If it were really my choice, I would not be so overprotective of Lucien. I would allow him to keep secrets as long as they didn't cost him his health, and I would allow him to do as he pleases without hurting himself, and I would allow him to be left alone in the house without me worrying constantly about his safety, but as I said, that's only hypothetical. The truth is that I really don't have a choice, because my mind is both paranoid about my roommate and somewhat justified in that paranoia, as Lucien is weathering away quicker than anyone I've seen before, and it's not just a theory that's urging me towards that route of distress, for I now have evidence that I'm not being a hover parent just for the sake of being a hover parent, rather that I walked in on my roommate trying to hang himself with dress ties of all things, which is a clear indicator that he should not be left alone when the last time that occurred he was on the trail of death.
And though I promised myself never to abandon him when he needs help the most, backed by my paranoia's influence over my decisions, I have found myself wandering around the apartment again, like I did when I woke up on the first morning in Lucien's captivity, because he has found himself asleep on the boat of rest, which is something he deserves after a strenuous day of attempted suicide with unconventional tactics and near success, and while I realize that Lucien could rise at any time and continue with his thirst for death, I don't think he's energized enough to do so, and I can conjecture that by two o'clock in the afternoon his angelic face will still be nestled into the pillow with no hope of digging him out of it, so I should be safe to meander through the piles of clutter Lucien has amassed over the years.
I have no goal in mind, having devoted my thoughts solely to worrying about Lucien, an activity that will surely inject premature wrinkles onto a face that looks old enough to be thirty when I'm seven years younger, so I am able to choose whatever I want to choose, as there are so many intriguing curios scattered across the carpet and furniture of an unkempt hovel awaiting the talons of the Homeowners Association, though at some times they're a bit overwhelming to an intermittent neat freak like me. However, the last time I was wandering around the apartment was the time where I cleaned up, and cleaning has never been a diminisher of my stress unless the stress originated from how cluttered a space is, and I've become lazy without my article writing on a blog that's overflowing with comments I never want to check, so cleaning will not be my forte this morning, which may partially be attributed to the fact that I haven't chugged any coffee yet and have decided that a natural awakening by surprise should be a suitable alternative to a suckerpunch of caffeine.
As Lucien preaches endlessly, granting yourself a free ride around life with no determined destination is much more fun than strictly scheduling your life in a way that has mechanically confined how broad your life could be, and everyone knows how much Lucien loves to broaden his life, a doctrine that has developed into the spontaneity I used to adore but the spontaneity that is wracking my brain with fear this week, but I shouldn't be focused on him while I'm weaving through the apartment, because that's just limiting my life, and he would also hate for me to be overly concerned with his every move when it feels as though I'm always watching him, so I return to my search for something stimulating.
There's nothing here that catches my eye like a clue highlighted with blinding glimmers in a video game, just as there was nothing when I scoured the place for the first time, only kisses of memories dotting the room that mean a lot to Lucien but nothing to me and have been dulled to monotony in my perception, but it's not like everything in life will simply call out to me, meaning I have to reach out and explore items with trial and error the most prominent tools in my work belt.
I select a pile at the back of the room, where both the secrets and the accidental victims of elbow pushing hide amidst the cobwebs and the oblivion, ushered into the dark, into the core of one's mental vault where only a drill could reach them, and I can detect from the start that this will be a interesting pile, judging from the material comprising it, polaroids and letters and printed photographs that I can deduce are from a while back with their sunspots and fading and fragility, oddly like human skin depicting the lives of those humans in documents prone to misinterpretation by those who have not wept at their significance as they flake with age and chug farther away from the memories, and I understand that viewing these documents makes me no better than fallacious theater students narrating a play about someone whose ambitions they know not, but I can't be bothered to give a shit anymore when everything is on the line, now can I?
So completely abandoning my morals like I've been force fed methamphetamines for producing beautiful words, I roll over the first item on the pile, a photograph better preserved than the others in the mismatch heap, a photograph of a familiar face with a face that's unfamiliar yet intimate with the familiar one, an old friend to someone I know yet a stranger to me, and the entire phenomenon of resemblance is so unnerving to me, because here we have what I assume is sixteen year-old Lucien Carr with the man who would ruin his life, and that smile painted onto my roommate's visage is too unfitting to ignore.
They're reclining by a riverbed as blue as Lucien's eyes, eyes that in this picture are more vibrant than before, eyes that have not yet witnessed the anguish of abuse, eyes that have been maintained all the way to age twenty-four but still aren't the same, eyes that are in love but in a fleeting love, a love that will turn around and plunge a knife into his back, and all I want to do is warn him about what is to come, but this is just a photograph, and my best friend is already shattered. But in this picture, there's no sign of that beyond what I discovered eight years later, after all of that shit lapsed into healing scars and traumatic memories. By the riverbed, there's only jocularity and the splendor of youth experienced wholly, wobbling from one pole to the other within the span of their sixteenth year and on the high end in this picture, and Lucien looks happier, but he certainly doesn't look freer, as both then and now they are caged by something.
At age twenty-four, Lucien is free of David and free to broaden his world as far as he pleases, but his cage is the sole memory of David, though the villain of a man has manifested in physical form once more, and he's threatening to barge into the cage, so Lucien would now be contented with the cage of his memories, warped by levels of victimization. But at age sixteen, Lucien was free from a decade and a half long period of solitude once meeting David, with no clue that it would be the worst mistake of his life, and this version of Lucien's cage was the events to follow. The notion that those events weren't present in the picture is irrelevant, because I can assume that farther down this pile their tolls will materialize, will soil Lucien's eyes with mud from careless adulthood, too busy to dispose of their issues properly.
I wonder how many times Lucien has glanced at this photo and immediately felt a blade of regret in his heart, how many times he took a chunk out of his day to just stare at it and weep with tears he positions far away from the picture because he's still building up the courage to use it as evidence in a lawsuit that will never transpire, how many times he's contemplated tossing it into the trashcan and hiring a construction worker to run it over with a bulldozer and never did, how many times he's hated himself for keeping it, as if he hasn't hated himself enough already.
I can't ever understand what Lucien has endured, and I can't pretend to understand, but through this lack of understanding, I can still express that I am so proud of him for trudging through it, however difficult it got at times, and although he despises me right now when all I want to do is protect him, I hope he knows how appreciative I am for his will to stay alive through harsh settings, even if he may not be alive for much longer.
Now irrevocably sickened by the photograph because of how thoroughly it harmed Lucien, I shove it back into the pile to focus on another one, proving how desperate I am for information despite being hurt by what happens when I finally receive it.
The next item I lure out of the hell of Lucien's corporeal memories is not a photograph, rather a letter printed on something a bit larger than a sticky note, short and simple and packed with excuses, and from it I can decipher that David Kammerer hasn't changed one bit from his pity session on the answering machine from yesterday. The letter dictates that David is apparently sorry for leaving Lucien for a week without saying goodbye or writing to him at all, not one call to Lucien's house where he was waiting anxiously with the possibility of David's death creeping in from the back, and that must've been torturous to him, even if David would later abuse him, because at one point they were happy with each other, and to be deserted without a warning is a terrible fate, as there is no knowledge of when that person will be back, if they will return at all.
I love Lucien too much to bear this, so I throw the letter back down on the pile and, as a result, disperse most of the items to different areas, splayed like an elegant woman's fan, and once I recognize that I can't reassemble it exactly like it was before, I pray that I'll forget this and that Lucien won't notice the disruption I stirred in his apartment.
But I shouldn't trust Lucien on not being keen, and I smell smoke and burning paper in the chimney by night.
~~~~~
A/N: ooh I just love taking trips down memory lane because I obviously go outside haha relatable I love the outdoors :))))
mechanism: that all natural things can be explained by physical causes
~Dakotiller