Tonight I'm Someone Else

by Chelsea Hodson

  When we were sixteen and the moon looked full and my friend’s friend with the sports car got his driver’s license, he drove so fast I swore we would die. The driver stayed very quiet and still as he shifted from gear to gear, then, when he reached ninety-five on the fifty-five-mile-per-hour-limit freeway, he laughed and laughed in a way that told me we were certainly, definitely just about to die—he was taking us with him. The fuller the moon, the crazier we felt, the more alive we wanted to be. Somehow we survived. I arrived at my childhood home in the same body I left in, delivered by a boy who wanted to die but never did.

  You can’t just keep running, a teacher told me once. But in the new love, I’m pretty sure I can. I had my passport photo taken with a Polaroid film camera that shot two images simultaneously. In one photo, I’m looking at you—the other, away.

  I went to New York and I didn’t tell anyone

  I didn’t tell my friends I was visiting, I didn’t tell anyone I was in love. I slept in his bloodred room under black sheets and the pentagonal glass lantern where a candle burned. I was afraid of falling asleep in the middle of a fire—I kept so much unwritten. The more I wrote, the more my secrets felt like the only things that were truly mine.

  I didn’t tell anyone what kind of sex I’d had, not even the doctor at the urgent care facility I went to a week later once I’d realized what was wrong. Urinary tract, I knew, but I still had to pee in a cup to prove it. The doctor took one look and said, That’s infected infected, as if I’d lived twice.

  The concept of getting something out of your system implies the person is capable of learning from her mistakes. But what if she loves her mistakes more than her life? I long and long—my acting is an attempt to cancel something out. There, I say, putting lipstick on a face. Now I know what that’s like.

  Peak—the height of Bear Mountain. And no, not even that—the highest point was in fact an observation tower on top. Up four flights of stairs, I could see over the mountains and through the clear day: the Manhattan skyline I’d left that morning.

  I want to be a building that bends with the wind. I want to be designed that way. I give.

  The loudest of voices are the ones heard, but what of the smallest one, strengthening? What of the orchid in the window, getting just enough light?

  I went to the gallery on Thirty-Sixth Street and I didn’t tell anyone

  A performance artist hired me and thirty other people to help with her show, which hadn’t yet been announced—we were told to keep it quiet. Our training involved eight hours of concentration and endurance exercises. In the middle of the first day, we broke off into pairs and stood facing four feet from each other. We stood in place for thirty minutes, but after ten of looking into my partner’s eyes, I saw her face transform into a monstrous version of itself. She’d started childlike—rosy and dimpled—but then her skin turned tough and gray, resembling that of a blond rhinoceros, and then she was weeping onto the butcher paper we stood upon. I could hear the wet drops hitting the paper and expanding, but I didn’t look down. I kept my eyes on her eyes, trying to give her my strength, which felt unending for some reason. I thought maybe I’d found the one thing I was truly good at: remaining motionless while someone else cried. A few minutes before the timer stopped, she collapsed and steadied herself on the floor. I thought maybe we were bonded forever, but we didn’t speak that day, and then I never saw her again.

  Another exercise consisted of sitting and gazing at a white wall. To my surprise, it was more difficult than the standing exercise. After just a few minutes, I saw colorful lights flickering, and then I saw my spine represented as a hairline crack in the paint—I saw bone, joint, marrow, fluid, cell. I saw my whole life in little jars of heat, stacked on top of each other. When I heard someone say, Time’s up, I realized I’d been crying this time.

  Who could blame me for seeing only what I wanted to see? Who could accuse me of anything? I loved everything that didn’t love me back; it was the easiest thing in the world. Back then, I believed in change. I believed scaffolding was the same thing as structure. I thought I could build it.

  When the show opened, it was my job to blindfold visitors, place noise-canceling headphones over their ears, and guide them slowly into a large room they hadn’t seen. The idea was that the room would generate its own energy based on whoever was inside. People stood still, paced around the perimeter of the room, kissed, fell asleep, stayed ten minutes, stayed five hours. Sometimes they accidentally tried to walk through the exit—an open doorway—and it was my job to guide them back into the room without startling them. In my journal I wrote, I’m paid to be a ghost.

  The old love was a bullet in the arm outside of a hospital—not ideal, also not deadly. It didn’t mean our enemies didn’t exist, that our wounds would heal any differently, that we’d see our lives flash, that we’d have some sort of epiphany. There was no guarantee, only possibility, which I may have loved more than my life anyway. But now, the new love is lying on the sidewalk, waiting for someone to carry it inside.

  I went to the apartment by Central Park and I didn’t tell anyone

  When he and I drank enough, each moment seemed like its own entity—I acknowledged the past as feasible, but I didn’t see myself as accumulating. With this man who was not my boyfriend, I felt new, just born, and we slapped each other like doctors reminding themselves to breathe. He lifted his cup to his lips, and I asked, Are you trying to send me a message? One glassy look, then home.

  When he loosened the tie from his neck, bound my hands together behind my back, said, I’m not done with you yet, I felt as if I were dreaming. And if I were dreaming, then maybe I could wake up. Maybe I could keep making decisions outside of this one. If I were dreaming, then this was just a phase. If I were dreaming, then I could tell my boyfriend all about it, we could laugh later. Why was I laughing, then?

  I laughed because no one knew where I was, which meant I was free. I never felt that way.

  Clean like evidence, sealed off like a jury, I’d like to be a court document—available by request. I will pour myself into boxes, I will be released. Someday.

  I’ll say your name fully and often, the way they do in movies. You’ll hear the shape of my mouth summoning you, singled out at last—you’ll like it. I’ll meet you at the barstools and you’ll touch my hair and I’ll take home everything you say. Don’t you know you can’t trust a writer? She’ll see a cigarette and call it a house fire. She’ll take a suggestion and turn it into a crime scene. She’ll wrap herself up in caution tape. She’ll write you down.

  No one can make me face myself, no one can force me to confess. It’s so easy to identify the right choice, but so difficult to choose wisely when I feel my life might last forever. Tonight I’m someone else, I’m using abandonment as a reward for work. I saw a man emerge from the fog as if he were born from it, and I thought, This is a peak experience, because I knew it was about to end.

  The old love was broken windows with apple pies cooling on the sill. The old love was a desert island with white sand drifting upward like smoke when I waved to the rescue plane. The old love was a theater with its birth year carved in stone above the entrance. You can’t take a photo of the stage, the usher warned, and the woman in the second row said, I’m taking a picture of myself? She said it like that, with a question mark at the end, a maybe. The new love is half human, half stage—we perform until we get it right. The new love is an incision where no one can see it, a bed folding into itself. The new love is a careless archive, just put it somewhere and hurry up would you.

  The End of Longing

  I met a woman who drew illustrations of the products she wanted instead of buying them. Her wall was filled with silhouettes of designer handbags and big-screen televisions. The black-and-white drawings satisfied her, but looking at the wall made me want things I never knew I wanted.

  * * *

  I’ve had enemies so intense that it felt romantic, so mutual it felt like love.

  * * *


  The truth is I don’t care what anyone thinks, I said to him over lunch. That’s noble, he said, not believing me. I think it’s true, I said. I want it to be true. Sometimes honesty requires three attempts.

  * * *

  I once saw a magic show so convincing that I refused to acknowledge the possibility of illusion. I’ve done that with love ever since.

  * * *

  Looking at the photo he took of me with my face half-lit against the brick building, my boyfriend said, When I make a movie, I want the whole thing to look like this.

  * * *

  My friend and I went to see the movie about women in New York. The plot reminded me of my life, and I loved it. The plot reminded my friend of her life, and she hated it. I think I identified with the wrong character, she said.

  * * *

  Old letters are not proof of love, but they are proof that we were aimed at, even reached for.

  * * *

  He said, Everyone just wants to be looked at, and turned away from me to face the window.

  * * *

  It took me years to realize silence could be an insult and was actually the worst insult. No one I’d loved had inflicted it on me.

  * * *

  All characters appearing in this work are you. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely you.

  * * *

  My friend with the half-shaved head was like power in its most essential form—simply being near her made me bold. When it rained, she’d stand in the backyard and hold her arms out and face the sky—that’s how alive she was. I loved her dirty Vans and her academic probation and the way everyone cheered like in a sitcom when she once rode her bike straight into the living room of a house party. I can’t bear to think of her now, out in the world, getting older like a human.

  * * *

  The day I decided I was more miserable than ever, my boss said, You know what I like about you, Chelsea? Nothing is ever wrong.

  * * *

  All this technology and no app to quell the disappointment of getting what you want.

  * * *

  The desire I feel is somehow not earthly—it’s otherworldly, as in, I long for the other, for the life I could have led, there, or that one, there.

  * * *

  What’s the point of longing? To continue.

  * * *

  For our high-school graduation party, our school hired a hypnotist. My best friend volunteered herself, went onstage, and fell asleep, and then he had her dancing and singing Backstreet Boys songs. When she woke up again, she walked back to her seat, and I tried to tell her what she’d done while she was out, but she said she was awake the whole time. It was easier to just do what he wanted me to do, she said, and I knew what she meant.

  * * *

  Suffering feels religious if you do it right.

  * * *

  Tending to everything and completing nothing—that’s one way to postpone death. Art, too.

  * * *

  The only time I ever got into a car accident was when I thought the light had changed but I was mistaken—I was still looking at the photos I’d just had developed and I drove into the car in front of me. This is my autobiography.

  * * *

  I spent so much money on my education that I can’t stop talking about how helpful it’s been. I hate wasting money that much.

  * * *

  Rival is often too generous a word.

  * * *

  Each time I lie, I surprise myself a little less. And then I really shock myself. Then I forget.

  * * *

  A man told me recently he was mystified by my blind respect for masculinity. I’d never thought of it that way. Even that moment—him pointing it out to me—impressed me so much that I realized maybe I did have a problem.

  * * *

  Show me the best thing you’ve ever seen, I said, and he opened his Internet browser.

  * * *

  When you’re young, everyone’s an artist. But it’s a game of endurance, a fight against addiction, children, comfort, stasis, health insurance, home ownership. People drop off one by one. No one ever tells you that.

  * * *

  My version of cellar door is I desire a cauliflower ear.

  * * *

  The most mysterious love to me, now, is the love that I know has changed me but that I no longer remember. I think, I must have been a different person to accept love in that awful form, but I can’t quite grasp the details. It’s like trying to remember things from someone else’s life—impossible. I can only see myself now, and even then, barely.

  * * *

  Replacing hesitation with audacity is helpful for nearly everything.

  * * *

  The assignment was to draw ourselves as comic-book heroes. One girl said, I’ll put a tree on my head, and a hawk on my tree-head branches, and then I’ll win the war.

  * * *

  I’d only known her a few hours before she told me a secret she’d never even told her mother. We’d spent the day buying clothes, calling boys, taking funny pictures, and waiting until the lights were off to actually talk. That stepfather? I pointed to the door.

  * * *

  A theory my friend has: sleepovers are where girls learn to wake up in love. Remember when we knew our friends’ bodies as well as our own?

  * * *

  I put my hand on the shoulder of my high school boyfriend when I saw him twelve years later. It was my turn to startle him.

  * * *

  A lie emerges from the lake, evolving, standing on two feet now. I let it live.

  * * *

  When my heart was broken for the first time, my friend said, Maybe this will be good for your art, and he was right.

  * * *

  What’s the end of longing? More longing.

  * * *

  I documented everything, tracking each movement. Today, I wrote, he closed his eyes when I talked. I ran at each red flag, a grunting bull alone in the ring. A red light on my phone, and soon he was under me. One sad breath, and Do you miss me like I miss you?

  * * *

  I don’t want to be with you, I want to become you.

  * * *

  He only wants to make things so that people adore him. I say that attention is beside the point, making beautiful things should be the only goal, but then I remember how badly I want him to adore me.

  * * *

  A poem is a way of talking to the person you’re not supposed to talk to anymore.

  * * *

  Don’t be sad, he said. It’s not tomorrow yet.

  * * *

  My friends who are cruelest to the world are kindest to me.

  * * *

  Do you remember what we talked about last night? one man asked me. I tried to bring myself back to that room, so many drinks later. I had a feeling we’d admitted something to each other. No, I said, I don’t remember, and I didn’t ask him for details. If there was tenderness that night, now it belongs to him.

  * * *

  I hope for the discovery of more truth, but not the whole truth.

  * * *

  You look like you’re suffering, a man I’d just met said, and I said, I’m the human embodiment of the opposite of suffering.

  * * *

  A cloud came to cover the moon in the final stages of the eclipse. I didn’t see the ending, but I still understand the story.

  Pity the Animal

  I was sitting on the rooftop of my apartment building in May, waiting for July’s fireworks. I was cleaning high-rise condos in Manhattan, teaching fourth grade in Queens, eating wheat-bread-and-American-cheese sandwiches that the government delivered to the school. I was writing everything down as if I knew what I was seeing. I was pretending to be a neutral observer, but I kept trying to override my heartbreak with poignancy. It was almost working.

  I missed the structure of school, syllabus handouts guiding my hours. I always thought I wanted to be free, but as soon as I was free, I longed to be corralled,
guided. I couldn’t get a job as a journalist, so I got jobs that had nothing to do with writing. My friend told me I could have any man I wanted, so I maneuvered through the city not having any of them.

  The invitation said: Wear your costume, a Halloween barbecue in May. I went dressed as my Freudian id. A man approached me, said, I’m a burglar, too, and pointed at his mask, the same one I wore. Later, a couple invited him to a sex party, said they needed someone sober to drive their SUV. He said, You have to come with me. It felt easy being told what to do. I assigned myself to him like a grade.

  Still wearing his bandit mask, the man opened the passenger door to the car. I stepped in, noticed a bottle of lube on the dashboard. The couple who owned the car began making out in the backseat. They both wore studded dog collars, but the woman kept grabbing the man’s collar and saying, Motherfucker. Motherfucker. As we drove over the Williamsburg Bridge, I realized I wanted the burglar to touch my thigh, but he kept both hands on the wheel. When we got to the building in the Financial District, the sun was rising, and the bouncers said we were too late. I wore my mask on the subway home.

  It was the summer Marina Abramović sat in a chair at the Museum of Modern Art for eight hours every day. Visitors who were willing to wait in line for hours or days could sit across from her for however long they wanted. When I visited, I observed from the sidelines. I’d never seen anything like it. I found her beauty most hypnotizing before the fact of her stamina registered.

  An e-mail to my friend in Oregon: Do you know who Marina Abramović is? She’s doing this performance piece at MoMA where you can sit in front of her. Some people are hogging their turn, they sit there all day with her. One woman took her clothes off, another woman wore the same floor-length blue dress as Marina. I have this urge to sit with her and cry just to see if I can.