Waters of Reflection

That night, in that smoke infested apartment, all I remember feeling was the underlying truth that I wasn’t supposed to be there. I remember feeling the emptiness felt when life lazily sits down and goes nowhere, and if I would have returned to that apartment, night after night, my feet would’ve forgotten how to move forward.

As the sloshing sounds of alcohol being emptied from the bottles clashed with the raucous, sputtering laughter of intoxication, I looked up for a familiar face. Gracing each corner of the room with my quiet eyes, I searched for the flopping, curling auburn hair that distinguished my roommate, Colbin. A grumbling sigh tumbled inside of my chest as I realized that he was nowhere in sight. The unruly sounds beat against my back as I sauntered from the room; wading through the smoke, I allowed my fingertips to graze along the jagged paint decorating the walls as I passed down the hallway.

Nearing the end, I stumbled upon a faint but definite sound. A secret sobbing, broken up by an occasional outburst of scratching coughs, hid itself behind a closed door. Placing my fingertips against the frame, I breathlessly turn the knob with my other hand, whispering to the person on the other side that I was coming in. The door resisted at first, but finally opened with a scraping screech. Inside I witnessed the drooping head of hair that I searched for earlier sprouting from the clean, white porcelain of the toilet.

Swiftly gliding over to Colbin, pushing the door shut in the same motion, I perched beside him in a comforting manner. His face turned sluggishly from the inside of the bowl to view his intruder, and as his weary eyes met mine I noticed how his eyelids hung low and his lips remained loose and parted. Sputtering a stream of incoherent words, his head swung heavily back to the toilet. His shoulders immediately dropped towards the ground, creating an arch his back.

My voice sounded like the soft cooing of a pigeon as I placed my hand against his shirt, the heat from his skin dampening the cloth. “Hey, boy… you okay?” As if in response, his spine reached towards the ceiling as the grating sound of gagging pushed out from his throat, followed by the vomit gushing from his mouth to splash in to the toilet water. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around his torso, and held tight; my right hand rested at the base of his neck, my fingers stretching to entwine strands of his hair between them.

As his stomach calmed, he carefully turned to me as if he were in a great deal of pain, moving slow and methodically as if not to upset the sleeping monster inside of him. Pressing his sweaty forehead against my shoulder, the tears instantly shook out of him. His drunken words suddenly slid off his lips alongside the vomit the dripped from his chin, and his tired voice, sore and cracking, seemed to slap against the walls of the dingy bathroom.

In that short moment, so much emotion slipped from him and onto my lap. I could almost feel the ache carve empty my chest. I buried his head into my shoulder and allowed his coarse hair to scrape against my chin as I whispered quiet sounds into his ear.

Thinking that his outburst was finished, I was not prepared for what happened next. I felt it before I heard it, the rumbling wave of anger that fractured from him in the form of a single, powerfully uttered four letter word. His arms tightened around my waist as his tears burned into his cheeks, seethed by a fit of pure anger. I felt the heat pulse through my blood, rattling my insides and scorching my skin. Even his breath, against my neck, felt as if he were melting the very skin upon it; I could almost feel the flesh oozing from my bones.

Silence stiffened the air, but his soundless scream became lodged in my own throat as I absorbed all of his impairing emotions. My mind spinning with disjointed thoughts, my jaw tightening with clenched teeth, I didn’t think I could handle the continuous flow of such passionate rage. In fact, I was just about to collapse when his sobbing reduced to a childlike hiccup. A sudden sleep befell him, which left him draped heavily across my chest. As his runny snores began to sneak up from his slumber, I dragged my fingernails gently across the dried sweat along his back.

I had watched him for about an hour, watching him retch into the piss-stained bowl, and I recall thinking at how beautiful the act of throwing up truly was. How stunning it is to see the body’s reaction to pain, to the burning, and to the fear of uncertainty, with the eyes wide and gaping as the mind begs the body to stop heaving. His face thrown into the toilet, forced to confront his inside mess. Face to face with his troubles. Nothing to hide. Nothing to do but feel what must be felt in order for change to occur. As he stares into the filth presented right under his nose, I witness this clarifying pain knowing that it is simply beautiful.