Kitty Power

The Division

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous.
I spent most of the night in front of the mirror, checking and rechecking my outfit, striving for slightly dishelved and fashionably cool yet casual. I didn’t bother to ask myself why I care. It was complicated. Everything about “us” was complicated. This drawn out thing adding color to a time marked by days on fast forward and the slightest of depressions. And the realization that my stress was evolving its manifestations over the years. Now it drove me to eat and drink in excess and eye my mirrored profile warily. Still, there was no denying that the weight looked good on me. As I’d grown older, I’d rounded those chiseled muscles and sharp bones. I looked as I heard a man say leeringly on a late movie once: “a woman with curves in all the right places.” I adjusted and readjusted the shiny metal coins decorated belt. It never lay right. Though it stretched, it needed someone with more hips or less perhaps. I had a strange amount that wasn’t ideal. I adjusted it again and noted that it still looked good. After all, I am my own worst critic.
I called him to get directions. His words spilled out in a rush and I knew without a doubt I wouldn’t remember. I said I’d call him when I hit the train stop, realizing afterwards that I was unsure which one it was. Graham or Grand? They came out so similar. I shrugged and got going. Getting out of the house is always the hardest part. It was almost midnight I noted disapprovingly and it would take me forever to get there. I’m always running late for stupid reasons.


I thought over his voice over the phone. He sounded well on his way to some sort of altered state and I decided not to bother worrying about the source. I’d find out soon enough I knew. I rode the bus to the J to the L, thinking about him, about us, about the strangeness of it all. About last night when I was caught off guard by the bombshell and couldn’t resist being close to him. About what ifs. About how situations can create such fake intimacy where making us feel so close yet not knowing each other at all. About how it was funny that I was embroiled in yet another romantic mess when I had been so sure those months ago that I left my latent need for drama a hundred miles away. Perhaps it is something in me that pulls these types (the loners, the emotionally bruised, the misguided, the self-medicating). I read somewhere – or perhaps, heard – that the damaged send out those signals to attract those partners. The birds of a feather phenomenon. Damaged? I wouldn’t say that about me. I’m just…evolving. I suppose there is a bit of yearning that comes across. I’m searching for something…peace of mind? Security? Sometimes I think: love? Rather I think: understanding. Despite how balanced I am on the inside, I need someone to balance me on the outside too. Or rather, let me know that I’m level since I have no concept of straight lines. That is obviously not him. I knew that from the first meeting. If I was to ask him if I was level, he’d rant about the constricting nature of a line. He would rather be…I don’t think he knows. That’s why I like him because I am preoccupied constantly with lines and trajectories and movement and growth and he would rather say fuck it all and let the pieces fall where they may. I said to him, I’m so young, I’m so vanilla, I’m so unformed. He thought I was implying I wanted to be molded by him, to be the shiny-eyed protege. If I said to him, I want to share in your energy for a little while, he wouldn’t understand. Sometimes he’s hopelessly linear in his “disorder” and I feel the random one. It’s more like a yin-yang I decided early on. We complement each other.
I get to my stop. I guessed right: it was Graham. I call him and feel confused by his directions again. I tentatively stroll down the unfamiliar Williamsburg blocks and feel relived when I finally see the street he told me to find. I walk slowly past the old houses with their sharp staircases and sidings to see him sitting on the staircase of the third one in. He pulls a drag off of his cigarette slowly and looks contemplative. I dread a Talk and feel my stomach drop. I fill the silence with a quick burst of meaningless words about how I thought I was lost and got confused yet whew I found it and he replies with a non-committal oh yeah. But, then I run out of words and I feel the panic about to creep up again. What is there to say really? I don’t want to hear: this has been fun and weird but now I’m leaving and I guess that’s that (which is what I would say if I wanted to have this conversation). Or last night was a mistake and I said before that I have a lot of respect for you and I don’t want to be that fuck-up in your life because you’re so…I dunno (which has been said before). Or any strange unfamiliar words. Or a potential hybrid of the first two. Almost a year ago, I decided I was sick of the words that can spill out when you’re knotted in the strange mix of intimacy and sex and thoughts and feelings and touches and baggage and life. Nothing good comes from the words. It’s easier to blame words than situations. There’s something satisfying about saying/thinking it all went wrong because we couldn’t shut up. Two people coming up the stairs killed the moment and he went into normal social mode. I was pushed to the side by their familiarity and idle conversation. It’s something that happens a lot. A slight black girl is easy to ignore. The now group heads inside with the new two leading the way and he and I bringing up the rear. He’s back to closed off and obviously thinking, but it can’t be helped now.

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