When you are stronger than everyone you know, you are alone.
Sometimes (now) I feel like I am heading in the wrong direction. And no one can stop it.
I am watching a feeling run out of me like school children
Throw another pill away like a one night stand lover
Change your own face
But don't try
Watch it happen
Letting go is beautiful
Scratch out the ache
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"What do you live for?...What do you live for?...What do you live for?..."
There was pure silence.
That is the first question I was asked when I met the only therapist I have ever truly cared for. She was average in appearance; brown hair, brown eyes, slightly overweight, around twenty five years old, and friendlier than most people I have encountered in L.A. Her voice was sweet and patient; another rarity. At the time, I was twenty and recovering from my most recent and closest suicide attempt. My arms, still sore, were bandaged in virgin white gauze.
She must have asked me that question ten times, as I sat on the stiff couch of her freezing office with the dim lighting. The building was shitty, to say the least, and I only had to pay $30 a session. The room smelled like mold and rotting wood and everything in it, from the carpet to the walls, was brown. Oh the walls. They were covered in children's drawings - most of them in crayon. It was the first thing I noticed and I immediately liked Hayley because of it. Right away, I felt how she loved children and helped them. She had decorated her entire office around them. I had never known anyone like that - genuinely nice. Genuinely. It was frightening and beautiful. I pulled down my sleeves to hide a part of myself, for I suddenly felt insignificant; not good enough to be in her presence; damaged.
"I like that one," I whispered. As I purposely ignored the question, my eyes were locked directly behind Hayley.
Rather than ask me what I was referring to, Hayley turned around and observed the drawing of a small boy and his two dogs. Now let me note that there was nothing amazing about that particular picture - only there was to me. It was very plain but it did not seem to be rushed like the other ones. The artist must have been very young and he obviously had no special artistic skill. But it was not about that and I knew it. It was about the way it made me feel.
"Why that one?" She asked.
My reply was quick.
"It is honest."
"Honest? How so?"
I could tell she was actually curious so I gave her the truest response.
"Yes. What was the assignment? To draw anything? To draw his feelings? It doesn't even matter. Look around. Look at all the others. They are all the same. There is color everywhere, impatience, expectedness. All of those kids drew what they know - families, sunshine, flowers, candy. They drew from outside themselves, never reaching inward. They only felt what was normal around them and that's what they gave you - a reaction. Normalcy. But not this boy. He drew himself in gray and he drew his dogs in black. There is no family. They are not there. There are no fillers to make some fantastical background. There is no bullshit. It is real. Just a kid and the animals he feels close to."
Hayley smiled and her eyes, now widened with shock, met mine with pure curiosity. Neither of us said anything for a minute and it remains one of the strangest and most instant connections I have experienced.
"You asked me what I live for?"
"Yes."
"I live for that. I live for that kind of honesty. That boy's picture makes me feel alive. What makes you feel alive?"
There was a look of disbelief on Hayley's face and I could tell she was struggling to speak. Though I had no idea why, it was as if she had seen a familiar ghost.
"Well, Evan, that picture was drawn by a boy I used to counsel. He is eight years old. He used to come in three times a week until his parents refused any further treatment. I still think of him often. Not to play favorites but he was especially wonderful. His name is Evan."
And that was it. I understood her reaction. She must have seen him in me and recognized my pull towards his picture as something extraordinary. But it was more than that. She wanted to help me. She saw good in me and she genuinely wanted to help me.
In that moment, I experienced shock in a way that I had only once previously known. As I struggled to identify what this feeling was, my thoughts drifted to the week before, when I drank a bottle of Jagermeister and decided to kill myself.
“When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them.”
Life is liquid. You woke up screaming for weeks. Your mom was right. Were you drowning in life? Do not regret, Clementine. If I could respond, I would do so silently. No more spectacles. They will not teach you a thing. You drank from a place that was never yours. So while you apologize, so do I. If I could give you one more thing, it would be peace. Forget everything about me. Let go. Completely. Walk away. I forgive you. Bluest eyes. Youngest soul. You are forgiven. I think of you often - when I smell the trees in the rain on our hill. Though I do not go there anymore. I cannot go there alone. To cry like that might awaken whatever it is that I have bludgeoned to slumber. But I think of you often. Whenever I am blessed with a bruise. Walking through dirt, barefoot. Or when I drink a bottle of wine on a cliff under the only stars that remind me of our scars. My love for you is vast. Know that we are better off apart. You spoke of that kind of love like it was alive. It is not for me. It is never going to happen for me. And for that, I will never say I am sorry. This is who I am. Who I am is who you are not. Together, we destroyed each other. These pieces of paper and these photos are only the ruins. Let them be. Let go of me.
Sometimes I forget.
She's a jar
With a heavy lid
My pop quiz kid
A sleepy kisser
With feelings hid
She begs me not to miss her
She says forever
To light a fuse
We could use
A hand full of wheel
And a day off
And a bruised road
However you might feel
Tonight is real
When I forget how to talk I sing
Won't you please
Bring that flash to shine
And turn my eyes red
Unless they close
When you click
And my face gets sick
Stuck
Like a question unposed
Just climb aboard
The tracks of a train's arm
In my fragile family tree
And watch me floating inches above
The people under me
Please beware the quiet front yard
I warned you
Before there were water skies
I warned you not to drive
Dry your eyes you poor devil
Are there really ones like these
The ones I dream
Float like leaves
And freeze to spread skeleton wings
I passed through before I knew you
I believe it's just because
Daddy's payday is not enough
Oh I believe it's all because
Daddy's payday is not enough
Just climb aboard
The tracks of a train's arm
In my fragile family tree
And watch me floating inches above
The people under me
She's a jar
With a heavy lid
My pop quiz kid
A sleepy kisser
A pretty war
My feelings hid
She begs me not to hit her
"In that one moment, I never wanted you to leave and the realization that you most definitely would made me want to tear off my skin: slowly, precisely, perfectly - as if my life depended on it. You laid with me until I fell asleep and I will never know why but I suspect it was out of love. I remember it because it was the only time your eyes looked real - like melting ice. When I awoke the next morning, you were gone. It was expected. You warned me. I warned me. I had always known that I would be alone. It didn't matter what happened in between. Up until that point, there was no in between. For one night I wasn't alone. I must have dreamt of angels and snowflakes that night. I must have felt no pain in my slumber. I must have felt truly loved - even for just a few hours...for it was the first time I did not awake in terror; shaking and diminishing. That single night, I had felt safe and perfect, like it was never supposed to be: like Christmas in dreams."
"I told you to never look back.
Wherever you are, I feel it.
I bled on your dress for a reason, Snow White.
You are too good for me.
And I am too weak.
You are already perfect.
Let go, love.
Now."
She moved in a different way now, her face was smaller and there were noticeable lapses in her memory.
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Elliott Smith Updated: Jul 10, 2009
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