Say Something Nice!

Say something nice!

authors Note:

authors Note Cont...:

Marissa makes a The Way things go - Beabadoobee will anybody ever love me? - Sufjan Stevens I’m You’re man - Mitski werewolf - fiona apple Night Shift - lucy dacus for no one - the beatles

t

Let’s get married - Mitski covering bleachers Margaret (Feat. Bleachers) - Lana del rey

Ever had a little faith? - Belle and Sebstian question...? - taylor swift

t t

can be found on youtube contribution from jake

breakup playlist maps - yeah yeah yeahs clementine - elliot smith my tears ricochet - taylor swift not a lot, just forever - adrianne lenker about you - the 1975 now that we don’t talk - taylor swift you’re losing me - taylor swift* swift* chateau lobby #4 (in c for two virgins) Father john misty the book of love - the magnetic fields

t

good, good - usher

These past two years were mostly single and mostly celibate, despite the fact that I’d been going on two to three dates a week. I dated tall men, men with good jobs, handsome men, and men who were very clearly interested in me. Nothing worked.

Other people seem to swear by the first few months of dating – the hopeful, ardent glow of what-could-be. I’m not a fan.

When I was younger, I insisted that the real comfort and clarity came from routine and familiarity. Real romance was the familiar press of a body in bed at 1am,

the sound of the shower from the next room over, or a strong reassuring arm always around your waist on the subway. What was so sexy about hopes and dreams I never knew. When did I first learn to conflate love and security?

As a lonely little girl I had big romantic fantasies. You can ask my mother. I’ve always dreamt of meeting the one, another half to sweep me off my feet. Just like the Greek myth, I’ve spent my entire life waiting to feel whole.

You get it now. The labyrinth is beginning to close in on itself.

lonely little girl becomes lovesick young woman

Jake is the kind of man who checks the last page of a book first and always insists on doing the reading rather than the listening. I wonder how he feels about stories with no ends.

I wonder how he feels about this story in particular.

Here’s another example of opposite truths: I now love Jake and want to spend the rest of my life with him.

I treasure the smell of his armpits, which I think means we’d be in love even if we were wild animals. And thoughts of his exes make me burn.

1 2

How is it possible that anyone else has loved him the way I do? How could he have held another with even half the reverence he has for me?

OUT OF ALL MY PARTNERS, IT’S NO SECRET THAT JAKE AND I ARE THE MOST SIMILAR.

I did purchase an alternate post card of Spiral Jetty for Jake in the summer of 2022. It sits in a box under his bed. On it, I talk about my hopes and dreams of visiting.

Jake was on a business trip to Singapore the weekend of our (mutual) birthdays (the 24th and 26th). In 2024 we had been planning a joint party together at Capri Social Club. It felt miraculous to be able to celebrate together.

I cherish this because it allows me to have the empathy and patience I’ve lacked with previous boyfriends. I feel as if I understand his motivations, eccentricities, and best and worst qualities – they’re not unlike my own. Most of the time, I’m positive that he’s the love of my life.

3 4

Sometimes though, I excuse myself from our anniversary dinner to crouch on the bathroom floor and sob.

Jake’s real birthday card was from Duane Reade. It said something alongs the lines of “You’re really nailing this husband thing.” Vanessa helped me pick it out. There were little nails in the shape of a heart and a hammer on the cover.

Our anniversary dinner was a Llama Inn. We fought over a conversation on Cindy Sherman and then later again at The Palace, over our interpretations of the documentary ‘Redevelopment: A Marxist Analysis.’

1

The alternate title I had been toying with for this zine was ‘Prototype’, which came to me as I was half sleep half awake. Later, in full clarity, I nixxed it because the implications felt too pessimistic.

But the orginal idea was stolen from the concepted draft you can see below for a piece of furniture Jake attempted to build.

I can’t tell if this is a good text. And the use of ‘darling’ feels dickish considering the circumstances. BUT I’M DESPERATELY AFRAID THAT I MIGHT NEVER GET TO USE THIS WORD IN HIS RELATION AGAIN. On Sunday night, an unnamed post liked by yours truly was found by his sister, screenshotted, and sent accordingly to the family group chat. I would laugh at my own clairvoyance if it weren’t all so tragic. In every way that Jake and I are similar, we’re also different.

Perhaps we’re one of those annoying couples whose mutual identity hinges around their multiracial makeup.

Jake is a white Jewish man, and I am a Chinese woman. These two things mean a little and a lot all at once.

I want to write about us without including a dissertation on identity. Circumstances continue to conspire against me.

On what was likely a cold fall Sunday one year ago, we had a fight about Jake’s internet presence. I found him stubborn, difficult, and somewhat of a provocateur. Prior to this fight I had spent many months mulling over the state of union. In my early twenties I was somewhat of an unrelenting sanctimonious cunt.

A product of growing up on tumblr and then attending a liberal arts school. IT IS IMPORTANT TO ME

TO RELEASE MY OWN URGE TO BE UNIMPEACHABLE AND ALWAYS GOOD.

During our relationship I have tried to grapple with a personal understanding of goodness. I think Jake is good because he is kind to me, he’s thoughtful, he loves animals and wants children, he’s generous, he’s reliable, and he’s caring. Communicating with him, even during difficult conversations, is never fun but is always gentle.

I have only ever dreamed of fighting with a partner the way that Jake and I do, with care and understanding of the best intentions.

What does it mean then, when he says things that make me want to curl up in a little ball and cry?

How do I correlate this to the man I know and love so dearly? How do I move through a tough conversation with grace when he is unrepentant, defensive, and scared? What do I do with my own anger, fear, and resentment? Sometimes I wake

up in the middle of night, tense and panicky, wishing for an easy answer. Instead I have settled for this: A modicum of sanity and terrible querulous uncertainty. I’ve never been happy with Jake’s answers after our many discussions re: his podcast. They leave me feeling queasy and foolish.

STILL, I BELIEVE HE’S GOOD. And most days, this belief comes easy.

When I think about losing him, my heart seizes up in my chest. What I would lose feels too insurmountable, too unbearable, to give any kind of real credence.

Can I move through our upcoming conversation with my own best intentions, and still fail every step of the way?

Of all the outcomes, this is the only one I am sure of – my own bambi-like inability to successfully navigate this fight to either of our own unrelenting standards.

Clumsy and vulnerable, what kind of adjectives will I embody?

If I can’t be good, I at least want to be perfect in my deficit. And yet, I’m sure I’ll be all the names I called him above and more.

Even as we quarrel, I am struck by our stark similarities. We’re flawed in all the same ways. I CAN MAKE

HIM CURL UP IN A BALL AND CRY JUST AS EASILY. What will happen if I fail to concede to his worldview?

Will I be afforded any grace when my answers come up short, weighed down by crippling fear and total lack? It feels impossible to imagine a world in which I am allowed to disagree with someone (and over something so sensitive) and still be allowed to be good. Two hours later and he responds to my text.

I think this might mean he still loves me. But that can’t possibly be true.

Despite every intention I have of listening as well as I can, I picture Jake, stubborn and defensive. I remember how resentful I felt at his reticence and inability to handle his own in our previous argument – the way I had to figure out how to successfully navigate tough conversations all on my own. How I had to comfort him despite my own misgivings. And the ways in which the real argument was never settled - instead I was left with as many apologies as excuses.

1

The last time I ever saw Jake seriously, he has just gotten back from a trip to Nebraska - a wedding for Laura and Joseph. I had spent the entire weekend excited to see him, eagerly awaiting his arrival. That Sunday, we ate the leftover soup (?) I had made in my cast iron pot, watched exactly two episides of Girls HBO, had sex, and then went out for dessert at Chez Ma Tante.

He had the Crème fraîche ice cream and I had the Almond Tarte. I didn’t like either, so he ended up eating both. In this footnote, I’ve ended up doing what I say I won’t do pages later emphasizing the normalcy before the tragedy.

I’m sure he’s feeling that same resentment now.

I wouldn’t even really blame him for not wanting the roles to be reversed; not wanting to harbor that same sick sense of unease and regret.

I can only hope that he feels the same way I do, that the alternative is even worse!!!

But maybe none of this matters. Both now and earlier, I’ve refused to discuss the crux of the issue. I skirt around our conflict to talk about feelings. I can’t tell if I’m right or wrong for this.

Although Jake seems to have a stronger truth to opine. It’s 8am the next morning and I’ve just read his long text message to me. It starts out with:

1

Jake rides a motorcyle. This is a fact he fails to mention in his online dating profiles, which is a shame, since it’s the same reason I decided to sleep with him on our first date.

Prior to getting on the back of his bike, I’d been on the

fence about my feelings towards him. But riding past McGolrick Park that night, wind whipping in my hair, I realized two things: 1. I was definitely going to invite him upstairs 2. Despite any previous protestations I’ve ever made, I am in fact the kind of girl who finds motorcylces sexy.

It ends with a list of demands.

Mostly, I’m unsure how to feel. I feel ready to give in to many of his stipulations, but not all. I resent being given stipulations in the first place. It’s a very intimately human reaction from him, a desire to control born from fear and desperation. I considered listing out all the demands here, but that seems counterintuitive to peace (both for myself and for the two of us). I’ll address you, Jake,

directly here for a moment instead. Here’s what I have done for you: I’ve spent the past year and half living with some small amount of insecurity and a knot in my stomach.

Some months are really good and some aren’t.

Deep down, in some small way, I’m afraid of you, the way I now think you might be afraid of me. I’ve watched you behave in less than ideal ways during tough conversations and I’ve given you grace and tried to pick up the slack. I’ve accepted that I cannot command anything of you, and instead that we are on a long difficult road towards mutual understanding.

I’m afraid this will always be our burden as an interracial couple.

I’ve let you harbor thoughts and feelings that I find frightening.

I DO THESE THINGS BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND I THINK HIGHLY OF YOU. What I mean is this, I don’t think these things will be solved between us anytime soon. And I know how utterly terrifying that thought is.

I tell you I’ve been living with insecurity in the hope that you might choose to do the same. But I also know how tall that ask is.

You broke up with me on Tuesday, October 10th 2023 at approximately 4:45pm. You wrote your breakup note on an app on your phone. You cried when you did it.

On that same Tuesday, I kept thinking “but, we were wildly in love not just two days ago”.

1 2

And on Wednesday, “we were totally and desperately in love not just three days ago”.

Today is Thursday and I cannot stop thinking that “four days ago we were tenderly, dearly, happily in love”.

The original version of this card was a 1-page zine. I wanted to be able to make something while in love for once - and not in the midst of heartbreak.

The references to cooking are all in regard to the cooksbooks which Jake received as presents - his very first Christmas presents. Coincidentally, I recieved a Le Creuset Dutch Oven from him. An unintentional theme. He’s the type of man to cook without a recipe. Or worse, cook from an amalgamation of several different recipes. As lovely as the note is, there was also an ulterior motive to simply eat better food!

This number will only keep getting larger, until it gets so large it begins to lose meaning. I wonder if I’ll still ache at fourty-five days out? Or a hundred? How long does it take to get over a man you dreamt of spending the rest of your life with? I’m rereading Joan Didion’s ‘The Year Of Magical Thinking’ and I’m struck by the beginning passages on routine grief dialogues, the need to emphasize the normalcy before tragedy.

I’ve written and then deleted an entire page detailing both our short term and long term plans together – everything from Halloween till marriage. Just like Joan, I realized that this expanse would have been both unextraordinary and trite.

Life changes fast.

Life changes in an instant*.

This is the precedent. Lingering on this fact will only circumvent my own catharsis. When did I become so practical?

*Joan Didion, The Year Of Magical Thinking

*“Either love is ---A shrine? or else a scar.” Poem Of The End, Marina Ivanova Tsvetaeva

*

“Sophoklean tragedy has a quality of tidiniess that can be terrifying.

He tucks in every stray thread. Or rather he makes it seem that each of these threads was always already woven in the same net. Why did anyone think they could escape?” Anne Carson, from the translator’s note to Antigone

Here’s the part where I begin to wag my finger (Vanessa says it happens with every zine). I don’t regret showing up without warning at your door, crazed and on the verge of fainting. I used to tell myself that I would never beg another boyfriend to stay. I do it every time. I know you’ll feel differently, but there’s no shame in loving hard, always being one to hold on with an unrelenting faith and utterly stupid hope. DIGNITY BE DAMNED.

What is love if not looking and seeing and still staying?

The monster is always the one who reveals themselves. Flashing something grotesque, fleshy, stupid, and cruel. I’m not an angel, or a princess, although those things were nice to hear. I lurch back-and-forth between the desire to be perfect and the desire to be a

Maybe the monster’s the one who keeps chasing, running blindly towards the end of the movie.

Stumbling and bumbling, I show up at my ex-boyfriends doors clumsy and ugly in my desperation. And that’s it, isn’t it? I can’t think of an uglier or more monstrous feeling than the ax of shame that swings down on the necks of the desperate.

I’m almost homesick when I think of the familiar contrition that haunted my girlhood. Wanting was greedy and selfish, but minimizing was suffocating and tortuous.

I’ve seen you quell your own desires, emotions, and instincts many times. YOU’RE SO GOOD AT BEING GOOD, AND SO BAD AT BEING FREE. WHERE DO YOU PUT ALL THAT SHAME? If you had let me, I wanted to be your one safe place.

I hope that in your next relationship, you get to see that there is no ignominy in hunger.

I hope that you allow yourself the courage to be careless and grasping and imperfect. When you show up at a girl’s doorstep, crazy with want, try and remember to separate the action from the outcome. Try not to confuse being mortal with being weak. Try to throw all your preconceptions about good and bad emotions out the window. Fight for peace, and not protection. Don’t feel so embarrassed about being flawed.

For the first time, I’m not haunted by regrets and what-ifs at the end of a relationship. Still, I have moments where I dream. I have a fantasy that goes like this: In a moment of clarity, I write one sentence, one paragraph, that’s so good it rights the world.

You read it and you come running back to me, you made a mistake. You read it and you realize you still love me, that you could never love another. This fantasy preoccupies me more than I’d like.

On the subway, I think that maybe I should take a direct attack and tell you all the ways that you’re being an idiot. At a bar with my girlfriends I change my mind, an emotional appeal is smarter. We’re in love and we can make it work.

In the shower, I come up with a new plan. Surely, logic is what’ll appeal to you. POLARIZATION, IS

AFTER ALL, A WORK OF FICTION.

But these fantasies are also fiction, the coping mechanisms of a person with very little power. You made a decision all on your own - that your love for me was conditional.

And like a hanged man sentenced for my crimes, there was no trial, no dignity of a dialogue. So now, I’m nearly headless in my heartache, and totally out of my mind in misery.

I thought you were going to be the one to stay.

Instead I’m adrift again, dreaming of you every night and looking for your face in every stranger.

This mourning period is always the hardest. I want to scream, and shout, and cry in a fit of temper until I get my way. I want to shake your face until you’re confronted with my subjective truth. I want to dig my claws into your soft meaty flesh and scratch out one final lesson (lesion?). JUST ONCE, I’D LIKE TO HAVE MY FILL. The last time I saw you, you shared the hope that we’d never have to hurt like this again.

Silly boy, love is a constellation of hurts.

It’s two ruinously imperfect people trying to create one safe place.

You of course, refuse to be ruinous.

Jake, you’re a shining star of sheer determination and grit; tightly wound and perfection-seeking; always at the expense of yourself. You evoke diligence with a single-minded ferocity in the name of future happiness, far off and distant.

You’re an island unto yourself.

And the laws of this island are harsh and unforgiving. They take no prisoners and make no room for imperfections. YOU AREN’T ALLOWED THOSE, SO CERTAINLY OTHER PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BE.

The last time we saw each other, I was sure you were going to turn cold and angry. I was sure you’d made an enemy of me in your head. Or I was sure your family had (this is the first and last time I’ll remark on them). Standing in your apartment, squabbling over who would keep the bidet, I was surprised when that wasn’t the case.

Before I saw you cry, I could only imagine a world in which you had hardened yourself to me. But in the fluorescent overhead lighting, surrounded by your boxes and my trash bags,

I was moved by your kindness, your lack of anger, and the way you held my body close to yours one last time.

1

In our second or third month of dating, we took a trip to Governor’s Island. You tried to teach me how to ride the children’s BMX bicycle I’d thrifted from the Goodwill Bins with little success. I was too afraid of falling, too afraid of making a fool out of myself in front of you.

Later, this would be the moment you pointed to as the day you realized you were falling in love with me. Although of course, you didn’t tell me for a long time. October 31st 2022 in fact, when I attempted to trick you into a confession.

I’ll keep them here in one safe spot,as an honest attempt to safeguard without hoarding.

1

Here are selected excerpts from a photo series Jake was working on before we broke up. This series was inspired by a trip to the MoMA on our one year anniversary and a subsequent viewing of Joyce Wieland’s‘Patriotism’.

The film camera was gifted to him for his birthday. The idea behind it was simple: every time he made a meal for me at his apartment, he would snap a picture in the bedroom. There was an interest in variation in composition not picured here. Meals included Alison Roman’s Crispy Potato Kugel, Spring Chicken with Leeks and Joshua McFadden’s Rigatoni with Broccoli and Sausage.

I developed these photos a week after our break up, Jake has never seen a single one of these shots. Upon first viewing, I was extremely moved by their intimacy.

On one of the hottest summer days of the year, we went to see Eternal Sunshine at Metrograph. On our ride home; after I got a ticket for hopping the turnstile; I asked you to choose one memory of me to keep in perpetuity. In the event that you might one day erase me from your mind, you chose a composite from our trip to the Bay Area.

I write this with the hope that

when you become old, and I become fuzzy, you’ll still

remember driving through the sunny California coast, windows down, my hand on your thigh, listening to a Weezer cd.

As for me, this is what I’ll keep: When I’m old; and you’re

fuzzy; I’ll close my eyes and remember lying in your bed together.

I’ll hear the faint sounds of the bar below your window, and feel the oppressive weight of your gray college duvet.

When I open them, I’ll see you lying in front me. You’re confessing to smelling my clothes sometimes after I leave your apartment. This action, this admission, will make me feel so loved that I won’t know what to do with it.

1

These photos were taken on Jake’s camera the last time we ever saw each other. I begged for this roll, he’s never seen these shots. We were transporting our objects to our own apartments. I had a mountain at his place. We had been planning to move in together next year.

For months after, I’ll take extra care when I get dressed in the morning, or before I leave the house at night. I’ll think of you, your hands, your eyes, your nose, as I carefully select my dresses.

I’ll shiver as I spray rose, or pistachio, or hinoki fantome on my wrists.

I‘ll remember what it was like to feel the press of your lips and the tickle of your mustache on my most sensitive parts, the valleys where my neck and shoulders meet my back.

I used to love to walk around dreaming about our future together.

When you weren’t by my side, I would travel the streets of Greenpoint imagining what life would look like. This will haunt me for some time.

THANKS for reading!