Yearning

by Paige Vest

(content warning: self-harm)

I lie directly beneath the ceiling fan, my feet hanging over the side of the bed. The whole contraption rattles as the fan turns, the blades cutting the air too fast to see more than their outline and the blur in the middle. The white glass of the globe light rattles, shaking as the fan spins and I wonder if it will shake itself loose, maybe fall to hit my face. I don’t worry that this may happen, I just wonder.

I imagine it happening: the globe falling toward me in slow-motion and I watch it coming without flinching. I don’t jerk my head to the side to avoid an impact, I just close my eyes and wait for it to hit. Will it shatter, I wonder? Will the shards of glass cut me? Or will it just bong as it bounces off my face, breaking my nose?

Dangling to either side of the globe are pull chains for the fan and the light. The darkened curve of the white glass globe casts light back from the two windows on adjacent walls as well as the two mirrors opposite them. Above the dresser, the larger of the two mirrors is framed in orange mini-lights, which look red in the reflection. The images in the globe take on the likeness of a face, one eye framed in red, and a broken smile. 

It’s a little creepy. 

My head is centered almost directly beneath the light, and I bend my neck to one side in order to line it up perfectly. I watch it, mesmerized. The fan spinning, the globe light shaking, the crystal ends of the pull chains jiggling from the motion of the fan above. They appear to be dancing to the beat of the blades against the air.

I am crying. I have been crying since he finished and lay beside me, both of us panting and sweating. My legs are shaky. It’s been a while since we’ve had sex and frankly, I’m out of practice. There is still sweat cooling the skin on the backs of my knees; they got sweaty as I kneeled on the bed, urging him on, hoping he’d make me feel. Something.

I’m not sobbing, though I can feel the possibility of breaking down just beyond my reach. Just out of touch. But for now, I lie here with tears leaking from my eyes, upset with myself because I feel like an idiot. I was hoping this encounter would give me something besides fleeting arousal, something other than the incessant anger. I am yearning to feel something good.

It’s been too long since I’ve felt something good. 

This is funny—not funny ha-ha, but more funny-strange—because not long ago, I felt so much at one time that I had to contain it, so as to prevent myself from curling into a ball in the corner and crying endlessly. I was consumed with anger, driven mad with self-loathing, poisoned by betrayal, and I needed to feel less. I wanted to feel nothing. My existence has been cursed with experiencing emotions so strongly that they often supplant everything. It’s exhausting. I’ve often wished to feel nothing at all, to just have some peace and quiet in my mind. 

We fight a lot. We always have. But because of what he said, what he did … the last fight was the worst in our twenty-five years together, I think. Worse than the constant gaslighting and snide, insulting comments. Worse than the decade’s odd poor treatment that I now realize was mental and emotional abuse. 

Since that night, since the fight, I’ve felt completely detached for the first time in my memory. Emotionally separated from everything. I’ve felt … apart from my feelings. As if they were something I could remove and discard, or at least shove into a box, to place on a high shelf and collect dust.

It was liberating to be able to separate myself from all of the feelings, but they still tormented me from their hiding place, taunting, lying, suffocating. Unable to bear their enormity anymore, craving detachment, I completely walled them off; throttled the emotions and stuffed them away. Most of them, anyway. The pain and anger are what I have left. I discovered a well of fuck everything left within me and it was a comfort to find it. I could be angry, I could hate, I could hurt. And it was enough.

But that’s beginning to wear on me. Even in my current state, I have enough presence of mind to realize that feeling these alone, without love, joy, patience, and other good feelings to temper the rest … Well, it isn’t good. I understand that I’m probably not okay. I’m not particularly concerned about that, but I realize I should be.

On the edge of my vision, I see him turn to look at me and I have no time to wipe away the wetness from my cheeks. I just lie there, staring at the fan as my tears escape the confines of my eyes and slide down my face into my hair. I feel bad for crying; maybe I’m afraid that he’ll consider it rude for me to behave this way only moments after we’ve had sex. Then I feel stupid for being concerned about what he thinks, and remind myself that at least I’m feeling something. 

There was some small measure of passion during the sex. Some pleasure and some pain. But I wanted more of both. I was unable to find release, however. No love. No affection. Not even a scrap of fondness. Only lust and need and disappointment.

I turn my face away from him, just enough so that the moisture in my left eye begins to pool there. The rivulets on my face that were steadily sliding into my hair change course and spill into my ear. Of course they do. I almost laugh as I think how silly it is for my ear to be full of tears. When I feel as if the danger of outright bawling has passed, I turn my head back to stare at the ceiling fan. The pooled tears pour down my face and into my hair. 

He’s still watching me. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, he doesn’t offer comfort. I don’t expect either, really. He just lies there, pressed against me, our bodies—otherwise cooled by the ceiling fan wobbling above my head—still sweaty where our hips and legs are pressed together. 

He sits up to get a drink and hands me the takeout cup of iced tea he brought with him. As he does, he makes a casual comment which tells me he’s noticed the gifts my boss gave me for Christmas: body spray and a scented lotion called Get Happy, which are sitting on the bedside table. 

“Is your Get Happy lotion making you happy?” 

Suddenly, I am sobbing, my body shaking as I hold the cup on my stomach with both hands, as if my grip on it will keep me from flying apart. I know that the comment wasn’t made with malice or sarcasm, he just doesn’t know what else to say. He takes the cup from my hands and returns it to the bedside table, then lies beside me again, on his side to face me. I turn my head away completely now, not wanting him to see me cry like this. Not knowing why I care. Maybe I’m just used to his usual irritation when I grow emotional. 

Probably. 

Definitely.

The mantra I use in moments such as this—which happen often enough that I know they’re a problem, even if I can’t bring myself to care about that, either—catches his attention. “You’re okay,” I tell myself under my breath. “You’ll be okay, it’s okay.”

“What?” He asks as though I was talking to him, though I feel like he knows I wasn’t. I shake my head, the motion spilling more tears from my eyes. 

I wish I hadn’t told him about the holiday gift of scented body spray and lotion from my boss. I wish I hadn’t joked about it while also feeling shitty about it. The gift was given with good intentions, I think, but it’s not as if a spray bottle full of scented water can banish the darkness in my mind. It won’t fix what’s broken. And neither will sex. At least, not sex with him. I wish I hadn’t invited him over. I’m still so angry with him since the fight, even if his drunken words were some of the truest he’s ever spoken to me. “Have you ever been around you?” Probably because of that. That, and the knife he gave me as he told me in a soft, soothing, beer-soaked voice to make myself feel better.

 I drag my mind back to now and speak before I can stop myself. “I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t need to say you’re sorry,” he says. He does, on occasion, display some insight … some wisdom. “There’s no reason for you to be sorry.”

Maybe there’s not—certainly, there’s not—but after decades of experiencing his anger or frustration or indifference when I display strong emotions, it’s second nature for me to stifle them. To swallow my tears. To hide my pain.

To regret feeling.

Only now, I’m incapable of hiding the pain. It oozes from my skin, it trickles from my fingertips, and it leaks from my eyes. It weighs me down, its heaviness drooping my shoulders and pulling me toward the earth, causing me to slump and drag my feet when I walk. It pulls my features into a scowl, like a stroke victim whose face is skewed … unaware and so unable to do anything about it. 

“All I can feel is this pain,” I tell him, though I’m not sure why. He never hears me. “So I want to feel more of it, just so that I can feel something.” 

I continue talking as I cry, trying to relay what’s in my head. Trying for the thousandth time to give him a glimpse into the darkness, so that he might understand how hopeless it is to try to fight against it. But he won’t walk away, even if it would be easier. Even if most of him kind of wants to. 

I don’t understand why he stays.

Maybe he doesn’t understand why, either.

As ever, I can’t seem to tell him that I’m done. I can’t seem to be done. Every moment of every day, I hear the things he’s said to me in anger and in malice that, over time, have broken me. “Have you ever been around you?” I hear his words all the time. “I know it’s what you want, it will make you feel better.” I feel the cool blade of the pocketknife as he placed it in my hand during that last fight, and I wonder again why he’s still here. Why he’s beside me on my bed, naked, thinking that my invitation to come over for sex means that we’re on the mend. Thinking that we’re maybe going to be okay. Because we’re not okay. I’m not okay. And I don’t know if I will be again. So how can we be again?

He’s still looking at me; he almost never looks at me anymore, either. So I try to explain my tears, try to explain my mind. It’s impossible to do, really. It’s a maelstrom in there and I sometimes can’t still the tempest long enough to form a coherent thought. Now is one of those times. I feel as if I’m holding a double handful of sand, letting it spill through my fingers as I try to find the one grain which will explain. I give up and drop the sand, and as it falls through my splayed fingers, I let the vortex in my mind spin like the ceiling fan above my head. I look up at it again and it calms me.

“I wanted you to make me feel something today,” I tell him. I know I’m repeating myself and I don’t know if I’m making any sense. I almost don’t care if I am, because I don’t think he’ll understand, anyway. I turn my head to look at him and it’s almost too much, staring into the brown eyes I used to love so completely. I don’t know what I feel for him anymore. There’s not room for anything other than anger. I look away so that I can continue. “I wanted to feel something other than the pain because that’s all I seem capable of feeling. Pain and anger. And I find myself wanting to feel more pain, just to feel something.”

He doesn’t ask what I mean by wanting to feel more pain, even though I wanted the sex to be rough. He doesn’t notice the scars, though they’re admittedly small, and few. So far. I’ve been jonesing to add more cuts, to feel the razor bite as it slides through my skin. It doesn’t cut as cleanly as I had expected; it tears the skin. It tears neatly, of course, and it takes several moments for the blood to well, but as clean as the cuts look, the skin is torn. I can feel it tear … I can hear it as I press the blade down and drag it slowly through my flesh.

He’d been right when he’d placed that knife in my hand, after all … it was what I wanted and it does make me feel better.

He doesn’t respond at all so I turn to look at him again. His expression strikes me as sad, as if he feels that he failed. He didn’t fail, I did feel … some. Just less than I was hoping. The arousal passed quickly, unfortunately. And I did enjoy the sex, though I failed to climax. The pain was even good and I know I will still feel something of that later, maybe even into tomorrow, so that’s good, too.

“Thank you.” I know that I’m telling him this to ease his mind more than anything, but I feel that I should reassure him in some way. I know it’s ridiculous, yet I do it anyway. “You did make me feel something.” He smiles. I keep going. “So thank you.”

He seems relieved. I feel like a liar. 

On a whim, I ask him to tell me something he generally holds back for fear I’ll be angry. The question catches him off guard and he actually answers in earnest. “I don’t know how to deal with this,” he says.

Welcome to the fucking club.

The darkness in my mind has been encroaching for years but I never knew how to deal with it, either. Two shrinks later and I’m really no closer to clawing my way back into the light. It’s undeniably a part of me now, and I sometimes take comfort in its presence. I can hide within it and buffer myself from the world, from the pain. I can submerge myself and float, uncaring that embracing it is probably the worst thing I could be doing.

I haven’t responded to him and to break the silence, he asks if I want to get lunch. I don’t, but it’s easier to lie. I can see why he’s done it so much in the past, from his lies about cheating to what he considers mere omissions, such as how late he stays at the bar drinking, and with whom … so I agree that lunch sounds good. We stir, and he stands to dress. I watch him but I’m also looking inward, trying to find order and reason somewhere in the mess inside my head. Trying to find something besides the hurt and anger, but there is nothing. It’s still behind the wall, if it exists at all.

He notices me watching and steps aside as if I was waiting for him to move. I wasn’t. But I go to the dresser, choose a shirt, some pants. I look at myself in the mirror, the orange lights around it tint my skin and the hair tumbling around my face. Who are you?

I ask myself this daily, sometimes repeatedly. I still don’t know. I stare at the stranger in the mirror, wondering what she’ll do next, because despite the fact that she is apparently me, I don’t know her mind. I don’t know her intentions. I also don’t know if she’s the real me, who’s hidden behind my mask these many years, or if she’s the mask concealing the real me.

Behind the me in the glass, I see him turn toward me and I meet him, grabbing him in a kiss. It’s hungry, my kiss, and he responds in kind, eager, perhaps, for me to finally be engaged. I’m not engaged, though, I’m hungry and he’s left me wanting. I kiss him and feel my passion stir once more. I think that once he’s left, I’ll bring myself to climax as he waits at his house for me to dress and pick him up for the lunch I don’t want to eat.

I break the kiss and pull him to my neck, and he kisses me like he used to. This is good. This is what I wanted, what I needed. This feeling is what I yearned for. His lips on my neck pull my passion to the surface and I groan, the sound full of my need. He doesn’t leave, as I expect. Instead, he senses what I want and he turns me toward the bed again. I go willingly, giving him the access he needs to finally make me feel something good.

Please make me feel.

I glory in the sensation as he teases emotion from me. Passion, lust, and oddly, comfort. I close my eyes and ride the pleasure, laughing as I reach ever-heightening plateaus of bliss. They build, all of the small pleasures, but I still don’t get the big release I need. I try to content myself with what he did give. 

Rather, I try to be content with what I was able to take. 

I wonder if I should take a lesson from the experience or if I might give it another try, tomorrow or the next day. I don’t know just yet. But I let what good feelings he’s pulled from me soothe the hurt for the few moments I know it will last. I sigh as he leaves little kisses and nibbles on my skin. I still feel no affection, but there is some measure of satisfaction, which I didn’t feel before.

I guess that’s something.