“appreciate the absence�
a zine by stephanie knipe
i’m fine but i’m still yelling (pt.I) will will ii ever ever be be in in love love like like how how ii was was in in love love with with him? him? months months can can be be longer longer than than years. years. when when ii think think about about his his face face itit is is soft soft and and small small and and ii am am wiping wiping off off crumbs crumbs from from his his chin chin with with aa wash wash cloth. cloth. ii walked walked into into my my room room and and itit smelt smelt like like his his laundry laundry deterdetergent gent and and ii yelled yelled at at the the wall wall “i“i don’t don’t love love you you anymore, anymore, so so can can you you just just get get the the fuck fuck out out of of my my house?” house?”
i’m fine but i’m still yelling (pt.II) when we tried it again for the final time i stared out the window as words “ain’t no lover like the one i got, she and i and a brand new start” were sung through the speakers and i was crying but you didn’t see. i stared and stared and stared at nothing, that thing that i often do, that thing i did later when i thought if i looked at you i would become the size of a speck. you yelled “i’m over here, hello. look at me.” “i don’t want to be a speck anymore. i can’t look at you without wanting to tape my mouth shut” i thought. the song played and i didn’t say anything to you. i thought, i can’t listen to this fucking song. this is not a brand new start, why the fuck am i here, why the fuck do i love you. i thought, this isn’t the start of anything. later, you took your “i love you” back just like i knew you would. i thought i thought i thought. you saw me crying this time and i finally looked you in your eyes and screamed “i want to fucking run you over with a car.” i don’t want to be a speck anymore. i can’t look at you without wanting to take a shower.
he kissed me a lot in public places but i suppose it is hard to be private in new york city. for the week that we knew each other we kissed in parks and subways and bookstores. the first time was on the sidewalk and i was thankful that it was dark out. someone passed by and sang “oh, to be young and in love� and i wondered with his lips still on mine if i would fall in love with him, as if love was something i could predict and prepare for like a storm. the storm never came and i took the tape off of my windows and started over.
he had not been in my bed in 6 months but i curled into him like i had been doing it for years. i curled into him and i said “i missed you” and caught myself because i almost said your name instead of his. i thought, all these months i had been missing him. i haven’t even kissed you. what is there to miss? sheryl crow says “if it makes you happy then why the hell are you so sad.” janet said to me “there is no such thing as doing bad things just what feels good in the moment” and in the moment i wanted to kiss you and in the moment i want to hear that you loved me. i made a mistake, but janet says that i could have never known that, in different words, but that is how i understand it. the next day you say that you missed me and that i should stop overthinking things and you just wanted to hang out and saying i love you didn’t mean much you just wanted me to stay. in different words, but that is how i understand it.
five months i have been single and three weeks i have not been in love. she tells me that even if love hurts me, i would rather love than not at all. she says i should stop doing things that hurt me. i say, it is not the loving that hurts me but the lack of being loved. she says, appreciate the absence learn to tolerate not being loved
appreciate the absence learn to tolerate not being loved
i am thinking about my favorite movie, harold and maude. i am thinking about this scene, maude is about to die and harold says “don’t die, i love you, i love you” and maude says “oh harold, that’s wonderful. go and love some more.” i have watched this movie with two people i have loved and in those moments i thought “oh, how painful to lose someone you love so much. oh, how painful it would be to lose the person next to me.” and i have watched this movie enough times to recite the entire script. i think back to those people i loved and watched this scene with. i am not with them anymore and i am not in love with them anymore but i am not sure i really lost anything. do you lose love if it eventually shows up again with someone else? if something is to be lost, is it permanent? if i am not actively in love does that mean that my love is lost or is it just hibernating, resting as the cold passes? maybe we don’t lose things. maybe the things we don’t have anymore just regernate into better things. maybe my love is not lost, it is just regenerating. this is what i tell myself before i go to sleep. is this what appreciate the absence means?
“i’m waiting for things and missing people, i’m probably not as lucid as i should be, my summer is slow, almost excruciatingly so, and then it’s over, i’m fascinated by sidewalk scenes, the key of G, the ways oppression is taught, my friends, my habits, my family, the fact that you kind of look like grimes in your picture. do you dance in your room alone? if not, why not? do you ever have lucid dreams? which is the best drake album?” Sent at 2:10am -recieved okcupid message
capitalism has taught me that if i try hard enough i will succeed and if i do not try then i deserve to die. she tells me that i want to be loved too much. my dad tells me that if i try too hard i am going against my destiny and i have to stop ignoring “god” like that. i say, “what if my destiny is different from what ‘god’ wants” he says “the spirit knows what you want. you don’t know what you want.” my mom comes downstairs at 3:00 am and doesn’t ask me why i’m up but instead asks if i have seen my brother in the past day. there was a period where we wouldn’t expect my brother to come home, my mother would sit at the edge of her bed in the middle of the night and say to me “did you see his car yet” “maybe he is just at a friends” and i would say “i bet he’s okay” but i wouldn’t place twenty dollars on it. he is clean now and my mother is able to sleep soundly and she no longer hides her wallet under the bed. my mom comes downstairs at 3:00 am and doesn’t ask me why i’m up but instead asks if i have seen my brother in the past day. my dad recieves a call that he is ok and at a friends and his phone died and my mom hides her face in her hands and cries and my dad says “it’s ok honey, we’re ok.”
my dad says, he could never tolerate not being loved.
i was with my abuser for over two years. he liked to use guilt as a way to get me to do things. “if you break up with me, i will kill myself, i will have nothing left.” “can’t we just have sex already? we’ve waited long enough. it makes me feel like you don’t really love me.” i remember exhaling deep sighs of relief when i got my period or when my parents were home, excuses so i wouldn’t have to feel guilty about not wanting to sleep with him. and that’s what it was, always guilt. and when i finally ended it, realizing suddenly one day that i do have a say in what happens to me, i felt guilty about it for a year after that. my parents told me, “well, you really did break his heart” and i said “i know, i’m sorry.” i would text him and say “i’m really sorry about how things worked out, maybe we can catch up and grab a cup of coffee,” as if he was a friend who i had gotten into an argument about that lasted for more than a day. one day i finally realized that he broke everything in me and i just broke his heart. i finally said out loud, what is a heart to an abuser? it is just something that keeps them alive instead of something that makes them love. it is something that keeps them alive. it is something that keeps them alive. some days i wish i had really broken it.
i say, i do not like to be on weird terms with people. i do not like to feel uncomfortable around others. she says, no, you just can’t tolerate not being liked i can’t tolerate not being liked so i apologize for being abused. “so sorry for being in your way, sir. it won’t happen again.”
she says that i can build up walls but that doesn’t mean those walls can’t have doors. i say, i do not trust cisgendered men because i fall in love with them and they wreck me. she says, well you are still here, aren’t you?
appreciate the absence, appreciate the absence. i think about this phrase every day. i think that there are absences in life every day. absence of love, there is no yogurt left in the fridge, absence of sleep, we cannot find the cat, absence of compassion, we are out of beer. but with each absence i compensate. there is no beer so i drink water. there is no yogurt so i eat stringed cheese. there is no cat so i sprawl out on the couch in her honor. there is no one to kiss me so i kiss myself. there is no one to fuck me so i fuck myself. there is no one to love me so i love myself. there is no one to abuse me so i wish him dead. appreciate the absence
stephanie.knipe@ purchase.edu