I’m not terribly good at writing dialogues, mostly because real-life conversations seem to consist of two or more people taking turns talking, over and at one another, making sounds that pass through each other without stopping and disappear. It’s never as lyrical as they should be.
People don’t really talk like that, you might say. Too much drama. Perhaps. But there’s not enough poetry to justify all the heartbreaks in the world.
*
And some conversations don’t require language. Like the one taking place across me now, with the girl smiling – and she’s smiling with the boy, not at him, the delicate distance between them, the way their hands clutched and their shoulders bumped into each other as their bodies rocked back and forth. They might as well be dancing.
I’m on a bus. All around me the world is talking. Incessant drones of a mediocre life. Words. Words. Words. They’re just trying to fill the silence.
*
I miss the conversations I’ve had, sometimes staying up till 6 am just talking, talking, and suddenly all the reveries and dreams and thoughts made sense because others were there to hear them.
When did I stop having conversations? Maybe it’s because every conversation must end and every story has a beginning and an end in them.
*
The Jims are leaving.
It’s been five years they lived here and have known me for three. They filled the times between work and madness and kept me tethered to reality. They were the only people who knew of my mental illness – as much as I tried to hide all of it – and loved me regardless.
Conversations with them are conversations. The kind I wish I could write about. I’m terrified of the silence.
It’s hard to admit it, but I am a little bit broken.
*
#00117F 