takes a bit more • matthew healy

li.) cities

i once believed people to be medicine.

that in order for me to be whole, i should be desperately searching for people. so they could fix me. and so i could fix them, too.

whoever said that must have hated himself for saying such complete bullshit.

because now i'm on a train with nothing but a huge backpack with me.

i didn't want to leave, i really didn't want to. but the more i stayed in manchester, sleeping in matty's room and eating in his kitchen with his friends... the more it began to feel worse for me.

like i'm some sort of burden. even matty knew i was too much for him as time went on. i know adam and ross felt so too, they just wouldn't say it because they're too nice. every conversation felt a bit too forced. and whenever i walked into a room i would hear them talk about matty and they would suddenly fall quiet and change the topic, afraid that i might start crying or whatever.

george... i didn't want to complicate things. being in a room with him felt awkward enough. especially since he knows matty and i have broken up.

broken up. sounds a bit off to me.

"'scuse me." i look up to see a man clad in a leather jacket, his black hair a curly mess on top of his head.

my heart almost skips a beat and i fucking hate myself for it.

"your bag." he says, with an accent that isn't as prominent as matty's. he's glancing at my giant backpack on the floor. "the contents are spilling out."

true enough, a couple of my things are scattered on the floor, along with my phone, which is currently vibrating. george's name is flashing on the screen.

"you should be picking that up." leather-jacket-curly-man says to me as i stare at my phone.

"not really." i say, shutting my phone off and stashing it back in my bag together with all my belongings.

"funny. for a second i thought your wallpaper was matty from the 1975."

i exhale loudly, glancing at this man's head full of hair. "yeah, quite a bloke isn't he."

i wish he can tell i don't want to speak to him. meeting a skinny curly-haired boy on a train hasn't served me quite nice, clearly.

—

alice had dyed her hair black.

i almost didn't recognise her.

but she is wearing her blindingly bright red lipstick, and her eyes are glimmering at me after i had knocked on her door four hundred times.

i want to cry.

especially now that alice pulls me for an embrace.

"take a shower, will you?" she says through my hair, but i can tell she's a bit teary-eyed herself. "you smell like a fucking groupie."

—

"i guess it's over then." i say to alice as we're sitting by the balcony. i had drank probably five glasses of wine and it's about three in the morning at this point but the moon is looking quite lovely tonight and i can't sleep.

i clear my throat before taking a drag from the cigarette we had been passing around. "and he's in rehab. i went on to tell him i'd stay no matter what. he didn't want that. i don't know what he wants, alice, he never really made it clear to me. the only clear thing was how he didn't quite want me anymore."

i had cried probably buckets the past five hours but she looks unbothered by it. or maybe she's drunk and she's not even listening in the first place. or maybe i'm drunk. i can't tell either.

i'm just vomiting out words all over the place.

"i thought... maybe you can't really fix people." i whisper quietly, looking up at the stars gently shining at a far far distance. "i thought i could. but he's just as fucked as i am. maybe more."

alice finishes the bitter liquid from her wine glass, her cheeks stained red. "you don't measure that, babe, everyone's mad in their own fucking ways."

she lies on the floor, her hair right next to our bottles of wine and cigarettes. eyes closed, she whispers, "you're gonna be okay, rhian."

alice is wrecked and so am i in all aspects, but i smile dumbly. because in some way, i actually believe her.

—

i finish the remaining alcohol from the bottle while alice had staggered over to her bed.

she's fast asleep now, and i should be asleep as well, but i find myself staring at the moon and writing things on my tiny dirty notebook.

sometimes you look at people. and you think they're the answer to this god-awful lingering question in your head.

sometimes you think the answer lies in a stoned twenty-four-year old with black curly hair and the saddest tired eyes with an ego the size of a god, who smokes more when it's 4am and you've got nothing for breakfast. you used to think he was cool, didn't you? when he's drunk onstage and he's shouting the words to his songs like some sort of gospel. when he's quietly sleeping and his eyes flutter like he's in a higher place (or maybe it's the drugs.) even when it's 2 in the afternoon and you find him crying in the bath--you wipe the tears and the sleep off his very sad eyes, and you still think he's fucking cool.

but he's not the answer, isn't he? no matter how many times you want him to be.

why would you think people are medicine? at the back of your mind you know it's poison. you've been damaged before. but his poison is a drug; it's the sound of his voice and the way his calloused hands brush the hair away from your face...

an addiction.

some nights it gets cold and all you want is his skin pressed up against yours, gently kissing your bruises with his tongue soaked in red wine, even though, in each moan and breath, you know he's probably not thinking of you.

but you love him. god.

he's cities away trying to save his own goddamn life, wanting to stop the addiction that has been rotting his beautiful brain.

and here you are writing about your own.

i know i should be calling george to let him know where i am.

but the sun's about to rise and the bottle on the floor is completely empty and i've cried enough tears and i should be going to sleep.

but it's okay, i guess. i do think i was born nocturnal.

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