just let me rest in peace

I haven't mentioned the magnetic disc in a while. It's because of a series of events have fallen so fast, like dominoes, that I haven't bothered recalling them, the order of them, the line of them, the 1-2-3 steps. He has vanished from my life, much to my relief. I spent so much time fervently trying to forget him, but it was impossible without his absence.

Constantly running into him on the street, interacting with him (or not interacting with him) at my bar, seeing his profile in my periphery while at work, it was a constant reminder, a scraping of the scab, a misery. Then, like a secret wish fulfilled, the bar sank, a titanic disaster that we all knew was coming at some point and felt no surprise when we discovered that our bar, my bar, the place I've spent the last three frustrated years of my life trying to find some sense or rapport or affinity, was closing. It was hard to be sad, because of course I love that place, except lately, he ruined it for me, but I will never see him again.

Imagine after a few weeks, as the sting of what was began to fade, as I began to heal, despite the show he put on for me the last time I saw him--

it was the goodbye party-which was so fitting, for he was the only person I wanted to say goodbye forever to-and he wore his biggest grin and his crooked glasses, and he was just so jovial. he was everywhere and nowhere, I heard his laugh across the bar but couldn't find his eyes. I wanted to say the words that would make things not weird between us, but I couldn't find them. We talked about some things, all things I could tell he was tortured by having to talk to me about them. At one drunken point, I drove my finger through the air and poked his shoulder and reminded him he had one of my books, the only line between us that hadn't been severed and then I told him to just keep it. goodbye forever.

I breathed with a sigh of relief and flitted away into the party and forgot him until I opened the doors after a smoke outside and saw the image that has been burned into my brain and will not go away despite anguished mental scrubbing. She was next to him. The moony girl I've known all along was his. His hand was on the top of her thigh, that place where the hips meet the leg, and she had her back to him and was dancing against him as he sat in a barstool, king of the manor, with a shit eating grin and our eyes met and finally his cover was blown, this mouse was his; the pretense was gone, he didn't have that same discretion he'd always had about her, he was no longer sparing me the pain, because it was the end and no one cared anymore; and they looked so comfortable together, so perfect together, she will marry him, I thought to myself, and a flash flood of jealously filled me and suddenly there wasn't enough alcohol in all the world to make that go away.

I still fondle that image absentmindedly, shaming myself when I realize that I was thinking of that yet again, because it really shouldn't hurt that bad and he really wasn't good for me anyway, but nothing I say about it works, because that's what happens when your heart is broken, even a little bit, it just takes time to wear away that pain.

I left the party early, even though it was my bar, even though it was early, even though I wanted to stay, because I couldn't stand to hear his laugh, to see his owlish eyes sweeping past me as if I didn't exist. Maybe I can finally put all that to rest, I thought, maybe this is the end of having to think about him, the end of knowing him, the end of everything.

--a few days ago I had a dream about him. I don't dream very often. If I do I tend to forget them soon after waking. Sometimes I dream with awareness in the lapses between my alarm and its snoozing. I rarely dream about people I know in real life. When I realized he had wandered into my dream I woke up, startled and angry, mad that even though I haven't seen him in weeks, he infiltrated my dreams. I wish for the same carelessness he holds for me, the same indifference when it comes to him. I hope one day I can look over him and see nothing but a ghost.