Page 3 of Way Down Deep

I feel like I should wonder if you’re a man or a woman, if you’re sixty or sixteen, but I don’t really care. I think maybe you’re a woman, but that’s probably just me being sexist, thinking only women know about poetry or worry about strangers.

You don’t have to tell me. It doesn’t matter. I only care that you’re a human and you’re awake and you’re kind, when you have no reason to be. That you said, “I’m here,” when almost anybody else who got those texts would’ve said, “Fuck off, stalker, wrong number.” If they bothered to say anything at all.

It makes me wonder what I would’ve said. I feel small and a little ashamed that I can’t guess.

Now me, I don’t know about poetry, but that one you quoted sounds nice. I’ll look it up. When I read that you think of me as Smith I first thought of Elliott Smith, because lately I’ve been listening to all the music that used to make depression sound so romantic, back before I knew what depression actually feels like.

I wish I had the same problems I did back then. I didn’t even know what problems were, or what hopelessness is like to live inside, like a well that’s so empty there’s no water and no floor, not even any walls, too bottomless for you to make out the sky or stars or hear somebody calling your name. If anyone’s even noticed you went missing.

Fucking similes. Hey, maybe this one makes you my bucket. Deep, right? I think I better leave the poetry to you.

I’ve been listening to way too much Nick Drake lately, too. He’s my kind of poet. You showing up makes me think of some of his lyrics. Now you’re here. Brighten my northern sky.

Before I shut the fuck up, I want to let you know, I’m not going to kill myself. I can’t. I have something too important to live for.

Believe me, I fantasize about it. I fantasize that it’s an option, that I could hit the stop button on the shit show my life’s become, but I can’t, and I won’t. Promise. So don’t worry. I’m here to stay.

Now try to get some sleep, stranger-bucket.

3.30am

First of all, can I just say that I love you waiting for the pings? Every time I text I get this slight sizzle of nerves that you’ll want to text back the way normal people do—immediate and between the seven thousand things I want to say, instead of all slow and deliberate and like letters. I love that this is like sending each other letters.

And don’t worry, I love your similes.

I’m currently rolling around in all of them, especially the chocolate one.

Though can you blame me? Now all I can think about is a hot dry place I’ve never been to, and the taste of middle-shelf bourbon that I’m imagining is sticky and warm, and a well that’s so empty and lightless you need me to let down the rope.

I hope I’m doing it well enough. I hope you’re telling the truth.

I hope the something that is too important is as cool and amazing as you sound.

You deserve amazing just for Elliot Smith. I’ve never heard him in my whole life—I didn’t even know he existed. But now I’m lying on my bed in the dark, his words whispering over me in waves. Drink up baby, stay up all night, with the things you could do, you won’t but you might…

You’re probably going to tell me that they mean something specific. That they’re about a girlfriend he lost to heroin or some sleazy thing he did in a bar one time. But just for right now I want to imagine those words are only for me, or for both of us, like a soundtrack to the weird conversation we seem to be slipping into.

Because this is slipping, for me.

Usually I hesitate. I bargain with my own words.

I let out two as long as ten stay behind.

Yet I don’t seem to be doing that with you.

I wonder why? Part of me thinks it’s because you don’t know me, can’t see me, aren’t even aware of what gender I am. But mostly I read you saying things about suicide, and it’s like you’re slicing through the wall that holds back everything I would usually never say.

I would never usually say things like cool and amazing, but I don’t care if it could be the last thing you ever know about yourself. All that matters is that you do know it.

Goodnight, Smith.

Sleep well, under whatever bright northern sky I provide.

10.52am

Yes, letters. You’re right, that’s what these are.

I read your latest one in bed just before the sun came up, and I’ve been turning that thought around and around all morning as I showered and made coffee and breakfast and took care of things around here.

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