Dear Sara,

Remember that club I told you about? It lets ‘young talents’ perform on Friday nights and I had been aching for months to finally have my big chance. When the boss told me I was allowed a thirty minute set, I thought it was going to be the greatest thing ever and almost peed myself in excitement. It totally sucked.

I was standing on stage, having just finished my first two songs and the crowd had honestly been accepting and clapped a fair amount. I was so fucking pleased, you know what my music means to me. Some people go to confession, I write a song.

That’s when I heard it. Someone yelling “We only like your music because you’re hot!” and it was like a pang to my heart. You could’ve shot me dead in the face, it wouldn’t have been any different. Here I was -a complete idiot when I think of it- spilling my guts out to the world and it seems only my face transpired throughout it all. I cowardly ducked my head and continued playing but it wasn’t the same anymore.

The feeling was gone.

The first catcall had trespassed this sort of invisible barrier that is called ‘respect’ and people continued screaming about how much I sucked, how they wanted my babies or that I should just “shut my pretty mouth and use it for things I probably was more talented at”. I felt like I was dying.

Those persons made me want to puke. After a few more insults, they made me want to puke in a bag so I could throw it at them. It was fucking horrible. I was shaking with anger but at the same time, I was wondering if I would ever be worth a shit.

When you’re on stage, you are left vulnerable and I should’ve been aware of it. Or at least, that it could hurt me. I can walk in the streets, in my school, anywhere and never bother about all those rumours following me but in that club, with my guitar strapped against me, I was like a bloody thirteen year-old that has just been rejected by his first best friend for no apparent reasons.

I think I ended the show by saying in the microphone “Fuck my face and fuck all of you” but I’m not really sure, I was like stuck in the midst of dismay and despair. Everything was foggy, it could’ve been tears. Either way, I hope I did.

When I got off stage, some asked if I had an EP but I couldn’t even answer to their compliments: they sounded so fake. If they had really liked what I was playing, wouldn’t they have tried to shut those other bastards up? I’m aware this sounds extremely egocentric but that’s what I truly thought at the moment. All I wanted to do is scratch my bloody face and stick needles in my eyes to see if they’d care listen if I looked like a freaking escapee from a bad horror flick.

Personally, I never really thought I was that attractive. I know I’ve already annoyed you with this but come on. I’m scrawny, I have a girly face structure, my veins show too much, my eyelashes look like I’m wearing mascara, my hair is always fucked-up, I look like a completely retarded moron.. The list goes on. This could seem like displaced low self-esteem because people keep contradicting me but I know what I look like, especially when I’m hungover. There’s a reason I broke all the mirrors in my house last week and to hell those fucking seven years of bad luck! It doesn’t really matter, I guess but I do wish I were considered as something else than another pretty boy who has to avoid flatterers that talk for fucking hours at a time.

I went back home and made a beeline to my room. I stared at my guitar for a long time then my shoulders began trembling and I burst out sobbing. It was so pathetic. I was lying in the middle of the floor, hitting the ground like I could punch a hole in it to help me breathe. Let me tell you, I was suffocating.

My mother called me then because she’s computer-retarded. I managed to ignore the shrill noise, until she pitched in those ultra-sounds she has the secret of, so I decided to grace her with my help. She was already bitchy to begin with, not to mention she’s still pissed at my smashing all the mirrors and can’t buy the clue I don’t give a flying fuck about it. It won’t bring her precious reflections back anyway. I’m not relenting to her moans by buying her a new one. It would beat the whole purpose of what I did and I swear that after tonight, I never want to see my fucking face again.

She asked if I had cried, I almost applauded her perspicacity but told her instead that I had just banged my crotch on the corner of my desk and that it hurt like a motherfucker. She bought it and somehow, it nettled me. It was my own goddamn fault though: I even walked weirdly to prove my point. I’m such a fucking comedian.

I hate lying but I didn’t feel like putting up with her falsely ‘concerned mother’ crap. I know I’m being a dick by not giving her the opportunity to be caring but we live on such totally dissimilar planets, we’re like lost passengers with different destinations. I doubt she could understand even if she tried. She’d typically say other things are more important, like school, and that I shouldn’t worry as I’m an ‘extraordinarily attractive young man’. What the fuck. Like that’s what I’d need to hear.

You know, I think I expect too much of others. I can’t bring myself to make a step towards them but I resent the fact they don’t make the effort either. I would love having a healthy relationship with my mother although the deeply engraved idea she is a frigid bitch perpetuates. After all, she’s the only family I have left but all this ‘flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood’ bullshit irks me each and every time. Half of my chromosomes come from my father and I guess something must’ve been passed down but it’s not like the asshole has been around long enough for me to notice. Hell, I’ve lived for years with my mother and I still haven’t gathered what links me to the woman.

As a cherry to my fucking sundae, Cyra called later that night. Ex-girlfriends who broke your heart should definitely grasp the idea you don’t want anything to do with them once the tears have dried. She fed me shit and I snapped at her. This, of course, led to an argument I was too stupid to prevent and I spent the best of an hour defending myself, I can’t even remember against what. You know, if my own best friend says my so-called significant other is cheating on me, I believe him. He wouldn’t even think of lying about something like that and that’s why we’re friends in the first place. It isn’t a question of low self-esteem, lack of confidence in myself or crap like that. It’s faith. Loyalty, trust. Whatever. I sound like a shitty advertisement for Christian boy scouts but I suppose you caught my gist anyway.

Cyra started speaking in this little hurt voice that irritated me because it made me feel guilty. She told me I was “unique, different, that I had a special way of looking at others”. Is it so fucking important to be unique? Can you actually be goddamn unique? There’s always that mental soulmate lurking around somewhere and seriously, have you seen people these days, flaunting their ‘difference’ like it was a bloody gold medal? Give me a fucking break. A lot are superficial at best. I refused the compliment: it meant nothing nice enough for me to indulge in ego-stroking thoughts.

I managed to be sufficiently obnoxious and arrogant for her to call me “a fucking dick with no sense of relativity whatsoever” and hung up without saying goodbye. It didn’t really faze me, I was about to go goddamn insane otherwise so I headed to the bathroom for a shower. The water woke me up from my state of angry self-doubt and I became more rational. It’s weird, people always say it clears their head. I suppose it’s because of all the thinking you do while in the shower. Introspection created by careful treading on slippery feet and washing your naked body like it could absolve your soul. You can get the craziest ideas and I swear, my best stories, essays and all that jazz were first conceptualised with hot water raining on my head.

Now, the idea of Jeff lying to me is out of the question. And even if Cyra didn’t cheat on me, it still doesn’t prevent her from flirting with every guy she finds attractive. You know, I wish I were of the kind who think it’s funny and almost valorising because they’re the one to come home with “that hot girl” but I’m not. I get defensive and sad, cranky at best and either way, I end up acting like a retarded jealous husband from the fifties. Maybe I just never really trust anyone until I’ve been proven I can. Maybe I just think I’m not good enough to keep the girl. Maybe I have never even been in love and am a pretentious anally retentive guy who gets possessive in the second. Maybe I just fucking hate the horrible boyfriend I make. I really don’t fucking know. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it if I had to date myself. I’d get the impression of having an officer from the Gestapo in my bed. It would be wise if I lay off the dating business until I get some confidence, sperm in my balls or whatever I’d need to achieve some self-value. If only it didn’t mean being alone.

I honestly like being on my own –it’s necessary- and can go days like that but there’s always a moment in time when you just itch to touch someone else and have that person touch you. Have someone call and smile when you see each other. Little things like that, just because you can see your self-worth in another’s eyes and it makes you feel bigger for a while. It’s like a drug, once you start, you can’t stop. That sounds more like something for potato chips actually. I’m getting sidetracked. The thing is, being a loner is nowhere near being lonely and I would’ve preferred staying an ignorant horny fucker instead of discovering that certain stuff is definitely better when two and get fucking caught in a whirlwind of chaos.

Speaking of, after the shower, I collapsed in my bed, putting music on really loud. My mother came in to say good night and I started rolling the minute she closed the door. I inhaled peace, Sara, and I soared. I like it when I don’t care. It means I can finally see beyond the black and white even if it doesn’t really matter at the moment. But you can always remember how it was. The joint got me horny, of course, so I jerked off and it was beautiful. The moment your arms want to collapse and your head is swirling with colours. I’d only admit this to you: I’d love knowing what a female orgasm is really like. It must be like an explosion with kaleidoscopes flashing lights or something to that effect. Wow.

As you can tell, I was in a mellow, gentle mood. I was about to fall asleep when the phone rang. I didn’t really think and picked up. Cyra. Again. Saying she had thought about “us” for the two hours and that she concluded in her loving me. My laughter must’ve been really bitter because she scoffed and sounded offended. It was nervous though, I’m not as tough as I seem. I’m as bloody weak as a new-born: the old love just suddenly caught up with me and I was falling all over again. I ended up saying that this wasn’t about pride, that I didn’t bloody care if she had cheated on me or not. I was just fucking sick of knowing I won’t ever have her to myself and when there was hope –sometimes only a tiny step in my direction- she just crushed it all by being too scared to attempt anything. That she was the person I least expected in my life. The worst was that I thought every single one of those words and she knew it.

What a pathetic load of crap. I sounded like a bad love song.

She got quiet and sadly asked me to think about it. I rolled another joint after hanging up. I don’t live according to the “drugs are cool, drugs are my friends” style but my life would be pretty shitty without them. It isn’t really all about this ‘escape’ people repetitively talk about. I’ve always wanted to fly and concrete dreams are soothing. It may be just a question about admitting easy pleasure that most decide to reject because they are too afraid to let lose, to feel happiness because of the sad story of their usual life, to allow their inner person be because it’s a sick bastard or shit. I’m pretty stoned right now so I could be wrong. But it still makes sense.

I was looking at the sunset before the show tonight, smoking a cigarette to calm down. It was a weird one, green and orange from pollution with a dark purple blue ceiling but still awe-inspiring anyway. It leaked through cracked walls and in between buildings, the light stretching out towards me. It was all connected and I felt pure. Imagine that, I was struck by light. Tomorrow, it probably won’t have the same colours, even later today, the sun will rise in different hues. The sky is ever-changing and I wake up as the same person everyday. Fucking depressing. What differentiated from yesterday would be the hundreds of breaths I’ve taken from others’ expirations, stealing a shadow of their souls. At a point of time, I’ll finally have enough of the same sort to build a feeling, a knowledge and, a little wiser, I will grow towards being a better individual.

I’m tired of all these clocks ticking away, of all these persons growing weary of living their life. There’s only indifference left. Or hatred. I’d like to be able to make all those cathedrals fall along with my virtual barriers. I think it could actually free me.

Love,

Arthur.

P.S. I’ve noticed that each week, the previous letter has been taken from your grave. It could be the wind but just in case someone is spying, forget about the female orgasm part, okay? Thanks.

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The story was inspired by a comment I’ve read about a Bright Eyes concert in England gone wrong –I would’ve punched those motherfuckers!- and bad French love songs, to prove to myself it’s possible to create things from unexpected, disagreeable sources.

Arthur isn’t entirely based on me so his point-of-views on things can differ from my own. I tried to make this as realistic as possible. Hopefully, you could relate to some things Arthur says. If I could define this story by a song, I’d suggest The Biggest Lie by Elliott Smith or Motion Sickness by Bright Eyes.

I don’t know yet if this is a short story or not. We’ll see.