Sarah Gerard - Binary Star

I don’t matter. I am matter. I matter. I’m in the mirror.

If you touch me you have to hurt me, John. If you touch me, I’ll be hard.

I want you to touch me.

Even if I don’t want you.

I want you to hurt me. Make me absorb your radiation.

I am a diamond. I’m a diamond becoming myself.

Under pressure: the hardest.

Material.

That I will be the most valuable thing is predetermined.

I’ll be perfectly clear and luminous.

I am hated. I’m a genius.

I’m perfectly smooth and white. I am rough. I’m full of craters.

I am one long line of everything you hate.

I am made of so many lies.

You see through me already.

I have curves. I have mixed feelings about curves.

I want to be perfectly straight and simple and complex.

I want you to want to touch me. I want you to worry about me. I want your attention. I want you to fill me. I’m empty.

I make you do it.

I make you bad.

I want you to empty me. Make me feel like nothing. Tell me I’m nothing. I feel nothing.

Project all your untamed desires onto me.

I’m a star that radiates but is dead. I’ve been dead for a long, long time.

Let me be the reason you’re crazy. Let me love you.

Fall off your axis about me and my vacancy.

Show me how tortured you are.

We’ll go around in circles finding out why.

I’m sorry.

I’m a sorry excuse for a woman.

Here’s a list of things I care about: Givenchy. Hermès. Louis Vuitton. Prada.

I have never seen any of these things.

Jennifer Lopez. Donna Karan. Kristen Stewart. Demi Moore.

I have never seen any of these things.

Paparazzi. Scary Skinny. Açai berries.

I know nothing of any of these things.

I don’t care.

I have never seen you open and flayed like a raw piece of meat, which would make us equal.

Let me see you. Let me see what you’re made of.

You took us to a bar by the beach and all I did was panic.

We have nothing else to do here and it’s been dark for hours in Charleston where boats trace delicate white lights through the water and the horizon line is lost in the deep black of night. The air is chill. I have taken too many Zantrex-3 and I buzz all over. I’m sweating.

I’m sorry.

My skin is numb and smooth and wet, like the mouths of the people around us. They eat peanuts, onion rings, jalapeño poppers, soft pretzels with cheese and melted garlic butter.

I hate that I’m material.

Are you sweating? John asks me.

Maybe, I can’t feel my fingers.

You’re hungry. Eat your salad.

The breeze from the ocean moves your hair and for a moment I think I love you and then I realize I don’t know you.

I’m sick.

Maybe you’ve had enough to drink.

I rise and I sink.

Just sit down. Are you okay? You need to eat. Have some bread.

No, I’m not. I have to go. Where’s the bathroom?

Inside.

I’ll be back.

John pushes my water toward me. I see his fingertips wet through the glass and I picture them on my face. The sight of his flesh makes me dizzy.

You’re drunk.

You’re drunk.

Yes, I’m drunk. But so are you.

You promised.

I lie.

Thank you for telling me.

He swallows the rest of his beer in a single swig and orders another. I watch the waitress look at him longer than she should. My heart is racing. My legs are weak.

I’m crying.

I feel like I can’t breathe.

You’re breathing right now.

I’m going to die.

Of course, but not now. You have time.

It’s a matter of time.

That’s right.

I feel that everyone is looking at me. They masticate their food. They think I’m funny. They’re all as fat as I could be.

I’m ugly. Don’t touch me.

I’m not.

Leave me alone.

I’m over here.

I have to leave.

Where are you going?

I’ll sit in the car.

Just sit down, please. Relax.

I’m going to die.

You need to stop talking like that.

I stand. I kneel and vomit into my hands.

Jesus Christ.

Everyone sees me.

I’m having a heart attack.

No you’re not. Is there a doctor? Anyone?

It’s coming through my nose.

I know, I see it. Have some water.

I’m sorry.

Wipe your face. You need to eat.

I’ll throw it up.

You’d better not throw it up.

I’m floating away.

I’m carrying you. Stop being dramatic.

Do you think I’m pretty?

You’re fucked up, you know that?

Aren’t you drunk?

I am drunk. Just shut up, please.

You put a rag on my face in the car. You give me water.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Is this better?

Why are you drinking?

I’m not sure. Why aren’t you eating?

I am.

No, you’re not.

Yes I am.

John’s breathing stops some nights and I have to move him. The Seroquel he takes to sleep makes him sleep too deeply to know that he’s choking. I can only help him when we’re together. When he’s in Chicago, I’m useless. He stays out drinking late at night and takes the pills anyway.

Some nights I stay awake expecting he’ll call me to say that he’s dead.

Some nights I stay awake expecting to feel that he’s died.

As if something connects us across the distance and he disconnects.

I cradle the sphere of his skull in my palm and lift it up. I turn it left and right, left and right, until it’s perfect. This doesn’t last.

Some nights I turn his whole body back and forth for hours. He breathes and then his throat relaxes, sputters, and stops, and breathing is a struggle.

The sound is so loud that it scares me. I’ve tried to sleep on the couch but I think that, if I don’t go back and save him, I’ll wake up alone.

I’ve told him to talk to his doctor. He’s changed medications over and over. They all do this.

I’ve told him not to drink with them but I know that’s ridiculous.

He snores so loudly sometimes that he wakes himself up and looks around like he’s surprised. In the light from the neon sign next door, I can see that he’s seeing visions. He looks at the backs of his eyes.

Sometimes I wake him on purpose and ask him to stop but this makes him angry.

That’s if I can even wake him. Most nights I shake him and shake him and he never wakes up.

Or I shout his name directly at him many times, but even this doesn’t work.

The day after one of these nights, he’ll sleep until four in the afternoon. I spend the time that he’s sleeping reading on the leather couch, or wasting away on the Internet, or playing with Dog.

I’ve never had keys to his apartment. He won’t make them. I’m afraid that, if I lock myself out, he can’t let me back in.

I’ve said this to him many times but he says that there’s nothing he can do, that I’ll have to get used to it.

I sit on the back porch for hours with Dog. By four o’clock, I feel like I’ve opened my skull and scraped the inside clean and filled it with dust.

I think that, if I can find the center of the noise, I might be able to make peace with it. That maybe, if it’s the only thing I hear, I won’t even hear it.

In order for this to be true, there would need to be no other sound. But there is Dog, and there is the fan, and there are the sounds of the building settling. Then there are neighbors.

I think that his neighbors downstairs must hear him.

They must have said something, if not to John, then at least to the landlord.

They are like watchdogs.

Do they lie awake worrying he’s died when the sound stops suddenly? Do they think about coming upstairs? About knocking on the door, to be sure he’s still living?