TWO THINGS by ALYSSA GOLDBERG
LUSTING TO LURE ME TO MY RUIN, YET AGAIN
Everything I do has become an act of desperation. I did this for you, to give you a story. I wanted you to envy him, I wanted you to love me even though you want another, to show you that it’s possible to covet two things at once. I felt your touch on my chest last night, it was late and I couldn’t see your hand as it moved through the darkness. I am back in the room, alone this time, and I am holding the door open for you. I’m waiting in this space, in the light, loving you patiently. As best as I can. I do not know how to do anything with tenderness, I have always been brutal, ravenous, jealous with a vengeance. I’m really trying to do it differently this time. You needed me to be the void, so I emptied myself, but now I fear I’m taking up too much space. I’m opening my hands and filling them with mud, dirtying the sheets. I’m trying to suck the air out of your lungs so we can die a little death together. None of this is love, you say. And I tell you, I know. We haven’t gotten there yet. Just let me be the best to you, less we die a real death together instead.
MY ROOMMATE TELLS ME, “WHEN I GET REALLY ANGRY AND HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME, I PICTURE MYSELF STABBING JESUS”
Very sacreligious, I explain, trying to formulate the image of my 5 foot 4 roommate stabbing a prophet. Jews don’t believe in Jesus, so when I have no one else to blame, I place the blame on myself. I’ve been painting a portrait of myself as a deteriorating woman, but the brush never hits the canvas.
I was sitting on the couch when this happened, she was rummaging through the fridge. The kitchen in my apartment is also my living room. I like the blur of boundaries, it helps merge my realities into one. Space transcends itself. I want everything to come easily; I want to be a writer with straight As and a good job and receive praise on Twitter. I don’t know when that last part became a goal of mine. I was in love with a man who fucked a writer and she was verified on Twitter and I stalked her tweets like it was bible study. I’m glad I don’t go reading her tweets anymore, or his. I have too many windows into everyone else’s life and not enough into my own. In my dreams, all my past lovers become one. And when I wake up, I’m not sure which version of them actually exists, who’s left waiting for me and who’s long gone. It’s hard to make out their faces in memory, though it feels so real when I first open my eyes.
I’m not as good at writing as I’d like to be, I’m actually just mediocre at best when it comes to many things. I told my psychiatrist that my antidepressants weren’t working, so she prescribed me sleeping pills. I grabbed a cutting board from under the TV and crushed them with the back end of a kitchen knife. You can’t take a break from your body, but you can go somewhere else from time to time. Looking up at the ceiling, I close my eyes and lick the powder off the backside of a spoon. Tranquility, at last.
Alyssa Goldberg is a writer and photographer who recently relocated from New York to Boston, where she is pursuing a Master of Science in Media, Medicine, and Health at Harvard Medical School. Her work appears/is forthcoming in Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, Hobart After Dark, Pleaser Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @alyssaegoldberg or at alyssaegoldberg.com.