Plush (16 page)

Jack.

Jack.

Jack.

Come back.

I open his black-and-white-spotted, drugstore, 99-cent, most recent journal.

The papers are a little crumply in the binding due to the crazy writing. I can see how angry he was: the pen had poked holes through the paper. Fuck. I read the last poems or whatever it is that he wrote the day he died. Pages and pages. Pages and pages of angst. Where was I? Why wasn’t I listening?

“Hayley, my stars, my everything. I was an a astronaut and you my galaxy
.

Hayley Hayley. Every part of my body bleeds and beats 4 you
.

Hayley, Hayley, my everything
.

But then

You left me

Became

Black star eating my soul
.

Where am I?

Playing tight rope over a shark infested world

I BLAME YOU 4 RUNING EVERYBODY ELSE 4 ME

ALL I WANT< ALL I’VE EVER WANTED IS you U you U U

But you won’t fucking leave me

I never had a fucking girlfriend even

I would never betray you and you left the other half of you

Dying

WILL you EVER UNDERSTAND

EVER KNOW THE TRUTH OF WHAT WE R???

WE are JUST A LOST CAUSE. NOBODY LOVES US    BUT US
.

WE’re JUST A LOST CAUSE. NOBODY LOVES US    BUT US
.

The chains are falling off my back – the one’s you held onto to keep me intact. On track. Without tracks. But I don’t need to bleed anymore.

I take an X-Aacto blade and start cutting on my arm. I can’t believe it. Jack knew I would kill him by leaving him… And that’s just what I’ve done.

2day is the death of us
…

I can’t breathe. I slash my arms. The deeper the blade, the more I am freed. I’m freed of my skin. I’m freed of this cage of a fucking body. I must keep reading:

…staring at my walls

avoiding all your calls

trying not 2 care

so fucking much, much too much

how 2 trick myself into believing

it all doesn’t bother me

but it does

this is all harder, much harder, harder than I thought

just get through 2day

& maybe 2morrow

I’ll be ok…

maybe MAYBE

I just might
.

But 2night… 2night… I let myself die

A little more

HAYLEY, what’s it all 4?

u did this 2 me
.

I deepen the blade. Deepen it more, more… Up my wrists. Read on:

how many ways

can my heart break?

can it crumble 2 the floor
,

fire then ash?

all the words we swore

smoke then gone

& all that’s left

is a hole

where I used 2 know

what love was

where you stood

somewhere inside of me

& hid the despair

in ur magicians sleeves

but what is 4ever?

obviously not us

I step on a bus

I don’t know where it’s going

but away

blue plush seat beneath me

jerking wheels

off another cliff

called

(what is)

the future
.

Jack. I’m sorry. So sorry.

The last thing in his book. The very fucking last thing he wrote:

THERE IS NO PATH
.

My blood is over everything. I swallow the whole fucking bottle of Xanax and drown it down with champagne. I’m bleeding on the world that cut me:

twisted spirals,

  black holes,

    sorrow,

        and sorrow.

I see me laying on the floor.

I’m staring down

from the ceiling.

I see Jack –

I’m coming,

bleeding.

I’ll die for you, like you did for me.

I see the world spinning.

Ain’t nobody ever going to separate us again.

Bleed.

I see Hayley,

that little mouse of a bitch,

bleeding on all your poetry.

I see her

white-vomit-

choking.

Now I’m higher,

outside of the roof,

flying up towards the sky.

The earth is so small below.

Jack, I’m coming.

I’m coming.

Soon together we will be home.

37

“Hayley… Hayley… come back to me… Hayley. My love.”

“Jack?” I say in my head.

“Hayley, Hayley, wake up. Wake up.”

Huh?

Am I dead?

I can’t feel anything.

“Hayley, honey, open your eyes; Can you open your eyes for me?”

My eyes are rocks, like an avalanche fell on them. I can’t. No.

“Hayley. Do you know where you are?”

Huh? The afterlife? Jack?

“Ask her if she can talk.” A dark voice I don’t know.

“Hayley honey. Can you talk?”

My lips are stitched. No. I thought I was talking, but I guess I’m not.

“Hayley. Hayley, squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” I’m trying.

I’m trying. I’m trying.

“Doctor, she squeezed. I felt it; it was small, but she’s there. She’s in there somewhere.”

No I’m not, because I am a ghost of my former self.

Jack. Where’s Jack? Is that jack? I can’t exist without Jack so it must be jack.

“Hayley, please. Hayley, love, open your eyes. Please open your eyes for me. I love you. I just want to look deep into your beautiful eyes.” I’m trying. I’m trying to push the rocks off.
Trying
. Light.
Ahhh
, too much fucking light. Blinding.
Ahhh
.

Blurry men over me. Where am I?

“Hayley that’s good. Just look at me.”

My hand is in his hand.

Who is he?

“Hayley, honey, it’s me. Your love. Carter.”

My soul thrusts back into my body. My eyes focus. Carter. And a man in a lab coat. I’m on the kitchen counter. Puke. The wretched smell of puke is everywhere and white bandages all over my arms. Huh? I’m not dead?

“Hayley. It’s gonna be ok. You overdosed. But you’re ok. Please, just look at me. Say something.”

His eyes – beg and big and Carter. He’s always my fucking knight, my prince charming. I forgot all about how wonderful you are.

“I’m – a – alive? This is – not – a dream?”

He holds me: “No, Hayley, honey, we’re gonna be fine. It’s all gonna be fine. Look, I love you. I’m here for you. I’ve loved you always. You are all I want, all I need. I love us. I love our lives. I’m sorry about Jack. I’m sorry I can’t understand. I’m sorry you feel like I made you two split up, but it’s not our faults Hayley. Jack was a drug addict. You still have a family that’s living. I love you. Stay alive. You have a great life. I love you. Hayley. It’s gonna be ok.”

And I think I believe him.

38

Cody and Benjy. I am a little freaked about reconnecting with them, like they will have forgotten who I was. Or I will forget how to be a mom. Or they won’t love me anymore or love me the same way. Or maybe my life now is imaginary. But just in case it’s not, I must be brave and just play – in my bandaged wrists. I take them outside for a picnic. They hold me. They love me. It’s like I never tried to leave them.

“Mom! Mom! Let’s go catch bugs!”

“Ok,” I say, and we crawl in the grass and dance in the sun and make cages with our hands. Sometimes I can’t see my hands at all, but theirs are so clear. Fireflies are caught, lighting up, then let go. I guess love doesn’t disappear as fast as I thought.

39
    May 16, 2012

I write. I write more than ever, songs upon songs. And they’re all about Jack.

I’m still removing his teeth from my heart – the pain of living a broken dream. “Half of Me” is our love sonnet:

I’ve never been so raw, so honest, so willing to just say anything. To let it all go, every moment, every dark part or good part, not lie, not censor myself, not let the fear of judgement eat me alive. A moment of truth, the world, the self unveiled, that raw essence of humanity that we all can relate to broken down into some emotion, some story, something that reveals a new part of life, a new understanding.

I can do this. I can record an album. I know that I am less than what I was with Jack, but I’m still somebody. And maybe it’s weird but I can hear Jack sometimes whispering in my ear: “I live in your songs.”.

Everybody is so sensitive around me. Annie acts like my mom. Donnie doesn’t bring his ho’s to the studio anymore. Everybody is so sweet. So sweet. Too sweet. Nobody wants me to kill myself with sadness.

I’m trying to believe in this world again, even if I’m just going through the motions. But I’m writing away the pain that’s inside of me; it’s always burning, forever burning for Jack.