Her
Somewhere near Berklee campus in Boston, Massachusetts, there lies a statue of a woman weeping. She's almost impossible to find on the internet—despite the intricately carved marble, she remains an obscure and underappreciated piece, whispering to herself in a public park. She is pristine, glimmering white, the shining bastion of purity, a wingless angel. The craftsman who made her certainly labored for thousands of hours, planning and scrutinizing to perfect the details. She looks serene, yet melancholy. It's impossible not to love her.
Later, I learned her name. It’s Desconsol. She was created in 1911 by a man named Josep, who describes her as an allegory for passion and grief. But i don’t care about any of that. I care about her.
I mean, my allegory for passion and grief. a week after she left, she called me. i didnt expect her to—i expected to be an afterthought, a hitcher she picked up between the hard white lines of the freeway. a travel buddy. She was a rolling stone on the horizon, disappearing like a fallen star holding my wish in its burning hands.
but she called. She called to talk to me about the statue. Something in her voice lit up over the phone, contradicting her established hatred for long calls. She was the most beautiful treasure I'd ever laid eyes on, and here she was, calling me. telling me about this beautiful work of art which meant so much to her.
What should I do?
I went, obviously. As soon as I could. I think the total time amounted to about ten days. We’d lain on the coast of the lake together, backs to the concrete, eyes to the sky. It was a city-lake, wrongly believed to be too toxic for fish. We were 500 feet away from a closed-down carnival, the looming dead ferris wheel casting strange shadows all over us. In the other direction, the naval museum parked ancient leviathan submarines right on the pier. They watched us like old dinosaurs. Anyway, she told me she didn’t want a relationship, and that she loved me even though it had only been four days. I loved her too and I wanted a relationship sooooo bad. But we’re young, and she was scared. I was scared too, but I’ve always been a little stupider than her. We lived six hours, 300 miles apart. She was leaving in two days. But here I was, ready to get on my knees, afraid to because of the time that had elapsed.
But I guess somehow ten days was the right amount of time, because the next thing I knew I was in Boston. It was a new city to me, very different from Philadelphia. I describe it as a kind of Polly Pocket city. There isn’t a lot of crime, which you’d think would be a good thing, but it makes the city fall flat and the people complacent. I shouldn’t be able to walk around at 2:00 AM in any neighborhood I want. I imagine Boston could breed some very entitled people, but not her. Never her.
She lived in an apartment that wasn’t technically a dormitory, but towed the line as many complexes near campuses do. She was alone for the summer because her roommates had all gone home, but she stayed because she needed to play music. She didn’t think much about birds when I met her, but now, she’s a songbird all by herself. She’s talented, she’s always been talented. I first heard her name in high school, a friend-of-a-friend. I found her songs in my old Spotify and brought them up to her online, hoping for some insights on how to play them. Then, she came to my birthday party. All of a sudden, it wasn’t my party anymore, and all of a sudden, I was different. And I was in New England.
We started dating after we tripped acid. I won’t describe the details here, but what I will tell you is that we watched the geese swim, visited a small festival, and saw absolutely marvelous horses. I crawled around Boston with her in a way I don’t know how to with anyone else. There’s no one I’d rather go with. Now, every day is an adventure to me, even when we are far apart. So much reminds me of her. For eleven months, I've seen her every month. Sometimes multiple times. It costs money, time, and gas, but it's worth it more and more every time.
When we're together, we don't do much. She apologizes for this. I've never understood that. She's my person, or one of my people. There's no romantic ending. There's just this. It's just this.
thank you to the maker of this template