Love Is the Religion of the Weak

�Love Is The Religion of The Weak�
The First Night
And then I threw up seven times. Not because I had a disease or a virus or anything. But because the thought of not having you makes me physically sick. And how pathetic is that. You know considering that you don�t even care about me at all. And considering that I shouldn�t care about you at all. But it doesn�t matter. Two nights ago was horrible. I mean I guess I�ve always known that you were better off without me. But that doesn�t mean that it made it hurt less to hear you say it. And that certainly doesn�t mean it made it hurt less to have you leave. Or me leave. I guess I am the one who left. The one who ended things and all, but it was only because you pulled away and I couldn�t handle not having you anymore. I don�t know why it even matters to me who left who. I mean you�re still gone, and I�m still terrified of living without you. But that night was horrible. And I guess because I want you to feel sorry for me and be hurt by how much you hurt me I�m telling you how horrible it was. I mean I doubt that you�ll even read this far so I guess I�m writing it more for catharsis than to hurt you, but I hope it hurts you all the same. So here it begins. Once upon a time I got off the phone with at 1:30 in the morning. Not 11:30 like you thought. Crying. Obviously. And hating myself. And thinking about how much of a piece of s**t I must be for you to be better off without me than with me, even though you love me. And so I called Sam. Because that�s who I call when I�m upset with you and want to hurt you. But her phone was off, and that made me even more upset, because it reminded me of all the times you wouldn�t even pick up your phone because you knew I was calling and you were with him. And being as hopelessly in love with you as I am, being upset like that made me want to call you back. It�s amazing how much when I say I never want to talk to you again, I go ahead and want to talk to three minutes from then. It�s pathetic. And ridiculous. And every single other thing my love for you is. Hopeless. Romantic. Horrible. Dumb. And everything else that makes me sing along to those songs that don�t seem quite like love songs but really are more like love songs than any of the s**t that is on the radio. You know all those songs that you would hate when I would sing them to you. Songs with lines like �Sorry about the phone call and needing. Some decisions you just don�t make. I guess it�s like breathing and not wanting to. Some things you just can�t fake.� You should know all the lines to them now. You�ve hated me for singing them to you enough times. But for once I actually was able to hold my tongue and I called Winter instead. Because I knew she would talk me out of wanting to talk to you. And I heard her friend tell me to shut up and not call so late at night. But I didn�t care. I needed her to talk me out of talking to you. And she did. You know what she said. �Don�t call her. She�s a liar. And she�s using you.� And I guess it worked for a bit because for a while at least I didn�t want to talk to you anymore. So instead I made up this girl with green eyes. Because I sort have wanted to be able to relate to that one hook. �Hers were green like July. Except when she cried. They were red.� And because I really loved your eyes, and I knew that it would hurt you to make up a green eyed girl because Sam has green eyes and I know you�re jealous of the fact that I care about her when I don�t have you. I get so damn spiteful. So I made up this green-eyed girl. And I talked to her. In my head. And I tried to make her perfect so that I would want this girl in my head more than you. But I don�t think that it worked. I mean for a while she seemed amazing. But she gradually became more and more like a refined version of you. And this refined version of you reminded me of how you acted when you were lying to me so that I would believe, because you thought you were acting perfect for me and giving me all I wanted. And I guess you were acting perfect for me, but you weren�t giving me all that I wanted because I just wanted you and for you to be honest. And I�m pretty sure you were acting the exact same way for him, so I guess it really doesn�t matter at all. �She�s a liar. And she�s using you.� I said it over and over to myself as the green-eyed girls eyes became more and more brown. Over and over. As if by saying it over and over it became magically true. Well actually it was true to start with, but I guess it wasn�t true in the sense that it made any difference to me. And that�s when I started to get really sad. Because I realized tat after all that you had done. You know kissing him, then two hours later saying you love me and f*****g me, and then kissing him again an hour after that, after all that bullshit, you were still worth it to me. And even though I hadn�t done anything but get upset because you had been with someone else, I wasn�t worth it you. That you were still better off without me. And who knows maybe that�s because you didn�t ever really love me. Or maybe it�s because I made you too scared to get back into a relationship with me because you care about me too much. Who knows which one was the lie and which one was the truth. I sure as hell don�t. And then it occurred to me that maybe you had lied to yourself so bad that you didn�t even know, and I felt sorry for you. I felt compassion for you. I felt compassion for you because you f*****g kissed another guy. Hopeless. Romantic. Horrible. Dumb.
�Sorry about the phone call and needing. Some decisions you just don�t make. I guess it�s like breathing and not wanting to. Some things you just can�t fake.� And I didn�t understand at all why I would feel this way about you. And I didn�t want to feel this way about you. So I just started to sing. Or rather scream at the top of my lungs �Your lover is an actress did you really think she�d stay.� And then I realized I would wake someone up so I just got up, went to the bathroom, which still smelled like sick puke and walked out into the night. Into the wet grass with all the snakes slithering through it, and I really hoped one of them would bite me. Because I certainly wouldn�t have minded dying right then. Not that I wanted to kill myself. But if I were to stop breathing, that would have been fine. And by now it�s probably around 4 AM. That horribly romantic time, that seems to be surpassing midnight as the time when lovers meet, and cries escape when you have to be clich� and do things that lovers do at a certain time in the night to make it feel as though you actually are lovers. And I was out there, with all the clich� lovers who never get into fights, or run away because they�re so scared of caring about someone, or become spiteful and angry and hurt because they�re so afraid of being hurt by someone they care about. And I was out there and I began to sing �And you�re screaming at the top of your lungs� And then I screamed at the top of my lungs, �THE FUNERAL WAS NOT PROPER, THERE WAS NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE, AND WHO CHOSE THE MUSIC, THOSE MELODIES ALMOST MADE ME PHYSICALLY SICK,� and then I sang again, �And I�m screaming at the top of my lungs� And then I thought about screaming this part, but it didn�t seem like I should so I just sang it instead, and I sang it real soft, because that�s what I would have done if I�d been the singer and so I softly sang, �Let it go, let it go,�. And for some reason standing there with the moon over me made me feel better. Just a little bit. Actually it didn�t make me feel better at all, but I pictured seeing myself out there and I thought that maybe I should think that this whole thing made me feel better. So I pretended to think that it all made me feel just a little bit better. It�s amazing what people lie to themselves about. Or maybe just what I lie to myself about. But my feet started to get cold. And so I started to shiver in addition to shake from the pain of losing you. I don�t think I really told you how I looked this whole night. I was wearing a pair of Winter�s sunglasses, with like these big purple lenses, and they look ridiculous, that�s probably why I like them. But so I�m wearing these ridiculous sunglasses, a band t-shirt too small like always, and that pair of boxers with all the hearts on them that I have with the big holes in them. And there are tears just pouring from my eyes the entire night. And I�m shaking uncontrollably like I do when I think I�m about to lose you, or when I do lose you. And I probably looked like I was on cocaine or heroin, or having a bad trip from acid or something. And so I�m out there and I suddenly get really cold, and that makes everything so much worse for some reason. As if just adding this little bit of physical discomfort makes it so that I have nothing left to live for. So I walked into the house. Not because it was warm, because it wasn�t really. My house is always at a constant 68 degrees Fahrenheit. But because I decided then that I didn�t ever want to warm again. Because warmth was too much like cuddling, or sitting by a fireplace, or getting in a fight, or having sex. And all of those things are you things and if I don�t have you than I don�t want to think of you things. So I decided I never wanted to be warm again. And I never wanted you to be warm again. So I take a knife from the kitchen, and walk into the bathroom. And I take the point of the knife and put it so that�s it�s actually in my skin. Just the point, and just a little bit. And I�m actually about to cut my wrist open, when I start to shake really badly and I drop the knife. And I can�t make myself pick it up again because I know that if I do and I do kill myself that it will hurt you so much. Hopeless. Romantic. Horrible. Dumb.
�Sorry about the phone call and needing. Some decisions you just don�t make. I guess it�s like breathing and not wanting to. Some things you just can�t fake.� And then it scared me that I was about to kill myself, but what scared me worse was that it was the thought of you that kept me from actually doing it. I think I was more scared that I didn�t do it than I was that I was about to do it. So I went and I called Winter. But her phone was dead. And I really wanted to call you, so of course I called Sam. And she picked up this time. I mean she was mostly asleep but she picked up. And I guess I started to tell her how I liked her and how much of a liar you are. And then I realized that I only like her because I know that it hurts you if I like her. So I got off the phone with her and I wondered why I wanted to hurt you so bad, because I know it�s not that it actually makes me feel better to see you hurt even if I am hurt. In fact it does just the opposite. So I thought maybe I just wanted to see you hurt because I want to hurt worse. And it�s while I was thinking about how it was all my fault that all this happened because I over react and make it hard for you to stay with me and am a general piece of s**t the sun rose. And that makes this the morning. Which reminds me of Gentleman Caller. Which reminds me of the days (oh how I speak of them as they were years ago instead of maybe two weeks ago) that you thought that I was worth it.






The Second Night
        And I couldn�t take it anymore. I just couldn�t. So I put on a pair of sunglasses and just walked out of my house, to my friend�s car. I swear to God I�d been on the verge of completely losing everything all day. And all that was in my head was my friend�s advice, �You should get plastered.� So there were my plans. And OK so we went to guitar center and I played a lot of piano and acoustic guitar, and I had to change instruments about every two minutes to keep my mind off of you, but my plan was to get plastered. And so when 5:30 rolled around, we got back into the car and drove over to this kids house for the University Of Georgia. And I don�t even like Georgia at all. In fact I don�t even really like football at all. But sitting there watching the people be excited by a ball being thrown and people running yards seemed exciting. And it took my mind off of you, so I suppose it did everything I needed it to. I mean it�s not like it affected me at all that one college had more people who could run faster, tackle harder, and throw better, than another college, and I don�t think it really affects anyone other than the people playing the game. But it everyone watches it to get their minds off what�s going on in their heads. So I watched. And then we brought out the liquor. And the shot glasses. And we began to drink. The thing about drinking is, it gives you the �strength� that everyone talks about. You know it lets you become a �stronger� person. And by stronger I mean apathetic, a liar who fakes acting happy, and an a*****e who will be more afraid of caring about someone you love. But with alcohol all this strength is temporary. It leaves you after a few hours. And then you can be weak again. And then you can drink and become strong again. So these shots gave us the �strength� to sit there and trade our life stories between shots. One of the kids father was in the hospital, and in the middle of dying. And his mother was an alcoholic. And he had forgotten how to care about someone the girl he loved was sitting there drinking next to him wondering if she was loved. Because he was just too damn scared to show her that he cared because he thought that if he showed her he cared than he would care. And he knew that if he cared than he could be hurt. So he pulled away. A lot like you do. To me. And my friend his dad is already dead. And he has a girl who is just as fucked up as you are. And she would never be with him. And all I have to drink about is you. But for some reason it feels like enough. Some maybe no one has it better or worse. At all. We all just have it. That same unknown it that is either worth it or not worth it. Maybe that it really is love. Love put into a pronoun so that we can pretend to understand �it�. But then my friend said, �F**k. Everyone is fucked up. Everything is fucked up. At least you�re honest with it.� And he was right. I mean s**t look at this world. I don�t think I�ve ever met someone who wasn�t fucked up. Some people are just �stronger� than others. So some people are just better phonies than others. And that I didn�t want to be a phony. I mean I had been a strong person. I was raped by my brother when I was about 12. And the experience made me a stronger person. I was really good at pretending to be happy. And I became popular. And I didn�t give a s**t about anything. Not a single damn thing. I was f*****g untouchable. I probably walked about five inches from the ground. And it was horrible for me. F*****g god-awful. And then I met you. And damn it even from that first time with you in your goddamn long little beige coat thing I was in love with you. And I cared about you. And through the next year you made me a weak person again. And I realized that I didn�t want to be strong at all. And then you left. And I thought you were gone forever. And when you came back you were �stronger�. Or maybe you were strong all along and you just weren�t scared. But then it was hard for me to be with you. Because you put everything you could in-between us. And it turned out that I couldn�t handle that. So I made things horrible for you. So you got f*****g drunk as hell so you could have the �strength� to not care. And you did. And so you f*****g kissed him. And then you left again. And then I had a horrible summer filled with all the things that should make a wonderful summer. I got drunk as s**t, and fucked plenty of girls. And some beautiful girls. But it didn�t matter. Because it was all meaningless again. And then you came back. And said this time it would last forever. And that I was worth it. And that we would love each other for forever. And that we would have a white apartment. With no furniture except a bed. And we would have sex in the shower, and all over the apartment. And you would just paint. And I would just write. And I said that I would just write love songs for you. And you said that you would sing them to me in just your panties. And I believe every single word of it would happen. And then I learned that you were still f*****g him. And then I yelled at you. And said I was leaving. It was a lie. And you said that you were better off without me. And then my friend told me that we were all going to go to Wal-Mart. And for some reason it seemed like a f*****g good idea. Maybe it was the alcohol. So we drove out to Wal-Mart. And we thought about getting some CiCi�s pizza for dinner, but it was closing so we wondered what was the point in going to an all you can eat buffet restaurant for like fifteen minutes. And for some reason when we wondered that it seemed like we had some key to life. But it doesn�t make sense to me anymore. And in Wal-Mart we went to look for car paint. You know the kind that washes away. So we could paint a letter to airplanes on the top of the car, and mail it along with our bodies, but know that it would never reach its destination. So it didn�t matter what we would write. Sort of like this. I know by now I�m never giving this letter, story, life or whatever to you. So I can say whatever I want. There�s something freeing in that. But we never got the car paint. We got distracted by these helmets for motorcycles. So we tried on them on, and started beating each other up with baseball bats wearing them. And we couldn�t feel a single thing. And I wondered if maybe I should wear sunglasses so that I can�t fall in love, and a motorcycle helmet so I can�t be hurt, and always be drunk so I can not care. And then that one kid�s girlfriend, she wanted to go look at cards, so we walked over there. And I forgot to take off the helmet. Or I didn�t want to. So we went there and read the cards. And I read all those sappy love anniversary ones. And I wouldn�t have written any of the things that they put in them. I wouldn�t have put �Never fear, dear, you�ll always have me near,� because I knew that for you that having me always near would make you more scared than anything. And there wasn�t a single card there that described how I felt for you. So I began to wonder if I even really loved you at all. And I completely took everything that I believe in and tore it apart to see. And I realized that it wasn�t me who had no idea what love was. It was the people reading and writing the cards. If I was to write a love card, I would simply put �Don�t Leave. I love you.� And inside it would show someone cooking meals for themselves with a bunch of beer bottle scattered around and a girl leaving the door. Or there would be one that you would, �You�re worth anything.� And it would show someone a picture of me being literally walked over by a picture of you. Or maybe one that says �I want to hate you so bad,� because I don�t think I�ve ever heard a line the expresses love so eloquently as that. And what�s funny is that you didn�t get it. I said I wanted to hate you so bad. And you left because you thought I didn�t love you. But if I didn�t love you then I would just hate you. Not want to hate you and not be able to. So I sat there and wondered if I was jealous of or pitied those people who read those cards and believed that what they said was what love was. Because that anniversary card kind of love sure would hurt less. So I sat in the card aisle of the Wal-Mart with a motorcycle helmet on and drunk off my a*s and I cried about you. Now there is the kind of love that you only see in the movies. Except in the movies they show it in some nice little setting for it, with appropriate costuming. But that is why life is life, and the movies are movies. And if this was a movie I would have fucked a beautiful girl that night and gotten over you, but instead I had my friend drive me home before it got to be 11:00 PM because people that are 16 can�t drive past 11:00 PM. So I went home and I really wanted to give you a call. But instead I signed online and you said �hi� to me. And I didn�t want you to say �hi� I wanted you to say �Oh my god what have I done I need you come back please� so that I could say �ok� or �Oh my god it�s not your fault I�m a f*****g piece of s**t and make it better for you to not have me than to have me, I�m so sorry,� and I actually had the whole conversation planned out. But instead I told you to pretend to not care about me. And I told you that we shouldn�t talk. And then I went to bed. And I called Nicole because I remembered how good her tits felt pressing up against me when she gave me a hug. And I talked to her. Or cried to her. But I didn�t tell her that I wanted her. Which is sort of what I wanted to tell her. Instead I told her how much I missed you. And I wrote a song after she left, and I whispered into her phone that I wanted her. I wrote a pretty song. About you and me and the whole damn world. And I sang it. It goes like this.
I get fucked up
To forget how fucked up I am
And how fucked up you are
And the things that fucked us up
And how fucked up the people that did it were
And how fucked up the whole world is
That it�s no wonder we're all alcoholics
And I love all this s**t
In a fucked up kind of way
But is there any other way
To feel any other feeling?

And then I crawled under the sheets. And I tried to pray to God. But like really pray to God. Not just ask him for something. And I realized that I doubted that there was a God sitting up in some kind of cloud listening to me at all. And it�s not that I doubted there was a God. It�s just that I doubted that that is how he was. And then I realized how few people tried to imagine God at all. But just sit there in Church and sort of half believed. And if that is faith than I�m glad that I don�t have faith. But I don�t think that�s faith. I think it�s better for me to believe in my God and truly believe in him, than to have faith in that God. And so I thought about what my God was. And I realized I believed that God didn�t answer prayers, but rather that you have to answer them yourself. But it was still important to pray because then you would know what you wanted. And I believed that God was in water. In fact I believed that God was a hydrogen bond. And sometimes he affects how we think by whispering what we need to hear in our mind by affecting chemicals in our brain. �It�s science� Yeah you would have understood that one but not really anyone else. So I don�t know why I said it. But I really don�t want anyone else to believe in my God at all. And my God has only three sins, lying and faking, cheating on someone, and worst of all not following your heart. But I also believe that we all sin like f*****g crazy and God can�t really punish us because he�s just a little hydrogen bond, and that all this sinning will do is f**k up your life even worse on Earth. And I guess I think putting up walls between you and someone you love is a sin as well. So let�s all get drunk and f**k. Whoo-HOOO! And then I tried praying to God to make the girl eyed girl come again so I wouldn�t have to keep thinking about you, but I guess that wasn�t really prayer, and that my prayer was actually more like I wish you would come back so I wouldn�t have to try and think up the green-eyed girl. But then it hit me that I like blue eyes better than green eyes. So I got out of bed and walked into the garage. I think there was actually a reason for me doing it, but I really don�t know what it is anymore. And when I walked into the garage I ran into the car. And it hurt so I thought, �F**k, I wish I had thought to turn a light on.� And then I realized that most of the things that I wish aren�t actually what I wish for at all but rather what I wish I could really want bad enough to try and accomplish. Like wishing that I didn�t care about you. I wish I could want to not care about you bad enough that I actually stopped caring. But I guess that means I should stop throwing pennies into wells because I know no wish would come true ever in my whole life, and that if it did I would be horribly upset that the wish had come true. So I wish I didn�t care. I wish I didn�t care. It just turned 11:11 when I was writing this. That�s f*****g ironic. So I walked into my mom�s car and kissed the roof even though there was no yellow light that I had not driven under, so it�s not like it even followed the rules of a wish, but I made a wish anyway. I kissed the top of the car and wished that I could go back to believing in wishes but at the same time I knew that I couldn�t. Because I know now that if I make a wish, it�s proof that it won�t ever come true. So then I walked out and buried myself under the covers and tried to stop breathing. Not to die or anything, but just to see if I really couldn�t live without air. Because I had really thought that I couldn�t live without you, and I was wrong on that one. And I�m pretty sure that air is just an acquired taste that we are far too dependent on. And that someday someone very �strong� will be able to free themselves from the need to breathe. Because one of the times when I had held my breath for a very long time, I saw that blue eyed girl that I�d been trying to imagine, and that was the first step to making myself not need you so maybe she�ll go ahead and try and take me away from my need to have oxygen in my body. And I tried to tell her that I loved her, but instead I choked and coughed and took the sheets off my head. And through the window I saw the sun coming up, and I saw my room being lit up by it�s light, and I saw the break in the sky between the night and the day. And I saw the constant battle and wondered if night was in love with day. And I looked around and realized how much more I loved my room when I could barely make out what was in it. I thought that maybe if I could tear away the covering blanket of the night, and I could tear away the light that lets us see, than maybe there wouldn�t be anymore lying or faking or not following your heart in this world. Then those people with their quiet desperation all built up inside of them would be able to wake up this morning and scream. Those �strong� people would suddenly become weak. And everyone would scream, and cry, and beg, and f**k, and say I love you. And somewhere in this mess someone would whisper �I found quiet happiness.� Not loud happiness that we just view as an opposite of our quiet desperation, those sins and horrors that we pretend never happened and make us �stronger�, but quiet happiness. Real happiness. And then we would both be happy. �In the morning� �In the sober dawn of Sunday� And I prayed for it to happen. So with every single word I write that will be my goal. To free the world from quiet desperation. And I wished for it to happen. But I knew it would never happen.

Reviews

[Collette]

I like the stream of conscious feel you have going on within this story. It's a relatable topic, and you have a knack for making it come to life in the text. Your pain is real, actualized in your words. The pace adds a lot as well, in parts, you have smooth language that carefully paints a picture of your emotions, while in others, the sentences are choppy, jumping from topic to topic. The choppiness just adds to the emotional charge as a whole, and I really enjoyed it.
This little snippet just stuck for me:
And by now it's probably around 4 AM. That horribly romantic time, that seems to be surpassing midnight as the time when lovers meet, and cries escape when you have to be clich� and do things that lovers do at a certain time in the night to make it feel as though you actually are lovers.

For some reason, the repetition of lovers and cliche just did it for me. You're talent shines in this story, and I read it effortlessly. It was an all-engaging experience, which is a rarity to find in some of the lengthy stories. The only suggestion I offer for improvement is to split it up into paragraphs. I lost my place a few times, and it's hard on the eyes. Otherwise, awesome job!
I look forward to reading more of your work.

[Raef C. Boylan]

If you think you could go through this and correct the typos without wanting to mess with the expression, then I advise you to do it because there's quite a lot of typos. If not then don't, because this is a great piece of honesty and introspection and I think it would be too easy to ruin the natural flow that you've created by trying to fix sentence structure or something like that.

Overall, great work and thanks for sharing it with us.
There's a lot of pain but there's also a lot of pain-related reflection, so at least it shows that some benefits can come from pain.

[Bhavya Kaushik]

Very very well written. A very mature and true piece.
A tremendous read!