content warnings
mental health, suicide as metaphor
[743 words]
The first time he pulled out the pretty-boy attitude and the curly hair and that damn Tracy Chapman vinyl was the day that I knew I’d never come down from this high.
It’s not a well kept secret – how we steal away from class, pretending to be good people just to open the raw wound we know we are, how i’d beg for five more minutes just to press my face against his neck – there’s a terrible amount of reverence here, how i’d lay him upon the altar and pray if it’d give me just a few more minutes.
The Tracy Chapman vinyl croons out “For My Lover” and distinctly i realize i never knew the name of this gentle violence until i made it holy. i didn’t know that love was a religion until i placed him at the altar. The turntable cuts through the space between us like a body; the grey-blue of my walls reflecting the brown-gold of the table and like it could be written in the holy scriptures of some religion, i stay exactly one-and-one-half arm’s length away from him. it is friday night. it is sometime just before we’re meant to go out to party and kiss ourselves drunk on futures.
The secret story here is that we dream of getting out of this town and we dream of our futures in the reverent and frantic manner only kids who dream of sex and god can achieve.
It is the summer before our high school ends and i can feel the hot air blowing in my open window, and god i wish i’d done anything stupid in high school just to say i lived the teenage american dream – i haven’t gotten drunk nor have i had sex nor have i done anything but be a wound too raw to keep closed and too lonely to keep open.
Tracy Chapman’s on though, and at the wrong angle the man i am in love with looks suspiciously like he’ll leave any moment. he is my best friend. i am waiting to be placed on the same pedestal i put him on. he is bobbing his head along slightly, belting out the lyrics to For My Lover and i can feel my breath raggedly exhale from my chest, like a soft animal learning how to live. There is normalcy in knowing this will never end. There is normalcy in knowing that this will last for only a second.
Just for once, i indulge in what it means to have this still – i’ve been lucky enough to fall in love at the right time and i’m lucky enough that when he leaves, it’ll mean something this time, not just ratty eyeliner and fishnets ripped too high. we’re just trying to get out of this town and i’m terrified i’m stuck here forever and i am a suburban suicide – a bombshell that gets dropped in the middle of an argument, or a statistic that comes freeflowing as the sunset goes down.
The ending goes a little similar to this: the song falls into the crescendo of its final verse and chorus. There is a dream i’ve had forever, where i’ve done nothing but manage to fall in love. it looks suspiciously like lying down on my bed and listening to Tracy Chapman until the end of the world. The song ends – languidly, not abruptly, not like what it would feel like if he left, not like what it was like to fall in love, not like how it felt to be comprised of hopes and dreams, not what it means to put your lover on a pedestal and worship him anyways.
I turn around and look at him. I scream for recognition – for this moment to last forever or for just a second. I choke around my own words when i beg him to listen – tell him that the song isn’t just about Tracy Chapman, it’s about me, too. It’s about us, too.
I love you. The room falls silent as the song ends.
I love you. He suggests we go to the nearby coffee shop, just to stay awake and run away until midnight.
I love you, I mouth to the silence of the room, I love you I love you I love you. The record spins again and the next track plays and it does not matter.
arushi (aera) rege is a queer, chronically in pain, Indian-American poet in senior year in high school. They tweet occasionally @academic_core and face the perils of instagram @aera_.writes. They are the proud author of exit wounds (no point of entry) and BROWN GIRL EPIPHANY (kith books ’24, fifth wheel press ’25). They are the EIC of nightshade lit, Bus Talk, and Draupadi Interviews. You can find their website at arushiaerarege.carrd.co.
Image Credit Rosalind Chang on Unsplash
