Sarah Gerard - Binary Star

High-mass stars rapidly exhaust their core supplies of energy.

And burn out.

I feel that this is the end of suffering.

I feel that I will be extinguished.

This is the end of indecision. Of two desires orbiting the empty space of why.

I will finally disappear. Be final.

Desire requires two bodies: This and that.

The final exam.

Evaluation.

John says: What does it mean to be primitive in the city? John thinks he’s primitive and he thinks I’m primitive.

I’m indifferent, I think. I don’t think much anymore.

I think I don’t feel deeply for John.

I think John needs me. I feel this without feeling it.

That he needs me reminds me that I’m here, worth something.

I know I feel hungry.

Distant.

I feel dizzy when I stand.

I’m not living in a tree, John. No.

If you say so.

That sounds perfect.

I don’t know what I believe.

You don’t believe these things you’re saying, either. You’ve just filled yourself with them.

You have filled yourself with me.

You don’t even know me.

You don’t even know me.

You don’t grow your own food.

You don’t grow anything but your gut.

I didn’t mean that. I’m tired.

I’m lonely.

I’m hungry.

I’m sorry.

Self-hating.

Justifiably afraid.

Don’t be angry.

Don’t leave me. I’m alone.

I should be left alone.

I love you.

I feel this now as a kind of falling.

I just miss you, I say.

I need you, too.

(We pass each other and keep turning.)

John, lighten up. It’s a joke. I said I’m sorry.

How committed are you, really? I doubt your commitment.

To what?

To the cause.

I do believe in causation. I believe in control. I control this, if nothing else.

I control myself. You see it. It is visible in my absence.

And on paper.

In my performance.

You got straight A’s? You do so much. Too much, really.

But those people online aren’t your comrades.

If you can’t touch them you can’t know them. I know you’re lonely.

I don’t like to be touched. I’m sorry.

Don’t remind me that I’m here.

I feel one thing: afraid.

Guilty. Vile.

It’s just that I miss you.

I’m sure that’s it. I am angry at myself.

I’m just angry.

I am justifiably angry.

Fine, then I’m afraid.

I call him periodically throughout the night. I can’t stargaze here. Otherwise, I’d be out.

There is too much light on Long Island.

He’s up all night when he doesn’t take his pills.

I’m sick. I know. I’m sick, too, John.

I’m sick of this. I’m sick of you suffering. I’m sick of suffering.

I’m fading.

We know each other’s sickness. It keeps us circling.

I ask him questions about it but he doesn’t tell me much.

I also think he lies.

I lie.

How can I know? I can know very little.

I know he lies.

I don’t know.

I don’t know what he sees. He doesn’t ask me about myself anymore.

I don’t think he wants to know.

What to say? I am empty inside on purpose.

I have a purpose. I do.

It is making myself a star.

I’m serious.

I don’t have a sense of humor.

I think it’s enough that I’m morbidly interested.

It must seem like concern. It does concern me.

He takes his pills for fun. They’re his. He needs them. He says that he doesn’t.

What would your doctor think? Do you tell him?

Of course not. I take them, but not for fun.

Whatever.

We’re different. We’re also the same.

John doesn’t know about my pills.

Once, he rear-ended someone on the Kennedy Expressway and spent three days in the hospital.

I couldn’t be there. Should I have told him then? There is never a good time.

I didn’t ask him, either.

Was this your fault? I know it was. I didn’t have to ask.

He forgets.

He doesn’t want to. He is stubborn. He overcompensates.

He has to love me.

We talk on the phone and he slurs his words, orbits nonsense.

What would happen if I left him?

Left him? I’m not there.

What would happen if I wasn’t?

What would happen if I wasn’t.

The work and me. But John is work.

I do John’s work for him already.

I help John become me. It is the cruelest thing I do.

I am orbiting. I spin.

You can’t drink with it, John.

I don’t.

Whatever.

I read about stars. Miley Cyrus, Victoria Beckham, Lady Gaga, Princess Kate.

I buy magazines at Walgreens. Read the stories, read for class. If I have Adderall, I read all night, filling myself. I empty myself.

I fill myself.

I empty myself.

I fill myself.

Again, I’m still empty.

My goal for the night: 85. Amazing!

I don’t need to be full to purge. I’m never full.

I’m able to purge without feeling.

I’m sick.

Mass is a numerical measure of inertia and a fundamental measure of the matter in an object.

I take my picture in the mirror. I know how to turn myself. I want no part of my body touching any other part.

The mirror hovers on the wall of my bedroom. It cuts me at the knee.

I’m short. I have very short legs and a big ass. My thighs are thick.

Nicole Richie is long for her frame. The space between Nicole and her clothes is immense.

Beautiful.

They seem to orbit around her bones, her empty space.

She seems to be disappearing.

She is massive.

She has an impossible shadow between her thumb and her wrist when she holds a cup of coffee.

I covet that shadow.

I hate the shadows in here.

I am also nothing but shadow.

I take pictures of myself before the mirror.

I stand in elongating postures. I send them to John. Make him miss me.

What can improve? Always something.

Please tell me.

He doesn’t answer.

I trim the sides of the photos. The space around a body. The space to the edge. I am nothing but a shadow one thousand miles away.

I am nothing but light’s interruption by matter.

How are you feeling, John? Better?

I’m sorry I woke you.

A white dwarf is very hot when it is formed, but with no source of energy, will radiate away its heat and cool down.

A white dwarf is also called a degenerate dwarf.