• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 9824 0

the days that followed, I felt like a man whose flesh had been stripped. I've never felt such pain. And it kept building. I couldn't drown it and I couldn't shake it. It shadowed all of my hours. I once thought that I'd really been through some rough things, that I was immune to pain. One time I was chained to a bed for two weeks spread-eagled hand and foot, flat on my back. When they came in to laughingly ask me how I was doing, I spit on them and got punched out for it. And they shot me with that foul drug Prolixin and made a zombie out of me for four months. I was virtually paralized. I couldn't stand up without help and when I was raised to my feet I'd wonder what the fuck I wanted to stand up for and I'd sit back down. When it was driving me the worst I went for three weeks without sleep. I just sat on the corner of the bed-I hallucinated to the edge of insanity. I wondered if I'd ever be the same again, if I'd ever be able to draw and paint again. I lost about 50 pounds. I just couldn't get the food to my mouth. Getting up to take a piss was a major effort, I dreaded it, it would take me about 15 to 20 minutes I couldn't get the pants buttoned. After a while I could barely see, my eyes had filled with some kind of white discharge that dried real thick on the lashes and I couldn't reach up to wipe it away and I couldn't see through it. Every 3 days or so they'd take me out of my cell to shower and shave. I hated that, it was such an effort! They'd hand me this electric razor and stand me in front of a mirror. I'd just stand there. There was no way on earth I could get that razor to my face, Sometimes they'd talk bad to me, say, "well, you're one of them tough guys, huh? Can't button your pants. . ." shit like that. I just had to look at them and take it. Sometimes I'd reply, "Fuck your mother, you pig." They'd get pretty pissed about that but it wasn't really much consolation to me . . . I never begged them and I never cried not even when I was alone and I was completely alone. I knew that it would pass, eventually, and it did. I was able to shake it.

That was a bad experience. I've had others-unpleasant experiences of a long duration. I've always shaken them off and felt strong for it.

But I've never felt the kind of pain I felt when I thought I'd lost you. I couldn't shake that off-I only wanted you back, that's all I knew. I stayed at your house a few nites, and it was so lonely. Nicole. I was depressed. I'd walk those rooms and wonder where you were. When you called me that Thursday at work to tell me you were moving I felt my heart breaking. Really. It's a physical pain-it's not just in the mind. It was something I could feel. And it felt bad. Friday I looked for you but I didn't know where to look. Your mother wouldn't tell.

I felt so alone and depressed. Like I was a void. And it didn't lessen any. I had lost the only thing of real value I'd ever had or known.

My life had lost meaning, it had become a gulf, empty and void but for the shadows and the ever-present ghosts who have followed me for so long.

I don't ever want to feel that pain again. I am so completely in love with you, Nicole. I miss you so much, Baby. When I read your two letters and picture your pretty face the darkness rolls back and I know that I am loved. And that's a beautiful thing. The hurt stops. We were together for only two months but it's the fullest two months I've known in this life. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Just two months but I believe that I have known you, that we've known each other, for so much longer-a thousand, two thousand years?-I don't know what we were to each other before, I will know, as you will also when it becomes ultimately clear one day-but I feel we were always lovers. I knew this when I saw you that first nite, May 13th, Thursday, at Sterlings. There are some things you just know. And it went so deep so fast-it was a recognition, a renewal, a reunion. Me and you Nicole, from a long time ago. I have always loved you Angel. Let's don't ever hurt each other again.

3

Cliff Bonnors was great because he