Internal Fight

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I'm sitting outside Camillo's place. I feel like shit. My heart hurts, very strongly. But somehow the feeling of him sitting there next to me and hearing the wind calms me down somewhat. After all I did have a pretty awesome night of dancing and hanging out with friends. "Go home. I'm going to go up and go to bed." "You go to bed. I don't want to go home." He argues with me over and over again. "Why?" he asks finally. "I feel like shit. Just let me be." "I go up there and can't sleep because I know you're down here. It's not safe." I feel like shit and I just want him to let me sit, relax a bit. But he does what he's good at, as usual. It's crazy that the one person who can make you feel so wonderful can also push you to feel like shit so quickly. He keeps pushing me until I want to cry. My ultimate fears come out, as they do every time I am scared and feeling down. "You don't give a shit about me. I die tomorrow and you wouldn't care." Loneliness. A fear that to me may be worse than death. Then he leaves "Fine, I'm going to bed." I start to cry as soon as he's upstairs. I sit for a little bit like that, feeling absolutely awful. "Darby. Come up here." He says in a much calmer voice than he was just threatening me in from the window of his apartment. I walk up most of the stairs of the two flights and sit down on the slightly cool steps. I finally control myself and calm down a bit. I feel like going home now. I go up to close the door he has opened for me to come in. "What's wrong?" he asks. "You told me they would get angry if I come in so I'm not going to come in." He mocks me, his way of saying "that's bullshit." "Why are you crying? I can hear you." He mocks me crying. Trying to not only make me feel better but let me know that he hates when I cry and that there is no reason for it. I don't answer but say something that for some reason makes him choke on the water he's drinking. I come in to give him a pat on the back. "I want to wash my body and go to bed. You sit here. You sleep here," he says in English pointing to the couch he's sitting on. I sit for a minute and then go into his room. He's sitting their in his briefs getting ready to take a shower. "I'm going to go home," I say giving him a hug. He holds his briefs "You can see my dick!" I'm not even looking down and I don't even try to so he relaxes a bit. Okay. He walks me out and we hold hands for a bit longer.

Walking home I remember what I told him. "I told Sky today that I want to go home." "I know. I heard you." "You weren't there, how did you hear me?" "I know. I can see." But I realize there is a reason for my being here. It's one of the reasons that keeps me thinking about going home and not being able to. It's one of the reasons that I keep falling apart here and yet keep going. The reason I went to India was to jump in head first. Because that's what I'm good at. The only way I ever liked to get into the pool as a kid was to jump in the deep end. I never really liked walking in from the stairs, unless it was warm water. But life is full of cold water. In India the water was culture shock and jumping into it was like jumping into freezing cold water. It was so cold that I gasped for air a couple of times before I finally started getting used to it. Now culture shock is a piece of cake. Really easy and hard to come by as there has hardly been a place I've been to yet with more culture shock than Benares. Now in China the water is this feeling, of hopelessness. Loneliness. A lot of the time staying here is like staying in hell. No matter how much affection people here hold for me and show to me I can't feel it, can't reach it sometimes. No matter how much Chinese I learn I still feel hopeless. This water is different than India. I have not gasped for air until I get used to it. It's more like ocean water. Wave after wave. Some waves bareable but other waves absolutely overpowering. I am still in the deep water. For that is where I like it. And somehow I know that there's no wading in until I can handle the waves. Until every single wave that comes over me is like a small lull in a pool with only one person in it. If I stay in that long the hopelessness and loneliness may not leave me, but I will know how to control them much better. And I will have conquered one extremely difficult language.

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