be mine

My father and I have a terrible relationship. I didn't speak to him for 5 years, from the time I graduated high school up to a little less than a year ago when my grandmother died while I was ending a two month stay in Berlin. I knew she was sick, people on his side of the family kept trying to reach out to me, to get me to call her, but I felt abandoned by all of them and couldn't bring myself to do anything but run away from my life month after month. When she died my life caught up to me and the feeling it left me with wasn't pretty. I tried to escape, to pretend I didn't need my father or my family but escaping doesn't stop your life from happening, it doesn't stop the people you love from dying. I came home after missing a wake and a funeral to anonymous hate mail written by someone in my family and after 5 years I finally caved and called my dad. He was in the middle of a thai chi class, he was breathing heavily, he was shocked to hear from me but sounded really happy.

This was last July. Since then we've seen each other 3 times and we've tried to maintain some semblance of a relationship but everything is complicated and I find myself ignoring his calls for months at a time. I last saw him in October, I last spoke to him in November. It's February, he left me another voicemail tonight, he wants to talk, I want to call him back, I want to make everything okay but a phone call isn't enough, I don't know what is so I want the whole thing to go away. 

Years ago, when I stopped talking to my dad I started to replace him with random boys and I've been replacing him ever since, filling the void however I can no matter how destructive it is to myself or the people around me. When Chris was impossible to get in touch with Michael replaced him, Michael fills the void but I don't know that he's really what I want or need. He's back from Jamaica, I told him I'd be his Valentine, I like him but maybe I've just been using him, maybe I've been leading him on. I don't know. Yesterday we stood on a street corner, Houston and Bowery, I had the light, I was saying goodbye, I was crossing the street but he stood there looking at me intently. I turned to leave, he shouted, "Are you gonna be my girlfriend now?!" 

And this is Michael, a 32 year old child, needy and impulsive, shouting on street corners at the most inappropriate of times. What did he expect me to say? I mean, really? 

I was looking across the street at the little outline of a person lit up in white, I was looking at my friends who had already made it across, I still had the light, I turned to him and said, "I don't know." 

He said, "What do you mean, 'you don't know?'" 

"I don't know," I said hurriedly.  

"All you have to do is say yes," he pleaded. 

I stepped into the street, the outline was lit up red and blinking, I was going to miss the light and be stuck there if I didn't make a run for it, "I don't know. I don't know. Can we talk about this tomorrow?" And with that I sprinted across white lines and black pavement, I left him standing alone on Houston and Bowery, answerless and probably embarrassed, I didn't look back. 

We didn't talk about what happened since, I'm supposed to go over there tonight but I haven't showered yet and I'm feeling completely unmotivated. Tomorrow's Valentine's Day, he promised he'd give me a really good one because I've never had a really good one before but I feel pressured and confused. Chris is most likely moving to New York in March, Michael is going to ask again if I'll be his girlfriend and I'll have to tell him this, I'll have to ruin Valentine's Day, I'll have to fuck up another relationship. 

I've always been into making Valentines. This one might get burned...