blue is the color
They said I have to go to the guidance office. I know what that means. It's the kind of guidance where they really mean guide you into being like everyone else. I'm not like everyone else. Everyone else is tame. They won't ever get a collar on me. I bite.
They said the counselor will help me with my problems. But my only problem is you.
The guidance counselor smells like peaches. She doesn't have a face, but I didn't think she would. She gives me a page of questions and leaves me alone. They always leave me alone. They don't like looking at me. I know. But even when I'm alone, you're here. Twins are like that.
They said I shouldn't make so much trouble for my brother.
The first question says, if you were an animal, what animal would you be? It confuses me. What do they mean, "if"?
A cat, I write. That's right. An alley cat. That vanishes on Friday and jumps back in through the first-story window you left open on Sunday morning, and it just looks at you if you wonder where it's been. Its ear is half torn off, and it's filthy, and it smells like shit, and whenever it's in the same room with you it just gets up behind you somewhere and stares. And it hisses if you try to pet it, but sometimes in the middle of the night you wake up and it's curled up on your face, not sleeping, grimy little spines of hair on your skin and in your mouth, and as you throw it off you and across the room, cursing at it, still smelling the suffocating fish stink of its underbelly, you wonder why you still keep it around, but maybe it's just that it's better than being alone.
They said I need to develop a positive self-image.
I know better. I know there's only you. The perfect one. I think we were made out of the same parts to start with, and so much turned into you there wasn't any left for me. But it's all right. It's all right as long as I'm still part of you. It's all right as long as I know you're thinking about me. You can't help thinking about me if I do everything wrong. Because you're perfect. As long as I'm me, not-perfect and filthy and running in the alleys, you'll be mine, and you'll love me. And as long as I'm close enough to you, it's okay.
The second question says, what would you like to be when you grow up?
I'm never going to grow up. But I can't write that.
Sometimes it's disappointing, how perfect you are. It's sad. It makes me wonder what it's like to be that perfect all the time. It must be hard. I'm glad I'm not you. You do it better than I would. If it were me, everyone would know, and they wouldn't believe it. I wonder if you even know what it's like to be not-perfect. I wonder a lot about you. I wonder how you never get dirty. And I wonder. Sometimes I just wonder and wonder until I want to throw you down and rub you in the dirt and make you dirty too and grind out all the perfect until you're just like anyone and say see, see, see how you feel, see how you smell, see what it's like for everyone else who isn't perfect like you, you see now, this is what it's like, this is what it's like when you can't have everything, and when you have to touch it all, and feel it all, and you can't make it stop, see, you see now, don't you, you see now, and now you won't forget, you can never forget.
If I can make you be like me, maybe I'll be perfect too.
They said maybe I'd want to talk about what was bothering me.
Most of the time I don't think about it, though. I just make sure you're watching me. It's easier that way. And I make sure no one's ever going to take you away from me. Because if you found someone else who was perfect too, there wouldn't be anywhere left for me to be, and I'd disappear. And maybe that'd be nice, but I don't think I want it just yet.
I write that when I grow up, I want to write music.
I hate music. It sounds like light that's so bright it hurts. It sounds like people staring at you who are all going to know how worthless you are. Music cheats, too. It makes you feel things that you don't really. It has little patterns and codes that unlock you inside and that hit all the right places in your brain and make you happy or sad or lonely or ashamed. It's just chemicals, it's not real things. All I want are real things. Music lies, and I hate liars. Liars like you. Even though you're perfect, you're always lying. You're a perfect liar.
Maybe some Sunday I just won't come home, just to see what you'd do. What would you do? Would you go out looking for me? Would you call my name? Would you worry to death? Maybe you'd ask everyone if they'd seen me, or check the places you think I might go. Not like you know where I go. Maybe you wouldn't even notice. Would you just shut the window on Monday morning, and go on living like I'd never been there?
The third question says, do you have a favorite color? Why is it your favorite?
Are you thinking about me? Are you thinking about me right now? I could almost reach out and find out, except I can't. Are you?
Who would you be, if you were me? How would you have done everything? What if it were you on the desk in the office in the fifth grade, and the hands on you, and the breath you could smell, and the voice telling you to be a good boy because if you screamed you'd have to be punished? Would you have closed your eyes too and thought about butterflies and how after it was over and he stopped, you could come home and see me, and then everything would be all right again? No. You're so perfect you probably would have stood up and said no and run away. You're so good you could scream anyway. Not everybody's so perfect.
Sometimes I want to tell you these things, but I'm afraid of what you'd say.
I write on the paper blue, blue, blue, because blue is the color of Miki and blue roses are like Miki and Miki is everything in the whole world and he's always been that way, and Miki is the only thing I want to see forever and blue is Miki and everything needs to be blue forever and ever.
They said it's wonderful that I'm so close to my brother.
I could have told them it's hell.