man, perhaps it was his forceful nature that made him so�so domineering. He wore a black suit jacket and pants along with a bright red dress shirt underneath. Accompanied with the large greasy silver cross that hung from his neck and various other points of silver; rings, bracelets and such, he was quite the sight. He was little but the caricature of a 1970s cocaine dealer, but you loved the attention he gave you. I stood there for a while, listening to the two of you reminisce on old times. The times in which you would play tag in the warm summer�s night. The sleep-over in which you shared your first kiss, in hearing this I thought surely I would rather die then be subjected to more of your endearing memories. I could stand it no longer, so I faded off into the darker recesses of the room. Muddling around a desk that was cluttered with odds and ends; I eavesdropped. Santo took no sham in his intentions, as he spoke; with that solicitous leer that wrapped all the way around his greasy bronze face as he told you how he missed you, he pulled and pawed at you and the two of you made no effort to keep it from me. I continued my perusal of the desk, filtering through old papers, bills mostly, I found a little trinket. I seemed to wink at me with a silver glint and I snatched it up with haste. Looking at it now, I know it is all that I will have left of these years. This silver trinket, about the size of a toonie, as I write this letter I rub my thumb against the raised pattern of an apple that covered the lid. When I opened it, I was shocked to see it contained your wisdom teeth. Not baby teeth, no, but your wisdom teeth. I thought this very peculiar. At the very least I�ll have your teeth to look at when I sit in my office as people walk by: �Hey Gordon, can you give me some advice?� �Yeah. I can try.� �Ha HA HA HA HAHAHAH.� �Yeah�ha ha ha. Shoot.� �Well, I was thinking about the Polanski report, and me and Jefferson were talking about it. So we think it�s pretty much an open and shut sort of thing you know. Crunch the numbers file the records and push it down the line to Accounting. I mean it�s there fucking problem anyways right? Like fuck, why bother bouncing it back to us, when it�s gonna just�..BLAABLAA(I stare down into my open hand and study the decaying enamel that sits on its royal blue cushion.)BLAAAAHBLAAH. So what do you think?� �Yeah�you�re right.� �Exactly, thanks man. I don�t what this place would do without you. See ya around.� Maybe they�d buy a couple sponge balls. With my shoulders hunched, I was motionless, straining to flood my ears with blood so I all I could hear was the rushing flow. So I wouldn�t have to hear your giggle, as pretty as it is. After some time passed the lecherous fool excused himself to use the washroom. You offered to show him the way, but he said remembered. That left the two of us in silence. I began to feel a wave of heat, a flash of the deepest red burn through me. I needed to let the words out; I needed to let you know how it was that I felt. �He�s an awful sort of pig isn�t he?� It wasn�t what I had expected you to say. I turned around to look into your face. I took a few steps forward on shaky stop motion legs. You smirked. I smiled. �Dacia �� Dryness exploded in my mouth like nuclear cotton balls. You buried one eyebrow deep while lifting the other in an expression to show your query. The playful smile that tickled your face drove the heat on, the heat of course that I�m referring to being that which spurred me into action, changing it from the angry burst into to an enveloping� soothing warmth. Not unlike the effect of the many glasses of microwaved milk my mother would give to me on all those sleepless nights. This would have to be the moment, I knew that. �Dacia �I love you.� That was all I said. Those were the words that burned on my lips. Somehow I thought you would reciprocate these thoughts, these feelings. For whatever reason I believed that was all that was needed for you to see it too, to merely speak those few words and your eyes would be open to that which they had previously been blind. �No.� Your face lost its smirk in a quick and efficient fashion. �No, you don�t Gordon. You only wish to possess me. You love the idea of a completed life, and you fear returning to your life in the city. You want to own me; you want to carry me on your arm and say �look I have love, I am complete.� You want me to change you, distort you, mold you. Love is not adapting Gordon. Love is understanding. Love is growth and you have none of these things. And you have no place here.� Lies. All of it. �No Dacia. That is anything but the truth. The total opposite of what I want. Don�t you see, truly I love you! I want you my love. I want you to want me. I want that love to drip inside the cracks and seams of who I was and feed who I truly am. For the me that loves you to grow, moist and hot with a fevered pace. To swell and explode through the dried out mummy of my city-self. I want you�only to be with you. That is love�� I trailed off. Your face is blank. Cold and statuesque in its silence. It was always such a threatening glare; that muted empty stare. I felt surely you would tear me asunder. I could envision the heated fury you hid inside that mask. Your porcelain skin. I never thought my love would make you hate me. To throw me from the home we shared for so long. To discard me from your life. Your eyes brightened, he had entered the room again. �Santo; do you remember where the wine cellar is?� He nods a light smile on his greasy fucking face. �Good. Then why don�t you two pick out a bottle while I prepare dinner?� �Of course. Santo will find the finest bottle, one from the greatest year of his life. The year Santo met Dacia.� He smiled, squirting grease from every pore. The cheesy fucking prick, who does he think he is, to refer to himself as some other. That he is so great as to ever be mentioned the Saint. As the years we spent together passed there was one thing that forever itched at the back of my mind. Your father and where you hid him. I searched, when I could, there wasn�t much time that was not spent with you, Dacia, so it�s no wonder I never found him. After two years I thought I had looked everywhere, but I never even knew there was a cellar. As Santo and I descended the stairs, I was hit again with the searing stench of decay. I rolled the turtle neck over my mouth and continued without warning Santo. The cellar stretched far under the house, its floors the earth. A few support beams, seemingly placed at random, served as the only filler to the interior of the room. The walls however were lined from left to right and ceiling to floor, with wine racks. The green bottles were covered in the thickest layers of dust. I never knew you drank. |