January 17th
Looking through our Christmas photos…
Drawing hands, but adding some dynamic drama to the poses. [IG]
Still on a Christmas kick. December 2014. [fb]
My mouth twice, her face. [fb]
February 2nd
Uploaded two months prior. Han Solo molds for icecubes. The large Han Solo is upright, the smaller ones upside-down.
Han Solo’s grey form brings Stefan back to my shelf with a drawing mannequin from May 2016. [IG]
(Stefan gave me the Encyclopaedia Anatomica)
So he adds an image found online from a german animal anatomy book
He draws small figures on a post like the mannequin, but draws then all in upside-down poses, like the small Han Solos. The bird diagram is also upside-down. The colors behind the drawings all match my anatomy books. [fb]
February 13th
One month prior, I post this selfie [IG]
which leads Stefan to this autoupload from February 2015, wearing shorts with a purplish band.
and to other uploads from that week in February 2015.
Icicles on the globe lights create a weapon. He kept my tubal ligation scar. [fb]
My cane becomes a staff. The laces from my boots and the wrist strap from my cane are replicated in the drawing.
(Miss Kitka had laid down on a pink pastel drawing.)
March 19th
Five days prior, this autoupload
leads him to this autoupload from August 2016
And these also uploaded that week in August 2016
This August 2016 butt shot
brings him to this self portrait from Ocean Grove
Recent butt shots, old butt shots. Combining the hands, the rarity of my wearing nail polish.
The light of the ceiling fan makes the the !? bubble, my cat scratches makes the laser, the blinds behind my nailpolish hand makes for vertical lines, the cat I’m petting makes for a thick black outline around my petting hand, Prince’s gnarled fingers appear at the bottom. [fb]
March 21st
I email Stefan and ask if he’d want to be roommates.
May 21st
An ex-boyfriend Colin, a sweet man I’d remained friends with since highschool, died of a heroin overdose.
Colin and I had remained erratically close over the years. For the following decade, he and I hooked up whenever he visited the east coast every two years or so. That is, until my 30s when I was with Stefan, and I avoided Colin’s visit. I still cared for Colin, but I was fully swept up in and devoted to Stefan.
Colin’s death rocked me. In an already strained relationship, my current boyfriend had little patience for my weeks of ongoing grief for a long ago teenage romance.
I turned to Stefan.
Stefan, whose highschool girlfriend commited suicide long after they’d split, but she did so shortly after he’d not responded to her lonely pleas for interaction; Stefan, who understood the darkness of heroin addiction; Stefan, who I thought was a friend utterly devoid of romantic interest in me. Stefan was there for me in my what-if romantic regret, reading my long emails and writing long ones in return, even though he himself was struggling and going through terrible withdrawal at the time.
Reading through our interaction now is a strange and painful conversation of pasts and futures colliding in ironic foreshadowing; my own dismissal of Colin paralleling Stefan’s dismissal of me, my continued ignorant blindness to love right in front of me.
Stefan and I write to each other, both confessing to our unsavory past actions, our feelings of guilt, our suicidal ideation as being kept at bay through nihilism.
October 9th
I lose another person to overdose, and write to Stefan.
October 30th
One month prior, I post this children’s book cover. Anamorphic animals wearing clothes. [IG]
The red lettering and cat on the cover leads him to this photo I’d posted March 2015 of a comic book series “Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children” [IG]
And so, Stefan photographs his dog in clothes beside a pile of comic books. [fb]
October 31st
I post photos [IG] of old friends at a Halloween event, with arms around shoulders.
He posts a photo of his folks in a similar position, similar outfits, with similar facial hair. [fb]
Six days apart.
November 1st
Three weeks apart. [IG] Not only the same expression of toothy horror and one eye, but he matches the blue glow of light above with the warm demonic light of the Trump building below.
November 18th
Two weeks prior. A silly selfie [IG] and drawing/seeing Swans perform [IG] next to each other [IG]
Stefan makes a zombie. [IG]
And photographs his zombie with a drawing behind it as me.
December 9th
Two weeks prior, a window cleaner at WTC. [IG]
leads Stefan to workers outside my windows in March 2015, Miss Kitka on the windowsill. [IG]
And so, Stefan photographs his dog in front of a window at window sill level on wood, like the chair in front of Miss Kitka. [fb]
