Broken: A Plague Journal (25 page)

“He had a theory, said it came to him one night when he couldn’t stop listening. He thought that maybe people were drawn to music that featured the note of their natural resonating frequencies. He told me he’d gone through dozens of songs that had touched him deeply at some level, and ‘C’ was a prominent tone in each of them. He was convinced that those songs literally resonated with his heart.

“There’s a thing called a seiche wave. It’s a wave that travels on the surface of a lake, or any landlocked water. Barely discernible. Sometimes it takes minutes, sometimes hours to oscillate completely. It’s the natural resonance of the earth.

“That boy got caught in a seiche wave. Maybe he heard a ‘C.’

“That’s why he disappeared.”

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Paul
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2004
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author: Paul Evan Hughes.
untitled.
publication: 12 February 2004.

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full text:

i am complicit in my own desolation.

no matter how brilliant they say you are, how sweet, charming, intelligent, no matter how innovative your work is or your theories are, no matter how all-around great they tell you you are, the cold, hard truth is that you fall asleep at night alone, and in the end, there will be no one to hold your hand and watch you die. there will always be someone prettier, more interesting, more spiritual, closer, bigger, better, faster, to fill the time with flesh and sound.

there is no enlightenment.
there is nothing left to enlighten.

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full text:

dear jacob,

i’ve dismantled my life completely in these two weeks.

dear jacob, i know i haven’t spoken to you in a while—it’s been difficult. it’s been the happiest almost-year since you left, and i apologize for substituting contentedness for communication. i owe you more than silences. the time i visited you, just before the dismantling began in earnest, i didn’t give you my full attention. i was selfish. i didn’t listen, didn’t really talk. just looked at a rock and wondered what’s left of you.

dear jacob, i know you would have loved her. and i know you now know everything i’ve collected of her. and i know that i would have been the one sobbing at the fire.

it’s now been a year since that first kiss, and i think i’ve lost her.

forever is a difficult word. you know that better than i can until i’m there.

i’m leaving this place, and i’ve started to box things up. the dismantling has ruined me. i can’t apologize enough, because i don’t know what to apologize for—it’s me, just me, all of me, and i don’t think i can get it right.

dear jacob, i understand the how and why now, and every day for weeks has been dissuasion. it’s been a fog. i’ve slipped back into so many habits. you know—the drinking, forgetting to eat. 176lbs now for the first time since you left. i’ve spiraled off into productivity, but what products could substitute? i shouldn’t have driven home.

god, i wish you could have seen me this year. almost-year.

because i’d never had a partner, never given myself so completely, never loved so deeply, and now i think i’ve lost it all. and the worst part is the maybe—maybe she still loves me, maybe there’s a chance, but i can’t operate like that. i have no great goals of getting back into the game—the thought of being with anyone else makes me sick. the thought of her being with anyone else makes me want to stop breathing.

i’ve started stuttering again.

if you could have seen us—

i don’t know what to do anymore. it’s all broken. there is no home, and i’ve substituted moving away for any semblance of trying to improve my situation. you know the friends—they’re gone now, married off and busy. no one’s visited since may. i’m always the one to drive to visit. and home—how do we define that? the farm has gone. under new management. and the constant—every day for almost-a-year, she was my constant, and maybe i shouldn’t have ascribed that responsibility to her, but i thought that’s what partners were. now it’s lost, and i stay awake at night wondering if i’ll ever see her again, if she’ll ever love me again. because i can’t imagine a lifetime without her.

if you could have seen me that night—you would have known.

dear jacob, i’m on the edge, and i know how it must have been for you. at least i can suspect.

but i won’t be visiting anytime soon. i’m sorry and not in the same breath.

i’m so lucky to have been given the time with her i was. few are given the opportunity to love like that. i know i’m greedy and selfish to want more, but i don’t know how else to be. i’m so lucky—do you understand that? to have loved like that—to continue to love like that, even if it’s only me.

i can only hope that something remains of this almost-year.

dear jacob, i’m fighting right now. i know you understand. because even with you gone, you’re still the one who listens.

i love her.

let me broadcast that with everything i have left—i love her. and if that love is resigned to echoes and sunrises, if it’s only a box of plastic or a folder of postcards, let it be known that my heart continues to be hers. and i’ll hide away from the world. i’m done with the game. i’ll rebuild in a ghost house and make a bonfire pit. i’ll set and overmeet goals and my heart will be hers, as flawed as it is, as broken as i am, because i’ve never wanted anything more than this. anyone more than her.

i’ve lost my best friend.

dear jacob, i’m so tired, but i’m fighting. there’s no room for surrender.

a year ago... i can’t write through the tears anymore. so much of me has been excised.

and i know words are weapons and this broadcast could ruin further, but i can’t keep it inside anymore. it would have been one year today since that first kiss, since i started to fall the best fall. i’m so scared to tell her how i feel, and i can only hope that she knows, beg that she remembers. because i gave her the best of me i could, and i don’t think i did enough. it’s a startling realization to know now that my best will never be good enough.

dear jacob, i’m coming home.

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full text:

...] [i] know you told me to go to bed, but there was editing to do and i wanted to write to you before i tried to sleep.
i’m sorry i haven’t called. i know it’s ridiculous and i can call and leave a message and i know i should, but i don’t want to interrupt and i want to talk to you when you have time and i know you have time for sure. i don’t know how to do this. i think i’ve been doing a bad job, and i apologize.
...] [i have had] dreams of you, and i’ve looked through england pictures and all the other pictures. missing you is my constant. and it’s something i don’t want to get good at. i don’t want to be good at missing you. that’s why i’d really like to see you on saturday. i don’t mind driving, and i wouldn’t presume to spend the night, anyway. i’d just like to be within a distance of you where i can feel you there. i don’t know if that makes sense. i never imagined that you’d feel farther away in vt than you did in england, but it’s happened, and i know i have to deal with that. i miss my best friend, my lover and partner. i miss us. broken hearts can heal, but it’s like the heart is made of glass. scar tissue can form around the pieces, but every time it beats, you can feel the sharp edges. i’ve never felt so lost.
...] people come into and leave our lives, but we keep going. i’m trying so hard to keep going, but i’d give anything to hold your hand again. i keep busy and do things that most people never do, most people never have seventeen authors excited over the opportunity of being published, and i’m the one offering that opportunity, but everything just feels like i’m going through the paces, sitting in front of the camera putting on a strong face and saying that i’m okay, but everyone knows that [i’m] lying. the cashier jokes playfully while checking my id and it makes me sick. i’m in love with someone i’m afraid i’ll never see again. my dad says i need to find me a big indian woman to keep me warm in this cold old house this winter, and i know he’s just joking, we have the same sense of humor, but there’s no one else i want to hold on to. sisters hint at passing my number to really nice 36-year-old divorcees, two kids, like to read, and i feel like breaking. does any of this make sense? i know i’m tangenting. but i sit here and wonder what set of paints i could wrap for you, what little drawing with “never give up” on it. i looked for you my entire life. and if i could apologize for the times i hurt you, i would, if i could erase the stupid fights we had over nothing, i would, but that was a part of us as well, and erasing any of us would be to alter something that was beautiful.
so i say goodnight to you each night and i hold my pillow and pretend it’s you and i feel the pieces of glass grinding. i’m making a living on words and these words don’t even begin to approach what i feel.
i don’t know. i don’t know how to write what my heart’s telling me. it’s been so difficult, and i know you know that, it’s just. i don’t know.
i stood in the rain yesterday and replaced the broken clutch in my truck, just in case you wanted to get together this weekend. i hope we can, even if for a few hours. i know it’ll be difficult, and i don’t know how i’d be able to keep my eyes dry, but i miss you so much.
life’s composed of moments. i think back, and it’s so overwhelming. “cover my feet” and the way you said NO, seeing you from across antique shops, holding hands walking up the hill at the grange. sitting on rocks with you and eating cheese by the water, washing dishes, washing the entire floor’s dishes while you cooked. running for buses and trains and standing in awe at paintings and just curled up together on my futon after you got to my apartment. the way you said my name. i’ve never felt closer, never felt safer. and it’s so hard to let go of that—i don’t want to let go of that, don’t want to experience you through memory, because i’ve almost forgotten the scent of your hair, something i realized nights ago, and i’m holding on so hard to what i have left, the feel of your cheeks on my lips, the taste of you, the size and squeeze of your hand, the way we fit together spooned, or with your arm around me from behind. half asleep and waking up to
i love you, paul hughes, so much
, a kiss and you fell back asleep. how can i give that up?
i love you. this is a love letter—they all are, they always have been, and when i’m gone someday and all that’s left of me is my words, someone will know that i was in love and my world was beautiful.