Spin Glass

No, I didn't suffer physical abuse, but I definitely showed signs of some kind of abuse. I ended up rebuffing Him a lot except when I was really antsy or horny or whatever. Then we'd have a honeymoon period and those were good times always. Change my body, like what do you mean? Oh—oh God yeah it's hard to admit that to somebody but yes. Uh, a bird. Crow. I don't really know how to answer that question. What about you? No, you told me you became a goat person, sorry, I meant how are you doing? It's okay that it's complicated, it's all complicated, hah. Is His house still upstate? I couldn't tell either. The east coast all looks the same from just a skylight. No shit! It wasn't Michigan for me. Okay, I promise. I'm long past that stage of my life. Can I tell you about the guy I'm seeing right now? Okay, then hell yeah.

We met in a bar. Although I had like known him beforehand we just happened to meet in a bar, actually it was karaoke night at, uh, The Swan, and I was like, oh hey, aren't you Andrea's friend? I asked him if I looked like a crow. He has this amazing long black hair, he's so soft-spoken too, like I just couldn't stop doting all over him and making him laugh. Anyway we took the train home and I told him I was gay and maybe overshared a little about Genuine. Yep nice catch. Though He was not always genuine, haha. Anyway this guy—Jackson—kissed me out of the blue and we had the funniest gayest stupid interactions for like five hours and fell asleep on the floor of my apartment. Aw I'm glad to hear it. Think about it this way, Faust: you still have completely unknowable years ahead of you. But... again I wasn't ever physically abused and you're basically saying you were. You wanna get out of there? You'll figure it out eventually. At least I bet ya will, the way you're talking. Yeah, but you're right. Different lives and the same.

Funnily enough I saw your message because Jackson thought it reminded him of me and he showed it to me. He was on 4chan I think. Nooo thank god he's not that kind of guy. At least not yet. Yup I'll fuck off if he gets bad haha. Thank you. You've been asking a lot about me. What's your name for Him anyway? Oh, I get it. Funny.

I promise I won't! I honestly haven't felt the urge since I got out of there. I don't even remember why I was upstate in such a bad state of mind, when I first went. Probably just finished visiting my aunt, I might have been kind of suicidal at the time... and even now I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about Him sometimes. When I remember.

He didn't ever ask me to think about Him but He did tell me how His whole mythology works, so I felt kind of obligated. I don't wanna get into that whole thing right now.

Yeah. Oh, that's all good, I gotta go. But we can talk anytime!



I am staring at these words on a laptop and I can't wipe the grin off of my face. I have long been low-capacity on social interactions besides His but this sticks out to me, these words that we can talk anytime and I don't feel like I am the little broken porcelain doll at the bottom of a bottomless pit anymore, at least not right this moment. My fur is on electric ends. It's been only four days of posting the message and we already got this person, this person calling himself Almond online, sending something friendly (and verifiably real) to my burner email. Also we have gotten ourselves banned on a lot of websites and we keep having to make sockpuppets. He finds this very funny. I have started finding it very funny too, though as somebody who was once addicted to the Internet it still makes me wince when I get an email telling me that I'm kicked off a website. Old habits, but He finds it a neat poetry of sorts. "You are many-faced online," He signed, "looking for faces you can't see." He is in the same room as me—the foyer—but not looming over my shoulder. I wouldn't have liked that. I'm hugging a great cotton pillow and reading the words on the laptop screen and He just relishes my smile, sat a small distance away on an adjoining sofa, reading something that hovers above His head. It is moments like this that I remember for a very long time and very fondly. It's about Him but He is not the only reason I'm happy, and it's comforting to have that security.

"I'm extremely glad you got Almond, of all people," He signs. "Almond is sweet as a sugar pie. I actually imagined I'd never get to see him again. In fact I still won't, but now I know he's doing alright. I worry so much."

I give Him some light from my grin. "Seems like he's doing fantastic. Even out of context it's nice."

We've been here a while today. Early in the day it was a little foggy out and the skylight collects a few leaves but now it is a bright and gleaming noon and light scatters in beautiful eggshell to every corner of the foyer and every bookcase is illuminated but the illumination, of course, makes the titles of the books difficult to make out, and especially the authors. I reckon it's a little absent of old mysticists right now. If I painted one of my tiny portraits of the foyer's appearance at this very moment—excellent idea, actually—I would draw the rows and rows of tomes just blank, blank and nothing else, as if He were collecting nothing but homeopathy. Then again it is not entirely a stray from the truth to call His library a little bit of a placebo. He often has good reading material, but the vast majority of it really isn't for me. Maybe it's for Euclid.

Euclid is in the kitchen. Doesn't normally cook, as I've said, but he offered tonight. Him and I still don't really exchange words, any words whatsoever, so I just nodded and waved from all the way on the sofa while He suggested what Euclid should cook. I think he's trying to pick up a hobby to get obsessed with like mine. Although I haven't painted the last few days. Isn't it meant to be an outlet for this worry? No, but after that night on the bench I have been sleeping in my own bed and I do not feel like I am being stolen away to the Room above His house, or like I am a whole new self in the morning. In fact I do not need to trim my fur every time I wake up. It stays cut down.

And I have been feeling a little nicer.

Able to keep track of time.

The mornings are still harsh.

Actually I feel as if there should be some fanfare after Almond sent that email and we started talking but nonetheless I still have a burning in me, a fire turning over, which insists without words that I ought to keep spreading the message, that I ought to see more, that I ought to ask more, that I ought to understand more. After all He has known many people and some may have seen closer to Him than others. And although Almond has gotten away in body and mind and makes me feel warm to think about, the fire is not warm. The fire is eating.

I have to lay my head back against the sofa now.



His hands have moved fast and the kitchen is a mess and he imprints upon the stovetop and cabinets his shape as an afterimage but also in this shape I see him without a smile or a frown but a great intensity that reminds me of myself of course, and in this he has drawn up some eleven plates and bowls together which form a meal he is utterly proud of. In his expression I see pride for certain. Who else would smile only when he feels validated? And I smile back because it's easy. "I moved all the shrimp from my bowl to your bowls," he signs. "I'm half full, I've been eating all evening." Of course jambalaya is a one-pot deal so the extra dishes are whatever other mixed accouterments he's built in that kitchen and He smiles wide and is astonished and I'm thankful, but Euclid sits across the table from me and we keep our words short. It would be impractical (as I have implied) for us to not talk at all but it's so bare minimum, so faint that it may as well be semaphore. See the shape at the table again: an unfinished triangle. You cannot draw that line across. In some bowls he has diced peppers and onions and garlic into something mediterranean and in another bowl he has something creamy for a melted-together pile of nachos, and there's so much sliced cornbread in a pile there, and of course we won't finish this all in one night so he has already prepared some Tupperware for quarantining the leftovers. And he points over at a communal plate near the center of the dining table. "Jalapeno jelly and cream cheese on crackers here, honey," he signs to Him. He started using that word to refer to Euclid last month, honey. I think honey is sickly-sweet. "You need to try them. The jelly is from Port Street Market. Remember picking it up?"

"Of course." And He is flush in the face with elation. "Of course I do, I was the one begging to try it, you know I've been dying for something sweet and spicy. Crackers are the best way?"

"They're a way." Euclid laughs under himself, and then he says something out loud that I can't make out. He signs, for my courtesy, "we have a whole jar so we'll try everything."

And I look at him and he looks at me and I tell him,

"Thanks for cooking."

And he nods.

Where did the parts of this food come from? Except that answer is comically difficult to find on the best of days. Jambalaya is not my food in the way that I suppose pepper jelly is my food and Euclid's food, in that I used to make it with my dad when I was a little kid, but instead it is a pidgin food that I picked up cooking on especially lavish nights in Grand Rapids and, more than once, in His house. It belongs to a culture I wasn't actually present for, but then again the world is quite big and maybe that is the best way to describe the dish: it is sort of Spanish, sort of French, and entirely American, from Louisiana, which again is not my place. Even still it reminds me of a few bright spots being Max's roommate and compensating a little bit for my tendency to weigh him down. I compensated for being myself by making him dinner, and sometimes it was jambalaya, a few times when I wanted to splurge. Though at that time Max had two roommates including myself and I was less of a shadow on him. Have I told you anything about jambalaya's material components yet? It is delicious. I don't want to elaborate. My head is in steam. Euclid made it too hot, but to be clear too hot is the precisely correct temperature. I am gnawing on shrimp like my teeth were made for it. I wonder if He made my teeth sharp as He crafted me from soil because He knew the future. After all I don't find the concept of eating grass appealing. I can't think about cud right now. I am shoveling rice into my maw.

"Careful," Euclid signs, giggling to himself, "eat around the table too. If you can."

And I nod.

I wonder if you're doing okay in there.

I didn't do what I said I would. I didn't ask you how you were doing lately. I still haven't asked.

I have my life still and I never asked.

To my right He takes a deep breath. He doesn't eat as quickly as me but He has a greater appetite and has not paused, digging His fork into His bowl and mixing his meal with other bowls and, of course, He is sticking whole crackers into his mouth and grinning wide, and now He is so exhausted with food-happiness and still eating more. And He looks at Euclid and

and

is there something there between them? Is there really? Is it different than last time?

I want there to be something there. Magical thinking.

Please. I want it to be possible.

I want it to be real.



I am damn full on the couch now. Hands on my belly and head on a down pillow and Euclid and Him talking over to the left of me, and I can still taste the jalapenos and Cajun seasoning and shrimp all swirling on my tongue and I have to keep my jaw open to air it out, and I'm happy like this. Happy is a strong word but it doesn't have to mean all the things I like to pretend it does. I ate a good meal and didn't have to cook. Maybe that's good. Maybe I could just cook on odd-numbered nights and Euclid cooks on even-numbered ones and he'll make all the best stuff and it has leftovers so maybe he cooks two nights out of three instead, and I just get to fill in the gaps. Would you be okay with that? I want to leave you room to be yourself. I'm not even talking right now I'm just staring up and murmuring happily while my stomach puffs out full of protein. "Thanks for cooking," I sign again at the ceiling, at the skylight, at nobody.

I feel something collide with my face and when I turn left Euclid is laughing his ass off because he threw a tiny chunk of cornbread at me. I give him a played-up look. "You're welcome," he signs. "Glad you enjoyed it."

I am tempted to blow him off and just nod again but, in all honesty, it takes a lot of stubborn effort to live with somebody and not talk to them at all. I have not forgiven him but then again I don't think I'm in the right. Maybe it's okay to have a conversation right now. Just out of convenience. "Do you wanna start cooking more nights?"

And he nods instantly, and he has a stupid beam on his face. "Yes! If I'm not stepping on your toes at all."

"Word choice," I tell him. He rolls his eyes and over on the other sofa chair He is snickering. I sign, "No, you're really not. I'm happy to see you enjoying yourself."

"Well, thank you." Euclid shrugs. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Promise."

Truthfully I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I just settle my head back into that nice divot in the pillow and stare back at the ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye I see that Euclid is talking again, but I am unsure if He can hear him. And I rest.



I remember this next part vividly, and I'm trying to hold onto it. It's slipping away but I cannot let it slip away. What else would I have left?

I wake up with a dry mouth again and I don't even realize I slept and He is gone but when I get up I see Euclid in the kitchen in a dour state and I approach and don't know where it wells up in me but I know something is wrong so I embrace him and he puts down the frying pan in his hand shakily and I feel his breath get taken away and when I hug him and after I pull away I notice that he looks unwell, deeply unwell, set back in those eyes of his. He has been crying.

Then he tells me this: Things have been going so perfectly lately

that I now know that they are going to fall apart. I had a dream last night, a foul and endless and all-encompassing dream,

but it was utterly lucid in such a way that you have never been.

I dreamt that Him and I were stuck out in this place, Puerto Vallarta, sunning and loitering near a breakfast spot on a beach where we had engorged ourselves on fresh sweet and sour fruits orange and green and red and we were drooling still with syrup,

and at this moment I looked Him in the eyes sat back across a wooden chair with slats which were digging into my back. And He asked me

do you want this for the rest of your life?

I told Him, yes, and then I told Him I love you. I love you and I mean it, I finally mean it. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to feel like I am on an adventure at all hours of the day.



And as Euclid is signing and telling me his story my mind drifts aimlessly and ponderously as if it has done something wrong, and down a winding trail near Lake Michigan I find myself in the same spot as him but there is no God by me and the skies have opened up to reveal a long, trailing empty. Euclid goes on.



I took His hand and felt myself lifted up across the ocean and for hours and hours and then years we spent our lives on open waters studying fish and birds and grazing insects and we saw incredible things and I told Him I loved Him again and He had the most beautiful smile in the universe.

But now I know that things are wrong.

Now I am completely without hope.

"You want me to make you something to eat?"



He snaps out of his trance. "No, it's alright. I'm making a grilled cheese sandwich for myself. Sorry for saying all this to you. I know you want a lot more space."

"It's okay," I sign.

"Yeah?"

"It's completely alright. I've been worried about you and felt like I shouldn't talk to you on principle."

"Well," he signs, "you can." He pauses a long time, he fishes a spatula off the counter and uses it to flip the sandwich he's cooking, and for a second we are both suspended in air and then he asks me very abruptly,

"What is on the computer? What is the message? He told me but He didn't explain any of the details."

And when Euclid asks this, I don't explain it either. I tell him I wrote it just for my own sake. And I eventually wander away with my head aching from exhaustion and I don't find water.



In truth I wrote the message in a stupor. It is about His house and His body, it damns Him and insults His backwards sort of logic, it professes that I feel as if I have been abused but cannot find the wounds, but it nonetheless expresses a love, a care, a feeling of being home. Yes, I used that word 'love' in the message and don't know how to remove it from my thoughts because, in all, it can't ever really go anywhere even after being buried under so many layers of pretend. I want to love. I want love to reach me. I want love to be as far away from Him as physically possible but His house is only so large and the courtyard fades into the trees until it is untamed, immaterial, and without place. And Euclid can love Him. Euclid can find it in himself or at least that is what is going on right this moment.

And now it is starting to snake into me, it is making my hands tremble down every hallway, and I find myself walking around in the dark with the worst thought on my mind. Almond—far away Almond in New York—says that he's in love with a guy named Jackson with long black hair and he uses the word 'gay' to express a sort of intimacy that is utterly vulnerable. A gay relationship is fragile because of how easily we get killed. Killed, I said. Killed and then brought down to a Room below the world such that we are forgotten utterly. Almond is surviving at least for now. Almond is okay at least for now. Almond is sweet like a sugar pie at least for now.

But His care is not fragile, not temporary. It is a flame that cannot be snuffed. He would not relent. There is no 'for now.'

His love is not going to die.

His love is completely, unfathomably vast, and perhaps endless, and He would not tire of being tired. In the woods he is drooling with pride.

I know where your fear comes from. I know that you are dotted with wounds you can't find.

He opens his arms wide.



Almond





would you







come back









to His house?













Of course not, I already told you.



















You asked me to promise I wouldn't.























And besides that fact,



























Jackson is treating me well.



































I have no reason to leave.

















































for now