one of these you's is really me
by Donnie Boman

You bought some new shoes. They were very fashionable, and that is why you liked them. There was no reason other than that for buying them. You were going to have to buy something to wear with them because nothing you had matched. So, you bought a new shirt that matched so very nicely. Everything was so cute together. You wanted the compliments that you would give to someone with the same shoes. People gave them to you. That made you feel good.

*

You almost broke down in tears in the movie theatre before the previews started because you were upset with the mediocrity of your own life. You were calmed for a moment, the length of the film, by the fact that you really wanted to see the movie. But walking out of the cinema, you saw all the people whose lives you thought you despised and didn't want to be. You cried when you got to my car and I started crying too because I didn't want to be middle-of-the-road either. You talked on the way home about the movie, but it was hard because you knew you could not be one of those actors just playing a part. You were in your own drama, and it wasn't that exciting. It wasn't even a drama at all.

No one would pay to see your movie.

*

Do you remember when you broke that wine glass in your mouth? You'd put the glass in your mouth so that you could use both hands to try to pick something up. It wasn't a wine glass, actually, but it had wine in it. It was really a 16 oz. red plastic cup, and it tore more than it really broke. But the red Franzia box wine started dripping out of the side of that tear in the red cup onto your favorite shirt. You wore that favorite shirt to impress someone who doesn't really matter anymore, but that person mattered then. Now the memory and the shirt matter more to you. The wine matters more now to you too. It doesn't matter what you were trying to pick up, because you didn't get to it anyway.

Because the wine spilled, you had to get a new red plastic cup and to fill it up, you emptied out the box of wine, that wasn't really a box. No, because inside the box is a silver foil bag that comes filled with wine. Sometimes you open up the box when there seems to be no more wine, and take out the foil bag and squeeze out the remainder of the wine, like squeezing out the last bit of toothpaste in a tube. Actually you usually do this. You did this the night you broke that red cup.

After you emptied out the bag, you put your mouth on the spout and blew into it. You made a silver foil balloon. You put it on the ground to stomp on it to make it explode. It was actually kind of tough to make it Pop! but it gave in when you slammed your ass on it really hard. Sometimes people sit on cakes really hard, and that is called sploshing. It is a fetish. Drinking the boxed wine is a fetish for you. Breaking things with your teeth is a fetish too, and you probably meant to bite down on that cup with intent to tear it. But what do I know?

*

That fly flew into your mouth and I thought it was funny but you thought it tasted really bitter. You thought you were going to catch some disease from it until you realized that most people catch insect diseases from mosquitoes. Then you just thought it was nasty that a fly was on your tongue. You eat things with that mouth; you kiss people with that mouth. I said that it was interesting that you think of using your mouth to kiss and not your lips, but whatever.

You resolved to keep your mouth closed while walking from then on.

*

photo by Brendan Thompson

Since you are a ghost now, you can move in and out of her life, without her knowing about it. And since she doesn't believe in ghosts she can focus on the more tangible presence of the one who hurt her.

She knows she likes a certain pink shirt but does not associate it with the time she wore it on your first date. [She still remembers the bracelet he gave her and how it makes her feel like spitting on him.]

She remembers always liking cheese grits with scallions, even though you introduced them to her and called the scallions, "green onions." [She hates the smell of jasmine tea because he loved to drink it.]

She tells stories about the time she went to see Bob Dylan in concert and how he was so great but getting so old.

Question: Wow! So who'd you go with? Answer: Gosh, there were so many people there! Old Zimmerman was un-fucking-believable! Response: I wish I could've seen that!

You bought the tickets. [She explains that he was such an asshole when they tried to go to a performance of Rent with him, she had to get out of line because he'd made her start crying.]

*

You've forgotten what the convulsion of a hiccup feels like. How do hiccups happen anyway, you wonder. You put your hand on your stomach, halfway between your belly button and what someone told you was the solar plexus. That's supposed to be where the diaphragm is, right under there. You push in. That doesn't quite feel like where a hiccup comes from. It's close, but not quite there, you think. You push in a little harder and deeper. You realize you didn't breathe when you did that. You're not breathing when you think about not breathing. That's no way to get hiccups, because that's a way to get rid of them- by holding your breath. Everything feels wrong. You get scared because you can't remember anything anymore.