Love Letter to Joshua
I’ve learned that love is complicated. It gets all wrapped up between layers of grief and laughter, viewed through the blurry gel of time + emotion. When I think of my love for you, I remember how magnetic yet strangely untouchable you were. My light was always shrouded like a lamp draped in that fringed scarf I found in the dollar bin at Value Village. You’d playfully pull it aside with that shining face, beaming so loudly I had to put sunglasses on lest I stare too long.
Most Fridays after school, I’d immediately skateboard to the freeway onramp at the base of Pine street next to the Greyhound station that looked like a pick-up shot from a zombie movie, swarming with tweakers and the Seattle Dereliqte. They’d beckon to me as I passed, but my thumb was leading me up and out toward you in your manic wonderland. Holding my skateboard, thumb out with a black dress in my backpack & wig on my head. Dropped off in Olympia, I’d skate until I found you and the time & space between us dissolved like a wormhole. None of that mattered anyway.
When we laughed, it was closer to screams. When you spoke, the game was on. There was an adventure manifesting with the spell of your words, and I wouldn’t miss it. You were the only person who could match my freaky wild, and take it even further. After car-walking down Pike street to an art party, we spent the whole night in a knot on the sidewalk, so wrapped up in our fever were we. A game that started with a few shoulder punches evolved into beating the shit out of each other, between screaming laughs and making out. I would admire my bruises the next day like they were love letters written in disappearing ink. You had always known you were gay, and so was I sometimes. Other times I thought sexuality was a distraction of what was truly important. This was my wall, my shroud. Love has always been complicated for me. But my love for you was like a love without bodies. A love without time. A love so much brighter. Blinding, even.
It’s funny how love can be blind. I remember when I convinced you to take the train to Perugia, Italy, to stay with me in the Art Studio I was squatting. Free place to sleep and the lights worked until 11 every night. You had been in Copenhagen working on a documentary contract for Evergreen. It took me more than a few emails to convince you to leave the cute punk boys and bathroom trysts in Copenhagen, but it seemed to me like you were running out of money and there was an uncharacteristic fatigue and blurriness in your spirit. I knew that if I could just get you to me, we would be okay.
I met you at the train station in Rome, and so commenced the double-dutch tornado dance that we always jumped right back into. We didn’t bother with past or future, we were like children that way. Being with you was intoxicating, and I didn’t want to waste a second of it. We spent every second together. We’d bathe together, you’d pee in the sink or the bidet when I peed in the toilet. You had never been to Italy before, but would take my order & charge to the head of the line and order “due cappuccini” with two fingers up. Or the classic Italian breakfast, a glass of white wine and a croissant. I think that was one of the things that mesmerized me so much about you. Your confidence and bravery. You were always so cool, in your oversized mickey mouse tee and neon fanny pack. Your lederhosen, your stilettos and giant bow. I always wanted to raid your closet but you were always so tiny, I’d never fit. We’d argue semantics, geopolitics, gender and fashion. We’d tease each other and poke and call each other out on our shit. We climbed the scaffolding to the rose window in a boarded up church after drinking too many bottles of wine just to sing loud.
It wasn’t until you disappeared that one night in Seattle, that I discovered your shadow. I suppose it made you human. Taylor and I didn’t know what happened & none of us had phones, so we just sat on the plastic park grass on 12th street by the Value Village. It seemed like hours before you came stumbling toward us across the field, disheveled and injured, limping in your Italian boots and skinny jeans. All these memories came flooding to me. You walking down a strange alley in Berlin and requesting I don’t follow, so you could meet with some strange man. Or talking with these shitty crusty punks in Perugia, Italy and asking me to turn off the camera. I thought you kept strange company sometimes, but that was just you- you’d talk to anyone. I was embarrassed by my naiveté. The bruises and blood on your face from getting jumped in the alley behind Neighbors told me what you’d been hiding for years.
But I knew as long as you were with me, we would be okay. So I let you do your shit and took you home with me. We took a bath together and went for a walk at sunrise. You were only in Seattle a week, I was selfish and wanted as much of it as I could get.
The last time I saw you was in Berlin. We talked of plans to take all our footage from Italy to make a documentary. The police station, the voices in the church, the giggles and the spins and the late night conversations. You almost gave me the tapes, but then changed your mind at the last minute. I figured I’d just talk you into it later. Most of my trip with you that time was a complicated heartbreaking mess, but the last three days held the magic that I had longed for. We even broke into Spreepark off Treptower and had a picnic with the dinosaurs and the overgrown pirate ship. The trees were shedding seeds like snow and I felt like we had entered another dimension, a lost wonderland. You always took magic in stride. Such is the nature of the eternal, I suppose.
I had the confirmation number for my ticket in my inbox when I got the call. I was making a fabulous dress to bring with me- you would have loved it. I had been trying to get ahold of you for a month with no response, so I knew before I even answered the phone. They say time heals all wounds, but it doesn’t. Not really. It’s more like deep scar tissue that aches when it rains. It bleeds when you twist and trip. You still hold that place in my heart, even if I don’t get to hold you. Sometimes I even catch myself trying to figure out how to see you again. I know there’s no sense in being angry with you, but sometimes I am. When I lost you, I also mourned the loss of that person that you made me. The love bubbles with the light & confusion, laughter & grief, compassion & anger. Part of me wonders if it ever happened at all.
Love is complicated
Hailey Gaiser
