love_me_back raze emily asked me if i'd seen eternal_sunshine_of_the_spotless_mind back when it was new. before you could buy it on dvd. i said i hadn't. "clementime is me," she said. "it's scary how much that's me." veronica nodded and said, "it's totally her." that was the night i brought a bottle of red_wine to her apartment. we listened to a mix she'd made of songs by richie havens and billie_holiday and john_coltrane. it was the night she told me about working in a dance club in montreal. she used to watch the dancers from the balcony and snort coke off her car keys at the end of her shift. she was the one who brought up seminal fluid. "have you seen it manifest?" she asked. "i have," i said. "i'm a guy, after all." she giggled. after veronica left, we sat at the dining room table. emily smoked and talked about this decrepit apartment building in toronto. "it's pretty sketchy," she said. "but people are starting to move in there." she wanted me to move there with her. she said we could both get jobs at the same flower shop. we could make pretty things for strangers to take home with them. i almost thought i loved her enough to consider it. but she was never going to love me back. not the way i needed her to. the light warped the scar on her cheek into a poem without words. she was never more beautiful to me than she was in that moment. she told me she wanted to paint me. she never did. i saw the movie when they started showing it on tv. i liked it, but i hadn't lived or lost enough to really feel it. not yet. i stared at the screen. tried to see emily and me. i just saw joel and clementine. i want to watch it again now, even though i know it would destroy me. some days i think i'd erase her if i could. i'd erase almost everyone who's ever dented my head or my heart. i wouldn't even care who i might be without them. 231220 what's it to you? who go blather from