one night in seoul (part 13)

our guesthouse was up a tight alley in gyedong, nestled just below Changdeok Palace. the entire neighborhood is preserved by the city of seoul as traditional korean housing, including the guesthouse. we were greeted at the gate by two enormous dogs and a little, old korean man who spoke broken english, at best. it was all so charming. we walked through the large garden to our cottage, which was everything you'd expect of a traditional korean cottage. shoes lined the exteriors of each doorway, each door a sliding shoji. there was something so powerful about finally experiencing an image i'd held for so long.

seoul guesthouse

i was permitted a brief nap, shower and shit. and then we were off. we walked the cobblestone road toward the subway, submerged in the depth of a summer unavoidable. even at dusk, the heat resonated, as i breathed in the swimmable air of an escape i'd never fathomed. when everything is foreign, distant and new, for at least a fleeting moment, your past exists on a separate plane. sometimes it's enough. soometimes it's all you need. i relished it, ear to ear. and the persistent buzz of the cicadas, like a wire torn in two, reaked of the disconnected circuitry i was feeling and existing in. it was so welcoming. so freeing.

we descended into the subway, which was a world unto itself. a city beneath the surface; shops and restaurants in every cranny, crack and crevice. as most of the shops had already closed for the night, we were relegated to eyeing jewelry, taxidermy and knock-offs purses through the windows as we passed.

while i have always lived in very diverse cities (portland being the exception) and had traveled quite a bit through mexico, i found it quite jarring to be so submerged in an asian culture. robert, monique and i were noticably the only non koreans in the station and on the train and seemingly the entire city. koreans brave enough in their english skills would approach us time and time again, asking from where we were traveling. each response of "america" garnered shit-eating grins, peace signs, and almost always a photo-op. i know this would seem an exaggeration, but i swear to shit, see for yourself. you'll feel like a celebrity. i can't even begin to imagine how many photos there are of robert, monique and i with random korean hipster kids.

we arrived in the hongdae neighborhood around tennish. it is hands down the hippest neighborhood i have ever been to. it is essentially the mass convergence of hipster, pop, designer-chic and faux harajaku cultures all in fifteen or so square blocks. we drowned in a sea of neon, motorcycles, dolce & gabana and blaring korean and american pop music. there was nary an apartment or house in sight; merely block after block of bars, clubs, cafes and shopping that would make any sixteen year old girl cream herself: american apparel, puma, marc jacobs, flight one, versace, and so and on for what seemed like forever.

hongdae district

we squeezed into a ramen bar and found a group of robert's friends, who were also teaching english there. and much to my delight, every single one of the seven of us had lived in new orleans at the same time! this is what i love about that city: everywhere you go, you run into nola'ers; and they're always the coolest, nicest, most interesting people. i gazed at the menu, entirely in korean and simply said, "no cheese, no mushrooms, no weird animals, preferably pork, chicken or shrimp." a humongous bowl of shrimp and god knows what else arrived moments later. since all the other kids had been done long before our arrival, i did my best to slam the mystery concoction, while talking about life pre and post katrina and living in seoul.

after we finished our ramen, robert's friends scott and angela smiled and presented robert with a gift. robert than smiled and looked at monique and me, "tonight is going to be so much fun! we have to find something to put this in! to the liquor store!" the entire group walked down a parkside street to a liquor store, where we bought 3 20ozs. evidently, much like new orleans, seoul has no open container laws because we strolled into the park, which was full of drunk korean club kids and rubbish. robert popped the cap off one of the beers and told us to take a few big gulps and then return the bottle. monique and i complied, without question or hesitation. robert then proceeded to poor the contents of a 8oz bottle into the beer, shake it up, and pass it back to us.

"drink up." he said.
"what is it?" we asked in unison.
"it's like ghb-"
then scott chimed in, "it's legal here. sort of."
i made a face, which was apparent when robert responded with, "you'll love it. it's like being really drunk and a little bit like being on ecstacy."
my only concern then was if it would give me the killer hangover ecstacy had when i used to recreationally do it years and years before. robert assured it would not; well, at least not so severely.

so, down the hatch.

as we drank the beer/ghb concoction, an old korean man passed with a wheelbarrel full of korean wine. robert bought two bottles, popped those open and passed them into the circuit of what was now two beer/ghb bottles, one standard beer bottle, one soju bottle and the two bottles of wine. a few local kids approached and tried their english on us, as we chatted with this painfully cute, yet horribly dumb girl who had also lived in new orleans. when she and her friend saw a collection of white kids, they immediately sidled on. americans in korea seem to do this with other americans.

hongdae park

after about ten minutes i felt wasted and an extreme need to shit. am i going to shit my pants, again?* robert told us that the feeling simply meant the ghb was starting to kick-
i could no longer speak without slurring or see straight. it was dizzying and horrifying and... wonderful. monique and i looked at one another, grinning wide. we tried to relate the experience; but words simply spilled out of our mouths, a mess of excitement and intoxication, and into the empty bottles and leaflets that surrounded us.



it was now close to eleven, and scott would be spinning at a club in the neighborhood, which was only described as the coolest club we'd ever attend; something of a cavern, they said. so we stumbled through the streets of hongdae, laughing, singing and dancing in anticipation of what would become one of the craziest nights of my life.

*From: Anonymous

Date: Wed, Oct 3, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Subject: those magical moments
To: [all my friend]

as many of you know, my roommates and i spent the weekend inside ill. during this time, we learned that mixing certain cold meds produced a rather atrocious gas problem. however, we also learned that over-medicating ourselves made this gas problem much more manageable.

well, by the close of monday night we were all starting to feel better, and were definitely experiencing cabin fever. so, i was determined to do something with my evening last night. i woke up, had some sudafed and dayquil and ventured to work. i had my usual morning coffee and doughnut, and went about my day in the typical manner. perhaps it was the combination of over-medication and determination to enjoy the evening that led me to answer a phone call i'd been avoiding for weeks now. you see, the ex-boyfriend's best friend had been trying, unsuccessfully, to have a few drinks. for all the obvious reasons, i'd been resistant to this idea. well, she caught me off guard and plans were made. drinks at the bar across the street at 8.

in the meantime, i'd made plans to meet a friend for coffee at 4. (for those of you keeping track, that's: 3 coffees, two tablespoons of dayquil, two sudafed ams, 1 chocolate bar). after coffee, i ran a few errands and arrived at home in time to prepare inna for her date. by the time inna got out the door, i had about ten minutes before i had to meet the ex's friend. so i threw on my big coat (it was raining pretty heavily) and walked over.

over a glass of wine, we did the chit chat thing. and once that had exhausted itself, the inevitable conversation found it's way to the bar. sparing you the details, the bulk was talk of reconciliation. much to most peoples' chagrin, this was not something i was adverse to. the conversation began to get somewhat deep and heavy, and was interrupted when nature called.

for those of you who haven't been to the bar across the street, it has two unisex bathrooms; one on either side of the bar. the one to the left is at the end of a short hallway, which contains a side door that exits onto the street, and is directly across the street from our front door. the bathroom to the right has no hallway or exit door. more often than not, i use the bathroom to the right, because the bathroom to the left is somewhat bigger and we all know my fear of large bathrooms. i did not deviate from this habit last night. unbeknownst to me, this decision would become the greatest mistake of my life.

(for those of you keeping track: 3 coffees, two tablespoons of dayquil, two sudafed ams, 1 chocolate bar, 1.5 glasses of wine)

i faced the toilet, unzipped and started to pee. and then... then...

i was greeted by the worst surprise ever.

i shat my pants.

i shat my pants!

ohmygodohmygodohmygod. i shat my pants.

i was overcome by a shitstorm, if you will, of panic. sparing you the grim details, i will say i was able to restrain the majority of nature's little accident. so i did the quickest 180 ever, and deposited the remainder in the proper receptacle. and then... then i didn't know what to do. i was trapped. i was trapped with only me and my shame. had i chosen the bathroom to the left i would have been met by a door to clean underwear and moist towels. but i chose wrong. horribly, horribly wrong.

now it has been told that some in this same situation have celebrated by throwing their feces onto the walls and clogging up sinks and showers. having been raised with dignity and etiquette classes, i had to deal with the situation with grace. i assessed the damage, and decided that my newest, cutest pair of american apparel underwear were not disposable. i knew i had to make haste, to avoid being gone for too long and creating suspicion. i called inna, who did not answer. i'm not really sure what i thought she could do to help resolve this situation, but like i said i was somewhat panic stricken. so i did what any mature, responsible adult who shits themself would do. i wiped ferociously and then poured heavy doses of soap into my pants and returned to the bar to finish our wine and conversation.

the next five minutes have become the most uncomfortable five minutes of my life. there is no feeling even remotely comparable to that of talking to your ex-boyfriend's best friend about the reconciliation you plan to make, while the toxic sludge one can only call "shoap" roots around in your ass. but i am proud to say i was a pooper trooper, and finished my drink without even a hint at the atrocities quietly happening to me. after our drink, i slid off the barstool and slid on my long jacket (thank god for rain), said goodbye and non-chalantly walked home.

upon entering my house i did what everyone does when they shit themselves. i called colette to brag. and then jen.

inna returned from her date, with her date, to find me standing in the living room in only my underwear, laughing hysterically into the phone. i immediately hung up and regaled both of them of the night's events. and then i apologized for being rude and introduced myself to her date.

welcome to korea (part 12)

the flight from portland to seoul was a long 16 hours, including a 2 hour layover at narita airport in tokyo. i had slammed two double shot bloody marys before boarding the plane, in hopes they would knock me out. instead they merely reduced me to a slightly drunken mess that had to pee every hour or two. i dozed in and out of a few brief catnaps, and upon waking would check the flight map to see how far from home, how close to asia we were. it was a strange feeling to see the little cartoon plane so far out to sea. so far from everywhere i had ever been. so close to adventure, to mystery, to my ex. i lost myself in the vast sea below.

when i deboarded the plane in seoul i was immediately faced with my reality. i was farther from home than i'd ever been, in a foreign place, about to meet to complete strangers with whom i'd spend the next 3 and a half weeks of my life. two complete strangers with whom we'd have to rely upon one another to travel through and experience so many new things. it was overwhelming, but so exciting. i was recharged and energized, even on no sleep for literally days.

i exited through the arrivals gate and into the lobby of the most beautiful airport i've ever seen. incheon airport truly is a marvel of luxury. corridors of high ceilings, lined with orchids and sconces; high end shops as far as the eye could see: dolce & gabana, fendi, marc jacobs, rolex and so forth and so on. it's almost a place you'd want to spend a day, watching exciting travelers walk and shop and talk their ways to new places, to loved ones, to grander and wider days away.

i planted myself on a bench in the lobby, not quite sure what to do. there was no sign of robert nor monique, i had no phone, no idea how to get anywhere. after about ten minutes i began to panic a bit. i was alone, in the middle of night, and-

then i saw two small figures rushing toward me at full speed, clad in backpacks, laughter and grins. once they were close enough to identify, robert and monique immediately swung around and continued on, at full speed, away from me down the corridor. robert was tall, lanky, awkward and eminated fun and excitement and energy and was just a supernova unto himself. monique's curly hair was shaped into a high mohawk and dyed yellow, pink and black. it was hard to take your eyes off. i smiled, too tired to chase or even get off the bench. i stood upon it instead, crossed my arms, and tapped my foot with exaggerated impatience. they stopped in their tracks, turned around, and then almost aimlessly returned to me with hugs and hellos.

i was too overwhelmed and exhausted to make any opinions on the greeting; and just happy to make our way to the guesthouse, where i was told i could nap for an hour. it was now twilight in seoul, and robert had big plans for us. we made it to the bus terminal in time to find we'd missed our bus back to the city. with the little korean robert knows and his massive amounts of charm, we were able to exchange our bus tickets for cab fare. thank god.

we rode the twenty miles into the city quietly and with wide eyes. i watched the mud flats of incheon spread and thicken and harden into soil through the cracked windows of the cab. and suddenly the dark and dense no where broke into the bright lights of one of the largest cities in the world. we crossed the river into a blur of sounds and signs and insanity. it was exhillerating. we rolled the windows down entirely and let the wind wisp across our faces as we drown in the expanse. i turned to robert and smiled.

"welcome to korea, monkey."

interlogue: what is

sometimes when it's late at night and the room is silent and you're all alone, you wonder how it can still sting so harshly. if you should be allowed to feel it resonate still. still when it surrounds you. maybe repression begets obsession. when it comes, it comes in droves. you think of all the things you want. you want so little. and you wonder if you can get through this. if you can get to them. it's hard. and hardest because no one told you it wasn't going to be, because no one says it still won't; but because you continue to refuse to let yourself accept how hard it is. to allow yourself your grief. you're a hard person. time has made you stoic. time has made you still. still you ache to just break down. just once. into arms. but you don't know how to ask. you don't know how to tear the veneer. how to just be. even when you write about it, you write it as though it's someone else. as though it wasn't you. you write it as distance, as distant; an insistent nag. but it's not. this is you.
this is me. this is me. it's me.

getting there (part 11)

i am not the type of person who sits around waiting for rainbows. i am not an optimist. i am hopeful, but not optimistic. i have a hard time believing that just because you are a good person, good things will happen to you. i think at some point, forever ago, i did. i don't know how or when i came to lose that. but i did. i don't sit around waiting for rainbows.

i am not a religious person. i won't go into all the hypocrisies and fraud i see there. i just don't believe in god or praying or angels. but i do believe if i had a guardian angel, it would be robert.

it was sometime after hiv and before colette that it happened. i will forever be enslaved to social networking sites. i love them. i like having all these little windows into the lives of people you know and knew and barely knew way back when. how you can see the ways they see things. how you can see the minutia of their days. how you can see different shades of almost anyone. i love how they change the way we see people. the way we see each other. i, at some point, have been a member of all of them. eventually the older ones fall by the wayside, only to be remembered upon some random email. and that's how it happened. that's how this whole can of worms was opened. this whole, wonderful, life-changing can of worms.

most people don't know the real story about how exactly i found myself in asia. had i told most people the truth, they probably would have demanded i stay behind here. my mother would have had a coronary. so i skewered the facts. had i told people it was a complete stranger who i would be meeting in korea and traveling through southeast asia with, well, they just wouldn't have understood.

it was sometime after hiv and before colette that i got that random email. a gmail message from the long-forgotten friendster, letting me know i had a new message. i'm not even sure why i even checked it. i was at the end of my rope, not much mattered to me, and certainly correspondence from strangers on friendster did not. maybe it was after insomnia had begun and i was bored. maybe it was one of the lonely days. i don't know. but i checked it.

the message was from a guy named robert. he had found me on friendster, and then myspace, and liked my profiles. he, too, had lived in portland and new orleans; sometimes overlapping my own stays. i have been blogging since i was 19 years old. and, well, he found all the blogs, too. and he read them all. every one, every page. he read about the rape and the hiv and everything that came before. the heartbreak. the moves. new orleans. the momentous occasions in my life, that now somehow meant something to someone other than me. he said he was inspired. he said that he'd laughed and cried and had become attached to me and my writing. he said that i was someone worth knowing. and right then, in that moment, it was all i needed from anyone.

and with that came the proposition that made my jaw drop. he wanted to fly me out to korea, where he was teaching english. and from there, off to somewhere new. he said the worse case scenario would be i get a free trip with a guy i hate. and the best case, i make a lifelong friend and do something i'd never otherwise be able to. and for him? he gets to do something for someone he respects, who needs good news. it was insane. it was way too much. and there was no way in my right mind i was ever going. i couldn't do it, right? no way.

when my roommate at the time came home from work, i couldn't wait to tell her about the crazy guy who offered to fly me half way around the world. she sat down across from me as i told her about his email. she made a face that implied he was creepy crazy, and this was before i even mentioned the offer. and when i did, she became incredulous. she demanded i hand her the computer so she could see this lunatic for herself.

"i know him! i fucking know this guy!"
"from portland?" i asked.
"no! from philly!"
robert had mentioned that he used to live in philadelphia. my roomate had grown up there. and way back when they were friends. and had lost touch shortly after she arrived in portland, two years prior. she called him beautiful, insanely nice and one of the most fun people she'd ever met. she said i was stupid if i didn't accept the offer. and then she demanded his email address, so she could email him.

a few days later, we found out our next door neighbor's boyfriend was very good friends with him in portland, and that they still talked weekly. a few days after that, i found out two other good friends (in new orleans and sf) both knew him. and as my world got smaller and smaller, i became more and more sure that this was an opportunity i had to take. i don't think i even realized that my disposition had slowly changed from hopeless to excited. but suddenly i did realize that life was good, because now i had something look forward to. something to live for. and four months later when the tickets actually arrived, when the trip became tangeable, i found myself wondering how something so good could happen to me. wondering if maybe rainbows will come, if you wait long enough. if you wait out the storms.

during the insomnia, robert and i talked every night. when i was at my lowest, he was there. when i was excited for our trip, he was there. i had gone from alone and miserable to having this life savior, who was always there for me. everything changed, so quickly. so necessarily. he saved me; and i don't even think he knew it. i had something to look forward to.

our misfortunes may become us (part 10)

i have severe abandonment issues. in all relationships, i only see an end. i spend so much time nervously waiting for the phone to stop ringing, for the door to close on me, for something to happen that will tear the people i love from me. i have severe abandonment issues.

as a child, the people i loved either left or left me in the hands of people who would hurt me. i watched my grandfather beat the shit out of my grandmother. i watched a family of alcoholics drink themselves into rages and tear each other apart. i was molested, for years, by other family members who were supposed to be looking after me. i learned not to trust that people would take care of me. i learned not to trust. and i learned that the people you love will either leave you or hurt you. or you'll watch them hurt themselves, helplessly. it's not now what i believe, but it's how i've been conditioned. and so i have severe abandonment issues. and these issues, this fear, has caused me to inadvertently live a very isolated life. in a crowded room, in the arms of a lover, in the eyes of my parents, i feel alone. i fear departure. i panic of loss. i try so hard to hold on, but always feel so powerless.

i don't remember much between ryan's departure from me, and my departure from san francisco. it was as though i became a ghost that day; the day he left. i'd finally found someone i believed would stay. someone i believed i could hang onto. and then he was gone. he was gone. gone. and suddenly, i was nothing more than a ghost. each day just blurred into the next. every action and inaction seemed pointless, seemed moot. it was like each day existed only because it had to. i floated through the walls and my words were merely exhalations. i was alone.

and then i ran away to portland. to escape the traces of him and who we were. to escape the traces of who i was. and perhaps, just maybe, to exist as i had felt: alone. to get lost where i knew no one, where no one knew me. to lose myself in foreign faces and places. to lose myself in a lack of history. to lose myself.

instead, though, i built myself a home. a life. a new history. i tried to date, but no one ever measured up to him. no one was ever enough. and then i got hiv. and everything changed. or, merely, returned to how it had been before i left california. i felt alone and isolated and barely there. i was losing more and more of myself every day. i was withering away into bottles and bed sheets and brittle bones. i stopped eating. i stopped answering the phone. i drank myself dizzy, night after night. i was becoming a ghost. again.

and then i lost my job. and then my boyfriend. and then i just lost it. i totally lost it. i had stopped coming up for air. i had stopped coming up at all. each day existed only because it had to. insomnia set in and got so bad i could no longer distinguish my dreams from reality. there were days i laid in bed and did nothing but fantasize about blowing my brains out. sometimes those were the good days, too. paranoia overcame me. and i became completely distorted by it, by the dreams, by the booze. and the scariest part about it was i could walk outside, with a smile on my face, and hang out like everything was peachy-fucking-keen. you'd never know. they'd never know.

and then i broke. i called colette and simply said, "i've been thinking bad thoughts. i've been thinking about dying. i'm not all right. i'm not okay."

she was out a week later. and i started to feel safe again. and i started to eat again. and i started to see straight again. and i started to let go. of all the rage. of all the pain. of all the fear. i did my best. for a while, at least.

eventually i started to erode to it, again. i began to push the people who cared about me away. so they couldn't leave me. so they couldn't hurt me. so i could be in control of something. so i wouldn't feel so powerless to loss. it's fucked up. it's totally fucked up. but my heart was so broken, i could make no more room for cracks or tears. i could make no more room for love. i needed permanence. and permanence seemed so impossible to come by. nothing and no one is permanent.

---

and then i met a boy. and he sure did seem to love me. and i thought he was great. he was great. and i thought, no one will ever be ryan. i will never love anyone like i did ryan. so someone great will always have to be enough. and even in that shitty paradox i had prefixed, i needed to hold onto him. i needed permanence. i needed a normal, easy, simple life. i needed a simple life so badly. i needed something new to live for. i needed soething new to experience; something new to help me forget. i needed this to work. i needed it to work.

so after a month and a half, i asked him to marry me. and he said yes. and within a month, he was all moved in. and the life i painted for myself would surely begin with this little step. i was prepared to settle for consistency. i was prepared to contently settle in whatever promised to be simple and routine. i needed some stability. so i created it out of fear and heartache and necessity. because i have severe abandonment issues.

and then i left for asia...

no (part 9)

judgment. we all make judgment calls. we all quietly judge. because, whether we want to believe it or not, these judgment calls are what get us through life. it all boils down to judgment. and we will be amazed by the things we're willing to do to protect ourselves from the bad judgment calls we will make. even as this cursor blinks away at me.

it's our hands first. when we realize we've made some disastrous mistake, our hands are the first to react. be it flight or fight, our hands will clench. we'll try to push away the problem with our hands. and we only hope, whatever the problem may be, it is smaller than our hands. me, i have small, trembling hands; from an accident, in a pool.

and when our hands can't protect us from our bad judgment calls, we rely on our heads. when our hands can't stop what's happening, we rely on our heads to fix it. to change it. to make it easier to swallow. we change the parameters, we hypnotize ourselves, we reprimand ourselves; all in effort to ensure we never make a bad judgment call again. we blame our judgment when bad things we can't control happen to us. and that is how we protect ourselves.

we protect ourselves by protecting our loved ones. we put our faces to the corners. we hyper-sensitize everything. we put our backs to the walls, and judge with severity and intensity. we lose sight of everything but protecting ourselves from the bad judgment calls we will make. we cry when we know no one's listening. we half-heartedly convince ourselves there was nothing we could do. not because this is how we feel; simply because this is how we should feel. instead, though, we chalk it up to bad judgment and try to laugh it to nothing. we try to make it so small we can't allow ourselves to feel it. we try to make it so small we can fight it off with our small, trembling hands.

i stood in the intersection, in the rain, a bag full of broken glass at my feet and pickles rolling around me. i stood in the intersection, defeated. i stood there trying to figure out how i would juggle the 5 other plastic bags in my small, trembling hands, collect myself, and pick up the mess at my feet. i felt myself start to well up inside. i felt the tears starting to hold residency behind my eyes. and all i could think, as i came closer and closer to crying, was, "i was really excited for those pickles." i was frustrated. i was tired. i was standing in the street, in the rain, cars driving around me, with pickles rolling around at my feet. twenty to thirty mini pickles rolling around before me. and i wasn't sure if i was about to laugh or cry. or both. it wasn't the pickles. it wasn't the mess. i made a bad judgment call and my hands were too small. it was my god damn hands. too small to hold it all together. too small to push away. too small to do anything but tremble under pressure.

i must have stood there for at least an entire minute, just staring down at all the tiny little pickles. then i heard a woman at the nearby bus stop call out to me. "sometimes you just have to walk away."

"yeah. sometimes i think i'm invincible." i said back to her. "and then it surprises me when i realize i'm not." she chuckled. and i took her advice. i left my mess there in the street, and walked away.

half a block later, two girls pulled up and told me to get in. "we saw what happened back there. it's raining. you have a lot of groceries. you shouldn't have to walk." so, i got in and they drove me the four blocks home. i sat in the backseat, next to a child's car-seat full of home made blueberry muffins. i wanted one so bad. i was so hungry.

i made a bad judgment call. i made a bad judgment call and something bad happened. i was trying to root for the underdog, and i got bit. and my hands were too small. and my words meant nothing. and i woke up hypnotized. simply hypnotized. sometimes i think i'm invincible. and then it surprises me when i'm not. it kills me when i'm not. and so, sometimes you just have to walk away. i made a bad judgment call, but it doesn't mean it was my fault. it doesn't mean i had any control over it.

we will be amazed by the things we are willing to do to protect ourselves when something bad happens.

---

i had been in portland for less than two weeks, still lost in the break-up that broke my heart. but now lost amongst foreign faces, in this strange new city, in the coldest winter i'd ever experienced. we'd just been bowling. i hate bowling now. i hate it.

he was one of four people i knew in town. he'd just returned to the area from an assignment with the air force. he was so nice and welcoming and sincere. and a dead-ringer for patrick dempsey. he was someone i was glad to have met.

he called me at around midnight, crying. the guy he'd been very loosely seeing had told him the relationship he so wanted wasn't going to happen. he was heart-broken. and it was late. but if there was anyone i could sympathize with at that moment, in the wake of my own break-up, it was him. i opened a bottle of wine and waited by the door.

had i known he was already drunk, i wouldn't have invited him over or opened that bottle of wine. that bottle of wine was the last i had before alcohol changed for me. the last i had before life changed for me. this night would become my centrifuge. this endless spinning vessel. despite his intoxication, i poured two glasses. then two more. until the bottle was empty. we talked. we played scrabble. i didn't know what to say. i felt so horrible for him. for what he was going through. for what we were going through. and then i kissed him. i kissed him. i started it. i started it all.

we ended up in my bed, making out. not for long, however, before i realized how stupid it was. this was not how i wanted to start my life in a new city: being the drunken rebound for one of my very few friends. i suggested we stop, which seemed to go unheard. so i repeated myself more firmly, louder. but he didn't stop. instead he pulled my pants off. i was shocked by his brazen disregard. i told him to stop. but he didn't. he didn't stop. he never stopped. it never stopped. i found myself lost in the word, as i repeated it over and over again, so numbly. no. no. he was bigger and my hands were too small. i fell away from myself, except the overwhelming constant thought: i did this. i did this.

when it was finally over, he kissed my forehead, rolled over and went to sleep. in my bed. in my bed. like it was nothing. like it didn't matter at all. a kiss on the forehead as though to console. to construe some good intention. to compensate for the life now left behind.

even now, i wonder if he knew. even now, i wonder if he knows he gave me hiv. i wonder if he cares. but i always cut myself off. i can't think about too long, or else i lose it. i lose myself. my bones go limp and my heart sinks into my stomach and hatred is all i feel. and so suddenly my anger just permeates. through every pore and word and whisper.

i made a bad judgment call. i fucking hate bowling.

truth be told (part 8)

i woke up exhausted. and hungover. we'd stayed out late drinking in old town siem reap. and then handing out boxes of food to kids who, common sense would dictate, were up way past their bedtimes. of course, much like the surrounding jungles, night predation is the most successful. who better to hand out money and food than drunken tourists. i smiled at their guile.

we had an early start to a long day, neither of which i was feeling under the haze of two pitchers of margaritas and countless singhas. i even pretended to sleep through the alarm, hoping monique and robert would follow suit. i assumed success when the alarm was silenced and no one arose. but ten minutes later robert got up to pee and monique gave me a look. i ceded.

we took a tuk-tuk on what was called an impossible untertaking for such a journey. it was about twenty miles of mostly dirt road, deep into the jungle, far away from the creature comforts culled in the corridors and concrete of the city. we passed through three or four villages that i can only assume are typical of the country; no plumbing, no pavement, no electricity. these were different, though. they were nothing like the ghettoes of poipet. they were soft places full of smiling faces. they were communities, through and through, like nothing we've ever experienced in america. kids ran along the road with their dogs, waving wildly as we passed. teenage boys and their dads worked the fields. mothers tended to their kids and streetside stalls. it seemed neither daunting nor depressing, merely primitive. primitive, but inviting. there were moments i caught the other two staring off somewhat enviously. it looked so simple, so warm, so devoid of the stupid plight we pillage through each day. and all the children waved wildly, smiling big. we smiled big and waved wildly. simply and sincerely.

we arrived to a tiny enclave of stalls bordering a dirt parking lot. per usual, we were bombarded by children and women forcing merchandise upon us. declining never got any easier or less heart-breaking. especially with the kids. it never gets easier. even when you find yourself growing accustomed to it; that's when you catch yourself writing it off as something that merely happens. that's when you catch yourself turning a blind eye to the poverty. it's amazing the things, that over time, you'll convince yourself are okay.

we found the trail that would lead us through the thick, thick jungle and up the mountain to remnants of a remote temple now buried under overgrowth, erosion, and river. all along the 2-mile trail were signs warning us to stay on the marked path, as the countryside is now littered with landmines. and while i took this seriously, i questioned how many landmines could possibly be scattered throughout such a large country.

truth be told, approximately one thousand five hundred eighty cambodians are killed every year from these mines. and many more are left as dismembered reminders of our own heartlessness. and while i would never consider myself a great historian, i was confident we'd never fought a war in or with cambodia. so how could we be responsible for all these disasters? evidently, after vietnam, pilots and soldiers were encouraged to get ridof any leftover landmines, as they flew home over cambodia and laos. that's right. over 60,000 deaths in one of the poorest nations in the world, for the sake of lightening our loads. we did this. we did this. for no reason at all. 60,000 men, women and children who have hard enough lives already. i'm sure for the sake of saving fuel, saving time. 60,000 unnecessary, unprovoked deaths. and those are only the mines that have gone off since.

it was a somber and almost silent climb. i thought about the life laid out before me. the life laying in my wake. the lives i'd never known. was i ungrateful? was i too mired in my own past to succeed in my future? in less than two weeks i would be returning home to a fiance. to someone i wasn't convinced i ought to be with at all, let alone marrying. and all the while, i was still stuck in a relationship that had been extinct for over two years. a relationship i didn't know how to let go. how do you let go of love? at a certain point it's no longer healthy to hold onto it. and i had been holding on for so long. holding on hope. holding my breath.

without exxagerration, i can say there wasn't a day since we'd broken up that i hadn't hoped he'd come sauntering through the door. sauntering back to me. not a single day. no matter who i was seeing or how in love i thought i was. no matter where i went, how far away he seemed, no matter whatever i was going through. not a single day. i'd gotten engaged to someone i hardly knew, not out of love, but as a means to extinguish him. as a way to extinguish the hope that we would come walking back in. and yet, there i was thousand of miles from anything, hoping he'd be waiting atop that mountain for me. it was just like any other day. no matter the new circumstances i'd created or fallen into.

i climbed that hillside, in silence, a million miles from anything. lost somewhere between the heartaches of poverty and loneliness. a paradox that made me feel like a fraud; a selfish liar. and no one knew. no one knew what i had done. and i had no idea how to redeem myself.

i woke up exhausted.